Shooting for the Moon
Big Voice says the pack is free. No more hunting.
Leader says they will not hunt for the voice again. Voice says fine. It didn't want to come back anyway.
Leader asks why. The Voice says they cannot understand.
It asks one thing before leaving. Where do the walking mountains sleep?
Runt says under the other mountains, in the caves. Everyone knows that.
Leader tells Big Voice to promise not to burn the mountains, too.
It promises, and leaves.
***
“Excuse me?”
“Don't try to play coy, your highness. I've read all about you.”
The tension in the air had a physical presence. The breeze seemed to hitch on it. The grass withered in it. It managed to spook Inkwell stiff, akin a deer caught in a bright light.
Archer, as could be expected by this point, was completely oblivious to it.
“Have you, now? And what is written of the great Nightmare Moon?”
“Just that you were the worst threat to the peace and order of Equestria since the reign of Discord, whoever or whatever he was...” Nightmare Moon twitched noticeably. “...and that a thousand years from the day of your banishment, the stars would break your prison in the moon and release you into the world once again.”
“This is true.”
“And so, I wanted to congratulate you on your recent escape. The nearest town...” He pointed behind him. “...is about thirty miles that way. Feel free to raze it at your leisure.”
“Archer, this isn't-”
“Inkwell,” Archer muttered, turning to her. “Relax. We're dealing with a Fae supervillain on the rebound. I've worked with her type before.”
“But she's-”
“On the contrary,” Nightmare interrupted. "I am certainly not 'on the rebound,' as you so delicately put it.”
“Oh?”
“Archer!” Inkwell hissed.
“Silence!” the dark sorceress thundered at her. ”You are not permitted to speak.”
Sheer volume caused Inkwell to recoil, shocked once again into silence. Nightmare turned back to Archer.
“I have been free for quite some time, human. You are hardly the first to 'welcome me back' to Equestria. Half the kingdom, you see, is already mine.”
“Ah. A civil war?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Then surely we two, ah, outsiders should get out of your way,” Archer chuckled, casually strolling to the wing-filled gap between her and the edge of the tree arch. “I'll put in a good word with the King. Who knows, we may even get a few special agents in for you.”
“I have no need for the favor of King Jove.”
Archer froze. So she knew his king's name. What else did she know?
“Are you sure? We've got some of the best pyromancers around.”
“And what could they amount to against my sister, the Queen of the Sun?”
“Point taken. Ice mages, then?”
“If I require a steam bath, I'll call you up.”
Ow. Nightmare Moon knew how to cut pretty deep. No wonder they got rid of her.
“Well, I'm sure we can find something to repay you for your - heh - generous hospitality. So if we could just-” At this point, Archer brushed against one of the feathers on Nightmare's wing.
The impact sent him flying, crashing one of the trees around the clearing, directly opposite the arch. Upon connecting, he bent nearly in half around the trunk and promptly crumpled to the ground.
“I believe I told you once already. You shall not pass.”
“Okay,” groaned Archer, thankfully suffering no injuries worse than getting the wind knocked out of him. “You can forget about those reinforcements, lady.”
“You speak as though I need any.”
***
Keeping up such an intricate facade for one so ignorant, while his quite well-informed companion stood dumbstruck not twenty feet away, was akin to beating up a blindfolded colt who was spinning plates - almost insultingly easy, but a decent challenge to keep something from slipping.
Telling him nothing but the truth while she did it was like beating the colt up while still inside the china shop.
Now, admittedly, the thing about the civil war was a horrendous exaggeration, as was most of the rest of her act. But Luna was having far too much fun to stop now.
“If you want my advice, you should turn back now, before someone gets hurt.”
She was being nothing but honest. She really didn't want to have to hurt him, or else she'd never hear the end of it from Jove. Her tone, though, made her sound like the sort of tyrant who could not only crush him for the slightest offense, but would also enjoy every moment of it.
“Sorry, your highness, but that isn’t exactly an option,” Archer grumbled, struggling to his feet. “I have to get home. And I intend to bring Miss Inkwell with me. Right, Inkwell?”
The unicorn didn’t answer. She was still dead silent, probably for fear that the dreaded Princess of the Night would send her to the moon if she said something out of turn.
“It would seem she’s rethinking her position on the matter.”
“No, look. We need to leave, ASAP. Why, exactly, are you so adamant about keeping us here?”
“Why, exactly, are you so adamant about leaving? My kingdom isn’t such a horrible place, once you get used to it.”
Definitely a lie of omission. Technically, it was “hers,” in that she was a ruler of it. There was her sister, of course.
“Well, I'm an escaped fugitive, for one. I've probably got a mob of Equestrian lawmen chasing me down, ready to drag me back to Ponyville.”
“You give yourself far too much credit.”
Oh, snap. She still had it.
“You're not the first pony to tell me that today, surprisingly enough.”
Luna made a halfhearted attempt at looking annoyed. “I tire of this banter. My decision is unchanged. You shall not pass into the realm beyond the Everfree while I still safeguard it.”
“Well, you have to sleep sometime. It wouldn't be much of a challenge to wait you out.”
“Archer, that is really not a good-”
“Hush!”
“The passage only opens by starlight or moonlight, the very lights which outline the kingdom I command. The second you near your escape, I will be there once more to turn you away. Checkmate, human.”
Upon hearing these words, something changed in Archer's expression. He was no longer that amicable fellow, desperately hoping to secure passage home. Instead, he wore the grim scowl of an aged professional, about to undertake an unpleasant task.
And make no mistake, what Archer planned on doing next could not be called “pleasant” by any definition.
“I see. You're set on making yourself an obstacle to me.”
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“There's a saying from the kingdom across that threshold, Nightmare.”
“Do tell.”
“'An obstacle's no obstacle...'” A drawn arrow came up, level with his face. “'...if it bleeds long enough.'”
“You assume you can make me bleed.”
“There's a first time for everything.”
“You risk much, threatening me.”
“I risk nothing that can't be bought back with the head of Equestria's greatest enemy.”
“You are no-”
“HOLD ON!”
Inkwell's scream distracted them both for a brief moment. In that time, reflex kicked in, and the part of Archer's brain that ran on three years of experience in killing magic things decided now was an excellent time to take advantage of a distracted target.
The arrow flew.
***
Farther inland, in the slumbering town of Ponyville, there was another Equestrian who had decided that sleep was a big, fat waste of her time. That Equestrian was currently hanging upside down from the branches of the Ponyville library, wearing a black jumpsuit and a set of trifocal goggles, trying desperately to open one of the windows and climb in before she fell two stories for the third time that day.
That Equestrian, unsurprisingly, was Pinkie Pie.
With a bit of fiddling, she finally jiggled the inside latch loose, and coaxed the window open with the tiniest squeak of the hinges. She slithered inside, trying her darndest not to rustle a leaf or step on a creaky floorboard. Who knows, maybe Twilight sudddenly decided to become a light sleeper.
“Hey, Archer,” she whispered to the windowside bed, poking it as she did so. “I was thinking. You know how we were gonna work on the hovercart on Wednesday? Well, it's technically Wednesday now, so...” The bed gave no response. “Archer? Helloooo?”
She pulled the sheets down. The bed was empty. This confused Pinkie. Archer was supposed to be here, right? Maybe he was asleep in a different bed. So, she trotted across the library, looking on the couch, the chairs - heck, under the couch and the chairs, you never know - the kitchen, the basement, and even outside on the park bench. Archer was nowhere to be found.
Only one logical course of action.
“Twilight? Twi-liiiiight....”
“Mff.”
“Twilight! Wake up! I need to ask you something.”
The slumbering unicorn leaned slowly out of bed. She turned her head to the brightly-colored intruder into her slumbering hours.
“Pinkie Pie?”
“Yep.”
“You have exactly ten seconds to improve my mood.”
“Hehe, yeah, well...”
“Seven seconds.”
“Ican'tfindArcherandIwantedtoknowwhereheisI'msorry.”
“What?”
Pinkie repeated herself, slowly.
“He's in his bed by the window.”
“Nuh-uh. Checked there.”
“Oh. I guess he fell asleep reading downstairs.”
“Nope. Checked there too.”
“The kitchen?”
“Checked.”
“The basement?”
“Checked.”
“The attic?” Twilight asked, a hint of worry creeping into her voice. “The pantry? The secret compartment?”
“Checked, checked, checked-a-roo. He isn't here.”
Twilight proceeded to have one of those quaint spasms in which an otherwise rational individual panics, realizes there isn't any point in panicking, attempts to panic again, then finally averages out into a jittery on-edge sensation.
“I need to look at something,” Twilight muttered, hauling herself clumsily out of bed.
She crossed the library, over to Archer's vacant bed. Passing over it, she took note of the window, propped open by a stick Pinkie left when she came in. Twilight removed the stick and watched as the window closed itself without so much as a sound.
This awoke a nameless fear in Twilight's heart.
She shoved the window open. “Oh no.” She let it swing shut. “Oh no.” She reapeated this process a few more times, every time not making so much as a creak. She had oiled these hinges far too well for that. “Oh no, oh no, oh nooooo...”
An image arose, unbidden, in her mind - Archer, silent as a hunting cave spider, climbing out of the disastrously un-squeaky window and to the ground below, before breaking for the edge of town, headed for... where?
“He's made a run for it.”
“What?”
“Archer! He's escaped!”
“But... he promised he'd be here tomorrow.”
“Really?” Pinkie nodded. “Well, from what I can tell, he's pretty fond of you. I don't think he'd break a promise to you without a really good reason.”
This observation was, all at once, true in ways Pinkie wanted it to be, untrue in ways Twilight feared it was, and connotative of things neither of them were in the proper state of mind to consider.
At the moment, Pinkie chose to focus on the true parts and go from there.
“Well, we've got to find him!”
“Oh? And where do we start?” asked Twilight irritably. “There's only a million different places he could be right now!”
At that moment, the night sky lit up with an explosion. A vast column of white light shot up into the air from a point far in the distance, over the Everfree Forest. A muffled shockwave washed over Ponyville, shaking leaves from the trees and loosening the cobblework in the streets.
“Well,” said Pinkie Pie in her infuriatingly casual manner, “I'd say that's a good place to look as any.”
***
The arrow had shattered on contact with the princess's onyx-black skin, not leaving so much as a scrape where it had hit. The three in the clearing stared mutely at the fragments left behind, which smoked as the magic which disintegrated the projectile leeched out of its remains.
The princess watched as a wisp of the arcane runoff floated in front of her before dissipating in the frigid night air. Then she did something no one was expecting.
She started laughing.
“You- you shot at me!” she managed to choke out, in a voice that held no trace of malicious intent or magically-enchanced volume. “I can't believe it!”
Archer gaped at her, as she nearly doubled over chortling at a joke which, apparently, only she got.
“Uh. Yes. It would appear that way.”
“Do... do you know-” she managed to suppress the giggles for a minute. “Do you know how long it's been since someone managed to work up the gall to take a shot at me?”
“Well, seeing as how the royal forehead is apparently indestructible, I can imagine why anyone would be leery of the prospect.”
Luna chuckled again.
“Well, go on, Miss Inkwell. I believe it's time the house of cards came down on our friend.”
Archer turned to her. “Inkwell? Please tell me you aren't in with her.”
“Wh- no! No, I'm not! I-I've been trying to tell you this whole time, th-that isn't-”
“Isn't what?”
“That's not Nightmare Moon!” Inkwell exclaimed, finally belting out the words she'd been trying to get out since she laid eyes on the princess.
“What.”
“That's Princess Luna! The Elements of Harmony purged Nightmare Moon, like, a day after she was freed! Now she's just one of the princesses again.”
“Wait a minute.” Archer turned to Luna. “You said-”
“I said nothing, human Archer. You made assumptions and went from there. That is a road to ruin, I think you'll find. For instance, a few minutes ago, when you - how did you say it - tried to take 'the head of Equestria's greatest enemy'...”
“...You were really making an attempt at regicide,” Inkwell finished soberly.
Archer found it quite hard to say anything immediately after. In fact, he found it quite hard to hold onto his bow, stand up, or breathe. He somehow managed the latter two.
“Your highness,” he croaked. “I can explain...”
“I think you've explained quite enough for one night, Archer,” Luna said with a wry grin. “Besides. Don't you know it's time for people like you to be asleep?”
Without another word, a vast pillar of white moonlight engulfed the three. Archer, though he swore he'd never do so again, blacked out on the spot.
***
He awoke in a vast white expanse, face-down in what passed for dirt in vast white expanses. As he pushed himself up, he heard the distinct report of hooves on tile.
Approaching him was an Equestrian, bright red in color. Its flank was adorned with a picture of an arrow piercing a Canis skull.
That was where the dissimilarities ended.
It had a pony's version of his own unkempt rag of hair. It had his eyes. It even shared the wiry build he and most other scouts had earned through years of hunting their own food.
“Hi there,” it said, in his voice.
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I must be crazy.
I wrote this and made my quota in a processor with no word count function. I formatted the quotation marks on a computer that treats all quotation marks alike. And I uploaded it in a state where no one I know owns wi-fi.
I hope you guys like it, because this is as good as I can make it under the circumstances.
So finally we get Ponitized Archer...
LoL, curious to see where this goes.
wait...
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
>>guyishguy
-UUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKK!
WHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! DA FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!
This was EPIC! I was at school thinking about this and if a new chapter would be out today. Such is my luck. UPDATE SOON! MUST READ MOAR!
ARCHER GLUE! ARCHER GLUE!
BEST IN ALL OF KING JOVE'S KINGOM!
Ah-ha-ha! Yes!
He just dug himself a hole. Not just any hole, but the mother of all holes. And, this hole is full of shit, and will be used as his grave. Long story short, he's screwed.
Hermmm.... So Luna turned Archer into a pony, always thought it would be Celestia. Anyhow please keep on writing.
“I risk nothing that can't be bought back with the head of Equestria's greatest enemy.” Epic
awesome. many will dislike it if yoy ponify archer. i dont mind though.
fan Luna turned Archer into a pony why?
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144666
You know, Archer recently learned a very important lesson on making wild assumptions.
Food for thought.
145384 You're right. He obviously isn't a pony yet, there's just what appears to be a pony version in the "vast white expanse", or White Void as I'm going to call it. However, in my mind, he exits said White Void as a pony. Right now I'm picturing Pony Archer walking into Human Archer, merging with him, and becoming the dominant form. Then again, that is just what's happening in MY mind, which I am perfectly aware is not the one writing this story by the way. Speaking of which, great story.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind if you turned Archer into a pony. It would definitely give him a good reason to stay in Equestria. After all, somehow I don't think that he would get all that far in his own world in that form. Who knows, maybe it'll even help him to complete his sentence of understanding.
147209
Oh, there's going to be understanding.
There's going to love and understanding all up in here, you have no idea.
I think that's enough hint-dropping for one chapter.
Predicting one of the princesses decided to put Archer into a pony form to stop him from trying to escape. Again. And again.
I have a question: Why exactly does Jove want Archer to stay? I can understand the whole wanting him to serve his punishment, but it seems like Jove is actively working against Archer, trying to force him to stay in Equestria indefinitely.
166883
Troll monarchs are the best monarchs.
"Why exactly does Jove want Archer to stay?"
Probably because Jove doesn't want Celestia pissed at him. After all, sending one of your people to somebody else's principality where they promptly attempt to murder one of your subjects is a decent cassus belli, especially given how nice Equestria tends to be. Jove's power over the timber wolves may be limited by his own borders, but if he believes that the princesses' power staying in Equestria is merely being a good neighbor, he's got good reason to be leery of openly crossing them, too.