The Reaper

by Blade Trail

Chapter 11: Assemble Your Team

The Castle of Friendship was usually a very empty place. Princess Twilight Sparkle, despite her station, had no guards, attendants, or even servants. While she did have the occasional petitioner or guest, they were rare enough to be the exception rather than the rule. As such, Reaper had gotten used to wandering the castle’s long empty hallways alone and undisturbed whenever he could get away from Twilight’s poking, prodding, questioning, and testing. While he had secretly come to enjoy the company of Twilight and her friends, every so often, he felt the need to get away from it all and simply enjoy the silence within his own mind that his truce with Reyes’ voice had finally allowed.

Reaper was in the middle of one such retreat when Pinkie Pie burst out of the door next to him and swept him up into a hug.

“There you are! We’ve been looking all over for you! This castle is waaaay bigger than it looks on the outside, and it looks pretty big!” Pinkie said.

Before Reaper had any time to respond, or question why Pinkie had just burst out of a broom closet, Spike rounded the corner at the end of the hall and waved to them.

“Oh good, you found him! C’mon, Twilight’s with the others in the throne room,” he said to them before walking off.

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie said, depositing Reaper on her back and bouncing after Spike.

“I...can...walk!” Reaper said in between bounces, but he was ignored.

~~~

A table with various snacks and pastries had been set up off to one side of the throne room. Reaper’s pet Groenendael sat next to it, stoically enduring the playful examination of the Cake twins with a patience beyond most mortal beings.

“Doggo,” Pumpkin Cake said, poking the dog’s snout with a hoof.

“Fwuffy!” Pound Cake said, landing on the dog’s head. He giggled as he played with its ears.

Besides flicking his ears back up every time Pound Cake pushed them down, the Groenendael did not react. He continued to sit still and stare at the small pony child on the table in front of him. Fluttershy had told him to sit there and behave, so that was exactly what he was going to do.

Pumpkin Cake began to play with his face, moving it around to make various expressions that she then tried to mimic. When she tried to open his mouth, he snorted, knocking her off balance and onto her rump. Fortunately, she started laughing instead of crying. He risked a glance over to where Fluttershy was seated at the large table with the other ponies, and she gave him a sympathetic smile. He took that as a sign that he was still doing good.

“~We’re here!~” Pinkie Pie exclaimed in a sing-song voice as she entered the room with Spike at her side and Reaper on her back.

“Great!” Starlight said enthusiastically. She sat up straighter in her foldable chair next to Spike’s throne. “Now we can get started!”

“Not quite,” Twilight said as she rapidly scanned through the pages of a thick book. “Give me a minute to triple-check our calculations.”

Starlight rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything to counter her mentor. Meanwhile, Spike had taken his seat, and Pinkie had trotted over to the snack table to check on the Cake twins.

“Hi there, Pound and Pumpkin! Did you two behave while I was gone?” Pinkie asked the twins.

“Doggo!” Pumpkin replied, pointing at the still-stoic Groenendael.

Reaper hopped off Pinkie’s back and onto the table to stand next to Pumpkin. “That’s right, Pumpkin! That’s his name!”

Unbelievably, Reyes’ voice added. How did Fluttershy talk us around to that again? Weren’t we about to go with ‘Cold Steel’?

Reaper ignored the voice - mostly because he couldn’t think of an answer to that question either - and asked Pumpkin, “What about me? Can you say my name?”

“Weeper!” Pumpkin declared proudly.

Pinkie snickered.

CRY! CRY! CRY! Reyes’ voice joked.

“No, not ‘Weeper’. Reaper,” Reaper corrected. “With an ‘R’. C’mon now, pronounce it.”

“Awr!” Pumpkin said, making hooking motions with her hoof and giggling.

“Piwates!” Pound exclaimed. He took off into the air and began buzzing around Pinkie’s head. “Pinkie pway! Pinkie pway! Awr!”

Doggo, now free of both children’s machinations, let out a relieved sigh.

Pinkie caught Pound and embraced him. “Oh, I would love to play pirates with you guys, but I can’t right now.”

“Awww,” the twins said in unison.

Pinkie set Pound down on the table next to Pumpkin. “I know I’m supposed to be babysitting you two right now, but Twilight said this was super duper important. She called everyone together and everything! I can’t let her down!”

The twins looked up at Pinkie with sad, pleading expressions.

For a moment, Reaper thought that his heart had stopped, then he remembered that he hadn’t had a pulse in years.

Real talk, Reyes’ voice said. How does anything living survive the constant barrage of weapons-grade adorable in this world?

“Aw, don’t give me those puppy dog eyes,” Pinkie said sadly. Then she suddenly perked up, “Not when there’s a real puppy dog right here!”

Doggo’s eyes went wide with panic, but to his credit, he remained seated where he was.

Pound and Pumpkin looked over to Doggo - who Reaper could swear was trying his hardest to sweat profusely [1] - then back to Pinkie.

“Pinkie…” Pumpkin began.

“...pway?” Pound finished.

Pinkie looked at the twins’ hopeful expressions and couldn’t resist sweeping them up into another hug. “I’m so sorry, Pound and Pumpkin, but you’ll have to wait a little longer. I Pinkie Promise it won’t be that much longer.”

The twins hugged Pinkie back.

“After this, we can play all you want. Reaper can play too!” Pinkie said. “But for now, just play with Doggo for a little while longer, okay?”

The twins coo’d. Which Reaper took to be their assent.

Pound broke free of the hug and zipped back over onto Doggo’s head. Doggo, for his part, closed his eyes and resigned himself to his fate. Reaper walked over and patted his dog’s back sympathetically.

Pumpkin motioned towards the table, so Pinkie set her back down. Once free of Pinkie’s grasp, Pumpkin took a cupcake with her magic and offered it up to Doggo.

“Doggo!” Pumpkin called, trying to get his attention.

Doggo opened his eyes and examined the cupcake. Unsure of how to act, he didn’t move.

Pound flew off of Doggo’s head and hovered next to his sister. “Nom!” he said, pointing to the cupcake then making chewing motions with his mouth.

“Just take the cupcake, boy,” Reaper said. “It tastes better than you would believe.”

Having been given permission, Doggo slowly leaned forward and licked the cupcake. He perked up as his tongue tasted the sweet frosting and snapped the whole thing up in a single bite, much to the twins’ delight.

Pumpkin lifted another cupcake with her magic, but Pound snatched it up before she could offer it to Doggo. He took the cupcake high into the air, then dropped it. Doggo, tracking Pound’s movements, leapt up and devoured the cupcake in mid-air, causing the twins to clap their hooves.

Pumpkin caught on to her brother’s game and used her magic to throw the next cupcake across the room. Doggo dutifully chased after it, and snatched it in his jaws before it hit the ground.

This can’t be healthy for the dog, Reyes’ voice commented.

“Well, at least they’re having fun,” Pinkie said. “C’mon, Reaper. Let’s go see what all the fuss is about.”

Reaper leapt off the snack table and walked with Pinkie over to her throne. As Pinkie sat down, Reaper used the throne as a stepping stone to climb up onto the big table in front of it. As soon as he made it onto the table, Twilight slammed her book shut.

“And done! Okay, everything looks good,” Twilight said.

“Like the first two times we went over the spell,” Starlight commented.

“You can never be too sure, Starlight. Especially when it comes to dealing with such powerful magic,” Twilight said.

“I know. I know,” Starlight said. “But we won’t always have time to triple check everything before we do it, you know.”

“Which is precisely why we should triple check everything whenever we can. It’s a rare luxury,” Twilight said. “Now is everypony ready to do this?”

“Uh, sugarcube?” Applejack said. “Ya ain’t told us what exactly it is that we’ll be doing yet.”

“I haven’t?” Twilight asked in disbelief. She turned to Starlight. “See? This is what happens when we don’t take the time to make a checklist first! Who knows what else we’ve missed?”

Starlight waved a hoof dismissively. “Quit your worrying. It’ll be fine. The spell’s not even dangerous. Probably.”

Rarity cleared her throat. “Yes, well, while I do have the utmost faith in you two, and I am quite certain that nothing at all will go...irreparably wrong, it would still be nice to know what it is that we are attempting.”

“And why it was so important!” Rainbow Dash added. “I mean, I love you guys and all, but as a Wonderbolt, I don’t get as many days off as I used to, and I kinda wanted to spend this one napping on a cloud. The weather’s perfect for it! Won’t be another day like this until next month.”

“Oh dear, has the schedule changed?” Fluttershy asked. “I thought we were going to have the same weather next Saturday. That’s when I moved the picnic with my animal friends that I was supposed to have today. They’re going to be so disappointed if I have to cancel again.”

“No, you’re right,” Rainbow Dash assured Fluttershy. “This kind of weather’s scheduled to repeat regularly over the next two months, but the next time I’m scheduled to be free for it is next month.”

“Don’t worry, this shouldn’t take very long at all. You should still have plenty of time left in the day for whatever it was that you each had planned. If this all goes right, anyway,” Starlight said.

Spike nudged Starlight with an elbow then pointed to Twilight, whose eye had started twitching the moment Starlight said “If”.

“Uhh, Twilight?” Starlight asked. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay!” Twilight replied. “We’re just about to cast magic using the map again. You know how well that always goes. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“We’re about to do what!?” Applejack asked.

With a nervous smile, Starlight said, “Channel everyone’s magic into the map table to see if it can pinpoint Reaper’s homeworld through the vast infinity of spacetime. No big deal, really.”

“I think it’s a big deal,” Fluttershy said. Her voice was soft, but it easily carried through the silence that had fallen on the room.

This table’s a map? Reyes’ voice asked.

Reaper, unfazed by Starlight’s revelation, thought it was odd that even the twins were silent. He looked over to the snack table to find them both on Doggo’s back, burying their faces in his fur. He had no idea what they were doing or why, but he decided to just shrug it off.

“Darling, you know I trust you,” Rarity began. “But do you really think this is a good idea?”

“Look, the science is sound,” Starlight argued. “All the spell is going to do is look. That’s it! No transport, no connection, no - well, very little - risk. I half expect it to just look through Equestria and stop there. If it fails, nothing happens. If it succeeds, we get a location. We’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Rainbow asked. “Let’s do this already!”

“Should I take the twins out of the room?” Pinkie asked, concerned.

Twilight took a deep, calming breath, then replied, “No, Pinkie. Starlight’s right. I’ve triple checked everything, and by all counts, everything ought to be fine.”

“But what’s the worst case scenario?” Reaper asked.

Given that we’re involved, catastrophic failure is absolutely possible, Reyes’ voice added.

“Logically? The worst case is that nothing happens,” Twilight said. “But hypothetically...there’s still a lot we don’t understand about the map’s functions. We’re only going to be working with what we do understand, but there’s always the wild chance that something completely unexpected pops up, in which case...well, the worst case is that anything could happen.”

“Doggo, take the twins out of the room,” Reaper commanded.

Doggo let out an affirmative bark, then quickly walked out of the room with the twins still on his back.

The animals in this world are smarter than most people back home, Reyes’ voice commented. And not just the ponies, either.

Once Doggo and the twins were out of the room, Reaper turned to Twilight and said, “Do it.”

Twilight nodded. “Alright. Everyone ready?”

The others all nodded, some more enthusiastically than others.

Twilight channelled her magic into her horn and the symbol on her throne began to glow. The others focused as well, with similar results. The table beneath Reaper’s feet suddenly became a three dimensional holographic map.

“Impressive,” both Reaper and Reyes’ voice said simultaneously.

“Okay, Reaper,” Starlight said. “Just stand still. This’ll be over in a flash.”

Starlight fired a beam from her horn at the center of the map. Similar beams shot out from each of the throne symbols and met at the point where Starlight’s ended. Once all of the beams connected at that point, Starlight, grunting with the effort, lifted all of them up. The holographic map disappeared and Reaper saw one more beam, this time from the table itself, had connected to Starlight’s. With a shout, Starlight pushed all of the beams forward and onto Reaper.

From the intensity of the light show, Reaper had expected pain, probing, or, if he somehow absorbed it, perhaps a feeling of empowerment. Instead, he found himself being placed into a state of complete serenity. He felt the magic look through him, read him, know him, better even than he knew himself. He felt the darkness inside of him recoil, and he heard a dragon roar. Despite its gentle touch, he felt the intensity of the magic’s strength, and the benevolence of its purpose. He reached out to it, as a child might reach out to its parents.

And then it was gone.

All the lights faded and everyone looked around. Only seconds had passed since they started. They all waited a minute more.

“Huh,” Starlight said after a minute had passed. “Guess nothing hap -”

The map table activated, once again showing all of Equestria. Three symbols appeared in the air and floated down towards a distant mountain on the map. They circled around above the mountain.

“What does that mean?” Reaper asked.

“It means the map is calling us to solve a friendship problem,” Twilight explained. “It’s kind of what we do: use our talents and gifts to spread friendship and harmony throughout Equestria, averting disasters and making the world a better place.”

Sounds like what Overwatch was supposed to do, Reyes voice said.

“The symbols represent which of us needs to go,” Rainbow Dash continued. “That one is mine, see? And there’s Rarity’s.”

“And the third one?” Reaper asked, although he already knew the answer.

“That’s...” Rarity said, squinting. “Why, I do believe that’s you, darling.”

It would explain why our face is glowing, Reyes’ voice said as Reaper examined the deathly mask floating around the mountain along with the three blue diamonds and the rainbow lightning bolt.

“WHAT!?” Twilight shouted, leaping onto the table to take a closer look.

Starlight scratched the back of her head. “Heheh...I guess it...did do something after all...”

Author's Note:

[1] Much to Doggo’s dismay, dogs do not sweat like other species do. While they do have some sweat glands on their paws, their primary method of cooling off is by panting.

Comments

[lightningman]

First read

[LE_MALEM]

"Cry, Cry, Cry..."

Blizzard, read this fic, give Reaper Double Baby Bottles as Guns and make his victims babies when they die. REAPER WINS: BABIALITY!
OR, give him a Babysitter Legendary Skin!

[GamerDroid23]

So far, this is good. Can't wait for the next update.

[Blade Trail]

8533898
I would pay good money for Babysitter Reaper!

8534518

8535419
Thanks! I'll try to get it out as soon as possible.