Cultists
“Trixie.” Rarity nodded in recognition of the name. “You’ve certainly picked the biggest troublemaker around.”
Rarity beckoned for the rest of them to follow her. Having been here once before, Dash assumed they were headed to the internet room.
“So you’ve heard of her?” Dash asked.
“As if you could possibly ignore her!” Rarity rolled both her head and her eyes. “I’m sure everypony in a fifty-mile radius knows who Trixie is. I don’t know if she’s the evilest pony in the Festering Scar, but she’s certainly the loudest! If we’re being honest, being unignorable earns you more enmity than being evil.”
They arrived at the internet room, Rarity throwing open the doors.
“I’ve even had a run-in with her myself a few years back.” Rarity went to work turning on her machines without looking at the others. “She broke into Madcon, talking about how stupid and childish cartoons were going on and on about the ‘cringe’. Trixie put a curse on the entire mad science league, making us unable to watch cartoons again until one of us manages to kiss her hoof. Disgusting, I know.”
“You can never watch cartoons again?” Sweetie Belle gasped. “But that’s the worst thing that can possibly happen!”
And that was from somepony who got decapitated.
“I know!” Rarity whined. “And now The Mad Science Association keeps doing all these cosplays and making all manner of references that I can’t possibly understand! Of course, she cursed all of them too so we’re all mutual enemies of Trixie.”
“So she has a lot of enemies in the underworld?” Dash asked.
“Oh, absolutely!” Rarity hit the projector, turning it on. “She constantly forces her opinions on other ponies with curses, steals whatever she wants, and will trounce somepony simply for the sake of being arrogant. I can assure you, we’d all be grateful if you managed to rid her of us.”
“If that’s the case somepony’s gotta know where she lives, yeah?” Dash asked.
“Oh, I know approximately where she lives.” Rarity sat down at her internet machine thing and hit a few keys. “Just about anypony can tell you she lives about, hm, about there.”
The projector came to life with a map of the Festering Scar. Dash could see the outlaw city of Oaken Field marked on the northern edge of it. If there were any cities at all in the scar itself none of them were marked. In place of cities were clusters of small lakes and creeks, the scar being a swampy mess. Every few locations had a little skull next to its name, marking it as especially dangerous.
Rarity pointed to one of the lakes just left of the center. Next to that was an area on the map covered with fog, as though it’d been unexplored. The fog was simply labeled ‘Trixie’ and had the distinction of getting three skulls next to its name.
“That narrows it down a lot!” Dash exclaimed. “We can search a few miles!”
“If it was that easy, ponies would have stormed her castle years ago,” said Rarity. “There’s a labyrinth of spells all over the swamp and not just the magic Trixie set up around her castle. That’s where most of the demon and chaos cultists live. Chaos magic and demonic spirits pollute the land. Getting lost in that place is all but inevitable. You could wander a mile-long stretch for years without getting out of it.”
“Doesn’t your internet box have information on how to get through it all?” Dash asked.
“Firstly, it’s called an analytical engine. There’s plenty of ponies who claim to have been inside Trixie’s castle,” said Rarity. “But then again there’s plenty of ponies who swear they’ve seen a mummy. At least with this case, a few are likely telling the truth. It’s just a matter of finding which ones they are.”
“I could get rid of any magic we run into,” said Twilight. “But it might take longer than a week if there’s too many. I imagine a witch would have been able to set up an immense array of defenses, even if she isn’t a master.”
“So need to gather more information if we want to get there in time,” Dash said.
That was their plan this whole time. Dash didn’t know much about the scar or the Everfree, but there was a map right in front of her. She figured the latter was the better of the two places to ask around in.
“This city looks like it’s on our way there either way.” Dash pointed to Oaken Field on the map. It looked like it was about a day away and they’d need to rest somewhere if nothing else. “Is that place remotely safe? Can you get us in?”
“Right now it’s the safest place in the Everfree. Nearly all the outlaws are going to be down in Oaken Field just about now. I was planning on going down there with Sweetie Belle myself for a few days,” said Rarity. “It’s the only place you’ll find anypony willing to talk.”
“Huh? Why are they all going to one place?” Dash asked. “Is there a convention or something?”
“Did you not hear?” Rarity asked. “It’s all anypony down here is talking about. Flash Bang brought together a small army that she’s going to march down to Trixie herself. And now that I’m thinking about it, you getting rid of Trixie in the next few days would save all of us a lot of trouble, wouldn’t it? Flash Bang coming down here would be an absolute disaster.”
“Yeah,” Dash agreed. “I know it’s the only way anypony’s taken out a witch in the past, but marching an army down there to fight her? A good chunk of that army might die just marching through.”
“What? No! I meant for us!” Rarity gestured to herself and Sweetie Belle. “As in the outlaws living down here.”
“Huh?” Dash blinked in surprise. “But Flash Bang’s going after Trixie, not you.”
“Everypony’s been running themselves ragged worrying about her coming through. She’s liable to decide to simply crack a few skulls along the way if you know what I mean. ‘Oh, that village was coming right for me!’ And she’d get away with it too.” Rarity turned her cheek with a ‘humph’. “What can you expect from such barbarians?”
“Hey!” Dash felt her wings flaring up just a little. She couldn’t help but feel slightly offended at that. “Flash Bang’s rough, but she’s not pure evil or anything! She won’t just blow stuff up because you guys are weirdos. No offense.”
“Oh, please.” Rarity turned her eyes back to Dash, suddenly a bit harsher. “That mare is always looking for excuses to fight. She was probably elated to hear she got approval to bring an army down here. She would absolutely destroy even an innocent pony simply for being on her ‘degenerate’ list. Flash Bang wants to get rid of everypony who doesn’t fit inside her carefully preconstructed cardboard box.”
“You’re just being paranoid. Most of the ponies down here are outlaws for good reasons,” Dash argued. “But they aren’t going to attack anypony who’s just minding their own business. That’s why you’ve been able to live down here for so long in the first place! As long as you don’t do anything stupid you’d be just fine.”
“And you honestly think not one pony is going to do anything stupid?” Rarity asked. “Yes, there are troublemakers down here who will try to start something just because they think it’d be funny. But the situation is even worse than you imagine. Moondancer has a coalition of about two hundred groups including the mad science league. We all agreed that if Flash Bang attacks any of us, then we’ll all attack her army together. Do you understand? This could turn into a small war!”
“If you’re making alliances like that then you’re the ones ratcheting up the tension.” Dash moved in closer to Rarity. The two of them were nearly butting heads now. “We gotta get Trixie to keep you guys from doing the stupid thing.”
“I don’t get why you two are arguing!” Twilight grabbed each of them with her magic and pushed them away from one another. “Are you even arguing? You’re both just stating reasons why we need to capture Trixie within the next seven days.”
There was one last moment of tension between Dash and Rarity, glaring at one another, but they broke it off a second later.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Dash turned away. “We gotta do this as soon as possible.”
“Can you get us inside that town?” Twilight asked. “Rainbow Dash said outsiders aren’t usually welcome.”
“Well she’s not wrong,” said Rarity. “But if you’re with me, you should be fine. Just don’t say anything in defense of Flash Bang or they’ll know you’re a narc.”
Dash wanted to protest being called a narc, but it wasn’t far from the truth.
“Yeah, I got it,” Dash grumbled.
“The real problem is finding a place to spend the night,” said Rarity. “All the hotels sold out months ago.”
“If everypony’s down there, then shouldn’t all your mad science buddies be there too?” Dash asked. “One of them’s gotta be willing to let us crash for a night.”
“Most of them are on the other side of the scar. They left to help our leader with some fusion energy thing. I stayed behind to work on Sweetie Belle, but there is one other pony who stayed behind.” Rarity went back to her keyboard. “Ms. Pommel went down there a few days ago to try and find me a room. Hopefully, this works.”
Rarity’s analytical engine played a little jingle reminiscent of a phone ringing. It went on twice before somepony picked up or whatever it was you did.
This was that video telephone thing Rarity used earlier. Only one pony came up instead of four this time. An off-white pony with green hair was displayed on the projector screen. Dash recognized this one from last time, but couldn’t recall the name.
“Coco!” Rarity opened her forelegs out to her friend. “I’m glad I was able to contact you.”
“I hacked into the phone lines to get internet access down here,” said Coco. “Now I can just distract myself from all the scary stuff going on! So that’s a relief.”
“I take it that means you found a place to stay?” Rarity asked.
“I kind of got us a room! Technically,” Coco promised her. “As long as you brought your sister back, I mean. Moondancer’s letting refugees stay on her property, but only groups with kids are allowed to stay in her mansion. I got a good spot by telling her your sister was handicapped.”
“Wait. Am I handicapped?” Sweetie Belle looked down at her hoof. “I don’t feel handicapped.”
“Total body amputation should certainly count,” said Rarity. “And yes, Sweetie Belle is back with us again. I hope you don’t mind me bringing two extra ponies with me, Coco? They only need to stay for one or two nights!”
“You want me to talk to two ponies I don’t know in person?!” Coco ducked under her hooves. “Rarity! I already feel traumatized by all the ponies I needed to talk to when I came down here!”
“You don’t have to talk to them. And they’re, hm,” Rarity appraised Dash and Twilight. “Relatively civilized. Please? It’s ever so important to me.”
“I guess.” Coco reluctantly relented. “Just tell them not to touch my engine!”
Coco turned off her end of things.
“Don’t touch her analytical engine,” Rarity told the others.
“Got it,” said Dash.
“Rarity?” Sweetie Belle pressed up against her sister’s side. “Should I be worried about all this war stuff? Would they attack me because I’m a robot? In movies, robots are usually the bad guys, so—“
“Oh, no, no! I made you astoundingly difficult to hurt! Why you could survive point-blank artillery fire at this point. Think of it like a camping trip! You know with all the filthy nature and insects and—“ Rarity shuddered at her own mental image. “On second thought, why don’t we think of it as a big sleepover? Yes! There will be plenty of other foals staying in Moondancer’s house.”
Already, all the horrible possibilities of who or what Moondancer was running through Dash’s house.
“Is there anything I should know about this Moondancer pony before we go to her house?” Dash asked.
“Moondancer is the most influential pony around here,” said Rarity. “She’s the one who made the alliance and the closest thing to an overarching leader of all the little factions who live in the Everfree.”
“But if she’s an outlaw she must have done something, right?” Dash asked.
“She was banished for researching and teaching the art of necromancy,” said Rarity. “Nothing to worry about, in my opinion.”
“But why would you want to ban necromancy?” Twilight asked. “It’s such an intriguing field of magic.”
“Oh, I certainly agree.” Rarity flicked her hoof. “It’s all just overblown fears about necrotic accidents, which are exceedingly rare with modern knowledge. That’s no excuse to hold back progress like this.”
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle nodded. “If it wasn’t for bringing ponies back from the dead I’d be, um, in the dead? Wait.”
“With the art of necromancy you can slaughter a pony as many times as you please,” said Saccharin. “Something with so much destructive potential cannot possibly be wrong.”
It looked like Dash was the only one remotely apprehensive of necromancy. She could point out that necromancy tended to cause more problems than it solved, but doubted it’d accomplish anything.
“Oh, hey! Speaking of the undead!” Dash clapped her hooves together. “You know, since you’re so clearly okay with undeath and all that you’d probably be fine with one hanging around, right? We have one more friend who’s undead.”
“Is it a ghost?” Rarity gave Dash a nonplussed look.
“Hehe. Maybe?” Dash rubbed the back of her head. She knew that next to the likes of a super zombie, a specter would be the least welcome type of undead anywhere.
“Ghosts eat the living,” Rarity reminded her.
“Not Fluttershy! She’s a vegan,” Dash assured her.
“Fluttershy’s been living next to us for months and she’s never eaten a living thing,” Twilight promised Rarity. “If you’re worried about her controlling herself, I assure you she can.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Rarity, “but ghosts are on the double banished list. Crowded as it is, I doubt any psychics will notice her entering the city but she’d have to stay hidden the whole time. The security won’t care for your explanations about how she’s a friendly ghost. We’d be run out of town immediately.”
“Well, she sleeps a lot, so that much we can handle.” Dash learned that ghosts could sleep for as long as they wanted, days at a time even.
Fluttershy would just need to stay in her bear the whole time. After some discussion, they concluded that they could get there close to nightfall if they left in about an hour.
Later that day, they were waiting in front of Rarity’s castle.
The saddlebag containing Fluttershy’s bear was coated with arcanium now. Breaking through it to get the bear out by force would take an immense effort. She’d be able to hide in there as much as needed but for now was out in the open.
A wagon started down from the castle, being pulled by two of the Sweetiebot 8000s. Twilight and Dash brought 2 bags each. Rarity had an entire carriage filled with bags so that there would hardly be any room left for them to sit.
“Well at least we’re not walking all the way there,” Dash muttered.
There were a total of six Sweetie Belle robots present in the caravan. Two of them were painted and the other four were the less advanced 8000 models.
There was one more Sweetiebot 8000, but it was staying at Twilight’s house. Rarity had given it to the witch as a present and token of their alliance. In exchange, Rarity was given one of Twilight’s witch cauldrons and some of her notes about potions.
According to Rarity, either Saccharin or Sweetie Belle could see through the 8000’s eyes whenever they needed to. Another surveillance or guard system was overkill at this point, but why not?
As Rarity’s cart rolled up to them, Sweetie Belle hung off the side excitedly waving to them. At least she wasn’t afraid of a ghost.
“Daw! I can barely see you right now but you still look so cute,” Fluttershy cooed.
Unfortunately, she flew up to the wrong one.
“I possess thirteen weapons capable of busting a ghost!” Saccharin immediately threatened, small cannons crackling with electricity coming out of her back, prompting Fluttershy to hide.
“Hey! There’s no reason for that!” Dash flew forward in defense for Fluttershy. “Fluttershy comes pre-threatened. Don’t be mean to her.”
“It’s true.” Fluttershy kept her head down.
“Please don’t take that the wrong way,” said Rarity. “She threatens everypony.”
“Did you really need to make this robot so aggressive?” Dash asked.
“Oh, my mind had merged with this 5-dimensional hyper-tesseract when I made her.” Rarity waved her hoof as though that was remotely normal. “I have no idea what I programmed her to do, but it seems to have worked out so far.”
That was the story of Dash’s life lately.
“I still don’t get why Fluttershy would need to hide from a necromancer,” said Dash. “I mean, they’re both undead. They should be cool.”
“That’s like assuming a crocodile would never attack you because you’re both animals,” said Fluttershy. “Corporeal and incorporeal undead don’t get along at all.”
The 8000s moved at a brisk canter. It wasn’t as fast as Dash could fly, but they had unlimited endurance. Of the remaining two, one stayed far ahead and one far behind to keep a lookout. Maybe it was best to move a bit slower through the Everfree. There was no telling what you could run into here.
Already Dash saw a zombie off the dirt road. It wasn’t paying attention to them, but seeing one in spring felt odd. It was like seeing a tree turning orange this time of year.
Though on the other hoof, Rarity and her sister didn’t look at all concerned. Rarity was absolutely fine with her sister going out of the cart and running around to test out her new body.
Sweetie Belle, the original that is, was excitedly galloping circles around the wagon as fast as she could.
“This is great! I really can’t get tired now?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Why do ponies always have so much dread when this happens anyway? Being a robot is great!”
The dirt path vanished entirely after a few miles and the trees began to thicken and grow taller. The carriage ride got a bit rougher but they didn’t need to slow down just yet.
A few zombies were ‘chasing’ after them now, but at far too slow a pace to ever catch up. Most of the zombies, however, showed little interest in the passing group. They were moaning as they mindlessly devoured whatever plant life was within grazing distance.
They were getting into a thick zombie horde now. Dozens of zombies were milling about on the path just before them.
“There’s way more zombies down here than I expected.” Dash watched a zombie stumble over on her way to the cart.
“It’s not as easy to clear them out down here,” said Rarity. “Even if they are bad for the environment. Saccharin.”
“Zombie extermination program!” Saccharin fired a rocket at one of the zombies, blowing it to bits. Saccharin turned to Sweetie Belle. “If you cannot slaughter zombies then you are inferior!”
“So, wait. Can I do stuff like that?” Sweetie Belle stopped running in circles and pointed at herself.
“Oh, I gave you an excessive number of weapons.” Rarity nuzzled the top of her head. “That way no monster could ever harm you again!”
Sweetie Belle paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to do it.
“Is it a good idea for a little kid to be shooting rockets?” Dash asked.
Instead of a rocket, two megaphones emerged from both sides of Sweetie Belle’s withers. It looked like she was pointing two back-mounted cannons at the line of zombies.
“Sweetie wait!” Rarity covered her ears. “That’s the sonic—!”
The sound that erupted from that cannon was so intense it shook the ground. All the zombies on the path in front of them were blown off their feet. Leaves were torn off the trees and The ponies behind Sweetie Belle were spared the worst of it. But still, Dash was so stunned by the sound cannon that she fell off the cart and landed muzzle-first in the mud.
Everything in the entire forest must have heard that! Her ears were ringing loudly now.
“Oh, no!” Sweetie Belle put her hoof over her mouth. “I’m so sorry! I still don’t know what all my things do!”
“It’s fine.” Dash got up and brushed the mud off her nose.
Dash noticed something on the ground as she pushed herself up, something shiny she’d dug up from the ground when her muzzle planted into it. She reached down to pick up an old, worn-out coin. It was gold in color, though Dash doubted she was lucky enough to stumble onto a real gold coin.
It wasn’t like any coin Dash recognized. The front had a picture of a metal helmet, long enough to cover the face of whoever wore it, while the back had been rusted smooth.
Maybe it’d be good luck or something. Dash knew she could use some. She put it in her bag.
“Maybe I should deactivate some of your more dangerous weapons until you learn how to control yourself better.” Rarity beckoned Sweetie to sit next to her.
“Oh, okay.” Sweetie hung her head like she was about to get a toy taken away from her. She reluctantly sat down next to Rarity and allowed her sister to go to work.
“It might be good to go over what information we know before we get much closer,” said Twilight. “I’m curious about that pony we’re trying to rescue. The thing said she was ‘the chosen one’? That sounds important.”
“It just means some god picked you to be their main pony in the physical world," said Dash.
“Yes, that sounds very impressive until you remember that we live in a polytheistic universe,” said Rarity. “Twilight, do you have any idea how many chosen ones there are?”
“No?”
“There’s approximately six thousand at any given time,” said Rarity. “Yes, it’s true that gods still pick somepony to be their errand boy in the physical world and they even still give them miracles to prove who sent them. But the whole destiny thing ends up being a wash as there’s just too many gods with too many conflicting goals."
“Yeah. The ability to write prophecies only seems overpowered until you think about it,” said Dash. “Cause thing is, you can interpret those prophecies however you want. Like that other great old one – uh The Radiant Champion. He tried to make his chosen one unkillable with a prophecy. Said ‘no mare shall harm or defeat this pony’. He intended it to mean that no one could kill him, but then a stallion killed him.
“He rephrased it to say nopony can kill the next one and a griffon killed him. Then it was ‘nobody’ and a ghost killed him cause they don’t have bodies. Then it was ‘nothing’ so of course something killed him. ‘No one’ meant two people killed the guy and it just went on and on like that. I think the gods just gave up on the whole prophecy thing cause it never works out. Hasn’t been one in forever.”
“I see, so Applejack was just given a power by a god? Do we know which type of god the one she worships is?” Twilight asked.
“The Darklord is only great old ones who remains in our world,” said Rarity. "Or close to it, as it were."
“See, the great old ones were this race that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago,” Dash explained it, being in the habit of explaining simple things to Twilight. “They’re also called titans or alicorns. They looked like a cross between a pegasus and a unicorn, I guess. They’d like, manually change the seasons, knocking the leaves off trees by running past them. The weather wouldn’t happen on its own. They had to move the sun and moon around with magic. They shaped mountains and invented color and basically everything was completely crazy back then.”
“I know what an alicorn is,” said Twilight.
“Oh.” Dash shrugged. “In my defense, I have no idea what to expect you to know.”
“Darklord,” Twilight repeated it to herself. “Is he the one imprisoned in the shadow realm? I never heard that title before, but if that was the miracle he gave to Applejack then that’s the only logical conclusion.”
“Oh! Yeah.” Dash was a little surprised this was a subject Twilight knew about. Suddenly, Dash felt like Twilight knew way more about the great old ones than she was letting on. “Hey. How much do you know about those guys, exactly?”
“I know a lot about alicorns.” Twilight turned away from Dash to watch the trees and zombies passing them by.
“Oh, come on!” Dash flew over to Twilight’s other side. “Didn’t we have this whole thing where I came back on time and you trust me completely now?”
“Telling my last student too much right away was a mistake,” Twilight said flatly.
“But I’m not like that other guy, yeah?” Dash smiled and pointed to herself.
“Look, I’ll tell you everything eventually but you have to prove you can be patient and disciplined, okay?”
“Okay, okay.” Dash rolled her eyes. “But if whatever you’re not telling me turns out to be super important later I’m gonna be so bucking angry.”
“I can’t think of any way it’d be important later,” said Twilight. “Not if there aren’t any other master witches anymore.”
“Oh, please.” Dash rolled into the cart to lay on her back. “I don’t even know what it is and I can think of a hundred ways it could be important.”
“I’ll tell you everything important for what we’re doing,” said Twilight. “As you said, the shadow realm is a prison so getting in and out isn’t easy. It’s not exactly part of the same reality we’re in now, so the laws of physics work differently there. You can do things that are impossible here. I’m assuming Trixie needs to do a matter stacking spell if she’s trying to perform a ritual that will allow her to become gigantic later.”
Truth be told, Dash only really knew about the prison part of the shadow realm. There were a few other things sealed away in that place besides that one god, though. The great old ones seemed to have dealt with most of their problems by banishing them to the shadow realm.
“Ah, yes.” Rarity looked up at the sky with a wistful look. “Just imagine all the amazing things we could invent with easy access to the shadow realm!”
“I’ve never heard of a shadow realm before.” Fluttershy raised her hoof. “It sounds awfully spooky. It’s full of all kinds of scary things, isn’t it? I hope we don’t have to go there. I don’t even want to see it.”
“Fluttershy?” Rarity turned an unamused eye to her. “You’re looking at the shadow realm right now.”
“Wait!” Fluttershy flew behind Rainbow Dash like she could somehow hide from the shadow realm. “I am? I thought I just see darkness? Or something?”
“How would you see darkness exactly?” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t make any kind of scientific sense.”
“Most of this stuff doesn’t make scientific sense to me,” Fluttershy admitted.
“Well I assure you that an alternate dimension is a more substantiated conclusion than simply seeing darkness,” said Rarity. “I can’t blame you for never having heard of it before as most of our knowledge of it is more recent, but we’re certain that’s the case now.”
“But I don’t feel like I’m in another dimension,” said Fluttershy.
“You’re not,” said Rarity. “You’re just looking at it. Everything that could cast a shadow is visible to some extent in the shadow realm.”
“Hm.”
Fluttershy floated alongside the cart, thinking to herself.
“So wait.” Fluttershy opened her eyes, realizing something that disturbed her. “If I only see the shadow realm and this dark lord pony is in the shadow realm, doesn’t that mean I should be able to see him?”
“It’s well known at this point that ghosts can see him.” Rarity nodded. “He’s locked up in the Festering Scar, specifically. Maybe we’ll get close enough to see.”
“Oh, geeze!” Fluttershy floated back behind Rainbow Dash yet again. “I really don’t want to see some scary, evil god!”
“If it makes you feel better, you’re not in the shadow realm so nothing there can ‘get’ you,” said Rarity. “And he’s chained up besides.”
“But he’s a bad guy, right?” Fluttershy asked. “If they created an entire reality to be his prison then doesn’t that mean he’s evil? He must have done something bad, at least.”
“The Darklord is imprisoned in the shadow realm as punishment for creating shadows,” Twilight explained. “As Rainbow Dash said before, the world back then would be completely unrecognizable and incomprehensible to us. The oldest alicorn, the Queen of Light, bathed everything with her light inside and out. As a result, she knew everything and there were no secrets.
“The Darklord didn’t like her knowing every thought everypony had, so he created shadows so knowledge could be hidden from her. Inadvertently, he also created deception and the ability to lie. The other alicorns got angry at him, beat him up, and locked him away in the shadows that he created. Or at least, that’s what my master told me.”
“If he literally invented lies then, um—“ Fluttershy tapped her hooves together, nervous about making her conclusion. “Then that’s pretty evil, right?”
“I can’t say if he’s good or bad,” said Twilight. “Personally, I think it’d be annoying if everypony knew every thought you ever had.”
“He also made a whole bunch of evil artifacts that are still around,” said Dash. “All his artifacts sound incredible until you realize there’s a catch to it. In reality, you’re better off not using anything the guy made. I think he made Nailbat’s nailbat, actually so… maybe you can use it?”
“Technically he didn’t make the bat,” Rarity corrected her. “He made the wishing orb that created the bat.”
“He made an object that grants wishes?” Twilight asked. “Interesting.”
“But there is a catch,” Dash was quick to point at. “You get what you ask for, but something even worse happens to you as well. One pony wished to be better at baseball, thinking that wishing for something relatively minor would mean wouldn’t have to pay a big price, yeah?”
“Baseball,” Twilight closed her eyes and repeated the foreign word.
“You hit a ball with a stick, don’t worry about it.” Dash mimed swinging a baseball bat. “Anyway! The enchanted bat he got was so ridiculously powerful that when he hit the ball, like, at the speed of light or something. It created a ball of plasma and a shockwave shattered windows a mile away. Guy died instantly. Most of the audience too.
“But then along comes Nailbat and he did all this math and statistics and stuff! Anyway, he realized that if he wished to be immune to that one baseball bat he would suffer minimum consequences. He’s the only one who can wield that insanely overpowered weapon without dying now.”
“Yes,” said Rarity, “well the moral of the story is you don’t generally want to use anything created by that particular god. It’s too risky. If you do find anything that seems like it might be his when we get close, don’t bother with it however tempting it might be.”
As they approached the city, the number of zombies thinned out but the number of ponies they passed increased. The first group they passed was a series of three wagons. The armed ponies in front of it eyed Dash’s groups suspiciously and the two of them never got close enough to talk.
Fluttershy needed to head back into her teddy bear and go to sleep for now. There were simply too many ponies hanging about.
Three hours after seeing that first group, there were simply too many ponies around to count or describe them all. Heck, Dash felt like she was in a city already. Never had Dash thought she’d be running into traffic in the middle of the woods, but they needed to slow down as they got closer.
They passed a few tents filled with ponies who didn’t seem to expect to find anywhere to stay in Oaken Field and were just going to camp out in the city itself. Now they were surrounded by tents and carts in every direction.
Looking up, Dash could see a few massive trees towering above all the others off just a little way in the distance.
“There’s Oaken Field.” Rarity pointed up at the large trees. “This is as far south as you can safely go. Beyond this is the Festering Scar. You won’t find anypony who believes in honor among rogues down there.”
Upon further inspection, Dash realized those massive trees were like the tree home Twilight lived in. The main difference is that these trees were more like miniature skyscrapers than houses. They had windows and balconies all along the edges of the trunks, leading high up into the air. Some of the larger branches even had smaller structures built on top of them.
“See, these ponies make more sense.” Twilight smiled approvingly at the much smaller treehouses they were beginning to pass. “I have no idea why you’d cut the tree down when you could just build into it. It’ll be nice staying in a tree.”
“Yeah, if we ever get there,” Dash huffed.
The traffic had become so thick they had to come to a complete stop. A pegasus with a megaphone came flying by slowly, shouting instructions at the crowds as she flew back and forth.
“If you’ve been given entrance before stay on the north gate line. Anypony else go to the east gate.”
So now they were waiting in line! They were so close too.
Dash flew up a little to get a better look at how long this line would go on for. Looked like a while.
Moondancer and her necromancers had been busy. There was an obscene number of skeletons She counted nine blocks of them, each one a square of ten by ten skeletons. That was just on this one edge of the city too. That meant there were a few thousand of those things.
Though the city itself didn’t have walls, the skeleton guards formed a makeshift wall by themselves, funneling everypony towards one of the two mentioned ‘gates’, which were just gaps in the skeletons.
The small army of skeletons was supplemented by a second army of living volunteers, better armed with muskets and cannons. They were a ragtag militia at best. There seemed to be a uniform of a black cap with a red symbol on the back of it, but maybe one in twenty was wearing it. Instead, they all looked to be broken up into small groups of their own kind with no real formation or cohesion.
Dash was just now starting to realize what a serious battle it’d be if Flash Bang and Moondancer did fight.
Though she hadn’t seen what Flash Bang was working with yet, she expected Oaken Field would lose a battle between the two. An Equestrian force would be far better armed and organized than this makeshift army. There were still a lot of ponies on this side, though.
“No flying into the city!” The pony with the megaphone shouted up at her. “Wait your turn!”
“I wasn’t trying to fly in!” Dash landed next to her group. “You’d think a bunch of outlaws wouldn’t be so uppity with rules.”
Dash saw, in the back of the cart, that Sweetie Belle was talking to some colt that was just behind them in line.
“That’s a good question,” said Sweetie Belle. “I don’t know if I’m a robot or a cyborg, actually.”
The group in front of them had kids in it too. It made Dash feel uneasy.
“There’s a lot more kids here than I thought,” Dash said mostly to herself.
“What? You thought there weren’t any children in the entire city?” Rarity asked.
“I dunno.” Dash shrugged. “I guess whenever I imagined an outlaw city I never pictured anypony starting a family down here.”
Truth be told, she might not have cared much about Oaken Field getting destroyed even just a few days ago. But now that she was down here, saw that there were way more kids and small families in the outlaw city than she’d have ever expected, her sympathies grew. They had to avert a battle if it was at all possible.
In reality, waiting in that line took an hour, compared to the five it took to walk here. And yet it felt like that waiting was by far the longest part of the trip to the city. Dash was lying on her back and groaning by the time Twilight gave her a whack on the nose to snap her out of it.
The cart was just before the makeshift gate allowing entry to the city. A large sign written in red, hopefully not in blood, hung to the left. ‘No demon cults. No chaos cults. No witches, liches, or ghosts. Violators may be killed on sight.’
That last part was a bit harsh. Good thing Dash didn’t bring her hat.
One group immediately stood out to Dash, the ones that wore dark green capes with a purple snake emblem on the back. They were mostly ponies but occasionally diamond dogs. They had some weird guns. Fancy looking. The way they moved around with such purpose and control, it made them seem much more professional.
“Try not to stand out to them,” Rarity whispered, seeing Dash’s interest. “Those ponies are from Ghost Adder.”
“Where’s that?” Dash asked.
Rarity rolled her eyes at Dash’s ignorance of the underworld.
“They’re a mercenary group infamous for their lack of tact in handling things,” Rarity warned under her breath. “In short, they’re brutal… I want to complain about Moondancer hiring these uncouth ruffians, but I suppose they’re her only option. They're good at their job. For a certain definition of good.”
Unfortunately, it was those Ghost Adder guys who acted as bouncers at the entrance of the city. The one sitting in the middle of a group of five more alert ponies looked more bored than the rest and a bit older too, giving Dash the impression he was a higher rank. An earth stallion with green fur, a black mane and strangely slit eyes.
His eyes went from Rarity to Dash locking into eye contact for a brief second. Dash’s heart skipped a beat, but the mercenary was already on to studying the next pony, finding nothing remarkable about her. Instead, his eyes stopped on Sweetie Belle.
"You trying to bring robots in here?" He smiled at the idea. "I hate those things. Unreliable."
"This is my disabled sister." Rarity offered her papers. "I have clearance to stay at Moondancer's house with her."
The snake guy took the papers, barely read them, then closed his eyes and waved them through. Easy enough!
Still, Dash kept her head down a bit lower from there out.
Surprisingly, the place was less cluttered once you got inside the city itself, but only by a degree.
The first few buildings they passed were some sheds all cramped together on top of muddy, barren ground. They weren’t dilapidated, exactly, but they were so tiny Dash was amazed anypony could even live inside one. It was like the ponies crowded inside were determined to live with the absolute bare minimum of everything.
It made her think this place was going to be a giant slum briefly, before trotting past a palatial estate right next to those sheds. The manor stood four stories high, with an enormous footprint that put even a hundred of those sheds to shame. Towering gates that were at least gold plated loomed over anypony who passed by. The ground inside that estate was richly covered in grass in contrast to the parts they’d just passed.
Maybe Moondancer was nice enough to let people sleep on her lawn, but whoever lived here had guards keeping the refugees far back from his gate.
“Hey! You got a problem?!” One of the guards yelled at Dash just for looking at the place as she walked by. “What’s wrong with you people?!”
Needless to say, there weren’t any caravans or tents parked here.
“Yeesh! And I thought we had income inequality problems,” Dash muttered as she passed. “How does it even get that bad?”
“That’s likely some cult leader’s house.” Rarity rolled her eyes as they left the mansion behind them. “It’s rarely hard to tell which house belongs to them. A lot of these cultists willingly give all of their money to their leaders. They all talk about how spiritually enlightening a life of hard work and self-denial is.”
A cult leader? Dash glanced back at it suspiciously.
“Level with me,” Dash whispered to Rarity. “Is it really safe to be around so many cults? What’s stopping the guy back there from summoning a demon or something? And with so many ponies around too.”
“The demon worshiping cults aren’t allowed in this town,” said Rarity. “There’s this whole sliding scale going from the most socially acceptable cults to the least. Honestly, treating them all like they’re the same is the cause of a lot of problems.”
The group was closer to what must have been the shopping center of the town. Ponies with stands and wears of every kind lined the edges of the streets, nearly blocking the entrance to the actual stores. They all shouted over one another at the passing refugees so that it was nearly impossible to hear what most of them were even selling.
They passed by a stand selling ‘healing crystals’ in every shape and size. The auburn-colored mare behind the stand seemed particularly interested in Dash’s group.
“Hey, you girls look like the leader type!” She called out to them. “I need motivated ponies to join my team. Don’t you want to live the boss babe lifestyle and make residual income while still having time to be with your kids using–”
“Case in point.” Rarity leaned against the counter of the stand and pointed at the sales pony. “The weakest and most pathetic of the cults are these new age MLM cults here. They pass off all sorts of miraculous crystals and oils but none of it actually works. They’ll tell you they’ve made tons of money selling it, but really you’re better off ‘investing’ your money in a casino.”
“What? No!” The merchant shifted her eyes. “This stuff totally works! And I totally make money selling it.”
“MLM?” Twilight repeated it.
“Multi-level marketing.” Dash knew that much. “It’s like this thing where you keep selling the same stuff over and over down this endless chain or something. It got banned like ten years ago.”
“Which means they all came out here and now I have to deal with them,” said Rarity. “It’s all just pyramid schemes to make the leader rich and it seems inevitable they turn into cults eventually. If any of the things they sold worked they’d be living with us mad scientists instead of living out here with the druids.”
“Hey it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s just a scheme in the shape of a pyramid!” The crystal merchant objected. “Crystals are a legitimate alternative to science.”
“Oh, yes. For example, I just brought my dead sister back to life by putting her brain into a robot.” Rarity put her hooves on the stall table. “What have you done today?”
“Well! When I get a cold I wave this crystal around in front of my face and sometimes I think maybe it helps a little.” The pony held up a crystal like she was hiding behind it. “Ah, who am I kidding?! Look, I need to sell five thousand of these by the end of the month or I’m in serious trouble! I’ll confess they don’t work, but if you buy them all then you can sell them to somepony else and then that pony can sell them to another pony who will sell them to—“
The three of them just kept walking. They left the part of the city that was made of cut-down trees and entered the section that was made of living trees. Even though all the buildings here were made of trees, it still felt more like a town than a forest. There were paved roads and fences and there were few other trees besides the large buildings.
“After that, we have the druidic cults who worship trees or nature spirits or the like.” Rarity gestured to a tree with antler embroidered banners hanging from its branches. “There’s no way to convince them that organic farming is worse for the environment but other than that they’re fine I suppose. Druids rarely cause much trouble.”
Dash didn’t recognize that emblem, but she still got the feeling druids were normally the most common type of cult in this town.
“Then we get to the ones who are on the line, like Applejack’s cult. Ponies who worship some fallen, ancient alicorn or another moderately evil god. They’re not categorically dangerous, but you need to be wary of them.”
Dash figured there couldn’t be very many of those around. There were maybe two or three other ancient alicorns still around. Though there were a good number of spirits floating about.
“Finally, you get cults who aren’t allowed even in outlaw cities.” Rarity eyed a pony with his hood all the way up suspiciously. “The truly dangerous cults that give the rest of us outlaws a bad name. But some of them do live out in the scar. The demon cults are actually the least dangerous of them. They seriously do all those things the pamphlets warn you about. Harvesting organs, summoning demons, committing crimes simply because it’s evil!”
It was late sunset now. Dash was certain they had electricity in this town now, the lights in windows and a few street lamps coming on. There was still a tiny bit of red sunlight poking through the trees from far away. Hopefully they were close. This city still didn’t seem like a great place to walk around at night.
“Of course, there’s even one type worse than that.” Rarity kept her voice down and stayed closer to Dash as if talking about this might be enough to get them in trouble. “The chaos cults who have gone beyond the veil of sanity and worship the incomprehensible outermost gods. Generally, we side with the demon cults against them whenever it comes down to it. The demon cultists can be reasoned with on some level. If you point out their plan is self-destructive they might just stop. A chaos cultist will laugh at any attempt at reason.”
“Starlight worships an outer abomination,” Dash pointed out, “and her cult isn’t violent. I dunno if I’d put her as worse than the organ harvesting demon guys.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t trust that Starlight pony to tell me what time of day it is,” said Rarity. “Personally, I don’t think her god is even real.”
“Aren’t you forgetting one type of cult?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
The three of them turned around to see a mint green unicorn mare in a black cloak standing behind them, smiling wide.
“Who are—?” Rarity didn’t finish her question.
“The alien cults!” The mint green pony jumped up on Twilight’s back, hugging her from behind. “My name’s Lyra! I’ve been talking to a race of aliens through radio static for years.”
“Oh bother.” Rarity closed her eyes and tapped her forehead. “Did I say the new age MLMs were the most pathetic? I meant it was these alien cults.”
“Aliens?” Twilight asked. “Those are those things that live around other stars, right?”
“Hypothetically,” said Rarity. “But for the most part, they’re just the laughing stock of the cult world.”
“I’m right here!” Lyra complained.
“All those other cults can at least show that the thing they worship exists. But aliens?” Rarity scoffed. “Please! Perhaps they exist somewhere, but there’s no evidence they’re anywhere near here. Why ever would you start a religion around something that you’re not a hundred percent sure exists? It’s beyond me.”
“I have lots of evidence of the aliens existing,” Lyra promised. “Just the other night I saw a light in the sky and none of my cult buddies could explain what it was! That means it was aliens!”
“I don’t—“ Rarity’s protest might as well have not existed.
“Any day now, the aliens will appear and give us all a ride to planet Earth on their spaceship!” Lyra sat down and opened her forelegs to the sky as if to hug the aliens. “There is no supernatural stuff going on there, making it an absolute paradise. There is no poverty, war, or money on Earth. They all just get along and instantly solve their problems with advanced alien technology! You too can get a ticket to the spaceship but you have to obey me without question until they show up and give me all of your money.”
“Yeah, let’s keep going. She’s the craziest one here,” said Dash. “And that’s saying something.”
The group started walking forward again, leaving Lyra behind.
“No! I swear I’m not on the eighth or high! I’m totally sober right now,” Lyra called after them. “You think this isn’t going to come up again later but it totally will! Then you’ll all feel silly! Aw, man.”
Lyra gave up after that.
At long last, they got up to Moondancer’s house.
Moondancer lived in the biggest tree around, but not the most lively. You needed to look at this thing for a half second to realize a necromancer lived here. She had a skeletal face carved into the front side of the trunk, the tall double doors the gaping mouth, and two windows above forming the eyes.
All the trees, including Moondancer’s house, around Dash were willow trees now. The ground, where it wasn’t paved, felt softer than before. They were on the edge of the swamp now, the Festering Scar was likely just a few miles south of this spot.
Two branches of Moondancer’s house in particular jutted out far to one side, giving them the look of arms with long, gangly digits coming down in the form of leaves. It wouldn’t surprise Dash at all if the house came to life and tried to grab her.
Plenty of tents and temporary shelters were set up on Moondancer’s lawn. They left their cart and the 8000s outside along with everything but the ‘essential’, which to Rarity meant twenty bags Saccharin had to carry. They passed the rows of tents and, after a check from another undead diamond dog bouncer, got inside.
The first room they came into was Moondancer’s great hall. The roof was so high you could see three stories above you, three layers of balconies hung over Dash.
Whatever this place looked like normally was anypony’s guess. Right now it’d been rearranged into a refugee camp. A small maze of curtains hung onto poles to section the whole thing off into squares led off to the left and right. Not everypony’s curtain was closed, so Dash could see most of them were provided with sleeping mats and bags.
“Rarity!” Coco’s voice came from above. Dash looked up to see her waving at them from the third floor. “Up here!”
They moved up the winding staircase to the third floor to meet her.
“Finally you’re here.” Coco let out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad I don’t have to leave the room again for the next few days.”
“And where is this room, exactly?” Rarity looked around. “I’m surprised she’s willing to give us our own considering how many ponies are here.”
“It’s um. This way.” Coco pushed open one of the doors.
It looked like a spare bedroom, but it was far from a private room. This room didn’t look much different from the grand hall downstairs with four families together in sectioned-off areas of it.
“I thought you said you got us our own room.” Rarity looked at the rows of sectioned-off areas, noting they were all full. “Which square is even ours?”
“Actually it’s over here.” Coco walked over to the closet door and opened it up.
“You got us a closet?” Rarity sighed.
“It is a really big closet!” Coco promised.
The closet was enormously spacious. Lining the left and right walls were rows of cloaks hung up on clothes racks and boxes just beneath them. There was a good ten feet between the rows of hanging cloaks, leaving a wide, carpeted space. In the center were two sleeping mats put one atop the other to create a makeshift bed. It even had a tiny window on the far side of it.
“You got a point there.” Dash trotted inside. “This is bigger than my old bedroom.”
“Right! And this is only for a week,” said Coco. “Then everything will be back to normal!”
“I suppose it is better than a tent, at least.” Rarity trotted inside.
“And I have everything we need to survive a week here! I even brought plenty of these food pills.” Coco took out a tiny pill and put a single drop of water on it. The pill instantly expanded into a head of lettuce. “So we don’t have to go outside at all! We can just spend the whole time on the internet so it won’t be so bad.”
“Actually, I may or may not have some business to attend to,” said Rarity. “We’re not going to be in here much. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to look after Sweetie while I’m away.”
“Huh?” Coco looked at Sweetie Belle. “Somehow her being a robot makes her less intimidating than a normal pony. I guess I could teach her about the internet.”
“Thank you so much.” Rarity bowed her head to Coco, then hugged Sweetie Belle. “I’ll be back before you know it, Sweetie!”
“Will I know it before you return?” Saccharin asked.
“Actually, yes you likely will.” Rarity gave her a pat. “I’m going to see if I can find anypony in charge willing to talk. Maybe the rest of you should look elsewhere to cover more ground.”
They split into two groups with Rarity going off on her own.
“See, the first rule of the internet is you can never mention cats,” Coco explained to Sweetie Belle as the others left. “If you do, everypony will start shouting ‘cringe’ at you, completely ignoring whatever you said.”
Somehow they found themselves sitting in a tavern filled beyond capacity. The sound was so loud you had to point at what you wanted to eat on the menu. On a five-star scale, Dash would give this place a half star. Still, this might have been the only chance Dash would get to try and eat the food down here.
They gave Dash a huge mug of something green and frothy, the foam filling half of it and spilling out onto a plate it was served on. Her actual food was a few long, meaty leaves.
Twilight’s dish was a huge mushroom cap hollowed out and filled with cheese and sauce. It was almost like a pizza but with mushroom instead of crust. She also got a plate of tiny little mushrooms dried up until they were crisp, almost like a pile of popcorn or seeds.
Twilight tried shouting something at Dash, but the background noise made it look like she was only miming speech.
“What?!” Dash tried screaming back at her.
Suddenly the noise stopped completely.
“Can you hear me now?!” Twilight screamed in her ear.
Dash covered her ears.
“Sorry,” said Twilight. “The sound barrier should make it so we can talk without the worry of being overheard.
Dash had to admit that was one of the most convenient spells for daily life she’d ever heard of.
“You ordered mushrooms again?” Dash asked. “It’s like, there are a million types of food available to you now but I can’t get you to eat anything unless it has mushrooms in it.”
“I like mushrooms,” Twilight said. “And these are very different from the ones I’m used to eating. I always just put salt and ginger on mine.”
Dash knew that all too well.
“Besides. We’re not here to eat.” Twilight disproved her point by taking a big slice of her mushroom pizza and eating it. “We’re here to gather information.”
“Is this really a good place? I couldn’t hear them if they tried telling us anything.” Dash leaned against the back of her chair and looked out into the room.
“Not here. You’re my scout,” Twilight reminded her. “You can just turn into crows and fly off in every direction to eavesdrop on everypony. We just need a spot where you can change back and forth without being seen.”
“And what are the chances that I just happen to find somepony talking about Trixie’s lair?” Dash asked. “You don’t seriously think I’m that lucky, do you?”
“Actually, I’ve been doing an analysis on what all the ponies we’ve passed were talking about.” “Thirty-seven percent of them are talking about Trixie at any given time, it seems. Haven’t you noticed it’s the second most common topic right now?”
“Um.”
“You weren’t paying attention at all, were you?” Twilight asked.
It was true! Dash cleared her throat.
“Well how come you’re never the one who turns into crows?” Dash asked. “I’ve seen you do it like two times.”
“I’m not the one who needs to practice it over and over to commit it to memory.” Twilight popped another bit of mushroom into her mouth. “Besides. You’re the student and the minion. That means you get the grunt jobs. I’ll stay here and maintain an illusion of you so nopony thinks you’re missing.”
“Okay, I’ll see if I can find anything.” Dash got up. “But there better be some food left by the time I get back.”
Twilight appeared unwilling to make any such promise, continuing to devour both of their plates.
“It’d be suspicious if none of your food was missing,” Twilight said with her cheeks full.
Dash went into the bathroom and found a stall that was conveniently near a window. When she was sure nopony else was in the room, she cast the murder spell and flew out of the room one by one.
Her crow flew up into the air and looked around.
Where was she even going to go? That rich guy’s house near the entrance? Another one of her crows flew off towards that house, meaning the present Dash needed to think of something else.
She landed on a rooftop and looked down at the streets for anypony who stood out in any way.
“I can tell you how to get past it.” An unfamiliar but clear voice caught her attention.
Dash turned her head at that slightly too convenient statement. There wasn’t anypony there, but she heard a voice from that direction. There was a window directly where she was looking, though.
Curious, Dash flew down to it.
“You want to get into Trixie’s castle, hm?” It was the same voice she’d heard just a second ago coming from inside. “I hope neither of you is delusional enough to think you’d last five seconds in a fight with a witch.”
Dash stood perfectly still on the windowsill. She seriously found somepony talking about this immediately?! The unlikely stroke of luck made her uneasy, sent a small chill through her. There was no way she could have seriously heard that guy from across the street, either.
She couldn’t shake the feeling like this was some sort of trap. Like some monster who lures you in with something you wanted before devouring you.
But then again, if this one crow died it wouldn’t be a big deal. She hoped.
So Dash hopped along the edge of the window and peeked inside. There were three ponies inside. There was one male and one female ninja, each wearing leather armor and scarves over their faces. Or at least they looked like ninjas. The third was an older stallion, a greasy sort of guy with slick hair and a few missing teeth.
“Of course we’re not going to fight her,” said the colt ninja. “We’re planning to sneak in and rescue that Applejack pony when Trixie isn’t looking. That sort of thing we’re good at.”
“We heard you’ve been to the other side of the barrier,” said the mare. “We couldn’t find a way through it.”
“Yeah, I have information,” the greasy pony promised the wannabe ninja. “I can tell you how to get past that barrier, for example. But I want five hundred bits to spill it.”
“Five hundred?” The ninja looked at his companion. “You’re not the only pony in this town with information, you know.”
“Time’s critical. You wanna waste it looking elsewhere go ahead.” The greasy pony held out his hoof.
The ninjas looked at one another before the male shrugged and reluctantly handed over some money.
The greasy stallion pocketed the money, then looked around suspiciously for eavesdroppers. He noticed Dash sitting on the window and threw something at her. Dash quickly flew away, deciding to land on top of the window this time.
Pressing close against the wall, she could still just barely hear.
“See, you gotta remember Trixie is a collector,” he said. “The barrier’s only half there to keep ponies out. The other half is to incentivize ponies to bring her ‘gifts’. Only ponies carrying something that belonged to Twilight Sparkle can get through easily. Kinda smart, huh? Makes it so ponies will just bring her things to add to her collection.”
“I see. But where the heck are we going to find something that belongs to Twilight on such short notice?” The ninja colt asked his companion. “This was a total waste of money.”
“I didn’t say you’d be able to get in once you knew,” said the greasy pony. “You don’t get a refund if you don’t like the truth!”
“Fine, fine.” The ninja relented. “But is that all the information you have? I still want all of it.”
“I’m telling you right now,” said the greasy one, “if I couldn’t sneak in there’s no way you kids will. But I can tell you this much more. There are four ponies I know have gotten into her castle. Two S-rank ponies, Deathblow and Fleetfoot, this one chaos cultist name flx’bxl— something like that, and good old Moondancer. You gotta find one of them if you want more information.”
So now Dash had a list of people who knew exactly how to get in, among other things. The barrier he mentioned would be zero problem for Dash’s group, at least. There was no way any of her other crows were going to get this lucky, she decided, so Dash headed back.
Dash reformed in the bathroom ten minutes later. She paused, blinking in stunned silence as the memories of all her crows came together. Turned out her other crows did get that lucky. About ten of them had all gotten suspiciously lucky and the amount of information Dash gathered in such a short time was staggering.
Maybe it was technically possible these conversations were just way more common than she’d ever expected, but something felt off. It wasn’t normal to get that lucky, especially not for Dash!
She wandered out of the bathroom and back to Twilight who was about to finish off the appetizers.
“What?” Twilight stopped just before eating the last of the small mushrooms. “You’re back already? You can’t give up after just five minutes.”
“I didn’t give up.” Dash sat back down and glared at the last mushroom. “I already found what I was looking for.”
“You did?” Twilight dropped the last of the small mushrooms and sheepishly passed it over to Dash.
“Don’t be so surprised your own plan worked!” Dash ate one of those mushrooms at long last. It was good, but a little spicy. “Though I gotta admit it’s borderline disturbing how fast I got all this information. Apparently, Moondancer’s been all the way inside so she knows everything. I learned a lot of stuff already, though. Hold on, I should probably write everything down before I forget.”
Dash took a piece of paper out of her bag and tried to write as quickly as she could.
“So we can go ask her about it?” Twilight asked. “We’re staying in her house so she shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“I don’t think you understand how bizarrely lucky I got, Twilight!” Dash stopped writing to point her pencil at Twilight. “Without even knowing it was important, my other crows just happened to bump into Moondancer and a bunch of other ponies who know where she is!”
“And where is she?” Twilight asked.
“Not at the house. A couple blocks away, actually,” said Dash. “But she’s busy for the next two days meeting with a bunch of other leaders. From what I’ve seen I don’t think she’s going to take questions from a bunch of strangers unless we can find some kind of in with her. But what are the chances of that happening?”
As if that question were a magic incantation, a blinding red light poured into the room from the windows. It was accompanied by a crackling, whooshing sound like an incredible blaze erupted outside and immediately died back down.
The two ponies silently looked at one another before getting up. Twilight and Dash, among most of the other ponies, all rushed outside to take a look. Most of them ran back in when they saw what it was.
Dash was slightly relieved to see that it wasn’t Moondancer. Though maybe she shouldn’t have been.
A group of cultists were standing just down the road, having something of a standoff with a large crowd and a group of diamond dog guards that had gathered. No one was making a move just yet, but it looked like violence could erupt at any moment.
These cultists were much more brightly dressed than any of the others Dash had seen in this town. Their cloaks were red with orange flame designs near the bottom. It didn’t take a genius to figure out these were demon cultists as the biggest demon Dash had personally seen was looming just behind them.
The fiend was easily twenty feet tall, his head level with the second-story windows. It had the general look of a shaved minotaur with hooves on the bottom and hands up top. Its skin was beet-red and it was somehow even more muscular than a minotaur and had a gaping jaw filled with fangs. In his right arm, he held a flaming sword two ponies in length and in his left was a chain and hook.
“That’s right!” The head cultist called out to the crowd, stepping forward to see if anypony was brave enough to step forward. “Judicar the betrayer now stands before you!”
The head cultist was a lanky stallion with mangy black fur. His red mane was so badly tangled it made Dash wonder if seeing a mirror would instantly kill him or something. Maybe his complexion was just so pale and grimy because he’d been living in a swamp so long.
But he didn’t seem at all nervous to be surrounded by a thousand hostile ponies or to have a demon right behind him, had a laid-back smile on his face. He had a stick of something he was casually smoking, never opening his mouth too widely to risk letting it out.
“See that? Summoned an archfiend in ten seconds flat! That’s why my name’s Demon Summoner.” Demon Summoner laughed. “I’m here to loudly announce my plan to summon the ultimate demon Lux Lucius who will bring about the end of the world!”
“That thing looks dangerous,” Dash whispered to Twilight. “Maybe you should get some insane attack spell ready?”
“Are you sure I should go for the demon?” Twilight asked. “I get the feeling that summoner is the dangerous one.”
“Huh?” Dash squinted to try and see it, but he still looked mangy.
“And this is only the first demon I’m calling down! Flash Bang ain’t gonna be able to ignore all the giant demons I’m summoning!” Demon Summoner gave a devilish smirk. “And if she swings by this way war breaking out becomes inevitable!”
“You’re trying to start a war?!” Dash shouted at him.
“You’re trying to start a war?” Demon Summoner upped his voice an octave to mock Dash. He took his smokes out and pointed it at her. “Spreading misery and strife makes demons more powerful which makes me more powerful and what the hell else do you want me to explain? I’m killing you first for asking something so stupid. Now then! Judicar—!”
Demon Summoner pointed at Dash, but Judicar’s sword sliced one of the cult of Lux Lucius members standing beside him instead. Demon Summoner looked up at his demon with nothing more than simple curiosity.
The monster roared and began slashing at another one of the remaining demon cultists. Those guys broke ranks and started running away from the demon screaming immediately. All but Demon Summoner and the two ponies closest to him that was.
“Ah, dang it!” Demon Summoner threw his smokes on the ground and stomped it out. “Judicar the betrayer has betrayed us! Now what am I gonna do?”
Demon Summoner groaned and shook his head as his cult were quickly hunted down by Judicar. The demon didn’t seem at all interested in harming anypony else at this point. It jumped over any bystanders to get at the demon cultists like it was purposely avoiding anypony else.
Maybe it was just that into betrayal.
“I’m not sure if I should stop it,” Twilight whispered to Dash.
“Me neither,” Dash whispered back.
“I’m starting to wonder if this whole demon summoning thing is going to work out,” one of his lackeys complained. “We couldn’t control Stampedor the uncontrollable. Bloodhowl the slaughter king tried to slaughter us. Gorbtar the all-devouring tried to eat us. This is the fourth time this exact same plan has failed in a row!”
“Hey, if ponies stopped trying just because they failed four times in a row, we wouldn’t have trains or lightbulbs and stuff,” Demon Summoner argued. “You think any of those guys got it right on the fourth try? Huh?”
“That is a good point,” the lackey admitted.
“Yeah! We can find some other way to start a battle!” Demon Summoner lit another cigarette and put it in his mouth. Judicar’s chain whizzed past him to grab onto another cultist and pull them away. “First rule of summoning demons is fail fast. This one was a bust but looks like he’s saving me for last. Might as well light a few buildings on fire till Moondancer shows up.”
Demon Summoner yawned, then his horn glowed, and a dozen fireballs down the street at random buildings. Twilight reacted, shooting her own fireballs to intercept his. At about the same time, the diamond dogs finally opened fire, none of them connecting.
The stallion’s mood turned on a dime. He spit out his cigarette and stopped smiling. He jumped a few feet away from Twilight, his stance turning from lazy and casual to deadly serious. His eyes were locked on Twilight with no concern at all for the demon finishing off his minions just behind him or the diamond dogs about to fire another volley.
Dash glanced from Twilight to the demon guy. That didn’t look like a particularly impressive display but that guy was looking at Twilight like the tarrasque just burst up from under the ground. Honestly, Dash felt like with this much chaos most ponies wouldn’t have even noticed Twilight cast a spell at all. Nopony else was looking at Twilight.
“Alright. Now we have a serious problem,” Demon Summoner said to his last lackey.
“I know!” That lackey backed up so she was standing back to back with him. “Moondancer showed up!”
Dash couldn’t see Moondancer directly, but it was clear she’d arrived. The huge demon down the street was getting impaled by volleys of bone lances that seemingly came up from underground.
“I wouldn’t get worried about somepony that pathetic!” Demon Summoner barked at her.
Twilight took a step forward and Demon Summoner put a hoof up to stay her.
“No need for that! Like I always say there are two things I know: how to summon a demon and when to get the hell out.” Demon Summoner reached behind him. A fiery portal appeared just a foot behind. “I don’t know what the hell you are, but I’m not dumb enough to fight you. You win. Canceling my plan. See you when the world’s about to end!”
Then he jumped through the portal and vanished.
“Wait! You’re ditching us?!” His lackey jumped through a second later. Only one other besides her got through the portal before it closed.
Meanwhile, Judicar crumbled to dust just down the street. It didn’t look like anypony else in the cult of Lux Lucius survived their own summoning ritual.
“Huh.” Dash shrugged. “That one just kinda resolved itself. We didn’t even do anything.”
“I suppose I technically got that guy to give up,” said Twilight.
“I guess.” Dash sighed. “But nopony even noticed!”
It looked like ponies were already starting to go back to normal. How frequent were demon summonings in this place anyway? Nopony was paying any attention to the two of them. Maybe that was good for now.
A small group of ponies walked past them, one of whom Dash recognized from mere moments ago. It was Moondancer.
Moondancer looked eerily similar to Twilight. Both unicorns had similar faces and builds, slightly baggy eyes from overwork and their horns were virtually identical. If they weren’t different colors the two of them could almost be twins.
The biggest difference in looks was Moondancer’s left eye. Like the other sentient undead in this town, it was a pit of blackness with only a single speck of blue somewhere deep inside.
Well, her freaky string of luck did bring Moondancer nearby, but this was hardly an in with her. It wouldn’t hurt to try talking to her, at any rate.
Somepony bumped into Dash from behind, knocking her bags to the ground. Her right saddlebag, the one with Fluttershy in it, stayed shut but the other one spilled its contents onto the sidewalk.
Dash was briefly stunned by what she saw. Her Summoner Knights cards were all over the ground!
Those weren’t even supposed to be there! She’d taken the wrong bag with her!
Remembering this place likely had plenty of criminals in it, she darted down to grab for the most valuable one, the all-seeing eye in its plastic case, before remembering that nopony down here would see any real value in them and went back to a normal pace.
Sure enough, nopony was trying to take any of them.
Dash held the all-seeing eye card in her mouth as she scooped up the pile of loose cards back into her bag.
It felt so embarrassing. She felt like she just blew a chance here. If they’d done a better job beating up those demon guys Moondancer might have noticed them or something, but now Dash looked like a total idiot! So much for her good luck.
“Hold on a second.” Moondancer stopped walking and turned her undead eye towards Dash. “You two over there.”
Did Moondancer notice something that tipped her off to them being witches?!
Dash looked up at Moondancer breathlessly as she slowly walked over to the two of them, her body guards in tow. When she was nearby, Moondancer looked down at the card in Dash’s mouth.
“Are those Summoner Knights cards?” Moondancer asked.
Suddenly Dash’s fears changed. Now she was having flashbacks to middle school. She half expected Moondancer to point at her and shout ‘cringe!’ and then everypony else would start laughing at her.
“You have the all-seeing eye card?” Moondancer pointed at the card in Dash’s mouth. “That’s the rarest most powerful card. I wasn’t sure if any more of these still existed. It’s so hard finding information on this game.”
“Wh—“ Dash spit out her card. “Wait! You’re a fan of Summoner Knights?”
“Who isn’t right now? They’ve become incredibly popular down here lately,” said Moondancer. “Some old warehouse dumped a load of them in the forest and now it’s everywhere. I assume you must play if you have such a rare card.”
So if past trends applied there was one year left before the fad crashed and burned in this place too! Why hadn’t Dash been living down here this whole time?!
“Are you kidding? Back in Equestria, I’m the seven-time world champion!” Dash could finally be proud of her accomplishment. Then she quickly remembered that she couldn’t’. “Uh! You know, before I was banished for having multiple personality disorder. Stupid Equestrian government, yeah?”
“You hardly have to tell me.” Moondancer adjusted her glasses. “I know a lot of ponies like that. But are you willing to sell me that card? It’s the only one I don’t have and I could give you a lot.”
“How much are we talking?” Dash asked.
“That’s a good question.” Moondancer thought to herself. “It’s been a long time since one of those was sold so I’m not sure how much it’d be worth. How about this? I would like to play the best player in Equestria. We’ll bet on a game of Summoner Knights. If I win, I get that card. If you win, I’ll let you pick a prize.”
Things were going too smoothly, weren’t they? Dash had gotten incredibly lucky yet again.
No. Dash was just being paranoid. It wasn’t like she could just skip out on this chance.
“If you don’t mind,” said Dash, “maybe you could give me some information if I win?”
Stats
Page generated in 0.031 seconds
Total duration
1,069 users online
2,092,571 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
10818827
I think that's kind of the point. I also doubt she'll be much of a challenge, for the joke.
10818827
10821753
Trixie being such a ridiculous, untouchable opponent to very nearly everyone in the world is a deliberate choice that's important for Trixie's story and the story overall. I can't really say exactly where I'm going with it without going without spoiling it, though.
You'll have to wait and see what the gap between them actually is.
Rincewind would be proud of little Dashie right about now.
Is it me or is this story's world starting to get a little crowded?
Yay! A long chapter!
Rainbow is being unusually lucky. I bet it's that coin. I also bet the Dark Lord (who is probably Sombra, or the Pony of Shadows) made it.
I loved that joke about demon names.
Please don't tell me this is going to be a One Punch Man style story where the main character never gets credit for the threats they beat. Those always annoy me.
10821893
Well the whole point of this plan is to gain reputation points so...
The city is even more like the setting for a video game than the rest of the story.
10821951
And since when do things go according to plan? I actually like that nothing needlessly bad has happened to the heroes yet, it's a breath of fresh air. I kept expecting Rarity's project to resurrect her sister to go horribly wrong.
That kind of statement makes me 100% certain that it will never come up again.
I think this might be one of the best stories I've read this year, honestly.
World-building is superb. Everything feels tied together, and that ties into the comedy (which is amazing in its own right.) People being so casual about Rarity meeting elder gods beyond comprehension, Trixie being a parody of a half devil half angle half human OC, Fluttershy being a ghost afraid of ghosts- the comedy is nailed on so many aspects.
All of that is amazing in its own right, but honestly; the slight hint of mystery and intrigue that drives the plot forward as well as adventure and purpose makes me excited to see where it's going next. No, actually: to say I'm excited to see how it all ends up would be an understatement. I'm borderline ecstatic.
So, apparently things used to be like in the show but something happened? Either that or the alicorns did everything regular ponies did in the show and then some.
“It just means some god picked you to be their main pony in the
It just cuts out there
liable
This is missing something
manor
giving
remove
poles
beet
The place was so loud you had to point at what you wanted on the menu.
This line was stated in the paragraph before it.
“Besides. You’re the student and the minion. That means you get the grunt jobs. I’ll stay here and maintain an illusion of you so nopony thinks you’re missing.”
Was “minion” intended or did you mean something like “master” or “mentor”?
Thank GOD, another chapter! I was starting to get separation anxiety
Well, wonder what that coin will do
It's gonna be important later
It might be the coin you picked up earlier
Considering it's you, bizarrely high
I get the feeling this might be more about fate telling Dash that she's happier and fits in with the misfits of society more than an omen.
Or karma means she's finally cashing in on all that bad luck she's accumulated.
10822424
Dash first agreed to be Twilights lackey before being offered to being mentored by Twilight.
I bet Twilight could wield Nailbats bat without a problem, and I know close to nothing about card game but I'm still hyped to see Dash and Moondancer duel!
10825821
Just realized I misread that sentence; I thought there was an “I’m” before “the minion”.
O tell her
Or do your count?
I feel like this is gonna be the closing joke of the story.
Twilight's gonna have opened up, is friends with the Mane 6, accepted by society at large, and everyone's happy and glee. Then like the Lego Movie everyone looks up to see UFOs, a bunch of humans beam down and says "We're from the planet Earth and we're here to destroy you!" The final line of the story will then be Lyra jumping up in irrational exuberance shouting "I told you so!"
10525748
There is also the fact that thanks to the curse no zombie is put down for good as they just take forever to come back (if it's a normal zombie instead of a Psycho/Killer Zombie which are considered S rank level threats), oh and they cause famine as they have an un-satiable hunger, there is also the blood moon that causes zombies to enter a heightened state of aggression .
10826573
Wot?
You said there are multiple gods correct well if you read this and added it, would it be the most powerful http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-3812
Finally caught up. Again. Don't know why I keep letting this one fall by the wayside; it's amazing stuff from top to bottom. Eagerly looking forward to more, which I'll try to read in a more timely fashion.
Celestia?
Oh no, is Todd Howard trying to advertise Skyrim 17 here too?
There are so many ways this could go wrong.
Aww, Coco isn't going to teach her through song? "The internet's a really great place...".
Gasp Lyra so crazy she changed her name mid sentence. :p
Alondro smirks, "So essentially, it's the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Trixie, you foalish little witch, THAT IS MY HOME TURF! YOU'RE FINISHED!!"
Pony of Shadows is either Sombra or we're being totally fooled and it's Luna/Nightmare Moon.
This is a very good line. It is funny because it is true!
Prediction: The coin dash found is an artifact made by The Dark Lord that gives her incredibly good luck, but then she immediately gets really unlucky. Like finding all the info she needs, then a massive demons shows up. Then the demon betrays his cult, afterword she drops her saddlebag.
Gah damn that was the funniest thing i have ever read for a long time
That's not the first rule
Honestly, that thing sounds amazing
ooh!! Is the mysterious coin Dash found actually a lucky charm? Maybe it's one of the Darklord's evil artifacts?
I like how the chapters are titled, it seems like a reference to unnecessarily long horror franchises and at the same time gives a good idea of what the main focus of the chapter is
HEY!!! more respect, narrator
jaja