Hoofed by Your Own Petard

by Tortfeasor

The Game's Ahoof

Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Going once! Going twice! I don’t own My Little Pony!

Chapter Nine: The Game’s Ahoof

Twilight Sparkle fought back a yawn. The moon was high in the sky as it always was since Celestia disappeared, but she was pretty sure they were up early enough for the moon to still be in the sky even if Celestia had never left. Manehatten was a city that never slept, but there were definitely hours where it dozed. With bulging saddlebags and coffee in their systems trying to keep them awake six ponies made their way through near deserted streets.

“I’ve been out at plenty of odd hours before but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Manehatten this quiet.”

“I’m not surprised Applejack,” Twilight said, “with Nightmare Moon’s thugs all over the city what pony in their right mind would want to go anywhere they could run into them?”

Having gotten up earlier than the others to primp herself Rarity looked especially tired. “She certainly has enough thugs out in this city. Fluttershy, dear, was it this bad when you and Applejack were out last night?”

“No, it wasn’t nearly this bad last night.”

“Oh that Queen Meanie really makes me mad! Keeping ponies inside and afraid, ponies should be able to go out and laugh and be happy.”

Across the street they watched a pony in black robes kick another pony out at this early hour to the ground and walk off laughing. It wasn’t the first time this morning they’d seen ponies loyal to Nightmare Moon assaulting civilians for what seemed no reason whatsoever.

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash said, “he looks alone. We could drop him and be back on our way to the library in a minute.”

Applejack put a restraining hoof on the other pony’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what Trixie and Nightmare Moon want us to do. Trixie and the guards with her are in the library right now searching for our reference guide. And even if it’s just a minute we delay out here it’s another minute they have to find and destroy that book and plunge Equestria into truly eternal night.”

“That’s a change of pace,” Rainbow Dash smiled grimly. “I remember you wanting to charge back into Coltcinnati and break some heads.”

“That was a mistake,” Applejack said, “as much good as we did there we’ve put ourselves at a much greater risk of losing everything to Nightmare Moon forever. Besides Rainbow Dash, you don’t think they’re going to let us simply stroll out of Manehatten do you? Once we have that book every guard and Nightmare Child in the city is going to descend on the library and do their best to kill us. I’m sure you’ll get your fill of breaking heads and more before we escape Manehatten.”

“We’re here,” Rarity interrupted.

‘Here’ was a ponyhole cover into the sewers under Manehatten. It would be wet, cramped, smelly, bug infested, dirty, dark, potentially dangerous, and all around unpleasant for everypony. But they were all sure enough to risk their lives that neither Trixie nor Nightmare Moon would expect them to try to enter the library from below.

Looking around to make sure they were alone Applejack signaled the all clear after several seconds that seemed to last about an hour. The metal circle was surrounded by a blue glow, lifted, and settled on the pavement without making a sound.

“That smell is simply horrid! There’s no way I’m going down into that rotten place.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Twilight stepped up to the hole. “I’ll go first and light the way. Rarity, you go last so we have light behind us as well.”

Twilight wouldn’t admit it but Rarity was right, the sewer smelled absolutely terrible. Twilight had read that toxic gasses could easily build up in the cramped corridors they were going into and she hoped that they would safely make it to the library. But, like she’d said, they didn’t have a choice about going through the sewers. Taking one last breath of clean smelling air she lit her horn and descended the ladder. The Manehatten sewers were clearly not designed for unicorn comfort. She was going to have to pitch her head forward to avoid having her horn scrape the rock above.

“Applejack, are you behind me?” Twilight didn’t dare move her head to look behind.
“Yes,” came the answer, “what do you need?”

“Slight hitch in our plan. I can’t look very far ahead unless I want to grind my horn on the roof. You’re going to have to look over my shoulder and navigate us to the library.”

A slight blue glow came from behind and Twilight knew that everypony was down in the sewer. She stepped towards the library and on her very first step her hoof came down into something she didn’t want to think about. Twilight bit back a sigh and tried to reassure herself by thinking that this had to happen sooner or later and now it was over. Or at least she hoped it was over.

As they walked a series of whimpers somehow managed to reach Twilight’s ears. “Just put one hoof in front of the other Rarity. Don’t think about what’s under your hooves, or what’s getting into your mane, or how long it’s going to take to get this smell out of your coat. You’re trying to save the world and sacrifices must be made!”

Twilight straightened as much as she could and quickened her pace. Her friends couldn’t be having any fun down here, not even Pinkie Pie. And while she didn’t want to admit it to anypony else she was close to terrified that they were going to get to the library just in time to see The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide go up in flames.

“Turn left here.”

Twilight didn’t know how Applejack knew where to go but then all she could see was the dirty water and other things she wasn’t thinking about on the sewer floor. She turned when the sewer widened slightly in a four way intersection. Craning her eyes up as much as she could Twilight could see the bottom of the plaque that numbered this intersection. Had she been on her own her only choices would have been blind wondering or crouching into the muck below to read the signs. Suddenly Twilight was struck with gratitude for her friends being down here with her.

They slowly made their way through the sewers for close to an hour. Above ground it would have taken a fraction of the time. But above ground there were countless guards and Nightmare Children all looking for them. The air quality was not improving with time and Twilight was beginning to worry that even if they didn’t run into any toxic gases simple lack of oxygen would do them in.

At last though Applejack shouted that there was an open area ahead she believed to be below the library. Running was out of the question, but Twilight still went as fast as she could for the open area. The air wasn’t much better on the broad brick floor but at least Twilight didn’t feel like she was slowly suffocating anymore.

As soon as Rainbow Dash entered the open area she opened her wings and seemed to revel in it. “I am so glad we’re done with that. Pegasi are not meant to go underground.”

Rarity for her part looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown after so long in the dirty and smelly sewer.

“Twilight, darling,” her smile was clearly on the verge of cracking, “would you mind opening our way into the library?”

Twilight nodded and propped herself on the ladder leading to the ponyhole cover into the library. A magenta glow surrounded it, it started to lift, and…

“It’s locked,” Twilight said.

“Just push the locks,” Rarity was sounding dangerously close to panic. “You can do it Twilight.”

Twilight turned her attention back to the lid, lifted it, and then focused her magic on the two padlocks holding it down. She briefly tested the locks and was not surprised to find the iron rather unmoving. Closing her eyes Twilight started to push the body and arched connector in separate directions. The metal of course resisted this and Twilight began to push harder.

Rarity had tried to drill into her head over and over that Twilight’s biggest obstacle to unlocking her full potential was herself. Twilight still doubted that she had power enough to make Rarity and Trixie look like rank amateurs, but she had to admit to herself that she’d made rather impressive progress under Rarity’s teaching.

The metal resisted, Twilight took a deep breath and tapped into her power. As though it were just over her shoulder she could feel the bottomless well of power she’d used to drive off Trixie and kill Arabus. It scared her quite a bit to think that she might be able to unleash that side of herself at will. It seemed though like every day she could push a little closer to that well without falling in. Twilight pushed up to the edge and felt the satisfying feeling of the metal in the lock giving way.

“We’re in,” she turned to her friends, “I’ll use my quiet spell and poke my head up.”

Twilight’s horn glowed, the ponyhole cover slid aside, and silent as a shadow she went up the ladder.

Pinkie Pie walked next to Rarity. “Wow, Twilight was really something wasn’t she. You’re a great teacher!”

“I suppose so,” Rarity stammered, her surroundings forgotten for the moment. “The student has already surpassed the master though. Twilight broke those locks in a few minutes. If I’d been doing it we would have been down here half the day for me to work one to where I could snap it. And I don’t think she was trying all that hard. If she ever realizes how truly powerful she is I don’t know if anypony this side of Celestia or Nightmare Moon could beat her in a straight fight.”

“I’m no magical expert,” Applejack said, “but from what you’re saying it sounds like Twilight is developing her magical power extremely quickly. Is that normal?”

Rarity started pacing back and forth. “I’m not sure. Unicorns normally take a number of years to develop their full power. It wouldn’t do to have a foal’s temper tantrum cause major damage because of their power after all. It could be that because Twilight is older her power is growing more quickly. Or her stunted development could be a product of her injury when she was younger and her rather lacking magical education. The simple fact is that I really don’t know why her power is increasing so fast or where it will stop. I’d be lying if I said that thought didn’t scare me a bit.”

“But she’s still our friend isn’t she?” They all looked over to see Fluttershy actually speaking. “I mean if something like this is happening to her we can’t let her go through it all alone can we?”

“Of course not!” Rainbow Dash seemed to bristle at the thought. “Even if we have to drag her kicking and screaming the whole way we’re going to do what’s right for her. And that means sticking by her no matter how much she whines that she’s dangerous.”

“It’s clear,” Twilight’s head poked back down through the hole. “The ladder comes up into a maintenance room. Trixie put guards in the main hall though.”

A glorified janitor’s closet was a bit cramped for six ponies all at once but between being a bit cramped and going back down into the sewer it wasn’t much of a choice.

Rainbow Dash silently opened the door and looked through the crack. “I don’t think we can sneak through that.”
“I haven’t come this far just to give up,” Applejack said, “think we can them?”

Rainbow Dash looked back into the main hall. “I don’t know. There’s about twenty-odd of them but if we can take them by surprise…”

“Intruders!” A guard shouted.

“So much for surprise!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she shot out of the door in a rainbow colored blur.

“Let’s not let Rainbow Dash scout anymore,” Twilight sighed, “she gets caught too much.”

The other five burst out of the door and the battle was joined. Twilight took a brief look around her and her horn started glowing. A metal book cart lifted and sped towards a unicorn in the black robes of a Nightmare Child. His horn took on a whitish glow and Twilight felt the cart slow a little, but it only slowed a little before plowing the unicorn into a wall.

She paused briefly to make sure Fluttershy was staying out of danger. The Yellow Pegasus had come out of the maintenance room with the rest of them but had taken refuge behind the librarian’s desk. It was a heavy construction of marble topped solid oak so as long as nopony went after her directly Fluttershy was considerably safer than the rest of them.

As Twilight turned her attention back to the rest of the battle she saw a guard pegasus break off from Rainbow Dash and speed towards the gigantic front windows. He could only be trying to alert the main body of guards and Nightmare Children and if he succeeded they’d be swamped by sheer numbers. Stopping a pegasus mid-flight was a difficult undertaking and Twilight wasn’t sure she was up to it. But Rarity either didn’t see the pegasus or was too busy to deal with him so Twilight didn’t have a choice. Her horn started glowing again and a magenta glow surrounded the pegasus’ tail. Being a rather unrefined version of the spell it didn’t quite stop the fleeing pegasus. Instead it yanked his tail right off. Suddenly off balance and in a considerable amount of pain the pegasus fell from the sky into a collection of shelves.

Twilight didn’t know what had happened to the guard but before she could start worrying if she’d hurt somepony her attention was taken by an earth pony Nightmare Child who came at her with a knife in her mouth. Twilight jumped back and yanked a small statue of a foal reading a book off its pedestal. Despite having a larger weapon with a longer reach Twilight was a complete novice with weapons and possessed next to no natural talent to fall back on.

So fall back she did. It was quite lucky for Twilight that the central wing of the Manehatten Library was a large open area designed mostly for ponies to sit down and read a good book without crowding each other. Several times Twilight fell backwards over large plush chairs and avoided being cut by distressingly narrow margins. As much as Twilight was worried about fighting a clearly superior opponent it was the look on the other pony’s face that truly scared her. Like Shady back in Canterlot this pony looked like she had felt set upon her whole life and looked forward to getting her revenge on as many ponies as she could in as painful and bloody a manner as she could. Looking into those eyes Twilight knew she wasn’t just facing a pony who would kill her but one who would enjoy every moment of it.

Suddenly an earth pony guard came flying into the Nightmare Child attacking Twilight and sent her sprawling into a pile of limbs on the floor. Twilight looked to see where the pony had come from and saw Pinkie Pie still facing off against six ponies. These guards and Nightmare Children seemed leagues above Arabus’ guards and Pinkie Pie was barely holding her own against them. Watching for a few seconds Twilight managed to identify the most dangerous pony and used the statue she’d grabbed to knock him unconscious from behind.

“Thanks Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she ducked under several attacks and sent another of her attackers flying to land on one of the unicorns attacking Rarity.

Rarity had ripped up a number of the polished granite floor tiles and was whirling them about her in a shield that her attackers couldn’t get through. This however had the effect of equally sealing Rarity in. Moreover while the library was a rather large place there were still only so many floor tiles and Rarity’s attackers showed no signs of slowing their assault.

Twilight couldn’t quite hold in her chuckle as she brought her statue back to float in front of her. “I don’t think this is quite what my teachers meant when they said that knowledge is a weapon.”

Again her trusty statue turned blunt weapon served her well. The three unicorns attacking Rarity were suddenly two unicorns. Taking advantage of the help Rarity made her shield of floor tiles explode outwards and in short order the two unicorns had taken several rather heavy granite tiles to the face and joined their comrade on the ground.

Suddenly the twenty-something attackers had been reduced to eight and those that didn’t jerkily fight under clear mind-control were feeling the fear of being so thoroughly beaten about. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack quickly rejoined the two unicorns and they confidently faced down the guards and Nightmare Children still standing against them.

“You know,” Rainbow Dash said, “I still say if this doesn’t work out we can make some nice positions for ourselves under Nightmare Moon. I mean look at how we’re taking out her minions.”

Applejack’s look said plenty about what she thought of that idea. “We’re going to pull this off Rainbow Dash. Nopony said it was going to be easy, and it hasn’t been easy. But look how far we’ve come and how well we’re doing. Now let’s finish these ponies off so we can be on our way.”

“Get them!” One of the remaining Nightmare Children shouted. “For Nightmare Moon!”

Rarity and Twilight both lifted heavy chairs and took down a pair of royal guards. Rainbow Dash took advantage of the large open area to lift up the last royal guard and drop him from a height that would keep him from getting back up for awhile but was unlikely to be fatal.

That left five Nightmare Children standing. Despite being clearly outclassed they showed no signs of giving up. Instead they tightened their grips on their motley assortment of weapons and charged. They made up for a shortage of skill with sheer brutality. Their attacks were clumsy and easily deflected but each attempt at a blow was an attempt at a killing blow so Twilight and her friends had to be cautious.

Not surprisingly Pinkie Pie was the first to overcome her opponent. As soon as she could help one of her other friends it was a simple chain reaction until all the Nightmare Children were unconscious on the floor.

“Are you girls alright?” Fluttershy crept out from behind the desk she’d taken shelter under.

“You even have to ask?” Rainbow Dash brushed at some imaginary dust on her coat.

“Well it looked like quite the fight,” Fluttershy said, “and I couldn’t watch everything all at once so I didn’t know if one of you had gotten hurt while I wasn’t watching.”

“I hate to sound so grim,” Applejack blew at one of her mane curls that had fallen loose, “but with the way they were swinging their weapons around if we’d gotten hurt I think it would have been impossible to miss.”

“I guess,” Fluttershy looked down at the floor. “Oh! I almost forgot about the other ponies who got hurt!”

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash said, “they were trying to kill us. I don’t think you need to worry too much about what happens to them.”

“No!” Fluttershy’s glare made the other pony take an involuntary step back. “If we only show kindness to our friends then how are we any kinder than Nightmare Moon? Real kindness has to be given to anypony, anywhere, at any time.”

Fluttershy walked over to the guard who’d had his tail accidentally ripped out by Twilight Sparkle and set to work. They didn’t have many medical supplies nor did she have much time to work but she managed to bandage the stump of his tail and ensure that he wouldn’t bleed out and might someday heal from this injury.

Most of the guards and Nightmare Children were simply unconscious so Fluttershy was able to move quite quickly only pausing here and there to bandage small cuts. When she came to the earth pony who had been attacking Twilight though she jumped back in surprise. The peach colored pony was still thrashing about clumsily, her dark pink mane spread about on the ground from all her flailing.

“Won’t let you take me alive,” she said weakly. “Rather die than fall into Celestia’s hoofs.”

Fluttershy cautiously walked back up to the other pony. “We won’t hurt you. We didn’t even want to fight you in the first place. It’s why we were trying to sneak by you. Now, my name is Fluttershy and I’m a doctor, or at least I was almost done with medical school. It means I try to help everypony I come across who needs it. What’s your name?”

The other pony gave back a flat look. “I’m not telling you anything. Celestia banished Nightmare Moon to the Moon for daring to fight back against her tyranny. You’re all her loyal little dogs so I know what’s coming. Go ahead and do your worst!”

“I would never!” Fluttershy stepped back. “I told you, I promised to heal anypony I came across who needed it. I can’t promise that we won’t tie you up afterwards to keep you from stopping us. But we won’t hurt anypony more than we have to.”

Fluttershy slowly approached the other pony again. The peach colored mare stiffened when Fluttershy laid a hoof on one of her legs bent at an obviously broken angle.

“Your leg is broken,” Fluttershy said, “and it’s going to hurt a lot when I set it, but if I don’t it won’t heal properly. Alright, I’ll set it on three. One… two… three!”

Twilight probably only imagined that she heard bones grinding against each other when Fluttershy set the other pony’s leg but it looked extremely painful nonetheless.

Fluttershy looked around her and grabbed a pair of broken table legs. A roll of packing tape found in the librarian’s desk bound the table legs about the pony’s leg into a crude but effective splint.

“I’d stay off that leg for several weeks if I were you,” Fluttershy looked over her makeshift splint. “And you really should get that splint replaced by a proper cast as soon as you can.”

“You, you helped me.” The peach colored pony didn’t sound like she quite believed what she was saying. “Nopony outside the lowest levels of the undercity would ever help any of us. I… my name’s Patch.”

“Nice to meet you Patch,” Fluttershy smiled. “That’s a lovely cutie mark you have, what’s your special talent?”

Patch looked at the square of cloth adorning her flank. “The basics of survival are hard to come by on the lowest levels of the undercity. I’m good at finding materials to make clothes out of and then making clothes.”

“That’s a great talent to have Patch. You get to help out all your friends and you can see the difference you’re making in their lives.”

“You’re here for the book aren’t you,” Patch’s answer wasn’t a question. “We aren’t supposed to know much beyond what you look like and that we’re supposed to kill you on sight, but Trixie can’t keep her voice down any more than I can raise the moon.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened at the answer. “Have you found it? Do you know where it is?”

“Not as of forty-five minutes ago. Trixie has her mind controlled guards searching the southern wing. They searched the first floor and I guess they didn’t find it because Trixie is sending them back in to search the other floors. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Probably because I don’t have the slightest clue how to act when somepony is actually showing me kindness.”

“Don’t worry,” Fluttershy said, “we won’t tell anypony that you told us all this. Now you just lie down and I’m sure you’ll be asleep before you know it.”

“That was amazing Fluttershy!” Twilight gaped at her friend as she walked back towards them.

“It’s like I said before,” Fluttershy looked quite pleased with herself, “sometimes we all just need to be shown a little kindness.”

“Well then what are we waiting for?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I’ll take Twilight up to that window over the door, she can use her quiet spell and pry it open without anypony noticing, Fluttershy and I can slip in, grab the book, and be gone before Trixie knows what’s going on.”

“Make sure to grab a few books on either side of it when you find the book. For all we know The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide isn’t the only book to talk about Nightmare Moon and any information we can find from other books will be a big help.”

“Right,” Rainbow Dash nodded, “now let’s go steal a book!”

Rainbow Dash hooked a hoof under each of Twilight’s front legs and the two lifted off. The window in question opened directly onto the third floor and if they could silently open it they would be able to move about completely undetected.

“Is that Trixie down there?” Rainbow Dash was pointing at a blue unicorn with a white mane.

“Yeah,” Twilight said, “but the armor is new. I guess her ego makes her want to look like Nightmare Moon in addition to being her student.”

Trixie had donned a series of metal plates that were a lesser imitation of Nightmare Moon’s armor. The effect was rather lessened by her lack of wings and the fact that her helmet didn’t want to lie particularly flat on her mane.

“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight turned her attention back to the window. “Let me get this window open and we’ll be set.”

Twilight’s horn started glowing and slowly a group of window panes just larger than a pegasus started glowing with the same magenta glow.

“Here goes,” Twilight muttered.

The window panes started to silently slide out. Twilight stuck her tongue between her lips and focused on keeping everything utterly silent. Then she sprung the trap that had been laid on the window. A massive magical surge pulsed through the window and into Twilight. As blackness took hold Twilight Sparkle pushed the last bits of magic she could control into keeping the trap focused entirely on her.

Comments

[Wrabbit]

Dark story, man. Fairly grim fates they've had, especially poor Twilight. But I have to say it's a very interesting twist on the story you've made. I'll be watching this one.