A Witch in Broad Daylight

by Epsilon-Delta

Darklord

Trixie made zero effort to resist after that. The enchanted chains they brought to tie her up with seemed completely unnecessary. They put a lock on her horn and tied her up with anti-magic chains. Even without them, Trixie felt weak as a kitten. Dash imagined a stray gust of wind was enough to knock her over at this point.

Still, they left her tied up as they waited for the others to return. If nothing else, it was the only way to stop other ponies from immediately going off the handle the second they saw Trixie.

This was close to the best possible outcome, with Trixie giving her complete cooperation, but somehow it didn’t feel as triumphant as it should. Part of Dash imagined she’d be more satisfied if Trixie had gone out cackling and trying to go after the hostages until they were forced to kill her. She certainly never expected to feel any level of pity.

Fluttershy came back with Applejack first. Applejack regained consciousness upon returning, but only long enough to yell something incoherent about the price of watermelons before falling asleep. Dash was jealous of her. After such a long day, Dash wished somepony would bash her head against a tree and knock her out.

After a brief discussion, the three of them agreed that turning in The Book of Shadows was for the best as it’d help them escape suspicion later. There was hardly anypony who could use it, but to be extra safe Twilight was going to sabotage it beforehand.

She spent a good hour or so tearing critical strands of mind fibers from it, rendering it mostly useless. Twilight was all but certainly the only pony who could repair it. In the unlikely event a pony who could use spellbooks picked it up, they would merely assume it was damaged in the battle. Anyone else wouldn’t even notice it was tampered with.

It was late sunset now, just a small amount of purple on the horizon to remind you of the sun’s existence. Even with Trixie subdued, Dash felt like she still had to pull an all-nighter before she’d be able to rest. Defeating the witch only solved one problem.

Rarity returned hours after Fluttershy. She’d taken the werewolves to a river not far off, where they were able to get a boat to go down to the coast in relative safety.

Reasonably enough, Rarity was skeptical as she approached Trixie again. Even with all these restraints and her book in Twilight’s possession, Trixie could still be a danger if she wanted to.

“She doesn’t look overly destroyed to me.” Rarity knelt and carefully eyed Trixie. “You’re sure this isn’t a trick?”

“I’m destroyed on the inside,” Trixie muttered. “Trust me.”

Rarity gave her an exploratory poke which sent Trixie falling to her side with a groan.

“I can relate to that feeling.” Fluttershy nodded.

Rarity scoffed at Trixie, realizing it was true.

“Well? Go on, let me hear you boast as you did before.” Rarity smirked down at Trixie. “So how does it feel to be the powerless one for a change, hm? Perhaps you’ve changed your mind about who is superior to whom?”

“You’re right. I suck.” Trixie didn’t even bother lifting her head out of the mud. “I’m the worst thing that ever existed. The mud should feel filthy for having me had wallowed in it.”

Rarity could only frown at Trixie after that, her smugness deflated, unable to dig the knife in deeper to someone so pathetic.

“You know, I thought gloating over her would be more enjoyable than this.” Rarity shrugged in Dash’s direction. “Whatever did you say to her? I hope it wasn’t too vulgar.”

“She figured out Twilight was Twilight.” Dash gestured to Twilight, sans her disguise. “Between that and the defeat? I think we completely obliterated her worldview.”

“I have no idea what to believe anymore.” Trixie slunk up to a barely sitting position, her entire left side covered with mud. “Is gravity real? Does two plus two equal twenty-two? Is the moon just the backside of the sun? I don’t know anymore! I’ll do whatever you people tell me to. I don’t care about anything.”

The lot of them were unsure how to react to that. They had to tell her to do something but having that much control over a pony in this state gave Dash pause.

“Well I have a request!” Rarity spoke up first. “You can undo the curse you put on my associates and myself.”

“Fine,” Trixie’s voice gave no hint of her being alive. “It’ll take an hour or two.”

“And you gotta get rid of all the curses you made,” said Dash.

“Sure.”

After that, ideas of what else to tell her to do were lacking.

“We should ask what she knows about the other witches,” Rarity reminded the rest.

“Telling you about the other witches would be breaking our only rule. Witches aren’t snitches or… bleh.” Trixie groaned miserably, then shrugged. “But nothing matters anymore, right? I’ll just rat them all out. Screw it. Twilight, can you take off the thing and give me my hat back? I won’t do anything.”

Twilight took off the horn-lock and held out Trixie’s hat to her, bottom-up like she was looking for some change. From inside the hat, Trixie levitated out a single strain of pink mind fiber.

“Here. I know how to write onto mind fibers, at least.” Trixie took a pink thread out from underneath her hat. Her eyes and the thread both glowed blue briefly. “This has all the good stuff about the other witches.”

Twilight put the ring back on Trixie’s horn before taking the mind fiber.

“This is a lot.” Twilight nodded. “Thank you, this will be a huge help.”

“So?” Trixie’s depression was muted however slightly as she leaned forward towards Twilight. “Are you shocked by a certain revelation? Hm?”

“Huh?” Twilight turned back to Trixie. “Am I supposed to recognize any of these ponies?”

“How do you not know who—" Trixie took offense to the question. She glared over at Dash. “Rainbow one! You take it and be shocked.”

Curious, Dash took the mind fiber from Twilight.

This was a bit more mind fiber than Dash was used to dealing with. She staggered and needed a moment to regain her composure after taking it, but she could just barely handle holding the pink thread.

There really was a lot of information about the other witches. So much was clear as day now, like the memories were her own.

Dash remembered Lazy Eye’s Hotel and Motel and the secret passage in its boiler room leading deep down into Minuette’s panic room. Minuette had small rooms, underground chambers, and the like with runes in them. These were all landing pads for the ‘Z-gate’ spell she and her predecessors were obsessed with. Even now, Dash knew only a small fraction of those locations.

Though she’d never been to Endless Paradise Island, Dash now felt like she had large swathes of it memorized as well. She could see the whole island from the view of the world’s tallest Ferris wheel. She knew what was in a fair number of the buildings she could see in that memory. She could picture the ‘throne room’ and see Screwball sitting on her throne made of cash while wearing twenty crowns.

And she could see…

“Hold on!” Dash snapped back to reality. “Sunset Shimmer is a witch?!”

Rarity was the only other one surprised by that revelation, as she was the only one familiar with modern politics.

Dash remembered it like she’d seen it herself, a young Sunset Shimmer with the missing fifth volume of the The Book of Shadows.

“You see?” Trixie pointed to Dash with both forehooves. “That’s the reaction I want. Was that so hard?”

“I saw that part, but I don’t know who that is.” Twilight shook her head. “Did we meet her?”

“No,” said Dash. “But she’s one of the elite four. One of the main ponies in charge of Equestria.”

“But is that good or bad?” Twilight asked. “Does that mean she’s already on our side?”

“I’m not sure.” Dash silently recalled all the memories in her head.

Trixie didn’t have a lot of memories of Sunset Shimmer. These memories gave Dash the impression that witches rarely met up with one another. Sunset was clearly the outcast of the group and spoke with the others as seldom as possible.

Most of them were from when they were fillies and were spent doing days-long sessions of combat practice rather than fighting. But there were times when the two of them would be lying on their backs, too exhausted to move for hours.

What they talked about during those times was… well, they were distorted by Trixie’s perception (Dash remembered that part of Twilight’s lectures), but Trixie remembered it as Sunset lecturing her and whining about the generation of witches before them.

The last time they were together was as teenagers, when Sunset told Trixie she intended to become president of Equestria and offered to let Trixie be her ‘goon’ or something like that. Trixie refused and they hadn’t spoken since.

“It’s not clear from what I saw,” said Dash. “She rejected the new teachings of witchcraft, at least.”

“Sunset was always the rebel.” Trixie rolled her eyes. “But I guess if you hate the new teachings, you have that in common. I don’t think there was a single part of our system she didn’t think was ‘corrupt’ or whatever.”

“So she believes in the old ways?” Twilight held her hoof out for Dash to pass the mind fiber back.

Already that treasure trove of memories was fading like the memories of a dream. Dash hadn’t gone over them nearly enough to keep them afterward.

“Hardly.” Trixie shook her head. “She’d just always go on and on about how everyone else’s interpretation of the philosophy was ‘perverted’. The rest of us always hated her because of how preachy and judgmental she always was.”

“And what parts specifically did she ‘rebel’ against?” Rarity asked.

“Like part of the training these days is getting rid of your aversion towards hurting other ponies,” said Trixie. “They make you beat the crap out of some random pony now and then to try and kill your empathy towards others. The rest of us see your natural hesitation to hurt another pony as a weakness. Sunset always refused to do that, saying it was just the older generation trying to force their morals on us. I always saw her as being weak and cowardly. Just making excuses.”

That sounded plausible, at least. Sunset had a good reputation and Dash always saw her as the most approachable of the elite. It was well known she was kind to orphans. Her (possibly fake) backstory was that she rose from being an orphan on the streets to become one of the elite. Now that she was in power, she did all sorts of things to help kids orphaned by the dangers of the world, including building orphanages and frequently volunteering at them.

Then there was the reason that the fifth volume was missing. Nopony had used it for anything bad in decades, implying that not only Sunset but the witch who taught her both resisted the urge to use it against other ponies.

Maybe the witch training simply hadn’t been enough to crush her empathy.

“Oh!” Trixie leaned forward like she was about to share some juicy gossip. “But here’s the important part. She said we don’t respect the idea that the powerful should get to run things if we’re not willing to submit to those stronger than ourselves. She liked the idea of all of us fighting to see who was the strongest and would get to be the head witch. Everypony else thought the idea was stupid.”

“I see,” said Rarity. “So if that’s what she believes, then as the last master witch, Twilight would be her rightful ruler and Sunset would submit to her. My! Do I even need to mention how useful having one of the elite four in our pocket would be?”

She didn’t. Dash’s mind was ablaze with how many doors would open up. The elite four wielded more power than any other ponies in society. Sunset was, for example, one of the only four ponies who could sanction Fluttershy, giving her a pass to move freely through society.

Doing the same for Twilight might take a bit more work, even then.

“Do you think it’d be a good idea to reveal my identity to her?” Twilight asked Trixie.

“Oh, I don’t know what she’s thinking anymore.” Trixie turned her hooves up. “I haven’t seen her since she was an edgy sixteen-year-old. She doesn’t dye her hair anymore. But I’d say you have a fifty-fifty shot of her accepting your authority. It’s up to you if you want to risk everything on her agreeing with her sixteen-year-old self.”

That killed a lot of the hope. Rainbow Dash was certainly embarrassed by some of the things she’d believed as a teen.

More sober thought made her remember that siding with Sunset had its risks. The second you became public friends with one of the elite four, the other three would consider you an enemy. Maybe Pinkie was right and the best they could do was be friends with one of them. If that was the case, it was down to Sunset or Nailbat. But which one?

“So we have no idea if we can trust her or what she’s really up to?” Dash mostly asked herself. “I mean if she was really good why wouldn’t she have ratted out the other witches yet?”

“Because we don’t interfere with other witches,” said Trixie. “Witches aren’t snitches.”

“And if all the other witches know who she is,” Dash continued, “why have none of them ratted her out?”

“Because we don’t interfere with other witches,” Trixie said a little louder now. “That’s the one rule we still follow, remember? After all the masters died, the remaining witches agreed morals were stupid, but we had to keep that one rule if we didn’t want our art to die off. We all agreed to stay out of each other’s way.”

“I get it.” Dash heard it this time. “Then Sunset does agree with your stupid philosophy at least a little, huh?”

“If that’s the case,” said Twilight, “I don’t think we should tell her yet. Certainly not right now. I’m still exhausted.”

Twilight let out an exhausted sigh and sat down. Dash could relate to the feeling. She’d done half as much as Twilight and was dreading simply talking to the authorities, let alone risking a fight with a head of state.

“Now we just gotta decide what we’re doing with her.” Dash looked down at Trixie.

“Obviously we’re throwing her in jail, yes?” Rarity closed her eyes and turned her head in a huff.

Before coming here, Dash really wouldn’t have felt bad if Trixie had simply died in the fight. It was true she’d done a lot of bad things. After seeing Trixie break down and surrender, Dash was a little more hesitant to just ‘get rid’ of her.

“You can’t seriously think that’s the best idea!” Trixie objected before Dash could. “Think about it! I’ll fight for you. If you give me back the spellbook, I can help you destroy the other witches in record time. I bet if you can get Sunset to swear loyalty to you, the three of us could take all the others out in one go.”

“I don’t think you should be fighting anypony,” Twilight said flatly.

“What?!” Trixie tried to get up, but her chains prevented it. “I know I lost to you, but you can’t say I’m not strong at all! I could beat up any of the other ponies on your team.”

“How many times do I have to tell you I don’t care about that?” Twilight asked. “You don’t respect power for its own sake, and you aren’t nice to ponies who are weaker than you. Until you can do one of those two things, you shouldn’t be fighting anypony. If you want me to teach you, then your first lesson is to not just fly off the hinge and attack anypony you don’t like. Avoiding all fights is the only way to train that.”

Trixie glowered, not liking that advice.

“Fine.” She relented with a sigh.

“I agree with Rainbow Dash. You should focus on cleaning up your mess and destroying every curse you made,” said Twilight. “How many are there anyway?”

“462,” said Trixie. “I think.”

“Huh.” Twilight blinked, letting that number wash over her. “That’s a lot. It’s easy for the witch who made the curse to break it, but even then that’d take a long time.”

“Well I would do it,” Trixie said. “But isn’t like they’ll just let me freely walk around society, looking up all the ponies I’ve cursed. If Flash Bang gets me, I’ll get thrown in Area 5X forever and how will I break the curses then?”

“Area 5X?” Twilight repeated it. “That place sounds familiar.”

“Twilight, do you have any idea how bad it is in there?!” Chained up, throwing herself at Twilight’s feet was about all Trixie was capable of. “Once you go in there, you never come out! They’ll give me eight thousand life sentences, meaning I’ll be stuck in a cell, chained up, and constantly monitored forever. I’ll never see the sun again. And that’s if I’m lucky and they don’t just kill me!”

Twilight turned to Dash for confirmation of this and got a nod.

“She’s not wrong,” Dash admitted. “There’s no way she won’t end up in Area 5X. Barely anypony is allowed inside that place, so I dunno how bad it is inside of there. Equestria doesn’t have a death penalty, though.”

Trixie pressed her muzzle hard against the ground, bowing to Twilight once again.

“I know I was wrong now. I’m not powerful and I don’t have the right to do anything I want.” Trixie looked up at Twilight, the only real authority in her eyes, with desperation. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get your approval. I’ll never fight again! I’ll pet kittens and bake pies for the homeless. I’ll undo every curse and apologize to everypony even… what’s her face over there.”

Trixie pointed at an unamused Rarity.

“But I can’t change if I never get a chance, can I?” Trixie asked.

It was getting harder and harder to just throw her in prison. Twilight watched her with ever more sympathy.

“I agree with her!” Twilight nodded. “There’s no point in just chaining her up forever, is there? She clearly wants to fix her mistakes and try to get better and locking her up won’t help with that. It’s just another example of your society being silly.”

“Then what would you suggest, dear?” Rarity asked.

That was a more difficult question that Twilight struggled to answer.

“Maybe we could take her with us?” Twilight suggested without much confidence. “I still don’t think she should be fighting anypony, but her knowledge of the other witches could still be useful.”

“I guess we already have a million criminals.” Dash shrugged.

Trixie was nodding as rapidly as she could.

“That’s not a good idea in the least.” Rarity waved her hoof, dismissing the idea. “Let’s think about this. Your mission was to reform your image, was it not? But Trixie is hated far and wide at the moment. If we not only let her off the hook but start harboring her from the law, how is that going to affect our reputation? Very few ponies will be as willing to forgive her as I am and I’m still a bit peeved about all of this, to be honest.”

Dash looked at Trixie with a frown, unable to object to that. They couldn’t seriously risk everything like that.

“Then we have the fact that Flash Bang is going to start bringing her army south at any moment.” Rarity gazed down into the scar in the ground left from Trixie and Twilight’s fight. “Everypony heard that battle, I assure you. Turning Trixie in is the only way we can avert that.”

“You’re not wrong.” Dash tapped her foot, trying to come up with some better argument than her gut. “I just feel like if she’s willing to work to undo her mistakes locking her up forever isn’t the best way to go.”

“Perhaps if you keep at this,” said Rarity, “one day you’ll be a member of the elite four and then you can reform things. When you have more clout, you could take up the task of carrying out Trixie’s reformation and let her out of Area 5X. But I can’t see a path to that not involving her spending years in jail.”

Trixie looked up at Dash, her only hope in the proposed plan, with a pathetic look that begged for mercy.

Dash’s hoof-tapping accelerated. She closed her eyes tightly and growled softly at herself, wracking her brain to try and come up with some other solution. She had to stop the army from going south, keep her own reputation clean and give Trixie a shot to fix her mistakes.

Also preferably get the reward money.

There had to be a solution that gave her all those things!

Turning Trixie in to Flash Bang wasn’t an option because…

“Oh!” Dash’s eyes popped open. “What about Nailbat, huh? We could turn her in to that guy instead!”

Everypony turned to her, curious.

“He’s always talking about his plans to be friends with ghosts and stuff, yeah?” Dash looked at Fluttershy for support. “I bet we can sell him on the idea of reforming a witch!”

Fluttershy was immediately sold on the idea and nodded in agreement. Dash knew Fluttershy recognized his name, at least. She liked his idea of making a sanctuary city where ghosts could live out in the open. Said as much when she heard him on the radio.

“See how brilliant this is?” Dash turned to Rarity next, who was seriously considering the idea. “He’s got tons of clout and will want to do it because if he can reform a witch, he can reform anybody, yeah? Then if Trixie goes well, it’ll make things easier when it’s Twilight’s turn to reveal herself. Plus, we still get the credit, and you know, money, for defeating Trixie!”

“That’s certainly the best idea yet,” Rarity admitted, tapping her chin. “But do you know where to find him? And we still have the matter of the army to tend to.”

That was an issue. Nailbat was notoriously hard to find. Unlike the other three, he liked to stay in the shadows and rarely made public appearances. They’d be lucky if it took a month to find him.

Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs and went back into deep, frustrating thought. Just when she thought she’d solved the problem, more stuff piled right on.

“Well, Trixie has the best idea yet!” Trixie spoke up. “It’s the same deal the rainbow-headed one had, but you make the deal with Sunset Shimmer instead. Obviously, she’d want to publicly reform a witch, right?”

That was it! The perfect plan! It all fit together perfectly in Dash’s head now.

“Yeah! I like that idea!” Dash nodded. “Sunset could understand what Trixie’s been through, so she won’t be as harsh I’d bet.”

Dash looked over at Rarity, who felt like the one she needed to convince.

“Hm.” Rarity had to bow her head in concession. “I suppose in a fair society you should be judged by a jury of your peers. From the sound of things, Sunset is her only peer who isn’t necessarily a sociopath. If nothing else, it would be fair to let Sunset be the one to judge Trixie’s actions.”

“Yeah! And guess what else?” Trixie asked. “I could spy on her for you. When we’re alone I’ll start talking to her about witch stuff. I can find out what she believes and let you know whether to reveal your identity to her!”

This plan was getting better and better!”

“But you’re not going to drop that Twilight is Twilight, are you?” Dash asked.

“I understand the importance of theatrics and timing better than any of you!” Trixie boasted. “I would never callously waste such an incredible reveal until the absolute perfect moment!”

“The one problem I see is how we can find her,” said Rarity. “We only have perhaps a day.”

“Oh, I know that one.” Trixie looked up to the north. “She’s up with Flash Bang somewhere. I didn’t count on her coming south because she still believes in the no interference rule. My prediction is she found some excuse to not come down here.”

“I think we can all agree that’s the best we can do, right?” Twilight looked around at the others.

“Then we just need to get all the way freaking back there before.” Dash rubbed the back of her head.

Everypony around her groaned, not looking forward to more journeying.

Off to the side, Applejack had woken up not long ago. She was still in the process of getting her bearings straight.

Noticing this, Twilight ran off to the side to redo her disguise before Applejack woke up. Dash went over to get her some water. She drank an entire bottle at once, then breathless and limping, hobbled off towards Trixie.

“I just can’t believe my eyes.” Applejack shook her head. “You really beat her? I don’t know who you folks are, but I keep my word. I’ll never doubt anything any of you say ever again!”

Trixie kept her eyes downcast in shame, unable to say anything to Applejack.

Rarity beckoned for Applejack to come over, then seeing her rough state simply walked over to the earth pony instead.

“You’re Apple Bloom’s sister, yes?” Rarity asked her. “Well, you can relax. She’s been accounted for and is en route for my home.”

“Hasn’t everypony been accounted for?” Applejack asked. “I thought they were all headed to the coast, not your house.”

“Oh! You didn’t know. My.” Rarity tapped her chin, thinking of a tactful way to tell her. “Yes, the others got to the coast and are headed south for the winter. Apple Bloom’s position is a bit more precarious. She was separated from the others before our group arrived.”

“Is she alright?!”

“No need to worry!” Rarity assured her. “She’s with an unstoppable killing machine.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better, or—?”

“She’s fine is what I’m saying. We’re taking you back to my castle after this, either way, so you’ll see her soon.”

“Right.” Twilight got up. “You and Fluttershy take Applejack back. Rainbow Dash and I will take Trixie to Sunset.”

Rarity quietly complained about needing a break before drinking some water.

“Hold up! We’re forgetting one thing,” Dash reminded them. “The Darklord. Isn’t he around here? We should ask him about Starlight.”

“Oh, I nearly forgot about that,” Twilight said. “You’re his minion, right? Can you tell us everything he knows?”

“We’d be here all night if I tried telling you that,” said Applejack. “Can you be more specific?”

“Starlight’s planning on doing something. Do you know anything about that?” Dash asked.

“Afraid I don’t know about that.” Applejack shook her head. “I should warn you, my god’s not always so straight with folk. I don’t know everything he gets up to and I doubt he’ll tell you more than he tells me.”

“We should still try asking,” said Dash. “Can you take us to talk to him before we leave?”

“I owe you more than I can even say.” Applejack nodded. “I don’t know anything about this conspiracy you’re talking about and it ain’t easy to get that guy to help you, but I can take you to him. He likes me, at least.”

Applejack led them to the south, limping along but refusing to be carried any further.

---

They approached a lake so placid it might as well have been frozen over. Nothing lived inside that dark pool, it was too still for that possibility, and nothing grew around it for several yards.

Fluttershy nervously looked up at something above the lake as Applejack made a portal for them to enter and see what she did.

On the other side were the massive chains Fluttershy spoke of earlier. Here, they covered the entire ground to the point you couldn’t see the lake below save for the eerie blue light its dark depth emitted in the shadow realm.

Above this hung a single pony, forced by the chains into an upright position. His forelegs were crossed and his wings spread open. It didn’t look like he could move much from that pose.

The bottom half of his body was completely covered in those chains and the top wasn’t much freer. Links from the chains pierced his wings and went up far into the sky to some unseen point. His horn, as he really was an alicorn, was covered in a jumble of seven locks that swung back and forth when he moved his head.

His one remaining eye was a deep pool of red broken only by the black pupil. Not much could be seen of him other than that, as he was covered in full plated mail.

He looked like he should be dead. His right eye wasn’t visible because the helmet had been dented so badly that the metal covered where the eye hole should have been. The other grievous wound was a slit just big enough for a sword to fit through that went clean through his middle and to the other side so that you could see clearly behind him

His entire armor was covered in smaller dents and gashes. There was some purple blood on it, but none of it was fresh. The blood had dried but never vanished.

There was hardly any part of him visible beneath the armor. The only gap in his armor was around the neck where Dash could see black fur. Yet not feathers poke out from underneath the armor covering his wings, as though most of them, at the least, had been lost. His hair couldn’t be seen beyond the purple tail hanging lifelessly behind him. Even that had been tied up with chains and locks.

He said nothing as Applejack ran up the pile of chains to confront him.

“It sure took you long enough to get me out of there,” Applejack huffed.

“You trust me, right?” he asked her. “Believe me, I’m doing a lot for you. Had I broken you out sooner it would have been far worse. Your family will have my favor until the end of time and I assure you, you’ll get what you want in the end.”

Applejack thought about it but submitted to his assurance in the end.

“Thank you, my master.” Applejack bowed to him. “But, pardon. These folks helped me out a lot. I hope you didn’t, well I know you watch out for me but you can be a bit underhanded at times. I think you owe them a favor for helping us out.”

The Darklord looked up briefly to consider the offer.

“Clearly my Applejack likes you, so I will warn you about one thing.” He looked down at Rainbow Dash. “You seem to have picked up one of my creations recently. I don’t suppose you found a coin recently? It was something I made on my forge of irony long ago.”

Coin?

“That magic coin?!” Dash’s heart skipped a beat.

She didn’t need to hear any more explanation to know she was screwed! Anything that guy made was too dangerous to use.

“Hold up! You found the lucky coin?!” Applejack gasped. “You didn’t use it, did you?”

“I told you not to use it!” Twilight yelled at her, then went into her bag to search for it. “Where did I put that thing?”

“I only used it like four times!” Dash smiled up at the guy. “That’s not too many, is it?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter how many times you use it,” he said, “but how unlikely the things you ask for are. You won’t be in too much trouble, but…”

“Um.” Twilight blushed and cleared her throat. “I can’t seem to find it.”

He laughed down at them.

“Don’t feel too bad,” he said. “Nopony’s ever managed to hold onto that thing. You’d lose it eventually and it would be found by the worst possible person. That’s how it works, you see. One person’s luck is another’s misfortune. The current master of the coin will use it to destroy the former owner. Possibly more on top of it.

“Trixie used the coin a good deal,” he said, “to grant herself several unlikely events. Then the coin escaped from her and found you… who brought total ruin proportional to the fortune she took for herself.”

Ruin to Trixie? Dash supposed she did crush her in a sense, but…

“That’s debatable,” said Dash. “Her worldview sucked! Isn’t it better for her to get cosmic ironyed?”

“Perhaps in your subjective opinion, she’s better off trying to change. But at the moment she held the coin, finding Twilight was her enemy and that she’d taken on another student in defiance of her worldview would have been the worst possible outcome.”

Now Dash’s mind was reeling with all the horrible things that could happen to her. What was the worst possible thing that could happen in her current opinion?

“But at any rate, you didn’t ask for anything as improbable as Trixie did,” he said. “I see the deterministic strains of probability wrapped around you. It won’t be that bad if you don’t manage to avoid the backlash.”

“But then there’s something I can do about it?” Dash latched onto the hope the moment she saw it.

“Of course it’s not inevitable. Don’t you know time is simply an illusion created by your inability to reverse entropy?”

“Yeah.” Twilight nodded. “I thought that was obvious.”

“Oh! Yeah, sure. How silly of me.” Dash rolled her eyes.

“Why, if you can reverse entropy it will be like the future never even happened,” he said. “I did make the thing, to begin with, and Applejack asked me to grant you a favor, so while I don’t normally hand out free advice, I’ll tell you what I see when I look at you.”

His eye looked over Rainbow Dash carefully.

“If you ever find yourself alone, you should be very afraid. If you stay close to your friends until the next person loses the coin, you might just escape something horrible. But you can’t do it alone.”

“That’s just cryptic enough to be useless.” Dash shrugged. “But thanks, I guess?”

“I meant that more literally,” he said. “Like don’t go to sleep unless there’s someone else in the house with you. If you and the pony who find that coin are ever alone together… that’s what you need to be afraid of. Delay that long enough and you’re safe. Is that specific enough for you to follow?”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it,” said Dash. At least there was something she could do about it.

Dash looked over her group. Come to think of it… she had way more people around than ever before. Had you told her something like ‘don’t be alone’ just a year ago Dash would have had zero ability to follow through with it.

“So are you going to tell us the rest?” Dash asked.

“Hm?” He tilted his head, pretending to be innocent. “Tell you the rest of what?”

“Well we rescued Applejack like you wanted. Now tell us what you know about Starlight,” Dash demanded.”

“I don’t see any reason in particular to tell you anything,” said The Darklord. “Of course, you could give me a reason.”

“We did what you wanted!” Dash pointed up at him. “Is that enough?”

“I didn’t tell or even ask you to do anything,” he said. “I gave you information and you decided to do this on your own.”

“You see?” Rarity glanced at Dash with an annoyed look. “They are all like that, I assure you. Regardless, you must want something from us. What is it, exactly?”

“I’ll answer maybe two or three questions,” said The Darklord. “In exchange, I want you to swear you’ll protect Applejack until I tell you it’s no longer necessary. You won’t turn her over to Flash Bang, Starlight, or anypony outside your group who comes to you even if they don’t seem to mean her any harm. I’ll warn you that several… things will try to kill or kidnap her soon. After watching your fight, I think you can handle it.”

“So in other words, we’re not getting anything in return.” Rarity warned Twilight. “Remember the last time he gave us information? It’ll always be the same thing. Whatever answers he gives you will be manipulative and self-serving.”

“Oh! I don’t even deny it.” The Darklord spread his hooves as far apart as they would go, only slightly in the end. “I’m absolutely going to give you manipulative answers and I won’t tell you everything. But who are we kidding here? Your curiosity smells as strong as a mountain of garbage. You’re going to take the deal even knowing that.”

He wasn’t wrong. That sounded like a good deal to Dash. The more information they had, the better.

Twilight and Dash shared a look before they both shrugged. It was what they planned to do either way.

“Alright.” Twilight nodded. “I’ll put Applejack under my protection.”

“Wonderful!” “Applejack, I was only going to tell you this if they agreed, but that pony there is secretly the ancient witch Twilight Sparkle. As long as you’re staying with them, I’d like you to help these weirdo’s with their mission.”

The cover was blown yet again! At least Applejack wasn’t going anywhere.

“Oh, that’s Twilight?” Applejack looked at Twilight with only mild curiosity. “Yeah, sure. Makes sense.”

“That’s the least anypony’s reacted to that revelation,” said Twilight. “You’re not worried about that?

“Oh, I hang with this guy.” Applejack gestured to The Darklord. “No issue at all to me.”

“Now then. You can ask me anything you want.” The Darklord couldn’t incline his hooves quite enough to hold them out like an offering. “My knowledge is vast. Here! I’ll give you one for free. No one’s moved the sun in millennia. Me and those two crazy kids just spun the planet to make it look like it’s still moving. All just an optical illusion.”

“We noticed that one a long time ago,” said Dash.

“Oh. Huh. You know that used to give ponies an existential crisis. How times change.” He laughed.

“You’re sure this guy knows everything?” Dash muttered in Applejack’s direction.

“Ah, he was just joking with you!” Applejack assured her as The Darklord continued to laugh. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you ponies of his sort never lie lie at least.”

Now the question was what was the question?

Nopony had to outright say they needed to be careful with what questions they asked. Even if he wasn’t going to outright lie, they had to give him as little room to squirm around as possible if they wanted to get ahead. As such, none of them blurted anything out right away.

That said, Dash hadn’t come into this entirely unprepared. She decided years ago what question she’d ask in a similar situation. She watched Rarity and Twilight for a moment, their indecision giving her confidence to go ahead before she spoke out.

“Don’t worry, I got this. Say what you will about my terrible education, but I’ve spent countless hours lying awake at night thinking of ways to break these monkey paw scenarios. Watch this!” Dash pointed at The Darklord with determination. “How would our actions differ between scenario A where we know everything you do and scenario B where we only know what you want us to?”

“Hm.” Rarity slowly moved to lie down on her back against the chain. “Yes, that is a fair question, but we can already deduce part of that. We would turn Applejack in to somepony if we knew everything. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made us agree to that.”

“How perceptive.” The Darklord placed his hooves together for a single, slow clap. “You see? I’m sure you’re clever enough to outsmart me. But you’re going to ask that question anyway to be safe, I’m sure.”

“Yes.” Rarity nodded with suspicion.

“Well then! The part you haven’t figured out is my main motivation in all of this.” His eye fell upon Twilight. “In addition to protecting Applejack, there’s someone I want to kill. I believe you met him, witch.”

“Huh?” Twilight pointed at herself, surprised. “You mean Flash? I’m pretty sure he’s already dead.”

“No, not him. The other one.” The Darklord leaned closer. “Discord. I want you to kill Discord.”

Twilight’s eyes flashed with recognition at the name. She didn’t look overly concerned from a death threat against said name, just confused. It didn’t look like they were friends.

Dash raised her hoof.

“Hey. Do we know who that is?” Dash asked.

Twilight nodded and started tapping her back hoof against the ground in a nervous fit.

“Remember when I told you there was a chaos spirit we’d need to get rid of to end the curse of undeath?” Twilight reminded Dash. “That’s who he’s talking about. But why do you care about that? If you wanted to get rid of the zombies, wouldn’t you have started years ago?”

“Oh, I don’t care much about that.” He gave small, restrained flicks of his hoof. “No, I want to kill him because he annoyed me.”

“And?” Dash asked.

“That’s it.” He shrugged.

“So what? You literally murder anyone who annoys you?” Dash asked.

“Yep.” The Darklord nodded slowly.

“Uh.” Dash began backing up slowly.

Rarity’s posture became less callous. She sat back upright and scooted away from the chain she’d been poking. Twilight stopped tapping her foot. Fluttershy slowly drifted behind Dash.

“It ain’t as bad as it sounds!” Applejack rushed to the guy’s defense. “He’s got a real long fuse. Annoying him isn’t something a normal pony can even do.”

“I suppose it is true.” The Darklord looked up at the stars. “If you wanted to annoy me your family would have to commit multiple generations to it.”

Still, nopony spoke until Rarity broke the silence by clearing her throat.

“Excuse me,” Rarity spoke up. “Twilight, the way you were speaking before I thought we had to destroy this ‘Discord’ to end the curse of undeath. Yet the implication here is that we wouldn’t have destroyed Discord without intervention.”

“It’s more like…” Twilight tried to think of the best way to explain it. “That’s the closest I can get to telling you how to break the curse without telling you how to break the curse. For example, say you had to get rid of a pillow to break a curse. I tell you burning down the house it’s in would break the curse. Technically I haven’t told you the conditions so you’re still safe.”

“So it’s possible to do it without killing him?” Dash asked.

“It’d be easier to just destroy him!” Twilight glanced off to the side, annoyed. “I can’t explain it without you getting hurt, so just trust me.”

Trusting Twilight was the only option here. Dash had to remind herself not to try and piece together that mystery. Figuring it out would only mean getting hit with the full power of the curse of undeath.

“Hold up.” Applejack raised her hoof. “If I’m to understand everything going on, most ponies can’t hear how to break the curse cause then it’ll become stronger. But if I’m immune don’t that mean I can hear what it is?”

“I suppose I should tell you later,” said The Darklord. “It’d be best for me if you knew.”

“If you’ll hear it eventually, I’ll just tell you now.” Twilight trotted to Applejack’s side.

She whispered the forbidden truth in Applejack’s ear. As she did a look of mounting confusion overtook her face.

“But that don’t sound too hard.” Applejack raised an eyebrow.

“You never met Discord,” The Darklord reminded her.

Twilight nodded in eager agreement.

So it was something that didn’t sound hard to do…

“Remember, you don’t want to figure it out.” Twilight shot Dash a stern look. “Stop thinking about it.”

“Got ya!” Dash did her best to not think about it. “Still, that guy was already on our to-kill list.”

“Oh, yes. How very coincidental.” His smile could be felt through his helmet.

Rarity, Twilight, and Dash all shot him a suspicious look at the comment.

“Okay, you totally did something!” Dash pointed an accusing hoof at him. “What did you do?”

“Hm?” He tilted his head, curious. “Why I helped you. Don’t you remember? You should be thanking me.”

“Oh no you don’t,” said Dash. “I’m not just some tool who runs around mindlessly thanking people all day. There’s a catch here.”

“I set out to look for people who may want to destroy Discord.” The Darklord’s eye began to flick about in all directions. “You’re not even the only ones I’m helping. You didn’t have my attention before you decided to set out to do this entirely on your own. If you think back, I’m sure you’ve never heard my voice until then.”

When was the first time? If it was the dream, that much is true.

“Regardless, here’s the specific answer to your question,” The Darklord went on. “If you knew everything and hadn’t made a deal with me, you would bring Applejack to Flash Bang and work with her to stop Starlight Glimmer. I do believe you’d prevent a disaster and end the curse of undeath without killing Discord. That’d be the easier path to take. Though frankly, I don’t think it leads to the best end for any of us. I’m trying to force you down a more difficult road where you choose to keep Applejack for your own use later. So you see, I am helping you.”

Did anypony believe that last part? Dash didn’t and it looked like nopony but maybe Applejack did.

“So?” The Darklord pulled back, deeper into his chains. “What’s your second question?”

There was the obvious one. Now that they’d gotten his intentions down, it was time to get what they came for.

“What is this ‘plan’ Starlight has?” Twilight was the one who asked it.

“Oh, it should be easy enough for you to understand that.” He leaned forward towards Twilight. “She’s attempting to cast a certain spell. You know the one I’m talking about, don’t you?”

Twilight alone understood this reference. Suddenly she looked less purple as her ears fell flat. She looked up at him with a muted horror, too stunned to say anything or even breathe. Dash slowly lifted a hoof to try poking her, but Twilight spoke out at the last moment before collision.

“You’re talking about… that spell?” Twilight held her breath again.

“Yes! Precisely what you’re thinking.” He moved his hoof in a small circle. “You had an incident with it a while back, didn’t you?”

Everypony looked over at Twilight, patiently waiting for her to explain. Yet she just held her breath until the loss of purple from her blood draining out was negated by the gain in purple form holding her breath.

When it was clear said explanation was never going to arrive, Dash scooted up next to her, poking her for real this time.

“Hey, Twi,” Dash whispered to her. “Which spell is ‘that’ one, exactly?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Twilight pushed Dash away and looked in the other direction.

“Sounds like it kinda does,” said Dash.

“Look. All that matters is that Starlight has a… a thing and if we can take that away from her then she won’t be able to do, uh, the thing!” Twilight nodded firmly.

“A thing? What?” Dash tilted her head.

“Twilight, dear, you need to use your words if we’re to understand you,” said Rarity. “We’ve been over this.”

“Yeah! Just tell us what it is!” Dash demanded.

“Does it matter if you know what she’s trying to do?” Twilight started pacing back and forth, gesticulating with her hoof. “Or even what the ‘thing’ is? All that matters is that we can stop her! And it doesn’t matter if she actually pulls it off!”

“Not to any of you, no,” The Darklord agreed with her.

“But we do need to stop her from trying anyway.” Twilight stopped her pacing and nodded towards the others in her group. “Very important.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Behind her, The Darklord nodded as well.

A spell that didn’t matter if she cast it but they still had to stop her anyway?

Dash rubbed her head in frustration, trying to make that work. Rarity was pensive, tapping her temple and looking over the chains as she tried to figure that one out. Fluttershy wasn’t even trying to solve the mystery, just looked between Dash and Rarity to see if either of them would piece it together.

“And you’re not going to tell us what the spell is?” Dash asked The Darklord. “But we burned a question on that!”

“I explained it until the person who asked understood perfectly,” he said.

Dash groaned. If she had any hope, it was with Twilight.

“Come on, Twilight.” Dash put her hooves on Twilight’s withers. “Can’t you at least tell me why you can’t tell me?”

“I— look, this was something I was planning on telling you when you were ready,” said Twilight. “When I’m sure you weren't going to do anything stupid with it. I’ll tell you in, I dunno, a few years. Or decades.”

“Ugh.” Dash rolled her eyes. “Look, I promise I won’t do anything with that information unless you specifically tell me to, okay?”

“No. It’s too tempting.” Twilight still refused to make eye contact with her. “The last time I told somepony about that spell—"

“Is this still about that guy?” Dash pieced it together. “I’m not like him, okay?! What do I gotta do to convince you I’m not some garbage jerkwad who will betray you the second I get the chance?! Do I gotta punch Applejack in the face, 'cause I’ll do it!”

Applejack took a step back.

“Just tell me, is there anything I can ever do to convince you I’m your friend?!” Dash asked.

“Yeah?! Well— If you’re my friend then why are you yelling at me?!” Twilight latched to the first excuse she could find. “You do stupid things all the time! I can’t just tell you everything until I’m completely sure you won’t do anything stupid with it.”

“I won’t cast the stupid spell, okay?!”

“I don’t know that! You can’t possibly know that until you know what the spell is!”

“Well tell me and I won’t cast it right freaking now!”

“No!”

Dash growled in frustration. How was she supposed to get through? She’d been trying for months but there were still all these stupid walls everywhere!

A deep laugh slowly welled up behind the two of them.

“I have an idea!” The Darklord interrupted their little fight. “Rainbow Dash. Why don’t you use the last question to ask me what Twilight is hiding from you?”

Dash looked up at him.

“I’m not the only one hiding things from you. I can guess a few important things your little business partner doesn’t want you to know.” He leaned forward at Rainbow Dash. “So if you’re curious…”

Of course she was curious! How could you not be? And the suggestion froze Twilight with fear. The witch was tensed up like the specter of the question was a loaded bullet pointed at her temple. Could Twilight be hiding something that bad from her?

“And you know.” The Darklord crossed his forelegs again and leaned down to Twilight. “I could always tell you what Rainbow Dash is hiding from you.”

“Hey! I’m not hiding anything!” Dash yelled up at him. “Well, nothing important anyway.”

“Ah, but can the rest of us be sure of that?” He straightened out.

Curious or not, Dash wasn’t stupid enough to waste her one question on something like this. She glanced over at Twilight to see if Twilight was at least smart enough to not fall for an obvious trap.

But Dash was shocked to see her considering it!

“You could know that?” Twilight’s voice quavered from nerves.

“Of course! I can see into the dreams of ponies.” His eye opened wider than it had so far. “Where do you think I get all this information from? Applejack?”

Then Twilight bit her lip and looked at the ground, struggling with whether to ask.

Dash couldn’t believe she would even think about going through with it! Maybe Dash should just find out what Twilight was hiding!

“You only have one question left between you all,” he warned. “Whoever asks first gets to hear the truth. Don’t you want to know for sure whether or not you can trust any of your friends, Twilight?”

That last comment was too far! Any anger Dash had pointed at Twilight snapped over to him.

Dash could see Twilight more clearly now, could see that last question really had punctured her. She wasn’t mistrustful so much as afraid, Dash realized. All that power and she was terrified of…

Dash bit her tongue to punish herself. She realized she was the one being stupid.

Twilight was still learning to trust other people and this guy was just playing on her weakness. That was it. He was trying to pit them against each other so they’d waste their last question!

She wasn’t going to just let somepony take advantage of one of her friends like that.

“You know what? No.” Dash turned her back on The Darklord. “Twilight’s my friend and I trust her! If there’s something she’s not telling me, she must have a good reason. I’d give up our last question before I asked you that.”

“Huh?!” Twilight stepped back, surprise snapping her fear. “You… really trust me that much?”

“Yeah!” Dash nodded with confidence. “If you say all I need to know is that we gotta get a ‘thing’ from Starlight then that’s what we’ll do. I’m sorry about before, okay? I know you’d never hurt me.”

Twilight started to deflate. The tension melted around her, brining her ears, her head and her tail all drooping down.

“No! I’m so sorry.” Twilight rushed over to Dash. “I shouldn’t have even thought about taking that offer! I… I know you’re not…”

“Don’t worry!” Dash held Twilight, patting her back. “That guy was just trying to screw with us.”

“No!” Twilight pulled out of her grip and shook her head. She hesitated a moment before speaking again. “I want to trust you like that too! I’ll tell you about the spell but you all need to promise you’ll never attempt to use this kind of magic.”

Dash nodded.

Behind them, The Darklord brought his hooves together once in a loud clap.

“There! Do you see? You passed my friendship test.” The Darklord spread his forelegs and laughed.

That comment just made her blood boil.

“Oh, don’t give me that line you jerkwad!” Dash pointed up at him as The Darklord continued to laugh. “Why do you hang out with this guy, Applejack?”

“What are you talking about?” Applejack stepped in between the two of them. “He just helped you two out! Twilight wouldn’t have opened up if he didn’t say nothing.”

The Darklord gave a sage nod like that he had somehow planned all that out. Dash could only groan in protest.

“Just ignore him.” Dash turned her back on him anew.

Then all eyes turned to Twilight.

“Right.” Twilight sighed, bracing herself. “The spell Starlight is trying to cast is the divine ascension spell. If you successfully cast it, you transcend reality to become the alicorn god of… something. It varies. For example, you could become one with the concept of, I dunno, trees! Or love or whatever.”

A hush fell over the ponies as it sank in that such a thing was even remotely possible. Starlight had a serious chance at becoming a literal god? She was already a metaphorical one! How was that not good enough?

“Becoming every tree sounds like it’d be nice,” Fluttershy said to herself.

“And you said that wasn’t a big deal?” Dash asked. “How, exactly? That sounds close to the biggest deal.”

“Because you ascend beyond reality.” Twilight looked up at the stars. “That means they’re no longer, uh, ‘real’ in the sense that you understand it. You go to the outer realm and we’d never see you again. From our perspective, if Starlight casts the spell she’d just be erasing herself from existence.”

“Yeah. The whole divine ascension thing?” The Darklord shook his head. “Totally lame. I give it like a three out of ten. Don’t recommend it. I chose being chained up like this over cosmic enlightenment because the latter is the more boring of the two. Think about that.”

“Exactly!” Twilight nodded, too eager to agree. “I figured pretty much the same. You know, I could have cast the spell ages ago but I chose not to because it’s you know, ‘lame’ as he said. Only a total loser would cast the spell to become an alicorn.”

The Darklord laughed.

“I’m starting to like you, witch.” He looked down at her. “Yeah, all those other alicorns and posers suck. You have good taste, though. Tell you what, if I ever break out of here you can be the new sun goddess. I still have the power to move the sun and moon, you know. It’s sealed away in here with me.”

Twilight didn’t look tempted at the offer at all.

“Excuse me.” Rarity raised her hoof and turned to Twilight. “I hope I’m not being rude, but didn’t your ex-boyfriend try to cast that spell? If it’s so terrible, why would he ever want to?”

“Yeah!” Twilight glared death down at a random rock. “As I said, a total loser would do it.”

“I can describe the appeal,” said The Darklord. “Don’t any of you tell me that something as pretentious as ‘cosmic enlightenment or ‘divine ascension’ doesn’t sound tempting to you.”

Dash couldn’t deny it. Any monk or their ilk would tell you cosmic enlightenment was where it’s at. Though it was unlikely any of them had ever pulled it off for real.

“It’s something that looks tempting from afar.” He gazed up at the stars. “Like looking at the stars. From far away the universe beyond your home looks so beautiful and inviting. So often I see you little children thinking it would be a wonderful adventure to go swimming through the stars. Yet only if you got up there would you truly understand how empty it really is. The void that surrounds us is so vast that to enter it is to dissolve into nothing.”

These two made it sound like a trip to a used gum museum would be preferable. How the heck could you seriously be tempted by this? It wasn’t like Dash was such a colossal idiot she’d be tempted to do something every expert on the subject told her she’d regret.

Saying any of that might be twisting a knife, though. Dash decided to just keep her stupid mouth shut this time.

“Why does she need to be stopped, then?” Rarity asked. “Shouldn’t her enemies be fine with her casting this spell if it effectively deletes her?”

“The real problem is that she’s almost certainly going to fail to cast the spell,” Twilight mused. “You know what happened the last time somepony failed to cast the spell, don’t you?”

All the pieces of what happened back then came together in Dash’s mind now.

After hearing about it, Twilight’s boyfriend tried to cast that spell. He failed and the result was the curse of undeath.

“You’re saying something as bad as the curse of undeath could happen again?!” Dash asked.

Twilight blushed heavily and stared down at the ground in embarrassment.

“Believe it or not I was relieved when I found out the zombie thing was all that happened,” she admitted. “My only historical education was from a time when there were under fifty people alive. I had no idea there could ever be this many ponies or zombies even in a million years.”

Dash put a hoof on her back, enough for Twilight to lift her head almost back to where it’d been.

“But my point is, it could be a lot worse than even that,” said Twilight. “Depending on what concept you try to become one with.”

That curse brought multiple species to the brink of extinction and would eventually end the world if nopony stopped it. Twilight knew all of that now and still she thought it could be worse.

The thought made Dash shudder, but it also brought the realization of what was going on.

“I get it now!” Dash smacked her forehooves together. “So Flash Bang isn’t worried that Starlight will become an alicorn. She’s worried Starlight will fail and unleash something horrible on the rest of us! I guess if we knew that, we would have sided with her, huh?”

“Maybe.” Twilight folded her forelegs to think. “But the easiest way to stop Starlight would be to take the element away from her. Or explain the danger to her if she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Come to think of it, a curse immune pony would give you the perfect way to interrupt the ritual at the last minute by killing her.

“So you think this is an assassination attempt,” Rarity concluded for her.

“Ah, crud!” Dash pulled back. “And Flash Bang would be able to say she was just stopping a disaster too! And it wouldn’t even be a lie! It’s like the perfect crime. I don’t think this even counts as entrapment.”

“It does make sense.” Rarity kept a hoof on her chin as she thought. “But the only flaw is that previously he said if we knew everything we’d side with Flash over Starlight. Would we really help an assassination attempt?”

The Darklord was watching them carefully with his eye, keeping his stupid jerk mouth shut tight. There was totally something he was hiding from them. They only had one question left to find out what.

“I have a question!” Rarity suddenly raised a hoof. “Is Starlight trying to fail on purpose? That should be part of the question we already asked.”

“No. She wants to become an alicorn,” he said. “But sure. You still have one question left.”

Then Rarity was out of witty ideas once more.

“So should we give him what he wants?” Rarity asked the others. “We could either ask him to detail what Flash Bang is thinking.”

“I think a more important question would be who told Starlight about ascension,” said Twilight. “Nopony other than me should know about that spell.”

“What if we ask him something unrelated?” Dash suggested. “Like whether we can trust Sunset?”

“Oh!” The Darklord joined in the game. “Or you could ask me outright what I’m hiding from you. Or roll a dice to decide what question to ask so I can’t have predicted it. I’m sure nopony’s ever tried any of those things on me before.”

This guy totally had them right where he wanted! One-hundred percent chance they’d end up asking the wrong question. What do you do in this situation?

“Rainbow Dash, you’re the crazy one.” Rarity looked at her.

The mad scientist was calling her crazy now?

“What’s the most idiotic, off-the-wall question we could ask?” Rarity asked. “That’s the only way to come out ahead in this shell game.”

Fight genius with idiocy, huh? Dash could maybe do that?

Well if asking any question would mean defeat…

“Oh! We could not ask the last question!” Dash announced.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Twilight.

“No, no! It’s brilliant!” Rarity smiled wide. “I have a question for you. Not the question mind you, but a question about these questions. Can we ask you the third one any time or does it have to be now?”

“Trying to get me on a technicality, are we?” He laughed. “You know what? I’ll let you get away with it just because you’re all so cute. You can ask it any time. I’ll know when you have one and come to you in your dreams. But remember you only get one question between the four of you and it’s first come first served.”

“I think we should save it, then.” Rarity looked over the others. “At least until we’ve spoken to Pinkie about this.”

“You’re right,” Dash agreed. “We can figure a lot of this stuff out on our own anyway. Let’s wait till we know what we can’t figure out.”

Applejack bowed to her god before leading the rest of them away.

“I really do hope your last question will be an interesting one,” The Darklord called after them. “I get so bored here.”

Dash turned to follow Applejack outside the shadow realm. They still had a long, long way ahead of them.

---

The return journey took less time and was less eventful, but felt longer and more exhausting all the same. Everything within twenty miles and in its right mind would have booked it when they saw that fight. Between that and their secure escape route, Twilight and Dash felt comfortable going much faster.

They switched between Dash flying both of them just along the tops of the trees and Twilight chain teleporting them all forward. Even at that rate, they didn’t get there before the sun.

They finally got to the northern tip of the forest, to where the army had assembled. Patrolling pegasi meant they couldn’t get close, but Dash could make out the broad strokes up if from just above the treetops of the forest.

There was a long column of pegasi in the air, a column of ponies on the ground beneath them, and some heavy artillery near the back. At the front of the rows of pegasi, Dash could just barely make out a few familiar ponies. Fleetfoot, Spitfire, and Lightning Dust were just the ones in front of the pegasi.

It looked like Flash Bang had enlisted multiple S rank. Dash wondered how many S rankers you’d need to take down Trixie. More than those three, she was sure.

From the looks of things, they were just about ready to head out. Exhausted as they were, they wouldn’t have time for a nap.

There weren’t any tents up, save one. The only tent still up was one far off to the side, on a slight decline in the ground as though it were leaning away from the rest of them in disgust. The ponies around it were just mulling about.

Trixie was certain that was Sunset’s tent. The fact that it was orange made Dash agree with her.

Dash gave the main army a wide berth, swinging around in a wide arc to approach Sunset’s tent from the side. They landed and crept closer to the tent on hoof.

The only ponies near Sunset’s tent were her personal guard, all unicorns wearing the orange armor they were known for. They did not look like they were about to head out.

“Don’t move!” One of them spotted the group right away.

A gaurdmare with a gun came marching over to them.

“Don’t come any closer.” She kept her gun ready but pointing down. “This is a restricted area. You can’t be here.”

“I think we’ll be allowed to be here in a second!” Dash pushed Trixie forward. “You guys are here looking for Trixie, yeah? Well, we already went ahead and beat her. What now?”

“It’s all true.” Trixie sighed and looked at the ground. “I’m defeated.”

The guard was stunned by the sight. She glanced at Trixie, then at Dash, then at Trixie again. Then she cycled through this another five times.

“What?” She blinked and rubbed her eyes before looking again.

Her eyes just kept flicking between the group, only becoming more and more uncertain of what to do.

“So can we talk to Sunset Shimmer or what?” Dash asked.

“Uh.” The gaurdmare stepped back. “H-hold on a second.”

She ran towards the tent and whispered something to a stallion sitting just in front of it.

“What?!” He immediately stood up and looked in Dash’s direction.

The stallion marched over to them and spent a long time looking Trixie over, trying to find any flaw in this claim.

“You realize if this is a prank, you’re going to be arrested for this,” he reminded them.

“We, uh— we have the spellbook.” Twilight held it up, the bottom of it wrapped in a cloth to prevent accidentally touching it.

Her voice was getting nervous already. She still wasn’t any good around large crowds of unfamiliar ponies. Not to mention she looked like she’d nod off at any moment. Dash would have to take the lead through this part of the adventure, even if she wasn’t much more awake.

“Yes.” Trixie rolled her eyes. “And I’d say something boastful to prove who I am but I’m too defeated for that right now. Bleh.”

The rest of Sunset’s elite guard had all gathered around now. Loud muttering was all around them. Some were commenting on how rough the two of them looked. Others were still doubting this was really Trixie. Comments about how the others were going to react to this floated around. One of them, who was now Dash’s favorite, began cheering for the two ‘heroes’ immediately.

Twilight looked like she wanted to shrink away from the attention.

But a good number of them had their weapons out, trained on Trixie. Dash heard one of them ask another why Trixie wasn’t already dead.

“She’s not resisting,” Dash pointed out.

“Yes. I’ve surrendered.” Trixie shook the chains around her forelegs.

But that did little to calm the crowd down.

“Quit gawking!” He barked an order at the crowd. “We don’t want anypony else noticing before Sunset hears about this. Go back to where you were and act like nothing is happening.”

That was an order they were reluctant to follow, but they did force themselves to shuffle back to where they were. Even still, the ones who didn’t have to crane their necks to look at them did so and the ones who couldn’t kept their ears trained on Trixie.

“This is an incredible achievement.” He bowed his head to them in respect. “But it is one of immense importance. I’d like you to report this to Sunset Shimmer in private. If you permit me, I’ll take you to her now.”

Finally!

He led them to the big tent and pushed the flap open. The room on the inside was a simple enough office. The same guardmare from before quickly left as the group entered. Clearly, she’d been giving Sunset a warning about what had just happened.

They caught Sunset trying to fix her hair and get more of her armor on as they entered. Upon seeing them, she quickly moved to a regal stance, acting like she’d meant to only put her boots on.

It was such a strange feeling. This was by far the most important pony Dash had ever stood before and yet they still caught her off guard like this.

Sunset carefully studied the two before speaking.

“Before anything else, I want to thank you on behalf of Equestria,” said Sunset. “You have no idea how many lives you’ve saved today and how much trouble you’ve saved moving forward. You have my personal gratitude and favor as well.”

And Sunset bowed to the two of them. Dash’s heart was trembling. She started to wonder if this was real life or what! She simply found herself unable to say anything in response.

“What should I tell Flash Bang?” her officer asked. “They’re moving south starting in thirty minutes.”

“Hm.” Sunset considered it. “No, wait until the exact second they begin to march. I want her to look as stupid as possible.”

Dash just now realized that, given the timing, she may have made an unintentional enemy today.

Sunset dismissed the one other stallion so that she alone was in the tent with the others.

“Don’t get me wrong or anything. You two are heroes for this. But defeating a witch isn’t normal.” Sunset sat down at her desk. “Who are you two, exactly?”

Sunset was giving them a serious look now.

“I’m Rainbow Dash, a slayer from Ponyville.” Dash handed her card over to Sunset. “This is Silverstorm. She’s the illegitimate daughter of the pirate king Bloodstorm. I guess you could say she’s the muscle of our group.”

That was the story they came up with for a few reasons. People might accept Twilight had a natural talent for battle if she was the child of one of the most infamously tough ponies who ever lived. That guy had almost two hundred kids and Twilight, in disguise, had the same colors as he was at least. Plus he was long dead and thus would never contradict the story.

“Yes! That is, uh, true!” Twilight’s gave a nervous laugh. “I’m from the ocean place.”

“Heh.” Dash smiled and pointed to Twilight. “You know how ponies from the pirate coast are! They talk with their punches. Silver here’s not used to civilization so she gets nervous whenever we come out of the woods. The two of us have been, uh, camping for months.”

Sunset listened to all of this with her hoof on her cheek, looking them over while trying to decide if this was believable. If Sunset asked around later, everypony in Ponyville would tell her Dash had been sparsely around. The story would check out.

“I appreciate you being honest about that,” said Sunset. “I can’t blame you for your father’s actions, but I need to ask if you have any intention of using his name to take over the pirate coast.”

“Huh?! Uh!” Twilight scrambled to remember her excuse for that one. Dash knew for sure they’d gone over that one. “I, uh. No. I don’t. I don’t like boats.”

Twilight gave a big, nervous smile.

The way Sunset looked at Twilight didn’t give Dash a lot of confidence she bought this story. But it was enough for Sunset to simply move on for now.

“You’ve been awfully quiet.” Sunset turned her muzzle up and glared down at Trixie. “You don’t have anything to say for once?”

“Oh.” Trixie slumped her cheek onto the desk. “Hey, Sunset. What’s up?”

“Don’t talk to me like we’re friends!” Sunset cringed and pushed her chair back a little, just to be further away from her. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve been causing? You and that featherbrained imbecile nearly caused a disaster and that’s only if I count what you’ve done in the past few days!”

“I know.” Trixie couldn’t bring herself to lift her head off the table. “I was wrong and you were right. I shouldn’t have used my powers to push everypony else around.”

Somehow Sunset was more surprised by that than the revelation Trixie was beaten by two random ponies. She nearly fell off her chair.

“What?” Sunset grabbed the desk to keep herself stable. She raised a skeptical eyebrow at Trixie. “Did you just say you were wrong?! Are you two sure this is the right Trixie?”

“Yeah, it’s her alright,” Dash answered for her. “She wasn’t like this when we found her.”

“They convinced me I was wrong about a lot of things,” Trixie muttered.

“How could you have possibly convinced her that her philosophy was wrong?” Sunset asked. “Trixie’s never listened to anyone before.”

“Did you try beating her up then turning her back on?” Dash asked. “That seemed to work for us.”

Sunset was still watching Trixie carefully and perplexed, keeping her head pulled back, like she was studying a spider that just might be a jumper.

“Is this an act, Trixie?” Sunset asked. “I know you like theatrics.”

“No. I’m giving up on the whole witch thing like you wanted.” Trixie remained dejected. “Everything you said was right. It was all just a meaningless justification for me to do whatever I wanted. As soon as someone stronger showed up…”

Sunset grew deathly quiet, not daring to speak until she’d carefully selected her words.

“What did you tell them?” It was subtle, but the look in Sunset’s eyes was deadly.

“I told them about when we met eight years ago,” said Trixie. “You tried to convince me to give up on my witch training and come with you, right? I should have said yes. It was all garbage. My entire life up till now was a waste.”

Sunset’s anger at her was quickly dying down.

“You did try to help her before, didn’t you?” Dash asked. “That’s why we brought her to you.”

Sunset acted like was the one in the hotseat now, looking like she felt she was the one who needed to explain herself now.

“It’s true.” Sunset sighed and sat back down. “I was more naïve when I was young. Both of us were just kids when I met her. So I thought I could convince a witch to give up on her training and turn her back on her philosophy.

“Maybe you two aren’t familiar with it, but witch training… it destroys the soul of whoever undergoes it. They specifically train to kill their empathy towards others. Everyone who undergoes it comes out thinking that having strength and crushing weaker ponies are the same thing. If you talk to somepony who’s gone through it, they all find the idea that you might not want to take advantage of ponies weaker than you baffling. They get angry at you for even suggesting it.

“Witches target orphans desperate to hear they’re special. That’s who they usually take on as students,” said Sunset. “I hate all of them. But I understand how Trixie ended up like this. That’s why I was naïve enough to think I could convince her to turn her back on it all.”

Hope continued to well up in Dash. It sounded more and more like Sunset would have mercy on Trixie. Sunset really was one of the very few ponies who could have any remote sympathy here.

“At least, I thought I was being naïve.” Sunset looked down at her desk, or rather some point far beyond it, as she remembered something far away. “I really don’t know how you did this. Maybe there’s something special about the two of you. But what am I supposed to do?”

Sunset kept staring off into space.

“Actually! We wanted to talk to you about that,” said Dash. “Trixie’s cooperating. She’s willing to undo all of the curses she made and try to change. We brought her to you because we thought maybe you could take her into your custody? And help her with that?”

Dash bowed her head to Sunset. From the table, Trixie glanced up at Sunset, curious but unable to hope.

The request brought her back from that thousand-mile stare to look at Dash with renewed surprise.

“You keep surprising me. I don’t understand where you’re coming from.” Sunset shook her head. “Do you not realize how big of a deal bringing down one of the witches is? You could ask me for nearly any favor right now. And you’re going to spend that on nothing more than having mercy on your enemy? Why? Is there nothing else you want?”

Dash hung her head in thought. It did sound foolish when you said it out loud. Maybe there was something better Dash could ask for. She had to remind herself this wasn’t just about Trixie.

“I hope you understand this,” said Dash. “I have friends that are outlaws, even though they never really did anything wrong. I promised them I’d do what I could to change things and help them. So… to do that I want to show everyone that I can turn even a witch around! If I can do that, ponies might start to trust me.”

Sunset nodded and turned to Twilight.

“And you?” Sunset asked. “You don’t want me to buy you an airship? Or to let you keep all your pirate gold?”

“I want to say that I don’t understand your ideas of justice,” said Twilight. “Trixie said she wants to change and fix her mistake so I don’t see any point in locking her away.”

Sunset laughed at that.

“You’re pretty innocent for a pirate,” said Sunset. “But fine. If that’s what you want I’ll take Trixie into my custody and oversee her rehabilitation.”

Maybe she hadn’t been expecting this deal to actually go through, but that last statement was enough to breathe life back into Trixie. Trixie perked up enough to sit up straight.

“So you can do it?” Dash asked.

“The four of us are the most influential people on the planet,” said Sunset. “I can make things happen. Nailbat’s a sap who won’t want to look less compassionate than me so he’ll keep his mouth shut. Starlight’s going to start sucking up to you once she hears you beat a witch so she’ll go along with it for you. I can take her under my custody if she cooperates.”

“I will cooperate so hard!” Trixie nodded eagerly. “I— to be honest I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I’m willing to listen to you this time!”

“I hope you realize that this is your last chance.” Sunset glared at Trixie one last time. “Most ponies will be angry at us for even giving you that. If you do anything to screw this up, I won’t be able to help you. You’ll never see the sun again.”

“I get it.” Trixie sighed in defeat once again. “I’ll do everything you tell me to.”

“There is one other thing, though. I’m not going to babysit her twenty-four-seven,” said Sunset. “Starlight won’t sign up for this and you two are the only other ones who might be approved to watch her. If you agree to take her for some time and understand you’ll be responsible for anything she does from now on… I’ll try.”

Dash and Twilight nodded in agreement.

“Thank you so much, Sunset!” Trixie put her hooves together. “I take back everything I ever said about you!”

Sunset gave her a curt nod before turning back to Dash.

“Rainbow Dash, right?” Sunset looked the card on the table over. “If it’s alright with you, I’m going to nominate you for rank S this weekend. No one will embarrass themselves by objecting. You should be promoted within a week.”

Dash’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t even manage to stumble over her own words.

All the exhaustion was gone. All her doubts in life were gone. Everything that ever had or ever would happen to Dash was suddenly worth it. She’d achieved what seemed like an impossible childhood dream. She’d never be happier than this moment!

Dash started to laugh. A manic look of pure joy overtook her face and she laughed harder.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Dash broke out into hysterical laughter of pure elation! If she fell off the chair, she didn’t notice! She was too happy to notice anything happening around her.

“And you said you were a refugee?” Sunset looked at Twilight. “I can get rid of all the barriers to citizenship for you and make sure nopony asks any questions. I know ponies from the pirate coast can have… questionable backgrounds. If you ever join the guild, I’ll immediately nominate you for rank S as well.”

“Oh! Thank you!” Twilight bowed her head. “I’m happy for that.”

Dash grabbed Twilight in a hug and began rocking both of them back and forth as she continued to laugh.

“Not as happy as her, but uh…” Twilight glanced at Dash, still laughing hysterically.

“Yes and I appreciate that.” Sunset nodded.

As Dash continued to laugh as Sunset did her best to ignore it.

“You’re going to have to talk to the media soon, and people will ask you harder and more detailed questions. I don’t want you looking like that when you do.” Sunset looked Dash up and down.

“Huh?” Dash blinked looked down at herself. “What do you mean?”

Looks weren’t something Dash thought about in a long time. Though now that it was brought up, she remembered it’d been almost a week since she’d bathed. Her fur was all over the place and discolored from swamp-goo in some places. She even had a patch of red from the dried blood where she cut herself.

Dash must have been hideous!

“And frankly you smell horrible too. I’ll buy you two or three days to rest and clean yourselves up,” said Sunset. “Then come back to me so I can coach you on what to say. You need to make a good first impression if you’re going to be useful.”

Useful?

Maybe Dash was getting herself in over her head.

But then who the heck was she kidding? Dash was in over her head the second she met Twilight! Being in over her head had worked out perfectly up till now, might as well let it ride!

“Um! Ma’am!” The guard came in and bowed to her. “Flash Bang is right outside. She’s demanding you tell her what happened.”

“Tell her this is my tent and she can’t get near it without my permission!” Anger flashed in Sunset’s eyes. She pounded a hoof on the table and stood halfway upright on it. “I’m the same rank as her! She doesn’t get to ‘demand’ anything from me!”

“Uh.” The guard was already cowed. He looked at the entrance of the tent and rubbed the back of his head like Sunset had just asked him to wrestle a dragon. “Can you please tell her that yourself?”

“Fine.” Sunset groaned and moved around the other side of the desk. “You two go out the back before it’s too late to leave.”

“I guess we’ll see you later,” Twilight said to Trixie.

“Hopefully.” Trixie looked to the side. “And don’t expect me to say this again, but… thanks.”

As the two of them snuck out the backdoor, Sunset opened the flap and immediately started yelling at whoever was on the other side. Dash got a brief flashback of her parents screaming at one another downstairs and shuddered.

Pinkie was right. Those guys really did hate each other.

“I can’t wait to get back.” Twilight rubbed her eyes. “Somehow that last part was the most exhausting. I need sleep.”

Beaming wide, Dash twirled around to face Twilight.

“What are you talking about?” Dash couldn’t stop herself from bobbing up and down in a bit of a dance. “Twilight, this is the best day of my life! I’ve never felt less tired! Heck, I’ll carry you all the way back! Come on.”

“That’s not—“ Twilight began to protest but already Dash had scooped her up and flew off to the south.

---

The two of them got out of there without anypony trying to tail them. No one saw them as ponies of interest just yet, though that might change soon. This might be the last time Dash could just casually stroll over to Rarity’s house, where they all decided to meet up afterward.

“I didn’t think you were seriously going to carry me all the way.” Twilight jumped out of her forelegs and landed in front of the castle with a loud yawn.

“Well, I’m still not tired!” Dash pranced in a circle around Twilight before striking a pose. “I don’t think you realize how big a deal getting to rank S is! I’ll never be tired again, Twilight!”

“Wait is that true?” Twilight became lost in thought. “You don’t need sleep anymore after this ‘promotion’ thing? I didn’t think it altered your biology. Do they inject you with something?”

“Never mind.” Dash put her hoof on the door and pushed it open. “I’ll try to explain it later.”

The lights were off, a pitch-black room waiting behind the front door. Dash silently swore that if something was going to attack her now of all times it wasn’t going to get any mercy.

They turned on the light to find the entrance room stuffed with balloons and streamers.

One of the largest cakes Dash had ever seen sat on a table. The thing was four layers tall with chocolate bars inserted on every surface. At the top was tied a single balloon much larger than all the others.

“Surprise!”

The most immediate surprise was Pinkie Pie, who jumped off that balloon and landed in front of the duo when they came in. Amazingly, it was able to hold her weight until now.

Behind her were all their other friends including Fluttershy, Applejack, Sweetie Belle, and an unfamiliar filly who Dash presumed to be Apple Bloom. Rarity sat in the corner, unamused by all of this but even she’d been willing to give an unenthusiastic ‘surprise’.

“Pinkie?” Dash asked.

“Guess whose birthday it is?” Pinkie jumped forward and grabbed both Dash and Twilight with either foreleg.

“Um.” Dash scratched her head on that one. It certainly wasn’t Dash’s. “Is it your birthday?”

“Hahaha! No, silly!” Pinkie laughed at the idea. “Can you imagine if I broke into Rarity’s house to throw myself a birthday party? No, no. I broke into Rarity’s house to throw Twilight a birthday party!”

It was Twilight’s birthday? The two of them remained stunned by the revelation. Dash doubted Twilight even knew what a birthday was. Though that thought brought an older conversation back to Dash’s mind.

“Oh, right. Forgot about that thing,” said Dash. “The surprise party.”

Pinkie tried lifting Twilight but was still two weight classes below an adult mare. She had to resort to using her psychic powers to lift Twilight and spin her around in a hug.

“And this is guaranteed to be your happiest birthday ever!”

“I have no idea what’s happening!” Twilight looked around in total confusion, not recognizing any of the things strewn about. “Is this good or bad?”

“I know! Isn’t it great? It’s the ultimate surprise party!”

Pinkie jumped back to her table of party supplies.

“See? I even got you a present!” Pinkie pushed out a box that was easily big enough for her to fit inside of. Then she lifted two much smaller boxes. “Oh! And I also got you a present from Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. I’m good at guessing what other ponies would have gotten you.”

“Kinda wish I coulda gotten you something too,” said Applejack. “But I had no idea it was your birthday and I don’t exactly have anything to give right now.”

“I helped Pinkie make some brownies, though!” The one presumed to be Apple Bloom pointed to a pile of brownies. “They’re the, uh, the not good ones. Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” said Twilight. “I had no idea it was my birthday either.”

“So were you surprised? I bet you never saw that one coming!”

“I still don’t know what I didn’t see coming, but I didn’t see it coming.” Twilight nodded.

“I still have to ask.” Rarity raised hoof hand. “Why, pray tell, are you throwing Twilight a birthday party in my home of all places? You can’t just break into my home whenever you want, Pinkie.”

“But didn’t you call me, Rarity?” Pinkie asked.

“Hm?” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I suppose I was the one who dialed.”

“Right! See I can guess who dialed the phone with ninety-seven percent accuracy! But Dashie was the one who left the message that we were having an ‘eight out of ten situation’ which I assumed meant you wanted me to throw the birthday party now.”

“You think a birthday party is an eight out of ten?” Dash asked. “Maybe I should have said it was a nine.”

“Oh, to me a nine is like the planet exploding or something,” said Pinkie.

“Then what the heck is a ten?!”

“The planet is exploding and I gotta go to a birthday party.”

“Right. Silly me.”

“But if this wasn’t the eight out of ten, then what was the eight out of ten?” Pinkie asked. “Did I miss something?”

“Yeah, you missed some stuff.” Dash rubbed the back of her head, thinking of the daunting task of explaining all this stuff to Pinkie. “You know what? It can wait. Let’s just have a party, huh?!”

Looking over the crowd, it seemed Dash and Pinkie were the only ones awake enough for this.

“A party is like one of your holidays, right?” Twilight yawned and lay down on Rarity’s fainting couch. “Can we do that tomorrow? I need to sleep.”

“That’s okay! It can be a slow-motion birthday party. We can have cake when you wake up,” said Pinkie. “Oh! Or a sleepover birthday party! Rarity! Can I sleep over at your house too?”

“After today I’m not sure if I can say no,” said Rarity. “So why not. I suppose there’s plenty of room here for all of us.”

“Yay!” Pinkie jumped up and cheered.

By then Twilight already had her eyes closed.

“Oh. I mean yay,” Pinkie whispered to Twilight and gave her a small pat on the back.

Rarity and Fluttershy looked like they’d fall asleep soon too.

“I gotta wonder.” Applejack sat next to her sister. “What in The Darklord’s name did you do to end up all the way over here?”

“Oh!” Apple Bloom said. “Well, that’s a funny story. See it happened like this…”

Comments

[Epsilon-Delta]

And now we're finally at the end of part one out of... three on the outline! Next is a short chapter, then the 'it's part 2 now' chapter!

Fun fact. In the original alpha 1 outline Dash didn't meet Fluttershy till the beginning of part 3. Imagine wondering where the heck Fluttershy was for 400K words...

[falloutshelters]

We've got the whole gang together now, I'm sure things will only get better and nothing bad will ever happen again.

[Axolotl222]

And now we wait for part 2.
10931270
Well, except for Spike and Scootaloo.

[Stahlseele]

The nitpicks are incoming, prepare yourself!

Still, they left her tied her up as they waited for the others to return.

her her

Dash felt like she was still had to pull an all-nighter before she’d be able to rest.

grammar does not like being broken like that.

The mud should feel filthy for having me had wallowed in it

tenses/grammar

She knew what was in a fair number of the buildings she could in that memory.

i guess see?

Dash remember that part of Twilight’s lectures

ed is missing

but Dash could make out the broad strokes up if from just above the treetops of the forest.

i . . simply do not understand that bit? ._.

Sunset was still watching Sunset carefully and perplexed

yeah, i would not trust sunset either if i were sunset . .

why is there a red line at the end there?

[Epsilon-Delta]

10931300
Alright I'm ready. How many you got?

[DracoDarastrix]

Hmmmm...... this seems a lot has happened in the aftermath. Surely because Sunset is a witch herself, she most likely suspects there is more to Rainbow Dash and Twilight then meets the eye. I surely hope Sunset doesn't have any spells to look into Trixie memories or other means to get to full story otherwise it might complicate things.

[Stahlseele]

10931306
7 i found on my second read.
I think i remember there somewhere being a you're/your mistake in there . .
But i could not find it anymore on my second read through sorry about that ._.

They are further down stream in the comments, i just edited that reply.

[manacar]

I love this

[Bahamuttone]

Still, they left her tied her up as they waited for the others to return.

remove

Dash felt like she was still had to pull an all-nighter

remove

Applejack lad them to the south,

led

Believe me, I’m doing you a lot for you.

Hmm I think this should go.

“You never met discord,” The Darklord reminded her.

Discord

What do I gotta do to not convince you I’m not some garbage jerkwad who will betray you the second I get the chance?!

This should go, unless it's Rainbow Dash getting tongue tied and changing her mind halfway through the sentence, but so it should be shown more.

“But my point is, it could a lot worse than even that,”

could be

A gaurdmare with a gun came marching over to them.

guardmare

Sunset was still watching Sunset carefully and perplexed,

Uh... this is perplexing ^^;;;

“Guess who’s birthday it is?”

whose

“Why, prey tell, are you throwing Twilight

pray

[Epsilon-Delta]

10931447
It's mentioned in chapter 22 (the next one) what happened to the griffons. Guess I can post it somewhat early as it's not really a spoiler.

Endless Paradise was an island about 50 miles off the pirate coast, across the ocean from Equestria. Just after the pirate coast were rough mountains where the griffons lived long ago.

Supposedly there were still griffons out there somewhere, but the curse of undeath destroyed their civilization and left that entire area uninhabitable. As soon as you landed on the coast you were always in danger of being mobbed by flesh-eating zombies. Maybe it was cruel in some ways, but none of the surviving nations allowed any significant griffon population inside them anymore. Any carnivorous population would slowly fill the country with deadlier zombies and eventually make in uninhabitable as well.

The only saving grace was that zombie griffons couldn’t fly. The remaining griffons all lived in small, isolated cities surrounded by high walls somewhere beyond the pirate coast. If Dash and her friends ever got rid of the zombies, those guys would love them forever at least.

[Zetari]

“No need to worry!” Rarity assured her. “She’s with an unstoppable killing machine.”

And so the cutie monster Crusaders begin to form

[3phantoms]

10931207
Firstly, I'm going to start by saying that I love this story. Dash acting as a mostly flat positive character for Twilight is a wonderful subversion, Aria taxidermy-ing her own body to use is one of my favorite things in fiction. All of it. And the... underlying nonchalant attitude the general world has to common fictional tropes like curses and gods is just a treat.

Second, you actually do plan your stories. Not asking, I noticed in your comment. This story got me to read some of your others and I wasn't disappointed. Your preparation shows.

[immolation12]

I have no idea if Sunset saying she was one of the most influential people on the planet was a reference to the mirror portal or if it's just a coincidence, but I'm definitely going to keep it in mind as a possibility.

[Asolem2]

“Oh, I hang with this guy.” Applejack gestured to The Darklord. “No issue at all to me.”

Fair enough

“I get it now!” Dash smacked her forehooves together. “So Flash Bang isn’t worried that Starlight will become an alicorn. She’s worried Starlight will fail and unleash something horrible on the rest of us! I guess if we knew that, we would have sided with her, huh?”

But that implies that Flash Bang knows about the Ascension spell and it's potential fallout

“I gotta wonder.” Applejack sat next to her sister. “What in The Darklord’s name did you do to end up all the way over here?”

She made a friend

[Josiador]

Yay, best girl (Sunset) is here! And she's not evil! I like how you acknowledge that she's technically the Element of Empathy in canon. Now all they need to do is get the Thing from Starlight and stop her from trying to become the Alicorn of Cutie Marks or something, and we'll have the whole R.U.G.(Reformed Unicorn Group)!

This was a good chapter, lots of mysteries solved, and nothing bad happened to the characters. It's almost suspicious how well things are going for them, I keep expecting it to all come crashing down at any moment.

10931707
If there's one thing I could believe exists in this world, it's a portal to another world filled with sapient apes.

[Pensive]

Odd, this story should've already been on my tracking list... a good thing I remembered I say it on the featured box whilst it got updated.

[Pensive]

“Maybe we could take her with us?” Twilight suggested without much confidence. “I still don’t think she should be fighting anypony, but her knowledge of the other witches could still be useful.”

Who else thinks this is going to backfire.

---

Breaking News: World Witches Suddenly Allies/Defeated?!
Concern for possible world conquest? Or something worse?

---

[TwiDasherboop]

https://cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/lleh-1627569515-480844-medium

The cover image is so cute!!!

[Epsilon-Delta]

10932787
Because the sewers have monsters in them and not everyone wants to risk a direct pipeline to that. Especially not a school.

[Jack14]

I have a question how are werewolves made

[Dinode]

Why do I get the feeling that "befriend Discord" is another option for the curse, but nobody likes him enough to consider it.

[Epsilon-Delta]

10933204
I think if you're a super sleuth you have just enough information to know approximately 90% of Celestia's backstory by now (as in once you've gotten to chapter 21). There's a few things no one seems to have noticed yet.

[vader10001]

I'm really glad I picked this story up on a whim. this has been a really fun time. I love the incredibly casual attitude this story has to a horror world. Zombies being mostly harmless because they are still herbivores is brilliant. Also, I love how clever Dash is. She's an idiot, but she's one quick thinker.

[Neece]

As a shipper I feel personally attacked by this story. By all means though, do continue.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well, this turned out fairly well. Fame, fortune, friendship, one more bit of divine wisdom on tap...

As long as Dash stays close to her friends in the near future, this looks like it’ll go well for her. Looking forward to seeing how it all goes horribly awry.

[vader10001]

10933519

I swear I run into you everywhere on this site. You were summoned by the card games, weren’t you?

[Greenhorn]

Another good chapter. I really enjoy it.

[sesquipedalian]

Amazing world building in this fic. Great pacing and funny too!

[Epsilon-Delta]

10934659
Or this.

10933084
Well originally they come from super radiation.

[Daethalion]

Can't wait to see where it goes next. I'm guessing Trixie is gonna end up causing shenanigans purely by accident.

[Alondro]

10942435

Pfft, unlike SOME mortals, I can comprehend non-Euclidean objects!

[Alondro]

10942452 Harvey is terrified of owls. We Doomentites know this.

[ShadwSonic]

10942566
Ah, that's the level you're at. Not quite at the whole "visualizing the unmaking of all things down to the quark" level, but pretty respectful all the same. I think I was around that point prior to my "Eldritchification"? Kind of hard to remember.

[Alondro]

10943837 Oh, I never said that was the limit. I'm at the level of pondering the absolute nothingness of the pre-universe, at the point where space and dimension itself didn't exist yet.

And when I looked there... I saw only myself! And I was like, "Oh hi, me." And Me was like, "Yo, wuzzup!" And then I was all, "Dude, you been here chillin' the whole time?" And Me shrugged, and replied, "Well, not like there's anything else to do until reality is invented!" So I said, "DUDE! Seriously? It's YOUR job to invent reality! DUHHHHHHH!!" And then Me blinked and facepalmed, "OMG, you're totally right! I need to get busy with dat shiz!"

[ShadwSonic]

10943881
That's entirely different than what I saw... you sure that wasn't a dream? The preexistence guy I met was definitely NOT Alondro... or me for that matter.

[Nez12213]

Fluttershy came back with Applejack first. Applejack regained consciousness upon returning, but only long enough to yell something incoherent about the price of watermelons before falling asleep. Dash was jealous of her. After such a long day, Dash wished somepony would bash her head against a tree and knock her out.

does she still have that lucky coin?

This plan was getting better and better!”

There is an end quote but no start.

“Well we rescued Applejack like you wanted. Now tell us what you know about Starlight,” Dash demanded.”

end quote again.

[Epsilon-Delta]

10944883
1. Witches mostly just have access to certain techniques and training methods that the normies don’t. They can cast spells other ponies can't and train to a level beyond that of anyone else. Also they only train ponies who are absolute geniuses in these fields so their starting point is higher than most others.
Some examples of their unique knowledge include:
-How to make curses.
-How to use mind fibers and spell books (Which also allows them to very rapidly obtain new skills).
-How to make and use the cauldrons Twilight has.
-Training techniques and equipment like the spiny thing.
-From the next chapter to be posted: how to cast spells with your entire body, hence Twilight and Trixie’s entire body glowing sometimes. Casting magic with your whole body allows much bigger spells than a normal pony would be capable of. They also know how to convert the magic of one tribe to another, effectively allowing them to use the magic of all three types of ponies.

But a wizard is just a pony who’s good at magic. Derpy meant somepony who was simply better at fighting than them.

2. Ghosts eat heat and only heat. Not the blood itself, just the warmth from it. Heat has different ‘flavors’ to ghosts depending on what it was and how it was heated. Nothing’s really a spoiler so here’s the tier list for how good things taste:
-Body heat from a living thing is the absolute best. Absolute perfection is body heat taken directly from the blood of the same species as you (pony blood in Fluttershy’s case). The only problem is it’s so good eating other heat sources becomes difficult if you do it too often. It has a fairly strong addictive quality.
-Heat from burning a living thing is the next best. This includes wood and charcoal fires, the latter being Fluttershy’s favorite food.
-Fire from fossil fuels is next, followed by things heated up from fire.
-Most other heat sources like electricity, friction etc are fairly bland.
-Things heated up from the sun taste pretty gross. A ghost won’t take the heat from the sun unless they are starving.
-Glowing hot metal and metal fires are too disgusting for even a starving ghost. Liquid metal (especially iron) smells disgusting enough that ghosts won’t get near it unless they have to. A vat of liquid iron can be a sort of ghost repellent for this reason. Ghosts tend to avoid volcanoes and metalworks.

10944848

does she still have that lucky coin?

Twilight has it at this point, IIRC. Also you have to explicitly ask the coin what the chances of X happening are for it to work.

[Tali_The_Lamia]

10945063
Thats my point. They shouldn`t be blaming Twilight because Witches & Wizards are using her magic for evil. Otherwise then they should blame the creator of the Gun, Sword, and Arrow for the deaths of thousands.

[Alondro]

10944606 Well, WHICH multiverse were you in? There are an infinite number of infinite multiverses, after all.

[ShadwSonic]

10945284
THAT explains it! When I was talking about preexistence, I was referring to that which came before anything in any universe was made, not just my local multiverse!
Or in other words, when "everything" and "nothing" truly meant the same thing.

[Alondro]

10945303 When everything and nothing were the same thing... ah, basically New Jersey today.

[TwiDasherboop]

This was great!
I really liked the Vivid details and the ending.
Moar?

[Epsilon-Delta]

10947377
Soon. The next two chapters should come in quick succession.

[ShadwSonic]

Wait, there's no more chapters? I thought for sure I had at least another one after this to go through!

[Alondro]

“Like part of the training these days is getting rid of your aversion towards hurting other ponies,” said Trixie. “They make you beat the crap out of some random pony now and then to try and kill your empathy towards others.

Pfft, being forced to watch the Star Wars sequel trilogy will accomplish the same thing.

[Alondro]

“She’s not wrong,” Dash admitted. “There’s no way she won’t end up in Area 5X. Barely anypony is allowed inside that place, so I dunno how bad it is inside of there. Equestria doesn’t have a death penalty, though.”

Soooo, I can go into this universe, kill as many ponies as I can get away with... and the worst that'll happen is I'll end up in the equivalent of current-day Australia (I KNOW ABOUT YOUR CAMPS, YOU BASTARDS!!)... Yeeeeessssssss, sounds like the perfect place for conquest!

[Alondro]

“Of course it’s not inevitable. Don’t you know time is simply an illusion created by your inability to reverse entropy?”

Well, that's KINDA correct, but not EXACTLY. See, it's more of the perception of the average progression of entropy in the universe at a given moment. Since quantum effects sort of average out about the same in most normal space locations, we all perceive time at the same rate.

Now, probabilistic effects decrease with acceleration, and thus the faster you go, the more time appears to slow to a traveler moving faster and faster, until it's at a relative dead stop for travelers at the speed of light. It also stretches out your atoms into thin spindles... which is not conducive to living. So don't try to do that.

In truth, going super-fast is NOT sending you into the future, it's merely slowing down YOUR passage of 'time', basically like a quantum suspended animation. You are aging more slowly than the rest of the universe rather than actually going THROUGH time. That's why backwards time travel is impossible. You cannot age in reverse, as that would require impossible knowledge of the positions of every particle in your body at every given past position, which is forbidden by every rule of quantum mechanics, and would require an obscene amount of energy to accomplish.

When you hit the speed of light, you run into a 'brick wall' so to speak, where your relative time comes to a halt. It's highly possible in that state you'll become more of a wave function than matter, and kinda just... dismantle... into quantum information, carried as radiation. It's what appears to happen at the event horizon of a black hole, but there the gravity also squishes the matter into an atom-thick layer. In open space at that speed, your atoms would be stretched until they become much like electromagnetic waves.

We see that with protons accelerated to the near the speed of light. They achieve wave characteristics.

You can't go faster than light in normal space for the simple reason that YOUR time cannot go back on itself. You see, the UNIVERSE would not be going back in its OWN time if you went faster than light; your matter would be attempting to reverse its own existence. And so you see why that cannot be, yes?

[SamuelK28]

“Oh, I hang with this guy.” Applejack gestured to The Darklord. “No issue at all to me.”

That reaction

[SamuelK28]

“So?” The Darklord pulled back, deeper into her chains. “What’s your second question?”

A mistake or a slip?

[SamuelK28]

Twilight was still learning to trust other people and this guy was just playing on her weakness. That was it. He was trying to pit them against each other so they’d waste their last question!

One downside of this story I have noticed is the constant error and us of the word person or people instead pony or ponies. Just could use either an editor or a little more thorough proofreading.