//------------------------------//
// Mother, Son, and the Paladin 
// Story: Split Second 
// by wille179 
//------------------------------//

	"May I have your attention, everypony," a uniformed stallion standing on a bench in the Fillydelphia train station bellowed, gathering the attention of the crowd and the queue for the ticketing window. Sparkle and Thorn had been waiting for several minutes in that line, standing somewhere near the halfway mark. "Due to the storm system that passed north of the city last night, a flash flood washed out  both northbound rail lines." Groans immediately sounded throughout the crowd. 
The rail employee continued, "Unfortunately, it will take a specialized repair crew a significant amount of time to repair the damage, so the Manehattan line will be discontinuing service for an indeterminate period. Equestrian Rail apologises for this disruption, and is committed to getting you to your destination safely and swiftly in any way we can. However, there are a few options for those who need to get home. You can take the train to Canterlot, and the get a train the next day to Manehatten, Fly Fillydelphia is offering discounted pegasus chariots for stranded passengers, and the road remains open for those who wish to undertake the week-long walk to Manehatten."
Thorn nudged his mother. "Fly?"
"Yes, definitely," she replied. As the two ducked out, they missed seeing the stallion posting the latest weather schedule on the board.
North of Fillydelphia - Thunderstorms next two days.





Sparkle was a very bright mare, and Thorn was an equally bright drake. They were quite skilled in the art of necromancy, and the unicorn of the duo could recite historical facts like few others. Sparkle could calculate large sums in her head, and Thorn could maintain a rhythm in his head accurate to a hundredth of a second. What neither of them were were meteorologists or flight capable navigators.
As the mother flew on the son’s back northward, they neglected to account for several things. Firstly, as dragons tend to be high-altitude gliders, they often get shunted around by the prevailing winds. Being as close to the coast as they were, the easterly winds generated by the Griffin empire overpowered the weaker pegasus winds from Cloudsdale. Thorn, being so young and having had no formal flight training, was unaware that he had to correct for such eastward drift.
Second, if you were to just observe the motion of the sun, you’d assume that the planet rotates with its surface moving east; that is wrong. The planet rotates west, and quite rapidly, with the sun, in defiance of non-magical physics, orbiting the planet fast enough to counteract and reverse that apparent motion. For the ground-bound pony, it was just trivia that had little bearings on their day-to-day life. For any flyer in the northern hemisphere going fast enough over a long enough distance, it meant that they would drift to the left, forming a counter-clockwise arc. And again, Thorn did not have the knowledge to counteract this.
And thirdly, any talent of navigating that Thorn might have had was purely for flying between points that he had been to before, or for following the magical link to his mother. As the dracolich had never before flown between Fillydelphia and Manehatten, and with his mother on his back, it was safe to say that Thorn was lost, and steadily drifting further off course - and closer to danger - with every second that passed.





Swirling Line, a purple pegasus with a snowflake on her flank, pushed the last of the clouds into place. While normally she worked in the snowflake production, Cloudsdale had been understaffed and, with her quota of snowflakes stored away for the coming winter, she had volunteered for this storm-driving expedition.
What she, a water and snow specialist, didn’t know, was that these clouds had been overcharged with wind magic. When activated, these clouds would normally drive the storm forwards, but at this strength, it would empower the system, making it far stronger than it should have been
“Everything’s in place,” her overseer called. “Light ‘em up.” Swirling Line spun around, made her changeling magic pulse like pegasus magic, and gave the cloud one swift buck. 
Wind blowing on its own now, the hiveless changeling-cum-weather-pegasus nodded and flew off towards her home, thoughts on her children rather than the dragon she had spotted flying in the distance.





If Thorn had a pulse, he would have sworn it had skipped a beat the moment his wingtip touched the frighteningly strong downdraft. As it was, it felt as if the air had simply vanished from under his wings, causing him to suddenly and quite unexpectedly drop hundreds of feet in the space of a few seconds. He flicked his tail and twisted his wings, causing him to veer sharply out of the microburst.
Without the sound of rushing air deafening him, he could hear Sparkle screaming loudly from her perch on his back. Quickly, he leveled out and then shot upwards, exchanging his excessive speed for the safety of altitude.
The moment he felt himself become stable enough to spare a thought to something other than not crashing into the ground, he reached up and plucked his mother from his back and held her in his claws under his stomach. “Mom!” he roared over the wind. “Open the link!”
Sparkle, immediately thankful for something to fixate on other than the fact that she and Thorn had almost pancaked on the ground, pushed magic from her mind, through the link between their souls, and into the mind of the Dragon above her.
As soon as he felt her mind touch his, Thorn mentally yelled, ‘Mom, this wind is too strong. I can’t fly in it and keep you safe at the same time!’
‘Right,’ Sparkle acknowledged. Looking down, Sparkle saw nothing but dense forest below them, with not even a trail wide enough for the drake to land in. Worriedly, she cast her gaze out further and, much to her relief, saw a large clearing in the distance. Noticing a few specks of light coming from her target, she said, ‘There, Thorn! There are lights over there!’
Thorn looked in the direction Sparkle had indicated, and then quickly compensated for a sudden updraft. ‘Right. Hold on tight, this is going to be rough.’ With an aggressive, determined, fire-laced roar, Thorn dove towards the tiny village in the forest.
With the swirling air fighting them every second of the trip, what should have been a few minutes of low-speed flying turned into an agonizing eternity. Eventually, but not soon enough for either of their tastes, Thorn and Sparkle found a road wide enough for the drake to land on without his wings catching on the branches.
Clutching Sparkle close to his chest in one claw, the dragon swiftly landed with three tremendous splash-thuds on the solid but rapidly muddying road. Upon being released from his grip, Sparkle moved out from under him so he could shrink down to his teenaged sized.
“This way, Thorn,” Sparkle said, gesturing down the road. Thorn nodded, and together, they started trudging through the rain.





The town they came upon announced itself by sign as Hollow Shades. And while it would have been a sleepy little hamlet on the best of days, the current weather conditions had driven most ponies indoors - the exception being a white pony following a smaller, cream-colored pony that was running across the town’s sole road, and a gray pony in a suit a good distance away.
Sheltered from the wind as the forest hamlet was, the torrential rain still chilled Sparkle to the bone. Thorn, now perched on her back and hot as a furnace, did help somewhat, but Sparkle knew she should get out of the rain soon before the cool October air gave her a chill.
Without any other thought beyond convenience, Sparkle carried Thorn up to the door of the closest house and knocked on the door. A second later, an elderly stallion cracked open the door. “Yeah?”
“Please, Sir, we were caught in the storm. May we come inside?” Sparkle pleaded.
The old earth pony’s eyes widened in realization and he yanked open the door. “Come in, come in. Quickly, please.”
Sparkle and Thorn both nodded appreciatively as they stepped inside. “Thank you so much,” Sparkle said.
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” the elderly pony said. “You can hang your robe on the hook by the fire. I’ll fetch you and ya... lizard... a towel.”
“I’m a DRAGON,” Thorn retorted, hopping off of Sparkle’s back.
He blinked, clearly not expecting Thorn to speak. “What you are is a wet boy in my house, and never let it be said that old Grade Book isn’t a hospitable stallion,” the now named stallion said. “Fern!”
“Yes, dear?” and old mare called from the other room.
“C’n ya grab some towels? We’ve company,” Grade Book replied.
“Owls?”
“TOWELS!” he shouted. Looking back at Sparkle, he added, “Sorry ‘bout yellin’. My wife’s bit hard of hearin’.”
Barely a few seconds later, an old, pink earth pony walked through the door, sporting a pair of towels draped over her rickety frame. Upon seeing Sparkle and Thorn, she shuffled over as fast as her old bones would let her. “Oh dear, now what in Equestria were you doin’ out in this weather? It’s rainin’ cats and dogs out there!”
“We were heading north to Manehatten when we got caught in the rain. It caught us off guard,” Sparkle offered as an explanation. 
The elderly mare passed each of them a towel, which the soaking travelers thankfully accepted. “You’re a good bit off course, then. The road to Manehatten is about twenty miles east of here,” Fern supplied.
Thorn chuckled nervously as he dried himself off. “Whoops. Sorry, Mom.”
Shifting her weight to balance on her hind legs, Sparkle patted him on the head with her good hoof. “Don’t worry about it.” To Grade Book and Fern, she said, “Thank you for your hospitality. I hope we’re not interrupting anything.”
“Nothin’ but a pair of old souls doin’ their daily chores before supper. Now, Miss... Ya know, I don’ believe I caught ya names.”
Sparkle blushed faintly in slight embarrassment. “Sorry. My name is Sparkle, and this is my son, Thorn.”
“Hello.”
Grade Book nodded. Inside his head, his soul flickered merrily. “Pleasure ta meet ya. M’name’s Grade Book, former school teacher, and this here pretty thing is my wife of sixty years, Fern.” He paused momentarily. “Oh, where are my manners? Please, have a seat.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, Sparkle flopped down on the floor by the fire, tired from running through the rain on just three legs. Glancing around to really observe the small home they’d entered, Sparkle felt that the walls and shelves decorated with various knick-knacks gave the home a sense of having been well loved. The only thing that gave her pause was the iron circles, each overlaid by a crescent, that hung on every wall and over every doorway. Cosmonism Moonsuns, those symbols were called.
Small town ponies tended to be more overtly religious than city folk, she knew. Sparkle intellectually had no problem with ponies of religions, including those other than her own ex-faith, but between her own mental disposition, Alicovitite paladins in Canterlot, and her run-ins with Death cults, her opinion on religious faith was not the greatest.
Still, she was out of the rain and wouldn’t turn down somepony’s hospitality because of something as silly as a difference of opinion. With a fire roaring and Thorn seated beside her, she paid her hosts little mind as Fern dragged Grade Book into the back room.





"What’s this about, Fern?” Grade asked as his wife ushered him into the kitchen.
“Why did you let that mare and her thing in?” The crone hissed in a hushed whisper. “They ain’t natural!”
Grade Book groaned, putting a hoof to his forehead. “This isn’t your silly intuition again, is it?”
“Yes, Book, it is my intuition, which, might I remind you, has never been wrong,” Fern insisted. “I’m telling you, her vibe’s all wrong, especially with her having a cutie mark like that. And that little guy was eyeing me like a griffin and a cut of meat.”
“Are ya suggesting I kick them out? In this rain?” Book asked incredulously. 
Affronted, Fern replied, “Well, I... Of course not. But they’re trouble, mark my words. I can feel it in my bones.”
“Demon and helhest, or drake and mare, I don’ care one whit. I’m not the kind of stallion that lets ponies get sick in the rain.” And, as if to punctuate his statement, the storm overhead let out a clap of thunder that rattled the whole house. Snorting, Grade Book added, “And I don’t think she’ll be leaving until the mornin’ anyway.”
Rolling her eyes, an annoyed Fern inquired, “Then shall I put on some tea?”
“If you would be so kind, thank ya.”





Sparkle climbed onto the couch and flung the blanket over herself with her teeth. Across from her, Thorn curled up on the seat of the arm chair. Meanwhile, her host bussied himself with extinguishing the fire in the fireplace. “Thanks again for letting us crash here for the night,” Sparkle said.
“It’s no problem at all,” Grade Book replied in his thickly accented voice. “Hey, just to satisfy my curiosity, why’s a mare like you not usin’ ya horn? ‘Specially with a game leg?”
“Oh, um, ponies near me sometimes feel sick when I use my magic, especially when they’re not expecting it,” Sparkle answered. “I’m just trying to be polite.”
Grade Book nodded, satisfied with that answer. “Hmm. Well, G’night, Mss. Sparkle, Thorn.”
“Night.”
“Thanks!”
Around the corner and just out of sight, Fern ducked back into her room. It wasn’t eavesdropping if it was said loud enough for the whole house to hear, she reasoned.





With the rain still pouring in the morning, though thankfully without as much of the strong wind and lightning as the previous night, Sparkle and Thorn found themselves still enjoying Grade Book’s hospitality. The old stallion insisted that the road would be flooded and impassable while the rain kept up, and though Sparkle knew that she could simply teleport Thorn and herself across any gaps, she didn’t protest. Instead, after hearing the rain schedule, she settled on finding a proper inn to stay the next two nights at.
That still left one problem for the traveling duo. “We still need to get something to eat at the market. I’d hate to keep freeloading off of you two,” Sparkle explained.
“Nonsense,” Grade Book scoffed. “Ya welcome to eat with us.”
“Now Grade, if the mare wants to buy her own food, we shouldn’t stop her,” Fern quipped. “However, the market won’t be open until after sermon today. They’re both in the same direction; why don’t you come with us? It beats sitting here, twiddling your hooves. Besides, you look like hearing the Good Word would do you some good.”
Grade’s eyes lit up with excitement. Bobbing his head, the old earth pony exclaimed, “Oh, wonderful idea, Fern! We’ll introduce ya to Fern’s nephew, Steeple; he’s the preacher. Great stallion, that one.”
Sparkle’s eyes flicked down to her son, as his eyes had up to her. The two of them could feel each other’s hesitance, but in the end, Sparkle turned back to Grade and his wife and agreed, albeit reluctantly.
“Well, let me grab the umbrellas and we’ll head over there now,” Fern said, quite pleased with herself.





From spot walking alongside his mother under the cover of their borrowed umbrella, Thorn whispered, “Do I have to go? I mean, what if there’s a paladin there?”
“You can go explore if you want,” Sparkle whispered back. “You sure the rain won’t bother you?”
“I’ll be fine. But what about you?” Thorn asked.
Chuckling slightly, Sparkle replied, “Don’t worry, it’s not like I’ll burst into flames or anything, and whether or not there is a paladin, I’ll be fine.”
“If you say so,” Thorn whispered. “See you later, then?”
“Sure. Have fun.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
As Thorn walked off, Fern stepped closer to Sparkle. “You’re letting him wander off?”
Sparkle shrugged. “He can take care of himself. Besides, he’d get antsy sitting in a temple for an hour or two.”
“You shouldn’t spoil him like that. He shouldn’t get everything he wants. Children should be raised properly with a stern hoof,” the crone lectured
Inside the necromancer, her magic’s spin picked up speed, humming just under her skin. Though it wasn’t enough to cause any visible changes, the mostly unconscious act made her eyes feel dangerous to an observer, especially one as observant as Fern. “He doesn’t get everything he wants. A dragon that does grows to the size of a mountain.”
Seeing as they were approaching the Cosmonism Temple, Fern let the subject drop. Filling in with the rest of the rain-soaked crowd, practically the entire town’s population, the old couple led Sparkle to their usual seats in the pews. At the podium in the front, there stood a white, middle-aged unicorn. 
It wasn’t towards the preacher that Sparkle looked, though. No, it was a stallion in a sheriff's vest that caught Sparkle’s eye. A stallion whose gold-flecked blue eyes were fixed unwaveringly on her, and whose expression was unreadable.
‘Of course,’ Sparkle thought with a resigned sigh.





As he walked, Thorn kicked a rock and watched it splash into a mud puddle. “Stupid wind. Stupid rain,” the dracolich muttered. “Stupid town. Stupid pushy ponies. Stupid Temple.”
With each breath, the slow-burning fuel in the drake’s mouth was fanned just a bit more, warming the air he inhaled. While the cold and the rain honestly didn’t bother him, the internal heat was nice. Onward he trudged aimlessly.
Despite the rain, a smell tickled his nose. Blood, not very fresh, but still strong enough to be noticeable. His stomach rumbled. “Probably carrion,” Thorn rationalized. His stomach rumbled again, causing Thorn to roll his eyes. If there was one thing he hated about his physiology, it was that he could and would eat just about anything - including rotting flesh - even if it was revolting.
The scent of blood was growing stronger, and Thorn was suddenly aware that he’d started walking towards the source without realizing it. Pushing through two bushes and hopping down into the ditch behind it, Thorn sniffed and turned left. He almost passed it as he walked, but an odd feeling in his gut gave him pause, enough to spot the body.
A pony’s body, though you wouldn’t guess that at first glance. The corpse was positively mutilated, having had most of the abdominal cavity violently emptied. Bits of intestine, liver, and kidney lay splattered on the ground, as if it had burst out of the pony. The colt - for that’s what it was - had his face frozen in an expression of pure agony.
Thorn leaned down and stuck a claw up the colt’s rib cage. “Cold.” He then grabbed one of the colt’s legs and gently pushed. It refused to move. “Rigor mortis.” Bringing his blood-covered claw up to his nose, he sniffed. “Maybe eight hours dead.”
He’d seen plenty of dead bodies before. In fact, he’d robbed a few graves before and had killed things just so he and his mom could see the decomposition process. Between that, their own books, documents from the Canterlot Police department, and Canterlot’s hospitals, the two of them had a good idea of what certain causes of death look like.
It looked like this colt had burst from the inside out.
Ponies don’t just burst.
Thorn pressed one palm against the earth pony’s undamaged spine, and another against his skull. He closed his eyes for a second and focused. He opened his eyes again once he was sure of what he was feeling.
Black Magic.
‘Of course,’ Thorn thought.





Steeple was enthusiastic, Sparkle would admit. The crowd, the vast majority of which were earth ponies, seemed to hang on his every word. She supposed his speech was interesting, but she honestly couldn’t bring herself to pay much attention.
Neither could the pony that held her gaze. The tangerine-coated unicorn seemed to energize her and fill her stomach with butterflies just by his mere presence. That said, she couldn’t quite decide what to do with that nervous energy.
The stallion across the pews seemed to be growing antsy as well. The two of them could practically feel their opposing magics testing one another, feeling out their relative strengths. In fact, Sparkle could easily imagine the sparks flying between them - not romantic sparks, but the sparks of metal grinding against metal.
Their staring match had caught the eyes of others in the temple congregation, including the preacher’s. Sparkle desperately wanted to vanish, possibly bringing the stallion with her. Given her feelings, she didn’t know if she would ride him into the ground or strangle him to death; her instincts were extremely conflicting in that regard.
She settled on waiting for him to make the first move. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut. Steeple, feeling the resulting magical flux of said tension in his horn, decided to end his sermon quickly. “... and those who look to the sky to guide them shall always find their way. Now, join me in the final prayer for the day.”
The ensuing silence was rather deafening. On and on it stretched, with only the sound of her own heartbeat and the gaze of the sheriff to focus on.
“Thank you,” Steeple concluded. “Now, rise and go forth on this remarkably dreary day,” he chuckled, dismissing the crowd.
The dark unicorn practically bolted from her seat, and was almost out the door before most ponies had even risen, never mind that she was one leg short. The door opened and the rain splashed against her face. Sparkle was thankful for that, as the cold water cleared her mind. She looked around quickly, and, spotting Thorn approaching, galloped over to him.
“Bad time?” Thorn asked upon seeing her.
“Definitely a white mage,” she said, skipping the answer and going straight to the explanation. “He’s strong, too.”
“Dammit.”
“What?”
“He’s the guy with the sheriff star on his vest, isn’t he?” Thorn asked, pointing behind Sparkle.
Sparkle nodded, not even needing to turn around.
“Double dammit. I found somepony fresh. No more than ten hours gone. Traces of black.”
Sparkle’s eyes narrowed. “Show me.”
Thorn nodded once, but before he could lead her towards the site, Grade Book walked up to them. “Ya ran out of there mighty quick. Somethin’ wrong, Mss. Sparkle?”
“No, not really,” Sparkle lied. “But if you’ll excuse me, I need to check something. Thorn.”
“This way!”
As they ran off, Grade Book turned back towards his wife, who was in turn trotting towards the orange sheriff with an electrified star as his cutie mark. “Sheriff Tesla,” Fern Called out. “How are you?”
Blowing past all formalities and ignoring her question, Tesla asked back, “That mare sitting next to you, who was she?”
“A traveler that got lost in the rain last afternoon,” Fern replied. “Why, is there something wrong? You were staring at her rather intently.”
“Never in my life have I felt my magic react like it did with that mare,” Tesla replied.
“Sheriff, I don’t think she’s a normal pony, or even a pony at all,” Fern suggested. “I think she’s a helhest. Her cutie mark is a skull, after all.”
Tesla blanched. A helhest was a three-legged, supernatural equine known to have close ties to Death. Known to bring doom and disease, those legendary monsters had plenty of the more superstitious ponies cowering in fear. In truth, there was no such thing as a helhest, if you considered it something distinct from pony-kind. However...
Sheriff Tesla nodded. Adjusting his vest, the orange unicorn said, “Right, I’m going to follow her, just to be sure. You can never be too careful with strange folk.”
“You do that, Sheriff,” Fern agreed.
“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Fern,” Tesla said. “I’ll get this all sorted out in time for supper, you hear?”
“Loud and clear,” she replied. 
Nodding back, Tesla then turned and trotted in the direction that Sparkle and Thorn had gone. Maybe it was just an old crone’s superstition, or maybe that mystery mare actually was a threat. Either way, Tesla decided, it was best to put her worries to rest. Celestia only knows how much of a panic that gossip monger could cause if she were upset.





There was a difference between digging up corpses and dissecting pigs, and examining a murder scene. Twilight found it much harder to focus on the task at hand, for one, and ended up once more suppressing her emotions magically.
Out from her space-expanded bag, she pulled out her new camera and took a few pictures of the scene with the bulky contraption. Setting it aside, she pulled out her notebook and started jotting down her and Thorn’s initial observations. Once satisfied, she put the now slightly rain-damp notebook back in her bag.
It was this scene that a stealthy Tesla came upon. With his magic suppressed, he was positive that the mare and the drake wouldn’t see him. He also happened, by pure luck, to be downwind of them, and so Thorn didn’t smell him. But, from his vantage point, he couldn’t quite see what they were looking at.
Sparkle lowered her horn to the body. From it emerged the inky blackness of a specter, which sank into the body. Tesla nearly gasped as the feeling of the magic struck his horn, a thousand times more potent than what he had felt in the temple. Every muscle in his body tensed; to hold himself still or to prepare to flee, he didn’t know.
“Who are you?” she said. For a second, Tesla though she was talking to him, but she was still turned away from him  and looking at the ground.
“Coffee Cream, ma’am.”
Tesla frowned. Coffee Creme? What was he doing here? That definitely was his voice. Was he lying on the ground?
“How old are you?”
“I’m sixteen, ma’am. Um, why is it so cold?” Coffee Creme asked.
A slight frown touched Sparkle’s lips, only to fade a second later. “It’s raining.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
For a time, the still hidden form of Coffee Cream didn’t answer. And then, “I was running from Steeple.”
Tesla frowned. Why would he be running from Steeple? He and Coffee’s family were quite close.
As if reading his mind, the mare asked the same thing. “I’d rather not say,” Coffee answered.
“That’s fine, don’t worry about it,” she answered. “But I need you to answer this question: who killed you?”
“Steeple did, ma’am.”
Tesla’s mind froze. Killed? By Steeple? What?
Sparkle’s horn darkened. More of the inky blackness surged outward, coalescing into three pony-like figures. “Go. Find Steeple. You know what to do.”
“Yes, Mistress!” they said, giggling. They flew towards town, in the direction that Tesla was hiding. He stepped back.
One of the specters paused, looking down from where it floated. “Mistress, hehehe, the light-pony is watching!”
“Come on out. I know you're there,” Sparkle called, turning to face the bushes.
Tesla stood tall, no longer having a reason to skulk about. As he walked forwards, Sparkle and Thorn stepped aside, revealing the still-zombified, grotesquely-mutilated corpse of Coffee Cream. He paused, gagging. “Move away from him!”
Thorn stepped defensively in front of Sparkle. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“I saw you use Black Magic on him! Coffee’s dead, and now you have the gall to try and slander Steeple?” he said, gathering up his light magic.
“Slander Steeple? I’ve never met the stallion!” Sparkle angrily retorted. “We didn’t even know you were there? Why would he lie about something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Sheriff Tesla replied. “But she was right to be worried about you, helhest.” His horn rapidly charged, and despite the drizzling rain, Sparkle could feel her fur standing on end and her robe filling with static. There was a flash and a crack, leaving Sparkle dazed from the sound alone. “Begone, cursed one, or my next shot won’t be a warning.”
Thorn, despite being just as close to the white-magic-laced lightning bolt, recovered six times as fast. He charged forwards, growing larger and sucking the life out of every living thing as he passed it. The dragon, now twice the mass of the stallion, impacted like a freight train. Pinning Tesla down, he roared, “I’LL KILL YOU!”
Tesla, protected from the life-draining magic by his own light type, exploded into dozens of arcs of electricity. Reassembling several dozen hoof lengths away, Tesla already had his next spell forming. A fraction of a second later, Sparkle was forced to dissolve her body into a mass of shadow to dodged the incoming bolt.
Sparkle fired off several illusions, but, to her horror, found that none of them took hold against the defensive nature of Tesla’s magic, which protected his mind. Switching gears, Sparkle hurled a couple of minor curses and jinxes, which Tesla dodged easily. Swearing under her breath, she dissolved fully into the black mass and charged.
Thorn found himself at a disadvantage. Tesla, who quickly proved himself to be quite adept at dodging both of their attacks at the same time, easily outmaneuvered the heaviest of the combatants on the muddy ground. And while Thorn’s scales protected him from the worst of the electrical attacks, the white magic within still burned the skin underneath. Then there was attack speed. Tesla could get off two shots for every one of Thorn’s. And despite Thorn constantly switching between standard fire and projectile pyrotechnics, Tesla was never surprised.
The sheriff, for his part, was doing remarkably well against a necromancer using increasingly lethal attacks and a dracolich who was rapidly turning the forest into a wasteland. But he was getting tired. Despite taking only that initial hit from the dragon, he was wearing out, while the rapidly decaying forest kept the dark pair empowered. But he was clever; Tesla noticed that they were determined to avoid friendly fire - literally, since there was a dragon in the mix - and he had no such restriction. By staying between them, he always made them hesitant to attack.
For a time, his plan worked. But all good things must come to an end, and so Tesla’s fast reaction time eventually failed him. He had lined up a bolt to fire at the shadowy mare, only to be struck in the side by the dragon’s fast-moving, bladed tail, sending him sprawling on the road.
Thorn pounced, again pinning him to the ground. But this time, instead of giving Tesla the ability to zap himself free, Thorn stretched out his neck and bit the stallion’s horn off with a loud crunch. It would grow back in time, yes, but that didn’t stop it from being the single most painful experience of Tesla’s life, including the deep gash in his side and all his broken ribs, combined.
Sparkle resolidified next to the downed stallion and cast a spell on him, taking away his ability to physically perceive pain. “You going to kill me now, helhest?”
“No, and I’m not... well, I guess I kind of am a helhest, but no, I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to leave you here to die, either,” she said. Leaning over him, she bent down and kissed him full on the lips, tongue and all.
The injured stallion at first resisted her kiss, but soon was coaxed into returning the kiss by his own magic. Unicorns often associate sexuality with magic type. Natural light and dark mages, because of their rarity, rarely come across somepony their magic is attracted to. That Sparkle's kiss fed Tesla life energy, and that it distracted him as she worked her magic, were other matters entirely.
Sometime during their impromptu makeout session, Thorn had released Tesla's limbs and stepped aside, letting Sparkle take his place over the sheriff.
Sparkle broke the kiss first, causing Tesla to try and follow her lips only to be pressed down by her magic. "What in tartarus was that, helhest?" he said, though he used the word as a term of strange affection.
"I said I wasn't going to let you die, and now you won't. Your horn's still partially broken, but that will mend in time," she said. "Now, there's a dead body in a ditch who had his organs violently expelled, possibly by the preacher. I'd love to stay and help you catch the bastard, but I've got to go now."
As she spoke those words, her body dissolved into black smoke, as did the dracolich. "Sorry," she called just before vanishing completely.
Tesla, feeling muddy and emotionally spent, but otherwise fine, rolled over onto his belly and stood up. "Hoo boy... Steeple? Really? Why would Steeple kill Coffee Cream?"





The sight a sheriff sporting a muddy vest, a broken horn, and a grim face set the small town of Hollow Shades on edge. After his starring contest with Sparkle, the whole town practically hummed with anticipation.
A distant shout punctuated the air. "No! Get away from me!"
Tesla turned and galloped towards the commotion. As he approached, he spotted the three specters that Sparkle had released, each circling around Steeple and occasionally diving right through his body. In the fight, the necromancer's disappearance, and his examination of the body, Sheriff Tesla had completely forgotten about them.
"Guilty!"
"We saw what you did!"
"Bad Stallion, hehehe!"
"Begone, foul demons! I have done no wrong!" Steeple shouted. Brandishing the moonsun pendant around his neck, he roared, "In the names of Celestia and Luna, bringers of day and night, I BANISH YOU!"
The three specters froze. Fading, the trio sank into the ground, hissing in apparent pain. Silence reigned, punctuated by Steeple's heavy breath.
"THBBPTHBPT!" The rude noise announced the sudden return of the three specters. "He thought he could banish us!"
The crowd in the market panicked. Most ponies fled every which way, save for a few brave souls, the preacher, and the sheriff.
"What a laugh!" a specter said.
"The guilty stallion has no power!"
"Look sisters, hehehe, his executioner is here!"
"Repent, repent, repent before the law!"
"Admit to what you did!"
"I didn't kill him!" Steeple cried.
There was a beat of silence. Then, one of the specters laughed. "We never said that you killed somebody."
"Or that a he was involved."
"And neither did Mr. Sheriff say anything, and he saw the body."
The white stallion, if it were possible, would have gone paler. "I can explain. I-”
"Innocents don't have to explain things!" interrupted the specter.
Tesla found himself agreeing. Stepping towards the preacher, he said, "Steeple, as much as it pains me to admit it, they might be right. Though the evidence is suspect at best, it's the only lead I have. Steeple for the... Uh.. Ah... ACHOO!" Tesla sneezed violently, splattering Steeple with snot, and more worryingly, blood droplets.
"Bless you," a specter said. Steeple merely wiped his face off, disgusted.
"Ugh, sorry," Tesla apologized. "As I was saying, Steeple, you are under arrest for the suspected murder of Coffee Cream. If you sho- Hey!" The sheriff was interrupted by the preacher bolting away. He tried to follow, but a single specter blocked his path, and without his horn, he couldn't teleport past.
"Don't worry," it said. "His fate is sealed. You sealed it."
"What?"
"Go look," it said, floating aside and fading away, task complete. Not needing to be told twice, Tesla raced after Steeple. He didn't have to run far.
The preacher had collapsed in the middle of the street, though was still fully conscious and thrashing around. "I killed Coffee Cream!" he shouted. The magical plague, passed from Sparkle to Steeple via Tesla and attuned to Steeple using the magical signature left on Coffee's body, quickly started eating away at the infected stallion's mind, robbing him of his inhibitions and his ability to lie. Add in a little delirium, and the resulting parasite kills you socially before killing you physically. "That little bastard wouldn't give me what I wanted. 'Just a touch,' I said, but he wouldn't let me! So I made him bust a gut! Literally! He's *cough* he's splattered *cough* all over the - ack! - forest."
 Anything he may have said after that was unintelligible, as his condition was deteriorating at an exponential rate. His coughs turned into groans and into shrieks. Steeple's body suddenly tensed, his back arching in an unnatural position. There was a loud snap, the sound of muscle breaking bone, and Steeple went still.
There were screams. Some were still frightened from the specters while others cried at the news of Coffee Cream's death. For one elderly couple, the last words and subsequent death of their nephew was too much to handle.
In Hollow Shades, the rain still fell.