My fish is sharp, my newspaper is read, my nose-ring is freshly polished; time to win.
It had, indeed, taken a while, but now Princess Twilight Sparkle was present in the Tourmaline Drawing Room, which also doubled as a library. (This was a modifier that could be applied to nearly every other room in the castle.) Tea had been served, and she held her cup and saucer in her field, sitting across from the young and mildly perplexed guard. The saucer rattled occasionally as she watched him with a fixed, nervous grin. "S-so," she said finally, "Fizzlepop wants me to go to Tartarus in the morning?"
The guard, who felt he would never get used to the intimidating figure of Tempest Shadow being referred to by her real name, nodded. "Yes, Princess. I'm not sure about all the details, but that's what she told me."
"Then it has to have something to do with Tirek or Cozy Glow," she deduced. "Or both. Could you tell me why you all went there in the first place, Flash?"
"Of course, I... wait. How did you know my name? I never said."
Her eyes went wide in panic. "Oh, you know," she said, with the quickness of desperation. "I... must have heard it while I was in Canterlot. City! Canterlot City! The city called Canterlot!" As he looked even more confused, she suddenly backtracked. "...not that there's any other place called Canterlot, of course! Because that would be ridiculous!" She laughed awkwardly and took a sip of tea so quickly the liquid almost flew out of the cup.
Flash peered at her, concerned. "Are you all right, Princess?"
"I'm fine! Perfectly fine. Nooooo problems whatsoever."
He started to speak, but was interrupted as Spike threw the door open and hurried to the alicorn's side, holding a scroll in one claw. "We got a response from the palace!" he told her, slightly unnecessarily.
Twilight took the scroll and unrolled it. "My Dearest Twilight," she read, "Please do not worry. Everything is fine. Sun will be lowered soon, and you need not worry about the delay. Everything is fine. There is nothing to worry about. Everything is perfectly normal and fine. Do not worry. Your mentor, Princess Celestia." She leaned her head back and stared at the scroll with an expression of acute doubt.
Flash leaned toward Spike. "Is that an alicorn thing?" he whispered. "To be really bad at pretending there isn't a problem?"
"Kind of," Spike said, "but honestly Celestia should've known better."
"Why?" the guard asked a bit nervously. He wasn't used to hearing his Princess referred to so informally.
"Wait for it..."
"Spike! We have to leave for Canterlot immediately! Celestia needs me!"
"Because that," the little dragon explained, then raised his voice. "Let's just calm down for a minute, okay, Twilight? Let's see what Mr. Sentry here can tell us."
The pegaus' gaze narrowed. "I didn't tell you my name either. Have you two been spying on me?"
"...oh. Um. That's not important right now."
"I disagree!"
"You're right, Spike," Twilight said, though Flash thought she said it a bit too quickly. "Please, sir? Do you think this has anything to do with Tartarus?"
He looked between them suspiciously for a moment, then sighed. He wasn't conditioned to argue with a Princess. "It might be," he admitted. "I don't know a lot about what's going on, but it started this morning. Word around the Palace is that Princess Luna was attacked in somepony's dream."
Twilight gasped, and Spike looked up at her. "Is that even possible?"
"I... I don't know! I've never even thought to ask Luna about that! Is she all right?"
"Apart from a massive headache, apparently. Princess Celestia thought it was related to a magic surge from the vicinity of Tartarus, and since Tempest was in town at the time, she was asked to go check on the prisoners. A flight of guards was sent along to bring her there by chariot."
"I guess that explains the Sun delay. Celestia probably wants to give Luna more time to rest, before she goes back to the Dream Realm. But... a magic surge..." Twilight fell silent, then took a slow breath of realization. "...of course. I should have thought of that."
Spike knew when to offer a feed line. "What is it?"
"Cozy Glow must have had some residual magic on her from the ritual she used. Tirek could have used that for something. He couldn't have absorbed it, but he does know a thing or two about spellcraft."
"I thought Tartarus was supposed to stop that kind of thing," the little dragon noted. "How was he able to take magic from Cozy Glow?"
She glanced at Flash. "Um... I think that's kind of a state secret."
He held up a hoof. "Don't worry about it, then. I understand."
"Thank you. Did Tempest say anything else?"
He nodded. "Before I left, she suggested that whoever attacked Princess Luna might have been inside Tirek's head or something." He scratched his head. "Honestly, it was kind of confusing, and I might not be repeating it right."
Twilight frowned in thought, but apparently wasn't able to decipher that statement either. "I guess I'll just have to see what's going on when I get there. But I think I'll go read up on Tartarus and double-check my notes on the new enchantments we put in, just in case."
"Do you think Fizzlepop will be all right until tomorrow?" Spike asked as she stood up. "I don't think she'd ask you to go unless she was worried."
"Well, she didn't say it was an emergency," she replied, "and really there's not much Tirek could do to her with his store of magic depleted."
Then she laughed at an absurd thought. "And it's not like she's going to sing to him or anything!"
Pegasus and dragon looked at each other uncomprehendingly as the alicorn trotted to a different library.
A half-eaten fish, a stained newspaper, and a handful of thistles.
The MannCo catalogue listed one of its available weapons as the "Holy Mackerel", which only gave Spy another reason to hunt down their marketing team. It was, in its own way, a marvel of design; though it appeared to be just a fish wrapped in a newspaper, the fish never decomposed, at least beyond a certain point. It carried with it an eternal faint stench of dead sealife, and being struck by it transferred a quantity of reeking slime to the victim. It was also surprisingly durable, in that if you tried to beat someone to death with a normal fish, you would expect the fish to fall apart before the target received significant damage, while the Mackerel could be slammed against skulls all day and, apart from getting strangely twisted at times, come out of it none the worse for wear. It was not, in fact, a very good weapon, but Scout still used it on occasion for its humiliation value.
Spy had sneered at the Holy Mackerel the first time he'd seen it, but not for the reason his team had assumed. For Spy had spent a lifetime learning the millions of different little ways to escort someone out of this vale of tears: from joining small and secretive assassin cults, to scaling mountains so he could study under ancient hermits retired from the world they had spent so much time making less populated, to delving deep within the Amazon jungle following rumors of the world's deadliest poisons, to simply maintaining a subscription to 'Youdunnit' magazine, he was always on the hunt for new techniques. He rarely needed his full repertoire of knowledge while working the Mann account, which did not greatly reward subtlety, but he continued to study the science - no, the art - of murder for its own sake.
And when he saw the Mackerel, all he could see was a waste of resources.
A half-eaten fish, a stained newspaper, and a handful of thistles.
It was amazing what you could do with everyday items, if you knew how.
"Tempest! Tempest!"
The purple mare looked up from the small bedroll she was setting up. "What is it, Cozy Glow?" she called.
"Come up here quick! Tirek's sick!"
Tempest stared straight ahead for a moment. Really? She'd thought better of them than to try the oldest trick in the book. "He'll get over it."
"No, honest! It looks really bad! Please hurry!"
There was just enough panic in the voice to make it almost believable, but she knew how manipulative the filly could be. Still, it's not like she had anything better to do; she didn't even have to worry about dinner, thanks to the magic of Tartarus. "Fine. I'm on my way." There was a nagging question at the back of her mind, but it had been a long and emotionally charged day, and she ignored it for now.
She trudged up the steps, heedless of Cozy Glow's frantic calls, until she reached the top. "Okay, okay. Let's see how 'sick' he is..."
Then she stopped. There was Tirek on the floor of his cage, panting heavily and looking much redder and larger than he'd been a mere hour before. And Tempest, one of the few ponies in Equestria who had never seen Tirek at his prime, was taken aback. "Oh, storm! What happened to him?!"
"I don't know!" Cozy Glow said, on the verge of tears. "He looked sick when I got back up here, then he just kept getting redder and more swollen! Maybe he's having an allergic reaction to the fish you got him!"
Tempest realized with a pang of guilt that he hadn't looked too good when she left him. But... this could still be a trick. She had to be sure.
Tempest slowly crept closer to the recumbent Tirek, wary of getting too close. "Hey, there, Tirek..." she said. "Feeling under the weather there?" Thirty hooflengths away, then twenty five.
He groaned loudly. She couldn't see his face from this position, and circled around as she drew closer. Twenty hooflengths.
"I think I've got some stomach medicine in my-" Then she stopped, fifteen hooflengths away, as the question she'd ignored finally made itself heard. "Wait. Wouldn't the spells on Tartarus-?"
It was a realization that came too late, as Spy deemed the distance to be close enough. He whipped his head up, treating the mare to the decidedly more fiendish and intimidating visage of a magic-enhanced Tirek. "Boo!" he said loudly.
To her credit, Tempest wasn't frightened, nor particularly surprised. But she did take an involuntary step back with a gasp, her mouth falling open...
In a flash, Spy brought a small rolled paper tube up to his mouth and blew into it sharply. Tempest had the briefest impression of movement through the air, then a painful sting at the back of her throat. After some oral gymnastics, she managed to spit out the offending object: a long, thin fish bone with the spike of a thistle wedged into one end. The tip of the spike was stained dark green.
"What the...?" she began. And then a wave of dizziness swept over her, and she stumbled on her hooves, tripping backwards and falling to the ground. She tried to speak, but no words came out.
The centaur watched her for a moment. "...oh, good. You're not dead. I wasn't sure of the dosage."
Tempest tried to lift her head, failed.
"No need to fret, my dear Fizzlepop. I have no intention of causing you permanent harm. Of course, I've never needed to use this particular concoction on a pony, so with this first dose I've erred on the side of caution. You'll recover in time."
"Fzzsh... slrrrf..."
"Precisely."
"Stop smugging at her and get to work!" Cozy Glow snapped.
"Ah. Yes. Of course." It was always embarrassing to be caught monologuing.
Standing up at his current size, he didn't quite fit in the cage, his newly grown hons adding an inch or two of extra height that made the difference. He slipped his head between the bars and squared up with his hooves firmly planted and his hands placed against the underside of the cage's roof, then took a deep breath and heaved.
Bending the bars enough to allow his escape would take far too much time and effort. He needed a more immediate solution.
He pushed until every vein on his borrowed body stood out and sweat ran from his temples, but the cage was extremely sturdy, possibly even magically so. Nevertheless, Spy was committed at this point; he had no choice but continue to try.
"She's coming around!" Cozy Glow shouted, and indeed Tempest was trying, with increasing success, to overcome the effects of the poison. She was breathing heavily and attempting to say something, but her vocal cords were still resisting control. "Hurry!"
Unfortunate. He'd underestimated pony physiology, then. "I'm trying!" he grunted.
"Do some damage to the bars!" she suggested. "Buck them hard!"
Even in that moment, he had to stop and look at her disapprovingly. "Miss Glow! Language."
"What?" She demonstrated, lashing out with her hind legs. "Just kick 'em!"
Oh. He twisted his head around and tried to take aim - not an easy task from this angle - then gripped the bars before him for leverage and kicked backwards. Two bars bent satisfactorily, and the wooden roof of the cage splintered as they shifted out of place. Another kick, and one of them popped free of its mooring; not nearly enough for him to escape, but definitely progress.
He grinned fiercely. Yes! A few more like that and he would be-
"NECTO!"
The cage glowed with a brief purple light, then one of the bars shifted under Spy's grasp. It disconnected itself from the cage floor, twisting and writhing in the wan light, a metal serpent, then began to wrap itself around his forearm. With an oath he pulled himself free, but then another bar coiled around one of his back legs. Two bars on each of the cage's sides had become living cables seeking a limb to restrain; enough to be a nuisance while still keeping the enclosure stable.
He heard Tempest's weak laugh; the previous shout had been hers, showing that she'd finally found her voice. She swayed on her hooves, but remained standing. "Do you think... they wouldn't have been... ready for this?" she asked haltingly. "Twilight... cued me in... to all of the new security measures." Tempest watched triumphantly as six of the bars secured Spy's limbs and two ensnared his barrel, returning to a solid form as they did so. He growled and pulled against them without success.
(She didn't see how he'd tensed his muscles, and more importantly didn't get a good look at his left hand...)
As he stood immobilized, struggling against his restraints, she took a few steps closer. "What the thunder was that, Tirek?!" she demanded. "I thought we had an understanding!"
"And I thought you'd heard me," he snarled. "I have no intention of cooperating with an agent of Celestia!"
"Stubborn as a donkey! And since when do you ever use poison?! Where did you even get it?"
He just scowled at her, tugging at his restraints.
She took an unsteady step closer, looking him up and down. "And I'm guessing this is what you look like after you've taken somepony's energy? How? Who?! Cozy Glow looks fine to me, and I know you didn't take mine!"
"I have no idea how this happened!"
"Don't give me that!" She struck his cage roughly with a forehoof in frustration, then once the vibrations died down leaned her head against one of the unchanged bars. "Why are you doing this? Is it because Twilight's coming? I know you hate her, but you could still use her to get what you want." She paused, and when she spoke again it was with a bone-weary tone in her voice. "I only want to help you two. Can't you trust me, just a little?"
Spy looked down at her and hesitated. Did the deception even matter anymore? Perhaps it was even a liability now; once someone decided based on the evidence that Tirek had been able to feed, the pursuit by the authorities would be relentless. And this was not a body designed for stealth, particularly as engorged as it was now.
To hell with it. If he was going to be a villain, he would be his own villain.
"What you're experiencing is a compound called Mariner's Deadline," he informed her, and Tempest shook her head briefly; now her ears weren't working properly either because his voice was all wrong. And Prench. "It was developed in 1697 by a crew of Caribbean pirate journalists using a combination of fish liver extract and dried printer's ink. A small amount disorients, more paralyzes, and even more... well, best not to talk about that. And I'm sure the name of that region means nothing to you - the equivalent in this world is probably 'Mareibbean' or something equally dreadful - but I do have so few chances to show off my knowledge of toxicology."
She lifted her head and stared at him, mouth falling open... until she remembered what had just happened and snapped it shut. "'This world'? What are you talking ab-" She stopped. "Oh, no, you're kidding me!"
Spy looked over at Cozy Glow. "By George, I do believe she's finally catching on." The filly looked at him a bit uncertainly, and he nodded to reassure her. The die is cast. "Yes, Miss Shadow. I am not Tirek. I was brought here from another dimension, against my will I might add."
"Then... you really are the thing that attacked Princess Luna?" Tempest asked incredulously
He managed an affronted look. "'Thing?' That's rather rude. You may call me Spy. And, for what it's worth... I didn't intend to cause her permanent harm, either. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She whirled to look at Cozy Glow. "And you knew about this all along?!"
"Obviously," the young pegasus said with a sneer. "We both messed up so much that I'm amazed you never caught on!"
Tempest rattled Spy's cage again. "What did you do to Tirek?!"
He scowled at her. "Pardon me? What did I do to him? I am the victim in this scenario, Miss Shadow, I assure you!"
"He's right," Cozy Glow said. "When Tirek tried that escape spell and got knocked out, Spy was in his body when he woke up. He had no idea about Tartarus or Equestria or... or anything! We think Tirek got sent to Spy's body in his own world."
Tempest groaned. "A magical switcheroo. Good grief. I'm not looking forward to explaining that to Celestia." She stared at him again. "Okay, but why? Why pretend to be Tirek all this time? I could've helped you!"
He returned her gaze levelly. "I believe I've made myself clear about how much I trust your Princess Celestia, have I not? That, at least, was no ruse." She looked away, unable to argue the point. "And now that we've got that straightened out, I'm sure you'll agree that holding me in captivity is thoroughly unjust and will let myself and the filly go free." His tone suggested that he didn't expect any of that to happen.
"Absolutely not. This is way above my pay grade. Not that I'm doing this for money. You're staying right there until Twilight gets here, whoever and whatever you are."
"I rather thought you'd say that. Well, Miss Shadow, what I am is a man of many talents..."
She frowned. "What's a 'man'?"
"...and you've experienced one of them: my skill in the poisoner's art." He leaned closer, as much as his restraints would allow. "Would you like to see another one?"
She did not follow suit, remaining where she was and watching him cautiously (although not, as it turned out, cautiously enough). "Oh, by all means."
"This one is called... escapology."
He relaxed his tensed forearms and swiftly slipped them out of the now-loose restraints, then lashed out at her with his left hand. She had been expecting something like this, and twisted backwards, but not quickly enough, her reactions slowed from the lingering poison. A streak of sudden pain ran along her neck, and a few drops of blood fell to the ground. It wasn't a deep cut, but it didn't need to be.
She looked up at Spy as a fresh wave of vertigo washed over her. Braided newspaper strips had been fashioned into a crude twine and wrapped around his hand, and a trio of sharpened fish bones, thin as needles, were secured to it with thistle stems. Two of the bones jutting out from the back of his hand gleamed with dark poison; the third had her blood on it.
"Double dose," he informed her, then turned his attention to the bars that had come alive again as she staggered back and fell to the floor once more. He snatched at them, taking one in each hand, and moved to tie them together. It turned out he didn't need to bother; they had only been given enough 'intelligence' to seek a target, wrap around it, and pull, and had not been given any friendly fire protocols. The two living restraints became entwined then began to tighten, putting even more stress on the damaged cage.
As he began to pull at the bars wrapped around his forelegs, however, a piercing whistle echoed through the cavern, Tempest's last action before control of her muscles escaped her. Down near the door, Cerberus lifted his head, then began to lope toward the stairs.
"Merde," he muttered. There was absolutely no chance that Mariner's Deadline would have any appreciable effect on the massive beast, and none of the other little tricks he'd devised to fight Tempest would do any better. He had come up with a plan for the hound, and it simply had no right to work. But if it didn't, it all ended here. "Miss Glow!"
"On it!"
When Cerberus reached the plateau, the three sets of eyes took in the centaur in his cage, the purple mare lying on the ground trying to stand, and...
"Here, boy! C'mon! You wanna play? You wanna treat?!"
...the little filly that he liked holding up a big bone in one hoof.
Spy wanted to think of it as an origami tibia, because that at least would distract him from what it really was: the majority of the newspaper carefully compressed and formed into a vaguely bone-like shape. Nothing with human-level (or, presumably, pony-level) intelligence would have been fooled for a moment.
Fortunately, the hound wasn't quite at that level; his tail began to wag, and he began making small eager hops in place, shaking the plateau. One of the heads seemed to have its doubts, but was outvoted by the other two, who had been starved for entertainment almost as long as Tirek.
"Go fetch!" Cozy Glow shouted, and hurled the thing over the edge. Cerberus immediately chased after it, dropping into the murky deaths below. It apparently wasn't as deep as Spy had assumed, because he heard the beast hit the ground very shortly after jumping; based on the stalagmites being tossed out of the pit as he searched for the newspaper, he was none the worse for wear and having a grand old time
"Fine job!" he called, then returned his attention to the bars restraining his forelegs. He was just strong enough to bend them open, and as he pulled free and they came to life, he added them to the growing tangle of metal in front of him. It was actually becoming difficult to maneuver with the knot of iron growing closer to the center of the cage, but he was sure he could manage it.
As he started to work on the bars holding his barrel, however, Cozy Glow yelled, "Look out!"
The was the sound of an impact upon metal, and he was jolted as his cage was suddenly thrust forward several yards, spinning gently as it went. After it stopped, he turned his head to see Tempest making her way slowly toward him. "I'm done withoo," she said with a just-visited-the-dentist slurring. "You go p'ay wif Ther... Thurbur... th' puppy." Standing at his flank, she gave the bars a small kick, rotating the cage around so that Spy was facing the edge of the plateau.
"You can't just kick him over!" Cozy Glow protested.
Tempest shook her head. "Iz fine! Tartrus majzhik will prtect him, an' den doggo can keep'n eye on'm til Thparkle geths here." She moved behind him and gave the cage a full buck; it actually skipped a time or two before sliding to a stop mere inches from the pit.
He twisted and turned as she stumbled behind him again, but with his back legs still bound he had no way to reach her. Desperately, he moved his front half as far as he could to the left, paused briefly to listen, then threw himself against the other side of the cage just as the mare was about to kick. It toppled over with a crash that shook him to his bones, leaving him half of him suspended in the air by the iron bars gripping his barrel and the other sprawled on yet more iron bars at floor level.
He managed to turn his head enough to see Tempest who, having missed her kick, was now flat against the ground and trying to pick herself up.
Spy wasted no time. It was more difficult from this position, but he was able to bend the two bars he could reach and add them to the tangle. The bars around his hind legs were quite simply out of his reach, and knowing what he did about horse legs he didn't feel yanking them free was worth the risk of two broken ankles.
No matter. The tangle was bringing results; the inexorable pull from multiple points along the cage's edges was causing the wooden surfaces to groan and crack. Something was going to give any moment now...
"Thuh... Theh..." There was a pause and a gulp, then: "CESSARE!"
Abruptly the tangle became untangled, and the bars returned to their former shape, neatly tucking themselves back into their sockets and dropping Spy to the ground. "No!" he snarled, his hopes for escape dashed.
Or were they? He was freed from his bindings now, the wood had been weakened and damaged, and he still had two poisoned needles to dissuade Tempest from-
And then the cage began to turn, and he realized that now the two wooden surfaces were perpendicular to the ground, so Tempest had cover enough to approach the cage without entering Spy's reach. He could crane his head around the corner just enough to spot her hindquarters as she reoriented the cage.
It wasn't easy for Tempest to move the cage with her head while under the effects of the poison, especially when she had to avoid moving so far to the side that Spy would be able to grapple her, as he was attempting to do with blind grabs. With considerable effort, she oriented it back toward the pit, took an exhausted breath... and a huge red fist burst through the wood and gripped her by the neck. As she struggled, Spy pulled her back roughly against the wood once, twice, thrice, until she slumped in his grasp, then he released her and withdrew his hand, only to replace it with the other. She was dimly aware of twin stings against her neck before disorientation descended once more.
Spy had to admit, brute strength had its uses. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. Tempest was recovering from the poison remarkably quickly, though there were likely multiple reasons for this: poor ingredients, biological differences, her own prodigious strength and resilience, or just the nature of this bizarre world. All might be contributing to the fact that she could even still move after three-
There was a groan and what sounded like a curse as she started to stand once more.
-seven doses of Mariner's Deadline. And there seemed very few options open to him that weren't just delaying tactics.
A new thought occurred. It was a slim chance at best, but he'd been lucky on that front lately. He braced himself, held out his arms, and shouted, "Necto!"
Nothing happened.
"Necto! Necto, dammit!"
Nothing continued to happen, and he slumped helplessly. Of course. It had been unreasonable, even in this naive world, to think that the creature inside the cage would have been able to activate the security spells on the cage...
"Necto!"
The cage vibrated gently as the bars came alive again, and he looked at Cozy Glow in grateful surprise. When they made the cage, he realized, they thought Tirek would be the only prisoner capable of speech...
Spy quickly chose two of the squirming bars, one connected to the former floor and one at the opposite corner on the roof, wrapping them around his wrists and pulling them to him as tightly as he could, until the wood creaked. They turned back to iron, but that didn't matter. "Now!"
"Cessare!" the filly shouted.
The bars in his hands tried to retract and reset, but he wouldn't let go. Both centaur and enchanted metal pulled harder and harder until the wood shuddered, cracked, and...
There was a massive clash of metal striking metal, wood striking flesh, and then a patter of falling splinters. The two ponies stared at the floating cloud of sawdust, uncertain of the centaur's fate... until the laughter began. "Yes!" he crowed, raising a fist in the air as the cloud dispersed. "A half-eaten fish, a stained newspaper, a handful of thistles... and one incompetent cagemaker!" Spy trotted around the plateau a few times for the sheer joy of it, appearing not to notice the fragments of wood lodged in his hide or the bruises under the fur where iron bars had struck him. "Oh, it is good to stretch my legs! Even if they aren't technically mine."
"Spy!" He adjusted his course and moved to Cozy Glow's cage. "Are you okay? You've got a lot of... ouchies."
"I've had worse. Believe me. Besides, Tartarus provides, does it not?" Indeed, the bruises and abrasions were already starting to fade, and the splinters were, rather unnervingly, backing out of the wounds they had caused. "And thank you for your help, Miss Glow. That was wonderfully timed."
"I'm just glad it worked!" Then she looked past him. "Uh-oh. We're not out of the woods yet."
He turned to see Tempest Shadow standing up once more. The poison was at least having some residual effect, he noticed. Her jaw was hanging open unnaturally, causing unsightly drool, and a foreleg was slightly hitched. The paralytic effect making itself known, he surmised. There was nothing wrong with her eyes, though, which contained pure murder.
"Ooo, she looks mad," the filly noted.
"Yes, one of the side effects of Mariner's Deadline, I'm afraid. The victim tends toward increased irritability for some time afterwards." Assuming they live, he didn't add.
The mare took two unsteady yet determined steps toward him. While he watched, her own abrasions were fading away; as he'd feared, Tartarus was assisting her as well. This was another potential reason why the poison wasn't taking hold as he'd expected, though if so the magic seemed to only be able to do so much.
Cozy Glow eyed her approach nervously. "I don't think she needs any poison to be mad at you at this point."
"...a fair assessment. Give me the rest." It had been safer to leave them with the filly in case Tempest had searched his cage.
Cozy Glow slid a small paper-wrapped package to him. He pulled it apart, exposing three poison-tipped bone needles, which he held carefully in one hand. "Six more doses. That won't hurt her, will it? Like, forever?"
He regarded the purple mare. "All things considered, I think permanent damage is unlikely. She is, as my people say, healthy as a horse."
"That's weird, but okay. But will it stop her?"
"It had better. This is the last of the poison." That said, he selected one needle and readied it for striking, then advanced toward Tempest.
The purple mare glared at him as he grew nearer, and sparks of electricity began to coalesce around her broken horn. Spy slowed, watching it cautiously... but then the light faded abruptly and Tempest fell to three knees, panting heavily. "Yes," he said, resuming his approach. "The poison does make it difficult to concentrate, doesn't it? No, do stay down, Miss Shadow, I implore you."
She ignored him and tried to regain her hooves once more, was rewarded with a stabbing sensation in her neck and a fresh wave of vertigo.
He crouched as best he could and watched her, selecting another needle. "There's no shame in surrender at this point. You've fought commendably well, but you couldn't have known you were up against a trained assassin." Her breath caught, and he smiled thinly. "Ah. So that word does exist in Equestria. But not to worry. I have no interest in practicing my craft here. Unless someone... somepony forces my hand."
She glared up at him. One eye was stuck nearly closed. She managed two words, each coming on its own labored breath. "What... want?" With her mouth paralyzed as it was, the W sounds came out as long U's.
"Just let us leave. That's all. You know that neither of us belong here. Is keeping us really worth all this trouble?"
Tempest looked down for several seconds, then shook her head as roughly as she could. "Vronized!"
"You promised?" he translated. "A promise to Celestia? She's not-"
"No." She paused, and then: "Duilide."
His brow furrowed. "Pardon?"
"Twilight," Cozy Glow said quietly. "She promised Twilight Sparkle she'd help Celestia. And she doesn't want to disappoint her friend." Tempest attempted a weak nod.
Friendship again. How distasteful. "Yes, well. That's as may be, but it doesn't get us closer to resolving this problem. So," he added, moving the two remaining needles to one hand, "allow me to provide you with a fait accompli."
Tempest tried to twist away, but had no way of knowing where the impact was coming, and a pair of stings landed on her flank. "There we are. Nobody would ever blame you for not being able withstand a grand total of thirteen doses of otherworldly poison." He watched her as she slumped, still gasping for every breath. "It's over, Miss Shadow. Please do us all a favor and let it be over." Spy waited a moment longer, then reached for her collar. "And now, let's have that key, shall we?"
And then he paused. The breaths had become more defined, more forceful. They sounded like...
...laughter?
She lifted her head and aimed a one-eyed glare up at him. "Zvy."
He was not in the habit of saying, or even thinking, 'uh-oh', but this would be the time to start. "...yes?"
"Uand... zee... ny... dalend?"
Do you want to see my talent? A horrible sense of foreboding swept over him. "...no?" he suggested.
She laughed once, then her entire body tensed, she made an extended growl of effort...
...and her horn flared to life. Spy quickly backed up, watching for any attempt to aim a lightning blast in his direction, but instead it just kept happening, building and building until the electricity started pouring across her body in waves. Spy had never been exposed to the curse of anime, for all sorts of reasons, and so did not respond to the sight of someone screaming as energy lit up their entire body by jumping to certain conclusions. And he would have been wrong, anyway.
It didn't take long before Spy noticed the smoke rising from the mare's hide. No, not smoke - steam. Sweat was pouring off her and being evaporated by the pulses of lightning that continually washed over her. Froth, too, was rising on her flanks and ribcage, and though it was hard to notice amidst the light show, there was a definite greenish cast to it.
"...oh, no...!" Realizing what was happening and seeing no way to stop it, Spy took a few involuntary steps backward, and was halfway to Cozy Glow's cage when the electric display finally died.
And then, surrounded by a cloud of sickly vapor that was quickly dispersing, Tempest got to her hooves, panting heavily but with a smirk completely free of any trace of her former paralysis. She spat to the left, and the expectorated lump was the same dark and noxious shade of green as Mariner's Deadline.
"Now, I don't know what it's like where you come from, Spy," she said, wiping her mouth with a foreleg and taking a few steps closer, "but in Equestria we consider this to be a 'bad first impression'. Still, you were right about one thing: I am feeling pretty irritated right now." She stopped and moved into a ready stance, her horn shedding angry sparks. "But between you and me? I think I'm gonna feel a whole lot better in a few minutes."
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Ah, it has, as we all knew it would, come down to fisticuffs. Let's see what Spy knows of the noble art of boxing!
In hindsight, it's fortunate that he decided to dismantle the fish. Tempest's reaction to being hit with the Holy Mackerel would not have been fit to print.
I feel like we'll be seeing this particular word quite often in the following chapters
10922854
We need a cut chapter of just this.
I mean, spy has been in a ton of 1v1 fights alot like this before so he has to be good at it by now right?
Good chapter
Ah, Castlevania, the memories.
pfffahahahaha, Caribbean pirate journalists!!
10922854
Yeah. It's a good thing that's not going to happen.
I wanted to see them fully escape when I first started this chapter, but by the end I was quite grateful that I didn't get what I wanted.
Actually I think you kinda should worry about it!
Wait... Can't he just eat the magic blast?
The cage is gone now, and Tempest's song and dance proved that he can absorb magic inside Tartarus, so could he eat her attack? Or are we making a rule that magical attacks can't be absorbed? I mean, it kind of makes sense considering the OG Tirek in G4 didn't just open wide whenever Twilight shot at him.
10923246
Three-part answer to that:
1) As we saw in Frenemies, Tirek can't absorb free-standing magic or magical effects; he can only take it straight from living creatures.
2) Even if he could, the spells on Tartarus explicitly prevent him from stealing magic. That's still in effect.
3) And even if Tirek could do it, Spy has no idea how to go about it.
Too bad Tirekspy can't teleport around and laugh while throwing fireballs at Tempest Belmont
We all know the Spy hates anime because the Scout watches anime in his room privately while his door is locked. And plus the Spy is a furry. y'all know the Spy has the persona.
Enjoy my funny common. And I like the chapter.
Excellent.
Hmm… I wonder if Spy could eat some magic in his enlarged form…
Twilight barges in, "what in Tartarus is going on here?!"
It was a good plan, and would have worked too if it was based on friendship. 😏
I know the chances are very slim to none, but I'd like to imagine that Twilight shows up and Spy and Fizzlepop are just hanging out, dead tired from having fought for like 3 hours and trading war stories.
10922854
He showed decent skill when he fought the BLU Sniper in the Meet The Spy video.
I checked the paperwork because I prefer to know my guards names.
Come on Spy! Fight her and escape!
just pull off a non-lethal trickstab, that’s all ya gotta do.
It’s been a while since I’ve checked out any Fimfiction stories and I’m glad this one was the first one I got to read after a while! This was an awesome update!!
I’m so excited to see what happens next, and as bad as I feel for Fizzlepop I also really hope Spy and Cozy are able to escape later!
When's the next chapter going to be out
Not gonna lie, VERY good story, but DAMN if you ain't milking this a tad much in my opinion. Again, just my opinion.
11026208
If I'm guilty of 'milking' something (whatever that means), I promise you it's not intentional. I would love to have gotten past this point by now, but things keep getting in the way. I don't plan things out meticulously in my head before writing, so I'm changing my mind a lot on What Goes Next, and sometimes I get in my own way because of it. And I'm not the best at judging pacing. Like, I just had three chapters, 20k words, that were originally supposed to be only one. All I can really do is nail down what's in my head as best I can.
11026286 I'd be willing to be an editor or something in all honesty if I didn't have over 30 stories of my own published and more I need to work on publishing. That and if I felt you actually needed that kind of thing, which personally I don't think you do - you've shown you're a strong enough writer as is, after all. Regardless, I'll definitely be here each new chapter to praise this story, and to try and point out any possible mistakes. *Shrug* Honestly though from what I've seen the pacing is the only real issue. Flow is good, grammar and spelling are good if with the occasional misstep, and the mood and tone are pretty consistent in my book.
I'd definitely say 5.9 out of 6 is something to be proud of (most of my own I'd say are a 4.9 or 3.9 out of 6 honestly)
In short, keep up the good work and keep trying to improve, at least so long as that's your goal.
He should`ve broken her horn... more.