The Ash

by Raging Mouse

A War of Tag

Chapter 33:

A War of Tag

“YEEEEE-HAW!”

Applejack waved her hat and cheered at Rainbow Dash as her friend made another pass over the city, rainboom thundering out from her path and clearing the air again. Then she charged against the disoriented ranks of the ashen. A couple of their unicorns had enough presence of mind to see her coming and level their staves at her, but she leaped over their beams and swung around in the air, landing in front of two ashen and using a hind leg each to buck them into the air. The impact was so powerful it shattered their stone armor. At the same time she concentrated her Element through her hooves, severing her victims’ link to the ash. No doubt some ashen near where they landed would immediately reconvert them, but even that took some time that would otherwise be spent fighting.

One of her targets had been a unicorn with a jewelled staff, which had been dropped. Applejack stomped on it, shattering the jewel, before looking for additional foes. No enemy was near her: everywhere she looked she saw defenders of Canterlot stand unchallenged.

“They’re retreating! Push them out of the city!”

Others took up her yell and charged with her at the receding ranks of the ashen. Hooves thundering under her, Applejack peered at what lay ahead. The troops in front of her seemed more heavily armored. Earthen ponies with very large shields of metal and stone, behind which stood a phalanx of unicorns with—

She slammed all four hooves into the ground in a desperate attempt to halt her forward momentum before all those jewelled rods were levelled at her, but the flagstones making up the street were so smooth her hooves skidded over them. One unicorn’s beam hit her in the shoulder, pouring blue fire into her nerves. She gave up on her legs and let herself tumble, focusing all of her stubbornness into her Element. The pain relented as the arc of blue fire splashed against a bubble around Applejack, but she was feeling increasingly faint as her mental strength was sapped by the continuous onslaught of magic.

She managed to get her legs sorted out and rose to run away. To her right and left were less fortunate ponies, unable to defend themselves without an Element of Harmony. Applejack growled to herself and glanced at a pony to her side who’d charged the ashen together with her less than thirty seconds ago only to now become enemy. Seeing the ponies who had fought by your side suddenly turn on you after a moment’s confusion was unsettling, to put it mildly. Come to think of it her Element now seemed to do that as well, only to the ashen. Applejack thought back to Canterlot Hospital as she ran behind a wall, wondering what was different now.

A dull whistling moments before a mighty crash heralded a boulder that slammed through the wall next to where Applejack was taking cover. She stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out why her gut told her this was something new. Then she realised: it hadn’t come from the plains below, but from the direction of the road up to Canterlot. The ashen had dragged catapults almost up to the city gates. She swore softly to herself: that had to be taken care of quickly. Firing from there the entirety of the capital was laid out like a shooting gallery, allowing for a precision unavailable with the catapults firing blind shots up from the plains.

She put a hoof on the boulder next to her and peered towards the city gates through the hole in the wall. Rocks were sailing out of the swirling cloud that concealed most of the ashen forces. She considered the problem for a moment before deciding that Rainbow Dash probably had the best chances of disabling the catapults, assuming she’d be made aware of the problem. The boulders probably looked like pebbles from up in the air.

Climbing up on the boulder seemed the best solution, so Applejack did that. She reared up on her hind legs and used one hoof to balance herself against the wall, taking her hat in the other and waving at the multicolored speck in the sky. Thankfully Dash didn’t have too many distractions since she’d managed to down Spitfire with Rarity’s help, and so Applejack soon caught her friend’s attention. She glanced towards the enemy lines but saw them holding positions and letting the catapults do their work, though luckily no further boulder seemed aimed at Applejack’s direction. There was a strange blue glow on the wall next to her, so she looked up in the sky. Nothing there except an approaching multi-colored but definitely not glowing pegasus. RD seemed to have something on her mind judging by the way she was gesticulating and pointing at Applejack.

Applejack frowned. And looked down at the catapult boulder, whose glow was by then edging past blue and into white in its intensity, something in its core shining bright as a star.

“Oh ponyfea—”

There was a short, sharp moment when every nerve and muscle in Applejack’s body felt like it had gotten in the way when Big Mac was lining up a buck. Blue and black spots whirled in her vision and she might have screamed, though she wouldn’t admit to it. She honestly didn’t expect to be alive so she was quite pleased when the world decided to swim back into focus. She was lying by the wall, only the wall was now blackened and twisted. Applejack peered at it, trying to make sense of it all. Then she looked down: she was lying on top of a huge patch of black corruption. The boulder was nowhere to be seen.

“Applejack!”

Rainbow Dash was hovering in the air a short distance away with a look of absolute shock plastered on her face. Applejack stared back in confusion... until she felt it. Dash was the enemy now. The farm pony looked back down at her unhurt hooves, finally understanding what had happened. So this was how it felt being one of the ashen.

It didn’t really feel like anything special. Fancy that. The world continued as before.

A sudden gust of wind made Rainbow Dash flap madly to keep her position. The ash clouds were closing in again, but more forcefully than before. She stared down at her friend... enemy... and racked her brain, trying to figure out what to do. Applejack raised her gaze from her hooves and stared back except for a little flicker of her eyes off to the side. Dash’s senses screamed their warning too late and a net struck her wings. She fell screaming to the ground, taking the impact on her side and landing partially on one of her tangled wings. The pain stunned her and she moaned and writhed feebly, tears streaming from her eyes.

When she regained her bearings she saw Applejack looming above her, together with three unicorns. Each of the unicorns were carrying jewelled staves and were aiming them towards her. Applejack gave her a mournful nod.

“Sorry, sugarcube, but it’s best if we get this over with quickly.”

Applejack flinched and looked away when the beams connected with Rainbow Dash.

~~~~~

The gatehouse was empty and the guard posts deserted. Rarity stepped cautiously over the threshold and into the outer yard of Castle Canterlot. An afterthought made her look back and light her horn. The catch on the portcullis winch glowed with her aura as it lifted, making the machinery spin freely as the massive iron bars slammed down and blocked the entrance to the castle. The metallic boom echoed around the comparatively silent yard, making Rarity shudder.

“Hello? Anypony there?”

When no answer came she advanced nervously towards the castle doors themselves. The double doors should have been heavily guarded, but nopony could be seen. She willed herself to step forward and into the darkness of the reception hall. It was as deserted as the outer yard. Broken furniture and bits of armor was strewn over the floor. There were sounds though: faint echoes of shouts, booms of slamming doors and the metallic clangs of fighting travelled through the halls.

“Rarity?”

Fluttershy was standing on the upper landing of the main stairs, in front of the entrance to the court antechamber. She looked down at Rarity with surprise.

“Fluttershy, darling! What’s happening?”

Fluttershy hesitated for a moment while watching Rarity approach the bottom of the stairs. Then she took a breath and flared her wings.

“Um, the envoy had these staves that nopony suspected to be weapons. They were capable of turning ponies over to the ashen. They’re at the entrance to the princesses’ private wing of the castle, trying to force down the door.”

She looked into Rarity’s eyes, causing her friend to slow down in the middle of the staircase.

“Not all of them, though. One of them is here with me.”

And she stared into Rarity’s eyes, nailing her friend to the spot, while a smiling unicorn carrying a jewelled staff walked out from the court antechamber.

“F – F – Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy started walked down the stairs, never breaking her eye contact with Rarity.

“Shush, Rarity. It’ll pinch for just a moment, then everything will be fine.”

Rarity couldn’t look away or move. Fluttershy’s stare commanded her to stay put. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other unicorn – one of the delegates, she realised – advance. A little glowing jewel hovered in her vision in front of her horn. Then pink legs landed on the delegate’s head and back, smashing the ashen mare into the stairs and sending a wave of magic through her body.

“Tag, you’re it!”

Pinkie Pie cannoned into Rarity, sending both tumbling down the stairs. Above them Fluttershy actually growled and stomped her hooves in frustration.

“This isn’t a game, Pinkie!”

Pinkie had slid to a halt at the foot of the stairs. She quickly sprang to her feet and helped Rarity while glancing at her pegasus friend.

“Am I laughing?”

Rarity looked at Pinkie and had to admit that no, there was no laughter in the party pony’s face. Pinkie was crying, her face caught between anguish and fury. Fluttershy had turned towards the stunned unicorn by her side and was focusing her Element, but instead of the normal glow her necklace was burning with blue and black flames. Rarity gasped and drew on her own Element, sending it out towards Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy, stop!”

Pinkie Pie joined her and the two advanced towards Fluttershy. The pegasus backed away and concentrated her Element on defending herself while switching her venomous gaze back and forth between the two mares in front of her. Whenever one of them would advance too far they’d be met with Fluttershy’s Stare. The trio progressed slowly until they all stood on the upper landing of the stairs.

“Fluttershy. Darling. This is ridiculous. We’re two against one. Let me and Pinkie take care of you and then we’ll sort this out together.”

Rarity’s words had the desired effect. Fluttershy stopped, looked down at the floor and pouted. She slowly dropped the barrier she’d erected with her Element, letting the energies of her two friends wash over her.

That’s when Pinkie Pie was struck by a blue-black arc of energy and collapsed. Rarity gasped and traced the arc back to its source, an earthen pony with a staff standing to the side of the stairs together with some castle guards. All were ashen. Fluttershy slowly raised her head and gazed coolly at Rarity.

“I could say the same to you, Rarity. Give up.”

Rarity bit her lip and stared at Pinkie. Her friend was groaning and shuffling her hooves in an attempt to rise. There was also no mistaking what her senses told her: Pinkie Pie was now enemy.

The earthen pony levelled his staff so the gem pointed at Rarity, prompting her to flee down the stairs while weeping in panic. She galloped through the castle doors and out into the clouds of ash swirling in the outer yard. There she heard yelling coming from the gatehouse. She ran towards it and saw a pegasus up by the winch. As she approached her heart lifted.

“Rainbow Dash!”

Dash paused her efforts to wind up the portcullis and gave the pony below a wave with her hoof.

“Hi, Rares. Be with ya in a sec! Gotta let in Applejack!”

Rarity smiled with relief and ran in under the shadow of the gatehouse. The earth pony wriggling through the gap under the slowly raising was indeed Applejack herself and Rarity ran up to her—

Applejack was enemy. The farm pony grinned sadly at Rarity and rose to her hooves.

“Sad day for the defenders of Canterlot, huh? Luckily it won’t be your problem much longer.”

Rarity backed away while shaking her head in denial. Other ashen troops were by now also worming their way through the ever widening gap under the portcullis. Applejack turned her head and whistled up towards the top of the gatehouse.

“That’s enough, RD!”

Rainbow Dash appeared out of the swirling ash and landed next to Rarity, causing her to shriek and jump sideways. Then she saw Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy approaching from the castle doorway. Strength left the last Element of Harmony and her legs buckled.

Rarity closed her moistening eyes and whispered.

“I’m sorry, Sweetie Belle...”

~~~~~

Trixie stumbled out of the forest and up to the first tents of the field hospital. She gasped for breath and looked around wildly. Moans and cries of pain reached her ears, and injured ponies were strewn about the ground, each lying on a blanket. Ash sisters and priests wandered between them, doing their best to heal the wounded. Trixie ran up to the closest one, an ash sister like her, and laid a hoof on the pony’s shoulder.

“Quick, where is Fulcrum?”

The ash sister stared at Trixie in confusion.

“Fulcrum? The windigo left us the night before we set out for Canterlot. The high priests praised her and the staves she’d gifted us with. Nopony kno—”

“That’s not true! The queen did something to Honoured Fulcrum and she’s here somewhere!”

Trixie’s generally unkempt appearance and her breathless, desperate tone had attracted several additional listeners by now. A priest raised his eyebrows dubiously at her.

“How can you know this?”

“Honoured Fulcrum warned me that the queen is going to betray us! She’d never just leave of her own accord, since she wants to protect us!”

“Don’t listen to that pony. She’s a heretic and a witch.”

The voice was quite unmistakeable to Trixie and she turned to glare angrily at Elder Firebrand. The wrinkly high priest was disembarking, together with two personal guards, from a chariot pulled by two pegasi.

“Ash Sister Trixie, you have fomented rebellion against our queen and one true prophet for quite long enough. It is time to face your punishment.”

A boom from above made everypony look up. Three distinct shapes were flying around the peaks of Canterlot Castle. Elder Firebrand laughed and looked back down at Trixie.

“Even as we speak Queen Diamond Dust is fighting the princesses, and when she wins nothing will stand in her path. The rebirth will come. But you will not be alive to greet it, neither will your tainted soul be reborn. Guards? Execute her.”

Firebrand’s personal guards unlocked their hoofblades and strode forward. Suddenly fireworks erupted from Trixie’s horn, drawing the attention of everypony in the field hospital.

“I am Ash Sister Trixie, hoofmaiden of Honoured Fulcrum, the Second Prophet and Angel of Mercy! I renounce the traitor queen Diamond Dust and her cronies and implore you, good followers of the ash, to do the same! They would use the coming rebirth for their personal gains and enslave you all in an even more corrupt Harmony. Even now they hold Fulcrum captive somewhere, preventing her from preaching the truth. Help me, brothers and sisters. Overcome these tyrants!”

Her words echoed for several seconds. Firebrand looked at her with an expression that told all about the endless hate he felt for her at that moment. Then he smirked.

“Do you really think they’ll fall for that?”

Mother Grindstone dislodged herself from the crowd walked up to Trixie’s side. The priestess looked at Firebrand with undisguised hostility and spat towards him.

“Actually, you rotbrained gelding, we already suspected much of what she’s saying. I think that if the rebirth really is coming then it’s high time we had us a bit of housecleaning in the order.”

Firebrand growled. Suddenly his jewelled staff was hovering in the air, business end pointing at Grindstone.

“I’ll teach you respect before you die!”

Nothing happened. The staff failed to produce any kind of magic whatsoever. When Firebrand realised this he was so shocked that he released his magic around it, letting it fall to the ground. Trixie grinned and breathed deeply.

“Watch as those who would betray the true prophet find their weapons powerless and their words useless! All praise Honoured Fulcrum!”

A cheer went up among the ash sisters and priests and was picked up by the soldiers as well. Firebrand finally looked worried and he started backing away. Then he turned to his personal guards.

“Stall them!”

His bodyguards moved to cover his escape as he ran. Not towards the forest, as Trixie had assumed he would, but towards a large group of soldiers that was approaching quickly. As he neared them he began yelling.

“Soldiers! The priests are rebelling! Protect me! Protect me, and you will be richly rewarded!”

The soldiers already held their weapons ready. They had been too far away to hear Trixie’s declarations. She swallowed reflexively as she saw Firebrand meet them, knowing that the wounded soldiers of the camp would be no match for these troops.

Then Firebrand reached the first soldiers, but instead of closing around the high priest they shoved him aside so hard that he stumbled and fell. Somepony shouted out in alarm from the back of their formation, gradually making everypony’s heads turn away from the stunned and prone Firebrand. Even his bodyguards lowered their weapons and stared.

The soldiers weren’t running to some new posting. They were fleeing something, shouting warnings as they ran.

“The dead have risen!”

Shapes could be seen just behind the fleeing soldiers, and when all had passed Firebrand he suddenly saw them clearly. They were without doubt the living dead. Corpses in every state of decay were moving out from under the trees. Firebrand’s eyes were already wide with terror but still managed to widen further when he recognised the pony standing right in front of him as Night Whisper. He looked into her unfocused eyes and screamed.

Meanwhile the fleeing soldiers had reached the field hospital. Trixie and the priests had called out to them, begging them to stop and help defend their wounded comrades. A line two ponies deep had formed in front of the tents, including everypony in any condition to fight – even Firebrand’s former bodyguards. Trixie stood between two ponies clad in much more armor than her and gazed out at the scene in front of her. The undead were horribly numerous, with tens turning into hundreds pouring out every second from the shadows under the woods, absence of visible breath in the cold air all the evidence needed to convince her that no pony in the field ahead of her except Firebrand still had a pulse.

Trixie watched as Firebrand was dragged away and listened to his terrified crying. She shuddered: his fate was almost, almost worse than he deserved. Then the undead forces looked up at the line of ponies... and kept their distance. The animated corpses weaved back and forth in front of her and the rest of the troops but never ventured closer than just out of stone’s throw. They seemed to be held back by an invisible border.

Feeling half daring, half foolish Trixie took a large step forward. The undead directly in front of her backed away a similar distance. She glanced to her sides at the ponies next to her, who were looking back at her with confused expressions.

“They’re being controlled. There’s a necromancer somewhere out there.”

Comments

[AngryDesu]

I am really liking this version of Trixie. Though I wait to see what her reaction to finding out that Fulcrum is Twilight may be before i really applaud her.

[Rough Boulder]

saw that the entire story was over 100K words. Wondering now how long it will take to read.

[SouthernmostDogs]

Needs more Possessed!Welder and Necromancer!Libram.

[Rough Boulder]

finally read it all. Nothing to do now.

[Beyond the Horizon]

Libram to the rescue eh?

[OddOneOut]

ooh this is gettin' juicy! i cant wait to read what happens next!

[Aurum]

This...This is the most awesomest story I have ever read ever since The Immortal Game! Why did I only find out of this a couple of weeks ago?! Every chapter, I never did once lose interest and just keeps pushing the thought in my head the I must read more of it.
This story seriously needs more attention!

[bobbananaville]

I've got to say, I keep on coming back to this chapter.
I haven't reread this story in a while (I've only actually read this story once as a whole, I think, and I haven't gotten around to reading it outside of an HTML file so I can't fave it without receiving 100 notifications in my Library), but this chapter haunts me. Just, the idea of someone's very being changing with a beam - their beliefs and values, to the point that they'd attack their friends just because they're 'enemy'.
God damn.