403 - No Consensus
“I can’t go along with this.”
“Nosey…”
“Forget it, Sonata. It’s not like it’s a problem for us if blondie here isn’t on board with the plan. She’ll be the one who has to live with the consequences.”
“Aria, can you please stop being the worst for, like, ten seconds? Nosey, listen, I know this idea sounds kind of crazy, but if we don’t do this-”
“No, Sonata, crazy is a city filled with monsters! Crazy is the stallion I like beating the Royal Sisters in a fight! Crazy is having my first time be with him and my best friend and her sister all at once! This-”
“And here I thought Sonata had broken you in before Lex and I got to have a go at you.”
“Y-you know what I meant! That was all…that was one thing, but this…what you’re talking about doing…it’s just too much. I’m not like you two.”
“You-”
All conversation ceased as the door to the train station suddenly swung open, the motion heralded by the deep purple aura that surrounded the handle a half-second before it turned. A moment later Lex stepped through the opening, only to come to an immediate stop as he saw Aria, Nosey, and Sonata all frozen in place – the latter still with her mouth open in mid-sentence – and staring at him. Under other circumstances he would have wondered about the unusual degree to which they seemed cognizant of his presence, but at the moment he found it easy to make an educated guess as to the cause of their behavior. There had never been any chance that Aria would keep what she’d learned last night from them, after all.
But just because they knew what was about to happen didn’t mean that he knew what to say to them. Defying the Night Mare was a non-option, and enslaving the three of them was out of the question, which left only a single course of action, a conclusion that he was sure they had to have reached on their own. It was a subject that Lex had no idea how to broach, even though he knew he had to. “I want to elucidate-”
“Hey, look girls!” yelped Sonata, her voice slightly too loud. “It’s Lex!” Plastering a cheery smile on her face, she strode toward the stallion in question. “Did you sleep okay? You were so tired, I bet you feel like a million b-, WHOA!” Her grin was replaced by a horrified expression as she suddenly came to halt. “What happened to your leg?!”
Despite being glad for the change in subject, Lex’s expression darkened. Although the few hours of sleep that he’d gotten had ameliorated the worst of his physical impairments – and, more importantly, replenished his dark magic and divine spells – the barbed wire wrapped around his foreleg had continued to constrict, to the point where the damage it was doing to him was now impossible for anypony to miss. His limb had become visibly constricted, the flesh bulging from between the loops of wire, and the blood running down his leg had reached the point that he now left a red hoofprint wherever he took a step.
But although it was both hideous and painful – his leg was now a source of constant agony, one which spiked whenever he put any weight on it – Lex’s pride demanded that he give those things only the barest acknowledgment. That, and downplaying the seriousness of his condition allowed him to spite, however barely, the goddess that had forced this situation on him. “A temporary condition brought about by the Night Mare’s impatience,” he snorted dismissively. “It will be gone once she’s been placated.”
“It still looks really bad,” murmured Nosey. For some reason she seemed to be having trouble meeting his eyes. “You should at least wrap some bandages around it or something.”
Lex frowned at the suggestion. “Our medical supplies are limited. Wasting them on a condition that’s both temporary and untreatable is-”
“Better than having everyone wondering why you’re walking around with your leg like that, isn’t it?” interjected Aria, her voice taunting. “I bet those kids from last night won’t hesitate to ask you what’s up with that.”
The withering look Lex gave her in response to that was about to be accompanied by a scathing rebuke, but he wasn’t given the chance as Feather Duster suddenly flew down onto the platform, her face pale. “M-Master Legis! There’s an emergency!”
Everything else fell away as Lex turned his full attention toward the distraught mare. “What’s happened?”
Feather pointed a wing toward the western end of the camp, where the medical tents were set up. “Miss Bank is hurt! She and her son were heading to their yacht, but they stopped to run an errand and were attacked by those ghoul things!”
“Wait, for realsies?!” gasped Sonata.
“Is she okay?” asked Nosey.
“I thought we destroyed all the ghouls?” frowned Aria.
But Feather Duster barely heard any of them, their questions reduced to so much background noise compared to the intense focus that Lex was currently directing toward her. Almost as oppressive as his anger, the sheer weight of the look on his face at that moment made her quail. “Give me River’s current location,” he demanded.
“With the doctors,” she responded immediately. “On the other side of camp.”
She had barely gotten the words out when Lex transformed into a shadow, causing her legs to tremble as the eyes pinning her in place became green and purple, peering at her from a mass of turbulent darkness. “Fetch your daughter,” he commanded her. “Have her meet me at the medical tents. Now!”
“She-” But Feather Duster didn’t have a chance to finish as Lex flew westward, the maid giving a shriek and flinging herself to the side as his insubstantial form passed within a few inches of her.
Watching him go, Aria could only snort. “Well, at least no one’s going to ask about his leg when he’s like that.”
“Should we go too?” Sonata glanced back and forth between Aria and Nosey, uncertainty written all over her face. “I mean, he didn’t say anything, but it kinda feels wrong to just hang out here until he comes back, you know?”
“You two should,” replied Nosey. “If there are more ghouls, Lex might need your help finishing them off again, especially since Severance isn’t here anymore.” Without waiting for them to say anything, Nosey went over to where Feather Duster was still cowering. “Listen, you seem pretty shaken up. How about you stay here and get ready to pass out food to everypony for lunch, and I’ll go get your daughter and bring her to where River is, okay?”
“Th-thank you,” gulped Feather, trying to control the cold shivers running down her spine. “But she’s already there.”
Nosey tilted her head. “She is?”
Feather nodded. “That’s what I was trying to say when Master Legis left. He spoke to her and her friends last night-”
Sonata perked up. “Oh yeah! Aria told us about that! He’s going to make them all into appendixes, right?”
Aria rolled her eyes. “Apprentices, you moron.”
“Right! That too!”
“Er, yes,” answered Feather hesitantly, before turning back to Nosey. “During the conversation, Cleansweep offered to use the magic her, um, spirit animal gave her to heal him. Lex refused, saying that she should save it for other ponies that were hurt. Since he’s not going to start teaching them until tomorrow, Cleansweep decided to follow Master Legis’s advice and go see if the doctors needed her help. Her friends went with her, and I followed to chaperone them. That’s how I knew that Miss Bank had been injured. We saw her being brought in.”
“Wow, so Lex totes called wanting her to save her magic, huh?” Sonata couldn’t help but give Aria a smug look, remembering how her sister had referred to Lex’s decision in less than glowing terms. “Guess we better hurry up and get there before he runs out of I-told-you-so’s.”
“Sit down you idiot,” snapped Aria. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Sonata blinked. “We’re not?”
“Of course we’re not,” huffed Aria. “Remember the plan?”
Feather Duster shifted nervously in place, not liking the sound of that. “Plan?”
Grimacing, Nosey forced a polite smile onto her face, looking at Feather. “Listen, lunch won’t be for a little while, and if your daughter is already where Lex needs her to be, then how about you, um…” She glanced around for a moment, before spotting the bloody hoofprints where Lex had been. “How about you clean up inside the station? It shouldn’t take very long, alright?”
Knowing that she was being dismissed, Feather Duster was only too happy to comply. “Of course. I’ll get started right now.” Needing no further prompting, she practically fled into the building, closing the door behind her without being asked.
Sighing, Nosey turned back toward the other two. “Aria, this really isn’t the time.”
“Yeah, it isn’t the time,” echoed Sonata as she looked at Aria.
“It’s going to be,” shot back Aria. “One way or another, Lex has to do that ceremony for the Night Mare, and soon. He can’t ignore that.”
“Right, he can’t ignore that,” nodded Sonata as she looked at Nosey.
“He will if there’s another ghoul invasion,” pressed Nosey. “You know he’d do it, no matter what the consequences. That’s why you two should be there, to make sure he doesn’t get carried away with doing the right thing. ”
“He might get carried away with doing the right thing,” admitted Sonata as she looked at Aria.
“Except the ghouls don’t come out during the day, remember?” Aria gave Nosey an unamused look. “So there’s no chance that he’ll need to deal with another huge army of them right now. And don’t repeat that!” she added, glaring at Sonata.
“Yeah, don’t repeat that!” repeated Sonata as she looked at Nosey.
“I am gonna pound you,” growled Aria, taking a threatening step closer to her sister.
Sonata just blinked. “What? What did I do?”
Normally her best friend’s antics would have set her to giggling, but at the moment Nosey wasn’t in the mood. “You do realize that Lex might just hold whatever ceremony he’s planning without coming back here first, right? If you’re serious about this you’re better off sticking close to him.”
“We’re better off doing this inside,” retorted Aria, pointing at the station, “where there’s no one else around to get in the way. And I seriously don’t think he’s going to try and pull some big speech or whatever off all by himself. He’s awful at talking to people and he knows it, which means he’ll come to us before he gets the ball rolling.”
“He might not,” insisted Nosey, before letting out a sigh of defeat. “Which means I better go make sure that he does, just in case.”
Sonata perked up, a hopeful look on her face. “Wait, so does that mean you’re on board?”
But Nosey shook her head, already heading towards the edge of the platform. “No. I’m sorry, but…no.”
“Fine,” snorted Aria. “Whatever. That’s on you, then. But you better not mess this up for the two of us, got it? If you tell Lex what we’re going to do…” She stamped a hoof, leaving the threat unspoken.
But Nosey didn’t give any sign that she was intimidated, not looking back. “I won’t.” Then, without another word, she hopped down from the platform and started galloping toward the medical tents.
Aria watched her go for several seconds before turning away from the retreating mare. “Stuck-up little nag,” she muttered, giving her mane a toss. “We should’ve put a spell on her to make sure she keeps her mouth shut.”
“I can’t believe she said no,” pouted Sonata mournfully.
“Oh please,” scoffed Aria. “She’ll change her mind, probably at the last possible second.”
But Sonata was still watching as her best friend galloped away. “No,” she murmured softly. “She won’t.”
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Heh, despite the dire situation, the girls routine is almost like Larry, Moe and Curly to me. Still, their mysterious plan is drawing my attention here but I can't figure it out. All I got are a couple of half baked theories with some holes in them.
The first one involves enchanting minds and making them do something that could appease the Night Mare which could explain why Nosey is against the idea though even if that act gives the Night Mare instant believers, I doubt it would excuse Lex from sacrificing something precious due to his slighting the goddess.
The second idea is that they intend to hijack Lex's ceremony and make the decision for him and hope it works out though how they'll actually do it and what they'll do it eludes me.
Still, I find it amusing how Lex and his girls behaved here. Here, we have Lex trying to explain to them and discuss the situation with them instead of keeping things to himself whereas the girls clam up and reveal nothing to him...nor the readers, just like Lex does with him and his plans in the past.
Though I do wonder if their plans will work out like Lex's(as in go in as prepared as possible but comes up short due to oversight and yet manage to eke out a victory) or will it blow up in their face and force Lex to recover the situation to mitigate the damage from the fallout like he had done with Luna to save her life.
The plot thickens, like peanut butter...
Also, slightly off topic, but I think numbering might cause the next chapter to become lost.
Midnight looms, girls panic, Lex loses no matter what?
Next chapter, Pinkie, Derpy, Discord and the CMC have a chaos competition?
9875301 When Sonata's involved, it's virtually impossible for there not to be some sort of humorous element to whatever hijinks are underway. Even so, precisely what she and Aria (and Nosey?) have come up with is difficult to say, other than the fact that Nosey apparently can't bring herself to participate in it for whatever reason. But why that is, and what they have planned, is very uncertain at this point. But given who's involved, I can't help but think that some sort of disaster is almost a requirement for when they try to put whatever they're planning into practice.
But otherwise, yeah, it's funny to see the girls acting secretive while Lex is (for once) attempting to address them openly about what's going on. Of course, River's injured state put a stop to that anyway, but I doubt it would have been quite the productive conversation, given that one side doesn't know what to say and the other doesn't want to say anything!
9875407 If the next chapter doesn't load, ping it and try again.
9875688 I don't think it'll be that chaotic...but then again, I've been wrong before.
well this is going to be interesting to see play out.
it is past time to do a full search of the city to be sure every thing is clear, and who know what or who will be found.
kind of sounds like training ground to me.
9877534 Not a bad idea, though I suspect that Lex would balk at potentially putting pony lives in danger. But the fact remains that what happened to River illustrates that he's not making as much forward motion as he'd like. Admittedly, that's not entirely his fault, but I doubt he sees it that way. Things just keep happening...like, I bet, a certain plan that the girls have in mind...