The Last of the Dark Ponies

by Askre

Chapter 9. So how do we begin looking for him?

Chapter 9

Foxy landed on the road and with a concerned frown approached the groaning pony who lay flat on the ground. Starlight hadn’t gone really far after running away from Luna’s barrier that now enveloped almost entire Ponyville, dropping down still well within sight of it.

“Are you all right?” Foxy asked, receiving a frustrated neigh in response. They were soon joined by Dew Doe who had quickly caught up.

“I just forgot my head has been knocked around three times already today, my friends are trapped in a cursed castle and now I have to go again and deal with somepony who is really dangerous to solve the issue,” Starlight moaned and started to rise up with the help of the two pegasi.

“That is a pretty bad bulge on your head, you really should be in bed,” Dew Doe remarked as she gently felt Starlight’s bandage with a hoof.

“Well that isn’t exactly an option right now, my bed is probably cursed too right now,” Starlight snapped and batted Dew’s hoof away.

“Sorry, I just like helping ponies, I didn’t mean to fuzz over you like that, Dew cringed and looked down.

“Dew has an automatic nurse mode,” Foxy chuckled weakly.

Starlight took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to dispel the frustration of the current situation away. Considering what had just happened in Ponyville, she needed all the help she could get and right now the two pegasi were her most current option.

“No it’s alright, you are right, I should be in bed, I was in fact in the hospital,” she started explaining, then told the sisters how she had realized that Sombra would be prepared for a rescue mission by Twilight and tried to get to the castle with Luna’s help. Unfortunately, they were too late.

“Okay, so what do we do now?” Foxy wondered, Dew opened her mouth as if to protest but then glancing at Starlight’s bandaged head shut it again.

“Luna said there was massive dark magic somewhere north, we need more help to figure out where to go…” the unicorn frowned as she thought over what little information they did have. “She said Princess Cadance was in Canterlot, we need to warn her what has happened, with Luna, Twilight and Celestia trapped in Ponyville she is our best option to go to for further advice.”

“I could probably teleport us there but it would take a lot out of me plus I right now am having trouble using my magic with this concussion,” Starlight smiled weakly and rubbed her head.

“Yeah, please use your magic sparingly for the next few days,” Dew Doe advised with a concerned expression. Starlight gave her a confused look.

“Foxy wasn’t kidding about that nurse mode,” the unicorn then said with a chuckle. The mare in question was now grinning with a real ‘told ya’ expression.

“I am certified, though no longer practicing. I switched to psychiatry and Foxy and I actually work for the parole office in Fillydelphia, I mostly help troubled ponies newly out of jail, but I have been considering opening up my own practice lately,” the blue pegasus smiled and shrugged a little.

Starlight nodded and started considering their options for travel. They needed to get to Canterlot but even if it was the closest city to Ponyville it was still a fair trot. On hoof that is, the unicorn glanced at the wings on the pegasi.

“Wait, do you think you can carry me to Canterlot?” she looked at Foxy when remembering how easily the pegasus had in fact carried her.

“Canterlot is close by, especially on wing,” Dew said as she glanced towards the distant mountains where Canterlot Castle was clearly visible.

Foxy turned her head too look towards the mountains, she narrowed her eyes as she carefully considered, rubbing her muzzle thoughtfully. Dew shook her head rolling her eyes, Starlight looked at her curiously.

“FOR COAL!” Foxy Stripes suddenly shouted, spread her wings and jumped into the air, Quickly then she grabbed Starlight and tossed her onto her back and flew off towards Canterlot with Dew quickly following.

“Is she always like this?” Starlight cried as she desperately clung onto Foxy, wrapping her front legs around her neck.

“Pretty much,” was all Dew could offer in response, though deep down she knew her sister was mostly doing it this time to conceal her own worries and fears over her abducted daughter.

Maybe flying wasn’t such a good idea, Starlight thought as she felt another headache coming through. How in Equestria can I do anything in this condition.

“So, what is it that you do?” she decided to try and keep her mind off it by conversing with her ride.

“I’m pretty much in the same profession as Dew, though I only took psychiatry, but my focus was more often on foals but Dew and I like working together so we were often assigned jobs together,” the maroon mare responded.

“Wow, I don’t suppose the two of you have psychoanalyzed Sombra have you?” Starlight made a weak joke.

“Considering we never met the creep until today at the castle, I would say at first glance he’s a classic case of a pony with a sadistic personality disorder and shows clear signs of obsessive desire for power and control,” Dew chimed in causing the unicorn to look at her unsure.

“Are you pulling my leg or were you being serious?” she asked, when Dew smiled it became clear she hadn’t been too serious.

“I would need a full session with him, not that I would want to, before I could give any conclusive diagnosis. Ponies can show all kind of signs that the uninitiated might think were signs of some mental disorder, but are in fact just personality quirks or even just a one time thing brought on by the situation at hoof,” the pegasus explained.

“So how are the two of you holding up, I mean… this can’t be easy on either of you,” Starlight then asked, wondering how much they were keeping in right now. Not surprisingly both pegasi sighed a bit and got sadder.

“To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind crawling to bed and curl up in a ball and just cry. But that isn’t going to bring back my daughter and our friends back,” Foxy responded first, they then both looked at Dew Doe who seemed to have been lost in thought.

“I just want them back and I never turn down ponies that need help,” she finally said after a bit of silence.

Starlight nodded and decided to try and change the subject. However, her mind was still on recent events, plus her condition wasn’t exactly helping either with thinking too much. She wasn’t much better than Foxy, she just wanted to crawl back into bed.

In the end she decided to just use what little concentration she did have to hold on as Foxy carried her towards Canterlot. Dew would sometimes periodically move closer to examine the unicorn’s head, Starlight relented to it, realizing by now that the blue pegasus was herself trying to keep her mind off things.

“Oh wow, look at all the trains and ponies at the station,” Foxy remarked as they started their flyover over the city and came closer to the train station. But as the ponies began heading towards the castle their flight path was blocked by Princess Cadance accompanied by two pegasi guards.

“Starlight, good you are here, Foxy, Dew, please follow me,” the alicorn requested and immediately headed towards Canterlot castle.

“Wait, she knows you two?” Starlight blinked, the way the princess had addressed the sisters seemed to indicate so.

“We did stay at her castle when Private was possessed by Sombra and they were looking for him,” Foxy explained briefly as she followed the princess.

Cadance brought them to the highest balcony of the castle where she landed along with her guards. Foxy and Dew soon followed and the sisters helped Starlight climb off the maroon pony’s back.

“Princess Cadance…” Starlight started but the princess simply raised her hoof. Clearly intending to explain already before questions rained over her.

“We’ve had our own contingency plans in place in case King Sombra struck again. The moment Celestia and Luna heard of the attack, I was summoned here to watch over things just in case. Then Luna sent me a message to stop all trains going to Ponyville and made me aware that you would most likely head here first, or at least look out for you in case you didn’t. I was actually heading off to search for you when the three of you arrived,” Cadance told them. “Put perhaps you could fill me in on the details, Luna couldn’t tell me much as she was already under considerable strain or so she told me through her magic.”

Starlight nodded and started to tell exactly what happened in Ponyville, from King Sombra’s attack to when Twilight’s entire castle began sprouting dark crystals and converting its surroundings and any pony unlucky enough to be in the way and didn’t run fast enough.

“And now Luna’s stuck there stopping the curse from spreading,” she finished, the whole time the princess had listened with a concerned expression.

“Send out ponies to the surrounding areas of Ponyville and look for anypony who might have escaped before Luna sealed the town, try and have them come to Canterlot,” Cadance ordered the guards who saluted and flew off.

“I take it wasn’t part of your contingency that entire Ponyville would be encased in Crystal, trapping three of the four Princesses and the others?” Starlight wondered and wasn’t surprised the alicorn shook her head.

“But in hindsight we should have, we’ve witnessed Sombra’s layers of traps before, well Twilight has,” Cadance sighed and gestured for the three ponies to follow her inside.

“So how do we begin looking for him?” the unicorn asked as they entered the tower the balcony was on. Cadance found herself a seat and gestured to the mares to do the same.

“We have had suspicions that he’s somewhere in the north for a while now, if Celestia is right and there is a strong concentration of dark magic there, then that’s probably where he is. The problem is, we think he’s well beyond Yakyakistan which is too close the mountain goats for any of us to go there. Don’t forget that the yaks have only in the recent years reopened their borders to us,” the princess explained. “Mountain goat territory is still very much closed and then there is Artica.”

“Artica?” Foxy asked, her sister looked just as unsure.

“The land of the mountain ponies, they are very hostile to Equestrian ponies, though they haven’t bothered us in a long time and with the yaks now on our side that isn’t likely to change. But if Sombra is anywhere close to there, he is in a very good spot to hide,” Cadance told them.

“I don’t think we have much choice, do you think the yaks could offer some assistance?” Starlight wondered with a thoughtful expression.

“Perhaps they can, the most recent possible sighting was when they told us they had rescued some mountain goats driven mad by fear…” Cadance nodded but then looked at the unicorn’s bandaged head. “But do you think you are up for the trip?”

“Again, don’t think we have much choice, you are needed here, you probably even need to go and help Luna preventing the curse from spreading. I’ll be fine… I’ll rest aboard the train and I’ll probably be better once we finally arrive up north,” Starlight assured her.

“Foxy and I will go with her. I’ll keep an eye on her,” Dew Doe chimed in, her sister nodding furiously.

Cadance frowned, clearly not quite liking the idea but had to concede that Starlight had a point. As much as the princess wanted to rush back north and start hunting Sombra down, she was needed here in the south with all the other princesses trapped in Ponyville. Not to mention, Starlight had already proven herself once quite capable of dealing with a crisis like this.

“I’ll have guards get you saddlebags with supplies and escort you to the train station. You’ll use my personal train to get to the Crystal Empire, Shining Armor can give you directions from there to Yakyakistan,” the princess said and rose from her seat and so did Starlight and the pegasi sisters.

---

Barbell groaned in frustration as she stared at the schedule table for the trains. All routes to Ponyville were cancelled. She was stuck in Canterlot, the next train to Manehattan wouldn’t be for another hour and had in fact been delayed due to the schedule mess with Ponyville.

“What’s going on?” the earth pony grumbled. Her train from Manehatten to Ponyville had been rerouted to Canterlot without any explanation. The mare first thought she would have to just hop on another one to go to Ponyville, but looking at the schedule dashed that hope.

“Can you believe this?” she grunted and looked at another mare that was standing next to her, also viewing the schedule. “Why would they cancel all the trains?”

The other mare and earth pony as well, gray with purplish hair and wearing a blue grayish frock, didn’t respond. For a moment she just stared neutrally at the schedule before looking around at all the ponies at the train station, many who were being just as inconvenienced as them by all the cancellations.

“Were you going to Ponyville as well?” Barbell asked, not really minding that her question hadn’t been answered. It had been rhetorical.

“Yes,” the pony responded in a dry deadpan tone.

“Just our luck huh, stuck in the capital,” the opal pony snorted and shook her head, she started to glance around, to see if anything was happening that would explain the situation.

“Ladies and gentecolts!” a voice suddenly announced from the speakers.

“As you may have noticed all trains to Ponyville have been cancelled. We have just been informed that there has been an incident in the town and it is not safe to travel there. If you live in Ponyville, we have information for guest houses and hotels at the ticket counter, if you know somepony in Canterlot, we would advise asking them if they can house you for the time being. Other trains will resume traveling to other locations within two hours.”

“What?” Barbell gasped in shock, the other mare though still looking stoic and neutral slightly raised one eyebrow, but then she looked away staring into the distance.

“Oh no, Barricade, what’s going on? What happened?” Barbell started to look frantically around as if trying to find someone, anyone who could answer her questions.

“Come with me,” the other mare said, still speaking in the same monotone voice, she started to walk towards the platforms, specifically heading to one that had a rather stylized crystal like train by it.

“Huh?” Barbell looked at the pony confused, but seeing she couldn’t do much else followed her. As they approached the platform, the mare saw Princess Cadance, a couple of guards and three other ponies standing close the to train. The earth mare frowned, she recognized the two pegasi in that group.

“And when you get north, ask Shining for a map of the northern regions. We should have them in the library.” The two mares heard Cadance say to the three ponies.

“Starlight,” the monotone mare addressed the group, not raising her voice one iota, but it caused the unicorn to snap her head towards her.

“Maud. Oh thank goodness,” Starlight rushed over to the gray earth mare and gave her a hug. “You escaped Ponyville?”

“No. I was already here in Canterlot. What happened in Ponyville?” Maud asked, not returning the hug, but Starlight could almost detect a hint of concern in her otherwise deadpan voice.

“I’m so sorry,” Starlight sighed deeply. “Sombra attacked Ponyville, Pinkie and the others are trapped in Twilight’s castle. I’m heading off north to go look for him, we think he might be there somewhere beyond Yakyakistan.”

“Is Pinkie all right?” Maud asked, her friend could almost swear there was even more concern in her voice.

“I don’t know, this is why I must hurry to go north, it’s our only real lead to find him. He abducted eight ponies, including Rainbow Dash,” Starlight explained, somewhat reluctantly not wanting to distress her friend over her sister. It was then the unicorn noticed Barbell, but the opal mare was glaring past her, straight at Foxy Stripes who was doing the same. Dew Doe looked more awkward.

“You know her?” Starlight glanced at the pegasi mares.

“I’m Barbell. I’m Barricade’s marefriend,” Barbell responded before the pegasi could.

“I take it you were on your way to Ponyville to join the… uh party?” now the unicorn cringed and didn’t feel much better when the earth pony slowly nodded. “Then you probably don’t want to know that Barricade was one of the ponies abducted…”

“He was what?!” Barbell stopped glaring at Foxy and instead turned a shocked expression towards Starlight.

Starlight glanced at Cadance who gave her a sympathetic smile, then the Princess stepped forward and took over explaining exactly what happened to the two newly arrived mares. Barbell’s jaw slowly descended towards the ground, Maud’s expression barely changed, but Starlight had a feeling that deep down her friend was worried.

“Starlight, I’m coming with you,” Maud suddenly declared. Starlight looked at her sharply and almost wanted to protest, but then considered that her friend did have a stake in this plus had abilities that could well come in handy. Right now, she could use all the help she could get.

She then looked at Barbell who was rubbing her forehead, like she just couldn’t believe what was happening right now. Starlight glanced back at the pegasi sisters, Foxy was still glaring at the opal mare, Dew Doe just shrugged, clearly not ready to offer any advice.

“Look, uh Barbell was it? I can see you have some stake in this, if you wish to come as well, I won’t stop you, all help is appreciated,” she offered, secretly wishing she had time to contact Trixie and grab her along as well. But her showpony friend was west in Applewood and wasn’t expected back for quite a while.

Barbell eyed her for a moment before glancing back at Foxy, who first now looked away. Dew Doe suddenly found her hooves rather interesting. The earth pony returned her attention to Starlight.

“Since Barricade got himself in another mess, I’ll come to go get him out of it, but I’m only doing it for him and Cara,” she snorted, giving Foxy another glare.

“Fine, come along, see if I care. I’m going to get my daughter Coal back, her sister Dinky and my friend Private and Hard Shovel and Mirage Rock,” Foxy snapped, Dew Doe put a restraining hoof on her chest but her sister didn’t go forward.

Oooh boy, I hope this will not be Trixie and Discord all over again, Starlight closed her eyes and rubbed her temple tiredly, the bad blood between the two mares could clearly be observed from orbit.

“Good luck,” Cadance whispered to Starlight with an awkward grin, not envying the unicorn right now.

“Oh I can almost say I’m used to this,” Starlight sighed and looked at Maud who was the only one who made no comment and just continued to watch with the same stoic neutral expression.

“Alright everypony, let’s go,” Starlight then declared and gestured to the train waiting for them. First in were the Pegasi sisters, though Foxy shot Barbell one last glare before boarding. Next went Barbell and Maud.

Starlight started to board the train, but stopped midway and glanced back at Cadance who was still giving her the same sympathetic smile. The unicorn, chuckled nervously before fully entering and the door closed behind her.

Oh, this is going to be a long trip north, Starlight thought as she entered the coach and found Barbell sitting on one side and the Pegasi sisters far on the other side. Only Maud had not yet found her seat and seemed to be waiting expectantly for Starlight, apparently wishing to sit next to her.

“You can still change your mind and jump out,” Starlight said half joking half-serious to Maud who still didn’t change her expression, but there was a slight gleam of amusement in her eyes.

End chapter 9

Comments

[Mix-up]

Nice chapter

[Ice Star]

“I’m Barbell. I’m Barricade’s marefriend,” Barbell responded before the pegasi could.

While I get what her name is a reference to, in true pony pun fashion it would be neat if it had been spelled as Barbelle.