//------------------------------// // Chapter 18 - Complete the set // Story: A Bhaalspawn in Equestria // by Thadius0 //------------------------------// It would only occur to me later on in the week to check up on the Everfree Castle. Or whatever the hell they ended up calling it. Damn thing is at least a thousand years old, there's every chance there would be records in there that I could use. I set out near noon and passed through the same glade Cadence and I used for our little session at about noon-ten, to find that I was not the only one there. The last Alicorn I had yet to meet was apparently waiting for me, staring at her sun. Silence reigned for a minute. The solar diarch looked to me, while my mind was racing. Recently I had meditated and unlocked two 'feats' of my class. Apparently, I'd forgotten to check lately, and missed two such opportunities. The first was simple enough to take: Use Any Item. Not only was it a stepping-stone to feats I wanted, but now, I was unrestricted in Things I could Do. It'd take me a while to adjust my fighting styles for this new development, but I had every confidence in myself. The second was a feat that I'd also been waiting for: Time Trap. It took a midnight raid of Ponyville's clock shop to find the materials I wanted, but I put together a mechanical stopwatch easily enough. Add a wire to the mechanism, throw and pull when primed, and...well, it's hard to describe. Time Trap was made so the Assassin, any Assassin, could find a place away from the battle, hide, and once time flowed again, be capable of being where he was most efficient: right behind you. I intended to use it as an equalizer if the Alicorns or, really, anyone thought they had me cornered. I was at least a little confident I could handle Celestia, but there was always the chance I was wrong. And from her amused smirk at seeing me, I wouldn't be surprised if she knew along what lines I had been thinking. We stared at each other for a moment longer, and then I broke the silence. "Just so we're clear. I see you lighting up that horn of yours, I'm gone." She nodded her head at me. "Understandable. From what the others have told me, your greatest strength lies in the realm of combat and mental control." She hummed and put a hoof to her chin. "Were you a mage, you'd be a fairly decent one. As it stands, without magic of your own, you have every right to fear mine." "Especially," I chipped in with a smirk, "since I've only been antagonizing you for gods only know how long. And that's not to mention all the legends others have of you." At this, her smile dropped a fraction of an inch, but I saw it all the same. Nice to see the immortal sun princess doesn't like any of her combat titles, it gives me hope that this won't devolve to combat. "By the way," I said as I began to make my way to the other side of the glade, so as to continue on my path to the Everfree Castle, "how are you here at this specific glade, at this specific time? Don't you have a country to run?" She giggled a little bit at that. "Firstly, while you are an important matter, don't act so paranoid. Ever since Cadence met you, I've been coming here, at the same time she did, to try and meet you as well. It seems only fair: you've met my sister and my niece, I thought you would want to finish meeting all us alicorns." I shrugged at that. "Not particularly. An alicorn is essentially the manifestation of pure, magical power, combined with flight and sheer strength. I...am none of that. I rely on stealth and being well-informed. Actually meeting one of you in combat can't end in anything good for me." At this, she hummed a bit. "An intriguing perspective. And secondly, I'm a princess, I do what I want. Although, technically, this is my lunch hour, and I do use a few spells to slip past my ever-zealous Guard." I actually laughed at that. ----- "So your main goal all this time has not been monetary gain?" I paused as I moved some bits of the foliage out of the way. "You could say that. None of mine ever really knew that, though." Celestia and I finally walked into the clearing with the old castle, and I continued the thought. "While the money was all well and good, keeping mine fed and housed and warm and things like that, what we primarily dealt in was the intangible. Things that didn't exist outside of someone's mind or off of someone's lips. We dealt mostly in information, and there was always something I kept to myself." She blinked at that. "So much...mayhem, caused over such a timeframe, just for information? What possessed you to do something like that?" I slowly turned to look at Celestia from in front of the rope bridge. "Did...did neither of the others tell you? The score of mortal progeny father graced the realms with?" At this, she blinked and had the good grace to look abashed. "Oh. I would think, though, that I would hear of it as well, if there were ponies with the sort of...problems you have." I shook my head. "Only vaguely. Let's get inside, please. I'd like to see some census records from a thousand years ago and compare it with what I have before I tell you my theory." Once we were both in, Celestia sighed as she looked around. "So many memories. Most of them pleasant, but..." I stood back as she walked around in the entryway, then interjected. "...But the ones that stay with you are the ones you'd rather forget, am I right?" She nodded absently, and I smiled. "So, for example, were I to call you Sol Invictus-" Here she winced, and I smiled at that before she turned to me. "You've done your research." I waved a hand at her, brushing off her unasked question of 'how did you learn that name'. "Wasn't hard. At least, not with my travels and recruits over the years. The hard part was figuring out which of the legends had any degree of truth to them." She smiled slightly before replying. "Then you would know how much I...dislike titles earned through might, Doom of the Diamond Dogs." I winced then and looked askance. "I don't regret defending your ponies, Celestia. I never will. My only regret is that it became violent. Every time I form chains of evil to bind the Slayer...I relive the events that I use against him." I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes for the next bit. "And while compared to you, my life is probably very short, and the past hundred years only an eyeblink...they've been torment for me, because I can't forget what I did. It's only recently that I've been able to put the nightmare to rest. And the fact that...that occasionally I have to...to flaunt that title around, to intimidate or impress!" I blink back tears as I look up to the sky. "It makes me sick, sometimes. Recently, quite a bit, now that I've met griffons again. They...they like that story." I look back at her, to see a bit of sympathy on her face. "Tell me, Celestia, how do you deal with that? Because I've been wracking my brain for a hundred years, trying to get the memories out. And every time I use the title attached to them, all I can remember...is the sensation of that battle...of that slaughter..." And then she actually came towards me and attempted to comfort me with a wing. "I'll let you know when I find a way." I smiled sadly and sniffed before pulling away. "Thanks. So. Library?" She nodded and pointed with her other wing. "That way." ----- The census records from a thousand years ago had exactly what I'd feared. Pulling out my own notes on the topic from my scroll case had only reinforced the conclusion I'd drawn. Celestia sat nearby, waiting for me to tell her my conclusions. I took out a new, blank scroll and began writing down names. Names of the lines that had started with Bhaal, and ended...abruptly. Which, tellingly, was nearly all of them. Then I pulled out a fresh map of Equestria and began plotting the disappearances. It started in the west, but followed a line to the north-east. Then they stopped for about ten years, before they picked up again. Only this time, they were widespread, and happened all over Equestria, with no pattern at all, except for one noticeable fact. Whenever I zeroed in on a Bhaalspawn in any town I was in, they vanished. Ponyville had been my lucky break. I motioned for Celestia to come closer, and she looked over my shoulder at my work. "This," I pointed to the line I'd graphed, "Probably indicates one of my half-siblings going to work a while back. After the ten-year gap, I don't know what happened for said sibling to become able to go from one side of Equestria to another in a flash, but I know they did. Because whenever I found another sibling and prepared to move...they were gone." Celestia pointed at Las Pegasus with her hoof. The dots there were nearly all black, save one, which I'd done in red. "And that one?" I grimaced. "That...was a brother of mine coming into his strength. His full strength. He'd begun to find clever ways to murder, and do so frequently. Eventually, I cornered him, and we recognized each other right away. After a battle that I wasn't sure I could win, I ended up atop a broken and battered Earth Pony stallion. The black in his eyes faded, and he spoke in his normal voice for the first time since I met him." She placed a hoof on my hand. "What did he say?" I closed my eyes, seeing his face in front of me. "His name was Loaded Dice. White coat, black mane and tail, red eyes...when he wasn't possessed, that is. And he begged me to kill him before the Slayer took hold again." I opened my eyes and looked at hers. "I granted him that mercy, a quick end to pain. And that was when I realized just how much of a mistake it was to kill my brothers and sisters, because for the first time in a while, it became hard to ignore the Slayer." Celestia gulped at that, but I pressed on. "Bhaalspawn that slay their siblings...take that spark of divinity for their own. But the price is simple enough. Oh sure, we get a bit more power, we live longer and are better at what we do...at the cost of having a stronger demon inside us as well. That was when I started to delve into old magics, and found the Blood Bridge ritual. It would only work between relations...but that's all I needed." Celestia nodded at my reasoning. "I do recall that case that came before me. It was surprising how atop the stallion's corpse was a plethora of scrolls containing all the information we would need to lock him away forever, had he been alive." I nodded at her unasked question. "My doing. I'd been looking into the sudden vanishings, and found the one common link between them beforehand. Namely, Loaded Dice. I figured the least I could do for the authorities was explain why Loaded deserved to die as best I could. Couldn't exactly write down 'he's a Bhaalspawn,' so I went with the next best thing." Celestia let out a little snort at that. "True, I think that back then, even I would have had trouble believing you." I looked to her and smiled. "And now?" She hummed a little bit before her horn lit up, and I was ten feet away in a flash. She blinked, but realized her mistake, and shook her head. "I'm merely conjuring something for you. Something I think you'll like." I kept my eyes on her horn and one hand on my stopwatch. "You have ten seconds." She only needed two before a slip of paper popped into existence before her. It fluttered to the ground, and she backed away from it. I slowly advanced, never taking my eyes off her horn as I bent down and picked it up off the floor. I briefly glanced at it, looked up to the horn again, then did a double take. The bearer of this ticket is hereby invited to attend the Royal Wedding between Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Captain of the Guard Shining Armor. The rest of it was standard information. Time and location. I smirked as I read it. "She invited me to break into the Palace?" Celestia nodded and smiled. "Good luck." I prepared the watch before saying my parting phrase to her. "Celestia, please. I make my own luck." And with that, the Time Trap triggered, and I was gone.