What Comes After Sunset
“One thing I gotta ask,” Strumming whispered from her hiding place. “Why’s everyone so sure the zombies are gonna come at night? Is it, like, a tradition thing? ‘Cause I’m also pretty sure traditional undead don’t come with steel-plated bones.”
I groaned and shifted about as best I could without giving away my hiding place in the positively arid sorghum field. “Is it really that important, Strumming?”
“Could be.” She somehow managed to turn around to face me without making a ton of noise in the process. “Just saying: if I was a sneaky necromancer guy who knew everyone was expecting me to attack in the dead of the night, I’d let everyone stay up all night waiting for me to make my move, then attack about two hours after sunrise. Catch everyone while they’re tired from being up all night.”
“Every attack so far has been at night,” Starlight hissed in reply.
“Which could just be the bad guy establishing a pattern so he can break it later,” Strumming countered. “You’d be surprised how much you can throw someone off by giving them an incorrect first impression.”
From the grin on her lips, I got the feeling she was trying to send some kind of message with that remark. Maybe some sort of commentary on our first meeting. In hindsight, a part of me had to wonder if her cover ‘accidently’ being blown was really an accident at all. She’d been a bit too ready to give me a nice long talking-to about how my current lack-of-a-plan wasn’t working, but at the time I was taken in by the goofball antics. Hay, I’d still been blindsided by her killing off the bokor even though I knew Strumming was a lot more dangerous than she looked.
I didn’t particularly like being reminded of that again, but it did bring one or two worthwhile facts to mind. “There’s a reason undead usually stick to nighttime: direct sunlight weakens necromantic energy. Some types of undead are outright destroyed by it, but almost all of them will be weakened by it.” I held up a hoof to forestall the inevitable objection. “Almost all of them. There are ways to get around that, though it comes at a price. That’s why we carved through the bokor’s zombies without any trouble. I don’t think these crazy metal and fire zombies can have that and be shielded against the sun too. They won’t melt or catch on fire or anything, but if they attack while the sun’s up they’ll be way weaker.”
Starlight grimaced suspiciously. “How do you know so much about undead, anyway?”
I was tempted to not even dignify her remark with a response, but there was a simple enough answer. “I knew we were coming to an island under attack by a bunch of freaky zombies. Are you really surprised I did some research on the ship ride over?”
Strumming nodded along thoughtfully. “So he wouldn’t gain much of an advantage from attacking us at a different time then? Not unless he’s got more than zombies and other things that ought to be dead to throw at us, anyways.”
“Pretty much, yeah,” I confirmed. “Unless he really caught us by surprise, attacking during the day wouldn't be worth weakening his own guys. As far as living minions go, we haven’t seen any sign of them, and it seems pretty unlikely since Puzzle didn’t mention anything about someone hiring up mercs.” I frowned and shook my head. “If we assume he has everything we can’t prove he doesn’t have, then he's got so many nasty tricks up his sleeve that our best move would be to load up on boats and get out.”
Starlight frowned at me. “You make that sound like getting everyone onto ships in an emergency would be easy.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Puzzle’s been making a couple subtle preparations for just in case we have to do that, but I’m not planning to back down unless that’s the only sane choice.” Everypony seemed to think I had some sort of hero complex, but I definitely had no interest in carrying out a heroic last stand. I like living, and being alive. Especially since the necromancer we were up against would probably try to animate my corpse after I died.
Starlight scowled at me. “Good, because abandoning the commune would pretty much ruin most of the ponies here. Everything they have is on this island, and without it most of them would probably end up being indentured servants.”
I grunted and nodded. “Which is why we only do that if the alternative is everyone dying. Poor is better than dead.” Or undead, considering we were up against a necromancer who would need to replenish his ranks after the fighting.
Starlight’s eyes flicked back to the freshly walled village. “Can't say I feel particularly good about leaving our backup plan to the greedy merc.”
Strumming huffed softly. “Well if you’re going to be talking that way about my boyfriend, I'm not sharing my chips with you.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “No badmouthing one of our buddies. Let’s just focus on winning so it doesn’t become—”
Strumming planted a hoof over my mouth, cutting off the rest of my sentence. Considering her hoof was covered in farm dirt, I wasn’t especially happy about that. “Hush.” One of her ears twitched to the side. “Heard something.”
Starlight and I didn’t argue the point, staying quiet and listening. After several seconds I made out the sounds of rustling in the distance, though that could’ve just been the wind. Then I spotted a brief flicker of green light.
“That's them alright, ”Starlight whispered.
While I normally wouldn’t want to follow Starlight’s lead, she did have far more experience in dealing with these particular nasties. I nodded and dropped my voice as low as I could. “Remember the plan: hit them hard enough to convince them we’re serious about it, then a fighting retreat to the sorghum field. Then we make our move.”
“Right,” Starlight grumbled under her breath. “The part of the plan where I convince them all to come after me, and hope you’re in time to save my butt. How did I let you talk me into serving as bait again?”
“I have a very trustworthy face,” I deadpanned. “And at least you’ll have me and Strumming backing you up for first stage of the plan.”
“That makes me feel sooo much better.” She took a deep breath, then started slowly trotting towards the flickering green lights, which were slowly getting closer and more numerous.
Strumming and I followed along behind her. As we walked, the pegasus slipped over to my side and whispered. “You know, if I was Puzzle, I would suggest that now might be a good time to eliminate a potential future problem.”
I might not have her completely figured out, but even I knew that suggestion was far more Strumming than Puzzle. Especially in light of what she’d done with the bokor earlier. I frowned and shook my head. “We might regret not having her around if things get too rough. She's got brute force and passable skill, and everything we’ve seen so far indicates this necromancer is bad news.” I shot a rather pointed glare Strumming’s way and added, “And as far as I know she’s not a warlock, so don’t get any ideas.”
Strumming held up her hooves in surrender, hovering off the ground. “Okay, okay, gotcha. No happy-fun-murder-time for her. Sheesh, you give me no joy...”
I scoffed and ignored her. Pushing her would just lead to more deflections and weird whimsical comments, and now really wasn’t the time for this conversation anyway. Not with dozens of gleaming metallic zombies slowly shambling towards us, eldritch green fire shining out of their mouths, eyes, and exposed ribs.
Starlight took the lead, lashing out with one of her completely unsophisticated blasts of pure kinetic force. It got the job done, albeit rather crudely, as it tore one of the approaching zombies to pieces.
Well, time to show her how an actual magus does things. Fire was out for the moment—we were outside of the area I’d prepared, but it still might spread to the rest of commune’s crops or accidently set off my trap early. Why risk having a freak accident ruin all my hard work?
Thankfully, unlike a certain dropout from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns who only used brute force spells, I had range. I opened up with a thin sheet of ice that cleanly bisected one of the oncoming zombies, then went outside my usual element with some electromagnetism. It took a lot more effort and concentration than my usual repertoire, but the results were worth it.
It started with a trio of zombies slowly leaning closer to each other. Once I’d confirmed that the spell would actually work, I upped the charge. That sent the two zombies flying through the air to collide with the one I’d magnetized, turning all three into one huge tangled cluster of limbs. Starlight surprised me by actually recognizing the opportunity I’d created, and blasting all three of them to pieces with her next attack.
Unfortunately, there were more where those three came from. A lot more. There were dozens of eerie green lights advancing towards us, and those were just the ones we could see. Starlight shot a nervous look my way. “That’s a lot more than we’ve seen before. I think we need to start falling back now.”
Considering the numbers, I was inclined to agree. There was a fine line between drawing them into the trap and letting them swarm all over us. If we let ourselves get cut off and surrounded, the plan would go out the window to the point that we’d be lucky to make it out alive. “Yeah, fall back. Not too quick, or whoever’s the brains behind these guys might get suspicious. We need to make it look like we’re actually trying.” I suited action to words by bisecting another zombie with a concentrated light blast. Starlight flinched just a little bit, since that was the same spell I’d used to put a hole through her horn when we’d fought.
Strumming threw out several darts, only to let out a frustrated grumble when none of them accomplished anything. “Blarg, it’s hard to get one of my darts through those steel skulls. Managed to get one of them through the eye socket, but otherwise...”
“Forget it,” Starlight snapped, lashing out with another kinetic blast. “We have this, you just watch our backs.”
Strumming shot off a cheeky salute. “Can do!” She spread her wings and took off. A couple seconds later she called down. “Move your butts! They’re trying to flank you!”
She certainly didn’t need to tell me twice. Starlight and I both fast-trotted back towards the field we’d set up, alternating with one of us pulling back while the other fired off a couple spells to keep the horde from closing in on us too quickly. Pretty soon we were back amongst the dried out sorghum stalks. They weren’t quite as dry as I would’ve liked, but considering the time limit I’d done a pretty good job.
We quickly fell back to the middle of the field, watching as the zombies slowly converged on our position. My eyes flicked back to Starlight. “Well, looks like part one of our plan worked. You ready for us to do something completely crazy?”
“I’m still not convinced that this is a good idea,” Starlight grumbled.
“Too late to back out now!” I grinned madly from the sheer adrenaline rush of what I was about to do. “Good luck!” I teleported away, leaving her all on her own to face the horde of zombies slowly closing the circle around her.
Starlight played her part to perfection, lashing out several more kinetic blasts. “Hey! You all looking for me?! Well here I am!” As the zombies closed in too thick for her blasts to do any good, she hastily threw up a shield spell to protect herself.
I looked up, and confirmed that Strumming had already started her part of the plan. A single pegasus couldn’t whip up nearly as much of a windstorm as I would’ve liked, but it’s not like I had a full team of weather ponies at my disposal. And even if I did, they’d probably stand out too much and give away what I was planning.
“I hope this works...” I closed my eyes and unleashed the fire.
The dried out sorghum field provided ample fuel, especially since I’d also scattered all the scrap wood and any other flammable trash through it. With the wind Strumming was whipping up to power the flames forward, it didn’t take long for the fire to escalate far beyond anything even I could hope to control.
The entire field lit up painfully bright, and got brighter and brighter for a few seconds as everything caught and flared at once, the shockwave of hot air hitting me like a gust in the middle of a thunderstorm. The zombies were just a jumble of dots in the great menagerie, and didn’t really stand out until the initial blaze died down. Unlike sapient beings, who would (vainly) try to stop, drop, and roll or else run for water when they felt themselves ignite, the undead horde kept trotting towards us until they collapsed on themselves like so many sticks of incense in a fireplace.
The fire burned so hot that it used its fuel pretty quickly, and before long the flames started dying down. Starlight’s shield dome was still in place, but I couldn’t see any zombies around it. Or much of anything, beyond fire, ash, and smoke.
I signalled Strumming, and she stopped stirring up the wind and grabbed a couple rain clouds we’d left on standby. She gave them a quick kick, and they started pouring down over the blasted remnants of the crop field. The fire wasn’t burning hot enough to be a threat to the zombies anymore, and there was no sense letting it spread and do more damage to the commune’s crops.
Once the fires died down to the point where I didn’t feel like I was standing next to an open oven, I allowed myself a little cautious optimism. “I think we're clear for the moment. You can drop the shield, Starlight.”
The dome slowly faded away, revealing a sweat-soaked and haggard-looking Starlight Glimmer. She warily looked around, her eyes resting on the half-melted, twisted remnant of the zombies that had surrounded her shield. “Looks like we got them.”
“Most of them, at least.” If the necromancer we were up against had half a brain, they would’ve kept some back as a reserve, not to mention there were probably a few stragglers. Still, we’d put a big dent in the enemy forces, and the bad guy would probably play it cautious for a bit to make sure we didn’t have any more nasty surprises. Which, unfortunately, we didn’t. “We’ve used up our ace in the hole, so I sure hope it was worth it.”
“We'll find out soon enough,” Starlight grunted out. “And if you made me go through that for nothing, we’re going to have a conversation you won’t enjoy. Assuming we’re in any condition to have a conversation about anything.”
“Yeah, all things considered if my biggest problem is listening to you whine about how hot it was inside your shield bubble, I’m gonna count this as a win.” I rather doubted thing were going to be that easy. It couldn’t be as simple as leading the zombies into a nice big fire pit, then burning them all to bits with a single spell.
We trudged through rain, making our way back towards the village proper. It was a pretty long walk, since a certain equality-obsessed unicorn insisted I burn the far field instead of something a bit closer. It didn’t help that now everything smelled like burned, wet zombie. Unsurprisingly, that was the sort of smell that made me glad I hadn’t had anything to eat since the stew Equal had given me for lunch.
We’d almost made it back to safety when we heard something come shrieking through the air. I whirled to face whatever was coming for us. A multicolored blur shot through the night sky, passing over our heads.
Starlight blinked in shock. “What in the world is—”
The blur slammed into the earth in front of us, cutting off our route to the wall. Now that it had stopped moving, I could finally get a good look at what we were dealing with: the dust settled to reveal a shining silver skeleton that had just enough strips of shriveled flesh attached to it to set my stomach turning. The few blue scraps of coat were mostly hidden by the tattered remains of some make of armor I didn’t recognize, and gleaming metal wings flared out its back, looking a bit like somepony had glued a set of chicken wings to a pony’s skeleton—though the joints at the shoulders showed that this … thing, whatever it was, used to be a pegasus. Fuchsia pinpricks glared back and forth between both of us through the vestiges of a prismatic mane. The revenant turned to my temporary ally, her eyes narrowing as a raspy growl echoed out of her shriveled throat. “You're gonna die, Starlight Glimmer.”
Starlight glowered at the beast, planting her hooves defiantly. “Sorry, I don’t have time to die tonight. I'm too busy.”
The revenant rushed forward with a snarl. I hurled a fireball at it, but the monster easily rolled to the side to dodge my attack, closing in on Starlight. She fared a bit better, quickly reestablishing her dome shield to hold the revenant off. The monster’s hooves slammed into the barrier with a sound like somepony dragging their hooves down a chalkboard, making me wince and throwing off my aim for my next attack.
With the revenant’s forward momentum gone lost for the moment, Starlight dropped her shield with a triumphant grin. “Hah! Dodge this!”
Starlight fired off a kinetic blast at point blank range. For a moment I was sure it would hit, until the revenant somehow managed to make a perfect ninety degree turn and accelerate away far faster than should’ve been physically possible. After the attack shot by the revenant, it paused for a moment, and while the shrivelled lips made it hard to tell, I could swear the thing was grinning cockily. “Okay. What else you got?”
The thing rushed forward again before Starlight could get her shield back up, slamming into her and wrapping its forelegs around her. Then its metallic wings began pumping furiously, hauling both of them up into the air.
With an extra pony weighing it down the creature was slow enough that I should be able to land a hit. The problem was that with her hanging onto Starlight there was no way to be sure I’d only hit the revenant. While Starlight wasn’t my favorite pony in the world, I didn’t hate her enough to be okay with turning her into collateral damage.
Starlight yelped out in shock as the revenant hauled her skywards. She squirmed and struggled against the revenant’s unnatural strength, and while she couldn’t get herself free, she did manage to line her horn up with the thing’s face. Then she did something more than a little insane, unleashing a point-blank kinetic blast.
The revenant had been ridiculously fast, but even it couldn’t dodge a shot from that close, it lost its grip on Starlight, spiralling away through the air.
That just left Starlight with the slight problem of being way too high up in the air. If I’d been up in the air I could’ve conjured up some ice wings, but as far as I knew Starlight didn’t have any spells like that. For all her raw power, I hadn’t seen much in the way of magical range from her; just shields, kinetic blasts, and basic spells like telekinesis.
Starlight’s horn lit up, and a second later she started glowing. It didn’t stop her from falling, but it did reduce her momentum a bit. I threw together a quick ice ramp to try and help her out. That should let her bleed off enough momentum so that she wouldn’t turn into a pony-shaped pancake when she reached the ground.
By the time Starlight arrived more-or-less intact on the ground, the revenant was coming for another pass. Starlight’s blast had ripped most of the skin off its face, leaving nothing but a grinning metal skull. Nasty as the injury looked, it didn’t seem to have slowed the monster down at all. “You’re going down, Starlight!”
“Oh, buzz off already!” Starlight shouted up at the creature. Next thing I knew she was tearing my ice ramp to pieces, setting the chunks of ice whirling around her in an improvised shield. As the revenant closed in on her she fired off a blast, shattering the block of ice into thousands of razor-sharp shards and hurtling them towards the monster.
It was a good idea, but the undead pegasus was just too quick. It must have been using its undead anatomy to its advantage, because no living pony could make such sharp turns without blacking out from the g-forces involved. Undead don’t really need to worry about things like cerebral hypoxia, considering their blood usually doesn’t flow at all.
The revenant shot through Starlight’s defenses with another couple quick turns, closing in on her. “You killed my friends!” the monster roared. “They’re all gone because of you!” It slammed a hoof right between Starlight’s eyes, and the unicorn collapsed bonelessly to the ground.
The revenant's momentum carried it past Starlight, but it quickly swung around for another pass. I quickly jumped in before it could finish her off, conjuring up a dome of ice over the downed mare. The monster whirled to face me, glaring with a mix of fury and incredulity. “Hey! You stay outta this!”
It came charging towards me, but I was ready for it. I threw up a huge sheet of fire around myself, leaving no way for the revenant to get through unscathed.
What I didn’t expect was for the revenant to just come charging straight through the wall of fire I’d set up. Once again, I hadn’t accounted for just how fast the thing was. The revenant’s mane and tail burned away and several patches of it’s withered skin melted, but it got through without any major structural damage. It lowered a shoulder and slammed right into my armored chest, bowling me over onto my back.
I tried to get back up, only to feel its hooves grab my shoulders and force me back down. The revenant glared at me, its fuschia eyes shining with eldritch light. “I said stay outta my way! You’re not Starlight, but if you get between her and me I’ll make you pay.”
I was about to try teleporting away to buy some space and time when the revenant just let me go and flew away. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did: revenants were usually out for revenge against a specific target. Considering the way the revenant kept going on about how Starlight had killed her friends, it wasn’t hard to guess who the target was. Since I wasn’t on the target list, it pretty much didn’t care about me.
Well, that at least confirmed what I’d suspected: Starlight was the target. Or at the very least, whoever was controlling all these undead had cut a deal with this revenant that had a grudge against Starlight. I definitely wanted to know more about how Starlight had supposedly killed the revenant’s friends, since Puzzle hadn’t mentioned Starlight going on a killing spree. Unfortunately, the revenge-crazed undead monster probably wouldn’t be willing to stop fighting and explain its reasons.
This did prompt my inner Puzzle Piece to point out a couple facts. If the revenant was that focused on Starlight, it probably wouldn’t care about what I did as long as I didn’t interfere with its goal. I could easily get back behind the town walls and support the rest of the defenders. Yeah, that would mean leaving Starlight all on her own, but ... well it’s not like I had any compelling reason to put my life on the line to protect her. For all I knew, the revenant might have a completely legitimate reason to want her dead. Maybe Starlight really had killed it and all its friends, and it was out for righteous revenge.
On the other hoof, that was a pretty big ‘maybe’. If Puzzle really was keeping a close eye on Starlight, there was no way he’d miss something like her going on a murder spree. Maybe the revenant was just a crazy undead monster with an irrational fixation on Starlight. It’s not like a necromancer putting together an army of undead minions would have any qualms about lying to a revenant to secure its loyalty.
Bottom line, I wasn’t going to throw Starlight to a bunch of creepy undead monsters. Not unless I got something a lot more convincing than one revenant doing a little insane ranting. Though I probably should time my next move carefully—if the revenant was willing to ignore me so long as I wasn’t a threat to its goal, then I should use that to make sure that my next move counted. No sense wasting time and energy throwing out more fireballs that almost certainly wouldn’t hit considering how fast that thing could dodge.
I shook my head and got my mind back in the game. Starlight was blasting away at the revenant, which was easily dodging her attacks. I was a little surprised the creature wasn’t pressing the offensive, but maybe it wanted to let her wear herself out for a bit. After all, undead don’t get tired like living ponies.
After several more failed attacks, Starlight screamed in frustration. “Okay, that’s it! I’ve had bucking enough of you!” She threw another shield over herself, then grunted with effort as her horn started blazing. After a couple seconds one of the nearby houses let out a groan of protest, then slowly ripped itself apart, the chunks of debris flying over to circle around Starlight in deadly whirling shield. She grinned savagely, speeding up the debris so that not even the revenant’s unnatural speed would be enough to get through. “Bring it!”
The revenant scoffed. “Consider it brought.” It zipped down at her, but instead of trying to break through the barrier it started circling around her in a prismatic blur. The thing had a lot more wingpower than Strumming, and pretty soon it had whipped up a windstorm that put the one Strumming produced to shame.
Starlight blinked as she realized she was about to be in the center of a tornado and quickly shifted tactics. Instead of keeping the debris around herself, she hurled it all into the tornado, blasting several of the larger chunks to turn them into deadly shrapnel.
Even the revenant’s speed and reflexes weren’t enough to handle that, and a particularly large chunk of log smacked it out of the air. The impact left one of its hind legs bent at an unnatural angle, but considering the thing hadn’t touched the ground once since the fight started I wasn’t going to count that as much of an advantage. Starlight seemed to enjoy her little victory though, laughing mockingly. “What’s the matter, was that too much for you? ‘Cause I can go a little easier on you if you can’t handle it.”
“You’d already be dead if Sunset hadn’t butted in!” the revenant snapped back. I was briefly curious about how it knew my name, but it had probably just heard someone say it during the battle. The creature shot up into the sky, grabbing several of the clouds Strumming had left behind. “Eat this!” It slammed its hooves into the clouds, firing off a pair of lightning bolts.
Starlight still had her shield up to catch the lightning bolts, but she let out a grunt when they hit and I noticed sweat on her brow. I was also willing to bet that she was hurting from the hits the revenant had landed on her, even if she was trying not to show it. She snarled and glared furiously up at the undead pegasus. “I knew you'd chicken out!” With an enraged scream, she hurled the remains of the house up at the revenant, but none of the big, slow-moving chunks even came close to hitting.
I frowned and carefully approached as close as I could without putting myself in danger. “Starlight, I think we need something it can’t dodge.”
“What do you think I've been trying?!” Starlight snapped at me. “I just tossed a house at her! If you’ve got any bright ideas, do something!”
I grunted and nodded, since she had a point. I thought back to the fight with the zombies, and took advantage of the fact that the revenant wasn’t focused on me to pull together another electromagnetism spell. If I could stick its wings together magnetically, the thing would be a lot less dangerous.
That plan ran into a snag pretty quickly—unlike the zombies, the revenant’s metal bits didn’t have any iron or other magnetic metals in them. I guess the necromancer had the resources to buy something a bit fancier for his elite heavy hitter. Probably mithril, considering how fast the thing was moving.
The revenant didn’t even notice my attempt to attack it, staying completely focused on Starlight. Instead it dodged past Starlight’s attempts to swat it out of the sky, pausing between dives to let out a loud yawn. “Face it, you're just too slow.” It stopped toying with her, rushing forward with a metallic shriek from its wings as it zoomed in for the kill.
Starlight eyes flicked down to the ground, and she ripped up a wall of dirt to block the revenant’s attack. The instant I realized what she was doing I knew she’d messed up, and unfortunately the revenant spotted it too. It easily zipped over and around the physical barrier, then slammed into Starlight from behind, sending her flying back into the very wall she’d built. I heard something crack when she hit, and Starlight shrieked in pain. The revenant chuckled and shook its head. “Wow, lame. Are you even trying, or did you just decide to give up?”
I’d been hoping to hold back until I could land a decisive hit, but that plan was obviously out the window. Instead, I threw another shield over Starlight to buy her a bit of time to recover. As expected, the revenant immediately whirled around to face me again. “I said stay outta this! I swear, you interfere again and I’m gonna give you the same treatment she’s getting. Got it?” The undead shot up into the air, gathering up more lightning clouds.
Starlight groaned and struggled back to her hooves, wincing when she put weight on one of her forelegs. I dropped the shield I’d been holding over her to hopefully keep myself off the revenant’s list, and she quickly replaced it with one of her own. Sweat was pouring down her face, and she was keeping her wounded leg up in the air. “So, if you’ve got any brilliant plans, I’m all ears.”
I did have one plan, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t like it. “You know how you managed to land a solid hit when she grabbed you?”
Starlight grunted and nodded. “Yeah, because she couldn't dodge at that range.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “She's too fast to hold off at long range; she’ll have enough time to dodge whatever you throw her way. But if you can get her point blank again...”
Starlight grimaced. “Easier said than done.”
I didn’t quite agree with her on that point, considering the revenant seemed to like getting in close to hit her. “You'll probably have to let her get close enough to land a couple hits,” I conceded. Considering how hard the monster could hit that wasn’t the best plan, but it’s not like what Starlight had been doing so far was working all that well. Trading punches with the revenant might be her best option, especially since Starlight could hit pretty hard.
Before we could put that plan into action, the revenant zipped across all the clouds it had gathered, unleashing a torrent of lightning bolts that came crashing down on Starlight. I quickly jumped into the air and grabbed some wooden debris to land on; I did not want to have my hooves in the rainwater from Strumming’s clouds when all that lightning hit.
Starlight’s shield held up against the assault, but I could see it buckling and crackling under the pressure. As the acrid stench of ozone hung in the air, Starlight sighed and nodded to me. “Right, your plan sucks, but I guess I’m going to have to give it a try.” She glared up defiantly at the revenant and shouted as loud as she could. “Come on! Is that all you got?! Just gonna sit back and let the clouds do all the hard work for you? Fight me like a mare, face-to-face!”
“Fine!” The revenant bellowed out, barreling down towards her at a speed that probably would’ve made any living pegasus black out. As she closed in Starlight tried to grab the incoming creature with her telekinesis. The spell was doomed to fail—using telekinesis against an unwilling pony never works due to our natural magical resistance—but it did break the momentum of her charge for a critical second. Not enough to stop her, but enough to ensure that she didn’t hit Starlight with bone-shattering force.
Instead, the revenant decided to repeat the same move it had used at the opening of the fight, grabbing her and hauling her skyward. This time, instead of trying to break loose Starlight grabbed onto the creature with her good leg. The revenant snorted when it realized what she was doing. “Guess you're tired of living, murderer.”
“First off, I really don’t know what you’re talking about, ‘cause I haven’t killed anyone,” Starlight replied. Then she grinned, lighting up her horn. “And second, there's a method to my madness.” She leveled her horn at the revenant’s chest.
With its face blasted away I couldn’t have seen any expression on the undead creature, but I definitely heard the panic in its voice. “Oh, horseapples!” It reversed course, dive-bombing towards the ground at maximum speed.
Whatever its plan was, it didn’t pull it off in time. Starlight unleashed her kinetic blast right into the revenant’s chest, ripping it to pieces. The point-blank blast sent her flying back, and this time I didn’t see her horn lighting up to try and stop her fall. I threw together another ice ramp to catch her, but this time she was falling a lot faster and wasn’t helping me out. When she hit the ground, it was hard enough to make me wince. She didn’t get back up.
I rushed over, throwing a basic diagnostic spell her way. I was a long way from an expert in medical magic, but I knew enough to do basic first aid. The spell at least confirmed that she’d survived, though the list of abrasions, contusions, cracked or broken bones, and other miscellaneous injuries was long enough to tell me she had a long hospital stay to look forward to. Assuming shock or some other complication from her numerous injuries didn’t kill her before we got her to a hospital.
I was still checking her injuries when I felt it. Some sixth sense I must have acquired during all the battles I’d been in since moving to Freeport made my muscles tense up, and a second later I saw the flicker of green light approaching. This wasn’t another one of the zombies, though.
For starters, it was big. Celestia-sized, maybe even bigger. The comparison to Celestia was pretty apt, because the thing had both a horn and a huge set of membranous wings with exposed metal where the bones would normally be. Its ribcage was completely open, showing a mass of eldritch green light where the organs ought to be, and its face was a similarly exposed skull with green fire pouring out of its eye sockets and mouth. I couldn’t tell if it was wearing armor, or if the metal was all part of its skeletal structure.
I squared my shoulders and turned to face what could only be the necromancer behind the undead army. “I am Magus Sunset Shimmer. In the name of Freeport and Council, you are under arrest for necromancy, attempted murder, and a whole bunch of other crimes.”
The necromancer chuckled, its jaw bobbing up and down. “Is that so? Well, in that case introductions are in order: I am Magus Rising Fire of Equestria’s Sombra Resistance Army. In the name of a murdered world and millions of innocents annihilated by her actions, I am placing Starlight Glimmer under arrest.”
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The necromancer chuckled, its jaw bobbing up and down. “Is that so? Well, in that case introductions are in order: I am Magus Rising Fire of Equestria’s Sombra Resistance Army. In the name of a murdered world and millions of innocents annihilated by her actions, I am placing Starlight Glimmer under arrest.”
"Equestria's Sombra Resistance Army."
I call Time travel/alternate universe shenanigans.
unexpected hijinks! I like it! Especially Zombie Rainbow Dash. They overshot the correct universe it seems, and decided that any Starlight Glimmer would do.
Yep... time travel hijinks it seems. Zombie Rainbow Dash was interesting. I wonder who the zombie alicorns was.
Okay then, I'm pretty much voting Starlight off the island here. When you first began describing the zombie pegasus I was suspicious, but this new undead alicorn pretty much nails it. They have a pretty legit grievance against Starlight, and clearly went through the effort of travelling back in time either to prevent the calamity she unleashed by killing/capturing her, or for revenge. Given her own predilections for meddling in the past of innocent ponies, I don't even think one could defend her as being innocent of those actions yet either. So toss that crazy bitch away.
7669977
That's assuming they actually did overshoot it. They might be hoping to undo what she did in the first place by going after her before started jacking up their history. Unless separate parallel universes are at play here, which for the sake of a dead world, I hope it's not.
7670160
Well in that case they overshot chronologically, rather than dimensionally.
You fools! Now Starlight knows that time travel is possible!
7670160 It would be worse for them , Starlight created that timeline. If they really stop her they would fade away into nothingness
7670205
Well, if the idea is to stop her before she can meddle, there's technically no such thing as "too soon". At least they're not going after her as a child.
7670261
I dunno man, resetting everything at best, or ceasing to be at worst both seem like preferable states of existence than being the last tortured, zombified remains of an annihilated planet. They're not exactly sexy vampires living up the nightlife after all.
And we're in Terminator Territory.
Ohohohoho, this is getting good
Huh... I think I get it. They're from a later point in the alternate Sombra War timeline, one where Equestria lost the war. This makes sense why they're so focused on Starlight; she techincally caused those deaths when she changed the timeline. Though it does bring up the question; how did they know it was Starlight that created the timeline? There shouldn't be any way they should know.
I was wondering why that revenant sub-boss talked a lot like Rainbow Dash. I haven't read the main Winningverse stuff (not much interest), but didn't think anything had happened that could have turned her into a zombie. And now the sins of the future are already coming to haunt Starlight.
Looks like all that talk of morality just got even more complicated. If Strumming, or even Puzzle, find out that in a few more years Starlight wrecks time and space, or rather has the potential to... well, they might join the necromancer and take Starlght out first. Forget about forgiving past crimes, now the debate might turn to allowing future crimes to happen?
Oh, can't wait to find out how all this ends, and what Sunset decides to do. I hope she can hold on to her ideals, but Freeport really isn't the place for that kind of thing, and with this latest twist... oh dear.
Now THIS is frigging awesome. That was a badass fight scene. Of course, I should mention the awesomeness of Rainbow Dash holding her own against two of Equestria's most powerful unicorns --- all while being DEAD.
Also, it should go without saying, but as involving Rainbow Dash and zombies, this is a million-billion times better than "28 Pranks Later."
Though I guess I should stop enthusing long enough to recognize that Starlight may have caused the death of a whole world, an entire reality.
Whups.
Rainbow Dash is a zombie?
Starlight is a mass murder?
Sombra is leading a rebellion?(Snaps fingers)
Undead everywhere you turn? (Takes pipe and deerstalker from Pinkie)
The plot thickens!
Shouldn't his name be Firing Squad? :P
Though how much easier would it have been to go and burn the spell she used instead?
7670575 There's a bunch of morality issues regarding trying to punish someone for something they have yet to do. Also, because someone from an alternate timeline shows up and says someone will violate one of the big rules for magic, doesn't mean they will break that rule now as you can keep an eye on them or take passive measures to prevent it.
7670598 I think it's supposed to be an anti-Sombra resistance force, not a rebellion he's leading.
While I did pick up on the bit of similarity for the revenant, was thinking it was more coincidence so the whole time-travel was a cool reveal. Thinking on it, I'm guessing this is roughly about the time the mane 6 gets their cutie marks, hence why Starlight is being attack at this point in time.
7670564 I DO love this new tempered version of Starlight, but there is something to be said about Canon Starlight. Canon wise she is VERY morally grey. I mean let's not forget she used MIND CONTROL to get through her friendship lessons faster. Canon Starlight still is in serious danger of "The road to Hell is paved with GOOD INTENTIONS" kind of thing. Where she did BAD THINGS to do good.
Still, I think it's important to see how both will be developed.
I am also VERY curious to see how this will all turn out
7671754 Actually (playing devil's advocate), the mere fact that Revenant-Dash and Rising Fire still exist could be seen as proof-positive that Starlight did/will carry through with her time-travel shenanigans and is therefore guilty of any and all consequences of said time-travel. And, well, planetcide trumps every other crime there is ...
Why do I have a feeling some of the Undead recently killed/burned were alternate universe members of the Mane Six and other Ponyville residents? Might be interesting if we get a undead Lyra to deal with Heartstrings.
7671754 I agree, it's a big time mess of ethics when you get to the "kill baby Hitler" question. And that's when dealing with somebody who deliberately committed genocide. Starlight caused such disasters by accident via butterfly effect so it becomes even more muddy how culpable she is due to the laws of unintended consequence and the historian fallacy.
7672214 Actually they could still be there even if she doesn't try to change the timeline. DBZ provides a good example for how that would work. Trunks went back in time, and so did Imperfect Cell. Trunks destroyed the lab in the past where Cell was being made, but Imperfect Cell still existed.
7672564 Celestia probably ordered them to drop the bounty, although she would probably help arrange for them to go see her, if they agreed not to try to force her back. Also, don't know if Celestia hoof-waved the charges leveled at Sunset by the EIS away or not so bringing her back could cause her to end up in court.
7672962
The baby Hitler question is nonsense anyway. If you could go back in time like that, it would make more sense and be less monstrous to either kill him as a young adult- yet still before he rose to power, or take the baby/his family and make sure he is raised to not be a genocidal lunatic. Seeing as how the undead remains of the future most certainly cannot give care to a foal who caused that future in her adulthood in the first place, killing or capturing(most likely killing) her as an adult would seem to be the only real alternative. I'm also of the opinion that if someone caused a catastrophic fuck up via instigating time travel shenanigans in the first place, they themselves are subject to be brought down in the same manner, no matter the circumstances, especially if it could undo the mess they will cause/are causing/caused.
7673044 Actually with regards to Hitler the best way to stop him is to prevent Franz Ferdinand from being assassinated. Plus one life gained, and prevention of WW1 which lead directly to WW2.
Anyway you yourself pointed out there are better options than murder. What's more, you're assigning culpability for unintended consequences. That's a dangerous president to set. It wasn't like she went back in time to help Sombrero win or anything like that. She was doing something unrelated.
7673075
I'm no WW2 historian, but I was under the impression all of Europe was a powder keg at the time. If that dude hadn't been shot that day, something else more than likely would've triggered it. There are far too many variablea to account for in preventing WW 1 or 2, even nixing hitler as a baby. Plus, we don't know how history would turn out if WW2 was prevented. It's possible, though unlikely, the world or specific regions could be even worse off.
That isn't the case with post-apocalyptic equestria. We know from the arrival of these undead that the planet is all but destroyed, it's people dead or undead. They literally have nothing to lose, and everything to gain by taking care of Starlight, one way or another. And hey, if she had accidentally caused the death of a town, I'd say jail her for life with the possibility of parol. She accidentally killed a planet. Misunderstandings only take you so far.
Typing on a phone so forgive bad spelling and paragraphs.
7673091 Eh WW1 wasn't that simple. Seriously, when you study how many times it almost didn't happen after that assassination because of various circumstances and people actively seeking to not have a giant war break out your jaw will drop. If this was a work of fiction you'd call the writer insane for having to have all these outlandish contrivances happen one after another after another after another after another after another after another after another and then another happen because of a lazy mail courier and then you get to the start of WW1. It's bonkers.
Also if killing her would work they wouldn't be able to travel back in time to kill her because if they succeed they'd never exist to go back and kill her, etc. Therefore they either have to fail and the past is immutable, or they jumped to a parallel timeline ala DBZ and so they can't actually change their past.
Is it just me, or did an undead Rainbow Dash terminator just show up and attempt to assassinate Starlight? Some sort of crossover mission from one of the time loop bad ends?
Sounds like a yes. Which is interesting, since that is also an indication that Winningverse canon is going to continue to mirror show canon at least up through the end of season five. That makes sense considering how this Starlight has been working up to her equalist philosophy, but given the differences with Moondancer I had been a bit uncertain.
7673641
Well that's why time travel unravels quickly if you try to examine it too closely. It's inherently bullshit if you try to follow it logically. By that same token, Starlight going back in time using the cutie map should have failed because it wouldn't have existed in any of the futures/presents she created because Twilight never ascended, much less had a crystalline tree fort where the map came to be. So she would have had no cutie map to jury rig to go back in time in the first place, etc. It only continued to exist because the writers literally had to shoehorn it in for the story to go back to normal at the end of the episode. That's pretty much what you have to do for time travel stories- make an exception and say "good enough, now shut up".
7673681 Agreed. This is why ethical philosophy with time travel is so hard. Trolley tests are hard enough.
7673091
Europe was actually pretty stable in 1913-1914. All the treaties essentially meant that nobody could attack anyone else (it was basically pre-nuclear mutually assured destruction (MAD)). When Austria-Hungary (AH) mobilized they called on Prussia (Germany) who gave a pretty vague response. It was misinterpreted by AH and Russia; AH to go ahead with their attack and Russia that Germany was mobilizing. In response Russia mobilized and called on the other members of the Triple Entente, The Third Republic (France) and the British Empire to do so as well. Then the Prussians attacked France (they had a long history of not getting along) which led to Russia and Britain declaring war. To be honost WWI was escalated by various nations trying to meet their own little goals and pressures inside the countries (nationalist sentiment, thinking that war was good for nations, etc.). A few people actually in the right state of mind and larger powers (Russia and Prussia (who didn't really intentionally mobilize, it just sort of happened) primarily) not mobilizing and WWI probably would have stayed as a tiny regional conflict.
7674256
Well shucks, like I said I'm no expert on that sort of thing, just a few barely remembered history discussions in college. I actually really enjoy history, in that I find it strangely entertaining, but it sadly doesn't stay fresh in my mind very long.
Technically, it was Twilight that killed everyone when she chose to go back in time and wipe that world from existence.
Starlight's actions only contributed to its birth, not its death.
7678888 I don't think you can have it both ways... either the futures that Starlight created continued as alternate realities after Twilight stopped Starlight, or they all were reset each time and there's only one reality, where nothing horrible happened and pretty much everyone is alive and fine.
Oh god time travel again? Starlight what did you do now?
7679209 I agree but if the other reality still exists then why are they after this Starlight and not their own?
7679209
I'm not saying anything about it being both ways. I'm saying that it wasn't Starlight who murdered the King Sombra universe, it was Twilight.
Starlight went back in time once, killing off the original timeline. But after that, it was Twilight who cast the time spell over and over, killing off all the other timelines. Starlight just went along for the ride thanks to the fail safe in her spell sending her back five minutes earlier than Twilight each time Twilight cast the spell.
7679676
What I'm saying is that, if there is only one timeline, then Sombra-Timeline Rainbow Dash (for example) was reverted to Regular-Timeline Rainbow Dash when Twilight fixed things. Twilight didn't "murder" any timeline or wipe anyone out of existence in this case, she just altered it to give everyone a better life.
If however Sombra-Timeline was an alternate reality that branched off when Starlight changed things then there is no reason that Twilight traveling back in time herself and stopping Starlight would 'end' it. It would continue on as an alternate reality. There would be realities where Starlight did change things and ones where she didn't. All that's really being altered is which timeline Twilight ends up living.
7679350
Well, going by the look and words of these ponies, I'm assuming that they're from a timeline where the War with Sombra continued on until an apocalyptic ending for Equestria.
Assuming that it's an alternate reality that continues, it's possible they eventually know that this war can be blamed on a Starlight Glimmer from before their timeline diverged because Twilight blabbed things to war-time Applejack in "The Cutie Re-mark":
Twilight Sparkle: Another pony named Starlight Glimmer used this map to travel through time and change things in the past. For some reason, the map's here but everything else is different!
Applejack: Different how?
Twilight Sparkle: Well, for one thing, where we come from, there's no war with King Sombra.
Or they might simply be able to track how and when reality has split through magical means... they would need a rather advanced ability to navigate time and alternate realities to even find the "right" Starlight in the first place. In any event, punishing Starlight wouldn't actually change things for them (again, because of the alternate reality thing), but if their world is truly a burnt-out husk, then getting some revenge on someone responsible might be motive enough (even if it just leads to yet another alternate reality. Hell, maybe they just keep jumping realities to punish Starlight as many times as they can.) Or maybe they figure that each Starlight they kill is another timeline saved from their fate.
7679784 Makes me think that this is some kind of Space-Time loop thing for Starlight.
Oh shit! It's Time Cop!
...Sooo...the alternate timelines somehow bleed together here?...
You know, one the one hand, this is the coolest twist ever, and I love where this is going.
On the flipside, this idea is so cool that I know it's inevitably going to peter out or get deflected to preserve the integrity of the universe. I mean, this could potentially hold massive revelations for Starlight and Sunset about themselves and their lives, but sadly they would be so massive that truly encountering them would hijack their character development and thus will be avoided even though that would be the coolest hijacking ever.
Ah well, I, like all fools, shall hold out hope that this will actually turn out to be relevant and not just a case of "Oh, I wonder what happens when she learns... aaaaaand they've decided the necromancer is insane and have disregarded everything they've said."
Oh, so that's where we're going with this, here I was thinking we were dealing with Awesomemom's long lost parents or something.
7670582
More like six or seven...
Try a bucket of water?
But have you tried being dead?
As far as you know ... it would be devious for somepony to set up a threatening-but-not-actually-dangerous zombie invasion to get herself elected to a leadership position.
... are we sure Strumming's not a psychopath?
That depends - how many chapters are left?
Who does Starlight practice her witty comebacks with?
Shouldn't this be coming from your inner Strumming, not your inner Puzzle?
Or maybe you're not considering all the undead as the friends so mentioned.
Well, that's ... unusual. Also suspiciously difficult to prove in court.
Is that the Time Police?
Yeah that would suck.
Why does the revenant sound like Rainbow Dash got turned into Terminator?
Well the most likely explanation, given that RD isn't even born yet. (or at least is very young) is that she came from the future. My guess is that she is from one of the alternate realities that Starlight created when she tried to take her revenge on Twilight and the M6. Maybe the war with the Chrystal empire escalated into something like Fallout Equestria and the survivors decided to turn what was left of their hero RD into the perfect killing machine and send her back in time to kill
Sara ConnorStarlight Glimmer in order to prevent the apocalypse.Either that or the necromancer is from a timeline where Nightmare Moon or Twilight went full darkside and turned the element bearers into Nazghuls.
It really says something when the most likely explanation involves time travel. Not complaning, it could be cool, but now I am equal parts curious and horrified.
So Rainbow Dash is a zombie in this? Sure, why not?