Undone by the Blood

by Visiden Visidane

Old Ponyville

Undone by the Blood

Chapter 8: Old Ponyville

Fortunately, it's my room in the cathedral that greets me when I wake up. Not a moment too soon as well. I've barely opened my eyes when there's knock on my door.

"Good evening!"

Scootaloo lets the greeting out as soon as she flings the door open. She's still in her Church outfit, with the gold, conical helmet thing slung behind her.

"Evening?" I ask. "Are you telling me I slept from evening to evening?"

"No, silly," Scootaloo replies. "It's the same evening. The Night of the Hunt goes on and on until all our duties are fulfilled."

I was about to ask if I had only slept an hour or something, but the realization sinks in swiftly. "How long has it been the Night of the Hunt?" I ask.

Scootaloo shrugs her shoulders. "We haven't been counting. It doesn't matter. We just need to do our duties. Come on! The passage to Old Ponyville is not that far."

For such a massive cathedral, this place is eerily empty. The stone hallways echo with our hoofsteps, no matter how lightly we step. Then again, Scootaloo can't really step that lightly despite being a pegasus thanks to that enormous wheel-weapon slung across her shoulders. Not even those white-faced creatures patrol the inside of the cathedral and I haven't seen any of the Church's pony members. What was this place like at its height? I picture throngs of ponies trotting through the hallways, filling the main chamber to attend whatever ceremonies the Church of Harmony got up to.

It seems that a lack of participants didn't deter those ceremonies, though. As we approach the main chamber, the stale, heavy air carries the same murmurs I heard the last time. Vicar Sweetie Bell's prayers went at an earnest, fevered pitch. We avoid getting too close to the altar as we head out the door, but I catch sight of the vicar. She's still kneeling in front of the altar, her forelegs pressed together, and her horn nearly touching the cold, stone floor.

"Does she ever stop?" I ask once we get past the doors. The cool evening breeze, even with the faint whiff of blood and smoke, feels good after staying inside the cathedral.

"Sometimes for meals," Scootaloo replies. "Sweetie Belle needs a lot of strength and guidance for these trying times."

"I guess so," I say. I'm not sure what kind of guidance she expects from that deformed skull.

We move through a series of small side-streets. Harmony District isn't just the place for the cathedral, it seems. I see a lot of residential homes. These ones are bigger than the ones in Central Ponyville. Better built too, with thick, oaken doors and large, iron-barred windows. There's a light in many of them, but I doubt anypony will deign to answer if I knocked. These must belong to ponies involved with the Church of Harmony itself. Clergy, probably, and people involved in the day to day services. I catch a faint scent of incense from the windows. Clearly, they're better prepared for the beast plague ravaging Central Ponyville.

"Oh, you're a new face."

The sound of a mare speaking from one of the windows brings me up short. I look to the source, only to find a curtain barely lifted to show a slight hint of a white-furred snout. "Pardon?" I ask. A whiff of heavy perfume hits my nostrils, mixing with the incense to create an overpowering pungency. I keep a straight face regardless.

"We normally only get Church hunters here," the mare says. "And occasionally a noble executioner."

Scootaloo gives a short bow at this.

"This is the first time somepony from the Hunter's Workshop has walked this street. Tell me, Sir Hunter, did you come from Central Ponyville? How is the situation there?"

"Dire," I reply. "The ponies there need help."

"I see...I'm sorry to hear that. I hope the hunters resolve this night soon."

"Do you need something, Miss De Lis?" Scootaloo asks. "We're on a mission for the Church of Harmony."

"Ah...yes...I'm afraid I'm running low on incense. My home won't be safe for long. I was hoping that a brave and noble hunter might know of a place to go."

"The Cathe--" I start to say when Scootaloo cuts me off.

"The Cathedral is no place for a mare of her...profession," Scootaloo says. "There's plenty of incense in the old chapel to Cadance."

"That might not be so safe," I snap, recalling that hideous beggar there waiting for refugees. I tell Miss De Lis of Red Heart's clinic.

"Hmm..." Miss De Lis replies. "That's a bit far, but I'm confident that I can get there. Thank you, brave hunter."

I nod and muster a small smile. Already, I'm thinking of stopping by the clinic later. We move on, passing more houses in this maze of a district. "So, do you know that mare?" I ask Scootaloo. "And why isn't she allowed in the Cathedral?"

"She's a whore," Scootaloo replies. "Her blood is tainted. Having her in the Cathedral is an offense."

"But it's perfectly fine for her to be in Harmony District," I say.

"Some of the clergy make use of her," Scootaloo replies with a wrinkle of her snout. "Rainbow Dash always wanted to do away with the practice, but both Vicars have been lenient." Her smile returns after a while. "Still, it was very kind of you to find her a place to stay."

It sounds all too ridiculous to me, but the Church's practices aren't my main concern right now. I need them for their cure. That's it.

Scootaloo's cheery mien dampens a bit as she makes a sharp turn. The street ends in a small, squarish building. It must be a chapel or tomb from the statuary and the dour, grand pillars. The air here's musty and there are no lamps nearby. This isn't a place the Church of Harmony wants ponies to pay attention to. As we move past the entrance, the sight of the massive sarcophagus confirms that we're in a tomb.

"Who lies in here?" I ask.

"Old Ponyville lies here," Scootaloo replies. She flaps her wings rapidly, surprisingly lifting even her burdened body up into the air so she could land on a raised ledge. From there, she fiddles with a nearby wall, then pulls something.

I'm about to ask what's going on when the clank of gears turning followed by the loud scrape of stone against stone answers my question. The sarcophagus slides to the side, revealing a set of stairs descending into a darkened passage. I peer into the passage. No torches this time. Damn, maybe I should have prepared more in the workshop.

Scootaloo lands next to me with a smile, then gestures towards her belt. A small lantern hangs from it, and, with a flick from her hoof, ignites into a faint light. Not much, but light's light, and she gets to keep her hooves free. Is that a Church hunter device? I should ask Applejack for one of those when I come back.

"So why the hidden entrance, Scootaloo?" I ask in a whisper. I doubt we can rely on the Church's patrols keeping anything past this entrance safe. "I would have thought Old Ponyville would still be part of the city."

"It used to be," Scootaloo replies wistfully. "Old Ponyville is the root of this great city. There's a lot of history to it. I was born there. So was Vicar Belle, and the Church of Harmony's founders."

I frown and recall Applejack's words. "There was a fire?" I ask.

Scootaloo nods. "The beast plague also started there. The First Vicar ordered the whole place burned to contain the spread."

"A futile effort," I say.

"Maybe," Scootaloo replies with a small snap. "But it was better than watching the plague ravage our home. The First Vicar did the right thing. The right thing just wasn't enough..."

I stay silent for a while. Maybe it was at that time. I wasn't there. I strongly suspect, though, that the fire took more than just those infected.

We reach the end of the very long flight of stairs. The edges of Scootaloo's light reveals a lot of broken pottery and wooden furniture. Past them, through several great pillars likely supporting the tomb high above, are a pair of enormous doors. We move closer. I can smell the stink of old ash and filth past the door. The ground before it is thick with a layer of old soot, marred by the passage of hooves...and claws.

Scootaloo frowns and moves farther ahead. I follow where she's staring at and notice the large piece of parchment posted between the doors.

"This wasn't here when I last came here," Scootaloo says. She brings her light closer to read. I lean in to check as well.

Beyond these doors is Old Ponyville.

Trespassers will face the wrath of the Hunt.

"Ridiculous!" Scootaloo says. She plants her hooves against the double doors, and pushes them open, tearing the paper in half as she does so.

Past the doors, the sight of Old Ponyville greets us like a wave of ash.

I've been starting to understand just how big Ponyville is from my long treks in its Central and Harmony Districts. It occurs to me now that I've yet to step on natural soil or discover the actual ground level of this massive city. The sight of Old Ponyville confirms the scale that I had been fearing: that Ponyville isn't just a city, but several mashed together.

Old Ponyville stretches out before us like a burned out forest of concrete. There are small fires everywhere, looking like lurid, red-orange underbrush while the shells of large buildings loomed around them. The fires provide some degree of visibility, but the smoke is thick and oppressive. The air carries the stink of burned bodies and cinders. Indeed, just a few feet away, several makeshift crosses line one part of the roof. Leaf-covered, pony-shaped figures hang from them, the circling flies revealing their state. Fortunately, my mouth covering offers some protection. We're clearly standing on a high point; the stone roof of a large building or an elevated section of the district. Or both given the insane layout of this city. The ledge is but a few feet away, and past it is a sheer drop leading to the rest of Old Ponyville. To our side, the street slopes down, twisting as it descended into the jumble of buildings and streets below. My first few steps into the district scrapes thick, clinging, layers of ash against the stone. More claw marks criss-cross the ground.

"Scootaloo," I say. "Who or what still lives here?"

"The Church of Harmony closed this place away," Scootaloo replies. "There should be nopony around here."

The glow from the various red eyes lurking among the shadows tell a different story. Scootaloo's rump touches mine as we cover each other. One of our welcoming committee snarls, and steps into view.

These things are not like the previous Ponyvillians I've encountered. Those were in the earlier stages of their transformations: mostly pony with portions of hideous plant beast. They still talked too. The one before us looks...complete. Every inch of its hide is bark. Every strand of mane and tail has turned into leaves. Hooves have split into bestial, woody claws. Its jaws are unnaturally huge, oversized for its skull, and filled with thorny fangs. The eyes though. Those are still pony eyes glancing around wildly. The irises look crushed, but I doubt this thing is going to have a problem finding us.

"Old beasts..." Scootaloo whispers. I expected her to go into that frenzy she did the last time, but her tone's wistful, sentimental even. As several more of the beasts follow the first one, her voice turns to steel, and she pulls down the gold, conical headgear over her face. "Let's cleanse these streets, Good Hunter!"

I don't bother replying. I'm not one for battle cries, it seems. I flick my saw cleaver open, slicing one overeager beast across both eyes as it tries to leap at me. It howls and panics at its sudden blindness while I sidestep its clumsy jump. A second one follows suit, but my pistol answers with a flash, a bang, and a bullet to its snout. The impact snaps its head back, nearly flipping it in midair.

At the brief flash of fire from my pistol's muzzle, the other beasts flinch and growl. Hmm...

Behind me comes the whistle of a massive object swinging swiftly, followed by a surprised yelp and a crunch like a hundred twigs splintering. "Dash Wheel!" Scootaloo yells. Another brutal thud followed by a beast crashing at a distance. It's both admirable and frightening how swiftly she swings that bizzare weapon.

I have my own concerns to deal with. My front hoof busies itself reloading, a skill I'm obviously still in need of practice with, while I hold my extended saw cleaver to keep two more beasts at bay. The blade does little to intimidate them, however. I just finish loading the bullet when a beast lunges at me. I lunge in return, to its surprise apparently, sidestepping its jaws while flicking my saw cleaver shut. With the saw edge out, I run it across the beast's exposed side. It's like sawing through a log with these things, except the log spurts thick gouts of blood when you saw deep enough. Crimson splashes onto my hunter coat, and runs down to mix with the ash. Even with the deep gash, the beast's not done. It snaps at me wildly while two more circle me for an opening. As soon as I finish reloading, I fire my pistol again, this time hitting its snout dead on. I make sure to glance at the other two as I fire. Sure enough, the muzzle flash makes them flinch.

Splinters and blood fly as the beast falls back, exposing its underbelly. My hoof finds the gash by its side and plunges right in. For all their woody hardness outside, they're still fleshy and warm inside. The beast's entrails splatter onto the ash as I toss it aside.

The sight of such carnage spur the two into a frenzy. They snarl and snap, attacking from the front and back. I've got a working theory to test, however. I roll to my side, towards a nearby fire; this one roasting a crucified beast. As I had hoped, there's some burning bits of wood in there. Before the beasts can close in, I roll to my hooves with a burning piece of wood grasped in one foreleg.

I get the effect I had been hoping for. The sight of an open flame in my grasp sends both beasts reeling. They clasp their faces with their forelegs and back away whimpering.

"Not too fond of fire, are you?" I mutter. I wave the makeshift torch about to force them back.

"Good Hunter!" Scootaloo says as she trots over to me. Her robes and helmet are covered in blood. There's bits of entrails hanging from and dripping down that wheel of hers. All around her are the torn up, smashed, gory remains of the beasts unfortunate enough to go after her. She looks at the beasts cowering away from me. At least, I think she's looking at them. Her bizzare headgear makes it impossible to tell where her gaze is at. "Of course...they remember the blaze. They still fear fire."

"Remember?" I ask. "You mean to say these are the same beasts from when the Church set this place ablaze?"

Scootaloo nods. "They must be."

With one more lunge from me, the beasts fall back, then run off into the shadows. I consider chasing them, but decide against it. Who knows how fierce they might become if I corner them, or what ambushes they had among the buildings? "I thought that the fire was a long time ago," I say.

"It was..." Scootaloo replies. "I was still a filly when the First Vicar ordered this place burned. The last time I was here, the fires were all out, and most of the beasts were dead."

"Not all of them," I say. "Someone had to light these fires and crucify those beasts. Vicar Belle mentioned 'strangely intelligent beasts'."

"And they worship in their town hall," Scootaloo growls. "They still remember the ways of the Church too. Come on, I know how to get to the old town hall!"

Luckily, I find some pieces of cloth nearby. It's pretty easy to put together a more reliable torch.

We skirt the edges of this street, following its gentle slope rather than jumping down the ledge and into the jumble of buildings below. Like Central Ponyville, the street is littered with statues: cloaked ponies reaching skyward, chains wrapped around them, candles on their outstretched hooves. We've barely gotten a few dozen feet of walking done when a loud shout comes at us from the distance.

"You two! What's the matter? Can't read? No trespassers!"

I perk my ears immediately. The shout sounds like it came from far away, yet still managed to come to us with clarity. It must be an incredibly loud shout, or one modified by equipment or magic. It has to be the latter. The voice sounds ragged and aged, the voice of an old mare.

Scootaloo trots over to the direction of the shout. I squint into the hazy, smoke-covered distance, towards the silhouettes of the tallest building here in Old Ponyville. It looks like some kind of clocktower with a flat roof that...

I can't be sure, but there's something huge mounted on the side of that tower. From the glint, it's something big with plenty of metal.

"We're hunters in search of a valuable artifact!" Scootaloo shouts back. No response. Not surprising. The tower's too far.

"No use explaining yourselves!" the voice replies. "I can't hear you! Just get out! There's nothing left in Old Ponyville! Nothing that hasn't burned by the Church of Harmony's orders!"

"We're not leaving!" Scootaloo shouts back despite the futility of it. "Our mission is too important!"

With that, she looks at me and gestures onward. With a shrug, I reload one more time, and walk beside her. There are still beasts lurking around us, red eyes waching intently. My torch keeps them wary, though. That they lost several to my saw cleaver and Scootaloo's wheel also helps.

This is an interesting development. If I assume they're also transformed Ponyvillians, only older, they seem to have recovered some of the faculties lost on the ones I fought in Central Ponyville. They understand fear, a deep-seated fear from their past, apparently. Did they light these fires and crucify those beasts? No, that made little sense. Maybe another group's involved here. We keep heading down, and it looks like we have to enter one of the ruined buildings to proceed.

"I see the Church robes and that gold ardeo, Executioner!" the voice shouts. It's definitely coming from the tower, and we are approaching it. "You're a dangerous pair! This is your last warning!"

"I remember that voice now!" Scootaloo shouts back. "The Mayor! You're the Mayor, aren't you?"

We stand there for a while, waiting for a reply even though Scootaloo was still too far away.

Then, I hear it: a very faint, metallic whine coming from the tower. It's so faint that, for a moment, I'm unsure that it's real. The first bang comes, like a sudden crack of distant thunder, and the wall behind me suddenly bursts into a cloud of shards and dust. "Scootaloo!" I shout. I fall to my belly and scrabble madly while more stone chips fall on my body. There's more coming. That's what that whine was about: the wind up of a gun.

A barrage of explosions follow that initial bang, followed by a stream of bullets from the top of the tower. Fortunately, my example inspires Scootaloo to fall down as well. We scramble behind a wall, which quickly explodes into a hundred broken pieces while the rubble to our other side shatters from the impact of bullets. I can only watch as my torch clatters to the ground next to me with the flame guttering, choking at all the dust.

Then, just as the hail quickly started, it stopped.

"Pink-haired heretic!" Scootaloo growls. She pulls out that folded rifle slung behind her, and gets it ready. It's incredibly long, probably half as much longer than a blunderbuss. A shot from it might reach the tower. As Scootaloo loads her first bullet, though, I put a hoof to her shoulder.

"Not yet!" I hiss.

Sure enough, another hail of bullets swarms our location. One strikes the ground just inches from my hindleg while another shatters a piece of lumber hanging above me, dropping chunks of wood and splinters on my head. I squint and raise my gaze as high as I can. Past the clouds of dust, I can still see the continuous flash of that machine gun firing.

"You're both skilled hunters!" the Mayor yells. "I can tell from your last fight! That only makes it clear that I should kill you both!"

The barrage stops quickly, and I move closer to Scootaloo.

"Listen," I whisper harshly. "From the muzzle flash, that gun she's using is huge and bulky. She's not going to swivel it quickly if she's all alone. She's probably got eight seconds of continuous fire on it before the heat melts its barrels, and its mounting won't let her fire directly beneath her tower. I doubt she's got the best resources in this ruined place to have a lot of spare parts, or even get the best maintenance."

Scootaloo's eyes widen. "You know a lot," she says. "Have you dealt with this situation before?"

"I don't know," I reply. How do I know all this? Maybe from some past experience in my foggy past. "We can beat this mare. Let's split up and make her fire uselessly."

Scootaloo nods. "Leave it to me," she says.

She flies out of her cover, her rifle aimed at the tower. As soon as I hear that faint whine, I make a dash for it.

"Do your worst, Mayor!" Scootaloo shouts. "For Rainbow Dash!" The crack of her rifle firing fills the air, swiftly echoed by a barrage of gunfire from the tower. She quickly runs for it, towards another group of ruined walls. Several enormous, black birds fly out as she moves through the rubble, squawking and screeching before the bullets tear them apart.

As for me, I'm taking a dangerous route. I dive down to a large space in front of the tower, where there's an empty fountain in the middle of a crowd of statues. From the tower, a series of loud clicks suggests that the gun is rotating on some gears. The Mayor's going for me.

Scootaloo fires again. She must have heard those clicks, because she flails her hooves to buy me time. "The Church was right to burn this place down!" she shouts. "Vicar Rarity did nothing wrong!"

The clicks speed up furiously. "You're asking for death, Church Hunter!" the Mayor shouts. Oh, she heard that one. Another hail of bullets, and they all fly towards Scootaloo. Good. I gallop hard, doing my best to pick out an actual route to that gun nest. The stink of beast surrounds me, and I catch several large shadows lurking out of the corners of my eyes. No torch to stave them off too. I hope the noise of gunfire is enough to keep them at bay.

The stone plaza is clearly the roof of a big building, connected to a other street through a makeshift wooden path with stairs. There's my path to the tower. As I cross the distance, the silhouette of a long ladder ascending the side of the tower nearly makes me smile. At a distance, Scootaloo fires another round from her rifle while the Mayor replies with a cascade of lead. Good, still in the clear.

The crack of a gun ahead of me quickly erases any relief. A bullet whistles past my ear, close enough to tickle the tuft with the draft of its passage. That's no shot from the Mayor's machine gun. The flutter of a cloak moving swiftly towards me, and the distinct slide of a metal blade adjusting confirms it: another hunter is dashing across the wooden planks to come at me. Who's this supposed to be? The Vice Mayor?

"Damn!" I mutter under my breath. I can't engage now. The Mayor's going to find the time to adjust her weapon bury me in bullets!

"Rainbow Crash!"

How Scootaloo is able to reach me so quickly boggles the mind. All I see is her flying through the air, having jumped from the upper ledges. Her wings flap furiously, a good enough effort to let her glide despite her weight. Behind her, bullets whistle past her tail as the Mayor adjusts the machine gun. In an instant, Scootaloo crashes into the wooden bridge, splintering the railings with a smash of her wheel weapon. Her sudden attack nearly knocks the other hunter off the bridge, but he recovers and redirects his weapon: a long pole with a serrated spearhead.

"Keep going, Good Hunter!" Scootaloo shouts. She raises her wheel and advances on the othe hunter. "Quickly!"

I make my own leap, ducking under the other hunter as he makes a clumsy swing at me, then continue galloping for the tower. Behind me, the wooden bridge splinters some more as Scootaloo brings her weapon down on it in a massive swing.

Finally, the ladder! I look up and let myself smile briefly. I'm correct. The machine gun mounted to the tower's side can't angle down to fire at me. It can't even fire at Scootaloo. This is our chance. My hooves navigate the thin, metal rungs swiftly. I've got my saw cleaver in my mouth, and my pistol's loaded.

The climb takes a while, and I'm quite sure the Mayor should be looking down from the top by now. Perhaps even firing at me with a smaller firearm. Guns are firing, however, beneath me. At such close ranges, Scootaloo's long rifle is at a disadvantage. I can only hope that she, at least, survives the fight. Once I deal with this crazed gunmare, I can drop down to assist.

I finally reach the top, my eyes dart wildly as I expect an ambush as soon as I climb there. None whatsoever. Instead, I find the Mayor standing next to her machine gun.

Her age is unmistakable: long wisps of white and gray hair poke out of her tricorner hat, her face is a mass of wrinkles with bandages covering one eye. That might explain some of our luck in dodging her gunfire. She's wearing a hunter's attire, albeit hers is utterly covered in ash and dried blood, making it look nearly uniformly gray with streaks of brown. She seems to be missing her right foreleg. In its place is a bulky, monstrous...device. All I know is that at the end of those cogs, screws, and pistons, is a bladed metal point. She focuses her one good eye on me. No crushed iris or frenzied glare. She's not succumbing to the beast plague.

"Your clothes..." the Mayor says. Her tone's soft and raspy, nothing like the loud threats earlier. A glance to her side reveals what looks like some kind of loud speaker as well as a telescope. "You're from the Hunter's Workshop. Why are you working with the Church of Harmony?"

I hold my saw cleaver in one hoof.

"I need the Magical Mystery Cure," I reply. "The Church can only provide it if they get their chalices back. One of them is somewhere in this district."

"The Cure?" The Mayor sweeps a foreleg over the vista of this ruined place. From her vantage point, Old Ponyville looks more and more like a massive, smoking graveyard of buildings. "Here's what you get with the Magical Mystery Cure!" she snarls. "The home you've built up all your life turned to cinders, by the ponies you were so happy to call heroes!"

"I'm sorry for your loss," I say. "I just want to pass through and retrieve the chalice."

"You won't," the Mayor says. "The beasts of this place are under my protection. You're going to cut them down to get to your chalice."

"Why do you protect them?" I ask incredulously. "You're a hunter!"

"I'm still their mayor!" the Mayor snaps. "They're still the citizens of the Ponyville I always served!"

"Is that how you protect your citizens?" I point to some distant figures close to where we entered this place. "Set fires and crucify them?"

The Mayor's scowl only deepens at this. "How dare you suggest that," she replies. "A large number of Church Hunters, led by the great Pinkie Pie of all ponies, came by here. I fought them, but they left me beaten while they did as they pleased with my citizens. That's how the Church has always done things. Now, I've set up my perch, the Church won't harm my ponies anymore!"

"The Church has sent parties here before?" I muse. "And one of the founders..."

"Don't trouble yourself with details," the Mayor says. "You're off to consult Applejack anyway! Off to your dreams!"

She moves fast for such an old mare. She's on me in a heartbeat, her foreleg device raised for a stabbing strike. I back off, only to remember that we're in a small space on top of a very tall tower. My back hooves tap the metal ladder before I can right myself. I lock my pistol in place and aim, enough to get the Mayor to hop sideways to avoid the bullet. I don't fire though. I just needed to buy some time.

The initial strike tells me much about her choice of hunter weapon, if that is what that device is. The striking part looks like a metal stake: a cyclindrical shaft topped with a thick, sharp spike. It looks capable of penetrating solid stone if driven with enough force. A useless advantage to me. I'm not wearing heavy armor. It looks heavier than the axe, but it has the reach of a slightly longer dagger. Its bulk keeps its motions down to simple slashes and stabs, and its design prevents it from being wielded by mouth. Every time the Mayor has to strike, she has to raise her body, exposing her underbelly. I wait for such a strike and come in low, my folded weapon's saw edge ready to cut her open.

The click of a wheel holster locking forces me to change direction. I dive diagonally through the Mayor's blind side as she fires a blunderbuss where I was standing. Fragments of metal shred the edges of my coat and ricochet against the roof. I catch myself again, but not before my hip bumps the telescope off the roof. With the machine gun behind me, I bite hard on my saw cleaver and prepare to attack again.

Like Ghast Coin's, the Mayor's hooves move with practiced precision as she reloads her gun. I rush in swiftly, unfolding my saw cleaver to catch her before she finishes. She raises her foreleg device and catches the blade on its machinery. I pull back and slash low. This time, the blade's tip finds flesh. With a grunt, the Mayor staggers back. Blood drips from my saw cleaver, and trickles down her ragged coat in thin rivulets.

No time for celebrating. She finishes her reload and opens fire. Still recovering from my swing, I can only cover my face with my forelegs and fall backward. Several shards of metal bite into my forelegs, but the main blast goes above me. The sharp pain is like getting stung by hornets and the heat from the metal feels like venom. It nearly makes me drop my saw cleaver, but I bite harder instead. The Mayor's hooffalls clatter against the stone roof. She's moving forward, likely to punch her staking device down on me. I roll instinctively to the side. The loud ping where my head just was tells me I just moved correctly. The dragging whine of metal scraping stone tells me to get up or lose my head anyway. I roll to my hooves in time to catch the sparks flying from the Mayor's weapon. She overcommited with that one, and she realizes it. Her forelegs come up too slow, however. I fire my pistol, and watch with some satisfaction as the bullet punches into her gut.

"You've lost," I say. "You're not a beast to put down, Mayor. Let us through, and tend to your wounds."

The Mayor's breathing heavily as she speaks. Blood's pouring from her bullet wound and the gash from earlier. Still, she doesn't even relent. She cocks something on her foreleg device with her free hoof, causing the metal stake to retract into the device. Now, she's left with an extremely heavy knife. Her leg is wounded, and that stomach wound will all but take her movement away. I take a few steps back to get some distance going. What is she planning?

"I'm out of dreams, hunter," the Mayor says as she cocks her foreleg device back. "And I'm out of time. If this is the last thing I do for this dead city, fine."

A click comes from the foreleg device, a small click like a gun's trigger being pulled. My body must assume it's an actual gun then. The sound alone spurs me to evasion.

A loud bang follows that click, along with a flash of fire and smoke. The Mayor's foreleg explodes, propelling her towards me better than her own legs can. She turns that blast into a downward strike at me. The stake tears through the edges of my cloak, nearly dragging me back if the fabric didn't rip. It strikes the roof behind me intead, shattering a portion of the gun nest. A direct hit from that is sure to blow a hole in my body, or even the thick, woody hide of a massive beast.

The blast is impressive, but I see that cost of it plain enough. The Mayor's foreleg is shaking badly now. I'm surprised that blast didn't just tear her leg off. Perhaps I was too hasty in thinking she wasn't a beast. She's certainly as crazed as one. As if to prove my point, she retracts the stake in her weapon again.

"That next attack is going to kill you," I say. "Whether you get me or not."

The Mayor doesn't reply. There's nothing more to say, I suppose. She's fully committed to her course. I don't think dodging's going to help much this time. She must have my movements pegged at this point. I hold my stance low and wait as she cocks her foreleg back. The few seconds between the trigger and the blast stretches on. My taut nerves turnes them into minutes.

A massive, deafening bang fills the air like thunder. My nerves snap, and I throw my body towards the Mayor as hard as I can, ducking as low as possible without falling down. As I expected, well...desperately hoped for, she's overextended her thrust. I'm below her and past her weapon before she can adjust her aim, and the blast is propelling her forward beyond her control. I push my forelegs into her midriff, then myself slightly, a move enough lift her off her hooves. Something clinks against the roof. She flips through the air...

...and past the ledge.

There isn't even a scream, just a silent fall followed by a distant crash. So the Mayor of Old Ponyville retires.

I look to the source of that weird clink earlier. Some kind of badge...it's old, gray iron shaped like a tiny keg, lay on the roof. It must have fallen from the Mayor when she flipped. There's nothing much to do here now. I rush to the ladder. I can't hear Scootaloo's fighting anymore, and her battle cries are hard to miss. I slide down, my saw cleaver at my mouth and ready.

The sight of a crimson-splattered, gold-cone headed pony in robes greets me. The ruined, wooden walkway is covered in blood and guts, and the battered coat of a dead hunter. I don't see any intact body. No legs, no torso, no head. Just a smear of gore. Scootaloo doesn't even bother wiping her forelegs, or that disgusting gore-covered wheel slung across her back.

"You're safe!" Scootaloo says cheerily. "And we're not getting shot at. You must have won!"

I look to the distant spot where the Mayor must have fallen. Already, there's several equine-shapes gathered there. The hideous snaps and crunches show their gratitude for the Mayor's protection. Clearly, the Mayor's sense of responsibility for these transformed citizens were not reciprocated.

"Heretic," Scootaloo mutters. "She wasn't even a good mayor. Alway in the red with money."

I have to tell her about Pinkie Pie. For the moment, though, I'm just anxious to move on. The Mayor did confirm that the chalice was in their city hall. "Lead the way," I tell Scootaloo.

She nods and takes point.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

What is this a crossover of?

[Visiden Visidane]

8678137
Story description states Bloodborne Crossover.

[Visiden Visidane]

8814943
And yet Canterlot was taken over by changelings in direct combat with all these godlike ponies in it.

Don't give me that Letters to the Griffon Emperor shit.

[Follower of Chaos]

8815271 Yes the Changelings, a race that train for combat from birth, have access to both flight and ranged magic, had the numbers advantage, the element of surprise AND they were attacking a people that (as far as we know) haven't seen war in centuries.

Even with ALL that though, Shining Armor (a single pony) was powerful enough to keep them all out until Chrysalis drained him dry. It's also fortunate Chrysalis got such a boost from his love or she wouldn't have beaten Celestia at all (holding back or not). Let's not forget The Mane 6 (the only ponies with any real combat experience aside from Celestia) breezed through an entire wave of Changelings without any effort, it took several waves to overwhelm 6 ponies.

All that proves is that neither Changelings or Ponies are pushovers and are at comparable levels of power.

[Visiden Visidane]

8815392
I remember that scene. The earth ponies were flinging buildings left and right, the pegasi were shooting lightning bolts and tornadoes, and unicorns were calling down meteors from the heavens. What an epic scene the invasion of Canterlot was. My favorite was when Applejack ripped up a mountain from the ground and bashed ten thousand changelings to bloody paste.

Yeah, these ponies are gods, I tell you. Let's talk about the godlike power of Wile E. Coyote too. I mean, Christ, how many times has he fallen off thousand foot cliffs into hard rock? And smashed by boulders, blown up by mountains of dynamite, and shot in the face by puny guns. Wile E. Coyote should crossover to Equestria and just dominate that world. That sounds like a hell of a story. A Displaced story where someone cosplays as Wile E. Coyote and goes to Equestria. What an epic it would make.

[Follower of Chaos]

8815451 Wow resorting to sarcasm and hilariousy dumb comparisons.

Here's the difference between the MLP cast and Coyote. The vast majority of MLP feats aren't strictly for comedic purposes, or intended to be funny in anyway. What's funny about Rainbow shattering a cliff and getting herself trapped in a gorge? What's funny about Rainbow and Lightning generating a tornado that almost killed their fellow cadets and Rainbow's friends? What's funny about Earth Ponies dragging a steam train to Appleloosa? What's funny about pegasi creating a hurricane that cleared an entire town (and mountain range) of snow in seconds.

Coyote is a toonforce character built around gag humor, ponies are not. Not going to say ponies don't do that occasionally but, contrary to your sarcastic belief, their actual gag feats, as in stuff purely intended for comedy (like Big Mac struggling with a cake) make them look much weaker than their far more serious, plot relevant feats.

But we've taken enough of this comment section with this senseless argument, especially when you have nothing but sarcasm and bitching about their not being anime levels of violence in a show primarily aimed at young girls, I'm not inclined to ignore 90% of the show because you want to believe ponies are helpless lambs.

I've said all I care enough to say now I'll just get back to reading, do us both a favor and leave it at this okay.

[Visiden Visidane]

8817043
You're taking the show too seriously, and I find it funny. We're talking about a show where Twilight takes an anvil to the head and then comes out fine after a few seconds. You're the one trying put anime narm into it. "Oaaaah! Look at those badass earth ponies, dude! They like have Son Goku's super strength and shit! Oh! Oh! And Twilight can do a Katon Gokyaku no Jutsu! Awesome, badass!" I still see it as a cutesy, gagsy show with a few nice moments. The show has no consistency with power levels, something I've accepted a long time ago, but you haven't. The instant you started stating the powers the ponies in the show have as if the show was ever remotely consistent with their abilities, I knew we were descending into hilarity. You said a stupid thing and deserved a stupid answer. Look at you implying that I'm bitching at the show because it's not violent enough for me, when you're the one upset that I'm not raving about what raw badasses a bunch of cartoon ponies are. It's doubly funny when I'm the one with the stupidly serious fanfic. Calm down. That Twilight smiley's not hiding it.

[Follower of Chaos]

I've got a good idea. Let's take Djura, one of the toughest and most interesting characters in the game and make him a decrepit old mare who can't even use her weapon without hurting herself and dies pathetically in a single chapter. Simply a great idea, totally not a complete waste of a good character at all.

And here I thought I'd get up to date to see if this story got any better but it really is just Bloodborne with different names, a few different plot points and pony looking characters. Putting aside the insane suspension of disbelife required to believe Twilight and her friends would ever let any of this happen, much less participate in it themselves. Ponyville morphes into Yharnam for no real reason, no Pony or even Pony tribe specific weapons (let's just use the Bloodborne ones because we're lazy like that) and even the beasts are just reskinned versions of what's in the game.

There's a stunning lack of creativity here, there could have been flying beasts from transformed pegasi, unicorn beasts that could use magic. You could have gotten creative with the weapons sticking to the themes of Bloodborne while still putting a MLP spin on things but sadly no. The pony hunters don't even fight any different from the human hunters aside from the occasional use of Pegasi flight, that's how lazy this is.

This story works as a rewrite of Bloodborne but completely fails to live up to its potential as an MLP crossover and, given your responses to my previous comments, I have no reason to believe that will change.

[Visiden Visidane]

8823544
There was nothing particularly interesting about Djura. He was essentially a crazy cat lady that had to be put down. Even his clothes described him as an idiot. And his weapon was stupid, even the game thought so. It scaled horribly, it had terrible range and its special was more likely to kill you than the enemy. It was a weapon grounded in stupidity, created by people who took power to the extreme at the cost of everything else. Only someone who was doing a challenge run used it.

You have no business reading any darkfic if you cry OOC whenever the Mane 6 do awful things. Your reaction to Clink is proof enough.

[Nevermore777]

This is great so far, really good story, really neat world building and all that.

Haven't really gotten into Bloodborne or its lore, so I haven't the faintest iota of a fuck how close this story is to the game's besides what people point out in the comments, but this is kinda making me want to go a play through Blood borne now!

Looking forward to seeing Vilebrood, whom I'm assuming is either Fluttershy/bat or maybe Queen Chrysalis(or both? Having a character from the show turn into another one would be neat). I'm curious about what exactly happened to her.

[Bronzer]

8814943
As a horseman/former horseman I can say Big Mac struggling to carry that huge cake is indeed reasonable for his size, though comedically exaggerated. Horse bodies are not at all designed to bear weight on their backs. They have a great deal of pulling and pushing strength.

[DannyJ]

Huh. I was just searching back through my favourites and found this cancelled. When did that happen?

Sorry to see it end like this. I was interested in where it was going. I still want to know what the hell is up with Cadance as Oedon.