Act 2, Chapter 34: Temple of Lost Souls
Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 34: Temple Of Lost Souls
The empathogenic substance known on the street as Beam, believe it or not, has its roots in environmental research.
The colorful runoff from the rainbow factories is one of Equestrian industry's toxic byproducts; while only mildly hazardous to actual health, long term exposure or direct contact tends to garishly and permanently recolor objects and ponies. Research in how to dispose of, process, or use the substance had been fruitless for a time; the breakthrough took the form of a lab director walking into the lab one day to discover that A) an explosion had taken place, covering the lab in a strange, crystallized powder, and B) sitting calmly amidst the dusted wreckage of the lab were a dozen scientists in a blissful pile with lab coats nowhere to be found, lazily licking one another.
Research into the resultant substance - officially 'beryllium methylrefractate', or BeM - began, and it was discovered that not only did it cause a pony to become temporarily empathic, but multiple users in close proximity tended to cause emotions to resonate between ponies; the end result in most trials being a happy drunken cuddle fog.
For a while, the properties were considered amazing and revolutionary, science riding the high of its new discovery. BeM was being considered for therapy to cure depression or antisocial behavior. Making ponies empathic would bring Equestria closer together!
It was a nice dream, but the problem is that BeM leads to partial or total loss of emotional control. The emotions of all nearby ponies can be overwhelming, especially resonant BeM users. Those affected act on impulse, lose inhibitions, and lose themselves in the feelings of nearby ponies. This is fine when the mood is calm and everypony is at least a little happy to begin with, but it was quickly and messily discovered that giving BeM to, or even near, poorly adjusted or severely upset ponies had negative, even dangerous effects. Whatever disharmony was present was often amplified, resulting in reactions from catatonic depression to psychotic breaks. One pony in trials telekinetically snatched a scalpel off a doctor and took it to her own guts, screaming that she had to "get it out;" it was later discovered that a patient in an adjacent room had just been shown pictures of his massive intestinal parasite.
By the time the substance was becoming considered worrisome, BeM and its manufacturing process had found its way out of the lab while science wasn't looking, and splashed into the rave scene as "Beam," the ultimate party drug. The final motion to actually ban it came after a scandal caused when a DJ decided to treat the five-hundred some guests at her dance party by putting hydrated Beam into the sprinkler system and setting it off - a party that just happened to be attended by the Princess of the Crystal Empire. The Princess was missing for three days; she was found in a dumpster, wearing naught but unidentified fluids and a gigantic smile, with neither a single piece of her regalia nor - she claimed - any memory of the last 72 hours. Members of the Canterlot Chargers hoofball team provided a somewhat more fleshed-out account: That the Princess of Love spent the first two days rutting everything she could get her hooves on, including twelve griffins, at least a third of a pet shop, a gathering of sports aficionados in town for a book signing, and an unknown number of mailboxes. She then proceeded to consume an entire doughnut shop and crawled into the dumpster to vomit.
Legislation reclassifying Beam as a controlled substance galloped swiftly afterwards, but it still circulates underground. While not a major cash cow for cartels like the Jewelers due to BeM's lack of addictive qualities, it nevertheless finds manufacture in either A) the prism-filled labs of middle-class ponies - mainly pegasi - looking to either cure their boredom or make a quick bit, or B) The Crystal Empire.
It is worth noting at this juncture that not everyone took poorly to the scandal; most notably, the Crystal Prince and Princess themselves seemed to look on it with good humor, even perhaps glee. The Princess would later privately describe the party and subsequent binge as 'a great time,' and the Prince was even apparently amused enough by the whole affair to invite the aforementioned rainmaking DJ - who had also played their wedding - to host the next Crystal Ball.
Indeed, in the Crystal Empire, Beam is regulated like alcohol, but remains essentially legal. Which is, perhaps, not so comparatively unreasonable; the entire Crystal Empire is already substantially linked in terms of mood and morale, an effect Beam only amplifies. However, Beam's legality in the far north severely hampers central Equestrian prohibition efforts, and the substance finds its way into the wrong hooves with unsurprising regularity.
-The Scholar
I almost forgot to throw my hood over my ears as the five cultists leading Cerise moved down the hallway towards us. Limerence quickly hid his crossbow and Taxi let the cannon sling down between her legs, covered by her robe. That done, we all stepped out into the hall with Geranium in the lead.
“Ahhh, the last group?” the leading mare said, giving a light tug to Cerise’s lead that brought her to a stop.
Geranium looked queasy, but quickly composed herself. Old survival mechanisms learned at the knee of her first law professor kicked in and she smiled, calmly, at the group of ponies.
“Of course. We really ought to consider some signs down here. Last month I found Counselor Grey Mane’s group in one of the bathrooms.”
The mare out front, a rose-red creature with crows-feet around her eyes, chuckled softly, casting a glance at us then returning her attention to Geranium. “We are prepared. I took my… heh… Sacrament… about a half hour ago-,” The rest of the mare’s group chuckled at that, for some reason. “-and I want to be downstairs before it kicks in. Can we proceed?”
Geranium held her hoof out and the mare leading Cerise turned to the steps behind her and started down, still maintaining that painfully slow pace. We started down behind, walking even slower to give them a bit of space ahead of us.
I moved over next to our involuntary guide as the rest of my group fell in behind us, our weapons carefully out of sight. Trotting forward slightly, I positioned myself so I could speak to her without the others overhearing.
“Why are we moving like snails?” I whispered.
“The police chief’s daughter that you’re so interested in is a walking bomb,” she replied, very softly. “I don’t know how I can square this with the firm.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, it wasn’t my idea to use the police chief’s daughter for one of these rituals, but you don’t say ‘no’ to Skylark. You should know, though, that you really wouldn’t want to bring her out of this trance right now unless it was someplace safe. She’s got a drug already in her system that's part of a cocktail they give her during the ritual... I don’t know what it does, but it’s bad.”
“What… exactly are these rituals?”
“Skylark loves a show, or didn’t you notice? It’s a big orgy, dummy- "
"-par for the moon-damned course-"
"-and if the ritual finishes, that girl will die mid-orgasm. If it doesn’t, she’ll probably explode or catch fire. I saw that happen to a girl a few months ago. She was fried, but not before she somehow managed to teleport out of here.” Geranium bobbed her horn towards the cowl of the nearest of the five with Cerise. I could see a slight glow from under it. “Those containment spells are keeping her from losing it until they’re ready.”
"Right, I’m… glad I didn’t try to pull her out of that cell earlier with my teeth…” I said with a shudder.
Geranium gave me an uncomprehending look, then shook her head. “Just keep moving. Miss Skylark is probably watching them move the filly on the internal camera system from the secondary control room.”
“Wait, there’s… another control room? One besides Tourniquet’s?”
“It’s hidden somewhere downstairs. Miss Skylark knows, but I...well, I don’t remember where. It’s probably one of the things I agreed to let them remove from my memory. Just please, try not to do stupid hero stuff, okay? I don’t want to die.”
Limerence let out a soft snort that could almost have been disguised as a clearing of the throat and said under his breath, “My dear, you could not have picked a poorer group of ponies to be involved with if you didn’t want to deal with stupid heroics. For that matter, nor could l.”
I playfully checked him with my hip and he gave me a dirty look. “Come on, Lim. What would you rather be spending an evening doing? Crochet?”
He pursed his lips and sucked a breath. “It is true that I am annoyed, somewhat frightened, and probably about to be killed… but I am not bored.”
There was a loud hiss of releasing gas as the door behind us began to swing shut and I fought down the urge to pick up my trigger bit and chew on it a little. Gum chewing is rampant amongst earth pony and pegasi cops for that precise reason.
I bit my lip instead, and leaned close to Geranium again. “Who are these ponies? They don’t strike me as Skylark’s usual bunch of nuts and bolts…”
“Bored socialites, mostly. I wasn’t joking about Counselor Grey Mane…”
“Wait. You mean City Counselor Grey Mane?” I had to fight to keep my voice low.
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
That put a fresh spin on things; a fresh, extremely worrying spin.
“What’s this ‘Sacrament’, then?”
“I… I don’t actually know. I don’t take it… but then, I don’t know much about drugs. That’s your department,” she murmured. “What I do know is tonight they’re disposing of that filly, so you or Jade must have done something to make the higher ups really mad.”
“You’re okay with them greasing this innocent girl?” I grunted.
“Of course not, but I’m not on your payroll,” Geranium bit back, still at a volume low enough that I wasn’t worried about being overheard. “I don’t know her. I don’t know you. If it comes down to her or me, I can’t stop them and they’ll kill me, too, if I try. My skin is on the line, I’ll do what I need to, but I’m leaving town the second this is all over. I hope they’ll just think I’m dead and won’t bother to check the Scry. At the very least, I hope they won’t think I’m worth coming after.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s wishful thinking, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me ‘sweetheart’, cop.”
I snickered and dropped back beside Taxi and Swift.
“Sir, what was that about?” Swift whispered.
“Just making friends,” I replied, quietly. “If things get loud, try not to jostle Cerise too much. She’s under layers of containment spells. I imagine they had her casting them on herself earlier, and they’re casting them now that we’re moving.”
“Then how are we supposed to get her out of here?” Taxi asked.
“I’m working on it.”
The stairs down into the sub-basement were a narrow, easily defensible spiral. I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out just how defensible, but if it came to it, we had a good place to retreat to and Plan B remained within what I considered a reasonable fighting distance.
Sooner than I’d have liked, the steps ended at a simple door that said on the placard, ‘Mechanical Room’.
The mare leading Cerise glanced over her shoulder at us.
“You go in first. Miss Skylark won’t want her big entrance ruined by ponies coming in the back rows,” she said.
Geranium hesitated just long enough to glance at me, then shrugged and pushed open the door.
The room beyond was best described as ‘muggy’. It reeked of sex, sweat, and overwhelming incense smoke. Low lighting kept the details a bit blurry, but I got the distinct impression of machines grinding and snarling overhead somewhere, just loud enough to cover our hoofsteps as the five of us filed in ahead.
As I brushed by Cerise, I heard the faint hum for just a second. I glanced at her face. Her horn was still giving off a solid over-glow, but she wasn’t mumbling to herself anymore. If anything, she looked almost blissful. Her lips were curved in a peaceful smile, but a steady stream of sweat ran down her cheeks, dripping off of her chin and splashing on the floor. It might have been tears.
Taxi gave me a light bump with her nose to keep me moving and I lurched forward, earning me a curious look from the mare holding the leash. The rest of the robed ponies were rendered anonymous under their hoods, but I could damn near feel the amused smirks on my back as I moved into the ritual chamber.
Through the little doorway, I felt like I’d trotted into another world.
Skylark’s interior decorator had been at work again, with a much higher budget and an order to indulge themselves.
I’d seen the inside of a few Churches of the Lunar Passage; not in a professional capacity, but on television and a few other places. I knew them as rather humble places like office buildings or empty school-houses. The sanctuaries tended to be little more than meeting rooms in repurposed buildings with podiums up front and maybe a picture of Luna’s cutie-mark somewhere on the door. It wasn’t difficult to get into one of the actual meetings and photography wasn’t forbidden. If anything Skylark had a special love of press attention, particularly in recent months and years as the proselytization drives multiplied.
I wondered if she would have quite such a liberal attitude towards photography in her Grand Temple.
That was the only way I could think of it.
It was definitely a mechanical room, although it was from the school of plumbing that says ‘plus size is best.' The gigantic, intricate piping dangling from the ceiling was hung with huge sheets of dark blue fabric that dropped almost to ear-height. Enormous, quietly burbling boilers lined the walls on either side and the steamy air was rich with perfumes, colognes, incense, and what I thought might be Zap smoke.
The space was big, first and foremost. Not Stella’s Lair, and not the Archivist’s Library, but big enough that I found myself immediately scoping it out for cover from snipers. Metal catwalks with stairs leading up them rose high above us, almost to the ceiling.
There were church pews lined up towards the back, but near the middle, a wide open space surrounded a gigantic, drop-cloth covered object of some kind. The ground was scattered with comfortable looking pillows and mingling ponies. It suggested more of a social gathering, less a holy function.
Somepony coughed at my side, and I jumped, raising my head a little to see a short-ish stallion with his hood thrown back standing beside the door holding a tray on one upturned hoof. On it, there was a heap of familiar pink and purple streaked pills.
“The Sacrament, brothers and sisters? Are you the last?” he asked.
I thought fast and replied, “We’re the last ones… err… brother. They’re bringing the-” I tried to think how to put this. I glanced out over the crowd, then decided to take a chance, “- the main event down now.”
“Excellent! Well, you’re late, so you should all take two or you won’t be ready when the time comes,” he said, gesturing with his tray.
Limerence saved me from awkwardly attempting to pick up the pills with my mouth or hooves by stepping up and levitating eight of the pills off of the tray, adding a quick, “Thank you, brother.”
Satisfied, the stallion drifted off towards the mingling herd around the cloth-covered object. I still couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. It had lots of funny angles, but the sparkly drop-cloth obscured all the details.
Deciding that obscurity was the better part of not getting shot at, I moved along the wall towards the boilers on one side. My friends followed, sliding between the pews and trying to look like we knew what we were doing. That’s tough to do when you’re maintaining a formation in hostile and unfamiliar territory.
“Anyone got eyes on Skylark?” I asked.
Geranium shrugged and settled on the pew, content to remain an unwilling participant while Taxi raised her head, scanning over the crowd. Swift tried to join us but, it was a lost cause, even after she put her hooves up on one of the pews and tried to stretch her neck out as far as it would go.
“She’s wearing a robe like Cerise, right?” Taxi asked.
“Probably, yeah,” I replied.
“I don’t see her.”
Limerence, meanwhile, was busy studying the Sacrament. He floated the pills up in front of his face then ducked below the level of the pew and split one open, spilling the powder out on his hoof.
“What is that stuff, Lim?” I asked.
“I am.. .not certain, Detective,” he answered, wafting the powder under his nose to see if it had a scent.
Taxi leaned over and lightly brushed her tongue over the colorful powder, then quickly spat and began furiously wiping at her muzzle with both hooves.
“Crap, crap, crap…” she cursed, fishing under her robe until she could reach her saddlebags, fighting with the strap on her gun as it tangled around the clasp.
“Sweets?! What is it?” I exclaimed, then quickly dropped my voice, though nopony towards the middle of the room seemed particularly interested or even to have noticed that we weren’t joining them.
Tearing open the flap on her bag, she pulled out a canteen of something and took a hefty pull, then swished it around her mouth and discretely spat it back in the bottle.
“Oh peace and light, I hope... ugh... Limerence, blow that stuff off before it soaks into your skin,” she ordered and the librarian tipped his hoof, then wiped the residue off on the cushioned pew. “I hope I was fast enough or this is going to be a wild night…”
“Taxi, come on… what is that stuff?”
She shook her head as though trying to clear it. “I… ooh boy. It’s Beam, Hardy. It’s pharmaceutical grade Beam. Purest I’ve ever touched, too. Celestia preserve me.”
Geranium pulled her robe a little tighter around herself and shivered, despite the warmth in the room.
“What did you expect?” she said, bitterly. “These ‘rituals’ are mostly an excuse for all of those ponies out there to have weird sex and take drugs. They get high and then the girl-”
“The girl is the source of group’s emotional condition. I see,” Limerence mused. “A side effect of having overloaded her body with magic is that she is likely to be very... suggistable. Volatile, but suggestable. With the right spells one might even put her in a state of… uncontrolled bliss.”
“I was going to say they have the ritual up there, then I go get my memories stripped of what actually happens on stage,” the lawyer said, snappily. “Then, we probably do this again next month. I don’t even know. I don’t remember most of the victims, if you’re hoping to make me testify or something-”
“Honeybunch, we are so far off book right now, I don’t think there will be any testifying going on within a mile of me except at my own trial,” I sighed. “We’re here to get the girl and a set of weapons-”
“Weapons?” Geranium’s muzzle seemed to have moved without her volition. She snapped her teeth shut so fast she almost took off the tip of her own tongue.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Yeeeah… you don’t know anything about that, do you? Funny looking things, stolen from a friend of ours?”
“I… uh… no, I mean-” she stammered, then scooted sideways on the bench, bumping into Taxi’s hoof which landed lightly on her shoulder, holding her in place. Anypony looking would think she was resting it there in a friendly sort of way, but that spot was right next to lots of essential blood vessels and nerves.
“For a lawyer, you’re a terrible liar,” my driver growled in her ear.
Geranium’s lips twitched as she tried to clam up again, but Taxi’s hoof began to gradually increase in pressure until she tried to pull away, then held up her forelegs in submission.
“Okay, okay… I… a few days ago Miss Skylark was very, very happy about something. It was odd, even for her. I’d… I’d apparently ‘delivered’ on some kind of promise and she bought me dinner at a fancy restaurant. I don’t remember what the promise was, but she showed me this strange box full of… I think they were guns. They were ‘payment’ for something. I remember, because they looked like guns, except with mirrors on top, and they didn’t have barrels. She called them… ’holy artifacts of Luna’.”
“You mean like that…” Swift said, pointing across the room.
I followed where she was indicating with my eyes and found a tall pony standing beside one of the boilers on the other side of the room, studying the room with the calm self-assurance of a body-guard. I couldn’t tell who he was there with, but there was no mistaking the rack beside him. Six strange looking black shapes were displayed side-by-side on a wire wall, each reflecting the light of the wall sconces on tiny panels on their tops.
Limerence’s ears fluttered slightly as he examined the pedestal. “Ahhh, good! It seems my father was right to trust you, Detective.”
“Well, yeah. Did you think I was doing this for fun?” I couldn’t keep the smugness out of my voice. “Anyway… Holy artifacts of Luna, huh?”
“They were designed by engineers working under Princess Luna during the war. Prototypes of something else. Our sources indicate each of them may even contain a tiny sliver of the Moon itself.”
“I see Skylark’s interest, then. Payment for something. Delivery of the fake armor, I bet. Probably other services rendered, too.” A prickle of worry tugged at my awareness and I shivered, involuntarily. “This leak at the Archivists must be pretty big if somepony is using stolen artifacts as payments...”
Limerence shook his head, looking very unsettled. “That... is a very upsetting notion. It suggests more than a simple information leak or a targeted attack. That sounds more like a total failure of our security measures.”
“And here, I thought the Don might just be being paranoid,” I mused.
Limerence hooked a hoof into his robe and threw his chest out, looking briefly like one of my professors at the academy. “Unfortunately, that is a thing for me to report to my father later on. Practical questions for now, and the most immediate one I see is ‘where are the rest of the Moonfire weapons?’ That is only half the set.”
I glanced at the doorway, thinking about our options. The shadow of a pony’s head seemed to be peeking through, as though waiting for something. “I’m fairly sure the ritual should be starting soon. Alright, spread out a bit. Targets of priority are the pony guarding those weapons and anypony else who seems to be armed.”
“Hardy…” Taxi said, softly. “If this ponies have all had Beam and we start shooting, this is going to turn into a massacre, either for us or for them...”
My ears laid back. “You’ve got your cannon. Try to put down as many as you can with sleeping-”
“I’m out of sleep gas. We used all of those at the School, remember? I’ve got a Shock Rock Magical Depletion round, a smoke, two Slug shells, and a half dozen standard kinetic shots...”
Before I could reply, Geranium tugged on my robe with her horn, then pointed towards the front near whatever was under the cloth, where there seemed to be some expectant motion going on. “They’re starting. I have to go or Skylark will want me on stage with her!”
“Which is where you’ll be,” I said, cooly.
“I can’t!” she squeaked.
I nodded in the direction of one of the boilers near the crowd. “If you see us move and bullets start to fly, you get behind that. It’s an industrial system, so it should absorb anything short of an anti-war-scooter shell, and we didn’t bring any of those with us tonight.”
Geranium’s knees were knocking together as she got to her hooves. I put a steadying hoof on her shoulder. “Look… If we’re successful down here, I will do everything in my power to make sure you walk away from this. Clear? You help, you walk away.”
“You… you can’t guarantee that…”
“I can guarantee your chances are better with me than with them. If we succeed, you live another day and maybe a whole lot more. If we fail, you might convince them you weren’t helping us… but I doubt it. That or you’ll be a vegetable sometime down the line when they decide they’re tired of paying to strip your memories. What’s it going to be?”
It took her a long time.
Most decisions like that, if you lay them in the stark terms of ‘life’ or ‘death’, would seem pretty easy, but I’m continually amazed at how many ponies will take the extra few seconds to think of ways of weaseling out. Granted, lawyers make their livings weaseling.
The murmuring from the crowd up front was getting louder and Taxi was curling her hoof into one of those ‘strike’ positions that I find are largely characterized by waking up sometime later wondering why my hooves are tingling. If she had to put Geranium down, we were going to have to start the party early. That was not a pleasant prospect.
I also didn’t know if Tourniquet could stop Geranium from doing something stupid. I didn’t even know if our friendly automaton was watching. Finding out too late that she wasn’t wouldn’t be a pleasant prospect, either.
The shaking in Geranium’s knees slowly stilled and she released her death grip on her robe.
“I… guess getting killed here tonight is nicer than any more nights spent tossing and turning, wondering what I was party to that I can’t even remember enough to feel guilty about…” she muttered, resignedly. “You can’t imagine what it’s like knowing you could do all this stuff… and you did… and it’s always the first time.”
And there was the guilt.
Big, stinking guilt.
Stupid, awful, Celestia-and-Luna-damn-me-straight-to-the-pit guilt.
“I can imagine some pretty awful things, sweetheart, but no, you’re right… I can’t imagine that. Go on. We’ll be watching. I’m hoping we can just take out the bodyguard and get close enough to get Skylark without this turning violent. If we manage to get a weapon on her, I doubt the rest of this bunch will fight.”
Geranium nodded and set off through the pews, her head held high.
I watched her go, then asked low enough that I didn’t think she’d hear, “Queenie, can Tourniquet control her or put her down if she does something to let them know we’re here? Two buzzes for yes, One for no.”
A long pause.
My mane wiggled a little.
Buzz, buzz.
I had another thought.
“That rock in her stomach was designed for a dragon. Will using it involve doing her permanent damage?”
Another pause.
Buzz, buzz.
Aaand, more guilt.
“Keep Tourniquet watching, but don’t shut Geranium off unless she acts against us. Clear?”
Buzz, buzz.
“Detective.” Limerence used his horn to point towards a spot off to the side of the central space, where two tapestries of Luna descending from the moon were hung overlapping one another to create a makeshift curtain.
There was motion there, then the torches all around the perimeter of the room dimmed to a flicker which was just enough to see by.
I didn’t have to signal my companions.
There was no more time for planning. I’d have liked an extra hour or two. Possibly a week. That wasn’t an option and we all knew it.
We started moving as one, spreading out between the pews. I had my eyes on the bodyguard beside the weapons and Swift seemed to be heading for one of the nearby staircases up towards the catwalks. I hoped she had the sense to walk softly on those metal walkways. We weren’t moving quickly, but anypony looking in our direction would probably have seen ‘intent’. None of our intended targets seemed the least bit interested, however. I picked out Geranium, trotting intently through the crowd towards the front.
I tried to get a headcount as I moved, but the shifting, identical robes made it difficult. There were also a couple of ponies like the stallion with the tray who might have been servants of some kind which confused the issue. I managed thirty, but that might have been high. If I were to include the characters outside, that made thirty five. Not good odds, but then, guns change all the dynamics in a fight; most ponies won’t charge a gun.
Of course, Beam also changes all the dynamics of a fight.
Beam will most definitely charge a gun.
I freed my trigger bit and pulled the robe back so I could get to it. The catwalks were a tempting target, but I needed to make sure that body-guard and the collection of weapons he guarded were out of play before I headed in that direction. There was also the caveat that I’d no idea how many unicorns and pegasi might be in attendance.
Surprisingly few unicorns go in for actual combat magic, but it’s best not to take chances. Even a foal can get access to a spell of magical stunning if their parents leave it lying around and some weather-masters can control lightning in spaces tight enough to surprise an unwary opponent.
The bodyguard wasn’t watching for me and every time I moved, I waited for him to be looking elsewhere. He was a big fella with dark fur and a horn I didn’t fancy being impaled on. He would know a little combat magic. Maybe nothing more complicated than some martial stuns and a fire spell, but enough to ruin my day if he wasn’t down quick. Thankfully, he seemed not to mind letting me get close.
I was less than a meter from him, when he finally noticed. He gave me a bored, professional smile as I surveyed his little collection.
“Good evening, brother. You might want to take your positions toward the front,” he said.
The ability to lie quickly in an interrogation or for a cover story can be a fantastic asset when you’re faced with the need to sound like you’re where you should be.
“I know. I simply wanted to see these,” I replied .”I was invited very recently and to see something that had Luna’s hoof in the design is rather special. Besides, the Sacrament hasn’t kicked in yet and I figure I won’t be in any condition to appreciate the artistry once it has.”
The bodyguard nodded and held his hoof out. “These are a new addition to the ritual, so look, but don’t touch until the ceremony has finished and it’s time for the disposal of the remnants.” I clenched my teeth at the polite way he said ‘disposal’, as though he wasn’t about to be party to a murder. What sort of ponies was I dealing with? “If it’s your first night, I imagine you will be invited to take part in that, of course. Welcome to the inner circle, brother.”
To cover the snarl I felt building in my throat, I leaned over the rack of Moon guns and gave them a cursory examination. They were all black as a moonless night and seemed made out of something besides metal; maybe ebony wood or finely cut obsidian. The mirror on the tops of each one was circular, just big enough to study my own face in. They seemed almost as though they’d been carved out of the darkness itself. Considering Luna’s maker’s mark on the grip, they might have been.
“I’d heard there were twelve of these. Seems a shame to break them up…” I commented, as though it was just a thought that’d come into my head.
As it turned out, my new friend might have been a big fella, but he too polite for his own good. My favorite kind of bodyguard, then; stupid and cooperative.
“Well, the rest are with trusted individuals who’ve earned a special place at the side of Princess Luna and Miss Skylark. I think all but one of them are here tonight, actually. You might join their number, if your contributions to the Church are deemed adequate.”
That was a sales pitch if I ever heard one.
I put on my best salespony grin and replied, “Then I’ll be certain to consider heavily what I should contribute if I find tonight interesting.”
He nodded, then went back to scanning the crowd. I backed up and leaned against the boiler at his side. I noticed Swift getting near to the catwalk door, but she had the sense to stop and wait there.
All at once, the lights went out entirely.
I heard a feminine squeak somewhere and prayed the house lights wouldn’t come back up on, say, somepony with a gun to Swift’s head.
I’m not a fan of waiting and I wished I’d thought to take Limerence’s glasses for this fight. Considering how prevalent a role wishes had played in our recent adventures, I was starting to get quite the long list of them.
I wished we’d had a better plan.
I wished I’d gotten more information from Tourniquet.
I wished I’d come in here with more ponies.
I really wished I’d thought to go to the bathroom when I had the chance.
Just as these wishes started to become bothersome -- particularly that last one -- a whispering rose up from the crowd.
A soft glow, faint enough that I thought for a moment it was just my imagination, had appeared in the black blanket of darkness. I blinked several times, trying to get an idea of what I was seeing. The image resolved until I could make out that it was, in fact, two glows. They were side by side, hanging out there. My perspective was ruined by the lack of points of reference, but I thought they were probably in the last place I’d seen the cloth covered figure.
Both opened to reveal two brilliantly turquoise orbs; orbs with black slits, like the eyes of a cat. Or a dragon.
I leaned slowly down and picked up my trigger-bit in my teeth, feeling around with my rear leg until I bumped into the brass boiler at my side. I began to back around the side, doing my level best to move silently. The machinery seemed muted there, but the gurgles and bubblings still managed to cover my hoofsteps. At least, I hoped that was the case.
A ring of torches burst to life, almost blinding me, but my eyes were drawn upwards to what they illuminated and I clenched my teeth around my bit.
In every child’s nightmares, there’s a creature that we all know exists. It’s back there in the darkness of history. Once a year, we get dressed up and hope it doesn’t come to get us, but the terror is still there, deep in our collective subconscious.
It has many names.
Regina Nox Aeterna.
The Endless Night.
The Queen of Dark Day.
Unfortunately, none of this has ever stopped a select stupid few from finding intense fascination with something that makes all the ponies with some common sense head for the hills. I’m all for iconoclasm and finding fresh ways to interpret old symbols, but there’s no questions about the symbolism with this particular character.
She was the jealous death of the world.
Nightmare Moon.
I only managed to stave off the urge to smack my own forehead by dint of having my trigger in my mouth.
Taxi, Swift, Limerence, and I were in a den of Nightmare Moon worshippers.
The news loved to play up the possibility of Nightmare Moon worship as something to scare the masses, but nopony ever really took it seriously. Granted, looking around at the crowd of eager financial backers mostly looking for a thrill and some public approval by their peers, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine the only pony taking what was going on in the Hole seriously was Astral Skylark herself.
That felt wrong, somehow. Skylark seemed too driven, too fanatical, to be the sort drawn to a social group of self-amusing toffs.
Then there was the acts involved.
Sure, I could see her killing somepony. Crazies do that sort of thing with some regularity.
Burning souls for magic while using the ritual’s side-effects as fuel for the sexual excesses of a group of rich twits on Beam to keep your operations funded was a whole other level. It wasn’t the act of a demented zealot. It was the act of a keen, considering mind.
It was the act of somepony much, much smarter than Astral Skylark.
The lights started to come back up, and I could pick up more details. I dropped my trigger and winced as I realized just how tightly I’d been holding it.
It wasn’t actually Nightmare Moon, of course. It was an especially detailed statue, maybe twice the size of Princess Celestia. Down below, a sort of flat table or altar made of something that looked pretty close to stone was laid out with various tools. Some of them looked devilishly sexual in nature, while a few were just strangely shaped knives.
A pair of candles on either end lit up, flickering quietly.
The eyes of the stature were just ordinary gemstones, lit from within, but the overall effect was excellent, if a bit kitschy.
The entire crowd sank onto one foreknee, including the bodyguard beside me. Swift, who’d managed to climb to the second floor of the catwalk without making too much noise, peering over the edge. She saw me and quickly saluted, then pointed down at the crowd. Limerence and Taxi were nowhere to be found, although I thought I saw a glimpse of yellow fur amongst the kneeling ponies.
Wait, I thought. She’s not pointing at the crowd...
Swift was pointing at the curtain beside the altar.
I dropped to one knee, just in time as the curtain burst open and Astral Skylark herself, high holy muckity-muck of the Church of the Lunar Passage, strode out with her dark-robe billowing out behind her. I kept my head down as she reached the altar, peering out from under the edge of my hood. Geranium was up there beside her, an elaborate chain with a crescent moon held in her telekinetic field. She raised it over Skylark’s head, settling it down across her chest.
In the barely useable light, Skylark’s midnight purple fur matched Nightmare Moon’s a little too closely to be coincidence. I wondered if she dyed it.
Pulling her hood back, she stepped up behind the altar, scooted forward, and raised herself up onto her rear hooves, holding her forelegs wide.
“Welcome, my sweet children of the longest night!”
Her voice seemed to swell and ring off the disguised piping, becoming an all-encompassing thing as it shook the room.
It must have been magical amplification, but her horn wasn’t glowing. I glanced to her left at Geranium, who had backed off to the side of the statue. Her horn was tucked under the edge of her hood, but I could just see the slight glitter of magic being cast.
“My children! Our dear Princess Luna, her true form broken by the oppressors nearly sixty years ago, has spoken in dream to me this night!”
Hushed whispers spread out through the crowd at that.
Skylark shook one hoof in the air, and even I felt a brief thrill. She was a very charismatic pony, particularly for an ex-thief.
“She spoke to me in dream... and I heard her mighty voice! Princess Luna, the shell she is forced to wear, hides her from the world. She cannot speak publicly, lest she be locked away in the moon again, but let me assure you... our night is coming! She is beautiful, and she will uplift us to be alongside her!”
A cheer rose up, and the ponies gathered at the front stomped their hooves raucously. A few of them were starting to bounce back and forth with the motion regular druggies call a ‘Beam Bob.' It’s some kind of neurological side-effect that makes you weave back and forth like a drunk pigeon.
Skylark went on, her horn flashing with excitement as she swept her forelegs out to encompass all of the gathered ponies.
“Listen, brothers and sisters! Listen close, and listen well! We are not alone! Many thousands will support us! Our riches will know no bounds in the kingdom our glorious mother of the night will bring! We will live in endless ecstasy, hidden away from the cruel light of judgement! The sun will bow, the day will end!”
The crowd was screaming as she finished, her words whipping them into a frenzy. The screaming had reached a crescendo, with a few of the mares fainting or swooning on their partners while the stallions beat their hooves against the floor, rearing and snorting like ponies possessed. A couple even threw themselves on the pillows, howling with glee.
Beam is a heck of a drug.
“Now!” Skylark’s voice brought silence to the room as everypony got back to their hooves and stood attentively, waiting. “We must give the Night a piece of our power, that she might be strong enough to rise against the solar beast and cast her down! We will shake the halls of Canterlot! We will rock the very foundations of Equestria!”
She thrust one toe at the back of the auditorium. The lights came up a little bit, and I took the brief respite to try to find my friends again. Swift had made it up to the top floor of the catwalks. She perched like a cat on the edge of the railing with her wings tucked in tight against her sides with her gun out and her robe piled on the floor beside her.
It was a frightfully exposed position if somepony had a standard firearm, but I doubted if anypony would actually be trying to peer in that direction. I didn’t especially want to test it, but if Limerence was right, the Moon Guns wouldn’t be terribly dangerous outside of that five meter maximum range.
Our librarian hadn’t shown himself since Skylark appeared and Taxi was probably still down in the crowd. What she thought she’d do down there with that cannon -- a patently mid-range weapon -- I didn’t want to speculate on, but knowing her, it was likely to be spectacular.
“Bring forth...the volunteer! The bride of Luna, who will give up mortal magics, for an immortal future!”
Mercy, that mare liked to hear herself talk.
I’d managed to work my way around the side of the boiler to the bodyguard’s back. He was relaxed, watching the proceedings with a slight slouch to his shoulders and one hoof crossed over the other. I needed to take him out, but that required another moment when everypony was looking elsewhere.
I shut my eyes, breathing slow, deep breaths, readying myself for the pounce.
The door at the back of the room slammed open, and four hooded ponies filed in, lining up on either side of the aisle between the pews. With well coordinated showmareship, they all dropped to both knees and put their heads on the carpet. A moment later, Cerise herself, the leash gone, marched forward with a peaceful smile on her face. Her eyes were shining with moisture, but she took each step deliberately, moving towards the altar of what must have looked like her own free will.
The crowd stepped back to make room, kneeling to pay their respects as she moved passed them. That creepy smile never wavered, nor did the constant glow from her horn.
“Come here, my child,” Skylark waved her towards the altar. “It is time for you to meet the Night Mother.”
Celestia save me, I wanted to put a bullet in that pony.
I wrenched my concentration back around to the task at hoof; handle the bodyguard, ignore the nutter. Having half the weapons out of the field would make our job miles easier, assuming nopony else thought to come armed.
All eyes were towards the front as Cerise stepped up to the altar. There was a tiny set of steps beside it and Skylark took her hoof, helping her up onto the platform. The audience was standing again, and I noticed a few of them gently rubbing their flanks against one another. The air was starting to reek of arousal barely covered by the hearty perfumes.
I yanked off my robe, throwing it over one leg as I edged closer to the bodyguard’s back. My target sniffed at the air, then started to turn, but Skylark’s voice brought him back around.
“My child, you will feel pleasures of the dark, tonight... before you give your power to our Queen! We will see to it that you know what awaits you when our Night Mother rises!”
I moved with purpose, tossing the robe around the bodyguard’s head, making sure a fair chunk of it tangled around his neck, blinding him completely. He let out a strangled sound that was muffled by the cloth as I caught the other end in my teeth and yanked him backwards behind the boiler. He stumbled, then went down in a heap, legs flailing helplessly as he tried to untangle himself enough to raise the alarm
I didn’t have time for finesse.
Finesse is for days when somepony isn’t about to sacrifice an innocent girl to a heathen demi-god.
Swinging around, I raised one rear hoof and brought it down on his head. I winced as his skull hit the floor. His legs stiffened, then he went limp.
I hoped to high heaven I hadn’t just killed him. I’d done my best to hold back, but earth ponies are not designed to ‘hold back’ where applications of strength are concerned.
Taking hold of his robe, I backed up as far as I could into the shadow, dragging him along with me. He was a heavy bastard, but the carpet made the job pretty easy. Once I had him behind the boiler, I pulled the hood off of his ears, quickly checking his pulse. It was steady.
I hadn’t caved in his head, thankfully, but he wasn’t going to win any beauty contests until they managed to rebuild his jaw. Fortunately, it didn’t look like it’d be lethal anytime soon, but he wasn’t likely to be waking up either. The number one rule where being a bodyguard is concerned is ‘pick your clients carefully’.
Hauling the robe back on and making sure it covered most of my body, I pulled the hood up and edged back out into his position beside the moon weapons, making certain nopony was looking as I leaned, casually, against the display. I studied the scene down at the altar. Cerise was sprawled on her back, her robe thrown open and her hooves spread out in a vulnerable and obscene fashion as Skylark gently stroked her cheek. Her touch began to creep lower and I quickly stepped back before I did something regrettable before we were quite ready.
The crowd, already hot with expectation, was starting to sway back and forth as they watched the proceedings. A few discreet hooves and noses were already finding their ways into various kinds of personal space. To add to the atmosphere, from somewhere a soft tune started to play. It was a snazzy little swing number; adding a little ambience to what was shaping up to be a night of ferocious debauchery, followed by a good ol’ fashioned equine sacrifice.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so bad about my unconscious friend behind the boiler.
I did my best to ignore what was going on on stage. The moaning was getting louder and harder to block out, but Cerise wasn’t in any pain yet. We had to wait until the right moment, or we’d end up with a slaughter on our hooves.
A little movement up near the roof brought my eyes up and I finally found Limerence. He was standing on one of the pipes attached to the ceiling, upside down, with his crossbow floating beside him. It was aimed squarely at Skylark.
Good thing, too. As I looked back, I found her standing over Cerise with a syringe levitating beside her. I didn’t really care what might be in that needle, but I suspected I already knew.
One last thing to do, then.
Be the cop.
It was another of those stupid, necessary things a pony does, else they can’t really call themselves on the side of good; you always give them a chance to surrender. Truthfully, I’d have been just as happy right then signaling Swift or Limerence to put a bullet in Skylark and call it a day, but that is not how the game works; particularly when prisoners are optional.
I took a few steps forward, away from the boiler, and pulled my hood back onto my neck, then freed my shotgun so it was nice and visible.
I cleared my throat loud enough that it drowned out the music, the lusty moaning, and the noise of the boilers. A few heads popped up from whatever activity they were engaged in. More than a few of those were damp or sticky. They quickly shook those of their friends who were still coherent enough to want to know who the funny stallion with the business end of his boomstick pointed at them might be.
Skylark was rather engaged, so it wasn’t until most of the noise had died away completely that she lifted her head and looked around for the source of the disturbance. Her eyes settled on me and I gave her a cocky grin.
I drew in a breath and shouted for the benefit of those in the back, “Good evening, ladies and gentlecolts!”
“Hard... Boiled?!” Astral Skylark hissed as her face settled into a look of furious surprise, but nopony was paying her a lick of attention. After-dinner speakers everywhere should take note that a shotgun aimed at your dome commands far more interest than politely tapping a glass with a teaspoon.
Ignoring her, I patted my sawn-off with the opposite hoof. “This is the police! We’re only here for Skylark, the girl, and these.” I waved towards the stack of moon weapons on the display beside the boiler. “Give up the rest of the guns, give up the girl, and give up the nutcase. You can all walk out of here!”
It was a great offer. Honestly, freedom for a crazy, an innocent, and a couple of blasters? Ponies should take offers like that if they’re available. I’d take that over two for one bagels. It’s simpler than having bullets dug out of your chest.
There was a silence as everypony considered their options. I was, of course, the only officer they could see and that didn’t help much, but the only weapon they could see was mine and that wasn’t helping them make up their minds, either.
Pitiful as it sounds, I hadn’t actually considered the possibility that Skylark would use her own people as meat shields.
“He’s no cop!” she snarled. “He’s working for the Archivists! He’s here to kill us all!”
The crowd shifted from hoof to hoof as fear replaced arousal and confusion. Worse, it was fear, amplified by Beam; a potent cocktail of every emotion in the room.
Then my whole world went wrong.
Without any warning whatsoever, a mare in the front row grew a sizeable knife in the middle of her chest. Slowly, she looked down at it and gently flicked the handle with her toe, as though brushing a bit of dinner off her cloak. Turning to her companion, a hefty stallion with wide, frightened eyes and dilated pupils, she pointed at the offending weapon like she was demanding to know if he were responsible.
I found myself just gawking right up until the poor filly let out an ear-piercing shriek and collapsed in a quickly expanding puddle of her own blood.
She’d just murdered somepony right in front of me. Astral Skylark butchered one of her own followers for a distraction and I was too shocked to turn my revolver on her. I couldn’t even spare a thought for exactly how Skylark had managed that particular trick, but knowing unicorns, it probably wasn’t that difficult.
A detached part of me was examining the move from a tactical perspective. She was looking to cause maximum panic and reflect it around the room through the Beam, and nothing short of releasing a horde of flesh eating parasprites could have topped that particular tactic. Simply killing me would have left her an open target to my companions. That or she might have thought I had body-armor on under the robe. Either way, I was glad she hadn’t checked.
The crowd scattered in all directions.
In such a confined space that was especially bad news, since a few of them were too intoxicated to do much more than stand in place and scream and others wouldn’t have noticed if they’d run over a boulder, much less one of their squishy friends.
Skylark was still on the altar, a bright green magical bubble wrapped around her and Cerise. I leveled my shotgun at it, then sighed and tried to pick a different target. Shield spells are a bastard to pound through and my shotgun was not the ideal weapon for it.
Several of the cultists had torn off their robes, freeing wings and horns. Those that were able took to the air, adding to the wild confusion of bodies fleeing nowhere in particular. Several had rushed up the stairwell, but there were screams and hooves beating on metal from up there, too; the security door was still sealed.
I backed against the wall, trying to point my weapon everywhere at once. Limerence was walking calmly down the wall opposite me to join Swift, who had her gun-bit in her teeth.
I heard a soft sound that reminded me of a car passing at high speed and felt a sudden warmth on my chest. I glanced down to find a circle of white light dancing over my stomach. It moved up to my face, momentarily blinding me before flicking off again.
Blinking quickly to try to get my vision back, I saw a thin, red mare standing out in the crowd, a moon-gun clutched in her jaws. Her mane was in one of those absurd, fru-fru styles popular in Canterlot and if it weren’t for the weapon, I’d have laughed.
The light flicked back on just as a stallion, his hood dangling in his eyes, charged between us.
I staggered in surprize as a thin spray of something landing on my face, barely keeping myself on my hooves. Reaching up, I wiped at my cheeks, then looked down at my hoof.
It came away red.
My eyes were drawn to the stallion as he slowed to a trot. He’d been fiddling with his hood with one leg, but now let his hoof drop to the floor, before slowly pitching onto his side as most of his torso came apart with a wet thump and a river of blood poured out of his chest.
Yanking my gaze back, I found the mare standing there in shock at what had happened. Then an arrow sprouted from her shoulder and she squealed like a mouse in a blender, flopping onto her side. The moon gun shot out of her teeth and rolled end over end into what was left of the dead stallion’s body. I doubted anypony was likely to be retrieving it.
Limerence was standing on the wall above Swift’s head, already loading another bolt into his crossbow.
I didn’t have much time for thought. I grabbed the tray with the remainder of my moon guns in my teeth and hauled it behind the boiler, tipping it on its side and shoving them one at a time underneath the enormous metal tube. Anypony wanting them was going to need some precise telekinesis and a clear head to avoid taking their own face off. We needed those things off the field before this turned into a massacre.
The screams were getting louder and I heard the distinctive sound of a Moon gun firing, followed by a howl of pain. I hoped that wasn’t one of my friends. A violent concussive burst sent me scrambling back for cover. Peering around the side, I saw Taxi standing in the middle of a number of slumped bodies, P.E.A.C.E. cannon pointed straight up in the air. The last of the fliers hit the ground beside her and she gave him a nonchalant kick in the head when he showed some signs he might be considering getting up at some point in the next month.
That set off a fresh round of riotous attempts to escape the enclosed space.
“Taxi! You’ve got Shock rounds! Hit the damn shield!” I shouted, pointing at Skylark, who was watching impassively from behind her barrier spell. If you can believe it, she’d gone back to her ‘activities’ with Cerise, a cool smirk spread across her features.
My driver shot me a nod and headed for cover so she could load another round into the cannon.
She didn’t see the stallion rear up behind her with a Moon gun levitating beside his head.
The report of Masamane almost deafened me. The magical gun hit the ground beside Taxi’s would-be killer. He stared down at it, curiously, then reached up and touched what was left of his horn. The shattered remains ended about a third of the way from the tip. Letting out a filly-ish yelp of pain, he bolted straight into the legs of a mare who was trying to make it to the door. Their heads collided with a satisfying ‘clunk’ and they both went down.
“Sorry!” Swift shouted, as she leapt from the balcony and swooped out into mid-air, catching a flying stallion with yet another of those beastly weapons in his teeth who was going after Limerence as the librarian tried to get off the wall and into a more covered position. She caught him in the chest with both front hooves, then grabbed his robe in her ferocious teeth, swung about, and sent him careening into the opposite wall.
Despite the casualties, there were still plenty of cultists to go around.
Taxi, meanwhile, had found a quiet position to reload. The P.E.A.C.E. thundered as steaming Slug-rounds spattered a half dozen rioting druggies, fixing them to the floor and wall near the altar.
Skylark, still safe behind her magical shield, raised her syringe.
It was empty.
She’d just injected Cerise with the soul sucking poison.
Rage started to build in my stomach as I turned my shotgun in that direction and yanked on the trigger. My whole body jerked backwards as the blast almost took my off my hooves, spattering the shield with hot lead. A couple of cracks formed, but Skylark just gave them an irritated look and they sealed over in an instant.
If I’d still been toting the Minotaur MK2 police issue, I might have unloaded six or seven rounds into it and brought the shield down, but a sawn-off is not the ideal weapon for reloading quickly. Taxi was being inconvenienced by another cultist who’d managed to puncture the boiler she’d been using for cover with another of the moon weapons, steaming himself into a mess of third degree burns and forcing her back as the space filled with a dense fog of superheated water.
We were running out of time and the number of dead and injured was getting uncomfortably high.
I’d known, truly, that there was no way we could get through this without killing, but I’d hoped we mightn’t see so many dead. Saving the girl meant stopping the ritual. I wished I’d known Skylark had a damn shield spell.
Glancing at the altar, I tried to pick out what Skylark was doing up there. Her lips were moving. I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the shouting of the crowd, but from the hoof waving and the glow from her horn, it seemed like it might be part of the spell.
She was continuing the damn ritual. I could hardly believe it.
“Limerence! Silence Skylark!” I snarled, shoving a tall stallion who was frozen in place, looking at things that only he could see as I fought my way toward the altar. I knew I was making myself a big target, but there was only one of the moon weapons still unaccounted for.
Limerence’s head appeared over the balcony and a faint glow encased the shield, then sank into it. A look of surprise crossed the high priestess’s face and she put a hoof on her throat. Taxi added to her distress by choosing that moment to unload a Shock round in her direction.
The shell arced through the air and impacted on the shield, bursting into a wild confusion of light that seemed to cling to the magical surface, spitting and hissing, throwing streamers of sparks in all directions. The shield began to crack along its length and Skylark took a few steps back, her shoulders bowing as though she held up a huge weight.
I shoved another catatonic pony out of his mind on Beam out of my way as I struggled towards the stage, stumbling over another unconscious body and almost pitching face first into the carpet. I was vaguely aware of Swift swooping low over my head to crash into a pony beside me who’d appeared out of the steamy fog quickly gathering on the ground. Limerence managed a shoulder shot on a stallion who was trying to buck me in the head.
My eyes were locked squarely on Skylark as she struggled to maintain her shield under the inexorable forces being exerted by the shell. I’ve no idea what’s actually in one of those shells; Taxi tried to explain it to me once, but I was lost after she brought up ‘messing with a unicorn’s internal feng shui’. The ultimate upshot that even the finest protective spells can only last so long under a blast from a Bloom Industries Shock Rock.
With a final heave, Skylark leapt backwards as the spell exploded inwards, shattering like an upturned wine-glass hit with a hammer. Shards of magic dissolved into the air. Before she could cast it again, I raised my revolver and fired a shot. I didn’t see if it hit her, because my vision was filled with a bright blue mane and the infuriated eyes of another cultist.
I reached out to push her aside. It shouldn't have been difficult; she was half my weight, if that…
...but it was a second too late when I noticed the moon weapon held in her teeth.
I brought the leg with my revolver on it up to shield my face.
Pure white light flashed, and my world exploded.
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oooh shit! this is not good! a moon weapon, and it is believed the things could kill entities like alicorns too........
damn you and your ambiguous cliffhangers!!! coudl either mean he got killed or not!! and we really do not have an understanding of his healing factor's limits either other than energy consumed.
sighs. you know how to get your audience antsy.
...
....
......
........
*shrieks* *throws self on floor screaming "Why God, why?!"*
4912122 don' look good. though the last time hardy actually died it was not left ambiguous. who knows what happened till the next chapter comes out.
So we get sex and violence all within one chapter. Man, this story has everything.
4912122 That good, huh? I should amp things up for a couple of chapters from now.
4912399 Eeeyup! Next chapter...ULTRA VIOLENCE!
-Chessie
4912169
Looks better than the last time.
That mare in the crowd seemed to find that the moon weapon she had was not very effective against Hardy.
I'm thinking this is related to his bizarre interaction with truth and scrying magics.
So that's what happened to all the HiE OCs!
I wonder what happens if you dust a changeling hive with Beam?
Oh my...
Blimey!
Alarm bells are ringing, warning klaxons are sounding, red lights strobing! Nothing good can come of that!
insert joke about exploding twice...
Boring is safe. Boring is calm, predictable. Boring means you can go to bed at night and not worry about waking up in the morning with a manticore head on your pillow, or your face strapped in a mesh cage filled with parasprites, or dangling upside down over the edge of a skyscraper with a hood on your head...
Sshhiiiiittt!
How deep do you have to go before you decide the best recourse is to call in the Equestrian National guard and declare martial law? By this point it looks like Detrot needs to be Rainbow Friendship Nuke'd down to bedrock.
From orbit.
It is the only way to be sure.
Shades of Rainbow Factory...
Where all your nightmares come true!
All that seems to be missing is a refreshments table with punch, queso, and some of those unidentifiable casseroles with string beans people always seem to bring to potlucks...
You are about to discharge weapons in a room filled with horny (both literally and figuratively) criminals and possible Nightmare worshippers who are all hopped up on what amounts to magical PCP.
What could possibly go wrong?
I do not think that is going to be a problem once the horse-apples impact the cooling device and all the bullets, and shells, and knives, and arrows, and spells, and grenades start flying through the room.
What?
Hardy is just now making this connection? I know Hardy was born after Luna's return, but Equestrians my be seriously remiss in their national history lessons if Hardy sees a "Church of Luna" acting suspiciously, stolen lunar artefacts, and a cult leader bearing the marks and colouration of Luna's historical nightmare form and not immediately think "NIGHTMARE MOON".
What was he expecting then?
The Cult of the Wicker Muffin?
4758265
I imagine Swift ending up as the Big Bad. In the ultimate reveal/betrayal she drops her innocent naiveté, shoots Hardy and Taxi in the back with Masamane and walks away Kaiser Söze style to her secure villa compound in the Badlands.
Spider Lim, Spider Lim!
Spectacled and very grim!
Sneaking o'er the Lunar cult!
Shoots 'em down with a crossbow bolt!
And there goes the plan...
Two.
There are two moon lasers still unaccounted for. One in the crowd, and one other with the absent VIP the bodyguard mentioned...
Dammit Hardy! Not again!
Phew!
That was an intense chapter. A bit squicky with the moon laser, but still handled skilfully and tastefully enough to get the point across that getting hit with one of them is a Bad Thing. The "mouse in a blender" line made me chuckle (I hope the RSPCA does not hunt me down for saying that...).
Now I have to wait 2 anxious weeks for the conclusion of this fluster cluck in the boiler room.
4912552
That first red mare with the fru-fru mane was more that 5 metres away when she fired the shot.
This mare (seriously, what is with Hardy and getting shot by all the mares he meets?) with the bright blue mane was only a hoof's length away.
Hardy is only one lampshaded MacGuffin away from being turned into pink pony pesto paste smeared all over the stage.
4912097
At the end of the day Gale is going to be quite cross.
4912613 macguffin or swift shooting the divine moon laser with her badass pistol and causing it to blow up...... that or missing him and severing his forlimb with a divine laser.
CLIFFHANGERS!!!
In all seriousness, though, this was an awesome chapter. Great action, can't wait for the next chapter.
That was a nail biter. Damn. Not helped at all by reading it in the middle of the night.
And then there were three cliffhangers in my fimfiction. I'm only glued to two, though, this one included. Anyways, write with Godspeed. Or something. Is that proper application of the term?
Hmm. So Cadence doesn't recall those 72 hours? Tsk. I bet she had some lovely bedroom conversations with Shining Armor after that little peccadillo.
Moon "lasers." (does Dr. Evil air quotes)
Eh, the world going white is Taxi nailing the cultist with one of those Shock 'n Awe flashbang rounds. Hardy will be renewing his acquaintance with the floor, possibly have another conversation with Juniper in the meantime, but his magical bug-heart will help him shrug it off twice as fast as a normal pony and he'll wake up just in time to see the ritual complete and get bits of Cerise all over him.
Calling it now.
I have to say, you nailed the cult with a lovely following, a mix of drugs, dogma, charisma. All perfectly cult-esque.
The question is, what enchantments are left on the gun, and how much of his moniker he is willing to live, or die up to.
However, there's something bugging me here. And i can't quite figure it right offhand.
4912530
Given that we've already been told that magical weapons (like his revolver) are prone to reacting in bizarre unpredictable ways when exposed to other magics, that doesn't seem too implausible.
4912501
"Next chapter ULTRA violence?!"
I know this is unrelated to the actual events of this time but I just want to say, poor Cadance. It sounds like she was possibly raped for three days. I bet it took half the Royal Guard to stop Shining Armor from beating that DJ to bloody pulp. I know I'd want to. And found in a dumpster, how hrrific, nopony deserves to be treated like that.
4913485 The Scholar passed me a note today that actually had a passing account by a member of the Detrot Hoofball team of those three days, but it couldn't be included in his actual article for obvious political reasons.
Cadance, Princess of Love, spent the first two days rutting everything she could get her hooves on, including twelve griffins, at least a third of a pet shop, a gathering of sports aficionados in town for a book signing, and an unknown number of mailboxes. Then she ate an entire doughnut shop and crawled into the dumpster to vomit.
She later described it, in private, as "A great time."
-Chessie
4913515 Well, that's certainly better than what I was thinking. Still I bet Shining wasn't happy with her or the DJ.
4913540 Shining was apparently amused enough to invite the DJ to host the next Crystal Ball, since this particular DJ also played their wedding. Incidentally, Beam remains legal in the Crystal Empire for some unknown reason. All attempts to make it illegal have met with political opposition.
It has made Equestrian prohibition efforts...difficult.
-Chessie
The... Scholar has updated his treatise to clear up any misunderstandings that may arise.
--CEO Kasen
If Hardy survives this, he's got to go buy a lotto ticket or something because he is one lucky SOB
4913551 Oh wow, did I just cause an update to the Scholar's book? Awesome!
Still don't know why Shining would be oday with his wife fucking anything with a pulse (and some things that don't, at least I hope the mailboxes didn't have pulses, but this is Equestria so who knows) for two days straight, but okay, guess he's just more liberal than most.
4913632 Meh, yeah. Honestly, outrage isn't something we're really looking to avoid (I personally spend my spare time tormenting the Social Justice crowd on Tumblr, largely because I have so many 'oppression points' they can't really give me shit) and portraying Cadence as a ravening slut is a giggle.
We needed a laugh for this Scholar's note, so you get this update. If we have a horrifying rape in anything, it probably won't be in the Scholar's note. Those are generally just supposed to be light comedy, so assume the best unless explicitly stated.
-Chessie
Well, you certainly weren't lying about pushing the boundaries of the "teen" rating.
4913704 Oh yes, I agree, portraying Cadence as a total slut is always fun, I just didn't think Shining would be happy about it, but it's cool. I mean it's either accept it or face the wrath of an unhappy wife right?
4912122
I feel your pain My friend. Worst. Cliffhanger. Ever.
-Angel of Team Angelfang
Jeez, what do the moon weapons DO to ponies?!
4913551
Shiny and Cadance are SUPER-freaks.
Pics or it didn't happen
Was that event in the opening before or after the Detrot Red Wings had to call off one of their games (which Cadence had gone to see) due to 'orgy'?
4914252 Think 'Cuisinart' meets light-saber.
-Chessie
4914791
Or at the very least VERY open-minded - but when your wife is the Princess of LOVE, I guess that's sort of a requirement - Isn't there a TSSSF card like that?
I dunno, but it certainly brings to mind the depiction of Cadance from defender2222's more comedic stories.
Every time I read a new chapter of this story I am reminded why I love it damn much. You were not kidding about the violence in this chapter, and it is only going to escalate from here I imagine. Those moon weapons act almost like projectile light sabers, and that is just not giving anyone else a chance. And for the record, I do not think Hardy is dead again because the last time he died it was completely unambiguous and we have yet to see what "Escape Plan B" is and why both Hardy and Limerence were adamant about not sharing that information with Taxi. And that Astral Skylark using her own followers as meat shields-despicable, deplorable, disgusting, and some other D-words. I feel so bad for Cerise and Jade. Cerise is just an innocent victim and Jade, despite her "strong" personality is just a worried mother and if it were not for Hardy's group interfering as they are Cerise would have been dead and no one would have known until is was far too late. And to top all of that off Skylark whatever her own ambitions are, is still following orders from someone that we either have not seen or do not suspect. Just how deep does the darkness run in this damn city?!
Anyway, keep up the good work Kasen and Chessie. 56 chapters and I am no less interested in reading this story now than when I started.
4915286
4914252
It does Bad Things (caps and all!) to anything in its blast range.
I would imagine the phrase "pink pony pâté paste" used somewhere in the description of the effects.
4913632
Essey post-boxes?! As if the regular postmen were not surly, and cantankerous enough! I would imagine Essey post boxes would be cheeky little gits that would tease you by withholding mail from you, crumpling important letters, and shouting the contents of anything private and embarrassing to all and sundry that happens to walk by.
"Bills? How boring! This letter from the Honourable Princess Nyanya from Zebrica looks much more interesting. Look! She even has a bank account she needs help with!"
"Hey! Hey everypony! SIG just got the test results back from the clinic! Would you like to know what the doctor says about that embarrassing rash?"
"I bet you want this gift-card from Kasen and Chessie at the Kangaroo Fancier's Club don't you? Well too bad. I shan't give it to you! I have a headache."
Equestria is doomed.
I am kind of surprised no one has commented yet on the fridge horror that is Cerise's predicament.
Skylark has Cerise so hopped up on meds and magic that she is able to compel Cerise to cast binding spells on herself but Hardy implies that Cerise is still conscious and very much aware under all those layers of binding, and compulsion, and drugs... Outwardly she looks calm (albeit trippin' and high as a kite from all the beam and magic), but inwardly she is shackled, screaming, in her mind and body, unable to do anything but watch helplessly as she takes walks herself to be gang-raped (body and mind!) before being soul drained and disposed of.
4916897
You will find next chapter...satisfying...methinks.
-Chessie
4916897 Yeah, and the little bastards were probably sold to ponies as "helpful assistants that will tell you when you have mail" or something like that.
Also, I didn't comment on Cerises situation because, it's just too awful to think about, poor girl.
I must say though I was glad to see Swift still being so cute and apologizing to the ponies she shoots.
so, hardy dies at the end of every act?
also, make the cadence story fic, 11/10 would read
4917827 Nahhh. We only had the one death planned for him.
Granted, he might die again. It's the problem with Hard Boiled. He keeps getting himself into situations where death is EXTREMELY likely.
I'll figure out if he lives next chapter. I've still got to work that out.
-Chessie
4920128 could simply be he lost a limb, or that swift shot the moon gun.
4920450 Of course. I mean, he could have been disemboweled a little, too. That would hurt, but I'm sure Gale could patch him up eventually, given a few weeks.
-Chessie
4920593 few weaks or plugging into the reserves tornaquet is using.
4920612 Granted, he might be dead.
Like I say, I haven't decided yet.
-Chessie
4917163
Oooohhh!
Looking forward to it! I hope Cerise gets a spot of comeuppance after everything she has been dragged through.
4915829
My guess is that it will involve unstable magics, high explosives, heroic self sacrifice, or a combination of all three. Maybe something forbidden and ancient artifact-y for an inside straight?
4917371
Bugger. I think we have just laid the groundwork for an Equestria version of Clippy...
4917827
4920128
Well it just so happens that Hardy is only mostly dead. Mostly dead means he is still slightly alive. All dead? Well, with all dead there is usually only one thing you can do—go through his pockets and look for loose change.
Act 2, Chapter 34: "Temple of Lost Souls"- Uuuuuuuuum.... Scooby-Doo? Shit if I know.
Well this chapter explained a lot of things.
In fact, the only thing that I still don't know/cant think of an answer to is whats up with that law company.
I guess that's for ACT3...
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Why'd it have to end on a cliffhanger like that?
I expected things to go crazy, but not the way they ended up happening. Once the bit about the crazy empathetic stuff that Beam users experience was explained, I was starting to worry about the lid being blown off the operation if one of the cultists started "feeling" the plan through Hardy or one of the others.
Also, crazy drug-addled dark ritualistic orgies. Yep, Hardy certainly has interesting experiences...
4921399 Clippy? Oh no, is that the annoying papercling thing from MS Office? NOOOO!!!
I think we need a spinoff story: The Adventures of a Crystal Princess.
If Hardy dies, then I will be sad. But I will continue to read this to see how the story continues. I WILL BE BACK FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!!!!