Skinstealers
Twilight’s ears rang. Her eyes were closed. The smell of burning flesh assaulted her nostrils. Heat radiated onto her face. Taking a step back, she cracked her eyes open. Ash and smoke flurried through the air, forcing her to squint.
A few paces away, a body lay facedown in the dirt of the arena. Its back was little more than a charred mass. If it had ever had Marks on its flanks, they had been scorched away. It was hard to tell if the body belonged to a pony at all.
As the ringing left Twilight’s skull, screams replaced it. Ponies fled from a smouldering crater in the stands. Scorched bodies were melted to the remains of the wooden benches. What did I do? Twilight thought. She swallowed; she knew she should feel horror or remorse, but nothing came. All she had was a knot settled deep in her belly.
“Twilight, look out!” Rainbow Dash cried from the stands.
While she stared at the smouldering crater, a cold, hard mass impacted her side. Two sharp points drove into the back of her neck. When her skin was breached, her contingency fired, encasing her in a layered stony shell, but the spell could not stop what had already happened. One layer of protection instantly shattered when she slammed face first into the ground. Her swords fell from her levitation.
For an instant, the world stopped. She felt something—a twinge, like an ethereal string pulling at her heart. Instinctively, she pulled back. Shadows bled into the edges of her vision.
“Get off her!” Rainbow shouted.
A blast of air tore through her mane, tossing whatever was on her back away. As soon as the points left her neck, her Stoneskin sealed over the holes. As Rainbow’s hooves touched down on the dirt beside her, she pushed herself into a sitting position. She spotted Celestial Fury in the dirt, and quickly snatched it up.
Before she could stand, a creature lunged at her. She recognized its dark carapace and pupiless, demonic eyes. Changeling, she thought. With a thunk, a crystalline arrow punched into it, directly beneath its misshapen horn.
Twilight didn’t wait to see if Rarity’s arrow took it down. Celestial Fury’s edge whistled as she swung it in an arc in front of her. It cleaved through the monster’s chest, trailing globules of black ichor. Black? Twilight thought. It should have been green.
Even with her haste spell, she didn’t have time to ponder. As the monster in front of her crumpled, two more closed in on both sides. She rose fully onto all four hooves as she triggered the Sequencer in her necklace. Ten lavender orbs ripped into the one on her left as she stepped back and repositioned her sword to defend against the one on her right.
Truthseeker smashed into the side of the demon closing on her right. The twin spikes punched clean through, their tips poking through the monster’s carapace. A mist of ichor hung in the air for a moment, aerosolized by the impact.
Rainbow intercepted Twilight’s other attacker with a whirling lunge. Staggered from the impact of the Magic Missiles, the monster had no time to dodge. Rainbow hit it with a flurry of blows, leaving three cris-crossing gashes in its chest. It fell, hitting the ground a split second after the one struck by Applejack’s chain.
As the last Changeling hit the dirt, Twilight glanced around the arena, looking for more. Seeing none, she fell back onto her haunches, her heart thundering in her chest. “We clear?” Rainbow shouted.
“We’re clear,” Applejack called.
Twilight turned her gaze to the ground, searching for Solstice. She blinked when she got a good look at the bodies. They were like the Changelings she remembered, but their fangs were more pronounced, their coloration was darker, and distinctive spikes protruded from their carapace. She furrowed her brows. There were four bodies, and the four slaves she’d hit with sleep spells earlier were nowhere to be found.
“Twilight,” Rainbow said.
Four? Twilight thought. She’d only seen three go down. The fourth was sprawled motionless on the ground with no visible wounds. Solstice’s hilt protruded from beneath the body. She took a step closer, watching the creature warily as she lifted it off her sword.
“Twilight!” Rainbow said.
Twilight gasped. Before her eyes, the other corpses were dissolving into a shadowy mist. Celestial Fury and Truthseeker were both demonslaying weapons; only the one Rainbow Dash killed with her wingblades should be able to return to the Abyss. “Do you see that?” Twilight said as she picked up Solstice.
Rainbow Dash grabbed her by the shoulder. “Twilight, look at me!” she shouted.
Twilight brought her gaze up, focusing on Rainbow.
“What did you do!?” Rainbow shouted, pointing at the crater left in the wooden stands by her Fireball. “Why!?”
Twilight looked past Rainbow at the burnt corpses, the knot returning to her stomach. “I didn’t mean to.” She turned her eyes back to Rainbow. “Where’s Fluttershy?”
“She left because she couldn’t sit there and watch you do something wrong, and I almost wish I had too!” Rainbow said. “I thought I’d have to watch you kill some ponies, not dozens! I know they were bad, but you didn’t have to do...” She gestured at the stands. “That!”
Twilight looked down at the corpses again. All of them, except for the one without visible wounds, had vanished into black clouds seeping across the floor. “Look, Dash, we have bigger problems right now,” she said. She focused on Rainbow’s eyes. “There are Changelings, and we’re missing Fluttershy. What I need to know is: are you with me?”
Rainbow let her gaze drop. “Of course I’m with you, Twilight, but—”
“Great,” Twilight interrupted. She turned up to the stands. Applejack and Rarity looked down at her, on the opposite side of the ring from where the Fireball had hit. All the other spectators had fled. “Rarity, toss me the bag,” Twilight called.
Rarity slipped the Bag of Holding off her neck and floated it down to Twilight in her levitation. “You really didn’t know?” she asked.
Twilight snatched the bag out of the air and drew it open, widening the mouth enough to swallow the corpse of the Changeling. “Of course not,” she said. “Killing animals is one thing, but—” She paused, shaking her head as she scooped the Changeling into the Bag of Holding.
“Then what about the ponies in the stands?!” Rainbow shouted.
With a thought, Twilight brought a Dimension Door spell to completion, teleporting up to Rarity and Applejack. After a brief moment of disorientation, she passed the bag back to Rarity. “Twilight!” Rainbow yelled as she launched off the floor of the ring. She whirled through the enclosed space and landed in front of Twilight. “I want some answers!”
“I do think you owe us an explanation,” Rarity said as she looped the bag around her neck.
“What for?” Applejack asked. “She stopped something terrible.” She glanced across the ring at the crater. “Though maybe she overdid it.”
Twilight followed Applejack’s gaze. Smoke rising from the smouldering embers clogged the air near the ceiling. “We don’t have time to discuss this.” She turned, looking around the stands, and spotted a stairway. “Is that where Fluttershy went?” she asked, pointing.
“Right, Fluttershy,” Rainbow said. She spread her wings and darted through the air to the steps.
A scream rent the air. It was unmistakably Fluttershy. A brutal slam followed a split second after.
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow cried, launching herself down the steps and into a corridor beneath the stands. Twilight followed, blurring through the air as her haste spell shifted her through time. She stayed on Rainbow’s heels as the pegasus wheeled around a corner. When Twilight saw what lay down the passage, she stopped short and sucked in a sharp gasp.
Fluttershy sprawled against one of the wooden walls. Next to her, the crumpled body of a dead mare lay on the floor. Roots twisted around Angel, retreating back into cracks in the stone beneath his paws as he reverted back into his normal form.
Rainbow rushed to Fluttershy’s side and cradled the yellow pegasus’s head in her hooves. Fluttershy’s mane fell aside, revealing two red pinpricks on her neck. Twilight let out the breath she’d been holding when Fluttershy’s eyes flickered open.
Twilight heard hoofsteps behind her and glanced over her shoulder. Applejack and Rarity rushed down the steps. “She’s alive,” Twilight said, before heading down the corridor and joining Rainbow Dash.
Fluttershy blinked blearily up at Rainbow. “She bit me,” she said. “Why would she bite me?”
“You’re gonna be okay, Fluttershy,” Rainbow said. “Angel killed it.”
“I heard an explosion, and I was coming back to find you all, but she was running the other way, and she ran into me, and then she bit me,” Fluttershy rambled, her gaze wandering. Tears built in her eyes. “I felt it pulling.” She focused on Rainbow. “It took something.”
Twilight blinked. “It took something?”
“I felt it pulling. It was going to take it all,” Fluttershy murmured. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it coming...”
Twilight furrowed her brows as a picture came together in her mind. “Soul drain,” she whispered. But I stopped it, she thought. The four Changelings in the ring had tried to take her soul. Why?
“You’re gonna be okay,” Rainbow repeated as she hugged Fluttershy close. “We’ve got you.”
Did they know what I am, or was Chrysalis unable to communicate with them? They aren’t ordinary Changelings, Twilight thought, biting the inside of her cheek. What happened to the one that bit me? she wondered. I pulled back. What did I take?
Fluttershy curled into Rainbow Dash. “It’s so cold, Dash.” Sweat beaded on Rainbow’s coat, but Fluttershy shivered.
Did they see me as a prize? A vessel? Then why would they try to kill me? Twilight thought. Why not take me and put me in one of their cocoons. She shook her head. These ones are different. They don’t need a cocoon to borrow a soul, they just take it.
Rainbow turned to look up at Twilight. “Something’s wrong with her!”
“Are you okay, Twilight?” Applejack asked. “I saw you go down, and I think I saw one get its fangs into you.”
“I’m fine,” Twilight said. “It didn’t affect me. Rainbow, get Fluttershy to a cleric, she needs help. Applejack, Rarity, get to the door. We need to keep as many ponies as we can from leaving.”
“What?!” Rarity shouted. “Were the ones in the stands not enough for you?! Do you want to kill them all?” She fixed Twilight with a glare.
“Not if I can help it,” Twilight said. “But this is an infestation. These Changelings don’t have the limits of the ones we fought in Candlekeep and Manehattan. If we let them out, this will never end.” She focused down the corridor.
“And what about you?” Applejack said. “Where are you going?”
“To find the other exit. There’s got to be a back way in,” Twilight said. “I need to block it.”
Rainbow snorted and pulled Fluttershy onto her shoulders. “You better have an explanation when this is over.” She paused to gather up Angel, spared a glance back at Twilight, then took a turn, heading for the front door.
“You’re telling me we should keep ponies in this building, even if it means killing them to keep them from getting out?” Applejack said.
“The alternative is worse,” Twilight said. “We need to stop this here, even if it costs lives.” She turned to look Applejack in the eye. “Have I ever let you down?”
Applejack hoofed the brim of her hat. She sighed and looked down. “Maybe, but I can’t say you’ve been wrong.” She glanced over at Rarity. “I trust her.”
Rarity frowned. “Fine, we’ll do it.”
Twilight trotted down the corridor. “Then do it now.”
It didn’t take Twilight Sparkle long to find the back entrance to the Copper Coronet. A door hung wide open, leading out onto a set of steps leading up to street level. Twilight climbed the stairs and looked down the dirty alleyway beyond. Moonlight shimmered on a still puddle collected between two tilted cobblestones. If any ponies had left this way, they were long gone. How many escaped? Twilight wondered.
The sound of voices behind Twilight drew her attention. She turned sharply and looked back down the steps. “Here! It’s a way out! Come on!” A stallion said. A pair of ponies approached the doorway, one male and one female. The mare wore a feathered cap and heavy jewelry.
“Stop!” Twilight said, reading her swords. The pair stopped short at the bottom of the stairs. “Nopony leaves.”
“Please,” the mare said as she pulled a gem-studded anklet from around one of her hooves. She threw it up the steps to Twilight’s feet. “Take it! Just don’t kill us!”
Twilight glanced down when the gold touched her hoof. She pulled away reflexively, cocking one of her forelegs, then turned her gaze back to the pair. For a moment, she weighed her options. I can’t kill them all, she decided. They had the cursed belt they’d used in Candlekeep, but it was in the bag with Rarity, and it would be impractical to test every pony that way.
“Please,” the mare repeated desperately. The stallion positioned himself between Twilight and her and extended a foreleg protectively.
Truesight, Twilight thought. The spell hadn’t worked against normal Changelings, but these weren’t normal Changelings. Her horn flared as she brought the spell to completion. The world shifted into near-black surfaces and two identifiable individuals at the base of the steps. One glowed with a living soul. The other, standing out in front, swirled with darkness, like a hollowed husk filled with shadow.
In Twilight’s mind, another piece of the puzzle fell into place. These creatures made their prey into vessels for their demonic essence. Instead of borrowing souls, they emptied their disguises with their fangs. Twilight fixed the husk with a glare. “I see you,” she said.
Every piece of what was once a pony ripped away in an instant as the monster shed its disguise and burst from the husk. The mare screamed. The demon, a solid visage of death, lunged for Twilight, reaching out with two icy fangs. Celestial Fury left a glowing golden streak across Twilight’s vision when she swung it through the creature’s neck. It’s body collapsed at the top of the steps.
Twilight turned her gaze to the mare. The white beacon wavered, trembling. “Run,” Twilight said as she sheathed her swords. “There’s more coming.”
The mare froze, immobile. “Run!” Twilight shouted. This time, the mare lurched into motion and galloped up the stairs. She skirted the demonic corpse at Twilight’s feet and tore past her down the alley, a chip of lifeless material flying off her manicured hooves.
Twilight looked down and watched as the demon’s solid form ebbed into a cloud of shadow. “Too easy,” she muttered. A chill ran down her spine as the cloud slipped past her hooves and filtered away between cracks in the cobblestone. Far too easy, she thought, glancing down.
When all traces of the demon were gone, she walked purposefully down the steps and back into the inn. She paused about twenty paces inside, turned, and planted her hooves. She focused on the steps and launched a Fireball. As the red spark shot through the air, she ducked behind her cloak.
With the Cloak of Protection between her and the blast, she hardly felt the heat. Air rushed through her mane. She lowered her cloak and checked to make sure the damage was done. The doorway and steps had collapsed into a pile of fragmented stone and splintered wood, blocking the exit.
Twilight allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction as she headed deeper into the Copper Coronet. They need a name, she thought. Changeling won’t do. She peered, looking around the rooms and hallways of lifeless material. If I were a Changeling – a Skinstealer, who would I be? she wondered. Tamer, she realized. He controls the slaves.
Twilight had doubled back toward the pits, looking for Tamer. When she reached the door to the beast cages, it hung ajar. She cautiously approached.
“She snapped, Paws. Just went crazy,” a voice muttered from beyond. “Shoulda’ known she was freakin’ unstable.”
Twilight pulled the door open with her levitation. It swung inwards, ghostly quiet on its slick hinges. A single, familiar, living pony sat against the wall across from Paw’s cage. Twilight identified him as Tamer. He turned his head slowly toward her. “I think we’re finished, Paws,” he said.
Twilight tilted her head. “You’re not one of them, are you?”
“What?” Tamer said. “The hell’re you on about?”
Twilight narrowed her eyes and took a step closer. A tiny thorn of shadow festered in Tamer’s chest. Shadowspawn? she thought. “No, you’re like me.”
“Look, if you’re gonna kill me, let’s get to the point. I ain’t afraid of dying,” Tamer said. He picked up a pole in his mouth and grunted around it. “But I ain’t gonna go quietly either.” Twilight could see the magical energy crackling inside of the pole; it was the same one Tamer had used to shock Paws.
Twilight regarded him with passive fascination. “Did one of them try to bite you? Or did they know about you?”
Tamer lunged at her with the shock pole. She snatched it in her levitation and wrenched it aside with enough force to tear it out of Tamer’s teeth. Tamer reeled as the pole clatted to the ground, the blood leaking from his lips brilliantly red to Twilight’s eyes. He spat fragments of molar onto the stone. “I’ve had more fangs in me than I can count,” he said, coughing. “So what?”
“Do you know what you are?” Twilight asked, staring down at him. “Do you know why death is so appealing to you?”
“I’m an animal, and livin’ an’ killin’ is what we do,” Tamer said.
“I could fix you,” Twilight said. “You might change when its gone. You have a chance to be redeemed.” She reached out for the thorn in Tamer’s chest with her magic and gently started to pull. “All you have to do is let go.”
Tamer clutched at his chest. “Argh!” He twisted away from her, severing her grasp on the thorn. “What are you doing to me?!”
Twilight swallowed, feeling an insatiable hunger rise within her. Who is he to deny you? a voice whispered in her mind. She stared at the thorn in Tamer’s chest.
“I need it,” Twilight said. “I will kill you if I have to.”
“I already told you: I ain’t afraid of dyin’.” Tamer spun and launched a buck at her. A layer of Twilight’s Stoneskin shattered, preserving her from harm.
Twilight lashed out with her levitation and pinned Tamer against the wall, lifting him until his hooves were dangling. “You should be afraid! There’s nothing waiting for you but a void!” She shook him violently. “I can’t save you from it unless you let go!”
Tamer spat a mix of blood and spit into her face. “Just kill me!”
“I’m trying to help you!” Twilight roared. She reached out again with her magic, tearing at the thorn. “If you don’t let go, I have to kill you!”
Tamer tensed, but the thorn did not yield. “Why save me?” Tamer said. “We’re both animals.”
For a moment, Twilight hesitated. The pit of hunger yawned deeper. For a moment, her magic lept out of her control and viciously wrenched Tamer’s neck. A snap filled the air, and the body in her grasp went lip. Twilight gasped and let the corpse drop to the floor. The thorn dissolved into shadows that flowed across the floor and up her legs. She looked down at her own essence pulsing in her chest.
In her mind’s eye, she pictured Shining Armor standing over the first Shadowspawn he killed. So that’s what it feels like, she thought. Once you know what they have, you can’t stop. She stared at the lifeless body. “Why didn’t you let go?” she murmured.
Her ears twitched back when a pleading mewl sounded behind her. She turned to see Paws pressed up against the bars of his cage. She knew he was hungry – she could see it plain as day. After a brief moment of hesitation, Twilight slid Tamer’s corpse over until it was within reach of the bars. Paws snatched it up, pulling the head through, then gripped it in his jaws and tore the body through the gap, crunching and snapping bones.
Twilight sighed. “What’re we going to do with you?” she said, eyeing Paws. The manticore growled at her as he pulled the body as far into the cage as he could. Maybe Fluttershy will know, Twilight thought as she turned away. She wiped her face clean with a foreleg as she made her way deeper into the pits, looking for where the slaves were kept. The grisly rip of tearing flesh followed after her. She winced, grimacing. Is that the sound of justice?
Twilight trotted down a corridor lined with empty, barred cells. She’d traveled back through the arena and knocked down one of the fighting pit’s gateways to reach them. Refuse and stench hinted that at least the first few pens she passed were recently occupied. If the slaves had been here, somepony, or demon, had let them out. If the Skinstealers functioned the way she thought they did, there would be no corpses – no record of their victims. It was perfect murder.
How different are they from me? she wondered, slowing. She’d taken what Tamer had, only she had no use for his body or his soul. She halted completely. I didn’t need to take Pinkie’s, she realized, even though I knew she had it. There was something checking her Shadowspawn essence, though she couldn’t place precisely what it was. Something held onto her, like a rope saving her from a terrifying plunge.
She shook her head, forcing her thoughts back to the crisis of the moment. She walked forward and looked into each cell as she passed it. Some of the slaves would be forced to work in the brothel, no doubt, to give the Skinstealers’ access to vessels in Canterlot’s nobility. They couldn’t possibly need all of the slaves, could they? Twilight thought. Another troubling question rose in her mind: How many of them are there?
There was no way of knowing. She had no trail of bodies or nest of cocoons. It appeared that when the Skinstealers reverted back to their true form the body they were inhabiting shredded and vaporized, replaced with their demonic form.
If the one that attacked Fluttershy is any indication, they don’t need to revert back to strike, she thought. But the ones who attacked me chose to. In the first case, the Sleep spell must have affected their mortal bodies, but they shed their skins when the time was right. In the second case, the Skinstealer I encountered on the steps may have reverted for the shock value in an attempt to catch me by surprise. She sighed and looked down at the floor, hardly glancing at the next two cells. She needed more examples.
“Who’s there?” a voice cried, tearing through her thoughts. She snapped her attention to the source of the sound. A single living pony gleamed alone in a closed cell. He pressed back into the corner, his muzzle whipping wildly from side to side.
It took Twilight a moment to realize he was looking for her, but the corridor and the cells were pitch black. With her truesight, she hadn’t noticed the complete lack of light sources. She lit her horn, and he focused on her instantly.
“Who’re you?” he asked.
“I’m your best chance at survival,” Twilight said. “But I need to know everything you know. Why’re you alone?”
The pony rocked back and forth in the corner of his cell. “Because I’m the last.”
Twilight plopped onto her haunches and peered at him through the bars. “The last?”
With surprising swiftness, he rose and rushed up to the locked door. “I’m next!” he said, his voice loud with desperation. “You have to help me!” He glanced both ways down the corridor and lowered his voice. “I work for the Thieves Guild. If you get me out of here, I’m sure you’ll be rewarded.”
“Are you the pony the Grey Fox sent?” Twilight asked. “Did they put you in here because they found out you were a spy?”
The pony rested his forehead against the bars. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I was pretending to be a merchant, so I spent some bits on a girl, and when I woke up afterward I was here.” He pressed his hooves against the bars and looked up at her. “I can’t be here!”
“I’m working with the Grey Fox, and I’ll get you out,” Twilight said. “But I need you to take a deep breath and explain what happened.”
The pony took a slow, deep breath. “I don’t know how to explain what I saw. Not long after I woke up, one of the guards opened up the cell across from mine. There were two ponies in it. The guard grew fangs and bit them both.” He paused.
“Keep going,” Twilight said.
The pony gulped and nodded. “After the guard bit them, the two ponies just walked out of the cell, and she let them. When there was light, I could see ponies that looked like slaves running back and forth down the corridor. The only time everypony was in a cell is when a stallion with half an ear came by.”
Tamer, Twilight realized. Why didn’t the Skinstealers make this pony into a vessel and send him back to the Grey Fox with false information? Fear of discovery, maybe? The Thieves Guild had to have resources for magical detection. Maybe they can probe deeply enough to see what I saw. She furrowed her brows. If one Skinstealer bit the two ponies, where did the Skinstealers that inhabited the bodies come from?
“It was too strange. The number of slaves kept in their cells slowly dwindled, until I was the only one left. They said they’d need me soon too, and they kept talking about accelerating the next shipment,” the pony said. “I tried to get the stallion to help me, but he just looked at me like I was crazy!”
So that’s why Tamer offered him up so easily, Twilight thought. He thought the spy was too far gone to be any use. “How many slaves and guards were there?” Twilight asked.
The pony shrugged helplessly. “At least a dozen. It was hard to keep track. They’d walk around in the dark. It didn’t seem to bother them.”
They need a significant number of vessels, but not all at once. They left before I arrived at this cell, like they’re abandoning a sinking ship. Why leave this pony behind? Twilight thought. Her ears perked to the sound of trotting with the uneven thunk caused by wearing a hoofmace. Ah, they didn’t leave him behind.
She drew her swords and turned. Two shadowy vessels rushed toward her. Each carried a shield strapped to one of their forelegs as well as a hoofmace. With her swords, she lashed out and met both of them with an upward arc. Her first strike split their shields and left deep, red gashes in their armor.
In the blink of an eye, without missing a step, both of them burst from their disguises. Their misshapen horns surged with energy. Forgoing their fangs, they aimed their horns at Twilight. She brought her blades back down and split their skulls. The nimbus of black energy around their horns vanished as their bodies crumpled.
Strike fast, and hard, Twilight realized. She gave this pair an opportunity to shed their damaged husks, and they took it, but the one Angel killed never got that chance and left a pony’s corpse behind.
She whirled and slashed through the hinges of the pony’s cell door, nimbly sidestepping when the iron bars fell toward her. “You’re on your own,” she said.
The pony rushed out of his cell. “Thank you!” He glanced down at the two demonic corpses, watching as they faded into black clouds. “So that’s what they were?” he said, incredulous.
Twilight nodded. “The Thieves Guild is fighting demons.” Her haste spell had run out. She cast the second one she had prepared; she was going to need it.
Floating her swords at her side, Twilight came to a stop at the top of the stairs leading to the inn’s back rooms, where they had first entered the brothel. A crowd of ponies gathered around the main entrance to the Copper Coronet. She recognized a pair of glowing individuals between the crowd and the door as Applejack and Rarity. Ten paces separated them and the rest of the ponies. One of the ponies in the crowd broke from the pack, taking a step toward Rarity and Applejack. Rarity raised her bow, a crystalline arrow ready on the string.
“You were there!” the advancing pony shouted. “You saw what she did! We have to get out of here before she kills the rest of us!”
“Ya’ll deserved it!” Applejack yelled. “Ya’ll were watchin’ ponies die! It’s murder, sure as if you did it with your own hooves!” She loosened her glowing chain from around her tail. Twilight perceived two ethereal tendrils that reached out and latched onto the advancing pony. “I will drop you if I have to!”
Twilight scanned the crowd, picking out the Skinstealers. There were nine mixed in with the ponies. Their shadow-filled husks stood out among the white souls. She did a quick mental count; there were seventeen Skinstealers total, including the defeated ones. She hoped it was all of them.
Emboldened by the first, more of the Copper Coronet’s patrons surged toward the exit. “Stay back!” Applejack shouted. They kept moving. The husks shifted through the crowd, preparing to slip out into the night.
Rarity fired. Her arrow struck true. As the first agitator dropped to the floor, a collective gasp passed through the crowd. The ponies advancing on the door scrambled back.
As soon as I strike, the crowd will panic, Twilight realized. If I'm not careful, more ponies will die. She furrowed her brows. Is Applejack right? Would it even be wrong to kill them?
“There she is!” a pony cried. Twilight spotted the speaker, pointing up at her with a hoof. Everypony turned to look at her.
Time’s up, Twilight thought. She closed her eyes tight, ducked her head beneath her foreleg, and raised Celestial Fury. She saw white through her eyelids as she unleashed the sunlight stored in the blade. She opened her eyes and rushed down the steps. Screams rippled through the confined space. Half blind ponies stumbled into each other and fell in tangles of limbs and confusion.
With a quick spell, Twilight covered herself in a shroud of invisibility as she approached the first Skinstealer. It reeled. Even within its husk, the burst of sunlight had torn away some of its essence. She took its head off its shoulders as she slipped between two stumbling ponies.
She moved through the chaos like a ghost, her swords floating at her sides. Each time she maneuvered next to one of the Skinstealer’s vessels, she ended it with a single, brutal stroke. Within a few seconds, she came to a stop in front of Applejack and Rarity with nine headless corpses in her wake.
Twilight closed her eyes briefly, allowing her truesight to fade away. When she opened her eyes, the world returned to colorful objects and creatures, instead of glowing beings and perceptions. Next, she let her cloak of invisibility fall. She held her blades at her sides, tilting them downward so that the blood ran down their length and dripped from the tips.
Rarity and Applejack stared at her, still blinking in the aftermath of Celestial Fury’s glare. “We can let them out,” Twilight said. “I dealt with the problem.”
She slowly turned around. Ponies scrambled away from her, shock written on their faces, but the screams had gone, replaced with a terrified silence. Twilight cleared her throat and held her head high. “I could have killed you all,” she said, beginning slowly. “Maybe, by some measures, most of you should be killed.”
Twilight looked through the crowd, picking out the bodies. They had the mangy coats of slaves, the mail armor of the guards. A couple may have been prostitutes. She blinked. Plum Violet’s head rested on the floor. They couldn’t get Tamer, so they took her, she thought.
“Instead, the majority that died here today did not deserve their fate,” Twilight continued. “If I tried to explain why I killed them, I doubt you would understand, but the slaves who died here were bound for death regardless of my actions. You condemned them, with your bits and your bloodlust.”
She flicked the blood off her swords, painting the ponies staring at her with red arcs. “Their blood is yours,” she said as she sheathed her swords. “Enjoy it.” She turned sharply and stepped out into the street. Rarity and Applejack fell in a couple steps behind her.
They trotted past a few buildings in silence. Twilight glanced over her shoulder at the ponies filtering out of the Copper Coronet. Some stumbled out in a daze. Others fled the scene as fast as their hooves could carry them. “That went surprisingly well,” Twilight said, breaking the silence.
“Well?!” Rarity said. “I had to kill a pony!”
“Let’s not forget the part where you decided to join in on a slave fighting ring, then tossed a Fireball at a bunch of ponies in the stands,” Applejack added. “That, and Fluttershy’s injury.”
“Fluttershy’ll be fine, provided Rainbow found a competent cleric,” Twilight said. “It’s unlikely any of the Skinstealers made it out the front door before you got there; they were all operating deeper inside the inn. I’m more worried that some got out through the back before I closed it off.” She paused briefly. “I’m sorry about the Fireball. Being in that pit, with all the ponies chanting around me... I had to do something. I snapped.”
“Wait, Skinstealers?” Applejack said.
Twilight sighed. “I’ll explain when we regroup. I’m just glad Truesight let me identify them. A lot more ponies would have died if it didn’t work.” She stopped suddenly. “Which way did Rainbow go?”
Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity approached a large, domed structure on a rise in the middle of the slums. Twilight paused in front of the heavy double doors, eyeing the brass motif of the Sun cresting over the curve of a hill emblazoned on them. Beneath the symbol, gold-hued letters read “Know peace beyond this door.”
Twilight raised her hoof to knock. “With any luck, Rainbow brought her here.” She pounded on the brass in the center of the doors.
“We coulda’ stopped him, Rarity,” Applejack said. Twilight glanced over her shoulder.
Rarity shook her head. “What about the rest? We needed to make a point.”
“You didn’t have to kill him,” Applejack said. “Twilight was almost there.”
“How did we know that?!” Rarity cried.
“I woulda done it if he got too close,” Applejack said. “You didn’t have to. I can tell its bothering you.”
Rarity shook her head. “You wouldn’t have.”
Applejack’s ears twitched back. “What?! I’m not afraid of getting my hooves dirty!”
Rarity sighed. “I don’t think you realize what that really means.”
Applejack opened her mouth to protest, but before she could say anything, the doors to the temple swung open. A white mare with a pink mane smiled at them from beyond the threshold. “Can we help you?”
“We’re looking for a couple of pegasi named Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. One of them would have been suffering from—” Twilight said.
“So you’re their friends.” The mare smiled cheerfully, took a step back, and raised her foreleg in a welcoming gesture. “I can bring you to them.”
The mare led them to a small room deep inside the temple. Twilight heard giggling through the open door. She poked her head through the opening and looked inside. Fluttershy sat on a bed, surrounded by fresh white sheets. A pair of fillies braided daisies into her mane. Rainbow Dash leaned against the wall next to the bed.
Fluttershy looked up, noticing her. Twilight flinched when Fluttershy’s gaze hardened. “Rainbow told me what happened,” Fluttershy said.
Rainbow pushed off the wall. “Alright twerps, hair party is over.” She gently scooped the fillies toward the door with her wings.
“But we didn’t get to do your mane!” one of them protested.
“It’s so pretty!” the other added.
“Sorry, big mare stuff,” Rainbow said, ushering them past Twilight and scooting them out into the corridor.
Twilight walked into the room, followed by Applejack and Rarity. Rainbow stepped back inside and shut the door behind her. Twilight found herself pressed shoulder to shoulder against Applejack and Rarity in the small space. “Who were they?” Twilight asked.
“Orphans,” Rarity said. “Lucky ones.”
Rainbow glared at Twilight. “Explain.”
Twilight rubbed the back of her neck, feeling the two marks from the Skinstealer’s fangs. She’d allowed her Stoneskin to fade on the way to the Temple. “The Fireball was an accident,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t killed the ponies in the stands, but I did. They were part of something terrible, and I snapped.”
“You chose to join in too,” Fluttershy said.
“I did what I had to!” Twilight said. “I have to save Pinkie. I know you didn’t want to watch me kill animals, but no animal’s life is worth leaving Pinkie in Spellhold a day longer than I have to.”
“I would have been there if it was just animals,” Fluttershy said. “While I’d hate to watch it, I understand they aren’t as important as ponies. Plum Violet told us it was a slave fighting ring when we asked her what Tamer did.”
Twilight glanced at her hooves. “I didn’t know that when he said ‘animals’ he also meant ‘ponies’.”
“Plum Violet said you asked to kill slaves,” Rarity said. “It’s why we were so worried.”
Twilight blinked. They’re clever, she thought. “You can’t believe a word she said. She was trying to drive a wedge. She was a Skinstealer... they’re like Changelings.”
“Yeah, I noticed you left her head on the floor of the inn,” Applejack said. “I shoulda seen it. Something didn’t add up about her, but then I read your journal, and—”
Twilight sighed. “And you thought I might actually do something like that.”
“I didn’t believe it until you stepped into the ring,” Rainbow said.
“You’re experimenting with the essence of the Shadow, Twilight,” Rarity said. “What were we supposed to think?”
Twilight frowned. She turned her head, coming nose to nose with Rarity. “That I had a good reason to experiment! The Black Knight almost killed me! If Cadance hadn’t been there, he would have!”
Rarity avoided her gaze, focusing on a spot on the wall. “I know, but—”
“You’re not alone, Twilight,” Applejack said. “Cadance was there, and if you hadn’t gone alone—”
Twilight snorted as she turned on Applejack. “If I hadn’t gone alone, you’d be dead! He could have snuffed you out! Cadance was an Alicorn, she was dying just by being near him!” She gestured at Fluttershy. “Look at what happened to her! One bite, and a demon nearly ripped her soul out!”
“And Angel saved me,” Fluttershy said.
“And I stopped the one on your back before you got hurt,” Rainbow said. “What’s your point? You could die too.”
Twilight shook her head. “That’s not what happened. You were too slow.”
“No way,” Rainbow scoffed. “Fluttershy still hasn’t fully recovered. It must’ve barely bit you by the time I got there, or you would be in just as bad shape. How else do you explain it?”
Twilight fixed Rainbow with a stare. “I pulled back.” She took a step forward, slipping out from between Applejack and Rarity. “It tried to empty my body, and I swallowed it.”
Rainbow’s ears drooped and she glanced down.
“Woah now,” Applejack said. “You did what?”
“I ate it,” Twilight said. “It tried to turn me into an empty husk, and I ate it. I’m not a normal pony, and even I’m not strong enough. I need to understand my power. I need to control it.”
“No,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “Your magic is amazing. You’re beyond strong, Twilight.”
Twilight shook her head. “I wasn’t strong enough.” She closed her eyes. “I had to watch.”
“Watch what?” Rarity asked.
Twilight winced and raised her hoof to her forehead. “I had to watch her cut. It’s my fault! Pinkie was... she cut... and I watched.” Her eyes burned, and she closed them tighter.
A familiar warmth pressed against Twilight. A pair of forelegs and a pair of wings wrapped around her. “It’s okay, Twilight,” Fluttershy said softly in her ear. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Tears leaked past Twilight’s eyelids. “I have to save Pinkie. I have to...”