Chapter 58
For a moment, Flicker entertained the peculiar idea that the Canterhorn was now a rat volcano as the rats erupted from everywhere. They poured from the drains in the street, crawled out of rain gutter pipes, popped out of waterspouts, and were vomited out of the mouths of decorative stone gargoyles. They kept coming in a vast swarm, up out of the sewer, bringing with them filth, stench, and disease. In perhaps the most ominous, most dire moment of this dreadful day, a strange near-silence now permeated the thin air of Canterlot, a silence that somehow existed with the sinister, reedy whine of Piper’s piping.
The rioters had stopped and were now huddled together, their eyes wide and filled with terror as the endless swarm manifested. The makeshift militia had also gone almost silent, with fearful whinnies and knickers coming from the youngest and the smallest.
The silence was dispelled by Lord Fancy Pants’ cultured voice crying, “Merciful alicorns! Vermin! Protect the citizenry at all costs!”
The noble, commanding voice of Lord Fancy Pants broke the spell and everypony present recovered from their shock just enough to begin moving again. The rioters broke ranks and many began to flee; pegasus ponies flew away to safety, unicorns gifted with a surplus of magic winked away in bright flashes of light, and earth ponies stampeded away, their hooves clattering over the cobblestones.
Even though many fled, more stayed, rooted to the spot from terror, sides heaving, panting, their eyes wide with panic. Each of them began to push and shove one another, trying to get to the center of the herd, to safety, leaving the smallest and the weakest to their fate on the outer edges of the herd.
It was the sort of chaos that Discord himself would have admired, appreciated even.
The rats kept coming and Flicker wondered just where they were all coming from. There were too many, far too many, and his heightened rat sense suggested that this wasn’t natural at all. A little voice in the back of his head suggested that Piper might have uncovered something vast entirely by accident, and Flicker had a hazy, almost panicked recollection that there were miles of old mines and tunnels under Canterlot.
Miles of old mines and tunnels that might be filled with rats.
Piper was pressing against him, terrified. He could feel the hard edges of her riot armor snagging and catching against his own. They had come to put down the gathered protesters, to stop a riot, and now, there was about to be a full scale battle. What bothered Flicker in the heat of the moment was the fact that he might not have kept his word, such as it was, because everything was not okay, things were not okay at all. This was just about as far from okay as one might get.
“Piper, stop calling the rats!”
A firehose had become a hazard and it flailed about like a berserk serpent, shooting a high pressure jet of water in every conceivable direction. Flicker had to scramble to avoid being injured and he pulled Piper and some other earth pony from the Canterlot Military Academy with him as a group of pegasus pony guards flew in to tackle the slap-happy hose.
When this fracas had started, all ranks had been facing the rioters, the protestors, with the oldest and most experienced up in the front and the smallest and most vulnerable in the rear. Now, with the rats, they were surrounded on all sides and ill prepared for the melee mayhem that was now taking place. Some of the protesters had joined the militia—panicked though they might be—and this lead to the strange, surreal sight of ponies wearing riot armor fighting alongside ponies in business suits.
Shattered glass was everywhere and it crunched underhoof while threatening to slice into tender, vulnerable frogs. Moving, reacting without thought, Flicker lifted the earth pony foal from the military academy and put him up on top of a second story balcony, up and out of the way of the chaos. Flicker had a plan, he had an idea, but for it to happen, he needed control.
He remembered how Wicked had dealt with the spider-hag and knew that would work here, but only after ponies were safe. He picked up a fallen riot shield from the military academy and began pushing his way through the crowd like a bulldozer, using his brute force telekinesis to plow right through the throng all while dragging Piper along behind him.
As he smashed and battered his way through the crowd, Flicker clubbed rats with his truncheon, striking them with enough force to turn them into a fine, chunky-hairy paste on the cobblestones. The street was already flooding, filling with about an inch or two of water, which flowed in faster than the drains could flow out. The guards who had wrangled the berserk firehose were now using it to try and put out a fire, which only added to the chaos.
Some fool had dropped a tear gas grenade and it had gone off, filling the area with choking, snot-inducing smoke. Flicker was thankful for his gas mask, even if it wasn’t his real face. Wicked and Doctor Sterling were already turning the tide, forming a tiny island of order amidst the hullabaloo all around them. Mister Balister’s barking commands fell upon the ears of the younger members of the Canterlot Military Academy and they recognised him as a voice of authority. His hard, flinty demeanour brought reassurance and courage to the young fillies and colts that would one day be officers and soldiers.
Another firehose was in use now, Moonlit Gambit had it held in the firm grip of his magic and he was firing controlled bursts at groups of swarming rats while trying not to hit protesters. Beryl Waltz, meek though he might be, stood beside Moonlit in the thick of the fight, performing first aid on those with grievous, bloody injuries. The swarming rats were voracious and blood thirsty.
“Wicked!” Flicker shouted when he was close enough. “I have an idea!”
“Let’s ‘ear it, Lad!” Wicked barked in reply.
“Clear the protesters from the area, flood the street, and hit the rats with electricity!”
“That’s a damn good idea, Lad!”
Some semblance of order was now being restored, the suggestion of order, a thin veneer that was spread over the swirling chaos. The protesters were being evacuated out and the rats were being pressed in. Injured protesters were flown out by rather green pegasus pony guards, these were rather unseasoned soldiers that had never seen a real battle before and their panic was obvious.
A group of unicorn foals from the Canterlot Military Academy had formed makeshift phalanxes with riot shields, a moving wall that stretched the entire width of the street, and these phalanxes had formed a crude corral of sorts, keeping the rats in. Stout, stocky earth pony foals from the academy had been hitched to delivery wagons, fruit and vegetable carts and the like, forming makeshift ambulances that hauled away the injured and the mauled.
There were so many injured.
Piper, now in a place of safety, was calling the rats again, and while the those under the influence of swarming were immune to her charms, she continued to draw in quite a number of those who were not. Doctor Sterling and Beryl Waltz had set themselves up a place of triage inside of a shop. Those with the worst injuries were carried up to the second floor to the balcony to waiting pegasus ponies who would carry them off to awaiting makeshift ambulances or fly them to the hospital directly, depending upon the severity of their injuries.
Flicker, now armed with not one, but two heavy rubber truncheons, did what he did best, while also getting some practice in with the complicated Dimachaerus fighting style. He battled alongside Wicked, keeping his wise, experienced leader safe from swarming, gnawing rats while Wicked prepared for a mass extermination. Some of the rats were hefty, there was a surplus of two-footers, and a disturbing number of rats were of the unbelievable variety, the rodents of unbelievable size.
Which didn’t matter to Flicker, who smashed them, cudgelled them, and crushed them, his rubber truncheons moving in a plain, uncomplicated manner. Wherever Wicked moved, Flicker cleared the way, clubbing rats and shoving ponies out of his path. Everything was being funneled into a roundabout, a circular section of road with an alicorn statue in the middle, which was where Piper was located, standing atop the statue’s broad back.
The streets that fed into the roundabout were swarming with rats, who were being pushed in by the phalanxes and drawn in by Piper’s magic. Fire hoses were being used to push the rats into the very center of the roundabout, as well as drench them, if the force of the spray didn’t kill them outright.
The pitched battle harkened back to the dark old days, the bad old days when equinekind and the lowly rat were locked in a never ending battle, with the rats seeking the shelters and the supplies of ponies, and ponies seeking to keep their unwanted visitors out. The militia and the protesters were now allies, united against a common foe. The feeling of unity was strong and the herd had come together to behave as one again.
An old pegasus mare landed on top of the alicorn statue beside Piper and began giving orders—Flicker realised what the problem was with the militia, most of the ponies in the militia were either too old or too young—and the experienced soldiers were almost all down south, holding the front line against Equestria’s enemies.
“Get up off of the road!” Wicked bellowed in a voice that echoed through the urban canyons of Canterlot. “Get up out of the water! Seek ‘igher ground, ye lot!”
Others echoed Wicked’s commands and ponies began to scramble up and away from the places where water flowed. Pegasus ponies swooped down and did airlifts of ponies down in the wet places. Flicker followed Wicked, who walked through a sea of swarming rats unopposed, heading for the middle of the roundabout where Piper stood atop the statue.
Flicker scrambled up onto the statue’s pedestal with Wicked and whacked at any rats who dared try to climb up, clobbering them into chunky jelly spiked with bone fragments and clumps of hair. There was an ominous crackle when Wicked yanked free a power line from a nearby power pole and Flicker watched, his eyes gleaming behind the gas mask, as the arcing power line was held ready.
“Clear?” Wicked asked and he waited with his murderous shadow right beside him.
“Clear!” a voice shouted from above and to the east.
“Hoi, clear!” another voice yelled from street level and to the west.
“Cleared!” somepony shouted from up on high and to the north.
“We’re good!” a unicorn standing on top of a retaining wall bellowed from the south.
“Let ‘em cook!” a guard commander shouted from his place of safety on top of a department store roof. “Let the little nippers fry!”
With a snarl, Wicked dropped the spitting, crackling, arcing power line into the drenched, waterlogged rats and the now flooded roundabout. Right away, there was an awful sound, hissing, popping, a sizzling sound, and the roundabout was filled with blinding flares of light. A terrible smell filled the area, the stench of burning hair and roasting rat meat.
Many of the rats spontaneously combusted from the electrocution, while others just popped like popcorn. Bluish white bolts of lightning arced from body to body and crackled through the water. Steam and smoke rose with the horrible stench from the burning, charring bodies of the roasted rodents.
Piper’s piping ceased.
Standing on balconies, up on roofs, standing on top of retaining walls, both protesters as well as militia alike watched as the rodent holocaust continued and the rats were consumed by electricity. The sound was dreadful and the smell was even worse. With an almost deafening pop, something blew and a massive surge of electricity went through the flooded roundabout, then the power died.
Not much moved in the streets, and what did move twitched from the intense electrocution. There were survivors, but not many, and those could be dealt with. Fires had started and the charred, burning piles of rats smouldered.
The now dreadful silence was broken by a cheer—Flicker didn’t know who had started it, but it spread like wildfire through the crowd—and the cheer became a roar that drowned out all other sound. This neighborhood of Canterlot, which had almost been consumed by rioting, was now a place of exuberant celebration.
And a holocaust of rats.
The celebration would be short for the Rat Catcher’s Guild, who would have to clean up all of the corpses and keep the city safe from contagion. Flicker felt an immense feeling of pride; things hadn’t quite worked out as he had planned, but things had worked out. Piper had a chance to be a hero, and even now, she stood atop the alicorn statue, waving to those around her.
At least the riots had been avoided.
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It's like you know I'm reading and hanging on your cliffhanger and you toss me a rope. Love this story so much! Just finished the chapter, damn good idea Flicker!
Ah, so they've stumbled onto a plot to attack Canterlot from below, have they? I don't know if I'd say that's good luck (too many injured ponies for me to do that), but I'd wager it's leagues better than it could have been. Goat-boy's gonna be pissed.
I think this is my favorite Weedverse story so far.
Don't know why, but I am always happy to see it!
Ah, yes. the ROUS2es. Not merely unusual, these rodents are unbelievable, and are exceeded in size only by the ROUS3es, which are unhealthy.
Well time for a good old gassing of the tunnels, while setting up explosives to collapse the entrances and exits, while also setting up incendiary traps further into the mine to stop them from escaping before you blow the explosives. Then you flood it with a flammable liquid and throw in a match to get those rats hiding in the further reaches or any of the smarter rats either through burning or asphyxiation. Then you have a squad move into the tunnels with a support team, the main squad carrying either flamethrowers or long ranged melee weapons, while the support squads carry extra ammo and coordinate with other squads doing the same.
What was very nearly the most epic frell-up of his life just turned into a hell of a counterstrike against the rat hordes. Right on!
7870136
Volatile liquids in large amounts poured into tunnels is a recipe for an improvised fuel-air explosion. These interact poorly with Canterlot foundations.
I remember reading a story where a government averted a general strike caused by it wanting to make health service reforms by spreading false rumours of an epidemic of food poisoning. These two chapters are almost exactly the same in concept, if from a different angle.
7870181 oh... well at least you'll get rid of two types of rats...
Stopping a riot by Brute Force Emergency isn't a tactic I'd consider, but apparently it's a tactic that works.
Take 'em where you'll get 'em, I guess.
The chief concern now should be exactly where all those rats came from.
After all, if rats have infested the old mines underneath Canterlot — all miles and miles of them — what exactly are those rats eating in order to multiple that quickly and grow to such unbelievable sizes? It certainly can't be other rats, because the population would have reached some kind of equilibrium at a much smaller number.
Nothing is more frustrating for a villain than to have his plans messed with, by purest accident.
Are there any fate ponies in this universe?
7870765
that is the frightening thought; that the rats are organized enough to start bringing in supply chains from farms on their own to feed their brethren in the mines below canterlot.
The magical (i.e. more probable) answer is a perpetually regenerating Cthonic Mega Beasts summoned from The Underdark, chained and methodically butchered of their infinite limbs for food.
And that is how Flicker preemptively stopped the invasion that was to take Canterlot by pure chance.
"Most have seen to many winters. Or not enough."
Literally what happened in lord of the Rings (to an extent)
I find it funny, that all things considered, this has parallels to many revolutions, and could've ended (not really
) with a similar situation and result of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
I physically had to walk away from my computer and walk back before clicking this chapter. I was terrified that ponies would be slaughtered, rather than rats, story rating be damned.
Well, whoever was preparing this mass rat invasion probably wasn't expecting it to fire off just right now. I wonder if they'll be able to adapt to this new timetable, or if what was probably years of preparation just got misfired by two foals.
There's the answer to my question last chapter, instead of a riot we got a fairly well planned and executed battle. They didn't have to put down any rioting civilians, and they killed one heck of a lot of rats. Two birds with one stone, you could say.
Grogar's gonna be pissed~!
That turnabout, though. Great chapter!
And now for the aftermath, in which the citizenry goes "DIDN'T THAT FILLY SUMMON THOSE? WHOSE SIDE IS SHE ON?" and the Guild has to deal with that headache. Unless the Princesses step in and tell everyone to chill.
Because, of course, that is *all* they're going to see.
Not "Alicorns save us, that was a WHOLE LOT of rats, what's up with that?" just "That filly put us in danger and possibly killed some people! We were just gonna do a little bit of rioting, but nooooo she had to set rats on us!"
7870765
And *where* are they all living. Even rats need their space, and there's only so many miles to live and NOT turn on each other (or do other things to each other - behavioral science has shown that rats partake in some odd behaviors when there's too many of them in a small space.) Of course, you could argue that magic's keeping them all in line so they don't kill each other.
7871793
But if you went with the "it's magic" argument, you would still have not answered, "Where is it coming from?"
7870765
If the answer was "other rats" the population would actually just dwindle until it was of a size that could be supported by outside food sources. Carnivores are very inefficient digesters(with a few exceptions), and mass is always lost to energy and waste-product.
7870997
I actually like the "magic" answer. The amount of biomass needed to swarm like that would necessitate a huge supply train, or Canterlot would have already been engulfed just by the need to feed the rat army. Grogar either giving them the ability to not need to eat(while probably making them go insane from hunger... Or perhaps "putting the need to feed off for later", and then later they need to eat everything they WOULD have needed to eat...) would solve the problem, as would a magical regrowing feed-beast(extra mass comes directly from magic?).
7871793
Grogar and smart rats are probably keeping them all in check.
Well our main protagonist certainly seems to have stumbled upon a conspiracy here of the Grogar variety. I am VERY curious to see how all of this pans out!
Batman vs. Sumac. Make it happen.
And now, everyone can Rat BBQ soup
7876590 are you kidding? Batsy would run screaming. XD
I see that Princess Bride reference.