My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic: Heart of Friendship

by ShadowDurza

Chapter 10: Clocktower Countdown

Suddenly, the red tinge faded as time resumed. The grunts continued their charge but abruptly ceased it after seeing that there were no targets in their path.

A sandy-haired grunt carrying a mace scratched his head with a disappointed expression. “Where did they all go?” Before anyone could deliberate, suddenly, a small hatch opened up on the floor in front of them and quickly extruded a narrow pillar capped by an orange crystal which fired a bolt of magic. The sandy-haired grunt twitched as his body sparked and fell down.

The pillar continued to fire sparks at the grunts as more appeared out of the floor, walls and ceiling to add to the salvo. The Underworlder grunts quickly raised barriers of various types of magic to hold off the fire. In the back, a lanky underworlder with a slingshot created a mass of rock that compressed into a small but dense projectile. They placed it into their slingshot, drew it back, stood over the barrier and fired at the first turret. The crystal shattered and the Grunt repeated this process until all of the turrets were disabled. Before the Grunts could offer their clout, a trapdoor opened up below the lanky grunt and he fell into it screaming.

The Underworlders at first began to panic, but one of them, a girl with long red hair, whistled loudly. “Come on! We’ve cleared out one hall! Let’s press on! Or do you want to face the Boss’s wrath for failing because we lost our wits?” The underworlders quickly rallied and charged deeper into the halls, all of the exhibits before them quickly sliding into the ground behind closed hatches before they could break something.

They advanced into a new hall, but the frontmost part of the group was knocked dazed to the ground by a large, blunt pendulum suddenly sweeping out of the adjacent wall and slamming into them and blocking the path of the rest of them with its continuous swings. A blue-eyed Grunt pointed a long wand at the base of the pendulum and let loose a stream of solid-white vapor. On contact, a mass of ice appeared and quickly jammed the mechanism pre-swing.

The Underworlders continued their march into the next hall, but a hidden hatch opened up right on the threshold and sent the next frontmost-part of their troop falling into nowhere. A pair of Grunts held their arms aloft and created a bridge of stone to make a path over.

In the next hall, the Underworlders stood at the ready, prepared for anything. But none of them expected the hall itself to start rotating on an axis, sending them all tumbling into more trapdoors that opened to catch the rolling Grunts.

A Grunt with a purple bowl-cut managed to suspend themselves in midair, enveloped in an azure light. They suddenly brought their hands together and appeared to be concentrating with all their might. The remaining Underworlders that barely found their footing were suddenly enveloped in the same light and started floating in midair. The purple-haired Grunt thrust their arms towards the hall’s exit and the levitating Underworlders were sent flying into the next hall while the Grunt that saved them fell, exhausted, into another trap door.

In the next room, the less sizable troop of Underworlders shakily got up, but had finally paused their charge to recover. Meanwhile, in a dark corner above, a swirling vortex of shadow appeared and a bright orange eye stuck out, peering at the resting Grunts.

“This place was more fortified than we were led to believe. We’ve taken a massive beating and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. I need more time, so I guess I have no choice but to sick the next Administrator on them.”

The eye vanished within the shrinking vortex, and suddenly, it was as if neither of them were there to begin with. Meanwhile, the Underworlders stood back up and held their many weapons in tight grips before advancing further into the hall. The invaders were met by several large mannequins popping out of the ground carrying weapons of their own. As the Underworlders charged at an obstacle their weapons would prove effective on, the mannequins swung their oversized weapons and managed to send most of them flying. However, two of the mannequins were struck down by an onslaught of lightning bolts, fireballs, and ice spikes by the red-haired, blue eyed, and a new yellow-eyed Grunt. However, this group was sent flying back into a new hatch by a horizontal battering ram flying down from above.

The remaining Underworlders held their ground in front of the remaining mannequins. But suddenly, a hole was blown into an adjacent wall by a large explosion and an Underworlder Administrator walked out, carrying a beach-ball sized iron flail covered in broad spikes that they held by a long chain wrapped around their other forearm.

He was very large with dark skin, white hair, and light brown eyes. His armor was painted in waves of an outwardly expanding pattern of jagged red lines with the addition of a bright red metal mask clasped around their mouth with several breathing holes bored into it.

The Administrator held their free hand aloft as three spheres covered in spikes appeared in flashes of reddish-orange light. The Administrator sent them flying with a swing of his arm and blew up three of the mannequins, their pieces flying everywhere.

He approached the remaining two mannequins, swinging his flail around himself. The mannequins’ weapons were deflected by the rotating flail and they were both smashed to scrap with a couple of mighty swings.

The remaining underworlders cheered for the Administrator, chanting his name: “Crazy Joe! Crazy Joe! Crazy Joe!” Meanwhile, in a hidden room, Twilight got a worried look as she turned her gaze away from a protruding spy hole.

“An Administrator’s gotten in too and took out the fourth-line defense system!”

Rainbow Dash flew up to the spy hole to take a look for herself. “Geeze! How many Administrators do these guys have?”

Maxine rose out of the command chair and strided towards the ponies. “Nobody’s quite sure how many or what kind of resources the Underworlders have precisely. For such a violent organization, they can be surprisingly secretive, but that Administrator’s identity is no secret, he’s infamous.”

Fluttershy gave Maxine a frightened glance from the control panel she was regretfully operating. “What do you mean…?”

“Crazy Joe is a bomb elemental notorious for causing widespread collateral damage. They mostly send him to draw aggro away from their main force. However, they also use him to intimidate by sending him to destroy the property of those that have defied them one too many times. All to send a message to never challenge the Underworlders”

On that note, Fluttershy began convulsively shaking, but Applejack trotted up to her to put a hoof around her shoulders. “We’ve been through much worse, hun’. We won’t be scared off that easily.”

Maxine grinned as she shifted her glasses. “Quite right.” Then she gave a protective glance at Carmilla, who was in a fetal position in a corner, mumbling, “toomanypeople, toomanypeople, toomanypeople…” Then, Maxine approached Pinkie Pie, who’s hooves were excitedly hovering over more controls. “Pinkie, my dear, you know that big red button you’ve been eyeballing since you got in here?”

“You mean that one?” Pinkie Pie bounced in place as she excitedly stretched her hoof to point at a very large button on the end of the furthest control panel labeled: For Emergencies Only.

“Yes. When I give the signal, I want you to press it. Not before, not after. Understand?”

Pinkie Pie stood up on her hind legs and gave her best hoof salute. “Abso-tively! Posi-lutely!” She then zipped over and stood ready with her hoof right over the button.

Meanwhile, Maxine strided over to Carmilla and took both of her hands into hers. This caused her to stop shaking and look directly at Maxine. “Carmi, my dear, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you alone for a minute while I take care of the bad guys.”

On that note, Carmilla tightened her grip with tears in her eyes. “Don’t leave me alone, Madam von Wrinkle!”

Maxine gave her a warm smile as she pulled her hands away. “It’ll be fine, I have the invincible time element, remember? Besides, if anything does happen, I need you to be safe so you can fix it. Few have any real ability to heal what’s broken, and I know that you’re only so scared because you care so much, dear! I just need you to be brave just this once. Not for me, but for yourself.”

Carmilla looked deep into Maxine’s kind eyes, gulped, and nodded. Maxine nodded at her and turned towards the ponies, who stood at the ready. “I’m going to have Pinkie use our final gambit to thin out their ranks completely. Then, if the Administrator’s still standing, we’ll have to take him on ourselves. Ready Pinkie?” Pinkie got a determined look on her face and stood rigid over the button. “On my Mark… Now!”

Quick as lightning, Pinkie slammed her hoof on the button. Suddenly, the whole clocktower started groaning. Then it started shaking. Twilight put her eye back to the spy hole to see what was going on.

Back in the halls, the Underworlders looked around anxiously. Even Crazy Joe was on edge and began swinging around his flail. Suddenly, the ceiling started folding inward to reveal the mechanism of the clocktower above. Just then, the gears started spinning faster and faster before suddenly starting to fall into the hall, slamming into the underworlders and knocking them out one by one.

When the shaking settled, all of the Underworlders were buried under piles of gears and clockwork. However, one pile of clockwork started shining with a red light. The pile soon exploded and Crazy Joe emerged, swinging his flail in a looping arc for good measure before advancing into the next hall himself.

In the hall’s corner, a hidden door opened and out of it charged the ponies followed by a two-sword wielding Maxine. “This will be your final warning, interloper: take yours and leave this hallowed place, or face my wrath.”

In response, Crazy Joe whirled his flail over his head and sent it flying, sending our heroes scattering as they left behind a crater in the floor.

Applejack raced up to Crazy Joe as he pulled back his flail, but he waved his free hand, creating three bright red orbs between him and her. Applejack quickly jumped out of the way as the orbs started glowing bright orange before they exploded, Rarity shooting a wall of crystal to act as a buffer from the blast.

Rainbow Dash attempted to dive down from above, but Crazy Joe whirled around his flail to block her off. However, she noticed small red flecks of light scattering from the spinning chain. She made a sharp bee-line turn as the flecks turned orange and erupted into a violent flame-like burst.

Pinkie Pie zigzagged across the distance, avoiding the fruitless flailing of Crazy Joe’s attacks. In a blur of pink, three lit party cannons encircled and pointed at Crazy Joe before they all went off at once. Crazy Joe staggered and shook the confetti out of his face before slamming his free hand onto the ground. In a starburst pattern, dozens of mines appeared outward from Crazy Joe. The ones Pinkie zipped across started glowing bright orange, but Fluttershy quickly swooped in and airlifted her out of the way as the mines exploded in a chain reaction beneath them.

Twilight flew towards Crazy Joe, shooting bolts of magic from her horn while flying low. Crazy Joe responded by throwing his flail in a straight shot at her. She managed to roll out of the way, but Crazy Joe made a gesture with his free hand, which caused a small red ball stuck to the side of the ball to glow orange and explode, changing the trajectory of the fail, getting Twilight caught in the chain as it wrapped around her. Crazy Joe reeled her in and raised an intensely glowing fist overhead, but Twilight closed her eyes and teleported out of the way of the punch that exploded the ground where she used to be.

Swiftly yet precisely, Madam von Wrinkle launched her assault by turning aside each swing of Crazy Joe’s flail with a spinning and twisting deflection from her swords. When Crazy Joe sent a salvo of bombs to interrupt her charge, she was enveloped in a red shimmer of light and disappeared to reappear on their other side, having skipped ahead. When she finally got in range, she pointed both swords at Crazy Joe as he was enveloped in a shimmering red vapor that froze him in place. Maxine unleashed a flurry of dancing and twisting strikes all around Crazy Joe’s body. Then, she abruptly came to rest behind him as the glow faded. He shook convulsively, feeling all of the previous strikes at once.

Crazy Joe dropped to the ground, supporting himself with his hands. Maxine pointed her weapons at him, but held her position. “Yield. Your Grunts have been safely thrown out of these halls with no way to re-enter. I don’t want the Administration to know about this place, you may leave without consequence.”

Breathing heavily, Crazy Joe glanced around the hall. He spotted a mass of shadow outside of everyone else’s field of vision form an X symbol. Crazy Joe raised one of his hands as it began to glow in an intense red and orange light tinged with a black vapor. Crazy Joe waved his enveloped hand in the air, sending out seven wisps of light that flew out into the hall right as Maxine pointed at him to freeze him in place once again.

However, the lights continued to swirl about near the hall’s ceiling. Maxine’s look of confusion quickly turned to terror. “RUN AWAY! HURRY!” All of the ponies’ faces got looks of shock as they turned around and galloped in the opposite direction. Soon, the lazily drifting lights froze in midair and suddenly bolted towards each of the fleeing figures, striking them all.

Twilight closed her eyes as she felt something hit her. Then she reopened them after feeling no pain or real impact. She craned her head around to look at her hit haunch and saw something unfamiliar attached to her. It looked like the face of some kind of clock counting down from nine hundred ninety nine. She turned towards Maxine, who had a grim look on her face.

They all reconvened in the center of the hall, anxiously gazing at the objects attached to them. Fluttershy trotted up to Maxine. “M-m-m-Madam von Wrinkle… What did he just do to us?”

Pinkie stared at hers with mild fascination. “Did that spell turn us into ovens? Am I going to pop out some muffins in eight-nine-five seconds?”

Rainbow Dash did a double take on that note. “Wait, mine still says nine forty-five!” Each pony and Maxine soon noticed that each of their timers was now counting down from different numbers, at different rates.

Twilight gave Maxine a worried glance. “What kind of human magic is this, Maxine? Is there anything we can do?”

Maxine looked downward and sighed. “It’s… curse magic! A spell designed to hurt someone or something in a way that’s impossible to defend against and nearly impossible to recover from. I believe he’s attached bombs to us with timers linked to our heartbeats.”

This started a panic among the ponies. Still cringing, Twilight looked Maxine right in the face. “But… but… why would your people invent a magic so terrible?”

“I believe at one point in our history, we had to contend with foes that couldn’t be defeated by ordinary methods and had to find a way to make them quickly go down and stay down. But that doesn’t matter now. We can’t get rid of these, and if we don’t find some way to ward off the effect, we’ll all be killed!”

Suddenly, they noticed the hidden door opening once again and Carmilla hurriedly creeping out. “I… I heard everything. I might be able t-to help.”

Maxine stepped forward with a look of great concern. “You want to go for help, Carmi?”

Carmilla cringed at the thought of it. “I-I-I can’t do that Madam von Wrinkle. But I can take someone’s curse into myself so they can go.”

Maxine shook her head. “My dear! I can’t ask you to do that!”

“You don’t have to! I waited my whole life to help someone, but I’ve always been too scared. I’m scared now, but if I don’t do something, all of you will die!”

Maxine grew silent. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. “Very well, but do it for Rarity. She’ll go for help.”

Rarity held a hoof to her mouth in shock. “Me? All by myself? Why?”

“The same reason I sent Applejack after Percival, dear. I think you’ll have the best impression on Sloop. When Carmilla takes the curse, I’ll have to stop us in time to buy you time. But I have a finite amount of stockpiled time magic, so I’ll have to release Crazy Joe before making sure we’re well hidden.”

Twilight sighed. “I suppose we don’t have many options.” She gave Rarity a worried glance. “If you’re okay with it, I’ll go along with this plan.”

Rarity paused for a moment, then got a determined look and nodded. “Well, all right then! Let’s get this underway now, shall we?”

Rarity trotted up to Carmilla, who flinched slightly as she got close. Rarity made a tender expression which caused Carmilla to relax. Carmilla extended a finger, which emitted a small vine-like stream of blood. This stream made contact with Rarity’s chest, and soon after the bomb on Rarity’s body glew bright red before disappearing. A red light appeared in the stream from Rarity’s chest and traveled toward and disappeared into Carmilla’s finger. Once the bomb appeared on Carmilla, the stream dissapeared.

Carmilla stepped away to allow Maxine to step in front of Rarity. “Remember, once you leave this place, you can’t mention anything about the guilds or this museum. Go to Masters Holdings and Loans due west of here and tell them that Maxine needs Sloop’s help! Head to the lift, now!”

Rarity gave them all a wink and headed back to the entry hall. The others turned around and headed back to the hidden door.

Comments

[ShadowDurza]

I just realized I wrote "Administrator" where I meant Director in a lot of places. I did a mass edit to fix it.