Ch 8 - Confirmation & Crisis
The Dogs of War Bar
Hackney, Canterlot, Equestria
Metalsday, 2 Fire Moon, 1001 Equestrian Era
I could hear the door to the back room open, but I was too intently focused on trying to fill the pit that had opened up in my gut this morning when I’d seen Witching Hour after the Ball wearing her usual work uniform and Hope’s bucking BRACELETS. Part of me was thanking my lucky stars and all the benevolent powers in the Cosmos for the timing of pulling my head out of my ass, but that part was small by comparison to the “oh shit, this just got real” part.
“Oh, this is either great, or terrible,” Veevee commented as she took the seat across from me.
“Both? ‘Both’ is possible…” I muttered over the rim of my stein. Alcohol was not unknown to me, what with my life in the Minutor Crystallum. Tartarus, just the two years I spent in Coltenhagen alone would’ve given me enough experience to vie against the snobbiest Prench pommeliers, but even so, I was already on my third mug, and that nasty pit just kept sinking deeper.
“So what happened to Witching Hour?” Veevee asked after taking a small sip from her own drink. “I was stationed on the grounds so I didn’t see her at all last night.”
“Other than coming into possession of Hope’s relic? I think there was a panic attack somewhere in there, but that’s a day that ends in ‘y’ for Twitchy Witchy…” I retorted dryly. I was somewhat glad that I’d said that after Veevee had swallowed her drink, because I didn’t fancy a cider-and-spittle shower from across the table. Still, the look on my mentor’s face was enough to tell me that she was seriously considering taking another drink just to give me the proper reaction.
“You’re joking.” Despite the flat tone, I could hear a pleading undercurrent. What she was pleading for was anyone’s guess. That I wasn’t joking? That Witching Hour was confirmed as the new Hope? That I was joking? The only one who could know the answer to that question was Veevee herself, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t either, given the conflicted expression on her face.
“I assure you, Sergeant Veritas, she is not,” came the smooth inflections of Earl Toffee as he entered as well. “I saw the bracelets on her when I greeted the Princesses and Witching Hour in the receiving line. I’m glad you’re here, Miss Wrench. I was wondering if you’d managed to see her before her shift today.”
“Oh yeah… Nearly inhaled my oatmeal. By the way; oatmeal? Not great for breathing,” I grumbled into my stein.
“I wouldn’t imagine it would be,” Toffee agreed with amiable nonchalance, taking his own seat at one end of the table. “The question now is, how do we assist her in mastering her new powers?”
“Well unless the Vicus have an honest-to-gods Acolyte, preferably of Hope, left over from The Fall hidden in some weird pocket of space-time, I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” I replied candidly, and then immediately proceeded to try to drown myself with my cider. Probably not the best idea I ever had, drinking more alcohol when it was clearly undermining my ability to avoid Poor Life Choices©, but it was the nearest available option for plugging my face before my mouth got me in even more trouble.
“Unfortunately, since that isn’t an option for us, why do you say that we can’t do anything? Could you not inform her?” Toffee asked placidly as I finally surfaced from the bottom of my mug. It was a good thing that the cider had already gone down, or I would’ve been the one giving my tablemates a less than pleasant shower. Instead of choking on my drink, I nearly choked on my laughter.
“Me?! Not bucking likely!” I protested after finally regaining control of my breathing. “The moment I start talking about magic and deep history, she’s gonna know something’s up, and the next thing you know, she’s gonna know all about Auntie Calix, because she won’t stop asking questions until she does, and then we’re gonna be out any sort of tab on her because she’s gonna punt me out of Canterlot for starting our friendship under… less than totally factual pretenses.”
“Of course this would happen when Celestia is presently unaccounted for,” Veevee grumbled over her mug before turning her gaze on Toffee. “And we’re absolutely certain we can’t talk to Luna about this? She had to have been the one to give the bracelets to Witching Hour…” She trailed off though as Toffee shook his head.
“Under other circumstances, I’d be inclined to agree with you… Like if it had been significantly more than a year since Luna returned to us, but she fell to Vice,” he elaborated, sighing heavily. “It’s too soon to be sure that she’s not going to fall again.”
“We could always just dump a bunch of books on her doorstep. It can’t do any harm, and it certainly might help?” I suggested, with no small amount of sarcasm, knowing full well that the Vicus would sooner die than part with any of their precious tomes, even if it was for the return of the Virtues.
“I give you leave to suggest that to Madam Steady Quill, Miss Wrench,” Toffee retorted dryly, showing that he, too, believed it a hopeless effort.
“I’ll send the flowers to your dad,” Veevee added, not very helpfully. “In memory of Monkey Wrench, Aeris Ipsum, she who tried to get books away from the Vicus.”
“Too wordy, Veevee,” I critiqued. “Maybe just ‘Played Stupid Games, Won Stupid Prizes’.”
“Well, as morbidly entertaining as this line of discussion has become, I would suggest we table it for now in favor of the previous topic,” replied Toffee. “Now, Miss Wrench, I don’t suppose that you have any insight into an action that we could take that would have a greater chance of success?”
“OH! I know! Why don’t you talk to Witchy! You’re both in the nobility, so it won’t look so weird for you to start talking to her more,” I proffered, grinning trollishly at him. “I mean, as long as you and I can dodge each other in that effort. Any whiff of familiarity between us, and the same scenario as me trying to talk to her will play out, only it’ll be both of us in a leaky canoe on a feces-laden creek with no paddle.” Both Toffee and Veevee elected to ignore my contribution.
“What about the other Princesses? Cadence is ruling the Crystal Empire, which is the last place the Virtues had any significant hold,” Veevee offered thoughtfully, certainly more thoughtful than I was at that point. “And Twilight Sparkle and her friends have the Elements, so they could be potential allies at the very least, even if we have to educate them,” she continued, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on the earl.
“An idea with merit, for certain,” mused Toffee briefly, continuing the trend of steadfastly ignoring me. “The only concern I would have is whether getting such a large group on board before speaking with Doctor Hour may alienate her even worse than exposing Miss Wrench’s affiliations would.”
“So stick to Cadence,” Veevee answered with a shrug. “Obviously, her duties to the Empire keep her tied up, so we’d have to find some way to get Witching Hour sent to her-”
And at that point, I had to cut in, regardless of their efforts to pretend I didn’t exist. “No good, Veevee. Witch might be able to slip out of Canterlot for a day to go to her grandparents in Ponyville, but a trip to the North is not gonna fly past Earl and Countess Grey without protest or question… And then you’re still needing to talk to Luna about why her student has to go to the Crystal Empire.”
“She goes to Ponyville?” Earl Toffee pondered, still with a thoughtful expression. “That puts her close to the Elements. When’s her next trip there scheduled?”
“Two weeks or so. On the seventeenth. It’s always the third Sunsday of the month,” I answered quickly. “I will also note that she seemed to at least somewhat enjoy being stuck with Twilight Sparkle for most of the night at the Ball. I’m pretty sure she would’ve been ranting about it this morning if she hadn’t.”
“Excellent!” Toffee beamed then. “That gives me time to get in contact with Dame Pie about assisting us. Hopefully I’ll be able to distract her from her party-planning long enough to garner her assistance as an Ipsum.”
This time, Veevee was mid-sip from her stein and promptly did a spit-take. Not that I truly blamed her… Other than the fact that I wasn’t going to have a fun time explaining to Witch why I needed to shower before bed when I usually showered in the mornings.
“One of the Dames of Friendship is one of us?!” Veevee sputtered. “You are absolutely shitting me!”
Like I’d thought; shit had gotten Real.
The Dogs of War Bar
Hackney, Canterlot, Equestria
Starsday, 3 Fire Moon, 1001 Equestrian Era
I was oh so very wrong… Things had only looked real the day before when I saw Witching Hour in possession of Hope’s Relic. Today, things had actually gotten Real, and it was Not Okay.
“Okay, Monks… Two days in a row? If yesterday was good news, today is definitely bad news…” Veevee slid again into the seat across the table from me.
I glared at her from behind a veritable fortress of empty tankards. “I’m not saying anything until Toffee gets here. I’m only explaining this once, and then I’m going to hurl myself off a cliff. I think it’d be a kinder way to die at this point.”
“Then by all means, Miss Wrench, do enlighten us.” The sound of Earl Toffee’s voice behind me, making me (in my decidedly less-than-sober state) scatter my fallen soldiers. “I would hate to keep you from such a critical appointment,” he finished as he took his seat at what I’m sure would be the head of the table if it were more than the three of us here.
“Listen,” I retorted reflexively, waving my current mug at him, “you survive psycho pegasi using Vice crystals in the middle of Fine Brew’s tea shop, and see if you’re not signed up for the next hike west of Kensington.”
Earl Toffee froze, a statuesque study in shock, jaw hanging open wide enough to fit one of the Apple Family’s prize-winning Zap Apples as his glass of wine falls to the table and spills without shattering. Veevee went paler and stiffer than an overly starched hospital sheet as we waited for the Earl’s reaction. With a shaking hoof, Toffee carefully removed his glasses before gently facehoofing, trying to soothe an oncoming migraine. Another moment of silence passed before Toffee sighed heavily, set his wineglass upright, replaced his spectacles, and reached for the bottle of wine. “I’d prefer shooting the waterfalls myself, but to each their own,” Toffee replied as he refilled his glass before turning a steely glare at me. “Now… explain.”
I found myself in the extremely unenviable position of being uncertain which scared me more; the idea that the Vices had made an open move, or the stallion before me. I leave it to anyone reading to imagine what I wound up choosing, but I did answer quickly. “Basically? Shadowbolts grabbed one of the Lead Squad, maybe two… and Loyalty wound up being a bonus because she went tearing after them… They were using Vice magic to fend off the Wonderbolts. They used it to turn the Lead Captain against her own. I have no idea if it’s a specific Vice since it’s not one of the established four, but Witch seemed to hate it on sight, which seems to be more proof than any of us needed.”
“Truly, one of the few bright spots in this damned mess,” sighed the Earl as he drained his glass and refilled it. “The other bright spot being that any opposition to whatever plan is presented to the Adamantem will now be absolutely nonexistent.”
“What’s not to like about Dame Pie though?” I asked, mostly facetiously. “Maybe we can get her to host an End of the World Party for us…”
“Why the hell are you two so bucking calm?!” Veevee exclaimed, finally finding her voice again.
I took a quick sip from my mug and shrugged. “If I’m gonna die, I’m at least gonna enjoy the process? But also, I mean… at least it’s only one Vice so far? Sure we only have one confirmed Virtue, untrained and ignorant of her own abilities in that respect, but we’ve also got the Elements around, who deal with this sort of thing on an almost weekly basis, and we’re bound to find the new Love eventually with the Crystal Heart’s return…”
“I’m sorry, ‘only one Vice’?! The Fall of Equus started with ‘only one Vice’! And Equus had all the Virtues! Alicorns died all because of just ‘one Vice’! The bucking Tartarus are we going to do now?!” Veevee railed, arms flailing wildly about as Toffee calmly moved his glass out of range.
“In point of reference, I did say ‘so far’, and while The Fall did start with only one, that one was Envy, and this shit is decidedly not orange.” I paused thoughtfully, thinking back over my admittedly brief encounter with the Chaos magic. “It didn’t seem… I dunno… Normal? Natural? Yes it’s Vice magic and by definition ‘unnatural’, but it just seemed… off even by that standard. Don’t ask how I know… I don’t even know how I know.”
And I truly didn’t. It was a strange sensation that seemed to pool coldly between my wing joints, fluffing out my feathers and raising every hair on end, but in a false way, like the fear from a theater’s production of a haunted house. It was very real, but, at the same time, didn’t seem true, like a believable lie.
“Perhaps the fact that you do know is a clue to the nature of these Vice Crystals,” mused Toffee. “You said that Doctor Hour had a strong reaction to the crystals as well, yes?”
“She was pretty freaked out, yeah,” I agreed, decidedly not as chill as Veevee thought I was. Jokes were a coping mechanism; no more, no less.
“Given that this magic is not one of the previously established Vices and how you and Doctor Hour reacted to the magic, it can be inferred that this Vice is the antithesis to Hope,” replied Toffee, as though he were lecturing at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.
“That or it’s just some amalgamation of all of them,” I added. “But I’m personally not banking on that being the case. Pink is not a color I’d think the powers of Chaos would wind up with as their general theme.”
The wall opposite the door to the backroom suddenly opened then, a dress rack of pink, frilly monstrosities sliding into the room followed by… Discord… In a luridly pink three-piece suit, with a long measuring tape draped around his neck.
“But Monkey, darling, haven’t you heard that Pink is the new Black?” interjected Discord, scattering fabric swatches of varying shades of pink across the room as he wheeled in the rack. “It’s going to be very in this season…”
I sighed heavily and stood from my seat. “I need another drink…” I muttered as I went out into the bar to get another pint. Did I feel a little bad about leaving Veevee and Toffee to deal with Discord? Maybe… But not bad enough to stick around for it.
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*Laughs in fellow Virtue Verse Author*
11552556
INORITE?! ((cackles in Foreshadowing))
11552793
When he shows up, Monkey is going to be *so* pissed. Not at Star Swirl, no one can be angry and grandpa derp wizard, but that she was *right* again!
y.yarn.co/19c1c91b-4122-4f89-92dd-cb420e615075_text.gif
And I mean this as far as creative muse goes, not physical ability…