A Bit of Mojo

by StormDancer

06 - Fractures: Part 1

Rainbow Dash woke slowly to a throbbing headache and the chill touch of a wet cloth draped across her forehead. She felt nauseous and cold, a little dizzy, and very sore. From her forehead a light throbbing sent pulses of pain prickling down her face, almost like spiders crawling on her, the sensation causing her to twitch a cheek momentarily before raising a hoof to her eyes... which she only now realized were gummy with some kind of gunk.

Blinking slowly, she looked around in the feeble, flickering light of a small candle some distance away. Wherever she was, it was dark enough that the candle only hinted at what might be around her, cloaking everything in thick shadows and a heavy silence only broken by her raspy breathing and the soft guttering of the flame.

Slowly, she rubbed the gunk from her eyes, the sticky substance clinging and pulling from her only reluctantly before she scraped it off on the side of the... whatever it was she was laying on. Taking a deep breath, she hopped to her hooves.

And promptly fell solidly on her face, her body wracked with cramps and stabbing aches.

Shuddering on the ground, she smelled the tang of blood but could do little more than grab her stomach and curl in a ball, shaking from the pain as waves of cold sweat seemed to spring across her coat. Gasping out shallow breaths as she forced her eyes open, Rainbow Dash laboriously arched her neck to take in her surroundings from her new perspective.

It wasn't much different. Despite the agony clutching her insides, the world still seemed dark and barely more defined than dark shadows shivering slowly over other, darker, shadows cast by the tiny candle somewhere above.

Hissing out a groan as she forced herself to her hooves, she squinted in the darkness, finally catching a number of faint flickers of light, seeming to dance up and down like tiny sparks in sets scattered around her. Though she tried to take a step to investigate, the horrible twisting in her guts made her struggle to even remain standing. Before long, the feeling grew too strong and the inevitable happened.

A few moments later, Rainbow Dash passed out again in a puddle of vomit, shivering of fever and wracked with the painful spasms of nightmarish slumber.

Fluttershy woke to the sounds of a table being knocked over and the strangled retching of her dear friend Rainbow Dash.

Taking a few moments to compose herself, the butter yellow pegasus slowly stretched her back and wings before climbing from the nearby cushion and quietly stepping over to her collapsed friend.

It wasn't a pretty sight to be sure: Rainbow was on the ground, curled up on her side in an unnatural shape, her head and neck twisted at a horrible angle as her body shivered and shuddered, spreading the splattering of vomit across both her coat and the floor. Her short mane, normally a wind tossed mess to begin with, was matted with sweat and plastered across her face while the rest of her glistened with a lather. Fluttershy's sensitive nose wrinkled at the smell, a bitter scent of stale plants and the sour tang of energy drinks composing the majority of her friend's stomach contents, telling her that her ill friend was likely dehydrated in addition to suffering from a head injury.

Slowly, acting with years of practice and care, she lifted the unconscious Dash across her shoulders, ignoring the slick material that smeared across her mane and coat, and gently trotted to the floor shower she used for her sick and injured little friends.

"It must have been worse than I thought" she whispered to herself as she laid Rainbow Dash down upon the smooth floor, unhooking the shower head from the wall and adjusting the temperature carefully. Satisfied after a minute of fine tuning, she began to softly manipulate her unconscious friend, washing the ick from her mane and coat, gently rubbing her sides to work the sweat and filth free and checking her stitches before rinsing herself clean.

Taking a few minutes to gently dry her patient, she carefully laid her down and went to clean up the floor and right the table Rainbow's tumble had caused to fall.

Dash lay there, helpless and unconscious for nearly ten minutes before the soft clicking of hooves could be heard were there anypony there to hear the approach. Smoothly, Fluttershy slipped back into the dark room and lifted Dash across her back again before gently walking back to the couch and depositing her charge upon the freshly changed sheet she had spread across the cushions. Making sure that Raindbow was laying still, an almost restful expression having slowly overtaken the pained grimace from before, Fluttershy gently pushed a pair of roll pillows beside her friend to keep her from tumbling off again.

Nodding to herself, the quiet mare leaned over and gently kissed Dash's forehead, mindful of the delicate stitch-work of earlier. She turned to resume her own rest, but paused as if remembering a vital point before shaking her head with a soft smile. "Silly Fluttershy, you almost forgot Dash's medicine."

With practiced ease, she scooped up a small hoof full of berries, identical to the remains Dash had vomited up not half an hour ago, and popped them into her friend's mouth, tipping her head back and gently placing her lips upon a nerve in Dash's neck, pinching lightly and causing her to swallow automatically. After checking to make sure her friend was breathing alright and that she had swallowed each berry, Fluttershy nodded and softly crept back to her cushion before blinking and looking around the room. Rainbow had begun to writhe in her sleep again, the poor dear. It must have been even worse than she'd thought. Shaking her head in pity, Fluttershy was about to climb back upon her cushion when she paused and returned to the small stand at the end of the couch and squinted before rustling her wings briefly.

"Almost forgot," she whispered, as she lifted a small box in her hooves and struck a match casting a bright gleam across the room. A moment later, she set it upon the cold wick of the candle she had blown out hours ago.

Pinkie Pie was cheerfully hopping across the little field that was Fluttershy's lawn when it started - at first it was a little extra poofing in her mane, something she giggled at, but then came the troubling part: her face, inexplicably slammed into the ground. Flinching at the sudden impact, Pinkie squeezed her eyes shut as she rubbed her head.

"Zowie.... I almost bit my tongue!" she exclaimed as she got back to her hooves. Glancing around quickly, her ears began to flatten as the niggling feeling that something was about to happen, that something very very wrong was about to happen, that something so apocalypticalypticalyptically wrong was about to happen that her Pinkie sense had decided that she should use her face as a brake rather than a sweet-stuff input.

No, this was not a good combo. She wasn't entirely sure what it was, but it wasn't a good combo.

Slowly reaching into her mane, Pinkie's eyes slid over the field as she drew out an abnormally large cupcake and waited.

A moment later, she felt a sharp, although weak, thwack to her foreleg.

Glancing down Pinkie hurled the cupcake with all the force of a celestial goddess, smiting the bad thing before it could get to her frien...oh, it was just Angel Bunny... which was good, because Pinkie's imagination had started to run off on her again and ... OH! Cupcake!

Angel Bunny rolled his eyes as he watched the pink one, who was holding a cupcake for some reason, look down at him as her pupils shrank to pinpricks before she giggled and tossed the cupcake she had been holding into her mouth. He had learned, through remarkably painful experience, that that one was protected by something. No matter what he did, she always seemed to somehow avoid his wrath. Flowerpots missed, salads hurled were swallowed, even trying to bite her had only resulted in her giggling and him discovering a lump of gum had somehow been placed in his mouth. He sincerely despised that one, but given the circumstances, she would have to do.

Cringing internally, Angel Bunny reached out and tugged on her leg, causing her to giggle and drop to the ground to be at eye level with him.

Up close, she was a little scary he realized. Her mane was enourmous, blocking out the sky and filling his vision while her gargantuan eyes seemingly bent at odd angles to watch him from only an inch or two away. Her muzzle ended up actually touching his, sending a little wave of panic through him as he remembered seeing her swallow cakes many times larger than his entire body whole.

The pink one was something he suddenly did not want to aggravate.

Blinking for a moment, Angel started to pantomime the problem. He explained in great detail how his Fluttershy had started acting strange, how she brought back the wreck and had even glared at him. His little ears flipped in irritation as he remembered his Fluttershy going through the medicines and bandages, how she had started tasting some and trying others before he had had to stop her. His little eyebrows sank into a glower as he described how his Fluttershy had scolded him for being assertive and even forgotten to place the parsnip on the left side of his plate and the tomato on the right. His Fluttershy had put the parsnip on the right side and the tomato on the left.

Ending his award winning depiction, Angel crossed his paws and waited while tapping his foot.

"Sooooooooooo.... Fluttershy got Rainbow, but she's acting all weirdy and she didn't know how to help her after she got home but she knew what she needed even if she didn't know what it was and she told you to behave (THE NERVE) but she didn't feed you for a whole eight minutes and when she did feed you she didn't turn the plate around which is so totally not a Fluttershy thing to do and she's secretly been harboring an apple addiction but didn't tell anypony because she was afraid of hurting Twilight's feelings because it was sooooo her fault for trying to fix the vampire fruit bats even though they weren't broken and what's with that anyway because we all know Applejack gets all grumpypants when her apples are being munched on but we all know Fluttershy's the one to go to when it comes to animals and yet somehow we all ignored her and Twilight turned her into Flutterbat and we had to get her to STARE at herself, which would be really really weird if it weren't for her red eyes which are kind of neat when you think about it but that's not important right now because" Pinkie took a moment to gasp before jumping to her hooves again, "Fluttershy's got Dashie and Dash is sick!"

Angel Bunny blinked for a moment, mouth agape, as he wondered how she had possibly misunderstood that his Fluttershy had flipped the tomato and parsnip as forgetting to turn the plate.

She really was just a mess of a pony.

Bumping along a rarely used trail was not Storm Dancer's ideal method of coming back to consciousness. Bumping along a rarely used trail in the middle of a dark wood, at night, while an unnatural fog crept along the forest floor, obscuring everything more than a few paces away, on the unpleasantly lumpy thing he was traveling upon, was certainly even less ideal than simply bumping along. But waking up with the vestiges of a migraine, a quickly wrapped gash, and the telltale scent of burnt hair and ozone upon the back of his uncomfortably bony friend of the stripey disposition was patently not even on his list of pleasant methods of waking.

With a soft hiss of pain, he checked the wad of cloth on his chest, flinching at the contact, as he tapped Mojo's shoulder to get down.

The zebra nodded back at him as he slowed before cantering to a stop a few yards down the path.

"'E wakes again, my jitt'ry fren, dough shaky bet his stride may be. You doin' good, you crash-bang nut? Or should I keep, for you to, carry?"

Storm Dancer flinched again as he nearly fell off his friend, the zebra reaching out to stop his tumble at the last moment. With a look of concern, he settled down before shrugging the unicorn from his back, a faint stain from the bandage dampening his coat.

"Nah Mojo, I'm good... Really, but what the hell did you stab me with? Stuff burns like fire," he grimaced.

"I'm sorry Smokey, but'tid 'ad tebe done. Your head been t'rowin', butwee needed taerun."

"Yheah, yheah... I get that. But dangit this thing burns." Storm Dancer rolled out his shoulders, wincing at the pain from the still-fresh gash as he snorted quietly. "Not like you to add injury to insu... well, more injury."

Despite the slight smirk upon his black and grey face, Mojo didn't answer immediately as he continued to look around in the dark. While Storm Dancer got to his hooves and tried to make sense of everything around him, Mojo kept a silent vigil, ears flipping to each sound while he scanned the eerily moving fog.

After a few moments, Storm Dancer carefully peeled back the bandage, hissing at the wound as it pulled a bit, before brightening his horn and searing it shut with an arcing lance of electricity, the scent of ozone suddenly competing for that of burnt hair and cooked meat. Grinding his teeth against the pain, he looked up to see Mojo's attention suddenly fully upon him; the zebra's features a strange mask of concern and disgust.

"Mojo?"

A moment passed before the zebra's ears flipped again. "Dat 'orna yours be a work'a ahrt, but I'd be careful, lest ya be blown apart. Yah been struck no less den tree times a'ready... the smell'a burning's gettin a bit heady."

Storm Dancer frowned briefly. It wasn't really a good idea to cauterize a dressed wound, but since he didn't really know what was happening, he had felt that being able to move a bit more freely had been preferable to leaving a blood trail. It had made sense at the time, but that had also been while he was just waking up and not thinking straight. Normally that wouldn't be much of a problem, but when your buddy comes running out of the dark, stabs you, knocks you out, and the next thing you know you find yourself in a strange wood being carried away, snap decisions allow for a little leeway.

"Really Mojo, I'm fine... what's going on?"

Mojo, ears still flipping as he tracked sounds the unicorn couldn't seem to pick up, waited a moment before answering. To Storm, it looked almost as if the zebra were weighing his options before trying them out. A few more seconds passed before he replied in a quieter tone than normal, "De deez an' greely be dun huntin' in de nigh'... iis na safe te be aroun' firelight."

Without waiting for more than a second, Mojo turned and continued striding into the swirling fog, leaving Storm Dancer to scramble for a few moments before catching up.

It was a strange feeling, seeing Mojo on edge. The zebra had always seemed so... in control, almost smug in his confidence. Seeing him without his top hat, glancing at shadows and trotting along without a morbid rhyme or two, was simply creepy... more creepy, given his coat markings. The chill fog wasn't really helping either.

Storm Dancer frowned as he kept pace with his friend, a step or two behind so he could keep track of the well camouflaged zebra. It wasn't often that Mojo would drop the quips, even rarer for him to drop the odd rhymes he seemed determined to maintain, but when he did it was always a matter of importance. Even so, he couldn't recall a single time where Mojo had seemed so profoundly concerned.

An itchy tingling started to build at the base of his horn, setting his coat into a flare of static which sizzled around the wound on his chest. With a backwards glance, Mojo wordlessly checked upon his companion. A mild grimace seemed to allay his fears as the two continued on.

"So.... where are we headed?"

Mojo silently hopped over an exposed root before turning sharply to the right and off the trail before whispering out, "Into de'dark, where spirits flee. A place where unicorns can't be."

"Mojo," Storm said, "I know I'm a bit addled right now, but I'm still a unicorn bud."

The soft chuckle was the first reassuring thing Storm had heard from his friend all night. "Dat you are, my pointy fren', but especially you, cannot atten'. Instead I 'ave a task in lou, of great importance it is too."

Mojo paused as they came to a small clearing near a fallen tree, whatever species long forgotten by the ravages of time. It had been massive and, when it had fallen, it had brought down a number of smaller trees with it - their barren trunks and shattered limbs littering the clearing, making for a truly uninviting sight.

The trunk itself was almost as wide as some of the houses Storm had seen in town, ancient and storm bleached, the barkless base prized up from the dark loam below, exposing a cavernous abyss rimmed with wicked looking briars and thorn-sharp dead roots. The shattered segment, some feet above, showed the unmistakable charring of a lightning strike, though long since eroded from what must have been a truly deadly crown of splinters, into a pulpy mass of jagged remains. Mosses, black in the feeble light of Storm's horn, appeared as globs of moist gore, splattered around the scene haphazardly, glistening in the lingering damp of the creeping fog.

Storm did not like this place.

"Mojo, should... should we really be here? I mean, it looks pretty unpleasant and all..."

The zebra's briefly flashed smile was positively creepy upon the bone-like markings of his face. "Dat's azzit should be, a frightful sight, de bett'ra secrets kept locked up tight."

With a smooth flick of his hoof, Mojo cast a pinch of acrid ... something... into the darkness under the uprooted tree. The zebra waited a moment more before digging quietly through a small satchel near his shoulder and pulling out a black object and flipping the attached cord over his head. A few moments later, he glanced over as Storm watched apprehensively.

"Now Smokey: lissen an' lissen well, dis place be protected by an ol', ol' spell. To get back 'ere, ye need ta know a secret of de tje-san-zo. Eet izzan pretty, annit izzun fun, butta drop ah blood'all pay for one. Jess pay a drop, anywhere'll do, and de tje-san-zo will protect you. Dunna fergit to pay de price, or else the greely, your skin, may slice."

Storm frowned at his friend as he tentatively licked his lips. "So.... I gotta bleed to get back here?" he asked quietly, the fog seeming suddenly colder upon his skin.

"Aye, but a course ya do, dough remembar too: dere's always a price, to keep de greely actin' nice."

With a scowl, Storm carefully pressed the wound on his chest, forcing a few small beads of blood to leak on his wrist before flicking it into the clearing. He didn't like the place at all, but Mojo had never lied to him and he seemed to be worried about something hunting them in the night. If this was what he thought would help to keep them safe then he was willing to do what he could to help out.

Creepy as it may be.

Mojo nodded, though his smile had faded. "You mus' now go, an' find dat mare, de one with such a wicked stare. She be 'en need o' yer soft 'eart, afore her mind tears 'er apart." Mojo sighed, "I know not when de time may come, but when it do, you'll 'ave to run. The princess won't my magic know, and blame us both, her acts will show. She's not a devil or a ghost, but when her fears are spurred, she'll play a vicious host."

Storm frowned again. "So.... ?"

Mojo turned and paused, his tail flicking briefly as he glanced back. "Ya gotta go, ya can't stay here. If you don't leave, you'll draw them near. I can fix dis, but ya have to leave, the magic here's not-av pony weave."

Mojo turned away and stepped towards the nightmarish tree, disappearing into the icy fog and the night. A few moments later, the sound of something creeping through dead leaves and unidentified muck began to filter into the clearing, setting Storm's senses on edge.

As he turned to leave, a soft sound, almost like a sigh, breathed out from the gaping pit of the trees upturned roots, as Mojo descended into the cavernous tunnel beneath, faint symbols glowing a sickly green at his passage.

Twilight Sparkle, multi-time savior of Equestria, the Element of Magic, a studious and highly intelligent unicorn in her own right, and the founder of the Ponyville library appreciation club (which she swore she would get around to finding members for), glared at the writhing black ribbon trapped within the little blown glass bottle sitting upon the rough hewn plank that served as Zecora's dining table.

If it weren't for the simple fact that she was so horribly frustrated with discovering the bizarre little terror's secrets, she would likely have condemned herself for such a long, and horribly fragmented mental process. Such endeavors required patience and discipline. They required dedication and an unflinching devotion to the pursuit of knowledge with the innocent curiosity of a foal. Such things deserved the full, undiluted, undivided, and unmitigated weight of her focus.

Such things were this close to being flung across the room, lit on fire, and banished out of existence because they refused to cooperate.

With a frustrated growl, Twilight spun away from the table intent on pumping Zecora for more information about the Tartarus-blasted nightmare to logic that resided within the little container... but instead blinked as she saw the startled gazes of her three friends.

"Um.... guys?" she asked, watching as their features danced in the flickers of light. "What's got you all worked up?"

The three glanced at one another before Applejack cleared her throat and nodded before plastering on a nervous smile. "Uh, it's not us Sugarcube, um, but you're looking a little steamed right now and we didn't want to set'ya off." She paused and started to fan herself with her hat, "There anything we can do ta help?"

Twilight's concern twisted for a moment. It wasn't like her friends to act frightened around her, and it certainly didn't make sense now that they had an actual bit of material to work with. Were they possessed by another one of those ribbon things? Was she possessed by another one of those ribbon things? She couldn't risk it, she'd have to lock the whole place down. Shields and barriers, magic and material, would need to be erected. Safety measures would need to be put in place. And they were doing so well to! It wasn't fair!

It was about that time when Twilight noticed the room seemed noticably brighter than it had previously - and there was a faint scent of burning timber. Funny, she didn't recall Zeocra adding wood to the fireplace.

Tiwlight's eyes widened as she looked up to the scorched ceiling before quickly glancing down at her brilliant cream coat and flinching in embarassment. Taking a calming breath, she tried her best to relax, willing the frustration to pass as she exhaled slowly.

A few seconds later, she felt a pair of ponies tentatively hugging her while the soft chuckle of a zebra added to her support.

"Thanks girls... I needed that." Twilight sighed as she let her frustrations fade under the assault of her close friends. Rarity remained silent, her precisely permed mane curling beside her, and smiled faintly as she nodded. Applejack smirked as she stepped back and shook her head slightly.

Twilight looked at her friends as she felt a welling of appreciation. Rarity, who despised all things dirty or unfashionable, had (once again) dropped everything to go traipsing through everything to help her friends. Applejack, no stranger to work or difficulties, hadn't even questioned her when she'd teleported in when this all started. Zeocra, who despite all their differences, had been willing to risk serious harm in attacking them, had managed to save them all in spite of themselves.... again.

She had the best friends in the world.

"I'm sorry girls, it's just that this thing," she gestured violently back towards the bottle, "doesn't make any sense! I can see it, but my magic says there's nothing there! It's like I'm trying to follow the air in a balloon as it's popping.... there's NOTHING there but I can see it!"

A soft tinkling sound pulled her attention from the pair of ponies as she caught sight of Zecora calmly stirring a mug of something near the window. The zebra was watching her with a nuetral expression on her face, the kind she often had when the two spoke of particularly difficult topics for the shaman to rhyme. The zebra watched her for a few more moments before turning her head to sip from the mug she had been stirring.

"My dearest friends, through it is late, I suggest you do not hesitate." The zebra opened the eye facing Twilight and stared at her as she took another sip. "If I were to wager a simple fee, the villain's victory, I doubt you wish to see."

"Dear, if I might interrupt," Rarity flipped her hoof back towards the table, "What is that thing it's trying to do?"

Twilight glanced behind her at the bottle as it sat, unmoving, on the plank. "What? Sitting there?" she asked, trying not to become agitated again.

"No Darling, that there... on the wall." Rarity stepped forward, almost pushing past Twilight as she tipped her head to the side, trying to get a clearer look at the wall.

Twilight, momentarily forgetting her frustration, turned to look at the wall fully. Packed dirt and roots, small chips of unidentifiable matter and careful construction methods. Nothing out of the ordinary for Zecora's house. She glanced over to respond to Rarity when she caught a slight movement out of the corner of her eye, snapping her attention back to the wall with an almost predatory focus.

She didn't know what it was, but she had seen it.

And she was not going to let it get away.

With a flare of magic, she lit her horn, casting everything into stark contrast. In an instant, shadows darkened, tiny flakes of formica became obvious in the soil, and everything became bathed in the glow of her magic.

She studied it. She memorized it. She began to systematically scan each square foot of the wall as she looked for inconsistencies.

"Rarity, what did you see?"

Rarity's response was slow, almost as if she were concentrating as hard as Twilight was. "I-I'm not sure. I thought I saw something with the shadow of the bottle, but I can't seem to figure out what it was."

Twilight focused upon the faint shadow of the bottle still visible through her magical field, looking for anything that didn't make sense, scanning it and probing it with spell after spell as she tried to discover what she had glimpsed.

"The Deez will not their secrets tell, if you only put them under a spell," Zecora stated from her seat by the window.

"Would'ja just talk plain for once Zecora?" Applejack snapped before she realized what she had said. Blushing furiously as Twilight glanced back at her in reprimand. "Uh, what I meant was could you just tell it to us straight without all the mumjo jumbo and fancy rhymin'? It'd save us a lot of trouble." Applejack coughed self-consciously before glancing up at the zebra. "And, um, sorry about poppin' off like that."

For a brief moment Zecora scowled. It was rare that she put on any expression other than a slightly aloof smile or practiced neutrality with anyone other than her close friends, but though she knew Applejack hadn't meant to be rude, the comment still stung. After a second or two, she schooled her reaction before taking a sip of tea again.

"Young Applejack, your words are true, the times I speak out of rhyme are few, but I do so with a reason too, that being the lombwajs' wrath to eschew."

"Now what in the name of Luna is that suppo-?" was all Applejack managed to get out before Twilight's startled gasp interrupted her.

"I knew I saw something and you just confirmed it!" Twilight nearly squealed in delight. Applejack squinted at the wall where both Rarity and Twilight stood riveted.

With a few subtle shifts of her magical field Twilight's grin grew wider and wider.

There was a tiny shadow clinging to the shadow of the bottle on the wall that seemed to shift just a moment after the rest.

Twilight couldn't sense it with magic, but the tables were beginning to turn as she realized that, somehow, light must interact with their strange magic.