AXE COP (Part 3)
The train ride from Canterlot to the Crystal Empire took about a full day. During that time, the Elements, Changeling Soldier, and I got to know each other a bit. I didn’t say anything about knowing their futures, nor the fact that their reality was fiction in my world, but I did share my real first name; I felt if anyone deserved to know, it was these seven, though I thought I saw a flash of a scowl on Pinkie’s face when I said it. She was back to smiling so fast I couldn’t be certain. I did ask them to call me Axe Cop around others, though.
After I woke up from getting my two minutes of sleep, I went to the dining car to see what I could find to eat. I found Pinkie sitting next to a table with what appeared to be a birthday cake on it. On top of the cake was a candle shaped like me, holding up an axe. I took a long look at it then gave Pinkie a sidelong glance, only to notice she was rubbing her forehooves together slightly maniacally.
“I KNEW IT! You’re not Axey Smartist! I knew you weren’t the real Axe Cop!” she yelled as she dropped to all fours and impossibly stretched her neck and body to get her face up in mine. “The real Axe Cop would have destroyed the place if he saw that candle on that cake!”
I stepped back and facepalmed a bit. I suppose if I could trust anyone here with my details, it’s Pinkie. “Firstly, Pinkie, I’m probably as close to the ‘real’ Axe Cop as you’ll ever meet. Somehow I got all his powers and abilities, but I’m still mostly myself in here.” I tapped my forehead with a finger. “I mostly play up the act so peop– uh, ponies won’t question anything, and for the most part, they don’t. Secondly, how do you know about Axe Cop?”
With her teeth clenched, she muttered, “I read the comic.” She seemed to relax a bit. “That reminds me, how do you know so much about us? None of the stories we told seemed to surprise you a bit!”
“...I’m not even going to ask how you’re able to read the comic, but you’re right, I do know a lot about you girls. It’s because, like Axe Cop, this world is fictional in the world I came from.”
“If that’s the case, you probably know what’s going to happen here, don’t you?” she asked, with a stern look. I nodded and started to say something but Pinkie waved a hoof at me and shook her head. “Ahp-ap-ap-ap-ap, no spoilers. If you want to help out, I’m not going to stop you, but NO. SPOILERS. For anypony.”
“Is it okay if I tell ponies things that may protect them from bad outcomes, as long as I omit the details?” With a grin, Pinkie nodded. I smiled and nodded back, and began the familiar gesture. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye, I Pinkie Promise that I will not tell anyone spoilers about future events.”
“Now that we’re done with that nastiness, c’mere.” Pinkie threw out her arms, clearly offering a hug, and I knelt down and accepted. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anypony. Now, let’s have some birthday cake!”
She cut large slices for both of us and we sat down to eat. “I don’t know if it’s just because this is a different world, or if it’s because I’m basically Axe Cop, but this birthday cake tastes better than any other food I’ve ever eaten, ever.”
“Probably both, silly. I’ll be glad to make you more when we get back to Ponyville, and I’ll even get the candle right next time.”
With a smirk, I reached out and patted her fluffy mane. “You should get to bed, we all have a long day tomorrow.” She gave me a questioning look. “I already got my two minutes of sleep–”
“–I know, I know, because you’re on the ‘always’ shift.” She yawned. “All right, good night Axel.”
As she slowly walked off, I called after her. “Good night, Pinkie Pie.”
It was running late in the afternoon when the train stopped... at a platform that had nothing visible nearby, only a heavy blizzard surrounding it. “I-is this where we actually get off the train?” stammered Fluttershy.
Twilight nodded, and with a flash of her horn, the door popped open. All the girls cringed at the frigid winds that poured in, but they started to head out anyway, with Rarity and Spike coming last. “Ha! And you all made fun of me for packing so many scarves!”
Spike carried a large pile of luggage, clearly Rarity’s, out of the train, and grunted. “Didn’t say a word.” Just outside the door, he slipped on a patch of ice, dropping the entire pile, causing one of the suitcases to pop open, and some of Rarity’s scarves to blow around. He yelled as he chased them around. “Whoa! Hey! Come here!” Changeling Soldier used her magic to help him gather the scarves.
From out in the blizzard, a voice called out. “Twilight!” A large white unicorn stallion wearing goggles and a scarf trudged up to the train platform.
Twilight used a hoof to shield her eyes from the snow. “Shining Armor?”
The stallion’s horn lit, removing the goggles and scarf from his face. “Twylie! You made it!” They ran to each other and had a quick hug and nuzzle. He turned to face the rest of us. “It’s good to see you here. All of you.” Turning back to Twilight, he got a serious look. “We’d better get moving. There are things out here we really don’t want to run into after dark.”
Fluttershy gulped. “What kind of things?”
Shining turned around dramatically. “Let’s just say the Empire... isn’t the only thing that’s returned.”
As we trekked through the snow towards the Empire proper, he explained further, yelling to be heard over the blowing wind. “Something keeps trying to get in! We think it’s the unicorn king who originally cursed the place!”
“But Princess Celestia said I was being sent here to find a way to protect the Empire! If King Sombra can’t get in, then it must already be protected!” Twilight yelled back.
Suddenly there was a loud roaring, howling sound from all around. “Th-that’s one of the things, isn’t it!?” Fluttershy shrieked.
Shining Armor turned around quickly. “We have to get to the Crystal Empire, now!” A huge smoky whirlwind appeared behind us, and green and red eyes emitting purple smoke appeared in front of it with a roar. Shining grabbed up Spike in his magic and tossed him on his back.
Twilight yelled, “Go, go!” as the ponies all ran for it.
I just drew my axe and leapt into the air. “I WILL CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF!” With a mighty swing of my axe... the smoke was undeterred. Completely unharmed. “Uh oh.” Shining turned around and fired a beam of energy at the cloud, but I didn’t see what happened. I was too busy running away. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, just barely catching up to the ponies as they reached the shield and jumped through.
We came through to a warm, grassy field, and I just laid there on the ground for a minute. Gasping for breath, Twilight asked, “Everypony okay?” She got a chorus of various affirmative responses. Then Shining Armor came through the shield. Twilight immediately ran up to him in concern. “Oh no, Shining Armor, your horn!” Black crystals were growing out of his horn, as though they had been embedded there. He winced a bit as his horn sparked when he tried to do magic, but the glow didn’t go past the crystals.
I stood up and grabbed my axe, but it didn’t feel quite right. I noticed it too had those black crystals embedded in the head. All I could do was stare at in disbelief for a moment, and that was long enough for Pinkie to notice. “Oh no, Axe Cop, your axe!”
With a frustrated scream, I whipped my axe into the ground and stomped off away from the group. I stayed inside the shield, but I didn’t really want to be anywhere near anyone. I heard a set of hoofsteps begin to walk towards me, but suddenly they stopped and I heard Pinkie’s voice. “Let him go, Lyra. He just needs some time alone.” She raised her voice a bit, clearly addressing me as I continued to stomp away. “We’ll be at the palace when you feel better.” I made no move to respond, I just continued around the perimeter of the Empire as the ponies headed for the palace.
There was a wide ring of grass between the city proper and the shield, with occasional crystal outcroppings in the grass. As I passed them, I noticed the wide variety of colors the crystals had. A couple hours later, I had made it about halfway around the Empire. I stopped because I noticed a particular crystal cluster that had bright red, white, and yellowish-brown crystals, and the colors reminded me of my axe. Looking around a bit, I found a small broken-off chunk of crystal nearby, so I grabbed it and started chipping away at the big outcropping.
After a few hours of chipping, I had managed to carve out a relative facsimile of my axe, though it more resembled the papier mâché monstrosity I had taken to the con than the proper perfect axe. With barely a moment of consideration, I started chopping away at the remains of the cluster with this axe, and in only about another hour, I had carved out a near exact replica of the perfect fire axe, even down to the colors. As I picked up my new crystal axe, I noticed an odd stone among the rubble; it was vaguely pineapple-shaped, with a red and green swirl pattern on it. I thought it looked interesting, so I picked it up and tossed it in my backpack.
Now that I had a new axe, I needed to dispose of this other terrible thing. I cleared out an area among the rubble, laid the first axe in the clearing, and took a step back. With a cry of “I WILL CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF!” I struck the handle just below the head. Instead of merely breaking, the axe exploded into thousands of tiny axes, far more than could even have been made from the amount of crystal in the axe, which flew off into the sky in all directions.
After I stood there stunned by confusion for a few minutes, I shook my head to clear my mind. With my new axe in hand, I headed for the crystal palace, determined to help stop this King Sombra. He’s pretty strong, but he’s no King of All Bad Guys. I’ve beaten the King of All Bad Guys. Well, Axe Cop did. Close enough.
As I approached the palace, I saw an odd collection of stands set up on the sides of the roads nearby. Oh, right, they had to do the Crystal Fair to cheer up the crystal ponies and power up the heart. I wondered if there was anything I could do to help with that. Up ahead, I noticed Twilight standing under the palace, next to the fake crystal heart. I looked up just in time to see Rainbow Dash grab the flag off the top of the palace, swoop down, and throw it over the heart. Picking up my pace, I reached back, hung my axe from the side of my backpack, and grabbed a flashlight from inside it. Waving it around, I herded back the approaching crystal ponies. “Nothing to see here folks, go on back and enjoy the rest of the fair.”
As the beam of light passed across one of the ponies that was walking away, a white-coated stallion with red and brown stripes in his mane, I noticed something odd; his eyes seemed to glow as my light passed across his cutie mark, which was a sewing needle with a piece of thread looped through it. I quickly ran up to him, tapped him in the back, and gestured for him to step aside with me. With a confused look, he cautiously followed. “I noticed something unusual about you that I’d like to investigate further. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble.” He didn’t look any less confused, but he seemed to calm down a bit. “Look up at the sky,” I told him, and he complied. “Now hold that pose for a minute.” He nodded a bit. I pointed my flashlight directly at his cutie mark, and his eye on the same side glowed. As I moved it closer, his eye glowed brighter.
“Is this hurting any?” I asked.
He shook his head a bit. “N-no. I can sort of see a glow around the edge of my vision in that eye, but it doesn’t hurt.” I put my flashlight right up against his cutie mark, he jumped a bit from the contact, and a beam of white light shined out of his eye. “Still doesn’t hurt, and I can see the light shining out.”
I flicked off my flashlight. “Okay, now look down at the ground.” He did, and I turned the flashlight back on. The beam shined out of his eye again, and didn’t seem to be affecting the ground any.
I switched the flashlight back off and turned to look him in the face. “Would you like to help out with the Crystal Fair? If I can find a few more crystal ponies that can do this, we could probably put on a good show. You know, raise everyone’s spirits.”
“Would I? I’d be honored to be part of the Crystal Fair! My name is Agate Needle, do you need help finding more, uh... performers?”
“Performers, that sounds good. Call me Axe Cop. I could use help, yeah. It’s tough to watch both ends of a pony at once. I need to talk to Purple Smart first, though. Wait here, Agate.” He nodded and I walked back over to the fake crystal heart to find her panicking. I shoved my flashlight in my back pocket, knelt down, grabbed her by the sides of the face, pulled her close, and yelled, “TWILIGHT! Get ahold of yourself!”
Her ears pinned back and her eyes snapped open, but her breathing seemed to slow a bit. I let go of her, and she started doing that breathing exercise that Cadance taught her. Hissing through her teeth, she whispered, “What am I going to do!? I didn’t know there was an actual crystal heart we needed to find!”
“First thing you’re going to do is not panic again. Second thing, I need something that can project light like this,” I pulled out my flashlight and demonstrated. Her eyes lit up (figuratively) and I quickly turned the flashlight around and tapped her on the nose with it, eliciting a squeak sound. “No. Bad Egghead. You can nerd out over this later. Right now I need at least ten objects about this big,” I held my hands up to show a circle of about five inches diameter, “that can produce directed light like it. Can you manage that, quickly?”
She looked... displeased, but understanding. “Easily.” She trotted over behind a nearby building and, a couple minutes later, came back with a stack of ten crystal disks floating in her magic. “I carved these out of the ground, and put simple enchantments on them. They should be pretty sturdy, but try not to drop them anyway. Tap it twice to turn it on or off, and the opposite side will light up.” She made as though to give them to me, but pulled back a bit. “What do you need these for?”
“It’s a secret, but I assure you, everyone will like it.” Apparently satisfied with that, she passed them to me. “Now you should go talk to your brother and sister-in-law about the crystal heart.” She looked like she was going to panic again, but she did that breathing thing a couple more times, nodded, and then took off up the stairs. I headed back over to Agate. “Okay, that’s taken care of. Now I need you to help me find three or four more crystal ponies whose eyes glow when light is shined on their cutie mark, and then I need to find someone to make something to hold one of these things over each cutie mark of a pony.” I held up the stack of discs, took one off, and double-tapped one side, making the other project a beam just like my flashlight.
“I’m a tailor! After we find a few more performers, we can all go to my store and fit them for sashes to hold the lights, that should be adequate.”
“Perfect, let’s go.”
At that exact moment, the shield started to flicker, then disappeared completely. “Ooh, right, I forgot about that. I should do something. Agate, don’t panic, I need you to help protect everyone until the princess can get the shield back up.”
“M-me? I’m just a tailor, how am I supposed to protect the whole empire?”
I pointed off into the distance. “See that big dark cloud over there that’s moving this direction?” He nodded. “Keep your eyes on it and don’t look away before the shield comes back up, no matter what.”
“N-no matter what?”
“No matter what.” I pulled two of the crystal disks off the pile and shoved the rest in my backpack, slapped one over each of Agate’s cutie marks, and tapped them twice to turn them on. Bright beams of light shot out of his eyes and hit the cloud, pushing it back a bit. The dark cloud writhed, almost as though it were in pain, but continued to push forward.
“It’s working!” he exclaimed, the joy evident in his voice. From my close vantage point, I noticed his coat slowly becoming more crystalline in appearance as his mood lifted, and the light pouring out of his eyes became correspondingly brighter, slowing the movement of the cloud greatly. I heard some hoofsteps slowly approaching, and I looked around to see a few other crystal ponies staring at us as they came closer. After about half a minute, the shield flared back to life, just in time to stop the cloud from entering the empire proper. Agate’s eye beams swept across the sky as he finally looked away.
All the nearby crystal ponies cheered and ran up to us as I turned off the disks and Agate’s eye beams went out. Among the appreciative, congratulatory, and victorious cries, I stood up and clapped loudly to get everyone’s attention. “We haven’t won yet, we’ve just bought more time.” The crowd’s mood dipped just a bit. “I need to find three or four more crystal ponies that can do what my friend Agate here can do, both to help protect the empire and to entertain for the fair, so anyone that’s interested, make a line here to be tested. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt at all.” About half the crowd dispersed fairly quickly, but there were still a good number of ponies left.
It went fairly quickly, I just shined a light on their rump and Agate checked if their eyes glowed, but we went through over half the line before we found any ponies that had the effect. The first ones we found were three sisters, triplets in fact, that introduced themselves as the ‘Aurora sisters’ - Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire Aurora. They had coats in colors matching their names, off-white manes tinted to match their coats, eyes in complementary colors to their coats, and even matching cutie marks - pictures of an aurora borealis in the same colors as their eyes; Ruby’s were cyan, Emerald’s were magenta, and Sapphire’s were yellow. Strangely enough, when I shined light on their cutie marks, their eyes glowed with the colors of their coats, not their eyes and cutie marks. “Hmm,” I said to Agate, “I wonder if it’s a family thing, or just random chance.” He shrugged in reply, and I asked the sisters to step to the side. We continued checking the rest of the line, but no more ponies had the effect... Not even Pinkie Pie, who had somehow snuck in at the end of the line. “Ponka, you’re not a crystal pony, what made you think it would work?”
“I dunno, but eye lasers would have been SO COOL to have, you know? They would be great at parties and I could light up a disco ball all by myself and–”
“Pinkie,” I interrupted.
“What?”
“Why are you here, shouldn’t you be helping with the fair?”
“Well Rainbow Dash wouldn’t give me a flugelhorn and so I went and tried to find some other way to help and I saw you walking around with a crystal pony - hi, by the way - and I thought ‘hey, our buddy Axe Cop must be hungry,’ so I tried to find you some food but all I could find was some crystal berries I hope you like them!” She had pulled a hoofful of crystal berries out of her mane and was offering them to me.
I took one and looked at it closely. “These are edible? They look just like pieces of the crystals around here.”
“Yep, see?” she said as she popped one into her mouth, crunched it a bit, and swallowed, then gave me her trademark huge grin, with what looked like tiny shards of crystal in her teeth.
With a shrug, I popped the one I had taken in my mouth and grabbed the rest out of her hoof as I started chewing. I was surprised to find it only slightly crunchy on the outside, with a chewy, gooey filling. Again I was stunned by the intensity of flavors in this world. I decided I was going to hang onto these berries for later, so I put them in a side pocket of my backpack.
While I was paying more attention to the flavor and texture of the berry than to her, Ponka had walked up to me and started tapping my leg with her hoof. Oddly, it was accompanied by a ‘tink, tink’ sound. “Axey, I think you might want to save the rest of those for special occasions. I think you forgot about the fruit thing.” I chuckled at that, I suppose a nickname was inevitable if I didn’t want her using my real name... wait. She just said something important. Looking down at myself, I noticed my entire body, clothes included, had taken on a crystalline appearance. I had become Axe Cop Crystal!
“Right, right, the fruit thing.” I fixed a glare on her. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
“Nope!” She pronked in place and flashed me a big toothy grin. “Well, that’s not entirely true, I saw the berries when I was looking for food for you and I remembered the fruit thing and I figured it might work with more unusual fruits too, so I grabbed you some, I didn’t know it would turn you into crystal.”
“Alright, I can work with this. Let’s head over to Agate’s tailor shop and get you all fitted for some sashes to hold your lights.” They all nodded, and we followed Agate to his shop, which was only a few minutes away. The holders weren’t difficult to make, it was basically a sash with open-sided pockets in each end, so we were heading back towards the palace in no time. I led my little entourage to an open area a few blocks away from the palace, and began to set up the performance.
I walked a large circle on the ground, instructing the four performers to take positions around it, and face down at the ground. Then I told Songsmile to go tell ponies to watch in this direction, after which she saluted and took off. “Here’s what we’re going to do - after I turn on all your lights, you’re all going to look at me and walk around in a circle, which should create a light show. Don’t stare at one area, move your eyes around to let the light scatter.” They all nodded in response.
Ponies were starting to gather nearby by then, so I sent around and tapped all the crystal discs to turn them on, causing each of my performers to shine beams of light at the ground. I stood in the middle of the circle and said, “Okay, start!” Just as I predicted, there was a glittery rainbow effect, just like you get from those plastic crystals found at novelty shops, but on a much larger scale. I could see the light passing through me, but I didn’t feel anything. Many of the nearby ponies stomped their hooves in applause, while moods and coats started to brighten all around.
If I squinted, I could see Squiggletail, Treekicker, and Speedycloud deflecting crystal ponies away from the fake heart, and looking up a bit more, I could see Sparklebutt spiraling around the upper tower on the underside of the stairs. Good, it was almost time. I cringed as one of them, I couldn’t tell which because they were all so close to it, bumped into the pedestal and sent the fake heart flying.
As the performers continued to circle around me and entertain the ponies, I noticed the shield starting to flicker again, enough that the darkness and snowstorm were visible outside it. That was my cue. I looked around quickly to figure out where Sombra was coming from, and I noticed his head was actually visible on the cloud this time. The audience started to panic, but I just pointed at Sombra and called out, “Performers! Aim your lights at King Sombra!” As they did, he roared in apparent pain. If I kept this up, he might not be close enough to get blown away by the heart. When the shield fell, I yelled, “Everyone stop! Look down!” I went around and turned off my performers’ lights while Sombra came rushing into the empire, dark crystals forming along his path, aiming for the crystal heart, which was a tiny glowing blue speck being followed closely by a tiny purple speck falling from the palace’s tower. I knew he wouldn’t bother with us when the crystal heart was right there. A huge dark crystal rose out of the ground, and Sombra took full physical form on the tip, as it extended to intercept the heart. Suddenly, a purple, pink, and magenta streak flew from the palace’s balcony, intercepting the heart before Sombra could get it.
Princess Lovebutt and Spike circled around past us and headed back for the area under the palace. “Behold, the crystal princess!” called out one of the ponies that had just been in our audience. I could see her from where we were, but I couldn’t hear what she said as she levitated the heart into its position under the palace. All of the crystal ponies took their full crystal forms and bowed towards the princess, and the very crystal the roads were made of began to glow.
“What? No. No! Stop!” Sombra’s voice echoed across the Empire. The glow in the roads flowed into the palace and gathered in the crystal heart, which released a burst of energy that covered the empire, blowing away any remaining dark crystals and even annihilating Sombra. That was followed by a multicolored beam of light that shot into the sky from the top of the palace, causing auroras in the sky above and blowing away the dark clouds surrounding the Crystal Empire. I could see the princess land on the palace’s balcony, and all the crystal ponies began to cheer.
As I walked back to the train platform with the Element bearers and Changeling Soldier, having recovered my axe, now clear of dark crystals, Rarity complained, as she was wont to do. “I do so wish it was permanent. Did you see how my mane just absolutely sparkled?”
“But good things are better when they’re... a Rarity,” Applejohn replied, winking.
“Awww!” Rarara laughed.
At the tail end of the group, Shining Armor spoke. “Everything's gonna be okay.” He looked at his sister. “You've gotta stop saving my rump like this. It's starting to get embarrassing.” She got a sheepish look, followed quickly by looking sad.
“It wasn’t me who saved you in the end. It was Spike.”
“It's just a test. Maybe she'll let you retake it.” Princess Lovebutt nudged him with her wing and gave him a scolding look.
“I don't think she's gonna give me a new test.”
The couple continued to have their silent argument as the rest of us loaded on the train and headed back to Canterlot.
Most of the Element bearers, Spike, Changeling Soldier, and I waited near the castle back in Canterlot while Purple Smart talked to Princess Sunbutt about her test. The little dragon was pacing in front of the double doors impatiently.
“She’s totally gonna lose it!” He breathed deeply a few times, trying to calm down. “Keep it together, buddy! Gotta stay strong! For Twilight–” One of the doors flew open, smacking him right in the face, and Sparklebutt jumped out the door.
“I passed!” All the girls cheered, and I even clapped for her. Then one of them started singing. The rest quickly joined in, even Changeling Soldier.
“Nope. I’m not getting caught up in this. See you girls on the train back to Ponyville.” With a wave, I took off across Canterlot.
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The best part was when he tried to kill smoke with an edged weapon.
5986316
I don't (currently) have any plans to depart majorly from canon. (In-between events may vary, but the results will mostly ultimately be the same.) I even plan any crossovers (at least "home" crossovers) to work into canon, and "away" crossovers will either take place during canon that Axel can't reasonably get involved in or simply "between episodes".