Like the clinking of dagger against stone, the bony claws of the griffon traced their way across the ground. Old bricks, damaged by years of on-and-off plant growth steadily breaking them apart, gained new injuries in the form of white lines; rock dust scraped out by the creature’s dangerous talons. Save for the glowing orb floating around inside his exposed skull, he bled into the backdrop of the alley with his thick, dark-purple cloak.
He sank further into the darkness as he heard voices, and the plants that surrounded him wilted away to nothing. Peering out from the alleyway he watched and listened as his two targets passed by. Applejack Smith and Doración Noguera looked to be in perfect health. He scowled, his dark magic almost managing to spill out towards them in response. This could only mean the clone he had made had not only failed, but hadn’t even reached the two of them.
Maybe it got run over by something? he silently mused to himself, gritting his fangs in frustration. Why must it always be more complicated than it should be? I should just reach out and murder them both where they stand! He lay back down and calmed himself. No. Not yet. Not like that. I need to do this properly, to plan and prepare and then murder her. His glowing eye focused on Applejack and he grinned. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees her imminent demise…
But how to do it? That was the question on the necromancer’s mind. He wasn’t the type to go all-in unless he had a small army at his beck and call, and even then he enjoyed his preparatory work all the same. He didn’t want to risk alerting the authorities to his actions, or worse, monsters in pony form. Not after what had happened last time. He could poison their water and food, slowly drive one of them insane with a constant stream of horrid energy, split them up and deal with them individually like he had initially wanted to…
The options narrowed themselves down as his fleshless ears picked up on one particular phrase:
“-at my house, later.”
Lord Skelebeak couldn’t bring himself to stifle his laughter, so he turned the entire alleyway into a silent black void until he was done.
-- Later --
The Doración Noguera wandered down the street, aiming for a predetermined location. Her legs moved as briskly and lively as any other pony, but they were without purpose. Her eyes glanced around and took in everything she saw, but they were without emotion. Her heart beat at the perfect pace to keep her Body in good condition, but it produced no Magic.
The clone, created earlier that day by Discord, had been intended to serve as a stand-in for the real Doración. Filling in her role at Tierno Corazon and ensuring there were no unintended, indirect victims of Discord’s action. Unfourtunately for the clone, it hadn’t done the best job when it came to impersonating the original, and had been sent home after being released from the sealed room. Her co-workers thought she was in shock.
And so, with no other options beyond returning to Discord early, the clone went home. To Dora’s home. It was located in one of the more expensive-looking areas, as the terrace house was one of the older buildings in Pezulma. It rose to a grand three stories in height, featuring the traditional white painted walls and decorative bricks adorning buildings throughout the city. Even the front door looked fancy; a deep red wood. It was both solid and heavy, but the equally sturdy hinges helped to take the weight off of visitors.
The Dora unlocked the door and ventured inside. Thanks to Discord it already had all of the information it needed to navigate the house, the kitchen cupboards, the bookshelves and et cetera.
“I will make dinner,” it stated. It sounded like a command to itself.
The clone moved through the foyer to the door at the end, not prioritizing the sensation of the jagged, violent magic that permeated every inch of what it saw. It touched the kitchen door handle and within seconds was overcome by a pillar of black flames.
-- Later Still --
Doración Noguera’s day was just getting stranger and stranger. First, she’d been kidnapped by the king of all draconequi, and had thrown out a day of work for the sake of eloping with a new friend. Now it turned out the new friend was secretly a heroine of her land, and was responsible for saving the entire world at least once - twice, if she counted Discord’s return. And she’d been spending the day with her, while some kind of evil force was apparently out to get them.
“What next? Are cows going to start falling from the sky?” The two of them laughed, but Dora was only half-joking. She found herself glancing up at the sky just in case Discord was listening in. She had driven them both back to where she lived, with the car parked at the bottom of the street. After their busy day it would be nice to settle down with dinner and just talk without a draconequus there to interject on their conversation.
Dora placed her hoof against the wood and fetched the key from her pocket. She had no idea how much stranger her day was about to get.
The two of them watched in silent horror as the door slowly swung open on its own, already unlocked. Doración wanted to suggest that she’d forgotten to lock it that morning, but she knew otherwise. The silent consensus between them was the inevitable one; a break-in.
The well-oiled hinges of the door made no sound as they slowly made their way in. While Applejack watched from behind her for any signs of movement further in, Doración took in every little detail of the foyer to see if everything was as she’d left it. The rich, red wallpaper with its golden pattern, and the darker red carpet flooring. The wooden furniture that suggested a wealthier past for their owner, and the little trinkets that decorated the hall. None of it was damaged, and not a decoration lay out of place. And yet, there was the distinct scent of fragrant candles wafting from the sitting room and out into the street.
“I can go ahead of you, if ya want?” Applejack offered. With a nod, they switched places so Applejack was in front. A quiet clatter of pots in the kitchen made her immediately regret her decision, and they both froze up for a moment.
“We should call the police!” Dora whispered, taking a step back.
Instead, Applejack picked up an ornamental fire poker sitting against the wall. If it worked against wild boars then it would work against a petty thief. “Relax, Dora… I got this…” Applejack stated, more in an effort to reassure herself.
Her hooves still sensitive to magic after driving, Dora could feel a strange fuzziness, not unlike the tiny hairs of the carpet. Something that reached up into the centers of each hoof, as if searching for a way inside. “Can you feel that?” she asked, motioning with a hoof.
Applejack, even devoid of any kind of magical training as she was, slowly nodded. She looked down at her own hooves and shifted them across the carpet. It felt strange; spikier than it should have, and yet the softer hairs of the carpet were still tangible beneath the other sensation. Dark Magic. Applejack raised a hoof her face. She looked scared.
-- April, five months prior --
The doors of the Ponyville Medical Center burst open and in rushed five friends. They were here to see the sixth, who had just been airlifted all the way from a hospital in Vanhoover. It had been a week since they’d first heard the terrible news from the convention, and it showed. Rainbow Dash, normally the one to rush into things, held towards the back out of fear of seeing Pinkie in whatever state she was in. Rarity, with the kind of drive that would eventually become a mother’s unbreakable willpower, trotted along with an iron purpose at the front, just behind Fluttershy.
And Applejack, slotting in somewhere between, found herself in the middle. Glancing at the other ponies in the reception room, she could see the familiar faces of friends dotted around, waiting to hear news of Ponyville’s resident party pony. Quickly, the group made their way through the halls towards where Pinkie was waiting.
It was here that Applejack slowed to the back of the group with Rainbow, her own anxiety rearing its head. Pinkie Pie had gone to Vanhoover to sight-see a convention of smiths, and to help out a fellow baker-turned-blacksmith, who was in attendance. As far as she knew, the event had gone well until near the end when the entire convention center had been voided out of the material plane for a full seven hours. Whatever had taken place in those hours, three smiths and twenty-one civilians had died, and the fight against the monster that caused it resulted in serious injuries for many.
Twilight opened the door to Pinkie’s room and lead her friends in. Applejack found herself hesitating. Pinkie Pie’s injuries had been reported to be non-life-threatening. The reason she had been kept behind in Vanhoover had been because of the visual state of her body more than her health. She was scared of seeing her happy, joyous friend with horrific scars or missing pieces. Nonetheless, she ventured in behind the rest of the group.
Pinkie Pie was awake, but tired. She lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with a look that spoke volumes of what seven days without a party had done to her. She leaned up to see who was entering and almost immediately the spark came back. Her eyes brightened and her flat mane regained a little bit of its spring. "Guys! You're here!" she croaked with joy.
“We came here as fast as we could! How are you?” Twilight asked. She began to lean down to hug Pinkie, only for the other mare to shy away. "Is... something wrong?"
Pinkie quickly shook her head. “It's fine, sort of - I’ll be right as rain in a few days! No huggies for now though; apparently I’m still infectious or something.”
Applejack trotted up to the bedside, giving a little wave and a big grin as she came to a stop next to Pinkie. She was glad to see there wasn't anything amiss on the surface, aside from her mane, though it was clear something was bothering the baker. “I’m real glad to see you back, Pinkie!" she greeted. "Granny said she’d be over later with a freshly baked pie for ya!”
“Awesome!” Pinkie exclaimed. "What flavor?"
Applejack chuckled. "Apple, of course." Her gaze drifted to the bag hanging above the bed. Normally containing blood to be transfused into the patient, it instead held an odd green liquid that slowly seeped into Pinkie Pie’s bloodstream. Rainbow Dash was giving it a curious poke. “What’s this stuff?” Applejack asked, pointing at it.
“Oh, that’s just some transformative Changeling goo.”
A pause.
“Relax! It’s perfectly safe.” Pinkie’s look of certainty wavered for a moment. “I… kinda need it right now anyway. My body got a liiittle bit messed up back there, so the nurses are using it to Changeling me back to normal again.”
Twilight frowned, silently questioning the logic behind it. Her eyes were drawn to the slight reddening on the ends of Pinkie’s hooves, and moved to shift the covers away to see what she was talking about. Pinkie quickly placed a hoof on her own to stop her.
The pink pony’s smile had turned into a much more serious expression. One of concern and, to an extent, shame. “Seriously. You don’t wanna see that.”
At that, the good feeling faded back into reality, as all thoughts shifted to the disaster at Vanhoover. Isolation, fear, death. Few of them could imagine what it had been like, and judging by what the Ponyville smiths had told them, the culprit had escaped and was more than ready to strike again.
“How bad is it…?” Twilight asked, cautiously.
Pinkie Pie didn’t respond for a few moments. “I’ll be ok. Just… don’t look.” She sat up a bit, careful to keep the covers tightly around her. “There’s something I want you all to do. It’s the reason I asked to be transferred to Ponyville early, while his magic is still inside me,” she began. “The guy who attacked the Ironwright Guild was a Griffon named Skelebeak. He was using Dark Magic and all kinds of other tricks, and that was how he… got me. If he ever comes back for us - and he said that he will be - I want us to be prepared.”
She revealed both forehooves from beneath the covers and held them out to her friends. The fur towards the hooves themselves had darkened slightly, and the skin looked an unhealthy red. The undersides of the hooves were the worst affected; inflamed and bruised, with a slight, unnatural twist to the skin itself. “Here, I want you to feel his magic, and remember it. We need to be prepared next time,” she stated. Just beyond the naked eye, if one looked close enough, there was a thin layer of distortion emanating from them like a heat mirage on a hot summer day.
Applejack frowned in a slight confusion. Pinkie Pie was never this serious, and she wasn’t the type to plan such things, at least to her memory. Then, she noticed the slight shaking of Pinkie’s hooves, and realized that she was afraid. She was afraid of that monster coming back for them all, for her friends and family.
Applejack placed a hoof on Pinkie’s own. She would do whatever it took to protect them all, because when she met Pinkie’s gaze, she could see that a tiny portion of that wonderful blue was missing from her eyes.