Case Ten, Chapter Ten: Beyond the Veil
They’d cut the power to the Literature’s mansion. The phone lines, the silent alarm, even the lights, all shut down and leaving them vulnerable to attack. The bodyguards that Whitestone had sitting on the house had proven to be of little threat, though one of the griffons in the van parked down the road had managed to cry out before being silenced by a suppressed gunshot to the throat, alerting the staff inside the mansion before they could park their van up in front of the massive doors.
Said staff, the butler and the chef, were currently pushing their shoulders up against the hastily-erected barricade in front of the door of the study even as heavy weights smashed against it like massive sledgehammers. The Literatures themselves were pressed up against the back wall, both of them trembling even as they tried to shield Dimmig Morgon. Morgon herself had curled her wings softly around a small, pale cream-colored egg, which she tucked up against her heaving breast.
“Kriga, Fantisera, please,” she begged, tears leaking from her eyes. “Please, look down upon this child, and protect them. Please, please…”
Outside the door, a trio of gunponies, their reddening faces adorned in sweat, battered against the door; two pegasi rammed into it again and again with their shoulders, grunting in determination and frustration as the wood splintered. A unicorn hurled concussion spells at the door in between his comrades’ charges, every spell making the entire wall shake and crack.
“Damn, they’re determined,” one pegasus muttered, rubbing his shoulder as he wound up for another charge.
“You’re fucking dead, you little whore!” the unicorn taunted, firing another spell at the door. The doorjamb broke, a large splinter of wood flying off; a frightened eye peeked out at them. “You and all your family! Zugzwang’s orders!”
“Shtan ack, oys!” a dark brown jenny shouted, rushing up the hallway to the door. A gas can was clenched tight in her mouth, liquid sloshing out of the spout as she ran. She jogged up to the door and started splashing gas onto the doorway.
“Hey…” the unicorn said slowly as the jenny started giggling. “Is that from our truck?”
“No,” the jenny replied, drawing a trail of gasoline back from the doorway. “It’s from their car.”
The three stallions watched in silence as their comrade continued to walk back down the hallway, shaking the can to get the last drops of gas out, giggling the entire time.
“Yikes,” the pegasus with the bruised shoulder asked. “You sure you aren’t a Scorcher?”
“I tried out for ‘em,” the jenny stated, throwing the gas can aside. “But there was too much travel involved. Plus, those flamethrowers are fucking heavy.”
Her giggles growing to a high-pitched frenzy, she whipped a lighter out of her coat pocket and flicked it open. She flicked the lighter, producing a spark, but no flame. Her laughter pausing immediately, she flicked the lighter three more times, producing more sparks, but no flames. Sighing, she pocketed the lighter and looked around at her staring comrades.
“Anypony got a match?”
Before any of her comrades could answer, the window smashed open in an explosion of glass and feathers and rage. The jenny whirled around just in time to see a blade marked with twin black suns whip around and cleave through her neck like it was made of paper.
The stallions all jumped back, all of them scrabbling to grab their guns, but the black whirlwind charged forward in an unstoppable fury. Claws dug into the unicorn’s throat, ripping and tearing at the flesh and leaving the victim to stagger away, gurgling on their blood.
A .50 hoofgun, clumsily drawn from a coat pocket, roared in defiance and Roaring stumbled with a bellow of mingled rage and pain, blood flying from his wing as he dove aside. Ducking underneath the next salvo, Roaring spun and whipped his sword around.
Two bodies slumped to the floor; their heads rolled away, eyes wide and jaws slack.
Panting, Roaring turned to study his injured wing. Attempting to flex it only produced shockwaves of pain, muscles spasming and convulsing. “Jävla pony,” he cursed, limping on his three limbs.
“Stay back!” a voice called from the other side of the door. “Just stay the fuck back!”
“We’ll pay anything!” Modern begged. “Just leave us alone!”
Roaring stabbed into the wall with his sword, carving a circle in the wood and climbing through, entering the study to be greeted by the terrified gazes of the five occupants. The butler and the cook both jumped at him, but he swatted them both aside with a stumped claw, his eyes fixed on the small griffon chick that stood trembling behind the two elders.
Juvel had grown into a beautiful girl, tall and strong, with eyes full of life, and...there was an egg in her claws, held as tenderly as he’d held her own egg so many years back.
Her eyes were wide with fear as she looked up at him, the shining green irides locking onto his. For a moment, Roaring saw not the grown griffon that she was, but the little chick that he’d held in his claws, the forbidden baby that he and Whitestone had made, given away before she could even speak so that she’d have a chance at a normal life, a chance at happiness.
Her green eyes flickered. For a moment, for one fleeting moment, he thought she recognized him.
“Who…” she stammered. “Who are you?”
“Please just leave,” Classic stated to the intruder, pressing his daughter closer to his back, shielding her. “Please, we’ll pay what you want…”
“I don’t want your money,” Roaring growled, keeping his eyes on his daughter, forcing himself not to sway from exhaustion. “I just want you to get out of town. All of you. Just pack your bags and go. Long as you’re here, you’re a target.”
He gave Juvel one last longing look, then turned and climbed back out of the hole.
“What? Why?” Modern cried. “What do they want with us?!”
Roaring didn’t answer. He just jogged back out of the mansion and ran up to the van that Zugzwang’s hired mooks had left. Climbing into the driver’s seat, he started up the engine and roared away. As he rumbled down the street, he glanced at the mansion in his rearview mirror.
Goodbye, Juvel. I love you.
Stifling a sigh with a growl, he turned at the intersection and headed south towards their nearest safehouse.
The metal deck of the Silver Talon thunked loudly beneath Whitestone’s claws as she paced back and forth. The evening air was cool and crisp on her tongue as she breathed slowly, staring towards the west. The ship groaned beneath her, the waters of Horseshoe Bay splashing against the steel hull; the water glowed burnt orange beneath the setting sun as it kissed the mouth of the Maresippi River. From the north came the hissing of leaves in the wind as it passed through the Everfree Forest’s massive trees that ran along the coastline.
Whitestone pressed a pair of binoculars to her eyes; five miles off, she could just see the docks of Ponyville, as tiny as toys in the glasses. No sign of any ships.
She growled to herself and continued pacing. “Where is he?”
“Easy, cap’n,” a tall blue griffon female said, watching her pace. “They told us he got to the safe house fine. They’re just patching him up.”
“How are those two still alive?!” Whitestone snapped at her, her voice rising high. “I sent Roaring, a half-dozen of our best crew...and they’re. Still. Alive!”
The second mate frowned, a thought spinning in her mind. “Cap’n...you don’t suppose that…maybe the gods are testing us?”
Whitestone grunted. “If they are…I’ll know about it,” she stated. “They’ll show me. Bluewater, how long have you been my junior lieutenant?”
“Ten years, captain,” Bluewater stated, rising up to her full height.
“When the Emperor declared war on Equestria along with Sombra, you followed me. When I received that vision to defect, you and the crew followed me.”
“And I’ll follow you to the edges of the Dreaming Sea and back, captain,” Bluewater replied. “We all will. The gods are on your side, and we’re on yours.”
“Good soldier,” Whitestone nodded, patting the younger griffon on the shoulder.
“Captain!” a voice called from overhead. Whitestone and Bluewater looked up to the bridge, where a lookout, a brown thestral holding a telescope, pointed to the west. “Boat's coming, flying our colors!”
Whitestone ran to the deck rail and pressed her binoculars to her eyes once again. Even if that familiar fishing vessel wasn’t flying the black and red rags at the prow, she’d have recognized it anywhere. That was their ship.
It took far too long for the boat to cross the five miles of the Maresippi River and start trundling in their direction. As they approached, Whitestone kept her eyes on the bridge, watching the griffon at the wheel; the pilot held course steady, his yellow eyes staring straight ahead, right through the ship he could not see. As he came closer, he placed a cigarette in his beak, then pulled out a lighter and flicked it on and off twice.
Good. He wasn’t being hijacked by the cops.
“Lower the amulet,” she ordered.
Above her, a black flag crudely decorated with a griffon claw holding a skull flapped lazily in the breeze. The amulet was attached to the halyard, the eye shining faintly in the evening light. At Whitestone’s command, one of her crew lowered the amulet.
The pilot’s eyes widened in surprise, as they always did when the ship appeared before him, but the shock faded quickly. He piloted the fishing boat up to the hull and paused. A ladder was dropped over the rail, followed by a pulley system dropped from a crane. As soon as the ladder was attached to the visitor's deck, the amulet was run up the mast again.
Whitestone watched, talons tapping against the rail in a rapid rhythm, as a stretcher was lowered from the crane. A trio of griffons emerged on deck, carrying a black body between them, and Whitestone’s heart missed a beat.
It was only when she saw Roaring stir, heard him groan, that she allowed herself to breathe again.
The stretcher was lifted up and Roaring was pulled into the crew’s waiting talons. Whitestone trotted over to his side without making it look like she was rushing.
“Whitestone,” Roaring breathed, a faint smile crossing his pale face. “We’re grandparents.”
Despite everything, Whitestone felt herself smile, but the expression rapidly faded when she examined her first mate. The left forelimb had been sliced off cleanly, though it was now tied off with a tourniquet and covered with several bandages. And his wing was horribly mangled; even beneath the tight bandages, Whitestone could tell that it was permanently damaged.
And worst of all, only one of his sheaths had a sword in it.
“We did the best we could, cap’n,” one of the other griffons said as he climbed aboard. “But he’d already lost a lot of blood.”
“Take him to the infirmary,” Whitestone ordered, and the stretcher was immediately carted off.
The ladder rattled as somepony climbed up it. As Whitestone turned around, her face was immediately crossed with a scowl.
“Hey, captain,” Star Cluster declared with a salute as he climbed aboard. Bentley Browndust and a wounded stallion followed him.
“Who gave you permission to board my ship?” Whitestone snarled.
“Easy, captain,” Star said, stepping back and raising his hooves. “I just came here to talk.”
“You do a lot of that,” Whitestone grunted. “I don’t hear much sense coming out of that huge mouth of yours.”
“Seeing as we’ve known each other for a while now, I’m gonna ignore that,” Star frowned.
“You wanna explain why my first mate is missing a claw and two of the Swords of Asocrac?!” Whitestone barked.
Star gave the griffon a brief rundown of what had happened. “Our plan nearly worked; we almost lured 'em in, we had ‘em both dead to rights!” he declared.
“Yes, you did,” Whitestone growled slowly. “You had Finder and Do right there in front of you, and you let them get away!”
The expression on Star’s face flickered briefly to fear before the embers of spite began to glow in his eyes. “You know, I could say the same about you,” he pointed out. “You dropped Phillip from thirty feet and he shot you and made you run off with your tail between your legs. And that bitch with the hat? Yeah, she faced down your guy there. Twice now. And sliced off his arm. So much for being a great swordsgriff, eh?”
“Do not speak to me that way on my own ship, boy!” Whitestone shouted, pretending that the shaking of her forelimbs was due solely to rage.
“Sorry, sorry,” Star nodded placidly. “Listen: it’s pretty clear that by ourselves, we can’t take ‘em down. But if we all worked together, we’d have a better chance.” He paused for a beat. “I know you don’t like talking about this...but we both know we’re at a stalemate with Zugzwang and Scarlet. If anything, they’re winning.”
Whitestone’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Boss, shut up...” the wounded unicorn hissed. Bentley just watched in silence.
“I know: as long as they can’t find the Silver Talon, they have no chance of actually beating you,” Star continued. “But I’ve been keeping score. They’ve taken a lot of your territory, your resources. Most of the low-level thugs left in this city have jumped ship like the rats they are. But the Nightmare Moon Disciples...we know who’s really in charge of this city. And we’re gonna stick with you.”
Whitestone remained silent. “So, here’s what’s gonna happen,” Star continued. “We are gonna hop on here. We’re gonna take some time to regroup, and then, we’re gonna kill Zugzwang, Scarlet, Finder, and Daring. Together.” And he extended his hoof to Whitestone.
Whitestone stared at the offered hoof for several moments of silence. Star maintained his calm smile; the wounded comrade stared with a cringe half-formed on his face, while Bentley just studied the scene like it was a movie.
“Together,” Whitestone said slowly, extending a claw and clasping Star’s hoof. “The Disciples and my crew with yours.”
“I just want what’s best for my boys,” Star said, glancing at his two comrades as Whitestone shook. “I know you understand that.”
“I do,” Whitestone nodded. “And I’m going to take very good care of your crew. Starting,” she suddenly growled, her grip on Star’s hoof tightening even as he tried to pull away, his eyes widening, “By teaching them some discipline, and what happens to cowards.”
In a blur of motion, Whitestone yanked Star Cluster to the deck next to her and pounced on him, her beak closing around his neck. Star’s screams were cut off by a horrid squelching sound, followed by a gurgling as blood gushed from the torn flesh. Star slammed his hooves into Whitestone’s side and back with the desperation of a trapped animal, but she refused to relinquish her grip, beak tearing at his neck.
“Boss!” the unicorn Disciple cried, lunging at the griffon, but Bentley held him back, firmly shaking his head; the crew of the Silver Talon watched them closely with hungry eyes.
Star’s gurgling screams faded away in moments as his blood pooled around his neck; his struggles faded into twitches and eventually stilled completely. Whitestone tore at his flesh, horrid squelching and ripping sounds filling the suddenly still air as she feasted. By the time she finally looked up, there was nothing left of Star Cluster’s neck but bone, the head slowly rolling away from the shoulders and shuddering to a stop a foot away.
Whitestone glared at Bentley and the other Disciple, blood dripping from her beak. “Go back and tell your fellows this: you’re coming to my ship, and you’re going to do what I say. Only what I say. No more taking orders from this cowardly idiot who could barely find his way out of a closed room. And when you’re part of my crew, the most important rule is this: you do not ever, ever insult or question me.” She stepped in close to the unicorn, who quailed in terror, yellow liquid trickling from between his hind legs.
“Clear?” she growled.
“Clear, captain!” the unicorn whimpered
“Now get the fuck off my ship!” Whitestone snapped.
Both intruders scrambled back down the ladder and jumped back to the smaller boat, which was quickly freed of the Silver Talon as soon as the lookout gave an all-clear signal. Whitestone watched the motor chugging back towards Ponyville, licking blood off her beak.
“Dinnertime, boys,” she declared, nodding to the corpse as she walked back to the hatchway. Licking their chops, the crew stepped forward and collected the fresh body.
Descending the stairs, Whitestone entered her cabin. Being the largest cabin in the ship, it was outfitted with a single bunk, a large desk, and a rack of books, all of them in her native language. Her old dark blue uniform was hung up on a hanger in the corner, the single gold star and bar on the sleeves faded but still recognizable.
Disregarding all of this, she proceeded to the next set of doors and opened them wide. The secondary chamber was small and featured only three items. An old, faded dark green rug, a golden bowl filled with a dark red-gray powder, and an altar with two silver statues.
Skeletal Kriga, the god of war and travelers, greeted as always with raised sword and shield ready to strike, his jaw open wide in a challenging scream. His sister Fantisera, goddess of the afterlife and home, had a pensive expression even beneath the blindfold she wore in her travels of the Dreaming Sea, one claw raised to shake the bells tied around her limbs to guide lost spirits to her.
Closing the door behind her, Whitestone kneeled down on the rug. Pulling out a match, she lit the powder in the golden bowl, summoning wisps of smoke. The scent of red poppydust, morphine, and mushrooms filled her nostrils as she bowed down, inhaling the holy mixture deeply. Already, she could feel the familiar, pleasant drowsiness filling her, a sensation like floating overtaking her body.
“Kriga, Fantisera, my lords,” she whispered, keeping her head bowed. “Thank you for protecting my daughter. Thank you for the gift of her children, for allowing her a chance at a normal life. And thank you for bringing my husband back.”
The gods remained silent. Vague shapes flickered in the corners of her eyes, but they were gone as soon as she looked around.
“But these two, Finder and Daring,” she continued. “They’re still alive. No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try...they’re still alive. Them and Zugzwang and Scarlet,” she snarled, clenching her claws so tight that they dug marks into the carpet. “What is keeping them alive? How do I stop them? How?”
She was silent and still for seconds, seconds that stretched out into a full two minutes. Nothing came. No voices. No sudden visions like before. Nothing.
“Am I being punished?” she asked. “Are the crew? What must we do?”
Still nothing. Nothing at all but the silence.
A growl of frustration rose into a cry of rage and Whitestone knocked the bowl aside, where it smashed against the wall in a heap of embers.
“Why are you doing this to us?!” she bellowed at the idols. “Why?! We’ve done everything you asked! That first time, when I took this powder when I was injured, you showed me the path forward, and I followed! I took the crew with me! They chose this! We did what you wanted! Why are you abandoning us now?!”
But Kriga and Fantisera said nothing. Kriga continued to scream out his war cry, and Fantisera remained silent and contemplative. Letting out a shuddering breath, Whitestone sagged against the floor, ordering the tears not to fall.
“Why?” she pleaded quietly, quivering on the floor. “What did I do wrong?”
“So Dimmig Morgon is Roaring’s daughter,” Daring remarked, staring into the glass of apple cider in front of her on the bar.
“That’s the theory we’re running off,” Trace nodded, sitting next to her and chewing on his turnip salad. “Dimmig was apparently given up to an orphanage as a baby, but Twilight ran a sample of her blood against a known sample of Roaring’s. The types matched up.”
“Of course, she couldn’t have just said that in those few words,” Red grunted from Trace’s other side. “Had to go into this long-winded explanation on blood markers or whatever.”
“It does explain why he came to her rescue, why there were members of Whitestone’s crew following them, and why he left them alone,” Trace commented.
“You know, she told me that the Literatures were planning on leaving Ponyville anyway,” Red stated. “I told ‘em, good. The farther away you can get from this city, especially knowing that she’s the daughter of a multiple murderer, the better.”
Daring glanced up at the stage, where Phillip was currently providing a saxophone counterpoint to Rara’s piano melody, her voice weaving through the rapid river of music to form a familiar love song.
Her eyes drifted to the small dance floor in front of the stage, where Flash and Twilight, both fully recovered after a night at the hospital, slowly orbited one another in a stiff interpretation of a Whinny Hop; stumbling, tripping over their own and each other’s hooves, but neither of them caring if the massive grins on their faces were any indication. Flash attempted to guide Twilight around in a spin, but she wound up falling against him and nearly knocking them both down, causing them to burst into laughter.
“Actually, that reminds me,” Red said, knocking back the rest of his cider and standing up. “I gotta go. Lion Mane’s in a school play, and Honeydew...had an extra ticket. She said a friend canceled last-minute and she didn’t want it to go to waste.”
“What’s he playing?” Trace asked.
“Elf number two,” Red replied, standing up.
Daring snorted into her drink. “You must be proud.”
“Damn straight. That’s my kid up there.” With a final nod to them both, Red turned and exited the Apple Pie.
As he exited, the bell over the door jingling to signal his departure, another figure walked in. The light green unicorn looked around in uncertainty and was immediately pounced upon by Pinkie Pie. After some initial shock, the mare managed to ask a brief question. Pinkie nodded towards the bar and gave a cheerful extended goodbye before zipping off, leaving the mare staring in bewilderment at the small, chilled bowl of yellow pudding that she was inexplicably holding.
“I’ve never met her before today,” Wheellock stated in bewilderment as she walked up to Daring. “How did she know banana pudding is my favorite?”
“Rule number one about Pinkie Pie,” Daring said, nodding to the free stool next to her. “Never question her.”
Wheellock reluctantly climbed up onto the stool, her rosary beads rattling quietly with every move she made, and looked around, head lowered. Daring waved to Big Mac behind the bar. “Buy a drink for the mare who saved my ass?” she offered.
“Oh! Uh, thank you,” Wheellock jumped slightly as it seemingly took a moment for her to realize that Daring was talking to her.
Big Mac slammed down a glass of apple cider, foam dripping off the top of the glass. Wheellock lifted it up with her magic and took a brief sip. Her eyes widened in surprise and she wound up chugging down the entire glass in one go.
“That’s good!” she cried, dropping the glass down.
“Least I can do,” Daring commented. “That was a hell of a shot.”
Wheellock frowned a bit. “It wasn’t that great,” she muttered.
“The hell are you talking about?” Daring asked. “You nailed him right in the shoulder!”
“I was aiming at his head,” Wheellock grumbled.
Daring stared for a beat, then laughed loudly. “I’m serious!” Wheellock cried, glaring at her. "I might've gotten him if I wasn't worried about hitting you."
Daring cut her laughter short. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” she said, patting Wheellock on the shoulder. “You still hit the guy and you saved my life. I call that a good shot.”
Wheellock managed to smile after a moment, then returned to the second glass that Big Mac had poured for her, sipping it slowly to savor the taste.
“How’s MacWillard?” Daring asked.
Wheellock was silent for a moment before blinking and glancing up. “He, uh...he’ll live, but the doctors say that he’s probably never gonna be able to walk properly again. His spine and pelvis got, er...really messed up.”
“Oh,” Daring said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Wheellock forced a smile on her face. “Well, he said that he was thinking about taking a desk job anyway.”
“Silver lining,” Daring nodded, raising a genuine, albeit small, smile from Wheellock.
“In all seriousness,” Daring said, taking another sip of cider. “We got most of the bad guys, saved Flash, captured two of the three Swords of Asocrac, and none of our guys died. That, to me, is a hell of a mission accomplished.”
“Yeah,” Wheellock said. “I just keep thinking about if I’d missed…”
“Wheel, I learned something about life a long time ago,” Daring advised. “You can let the shoulda-coulda-woulda tear you apart, or you can learn from it and move on.”
“It’s that easy?” Wheellock asked dryly.
“Well, no,” Daring admitted. “But it’s a skill worth learning. Can’t spend your life worrying over everything.” She nodded at her glass. “But I found that alcohol helps you learn the basics.”
Wheellock chuckled once and returned to her cider.
The phone behind the bar rang. Big Mac plucked the receiver up and listened to the caller briefly before responding with an “Eeyup.” He turned and handed the receiver to Daring, who took it with a familiar sense of foreboding stirring in her belly.
“Hello?” she asked.
It was Cold Case’s voice who answered, and she said two words, probably the last thing Daring was expecting to hear.
“Zugzwang’s dead.”
The empty black eyes stared up at Cold Case, Phillip, and Daring from the metal slab. Zugzwang lay prostrate across the examination table in the morgue, the Y-shaped incision across his chest freshly stitched closed.
“Near as I can tell, he had a heart attack,” Doctor Mortis explained, tossing her balled-up gloves, face mask, and mane net into a nearby trash can. “Honestly, that's the only thing I can think of: I legitimately have no idea what killed him,” she shrugged.
“Officer Dancer was manning booking,” Cold Case explained. “He was doing random checks per protocol. When he did a check at 1826, he saw Zugzwang on the floor. He called for medics—”
“Abbreviated version, please,” Daring interrupted.
Cold gave her a harsh stare. “Apparently, sometime within a seven-minute period, Zugzwang dropped dead of unknown causes.”
“There’s no poison in his stomach or bloodstream, no sign of any trauma, and he’s in excellent shape for a forty-plus-year-old,” Doctor Mortis stated, scrubbing off her hooves in a deep sink.
Phillip stepped closer to the naked body, eyes scanning up and down the flesh, noting the mark on his foreleg where the restraint bracelet had been. It took a moment, but his conscious mind finally interpreted what that itch in his subconscious meant.
“One of the tattoos,” he stated, tracing a circle around a section of bare flesh. “One of his tattoos is gone.”
“Yes, I noticed that,” Mortis remarked. “The tattoos seem to be nothing more than normal ink, and before you ask, Twilight still has no idea what they’re for. Now, that’s a surprise to me, because that mare’s probably forgotten more about magic than I’ll ever know in my life. Granted, I’m a pathologist, and she literally went to school for magic—”
“Doctor,” Cold interrupted.
“Sorry,” Mortis simpered. “Point is, he’s dead. Twilight thinks he tried to use some kind of spell and it was too much for his body.”
Phillip strode forward, raising a hoof. “Phillip, what are you doing?” Cold asked.
He knew that what he was doing was ridiculous, absurd, but he had to do it. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he got proof for himself. And so, he placed his hoof on Zugzwang’s neck.
The flesh was cold to the touch, dry, feeling almost more like cardboard than skin. And there was no pulse. He waited for a count of five. Nothing.
“He’s gone,” he confirmed, turning and walking away. Something in him that had been cold for so long he no longer remembered otherwise began to warm; a weight that he had forgotten he’d been carrying lifted off his shoulders.
“Ha!” Daring barked, relief evident in her tone. “If I’d known that this is what you’d called us for, I’d have gotten another drink.”
“I’m gonna take you up on that!” Mortis called as all four of them exited, grabbing her sketchbook and case of charcoal pencils in her magic. “How do iced margaritas sound? They make that at the Apple Pie?”
The lights clicked off and the door shut, closing with a click. For a few moments, all was silent and still in the morgue, save for the blinking of the blue surveillance crystal in the corner as it stared down into the dark.
And then Zugzwang’s eyes snapped open, his irides growing to swallow his entire eyes in pitch blackness.
Phillip and Daring breathed in the cool air of the summer evening as they stepped out through the revolving doors of the precinct, the near-full moon shining down at them. Mortis paused with an admiring coo and whipped out her sketchpad, starting to sketch a cityscape with the moon hanging overhead.
“The air is crisp, the moon is beautiful, we saved the good guys, and Zugzwang’s dead,” Daring declared, stretching out her wings. “Extra round of drinks, and then go home and fuck?”
Phillip’s ears turned slightly red, but he managed to smile as he nodded. “Too right. This deserves celebra—”
Suddenly, an alarm started ringing from inside the precinct. The trio of ponies whirled around and looked through the glass door in time to see the sergeant at the desk look down at his radio, confusion turning into fear plastered on his face. Phillip’s ears picked up a radio transmission; while he couldn’t make out the words, the tone had panic in every syllable.
The sergeant whirled around and raced through the doorway behind him that led to the stairs, whipping his pistol out from his holster as he sprinted.
“Something’s going on,” Phillip declared, pushing back through the doors. Daring followed right on his tail, with Mortis stumbling in after them.
As they pushed through the door to the interior of the precinct and ran down the hallway, they heard sounds beneath them. Alarms. Smashing doors and furniture. Gunshots. Screams: of fear, of pain, of death.
Phillip and Daring both drew their pistols as Daring shouldered the stairway door open and they began to wind their way down to the basement, every step bringing them closer to the sounds. Daring shoved the basement door open and they burst through, their weapons up.
A body lay at their hooves: a mare officer, lying face up against the wall. Her jaw hung open in an expression of horror and pain. Her eyes had been popped like overripe grapes, vitreous humor dripping down her face, which was now coated in an oily black substance that smelled of rotten fish.
“What the fuck?” Daring whispered as they took in more of the scene. Mortis ran up, panting and huffing, and immediately crouched down to study the body.
Two more bodies of officers lay sprawled across the hallway, one next to the doorway to the morgue, which both ponies noticed had been ripped open from the inside. Further down the hall, the door to the evidence room had also been forced open. Two more officers, one of them the desk sergeant from upstairs, were just entering the room.
A moment later, they both heard a voice, high-pitched with disbelief and terror from within: “Mother of Faust! What is that thing?!”
Gunshots roared, both of them cut off quickly by screams of pain and a horrid squelching sound, then the thuds of bodies dropping, all in the span of the few seconds that it took Phillip and Daring to sprint down the hallway and enter the evidence room.
The bodies of the desk sergeant and his partner lay on the floor, eyes popped, faces frozen in agony, coated in black slime. Boxes of evidence lay scattered about, their contents spilling out like guts strewn across a battlefield. Two steel lockboxes had been pried open. Phillip recognized them both: one had contained the Key of Shadow Walker, the other the two Swords of Asocrac.
“Up there!” Daring shouted, pointing at a ventilation shaft in the ceiling.
They only caught a glimpse of a shape slithering between the slits in the shaft cover, but Phillip heard a faint, strange chuckle beneath the slimy slithering, caught the scent it left behind.
Saddle Arabian tobacco.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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I shall represent everyone reading the end of this chapter.
WHAT IN THE SWEET LOVE OF BABY FAUST IS THAT UNHOLY FUCK THAT ZUGZWANG HAS BECOME?!?!
Overall this is good chapter, showed us what has become of the Lunar Disciples and that apparently Roaring & White-whatever-her-name-is have offspring. And then, we find out that Zugzwang is dead...not.
Now i’m scared on wherter or not the black slime is like a virus that infects dead bodies and turns them into mindless creatures of unholiness. But still...
I DEMAND AN EXPLAINATION ON WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK OF SWEET MARY JEBUS WHAT HAS ZUGZWANG BECOME!
He lost an arm, a wing, and worst of all, two swords. Ladies and gentlemen, gryphon priorities.
In other news, our resident idiot mouthed off to a pride of lions in their den, and it turned out to be the last time. He had stayed lucky for a long time, but as they say, one meant to be hanged will not drown...
I like the religious imagery. Very clever.
What are the limits of healing magic here? We've seen characters recover from life-threatening injuries in mere days, but apparently some forms of damage are more permanent than others.
I knew the runes would be a problem.
And now the grand finale approaches. The key returns to the game, and the only thing that limits it is it cannot teleport to a door it's never opened before. There are two guns left that are yet to fire - the old gods statues, and the scroll, Let's see where the next week takes us.
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Healing magic in these stories is usually just accelerating the natural healing process. Concussions and broken bones repair, but no pony or griffin can grow back a leg.
....What the hell in all the name of Celestia's Sun has Zugzwang become?
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A better question is, "was this what he had planned all along, or has something gone off the rails?"
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Hmmm...interesting idea.
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...Oh dear god...
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SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?
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I have become Maar, destroyer of worlds
Damn. That was...unexpected...MORE!!!
Awesome update as always
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Thank you!
Ah shit here we go let's do this.
Aaaaand Ponyville Noire just became Resident Evil. Lovely.
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H.P. might have whispered a few ideas in my ear...
Okay, everyone roll your Sanity checks at a -2 penalty...