Chapter 6 - June
Spring slowly transitioned into the summer as June rolled around. The cold days of January and February were now but a distant memory. The same could almost be said for what had happened just a few short weeks ago. Ponies have this remarkable ability to cope with traumatic incidents, such as Sombra’s brief return. His death, which this time had been properly confirmed, while not celebrated, didn’t exactly trigger any great show of mourning either. Ponies instead looked to the positives. Spike was once again hailed as a hero in the Crystal Empire, as he was the one to free Cadence, Shining and Flurry, while Twilight and the others had Sombra distracted. Their old ruler’s brief return, far from damaging their confidence, had only strengthened it. Even at the height of his power, Sombra had lasted less than a day after making his return.
I was inclined to feel the same way. No great damage had been done, now that the Tree of Harmony was restored in its new form. Nopony really remembered much about being controlled, so there were no frightening memories, no nightmares. In fact, I’ll go on the record here, given Discord’s presence, Sombra was, at best, an inconvenience. For one day, he caused havoc, but beyond that, he was little more than a footnote.
As to the other matter; the abdication of the Two Sisters, while it had caused quite a stir when first announced, things had settled down with the announcement of a longer transition period. Twilight’s part in defeating Sombra, along with all the other villains she’s seen off over the years, did a lot to help cement her as a promising successor. For my part, I was still sorry to see Celestia and Luna go, but they would still be around, it wasn’t as if they were forfeiting their immortality or anything like that. And, as Luna had said, there was no harm in seeing this change as a good thing. I was certainly no longer so worried about the future as I had been.
The future though, could wait. Right now I was more concerned with focussing on the present. As summer began, the apple blooms, with AB’s namesake, began to blossom into the beautiful flowers that appear before the fruit begins to grow. For a couple of weeks, Sweet Apple Acres was covered in a tapestry to pinks, reds and whites.
I also had a fair bit to do at the School of Friendship, covering the odd class here and there. Right now though, I was taking advantage of the institution's vast academic and scientific resources to pursue one of my pet projects.
Sombra may have been able to control the minds of others with magic, but he also used that magic to create helmets, which accomplished the same function, which could operate without his direct supervision. I’d managed to secure one of these, which had somehow survived the blast of the Elements when it was knocked off its owner’s head in Canterlot, and was now busy studying it in my office. The one thing that had irked me about what happened, was how easily I had been compromised. So I sought to create a countermeasure of some sort to defeat this more direct style of mind control. And to create a countermeasure, you first need to understand how the whole thing works.
Of course, there was the obvious countermeasure; simply have a third party remove the helmet. That though, was easier said than done. As a magical construct, it was not designed to come off. In fact the one I had here had only failed due to a very violent mid air collision. I’d tried all sorts of kinetic based attacks, from physically striking it with hooves and weapons, up to magic based attacks. But so far, while a few very powerful attacks could break the seal around the helmet, I’d not been able to find a way to deactivate the controlling process.
Rather than hope for somepony to come and pull the damn thing off, which would be quite difficult, considering how belligerent ponies could be with the infernal contraption on, I was looking to find a way for either a ranged attack to neutralise the influence, or find a way for the pony within to overcome or override the spell. So far though, I’d had little success.
The problem was this wasn’t anything like changeling hypnosis magic, or even hypnosis as humans understand it. In that school of thought, the control is through suggestion, rather than coercion. Shining Armor, for instance, wasn’t forced to do what he did. Chrysalis kept his mind off balance, leaving him open to very subtle suggestions. This kind of technique has the flaw that you cannot force a pony to do something they don’t want to. You can’t just hypnotise someone to rob a bank if they think it's wrong. To do something like that, you’d need to first condition the mind to accept that the act of robbing a bank isn’t wrong. Chrysalis had plenty of time to build up this kind of rapport, hence why Shining was so neglectful of certain security measures, when he typically wouldn’t be. This kind of hypnosis is a two way street, and relies on both parties consent, or at best, ignorance. Once Chrysalis was unmasked, her control over Shining quickly faded as he snapped out of the trance she’d induced.
Sombra’s version though, was much more literal mind control. The conscious mind was cut off from the physical body, with Sombra’s spell interrupting the connection. As a result, they had no control over their actions. I for instance, at one point became fully aware that I was under his control, but I still couldn’t break free of the spell. Replay the same situation with Chrysalis, and her hypnotic magic would have failed as my mind overrode it, since it is impossible to hypnotise somepony against their will. If changeling hypnosis was like NLP in true hypnotherapy, Sombra was more like Killgrave, and just as much of a smug prick who deserved to get his neck snapped.
But back to my original point, I was stuck; unable to find a way to either break or overwrite the programming in the helmet. I snorted irritably to myself and was about to go back to the drawing board when there was a knock at my office door.
As a teacher of sorts, I do keep office hours for students to drop by. But typically, they prefer to go to some of the more experienced professors, or to Starlight’s office, when they need advice. Still, I wasn’t about to turn anypony away.
“Come in!” I called out.
Turning around as the door opened, I was surprised to see Gallus, the school’s resident griffon. I have to admit, he is one of my favourite students; fairly smart, with a wonderfully dry wit, and he doesn’t take flak from anypony. And from what I saw at the last parent teacher conference, he’s been dealt something of a bad hand when it comes to parenting, if his bastard of a grandfather is any indication, making his dedication that bit more impressive. He’s hoping to go into the forces some day.
“Gallus,” I said brightly. “What brings you here?” I gestured for him to take the spare seat across from my desk. The aqua blue griffon ruffled his wings for a moment before doing so.
“Hey, Professor Star,” That does have a nice ring to it. “I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about that essay you gave us on...” His attention was drawn to the helmet resting on my desk. “Isn’t that one of King Sombra’s mind control helmets?” Gallus always was the curious type.
“That it is,” I replied, leaning back in my own chair for a moment. “I’m studyin’ it. Tryin’ to figure out what makes it tick, and maybe find a way to protect ponies from it in the future. Unfortunately, without much success. Even in death, that egomaniac causes problems.”
“Well, can’t you just… you know...pull it off?” Gallus suggested.
“With some effort,” I agreed. “But you’re liable to get beaten six ways from Sunday before you do, assuming of course, it’s just one on one. And even then, it’s difficult. I’ve tried all sorts of magic to try and deactivate it or turn it off. Even hitting it with a fire spell and heating the damn thing up to a thousand degrees doesn’t break the construct.”
“How about hitting it with something solid?” Gallus suggested. Like Rainbow Dash, and like griffons in general, he looks for the simplest approach to problems.
“It took a collision at twelve hundred knots to break this one off,” I replied.
Now, I’ll be honest, I was humouring Gallus a little here. He was a teenage griffon with no experience in magic, never mind advanced dark magic that even Twilight and Celestia knew little about. But the last thing I was going to do was shut him down and discourage curiosity. It was a good thing I did too, because it was then that he struck upon a point I honestly, and rather stupidly, hadn’t considered.
“Well, if you can’t knock out the helmet controlling the pony,” Gallus said. “Why not knock out the pony?”
“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.
“Well, from what I understand,” he explained. “These helmets control a pony’s mind and make them do things against their will. But if they’re unconscious, then the helmet could send all the commands it wanted to. They wouldn’t be received. Then you could get close enough to pull it off them or break it.”
I considered the idea for a moment. It had merit. When a pony, or any creature for that matter is unconscious, the mind is still active, but it has no control over motor function, just as it didn’t when we’re asleep. The conditioning would still be there, but the body wouldn’t respond.
It could work. ‘Shoot the hostage’ I thought to myself.
“Gallus, you’re a genius!” I exclaimed, half surprised myself.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” he replied smugly.
“No, I’m serious,” I said. “That’s real outside the box thinking there. I’ve been plugging away at this thing for two weeks trying to find a way to disrupt things on the helmet’s end. I never even considered attacking it from the other side. Of course, it would still be difficult, and you’d probably have to injure the unfortunate pony in some way, but they’d survive and it would get the helmet off them, so I don’t think they’d be complaining.”
I realised I was babbling away, getting lost in the fascinating science of magic again. Poor Gallus had come in with an actual question he wanted an answer to. I awkwardly stopped myself and took a moment to clear my throat.
“Sorry about that. Anyway Gallus, you said you had some questions for me about an essay I’d assigned?”
And so the two of us went over a few things from the essay I’d set. I’d been covering one of Rainbow’s lessons, so I was teaching about loyalty. I’d asked the kids to write an essay looking at two examples of loyalty, one where it was merited, and one where it was misplaced. For Gallus, such things came up quite a lot in his homeland’s history. A couple hundred years ago, what is now the stable and staunch ally of Equestria, the Griffon Kingdom, was a collection of squabbling states that were more often than not at war with each other. Even today, the scars of these conflicts can still be seen, both in the country and its society. With such a wide variety of potential case studies to choose from, Gallus wanted some advice on selecting ones that showed the two ends of the scale as clearly as possible.
The pair of us actually ended up chatting for quite a while. I’m not that much older than a lot of the students, Gallus included, so you don’t always have that clear teacher/student relationship. And I do like to consider him a friend. By the end of our talk, he had plenty of ideas to use for his essay, and I had a nice, simple way of countering mind control spells. A win-win situation.
A week or so later, and the first petals were beginning to fall from the apple trees. Light winds created a beautiful, almost sea like, image of petals floating in the air. And petals weren’t the only thing floating through the orchards either. Now was the migration period for the Breezies; small, adorable, apparently Danish, or at least Scandinavian, creatures that helped spread the pollen around Equestria each year. The small creatures relied on the wind to activate their magic, helped in part by the pegasi of each region they passed through, before ultimately arriving back at the portal to their world, which was only open for a short time each year.
Lacking wings ourselves, Applejack and the rest of us couldn’t do too much to help out. But it was quite the sight to see. Certainly it was on par with the butterfly migration I’d seen with Fluttershy last year. The small creatures, with their large, transparent wings slowly floated across the country, passing through Sweet Apple Acres on their way.
As we all watched the creatures go by, I reflected on one of the key differences between my old human body, and the pony one I now had. Back on Earth, I’d suffered from pretty bad hayfever. It had gotten better over the years, but around this time in early June, I’d be a mess, on prescription meds just to function. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to stand out here and watch the Breezies go by. And luckily, this time, their progress was without incident.
Pollen of course, meant that everything really spurted as far as plants were concerned. Whereas before there had been a few parts of the farm that were little more than mud, now the whole place was awash with grass. Where it had previously been just a couple of inches, the grass had now grown to come pretty much all the way up my legs on some of the more open grasslands. Even with the sheep and cattle grazing, the farm was looking more and more like a jungle every day.
In addition to making it a bit tricky to get about though, the long grass had another effect. Just as if you planted trees too close to one another, grass getting too close to trees could put the two organisms in competition with one another, which would ultimately affect the crop yield. Each tree had a good collar of mulch around it for this very reason, but it was always a good idea to keep the grass in check.
Beyond that, letting the grass grow too much, particularly in the hot summer months, put us in a danger all farmers fear; fire. Long dry grass needs only the smallest spark, such as a lightning strike in a summer storm, and it will go up in seconds. Even in Britain, a country that doesn’t typically have to concern itself with forest fires in the same way our American or Australian cousins do, every year, swaths of land were lost to grass fires, all too often started through carelessness or outright malice. A fire on Sweet Apple Acres, even if tackled at once, would be horrifically devastating. We’d lose arable grazing land, and if it couldn’t be stopped in time, we could lose trees, or Celestia forbid, even the farm itself.
As such, as soon as the Breezie migration was complete the first order of business was cutting this grass down as quickly as possible. In addition to possibly saving the farm, the grass would also be used, given how dry it was already, for hay. After being cut, it would be allowed to dry out a little, and then baled up.
Once upon a time, this was the worst part of the year for me. Hay baling stirs up all sorts of dust and pollen, driving my hayfever, if you’ll excuse the pun, to a fever pitch. Now though, I didn’t have to worry about that. What I did need to worry about though, was that, with only basic internal combustion technology, such as the steam engine used in trains, Equestria hadn’t yet developed a motorised lawnmower. That meant doing things the old fashioned way, either with a push along, pony powered mower, or going at the grass with scythe.
Luckily for me, and everypony else, Sweet Apple Acres has a few good pony powered grass cutters. There were two variants available. One was essentially the same wheeled frame that I’d used during Winter Wrap Up. The snow plough and the funnelling system that channelled the snow away was removed, and instead replaced with a rotary mower connected to the main wheels by a series of gears and cogs. Set at a ratio of 16:1, that is 16 rotations of the mower to every one rotation of the main wheels, the machine could make light work of large areas of grassland, particularly with its roof which protected the operators from the glare of the summer sun. We’d use this for the large open fields where the cattle grazed.
As for the orchards themselves, where there was less space to work with, there was a small variant available. This was more like your typical push along mower, only more suited to operation by a quadruped. It was lighter and easier to manoeuvre in the occasionally tight confines of the orchards, particularly as it had to get fairly close to the trees without damaging them.
This was what we’d all be doing for the next couple of days. It would take that long at the very least to cut all the grass. As it turned out though, we’d already waited too long, and were about to find ourselves in a very perilous situation.
It all started the following afternoon. It hadn’t rained on the farm for getting on for three weeks now, apart from perhaps the odd passing shower, and that did little to give the ground any moisture. All done by the weather pegasi of course. After all, we needed a dry spell to dry the grass out. There’s no sense trying to cut wet grass. We were all working hard cutting the grass in the orchards in order to keep the trees clear. The grass would also help produce a good supply of mulch for the trees too. I was working my way around the last row of trees, having spent most of the day out here.
Pausing for a moment, I removed my stetson and used it as a fan to try and cool myself down, and wiped my forehead with the back of my hoof. It was sweltering hot now, having just gone past midday. It was wonderful, come nightfall, as the nights were now a balmy twelve to fifteen degrees, and while the humidity made for poor seeing for stargazing, it did let me comfortably spend a night or two outside just looking up at the moon, and enjoying the beautiful lunar shadows.
Right now, I was half hoping Luna would once again try to usurp the throne from her sister and move the moon into an eclipse. It was too damn hot! Maybe Celestia had finally snapped and was now planning to slowly cook the annoying ponies that had driven her round the bend over the last thousand years? Taking a swig of water from my canteen, which itself was now becoming almost too warm to count as refreshing, I prepared to start up again.
It was then though, as the light breeze shifted a little, that I picked up a scent on the wind. I haven’t got the sort of nose Winona has, but my sense of smell is quite superior to humans. And what I was smelling now was far from pleasant. It was acrid and foul, and it took only a moment to work out what it was. Something was burning.
With a start, I forgot all about my humdrum chores and bolted, throwing myself into a canter, and from there into a headlong gallop. Following my nose, I tried to locate the source of the smell. If something had caught on fire, it needed to be found and put out yesterday.
Tearing past the pond, and regretting that I didn’t have time to jump in and cool off, I forced myself up one of the knolls that dotted Sweet Apple Acres’ more open grassland. And it was there that I first caught sight of the smoke.
It was grey, not black, and there wasn’t too much of it, but something was definitely alight. And judging by the amount of smoke, it had definitely caught the brush.
Well, there was no time to lose. This wasn’t something we could deal with on our own; the emergency services were needed. Turning tail, I galloped back to the farmhouse. Apple Bloom was still at school, thank goodness, and the fire still had a fair way to come before it could pose any serious threat. Some of the nearby cattle, who also helped out by running some of the pony powered grass cutters had also clocked the danger and were quickly moving off. Luckily for us, the wind was almost non-existent today. That at least would help reduce the spread of the flames. I planned to gallop back to the farmhouse, alert Granny Smith, and then make for Ponyville to turn out the retained brigade.
I can recall a few moments where I’ve run as fast as I possibly could. As a pony, I can probably get close to something along the lines of twenty five to thirty miles an hour if I really push myself. And I was doing that now, tearing the ground up as I went. The heat now got even worse as my body desperately tried to cool itself down, despite my exertions. By the time the farmhouse came into view, my limbs were shaking and I was at a dead run.
And I still had to get to Ponyville after this. I pushed that thought from my mind, and did my best to push through the pain.
“Granny!” I bellowed. “Granny Smith! Fire! Fire!”
That brought the apple matriarch out in seconds. She’d fixed up a pair of saddlebags and had two buckets connected to them, along with a shovel across her back.
“Where is it, Bones?” she asked quickly. “And how bad?” I drew up and my strength instantly gave out. It took effort just to stay standing as I doubled up and tried to get my breath back.
“On the grasslands by the north orchard,” I explained. “Grass fire. Don’t know what started it. There’s no wind, so I can’t see where it’s headed. I’m gonna head for Ponyville. Try and find Rainbow Dash or any other pegasi, and get the firefighters out here.”
“Alright,” Granny said, she too prepared to head out. “I’ll go and find Applejack and Big Macintosh. We’ll take a look at this thing, see what we’re dealin’ with. If we can, we’ll try and get a control line up. With any luck, we can put a lid on this thing before it gets too big.”
Granny was referring to a long standing fire fighting tactic for dealing with brush fires. They’re as dangerous as they are because they have pretty much limitless fuel and can go wherever the wind takes them. You need only look at how the Yellowstone forest fire took out nearly half that national park to see just how dangerous one small fire can be. A fire line was designed to stop the spread, rather than putting the fire out. You deprived the fire of further fuel by digging a sort of trench, turning over the earth in front of the fire, so that when it reached it, there would be no more fuel. It would then have nowhere to go and would burn out, or could be doused. As farmers, we had plenty of soil tilling equipment that, in a pinch, could fashion a good control line. And it was better than doing nothing while waiting on the retained brigade. Ponyville doesn’t have a fire station standing ‘at watch’ as it were. Instead it’s made up of volunteers, like the lifeboatmen, who work normal jobs until a shout comes.
All that though, was still a long way off. It would take time for Granny to find Mac and AJ, more time for them to start cutting a control line, and even more for any assistance from Ponyville to arrive. I considered going back and lending a hoof with my magic, but even that was risky. Magic does give off some heat as it’s used. Using my magic to burn a control line could just as easily start a second fire, and then we’d be in even more trouble. Backfires are a technique that is strictly for trained professionals. So instead, I got my head down and dug deep, galloping hard toward Ponyville.
I made the six miles to Ponyville in a matter of minutes. I might have been going at a dead run, but I was still going. I guess, what with my home and livelihood in mortal peril, I got access to a bit more of my stamina than normal. I certainly felt sore all over for the next couple of days due the damage I’d done to my muscles from pushing them beyond their normal limits.
Sprinting to Town Hall, I burst through the doors and quickly found Mayor Mare. As the mayor of the small town, it was her responsibility to sound the fire siren, which you might have seen going off back when Spike had his unexpected growth spurt. It had the same effect as firing off maroons or ringing church bells. She looked more than a little surprised as I barrelled up to her, with my sides heaving and stained with sweat.
“Goodness, whatever is the matter, Blade Star!” she exclaimed.
“Fire!” I replied hoarsely. “On Sweet Apple Acres!”
She took action instantly. Running into her office, she unlocked the control panel that controlled the sirens. There were different tones depending on the emergency. For this she turned on the ‘alert’ tone; a single steady note, as opposed to the ‘danger’ signal, which was your classic air raid warning.
The effect was almost instantaneous. Ponies began scrambling in town. Derpy, Roseluck, Caramel, Noteworthy, Nurse Redheart, Cranky, and Rainbow Dash, now all converged on Town Hall. Towards the back end of the building was a large shed, where the fire engine was stored. It was a specially modified cart, designed to be pulled by two ponies, with water tanks, hoses, and all other sorts of firefighting equipment. As I struggled to get my breath back, I watched them all arrive, don their gear, and a moment later, with its own bell ringing shrilly, Equestria’s version of Jupiter tore out of its berth and took the road to Sweet Apple Acres.
Not wanting to sit idle while my home was in danger, I forced my heart and nerves and sinew to serve their turn long after they were gone, and so, as Kipling said, held on when there was nothing left within me, except the will, which said ‘Hold on!’. I cannot describe how tired my limbs were, my breath came in short sharp gasps as I tried to gulp down air. The only solace I had was that when I got back to the farm, there wouldn’t be too much running involved.
I followed the route the fire brigade had taken, forcing myself back up the hill I’d previously charged down. Before too long, I was back on the farm again, only now, the plume of smoke was much larger.
The fire was spreading.
I found the farm house empty. Apple Bloom wasn’t due home for another couple of hours, but Granny looked to have left. I hoped she’d managed to find Applejack and Big Mac, although, between the engine and the smoke, you’d be hard pressed to miss the fact that we were alight.
Following the tracks laid down by the heavy wagon, I soon found myself back on the scene of action.
The fire had indeed gotten a lot worse since I’d left. There was still very little wind, but the fire had quite happily made for the area of the thickest brush. Angry orange flames licked a good ten feet into the air, rolling like some terrible sea. The heat, even at this relative distance was intense, and the smoke stung my eyes as the gentle breeze shifted one way and another.
Redheart had taken charge of things on the ground, along with Granny Smith. She was both the medic and incident commander, to borrow British fire brigade terminology. The Apples were on the scene too, and Granny Smith had gotten both Big Mac and AJ working on control lines, using ploughs and tillers to upend the earth. With so little wind, while the fire had grown, it hadn’t yet spread too far, nor was it particularly fast.
“Granny! Redheart!” I called out as I cantered up.
“Bones!” Granny greeted, quickly pulling me into a hug. “Glad to have you back, sonny. We’re gonna need everypony’s help if we’re gonna get this under control.”
“How much is contained?” I asked Redheart, who had now swapped her nurse’s outfit for full firefighter gear, including a red helmet with the words ‘Fire Chief’ emblazoned on it.
“About forty percent,” she replied. “Applejack and Big Mac are covering this end. I’ve got Cranky and Noteworthy on the other. Rainbow Dash and Derpy are filling up as many clouds as they can over the lake for an air attack. Whatever we can’t block by fire line, we’ll have to soak. If we let this thing get much bigger, it’s going to turn into a real firestorm, and then it’ll have enough wind to move fast. If that happens, Dash is keeping her Weather Patrol on standby. We should be able to get a rainstorm in here in less than fifteen minutes.”
That was still, I reflected privately, an awful long time to have a fire raging out of control.
“Anything I can do to help?” I offered. Redheart thought for a moment. She was already uneasy about drafting in Big Mac and Applejack.
“See if you can lend a hoof on the pump,” she suggested. We’ve got enough water for most things, but this fire could go right through our reserves. Rainbow’s using the lake for air attack. If you can get a length of hose down there, we’ll have more than enough water to keep control of this thing.”
“On it,” I replied.
The lake was only a few hundred meters away, and also provided an excellent natural barrier, protecting the orchards nearest the fire. Heading over to the fire engine, I found Caramel manning the pump, which fed the hoses Noteworthy and Cranky were currently using to try and check the blaze.
“Hey!” I called up to him. “Redheart wants me to hook you guys into the lake to refill the tender. Which hose do you want me to use?”
Caramel, still going like the clappers, gestured to a very large, heavy looking hose, that was presently curled up like a snake on the side of the wagon. It was already hooked into the large oil drum like tank that held the engine’s water supply.
Activating my magic, I took a hold and lifted the large assembly up. I wasn’t that much smaller than me like this, and as heavy as you might expect. I was certainly glad that I'd taken time to hone my magical abilities.
Taking the hose, I quickly headed for the lake, while the hose spooled out behind me, growing lighter with each step.
The task of fighting the blaze dragged on, well into the afternoon. To chronicle the affair blow by blow would probably fill up this entire account of my days on the farm, and be far too technical. Contrary to what you might think, fighting a brush fire isn’t half as exciting as it sounds.
A few hours after the blaze first began, it was contained in an area of about a mile square, 600-650 acres or so. And just think, that was with no wind. Had there been even a light gust, I honestly think that the whole farm could have been threatened. Between the control lines dug by the Apples and the firefighters, and the liberal use of water sources by Redheart, the fire was left with no place that it could readily spread.
With the risk of total destruction averted, we now turned our attention to actually putting the fire out. To that end, Rainbow Dash and Derpy brought in several pony sized clouds, filled to the brim with water from the lake, and began to unload them onto the blaze below, while Caramel, Redheart and the others attacked with hoses from the ground. Slowly but surely, the noose around the fire tightened. By the time a deeply alarmed Apple Bloom returned home from school, the fire was under control and well on the way to being put out.
Still, it took a fair bit of time for the firefighters to accomplish this difficult task. The fire wasn’t going down without a fight, and the ground had to be constantly hosed down to prevent flare ups, which happened more than once, pushing the firefighters back several yards at a time. But it only forestalled the inevitable.
With the fire contained and controlled, and well on its way to being extinguished, Redheart released Applejack and Big Mac from service and asked them to keep clear while they finished up. While they had been invaluable in cutting the initial control lines, and in that sense had greatly helped to limit the spread of the fire, Redheart still preferred not having civilians in her area of action. As such, we all adjourned back to the farmhouse. There was no question of trying to get in any more work today. We were all exhausted as it was.
The only task now, would be to assess the extent and scale of the damage when the fire was out. We’d been fortunate that the fire had broken out on open grazing land, a fair distance away from the orchards or any other crops, as well as the sheep and cattle herds. If it had hit an orchard, we’d have lost it all, a devastating financial blow. However, losing a good square mile of land to the flames meant we had that much less grass to turn into hay to get the animals through the winter. Everything that happens on a farm affects everything else. The lake too, was now noticeably lower than normal, meaning that we’d have to be careful with irrigation, and ration the water as best we could until Cloudsdale and the Weather Patrol could organise some fresh rainfall. And of course, we couldn’t have that until the hay was cut and dried, else it would all turn to mush. Just because we hadn’t lost trees or crops didn’t mean this fire hadn’t affected things.
There was one simple question on everypony’s mind, though, one which Applejack voiced that night over dinner.
“I still can’t work out how that dang thing got started in the first place!” she exclaimed.
“Simple,” I replied. “The grass got too long and too dry. The stuff would have been like a tinderbox. A hundred and one things could have set it off; lightning strike, sunlight refractin’ off somethin’ in the sky, heck, even a stray ember from the funnel of a passin’ train could have set it off. We’re certainly never gonna know for sure. The only thing Redheart said she could be sure of is that it weren’t nopony settin’ it deliberately, magic or otherwise. The more important question is what we do now.” Now Granny, who was sitting at the head of the table, spoke up.
“Simple,” she said. “We get out there tomorrow and work as fast as we can to get the grass cut and dried. The sooner we do that, the sooner Rainbow Dash says she can request more rainfall to fill up the lakes. Celestia knows the river’s startin’ to get mighty low, even for summertime.”
She was right. There was little else we could do, but the best solution, and the best way to prevent a fire in the future, was to deprive it of potential fuel. Short, cut grass, was far less likely to catch, regardless of how hot it got.
“I just hope this don’t hold up our plans for the Summer Sun Celebration this year,” Applejack said. “I promised Twilight that we’d pitch in to help up in Canterlot.”
“We will, AJ,” I reassured her.
I too was rather keen on being able to attend. Considering recent events, most notably, Celestia’s impending departure from the world stage, this would most likely be the last proper Summer Sun Celebration. It would be held in Canterlot, and both Applejack and I had volunteered to help out on the catering side of things, along with Pinkie Pie. But we could hardly do that if we were behind on our work. At the end of the day, the farm, and by extension our livelihood, came first.
Still, I was confident that if we all dug deep, particularly over the weekend, we’d be able to get the hay friend up and the baling done by Wednesday.
By the time the sun set, the fire was almost virtually gone. The blaze as a whole had been put out, and all that remained down was to check for hot spots that could potentially flare up again. Given how much water had been thrown around though, turning the site of the fire into something reminiscent of the Somme in 1916, there was little chance of that. And by eight that night, Redheart finally declared the fire officially out, and she and her team departed.
All that remained was the charred section of field, and the dull glow of a few faint embers, that created what looked like a second sunset to the north. I found myself watching this slightly ominous glow as I sat outside. It was a full moon tonight and, in a somewhat odd tradition, I always try to spend some time outside, enjoying the night Luna had given us. Apple Bloom had joined me as well. She’d missed all the excitement of turning out the fire brigade, and she’d been kept well away from the fire itself even after she got home from school. But like all kids, she was keen to hear about what had happened.
“And so you ran all the way back to the house, then to Ponyville, and back again?” she said.
“Yep, and all in under twelve minutes,” I replied. “Honestly, it was lucky I was near enough to see the smoke when I did. Redheart said another twenty minutes or so, and it might have ended up spreadin’ to a couple of the orchards.”
“I’m just glad it stayed away from our clubhouse,” Apple Bloom replied.
“And the farmhouse,” I added.
“Have you ever seen a fire that big before, Bones?” she asked.
“Not personally,” I replied. “But I’ve heard of forest fires destroying thousands of acres back on Earth. They do the same thing we did; contain them, and let them burn out, only it’s a lot harder.”
Apple Bloom fell silent for a moment, and looked at the faint glow on the horizon. I was planning, once I’d gotten her off to bed, to go and take one last look around, just to be sure.
“Do you think it’ll happen again?” she asked nervously. I looked down at her and saw the worry on her face.
I sometimes find myself forgetting that Apple Bloom is just a filly. Of course something like a fire would scare her, particularly one as big as that. I remember when I was little, a neighbour’s house five or six doors down went up; total loss, and their littlest and the family dog didn't make it out. For weeks afterwards, I unplugged everything electric in the house and made sure every single door was shut in case fire broke out in the night. I even put my poor parents through almost daily fire drills. It wasn’t until my dad took me to one side that I got over that fear.
“Let me tell you something, Apple Bloom,” I said softly. “Fire is very dangerous. It can hurt, and even kill you if you aren’t careful. But that only happens if you don’t respect it. When treated properly, fire is a tool, and a very useful one at that, nothing more. As long as you’re knowledgeable and prepared, you can protect yourself against any danger.
“Look at today. Yes, a fire broke out, but I knew what to do, and so did Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, and Applejack. As dangerous as it was, we all stopped that danger by being prepared and acting promptly. And so the fire only burnt up the one field.”
Apple Bloom still looked a little uncertain. I laid a comforting hoof on her shoulder.
“Tell you what,” I said. “When we’re all done with the grass cutting tomorrow, we’ll go and see Nurse Redheart, and she can help teach you a thing or two about fires. You can bring Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo along if you want to. I think y’all are old enough to learn about it and be responsible.”
That seemed to sway her. It’s a clever little psychology trick I’ve picked up from my parents. If you treat kids like they’re a little bit older or more mature than their peers, it encourages them to try and do new things, even if they’re initially a little unsure.
With Apple Bloom soothed, I led her up to bed. It was getting pretty late, and we all had an early start tomorrow. The only good thing that came out of this long heatwave was, with the grass as dry as it was, it would be ready for baling almost as soon as it was cut. At the thought of all that freshly cut grass, my treacherous mind helpfully decided to remind me of my old body, and I let out a sudden sharp sneeze.
Luckily, my hayfever didn’t decide to reassert itself, and we all set to work the following day in earnest. We’d managed to make quite a sizeable dent in things the day before. Until the fire had broken out, we’d been making good progress. I found myself again using the small pony powered mower and working my way through the orchards, cutting the grass down and keeping it all away from the trees.
Across the way from me, Applejack was working on one of the fields that had managed to dodge the fire. Working her way back and forth with one of the larger combine harvester style machines, she too was making rapid progress. The field, which had previously been something of a veldt, with grass that came up to the average pony’s shoulders, was now cut short again, with the cutting piled neatly in long rows through the field. If you bale it too damp, the hay will turn into compost or even spontaneously combust. These rows would now be left to dry for a day or two at most, in light of recent events, and then we’d get them baled up and hauled away into storage for the leaner months.
For my part though, I had both less and more work to do. Working in the orchards meant there was far less actual grass to cut, but at the same time, we weren’t leaving this out for hay baling. Instead, every now and then, when the bag of the mower filled up with cuttings, I’d have to stop and empty it all into the large wheelbarrow I’d brought along with me. From there, the grass would be added to the large store of compost we had, which in turn could be used to help feed the younger trees.
The downside of this was that, whereas Applejack or Big Mac spent all day cutting grass, I was going back and forth, slowly filling the barrow up and then taking it back to the farm and adding it into the large compost bin. Combined with old leaves, rotten fruit, manure, and whatever food waste we ourselves had, the grass would turn into useful fertiliser and plant food, rather than catching fire on a hot summer day.
Still, the work wasn’t too taxing. Were I my old self, I’d no doubt be knackered by now. But as it was, while I was sweating a fair bit, it was mainly due to the heat, rather than physical exertion. I was certainly making steady progress through the orchards.
A couple of days later, and we were all sorted at last. Where the orchards had once been bordering on overgrowth, the grass was trimmed nicely, well back from each of the trees. The open fields meanwhile, had had the same treatment, and were now dotted with large cylindrical bales of hay, which would continue to dry out for a couple days more before being loaded up in a wagon and stored away in the barn. Come winter time, there would make a good food source for the cattle and sheep. We might even have a bit of a surplus, and with luck, I might be able to convince Granny to make us all some hay fries.
The main thing though, was that with the grass now trimmed back, the danger of another brushfire breaking out had passed. With far less fuel available, it would be much harder for any natural phenomena to start a fire. The grass however, did continue to grow, and by early autumn, the ground had healed pretty well, with the ugly charred scar of burnt ground vanishing. It served as an important lesson for all of us, and Applejack said that, next year, we’d definitely start things earlier by a week or so, instead of putting it off as we had this time.
With the hay making done, things briefly quietened down a bit. Zap Apple Season was only a few weeks away, and beyond that came the always hectic Applebuck Season. But for now, we had a couple of weeks to catch our breaths. It was fortunate that this time also marked the occurrence of the Summer Sun Celebration.
I don’t think I need to explain one of Equestria’s most important holidays, now do I? Celebrated for just over a millennia, marking the anniversary of Celestia’s victory over Nightmare Moon. The holiday was always something of a double edged sword for me. On the one hoof, it marked the day Princess Luna returned from her exile and at last threw off the shackles of Nightmare Moon. But at the same time, it was also the day, over a thousand years ago, when Luna, lost in the throes of jealousy bordering on madness, had fallen and become that same vile creature. I can still remember from Twilight’s flashback to that day, the look of fear on her face as the shadows enveloped her. At the last moment, she saw what she was doing was wrong, but by then it was too late.
I must confess, if made to choose between Celestia and Luna, I’d come down on the side of the night every time. And yes, I may be just a tad obsessive towards Princess Luna, and at times even paradoxically protective of the phenomenally powerful alicorn. So celebrating the day she was banished to the moon, a memory even Celestia admits she would rather not recall, was a little uncomfortable for me, although in a way, you could say the same for Nightmare Night, which remains one of my favourite nights of the year.
Of course, since her return, the celebration has changed to reflect the newer triumph, both Luna’s and Celestia’s safe return and the rediscovery of the Elements of Harmony. Now though, I suppose it would be changing again, or rather, stopping altogether. With the two sisters abdicating the throne, it was expected that the holiday would be abolished. Just as the celebration of Empire Day had faded into history with the passing of my mother country’s imperial era, so too would the Summer Sun Celebration end, as the ponies at the centre of festivities would no longer raise the sun or moon.
I have to be honest, it was that change alone that really rankled me. Nopony but Luna should have dominion over the moon and the night, just as nopony but Celestia should over the sun and the day. Each pony had forged a powerful connection with their respective celestial body. In one of the last vestiges of my obsession towards Princess Luna, the idea of anypony, or anyone, else having control over the moon was somehow...offensive.
But I’m rambling, and possibly sounding just a touch unhinged no doubt. Long story short, the Summer Sun Celebration was upon us. The last one was to be held in Canterlot, and was expected to be the biggest celebration of the event in recent memory. Ponies from far and wide were pitching in to help, and that included yours truly, and all of Twilight’s friends, to name just a few.
Applejack and I, along with Braeburn and a good chunk of the extended Apple family, would be helping to feed the vast numbers of ponies that would flock to the capital to see the sun rise at the princess’ command. There were plenty of other jobs of course, unicorn specialists would be creating a grand fireworks display in the early dawn hours, and half of Cloudsdale, including the Wonderbolts themselves no less, had been drafted in to ensure that the skies around Canterlot were kept clear of everything from stray clouds to airships, so that everypony’s view of the moonset and sunrise from our mountaintop perch would be entirely unobstructed.
It was a massive undertaking and I figured we probably would run into a few snags along the way. But I didn’t quite expect what was going to happen that night atop the Canterhorn. I was about to find out that Sombra’s return had been the symptom of a much larger problem that was looming on the horizon, and that we were now facing perhaps one of the most serious threats to Equestria since the attack by the Storm King. And the part? My own father was in on it, as was Equestria’s least trustable ally.
Needless to say, things were about to get interesting again. I suppose that’s what I get for enjoying the peaceful serenity of life on the farm. To have harmony, one does, after all, need just a little bit of chaos. And boy were we about to get chaos.
It probably didn’t help that everything happened at two in the morning. Had it been in the day time, when I was awake, alert, and at the height of my mental powers, I might have been able to somewhat modify events. As it was though, I missed out on key clues, the consequences of which wouldn’t come to light until much later.
It all began when we were making pies. And I say we, because I had a couple of companions with me in the ad hoc outdoor kitchen that had been set up a little ways away from the main square where the celebration was being held. You couldn’t exactly have a bunch of civilians wandering the halls of Canterlot Castle, now could you? If nothing else, the risk of violent, and possibly deadly attack by geese; a new and frankly brilliant security measure implemented by Shining Armor, as well as the resulting litigation, made it too big of a chance. So instead getting to use the high end kitchens in the castle, we were set up using more basic outdoor cooking equipment.
There were several of these kitchens set up, churning out everything from pies, to cakes, and even the odd pretzel. There were dozens of earth ponies cooking ,carrying ingredients, delivering the food, and so on. Helping me out, I had Braeburn as well as my dad. Despite his role as Princess Celestia’s legal advisor, he wasn’t above rolling up his sleeves and pitching in. Applejack was, sadly, away with Pinkie Pie, overseeing everything to do with the catering side of things. All of Twilight’s friends were playing a major role in this final celebration, with AJ and Pinkie n foodstuffs, Rarity overseeing the unicorn display team, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy lending a hoof with the vast and highly complex weather control operation.
All was going perfectly smoothly, and I was taking the chance to catch up with Dad as we worked, until Braeburn briefly departed to get a couple more sacks of flour. The chore should have taken him but a few minutes, and when he didn’t come back after six, we began to get concerned.
“How’s that flour coming, Braeburn?” Dad called out, leaning slightly around the corner to let his voice carry more.
Silence.
“Braeburn, you about?” he tried again.
Still nothing.
I was just about to suggest we go and look for him anyway, when we heard a low groan close at hoof. Fearing that Braeburn might have met with some accident, we temporarily left our little kitchen and headed across the courtyard to look for him. It didn’t take us long.
We found Braeburn, himself quite unhurt, but doing his best to care for another earth pony who seemed to be ill with something. At least, that was what it looked like at first. The both of us rushed over to his side.
“Braeburn! What happened?” I exclaimed as I went to the injured pony’s side.
I’m no certified medic, but I still remember my St. John’s training, and plenty of it carried over to ponies. The pony had evidently collapsed suddenly judging by the position of his limbs and was more than a little delirious. I couldn’t get him to focus his eyes on me for love nor money. What was up with him though, I initially couldn’t say. It could be a hundred and one things, from a heart attack down to a bad stomach bug. Still, at least I had some experience, which was more than could be said for Braeburn.
“What the hay’s wrong with him?” he asked worriedly. I could hear the panic in his voice; that was the last thing we needed, and his question, whilst understandable, wasn’t exactly one I could answer. Add that to being a little sleep deprived, and you got the response which earned me the nickname I have now.
“Dammit, Braeburn,” I snarled irritably as I tried to answer that same question. “I’m a unicorn, not a doctor!” Close at hoof, Dad let out a slight laugh, which he quickly hid.
Quickly recovering himself, my dad flagged down a couple of guards who fetched out one of the doctors from the castle. It took them a few more minutes to get out here, along with a stretcher party, which gave me a bit of time for an amateur diagnosis.
As I said, a pony collapsing can be triggered by a hundred and one things, from genetics, infections, environmental factors, or anything else you could think of. I had neither the equipment or medical training to make an accurate diagnosis. However, as I continued to try and bring the still delirious pony round, I noticed something; his eyes. They looked glossy, unfocussed, and seemed to have a sort of clouded effect over them, mimicking in some way the signs of advanced cataracts. But my basic tests showed that the pony, whatever else might be wrong with him, could see, as he followed my hoof left to right, up and down. So it couldn’t be cataracts.
I tried to think and recall what little medical knowledge I had. Could it be a stroke? He couldn’t speak or move with any coordination. That didn’t explain the eyes though. In fact, the only time I’d seen anything like this, the only time I’d seen a pony so dull and utterly out of was when…
Oh crumbs!
I turned to Dad, now more than a little worried.
“Quick! Roll him over onto his side!” I instructed him.
“Bones?” he asked curiously.
“Now dammit!” I barked crossly.
Between me, Dad and Braeburn, we managed to roll the pony into something close to the recovery position, which was probably a good thing anyway. But I wasn’t particularly worried about him aspirating all over us. If he had, I might have gotten the chance to use that wonderful phrase from Top Gear’s brief stint as ambulance men; ‘Stop vomiting, you idiot!’. No, I needed him on his side so I could take a look at his flank.
With some effort, we got the poor stallion onto his side. I’d prepared myself for the worst, and was expecting to see nothing, but instead, there it was; a cutie mark plain as day. It certainly put a big old hole in my theory. Clouded eyes and weakness, if I was right, was accompanied by loss of one’s cutie mark as the innate magic from a pony was forcibly removed. But this pony still had his cutie mark. Could I be wrong?
I certainly hoped I was, and it seemed that way. After all, if this pony was a victim of having their magic drained, their cutie mark should be gone too. And more to the point, the only creature capable of such an act was presently locked away in Tartarus, under far greater security than he’d previously been subjected to. And it didn’t tally with the remote draining that Cozy had tried to pull. And besides, that had only affected unicorns.
So what else could cause the symptoms of magic draining? This couldn’t be the big finish already could it? It made sense, it was a rare thing for the Summer Sun Celebration to go off without a hitch. Did this mean we were facing someone new; someone well versed in dangerous and long forgotten dark magic. The Pony of Shadows maybe? It couldn’t be Sombra; he was definitely dead. And it couldn’t be Tirek or Cozy; the Tree of Harmony itself had woven their bonds. Chrysalis was still in play, but she didn’t have the skills needed to do something like this. Conversely, could we be looking at a case of love starvation caused by excessive feeding? No, Chrysalis was weakened, she wouldn’t strike somewhere so exposed.
As my mind continued to come up with increasingly outlandish theories, the Royal Guard’s physician arrived on the scene, along with two medics with a stretcher. He quickly tended to the unfortunate stallion. After examining him for a few moments, he pronounced his diagnosis.
“Looks like a bad case of food poisoning,” he declared, wrapping his stethoscope around his shoulders again. “Let’s get him to the infirmary.”
The two guards carefully got him on the stretcher. Of course, this new diagnosis, while not only not sitting quite right with me, also had the effect of, you know, causing a minor panic. Ponies quickly began to scatter hither and thither crying to high heaven that some of the baked goods had turned into baked bads. We pretty much lost half the catering staff for the celebration, and nopony in all of Canterlot would be willing to touch anything we cooked.
But, as a wise man once said; ‘Still, could be worse’.
A short while later, the guards came back and told us to clear down and hold off on cooking until the source of the contamination could be identified. So we were left with very little to really do, apart from clean up and, in true British fashion, hurry up and wait. Since we were more or less alone though, and away from more anxious ears, I decided to voice my concerns to Dad.
“Did you see his eyes?” I asked him as I put away a couple of trays. Dad turned back to me, setting aside his own work.
“What about them, Bones?” he replied, sounding only half interested. I explained the unusual symptoms the pony had had. But he shrugged it off, at least at first.
“Well, he was delirious,” Dad countered “It’s a common enough symptom with a bad case of food poisoning.”
“Food poisonin’ wouldn’t lay a pony out in less than five minutes,” I countered. “Besides, we’ve both eaten this stuff too, remember? If this was a case of Baked Bads, that feller wouldn’t have just passed out like that. He’d have felt unwell before, started sweatin’, then gotten woozy. Instead he just fell down almost out cold. And did ya see how weak he was; poor guy could hardly lift his head.”
“What’s your point?” Dad asked me.
“Ah’m sayin’,” I shot back. “That there’s only one thing that can knock an earth pony down, cause glazed eyes and severe weakness, and that’s having their magic drained.”
Dad went silent for several moments as he considered what I’d said, and the resulting implications. At first he tried to downplay what I’d said, putting it down to paranoia. I countered that I’d done plenty of work to try and beat magic draining spells, so I knew what the damn thing looked like. Still, he remained unconvinced. It wasn’t until three more ponies went down, with identical symptoms that he began to come around.
After all, none of them had eaten anything for the last hour. He quickly told me to follow him. We’d go and find Celestia and Luna and sound an alarm. We were already in trouble if Tirek had enough magic to drain earth ponies. Presumably, he’d be able to do the same to pegasi, to say nothing of unicorns. But alicorns, maybe not just yet. Tirek is like a fire, tackled in time, he presents no threat. And it was time to switch on the halon.
Getting to the castle however, proved no easy task. We were down in the lower half of the city at the moment. To get to the castle, we’d have to go through the main square, where the ceremony would take place, past the second stage ,where the unicorns would be performing their light show, and then finally up through the public gardens to the castle itself. Ordinarily, I’d say it would take ten minutes, less if we ran. Tonight though, it seemed as though we were to face one disaster after another.
It was bad enough that Tirek was somehow out and on the loose. How I still had no idea. The cage they threw him in was crafted by the Tree of Harmony itself. Nothing just blows through that. Tirek had taken pretty much all the magic in Equestria, and the Elements had still blown him away. So how, with only his own miniscule magic to call on, had he managed to get free, never mind how he’d managed to get strong enough to be dangerous. No disrespect to the steroid freak with rage issues, but if Discord hadn’t helped him, I’d have given him, at most, ten minutes. If he thought he could pull the same trick twice, he was stupider than I gave him credit for.
It was while I was trying to work all this out, that the weather changed. Given how this whole celebration was built around watching the moon set and the sun rise, the skies were, by order of the princesses themselves, to be kept clear. As I said before, a whole squadron of weather patrol ponies had been drafted in, including the Wonderbolts, who’d be giving a display after the sunrise. So how, with all that pony power on hoof, was I suddenly now finding myself getting soaked in a torrential downpour?
The wind quickly picked up too, gusting hard enough to cause problems for the pegasi above us, who were now scattering and trying to get the storm under control. The wind howled and tore at us both, and I had to press my hat down on my head with a hoof just to stop it blowing away. In the end, to try and avoid drowning, I threw up a basic shield spell around the two of us that kept most of the weather out. They might not work against petrifying gasses, but they worked just fine against heavy rain. The wind was another matter, but it was better than nothing. As we made our way up the hill, the rain turned to thunder, and a bolt of lightning struck a nearby lamppost, sending the glass shattering everywhere.
“You think this is Tirek too?” Dad asked over the wind. I shook my head.
“No!” I replied. “Even with pegasi magic, he never tried controlling the weather. This feels more like a rogue storm, like during the Storm King’s invasion.”
Now there was a bad guy who I knew, like Sombra, was definitely dead. I’d seen his remains and ‘verified’ him myself. At least we didn’t have to worry about that psychotic twit coming back.
High above us, we saw Rainbow Dash, along with the lead elements of the Wonderbolts, go charging into the maelstrom to try and regain control. I figured that they’d be able to do it, assuming whatever had caused it wasn’t still active. I quietly hoped that it was just a bad coincidence.
As we reached the showgrounds, where the unicorn display team was supposed to be performing, the rain eased off. The storm, as severe as it was, seemed to be confined to a fairly small area of Canterlot. As we entered the place though, I was surprised to see the team themselves coming the other way, with their bags seemingly packed. While I did my best to dry out my poor weather battered stetson, Dad went to talk with them to see what the crack was. He got quite the surprising response when he asked them where they were going. Apparently, they were buggering off.
“As if we unicorns are going to waste our potential giving some humdrum little light show to a gaggle of dullard earth ponies,” the one in charge, Fire Flare I believe her name was, said haughtily.
Now, you might recall, my girlfriend is an earth pony, so are many of my good friends. And to hear some stuck up precious little bitch come out with that, particularly after all the progress that had been made with interspecies relations after the Storm King incident...well, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Stepping in front of my dad, and pushing him one side, I got in her face and made my displeasure known.
“And just what is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, bristling.
Fire Flare replied with something that could have come straight out of the mouth of Chancellor Neighsay once upon a time. Had she been a stallion, and my dad not been there to stop me, there would have been no question of my giving her a smack on the mouth then and there. As it was, it took a great deal of effort to restrain myself and remember the old maxim that an officer and a gentleman doesn’t strike a lady. Even if this particular example wasn’t very lady-like in her manners. The trio brushed their way past us and stalked off, leaving the both of us stunned.
Now where in the name of Celestia had all that come from? The three tribes have worked together harmoniously for millennia, since before the reign of the Two Sisters. Okay, you got the odd pony who didn’t care for one tribe, or maybe held his own in a higher regard. But why would these ponies, unicorns or not (I know they can be the most stuck up of the three tribes), suddenly start acting as if Hearth’s Warming had never happened.
This was getting stranger and stranger, first someone, possibly Tirek, attacks ponies, but doesn’t take all their magic. Then the weather goes haywire. And now the very bonds between the three tribes seemed to be breaking down, and ponies who normally got on fine with one another were developing superiority complexes.
This was definitely more than just a minor hiccup. This felt like a damned finale episode in the show. Were we facing some new threat? Or was it all just a strange coincidence? Either way, the princesses and the Elements needed to be alerted to the danger. The two of us pressed up up the hill and soon made our way into the castle.
Things only got worse as we made our way inside. While nothing seemed to have disturbed Twilight and the other princesses, it was clear from the get go that something was seriously wrong. The first guard post we came across, which ought to have stopped us and done a security check on us, was deserted. A quick check around soon explained why, as I found the both guards unconscious not too far away; out of sight and out of mind. It looked like whoever, or whatever, had grabbed them had done so by the classic tactic of drawing one guard off to investigate, leaving his companion vulnerable, and then doing the same to him when he returned. Oddly though, their magic was still perfectly intact. They were just unconscious.
“Ya know,” I said as I tried to rouse one of the guards. “This don’t feel like Tirek at all. This kind of cloak and dagger work reads more like changeling.”
Tirek was many things, but subtle he was not. If he was powerful enough to drain earth ponies, he was capable of taking on a couple of guards. Why would he use stealth and then just knock them out? Waiting in the shadows until your opponent had his back to you was how those bugs operated, or at least how they used to.
That threw up another possible theory. Tirek was locked away, sure, but Chrysalis wasn’t. To my mind, she’s the only villain still out there, and remains one of the most dangerous we’ve ever faced. Even without her army to call on, her own magic was impressive and had enabled her to elude any attempt to track her down.
Could it be she’d managed to somehow augment her abilities? Draining love wasn’t too different from draining magic. Both were a form of energy. From what we understood of her species, it would certainly be possible. Sweet Celestia, could that be what was happening? Could it be that Chrysalis had been in hiding all this time, plotting her revenge, learning new magic? If so it made her doubly dangerous. Feeding on love as she did could vastly increase her magical power. And as we’d seen with the second incursion, it was possible to forcibly drain somepony of their love. What if she combined the two spells somehow? What if she’d found a way to drain a pony of their love and their magic? If true, I’m not sure even all the alicorns combined could stand against her. Tirek might have been dangerous, but there was still a limit to his abilities. With that much power, Chrysalis would be like a goddess.
Luckily, before I could truly start panicking, my dad chipped in with a different, and ultimately correct, theory.
“They’re working together,” he said softly as he tended to the other guard. I thought him absurd.
“Right,” I replied. “Because Tirek plays so well with others.”
That was after all what had finally brought him down. Betraying Discord might have temporarily given him more magic, albeit magic that he couldn’t properly access without losing his marbles, never mind use with any design or intent, but it had also turned his former ally against him. After all, it was Discord who put the girls on to their Rainbow Power which sent him packing. He certainly seemed to have learned from that mistake with Cozy, although he still clung to self-interest when push came to shove. Could he have learned a thing or two; somehow convinced her to bust him out?
But what were they planning? He helps her get the hive back, she helps him take down a common foe, maybe go after the minotaurs? Dad however, just dropped another bombshell.
“It does if it serves his agenda,” he said gravely. “And Chrysalis and Cozy would be able to help him get into the city. He’s the muscle, they’re the brains.”
That threw me for a loop, and he was just getting started. In as condensed a form as he could, he explained it all to me. This was all told to him partly by the Tree, and partly by a certain somepony who was about to become the first draconequus in history to have his balls ripped off if I had anything to say about it.
Discord, in the guise of the pretty much mythical Grogar, had broken Tirek and Cozy out of Tartarus, plucked Chrysalis from her hidey hole, and brought Sombra back from oblivion. He proposed an alliance; they all work together to defeat Twilight and destroy Equestria. Sombra didn’t bite and went solo, and we saw how that turned out. The others all agreed to work with Grogar and each other.
Now, why was Discord betraying Equestria and everypony he cared about? Didn’t he learn his lesson the last time he tried that crap? Well, as he saw it he wasn’t actually betraying us. In his own twisted way, he was actually trying to be helpful. His plan was to use these three insane nutjobs to pose just enough of a threat to give Twilight a real challenge. When she defeated them, she’d have renewed confidence in herself and her ability to lead. And if anything did go wrong, as the undisputed master of chaos, he had a ready kill switch if things did start to get out of hoof.
I listened to my old man’s story in stunned silence and quietly boiling rage. After all, that meant that Discord was at least partly responsible for Sombra doing what he did, mind controlling me and all my friends, destroying the Tree of Harmony, and putting all of the princesses in danger. Putting Luna in danger! Depriving us of our greatest defence! All to help give Twilight more ‘confidence’!
On the other hoof, it was interesting to learn that Grogar actually was real, rather than the myth I’d previously thought him to be. But that was beside the point.
“Okay,” I said with false cheerfulness. “You go find the princesses. Ah’m gonna go find Discord and see how long he can survive without a head.”
Luckily, Dad stopped me and talked me down. Ironically, he had to use my own logic and reasoning against me. While we could step in now, and alter events from what would be depicted in the show, that would also have the effect of removing the guarantee of a positive outcome. We’d be breaking canon. Good only triumphs over evil if we follow the story. Sometimes, that meant sitting on the sidelines, when it was possible to intervene, and allowing the bad guys to flaunt a bit. Just as with Starfleet’s Prime Directive, my own decision not to intervene has often been a difficult one to stick to. Celestia knows I’d have loved to have taken Chrysalis down a peg before all this. Then again, one on one, Sombra did wipe the floor with me.
The only upside is that there was nothing stopping us from alerting the princesses that something was going on. We were still the only ones who knew, at least roughly, what was really happening. I later learned from Applejack that each incident was put down to far more mundane causes; bad ingredients, a falling out, miscommunication with the weather teams. They wouldn’t know what happened until months later, when Dad and I finally broke our omerta.
Still, the two of us ended up arguing. I wanted to tell at least Celestia and Luna what was going on, to enable us to prepare a fallback option. Dad however, insisted on radio silence, and only telling them that something was up in the city. As we continued to go around in circles, we were joined by the cause of the current crisis.
“Ooh,” Discord said in excitement, having materialised behind the two of us. “Can I help?”
For once, Discord’s sudden appearance didn’t send me rocketing skywards in fright. And as much as I may love Equestria’s Q, I was still furious with him. This wasn’t the first time he’d done something this stupid.
Several moons ago…
I stood in the empty fields, glaring at Discord, an equally mad Twilight and my dad along with AJ and several other disgruntled ponies standing either side of me. Around us were all sorts of metal and debris, as well as several curious bits of technology that glowed an ominous green colour. This was all that remained of the terrifyingly large, cube shaped vessel that a certain draconequus had decided to conjure up, or rather, pull from its own reality, taking in from one supposedly fictional universe to another.
It was partly my fault and partly my dad’s fault. I said how much Discord could be like Q from Star Trek at times, right down to his voice actor in the show. That then led Discord to talking with my dad about Star Trek; both of us are big fans of pretty much all of the shows. That in turn led to discussions about the Q, Klingons, Romulans, and the various other hostile races of the galaxy.
Including the most dangerous one, which Discord decided to bring in in order to let us see one up close and fight them like we were playing one of his O&O games. Luckily, Twilight had been able to get things under control before we were all vaporised, or worse. That left my dad to do the telling off.
Pulling Discord’s head down so that he was nose to nose with him, he looked him straight in the eye.
“Discord,” he said softly, letting his anger boil over. “If Celestia and I have told you once, we've told you a thousand times. DON’T! PROVOKE! THE BORG!”
Back in the present...
The two of us looked at Discord with no small amount of disdain. I might like him sometimes. In fact, at times he can be a genuinely nice guy. But then there were times he was like this. He still has a ways to go when it comes to understanding friendship, but at least he was heading in the right direction. Still, he didn’t quite seem to get why we were both giving him the evil eye.
“What?” he asked in confusion.
“Discord,” my dad said. “Your little psychology test and Twilight confidence building exercise is running around out there causing havoc. Any idea why?” Discord simply shrugged his shoulders and utterly failed to convince either of us.
“How should I know?” he replied. “I haven’t told them to do anything ever since I sent them off to try and find that bell thingy. Now I have to find some other ancient artifact for them to use to make them actually dangerous and pose some degree of threat.”
Discord’s plan had undergone a few modifications since he started. When Sombra refused to fall in line, as most megalomaniacs tend to do, he used him as a test case, letting him run amok, while still keeping a weather eye on how things were going, stepping in at the last moment when Twilight needed one more little nudge. After that though, he’d come up with something even more stupid. Even together, Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy weren’t much of a threat. Tirek had virtually no magic, Chrysalis was no match for two alicorns, and Cozy was nothing but a pegasus filly. He needed to make them more dangerous, and a credible threat.
So he’d sent them off to Mount Everhoof. As far as I knew, the forbidding looking mountain was pretty much deserted, apart from the odd occasion some overconfident mountaineer tried to climb it. As it turned out though, it was also used as a vault for the Bewitching Bell; the enchanted object Grogar used to both store and augment his own already powerful magic. It had been his downfall, as when Gusty the Great stole it from him, he lost virtually all of his magic and was easily defeated. If the stories about Grogar were true, that magic held in the bell was almost as powerful as chaos magic, certainly a match for anything but a blast from the Elements of Harmony.
The quest though had ended in failure, or so Discord thought. He really ought to have kept a closer eye on his little team of a sociopath, a lunatic and a retard. As far as he knew, they’d been unable to retrieve the bell. Thinking the same, Dad and I came to the same conclusion; they were looking for some other source of power. To describe his scheme as cavalier was a great understatement.
“So you set those three loose on Equestria, and ya don’t even know what they’re planning?” I exclaimed.
“Well, if I knew it would spoil the surprise,” he replied. “And even if I did, if I tell you, you’ll just go and run off to tell Tia and ruin the whole thing.”
Well he was right on that front. And if he’d bothered to keep an eye on his little project, his plan might have crossed the line from insane to brilliant. Still, it seemed more than a little risky, considering how dangerous any of these were if given time to plan, never mind the fact that they would probably try to stab ‘Grogar’ in the back the first chance they got. Villains after all, don’t do friendship. Both Chrysalis and Cozy had been offered it, only to reject the notion.
“Discord, this isn’t safe,” Dad said sternly, like he did when he was telling me off as a child. “Any of those villains on their own are dangerous enough.”
“But not a match for me,” he replied cockily.
That was true, Discord’s magic could put even the likes of Celestia and Luna to shame. While they took a conscious effort to raise and lower the sun and moon, he could do it with a snap of his talons, and at a mile a minute to boot. He reinforced this by snapping into existence one of those flying pigs of his, which quickly fluttered off to go and make friends with the geese, who now, rather strangely, acted as security for the castle. The hallway soon filled with a terrible mixture of oinking and honking.
“Even if they do get out of hoof,” Discord went on, “I can have them back in Tartarus in moments. And that’s assuming they don’t turn on each other first. They really do hate each other, remember.”
I started to come around, at least to this part of the scheme. There was no way we could convince the idiot to put those fruit loops back where he found them, and even if they did, they now knew of each other and might very well try something in the future if left unattended. It certainly didn’t make sense to turn Chrysalis loose again.
“He does have a point there, Dad,” I agreed a little reluctantly. “I still think what he’s doin’ is dangerous, but he’s got a kill switch ready, and we’ve both seen how well Tirek handles alliances, never mind Chrysalis.”
“So what, you think we should just let this play out?” Dad asked me in surprise.
“I say we keep tabs on ‘em, but yeah,” I replied with a nod. “This is Equestria, Dad; they were screwed from minute one. Worst case scenario, they end up in Tartarus. Who knows, this whole mutual cooperation thing Discord has them doin’ might even prompt reformation. This could all end with the last three outstanding bad guys either on our side or dealt with permanently.”
After all, it had worked out fine with Sombra. He was genuinely dangerous, but with Discord on our side, he’d only lasted for as long as the draconequus found him amusing. This was, partly, what Celestia had wanted when she suggested reforming Discord. This was something along the lines of him using his magic for good. Dad however, despite being alleged best friends with Discord, remained less than convinced.
“I still want to know what they were doing,” he persisted. “I can take letting Discord’s plan play out, but I want to know every move. I certainly don’t want my wife or children subjected to mind control or worse.”
Actually, that was a good point. It was alright knowing that whatever was going to happen would turn out our way, but it would be even better if we had a play by play script on hoof. And it would make everything just a little less terrifying. Fictional or not, children's’ villains or not, Chrysalis and Tirek were still pretty damn scary in person.
“Well then,” Discord said, that teasing tone coming back into his voice.. “In that case I suggest you direct your attention to the archives, in particular the restricted section. Ta!”
And with that, he snapped his talons and vanished a la Q. Well, at least it wasn’t a riddle this time.
Discord’s hint turned out to be right on the money. I just wish he’d kept a closer eye on them. Then he might have realised what was coming his way. I honestly sometimes wonder if he did and let things go the way they did for the sheer chaos it would cause for everypony. After all, his confidence building exercise would be useless if Twilight ever found out about it. As events turned out, it certainly did boost her confidence in the end, albeit more by luck than judgement.
Heading deeper into the castle, Dad and I soon made our way to the archives. I’ve been here a couple of times myself, with Twilight vouching for me. They don’t let just anypony in here; you need direct consent from the princesses to enter the restricted section. All sorts of texts on outlawed dark magic, long dead foes, dangerous spells and artifacts were in here, under lock and key.
Or at least, they were supposed to be. Arriving on the scene, in what could be only a few scant minutes behind our foes, we found the lock burst, and the place turned upside down. Somepony was looking for something, and had gone right through the archives to find it. The question was what. There were any number of dangerous spells, artifacts, or other phenomena chronicled here that would give those three an edge. But we needed to know what it was.
Well, there was only one thing for it, and that was to try and identify what, if anything, was missing. I hunted around for the catalogue, pausing to take a look outside as I did so. The situation outside seemed to have stabilised. The weather was under control, the ponies that had lost their magic or rather ‘suffered severe food poisoning’ had recovered (Tirek had returned their magic in order to prevent his new master becoming suspicious, and the unicorns had been half talked and half strong armed back into their show.
If gaining access to the archives was their true objective, then the random actions outside the castle now made sense. They were distractions, keeping everypony off balance while they broke in and made their move. Now if only we knew what that was. I was startled out of my thoughts when Dad called over to me.
“Hey, Bones,” he called out. “See if you can find ‘ On the Bewitching Bell’ anywhere. Given what we know, there’s a good chance that’s what they may have been after.”
I’d not seen it so far, and made a quick check of all the books I’d gathered up. It wasn’t here.
“No sign of it, Dad,” I replied. “You think they took it?” Dad nodded.
“Makes sense they would,” he said. “Discord said they couldn’t retrieve the bell when he sent them to Mount Everhoof. Maybe they’ll use this as a way to overcome whatever it is that’s protecting it. In any case, we better report this to the guard and Celestia. But keep quiet about this whole Grogar business until I say otherwise.”
Damn this sodding non-interference. Even with the limited information we had, we were in a position to stop whatever mess was on the horizon. But the risk of unforeseen consequences was just too great. Nothing would give me greater pleasure to blow the lid off this whole affair, have all three villains, and the one insane psychopath, stopped before they could do any more damage. It nearly drove me mad knowing those three had been skulking around the nation’s capital undetected. It was like watching ‘A Canterlot Wedding’ all over again, knowing that love stealing whore was disguised as Cadence. At least then I had the luxury of a screen blocking my way.
Still, at least he had an idea (albeit a wrong one) about what they were up to, and before we went to Celestia to report what had happened, we paused to watch the final Summer Sun Celebration. Or, as Twilight now renamed the holiday, the first Festival of the Two Sisters.
I just hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
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I'm likin' what I'm seein' so far, Blade Star. Keep up the good work. Making me jealous, you is. I don't mind.
At girst it took me a bit to remember just about where you were in canon, I wasn't sure if these three had been turned to stone yet. As for the rest, the forest fire I conntined onto pretty quick before it was outright stayed, and Braeburn my guess was something like qn alllergic reaction as well.
That bit with Sombra though... yeah, both kinds of control are horrible, although I think they're all gar more familiar with one of them they they know. Hopefully Blade Star will be able to put what he learns to use, it would be terrible if someone was left like that.
Edit: I like the current format, but snaller chapters wouldn't be remiss if they were for things that would make a chapter in and of themselves.