VI.VII - Hydia, Reeka, Draggle
The instant it squelched over the clearing’s mucky, blackened lip, Starlight leapt from the raft just in case Hydia was waiting to drop out of the sky.
From the treeline to the clearing centerpiece, the world stood still and untouched, dead, and clear as a summer day. A veritable graveyard, an Equestrian kind and not the atypical setting of horror novella fame.
Behind her, an appropriate crypt-like quiet sans a four-beat set of hooves squishing one after another upon the wiry grass, tangled amongst itself like shaved copper all the way to the statuesque treeline enclosing them.
Starlight put a foreleg to her eyes and beheld the sun, its sights set on them—a great eye big as a lake and just as blue, its golden iris burning mid-center. Fissures rimmed it, lined by the gnarled, twisted fingers of dead trees reaching as if to escape Flutter Valley. Though its expanse couldn’t be taken in a single image.
“It’s soooooo big!” Pinkie noted.
“Keep sharp, girls,” said Twilight, eyes narrowing. “Anything can happen here. Starlight? Get behind us. Please.” But ahead was that glowing boulder crowning a large flat-topped rock. “Starlight, don’t go out there!”
“Or what?” she genuinely wondered, turning. “You think they’ll do whatever they had ample time to do before our waltzing in… here?”
Her words died upon taking in the unease of her friends, scanning their surroundings, alert as rabbits for a predator that just wasn’t going to come. Some wore their fear fearlessly, like Fluttershy and Rarity and Twilight, though the quickness of AJ and Dash’s flitting eyes, their parted lips and hunched postures, were signs just as blatant.
Guilt once again crept up her guts. “Girls…”
A simultaneous snap at attention, wearing those emotions (or trying not to). Pinkie just smiled, her breast oscillating ever so slightly, and striking Starlight in the chest.
She could tell them once more that the witches are powerful but sluggish in the physical world. Or assure that fate brought them here, guided them, and would keep them say and that they had nothing to fear when they had each other—a detail Twilight had added the last two times Starlight waltzed this verbal dance.
But they knew all of that already, clearly, before she’d arrived. And only now was it obvious that her assurances didn’t, and would never, assuage their unease.
For Starlight Glimmer felt the very same a lifetime ago, in the exact spot where they now stood, and in a fog thicker than the fear within her. The final difference being a fact which, by all accounts, made this a pleasant day for such foul business.
Whenever that would come. And that was just it—the uncertainty, the fact that anything could happen regardless of how it ended, as Twilight just so wisely warned them.
‘There is nothing to fear but fear itself,’ Starlight remembered reading once. But that’s a lie, because there’s something a lot more terrifying than knowing what to be afraid of—not knowing what to fear at all. The unknown: a black hole filled with Harmony-knows-what.
She had, once again, been arrogant of her knowledge and ignorant of the others’ perspectives.
“Girls,” she attempted, “girls, I-I know we’re used to villains who are… shall we say, a little grandiose? Obvious?” Fluttershy nodded; Pinkie’s smile faded, her brows knitting. “Not just in their method of approach, but their motivations, too. I won’t lie to you—I’ve no clue what’s about to happen here. But… to be fair, that’s pretty par for the course, isn’t it?”
“Flyin’ by the seat of our trousers?” Applejack flicked her stetson, alighting a humored smile. “Shoot, you’re not wrong there, Starlight.”
She sighed her laugh. “Don’t go praising me yet. I just realized how unnerving this must be for you all. Over half of us here don’t even know what we’re about to see.” Apart from Twilight using the ever-disturbing “gory” adverb once, and stopped after Fluttershy had burst into tears.
“I think it’s kinda exciting!” Pinkie hopped until she stood between her and the gang. “Ya know? Like, we’re walking through an actually-actual old pony’s tale we all knew as fillies! We’re facing the first bad guys some of us have ever known!”
“Pinkie, this is not—”
“No, no, I gotcha, Twi! I do! This is ‘dangerous and super duper serious,’” Pinkie chided, “and so what if Hydia is hideous and her foals are unspeaka-bifficly grody? I’m sure Rarity and I’ll could put their ugga-ugliness to proper ponish by the time we’re flying home!” Said pony tittered into her hoof, and a couple more arose around Twilight.
“I guess,” she admitted, a smile forming. “I just—”
“Don’t want us getting hurt, which is totally sweet of you! Classic diet Twilighting, right there,” Pinkie said, winking. “But as far as my little eye can see, we got time to unwind and prep our brains before we blast the baddies with rainbows.” Pinkie let go of her forehead to bounce her balloon-shaped Element. “Piece of cake, I know it, and I brought some for the occasion, too!”
“Pinkie’s right.” Starlight approached, the group’s eyes on her again, and swallowed the surging up her throat—she might never get used to this, happily regarding her again without hostility or apprehension, but she could weather it for their sake.
Perhaps even forgive herself for it. Later.
“The witches didn’t come to me immediately last time I was here. And I know for a fact that they’re listening to us right now,” she muttered, then shouted behind her, “so you’re not fooling anypony! ...But alas, if I were to guess, they’re gonna bide their time. Wait until we’re lulled into a false sense of security, or—” Apprehension bled into the more fragile ponies’ expressions. “O-or! Or, they... won’t even come at all! Because... they know we have them cornered! And-and if that’s the case, well,” she chuckled, bobbing back to the giant gemstone humming faintly, “we can just nab their big ol’ rock and either make them come to us, or we Harmonize that in of itself.”
It was easy as ever, tricking herself into believing what she said wholeheartedly.
“What is that thing, anyhow?” AJ stepped forth, squinting past Starlight. “Looks to me like one of them crystal ball doohickeys. That how they know everything?”
Starlight inhaled, but Rainbow zipped above them, reaching out. “Why don’t I just swipe it now and break it?!”
“Hold on, hold on! Starlight,” Twilight began, approaching alongside the others, “how do you know what that is? Or what it’s for or what it does?” Her tone held a hint of, ‘Why did you not tell me about this?’ Which hurt, but was blameless.
Starlight consciously maintained her easy smile. “Oh, I don’t. But I think I remember they didn’t come until I almost touched it. That’s gotta mean something, right?” Twilight leered back and aside, eyeing it unconvinced. “Look, it’s a bad plan, I know—”
“But it’s our only plan, perhaps,” she finished.
Fluttershy touched her side. “Do you recognize it, Twilight? Is it an artifact?”
“I’ve never read of such a thing before, no.”
Rarity cleared her throat. “Pardon me, ladies, but I’m our resident gem expert here,” she said, stopping beside Starlight, eyes on the stone. “It’s beautiful, I’ll admit. It possesses a luster unlike any I’ve seen before. It belongs in a museum, I’d normally say, and that it’d be a shame to shatter it—or it would be, had I not been aware of its dreadful connection to Starlight’s suffering.”
“Rarity,” she couldn’t help but sigh, hot under the coat.
“But I’ve learned much from Maud in the time we’ve spent together,” Rarity continued, addressing the group undeterred, “and I at least know the power of magic-infused stones are measured by their size and said glorious luster.”
“That’s… true,” Twilight realized, Starlight nodding as it hit her as well. “They, the witches I mean, they must have made this, used it for something.”
“Can you glean something from this perspective, then?” Rarity stood dignified, but her forehooves rubbed against one another as Twilight rubbed her chin.
“Maybe their unnaturally long life?” Starlight turned, the stone a nondescript blob in the distance, its glow was so intense. Like a star. “It’s not impossible, but if that’s why they… look the way they do… well, that’s one mystery solved, right? And it might be the key to defeating them for good.”
Only then, in the tensifying quiet, did Starlight realize she had only avoided the dreaded k-word.
“Welp, I’mma tad spooked now.” Applejack came up beside her. “You’re suggestin’ somethin’ mighty dark, there, Starlight. Mighty dark. An’ I ain’t talkin’ about the solution.”
“I know.” To create a soul gem wasn’t just outlawed in every nation across the globe; it was on a level beyond the heinous act of using it for black magic. “But we’re dealing with the kind of filth that would definitely stoop so low.”
“Yes, but,” Twilight hesitated, “we know Humans. They just aren’t capable of honing magic. How can Hydia manage this, let alone any magical feat? And how can we be sure that’s what it’s used for?”
Starlight’s heartbeat drummed in the distance. Farther back, Applejack’s controlled breathing and Twilight’s heavier, trembling pace wafted quietly. Wingbeats droned into clarity above them all, followed by Dash’s, “I’m gonna go smash it.”
“No, don’t!” Starlight, Twilight, and Fluttershy cried at once.
Rainbow flinched within herself, curled up and hovering. “Geez! What’s with you guys?”
Twilight answered, “We don’t know for sure. It might be something important, I mean…”
She gestured to Starlight. “These things are more than mere monsters. To do something so thoughtless, well, it might do something irreversible to Equestria itself! Do you want that?”
“It’s a rock!” Dash cried, legs outspread. “And it’s the rock of these lunatics who took Starlight’s horn, who destroyed this entire land and probably a ton of other things even worse!”
“Yes, but—” Fluttershy, gaze withering under theirs, whispered to the immortal marsh, “...but when have we ever ended somepony’s l-l-life?”
A stillness fell so heavily that even Rainbow was grounded. “Right,” she croaked. “W-we can just swipe it, then. No prob.”
It was time to reel them all back in. “That’s right,” said Starlight, smiling, “no problem. None at all! ...Alright? We got a plan, we have an understanding of these things—far more than silly old me had—and most importantly, we got each other.”
“Absolutely.” Twilight came beside her, turned, and addressed the group, “No matter what happens, I have faith in our friendship and ourselves. The circumstances might have been built upon a tenuous foundation—” Starlight swallowed, being the unspoken reason for it all, “—but this is no different from all the evils we’ve overcome before. And it will end the same as it always has.” Her hoof extended, face-down. “Together.”
Nopony hesitated to copy her, to chime the same. Only Starlight had, she realized as soon as they faced her expectantly.
“O-oh, I’m a part of this, too?” she genuinely wondered. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t mean to assume—”
“Join the friendship moment already, ya silly!” Pinkie didn’t wait, or allow, Starlight to object: grabbing and yanking her forth, and adding her hoof to the stack.
Their smiles, all of them were warm.
None forced.
And they were all for Starlight. Each other. Themselves. This… this’s what friendship is. Starlight had been a self-cursed fool.
A dummy. An idiot. Reactionary, unreasonable, selfish most of all.
But she had also been theirs, and they hers—best friends and something a little closer, like family, even those who weren’t present.
And family—as Twilight demonstrated this past month, and Starlight herself, in a roundabout way—never gave up on each other.
“Alright.” Starlight swallowed. Then smiled. “Together.”
“Together!” they cried, throwing their hooves into the air suddenly, as well as Starlight. Everypony laughed, for no reason other than the fact that they loved each other and felt rejuvenated once more.
Starlight saw this loving bond as she was lifted forward by Twi and Rarity’s telekinetic pull upon her forehooves—in the way Rainbow stood between AJ and Fluttershy in a three-way, one-armed hug, grinning as Dash murmured a pep talk to her closest friends.
Behind them by the raft, Pinkie riffled through her saddlebags, both the only pony to remove them and who could fit her entire person into that tiny space.
As well as an entire tent, literally popping out and landing, already set up with its tethers in the marshland. “Good thing I prepared for the long haul!” she sang.
Rarity scoffed, amused. “And here I thought Applejack and I were the excessive packers.”
And then, Equestria quivered. “HoW pReCiOuS,” the air itself seemed to gush.
Stiffness overtook everypony. Rarity whirled away from Starlight, searching the blue sky, the treeline. “Wha-wha-what in Equestria was that?” She looked to the sky once more. “Ladies?!”
Applejack, doing the same, pressed against her side. “I’m thinkin’ we all know the answer to that.” She pawed the earth.
Laughter howled across the heavens, raking over Starlight down to her very soul.
“Hydia,” Fluttershy breathed. Her eyes beheld the ground, wide and trembling as her parted lips. “I-I’ll never forgot that laugh. It’s her, sh-she’s h-h-here...”
“Don’t be scared, everypony!” Twilight teleported to the circle, standing before Starlight with a snarling Rainbow Dash dropping beside her. “Show yourselves!”
“And we won’t use excessive friendshipping!” Pinkie hopped in place. Starlight spun around once, seeing they had enclosed her. Protecting her, seemingly without consciously doing so. “Oh, witchies!” Pinkie sang. The air wobbled, whispering distorted sounds. “Come out, come out, wherever you—!”
“ThIs Is A lOvElY gAtHeRiNg YoU’vE aCqUiReD, sTaRlIgHt GlImMeR,” Hydia continued. “AnD iT wAs By ViRtUe Of YoUr ChArAcTeR tHaT eVeRyPoNy’S hErE!” She sighed, purring, “YoU dIdN’t HaVe To Do A tHInG bUt ReCeIVe ThE sILvEr pLAtTeR. wHy Oh WhY mUsT gOoD tHiNgS hApPeN tO bAd PeOpLe?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Twilight whispered.
“bUt ThIS cHaRaDe HaS wOrN iTs WeLcOmE. NoW tHaT yOu’Re All rIgHt WhErE wE wAnT yOu,” a ghostly chuckle stirred their manes, “We CaN fInAlLy BeGiN tHe FeAsT!”
“F-f-feast?” rasped Fluttershy.
“W-wait! You said you couldn’t eat!” It was Starlight, she realized, and she just screamed.
“We LieD,” drawled a deep-voiced female, backed by the same sinister vocalist. “Ya DeNsE iDiOt. wHy’d Ya tHInK wE leTcA LiVe aLL ThIs TiMe?”
“...This was a trap.”
A blonde tail flicked, gently batting her in the face. “Easy, now, sugarcube—”
“I knew this was a trap!” Starlight did it, this was all her fault, she played right into these monster’s destiny-bending claws and she cursed them all. Their families, their friends, none would ever see these six wonderful ponies again and it—-”All my fault!” She clasped her ears. “This is all my fault, it’s always my fault!”
“Starlight!” Twilight face filled her vision, crouched upon the grass. It was terrified. “It’s okay. You’re okay. They’re just villains—” Starlight couldn’t hear, wouldn’t; Twilight was saying this. She was always just saying things, even now as face resembled curdled milk, so pale and rigid.
Reeka’s cheer echoed, encircling her brain loud and clear with a mocking, “Ah, YeS, ‘CeLeStIa.’ YoU kEeP oN mUtTeRiNg ThAt, RaRiTy.” Gasps of their country’s ruler streamed from the right. “ShE’s iN nO pOsITiOn tO ReScUe, nEvEr hAs! NoT In AnY mEaNiNgfUl wAy.”
“Quit yapping and hiding, already,” squeaked Dash, “and show yourselves like you actually got a point to make!” Rarity kept muttering the princess of the sun’s name all the while.
And then, a thunderous, “If YoU iNsIsT.”
“WelCoMe, PoNieS, To OuR hUmBlE aBoDe!” Reeka cried. “iF iT’s A sOuRcE oF cOmFoRt, PlEaSe, dO KeEp CaLLiNg OuT tO tHe FaLsE gOd, CeLeStIa.”
A low chuckle, and Hydia continued, “oR tHe IdEa Of EquEsTrIa, eVeN.”
“oR tHe GrEaT wArDeN, hArMoNY!” added Draggle. “WhAtEvEr WiLL mAkE tHiS lEsS tErrIfYiNG, pLeAsE, PicK sOmEtHiNg To sWeAr bY—”
Across the clearing Reeka howled, “AnD StArT pRaYiNg NOW,” before the treeline exploded into shards spiraling ahead of a jawless, potheaded flesh-mountain barreling towards them, the foot half her size clawing through the soil behind her.
Everypony screamed at once as darkness fell overhead.
A massive foot, a twig-leg partially blotting out the sun. Starlight shrieked, “Everypony dive!” She didn’t allow herself to think, only to tackle Fluttershy in case she froze up.
Rolling over, the sky was eclipsed by a walking, lanky tree with a lion’s mane and glowing red eyes and one rake of a claw reeling back—-”STARLIGHT!” Yellow forelegs squeezed around her and the world spun round and round, and suddenly a presence stood over her putrid with moist earth.
The smell also radiated from the trench carved by Draggle, who reached for them with one hand and tossed aside the mound of muck.
“I won’t let you touch her!” Starlight heard the hoarse cry before seeing a brown and yellow pegasus dart into Draggle’s midsection.
The witch staggered back a step.
And then yanked her off by her tail, eliciting a sharp cry which devolved into loud, frantic screaming as she was held overhead. The shadow of a hook-nose and pointed chin parted by a sliver of blue sky, threaded with wire snapping apart one by one.
“Mm-Mm! PoNy FlEsH!” Draggle cooed.
A bloodcurdling scream yanked Starlight into reality, up upon her hooves, and towards Draggle. “No.” She galloped. “NO!” All she could do was envision a blasting spell before crashing into Draggle’s leg. Despite being able to completely enwrap herself around it, the thing was stiffer than stone.
“GeT oFf, FiLtH!” The world whipped to and fro, Starlight’s insides thrashing as well, the denim material scratching her cheek and drying her eyes but she would never let go.
And then, “AJ! The leg!” Hoarsely, “The broken one!”
“On it!” Cyan dashed by, a meteor crashing through the atmosphere before there was a crackle like so many twigs being shattered at once. The leg Starlight hugged stabbed into the earth, and for half a second she saw Applejack winding up a buck into the brown splintered bone protruding from Draggle’s calf.
Another crackle, and the portion of her leg spiraled out of sight, the length of a broomstick. Draggle soundlessly toppled to the side, Fluttershy hovering, gasping safely out of reaching with wild wide eyes. “Thanks!” she cried.
The rake which was actually a claw but erect as one suddenly sprung up and over, arcing towards Starlight. “YoU cRuMmY pOnIeS!” And suddenly Starlight was beside a panting Rainbow Dash, several meters away from Draggle’s paw as it slapped upon the grass, AJ and Fluttershy backpedalling out of range. In an insane burst of movement Draggle contorted like a doll unto all fours and lunged for Applejack, only for her to be tackled out of the way by a grimy cyan blur, which then arched back around to wallop the witch’s hair-shrouded head, eliciting a thick crunch.
“Why me?!” cried a hollow voice to the right.
Rarity—that wriggling twisting tail was unmistakable, its owner clasped in a pair of warty claws with her head lodged into the giggling Reeka’s windpipe.
“yUm-YuM, yUm-YuM!”
The pitch of Rarity’s screaming climbed and climbed, echoing within the witch, and was cut off by a thunderclap entwined in a sharp squeak, followed by Pinkie blasting like a bullet into the broad curves of Reeka’s stained dress. One claw flew off of Rarity, the other slipping but grabbing her tail, instantly she started pummeling the cracked ashen wasteland of her mouth’s remains.
Pinkie scurried up, grasped her hind leg, started yanking. “Unhand me!” Rarity wound back her hoof as pale blue light ignited the fissures of Reeka’s throat like a pumpkin. “UNHAND—” Pinkie yanked, Rarity walloped, and a muffled twang of magic passed all at once, “—ME-YAH!”
They fell embracing one another as Reeka staggered back, howling with laughter, her face vomiting liquid flames and embers. “ThAt WaS fUn!” The ground trembled under the impact of her foot crashing forth. “LeT’s Do It AgAiN!” She lunged. Rarity and Pinkie cried out, scrambling away; Reeka tackled once more but they kept their distance, shrieking, Pinkie putting herself closest to Reeka and looking to the witch with unflinching terror. Reeka on all fours chased them like a foal, giggling like one.
And Starlight was just sitting there. Watching. Powerless. “Sto—ah!” Pain flared upon her haunches from where she fell, and she nearly fell on all fours but caught herself upon a foreleg.
“yEs,” hissed the air, a distinctly pleased tone. “FlEe AnD fIGhT fOr YoUr LiVeS!” A broken, forceful cry followed by the ting of a concussion blast. “iT mAkEs Us FeEl sO vErY aLivE.”
A lavender blur arced in the corner of Starlight’s eye—across the clearing, an alicorn spotted in mud, wearing an aggressive mask she’d not seen since Cloudsdale fifteen years ago, fired another magenta blast which Hydia caught and crushed into dust.
“YoU’rE rEmArKaBlE, tWiLy! EvEn As I SmOTheR yOuR mAgIc YoU hAvE tHe StReNGtH tO pOwEr ThRougH iT!”
Twilight’s horn ignited. “I’m only this strong because of my friends!” Another discharge careened for Hydia’s cloaked face, only for her to move her claw in the way.
“AnD yOu’Re StiLL wEaK!” She reached out despite being several meters away from the airborne princess, yet her paw clenched shut and whipped around overhead. "YoU uNdErStAnD lEsS tHaN sTaRlIGht! DISGRACEFUL!" she cried as Twilight followed, yelping, trying to cast a field around herself but slamming so hard and sudden unto the earth that mud, grass, and her own person splattered on impact.
And then Hydia blinked into existence sidled on top of her. “My ChILdReN!” she roared, black pits trained on a trembling, whimpering Twilight. “SaDlY iT’s TiMe FoR oUr FuN tO eNd.”
What!? To the left Draggle, using her spear of a half-leg, pinned Fluttershy through her plumage, and held a thrashing Applejack and Rainbow over her gaping maw.
“CrUsH tHeM iNtO jElLy!”
On the right Rarity’s legs and tail flailed frantically from Reeka’s throat. Upon her back, Pinkie’s forelegs were lost in the folds of her neck but the strain and tears on her face spoke of a desperate, almighty effort to prevent Rarity from going down completely.
“UsE tHeIr SpInEs As DeNtAl FlOsS!” Hydia’s voice thundered across the clearing. “KiLL tHeM!” Where, gripping Twilight’s horn in one claw and tearing off her handkerchief with the other, she revealed a gullet overflowing with jagged, brown-stained fangs. “KiLL tHeM ALLLL!”
And suddenly, none of this made a modicum of sense. It didn’t, it couldn’t and it shouldn’t and the girls were too scared to see that!
“Everypony STOOOOP!”
The struggles and cries of protest lingered - a muffled muted sound under the weight of the witches' absolute stillness.
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Ugh... Poor Rarity got the worst of that. I can't imagine Reeka's throat being very nice at all. Next chapter is gonna be one hell of a conversation with The Witches I'm guessing. I wonder if they might've done this first just so the ponies would talk? Having the hope of fighting crushed out of them would make them a bit more willing to have a chat. Seeing as it's been made clear that's their only option.
This feels like an Illusion. They prey on Fear, after all, and what better way than to make them THINK they're about to die.
Well there was Sombra and The Storm King though I guess you could argue that was more of the Crystal ponies and Tempest. Especially since season 9 didn’t happen with them disintegrating Sombra one final time.
Pretty sure the witches are just screwing with them at this point. They haven’t really done this or acted like big monsters to fight before this.
9834131
I remember mentioning earlier how Equestria, in my story's world, reacted to the death of the Storm King and it's more of a taboo to even talk about it, as he was someone who legitimately died on their capital's soil, despite it being the result of his own actions. While Sombra, he was considered more monster than pony, a lich essentially, and his defeat was the result of the Crystal Heart dispelling him into the Aether, as Rarity has said in-show.
Excuse me, I don’t see any of you moving a star.