Ch. 19 - Necrolized Confrontation
“There you are.”
The gaunt man planted a well-worn boot on the roof's edge. He leaned on the bent knee with one arm, resting his other on a cane. Weary eyes took in the scene below. Spied the children – children are children regardless of race – cowering against a wall. Ogled the burly stallion, strong of back and battered heavily, nearly nodding to unconsciousness on the ground. Bore witness to the casual crime against life and death lording over them all.
A resigned sigh issued from ancient lungs.
He could intervene. Use his particular skills to resolve the problem and avoid any deaths. Move everything and everyone around so their personal contexts no longer included each other. But he would not act. The traveler acted enough for a lifetime, even one as long as his. Acted once and filled his quota.
No, he wasn't there to affect events. The gaunt man who witnessed the scene in that pony town was merely a facilitator. It was for others that such an event played out. It would be for others to resolve it. The gaunt man could only watch; his very presence wouldn't even be noticed, hidden behind cover in a dimension just out of sync with the rest of this world. A courtesy to those the man could never assist: no sense giving the doomed false hope of rescue.
The man looked up, ears perked by the sound of rushing air, and the flaps of feathered wings. His gaze wandered towards the sound, and he could see a hurried lavender form flying into view.
A wry smile crept to lips framed with brown beard hair. The facilitator fished a modified cell phone from his pocket. “Are you seeing it from where you are?” he spoke into the phone. “...no, I'm sitting in the front row...yes, I too noticed it's not her. If she doesn't come, it simply can't be helped...let's wait and see for now, Mr. Rose.”
“M-m-mister...” stuttered Applebloom, casting concerned glances towards the bloodied stallion on the ground nearby. “Mister! Are you okay?” She dared not run to the adult to check, petrified as she was.
From his heap, Goose down groaned loudly. A bruised patch of hide twitched.
Their assailant took another lumbering step forward. “Urrrryyyy...” it growled.
“GET AWAY FROM THEM!”
Pure purple light slammed into the undead, causing it to lose its balance. As it fell, it barely acknowledged being pushed. “Urger?”
The three fillies looked up, their eyes lighting up. “Twilight!” they shouted in unison.
The alicorn princess landed between the fillies and their aggressor. “Are you girls alright?” she said, looking over her shoulder at them. She didn't wait to see their answer, instead turning back to get a good look at the monster rising back up.
It...was not how Twilight Sparkle imagined it would be. Then again, she expected a Skullgirl, and imagined it would be how Painwheel remembered her. Given that Painwheel destroyed the last Skull Heart host, a white-haired maid with a torn-away back and a legion of skeletons at her command was unlikely.
What Twilight saw disturbed her. The monster was at least two meters tall at the shoulder. Moreover, it was less like a single zombified entity, and more a collection of decayed corpses cobbled together. Legs bulged and bent unnaturally where several different pony legs had been stuck end to end. One of the front legs even sported a set of two hooves attached at the end (perhaps in a desperate attempt to add much-needed stability to the rotted frame). Colors – once bright pastels – now were muted and patched, visible lines criss-crossing their surfaces where the pieces were sewn together. On its back were two sets of pegasi wings, diminutive compared to the creature's overall scale. Moreover, the sets of wings didn't match, each appendage obviously culled from a different source, with barely any feathers adorning some of them. A tattered tail hung limply from the rear, the two-toned effect seen often among pony kind multiplied by a factor of three from what the librarian could see.
And then there was the head. Stallions seemed to provide the majority of the bulk of its huge, misshapen cranium. It was a virtual jigsaw puzzle of taught cheeks, thinning scalps, recessed snouts, watery eyes, and pieces of jaw. A jigsaw culled from completely different jigsaw puzzles, crammed in place by an unimaginative – or uncaring – foal. On the right side of the face, it sported two separate eyeballs, while the left side sported what appeared to be two halves of eyes crammed in place in a desperate attempt to produce one functioning eyeball. And Twilight couldn't be sure, but behind the thin and irregular mane, she could see glimpses of additional eyes sewn to the back of its head. Its mouth sported serrated, filed teeth, and bilious, putrescent drool flowed out of it. On its neck, metal bolts stuck out from stretched skin.
At least we know where the bodies went, Twilight Sparkle thought, fighting the urge to retch. She hoped to Faust she wouldn't find herself downwind of the thing.
“UUUUUURRRYYYYYYYYYY!!!” the zombie shrieked, maw opening unnaturally wide.
As if to say “you die now”. A sentiment Twilight Sparkle couldn't help sharing. Gritting her teeth, she tilted her head. A bright aura coalesced around her horn, and with determined effort the alicorn loosed the energy. It traveled straight and true, aimed for center of mass.
The power slammed into the composite pony, force splashing over the surface. Unlike the first time, it seemed to react facially to the experience, wincing and scrunching. Moldering muscles twitched and contracted in spite of their disparate sources and the shoddiness with which they were no doubt stuck together. The great mass of necrotic tissue staggered back a few paces, settling still upright. Its chest seemed...undamaged, however.
Twilight Sparkle resolved to try again, but harder. Unconsciously, she held back the full might of her magic. From her earliest instruction in magic, Twilight's teacher, Princess Celestia herself, impressed upon the filly the need to withhold the full power in her magic. Unicorns held great power within them, and using it fully in everyday life could be dangerously reckless. Especially when magic is used in self-defense; too easily could a unicorn – and indeed, probably more so with Twilight herself – harm somepony more than it was needed. Up to the present, even, Twilight habitually used a gentle touch, even in a fight. How quickly could she have ended the fight with Painwheel had Twilight extended beyond her comfortable strength, and REALLY tried to hurt her?
But then that would have risked killing the poor human. Even a crazed, violent individual like that didn't deserve to be put down. Not so with the...abomination standing before the alicorn.
Another, brighter, stronger beamed exploded forth, ramming into the corpse monster. Twilight strained bodily under the recoil and the exertion. Teeth clamped shut, sweat rolled down her brow. “Hrrrgh!” she growled, maintaining the focused beam of arcane might. She didn't know from whence the creature came, or who created it. Very well could it be a minion of the Skull Heart. After all, whatever force separated it from Painwheel upon entering Equestria, it could have greatly weakened the devil artifact. Was this the best it could do? Cobble together a servant from ambient flesh, instead of animating their bones entirely? How much mana goes into animating dead matter directly, versus creating a semi-autonomous flesh construct? More, or less? Was the Skull Heart within the creature? Or was it elsewhere, commanding from afar? Had it found a new host? Could it find a host among pony kind? Was it still bound by the seven year “cooldown” it seemed to exhibit in Painwheel's world?
So many questions swam around in Twilight's head, clouding her attention. She shook her head, pumping more mana into the beam, which was driving the zombie back further.
“Urrrr....urrr....URRRRRRYYYYY!” the monster shrieked, flailing under the waves of purple energy. It dug into the ground with its hooves, flexing spoiled muscles. In seconds, behind the wall of magic, stitches at key points around the body tore. But instead of breaking entirely, the new holes released thorns. Dull spikes that the magic stream bounced off, rather than simply flowing around like a babbling brook around a stone.
Twilight noted these thorns, and she finally stopped her attack. She watched in surprise – and more than a little fascination – as the released thorns began sucking in the sparkling remnants of magic around their owner.
No, she thought, not thorns. Horns.
The creature doubled over, stolen flesh twitching and rippling and writhing. It jerked its head violently, then chomped its teeth spasmodically. More magic flowed into it, into its multitude of horns lining its entire body. Finally, the zombie reared up, distended maw opening wide. “UUUUUUUUURRRRRYYYY!!” it bellowed, sparks shooting off its neck bolts wildly.
It was no mere yell that issued from that mouth, however. Twilight Sparkle felt more than heard it, bass and guttural as it was. Her bones shook, her teeth vibrated. A force like a shock wave hit her in the face, stealing her breath. And her heart, hard working partner that it was, skipped a beat, before shuddering to double speed.
“What's going on?” Scootaloo yelled, shivering against the wall.
“I don't-AH!”
Twilight could only brace as the mountain of meat charged forward and whipped its head up under the alicorn's chin. Such a force sent her flying back, where she crashed against the alley wall. “Uh!” she cried.
“Twilight!” the fillies yelled, crowding around their teacher. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked back and forth from Twilight to the aggressor, frightened grimaces plastering their faces.
“Uuuurrryyyyy...”
Twilight Sparkle regained her senses, looking up into an approaching maw. So close was the beast that Twilight could smell its breath: noxious, of rotting meat and heavy chemicals. Like an open abattoir mixed with a poorly tended laboratory. If she hadn't been gripped by absolute terror, Twilight might have puked.
Instead, she shut her eyes and focused her magic. In one instant, the great maw lunged. In the next, a bright flash erupted from the alicorn's horn.
A hungry maw bit empty air, and the zombie looked around drunkenly. The alley was empty of ponies...living ones, at least.
“And that, your highness, brings me to the eighth part of my twelve part plan to revitalize downtown Vanhoover. You see...”
The missive appeared in a burst of emerald flame. Reflexively, the diarch of the day caught it in her golden aura, unfurling it absentmindedly. “I'm sorry,” Celestia said softly but firmly to the petitioner. She took just the slightest bit of pleasure from averting her attention from projects and plans that had no business being brought all the way to her, instead of to Vanhoover City Hall. Unless, as she suspected, Vanhoover rejected this gentlecolt's petition out of hand. “Just give me a moment,” she continued, beginning to read the hastily penned script, “I hate to interrupt but I really must...”
The petitioner, a rather dour earth pony, looked on with bewilderment. Just as he turned to his notes and charts, trying to pin down how to restart, or indeed exactly where he'd left off...
“...I really must be going,” Celestia announced firmly, regal form rising quickly from her throne. Her visage was one of concern, as well as mild yet growing fear.
“B-but your highness!” the petitioner exclaimed, sheets of parchment dropping to the ground from the stack he held to his breast. “What about my...?”
“More urgent matters have come up, sir,” the princess stated, motioning her guards to her side. She stomped past the flustered stallion. “Talk with my secretary and I'll see to it you receive another appointment to...ugh...finish your presentation.”
As she stalked from the throne room and towards the royal chariot, Princess Celestia felt a true fear she hadn't felt in weeks...and before that, more than a thousand years.
A block away from the point of egress, four ponies ported in and collapsed to the ground. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle all sighed in relief, as did Twilight. The neophyte princess rose shakily to her hooves, groaning from the new bruises on her body. She looked around. “You girls hurt? Did we leave anypony behind?”
Apple Bloom took stock of their group, teleported to a random street. At first she prepared to say they were all there, but then checked herself, growing agitated. “Twilight! That stallion! He's not here!”
“Oh, nuggets,” Scootaloo said, uneasily. “She's right. The stallion who protected us – the one that got hurt! We left him behind.”
Twilight looked behind her in the distance, as if looking through the buildings. She frowned. “Oooooh crimeny,” she muttered. Wings stood up, flapping once in anticipation. “I'll have to go back to get him.” She made to step forward into a running leap, then stopped. She turned around, looking at the fillies very seriously. “You three go home. Somewhere safe.” Without pausing, Twilight continued, “I don't want to hear any arguments this time. Just-”
“We know, Twilight,” Sweetie Belle said, frowning. Beside her, the other crusaders considered her words before nodding in agreement.
As one, the cutie mark crusaders turned around and ran, apparently opting to steer towards Rarity's boutique. They each shot backwards glances, then cantered out of sight as fast as their little legs could go.
Twilight sighed in relief, then took to the air. Flying rapidly, she crested the rooftops and hovered over the alley that, only a scant couple minutes ago, sheltered her little students.
Her little students. Twilight wondered if this was how Celestia thought of Twilight, not too long ago.
Looking down, she saw the prone stallion – the incorrageable Goose Down – right where she left him. Regardless of her lasting hard feelings for the pony who tried to lead an angry mob against Painwheel, Twilight felt profoundly guilty about leaving him. In the moments they were gone, the zombie could have finished the stallion off.
Thankfully, the undead in question meandered several meters away, having apparently lost interest and wandered off. Instead, it turned its neck lazily back and forth, it having no evident destination in particular.
Twilight considered this for a moment. What is this creature's motivation? It could be an automaton – a zombie sent out to attack anything it sees. But if it's really the Skull Heart making an impromptu meat suit because it doesn't have the power to field an army or form a proper bond with a Skullgirl, then why not finish off Goose? Then Twilight realized she'd gotten too far ahead of herself: why attack Goose, the girls, or anypony? Not enough information.
If that's the case, Twilight thought, I'll just have to find out directly. The librarian noble dove downward.