Spike's Doom and/or Destiny

by terrycloth

Back in the General Direction of the Track

“I don’t want to go out there,” Moondancer said, pausing at the door to the armor shop. “Everypony’s going to stare.”

“The shopkeeper’s already staring,” Spike said. “Is it really that bad?”

“Yes,” she hissed, trying once more to tuck her tail down, but the little loop around its base stubbornly kept it perked up. It wasn’t revealing, exactly – it was the same pose most ponies took whenever they were happy, and often wearing nothing at all – but she still felt exposed. “Are you sure I can’t wear my old robe over it?”

“The magic would clash,” the shopkeeper said.

“And it would look really stupid, since the saddle’s kind of lumpy,” Spike added. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this. You look great!”

Moondancer frowned. “I look like a two-bit riding horse!”

“Hey! That’s quality craft there,” the shopkeeper said. “No two-bit riding horse could afford my work. You’d have to be one of the mid-range working fillies, at least.”

“I’m going to kill him if he doesn’t shut up,” Moondancer growled under her breath.

“No you’re not,” Bon Bon said, from just outside the shop. “Stop being a drama queen and get out here. I promise, nopony’s going to bat an eye.”

After a few seconds, Moondancer emerged into the bright sunlight shining down onto River Town, the bright red leather of her Battle Saddle contrasting wonderfully with the light cream of her coat, and matching the red streaks in her mane. With a scowl on her face, and her slightly-blood-encrusted scythe clutched tightly in her magic, she was a sight to behold.

Apparently. Everypony was staring at her, most of them too terrified to blink.

“Okay, plan B,” Bon Bon said softly, then stood between Moondancer and the bulk of the crowd. She dragged an empty wooden box over, and stood on top of it. “Ah, I see I have your attention! Who wants to go one on one with Mistress Moondancer? Only 1000 golz…”

“I am going to KILL YOU,” Moondancer hissed.

The crowd scattered.

“There, problem solved,” Bon Bon said, stepping down off her makeshift podium. “Come on, let’s – hey!”

Moondancer’s scythe sparked against the pavement, directly beneath where Bon Bon’s neck had been. “I can’t believe you!” she said, her teeth bared and her eyes tearing up.

As Bon Bon dodged back from the blow, she stumbled against the box and toppled over backwards. She twisted like an acrobat and managed to convert it into a graceful roll into a ready position, but Moondancer was already running away, knocking Derpy and Spike aside as she headed for the edge of town.

Bon Bon relaxed and brushed herself off. “I think she took that well.”

Spike got back to his feet, twisting his helmet back around so that the face hole was in front. “Really?”

“No, not really,” Bon Bon said. “That filly’s got issues.”

===

They found her just outside of town, sitting in the middle of the road, crying.

“Here,” Bon Bon said, tossing her a bundle of black fabric. “You can cover up with this.”

Moondancer stared at it for a bit, then lifted it and unfolded it into a hooded cloak. “I thought that would ruin the magic,” she sniffled.

“Cloaks of Concealment are classified as accessories, so they should work together,” Bon Bon said.

“It’ll still look all lumpy, though,” Spike said.

Moondancer put on the cloak. Somehow, it sat flat across her back, concealing the saddle. She put up the hood, and it similarly lay flat across her forehead, concealing her horn.

Spike shrugged. “Or not.”

Derpy frowned at the result. The unicorn’s face was shadowed, but you could still clearly see the red leather harness on her muzzle. Similarly, the braided straps on her legs and tail stuck out under the edge of the cloak. “I’m not sure that makes her less scary.”

“I can deal with scary,” Moondancer said.

“Feel better?” Bon Bon asked.

“A bit,” Moondancer said, lifting a foreleg to wipe her eyes. “I can’t believe you actually tried to sell me!”

“If it makes any difference, I was thinking ‘fighting tournament’,” Bon Bon said, scratching at the road with a hoof.

“Yeah, that’s how I heard it,” Spike said. “I mean, a sexy fighting tournament, yeah…”

“Ugh,” Moondancer said, scowling. “Just forget it. Nothing actually happened, so we can repress this memory forever and never speak of it again. It’s not like this is the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in my life.”

Spike laughed. “Yeah, remember that time Twilight ditched the party you set up just for her?”

Moondancer grit her teeth. “What part of ‘never speak of it again’ do you not understand, Spike?”

Spike slammed his mouth shut with a clack.

Moondancer closed her eyes, and let out a breath. “Right. Are we ready for Lord Orcus?”

“Not as ready as I’d like to be,” Bon Bon said. “But grinding random encounters for golz would be boring enough even in a normal game where you skip from fight to fight, and don’t have to actually walk around for a few days in between.”

“And we have a save point,” Spike noted.

Bon Bon gave a sharp nod. “And that. So I think it’s worth making the attempt.”

Moondancer stood up and stretched out her shoulders, making her dark cloak ripple across her back. “Then let’s go. The sooner we make progress on the story quests, the sooner we unlock the next tier of equipment.”

===

They had to fight three groups of wolves on the way back, before they even got within sight of the forest.

The first group wasn’t much trouble. There were six of the small wolves, but no alpha to draw the party’s attention and leave them open to an ambush. Spike managed to distract three of them with a fearsome roar, which left the rest of them facing off one on one, since Derpy and Moondancer knew better than to abandon Bon Bon to the pack.

“Dark Eidous!”

Sadly for Moondancer, the lightning crashed down on one of the wolves fighting Spike, so she had to fend off her wolf with her scythe. It didn’t really work – the little wolf took the blow to the side of the head and darted past her, sinking its teeth into her left hind fetlock and dragging her to the ground. She cried out as she landed on her side, and kicked ineffectually as the wolf stayed latched on, growling and gnawing painfully on her leg.

But that meant that it couldn’t dodge without letting go. It never saw the blade of the scythe slip under its neck. It probably felt it when Moondancer jerked it upwards and sliced its throat, but not for very long. She was still trying to pry its frozen jaws off of her ankle when the rest of the group finished their wolves and came over to check on her.

“I don’t think this armor is working,” Moondancer hissed.

Bon Bon gave a sharp kick that broke off the dead wolf’s teeth, and together they managed to dislodge it. The leg below was completely unharmed.

Derpy squinted at the lack of blood, but fed Moondancer a muffin anyway.

“Do you mind if I try something?” Bon Bon asked, raising her cleaver.

“Mmmph!” Moondancer said around the muffin.

Bon Bon rolled her eyes, and lowered her weapon. “Well, the wolf fangs weren’t able to chew through it, so it looks pretty effective to me.”

Moondancer grimaced. “Just what I need. Armor for masochists.”

===

The second group of wolves was similar, but had one of the orcish shamans tagging along with the annoying blizzard spell, which the wolves seemed to completely ignore. Moondancer was also able to ignore it, either from the cloak or from the armor, she couldn’t tell. She pushed on through the snow until she was in range to smash the stupid caster in the face with her staff, over and over until the blizzard stopped, and then a few more times for good measure.

As her vision cleared, she could see Derpy and Bon Bon hacking at the backsides of the little wolves as the whole pack of them dogpiled Spike.

“Stand back!” she said, pulling out a fire bomb, and chucking it at the wolves.

Derpy and Bon Bon looked up just in time to see the jar hurtling towards them – and Derpy hovered up and caught it. “Your aim was a little off,” she said, as it dissolved harmlessly in her hooves.

“That wouldn’t matter if you’d backed up when I told you to,” Moondancer said, tossing another bomb. This time they scattered… and the bomb went wide, splattering into a pool of fire a few feet to the left of the wolves.

Eventually, she found the range, and a direct hit sent two flaming wolves running off howling into the distance. The rest of the flaming wolves didn’t even manage to untangle themselves from the pile before collapsing.

“Do we have enough golz left to resurrect Spike?” Derpy asked, hovering over the pile of bodies.

The pile shifted, and Spike sat up. “I’m fine!” he said, climbing to his feet, as flaming corpses rolled to either side. “I’m okay. They just had me pinned. One of them was holding my sword arm and the rest kept tripping me every time I tried to get up, but they couldn’t get through my armor.”

He brushed himself off, sending some stray flaming liquid spattering into the dirt. “Oh, and I’m immune to fire, but you already knew that, right?”

“You offered to go swimming in lava when we first got here,” Moondancer said. “Minoan fire is non-magical, so there was no reason to expect it to penetrate your natural resistance.”

“We also thought you were dead already,” Derpy said. “Being set on fire after you were dead wouldn’t make you any more dead.”

“Unless he burned to ash,” Moondancer suggested. “That would take more than a few firebombs, though.”

“Would that actually stop a resurrection?” Spike asked.

Moondancer frowned. “You know, I’m not sure.” She took a firebomb out of the pouch. “Bon Bon, stand right there – I want to test something.”

“No!” Derpy said, swatting the bomb out of her hoof. “Bad wizard.”

“I’m sure she was just kidding,” Spike said.

He noticed that Bon Bon didn’t take her eyes off Moondancer for the rest of the day.

===

The third group of wolves had three of the alphas.

“Um…” Spike said, looking at them uncertainly. “Those things can bite through my armor…”

“We’d better run,” Bon Bon said. “Derpy, get Spike!”

Derpy swooped down and grabbed him under his arms and flew off with Bon Bon right on her tail.

“Um… girls?” Moondancer said, galloping after them, but watching them inevitably pull ahead of her. “Girls! Wait! I’m not as fast as – aaiieee!”

She screamed as the lead wolf’s claws latched onto her flank, and stumbled and fell, skidding through the dirt. She hadn’t even stopped moving before the other wolves were on her. There was a flash of teeth, and then –

…and then there was a muffin in her mouth, and everything hurt. Chewing on the muffin made it hurt a little less. Once she finished, she asked, “What happened?”

“You didn’t get away,” Bon Bon said. “We circled around once the wolves lost interest, and brought you back to life.”

“You were dead for like an hour,” Derpy said, feeding her another much-appreciated muffin. “Did you make it to heaven? Was the Great Muffin there?”

Moondancer shook her head. After swallowing the bite she was chewing on, she added, “there was nothing. Just death, and then this again. Like no time had passed in between.”

“That’s how I remember it too,” Bon Bon said. “I guess there’s no afterlife if you die here.”

“You didn’t really die,” Spike said. “I mean, you can’t really die in a game, can you? So it’d just be the game’s version of the afterlife, and they didn’t know what to put there so they left it out.”

“Or maybe they erased your memory when you had to leave,” Derpy said.

“Or maybe there’s no such thing as a soul, and the ‘eternal rest’ of death is just a metaphor for oblivion.”

Everypony stared at Moondancer.

After a few seconds, Derpy giggled. “I think that sexy grim reaper outfit is going to your head.”

Comments

[RowynII]

At least Derpy can still laugh about it? Armor for masochists has made Moondancer extra-grim!

[terrycloth]

7410212 It's enchanted with +2 nihilism.