Our next passage through the Outside went a bit more smoothly for us, now that we had Pinkie Pie back on our team. There’s no real substitute for experience, and Pinkie spent a lot of time bouncing around the multiverse.
Passing along directions to her as I followed my tracking spell was an interesting experience. “A bit to the left. Alright, now green. Alright, now un-purple-smell, but with a bit of a sound-of-chocolate twist to it.”
Strangest. Navigation. Ever.
After somewhere between two seconds and several decades, we final got to our next destination. Thanks to riding the Pinkie Express, our arrival at whatever new chunk of fictionland we’d landed in was even smoother than when we’d shown up in Nirn or wherever that last place was. Assuming I saved the world from plunging into chaos and didn’t die again in the process, I’d really have to look into where the heck that was. Nicky out-pop culturing me stung, especially with something I generally liked as much as high fantasy. Rainbow’d said that Applejack and Rarity had gone to a sci-fi type of place. It better be one I’d heard of before; if the Denarians managed to beat me in a contest of fantasy and science fiction I’d have to turn in my nerd card.
First thing first, as far as I could tell I was still human, so that was good news. A look over at Lash and the ponies confirmed that none of them had gone through any involuntary shapeshifting either. Well, that was two worries off my mind. Depending on where we were, I might not need to worry too much about having the ponies keep a low profile; there’s plenty of sci-fi where brightly colored talking ponies would fit right in with all the other freaky critters out there.
A quick look over our surroundings didn’t give me much to figure out where we’d landed. The five of us were on top of some sort of platform in the middle of a huge city full of towering skyscrapers and flying cars. A quick look over the side of the platform confirmed that it was floating in midair, and the ground was far enough away that I took a couple steps back just to be safe. After falling from distinctly unhealthy heights twice in the last day or so, it seemed like a good idea to stay away from any potential plummets for a while.
Hopefully that wouldn’t be an issue any more now that I had both pegasi on my side instead of trying to kill me. Then again, I still had Rarity and Twilight to handle, and while I wasn’t sure about Rarity I know Twilight could use her telekinesis to toss me a few hundred feet up into the air.
Everything around us had that rounded clean metallic look that’s common to most of your classic futuristic settings. So, I’d dodged the grim-and-gritty future. That’s a relief; your standard grimdark future usually comes with an extra helping of xenophobia, and the Denarian ponies were going to be trouble enough without the locals deciding to get in on the act and burn the witches on top of everything else. I’ve got troubles enough without having a couple legions of the local power-armored super-soldiers after my ass.
Speaking of magic, my tracking spell seemed to be working, or at least it seemed to be functioning within a certain definition of working. Instead of some sort of spell pointing the direction I needed to go in, I had … almost a sixth-sense type of connections. Like I could tell where they were, just by concentrating on them. No. It was more than that; I didn’t just have a connection to the two ponies I was trying to save, I could feel a connection to Rainbow and the other ponies, to Lash, to … everything. Every single living being on this planet, and beyond. Like there was some sort of mystical energy connecting us all.
Wait a minute. A sci-fi setting featuring magic-users who draw power from a mystical connection to the universe and all living things. No way. It couldn’t possibly be…
My staff had apparently been eaten by the universe transition again, but I could feel the weight of something hanging along the side of my hip. I opened up my duster, and reached over the loop where I normally stored my blasting rod. Instead of my handy little boomstick, I found a very familiar-looking cylindrical tube of metal that was about a foot long, and had a single button on it. Naturally, I pressed the button.
There was a familiar snap-hiss, and a three foot long purple blade of pure energy emerged from the tube, letting out a distinctive humming sound whenever I move it the slightest bit.
A lightsaber. My lightsaber.
“We’re in Star Wars.” It took a second or two after I said the words out loud for it to really sink in. “We’re in Star Wars! Hell yeah!”
It’s things like this that make me love my job. Sure, it got me beat up more often than not, and put me through nine different kinds of hell, but every once in a while I got to do something really, really cool. This was almost enough to make up for the whole demonic mind control thing.
I turned to my companions, grinning and bouncing up and down like a kid on Christmas morning, or Pinkie Pie on happy juice. “I have a lightsaber. How cool is that?” I turned my attention to other magic-user in our group. “Do you have one too Lash? You should, ‘cause you can use magic like me. Come on, let me see it! This is so awesome!”
Lash let out a resigned sigh, and drew her own lightsaber. It was green, and that was awesome. Then again, any type of lightsaber would be awesome, unless it was a really ugly color like … no, actually there’s no color of lightsaber that wouldn’t be awesome, because it’s still a freaking lightsaber.
“Ooo!” Pinkie stared at the shiny humming swords, obviously entranced “Those are neato!” The party pony stuck her hooves behind her back, and produced three lightsabers of her own. After going up against her partillery, I wasn’t even surprised any more that she could pull lightsabers out of thin air. Have to say, it’s a good thing Rainbow managed to snap her out of evil mode, because Pinkie’s ability to casually warp reality was pretty terrifying when she decided to use it for evil instead of her normal goal of maximizing everyone’s super happy fun time.
Pinkie tossed her two spare lightsabers to the other ponies. Rainbow eagerly snagged hers in her mouth, while Fluttershy squeaked and flinched away from the flung lightsaber, allowing it to tumble off the platform and down into the city below. I tried snagging it with the Force, but wound up overdoing it a bit and crushing the weapon instead of saving it. Finesse has never been my strong suit.
Pinkie followed Rainbow’s lead by putting the lightsaber in her mouth, and the two ponies ignited their weapons. Pinkie seemed perfectly pleased by her pink lightsaber, but Dash seemed a bit disappointed when her came out blue. “Why ishn’t it rainbow?” The pegasus objected around the hilt in her mouth. “Rainbowsh are aweshome and I’m aweshome, sho my shword should be aweshome too.”
I could see a slightly bigger issue than the fact that Rainbow Dash wasn’t happy with the color of her lightsaber. Hate to say it, but there’s a reason mouth-based swordfighting never really caught on. I’m not an expert on hitting things with sharp bits of metal myself, but I know quite a few people who are. Arms and wrists are both really handy things, and you can’t really get that much maneuverability or striking power out of a weapon in your mouth. The angles are just all wrong.
Not that I was about to let a minor issue like that get in the way of fielding some lightsaber-wielding ponies. We’d just have to make some adjustments. “Lash, do we have any duct tape handy?”
“I don’t believe so.” A second later, Lash shot a slightly worried look in my direction. “Why?”
“They can’t use swords in their mouths, so we’re gonna tape the lightsabers to their hooves instead.” I answered quite reasonably. “Problem solved.”
For some reason I can’t fathom, Lash was looking at me like I had suggested something really crazy. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she finally responded. “I don’t think that would work Harry. How would they walk?”
“We wouldn’t tape it to the bottom of their hooves obviously. It would be off to the side, so they could still walk and run when need to.”
Lash still didn’t look convinced. “They still wouldn’t have enough leverage or flexibility for proper swordfighting, not to mention that most adhesives wouldn’t stand up to the stress of extended combat. It’s just not practical for ponies to use swords.”
Much as I hated to admit it, Lash was probably right. Unless ponies grew hands, most human tools and weapons wouldn’t be realistic options for them. Well, Pinkie might be able to get away with using a lightsaber on account of her loose relationship with the laws of physics, but otherwise it just wouldn’t work. “Dammit. I hate it when reality gets in the way of doing something really awesome.” Why must physics and anatomy always get in the way of my awesome ideas? I need to figure out what Pinkie Pie’s trick is for ignoring the laws of physics and causality, so I can copy it.
“We don’t need any fancy laser swords to kick ass anyway.” Rainbow Dash announced after spitting out her own lightsaber. The pegasus took off into the air and did a quick loop, then hovered in mid-air and threw several punches into the air with her forehooves. "If there’s any bad guys causing trouble for our friends, I’ll just take ‘em down with my bare hooves!” Rainbow’s confident boasting might have been a bit more effective if she hadn’t flinched a bit after throwing her last punch, and put a hoof to the side Fluttershy had injured in their last fight.
Rainbow would never admit it, but she was obviously still hurting from the last tussle we’d gotten into. Rainbow Dash being herself, she wasn’t likely to tone things down just because she was injured. So, someone else needed to rein her in, and right now I was the unofficial leader of the group. “Look, Rainbow, we can all tell you’re not a hundred percent. You need to sit this one out; be our eyes in the sky and offer support, but don’t get mixed up in the fighting unless you have to.”
“What?” The pegasus flew over and got right in my face, just a couple inches away from getting me with one heck of a headbutt. “I must have misheard you, ‘cause I know you did not just tell to leave my friends hanging!”
I met the pegasus’s belligerence with calm stoicism. “This is how it is, Rainbow.” Rainbow was being plenty aggressive, but after you’ve dealt with demons, Faerie Queens, and pissed off warlocks, it’s kinda hard to be intimidated by a four foot tall pastel-colored pony.
“Who put you in charge anyway?” Rainbow snapped back at me. “My friends need my help, and I’m gonna save ‘em! Got it?”
‘This isn’t up for debate, Rainbow. We need all six Elements of Harmony to deal with Discord. What are we supposed to do if you get taken down, slap your necklace onto Spike and expect the Elements to still work?”
Rainbow scoffed. “Please. I can handle Applejack. And what’s Rarity gonna do, throw evil demon fashion at me? Make me wear ugly clothes?” The pegasus waved a hoof dismissively “You don’t need to worry about me, I got this.”
I was pretty tempted to point out that Fluttershy was probably the least violent pony the world had ever seen, but Demonshy had done plenty of damage to Rainbow a couple hours ago. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to remember that Fluttershy was right there listening to us. Sure, I wanted Rainbow to back down, but it would break Fluttershy’s heart to know that she’d significantly injured one of her friends, even if she was being mind controlled at the time.
While I didn’t say anything, my eyes had drifted over in the yellow pegasus’s direction, and Rainbow managed to put two and two together and guess at what must have been going through my mind. The look she shot at me as pure murder; I met her gaze and gave a subtle shake of my head. As much as Rainbow’s stubborn pride was complicating things, I wasn’t going to destroy Fluttershy’s innocence just to win an argument.
Trying to talk Rainbow Dash down was going to be tricky when I couldn’t bring up the obvious hole in her logic. Then again, logic and reason isn’t really the best approach to take with her anyway. At best, trying to argue with her would probably just get her to say she agreed with me, and then she would just do whatever she wanted once the actual fighting got started.
So instead of trying to talk her down I opted for something a bit more along the line of blunt physical reasoning. Since the pegasus was still flying right in my face, it was easy to reach over and give ]her a firm pat on her injured ribs.
The pegasus immediately let out a pained yelp, and fell to the ground like I’d just tied a two ton stone to her feet. I felt a bit bad about causing her pain, but I needed to get it through her head that she wasn’t in any condition to mix things up. Better to make her side sting a little now than to have her get the crap beaten out of her or maybe even get killed later.
After a few seconds the pegasus picked herself back up, and tried to play it cool despite her obvious disability. “Okay, so I’m a little sore. Not the first time I’ve gotten a little busted up; I can handle it.”
Before I could point out just how much Rainbow was in denial of her physical condition, Pinkie Pie decided it was time for her to have her say. “Dashie, if you’re hurt then I don’t think you should-”
“I’m fine.” The pegasus cut her friend off. “Geez, why’s everyone making such a big deal out of a couple little bumps and bruises?”
“Bumps and bruises?” Fluttershy had spent most the argument looking nervous and uncomfortable, but apparently Rainbow’s last comment had set the normally timid pegasus off. She flew right up to Rainbow and looked her dead in the eye, and from her tone she’d taken her assertive pill a couple minutes ago, and it was starting to kick in now. “You have broken bones Rainbow Dash! You’re hurt! And you are not going to get yourself hurt any more than you already are! Do you understand me?”
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash tried to defend herself. “I can totally–“
Fluttershy cut her off before she even got started, invading Rainbow’s personal space until Rainbow had to choose between backing down or letting Fluttershy slam into her. “I said. Do. You. Understand. Me?”
“Okay, okay.“ The harried blue pegasus finally conceded, unconsciously backing up a couple spaces. “I’ll sit things out, just stop being all freaky-scary on me Fluttershy!”
Fluttershy blinked in surprise, and a moment later her tone and posture were back to their normal gentleness. “Oh, I’m so sorry Rainbow Dash. I didn’t mean to scare you, it’s just that I was really worried you might get hurt, and I must have gotten a teensy bit too assertive. We would all feel just awful if you ever got hurt, especially since I know the reason you want to keep fighting is that you’re worried about me and Pinkie.”
Pinkie took this as her cue to zoom in for a hug, taking appropriate care to avoid Dash’s injured ribs. “Yeah Dashie. No getting hurt!”
“It’s cool.” Rainbow answered, sounding just a tiny bit shaken by her encounter with Fluttershy’s rarely seen aggressive form, not to mention a bit occupied by trying to detach Pinkie Pie from her neck.
“Pinkie Promise!” The pink pony demanded with her head half buried in Rainbow’s mane. “Pinkie Promise me you won’t get hurt!”
Rainbow said the words, and performed the accompanying motions as best she could while Pinkie was latched onto her. That finally seemed to satisfy the earth pony enough to release her friend. Now that Rainbow Dash had finally gained her freedom, the pegasus turned her attention to me. “Hey! If I’m not gonna be right there in the middle of things, then you better keep an eye on my friends! Got it!”
“Got it.” I confirmed.
“I might be sitting things out for now, but if things start going bad and one of my friends is in trouble, I’m jumping in.” Rainbow added. “Got it?”
“Got it.” Considering my general track record, that meant we had a pretty good chance that Rainbow was going to mixing things up at some point anyway, but that’s the best we were likely to get from her. Stars and stones, I’d fought while injured plenty of times because my friends or just some innocent person I hadn’t even met needed my help.
I guess that was something I had in common with the pegasus. We were both fighters, protectors. At first I’d thought she’d wanted to stay in the fight just because of her usual arrogance, but there was more to it than that. Rainbow was worried about her friends, and wanted to be there for them if they needed her help. Having to sit on the sidelines and watch them go into peril, knowing that she had to stay back and not help them … well that had to be hard.
My time as a ghost in Chicago, where I could only do little things to help protect the people I cared about, immediately sprang to mind. I’d gotten perilously close to burning out my soul just doing what I could to help them, If the option of going fleshy and helping them out directly had been there, I would’ve done it in a heartbeat. Hell’s bells, once I’d finally figured out how to do it, I hadn’t even thought twice about jumping right into the fray, even though it had required doing something seriously crazy.
So yeah, I could sympathize with Rainbow Dash.
Now that Rainbow Dash had settled her issue with me, the three ponies went for a group hug that I barely avoided getting dragged into myself. Lash unfortunately had to kill the moment. “Much as I appreciate this lovely little chat everyone’s been having, were we planning to get back to saving the multiverse sometime today?”
“I think we can afford to give the ponies a minute.” Yeah, the bad guys weren’t gonna take a break just because we were having a friendship moment, but thing weren’t quite so desperate yet that we couldn’t spare a few seconds to let them get centered. After all, our entire plan to save the universe kind of depended on using their weaponized friendship.
“We need to keep moving.” Lash answered, though she kept her voice down to not disturb the ponies. “The Denarians might have been complacent before, but now they know that you not only removed Rainbow Dash from their control, but have some means of finding the other ponies they scattered across the multiverse. They’re likely to send reinforcements, or destroy the remaining ponies to deny them to you.”
“Nah, I don’t think they’d kill the ponies, they’re Nicky’s insurance policy against Discord.” I felt my anger at the Denarian, my fury at all the terrible things they had done, suddenly come boiling back up to the surface. “And if they bring reinforcements then good. It’ll give me more of them to kill.”
Lash raised an eyebrow at my rather bloodthirsty comment, but said nothing, and went off to secure transportation.
Lucky for us, Lucas included flying space taxis a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, so getting a ride wasn’t hard. Two humans and three ponies didn’t even get us an odd look from the driver; I guess your average Star Wars cabbie is really jaded with all the freaky aliens running around. Hell’s bells, our cabbie had pointy teeth, red eyes, blue skin, and two big long fleshy tails coming out of his head instead of hair. “Where you headed?”
Since all I had to go on was a vague sense of which direction the ponies we were looking for were in, I couldn’t exactly give him a street address. “We’ll give you directions as we go.”
The cabbie gave very human shrug. “Whatever.” A moment later he grumbled, just loud enough for me to catch. “Why do I always get the crazy ones?” Guess no matter what galaxy you’re in, cabbies never change.
A ten minute flight later, we got to the outside of a building I recognized all too well, though the last time I’d seen it was in better shape. On the bright side, at least now I knew when in the Star Wars timeline we’d shown up; the Jedi Temple being in ruins was kind of a giveaway. I guess even demons aren’t vicious enough to force me to live through the prequels again.
Okay, the prequels weren’t quite that bad, but all things considered, I was just fine running around in the original trilogy era, even if it meant having to deal with a repressive evil empire instead of a well-meaning but bumbling and ineffectual republic.
Aside from some obvious leftover battle damage and some signs of neglect, the Jedi Temple looked exactly like it had back in the last of the prequels. If I remembered my Star Wars right, after the Empire took over they’d pretty much left the temple abandoned and damaged, to serve as a very visible reminder to everyone of what happened when you opposed Palpatine.
Guess I shouldn’t be surprised the Denarian Ponies had set up shop here. The Nickleheads had always had a bit of a fondness for working out of magically sensitive locations, and between playing host to a thousand generations of Jedi and being the site of a huge Jedi massacre, the ruins of the Jedi Temple almost certainly qualified as a Star Wars equivalent to a magical location.
At least the fact that the ponies were squatting in the ruins of the temple indicated they hadn’t hooked up with the Empire to cut some sort of deal. As awesome as it would be to actually fight him, I didn’t exactly like my odds of trying to out-Jedi Darth Vader.
I told our cab driver to let us off here, and after giving us an unreadable look, he complied. “Whatever you say. That’ll be forty credits.”
Oh. Oops, I didn’t exactly have any of the in-universe moolah. That could be a problem. Before I could come up with a way out of the mess, Lash stepped in and waved a hand in front of the man’s face. “We already paid you.”
“You already paid me.” The cabbie repeated back flatly.
For a moment I was a little shocked that Lash had broken out mind magic, until I remembered that Star Wars isn’t like Earth. The Jedi mind tricks didn’t have the potential to cause serious damage to people’s health and sanity the way the normal brand of mind magic did. Granted, messing with someone’s free will was still a very morally grey area at best, but at least she wasn’t doing anything beyond mixing him up a bit. Yeah, cheating him out of a cab fare wasn’t that nice, but we didn’t exactly have a lot of options available.
Lash made another little motion with her hand. “You should go find a new fare, and forget about us.” I wasn’t exactly happy about it messing with a normal working joe’s head when he was just doing his job, but I didn’t object. The cabbie promptly took Lash’s suggestion, and in less than a minute he was already out of sight.
I was about to head into the temple when Rainbow flitted over and waved a hoof in my face. “Rainbow Dash is the most supercoolawesomeazing pony ever.”
“Rainbow Dash needs to stop playing around.” I answered back, completely deadpan. “The bad guys are close, we need to get our game faces on.”
Rainbow looked a bit dejected that she couldn’t pull off a mind trick, and I felt a bit bad about the fact the mild rebuke I’d given her. Before I could think of something to say to cheer her up a bit, Pinkie bounced over and waved a hoof in Rainbow’s face. “Smile!” It took a couple seconds, but the pegasus did give a weak little grin to her friend, which Pinkie returned tenfold. Her job done, Pinkie turned around, but then looked over her shoulder and added. “Don’t forget you promised to stay back and not get hurt Dashie!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Dash answered back with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “You guys can handle Applejack and Rarity fine without me; I ‘ll save my strength for something that’s actually gonna be a challenge.”
Well, at least Rainbow was back to her old self. If she could play her ego games, it was probably a safe bet that she would stick to the plan. Well, she’d stay back unless one of her friends was in serious danger, which given our general track record wasn’t exactly unlikely, but I’d take what I could get. Besides, even injured she was still a pretty decent fighter, so as long as she was careful and didn’t overdo it she could probably get away with bending my no fighting rule a bit.
There was a gentle touch on my arm as Lash drew my attention. “Do you feel them Harry?”
I stretched out my still relatively new Force senses, and a few seconds later I could feel two presences, little beacons of light hidden behind grey clouds and a sickening oily black tar. “Yeah, the ponies are right ahead in the temple.” I spread my awareness out a bit, and felt more presences; they had the same oily blackness that was covering the ponies, but there was no light hidden under the darkness. “Looks like you were right Lash, the Nickleheads brought reinforcements.”
“It was inevitable.” Lash answered calmly. “They knew we would come for the ponies.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and then added. “I don’t think Nicodemus is with them. I’m not sure, but I think if he were here we would know.”
“Yeah, I get the feeling he’d probably stand out from the crowd.” From the feel of things there were a couple of heavy hitters in this group of Nickleheads, but everything I’d seen indicated that Nicky was the top dog in the group by a huge margin.
I opened up my duster to make sure I could get to my lightsaber in a hurry if I needed to. I was probably better off just smacking things around with the Force, it was closer to my usual way of doing things, but an energy sword that could cut through just about anything was bound to come in handy. I’m no swordsman, but hopefully I’ve hung out with enough people who like using swords to pick up a bit through osmosis.
Besides, if I was going to be fighting bad guys in Star Wars, I was using a lightsaber, no matter how impractical it was. It’s a matter of principal.
The five of us made our way into the ruined temple, and I couldn’t help briefly wishing I’d gotten a chance to see the place in its full glory, even if it meant having to put up with Jar-Jar and too much fake-looking CGI. We made it into a huge, wide-open atrium spotted with decorative columns when I felt several of the Denarians moving to flank us. They were about to make their move, I could sense it.
My hand shot down to my lightsaber, and I activated the purple blade as a big shaggy feather-covered creature dropped down from one of the few relatively intact parts of the ceiling. My first instinct was to smack it silly with a Force push, but I found myself drawing and igniting my lightsaber, and carefully watched the enemy’s falling arc.
Right before it was about to land, I took two quick sidesteps to the left, and then made a quarter turn and brought my lightsaber up in a sweeping arc that cleaved straight through the falling Denarian before it even realized what was going on. I spotted a glimmer of metal as its coin went flying away and this time it seemed easy to just snag it with a bit of the Force and drop the coin into one of my duster’s pockets.
I felt an odd urge to jump, and went along with it. I was a little amazed when instead of a normal little hop I went fifteen feet into the air in a backflip that landed me right behind some sort of bipedal lizard-dinosaur thing that had been charging at my back. I like to think the creature had a really stupid-looking expression of surprise on its face right before I chopped it in half.
I could vaguely sense another creature off to the side, so I used the Force to pull one of the Denarians that hadn’t entered the field yet towards me. This one I vaguely recognized; I didn’t have a name for it, but its demon form as an obsidian statue with glowing green eyes was kind of hard to forget. My blade moved through a rapid-fire series of cuts, and the creature fell apart in a shower of black sludge that seemed to be its equivalent of blood.
I sensed one last Denarian making a move at the two ponies, and listened to my instincts. I hurled my lightsaber at some sort of tree-human hybrid. For a moment I was afraid my lightsaber was actually going to miss, but it managed to score a relatively shallow gash along the creature’s side. At first it just looked like a minor injury, but then I spotted something silvery drop out of the wound, and a moment later the creature dropped to the ground and reverted to a normal-looking human. From there a simple force push tossed it out what had once been a window. From what I recall, it was a long way down.
That left one last Denarian, one that looked relatively humanoid aside from having a long prehensile tail it was using to wield its own lightsaber with surprising dexterity. Lash was in the middle of fighting.it, and the two of them seemed to be evenly matched. One Force push later, the Denarian was off-balance, and Lash had an opening that let her finish him easily.
I couldn’t sense any more Denarians in the immediate vicinity, the ponies and a couple more of the other Nickleheads were still nearby, but we’d dealt with the first wave. I looked around the atrium, and to be honest I was a little stunned at just how much damage I’d done; in less than a minute I’d taken down four and a half of the Denarians. Granted, they were almost certainly cannon fodder tardbeasts, but those were still pretty dangerous.
Lash, meanwhile, had apparently only managed to take down the one I’d helped her with. Judging by the look on her face, she was a bit put out about that. “How did you –“ Lash let out an annoyed little grunt. “I have more than a thousand years of swordsmanship experience. Your knowledge of how to use a blade is barely past ‘stick the pointy end in the other guy.’”
For a second, I didn’t really have a good answer for her. Just how in the hell had I pulled that off? I mean, I know a decent amount about hand-to-hand combat and I’m pretty good shape, but I’m still not the kind of guy can wade right into a melee and carve up demons like I’m not even trying.
I felt that odd little bit of instinct tingling in the back of my mind once again, just like it had been doing during the entire fight, and a second later I figured out what had happened. I could practically hear Obi-Wan on the Millenium Falcon, telling Luke to stretch out his feelings and let the Force guide his actions. I hadn’t been thinking and planning; I’d just been running on pure instinct, which let the Force guide my actions.
Now that I had an answer for her question of how I’d managed to out-swordsman her despite all her experience, I narrowed my eyes in muppety wisdom, and broke out the Yoda voice. ‘That is why you fail.” When Lash didn’t seem to have been enlightened by my advice, I added. “You must unlearn what you have learned.” From the look on her face, Lash still wasn’t quite getting it.
I would’ve stopped for an in-depth explanation, but we had ponies to save. I could feel Applejack, Rarity, and the rest of the baddies coming towards us. Lash spoke up once more. “The Force doesn’t work like our magic, we can’t use thaumaturgy to bind them. How will we subdue the ponies long enough to free them from the coins and Discord?”
“We do what we usually end up doing; we improvise.” Don’t get me wrong, I love it when a plan comes together, but I have to admit that more often than not we usually end up doing a lot of improvising by the time everything’s said and done.
The four remaining Denarians entered the room. Applejack had already gone into demon-mode. Judging by the fact that she now out-bulked her big brother, I was willing to hazard a guess that she’d wound up with Magog’s coin. That could be a problem; the farmpony was already very strong physically, and Magog was a real force-multiplier when it came to brute strength.
Rarity, at least for the moment, looked like her normal self. Her eyes immediately fixed on the lightsaber dropped by the Denarian Lash had faced off with, and the possessed unicorn shouted “Mine!” and snatched the weapon up telekinetically. Moment later the crimson blade was humming faithfully at Rarity’s side; apparently she could wield the weapon just using here telekinesis, even though all the other ponies couldn’t. Unicorns are hax. On a completely unrelated note, I need to stop picking up slang from the Alphas.
That just left the two Denarians riding shotgun with the ponies. One of them looked like the classic image of a demon girl; red skin, goat legs ending in hooves, bat wings, horns, a barbed tail and, I knew from my last run-in with her, a fondness for slinging Hellfire around.
The last of them was a girl who looked to be in her mid-teens, old enough to catch you eye, but young enough to make you feel uncomfortable about noticing. I knew she’d been quite attractive once, but now half her face was covered in burn scars, and huge chunk of her silver-grey hair was missing. The scars were new, but I wasn’t surprised; the last time I’d seen Polonius Lartessa, I’d been in the process of ramming a bunch of white-hot Soulfire into her face. Smacking a demon with a bunch of holy fire is the kind of thing leaves a mark.
“Harry Blackstone Dresden.” I felt a slight shudder down my spine when she said my name; the parts of it she’d said, she’d gotten exactly right. Back when I’d been a little younger and stupider, I’d traded three quarters of my Name to a demonic information broker. At the time, I didn’t have nearly so many pissed off demons after my ass as I do now, but in hindsight it wasn’t the best of ideas. Looks like Chaunzaggoroth (Chauncy to his friends) had sold me out. Good thing I’d never been stupid enough to sell him my entire Name.
“Tessa.” I deliberately let my gaze linger on her scars. “Love your new look.”
Her face twisted in rage at my barb, and for a minute I thought we might just skip all the obligatory pre-battle banter and get right down to business. Tessa was all kinds of dangerous; she was second only to Nicodemus in whatever hierarchy the Denarians had worked out amongst themselves. Hell’s bells, the two of them had even been married at some point, and stuck together long enough for them to make Deirdre before one of them had gotten around to the sudden but inevitable betrayal.
The good news was, Tessa wasn’t quite as dangerous as Nicky. Don’t get me wrong, she was serious bad news, but she was dangerous because she was a complete psychopath. Nicodemus always tried to play the reasonable man, right up until he stuck a knife in your back; Tessa would just stab you right in the face, then eat your eyes and take a bath in your blood. That’s not to say she couldn’t be sneaky and subtle from time to time, but at heart she had a nasty sadistic streak that ran completely counter to Nicodemus’s ice-cold pragmatism.
“So Tessa, you here for payback ‘cause I messed up your face? “ I waved a hand in Applegog’s direction. “Or were you just getting your big dumb muscle back?” Magog had been with Tessa’s group of Denarians last time I’d seen them. Obviously, Nicky had claimed his loyalty when he broke Magog out of the slammer, but it figured Tessa might want him back at some point.
“Oh, I think this is a case of mixing business with pleasure.” Tessa answered, sounding disturbingly cheerful about the prospect of imminent violence. “I do so adore doing that.” The demon smiled at me, revealing a set of pitch-black teeth; obviously signing on with the legions of hell didn’t come with a dental plan. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to surrender and let me torture you to death slowly over the course of several years?”
I ignited my lightsaber, and saw Lash do the same. “Sorry Tessa, I’ve got plans for the weekend.”
“Pity.” She brought her hands, and lightning erupted from her fingertips. Given her fondness for electricity last time we’d tangled, I wasn’t surprised she’d figured out that particular trick. Fortunately, the Force gave me enough forewarning to see the attack coming and bring my lightsaber up into a block.
Tessa’s mouth curled into an annoyed snarl when I blocked her electrical barrage. “Rosanna, Applejack, Rarity, be dears and kill Harry’s little friends for me, would you?” After a moment’s thought she added. “Try to make it painful.”
Crap. Nicky wanted to keep the ponies alive for insurance against Discord, but Tessa wasn’t running from his playbook. Considering her chronic backstabbing disorder, he probably hadn’t clued her in on the details of his plan. Or maybe he had, and Tessa just didn’t care; Nicky was always the lawful evil to her chaotic evil.
Lash should be able to hold her own against Rosanna, but I didn’t like Fluttershy and Pinkie’s odds against Raridemon and Deviljack. I needed a fast win against Tessa, and considering the collection of nasty tricks she had up her sleeve, that wasn’t too likely.
Tessa activated her own lightsaber (red, of course, since she was evil) and charged at me. She started off with a pair of high one-handed blows, and when I brought my weapon up to block them she fired off a blast of force lightning right at my gut with her free hand. Even with the Force forewarning me of her attack and whispering how to dodge it into my ear, I barely managed to avoid getting shocked. Having that what’s going to happen in the next five seconds and how to survive it precognition was all kinds of handy, but I can only dodge and block so fast.
Tessa’s mouth opened up impossibly wide, and she vomited out dozens of horrible little demonic praying mantises. As more and more of the bugs emerged, her human body wasted away, until there was nothing left but the bugs, until they all melted and merged together into a single demon-mantis girl covered in red and black chitin. The process was every bit as disgusting as it sounds.
The lightsaber had disappeared somewhere in the transformation process, but Tessa’s demon form came with a pair of big nasty talons that were perfectly suited to rending flesh apart. What they weren’t so great at was parrying lightsabers. A single swipe of my blade literally disarmed her.
It took me half a second to go from my congratulatory little thrill of triumph at taking off two of her limbs to realizing that it had been way, way too easy. Coincidently, that’s exactly how much time it took for her two severed talons to discorporate into dozens of tiny little demon mantises and land right at my feet.
The last thing I needed was a bunch of those little critters crawling up legs and making with the slicing; their talons might only be an inch long, but an inch-deep slice is still gonna hurt, plus they’d probably do something nasty like go for my major arteries and veins.. Pretty sure little demon insects carry all kinds of nasty diseases too.
I pulled a quick backflip (Have I mentioned how much I love all the Force-powered acrobatics I could pull off now?) to buy space, and force shoved the tiny of demonic bugs away. The downside was, stopping Tessa’s little ankle-biting minions took my attention away from her for a split-second. That’s the kind of opening bad guys tend to take advantage of.
Tessa’s demon-mantis form barfed her out into human form, and gave her enough momentum to land her in a perfect flanking position. I turned and blocked as fast as I could, but I still felt a line of searing hot pain running perpendicular to my ribs. Judging by the fact that I wasn’t dead or dying, I’d at least managed to keep her doing too much damage.
Tessa had me off balance now, and she didn’t hesitate to make the most of her advantage. Over the next few seconds I lost a chunk of hair to a blow that nearly took the top of my head off, barely managed to jump over an attack that would have taken off both of my legs, and my entire body was set to tingling when I didn’t manage to completely block another blast of lightning from demon-girl.
After s lot of blocking, dodging, and desperate backpedaling, I’d finally managed to get to a point where I had my balance right and feet under me. Tessa took a few steps back from me, and gave me a mocking salute with her lightsaber before returning it to a ready position. I wasn’t about to let her keep that moment of triumph. “Has anyone ever told you that the barfing yourself out thing you do whenever you shapeshift is really, really gross?”
“You know Dresden,” Tessa began conversationally. “You killed my daughter. I really should extract some horrific style of vengeance upon you for that.”
“Hey, look on the bright side.” I shot back. “Now that Nicky can’t get any action from Daddy’s Little Girl, maybe he’ll come crawling back to you.” Ah, the Order of the Blackened Denarius; sure, it’s a cult of nasty demons intent on unleashing the apocalypse but it’s also an incredibly screwed up family, complete with incest.
“Perhaps.” Tessa answered with a shrug. “Deirdre always did favor her father more than I would like, and he’ll need a new wielder for her coin. Nicodemus always was a bit too sentimental.” The demon host gave a vicious grin. “Don’t think you’ve actually done me some sort of harm by killing her, she’s far from my only offspring. For a time, I experimented with using my children as wielders for all the Denarii under my control. I found that it wasn’t worth the trouble though; too many of them labored under the delusion that just because they were of my blood, I would tolerate their inadequacies.”
Well, as long as we were at the exchanging witty banter phase of the battle, I could spare a moment to check up on everyone else. So far Lash was holding her own against Tessa’s number two. Lash seemed to have an advantage in pure swordsmanship, but Rosanna was using her wings and to pull a few crazy tricks to keep things even.
Fluttershy was up against Raridemon. I wasn’t at all surprised to see that Fluttershy was going for the ‘I know you’re in there somewhere’ approach instead of actually trying to physically fight her friend; to be honest I would’ve been shocked if she’d tried anything else. She had her forelegs around Rarity’s neck, and was saying something to her that I couldn’t make out.
For a second I thought Fluttershy was getting through to her and might have already won her battle, but then Rarity’s horn glowed and Fluttershy went flying away as Fiendity zapped her with Force lightning (looks like Rarity got Ramiel’s coin). For a second Fluttershy was down on the ground whimpering in pain, but soon she was back on her hooves, and then she went right back in to try and free her friend from Ramiel and Discord’s control.
That just left Applegog and Pinkie Pie. Magog’s coins was obviously having an influence, because Demonjack was going with his standard combat tactic of shouting, charging straight at her opponent, and the repeating the first two steps as necessary. The Nickleheads don’t keep Magog around for his brains.
Pinkie was just dodging away merrily, giggling as if this was all just a game to her. Applegog charged right at her, only for Pinkie to bounce aside at the last minute, so the demon pony slammed head-first into a thick stone pillar. The pillar lost, and Demonjack let out an enraged snarl and crushed several bits of rubble under her hooves in frustration.
That’s when Pinkie whipped out a party bazooka. Applegog took one look at the weapon, and decided it was time to try something other than charging straight in like an idiot. “Wait a minute Pinkie! It’s me, Applejack.” The demon pony reverted to her normal form. “That Magog fella had me under his hooves, but I just now got free. It’s really me, I Pinkie Promise!”
Oh wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more obvious lie in my life. Applejack had always been a terrible liar, and it looks like not even a Discord mind-whammy and having a demon sharing her headspace could change that. Probably didn’t help that they gave the coin of a demon who thought that subtlety was something you ate, but still, you’d have to be a complete fool to fall for such a blatantly obvious lie.
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie chirped, immediately putting away the bazooka and turning her back on Demonjack.
Oh come on! “No Pinkie, it’s a –“ Applegog reverted to demon form, and hit her with full-strength apple-buck, sending the party pony flying. “Trap.” I finished lamely.
I tried to move over to help the downed pony, but Tessa immediately moved around to cut me off. “It’s very rude to ignore your current opponent, not to mention interrupting someone else’s battle. Besides, I want to see how this plays out.”
Pinkie had survive AJ’s sneak attack, but she didn’t seem to be up for much more than lying woozily on the ground and groaning about how Applejack had Pinkie Promised. Applegog casually trotted over, and lifted a single hoof over Pinkie’s head. I was desperately trying to maneuver my way past Tessa, but she wasn’t giving me any openings. She wasn’t attacking, just keeping me from getting there in time to save Pinkie. It was some kind of sick game for her, forcing me to watch helplessly as one of the ponies died.
Right before Demonjack struck her finishing blow, a rainbow-colored blur shot across the room and slammed into the demon pony, knocking it aside. Rainbow Dash landed, placing herself protectively between Applegog and her downed friend “Get the hell away from Pinkie Pie!”
The possessed pony got back up with deliberate slowness, fixing Rainbow with a death glatre the entire time. “I was wondering when you were gonna show up, Rainbow Crash.”
Rainbow flared her wings aggressively. “AJ, you’re my friend and all, but I’ll kick your flank from here all the way back to Equestria if that’s what it takes to snap you outta it!”
I would’ve kept watching the confrontation, I was pretty worried about how Rainbow would hold up against Demonjack, especially while she was injured, and had to ground herself to protect Pinkie, but apparently this was the moment when Tessa decided that I was distracted enough for her to blindside me with some Force lightning. Unfortunately, she was right.
A few seconds and a flight halfway across the atrium later, I crawled back to my feet, most of the muscles in my body still twitching spasmodically from the hit I’d taken. No sooner had I gotten back on my feet than Tessa was right on top of me again, hacking away at me with her lightsaber and mixing up her attacks with the occasional blast of lightning.
There was nothing I could do except let the Force guide me, directing my blocks, dodges, and an occasional riposte to disrupt her offensive momentum. Slowly but surely, I managed to turn the tide around. After thirty seconds I was on an even footing with her again, and a minute into the second phase of our duel I was starting to gain a slight advantage.
I felt a brief thrill of hope when the truth struck me. Lash wasn’t the only one who had a couple thousand years of swordweilding experience. Tessa had fallen into the exact same trap. They were both trying to treat this like just another swordfight, but the thing is, lightsaber’s aren’t swords. There’s a pretty big difference between fighting with a big sharp hunk of metal that weighs several pounds and a blade of pure energy that didn’t have any weight at all except for its hilt. Plus, I’m pretty sure both of them were falling back on their old swordfighting instincts instead of fighting like Jedi and opening themselves up to the Force. That’s the downside of living so long; you get set in your ways.
Even with that weakness Tessa was good, really good, but she’d done the metaphorical equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight. A few seconds later I saw my opening, and took her head clean off with a backhand swing.
I had just enough time to feel good about myself before I noticed her severed head break apart into more of the little mantises, which promptly flew back over to her neck and reformed into her head, now reattached.
I just stared at Tessa in dumbfounded shock for a second. “That is incredibly unfair. I mean come on! Decapitation kills everything!”
“Actually, roaches can live for several weeks after you cut their heads off.” Tessa answered conversationally.
“Comparing yourself to a roach. That fits.” A flicker of annoyance passed over Tessa’s face at that remark. “Hey, don’t blame me, you set yourself up for that one.”
“Nicodemus was right, you can be incredibly aggravating sometimes.”
“It’s part of my charm.” I gave my lightsaber a twirl. “Ready to get back to losing? I’m sure if we keep at it long enough I’ll find something to cut off that won’t grow back.”
“Perhaps.” Tessa retorted, “But long before you manage that all your friends will be dead.” That got a bit of a flinch out of me, partly because I was afraid she might be right. “Don’t worry though Dresden, I won’t kill you right away. That would be boring, and after all the effort I’ve put into getting rid of you, terribly anti-climactic.”
“How much did Chauncy charge you for three-quarters of my Name anyway?”
“More than I would have liked, but well within what I was willing to pay.” Tessa answered calmly. “But really, names are so boring, especially when there are much more interesting things to be learned.” Tessa tapped a finger thoughtfully on her chin. “One piece of information I came across was particularly fascinating. It cost me a great deal, allowing Uriel’s intervention to rescue your pet Nephilim and free you from Nicodemus, in point of fact, but sometimes breaking the rules is worth it. Especially when Heaven decides to balance things out by foiling one of Nicodemus’s plans instead of mine.”
I had a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was only one secret I had that could possibly be worth Tessa messing with the cosmic balance just to learn it.
Tessa gave a nasty, black-toothed smile. “You killed my daughter, after all. Really, it’s only fitting that I kill yours in response. Don’t worry, you’ll be right there with her at the end; I’ll make sure you have a front-row seat for the entire process.”
I have a lot of experience with anger. You dedicate your entire life fighting against the nastiest monsters you can find, and spend the rest of it fighting against an entire world that usually either doesn’t give a damn or is actively trying to get in your way, and anger’s gonna be a very familiar state of mind for you.
So, when I say that I snapped and went absolutely fucking insane with anger, I know what I’m talking about. It wasn’t that, red-hot anger that just comes from a normal of pissed offedness, it was that ice-cold fury where your entire mind is focused on hurting something. “Get ready to reap the whirlwind, bitch.”
There was no finesse to my attack, no subtle maneuvers parries, thrusts, or ripostes. I just took my lightsaber in both hands and started wailing away at Tessa as hard as I could. Instead of trying to get around her defenses to find an opening, I just smashed straight through them with brute force.
First I took her right arm, the one that had her lightsaber. Then her left. Then both her legs. Then her head again, just for good measure.
Tessa was regenerating almost as fast as I could cut her up, but that just made me call over her fallen lightsaber with the Force, and then the slicing and dicing was doubled. Finally, I saw a tiny flicker of tarnished silver, and with a flick of Tessa’s blood-red lightsaber, I removed it from her.
The coin had been down in her guts, so for the moment the ruined sack of meat that had once been Polonius Lartessa was still capable of speech. ‘Wait! Spare me Dresden! We can make a –“
“Fuck you.” I took her head off again. This time, it didn’t grow back.
I felt a moment of intense satisfaction as I looked down at Tessa’s corpse, but then I remembered, there were still other Nickleheads to be dealt with. I dropped Tessa’s lightsaber, and turned around to find the next Denarian I would kill.
That’s when I saw Rainbow Dash. Both her wings were bent back at horrible, unnatural angles, one of her forelegs was tucked up protectively under her body, and there was so much blood pouring down her face that one on her eyes had practically been sealed shut by it, along with enough blood elsewhere that you could barely tell her coat was blue underneath it.
She looked like she ought to be dead already, but despite her horrific injuries, somehow she was still standing, still protecting Pinkie Pie. Magog struck her again with playful sadism, smashing her in the snout and prompting more blood to come pouring out as the demon knocked the pegasus to the floor, but once more Rainbow Dash forced herself to her hooves. Magog wasn’t getting to Pinkie, unless it was over Rainbow’s dead body. That looked pretty close to happening.
I saw the scene, and it filled me with rage.
These ponies were my responsibility. They had been cute, innocent little cartoon critters, until the Denarians came in and ruined everything. They had forced these ponies to learn about pain, suffering, and loss, and now they trying to kill them. No more.
I turned my anger into a weapon, and lashed out at Magog with it. Lightning erupted from my finger tips and smashed the demon away from Rainbow Dash. It tried to get back up, but I hit it again, and then once more, until it stayed down. It wasn’t good enough though, not nearly. The demon was still alive.
I stalked over and prepared to deliver the finishing blow, but before I could end Magog’s miserable life a blue lightsaber crashed into mine, intercepting the deathblow.
“Harry! What are you doing?”
“Ending this.” I snarled. “Get out of my way, Lash, or I’ll make you move.”
For a moment Lash just stared at me, and then she very slowly, very calmly said. “Harry, look at your lightsaber.”
I humored her for the moment, and did so. It was my lightsaber, big deal. “Yeah, what about it?”
“What color is it?”
“Purple.” I answered automatically.
Lash raised a single eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
I looked at it again, blinked, and really focused on it. A second later, it hit me. My lightsaber wasn’t purple, it was red. I hadn’t dropped Tessa’s lightsaber at all, I’d dropped my own, and kept hers.
After that, everything fell into place.
Lash and I had a talk about anger once. How it’s not necessarily good or evil, it’s just an emotion, and what you do with it is what really matters. And in the real world, that’s true. I’ve got a lot of anger, but it doesn’t make me a bad person. Stars and stones, the whole reason I’d spent my life fighting the things that went bump in the night was that after seeing all the bad things they did to ordinary innocent people, I decided that I was mad as hell, and I wasn’t gonna take this anymore.
Problem is, I wasn’t in the real world any more. I was in Star Wars, and in Star Wars anger was the express train the Dark Side.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and forced myself to let go of that anger.
It was hard to do, really hard. I could feel Rainbow Dash’s pain through the Force, and part of me wanted nothing more than destroy the thing that was responsible for her pain. To destroy the things that had hurt these ponies, and so many other people before them.
I took a deep breath, and forced myself to let go of that anger.
I’d been using anger as a shield this entire time, hiding all my pain, sorrow, and guilt behind a wall made of fury and determination. It was true that I couldn’t afford to get dragged by emotional baggage while lives were at stake, but anger’s emotional baggage too.
I took a deep breath, and forced myself to let go of that anger
And finally, I looked at myself, at all the anger I had there. I still hadn’t really forgiven myself for falling prey to Nicodemus and Discord’s trap, or for every other time people had gotten hurt on my watch. Sometimes I hadn’t known enough about what was going on, or I’d made the best decision I could with the information I had, and sometimes I’d just plain messed up. At the end of the day, guilt is just another form of anger, except this anger is directed inwards, at yourself. I’d been carrying a lot of that anger for most of my life.
I took a deep breath, and forced myself to let go of that anger, at least for a while.
I opened my eyes, and I felt … calm. I knew it was just a temporary thing; I’ve spent my whole life being pissed off at the bad guys, and a lifetime of anger isn’t going away after a minute of meditation, but I’d bought myself peace for the moment. For now, that was good enough.
I deactivated Tessa’s lightsaber, and tossed it aside. “I’m alright.” With a tug of Force energy, I floated my own blade back into my hand, and then turned back to Lash, who was still regarding me a bit warily. “What happened to Rosanna?”
“She ran for it after you killed Tessa.”
“That could be a problem.” Rosanna wasn’t the nastiest Denarian out there, but she was bad enough news that I didn’t like the idea of her running free.
“Don’t worry, she didn’t get far.” Lash produced a bloodied blackened Denarius with a very slight smirk. “I cut it out of her right as she jumped out a window and tried to fly away. It’s a long way down.“ She produced another coin. “I also took care of Applejack while you were finding peace. Looks like she’ll be out of it for a bit, but she should be okay.”
“What about Rarity and Fluttershy?”
Before Lash could answer, I heard the crackling sound of Force lightning and another cry of pain from Fluttershy. I immediately bolted towards the sound, Lash half a step behind me. “Why didn’t you help her?” I shouted back behind me.
Lash hesitated for a moment before answering. “I didn’t want to leave you alone with Applejack.”
Oh. Ouch. I guess I can’t really blame her for that.
We got to what looked like it had once been some kind classroom back when the temple had been in one piece just in time to see Fluttershy picking herself up off the ground from Raridemon’s latest attack. Fluttershy wasn’t in as bad of shape as Rainbow, but she had still gotten pretty thoroughly battered.
Lash and I immediately stepped forward to take over for her, but Fluttershy put up a hoof to ward us off. “Wait. I … I can do it.”
I shot an inquiring glance Lash’s way, but she gave a slight shake of her head. Personally, I was inclined to say that wounding Fluttershy’s pride was better than letting her be wounded in body, but after my little run-in with the Dark Side I wasn’t that sure about my ability to make judgment calls right now. If Lash said to wait and let Fluttershy do things her way, I would follow Lash’s lead.
“Really Fluttershy.“ Fiendity spoke up, a very nasty, biting voice in place of Rarity’s normal cultured and slightly snobby accent. “You should take their help. Surely you must have realized by now that you can’t make me switch sides with a few honeyed words about friendship. You’re going to get yourself killed pointlessly at this rate. Just give up.”
“No.” Fluttershy answered calmly. “I won’t give up. You’re my friend, and I’m going to save you.” Fluttershy stepped forward and wrapped her forelegs around Raridemon in a hug once more. “I know you can hear me Rarity. It’s me, Fluttershy. Your friend.”
Fiendity responded by blasting Fluttershy away with lightning once more. If not for the restraining grasp Lash placed on my arm I would’ve jumped in right then and there. As it was, I was pretty tempted to just shrug her off and jump into the fray anyway, but like I said, bad decisions in very recent memory.
“You foolish, stupid, naïve little pegasus.” The possessed unicorn began scornfully. “When will you get it through your empty little head that your friend is gone? This is my body now. Mine! Your words are meaningless. There’s nobody there to hear them.”
Fluttershy shakily returned to her hooves once more, and very hesitantly said. “Maybe – maybe you’re right. Maybe my friend really is gone.” Raridemon gave a satisfied not at that statement. A moment later, Fluttershy made one final addendum. “Um – is it okay if I ask you a question?”
“Sure, why not?” Fiendity gave a lazy wave of her hoof. “Ask away.”
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Fluttershy asked in the sort of casual tone you’d normally expect from someone asking if you knew what time it was.
The question completely gobsmacked the possessed unicorn. “I – what?”
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Fluttershy helpfully repeated. “It wouldn’t have been hard. I’m not very strong or tough. You could’ve taken that laser sword you have and cut my head off with a single stroke. Or you could’ve just kept shocking me with your lightning, I wouldn’t have been able to stop you.” The yellow pegasus fixed the demon with a steady, determined gaze. “If my friend isn’t in there, if there’s really just a big nasty demon controlling her, then can’t that big nasty demon kill me?”
Raridemon just stared at Fluttershy, a look of slack-jawed incomprehension on its face. The unicorn made several halting attempt to speak, but no coherent words emerged. Finally, the unicorn began shaking much like Pinkie Pie had, until there was a blinding flash of light, accompanied by the sound of a single coin falling to the floor.
“Oh, Fluttershy darling, I’m so dreadfully sorry.” It was huge relief to hear Rarity speaking in her old voice again as the unicorn immediately rushed over to her friend. “It’s just, well until you asked that question I couldn’t … I wasn’t able to…”
“Oh, it’s alright Rarity.” Fluttershy responded soothingly. “I’m sorry it took me so long to rescue you.” The pegasus wobbled shakily on her hooves. “Um, I’m sorry everypony, but I’m feeling really tired right now.” With that the pegasus collapsed onto the floor.
“Fluttershy!” Rarity immediately began fretting herself into a frenzy over her friend, while I stepped forward and quickly checked on the downed pegasus. Spending a couple years on Ebenezar McCoy’s farm had its benefits; granted, I was a long, long way from an expert on equine medicine and anatomy, and cartoon ponies weren’t real-world horses, but you gotta take what you can get.
A quick once-over confirmed my suspicions. “She’s not too badly hurt, just exhausted.” Strictly speaking, there were a ton of issues that might have cropped up from being repeated shocked by Raridemon’s lightning powers, but most of those were the kind of thing I wouldn’t really be able to detect. Or treat, for that matter.
Fluttershy wasn’t our only wounded warrior though. “Lash, can you get Fluttershy? We should put her in the atrium with everyone else.” Lash had just finished securing Ramiel’s coin, so she walked over to the fallen pegasus, bent down, and was about to try to pick Fluttershy up in her arms until she thought better of it and just gently lifted her with the Force instead. Sure, size matters not and all that, but compared to an X-wing, a sleeping pony is nothing.
As we walked to the atrium, I turned my attention to the fashion pony. “Hey, Rarity. You’re good at sewing, right?” I would’ve preferred Fluttershy for a medic, but any port in a storm.
“Yes, of course. I am a dressmaker after all.” Rarity regarded me with obvious confusion on her face. “Why do you ask?”
Rarity’s question answered itself as we entered the atrium, and Rarity got a good look at her wounded friends, especially Rainbow Dash. Comprehension slowly dawned on the unicorn’s face. “Oh. Oh dear…”