Chapter 37: Fall
Foxfire moved away from her friends and family at a trot, and as she did the Crusaders and her students fell in with her. The three women had barely been ponies for an hour and their movements showed it, moving jerkily instead of with the smooth flow of people who had been in pony bodies for weeks or months. Luckily, each of the Crusaders had taken it on themselves to shepherd the trio and had automatically split themselves up so that Summer, Chilly, and Char each had a personal trainer.
Foxfire took a few minutes to really look at her students. As they had hoped, the transformative spell had changed each of them into a unicorn. Summer looked like her namesake, with a body like summer wheat, her mane and tail a rosy dogwood with green eyes like the deep forest. Chilly too, had carried her name into her pony body with an ice white mane and tail flowing from a cool blue body with dark eyes.
Char was the outlier of the three, with a mane and tail of mixed red, yellow, and orange hues. A nut brown body and light grey eyes made Foxfire think of a flaming piece of wood, and of the three, it was Char who seemed to be adapting the fastest to her new body as her hooves were more and more finding their four beat rhythm.
“Don’t worry Ma’am,” said the pegasus on her left, another member of the seven pony Brightly Protective Detail with dark brown body carrying a spectrum hued mane and tail. “Recon can handle anything that gets thrown at her.”
“Sorry,” Foxfire replied, realizing she had been wool-gathering as the group moved along. “Recon is usually with me. I don’t think I’ve met you before.”
“I go by ‘Rainbow’, Ma’am,” replied the pony, who for some reason received what looked like a scowl from Scootaloo. “I’m usually working the night shift, so you wouldn’t see me, normally. But today’s a special occasion.”
“What’s with the…” Foxfire trailed off, gesturing with her head toward Scootaloo, who was straining just then to keep a stumble by Summer from turning into a tumble.
“I look like someone close to them back home,” explained the pegasus, as were all members of the Detail. “And the name is another reminder.”
“You aren’t Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo declared, making sure that Summer was fully steady before going nose to chest with the bigger pony. “You aren’t anything like her!”
“Never said I was,” Rainbow said, with neither apology nor rudeness. “I’m me, but I would like to meet them someday.”
“Sorry,” replied Scootaloo, instantly contrite. “It’s just hearing that name, and seeing that mane…”
“I get it,” Rainbow said, wrinkling her nose in thought. “Look, I’m not really welded to the pony name I picked out at first. So, how about you call me, ‘Prism’ from now on. Would that be any better?”
“I… I think—” Scootaloo began to say, before there was a thunderous sound from back the way the group had come.
Every pony looked back up the hill toward where the main group of Brightly’s defenders had chosen to make their stand. They could see the wall of cloud and the dots of the ponies standing in front of it, and between both the ghostly form of the windigo could clearly be seen.
“Looks like you were right, Ma’am,” Prism stated, calmly checking over her weapons. “Not sure what a windigo is supposed to look like, but that’s close enough for me.”
The words had barely left Prism’s mouth before a shot rang out and the wall cloud collapsed, burying the ponies there beneath it and surging outwards like a grey tsunami.
“Everybody! Get close,” Prism shouted, as the wave of cloud bore down on them. “Closer! I want you all in contact with each other so we don’t get separated.”
“Goddess, protect us,” Foxfire prayed, her magic holding the Seed of Fire before her like a burning brand.
A breath later and the ocean of wind driven cloud swept over the small group, trying to drive them under, but whether it was the blade’s unholy sharpness or the warmth of its fire Foxfire’s mystic sword appeared to be up to the task; parting the clouds a mere hoof’s width before it reached the group, but doing nothing to keep them from being battered by a ferocious wind.
“We should get outta this wind!” Applebloom yelled, holding onto Char for physical support. “Maybe get behind a building.”
“No, we follow the road to the school,” Prism ordered, all business. “We’re not too far from there, plus there is shelter and help there.”
“I can keep the clouds back, but I can’t do much about the wind, or the cold,” Foxfire stated. “Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, how good are you with weather control?’
“Not very,” Sweetie Belle replied, shaking her head moresly. “We can do a little, but we’re just fillies.”
“Okay, you keep helping Summer and Chilly along. Char, how are you doing?” Foxfire asked, noting that her breath was starting to fog.
“I’m okay,” Char replied, terse as ever but with an oddly musical intonation to her voice.
“Right,” Prism began, taking charge of the situation. “Char, you and Applebloom take point and guide us to the school. Sweetie Belle and Summer, watch our right flank. Scootaloo and Chilly, the left. Foxfire, you’re tail-end Charlie. Keep those clouds off of us and guard the rear. Let’s go.”
Moving carefully, with the barely visible road as their guide, the group of ponies made their way toward the school where safety and friends waited. However, they had been on the move for maybe five minutes when a series of loud crunches sounded through the clouds streaming around them.
“Everyone stop, and be sure to stay together,” Prism ordered, taking a moment to remove the ammo clip from her gun. She’d heard Recon talk about how there were civilians being used as cannon fodder and while she might not be willing to shoot any hostiles, it didn’t mean she couldn’t use her gun as a nearly three kilo club.
“AAAAHH!” yelled Sweetie Belle, as a pair of blocky ice creatures loomed out of the scudding clouds toward the eight ponies.
A beam of dark purple magic lanced out from Foxfire, striking one of the creatures full in the chest and sending it flying back through the clouds with pure force. Prism took care of the second creature with a literal flying side kick that collapsed the ice man into ice cubes strewn around a now unconscious woman.
“And that’s why we can’t use bullets,” Prism gasped, limping slightly as she got back up. “Good call, Lieutenant.”
The group had scarcely begun to move again when more of the creatures attacked from all around them. Foxfire dealt with the ones facing her in short order with quick blasts of magic from her horn, while Prism dealt with another using a series of close-in acrobatics combined with solid strikes from the butt of her weapon. The pegasus then swiftly flipped over to the other flank to deal with a creature there, leaving a single menacing figure coming straight at Applebloom and Char.
Foxfire was just turning to bring her horn to bear on the thing when a wave of bright yellow magic screamed out from Char’s horn with a sound like an opera singer holding a high note. The energy wave bodily struck the attacker, flinging it back into the clouds and leaving a trail of shattered ice in its wake.
There was a moment of shocked silence, and as the unicorn freshly come into her power looked back at her friends, Foxfire could swear she could hear a triumphant swell of music in the background.
“Call me ‘Synergy’,” the unicorn with the flame coloured hair stated, and immediately got swarmed by a group hug as every pony congratulated her on finding her magic.
“Concentrate people!” Prism commanded, after nearly a minute had gone by. “We’re still in the soup here.”
“Indeed you are,” replied a deep voice, as out of the fog and cloud came a pony with an ash grey body, their mane and tail a grey streaked black. “You were rather stupid to let down your guard. I would have expected better from all of you.”
“Who are you?” Foxfire asked, taking a stand between the newcomer and the rest of the group with her falchion upraised in clear warning. Behind her, the pony pile quickly dissolved back into a defensive formation that watched for more enemies to try to take them by surprise.
“Why Foxfire,” chided the stallion, a mocking smile on his muzzle. “I’m disappointed that you don’t remember me, considering it was your magic that turned me into this.”
“Donavich?” Foxfire asked, a little confused, but managing to place a remembered voice with a briefly seen body. “Major Donavich? The American?”
“I was all those things,” the stallion replied, and Foxfire saw a flicker of something flash through his eyes. “But not any longer. Now, I am Ash Heart, and while your companions will learn to call me ‘Majesty’, you will call me something else.”
“And what might that be?” Foxfire asked, knowing the answer already.
“Master,” confidently stated Ash Heart and from out of the clouds stepped nearly twenty of the snowy soldiers, with more just visible behind them. “Kneel to me now, and save yourself some pain.”
“Play for time if you can,” whispered Prism, in Foxfire’s ear. “My radio is broadcasting everything.”
“Why come after us? After me?” Foxfire asked, lowering her blade a bit as she tried to draw out the unicorn.
“You are powerful, beautiful… and fertile,” Ash Heart’s leer toward Foxfire’s gravid belly made her skin crawl but she held her tongue as megalomaniac continued. “According to your dossier you once called yourself the ‘Queen of Brightly and the Lands Beyond’, and had begun to take steps to make that title a reality before foolishly limiting yourself. As your master and husband I will free you of those limitations to rule at my side.”
“And what about my friends? My family?” the unicorn asked, frowning as she began to feel a strange pressure in her head, very similar to the beginnings of a headache.
“If my Queen wishes to keep a few pets of her own, I don’t mind. So long as they behave,” Ash Heart replied, if anything his grin was growing wider, becoming a full smile. “Except for Sweetie Belle. She is mine.”
“Why her?” Foxfire asked, trying to force her brain to think. It was like her mental gears were freezing up like an engine without oil.
“Sometimes I find it hard to believe that even you could be so stupid,” Ash Heart snorted derisively, stepping closer, and Foxfire couldn’t seem to muster the energy to move her sword to block his path. “Sweetie Belle’s Equestrian diamonds are linked to her homeworld. Using them and her connection to them I will find the way to Equestria. I will succeed where others have failed, and once I am in there I will be master of two worlds. Earth and Equestria.”
“Wait, what?” Foxfire asked again, it was getting harder and harder for her to follow the thread of the conversation, and how had Ash Heart gotten nose to nose with her?
“All this time living with Equestrians, being near to so much of their power, and never once thinking of looking for a link between their artifacts and the source of their power. Their home,” Ash Heart leaned in close to Foxfire’s ear. “As my queen, you will learn so much…”
The white unicorn shook her head violently for a moment. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. When had she let her sword fall to the ground? Why was every pony around her just standing there with unfocused eyes and slack jaws?
“What… what are you doing to us?” Foxfire managed to demand of her K— of Ash Heart, who had begun to walk around to her backside.
“What I’ve been doing since the moment you first laid eyes on me,” Ash Heart replied, with a satisfied purr in his voice. “Overwhelming your strength with my own, making all of you mine. Isn’t that right, Prism?”
“Sir, Yes Sir!” snapped out the pegasus, going for half-focused immobility to rigid attention in a split second.
“You bastard!” Foxfire roared, wheeling in place as realization triggered a rage that bolstered her failing mental strength. A quick thought was all it took for her sword to leave the ground and form a barrier of fire and bronze between her and the pony who had been insidiously invading their minds.
“You don’t want to do that, do you?” Ash Heart said with a smile, as the three Crusaders zipped into place between the Seed of Fire and Ash Heart to form a living barrier.
“Hiding behind foals!” Foxfire hissed, trying to keep her anger up but feeling Ash Heart’s power nipping away at her will to resist.
“Helping you to see reason,” replied Ash Heart, his horn glowing in earnest now. “That’s it… Take a moment to think. Why would you want to harm three innocent children?”
“I… I wouldn’t,” Foxfire gasped, the need to think causing confusion to grip her and stealing away even more of her anger. “You’re the only… the only…”
“And this is why I want you as my Queen,” Ash Heart said, his voice sounding like someone anticipating a fine meal. “All the others gave in just by being around me. But you, you need my personal attention. You’re worth taking as my own.”
Ash Heart's eyes bored into Foxfire’s and she could feel herself falling into those ashen depths. Her will to resist fading along with the last of her rage. There was a distant clatter as the Seed of Fire fell to the pavement.
“On your knees, Foxfire,” Ash Heart commanded, and Foxfire felt her body obeying even as one last part of her mind tried to keep up the struggle.
Again, the mind controlling pony stepped behind Foxfire and a moment later she could feel his weight settling over her back and withers. Something touched her head at the base of her skull, and Foxfire realized that Ash Heart was standing over her with his horn to the back of her head.
“Even now you could stop me. If only you weren’t a weak, simpering female,” Ash Heart murmured in Foxfire’s ear. “All it would take is for you to rear back and impale yourself on my horn and you would die a free woman, but that would take more willpower than you have left, wouldn’t it.”
A cold sensation began to spread from the back of Foxfire’s head, moving into her mind and freezing away all thought, all passion, all volition. The unicorn tried one last time to hold back the cold tide, but Ash Heart already had far too much of a headstart on her and Foxfire felt her ability to think being frozen into immobility.
Ash Heart smiled as his power began to overflow the mind of the white unicorn. Once she was fully in his power, she and those with her would be more than enough to tilt the battle for Brightly in his favor. After that, Ash Heart would deal with the windigo, taking its power for his own and then with all of Brightly’s magic at his command, and the Equestrian diamonds to give him an aiming point, he would tear open the way to Equestria and conquer it with an army of humans and ponies.
She was almost completely his now, docile and unresisting, and all that remained to conquer was a curious gap in Foxfire’s mind. Ash Heart frowned as the gap seemed to swallow his power like water flowing into a hole, leaving no trace that it had ever been there. The unicorn pushed more power into Foxfire’s mind, determined to overwhelm this apparent last bastion in the mare’s mind, the last hiding place of free will to be found within her..
More and more dark energy flowed out from Ash Heart, pouring into that strange gap, until at long last the unicorn thought he saw something with his arcane sight. A glimmer in the darkness as something seemed to stretch and move. Fearing that the unicorn had found some last reserve of strength or desperate stratagem, Ash Heart struck with every ounce of his mystical might combined with the cold strength of the Hand of Franklin in his heart, determined to end this unplanned struggle.
For long moments afterwards all was cold and silent, and there was not a whisper of a thought from Foxfire. Not a single action that wasn’t autonomic. Satisfied, Ash Heart began to withdraw, certain that the mare was now fully under his thrall and would now obey his every command, but just as he was about to sever the mental link between King and queen, between Master and slave, he heard a word. A single word that chilled even his cold heart…
“NO.”
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Looked a little too long into that abyss there bud.
Man, Ash Heart is such a nice guy. Real keeper!!!
EDIT: I am speaking sarcastically. This guy is a creep!
11561237
Nicely said.
Gone, gone, the form of Jean,
Rise the evil Nightmare Queen!
Well, I’m all caught up. Now for the agony of waiting to see what is next.
This has given tons of motivation to work on my original writing, though, so thank you!