An Idiot Trio vs Equestria

by Beast Out

Chapter 7: Castle Crashers

Author's Note:

Enjoy! All constructive critism welcome. Feel free to ask questions and make sure to add to Tracking!

The three former humans looked across the large ravine to the old castle. Despite its ruined appearance, it was still an impressive sight, if not a bit overgrown.

Dartz turned his gaze from the ruins, focusing towards the decaying rope bridge and lightly nudged one of the supports it was tied to before turning to Birch.

"You wanna try your luck?"

The wooden wolf looked at Dartz and then at the rickety ass bridge before walking away from the ravine and curling up underneath the nearest tree.

"Yeah, that's fair."

The group flew across the ravine (cuz no way in hell are they using that bridge when flight is an option) and landed in front of the castle's entrance.

Archer glanced at his companions. "Ready?"

Kindle pulled three sacks with the word "$WAG" printed on them. "What you think?" She asked with a raised eyebrow as she handed one to each of them.

"Alright then, let's go."

-twenty minutes later-

Kindle opened an old chest and was greeted by some old guard armor and a halberd, all surprisingly good condition.

She picked up the helmet and inspected it, turning it in her claws. "This looks like it could sell for a lot." Along with some of the old furniture and jewelry this haul would fetch a pretty penny. Her musing was cut short by a howling cackle from the next room.

She made her way over to the source of the sound to see Archer laughing at a portrait painting of a young unicorn stallion wearing a wizard outfit with a lot of bells hanging off his hat and cloak. His most notable feature was that his mane, tail, and goatee were in all the colors of the rainbow.

Dartz entered a few seconds later. "What're you laughing about?"

Archer turned to them with a huge grin. "That's Starswirl the Bearded!"

"As in pony Gandalf?"

"Yup!"

"Huh." The changeling and dragoness both took a second look at the painting before it clicked.

Dartz turned back to Archer. "Wait, are you saying that-"

"Yup!"

Kindle whistled. "It's honestly impressive that he was able to pass the gene for rainbow hair so far down his bloodline."

Archer was already working to unhook the painting from the wall. "I'm so hanging this above the couch."

-6 minutes later-

After leaving the painting by the entrance, they'd wandered deeper into the crumbling remnants of the old times.

The sound of their steps echoed throughout the halls until they came across a large wooden door.

Dartz raised an eyebrow. "Looks important." He pushed on the door to no avail. "You guys wanna help."

Kindle waved him off. "Nah, you got this."

The changeling frowned at her, then levitated his sledge hammer and launched it into the door like a battering ram, the impact ringing throughout the castle, yet it didn't even budge.

"Ha ha!"

"I'd like to see you do better!"

"Sure thing." The dragoness strutted up to the door, grabbed its handles and pulled, opening it with little effort.

"Oh, goddammit!"

Ignoring Dartz' outburst, the trio entered the room. Near the back of the chamber were two thrones in the midst of decay.

"Guess we found the throne room. See anything worth looting?"

Dartz looked around the room, not seeing much of note, but then, an absolutely horrid smell hit his nose causing him to loudly gag.

Kindle and Archer quickly turned to him with concern marking their faces. "You ok man? What's wrong?"

"Ugh! This room smells disgusting! Like, hatred, rage, sorrow, regret and desperation all at once!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, the trio paled. Given the context, there was only one reason the castle that had gone uninhabited for a millenia could be host to such rancid vibes.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

Before they could nope the fuck out, a starry mist began leaking from the thrones, as if someone had taken a chunk of the night sky and dropped it where it didn't belong. That mist soon morphed into the shape of giant fuck off scorpian!

Archer was the first to react. "Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit!"

The group scrambled out of the throne room like rats from a cat. They expected to hear the starry arachnid stomping after them, but instead they heard a sort of… magical ringing.

Turning around, they saw the thing stopped at the doorway, pounding at a yellow sun themed forcefield with its big (meaty) claws.

Archer whistled. "Guess this is where Luna was banished."

Kindle tilted her head in confusion. "I thought she was banished to the moon."

The griffin shook his head. "What I mean is, this is where the banishing happened."

Dartz flinched as the shield was struck once again "So the moon is her cage and the throne room is the locked door?"

Archer nodded. "Exactly. But as you can see, she sent that thing through the bars to break her out."

Kindle glanced at the beast. "Should we do something about it?"

"Do you really wanna risk freeing the insane demigod from her prison ahead of schedule?"

The dragon sighed. "Ok, good point."

The trio watched the star beast continue to strike at the forcefield before pushing the door closed.

Archer turned to his friends, out of ideas. "So now what?"

Dartz gave his answer. "Wanna continue looting the place?"

Kindle glared at the changeling in disbelief. "With that thing here?!"

"We'll be fine as long as we don't go near the throne room."

"You don't know that!"

"Fine. How about we loot one more room and then we bounce? Deal?" Dartz extended his hoof for a shake.

Instead of reciprocating the shake, she crossed her arms in defiance. "Pinkie promise me."

"Are you serious?"

Archer rolled his eyes. "Just do as she says, Dartz."

The changeling rolled his eyes (though it was hard to tell given his lack of pupils or irises). "Fine. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye. Happy?"

"Very." Kindle grinned. "Now where to?"

Dartz glanced down the hallway and walked toward a random door and opened it. "Huh."

Archer came up behind him and took a peak for himself. The sight he was greeted to was that of an old library with dilapidated shelves and all sorts of roots and vines growing on and around them.

The shelves had been cleared of most of their contents, but some old, dusty books still remained.

Kindle walked up to one of the shelves and took a book from its place. "This place feels kinda cozy. Minus all the dust anyways."

She opened the book and proceeded to blow the dust off its pages, as well as the pages themselves as they practically disintegrated the second her breath made contact with the paper, leaving her holding only the book's covers and spine.

She nervously placed what was left of the book back on the shelf and swiftly walked away from it. "Good thing these are outdated, huh?"

"Yuh huh." Dartz wasn't paying much attention to what she said. His eyes scanned the selves, searching for something particular.

"What're you lookin' for exactly?"

"Spell books."

"There's a lot of books in here. How can you tell without checking them?"

"Any decent spell book has a preservation and self cleaning enchantment on 'em. Just gotta look for the ones that don't have any dust on 'em."

"Like those ones?"

Dartz looked up to where Archer was pointing. At the top of the shelf were seven black books in pristine condition.

"Uh.. yeah. Just like those."

Dartz flew up to the books and carried them down to ground level. "Well, I guess we're done here." He turned to Kindle with a grin. "You need help with a ring toss?"

"Hell yeah I do!"

-1 hour ½ later-

Kindle and Dartz (unicorn form) watched in smug glee as a pink ring bounced off of the all too wide bottle neck.

An equally pink hoof slammed another five bits onto the counter. "Just one more! I can get it this time, I can feel it!"

Kindle just shrugged noncommittally. "Sorry Pinkie. As much as I'd love to empty your wallet some more, you're holding up the line."

The Ponk turned and saw a moderately long line of impatiently waiting foals.

"Oops! Super duper sorry!"

The pink menace then bounced off the who knows where, allowing patronage to flow as normal.

Dartz walked out from behind the counter and headed round the street corner to the now repaired wagon. "I'm gonna take a nap!" he called back to Kindle.

Dartz shut the door behind him and saw Archer sleeping on the couch, the Starswirl painting hanging above it. "Typical."

The changeling hopped onto the couch beside him and began to used the griffin as a pillow.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, someone knocked at door. Dartz tried to ignore it, but the knocking continued, followed by Birch growling, causing whoever was knocking to yelp and knock even more.

Dartz begrudgingly got up and opened the door to find Birch glaring at a pale blue earth pony stallion with green eyes who was cowering on top of the wagon's roof.

Despite the disguise, Dartz could tell the pony he was looking at was actually a changeling, not one he was familiar with though.

"Birch, down boy." The timberwolf stopped growling, but still glared at the poor sob.

The unknown changeling jumped down from the roof and was led inside.

"So who are you anyways?"

The changeling dropped his disguise. "It's me, Thorax."

Dartz tilted his head. "Doesn't ring a bell."

Thorax scratched the back of his. "I-I'm the Queen's son."

"I thought that was Pincer."

"He's h-her brother."

"Relax! I'm messing with ya!" He lied as naturally as he breathed. "So why're you here?"

"Oh! Well, Silica told m-my mother what happened in Canterlot. She's impressed but not exactly… happy. So I was sent to keep an eye on you during the Summer Sun Celebration and to collect the information you got about.. the Empire. Also to be a witness for the so called return of the Lunar Scourge."

"Huh." Dartz opened the money chest and floated the map they'd stolen over to Thorax, who gave it a glance before folding and tucking it under his elytra. "Well here you go. But if you ask me, it seems kinda dumb for Chrysalis to send her son to a town that's gonna become a warzone in two days."

"O-oh. I actually insisted on going. I don't get to leave the Hive very often and what kind of Changeling Prince would I be if I couldn't do at least a little espionage?"

Dartz raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying that excuse.

"I also wanted to see the celebration for myself. Wait! Why am I even telling you this?"

Dartz shrugged. "How'd you get here in a day anyway?"

"I stopped at the town nearest to the hive and took a train."

-Meanwhile, the Hive-

Chrysalis sat on her throne, sharpening a large, black scythe with a serrated edge and ornate green markings along its head and handle, listening to a rather scrawny changeling wearing reading glasses rattle off the afternoon report.

"And finally, one of the walls in the eastern block has collapsed due to erosion from an underground river your majesty, although there's no danger of flooding, lings living in the area are still worried."

"Send a building team with some water treatment equipment and have them turn a section of the wall into a watering hole."

"Of course." The changeling left to do just that.

"Chrysalis."

She finally looked up from her weapon to see Pincer. "Do you need something, Pincer?"

"Thorax has arrived in Ponyville."

Just like that, her mood did a 180. "That's excellent! How is he? Does he have enough food? Wait, of course he does, he's surrounded by it!"

Pincer chuckled. "He's doing fine Chrissy. He's more capable than you think. Say, is that your old scythe?"

"Yes. It has been a while since I've taken it out hasn't it? It just felt right for the occasion. I'm pretty sure the Loyalty Enchantment still works."

Suddenly, she threw the damn thing and watched as it wedged itself into a wall! After a moment it shined in a multicolored pastel aura before teleporting and appearing right beside its wielder.

Pincer shook his head at his sister's antics and smiled. "It's like seeing an old friend isn't it?"

She nodded. "And soon, I may get to see another."

Comments

[Swordfighter125]

"Yes. It has been a while since I've taken it out hasn't it? It just felt right for the occasion. I'm pretty sure the Loyalty Enchantment still works."

Minecraft reference right there

[Beast Out]

11706122
Indeed. But it's also foreshadowing.