The Scourge of the Plains (Part 2)
I must have passed out at some point while the Scourge of the Plains was absconding with me, because the next thing I remembered was falling. I fell for hours, or what seemed like hours, towards the ground below. As I got closer, I noticed that I was falling specifically towards a mesa rather than just to the ground. I didn’t manage to think about it much, though, what with the falling making it impossible to hear myself think through the screaming I was also doing.
All of a sudden, I wasn’t falling anymore. I’d hit the ground hard, and my body hurt all over. As I tried to stand up, though, I realised nothing was broken. I’d fallen into a chamber inside the mesa, where some kind of lichen was growing on the ground. How it was enough to break my fall, I wasn’t certain, but I was glad I was still alive, for the time being.
“What in tarnation’s goin’ on out there?” somepony asked from further into the cave. I couldn’t see clearly, as it was dark beyond what little sunlight was still coming through the hole I’d fallen through. Slowly, I cast another light spell, but it wasn’t strong enough to reveal what was back there. It did show myself more clearly, though, as the same pony gasped in surprise.
“I’m a pony, like you,” I said. Realising it sounded wrong, I added, “Well, I’m no less civilised than anypony else, that’s...”
“Monster!” a different pony shouted, and I heard hoofbeats charging towards me quickly. In the dim light, I could see that it wasn’t quite a pony; her thin legs and tail made her out to be something else. She was moving quickly, though, and before I could summon my wand in defence, she had already jumped and knocked me down. “You won’t hurt anyone else under my watch!” She pulled her hooves back into the air, but before she could bring them down on my face, she was knocked off of me by who I presumed was the first speaker.
“Hold up there,” she said, in a distinct but slightly drawled done. “I don’t reckon this is a monster. Whatever it is, it was foalnapped just like us by that big black thing.” She stepped closer to me, and I could see her face upside-down hanging over mine. “An’ if’n it can talk like anypony...” she looked at the other, who snorted, and blushed slightly, “well, any civilised bein’ at any rate, then I reckon we oughta try talkin’ before fightin’.”
“If you insist.” I sat up and turned towards the pair, remembering from somewhere at the back of my mind that the smaller one was a buffalo. Both of them were orange with blond manes, but the pony seemed to have a brighter tone to her coat, and had tied back her mane and tail. She was also wearing a brown hat, whereas the buffalo was wearing a headband with two feathers poking out of the back. “So just what are you, anyway?”
“It’s a long story, but...” I noticed that the buffalo was about to interrupt, and added, “But to make it short, I used to be a pony like you. I was turned into a human by...”
I wondered whether to tell them about Soren, but the pony said, “Who? I’ll knock their lights out for ya until they turn ya back! T’aint right to change a pony into somethin’ else!”
“No, it’s not like that!” I shouted, exasperated. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on either, but this isn’t a curse or anything. And right now, I’m hoping that he was able to follow me back here. I don’t know if there’s a way out...”
“I might have found one before, but it was too dark to see,” the buffalo offered. “But with that trick you did with the light, maybe you could help us get through it? There has to be a way out eventually, and I can find the herd from anywhere.” She tapped the ground twice emphatically.
“It was back this way, right?” the pony asked, turning around to walk off into the darkness. I cast the light spell again and walked behind her, raising my hand to search the walls for anywhere a passage might be. After walking for about a minute in the same direction, I spotted the passage, and so did the pony and the buffalo. “Yep, that’s the one.”
The buffalo jumped across a few outcroppings from the walls to reach the passage. “Hurry,” she said, beckoning us forward with a hoof. The pony made the same series of jumps, but in this form I wasn’t confident in being able to do the same.
“What’s wrong?” the pony asked. As though she read my mind, she added, “Can’t jump too well?”
I looked down at my hands, and then at the uneven walls. Flexing my fingers, I grabbed at the wall and pulled myself up, trying to find a foothold with the surprisingly awkward footwear I’d forgotten I had on. It wasn’t that far to the passage, and the pony actually whistled at the feat. “Those hooves of yers look mighty useful,” she said. “Well, I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re like hooves ‘cept you don’t walk on ‘em...”
“They’re called hands, Applejack,” I said. I gasped as I realised that the name had attached itself to the pony out of nowhere.
Applejack blushed in response, pulling her hat down over her face. “Shucks, am I that famous? I didn’t think I stood out that much from the rest of the Apple Clan,” she said. “But, if’n ya don’t mind, now ya have me at a disadvantage, as they say...”
“Twilight Sparkle,” I said, offering my hand, which Applejack took with a hoof. I was half expecting her to turn into a human like me, but nothing happened. “And you are?” I asked the buffalo, extending the same gesture.
She raised her own hoof in the air without taking mine. “Little Strongheart, daughter of Chief Thunderhooves of the Navajo buffalo tribe. Come, I’d rather be back outside while it’s still light, if it’s at all possible.” She suddenly stopped and jumped back down into the cave. “Wait up. I’m going to make a signal. The smoke should get through the hole and alert the rest of the tribe...” She arranged a few rocks on the ground before picking up two and slapping them together a few times.
It didn’t seem to be working, so I tried to focus on a fire spell without summoning my wand. It wasn’t as large as the fireballs I’d cast during the fight in Appleloosa, but it definitely felt warmer than the air. Ignoring Applejack’s surprise for the time being, I launched it towards the makeshift firepit that Strongheart had created, lighting the fire. The lichen quickly burned up underneath it, and the smoke started wafting upwards.
“Quite a trick,” Applejack said, whistling. “C’mon, Li’l Strongheart, let’s get movin’.” The buffalo seemed surprised, but nodded and jumped back into the passageway. I led them down it, raising the light above my head to guide the others.
~~
By the time I finished telling Chief Thunderhooves my story, it was nearly sunset. He’d repeatedly stopped me to have me talk about details of journeys that I didn’t think were relevant at all, and as I continued through a twelve-day journey to nowhere, more and more of the buffalo started to gather around me, listening intently. Perhaps it was just buffalo tradition to tell stories in the most long-winded way possible, with no regard for pacing. Still, I could see the appeal of a story going into great detail of a single person’s journey through an empty wasteland, as long as the terrain was more interesting and varied than the one I’d described.
As I reached the present day, the Chief grunted and said, “Quite an outrageous story you have told, Soren.” I tensed up, and he added, “But it bears the ring of truth. Honesty is an undervalued virtue outside of the buffalo tribes. To see it in a stranger such as you was not what I expected.” He said something that sounded like a Native American language, and the buffalo around me dispersed. “It is almost sundown. I would have you dine with us.”
“Alright. Just let me feed my bird first.” He nodded, and I walked towards Karin, who was stepping from one leg to the other as though she was worried. “It’s okay, girl,” I said, stroking her neck. “The buffalo are alright. You don’t have to worry about me.” I waited until she gave an accepting chirp before I reached into her saddlebag and pulled out the bundle of herbs. Taking one from the bundle and giving it to Karin, I returned to the group of buffalo around a budding fire, who shuffled to each side and slightly outward to let me join them.
“So how long has the Scourge been a problem?” I asked. “If it’s been attacking both you and the ponies in Appleloosa, then neither of you should have lost too much, unless...”
“For these past two moons, we have weathered the Scourge almost every day. Though our herd seems large, we have felt the loss of our brethren each time. As I am sure you have, having lost your other human friend.”
“I don’t believe she’s dead,” I replied.
“None who are taken by the Scourge ever return, child.”
“If they’re all taken back to the same place, then it’s not eating them right away, right?” I asked rhetorically. “There’s still probably time before Twilight meets the same fate. Don’t tell me you haven’t been hoping the same thing?”
The Chief fell silent for some time, catching a few sympathetic looks from the other buffalo. “My daughter, Strongheart,” he said, closing his eyes, “was the last one taken, only two days ago. I have prayed to the stars with all my heart that she yet lives.” He opened his eyes and continued, “Scouts have been dispatched to search for the lair of the Scourge. We shall know the truth once they return.” At that, he looked over my shoulder. “Dust approaches. It is the scouts, no doubt.”
I heard their hoofbeats behind me, and turned to see the pair approach the camp, slowing down as the group made room for them yet again. They spoke in the same language that the Chief had used before, and he made several appreciative grunts to the information they gave him. “The scouts have seen smoke rising from a mesa southwest of here,” he said at last. “We believe it is a signal from the lair. Perhaps it is even my daughter who made it.”
Clearing my throat, I stood up and said, “I’ll go on ahead, then.”
The Chief snorted and frowned. “You cannot leave just before a meal!”
“How long do you think your daughter’s going to be alive for, if it’s been two days already?” I countered. “Besides, I don’t know if I can eat the same things you do. It’d have been worse if I tried and failed, I’m sure.” When he didn’t say anything, I continued, “Karin and I will go on ahead. Eat, get your strength up, and come as soon as you’re ready. You’ll probably end up saving my ass in a dramatic entrance anyway.” He tilted his head slightly at that last proclamation, and I ended, “Well, I’m off to rescue a princess.”
Nobody stopped me as I walked back to Karin and mounted her. As we turned to leave, the Chief suddenly boomed, “Wait.” I turned Karin back around to see that he was carrying something. “This is the traditional weapon of our tribe. Bring it to my daughter, and she will know that I have not forgotten her.” He gave me the bow and a quiver of arrows, which I slung over my back. “Make haste, Soren. We shall surely meet again before long.”
“Got it. Stay safe.” Karin scratched at the ground as she turned again, clearly as eager as I was to head off. Without waiting another moment, I snapped the reins and we were off, heading southwest towards the thin pillar of rising smoke, silhouetted against the sunset.
~~
The passage had been single file before, but eventually it opened up into another chamber, with several small passages branching off of it. All of them were gated with iron bars, preventing any passage except straight forward. It almost felt like a prison, I thought. “I wonder what’s behind all those bars,” I said out loud.
“Nothin’ good, I’d bet,” Applejack replied. “C’mon, let’s keep movin’.”
As I stepped into a part of the chamber that was lit by a hanging light source, more of them suddenly started turning on, revealing a total of ten blocked-off side chambers. The iron bars stood out starkly against the chamber carved into the rock itself, further increasing the bad feeling that I was getting. Little Strongheart felt the same way, judging by the fact that she was shivering despite the mild temperature. The bars started to slowly retract into the floor, making an ominously loud clanking noise as they did.
The bars crashed to a stop, and a figure came from each of the alcoves. Under the light, I could see they had the basic shapes of ponies and buffalo, but they were much thinner, and lacked any colouration. “Skeletons?” Little Strongheart asked. “But why are they moving?”
All of them were moving toward us. “I don’t think they’re friendly,” Applejack said, straightening her hat with one hoof and spitting on the ground. “Nothin’ for it, then.” As a pony skeleton approached, she quickly turned and bucked at its head, knocking it clean off. The skeleton collapsed, and she turned to another, only to see that the bones were shaking, and so was the disembodied skull. Suddenly, all the bones floated into the air and the skull returned to the rest of the body, reassembling the skeleton. Applejack was stunned enough by it that it was able to strike her with its foreleg.
“We can’t stop them?!” Little Strongheart exclaimed. “What are we gonna do?!”
I summoned my wand and focused a fire spell through it, casting it at the skeleton that Applejack was grappling with. The magical flame seemed to burn the bones away, leaving nothing but dust. Quickly, I cast further spells at five other skeletons that I could reach, and all of them were destroyed in the same fashion. As I tried to focus again, I found myself unable to, being too exhausted from having cast so many spells so quickly. There were still four left, and more were coming from the alcoves.
“Looks like stickin’ around ain’t gonna work,” Applejack said. “Follow me, I’ll clear a path through!” She bucked a buffalo in the chest and another pony in the legs, knocking them off balance and leaving a path open to the far passage. All of us quickly ran through it, and I recast the light spell as best I could. “Which way now?” Applejack asked, as we came to an intersection. “Left or right?”
“Left!” I shouted, and we all turned down that corridor, quickly coming to a large iron door. Grabbing the large, circular handle in her teeth, Applejack tried to pull it open, and Little Strongheart pitched in to help as well, tugging on another part. They were still going quite slowly, and I decided to try and help as well, but not with my body. Instead, I pointed my wand at it and focused through it, almost like extending a third arm towards the handle. The pony and buffalo stepped back in surprise as the handle lit up with a purple glow and the door opened entirely. I panted for breath, having completely drained myself with the action, and dragged myself inside the room behind the pair.
There was no other exit, so I was about to turn and leave when I spotted some pieces of the same thin parchment as Soren’s book on the walls. One of them showed a diagram of a machine whose purposes eluded me entirely, two showed detailed pictures of the skeletons, one had a drawing of the Scourge, and all of them had markings in the same ‘English’ script that Soren read. One of the pages was written entirely in that language. “C’mon, we gotta go back!” Applejack said, about to leave. “What’s the holdup, Twilight?”
I started to tear the papers down. “Soren should be able to translate these. If we meet up with him, we might know what’s going on here...”
“Who’s Soren?” Little Strongheart asked.
“Save it for later! We gotta break through these skeletons first!” Applejack replied, charging back down the corridor, which was slowly filling with skeletons from the chamber we’d come from. She broke one apart, and Strongheart jumped over her, breaking another. Feeling slightly recovered, I used another fireball to destroy one that was sneaking up on Applejack, exhausting myself completely once again. I ran as fast as I could through the gap, and once I was through, the other two formed a wall behind me, keeping the skeletons from catching up.
We continued like this for the rest of the corridor until I finally saw a light coming from outside. “If that’s what I think it is,” I said, “then we’re nearly safe!” I pushed myself further on, feeling the wind across the plains. Little Strongheart breathed in loudly behind me. As I passed through the hole outside of the mesa, I saw a flight of stairs leading up on my left, but didn’t pay them much attention. I wanted to get outside first and foremost.
As I took a few steps away from the mesa, I turned around to see the skeletons still approaching. Applejack and Little Strongheart formed a line beside me, ready to take on the group. As the first one stepped outside and the setting sun’s light touched it, though, it dissolved as it had under my fire spell. Despite its dissolving body, it continued to walk forward until it couldn’t move anymore, only to be pushed out of the way by the rest of the skeletons in turn.
When no more were coming, I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I’d been holding. “Looks like we’re safe for now,” Applejack said. “Now which way did you say the rest of your herd was?”
Little Strongheart turned in a certain direction, but rather than telling us the way, she gasped and jumped back as a large yellow bird skidded to a stop in front of us. “Soren!” I shouted. “Just in time! You missed the evil skeletons that were trying to kill us!”
“Seriously?” he asked. “Man, with a ripoff. I was hoping I’d get to save the day, and you’ve already saved yourselves.” He paused slightly after the last word, turning to Applejack and Little Strongheart. “You must be the chief’s daughter,” he said to the latter. “Chief Thunderhooves asked me to find you. Guess I can scratch off that quest.” He took a bow and quiver from his back and gave it to her, and she slung them over her own body with practiced ease.
As soon as it was free, she raised her hoof towards him as she had for me. “I am Little Strongheart, yes. Who might you be? How do you know my father?”
“I just told you,” he deadpanned. “Oh, right, my name. Call me Soren. This is Karin,” he added as he dismounted the Chocobo. She let out a ‘kweh’ in agreement as he turned to the orange pony. “And who might you be?” Before Applejack could say anything, he spotted her Cutie Mark. “Apple Clan?”
“One apple from the orchard, yeah,” she replied. “Name’s Applejack. Pleasure to meet ya, partner.”
She reached out a hoof to shake with him, but he refused. “I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal. Weird things happen when I touch other ponies.”
“Weird things?” Little Strongheart asked. “Like what?”
Soren didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then he took a deep breath in and said, “Like what happened to Twilight here. She was a pony before she met me. I don’t know why, but as soon as I touched her...” He was suddenly cut off by Applejack bucking him in the chest. As he crumpled over and took a few deep breaths, he said, “What the fuck... was that about?”
“I told Twilight here I’d smack around whoever did that to her. Guess we’re even now.” She took a few steps back as he stood up. “She told me not to, but it didn’t feel right to me to just let it pass. Sorry if I bucked you a little too hard. I’m used to bucking apple trees back at home...”
“As long as it... never happens again,” Soren replied, standing back up. He looked down at my hand, where I was still clutching the sheets of parchment. “What’s that?”
“Oh, these? I found them inside. They’re all written in English, so I was hoping you could translate for me.” I passed him the sheets of paper, and he looked over them, humming to himself.
“English? What’s that?” Little Strongheart asked.
“An uncommon language around these parts,” Soren replied, before I could say what little I knew. “But it’s the lingua franca where I’m from. Good thing I took a few semesters of Common Equis back in school.” He winked at me as he said the last part. I still didn’t quite understand, but I decided it wasn’t important when he started talking again. “Two of these pages were about skeletons, I assume the moving ones you fought. They’re not very smart or fast, and they don’t like natural light. They’re supposedly a test phase, though, and the results were ‘expected’.” He turned to another page. “This one’s a device that allows someone to take over the body of another living being and control them with, and I quote, ‘the power of darkness’. I don’t know who came up with that...”
He turned to the next page, reading it slowly, and suddenly his eyes went wide. “This isn’t good,” he said.
“What’s not good?” all of us asked in unison.
“They’re planning to bring this ‘power of darkness’ all over Equestria... no, they crossed that out. Not just Equestria. The whole world. They even wrote it in great big red letters.” He turned to the last page, and his eyes narrowed back down. “Well. Whoever’s behind this really has this ‘evil’ thing down pat.” He showed us the drawing of the Scourge. “The Scourge of the Plains is an ordinary roc under the control of darkness. It’s not acting of its own free will. It’s kidnapping ponies, buffalo and anything else it can for the sake of the experiments with the skeletons. The only reason none of you are dead yet is because they wanted to do something else specifically with all of you.”
“What kind of ‘something else’?” I asked.
“That, it doesn’t say.”
There was a long silence. Little Strongheart turned towards the western horizon, watching the last rays of the setting sun disappear. “What are we going to do?” I asked. “We can’t just leave this alone.”
“We need to find whoever’s behind this and smack some sense into ‘em!” Applejack shouted.
“Hold on.” Soren held up a hand towards Applejack, and then pointed at Little Strongheart as well. “There’s a question I need to ask the two of you. And I want you to think very carefully before you answer.” His expression was almost completely neutral, his voice giving off a sense of gravitas that he was probably trying to force.
“What is it?” Applejack asked.
“How far are you willing to go to save a world you know next to nothing about?”
Neither Applejack nor Little Strongheart said anything. Soren continued, “It’s all well and good to want to help the people and the homeland you know. But saving the world is more than just that. You might not see your home, your friends or your families for months, or even years. You’ll be spending nearly every day fighting. I’m doing this because I don’t have a home to go back to. I don’t have a home to choose to protect, except this entire world. But you do. You can protect those you care about as best you can, and I would absolutely respect that decision if you chose to make it.”
He paused, and then finished, “Twilight was dragged along on this ride without getting the choice, and I won’t do that to anyone else. This is a choice that you cannot unmake. If you’re not absolutely willing to see this through to the end, no matter what happens, then you have to tell me now before anything happens that we’ll all regret. How far are you willing to go to save the world?”
I only noticed that I was shivering slightly and my hands were clenched after Soren finished speaking. Little Strongheart was the first to respond. “I’ve never been beyond the Great Plains,” she said, “and I don’t really want to. This is my home. This is where I belong. As long as I can fight to keep it, then I will. But I can’t just leave.” Soren nodded slowly, turning to Applejack.
“You said that I oughta protect my home and my family,” she said. “But the Apple Clan has roots laid down all over Equestria. All their homes are my home, and all of them are my family. Protecting my home means protecting the world. There ain’t really a difference, far as I can make it.” She adjusted her hat again. “Besides, I couldn’t live with myself knowing there was somethin’ more I coulda done. As scary as you make it sound, this is what I want to do. And there ain’t no way you can stop me. So let’s shake on it, so there ain’t no confusion.”
“Applejack...” I said quietly. Her speech was reminding me more of her: brave, dependable, and above all, honest. I definitely knew this pony, but from where, I couldn’t say. I watched her spit into her hoof and extend it towards Soren. He waited a few moments, possibly considering if it was the right thing to do, and then mirrored the action.
As his hand touched her hoof, a blinding white light filled the air. I remembered it was the same thing that had happened when Soren transformed me. Little Strongheart gasped loudly in surprise, and I took a step back, but Soren didn’t react at all, except to slowly stand up to his full height. As the light faded, Applejack’s human form was revealed: her golden ponytail mane and green eyes preserved, wearing very short blue pants held by a belt, an orange top under a brown leather jacket, gloves, boots, a red neckerchief and her ever-present hat. Her Cutie Mark had shifted to the outside of her right thigh, but remained the same pattern of three red apples.
She stepped back from Soren, looking at herself. “Well, that was pretty strange,” she said in the same voice that I’d recognise anywhere for certain. She reached into the pockets of her pants and quickly drew a pair of strange weapons that looked like ballistae, except small enough to fire regular arrows and hold one in each hand. A quiver was hanging from the back of her waist. She turned to me and said, “Guess now I’m just like you. This ain’t gonna be easy to explain...”
“We’re not going back to Appleloosa just yet,” Soren said, holding up the paper with the drawing of the Scourge. “This beast is in pain, being used against its will for an evil purpose. We have to stop it, even if that means putting it out of its misery.”
“Can we even fight it?” Little Strongheart asked.
“And where you do expect it to be?” I added.
“I think the four of us together...” Karin squawked behind Soren. “Sorry, five of us together can handle it in a straight fight. Normally it preys on ponies and buffalo who are alone, and unarmed. As for where it’s going to be...” He pointed up at the top of the mesa. “It always comes back here. All we gotta do is get up there and wait.”
“The stairs,” I said quickly. “I saw some stairs going up just inside. Maybe they go to the plateau.”
“Lead the way,” he replied, gesturing towards the entrance.
~~
Just below the plateau of the mesa was an antechamber, where I stopped to take a few deep breaths before heading up. The others had already gone up there except for myself and Karin, and I helped her to preen herself as I tried to catch my breath from climbing the steep stairs. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I admitted. “But I won’t lose you, or anyone else. I promise.”
Karin cooed under my touch and my words, before suddenly letting out a surprised “Kweh!” as she looked over my shoulder. “Kweh!”
“What is it?” I asked as I turned around, jumping backwards as I saw the merchant standing behind me. “Agh! Don’t sneak up on me like that! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
Twilight came rushing down the stairs. “Soren, what’s going on?” When she spotted the merchant, she gasped as well. “How did you get up here?!”
“Just wanted to give you your bounty again,” he said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out another bag of coins. Just before Twilight took it, he said, “Unless...” He replaced it and pulled out a sheathed katana instead. “You’ll need a weapon to battle the Scourge. If you trade in your old one, your bounty comes out to juuust enough cash, stranger. What do you say?”
“Is this one made of wood again?” I asked as I pulled out the broken handle of the wooden sword.
In response, he unsheathed it fully, revealing its metal edge. “The genuine article, stranger, just like all my wares, and a better deal you won’t find in Equestria. Take it or leave it.” I turned to Twilight, who had actually killed all the skeletons, and she nodded. I handed over the handle and took the katana from the merchant, who showed me the bag of coins again before placing it back in a pocket. “A wise purchase, stranger,” he said, walking down the stairs. I looked after him, but he was gone as soon as he was out of my line of sight.
“That guy gives me the creeps,” I admitted.
“Kweh.”
“It’s already moonrise up there,” Twilight said. “If you don’t have anything else you need to do, we’d better join the others again.”
“Be right there.” Twilight headed up the stairs, and I took Karin’s reins again. “You ready?”
“Kweh!”
“Good answer.” I led her up the stairs to the plateau. Applejack was practicing aiming her bowguns, though she wasn’t firing, and Strongheart was keeping a vigil on the skies. I touched my katana’s handle and furrowed my brow. I could sense everyone’s determination to defeat the Scourge, but as well as determined, I was certain we would prevail. It was only the first boss, after all.
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Better. Much better spelling wise. Story is still holding my interest. Keep up the good work.
Keep it up....will we see celestia or Luna at all ?
6506741 Yes. And yes.
Great chapter.