The Equestrian Venture

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter Twenty Three: Prelude to Battle

THE EQUESTRIAN VENTURE
Chapter Twenty Three: Prelude to Battle
Written by TheCrimsonDM

The door to the Tower of Torment was huge, standing at least twenty feet in height. It was a single door made of some red stained metal, the earth around them was coated in the same tinted dirt. This place was the end of life, and a deepening sense of dread quickly surrounded the three.

Rita looked up at her friends and asked, “So all we need to do is go in, make our way to the top, and then we are free?”

Lamont who was still wielding his flaming long sword walked forward and gave the door a push. It slid open with a loud screech, something akin to hearing the tortured screams of a dying man. After the door opened as far as it would go the wind picked up again and blew some of the red colored sand inside.

Lamont entered first with his sword casting its light across the room, it was empty except for the single staircase spiraling up into the dark roof, and the red sand covering the floor. Rita followed second with Crow at the rear.

“You need to be careful here,” Crow whispered to Rita.

“I know, dad. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself though, and besides we have Lamont here,” Rita said back.

Lamont stopped at the base of the staircase and said, “Okay everyone, now we go up. Estella is somewhere up there and we are going to save her.”

Rita took a few steps forward, her metal shoes although light were still heavy enough for her to feel the weight slowing her down. She would still be using the spell that was implemented into them to make them sail across the earth, but it was a taxing spell and required time to rest between uses. So she was back to walking. Suddenly something grabbed hold of her foot and she jerked forward.

Fearfully she looked down and saw some light blue crystal substance surrounding her boot. Rita screamed and yanked her foot back but the crystals held fast, and it grew upwards covering a little more of her boot.

“Take off your shoe,” Crow shouted.

Rita quickly followed her father’s advice and undid the straps and pulled her foot clear. Just in time too as the second her foot was free, the crystal substance jumped out and surrounded her boot completely. Now with only one shoe Rita groaned at the thought of now having to walk barefoot up the stairs.

Suddenly Rita was lifted up off the ground and set back down onto her father’s shoulders. Rita looked down at the back of top of his head and said, “You know that I can still walk.”

“Yeah, but this way you don’t have to hurt your feet. You’re my little robin, and it’s my job to keep you safe and healthy,” Crow replied cheerfully.

Rita found herself grinning despite feeling a little childish. She looked up at Lamont who was smiling back at her and she said, “Fine, but you need to set me down before we encounter Estella. I can’t let her see me like this.”

The three of them continued up the stairs and Rita glimpsed back one last time at the metal boot now frozen in a chunk of crystal. She was surprised at how clear the crystal was, and she wondered if the boot would be there forever, encased inside the crystal that would keep it safe until the end of time.

***

Rita opened her eyes and saw the dark room around her, the only light source being the moonlight. She looked over at the other bed to see Twilight and Spike sleeping peacefully, both of them snoring loudly. Rita closed her eyes to go back to sleep, but something felt off. She opened her eyes and looked around again, the room was quiet. Nothing had changed since Twilight, Spike, and her went to sleep, they had even left the door unlocked just for Trixie… that’s it! Trixie was still missing.

Rita very quietly got out of bed, and slipped her wooden sandals on. She needed to find out where Trixie was, it was far too late for a mare to be out alone especially with monsters on the loose. Rita grabbed her backpack and slipped out the bedroom door and snuck off down the stairs and out of the inn.

Once outside Rita found herself not sure as too where to go so she questioned several of the guard ponies around her. Most of them gave her an odd look, and they didn’t know where Trixie was. One of the unicorn stallions had made mention of Trixie being an amazing mare for still taking command of the unicorn forces after the first assault, and that she needed a break, when Rita questioned that further he refused to make comment on what the first attack entailed. After that though she decided to change her topic and ask instead of where the doctor had gone, apparently there was only one doctor around here and he was working out of a small house trying his best to heal the injured ponies, one mare in particular was in really rough shape.

Rita followed the information and arrived at the house. There was a garbage bin outside the house and Rita could glimpse a mess of red stained bandages. Rita also noticed a blue mare sitting alone on a rocking bench on the front porch just staring up at the starry night sky. The mare’s cloak and hat made it perfectly clear that it was Trixie who was sitting there all alone.

Rita took a seat next to Trixie and watched the night sky with her. “So, you haven’t come back to the room yet.”

“Did Twilight send you to drag me back already?” Trixie asked.

“No she’s asleep, so is Spike. I kinda snuck out to check up on you, I was getting worried,” Rita said.

“Trixie doesn’t know why you would worry. She’s not worth it you know,” Trixie said.

“I think that everyone is worth it. Besides that you look so lonely here, that I just needed to give you some company,” Rita said while kicking her feet out.

“Peppers Ghost is inside there, and she’s in bad shape. Even the doctor’s magic isn’t able to heal her, and that’s his profession. She lost her twin sister in the first assault… I don’t know what to do,” Trixie said.

“I’m sorry, but it’s not like it’s your fault,” Rita tried to comfort her.

Trixie jumped out of the chair suddenly and turned on Rita while snarling. “You think it’s not my fault! I was the first one here you know, and it’s not because there was a monster threat. I was here with my assistants just trying to get some money on the road for food, we were making our way to Saddle Arabia. And then that dragon appeared and attacked us, along with the monsters that followed it. Celestia then demanded that I stay here and take command of the unicorns while Spitfire did her thing with the pegasi, and Copper Axe with the earth ponies.

“If I had my say I’d be half way through a deep bottle of whisky right now,” Trixie said, but when she finished tears had already begun running down the sides of her face.

Rita still surprised by the sudden change in Trixie was still for a moment, but she regained self control just enough to try and reach out with a timid hand. Trixie swiped a hoof at Rita’s hand and knocked it away while saying, “No, I don’t want your pity. All I do is hurt the ones I love, first Maud, then M.D. and P.G. if you try to get close to me you’ll end up hurt too.”

Trixie turned around and suddenly took off galloping away. Rita just sat there clutching her hand, it was in pain but that wasn’t a huge concern right now. Trixie had obviously needed someone, and Rita wasn’t able to help her, although if not Rita than who? Rita knew better than anyone what loss felt like, and this was going to be a painful process for Trixie. Rita doubted that Trixie had even been given enough time to grieve yet, she was still holding it all in and trying her darndest to not fall apart. If Rita was given the chance again, she would do her best to help the blue unicorn through this painful experience, because no one should be left alone after such a loss.

***

The top of the staircase ended in a level platform with a single door leading to the only room up here. Crow set Rita down gently and she slipped on one of her wooden sandal’s to help level herself out. Lamont looked around worriedly and whispered, “Why isn’t this place guarded?”

“It is strange that after the scorpion we haven’t encountered a single enemy here. What do you think is going through the Lord of Chaos’s mind?” Crow asked.

“He’s the Lord of Chaos, I don’t think there is anything going through his mind,” Rita said with a smirk.

Lamont carefully went to the door and grabbed the handle; he turned back to them and said, “Okay, this is it. After I open this door we grab Estella and run.” After everyone nodded in agreement he opened the door and the three rushed in.

The room was large, much larger then Rita had expected to see in here, and empty save for the strange clear crystal that was standing in the middle of the room. The crystal was the same kind that had devoured her boot earlier, only this time a lone woman was standing inside it. Her long pink hair had strands of green, blue, and purple throughout it. Her eyes were closed and she looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

Just before anyone could react however the crystal suddenly shattered and Estella fell to the floor. Rita charged after her first, followed by the other two. When Rita got to Estella’s side she slid to a full stop and kneeled down to pick up Estella’s head. The other two arrived just in time to see Rita cradling Estella’s head on her lap and brushing Estella’s hair out of her face.

A few tears escaped Rita’s eyes and fell silently down onto Estella’s face. Rita looked up at her father and stared him in his gray eyes while asking, “Why? Didn’t we do good enough to save her?”

Crow frowned and with a dirty hand wiped away Rita’s tears while saying, “We did our best, little robin. We did our best.”

A sudden fit of coughing startled everyone and Estella rolled over and coughed a few more times. Rita’s heart froze as she looked at her best friend suddenly moving again. Estella turned her head and looked back at Rita with those deep purple eyes and Rita’s heart soared to new heights. Without warning Estella jumped over and wrapped both of her arms around Rita while saying, “I was so scared. I knew that you would come to save me, I just knew I’d see you again, Rita.”

Rita returned the hug and said, “I-I-I’ll always be there to save you. No matter what stands in my way.”

A sudden spout of dark laughter broke out from the doorway, and a smooth deep voice said, “Look at the little bird reunited with her owner. Isn’t it beautiful? I do so hope that you enjoyed your stay, princess.”

The four of them looked over to see the man standing at the doorway. His hair was a dark gray, his skin was light brown and he had two horns on his head. One of his horns was blue and spiraled, the other one was an antler. He swept his arms in a wide gesture showing off his hands, although his hands looked human the left one had a set of claws reaching out. He gave a small smile showing off his teeth, including a single fang. Finally he looked at the group with his hate filled eyes, where the whites would normally be was a sickening yellow, but that only added to the menace of his red irises. The last thing to note was his brown suite.

“The Lord of Chaos,” growled Lamont.

“Oh please, I call myself the Chaos Lord, and the spirit of discord,” The man replied.

Rita felt her blood beginning to boil at the sight of this monster who had taken her friend away from her. This was going to end in another difficult fight, but even so Rita was determined to kick him where it hurt the most. Crow notched an arrow and asked, “Why did you take Estella here?”

“Oh now that wouldn’t be any fun, just giving you the information for free would ruin the game. You have to earn it!” The Chaos Lord replied. The Chaos Lord’s wings spread apart one of his wings was blue and feathery; the other one looked like a brown dragon’s wing. The only things that Rita knew about this monster before her were that he was supposedly the last of his race in human form, that he was incredibly powerful, and finally that she was going to kill him for taking Estella.

***

The next day Rita awoke and went about the morning feeling anxious. Trixie had only reappeared in the morning before falling asleep on the other side of the bed, and although Trixie was still sleeping, Rita wasn’t sure what to do to help her. Breakfast was less then enjoyable, they served mush for breakfast, understandably the mush had been lacking in flavor. Next she had to get ready for the meeting that Twilight and her were going into. The leaders of each of the different corps were gathering together to talk strategy about how to defeat the dragon. Spitfire, Trixie, Copper Axe, and the leader of the local militia were going to join in as well, all them being under the command of Princess Twilight Sparkle. At the very least Rita was going to finally see how ponies dealt with big threats.

The lower level of the inn had been emptied of ponies almost completely save for a select few, most notably the three ponies sitting around one of the tables in the middle of the room. A yellow pegasus with an orange mane reminding Rita of an open fire was sitting on one end of the table, this was Spitfire and for some reason it bothered Rita to see her out of uniform. To Spitfire’s left was a light brown earth pony stallion with a bronze colored mane, he wore a suit of golden armor, this was Copper Axe. Lastly there was another earth pony, this time a mare with a purple mane in a similar style to Twilight’s, a gray fur coat and wearing a deep blue dress. Rita was unfamiliar with this pony, but suspected this to be the local militia’s leader.

Twilight Sparkle sat down first, followed by Spike and finally Rita. Trixie was going to join them any second now, but before that Rita wanted to know who the gray mare was. Twilight smiled and said, “Alright everypony, it looks like introductions are necessary really quick. As you all know I’m Twilight Sparkle, with me I have Spike the dragon, and Rita the human.” She then motioned to the other ponies and said their names as she did, “We also have Spitfire, leader of the Wonderbolts, Copper Axe representative of the Equestrian Guard, and Maud Pie leader of the local voluntary militia.”

Rita felt that she had heard Maud’s name once before, but she wasn’t quite sure where at. As the sound of somepony walking down the stairs drew everyone’s attention they all turned to see Trixie walking down them, cautiously. Spitfire nodded and said, “Morning, Trixie.”

“Yeah, Trixie knows that Trixie is late. You do not have to patronize her,” Trixie replied, her eyes firmly placed on each and every step as she made her way down. When she finally reached the bottom stair she muttered, “Trixie hates stairs.”

Trixie walked to the table not lifting her head once and as she grabbed a seat next to Rita she asked, “So what can The Great and Powerful Trixie do for everypony today?”

“Actually we just started, so we’ll be discussing that now,” Twilight explained.

“Wonderful,” Trixie said sarcastically. Trixie then looked up for the first time and saw the ponies around the table, but her eyes widened as she saw Maud. Trixie’s pupils shrunk and her ears folded back and she said quietly, “O-o-oh… Maud’s here.”

Rita looked at Maud but saw no reaction on the gray pony’s face, just the same flat expression that she had been holding since she first saw her. It was weird to see a pony acting so stoic. Maud did look at Trixie though and muttered, “hmm… Trixie’s here.” Rita looked between the two of them wondering what had happened between them to cause such obvious tension.

Twilight spoke up and broke the tension, “So what have you been doing to fend off the dragon so far? I need to know actual tactics so that I can find a way to stop it.”

Copper Axe grinned and said, “We’ve been destroying it whenever it comes around.”

Spitfire frowned at him before saying, “Yes and all it does is rebuild itself. It just won’t stay down when we kill it.”

“So it can regenerate?” Twilight thought aloud. “That’s troubling.”

Rita then joined in saying, “Yeah Starswirl did mention that he created some golems with regenerating properties. He made the Timberwolves after all, and this dragon was designed to defend the old kingdom with an absurd amount of power. I suspect it returned to its homeland first, and that could explain why there are monsters showing up, maybe it has some plan.”

“Starswirl did what?” Twilight exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me this was one of his creations sooner?”

“Because he’s dead, and this was actually the reason that I was on your computer. I needed to see if I could use it to find out any more information, unfortunately that didn’t seem to pan out,” Rita explained.

The room was silent for a moment before Trixie asked, “But if Starswirl built it, how can we possibly stop it? I thought that Timberwolves were invincible.”

“I killed a giant one,” Spike admitted proudly. “So we can totally stop this thing if we just figure out how it works.”

“I agree with, Spike,” Rita said, “What we need is to find out how it works, or more accurately we need to find the gems powering this thing. Once we do that we can destroy them until it stops moving. As for the increase in monsters, unless they are directly connected to the dragon’s presence then I don’t know what to do about them.”

Maud spoke, suddenly reminding ponies of her presence, her voice was completely monotone, “I’ve seen three different gems inside of it. There bright green and glowing. I suspect that the gems are actually Aether stones.”

Rita gave a short chuckle and said, “Aether stones, ha those are useless in construction. The Aether hasn’t worked for hundreds of years, thats why our world is so screwed…” after a momentary pause Rita thought about it and realized that this was not her world. “Actually that’s only true for my world, does the Aether actually function here, does it even exist?”

Twilight nodded and said, “There was once a time in our world where the Aether didn’t work, but that was during the dawn of ponykind. Now the Aether works just fine and so the does the world. Aether stones could theoretically draw endless amounts of energy from the Aether itself.”

“What is Aether?” Copper Axe asked while scratching his head.

Twilight looked at Rita and said, “I’d like to hear your explanation, and if there are any differences in our theories I’ll discuss them afterwards.”

Rita shrugged and stood up. She began pacing around the table while explaining, “The Aether is the space in which all magic moves, magic is said to exist in every part of the world at the same time, but on a different plane then the physical one that we all experience. So if magic exists on another plane, how does it come from its plane down to ours? The answer is the Aether, a sort of inter-dimensional plane that exists in both planes at once. Magic is drawn from the Celestial plane through the Aether and into our plane. Of course in my world the Aether has been dead for a few hundred years which is why magic comes from our souls as opposed to the Celestial plane.”

“Wow, that’s actually one hundred percent accurate. Except for the fact that the Aether works in this world, and that’s where we get our magic from. A unicorn’s horn is a tool used to draw energy from the Aether and channel it into our world. I’m surprised to hear that our worlds are this similar,” Twilight said.

Rita nodded before sitting down again. Copper Axe scratched his chin and looked up thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging and saying, “Nope, I don’t get it. Thanks for trying anyway.”

“Look the dragon is going to be here soon, we need to figure out a way to actually stop it not talk about how magic works,” Spitfire interjected.

Twilight frowned at the pegasus, but after a moment she let out a sigh and said, “You’re right, education can wait just this once. I have a strategy already planned out for this battle.”

Twilight went on to explain her plans to the various group leaders around the table, assigning them each unique tasks for when the fight starts. The discussion carried on for almost a half hour before everything was set up and finally they were ready for battle. Rita was going to stand by Twilight’s side along with Spike as they watched the battle from a good vantage point, and if anything went wrong Rita was to jump in and aid the ponies in any way she could. Spike however was going to be Twilight’s personal guard for the battle, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Comments

[amiamera]

So the more this goes on, the more I think she went to the future rather than another similar dimension. My final question then is a simple one is Celestia actually Estelle?

[bioskyrim]

Spike, Twilight personal guard ? Twilight is screwed

[Golem Stone]

5775831 yeah, I'm getting a "Planet of the Apes" feeling myself. The only thing we need to prove it is for Dizzy to meet and recognize Rita or for her to find her crystal encased boot... or both. And as for the last part, i think descendant would be the safer assumption.

[amiamera]

5776659
Huh, I didn't think of that. That actually is a very clever way of doing "it was my planet all along!" Then again, she can also blame the inhabitants for destroying the rest of the world when they knew that weather manipulation would destroy it in her time.

[Golem Stone]

5776833 Whatever happened, the ponies managed to figure out and succeed where the humans failed...
... Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?