Werewolves of Knicknik

by Atuhor Name

CH. 24 Jaws of the Beast

Jaws of the Beast

“Well Twilight, you really are a trailblazer.” Naudia joked at Twilight.

Twilight tried to be annoyed, but only managed to fix her face halfway between keeping in a laugh and looking annoyed.

They had just passed by an old rotten tree that, up until the point where Twilight had passed through, had been standing up. Now it was shattered into a couple pieces, a lot of splinters, and with just a stump left behind. This was the first major sign of the trail Twilight had left behind in her rush to get back to meet up with Naudia. Other signs included hoofprints on trees, holes in the underbrush, trampled over collections of willow saplings, and very deep hoofprints in the forest floor.

This was a wild forest, unmanaged, and it was VERY dense with plants everywhere. This was exactly what the north had as an answer to more tropical jungles. It shouldn’t have been possible to just “run through” this forest like Twilight had.

“What I don’t get is how I could just… push over saplings like this.” Twilight said. “I know I’m strong enough to now, but there should be deep furrows in the ground or something. I shouldn’t be able to just blast right through them like this.”

“I know why, you’re pushing with your magic, onto it.”

“We can do that?!” Twilight exclaimed.

“Yes, and it’s so basic I don’t even think they thought to teach it to us.” Naudia pointed a hoof at a cluster of dense willow saplings that had been crushed over. “You clearly already can do it.”

“The other thing we can infer from all of this,” Twilight said as they went around a hill. “Is that we now have an extremely good sense of direction.”

Naudia realized what Twilight was talking about. The trail around the hill they just passed by was almost perfectly set up to keep them on course to their destination. She knew, far too well, that normally ponies would end up going in circles without a reference point, especially in a place like this dense forest… or a desert.

They continued on through what Naudia called “Twilight’s wake of destruction” until they actually reached the werewolf settlement.

“So while the etymology of the word ‘werewolf’ should probably be something like ‘marewolf’ as it would be today. It’s actually based on an older word ‘werwulf’, ‘wer’ meaning pony, but the interesting thing about it is that no matter where you’re at ‘wer’ or ‘were’ always refers to the locals. For example over in Griffonstone they say it refers to the griffons. So no matter where you are the etymology of the word remains the same.”

“I think changelings would be similar, if we had werewolves out where we were at. Instead we had legends more similar to your vampires, stories of changelings that if starved for love for long enough would suck the blood of their victims and wander the world as creatures of the night.”

At that point they came into sight of the fields around the werewolf settlement and were treated to it’s signature blasts of wind coming off of the run up from the fields and fields of crops.

One of the werewolves working in the field, in full werewolf form waved at them. Twilight couldn’t tell which werewolf it was, and it struck her how much she was relying on just being able to tell things about a yunguaq just by looking at them and having the information broadcast into her brain.

Twilight began to pick out that this was actually Expat Eclipse, the werewolf “queen”. Which itched at her etymology brain, but she just had to accept that Equestrians didn’t really understand what that term meant as it hadn’t been used inside Equestria for over a thousand years.

He bounded towards them with a kind of childish-doglike joy, tongue lolling out and even when he reached them it was like he just couldn’t stand still.

“The newest Royal Couple!” Eclipse said, emphasizing the capitol letters. “It’s just so good to see you both!”

Naudia stared at Eclipse for a second before asking Twilight.

“Who is this?”

“This is Expat Eclipse, the queen of the werewolves.”

Naudia looked Eclipse up and down suddenly.

“You ponies do know what ‘Queen’ means right?”

“Nope, the only royalty that’s been in Equestria for the past thousand years has been princesses and princes.”

“I know I’ve said this to you before Twilight, but your government system is weird.”

Eclipse chuckled at that.

“It’s so nice to hear you banter like that, would you mind doing a show of walking around the colony? It would help to dispel… rumors.”

Naudia did not even miss a beat.

“I imagine the next words you’re going to say are something like ‘changeling, pod, mind control,’ or ‘political marriage’.”

“Well I would never…” Eclipse talked like a true politician at times. “Imply that to you directly. Others that believe the tabloid trash we get up here might be more forward.”

“Yeah.” Twilight and Naudia said. “We know.”

With that Twilight and Naudia were led, well more, toured through the fields to the center of “town”. It became apparent that Eclipse while also very enthusiastic about being a werewolf was also very enthusiastic about potatoes, and cabbage, and Twilight and Naudia had to stop him from bypassing the town to show the irrigation of the spinach field.

Not for a lack of interest from Twilight and Naudia, but the spinach fields wouldn’t have an escape hatch.

They moved down into the tunnels and Twilight felt as if teeth were closing in around her, looking to her side she noticed Naudia shiver from the feeling as well. That had not been here the last time she visited these tunnels.

“Excuse me for a moment, I need to check in with something.”

Twilight pulled out the tablet and poked it on with her magic, levitating it with her magic in front of her she felt somebody behind her. It was Eclipse staring at the strange glowing device that had icons on it.

“Is that some new tech from Canterlot?” He asked.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Wooow, I hope we get something like that up here soon.”

Twilight pressed the button that would call up Gwynn and described what she felt entering into the caverns.

“Yeah, that sounds about right, I would say that’s definitely a sign of soul magic. Remember Twilight that Bagrat only has one reserve shield for you, if that activates your shield is down and you are near death.”

Twilight only managed a nervous fixed smile, but it was an audio only call. There really was nothing else to say. Twilight had to steel herself but it felt like she was picked by needle-like teeth just being here, and she didn’t know who could be working for this soul consuming, mind dominating monster.

Looking to her side Naudia had been in on that call as well and looked to be holding up better than her. Nevertheless they both brought their zoetic shields up she was thankful that the bagrat could be hidden inside her and Naudia’s hair and that casting a spell with this new “sovereign magic” did not light up her horn or make her initial, non-werewolf shield visible.

It still felt weird to be walking around armed like she was and with a lichen wolf pelt though. Ponies around her noticed her more as “that pony with wings, a shield and a grass wolf pelt” as she walked by. Nopony knew what to make of her.

Naudia on the other hand was given a very different greeting.

“So can you transform into a ponywolf?”

They were surrounded by an excited crowd of Werewolves in the main hall and they were all over Naudia. Everything from her tallish gothic look, to her changeling ability to transform, a rumor that she was a werewolf like her wife, and her royal wife Twilight herself.

“Is your position as ‘queen’ based on werewolf queens?”

“Are you as strong as Twilight?”

“How do you think your political marriage to Twilight can benefit werewolves?”

Naudia frowned at that one.

“Twilight and I’s relationship is not political in nature.” Naudia stated very firmly. “It has political consequences, but those are tertiary.”

“We would be together regardless of whether or not Equestria approved of it.” Twilight chimed in.

“Sorry about them, we get news essentially third or fourth hand out here.” Eclipse nervously said.

Throughout their tour they discovered nothing really actionable, Naudia showed off her own specific werewolf form. Twilight was intrigued to find out that Naudia had implemented some of the things they’d seen last night to make it blue like the color of her hair, and to give her a sort of hackled mane.

The werewolves for their part were astonished at this strange new type of werewolf in front of them that could split and multiply like a bacteria. Even with the wide variety of werewolves around here they stood out, even though Twilight could have swore one of the assembled werewolves was actually a wererat or something similar.

Still the feeling of jaws closing in around them didn’t relent, as they went deeper it only increased. Twilight could immediately tell that none of these werewolves were involved here because the crowd that followed them around stuck with them and the feeling only got worse the deeper they went.

Finally as they were looking through one of the exceptionally well engineered cold storage rooms Naudia snapped. As if she had triangulated the feeling with her head she ran over in a flash and bucked one of the walls.

“What are you-?!” Eclipse shouted, he and some of the werewolves were already preparing to make a run for it in case of cave in, half inside their werewolf forms already.

The wall had turned out to be hollow, frozen permafrost dirt caked onto a wooden door which buckled like balsa wood under Naudia’s hoof. Beyond it lay a tunnel that was dark, just wide enough for one pony to walk through.

“Know anything about that?” Naudia asked Expat Exclipse.

They didn’t even have time for Naudia to get an answer as suddenly every werewolf in the room except for Twilight and Naudia put their hooves or paws over their noses.

“Oh Celestia NO! It’s that smell again!” Expat managed to say.

Even though Twilight couldn’t smell it, it was pretty clear none of the werewolves were involved with this tunnel because one or two of them had to be drug out of the room. By Twilight and Naudia as the werewolves almost passed out or just did, just from taking their hooves off their noses.

Twilight consulted her tablet phone again, this time the reception was a lot worse than it had been.

“Is there any way we could block out this smell from this tunnel?” Twilight asked Gwynn.

“You should be able to make a semi-permiable barrier you could walk through, with your magic, attach a spiderweb talisman to it and it should power itself.” A blip showed up on her screen, “I just sent you the spellform for that.”

“Why don’t we smell anything here?”

“Yunguaq are the natural adversaries of the nerteln, you’re prepared for a fight, while everything else is prey to a nerteln. That ‘smell’ is every part of their werewolf half screaming at them that danger is near.”

Twilight and Naudia put up the spell around the tunnel entrance, it had a strange jello appearance to it. The spider silk talisman just kinda hung inside of the spell off to the side. Twilight realized that spell was likely some sort of temporary airlock, likely for hull breaches, Naudia thought that it was a moisture-lock for desert living.

They left the cold storage room to find Expat Eclipse and a couple other werewolves(that were still conscious) flopped out on the ground.

“What in Tartarus was that?” Eclipse could not even stand up to ask them.

“That was a tunnel dug by whoever we’re here to deal with, I’m assuming for the moment that they aren’t involved with the werewolves, yet.”

“How in the world do you think we even could get involved with something like that!?”

“The other way around, you wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Have you smelled this stuff anywhere else?” Twilight asked Eclipse.

“We smelled it down here occasionally, just horrible, like a burning sulfur.”

“I started getting wiffs of this sorta thing downtown in Knicknik, around that Doctor Willow’s place.”

The werewolves demeanor changed at that name, one of them even spat letting out a curse under her breath. Twilight and Naudia glanced at one another.

“Who is this ‘Doctor Willow’?” Twilight asked for both her and Naudia.

“The damn doctor has been trying to cure lycanthropy. And there isn’t anything that’s happened in this town worse than what he did to Pomo.”

It was almost like those words had sucked any of the warmth out of the room, none of the other werewolves could even meet Twilight’s questioning eyes, finally she just had to ask.

“What happened to Pomo?”

Expat Eclipse looked around and realized that nobody else wanted to speak up, finally drawing in a deep breath he began.

“Pomology Pear,” He seemed to be choking up just going that far. “Pomo was one of our early members, she was with us when we discovered the fang of the first mother. She was the one who hybridized the pear trees at the south pasture.

“One day a… ‘doctor’,” Eclipse spat the word. “Came into town, said he was here to help us cure our lycanthropy, and some of us were on board so we let him stay, he got close to Pomo. Said he’d discovered something new that would help ‘fix’ her.

“We thought she was okay with it. We stopped hearing from her after that, thought she’d headed off somewhere down south.” Eclipse looked down in shame. “The only way we found out what happened was that a handyman told us he’d been having to replace a lot of doors over at Doctor Willow’s place.

“It turns out whatever treatment he’d given her had driven her mad. She’d been smashing at the walls and the door until she’d knock herself out. But the doctor was always there to… make sure she was still alive.”

Expat Eclipse took in a shaky hiccupy breath.

“And then one day she was fine. Just fine. She didn't remember anything about being a werewolf, why would she ever want to be a werewolf." Expat Eclipse gave a hollow laugh. "I don't know who that was, but she was just 'fine'."

All of the werewolves were looking down in shame now.

“I’m pretty sure that means we’re here to stop this Doctor Willow. I can’t say for certain but from the sounds of it he’s done something worse beyond your understanding.” Naudia said.

“How do you know?” Expat said wiping away a dribble of snot.

“If it is what I think it is. We’ve seen the aftermath.” Just the way Twilight said that got the werewolves to stare at her.

Twilight and Naudia faced the tunnel, they knew whatever lay inside of it was likely their target, or some tendril of his influence. It felt like the jaws closing in around them were needle point clear.

-------------------

Twilight and Naudia had one advantage in the tunnel that no other fighting force on Equestria had ever had. Their spells could be targeted to slip right through the walls without even leaving a scratch, as if the walls weren’t even there. Twilight and Naudia both had sat through a long lecture about how this was a property of magmatter being so small compared to normal matter. However they had only a vague idea as to why the targeting of magmatter meant that it could slip right through one thing and hit something else on command.

The tunnel was the worst place for the feeling they had, now it was like the jaws were prickling at their skin, and their tablets could not contact anybody down here at all.

Twilight was walking along up front with a summoned in glowstick stuck into her shield, this tunnel was unpleasant. It took her a while to realize why. There was no evidence of animals or insects or anything in this dirt tunnel. They passed under a tree root but that was very clearly dead, half rotted, but even the rot had died down here.

That was when they came into the natural chamber this tunnel had linked into, a crevasse where you could see up into the outside world, the sun pale and dim shined down upon a stallion standing in front of a plank of wood.

The stallion was clearly some kind of sailor and didn’t even acknowledge Twilight and Naudia’s presence despite Twilight’s glowstick. The stallion was surrounded by wisps of magic that were drawn into the rune engraved on the plank of wood. The magic was an unpleasant to look at off-brown color, but that didn’t even compare to the wave of disgust that washed over Twilight and Naudia.

“Good, you’ve discovered the source vector for soul magic in the werewolf compound.” Came the voice of the First Administrator from Twilight’s tablet. “This is clearly not the final target though. Kill him.”

“WHAT!?” Twilight jerked the tablet out of her saddlebags and found herself locking gaze with the First Administrator.

“Kill him. It is the only mercy you can give to one such as him.”

“But…” Twilight looked up, the stallion hadn’t even acknowledged their presence he sat there smiling peacefully at the plank of wood.

“He is a living battery for soul magic Twilight, forced to devote his entire being to this spell, and his master has made sure he likes that.

“Do you think a pony would enjoy burning away their memories of their family and life in a hole where nobody will ever find them?”

“But there has to be something we can do for him.”

“I’ve already told you what you can do for him Twilight. If there was an alternative we would have found it by now.”

Twilight put the tablet away.

Twilight picked up a rock with her magic.

She couldn’t look, she didn’t want to remember the sound.

“Twilight.” Naudia said in a warning voice.

Twilight opened her eyes and looked at the stallion she had just smashed in the head with a rock. He was getting back up, his head was putting itself back together, he was turning towards Twilight. The brown wisps of magic were leaking from the cracks in his head, like he himself was slowly leaking out of his body.

Both their tablet’s spoke up with the harsh tones of the First Administrator’s voice.

“Use the goddamn magic I gave you for the purpose which it was created for.”

That was enough to shock Twilight and Naudia out of their stupor of seeing a pony’s head un-dent itself and prepare for battle.

Twilight hated the feeling of that thing in front of her so much that she didn’t even wait for it to get up fully. She started slinging lumps of lichen at it as fast as she could with her sling.

There were other things she was supposed to be doing in that situation, spells that would block incoming attacks, reinforcing her water shield to protect Naudia. But she just used the first spell she could think of rapid fire to kill this thing.

“If you’re going to use your toolkit that way throw in some accelerate infection in there, otherwise you’re going to run out of juice before he’s dead.” Came the voice from her tablet again.

Then from Naudia’s tablet.

“Naudia wake. up. Think of this as one of your corrupted changelings, what do you do to corrupted changelings?”

It was like a switch had flipped inside of Naudia’s head. She had been doing roughly the same thing as Twilight, flinging blobs of bacteria at the thing in the hopes of killing it quickly.

Just for a moment the cloud of lichen cleared up enough for them to see the creature they had been fighting. There was a barrier around it now and their attacks were slowly eating into it, far too slowly for how much they had put into that.

Naudia instantly went into an actual combat stance and started to remember what she should be doing in this situation. Naudia’s actions far more resembled what a protolycaon should be doing in this situation.

She armored herself up, her bacteria shell turning into a cillia surface, and just in time too, a bolt of that ugly magic flew around Twilight and headed straight for her. Naudia tried to dodge but the bolt just homed in on her almost perfectly, as it hit she felt a major hit to her shields, and a huge splatter of blue zoetic shield fluid.

“Naudia!” Twilight turned to her in a panic.

“FOCUS ON THE ENEMY TWILIGHT!” Both Naudia and the tablet screamed.

And just in time too, another bolt was just barely able to be blocked by the top of Twilight’s shield, blowing a chunk out of it as well as the glowstick embedded there. Twilight now covered in a splatter of blue as well as glowing green got the message.

Twilight remembered what she was actually supposed to be doing now and hastily put up a cloud of lichen to either side of herself to shield Naudia and began regenerating her shield. The next shot went low trying to sneak in a hit at her hooves and blew another nasty hole out of her shield.

“Dia I can’t keep this up forever!”

That was around the time that Naudia blasted past her in full werewolf form snarling and getting the attention of the possessed pony in front of them. And then another werewolf form identical to Naudia’s passed by her snarling.

“I guess I didn’t have to wait too long.”

This was Twilight’s signal to go on the offensive. The sailor was covered in some sort of shield and that shield was being battered by the lichen Twilight had thrown as well as being sucked dry by a variety of strange giant bacteria that Naudia had thrown. He showed no indication that he had any kind of self preservation instinct at all, in fact he seemed to be attacking whoever seemed most threatening and Naudia was taking advantage of this by alternating hits between herself and her protolycaon doppelganger.

Twilight went full lichenthrope form and started slinging in spells that would accelerate her lichen to attack the possessed pony even more. His shielding was starting to thin out and seriously showing damage, some of the places where Naudia had gotten bacteria to stick were moments away from touching the stallion’s fur. Twilight knew that might not be the end, this thing had to die, whoever this pony used to be they needed to be laid to rest, even if there was nothing left to bury.

Twilight and Naudia managed to coordinate their attacks so all three of them hit at the same second. Twilight slashing through a cloud of lichen spores, dragging them in to eat away at the last bits of the stallion’s shield in a devastating heavy swipe. Naudia slashed at the bacteria stuck to his shield with two sets of hooves causing them to explode ripping away part’s of the stallion’s shield and Naudia’s attack was the first one to hit the stallion directly, cutting into his shoulder and neck.

Twilight aimed her shield at the stallion’s head and cast her ultimate spell a huge cavitation bubble formed inside of it and pushed a spike out the front of the shield. Twilight saw it as if in slow motion as she was pushed back from the force of the blast, there was a momentary blast of heat.

The stallion was dead now.

Twilight could tell because the feeling in the air was just gone, like it had never even been there. That was the most disturbing part of all, like that feeling was fake, unexplainable.

Like Twilight had just killed a stallion in cold blood.

She heard a buzzing up above as something she didn’t quite get a good look at buzzed out of sight. It was clearly artificial and Twilight didn’t need two guesses as to who it belonged to.

Twilight walked over into a corner and threw up. Naudia was there patting her on the back.

“Well done Twilight. Your second kill and I didn’t even have to tell you to do it.”

“What are you…” Twilight took a moment to pant before turning to face The First Administrator. “Talking about.”

Twilight didn’t even question how or why he was already here when he had been speaking over their radio moments ago. He certainly didn’t come through that tunnel, and he didn’t drop down from through the crevasse up above.

“The first time I had you kill was that nightmare, Chrysalis I think it was.”

“No, Naudia…” Twilight realized that memory was fuzzy, like it wasn’t there, the specifics weren’t there, like she had heard about it secondhand.

“Twist the knife, aim for the heart.” He said exactly as the words entered her mind.

Twilight remembered… everything.

Twilight turned to Naudia.

“But… you… you…” Twilight couldn’t find words.

Naudia shook her head.

She could remember the knife, she could remember the rock she had gripped in her magic, as clearly as if it had just happened. Twilight collapsed onto the ground.

“Why are you doing this?” Naudia demanded.

“She needs to get used to killing these victuals, and now when we are in a relatively safe place away from others. She won’t have this kind of luxury when you’re actually in Knicknik.”

The First Administrator walked over to Twilight who was openly weeping on the floor.

“That was not a pony. That was a victual.” He said harshly. “A living battery for an enslavement spell, a pony with their free will ripped out to serve a master’s will and no other.”

He kneeled down to speak to her more closely, she was caught his gaze now.

“He was forced into this by another, a foul monster who will consign him and any others he can get his hands on, to Kana, to walk the sands as a camkut. That was his fate from the moment a nerteln first drank from his soul.”

Twilight felt even more sick now than she did before, but it was being forced down by something else, a righteous anger, a burning hate that came up through her throat like bile. It was like she could see the camkut reflected in Camna’s glasses, walking. Somepony was so evil, that they would consign somebody to Kana. There was no possible justification for that atrocity.

“When you doubt yourself walking along this path.” The First Administrator was speaking to both of them now. “Remember your time in Kana, remember the camkut.”