Witches 5: A New Beginning
Dash trudged through the snow on her way back to Twilight’s house, with a musket on her back and two full saddlebags at her sides. She was always afraid to fly there because it’d be easier for somepony to spot her landing in this one random spot in the forest every time.
There were a few things she did to throw ponies off her trail like that. She knew it’d seem suspicious if she suddenly started buying dozens of history books from the bookstore after having never gone there her whole life. So Dash got one of those PO boxes and ordered books through a phone catalog instead.
She made sure to buy a bunch of random stuff along with whatever Twilight asked for. That way nopony would be able to figure anything out. Incidentally, Dash finally had a gun again, though given her current track record that’d last about one adventure before being destroyed.
Derpy was likely the only pony who could figure this out. She’d know Dash had zero money and ask how Dash was paying for all this. So Dash had been avoiding her lately.
Maybe she was being a little paranoid. There was no reason for anypony to follow her yet. Ponies still dismissed her as being some idiot off chasing mummies.
A few ponies had gotten close to discovering Twilight’s house, but Twilight had more than enough defenses in place to turn them all around.
Most commonly, intruders would get ‘lost’ briefly before suddenly finding themselves back where they started. Ponies that got past that spell would start walking into Fluttershy’s aura and quickly become too afraid to carry on. It wasn’t the crippling type of fear Dash ran into before, just enough to turn most ponies around.
So far, nopony had gotten beyond that layer of defense, but Dash knew Twilight still had that fog labyrinth spell up because she had to walk through it every time she came back. There was probably even more than that before you got to the small army Twilight had created in the last few months.
Twilight’s house came into sight and Dash simply walked through the barrier and past a small army of golems. Sometimes it felt kind of nice to be able to simply walk by something that would give even the most elite fighters a challenge. It felt like she belonged somewhere for once.
She went inside, finding Twilight sitting on the ground surrounded by a pile of books she was still working through. Dash threw the packages down on the ground as soon as she came back.
Her job as Twilight’s familiar and student mostly consisted of running into town to buy stuff for Twilight and answering millions of questions. Once Twilight learned that ‘outsiders’ had written a whole ton of books it was all over. Twilight became much more interested in the outside world since their last excursion and spent six hours a day reading non-stop.
Dash already spent two thousand bits on books about recent history, warfare, and magic. She had tons of questions for Dash as she read, though Dash hardly knew the answer to half.
Whether or not this new interest in the world was good or bad remained to be seen. Maybe Twilight would become less apathetic towards everypony else, but at the same time, it almost seemed like she was preparing for war with the rest of the world.
Twilight took out her newest books. She looked from one on airships to the one on cannons.
“Good.” Twilight put them in the pile. “But I still need more. My information on the outside world is slowly coming together but still lacking.”
“You know, I only have so much money,” Dash reminded her. “I’ve spent thousands in the last two weeks.”
“Yes, but you also stole a bottle of youth gummies from me,” Twilight reminded her, “which you said was worth over a hundred thousand bits. So you’re going to keep buying stuff for me until you’ve paid that off. Then I’ll stop mentioning it.”
Dash really should have pretended that was only worth like a hundred bits.
“Doesn’t swearing my loyalty to you make us even?” Dash asked.
“Being loyal to me is its own reward.” Twilight was already lost in her book.
That remained to be seen in the long run.
“But now that you’re here, we can begin our meeting.” Twilight closed the book on airships, walked up to the chalkboard Dash bought for her, and pulled out the pointer that was also on Dash’s bankroll.
Behind her, there was already a huge amount of information written on the chalkboard. There was graph, a whole list of points and a crude sketch of the planet.
“Why do you always call them meetings?” Dash asked. “It’s just the two of us and the ghost. Is that enough to call it a meeting?”
As if she’d just heard herself mentioned, Fluttershy floated down from the ceiling.
“And Smarty Pants.” Twilight pointed to her doll, who Dash just now noticed had been placed on the couch. “That makes four.”
Dash kind of hoped Twilight would have stopped talking to that thing already. How long did it take to stop being insane from social isolation anyway?
Fluttershy gave it that cautious look she always did and stayed as far away as possible.
“I’ll sit next to Smarty Pants.” Dash jumped on the couch and leaned against the scarecrow. “The two of us are buddies.”
“Actually, Smarty Pants doesn’t like you very much,” Twilight said.
“What?!” Dash sat up. If Twilight’s imaginary friend didn’t like Dash, didn’t that mean there was some part of Twilight that still didn’t trust her? “Why not?”
“I think she’s just jealous,” Twilight whispered to Dash.
“Jealous?” Dash gave the scarecrow a skeptical look. She had no idea how to psychoanalyze that one. Was it a good thing for her isolation-induced hallucination to be jealous of Dash?
Twilight looked at Smarty Pants like it was saying something.
“You’re just going to have to suck it up. Rainbow Dash isn’t leaving,” Twilight told her. “We’re going to have to all work together if we want to solve this issue. That’s why I’ve gathered all of my minions together, to discuss a permanent solution to our problem!”
“Excuse me.” Fluttershy raised her hoof. “I have two questions. Since when am I your minion?”
“Do you have anything better to do?” Twilight collapsed her pointer.
“Um.” Fluttershy looked down at the ground. “No.”
“Right!” Twilight took it back out and tapped the board. “I figure you and I are in a similar situation. Neither of us can show ourselves in mainstream society because of what we are. You might as well just go along with whatever I come up with.”
“That does sound logical,” said Fluttershy. “And it’s not like anypony else will take me in.”
“Great!”
“But what is ‘our problem’, exactly?” Fluttershy asked. “Everything’s been so nice since I got here.”
“Our problem is the industrial revolution!” Twilight hit her chalkboard and the words appeared over a picture of a small factory.
“Oh no!” Fluttershy covered her head and backed up. “No, no, no. Did I accidentally join an eco-terrorist group again? Why does this keep happening?!”
“We’re not terrorists,” Dash promised Fluttershy. “Twilight! We can’t be terrorists, okay?”
“I don’t know what a terrorist is, so I can’t say no,” said Twilight. “But here, I made a graph to illustrate what I’m talking about.”
Twilight pointed to a graph with two lines on it. The top line had Twilight’s cutie mark and was a straight line that went up a small amount. The bottom one was a curved line that increased more rapidly near the end.
All the way through, the bottom line was below Twilight’s, but it became much closer near the end.
“You see, six hundred years ago ponies were pathetic losers compared to today.” Twilight pointed at the start of the bottom curve, far below where her starting point was. “They were too dumb to build trains or guns! They didn’t know how to forge arcanium. The most powerful psychics could only bend spoons. The best mages couldn’t even cast a sticks to snakes spell. They were too superstitious to even attempt to understand curses and witchcraft in general.”
Twilight moved the pointer along the bottom graph, following it as it got closer to her line.
“The scientific method was supposed to be one of the secrets of the witches, but somehow they figured it out too and everything went nuts after that! My abilities have greatly improved over the past centuries, but not nearly as rapidly as the outsiders!” Twilight moved her pointer across the smaller gap between the lines. “I don’t have labels for the y axis, but it’s possible they could catch up in just a couple hundred more years. A curse won’t be enough to keep them out much longer and then what?”
“I think I understand,” said Fluttershy. “You’re worried the security we have now might not keep ponies out forever, right? Keeping all the mean ponies out is what made the past month so nice. But is there a way to keep them out forever?”
“I think there is! And I called you here to discuss my ideas,” said Twilight.
“Alright.” Dash leaned back. “Let’s hear what I got myself into this time.”
“Plan one.” Twilight tapped an image of her standing atop the globe appeared. “We use overwhelming force to take over the world!”
“Dang it, Twilight!” Dash jumped forward out of her seat. “This is exactly what I was worried about. We can’t take over the world. We’d have to kill like a million ponies.”
“But I’d make lots of changes for the better!” Twilight swept her pointer across the board to the list of bulletin points. “The more I learn about your society the more idiotic it sounds to me. I’m sure once all the ponies hear about the great ideas I have, they won’t want to fight against us. They’ll just give me control of the world.”
“Uh-huh.” Dash sat back down, genuinely curious what Twilight’s hypothetical reforms would be. “This should be good. Let’s hear these reforms.”
“Point one!” Twilight hit the first point. “Free housing. Shelter will be demonetized, freeing up massive resources. Point two. Money will be abolished and replaced with productivity tokens that expire when used to purchase something. Your current system is too easy to exploit and disproportionately rewards ponies who aren’t productive at all while simultaneously encouraging hoarding. By tying your living standard directly and only to how productive you are, we can increase both the fairness and efficiency of the system.”
Dash immediately knew none of that would work out. At least, she was pretty sure it couldn’t. She wasn’t an economist, though, and struggled for a moment to find the words.
“Three. I destroy your unnecessarily large sewer systems and just give everypony an infinite void to use as a toilet. Four. I get rid of all this democracy nonsense and instead the smartest ponies make all the decisions. Five. Ghosts who can go a year without feeding off of a pony will be allowed into society until they actually break a law.”
“Oh! I like number five,” said Fluttershy. “Can we just do number five? I suppose three is okay too, even if I don’t, you know…”
“Twilight?” Dash shook her head. “Some of that’s going to be way harder to implement than you think.”
“If I can figure out how to obtain eternal youth I can figure out how to fix the housing market,” said Twilight.
“But do you even want to do all this?” Dash asked. “Ruling the world would be a bureaucratic nightmare. You’d have to devote one hundred percent of your time to dealing with political nonsense. You’d spend the first half of your day having obnoxious ponies yell at you because there’s too many regulations on carrots and the second half getting yelled at because there aren’t enough regulations on carrots. You’d never get to have fun or work on your magic. Is that really what you want your life to be? Isn’t that the exact opposite of what you’re trying to do?”
Twilight looked at that board, scratched her head, then put the pointer down.
“That’s a good point.” Twilight hummed to herself, looking over her plan. “Now that I think about it, ruling Equestria would be the worst possible thing and I don’t have a clear exit strategy. But this is why I called you here, after all. You’re smart.”
“Hehe!” Dash blushed and rubbed her nose. “Yeah, well. You know.”
At that particular moment in time, Dash would have joined Twilight’s side in a war between her and the rest of the world without hesitation.
“I’ll have to give that one more thought.” Twilight turned to her board, forelegs crossed. “Admittedly all my other plans are just increasingly ridiculous. So if you have any suggestions, I’d like to hear them.”
Fluttershy and Dash both got to thinking. Dash really did need to figure out the endgame for all of this.
Dash realized she’d been goofing off too much, putting off the decision because it was an interruption into what had been an idyllic life. Even just that relatively small amount of money kind of went to her head there.
Even worse, she was complicit now! If things ever hit the fan, Dash was going down along with Twilight straight to jail.
Maybe she should just help Twilight take over the world at this point? Those infinite void toilets were way better than flush ones to the point Dash wasn’t sure if she could go back, so it wasn’t like it’d be completely evil.
Dash looked over at Twilight…
There was, of course, the obvious solution. Twilight trusted Dash enough to let her come and go whenever she wanted. Getting proof Twilight was here would be effortless now. That alone would be enough to make Dash famous, get her millions!
If Dash kept going along with this, kept being all cozy with Twilight, it’d get more and more difficult to stay out of jail. But if she turned Twilight in right now, it wouldn’t be too hard to claim she was only playing along until she got a chance to escape. That had been the original plan.
It’d be so easy! Dash could live happily ever after and not need to deal with any of this anymore. Ponies would love her.
“What if you use your magic powers to send us to the moon?” Fluttershy raised her hoof. “That seems like a nice, lonely place.”
“The moon, huh?” Twilight looked up towards that sky. “Actually, there might be a way. Though living there would present certain difficulties.”
“But that’s that point,” said Fluttershy. “Nopony else would be able to get there.”
“But if I can get to the moon, then other ponies can eventually get there too.” Twilight shook her head.
They went on with that routine for a bit, but Dash wasn’t paying attention to any of it.
What would be the downsides of turning on Twilight? A big fight would break out as Pinkie said. But that was going to happen eventually anyway. Maybe not for years or even decades, but eventually. That really was the main problem Dash had to avoid somehow.
Then she thought of how Twilight would react to Dash betraying her. It wasn’t even Twilight coming out for revenge that popped into her head, but how miserable being betrayed a second time would make the witch.
The image in her mind of Twilight trembling and crying in despair when she realized Dash turned her in was too cruel, it gave Dash a sinking feeling in her stomach, made her feel guilty just for thinking about it.
Then Dash realized she couldn’t possibly go with that plan. She had too much honor or whatever. Or maybe she really had let herself get too attached. Her plan to befriend backfired and Twilight ended up befriending her instead!
Dash let out a long miserable sigh. She was going to miss that million bits. Being kind didn’t pay the bills, they say.
“Huh?” Twilight looked over at her, drooping over in sorrow.
“Nothing.” Dash shook her head. “Just thinking to myself.”
There had to be some perfect solution to all of this. There had to be a way for Dash to become rich and respected, stay out of jail, mitigate the inevitable super-battle and also not betray Twilight.
Maybe she should have gone after a more realistic mark after all, just like Derpy told her to.
That’s when it came to her! The perfect plan!
“Oh! I have a plan.” Dash jumped off the couch and raised her hoof. “The main problem is just that you have a bad reputation, so all we need to do is give you a good reputation instead! There are tons of incredibly dangerous S-rank monsters out there, but you’re stronger than any of them. We go out there, beat the crap out of them, and collect all the huge rewards.”
“I feel like we already have enough money,” said Twilight.
“That’s not the point,” said Dash. “The point is we’d be heroes if we destroyed all the major threats in the world. Then at the end, we can hero-cuck Pinkie, destroying the curse of undeath seconds before she does. We can have the most epic newsreel ever where we reveal your identity, but by then everypony will love us so much they won’t want to fight anymore. If you take out all the other witches, nopony can possibly claim you’re evil, right?”
“But revealing myself will lead to a huge fight, won’t it?” Twilight asked. “And doing it like you said might risk revealing myself before I’m ready. Somepony is bound to notice the other witches disappearing.”
“You said yourself it’s going to happen anyway eventually, right?” Dash reminded her. “We can delay it for like a hundred years, but it’ll just be worse by then. But this way we reduce the number of people who will be fighting when it happens. Like, we take out the other witches on the one side and then ponies like Nailbat won’t want to fight you anymore on the other. See how brilliant this is?”
“I’m not sure.” Twilight lowered the brim of her hat. “Usually when I help people they just want more and more. You can’t get them to like you by helping them.”
“Come on, that was just one guy. Do you think me and Fluttershy are like that?” Dash gestured towards Fluttershy.
“Oh, I’m just happy that you two talk to me.” Fluttershy smiled. “I really don’t need anything else.”
Twilight was still struggling with the concept though, avoiding eye contact with either of them. She started pacing back and forth nervously instead of responding. How was Twilight not sold on this yet?
“What if we start with the other witches?” Dash asked. “And get those books back? I know you want to be more responsible than Filthy Rich, right?”
“Hey! I’m not like that guy!” Twilight shot back, then sighed and finally calmed down. “Maybe you’re right. It’s clear that the order lost its way at some point. Witches aren’t supposed to be using their powers like that. Maybe I should at least see what happened. And—"
Twilight looked at Fluttershy with a deep frown.
“If I get those witches under control you really think everypony will leave me alone?” Twilight asked.
“I think it’d be hard for me to hate whoever stopped all those other witches,” said Fluttershy.
“I’m pretty sure somepony’s going to attack you no matter what we do,” Dash admitted, shaking her head. “But almost everypony will be on our side if we can pull this off. We could have the good kind of fame and the public would love us. It’ll be great!”
Twilight stopped her pacing and stood there, tense and unmoving, with her eyes closed considering it for a long time.
“Alright.” Twilight finally opened her eyes and nodded with determination. “I’ll beat all the other witches and get my spellbooks back. But we have to keep as low a profile as possible until the end.”
“We managed to get through that whole blob incident without getting caught,” said Dash. “How hard could doing that ten times in a row be?”
“Fluttershy?” Twilight turned to her.
“I know firsthoof how bad the witches are,” said Fluttershy. “I’d like to stop them too. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to stand up to one yet, but I’ll help if I can. I suppose it’s the only way to live a peaceful life, besides.”
This would be great! Dash could just ride Twilight’s coattails all the way to an easy victory. If they seriously pulled this off, Dash would be an absolute legend! Finally, she’d be worthy of respect.
Dash was so pumped for this! She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this kind of determination and excitement. It felt like life was about to begin.
Dash spent the next month training with intense determination! Well, intense compared to a normal pony. Compared to Twilight, she was still a total slacker. The plan was to get Dash to be remotely useful in a fight before they’d go looking for any other witches.
Dash spun the makarakarn, the main part of her training she spent four hours a day with.
First spin. Piece of cake! Honestly, Dash found it hard to believe she’d been too pathetic to do this a few weeks ago.
Second spin. Dash had to start squinting and concentrating harder to keep the room from spinning. This was like that part of exercise when your body was screaming at you to stop and you weren’t sure if you could do another rep.
Third spin. In her current state, Dash had a fifty-fifty shot of making it through this one. But this was also the part of her training she got actual gains from.
Already she felt like she’d be puking had she eaten anything prior. The world was a blur of colors and madness. But she kept her eyes on the pendulum. Dash struggled to keep her eyes opened and gritted her teeth as the weight finished its third swing and went into the fourth.
It was traveling faster, but it felt like it was going so much slower. Four spins was the milestone she was shooting for, that she hadn’t finished managed yet.
Twilight said there was a spell called ‘howl of madness’ that every master witch would know. That spell would floor everypony within a mile in an instant unless they could manage this much. Letting Dash anywhere near a witch would be too dangerous until she got that far.
She did everything she could to keep her ever better focus on the center of the pendulum, to ignore the spiking pain in her head. She got closer than she ever had before, past the point where she normally collapsed. But determined to go as far as she possibly could, until she did collapse yet again, Dash just barely kept one eye opened as the pendulum got to the end of the fourth spin.
Maybe the distraction of success was what sent her over, but she fell to the mat she sat on panting as soon as she got there. She was completely exhausted and needed to spend the next fifteen minutes rubbing her aching temples, but she’d done it. She’d gotten to the first milestone!
Dash got up and drank some water. That took longer than a week, but she’d finally taken the first step! It felt incredible to actually be getting somewhere for once. What would have been an impossible task just a month ago was now doable.
Still, she was determined to go to the next step after that, to the point where four spins was as easy as one spin was now. Twilight could spin that thing all day long, so Dash had a ways to go. Still, it was finally time for the next step.
After recovering, Dash stood up and went looking for Twilight, finding her downstairs sitting at her desk. Twilight was completely lost in one of her books and surrounded by towers of even more books. This was a common sight these days.
Twilight’s training the past month consisted of reading books about the outside world in an attempt to ‘pass’ as an outsider. If she wanted to turn her reputation around, she would need some basic understanding of the world.
“Twilight!” Dash ran up behind her. “I got to four!”
“Hm.” Twilight was too lost in her reading to respond at first. “Yes. That is ‘gnarly’, I believe.”
“What?” Dash checked to see Twilight was reading a dictionary on slang terms, which explained things to an extent. “Well, I guess you’re getting better too. Sort of.”
“Yes. But the more I read, the more I realize there is I don’t know.” Twilight shook her head and put the book down. “Still, I think I know all the basics from your unnecessarily complicated legal system to your unnecessarily complicated phone system. I don’t think there will be any more misunderstandings like before.”
“I seriously doubt that, Twi.” Dash rolled her eyes. “You’re never going to get there without actually going out into the world.”
“I think studying first is crucial!” Twilight held up the slang dictionary like a shield. “Take this for example. The word ‘gnarly’ can mean, in addition to things being gnarled, exemplary, impressive, skilled, interesting, or favorable. That would have tripped me up had I not read this book.”
“I guess there’s always a small chance of us ending up in a skatepark.” Dash shrugged.
“Ah! You see!” Twilight smiled smugly and lifted a hoof. “I know what the skateboarding is too. It’s an insidious sport created by the arch-demon Lux Lucius to corrupt the youth. It involves traveling on a wheeled board in an attempt to perform ‘tricks’ such as ‘the grind’.”
Did Dash buy Twilight one of those religious tracts at some point and forget? She needed to go through that huge pile of books later.
“As for you.” Twilight closed her book and jumped off her chair. “At your current level, you should be at least competent enough to watch a battle between witches. Before we head out for real, I’ll give you two tests. One to see if you can switch between strands of mind fiber rapidly and the other to see if you can withstand a basic psychological attack.”
Dash nodded.
“I think I already have that first one down.” Dash took her pendant off then put it back on. “I don’t feel anything when I put this on anymore.”
“Good. But remember, you can still only use one at a time in your current state,” Twilight warned. “You’re getting close to the point where you have enough memories of the murder spell that you won’t need the pendant to do it anymore. You can likely handle one more in addition to that.”
Twilight motioned for Dash to give her the pendant back. Dash handed it over and Twilight broke the actual pendant part of the pendant, leaving only the necklace behind. From the pendant, she pulled out the glowing pink strand of mind fiber and stretched it around the necklace itself, the pink glow dying down as she twined it.
Then Twilight took out a new pendant, one that reminded Dash of a bike lock. It had a little dial on the front of it, but only three numbers to point to. Just above each of the numbers was a tiny slit, only one open at a time. From the one open slit, Dash could see a tiny amount of pink.
“This one contains three times the amount you’ve been using up until now.” Twilight turned the small dial, switching which slit was open. “But only one will be exposed at a time. You can switch through the spells by turning this.”
Dash put the new pendant on and turned the dial. Knowledge flooded her mind, but unlike when she first used a mind fiber, it didn’t feel invasive at all. It was just like reading a one-word sign. She just knew what it meant without any real effort.
The first spell was one for creating blood, mostly in your own veins. That made it a lot harder for Dash to bleed to death and any healing spell was welcomed at this point.
She turned the dial. Immediately she forgot how to use the blood spell but a new one replaced it. This one was a bit more interesting, and Dash wanted to try it immediately.
Her shadow detached from her body and walked across the room by itself. It grabbed onto the shadow of the bookshelf and clumsily pulled a book off. It wasn’t as dexterous as you might hope, but Dash could more or less grab things with her shadow now. She could also punch or tackle anything that had a shadow or even grab ghosts that got too close to the ground. That would have been useful back in the sewer.
The third and final spell wasn’t one she could use inside. It could create an invisible barrier of wind that could reflect projectiles back with just as much force as they’d come in with. Of course, how strong a projectile it could deflect depended on Dash who still didn’t have a great deal of magical energy.
She gave it a more rapid turn and it didn’t have any ill effects at all.
“Yeah! I think I can use this thing,” said Dash. “Thanks a lot! This is awesome!”
Her only silent complaint was that there didn’t seem to be any explosion spells.
“I’ve selected the spells that would be best for somepony who’s, well, not as strong as a master witch to still be useful,” Twilight explained, almost reading Dash’s mind. “You’re still not strong enough to cast any spell that can hurt a witch, but with these, you can stay safe and maybe catch somepony off guard.”
It wasn’t like Dash could deny she’d be anything better than support in such a fight. Like Twilight, learning a little bit about mind fibers and witchcraft helped Dash realize the chasm between herself and a master witch was even wider than she would have guessed.
At least now, she wouldn’t be deadweight. At least, not total deadweight.
Four spells down, 99,996 to go!
“Alright. Now for the next test.” Twilight held a hoof out towards Dash. “I’m going to use a spell. Just take two steps forward and tap my muzzle. I won’t move from this spot.”
Twilight cast the spell and suddenly was everywhere! She was everything! Billions of images of Twilight flashed in and out of existence in every direction. The universe was just Twilights all the way down, every thought, every breath was Twilight. And it felt like they were getting closer and closer.
Dash caught her mind slipping. This was just like the pendulum thing, blurring the world and blurring her mind. She needed to focus. There was only one Twilight, only one of them was real.
Like she was walking against a gale-force wind, Dash forced herself to take two firm steps forward. Her hoof felt heavy as she slowly lifted it. The Twilights exploded outward again, but Dash focused them back to a single point and hit Twilight’s nose.
She felt more in control after that. The image of Twilight was still vibrating, creating images of her all around, but Dash was lucid about the illusion at least.
“Hah!” Dash laughed, having shrugged off the attack. “That wasn’t that bad!”
“Excellent!” Twilight gave her a nod and ended the spell. “You can stand up to basic psychological attacks now."
“So now what?” Dash asked. “You think we’re ready to go into town to get information on the witches?”
“I think so.” Twilight nodded. She turned to the door, her ears drooping from nerves. “I guess we could go now. Or tomorrow. Maybe Saturday.”
Dash rolled her eyes. Twilight was getting better, but she still avoided going to town as much as possible like this.
“Come on.” Dash lowered her head and started pushing Twilight towards the door. “You just gotta suck it up and do it.”
Twilight silently protested for a second, but didn’t hold out for long before the two of them were out the door and walking towards town. Twilight distracted herself from her nervousness by applying her disguise as they went through the forest.
It felt nice out.
Spring finally came with the leaves sprouting again and the warmth returning. There was no snow to trudge through and she had that post-training surge of energy. Dash felt ready for this. She knew this was going to work out!
To top it off, nothing crazy was happening in town when they finally got there. Twilight relaxed a little once they were in town, her ears picking back up.
Finally, they got back to HQ, the place Dash had hoped to drag Twilight back to what felt like years ago.
Dash peeked inside briefly to make sure nopony too clever was there. Thankfully, it looked like Derpy was the only one. Derpy was a tough fighter, but she wasn’t exactly the best at figuring things out. She nodded to Twilight and the two of them walked in.
“Oh hey! It’s Rainbow Dash!” Derpy waved at her. “I haven’t seen you in forever! I almost feel like you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve just been busy is all.” Dash walked up to the counter.
Twilight was quickly overwhelmed by all the information written across the walls, wandering off to the side to study it all.
“A lot happened while you were gone,” said Derpy. “First there was the killer pumpkin incident then that lich. You were totally right, I was able to beat it on my own! After that, I got to go on this important mission to take down a vampire. I’ve been on such a roll lately that I might get promoted to rank A soon! Firefly herself offered to let me come train with her. Isn’t that incredible?”
Dash muttered in agreement as she got her folder out and read it. It always felt like Derpy was two steps ahead of her and now she was about to get to rank A already? Meanwhile…
“How am I still rank D? I feel like I’ve completed thirty missions,” said Dash.
“I’m glad this job gives you a feeling of satisfaction.” Derpy held up Dash’s folder. “But this paper says Rainbow T. Dash has exactly 0.0 missions complete. So, I can’t pay you.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter much.” Dash reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a smaller bag of bits. “I can’t give you the interest I promised, but here are your thousand bits back for now.”
“Oh wow!” Derpy held up one of the coins. “A Rainbow Dash that isn’t broke? I never thought this would happen. Did an uncle you never heard of die and leave you his spooky mansion if you can stay there for one night? That happened to me one time.”
“I know. I was there. That’s why I owe you an inflatable raft, remember?” Dash asked.
“Oh, yeah. That had to be the second craziest night of my life. I just wish we could have found out who was calling us. I mean, if your mom is dead then who was on the phone?”
“It was obviously Raindrops! I keep telling you that.”
“We can’t prove that.”
“Raindrops did stuff like that all the time. Remember when she locked me in the basement on senior skip day? Or when she dumped a bucket of pig’s blood on you? Or those fake love letters she sent to try and get Cloud Chaser to beat me up?” Dash asked. “Hey, whatever happened to Cloud Chaser anyway? I feel like she just vanished after graduation.”
“I heard she got caught making out with Flitter and had to run off to the pirate coast,” Derpy whispered.
“And let me guess. Raindrops told you that?” Dash asked.
“It’s not like Raindrops always lies,” said Derpy. “Remember that one time she—“
At some point, this conversation caught Twilight’s attention. She walked up and stood close to Dash, looking rather annoyed by something.
“Oh hey!” Derpy looked over at Twilight. “That’s that mysterious pony you’ve been hanging out with. Hello!”
“I was neglected as a child,” said Twilight.
“Oh!” Derpy looked left and right, surprised. “Well— well that’s terrible!”
“Yes, it is,” Twilight sounded almost proud of that. “Rainbow Dash and I have been through all sorts of things together. I’m her best friend.”
“Really? So like—?” Derpy looked back and forth between the two of them, tapping her hooves together, clearly hoping she was about to get some gossip. That was another reason to avoid Derpy. “Like what’s the relation between you two?”
“Rainbow Dash is like my pet.” Twilight pulled Dash closer to her, lifting her head proudly. “She obeys my every command!”
“Heh heh.” Dash nervously glanced to the side. “Heh…”
“Whoa!” Derpy slammed her hooves down on the desk and leaned over. “You’re hardcore, Rainbow Dash! I didn’t even know you liked mares!”
“Why wouldn’t she like mares?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.
“Whoa! I didn’t mean it like that!” Derpy put her hooves out defensively. “I’m fine with the LGBT, uh, whatever letter they’re up to. It’s just Dash was always chasing boys up till now. She was so desperate to get a boyfriend in high school.”
“D—Derpy!”
“But this is so cute!” Derpy jumped over the desk and hugged Dash. “I mean, maybe your pet thing is a little too hardcore for it to be ‘cute’, but I’m still happy you finally found somepony. I told you that you just needed to be yourself or whatever you did. What did you do, anyway? I need details.”
“We’re not dating!” Dash shoved Derpy off herself and pulled out of Twilight’s grip too. “Just forget about that idea! We’re business associates doing business things. We met at a business conference and we’re friends but that’s it.”
“And when you say business you mean sex?” Derpy asked.
“No!” Dash lowered her head and started pushing Twilight away, towards where all the S-class threats were listed. “Come on, Silver! Let’s go do our serious business.”
“Oh, right. I forgot to ask her name. I’m Derpy by the way!” Derpy called out to Twilight.
Derpy was intently watching them now, clearly hoping their serious business involved making out. Everypony was so crazy about ‘shipping’ these days. It was like you couldn’t get into the same elevator as another pony without them assuming your wedding was tomorrow.
“I can’t help but feel like something I said had a double meaning,” Twilight whispered to Dash.
“Don’t worry about it.” Dash sighed. “Maybe it’s good if she gets the wrong impression for now. It’ll throw her off.”
Dash pointed to the wall of S-class threats. At the very top of it was the picture of Twilight, one that thankfully didn’t match her current disguise too well. Twilight’s eyes went immediately to that as she grew wistful, remembering something. Dash wished she’d open up a bit more sometimes, but this wasn’t a good place for that.
“These are all the S rank threats,” said Dash. “Monsters that need to be slain, dangerous artifacts to recover, deadly missions that needs to be done. That sort of thing. Most ponies can’t deal with anything on this wall.”
“There’s more than I expected.” Twilight took her eyes off the portrait and looked down at all the rest.
“We don’t gotta get all of them,” said Dash. “Just a bunch. Mostly the other witches.”
Dash looked around for where the witches were. Generally, the highest rewards were towards the top.
“That one is the strongest?” Twilight pointed to another poster. “But there’s no picture.”
Dash looked over to see Twilight had singled out the ghost of Crater Cemetery.
“That’s the only one I’m not a hundred percent sure you can beat,” said Dash. “Nopony knows how strong that ghost is, other than ‘extremely’. Psychics who try to enter the cemetery get overwhelmed by her aura and start puking. Plus she has a literal army of ghosts and is the reason why that place is covered in permafrost. Maybe we can build our way up to that one.”
What even was the easiest monster on this list, though? Dash went closer to the bottom.
The slithery dee. No. The zombie leviathan. No. The nightmare whale. Why were all of these sea monsters?!
Finally she got to the list of known witches. Most estimates put the number of witches in the world, besides Twilight, at maybe 8. The ones who had a spellbook were considered far more dangerous than those without them. Volume five's location was unknown and volume six was taken by Starlight and brought to Area 5X long ago. The wall had the list of which witch had the remaining 5.
Screwball, Minuette and Ember Moon were the ones Dash knew about off the top of her head. Some research revealed an 'Auntie Eclipse' to be the fourth and then there was an unknown fifth. Which witch to go after first was something Dash considered for a whole month. The choice wasn’t easy.
Eclipse was considered the strongest of the witches, but she was by far the most reclusive. Going after her wouldn't change as many minds as some of the others.
Screwball, often known as the pirate queen, was by far the most public of them. She controlled the single biggest criminal organization in the world- the Bloodstorm Cartel. Taking her out would mean bringing half the underworld to its knees in a single blow.
Once the other witches learned somepony was taking them out one by one, they would inevitably react, either going into hiding or trying to rally the others behind them. Twilight suggested they should go after the ones most likely to react in that manner.
Minuette was considered the weakest of the known witches. She had volume seven of The Book of Shadows also known as the ‘sucker edition’ which contained only the last few spells beginning with the letter Z.
Even still, she was known for spells that manipulated spacetime which would make her nearly impossible to catch if she wasn’t taken by surprise. That was the one they would go after first. Maybe it was better to start out slow and somewhat less conspicuous.
Dash reached out to grab Minuette’s information but she heard Twilight whisper something to her just before touching it. ‘What’s that one up there?’ it sounded like, but she was so quiet that Dash wasn’t sure she heard it right.
“Huh?” Dash turned to her. “What’s what one?”
“What’s what one what?” Twilight turned to her in confusion.
“Didn’t you just—? Ah, never mind.” Dash shook her head. Maybe she was just hearing things.
But Dash did look just up above where Minuette’s picture was. There was another pony there Dash recognized, had seen in person before.
Applejack?!
That was that weirdo Dash bumped into that one time! And she was in the witch section?! Applejack was a witch?! Then why the living buck didn’t she vaporize that dragon?!
She took a second to actually read it and calmed down a little. Applejack wasn’t a witch, but the mission involving her still gave Dash pause.
Updated! Missing Pony. Applejack and co. S-rank. Information: up to 50,000 bits. Returned alive: 250,000 bits.
Dash forgot all about Applejack until just now. The last time she checked this mission, months ago, it was rank D with less than one hundredth the reward. Even if finding them imposed massive risk, missing ponies rarely had big rewards for them, not unless somepony rich was willing to pay.
“Hey, Derpy!” Dash called over to her. “What the buck happened with Applejack?”
“Who?” Derpy asked.
Dash brought the poster to her.
“Oh, that one! That was the leader of the group of ponies that went missing back uh—“ Derpy stopped and thought. “Actually, that was the same night you went missing for the first time! What a weird coincidence.”
Now Derpy was putting things together?
“Total coincidence, I swear,” said Dash. “It was a blood moon.”
“Yeah, weird.” Derpy shrugged. “Anyway, Flash Bang herself wants Applejack. She put up that bounty personally. If you bring Applejack to her it’s a quarter million! Anypony else from that caravan is worth fifty thousand. But only one.”
So was Applejack up to no good back then? Getting the attention of Flash Bang, a pony more heavily associated with the military and saw most opponents as beneath her, was about as serious as it could get.
“Wait. What? What the crow did Applejack do to get Flash Bang to go after her? Those guys didn’t seem that tough when uh—“ Dash caught herself “—when they were listed the first time.”
“I don’t think that pony’s in trouble,” said Derpy. “See, now we know she was kidnapped by a witch who’s been exploding up the infamy charts in the past year, especially the last six months or so. She might be the most dangerous and wanted of the bunch right now. Flash Bang wants to take her into protective custody cause that witch needs this Applejack pony to cast some kind of dangerous spell or something.”
“Wait.” Twilight was suddenly much more interested in this conversation upon hearing of a mysterious spell. “What? Which one is doing this?”
“It’s none other than the great and powerful Trixie!” Derpy turned around to look at the board, pointing to a blue pony laughing hysterically in the photo.
Neither Dash nor Twilight reacted to that one.
“Oh. Neither of you know who that is? I’ll just react myself.” Derpy staggered back in feigned surprise. “Wait! What?!”
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7,666 words. Is that good luck or bad? You decide!
10741754
Good
10741754
Very good.
Sweet, they have a goal now! Quest time! I seriously hope everything goes according to plan, but it probably won't. Because they have a plan, and if that plan is stated in the story before it is enacted then it will go awry.
Derpy is probably going to haphazardly rise up the ranks until she finally goes forth to bring down the infamous Twilight Sparkle once and for all, only to be very confuse when Rainbow shows up.
I wonder what Applejack means to Flash Bang? And why is she needed for a spell?
Of course Trixie would be a Witch, how didn't I realize that? She'll probably gloat about how she's even greater than Twilight Sparkle herself, unaware that it's Twilight Sparkle she's gloating to.
THIS, meaning Trixie, needs a faceplant emoji.
10742001
10741754
I think you missed a few there:
This seems like a good plan, although Twilight does have some good ideas for economic reform. If anyone could pull them off, it'd be her. Maybe they should just take over the world instead.
Was this before or after he stole 40 cakes?
Ah yes, the Scientific. Most powerful of all the magics.
10742241
Sorry, guess I didn't go over this one as much as the other chapters.
Yes very good. Twilight has finally begun her evil plan to save the world.
Also, I really like Derpy. I hope she continues to accidentally defeat extremely powerful foes and become world renowned while doing very little intentionally.
I'm actually starting to suspect that Smarty Pants is more than just an inanimate object that Twilight talks to due to her being insane
...does this happen often?
10742054 Seriously Twitlight? Reinventing Socialism? This is why you don't think math through an emotional lense.
Also, those infinite void toilets.... She does know that urine, feces, and water from the sewers get recycled back into the environment while trying to filter out harmful chemicals, right? Give it a long enough time scale, and ponies will start to miss having free fresh water when most of it was sucked into an infinite void between dimensions.
Say that again Twilight? I kinda had a stroke 3/4 through that.
s3.amazonaws.com/media.thecrimson.com/photos/2020/11/02/210922_1346596.gif
The cringe was real.
Nice to see Twilight turning into her proper bibliovore self, as well as Rainbow's development. I wonder if some path will eventually lead to the sonic rainboom.
The image rehabilitation project is actually not a bad plan in concept, but suffers in the details. It'd be all too easy for someone to interpret it as one witch consolidating power over the others for some nefarious reason. They really should get Pinkie involved for image management and possible lawyer-fu (not to mention quest sniping being a dick move)
I am curious to see the applejack angle developments. I'm guessing she's more than just a cultist, and it'll be interesting to see how that thread pans out.
Just binged this story after coming across it randomly! Loving the comedy, the character and the world building!
The opening with the zombies got my curiosity right off the bat. Looking forward to more good author!
Oh, I can't wait for the next installment!
10743320
Should be next weekend. The next chapter is maybe 80% done.
Also, there's that mystery whisper that got her to look at AJ's poster. Very curious.
10743424
Alright! I'll have popcorn and muffins ready!
So in a way instead of receiving wages you get credit to the Company Store for necessary items marked up at 2 to 3 times the average price of what could be found in a standard store? Not to mention credit is only good at said Company Store and nowhere else. Guess little Timmy will only make it as far as the 6th grade before being pulled out to work the mines to help put food on the table.
10744163
I never said it was a good idea.
10744188
I know you didn't. Just a fun observation. Keep doing what you do, this story is quite entertaining by far.
Collecting the elements four out of six complete
Holy shit I love this story!! I love Twilight and Rainbow's relationship, I love Rainbow becoming a witch, I love the humour, I love the world, I just love it!
I can't remember if Celestia or Luna have been mentioned yet, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that this story is what happens to ponykind without supervision.
I am kinda confused about Rainbow Dash though, the way she and others describe her makes her sound like she is some kind of incompetent who can't do anything right, but she has never done anything within the story itself to demonstrate that. Indeed while she is usually the weak link in most of the action situations and can be a little stupid at times, especially when it comes to her pursuit of fame, she is seemingly quite capable, and can keep up with her more overpowered associates without really slowing them down, and is often the most levelheaded and sensible one in a crisis, also surprisingly thoughtful and considerate. Honestly despite her propensity for hairbrained schemes and her terrible luck, I don't actually get why she's so comically underestimated.
Still, fun story.
10754985
This sort of stuff happens irl lol
external-preview.redd.it/RGYdlEeJzsO7trOsG0HeMBVnwXjfhL3BDVJfeUMuOLE.jpg?auto=webp&s=58e7e9af5936d44612ba85fcc95b10254794a761
Also, why did that septic tank that Dash had blown up exist if there were sewer systems everywhere?
When she was blowing septic tank? And that "feel" is probably unneeded.
10754985
Celestia has been mentioned before, but I think in the first chapter it was also mentioned that most of Canterlot was destroyed. So maybe she went into exile?
Me: http://www.relatably.com/m/img/drawn-memes/9izEgBAAT.png
10754985
When it comes to Rainbow Dash being under estimated, I believe it's stated that she hasn't taken on or completed a single slayer mission since she joined the Slayer Association. Derpy herself said Dash's file shows she has zero missions under her belt. It was also stated earlier in the story that Dash tends to create plans or schemes to get rich and famous fast instead of doing missions to climb up the ranks steadily. Since the others never see her help out and only do those "get rich quick" plans they see her as lazy and incompetent.
While it is true that she is able to hold her own in tough situations, can think outside the box, and is also a quick thinker in her own right, the only ponies that have seen that side of her are Pinkie, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rarity. Derpy does think more positively of Dash, but it hasn't been stated she has seen that side of Dash as of yet.
Based
10744163
I don’t know the reference?
10952536 With transmutation and conjuration magic, it would be easier to create a post scarcity society, where food, housing and common items are so cheap they're effectively free.
That's close to Amber Moon, which is close to Ambermoon, which is the name of a character from the Ponyville Mysteries book series, which is close to being cool if an intentional reference.
11207280
That's not her. But Lillymoon (the other filly with Scootaloo's power) is a character from that same series.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2020/5/22/2355367.png
Was one of the eco-terrorists (either the leader or the one who recruited her) Tree Hugger? In either case, was that before or after Fluttershy's death? Based on "keep happening" it could be BOTH, probably with the fraid (sic, see "Ghost of Chance") she was forcibly on the periphery of when we were introduced to her, being the one "after".
11060083
History. Look up "company store".
Short-ish version to the best of my understanding: Companies would pay in money they printed themselves and which was only good at stores they ran. Needless to say, the resulting amount of goods the workers could afford we not enough to do more that get by. " Timmy" would be a generic child whose family couldn't afford to let him stay in school long enough to perhaps get a better employment situation than what they had.
I for one would absolutely betray humanity for a void toilet. Who wouldn't?
So the Witch Order/philosophy has sort of been corrupted and witches have started ABUSING their powers except for Twilight. That's really interesting lore.
I'm loving this fantasy AU so far.
Also is Trixie a Witch??? I could never imagine her as being anything else, it just wouldn't fit her personality LMAOOO.
LMAO at the stock responses.
Also Minuette is a witch? So I guess she has time magic or time travel related spells.
Course its Trixie, I called it.
I really like the world-building.
Four spells down, 99,996 to go!
doesn't that owl spell make 5?
Wait, Smarty Pants being silent when Fluttershy is around
isn't a thing anymore?
Man, Raindrops is a dick
Avenging Rarity's family would be nice.
11601011
Maybe Smarty was scared Fluttershy could hear her but then realized that Fluttershy couldn't hear what she told Twilight. Kind of one of those "Can she hear me?...no she cant hear me." type of things.
And now I can only think of is I'm Getting Married in the Morning
lol
Great chapter!