Chapter 23
Rushing wind blew our collective manes and tails around violently as our emergency chariot soared nearer to Canterlot Castle. The sense of protection offered by the castle’s large stone walls did little to slow my rapidly pounding heart. Michael and the soldiers marched far below, heading back to the castle as well and carried with them the few papers we found in the Red King’s test lab.
Twilight nudged her hoof against my side as I stared off into the night sky, “Harry, I can see something running through your head. Do you have a plan?”
I shook my head clear of the myriad of loose ideas that ran through it and peered back at Twilight. “Not really, no,” I muttered bluntly. “What I have are a set of goals and a few ideas born of desperation. To stop the Red King, we need to find Celestia.” I shifted my attention back to the castle that was rapidly growing nearer. “To find Celestia, we need Luna.”
Our chariot bounced and bucked wildly as the pegasi pulling it touched down in front of the castle. Twilight, her friends, and I all immediately jumped out of the transport and galloped towards the castle.
“Rarity,” I called over my back at her. “You’re studying under Luna, where would she be right now?”
“This late at night, she’d be in her room,” Rarity answered at once.
Without a further word, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Rainbow, and I charged forth through the castle gates, leaving a trail of very confused looking guards in our wake. The only sounds that we made were the carrying stomps of our hooves as we charged through the castle and followed the path I remembered from when I dropped Rarity off for her first lesson. In a matter of a few minutes, Luna’s chamber door came into view and I broadsided the door open as I slammed into it. Grateful that Luna’s usual guards were on the castle walls instead of her door, we hastily proceeded into the room.
Across the room Luna sat hunched over her desk, scrutinizing what seemed to be a map of the area immediately around Canterlot. However, the moment we burst through her bedroom door, Luna jumped backwards from the cushion at her desk to land in a low crouch that covered most of her neck and flared her wings out above her. Her horn began glowing a dark blue and the temperature of the room dropped considerably.
“Who to dares barge into my quarters?” Luna roared at us.
I skidded to a halt in front her and felt the several mares just behind me do the same as they slid to crash into my back. Luna blinked a few times as she took in the odd sight of the pile-o-ponies trying to disentangle themselves from one another. Once it clicked who was in her room, she relaxed back into a more casual stance.
“Oh, hello…” Luna murmured as she folded her wings back against her body. “I wasn't expecting to see any of you for a few more hours at least.” Her eyes opened wider and she peered at Pinkie and Fluttershy, both of whom had shifted slightly apart from the group and were trying their best to not look at anything or anypony. “What has happened? Is the Red King no more?” Luna asked, a hint of trepidation hanging in her voice.
Rarity stepped passed me to address the princess and bowed a little before speaking. “Princess, something terrible has happened.”
“It’s Princess Celestia, she’s been taken by some crazy magic like I've never seen,” Applejack added before Luna could interrupt.
“What!?!” Luna spat, her eyes instantly going very wide, giving her a hysterical look. “Taken? What do you mean she was taken? What has happened to my sister?”
“She was trapped in something that grounded out her magic,” Twilight explained, her voice laced with the slightest notes of panic. “I don’t know how he did it, but the Red King left a trap that nearly killed us, and dragged Celestia through some kind of portal. We have no idea where she is now.”
“Before we do anything else, we need to try a tracking spell,” I interjected with an intense gaze at the Princess of the Night. “And we need your help to do it.”
“Why would you…“ Luna muttered under her breath, her brows furrowing as she thought. Almost instantly she realized what I meant and her eyes widened as a result. “Of course, you need my blood.”
“Whoa wait a minute, we need what?” Rainbow asked, her gaze shifting from Luna to Twilight and then to me as she searched for an answer.
I sighed and shifted my hooves, “Her blood, I want to use Luna’s blood in a tracking spell for Celestia.”
“Actually I’m a little lost there too,” Twilight interjected. “I know a tracking spell works by taking a piece of something, creating a link from the smaller piece to the source, and then you just follow that link right? Then wouldn’t Luna’s blood just point us towards Luna?”
I craned my head around until I was looking into Twilight’s eyes. “Normally yes, but depending on the circumstances, you can create a link with more than just the source material.” I waved a hoof vaguely in Luna’s direction. “Celestia and Luna share blood, but more than that, they share a sisterly bond forged over who knows how many lifetimes. We can use that bond to have Luna’s blood seek out its counterpart.” I pivoted back around to face Luna, “I assume that you have no reservations with…”
Once I looked back at Luna, I saw that she had already seized a small knife that had been lying on her desk and had driven it into the joint where her left foreleg met her body. She withdrew the now bloodied knife from her hide and pressed a small glass vial against the wound, allowing a sizeable trickle of blood to fill the vial in a matter of seconds.
“Well I suppose that answers that question,” I commented as Luna held the glass of crimson liquid before her and repaired the cut with a small flash of blue light.
I was about to step forward and prep the patented tracking spell I had perfected over a few years of investigating, tracking down baddies, and searching for lost puppies, but Luna was already several steps ahead of me. A cylindrical metal framework and a small length of string flew from odd corners of the room and converged on the vial of blood. The hollow frame hovered with the vial in its center and the string wrapped itself around the corked opening and the top of the frame, creating a stand for the vial that let it hang loosely in the air.
Luna took this stand and set it down on the desk to the side of her room. She wasted no time in channeling her intent into her own version of a tracking spell. Her face screwed up in concentration as she focused on the suspended vial and poured energy into her horn, causing it to glow an almost blindingly bright blue. Once she held the spell ready, Luna stepped forward to lightly touch her horn to the stand and release the pent up power into it. Luna stepped away just as the crimson vial began glowing blue and swung around in a circle within its mount.
We all watched with bated breath as the spell sought out Luna’s counterpart. Luna glared at the vial as though it was the thing responsible for her sister’s disappearance, while Twilight and Rarity both stared at it as though it were their only lifeline. I frowned at the bottle, already forming battle strategies in the back of my head. The others merely watched it with a sense of unease, unsure of what exactly was happening.
The little vial spun around so fast that it was nearly a blur in the air, until it flashed one last burst of blue light and abruptly stopped. The subject of the tracking spell waved limply back and forth on its string before coming to a standstill, completely unaffected by Luna’s magic. The tracking spell had failed.
“Now I’m no unicorn, but that doesn't look right,” Applejack muttered, breaking the silence that fell after the failed spell.
Luna’s eyes widened in sudden fear, “No, no it’s not…”
“Damn it, she must be inside an empowered circle already,” I said immediately, my mind jumping to the explanation I disliked the least. “No tracking spell is going to connect through that, no matter how powerful.”
“Harry…” whispered Twilight, her voice cracking a little. “What if… What if there’s nothing to connect to?”
“You don’t think…?” Rarity began, but couldn't finish the thought.
I stomped a hoof into the ground and shouted, “No!” Everypony there turned shocked faces to me; even Luna, slightly more disconnected from the conversation than the others, turned wide eyes on me. “She’s not dead! The Red King still needs to break her mind before he can steal her power, and I refuse to believe she could fall so quickly!”
Several uncomfortable seconds passed as the mares processed what I had said and each began to look a bit more hopeful. Luna grimaced but nodded as she wheeled back around at the focus of her failed tracking spell, and once again touched her horn to the vial of blood. The little bottle in the center began glowing a deep blue again, and instead of immediately dimming as I had expected, it continued to glow with Luna’s magic.
Luna turned back to face us with a look of ironed determination on her face, “If whatever magic is hiding my sister falls, for whatever reason, this will let us know and will guide us to her.” Luna’s gaze shifted from looking over all of us, to focusing on her cold and very angry eyes on me. “But we will not simply wait for that to happen. I trust that your expedition has yielded something of use?”
My voice died in my throat as Luna’s icy glare pierced me to my very soul. I gulped several times and tried to ignore the beads of sweat forming on my forehead as I made damn sure I wasn't in direct eye contact with her. What Luna was going through was something I didn't really want to consider for too long. Her kindhearted, powerful, and ever-present older sister, who had always been there to watch over her and their kingdom, had suddenly been ripped away. For a normal mind, the sudden lack of a dependable presence would be jarring enough; but for the mind of an immortal, especially one that had been so closely bounded to the presence in question, it would be earth shattering, possibly literally. That and the fact that I was the one who had found the clue which ultimately lead Celestia to the Red King’s trap, meant I was having serious second thoughts about barging into Luna’s room.
Just don’t make eye contact, Harry. She can sense fear.
Thankfully, Twilight stepped forward to come to my rescue and draw Luna’s gaze off me. “Actually, Princess, we did find something,” she said confidently, but I could still notice the slight waver in Twilight’s tone as Luna refocused onto her. “When we found the lab, there was… evidence that the Red King had only just left.” Twilight hesitated as she tried not to dwell on the fresh body we found that supported her claim. “We think that he fled shortly before we arrived, and he left behind several pages worth of notes and plans. These papers could show us where he took Celestia.”
At that precise moment, somepony knocked at the door to Luna’s bedroom just before they opened it and a guardspony stepped through. The guard rushed forward and bowed to the dark colored princess before speaking.
“Princess, the soldiers Celestia picked out have just returned, but she is not with them,” the guard babbled hastily.
“I’m aware of the situation,” Luna responded at once. “I want you to spread the word that you are to proceed as though nothing is wrong. If the citizens see the guards begin to worry, then they will panic.” The guard simply stared nonplussed at Luna as she so calmly issued the orders that had been, until recently, Celestia's job. “Did the soldiers bring anything with them?”
“Uh, yes! Yes they did,” he babbled as he got his mind back on track. “They brought back a small crate of papers. Captain Shining Armor instructed them to deposit it in the Canterlot library.”
Luna immediately started moving towards the door, leaving us all standing perplexed at her sudden action. “Escort us there,” she instructed the guard as she reached the door. “We will investigate into these papers immediately.”
With that said, she strode calmly into the hallway with the guard close behind her. As soon as she left the room, the entirety of my present friends turned to face me with varying looks of confusion on their faces.
“Just when I think I’m done with these damned papers, more get thrown at me,” I grunted as I hefted myself back to my hooves and stepped toward the same door Luna had just left from. “Let’s go. The more eyes we get on this, the faster we’ll get it done and the faster we’ll get Celestia back.”
At once, the six mares around me got up from their various seats, with one or two anxious murmurs, and followed me as I chased after Luna and her escort.
The research area of the Canterlot library was a lot like one would expect. It was a large open area with several different desks arranged out in a grid pattern, each with their own small cushion for a pony to sit on while working. The desks were all very nice and tidy with only a few small stacks of books and papers scattered around that somepony had been looking at, or at least it was before I got there.
“There’s nothing here!” I growled loudly and swept a hoof across my desk, throwing more than a few papers into the air beside me.
Several hours had passed since we returned to Canterlot and holed ourselves up in the library to sift through the Red King’s leftovers. Twilight, myself, Luna, the rest Twilight’s friends, and even Michael were present and had taken separate desks so that they could try to make sense of the scavenged notes. The only downside was that any notes that dealt with the Red King’s magical workings were too complicated for Michael and the most of the mares, so they were shunted towards Luna, Twilight, and I. These scribbles also took up the vast majority of the papers, and contained absolutely no hints to how we could save Celestia. Needless to say, I was starting to fray a little at the seams.
“Harry, please calm down,” Michael said in a calming tone as he got up from his desk. “I’m sure there’s just something in these papers that we’re not seeing.”
I used my telekinesis and grabbed one of the random pages that held the design for what I believed to be the base matrix of the Red King’s draining spell. “Michael, this will not help us,” I said as I brandished the paper in front of his face. “This is mental magic on a level I've never even dreamed of before. I've spent the last three hours just beginning to figure out the absolute base for this spell.” The paper dropped back to the desk and I rubbed the tips of my hooves against my temples in a feeble attempt to reduce my headache. “It would probably take me weeks to figure out how exactly this is supposed to work, and how we could track him through it; and we may only have days… or hours,” I said, my voice trailing off into a whisper near the end. “That’s assuming that there even is a way to track the spell.”
From the desk next to mine, Twilight set down several copies of the same magical formulae onto her desk. Her brows were furrowed as she stared at the papers, her mane had become increasingly frizzy over the last few hours and her ears were beginning to twitch in irritation.
“Harry’s right,” she muttered, her voice strained a little under the pressure. “As much as I hate to admit it, this spell may be beyond me.” The papers shifted around until a new page covered in odd markings floated before her eyes. “This is largely all magical scribblings that make sense only to whoever wrote them. It’s like trying to piece together a puzzle without knowing what it’s supposed to look like in the end, and the few bits that I can make out are… disturbing.”
“The Red King and Life Drinker share equally depraved, and indecipherable minds it seems,” Luna said from behind her own copies of notes. “These notes and this spell are incredibly complicated. I've yet to pinpoint a weakness we can exploit; every time I think I’ve found something traceable, there’s an overlying working that covers it up.” Luna stacked the loose papers onto a corner of her desk and rested her head on a foreleg. “The most I've found is that, no matter how intricate this spell is, it ultimately seems to boil down to a pure battle of wills. The Red King can prevent my sister from using magic, but he still has to break her mind. So long as she continues fighting, we have time.”
“What about how he’s containing her?” Michael asked, his eyes looking intently at me. “From what you've told me in the past about such things, in order to contain a being of her power, wouldn't she need to be held on a source of equal power? Like a… ley line, I think you called it.”
“A what now?” Rarity piped up from her desk just on the fringes of the room.
I heaved a short sigh and directed my attention back to the papers on my desk. “A ley line is a long path at which latent magical energies naturally culminate together, kind of like a literal river of magic.”
Twilight frowned deeply and her eyes unfocused as she undoubtedly began sifting through several years worth of lessons and memories. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a thing in Equestria,” she said after a moment of consideration.
“That’s because I don’t believe there are ley lines here,” I replied, perhaps a bit more aggressively than was necessary. “If we were back in my world, yes, known ley lines would be the first place I go looking. However, in all of the random boxes of history I've gone through so far, not once is anything mentioned about ley lines.” I looked back up at Michael and frowned, “This world is simply too magically saturated for individual ley lines to form. The whole world might as well be one big ley line. She could be being held anywhere!”
“You’re all thinking about it too hard. There’s no replacement for good, old fashioned dirt,” Rainbow Dash said as she brandished one of the few pages that didn't exclusively have magical scribblings all over it. “I just found a message saying that the Red King wanted supplies sent to an old ruined fort called Fort Trinity. I’ll bet you he has Celestia there.”
“I’m afraid not Ms. Dash,” Michael offered. “A pegasi team scouted out those ruins a few days ago. They found a few vampires camping there, but that’s all.” Michael returned to his desk and poured over his own papers once again. “It looked to be a forward operating post, not a central base.”
“Oh… well crud,” Rainbow muttered and slapped her paper back onto her desk. “That was the only thing I could find in these freaking papers! You’d think this guy would leave some kind of solid trail.”
I decided not to point out that, even if he was pressed for time in getting out of there, I highly doubted he would just leave behind a paper with a forwarding address. I let my eyes wander as I tried to imagine the whole situation from a new angle, a dull pain forming in the back of my head as I did so.
“There’s got to be something,” I grumbled and leaned back a little, letting my muzzle point up towards the ceiling. “There’s got to be some small fact that… Wait a minute. This may be a weird question, but where’s the Sun?” I asked, pointing a hoof up at the skylight far above us.
The library’s study was completely windowless, save for the skylight in the domed ceiling. We had been in that study since we debriefed Luna in the early morning, and stayed there for several hours after. Even with the slight sleep deprivation, my inner clock was telling me that it couldn't be any later than two in the afternoon. Despite that fact, the sky was the near pitch black of deepest night and had several small stars twinkling in the dark.
“Whoa Nelly,” Applejack exclaimed. “How long have we been here again? I could've sworn we just had lunch delivered here ‘bout an hour ago.”
Luna loudly cleared her throat, drawing all of our attention onto her. “Believe it or not, that is actually a good sign.” Luna gazed up at the darkened skylight and wore a weary smile that was equal parts hope and despair, “The Sun is still bound to Celestia, and it will not rise until she is free once more.”
Twilight cocked her head to one side as she peered questioningly at Luna, “I don’t understand. If Celestia can’t raise the Sun, then why don’t you do raise it like she raised the moon when you were banished?” Twilight’s frown deepened as she considered it even further, “And for that matter, how is Celestia's Sun not rising, a good sign?”
“Because Twilight Sparkle, it means that my sister is still fighting,” Luna said in a calm and detached voice. “When I was banished from Equestria, my connection to the moon was severed, even though it was my prison. Celestia is still in this world, so her connection to the Sun remains strong.” Luna shifted her copies of the Red King’s notes together into one neat stack and slowly lifted herself from her seat, stretching slightly as she did she did so. “You have to understand, in order for us to move the Sun and moon across the sky, Celestia and I have to be in harmony. We both must be willing and able to exercise our power before we can move the heavenly bodies.”
“So if the Sun’s still bound to her, but she just can’t move it, then that confirms that Celestia is still alive!” Rarity blurted out, a sudden look of real hope appearing on her face.
“Precisely,” Luna said before she looked solemnly back up at the darkened skylight, “Though I never really thought that my extended night could mean good news for my sister.” She heaved a short sigh and quickly trotted off towards the study’s door, her stack of notes floating along behind her. “I feel that there may be several ponies that see this night as the second coming of Nightmare Moon. I should go and make a few public statements. I doubt it’ll completely relax the city, but hopefully I can at least prevent a riot.”
Pinkie almost immediately set down her own stack of papers and bounced over towards Luna before she could leave. “Wait for me! If anypony knows how to make a pony, or a whole bunch of ponies feel better, it’s Pinkie Pie!”
“I should come too,” said Applejack in a frustrated tone. She calmly, but forcefully, set down her copies onto her own desk, “Researching like this has never been my strong suit, I’d be better off helping with something I can handle. I figure things with the public would go a might smoother with one or more of us there, Princess.” Applejack tilted her head and offered a small smile at Luna, “Element of Honesty and all.”
Luna chewed on her lower lip for a moment before answering, “Very well. If you wish to, I will be happy to take whatever help you may offer.” Luna craned her head around to peer over at Twilight and I, “Assuming you have no immediate need of them.”
“Nnnngh,” I grunted, my face still buried beneath several sheets of paper.
Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes at me. “We’ll be fine, Princess. Just please hurry back when you’re done. I’m not sure how much of this spell we can unravel without you.”
“I shall not be too long.” With that said, Luna hurriedly made her way out of the study with Pinkie and Applejack right behind her.
“Uhm, Twilight,” whispered Fluttershy from directly behind me. After a brief surprise induced heart attack on my part, Fluttershy continued on. “Would you mind if I go too? There are still a lot of ponies that need my help in the infirmary, and…” Fluttershy shuddered slightly. “I just need to get away from these papers.”
“Oh, of course you can go dear,” Rarity answered for her friend. “I know those poor ponies need your help more than we do. We can handle things here.”
Fluttershy looked uncertainly at Twilight for confirmation, who nodded back at her with a small smile. Once insuring that she wasn't needed, Fluttershy put on a decent burst of speed as she fled from the study, slamming the door behind her in the process. My eyebrow arched a bit at Fluttershy's sudden burst of tension and energy. I could only assume that, while Fluttershy could deal with patching up hurt ponies, delving into the mind of the thing that had done the damage was something she just couldn’t handle very well.
Those thoughts and more were put on the back burner once the door shut again. Now that Fluttershy had left the only ones remaining to comb through the Red King’s notes were Rarity, Rainbow, Michael, Twilight, and I. All other thoughts and concerns evaporated from me as my mind refocused onto finding the answer that could mean all of our lives.
“Ugh, I bet Daring Do never had to do this,” Rainbow groaned as she reached for a new piece of paper.
The study once again fell into silence as, those of us left, resumed our search. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in several years of various kinds of nasty trying to tear me multiple new ones, it’s that time can be a heartless bitch. Hours seemed to shorten into minutes, in indirect proportion to my rising blood pressure. Dinner came and went with a few ponies from the kitchen and we ate it in complete silence. My growing sense of sleep deprivation was telling me that it we were rapidly approaching the late night hours, even though the perpetually dark sky above us gave no indication of such a change.
Princess Luna returned shortly after our dinner and wordlessly took a desk on the far side of the study. Luna’s twinkling dark blue mane was billowing around her with several more sharp angles at the edges than her usual flowing mane. Her general agitated appearance and the fact that she wasn't speaking a word to any of us, gave me the impression that her meeting with the general public, wasn't meet with the best of reactions. Though I had no real way of knowing the city’s attitude from inside the library, I was at least satisfied that they were not breaking down the doors of the castle to overthrow Nightmare Moon. While Luna had returned, Applejack and Pinkie had not. I knew Fluttershy would likely still be treating her patients, but I could only guess as to what her absent friends were up to.
Honestly, it’s probably for the best. Applejack wasn't making much headway and Pinkie would just be a distraction. I’m sure they’re helping somehow, like passing around coffee, or making a warm bed… Man, I wish I had coffee and a warm bed right now… I shook my head to clear my drifting thoughts. No! The spell, focus on the spell! The energy transference from one body to the other has to be violent and messy, so there should be a trail left over… Maybe…
Evidently Michael was placing himself along the same lines as the two absent ponies. A golden yellow hoof placed itself on my shoulder and shook me slightly, effectively destroying my train of thought. I reared around and tracked the offending foreleg back to the white earth pony body it was connected to.
“Harry,” Michael almost whispered, his eyes boring into me with equal amounts of stoic calmness and the rare sense of nervousness. “I need to get back to the barracks. Shining Armor is waiting to hear from me about exactly what’s happening, and I’m honestly not finding much of anything in these notes about their movements that we don’t already know.” Michael craned his head around the room to look at the mares that were still present, two of which had fallen fast asleep.
Both Rainbow and Rarity were slumped over their respective desks, using stacks of paper as makeshift pillows. Twilight sat at the desk next to mine and was clearly suffering from a decent lack of sleep as she continued reading. Her mane was a frizzy mess, her eyes were slightly bloodshot, and even had deep dark bags underneath them. Luna was still sitting at her desk on the far end of the room with her back to the rest of us.
Michael heaved a short sigh before turning pleading eyes onto me. “I know how pressing our current situation is, but you might, for once, consider taking some time to slow down.”
“That is a perfectly reasonable request, Michael. I, of course, deny it entirely,” I grunted in response and glared over my papers at the heavenly knight in pony form. “You know, more than most, what will happen to Equestria if we fail.”
Michael shrugged a shoulder dismissively and turned towards the exit, “I figured as much. Just please, don’t overdo it.” He finished speaking just as his cross emblazoned flank passed through the doorframe.
With yet another set of eyes gone in our search, I was well and truly beginning to panic. I was having next to no luck deciphering the Red King’s magic notes and I knew that by the time I’d get anything useful, it’d likely be too late. With that in mind, I refocused my thoughts to the long shot of trying to piece together the few facts I already knew and proceed from there.
“To stop the spell, need to understand it,” I muttered under my breath. My eyes unfocused and stared off into the distance as I ran through my loose logic chain. “Takes multiple powers and puts them in one body… Aura doesn't feel like multiple energies, just one massive one… Has to convert the power first…”
Twilight’s ears began twitching and swiveled around towards me as soon as I started my incoherent mumbling. She finally brought her bleary eyes up from her collected papers to peer around the study as though seeing it for the first time. Her gaze shifted first to her two sleeping friends a few desks away, then to the secluded Luna, and then came to rest on me. Sensing my fraying mental state, she got up from her seat and made her way to stand next to me.
“Harry?” she whispered and placed her hoof over my own.
“Personal power doesn't like to be converted,” I continued, completely oblivious to Twilight’s actions. “Conversion is violent and leaves a stain… Stains can be followed… Need to find patterns of violence.”
“Harry, snap out of it!” Twilight barked in as hushed a tone as she could manage and brought her muzzle to push against mine, forcing my skull to shift against her.
“Huh… Twilight, what is it?” I asked, keeping my voice low so as to not wake Rainbow Dash or Rarity.
Twilight drew away and peered at me with a look that was equal parts worry and exhaustion, “I think we've been through enough for now. We should get some rest and then pick it up again in a few hours.”
“No,” I responded immediately, pushing away the pleasant notion of a soft bed and a warm purple furred pillow. “I need to keep going. There are one or two random things I want to look into.”
“Harry, please,” she protested. “You’re starting to act like I did when I thought the world was ending.”
I held up the paper with the base matrix of the Red King’s spell and scrutinized it. “The world is ending, Twilight.”
Twilight nudged me with her muzzle stubbornly, “Harry, I know things are looking bad, but you won’t be able to help anypony if you’re too tired to levitate a book much less create a strong shield.”
My hooves pressed into the desktop as my tension neared its breaking point. I craned my head around to give a piercing glare at Twilight. “I can’t,” I growled at the mare. “We were winning, Twilight. We had the numbers and the power. The vampires were hiding in holes, but not anymore. They've taken the greatest weapon we had against them, and now all they need to do is wait out the clock until they have a demigod of their own.”
My chest was heaving with my deep ragged breaths as I broke eye contact to gaze at the center of the study. Sitting on the central desk, in clear view from every part of the study, was the enchanted vial of Luna’s blood. The small red glass hung limply in its frame, giving us no indication where its relative might be.
I snapped my eyes back to the purple unicorn beside me, “If we don’t fix this mess and fast, then Equestria will hop on the fast train to the same nasty end my world has been dancing around for years. So no, I will not take a rest just yet.”
Twilight considered me for a moment, and then huffed out a puff of air through her nose. “Fine, but I will at least give you some small comfort.”
Without any forewarning, Twilight stepped forward and around me. She stretched her legs out as she wound herself around my back, pressing herself slightly against me as she did so. In the space of a second or two, she finished stretching and settled down on the sizeable cushion I was sitting on. She lay on her side with her hind legs at my right flank, her soft belly pressed against the base of my spine, and with her head and forelegs at my left flank. Her purple striped tail flicked around to settle itself protectively across my belly and came to a rest just at Twilight’s muzzle, effectively wrapping herself around me.
“Please wake me when you realize that you need sleep,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut as she began drifting off. “I’ll be right here until then.”
I gave Twilight a soft smile and placed a hoof on her side, which was already shifting with the relaxed breaths of a deep sleep. Certainly feeling at least somewhat better, I resumed my work. While Twilight’s presence was all sorts of comforting, it did not give me any sort of epiphany. For around half an hour, I stared at a moderately detailed map of the lands around Canterlot and babbled incoherently to myself. A familiar throbbing headache grew just behind the horn on my head.
“Needs to make binding circle on level and clean ground…” I muttered to myself once again. “Can’t be in the forest, has to be in a structure… An old abandoned town? A ruined tower would fit the evil overlord stereotype better.”
“Hoss, what do you think you’re doin'?” called the ragged, but very familiar, voice of an old fart of wizard.
Where a moment before there was nothing but empty air in front of my desk, my old mentor Ebenezer McCoy stood and glared at me with irritated eyes. I simply gaped at him over my still levitating map, stunned by the sudden appearance of my old mentor. He appeared just as he had when I glimpsed him in Celestia's reading room, with a loose fitting plaid shirt and dirty denim overalls.
“Well boy, what are you still doing here?” he repeated, taking a step closer to my desk. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren't you a warden? You need to be doing your job, not lounging around in la-la land.”
While most of my brain was reeling at the surprise, the more logic driven portions told me that what I was witnessing shouldn’t be possible. Aside from the fact that McCoy should've set off Luna’s transformation spell, there was simply no way he could've pierced the Red King’s veil around the portion of the Nevernever closest to Equestria. Operating on that hunch, I dropped my gaze down to Twilight’s face. She was still sound asleep, completely undisturbed by the loud raggedy voice of an angry Scottish-by-way-of-Missouri man. He was just a figment of my imagination, another example of my increasingly unstable mind.
I glared back up at the apparition and scowled deeply. If you have something useful to say, then spit it out. Otherwise, you can leave the way you came in, I thought at the wrinkly old man, so as to no risk waking Twilight.
McCoy’s eyebrows furrowed until he almost had a unibrow. “What I've got to say, is that you've still got a job to do. The wardens are understaffed as is.”
Since when do you give a damn about the wardens? I jabbed my chin out at the man. When I was with you, you spent almost every waking moment on your farm and threw any summons you got from the White Council in the trash. You've only dealt with them recently out of necessity.
“Just because I don’t like the White Council’s policies don’t mean they aren't necessary,” he countered. “They still need your help.”
She needs it more, I retorted with a quick glance at the still sleeping Twilight. Ebenezer, I know you mentored me, gave me a home, and gave me a chance when the Council just wanted to execute me; but if you’re trying to get me to leave, then you can go straight to Hell.
The fake McCoy frowned at me, his eyes shifting between Twilight and myself. He growled and placed his calloused hands on his hips. “You’re not thinking straight, boy. But I guess it’s a mute point so long as you can’t cross over into the Nevernever.” He frowned even more intensely at me, “So tell me, what’s your plan for taking on this Red King pretender? Say, by some miracle, you find a flaw in his spell and can track him back to his hideout. What then?”
My eyes dropped back down to the point labeled Ponyville on my map. We kill him. We take Luna, the Elements of Harmony, every soldier, guardspony, and scout I can get my hooves on, and we drown him in a sea of fire and sharpened steel.
McCoy cocked an eyebrow at me, “That’s it? Throw an army at him and hope that does it? What the Hell kind of Commander are you? I thought you’d have an actual plan.”
That is the plan, I thought with a snarl. He’s too powerful to take on alone, and I can’t separate him from his stolen power. My only option left is to overwhelm him. If I understood this spell of his, then maybe I cook up something more elaborate.
Ebenezer chuckled at me, which seemed a little self indulgent considering he was my hallucination. “Good lord, I thought I taught you to be smarter than this. You can’t ensure that it’ll come down to a straight up fight between him and your army. You need a backup plan.” He leaned forward and placed his right hand on my desk, his fingers just touching on a stray piece of paper. “You need an ace in the hole.”
My eyes tracked his hand to the paper it rested on. With a small flash of red light, I levitated the paper up to my face to inspect it. It was an obituary, a list of all those who had died or gone missing at the claws of the Red Court. There were fallen soldiers, guards, missing patrols, and citizens that had vanished from their homes. It was a very long list.
How’s this supposed to help me? I thought as I looked back up at the apparition, but he had already gone. There was nothing but empty air in front of my desk once more.
I frowned back down at the list and began pondering how this could possibly help me. An image of the spirit we had seen at Life Drinker’s lab floated to the forefront of my mind. Not only did it have enough power to manifest itself into a visible form, but I remembered that it was also experiencing an intense fear. Something clicked in the back of my mind. A wide malicious grin stretched across my muzzle as I got a potentially life saving idea, but I needed confirmation first. Just because the spirit was where the Red King had practiced, didn't necessarily mean he was the one who made it.
I reached around, placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, and carefully shook her until she awoke. “Twilight, get up. I need you for something,” I whispered.
“Nngh… Wha- Harry?” she muttered as she lifted her head and shifted until she was sitting at my left. “How long has it been?”
I waved her off with a hoof, “Just a few minutes, but I need to ask you something.” I leaned in closer and looked her intently in her eyes. “You know what the Red King’s spell does right? Not how it works, but what it does.” She nodded once. “Okay, I need you to tell me specifically what it does. It’s really important that I know the details.”
“Uhm, okay.” Twilight’s face screwed up as she thought back to what she knew about the spell. “Well, Life Drinker made it so that she could assault the mind of a victim. If that victim succumbed and gave in to her will, then she took the power necessary for the victim’s body to function, and added it to her own energy pool.”
“And that’s it?” I asked, my breathing and heartbeat growing with my excitement. “It takes the energy from the body, and nothing else?”
Twilight frowned a little as she considered the question. “Yes, I believe so. I met with Celestia a day or so ago and she specifically told me it was the energy that kept the heart beating and such. Why?”
Instead of an answer, I beamed a wide smile at the mare, wrapped a foreleg around her neck, and planted a deep kiss on her lips. Her eyes snapped open with surprise initially, but she quickly smiled and leaned into the meeting of the muzzles. I held the kiss for a solid three count before I broke away, smiling widely as I held her at forelegs length.
“You beautiful mare,” I said aloud, my shortened breath straining my voice slightly. “You beautiful, brilliant mare, you just gave me an idea.”
I released Twilight and pivoted back around towards my desk. A blank piece of paper and a quill zipped over to me and started writing down notes of my own.
“What was that all about?” Twilight asked and shuffled closer to put her face next to mine. “What are you doing?”
The quill scribbled down several lines of formulae as I imagined what I wanted it to do. “It’s an old spell I know. Not as old as Life Drinker’s spell, but still useful in the right circumstances.”
Twilight frowned as she studied what I had already written down, “I don’t recognize this. What is it supposed to do?”
“I…” The quill paused, mid word, as I considered the request. “I think It’s better if you don’t know, Twilight. It’s the sort of thing that could get you into some serious trouble if others found out you knew.”
Twilight responded to this by pouting out her lower lip, flattening her ears against her skull, and giving me puppy dog eyes that would give Fluttershy a run for her money. I've had easier times denying the offers of demigods and literal forces of evil than I did with her sad face, but I managed all the same, barely.
“You can shoot me all the cute faces you want, I’m not teaching you the dark secrets of the universe,” I chuckled.
She heaved a small sigh and resigned herself to simply watch me work, her drowsiness having apparently been replaced with curiosity. Thankfully, Twilight offered no verbal distractions as I wrote and calculated exactly what I wanted, out onto multiple pieces of paper that were swiftly covering up the Red King’s. Although Twilight didn’t try to wrestle an explanation out of me, she did placate herself by shifting until she sat with her right flank against my left, and rested her head on my shoulder. I suddenly found it much more difficult to concentrate on my spell work.
“There, that should about do it,” I sighed and gathered together my loose collection of scribbles together.
Only around forty-five minutes to an hour had passed since I began piecing together my spell. The base form of my desired working was extremely simple, almost insultingly so; but in order to get it to do exactly what I wanted, I needed to modify in several small ways. The result was a fairly complicated mess that made logical sense, but was entirely untested. It was entirely possible that I had just created a magical suicide button for myself, rather than anything actually useful. If I was forced to use it, I just had to hope against hope that my skills were actually worth something.
“I couldn’t understand half of what you wrote down, Harry,” Twilight groaned. “You really need to work on your calligraphy.”
“I like to think of it as my own personal code. It makes it really hard for anyone other than me to read my notes,” I countered. “Besides, I still haven’t wholly gotten the hang of writing with a levitating quill yet.”
Twilight inhaled a sharp gasp and roughly tapped a hoof on my shoulder. “Never mind your writing, look!”
She pointed her hoof past my field of vision somewhere in front of my desk. I followed where her foreleg was pointing, and had to pull a double take. The little vial of Luna’s blood was glowing a dark blue and was pulled up at a sharp angle, pointing decidedly somewhere to the southeast. Celestia was no longer shielded from magical tracking.
“Princess Luna!” Twilight shouted.
Across the room Luna looked up from her pile of notes, most of which were likely her own, and craned her head around to face us. “What are you yelling about? I’m trying to wor-” She was cut off as her eyes fell on the still levitating vial. “Sister…”
Luna immediately abandoned her papers and slowly made her way over to the glowing container of blood. A small ridge formed in between her eyes, indicating that something didn't quite sit right with her. Twilight and I likewise left my desk to inspect the object of Luna’s tracking spell. Several warning lights began going off in my mind as I wondered just how the tracking spell suddenly began working.
Evidently Twilight was thinking along those same lines. “I don’t like this,” Twilight muttered once she stood next to the vial. “Princess Celestia is hidden from us all day, and then suddenly she’s just free? I’m going to say this is a trap.”
“Agreed,” Luna added. “But what do you want us to do about it? She’s still my sister and your Princess, we must go. While we may not be aware of the circumstances, we do know that she’s at least traceable now.”
“So we bring enough to smash through whatever trap the Red King has set up.” I pivoted around and grabbed a nearby textbook in my magical grip. With a moderate amount of force I sent it flying across the room and smacked into Rainbow Dash’s ribs.
Rainbow’s head shot up in a jolt of movement. “I wasn't sleeping!” she cried out immediately before actually taking the time to examine her surroundings.
It’s actually kind of fun not being on the receiving end of that.
“Rainbow get up, we need you for something,” I shot at the cyan pegasus. I sidestepped a little so that the floating vial was in plain view of her.
Rainbow’s eyes tracked to the vial and widened in sudden understanding. “The tracking thing finally worked? Well what are you all waiting for, let’s go get Celestia!”
“Calm yourself Rainbow Dash,” Luna spoke in a serene voice that belied the tension I knew she must be feeling. “We can do nothing with just a general direction. I want you to go and assemble a small team of pegasi scouts. You will take the vial with you, and you will follow it until you find the location of my sister, and then return so that we know where she is. Do you understand?” Rainbow nodded her head feverishly. Luna smiled and nodded in return, “Good. Now, do not engage any vampires. If you encounter them, I want you to fly away. I do not want you taking any unnecessary risks.”
Rainbow brought a hoof up to her brow to salute Luna, “You can count on me, Princess.”
A sudden brainwave hit me. If I was going to get word spread and get the troops ready quickly, I needed a pony that could move faster than greased lightning and had the uncanny ability to find whatever or whoever she wanted. I needed Pinkie, and Rainbow was the best option for getting to her quickly.
Before Rainbow could take more than a few rushed steps for the door, I stuck a hoof out to stop her. “Hold up. Before you do that, I need you to go find Pinkie Pie and give her a message,” I instructed, giving Rainbow my “dead serious” glare. “I want you to tell her to spread the word about what’s going on. Tell her to round up every single soldier, guardspony, scout, and medic in and around Canterlot. If they can hold a spear, shoot a crossbow, or throw a spell, I want them armored up and ready to move out the second you return.”
“Got it,” Rainbow and turned to leave, but was stopped by my still outstretched hoof.
“And Rainbow,” I muttered as she cocked an eyebrow back at me. “If there ever was a time to go as fast as physically possible, this would be it.”
Rainbow flashed me a grin to show that she understood, shrugged off my hoof, and sped away through the study’s door. I turned away from the faint rainbow trail she left behind to look back at Luna, Twilight, and the still sleeping Rarity, who was drooling a little on her notes. Both Luna and Twilight packed up what little they had brought with them and shared a few hushed words with one another, apparently having some small argument.
Twilight stepped forward and asked, “Are you sure we need all of them? Shouldn't we leave behind some guards?”
“No,” I responded immediately, a snarl working its way on my muzzle. “We can deal with a panicking Canterlot when we return with Celestia. I mean to bring to bear every bit of strength and power we have against him.” Luna grinned a short wicked smile at my words, her mane rising up into the air behind her. I pivoted around and quickly moved towards the study door, “I’m through playing around with this Red King.”
Twilight bounded forward until she was trotting beside me. “Good,” she said with a slightly pained, although determined expression. “I want to make sure that he never hurts anypony, ever again.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.028 seconds
Total duration
998 users online
53,375 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I really want to see that guy burn in the most agonizing way possible
2374720
I will not give an concrete response to your wishes, but I will smile and laugh like a lunatic.
2374790
Burn! BUUUUURRRN!!
Hmmmm, so Lifedrinker's spell, which the red king is using, steals the victim's life force. That's also what wizards use to fuel their death curses. Bah, I feel like I should be able to figure out Harry's plan. I must be missing something. *Grumble grumble*
2380080 If I had to guess it sounds like a modified Darkhallow spell where instead of drawing spirits to absorb their power it would draw all the spirits that the Red King killed and aim them directly at him like a tactical nuclear strike.
2388589 I'm gonna have to agree with Inabit here, the whole process that life drinker is using, plus the hints in wording we keep getting from Harry seem to point towards the Darkhollow spell. It's gonna be interesting (putting it mildly) to see how Harry changes and uses the spell.
Don't know how much credibility I have with this comment but this is such a setup it hurts. I wonder if they are going to use this time to launch an offensive? *said in most sarcastic tone possible*
Lastly why hasn't Michael done much? I mean comparatively he's been kinda useless.
2397173
Yeah, I'll admit I haven't put Michael in Flesh Masks anywhere near as much as I should have, and that is pretty much just me extending my own opinions into my writing. Michael is an awesome guy, he can do some pretty epic things, and he's probably Harry's most dependable friend; sadly he just doesn't interest me as much as the others do. It's kind of the argument of which do you find more interesting: the stalwart saint who will always do the right thing and always has a caring ear and has just the right advice; or the guy that isn't wholly there, the guy that always seems to try to do the right thing, but could easily fall to temptation if he wasn't careful. Don't get me wrong though, when the action ramps up and Michael gets going, I get chills he's so awesome. It's just that in a more casual environment, it's so much more interesting to write about the others, and I sort of shunt him to the background. I'm not saying it's right, it's just what I do. Though he should be getting some pretty epic scenes soon.
Why, Harry! Are you about to do a modified Darkhallow? I didn't think you had it in you without being influenced in some way.
2770921 that came to my mind as well, this is probably gonna be a modified darkhallow.
2388589 You just reminded me of the modified version of the elements that came out as a friendship Nuke
https://www.deviantart.com/mysticalpha/art/Young-Twilight-tries-Dark-Magic-304229847