Ghosts 6: Little Ghost of Horror
“Wow! That was a crazy adventure, huh?” Derpy had one eye covered in ice as she lay on Twilight’s couch, only slightly bruised from the attack. “I can’t believe that snake guy got away, though. Those ponies sure are tricky. But there’s no winning against you, huh Twilight?”
Pinkie followed Twilight back to her tree house in Rarity’s backyard, looking like she had something she wanted to say. Twilight was a bit busy, so she didn’t ask. She stayed looking over her cauldron. This was all very urgent. The latest attack made Twilight realize she couldn’t dawdle.
Twilight picked up the last of the three curved blades she was working on. Just a little more and her project would be complete.
Pinkie took one last look at Derpy before deciding it was okay to just blurt it out.
“Twi, you got a minute?” Pinkie asked. “I never know what you’re doing down here.”
“I’m pretty busy, but you can talk.”
“Twilight. I think you hurt Dash’s feelings.”
“What?” Twilight blinked and turned to Pinkie. “When?”
“When you went after Derpy.” Pinkie came up next to Twilight, standing barrel to barrel with her, just a bit shorter. “You noticed she’s got self-worth issues, right?”
“Excuse me? Rainbow Dash is highly confident. She’s incredibly proactive and never quits.” Twilight shook her head. Rainbow Dash was always the one encouraging Twilight. “If she seems upset it’s because– well I don’t know if she mentioned this to you, but her mom abandoned her when she was young and her father just kind of checked out after that. So she’s afraid of being abandoned.”
Twilight nodded. The two of them were the same deep down. Twilight had been betrayed by Flash Sentry and Starswirl and was afraid of Dash abandoning her. But Dash was never going to leave Twilight no matter what.
Dash felt the same way underneath it all and Twilight was never leaving Dash either. So it all worked out.
“Of course, I’m not going to abandon Dash,” Twilight finally concluded. “So there’s no problem.”
“I think you might be projecting a little,” said Pinkie.
“Projecting what?” Twilight turned to face Pinkie. “Dash told me all about it. I know her better than anypony else.”
Pinkie considered another avenue.
“Okay. You see how she gets kind of… uh, self-destructive when she’s upset about something?” Pinkie asked. “Aren’t you worried about that?”
“I mean.” Twilight dipped a metal boot into the cauldron. “She can be a little reckless sometimes.”
“Are you kidding me?” Derpy asked. “Do you know all the crazy stuff she used to throw herself into? And she just kept getting worse. Dash was borderline suicidal when she went out looking for you way back when. I begged her not to go out there by herself, but she just wouldn’t listen.”
Twilight’s ears dropped the moment Derpy said the word ‘suicidal’. That wasn’t at all how she pictured Dash and something she never wanted to connect to the pegasus.
Sometimes Twilight forgot Derpy knew Dash longer than anypony else here, potentially longer than all of them combined.
“You’re not saying–” Twilight bit her lip, turning her attention from her work.
“Na, I’m less worried about her than I’ve ever been.” Derpy looked at Pinkie. “Dash calmed way down this past year. I think she’s doing a lot better now that she dates mares. I guess that kind of thing makes a big difference. Geez. If I knew Dash was like this back then, I would have hooked her up with Cloud Kicker right away. But then again, I would have ended the world by doing that so um.”
Derpy folded her forelegs to ponder that moral quandary.
“Well, that’s great.” Pinkie kept her frown, though. “But Dash is insecure about… I dunno. But mostly about not being able to keep up with us.”
“Dash is still incredibly useful,” said Twilight.
“I’m not sure how different it is with witch culture, but you notice how the best fighters are the ones in charge of the government? And the strongest ponies are the most respected ones? We put way too much emphasis on having superpowers that it causes widespread anxiety.”
“It’s true!” Derpy nodded. “In school, we take combat training and they post your rankings on the board outside. Dash was usually in last place, you know. And being in last place in combat training meant you were the biggest loser in class. Nothing else really matters compared to that. And um…”
Derpy hesitated to reveal more. She looked around, agonizing over some dark secret.
“Well, maybe I can tell you this since you’re her girlfriend.”
Derpy trotted up next to Twilight.
“After her dad died and she moved in with us, I figured out why Dash was so weak. It was because she didn’t get enough food cause she was so poor,” Derpy whispered it. “So she never had the energy to go as hard as the rest of us. Dash did get a lot stronger afterward, but we were already in senior year, so it was too late for her reputation.”
Dash had told Twilight about being abandoned by her mother and would go on and on about how terrible her relationship with her father was… but this part was new to Twilight. Had Twilight not gained her total confidence yet?
Twilight could hardly deny that Dash was the weakest member of their faction, despite being the most useful and Twilight’s favorite by a lot. She simply hadn’t considered that ‘normal’ society may have given Dash her own toxic relationship with power.
Maybe everypony put too much emphasis on it, but it was hardly unfounded. In this world, power was important. Power was what kept you alive. And Twilight wasn’t going to let Dash get hurt again!
“I understand what you’re saying.” Twilight clicked her device together, nearly completing it. “Don’t worry, I already came up with a solution to the problem.”
“Is it talking to her?” Pinkie asked.
“What? No! I’m going to solve this with magic.”
“I’m not sure you can do that.”
“Of course I can! Just look at–”
Twilight moved to take out her now-complete project but quickly stuffed it away in hiding when the door opened. Its recipient, Rainbow Dash came through the door.
Even though Twilight was kind of the source of Dash’s current anxiety, her brain must have developed a hardwired connection between Twilight and solving problems. Running to Twilight for comfort was an urge Dash had to resist now. She hadn’t fully realized until now that was her reflexive response to any problem, to go find Twilight.
She should just be happy she had somepony to grift onto when she felt down, now.
Either way, Dash gave in to the urge to find Twilight and go to her side. Just sitting on the couch in the same room as Twilight did relieve that nagging feeling, at least.
Twilight came running right up to Dash like she was a puppy.
“Hey, Dash!” Twilight looked down at her from over the back of the couch. “Are you upset over being the weakest member of our faction and feel like you can’t carry your own weight and stuff?”
Or maybe she’d spoken too soon.
“Um.” Dash stared blankly at the ceiling. “Yes.”
“Good!” Twilight smiled.
“Excuse me?” Dash pushed herself back up, staring daggers into Twilight’s back. She wouldn’t be able to take one more second of this.
“Because I got you a present!”
Dash sat up at attention from that.
Twilight produced a metal object made of dark, purple metal. It was a single boot meant for the forehoof. Claw blades were a common enough weapon that Dash could tell they had retracted metal claws inside. Though usually, you had two of them.
“What’s this?”
“Remember that pendant I gave you a while back?”
“The mind fiber one? I can do all those spells on my own now. Does this have more?” Dash asked.
“Almost fifty times what you had the first time,” Twilight explained. “It’s not entirely like before, either. I think you’ve improved enough to use it for things other than spells now. Put it on and come outside.”
That made her forget her troubles! Had she gotten that far ahead? It felt like she’d made almost zero progress.
Dash put on the boot, feeling a slight rush. Dash couldn’t get dizzy anymore and never would again if Twilight were right. It was more like she could see the information entering her mind. Not just her head, but her whole body felt like tiny needles were pricking all over. She needed to squint to maintain focus, this felt like the threshold of her limit for now.
“What do you mean other than spells?” Dash followed Twilight outside.
“Muscle memory and combat intuition can also be imprinted onto mind fibers,” said Twilight, “and built up over generations. Besides just my hundreds of years of training, I have the culmination of several generations of witches spanning millennia. That’s why the proficiency of witches is vastly beyond that of what any normal pony could hope to achieve in a single lifetime. Because I effectively have a hundred behind me. Watch.”
Twilight lifted a rock the size of her head. With a single spell, she both crushed it and sent the debris forward like a shotgun blast. Normally, this was the worst kind of attack for Dash to run into. Her main strategy had always been turning into a bunch of crows but something this spread out would be too hard to dodge!
And yet… Dash knew this was nothing to worry about.
She couldn’t explain how she saw it, but she just knew that Twilight had aimed it perfectly so that the shrapnel would all just barely miss her. As Twilight promised, it was mere intuition. And somehow, she was fast enough in her thinking to figure all this out in that split second when the rock shattered.
Though she hesitated despite herself, Dash managed to stand perfectly still and let the makeshift bullets fly by.
Just being able to see through an attack that normally she wouldn’t even be able to react to… Dash smiled. Then Twilight smiled. And Dash let out a small laugh.
Derpy watched on, confused as to what just happened. But Dash knew the implications of it.
Twilight picked up a second rock and cast the same spell a second time. This time, in that split second, Dash knew it was aimed at her for real.
It wasn’t like the claw blade took over or anything. Dash simply knew what to do as though she’d spent years training for this. She instantly noticed where all the pieces of the rock would hit. She noticed the gap.
With absolute certainty, Dash slid to the left and moved her body into the exact right position. Rocks hit the ground next to her feet and whizzed by her face with less than an inch of room between them. But not one touched her.
Derpy smiled a little seeing what must have seemed like a stunt move, but Twilight wasn’t done. Dash felt now like she could anticipate Twilight’s actions just a little. She was moving to fire three more shots at Dash, aimed even better than that last one.
The gap was too small this time, but Dash managed to cast the murder spell and slip through as a crow, turn back, slip through the second shot, then the third…
All while moving forward. All with barely any more thought than she’d give to opening a bottle. All executed with perfect smoothness and certainty. Dash wove through what should have been an undodgeable barrage and landed just two steps away from Twilight.
Then Twilight launched the most extreme attack yet. Rocks flew at Dash from every angle, even faster than before.
Twilight went too hard just then! Dash’s eyes widened. She knew on reflex what was going to happen now, but that just meant knowing her fate was inevitable.
Dash felt a tug on her magic. The air around her moved rapidly, creating a thin wind wall faster than Dash would have been able to herself.
“The claw blade has a few innate abilities in addition to the mind fibers I installed,” Twilight explained. “Your second line of defense is this matrix that will create a barrier if something collides with you. It’ll be enough to stop most attacks, but it does draw magic straight from your body, so you’ll get exhausted fast.”
“This is incredible!” Dash laughed again. It was like all the pain she had just faded away! “Derpy! Derpy, try to punch me!”
Dash sat down and held her forelegs out.
“Huh? Are you sure?” Derpy came over. “I guess it might be okay.”
Dash had never actually managed to be Derpy in a straight hoof fight. Derpy was near the top of their class and Dash was near the bottom. They must have fought two hundred times in CT class over the years, always resulting in Dash being pinned shortly into the fight.
Derpy flew over to Dash and swung a hoof in a bit of an uppercut, followed by a cross-jab. Dash saw it coming a mile away as if Derpy were suddenly telegraphing her moves to an absurd extent.
She coolly slid out of the way of attack after attack, not just dodging but purposely cutting it so close Derpy had trouble believing she was missing. It seemed like Dash could simply dodge anything now.
After a second, Derpy started taking it more seriously and her punches came much faster. Dash couldn’t show off anymore. She was forced to grab one of Derpy’s hooves and pull it to get out of the way.
She quickly realized that Derpy was still faster and stronger than her. The claw blade didn’t give Dash either of those things. But it did give her the skill of ten martial arts masters. All that meant was Dash’s intuition was giving her different instructions.
Derpy was too fast for her to keep dodging like this, but.
When Derpy spun to try and buck, Dash tapped Derpy’s rear legs up slightly putting them just out of reach of her face. She then slid under Derpy, giving her a clear view of Derpy’s belly.
If Dash wanted to hurt Derpy, well this position would be game over even if Derpy were ten times as strong as Dash. But instead, she grabbed onto Derpy’s forelegs, then thrust up with her rear legs.
Derpy flipped right onto her back. Dash moved a forehoof onto Derpy’s neck, signaling the end of the match. Dash looked down, breathing heavily. Her new skills wanted to push her a little harder than she could go, but the results were there. Dash had actually won!
“I can’t believe I pinned you for once!” Dash collapsed onto her flanks, laughing again.
“That stuff is incredible!” Derpy got back on her hooves. “The difference is so huge! Why aren’t we all high on mind fibers? Everypony should be doing this stuff all day every day.”
“Here, I’ll show you.” Dash unlatched her new claw blade and removed it. It could only be affecting one pony at a time. “Catch.”
Dash gently threw it to Derpy, who did catch it. But the second she did, her eyes peeled out, looking in opposite directions.
“Wuh. Wah.”
Derpy dropped the boot and began spinning and stumbling about trying desperately to regain her bearings before finally falling onto her side. She then lay there making various noises as she stared up at the sky.
Dash supposed in an emergency she could hit somepony with pure dizziness like that.
“And you’re lucky,” said Dash, though she wasn’t sure if Derpy could make it all out. “When Twilight taught me this lesson, she chucked her entire spellbook at me. I passed out for three hours.”
Dash hooked the claw blade back on, determined to never take this thing off ever again!
“And one more thing,” Twilight added. “If you concentrate, you should be able to notice the spells woven into the fibers as well.”
Dash had noticed them. She recognized a lot of these as spells Trixie was fond of.
Dash spread her wings and four swords of ethereal blue light appeared just in front of Dash, slashing at the air. Maneuvering their physicality exactly right would allow her to attack through even solid objects or armor. But more importantly, a second spell sent them moving forward by themselves.
This was the dancing sword spell! Dash could make the ethereal weapons she summoned to fight on their own.
Dash wiped some sweat from her brow. Her wings ached a little from using so much magic so fast.
“Just remember, this doesn’t make you any stronger!” Twilight warned. “You won’t be able to throw out hundreds of dancing swords in a short time like Trixie can. A lot of these will exhaust you quickly, but they can provide you a distraction.”
Most of the spells did seem to be summoning spells like that. Going through the list felt like remembering the answers to a test she just studied for.
There were spells to summon elementals… and on that note was the elemental resonance spell!
“There’s so much stuff I want to try out!” Dash was panting, but she barely felt it. There was just so much to try out. “This is the best thing anypony ever gave to me! Thanks, Twilight!”
“There. You see?” Twilight trotted past Pinkie with a huge smile. “I solved the underlying problem just like you said.”
“I don’t think this solves the actual problem, Twilight!” Pinkie frowned looking between the three of them, but none of them paid her much attention. They were all laughing and smiling too much. “Well, I guess if it makes you happy that works too.”
Sonata decided to make a last-minute bucket list. If she was going to die, then at least she’d die mindlessly obeying her dark mistress so that wasn’t so bad. But she might as well make the best of what time she had left.
Of course, there wasn’t a lot to do in a tiny train station all alone. She checked off ‘do a backflip’ quick. After that, all she could think to do was sing all her favorite childhood songs one last time.
“It doesn’t matter who you hurt! If you’re just proving you’re the best!” Sonata belted it out, then stopped to reflect. “Huh. Now that I’m going through them, a lot of these lyrics Adagio wrote are kind of disturbing.”
She went through a few more in her head.
Feel the wave of sound as it crashes down. You can’t turn away, we’ll make you want to stay.
Yeah! They were all like that.
Now that she thought about it, Adagio wrote a lot of songs about taking over the world and forcing everypony to love her when they were kids. Sometimes Sonata wondered if Adagio would have done something crazy had things gone differently.
But even if she had succeeded, then it would be Adagio ruling the world instead of her mistress and that’d be no good. Even if Sonata would get to be her lackey instead. Adagio was mean, but she’d still be nicer to Sonata.
And at least she’d get somepony to sing with. Sonata used to love singing with Adagio and Aria when they were little, even if Adagio got angry every time Sonata missed a note. Sonata was usually forbidden from singing anymore since her mistress didn’t want anypony in Sonata’s family to be happy. Which was fair.
Memories of those old days came flooding back, giving her an idea.
“Oh! I could write my memoirs!” Sonata Dusk announced. “That’s something ponies do right before they die!”
Sonata looked around, remembering she had nothing to even write it on. She could carve it into the wall, but that’d take too long.
“I guess maybe I can’t do that.” Sonata fell onto her side. “It’s not like anypony would even read it. The only pony I’m gonna talk to again is Fluttershy. And what are the chances Fluttershy’s going to want to listen to me complain about all that stuff anyway?”
Sonata silently gave up on her memoirs.
A small, but elite contingent of the Bloodstorm Cartel waited some distance from the battlefield. Batton Pass, second in command of the Bloodstorm Cartel, would describe her main squad, consisting mostly of bat ponies such as herself, as a formidable force. They had their bodies modified by mad scientists long ago, during the days their organization’s namesake still lived. Batton Pass and her compatriots were essentially super combat organisms.
But that was worth little on a day like today. Screwball herself was present and all the others together weren’t worth half as much as her in a fight. Then there were those two. Either one beyond even Screwball’s strength.
Screwball had little plushies made of all of them, herself, her sister, and a blue alicorn. These were to reenact the battle strategy because of course they were. She bashed the Silverstorm doll against the blue alicorn, knocking the latter over. In their estimation, that was how it would go but they couldn’t know.
“So my sister and the ultimate battle doll will duke it out.” Screwball lifted the doll of herself and brought it crashing down on the Silverstorm doll. “I figure whoever wins will be exhausted afterward, so that’s when I suddenly appear and finish the winner off!”
“But what if there’s a decisive victor?” Batton asked. “One could be vastly more powerful than the other.”
“We have backup plans for both! If Sis turns out to be a chump, we focus everything on Project Moonstone. If it’s the opposite, we still have the Triumvirate Protocol to take care of Silverstorm.”
Batton Pass was less than thrilled about the name of the second plan. Codenames weren’t supposed to be too similar to their actual intention.
For all her faults, Screwball had managed to create plans to destroy their two biggest threats right now, Crater Cemetery and Silverstorm. The former was something they’d been working on for over a decade… the azoth spell, the ultimate weapon of destruction. The only thing that could destroy what was essentially a god.
Of course, they would optimistically get one shot with the spell. Hypothetically, they could use it to destroy Silverstorm instead but that was still considered a waste. Crater Cemetery – that thing – was a far greater threat than Silverstorm in every regard. But ideally, they would kill both.
So if Silverstorm didn’t wear herself out enough for Screwball to kill her here? The Triumvirate Protocol would be their only solution. And if that couldn’t stop her either, then Silverstorm was far beyond the abilities of any mortal to defeat.
Batton Pass already had plans to escape far, far to the south with the other bat ponies. A private island loaded up with gold and bearer bonds where she could live in comfort, hiding. The best-case scenario would be if both Screwball and Silverstorm died in the Triumvirate Protocol. Oh, did Batton Pass have plans for that scenario. And ways to tip the balance in favor of just that playing out.
But before all that. Crater Cemetery would need to be completely obliterated. Or there would be no point to plans.
“Still. We can kill Fluttershy either way.” Screwball turned her telescope back to the train station. “No way my beloved sister will be able to protect her through what’s about to happen. We attack immediately! Don’t even give those ponies ten seconds to talk. And then Rainbow Dash. Don’t kill her. Not yet.”
She turned it next to where those ponies were expected to set up their support station.
The Bloodstorm Cartel had significant firepower on their side, even without Screwball. Their ace would only show up at the last minute and only if the right scenarios played out. The hope was that Silverstorm and that battle doll would nullify one another and create immense chaos for them to take advantage of.
“What are they waiting for?” Screwball threw her telescope to the side. “It’s been an hour and everypony is just sitting here! I’m bored! Yo! MSC pony! You got something interesting to show me, yeah?”
The yellow-uniformed, gas-mask-wearing salespony from the Mad Science Cartel stepped forward. A small group of them usually followed Screwball carefully like the bottom feeders they were, just in case she got bored. They always had some expensive thing to sell to her whether it was a weapon or some rare object they’d uncovered.
“Actually, I have a very interesting sale on giant monsters!” He offered with a bow of his head. “You know how rarely we offer a discount on those.”
“What is it this time?”
“Giant Cockroaches! Forty feet in length. And because you’re such a great customer, we’ll sell them for a mere five thousand bits each. Normally, they’d be four times that much.”
“Aw, you.” Screwball smiled, leaning into her hoof. “Did you screw up and spill some serum again?”
“Hm.” He paused a moment. “Maybe. Look, it’s still a steal either way!”
“Look, I don’t mind owning gross stuff, but I don’t want to look at it, okay? What else?”
“Hehe. Yes, well.” Nervously he beckoned to one of the lower-ranked ponies in yellow. “We have recovered what once was considered a sacred object from Simmer Sun island. We’ve prepared a treat exclusive to the island for you to try.”
The underling gave Screwball a plot something like a muffin, only purple, to try.
“This is a sword forged over five thousand years ago, near the start of the Royal Era.” He took out a sword, fully red, with an intricate pattern of orange flames along the side.
“Oooh. What does it do?”
“You see, we modified its initial–”
His sales pitch was interrupted when Screwball bit into their offering and spat it out immediately.
“What the hell?!” Screwball coughed, her eyes wincing. “Do they really use this much baking soda in Simmer Sun?! I can taste it.”
The salespony shot his subordinate a look.
“Um.” The lesser of the two stepped back. “It was three tablespoons? Oh, wait. TSP is… uh? Was that teaspoons?”
“You!”
“I’m used to the metric system!”
The upper-ranked pony from MSC had no hesitation. He pulled his hoof back and smashed the subordinate in the face hard enough to knock him to the ground and break the glass on his visor.
“How dare you embarrass us in front of Screwball?!” The salespony continued to kick his subordinate, now curled up on the ground and bleeding.
It seemed harsh, but the pony getting pummeled was no doubt grateful he was spared from Screwball punishing him instead. If he wasn’t, he should be. This was a mercy.
This was all highly unusual. It wasn’t like MSC to make a mistake. What were the chances of that?
“Somepony just–” Screwball coughed. “Bring me a soda! I gotta wash away this horrible taste!”
A far too eager pony ran up with the bottle and opened it for her. He must have bounded over too quickly because the top exploded in a geyser of fizz right into Screwball’s face.
Everypony’s expression froze as time seemed to stop. Screwball grabbed the bottle and shattered it on the guy’s face.
“What the crow is going on here?! What is this amateur hour?” Screwball coughed. “I feel like I’m going to puke. I’m going to go find something to drink.”
Screwball stood up.
“Screwball! You can’t just leave like this!” Batton Pass complained. “Not now!”
“I’ll be back in a half hour. They’re taking forever anyway.”
“That’s a long time!”
“Look, just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, alright?”
As if anypony knew what the queen would do. Screwball was the highest ace and the greatest weakness of the Bloodstorm Cartel. So often, Batton felt saddled to the back of a rampaging beast.
The whole pirate coast may very well be better off had the brat never been born.
Screwball was already long gone, though, leaving Batton Pass to monitor the situation alone. She took one look through the telescope and saw Silverstorm and Fluttershy just now headed to the target.
“Oh, great! Now they move.” Batton Pass turned back to the train station. “Of all the rotten luck!”
“What do we do?”
“Well we’re not going over there without Screwball, I’ll tell you that much! Stay down!”
Far to the west, a second contingent watched the scene. A row of three mechanical constructs, battle dolls, waited patiently for the fray. Each would stand thirty feet tall on all fours, each resembling a suit of pony armor in deep shades of purple. Terrible claws and fangs dominated their appearance. Twin mounted crystals attached to their back stood ready to fire. Green flames bellowed from the mouth of the largest one standing in the center.
These were weapons constructed by ghosts, dolls specifically designed to be possessed for combat purposes.
A single ghost, a unicorn yellow but heavily freckled, covered in chains, floated in front of them, forelegs folded as felt out the situation through aura alone.
“What is the Bloodstorm Cartel waiting for?!” Sour Sweet clicked her tongue.
This was taking far too long! Sour Sweet felt a stirring in the aura and knew waiting much longer to start the assault.
“I guess it’s up to me to pull the trigger.”
Sour Sweet put a hoof on the lead battle doll. As a poltergeist, she was the type of ghost best suited for possessing and controlling objects. She was an expert when it came to piloting these juggernauts. Even just one hoof pressed against it was all she needed to bring it to life.
It stood up on all four terrible legs! And then-
Something snapped! It tumbled back down to the ground with a formidable thud. Sour Sweet gaped at the sight! She couldn’t possibly fight at anything less than 100%!
“A mechanical failure?!” She shook her head violently. “Come on! What are the chances of this happening now of all time?!”
It’d take at least a half hour to get the battle doll up and running again. She had no choice and went to work.
Fluttershy and Twilight began their walk forward. If Twilight herself weren’t right next to Fluttershy, there was no way she would have approached that place.
Nopony with any perception of aura could have missed it. It was still off in the distance, but it loomed immense like a mountain half faded on the horizon. It was vaster than anything Fluttershy had felt outside Crater Cemetery itself and that could be felt from halfway across the world.
It had to be her. In some capacity. The sickly black wind that blew ever toward Crater Cemetery coalesced around the mountain that loomed over them and seemed made up entirely of that disease. And for the first time, Fluttershy wondered how rough of a time Twilight was in for.
She glanced ever towards Twilight, looking for some sign of fear. There was some worry on her face, but Fluttershy could tell by the way she looked around that none of it was for herself. Only for the other ponies around.
That confidence alone was what let Fluttershy get so close to the abandoned train station.
Sitting in the shadow of such a terrible monster was like a training regimen all its own. Sonata barely seemed so bad in comparison. Sonata wouldn’t have been a sight to worry about at all, had she not been a ghost. The blue pegasus came pre-defeated, lying on her back, totally resigned to her doom.
Fluttershy could see the chains around her.
“Oh, hey guys.” Sonata stared blankly up at the ceiling. “Huh. You know, this is already going on longer than I thought it would.”
“Me too.” Twilight peered through the one window of the train station.
They knew exactly where the Bloodstorm Cartel ponies were stationed. Getting a tip they’d be here made that much easy. Still, they had expected the attack to come immediately.
For some reason, the Bloodstorm Cartel wasn’t attacking. They all expected first blood to come from that direction. But it didn’t.
What could they be thinking?
“I’m just going to stand over here, okay?” Twilight trotted through the tiny station and stood in the back door, watching silently where most of Crater Cemetery’s forces would be.
“I guess there’s no point in pretending I’m a reporter anymore, huh?” Sonata kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “The whole place is going to explode any second now. So… goodbye?”
“She’s not bluffing.” Twilight scanned the horizon. “We need to be careful about our retreat.”
Fluttershy looked down at the forlorn Sonata. She could see the chains wrapped around her, feel malice dripping off them, cloaking Sonata. Fluttershy could scarcely imagine what it must be like to be always surrounded by that.
But there was something a little strange about them. They shifted slightly, as though pushed by a magnet away from where the others were hiding. But it was so slight that Fluttershy wasn’t entirely sure if she was imagining it.
“You’re not going to fight us?” Fluttershy asked.
“Do you honestly think I have any chance against what’s-her-face over there!” Sonata pointed behind her. “I’d get freaking destroyed. We only really got two ponies who can fight her.”
“Two?” Twilight looked over her shoulder.
“I meant one!” Sonata Dusk flailed her legs in denial. “The other one isn’t nearly as strong as my mistress, I swear! Gah! I wasn’t supposed to talk to you this long. What’s happening?”
“Something must have changed with the Bloodstorm Cartel,” said Twilight. “If we were expecting them to go first, I imagine everypony else must have done the same. We’ve all been thrown off by this inaction. Could you try to keep her distracted for a minute, Fluttershy? I might be able to secure this position a little better if everypony’s hesitating.”
She could do this! She’d been practicing with Aria.
“You know, this will be a lot easier if you come with us willingly.” Fluttershy held her hoof out. “It might be the only way you can survive. We don’t want to hurt you. We’re trying to help you.”
“But I don’t want you to ‘help’ me. Everypony needs to submit to the will of my dark mistress!”
“How do you know you’re not just saying that because of the mind control?” Fluttershy asked.
“Well!” Sonata thought about it for a second before relenting with a nod. “Yeah, that’s a fair point.”
“Um… then. If you know you’re brainwashed why not come with me?”
“Yeah, sure! Let me just think about this for myself for a moment.” Sonata pointed her forehooves at either temple. “Oh wait! I can’t because I’m brainwashed!”
“This is all so confusing.” Fluttershy let out a sigh. “Like… are you happy being brainwashed? I’m getting mixed messages.”
“Oh no! I suffer all the freaking time. The head bitch in charge hates me and Aria because of our family. That’s why she basically murdered Adagio and now she’s killing me. She forces me to do gross stuff all the time.”
“Then, why wouldn’t you want to get out?”
“Because I can’t question her, remember?” Sonata smiled like this was all part of the plan. “I deserve all the horrible things that happen to me!”
“Because of your family?” Fluttershy repeated the line.
Sonata paused, surprised Fluttershy picked up on that despite having said it outright.
“What’s wrong with your family?”
“Well.” Sonata Dusk looked around as if checking for more listeners. “I guess if we’re all gonna die, nothing matters, right? And I did want to tell somepony about my life before I died.”
“Well I’d love to listen to your memoirs,” said Fluttershy.
Fluttershy saw it again! The chains were moving, shifting ever so slightly but more now.
Was Twilight doing something?
No… something else was approaching them from underground. Another ghost. Though why the chains reacted like this, Fluttershy could hardly say.
“For realsies?” Sonata rolled up to a sitting position. “Okay, well it all started when I was born! You may not believe it, but I’m one of the few ponies of noble blood left! I’m descended from royalty.”
“Oh, my. Really? I didn’t think there were any left after the revolution.”
“Yep! Regina Sonata Vespera Noctilucent! That’s my title.”
That name sounded familiar. Where had Fluttershy heard it again?
“Sonata Vespera sounds like a lovely name.”
“Yeah, over in Hollow Shades everypony felt like we were the rightful rulers of Equestria for a long time. But nopony else agreed with us. They were all high on this ‘democracy’ thing. We just kept telling ourselves that eventually, ponies would start electing random celebrities leading to the collapse of civilization, then they’d beg us to rule over them but, uh… I’m starting to think maybe that won’t happen.”
“If you wanted everypony to love you… why were you hiding, exactly?” Fluttershy asked. “I think that may have been the reason?”
“Oh, we were like… ghost supremacists and stuff,” said Sonata. “Anypony not blessed by our goddess was trash and we didn’t want to have anything to do with them unless they were already worshipping us.”
“But even then, there’s still a lot of ghosts, aren’t there?” Fluttershy asked.
“We did that a little, but we weren’t just ghost supremacists. We were pony supremacists and pegasus supremacists and you had to have at least a drop of noble blood too. Like when I was ten, I had to do a research paper showing that pegasi are inherently smarter than unicorns. And I remember one test where a question was ‘Why do earth ponies smell so bad’? So yeah, we were like super racists. Isn’t it messed up they made me do that?”
“Oh my.”
“No.” Sonata shook her head. “I seriously don’t know! I’m all brainwashed and stuff. I don’t know if that really was messed up or if I’m just being forced to think my family was horrible.”
“Oh! Um.” Fluttershy gave it some thought. “Well, I think racism is… bad. And stuff.”
“I knew it.” Sonata hung her head down.
“So you were racist against predeads… and unicorns? Well as long as–”
“No! You still have no idea just how supreme we were. This gets crazy levels of specific, okay?” Sonata grabbed her ponytail. “So like, next you gotta have your mane be the same color as your fur, just a different shade.”
“Okay.”
“And it needs exactly one secondary color arranged in a double-stripe pattern like mine. One color and you’re bland, three or more and you’re a mutt.”
“Uh.”
“And then your eyes have to be one of the last two letters of ROYGBIV or those are no good.” Sonata pointed to her violet eyes. “And your cutie mark can’t be directly related to flying because that’s what ‘lowly’ pegasi get.”
Fluttershy desperately tried to recall Aria. She was pretty sure the other sister met all those criteria too.
“And guess what? Even though she had all those things I just mentioned, Adagio’s mane was just too ‘poofy’ so Aria ended up being the heir despite being younger, right? Cause I guess we decide who’s head of the family by who has the best hair or something and Aria had the best hair! And Adagio was always angry at the two of us because we had better hair. And I told her I don’t care how much her hair sucks, I love her anyway, but she just got angry and punched me in the eye and I cried.”
Fluttershy… could feel it!
She felt just a tiny bit of sadness bleeding out through the chains. She’d been so certain such a thing couldn’t happen. It made Fluttershy think, just maybe, she could grab hold of Sonata’s aura while it was like this, while the chains were wobbling about.
“You had a fight with your sister?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yeah. Adagio went away for a while. She started a family and everything but um…” Sonata looked down at the floor.
“Hm?” Fluttershy tilted her head.
Sonata shifted uncomfortably. The chains restricted her thoughts and Fluttershy lost her chance for a moment.
“I don’t think I can tell you all the stuff I want to,” said Sonata. “Some memoir this turned out to be!”
“Surely you have some happy memories?” Fluttershy smiled.
“Oh, yeah!” Sonata nodded, smiling again. “When we were all little! Before Adagio ran away. We used to love singing! Adagio was good at writing songs. And Aria’s voice was so pretty. I miss hearing them sing so much!”
“I can’t imagine Aria singing.” Fluttershy tried to picture it.
“I know, right? She didn’t use to be so edgy. I used to love singing with them. I wish we could have been a band or something instead.” Sonata’s smile was brief. She soon returned to her frowning and shook her head. “Maybe if I had gotten to be a famous singer, somepony would have loved me. Even if it was just for my money, that would have been enough. Our family was telling ourselves for hundreds of years that everypony would love us again someday… but nopony is ever going to love me, are they? It was all just a big lie.”
Fluttershy inhaled and tried ever so slightly to grasp onto Sonata’s aura as gently as possible. She could feel the chains reacting to her, like a viper coiled around Sonata. If she set them off, if they restricted, this wouldn’t work.
Even her initial touch had been too heavy. She needed to be even lighter.
“Aria still loves you.” Fluttershy moved right up next to Sonata. “She cared enough about you to come to us.”
“Thanks. But I’m not allowed to think that matters.”
“And.” Fluttershy put a hoof on her shoulder. “I know we just met… but I care about you.”
Sonata felt the lightest touch of Fluttershy’s aura, the tiniest bit of love possible. Beneath those cold and hateful chains, Sonata was so desperately starved for love. Just the little bit of sympathy getting through made her turn with eyes wide to Fluttershy.
It was like Sonata was seeing another pony for the first time. The look of amazement and wonder on her face, tears making her eyes twinkle brightly. To ghosts, water was blue. Her tears had only the faintest glow of blue light to them, but they did glow.
“You… you mean that?” Sonata sobbed, then threw herself onto Fluttershy, “I love you so much, Fluttershy! I love you more than anything in the world!”
Her aura had been weakened for that tiny push to affect her so deeply. Having a ghost press up against her…
Fluttershy closed her eyes.
No! She couldn’t have the slightest bit of hesitation. Any fear would ruin this delicate balance. She had to focus everything on Sonata. The poor lost Sonata. She’d been through so much. Fluttershy couldn’t let herself feel anything but compassion for her.
Fluttershy forced herself to hug Sonata back as tightly as she could.
“I promise I’ll help you.” Fluttershy let go and flew back. She sent Sonata a single order through her aura.
Follow.
Fluttershy moved to the back of the train station. Sonata ran forward like a lost little puppy.
“Wait! Wait!” Sonata stopped just in front of her. “Hug me again! I want to die hugging!”
“Let’s um…” Fluttershy looked across the flat expanse. Could she pull this off? “Hug back at my house?”
“Yes, Fluttershy! Whatever you say!” Sonata nodded eagerly! “I love you so much! I’d even hug you inside an active volcano!”
Sonata’s aura had been so weakened by years of strangulation that even the tiniest bit of influence on Fluttershy’s part amounted to absolute domination. She couldn’t tone it down. This was basically mind control on her own part, but it was something she had to do! It was the only way to help Sonata.
“Fluttershy?” Twilight looked back at her. “How are you doing that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well keep doing it. Back up slowly. I can’t move from this spot.”
Fluttershy nodded. Now for the hard part.
She knew if those chains were disturbed slightly, she’d miss her shot, it was strangling her influence back out. For now, Sonata skipped along, following Fluttershy and singing a happy song as they backed up.
Fluttershy felt as though she were tugging a train with a tiny thread of fiber. She wasn’t even sure how it had worked for so long and expected it to snap at any moment. But it was working.
Twilight and the train station began to shrink. Fluttershy was halfway back.
Then, the mountain began to lurch forward!
The chains snapped back in place. False clarity returned to Sonata.
Twilight stood ready. She felt the air change as a significant presence approached her. She could just scarcely remember what this had been like. The last time she felt her fur standing on end like this had been with Discord. With Starswirl.
But Twilight was far, far stronger than she had been back then. If Twilight had possessed the power she did now, things would have gone differently. She was confident they’d go better tonight.
She could see the form of a tall, slender pony slowly emerging from the darkness. Its steps were ragged and cumbersome. Aria had said it couldn’t move with much grace. Twilight began to make out the purple color of its armor.
A suit of pure adamantium!
Where could she have gotten such a thing?
Blackness bellowed out from the gaps in the armor and fell to the ground like soot from some great fire within. Her darkness barely managed to create the image of a pony, just barely equine.
Twilight was certain, at least, that it was only the interior she’d need to destroy, to snuff out the fire producing that soot. A good thing, as even she had no way to harm adamantium.
The figure stopped some one hundred yards away from Twilight.
It lifted its hoof.
Twilight took her stance and looked to the sky.
“I feel sick!” Pinkie clutched her stomach. “Oh, what a time to hurl!”
“Keep it together!” Aria smacked Pinkie on the back of the head.
The two of them, plus Dash, sat in a hole dug out on the far side of the gorge. Through a camera, they could see the train station, as well as Fluttershy and Sonata Dusk approaching.
“This kind of thing is rougher on psychics than it is on ghosts! We can’t even get near Crater Cemetery itself without puking!” Pinkie whined.
“You only need to hold out a second longer.” Aria licked her lips and looked back up at the canyon. “I don’t know how Fluttershy is luring her back, but the second she gets halfway we run in, got it? Immediate spirit bomb! Don’t worry about hurting her.”
“Got ya.” Pinkie rolled back onto her hooves. Blue energy began to swirl around her, already building up in anticipation. “By the way, we have company.”
“Huh?”
Dash and Aria turned to find a pegasus crouched just behind them. Lightning Dust! Dash immediately wanted to punch that smug face!
“What the hell are you doing here?!” Dash hissed at her.
“I came here to help you,” said Lightning Dust with a small chuckle. “In case you don’t know, Spitfire’s got a whole legion of pegasi over here. But she’s all ‘oh, we can’t possibly fight that Crater Cemetery battle doll, let’s hang back’. What a pansy, right? But I figure if you guys think we can take it, then we can take it. So I’m with you.”
“I don’t want your help!” Dash gritted her teeth to keep from yelling. “You nearly killed Scootaloo, who’s basically my daughter now.”
“Hey, hey. No hard feelings in this business.” Dust laughed. “I’m trying to tell you I respect your courage and moxy, you know? You’re way cooler than Spitfire.”
“And I don’t respect how reckless you are. Get out!”
“Yeesh. I was hoping you wouldn’t be such a nag. Well–”
“Shut up!” Aria chastised both. “Pinkie! We have to go right now!”
Pinkie jumped to the opposite ledge. Aria flew after her.
“Guess it’s here.” Lightning Dust flew out of the hiding spot to get a better look at the battle sight. “Let’s see what old Spitfire is so spooked about.”
Dash looked up at what first appeared as an overcast sky covered in blue clouds. A split second later and Dash realized those weren’t clouds at all!
It was ice. A solid wall of ice stretching far in every direction, enough to crush the entire junction, covered the sky above them.
“Well fuck.” Lightning Dust watched it begin to fall.
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And that was the moment Dust knew that she had f#cked up!
What's the time gap between Ghost and Witch again? Not exactly sure where to look that up.
Nice
I'm honestly always interested in this story.
I was wondering what the Nightmare's big attack would look like. Meteor? Black hole? Neutron star?
Nope, it's a hundred foot thick wall of ice just dropped on the area like a petri dish on top of an ant.
Well played, sir!
I forgot how much I love the tone of this story
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Sometimes you don't need to mess with the classics, and what's more classic than a petulant child stomping on an ant?
I'd totally buy this whole story as a book, or even a series of books. It is indeed just that good.
11564574
There is a timeline in the next chapter. Sour Sweet says Nailbat is 19 in one of the recent chapters in Ghost and defeated the Tarrasque at the age of 16. So we should be around 1339/1340 in Ghost and 1355 in Witch.
Another awesome chapter. You've really outdone yourself again in this chapter. Can't wait for the next one!
Not really no
And worse, this can easily lead Dash to put herself in a situation she is not capable of dealing with
Pretty high
The opposite actually, someone is very lucky right now
At the moment?, quite high
Twilight continues to be Adorkable in this story. Fixing problems with magic instead of talking!
But the luck is strong tonight it seems! Curious how this will play out.
Is this the power of a god, all the real Naruto fans would know. oh this is so hype I cannot wait for the next chapter
As far as I can tell, since the trigger I think was verbally pondering the odds of something, Sonata's only use so far was this:
I wonder if that counts as a minor shift in probability (because Fluttershy's desire to hear anyone out is close to 100%) or a major one because of how many unlikely things had to occur for them to both be alive for long enough to have a conversation.
Also, "The current master of the coin will use it to destroy the former owner" - I don't think Dash is the former owner in this case, since she doesn't seem to be the victim of the misfortune caused by Sonata's question. That would mean that one of its current victims had the coin before Sonata and already used it against Dash. Maybe someone tied to the cartel had it, and their probability manipulation ultimately resulted in her getting nearly abducted and wounded?
She had some reporter stuff, which probably includes paper.
Actually, did we see any non-pony ghosts? And isn't majority of ponies descended from Golden Feather?
Dang, for some reason I've confused something and thought it was Flash.
Great chapter. I continue to love your depiction of magical brainwashing
Sword of Rainbow and Dash
Sour Sweet, noooooooooooo. This was unfortunately expected.
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100% of ponies are descended from Golden Feather. A much smaller percent are descended from Star Feather. But arguing to Sonata that you have noble blood as well would be like going to Buckingham Palace and arguing that you're related King Charles if you go back far enough and thus are also royalty. They mean descended from someone who held a noble title during the Royal Era.
As for non-pony ghosts, they exist. But you've seen very few non-ponies in general. They're very rare in Equestria.
Sour Sweet is a ghost!
And controlled by crater cemetery...for now.
Poor Sonata too, but hopefully things are about to get better for her too.
Everything is about to go nuts though. The next chapter can't come soon enough!
Great chapter
Wait, I’m confused, I think I’m missing something here. When did Twilight and Dash start dating?
11566861
They haven't. Derpy's been assuming they're secretly together from the start.
Twilight's solution to Rainbow Dash's issues is both funny and sad, but you can't deny it's probably the most practical response given the way things are headed.
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I think there's also something about the coin that takes luck from the owner before they even acquire it. Dash is notorious for having an unlucky upbringing, while Trixie was probably similar. Additionally, we can see this in action when Sonata struggles in her search for Fluttershy, and numerous times in Murder Motel.
Also when she starts eavesdropping on Dash and Twilight and they immediately stop talking.
Not to mention how her family's all dead, including her sister, and that she's under mind control, which seems pretty unfortunate.
The use of the word "chance" seems pretty intentional throughout this chapter, where both Batton Pass and Sour Sweet use it, so I'm guessing its pretty important throughout the story.
Well fuck indeed
Cliffhanger
-clutches desperately to cliffs edge-
Yup
wait for more !
Yaay, finally caught up.
Really wish I had decided to read earlier. Some totally fantastic bits here.
Thing is, about Adamantium armor being indestructible, doesnt that mean the contents cant get out once its sealed, if you have some spare oxide to patch up the holes? If it can stand on the ground, then solid materials can apply momentum vectors of as high deltaV as you can power, which can even give a teleporter problems? Or just carbomite them in place?
Same with the big slab, Twilight can just put a small dome up and drop into a hole in the ground, reducing the impact to a dealing with the immediate area? Ice is easier to acoustically shatter by banshee scream than melt the way out except by extremely high level plasma so the liquid dont backflow and flood the place, unless the ice itself has a cryon freeze spell sustained on it?
Water ice is weird.
Give Pinkie the Element of Laughter, and the Coin.
And the Alicorn feather.
then lets talk about OP?
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There's a timeline in one of the author's blog posts somewhere
Sigh. Some ponies never learn.
Pfft, that's AMATEUR-level racism! I have MASTERED it, because I was taught by the ULTIMATE racist: LORD FREEZA HIMSELF!!
Every single living thing in the MULTIVERSE is beneath me and not worthy of existence! They live because I consider them SO FAR BENEATH ME, that they're not even worth killing!
To beat Derpy in a straight hoof fight? And it kinda clashes with
from the very first chapter.