The unofficial continuation of Kiss of the Dark, using the "Bad" ending.
(This story is a legacy story, meaning it's mostly been left up for archival purposes; I don't consider it a current indication of my writing skill, but I wanted to let it remain available. Please, have a look at my most recent story for my current best work!)
The unofficial continuation of Kiss of the Dark, using the "Bad" ending. I'd heavily recommend reading the original,but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary. Twilight Sparkle hasn't had a good day. After being crowned Queen of Shadows by King Sombra, including a honeymoon, Celestia, Luna, and a strike team broke in and killed Sombra. She's now on the run, trying to deal with her newfound powers, and dealing with the loss of her husband.
Twilight Sparkle, newly christened Queen of Shadows, did not know she could smash through windows as otherwise intangible mist. Such was her first thought as she did just that, exiting Sombra’s castle in the most dramatic fashion possible. Rarity would have been proud had she been there, but she was likely back in Ponyville, worrying about her with the rest of her friends. Sombra probably would have been proud too, but he was a little too dead at the moment.
It hit her then, really hit her as the cold mountain winds tried to pull her little cloud of molecules apart. Sombra was dead. Her Sombra, the love of her life, the King to the Queen, and dead by Celestia’s hoof. And for that, she would have her revenge.
She paused as she crested one of the ridges surrounding the valley. Where from Tartarus had that thought come from!? Celestia was her mentor, and almost a second mother to her, and she’d wanted to-
Oh dear, her mother and father must be taking this especially hard, what had Celestia told them? What about Shiny? Did he know? Did everypony in Equestria know? She’d been going… somewhere, but if things had gotten so bad that Celestia had lead a strike team to kill them both…
She may not have had a home to go back to.
She certainly couldn’t go anywhere near Canterlot. That was right out of the question. Ponyville couldn’t be any better, because Twilight just knew that of all the ponies in Equestria, Celestia would’ve at least told her friends before she went to kill her. What would they do if she showed up in Ponyville? Would they hate her? Would they also try to kill her? Would they even care that she was likely pregnant now?
Speaking of which, was being in mist form hurting the foal? It very well could be. She had no idea how the spell even worked. Maybe if she got back to the library, she mused as she shifted back into a solid, she could research it and adapt it so- holy buck it was cold up here!
She hadn’t noticed in her mist form, as there was nothing for the temperature to freeze, but holy crap was it cold atop this cliff! It had been cold outside the castle before, but this was so cold she almost couldn’t think- no, Twilight. She could do this. She could fight past it.
Concentrate. Basic heat spell. Center it on her heart. Follow the veins, spread through the capillaries, back through the arteries. The feeling of having hooves, and those hooves being in pain, returned to her. She did her best to ignore it. Frostbite could wait. She had to make sure she hadn’t hurt her foal.
She took a deep breath, and began to magically inspect her privates on a near-microscopic level. She… couldn’t feel anything. It had been barely a day, if that, so it might just be that the foal was still too small and she couldn’t find it? Or… she had already…
She shook her head, trying to get rid of those awful, awful ideas. She hoped to… whoever she was supposed to now, as Celestia didn’t feel right anymore, that it was the former. Either way, she didn’t want to risk-
“Wait, is that seriously- OPEN FIRE!” As several bolts of multicoloured combat magic sliced past her, she decided that she could, in fact, risk it. She promptly disappeared into a cloud of mist, barely avoiding an on angry orange blur that fizzled through where her head had been a split second ago. She idly tested how much magic had been contained in the shot, and almost recoiled at how much sheer power had been in it. More than enough to kill her dead. They were very definitely shooting to kill.
After that, she let the wind take her, only using enough magic to keep her little cloud of purple together.
She had to-
She had-
She couldn’t con-
She couldn’t think, dammit! Every time she tried, tried to concentrate on something, thoughts of Sombra, of Celestia, all of them snuck in and made themselves the center of attention!
She stopped all thought, save what she needed to keep herself vaporous and coherent.
Go back to the beginning. Follow the chain of events, just Celestia’s lessons. This whole mess had started a little while after her coronation, after everypony had calmed down for the most part, when she’d gotten a mysterious note from “Forest Rain”. She met him deep in the Everfree, where he gave her a book of dark magic written by Starswirl himself. She could tell that from even a cursory glance.
She’d even managed to practice a spell or two later, destroying a bunch of target dummies, and an innocent tree in the park when she lost control of it. That had been the first time. Later on, she’d met “Forest Rain” again, learning a little about him. Of course, she still hadn’t quite been told the truth, but…
…But nothing he’d said was actually a lie, was it? He’d just neglected to mention one little detail. Later, she’d even taken him with her to the Crystal Empire, and immediately after, a proper date in the park. By that point, she realized, she was completely infatuated with him. She loved him.
And then it had all gone sideways.
He revealed himself to really be King Sombra, the same unicorn who had enslaved the Crystal Empire so long ago. The disguise had been a necessary deception, she knew. She would have never trusted him if he’d been Sombra from the very beginning. And she had been completely at his mercy, too conflicted to do anything. It would have been foal’s play to kill her then and there, just another pawn in his plan.
But he let her go. She could’ve easily gotten her friends, gotten Celestia, and she would’ve been justified in doing so. But she wouldn’t. He trusted her not to, and because of that, she trusted him. She loved him.
Even when she’d been invited to Canterlot, to discuss her home, he’d trusted her not to tell Celestia. And then the dark magic had gotten out of her control again, had kicked against her will, and killed those guards.
After that, she had to run. So she ran to Sombra. He had protected her as best he could, had made her his Queen of Shadows, had made love to her.
But he hadn’t protected her well enough, because Celestia, Luna, and their personal strike team had still found them. They had attacked, killing Sombra.
They had… killed… Sombra…
They’d told her lies, such pretty lies that she couldn’t deny were incredibly convincing, and the worst part was? She thought back to everything that had happened, and replayed it in her head, and realized how obvious it was sometimes that Sombra had been influencing it at least partly. How much he’d discretely controlled, how much he’d changed in his favor, how he’d played her like a fiddle.
But she’d thrown a wrench in his plans, she saw that in his eyes as Celestia killed him, she had wrecked his plan. Because he had actually fallen in love with her too. She saw his love for her in his eyes as they faded.
Or was that just more manipulation? What was real? What had been changed in her mind to suit him? And with that, she was back in this loop.
She stopped once more, this time landing on a plateau near the top of a mountain. Where was she? Her eyes searched the valley below for landmarks. A river wound through the valley before her, curling around a small village, and fed by a lake to the northeast. Past the lake was Canterhorn mountain, and Canterlot perched upon it like a giant marble birds’ nest.
A massive forest, more akin to a jungle really, covered the north half of the valley, spilling out past the gaps in the mountains around it and into the surrounding plains. That couldn’t be anything but the Everfree. That meant that the little village in the center of the valley had to be… Ponyville! She started, before trying to triangulate where she was from that.
If Applejack’s orchards were west of the town, and northwest of this mountain, than this had to be.. Ah! This had been the mountain that Dragon had settled in before trying to smoke out Ponyville. And that meant…
She slowly turned around, confirming her suspicions as she found exactly what she expected. Eeyup. Massive creepy cave. Still smelled kinda smoky.
Well, nothing to it. She needed a home, and while it was no Golden Oaks, it had safely and comfortably housed a Dragon and his hoard. As she began to walk closer, she passed something she recognized. The rock that had been split down the middle right before Fluttershy stood up to the Dragon.
The day played itself back out in her head. That had been one heck of a morning. Scary, to be sure, but at the end, they’d all been better for it. Especially Fluttershy.
Fluttershy. She’d take the news particularly hard, if she hadn’t already. Learning what had happened would hurt them all, but she was fragile. Like… well, like a butterfly.
If she tried, Twilight could just make out her cottage on the edge of the Everfree, and the tiny trail of smoke curling away from it. Using every ounce of her willpower, Twilight yanked herself away from the valley and back towards the cave. She took the last ten paces slowly, and deliberately, before entering the mouth of the cave. How did one measure the mouth of a cave, anyway? Celestia had never taught- Distraction. Stop it.
The cave itself seemed to be roughly a hundred paces tall, and nearly that width-wise. The cave floor she stood on seemed to continue for the next twenty or so paces, before sloping downwards into a bowl in the back of the cave, which was about eighty paces wide. It was almost uniform in it’s smoothness, and had probably been a water basin until the Dragon had cleared it out so he could put his horde there. A small pool of water, fed by the occasional drip from a stalactite above, confirmed this. It’s uniformity was only broken by a small cluster of rocks halfway up the back slope.
Not a single piece of gold, jewels, or anything valuable remained. The dragon had been thorough when he cleared it all out.
The day had been an exhausting one, and Twilight only had the slightest reservations before taking off her clothes and bundling them together into a pillow. She placed it on the flat part of the cave a safe distance from the mouth, and laid down.
She was now homeless, friendless, and loveless. Just before she fell into a dreamless sleep, she started feeling her eyes getting wet, and let the tears from the days events flow freely as she slipped away.
Some small part of Twilight’s mind, the small part that still remembered having so much fun she lost track of time in her lab and her friends had to send for Celestia to unlock her door, waited until the next drop.
Drip…
She started counting as soon as she heard it. One Draconequus, two Draconequus, three Draconequus… and so on until she reached 56 Draconequus, when she heard another drop. So… Almost, but not quite, one drop per minute. With this realization came another, in that she was awake now, and had to get up.
Her eye cracked open, and she could’ve sworn she saw a midnight blue blur before she blinked again. She looked around the cave as she sat up, checking the rest of the cave. Nothing. Weird.
She stretched, popping every joint in her legs all the way down to her hooves, before standing up fully. She stretched again, this time like a cat as she yawned. It felt like she’d slept for a while. She stood back up, turning her back to pop it as she reached out with her magic to her discarded cape and armor on the cave floor.
The instant spike of pain that shot through her horn did it’s best, in a very whiny way, to tell her something was wrong. With a yelp, Twilight sat back down, patting at her horn delicately. Still there. Still straight, still spiraled. So what was wrong with it? She hadn’t felt like that since… since she was a filly. Since before she got her cutie mark, when she was still struggling with magic.
This was magic exhaustion, she realized with a start. The sensation had been absent for so long that she’d completely forgotten what it felt like. She had no magic, or at least, none beyond what she personally generated. Her stores were dry. Which was odd, because she still had a good charge before she’d slept… Anyway, at least it was something she could fix.
She stepped outside the cave mouth, feeling the sun on her fur. Before, Celestia’s sun felt warm, inviting. It felt like she wanted to go out and play in it, like a filly again.
But now? Whether it was the plot-kicking she’d received the day before, or simply another side effect of dark magic exposure, Celestia’s sun felt different, like a glare, like she’d be sunburned if she stayed out in too long. The worst part was that it felt cold, too. By all rights, the sun should’ve at least warmed her. But today, it felt more like freezer burn than anything else. She’d have to make this quick.
She closed her eyes, and concentrated her miniscule amount of magic. A neon yellow line shimmered into existence against her eyelids, a ley line. This one was an aerial line, pointing over and in front of her, likely towards Canterhorn mountain. Quite a lot of ley lines converged there, so she wasn’t surprised by this one.
Still keeping her eyes closed to see it, she reached out and began to draw from it, like a foal suckling. It took a couple of minutes, but soon she had a full charge again. Yet… she still felt empty, as though she hadn’t charged fully. She was more used to this feeling, but only slightly so, as the Golden Oaks library had been a convergence point for two ley lines.
It felt… off, this time. It hit her at the same time as an arcing pain from her horn. She was- ugh, that stung… was drained of dark magic, as well. Over the past week or so, she’d grown accustomed to it, and her body had adapted to use it, hence the purple mist and glowing green eyes. Now that it was absent, her body was telling her it needed it again, not unlike a drug.
That was disconcerting, but only for a moment. This was how it had to be now.. Her thoughts turned back to the book, and what little she had read. Dark Magic wasn’t recharged by tapping into a ley line, but instead by drawing magic out of another creature. Earlier, when she had been practicing in Ponyville, she’d simply drawn magic from nearby vegetation. That wouldn’t work up here, as there was no vegetation to speak of. Well, maybe some lichen, but that wouldn’t provide enough magic.
The shriek of a hawk far above caught her attention. Putting her hoof to her brow and looking up, she caught a dot circling high above. Definitely a hawk. If the book she’d borrowed, or rather, been strongly recommended to read by Fluttershy was accurate, the call was that of a red-tailed Hawk. Not large enough to draw from, but the thoughts of the book brought something else to mind. The call was that of a warning, to tell other-
Her thoughts were interrupted again, this time by the yowl of a Mountain Lion from behind her. She turned just quick enough to catch it as it leapt, and on pure instinct had picked up a skull-sized rock before launching it on an intersecting trajectory. It slammed into the side of the Mountain Lion at the perfect moment, impacting into its ribs and nudging it off it off-target.
The lion barely missed her, landing on the rocky plateau just to her left before rolling a few times over the loose gravel. It scrambled back to its paws, blood dripping from a shallow gasp on its side. It yowled again, slowly pacing towards her.
That was when the hawk dove onto it’s face, clawing wildly with it’s talons. The Mountain Lion easily swatted it away with a paw, and the hawk made a ‘whap’ sound as it hit a rock wall behind Twilight. The distraction was all she needed, however, and Twilight had picked up the rock again, this time smashing it right into his forehead. It’s eyes crossed, and it stumbled, struggling to remain standing with its new concussion.
This gave Twilight another opening, which she used to pick up the Mountain Lion in her magic, before trying one of the first spells in Starswirls’ book. Twilight magically reached out to the Mountain Lion. She could feel it’s pulse, the steady thump-thump of it’s heart, the little electric shocks bouncing from it’s brain down it’s spine, now a little confused due to the good smack it had gotten from the rock.
She felt it all, and began to extract it, to pull it out and store it in her horn. The mountain lion went rigid for a second, as if unsure what was happening, and then began thrashing around in pure pain.
“Hold… still… I’m almost… done…” It gave off one last pained yowl, which trailed off as she finished siphoning it. It finally slumped, still held by her magic, only to be dropped a second later. It lay still on the ground, the kind of still only a corpse could achieve, before it began to decompose rapidly.
The fur fell out, the flesh withered away, and the bones crumbled. The only thing left was a fine powder, which was seized by the wind and blown away, leaving a few drops of blood as the only evidence there had ever been a Mountain Lion there. Twilight stared at the spot for a few seconds, before she screamed and started scrabbling backwards, away from it.
She only came to a stop when her back hit a rock wall, hyperventilating in terror. She… She had killed something, without even thinking… That mountain Lion was dead now, because of her… But it had been trying to kill her… And that… That felt…
…Good.
She knew, in the back of her mind, that she could do that again, especially if it came with all the dark magic it had provided. She needed more of that, and if she had to kill more living things to do it… She could do that. Even if they had to die in the most painful way possible, it didn’t matter as long as she got more magic.
There was a pained squawk from beside her, which brought her back to reality. The hawk from earlier had hit the rock, and it’s wing had broken. Hmmm… Maybe she could get some more-
No! Bad Twilight! What the buck! This hawk saved your life, you can’t just murder it like that! She slapped herself, before reaching down and picking up the poor bird. Definitely broken. And come to think of it, it looked sort of familiar…
Oh Tartarus. This was one of Fluttershy’s birds. That’s why it came to help her. And she couldn’t get it back, and she couldn’t help it, and it was going to die up here sooner or later…
…But maybe she could make it painless. It gave a sort of pained caw, and looked at her. She felt herself tearing up, and closed her eyes as she put her forehead against the hawk’s beak.
“I’m so sorry. Thank you for saving my life, but… I can’t repay you any other way. I’ll make it quick…” With that, she seized the hawk with two separate fields of magic, one above and the other below it’s neck. It gave one last squawk…
…And she twisted the fields in different directions. She both heard the snap, and felt it through her magic, crunching as bones were yanked in ways they were never designed to. The last few twitches of the avian body as the head died, and the body followed suit. The tears were freely flowing from Twilight’s eyes now, but she didn’t try to stop them. She just held the now-lifeless bird in her hooves and sobbed, as something inside her died.
She lost track of time after that. Lost track of what she was doing. She knew she’d buried the Hawk, and had scrounged up a few sticks to make an eight-pointed star for it’s grave. It had made sense at the time. It’s what Fluttershy would’ve wanted, and she’d tell her what she’d done. Tell her where. She owed Fluttershy that much.
It was only when she was sitting in the cave again, still crying her eyes out, that a question asserted itself. What would she do next, with her ill-gotten dark magic? There didn’t seem to be any point. Sombra was still dead. Magic couldn’t fix that.
Then, a glimmer of hope. What about Dark Magic? The tears slowed, as Twilight thought back to Sombra, every memory she had of him, from the Crystal Empire to their wedding night to his death. As she did so, she felt a twinge from her horn, like the point of a compass spinning inside it. She was on to something.
She began to will most of her dark magic together into a large shapeless blob before her, molding and rearranging it into a shape vaguely resembling a pony. Oddly, it seemed to be helping her, filling out the shape like paint filling a container. She simply had to keep pouring magic into it, and it guided itself. She closed her eyes and looked at it again, like she had with the ley line, and-
There was that blue blur again, from earlier! Out of the corner of her eye! Where did it- Aggggh!
All thoughts of the blue blur disappeared as the worst pain she had ever felt in her life shot through her skull. This was far worse than magic exhaustion, worse even than when she’d been bitten by that snake as a filly. It hurt so bad she couldn’t even scream, instead simply finding herself unable to stand. She dropped to the cave floor with a thump, like a sack of potatoes.
For the second time that day, she reached up and felt her horn, and this time something was very, very wrong. Touching it in the first place felt like her hoof was made of lava, and she almost didn’t trust them, thinking at first that the massive amount of pain had fried her pain receptors. In stark contrast to this morning, her horn felt like a loose tooth, almost soft, and like she could shift it unpleasantly just by touching it. Almost more disturbingly, she could no longer feel the spiral, which meant it was smooth. It seemed to crackle with static electricity as she followed it to the end, curving behind her, just like Sombra’s.
Before her, the pony-shaped blob of dark magic had solidified and was fully visible to the naked eye. It was coloured black, and she could see smaller details beginning to etch themselves into it. With one last jolt of electricity, the massive pain in her horn stopped, leaving only a dull ache. Almost simultaneously, she found she still had control over the magic shaping itself before her.
His head seemed to be almost finished, with his ears having already taken shape, as well as his nose. His horn had been curved from the start, and his mane was growing like grass. His eyes finished next, and as soon as they could, they snapped open, darting around until they settled on Twilight.
“Mphmmph!” He had no mouth, but he tried to scream anyway. Twilight began focusing her magic there, and soon his lips had finished outlining his mouth. In response, all work below his ribcage slowed to a crawl. He tried to open it again, and failed again, this time due to his tongue not having separated from the top and bottom of his mouth yet.
“Hwalught! Awe you okay!?” His words became clearer as his teeth sprouted, but she could understand him now.
“Sombra! Yes, I’m okay! Thank Faust that worked!” His face curled into an expression of pain as she stopped concentrating on her magic.
“Working, Twilight, working!”
“Buck! Sorry, sorry, don’t distract me!” Sombra shut his eyes and cringed as her magic finished his head and forehooves, completing his front half and starting to work its way down his barrel.
“Come on Twilight, I know you can do this; that’s why I looked so hard for you…” That gave Twilight pause, and she stopped the spell to narrow her eyes at him. As soon as the magic ceased to flow, he gasped and grabbed his half-completed hind legs, making a pitiful whimpering sound.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Wh…what? Twilight, without the constant flow of magic I’m going to start unraveling and it hurts quite a lot-“
“What do you mean, you looked for me specifically?”
“In the Crystal Empire, when you defeated me, I saw how much potential you had within you… More than myself, even more than Celestia-“
“Is that all I am to you? Potential?”
“Twilight, no! I saw- grrg!” His hind legs had begun to crumble like sand in the wind, and his teeth had clenched together hard enough to dent steel. Twilight began funneling just enough magic to him to keep him from dissipating too fast.
“When we were back in the castle, Celestia said something. I thought she was lying at first, but it’s been growing like a parasite in my thoughts. She said you were using me, just like you apparently used Starswirl the Bearded.”
“Celestia s-said-“
“SHUT UP! I’m not DONE! I hate when ponies interrupt my lectures! She said that you corrupted me from the start, that you played me like a damn piano until you got what you wanted!”
“Twilight…”
“I said SHUT-“
“She’s right.”
Those two words derailed Twilight’s train of thought better than any amount of explosives could. “I… What?”
“She’s right. I did just that.” Sombra’s legs had dissipated, or rather, unraveled up to his flanks now. “I manipulated you. I’m the reason you lost control of your magic all those times. I killed those guards, and saved you from a problem I created. And I’m sorry, Twilight. So very sorry. I’m sorry you thought any of it, any part of this whatsoever, was your fault.”
His barrel was beginning to unravel now. He coughed, and a small smear of red appeared on the cave floor in front of him. “I’ve been an evil, manipulative bastard, but will you-“ Another cough, this time more throaty and painful, accompanied by a larger smear of red. “-Can you forgive me?”
With that, his eyes dropped back to the floor, and settled on the growing pool of blood, now fed by a small dribble from the corner of his mouth. Twilight’s voice had a tremor as she spoke.
“But… How do I know you’re not just manipulating me again? How can I trust you?”
Sombra responded without looking up. “I’ve… been loyal, sticking –cough- by you when nopony else would. I’ve been generous, giving you my –cough- castle, my library, everything I own. I’ve been kind, always there to help you and never getting angry or annoyed. I taught –cough- taught you a new kind of magic. I even made you laugh a couple times that night in the castle. I’ve never been anything but honest, but –cough- …you’ll have to trust me on that one.”
Both sides of his mouth were dribbling blood now, steadily dripping into a growing puddle of blood beneath his chin. The lower half of his barrel had completely unraveled now, and his upper half was quickly following suit. Sombra was little more than the front half of a pony now, and he seemed to lose all strength, lose all will to stay sitting upright. He began to slump into the puddle…
…But was stopped by a purple hoof. “I… forgive you Sombra.” The unraveling slowed, stopped, and began to reverse. The pain stopped, as did the blood, but he could tell this was a tentative peace. That she could stop at any time.
“But I do want you to explain why, Sombra. Why marry me? Was that part of your plan? And choose your next words very carefully.” Sombra looked back up at Twilight. She was crying.
“From… from the first time I met you, not as enemies in the Crystal Empire, but as equals in the guise of Forest Rain… I saw you were so amazingly smart, so beautiful… You were, and still are, perfect. Every time we met after that, it only made me more sure. I love you, Twilight. That’s why I changed my plans so drastically. I could’ve had Equestria in a week. But… I wouldn’t have had you beside me.”
Twilight was still crying, and used the hoof not holding Sombra up to wipe her eyes. “Sombra… You’re right. You’re an evil, manipulative bastard.” She held his head with both hooves, cradling it like she had held the Hawk, and whispered next to his ear, “But I love you anyway.”
And then she kissed him. They both lost themselves in the kiss, Twilight not caring about the static taste of dark magic, nor the taste of copper from the blood, and Sombra simply being happy they were both still alive, and that she still loved him.
They were both simply happy to be there, and even happier the other was there too. In the back of Twilight’s mind, she registered the spell rebuilding him had finished, and that he had shifted from being a unstable, half-built copy of him to a full, flesh-and-blood pony.
Like all good things, however, it had to come to an end. This happened, in this case, when Sombra’s eyes snapped open and he pushed Twilight behind him, before leveling his horn at-
Twilight blinked. At Princess Luna? She was here, now? Notably, she seemed a little worse for wear, with her armor tarnished in some spots, blood-spattered in others, her wings ruffled, and her fur messed up overall. She was lying awkwardly against the cave wall, and wearing an expression that Twilight would’ve had trouble deciphering had she not been around Celestia the past years. She looked vaguely pissed off. But it was layered behind walls of suspicion and… jealousy?
Sombra horn began to spark with magic, before growling, “What? Was one death not enough to sate the royal bloodlust?”
“Nay. ‘Twas not our intention, Shadow. We simply wished to observe Twilight Sparkle, so that we might greet our comatose sister with good news ‘pon her awakening.”
“So you were going to rat her out? Wrong answer!” His horn began releasing more sparks, before it emitted a ‘pop’ sound as it backfired. He slumped to the ground, a brand new scorch on his horn, as Twilight stood over him, taking the position over him that he had over her not moments before. She leveled her own horn at the Princess of the Night.
“Princess Luna, you can’t tell Celestia what you saw here, or where we are.”
“Correct. I cannot.”
“Er… Whuh?”
“We art relegating ourselves to the position of an impartial observer. We hath seen the path thou hast chosen to traverse, and it doth not well. But. It ends worse, shouldst we interfere. We walked this path ourselves, but we walked it alone. Thine husband is with you. Mayhaps I am wrong. Mayhaps this will end in smiles and cupcakes.” Her eyes narrowed. “But it doth not seem likely. We shalt be observing you.”
Canterlot general was getting a lot of visitors as of late. The most important, of course, was Princess Celestia. First, because she was in a coma due to near-burnout and a severe drain of her life-force, and second, because she was the freaking Princess.
So, quite a lot of the doctors were quite overjoyed when she woke up with a gasp.
“Twilight! Don’t-“ she paused, looking around the hospital. “Twilight?”
A mare, white with a stethoscope cutie mark, entered her room, and smiled at her. “Princess! Glad to see you’re awake! Perhaps you can tell us what happened to you?” Celestia’s eyebrow rose. “Did my guards not tell you?”
“Sorry, but they just dropped you off and left before we could ask. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
“And let us both hope you never see anything of the like again, My Little Pony. I assume there are rumours?” The Doctor spun a clipboard absentmindedly as she contemplated telling the Princess.
“There have been. I’m not saying whether I believe them or not, but we’ve all heard rumours.”
“Tell me. No, wait. First send for a messenger, long distance, then tell me the rumours.”
The Doctor nodded, before her horn lit up. As if speaking to somepony else, she stated, “Heart Beat, the Princess just woke up. She needs to send a letter somewhere far away, so a long-distance Pegasus.” The shimmer around her horn dimmed, and she took a deep breath. “Well. The biggest rumour is that your student Twilight Sparkle has gone evil…”
Applejack bucked a tree.
Her legs hurt, and damn, every muscle in her hurt. All the way from her hooves up to her head, because, buck, even her brain hurt. She’d been working almost non-stop since she’d gotten home, at least getting close to a whole day. She’d gone for a long time before, she knew, and she’d have to stop soon. This might be the last one. But she wanted to see how long it would take before she outright collapsed, because she couldn’t handle what happened with Twi.
She had not taken the news well. Her friend, Twilight, bless her little academic heart, had tossed her lot in with that Sombra son-of-a-bitch? She wouldn’t believe it, and she thought it was all one really insensitive prank at first. Pinkie had simply gotten the Princess in on it, and she’d brought some of her guards to make it official, and…
Eenope. Real. All of it. The hay was Twi thinkin’, going along with him? She thought they’d all seen the last of him back up near the Crystal Empire, but apparently not. She jes’ couldn’t believe Twi had done that. It wouldn’t work in her brain.
Applejack bucked a tree.
The messenger had arrived, just as Doctor Clean Sheets finished the last rumour. Said messenger was a dark blue Pegasus stallion, with a cutie mark of a letter being hit by lightning. “Ma’am. Ready to take a letter to any part of the planet for you, Ma’am.”
Celestia nodded. “Good. Doctor Sheets, I shall have to dictate the letter to you.” Seeing the Doctor had a scroll and quill ready, she began.
“Emperor Gerard, of the Gryphon Empire, I send this letter as a request for military aid within our borders…”
“Oohhh, where to hit… Okay Sweetie Belle, D-6!”
“Aw, my Weatherpony…”
Scootaloo put a hoof on Sweetie Belle’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right. You’re not out of the game yet, and we’ll beat her long before she is!” Sweetie smiled back, and turned to Pinkie, who was giggling as she imitated her hit. “Hehe! Krrrz! Just like Ditzy Doo!”
Next to Pinkie, Apple Bloom was smiling too, having gone almost untouched throughout the game as soon as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle figured out how crazy good Pinkie was at four-pony Battleclouds. “I ain’t so sure, girls. Me and her are a pretty unstoppable team!”
Rarity’s voice came from the front of her shop, where she was working half-heartedly on a dress. “Ain’t is not a word, Apple Bloom.”
“Shucks, sorry Rarity. Jes’ comes natural. That’s how AJ taught me to talk.”
“Hmpph. I shall have to have words with her, one of these days.” The dress she was working on was one commissioned by Fleur de Lis, and was meant to be something to show off for her birthday. She’d requested whatever Rarity felt right, and Rarity had come up with a light purple dress, which was almost entirely skin-tight, save for lengths of silk in certain places to accentuate her figure.
Except that something was clearly wrong. What had seemed like such a beautiful design on paper had practically turned into a toga under Rarity’s hoof. It was like she couldn’t concentrate, being so distracted by recent events-
“Miss, Scoots! Didn’t even come close!”
And as helpful as Pinkie was, offering to help her sister and the rest of the crusaders try for board game cutie marks, she was getting on her nerves. Perhaps they were simply being too loud? No, she had worked in louder and more uncomfortable workspaces before. Perhaps having both Pinkie and the Crusaders in her shop simply had her on edge? No, because they had all agreed not to disturb anything, and she trusted Pinkie at least to hold them all to that. Or maybe it was-
“Krakow! B-12, Scootaloo!”
“What? But my cumulus was in the perfect place!”
“Not against Pinkie Pie, master of Battleclouds, it was-“
“Pinkie Pie, would you just shut up!”
Shocked silence filled the Boutique. All of the players had jumped at Rarity’s outburst, Pinkie in particular. She was staring at Rarity, agape, and her hair… It hadn’t quite deflated yet, but it was starting to get there.
“Pinkie Pie, how can you be enjoying yourself at a time like this, when Twilight is out there, her mind warped and twisted by Sombra, who knows what unspeakable things they might be doing-“
“Rarity.” Her voice was hard. Commanding. Rarity had never heard Pinkie speaking like that before, and a glance at the foals showed they hadn’t either. “Backroom. Now.” She was almost to scared to do anything… but she was definitely too scared to defy Pinkie at the moment.
She trotted into the backroom, sparing a glance at Sweetie, who was being held, almost protectively, by Scootaloo. Pinkie followed her in, closing the door behind her. “Rarity, do you think I’m being annoying?” The mare in question bit her lip.
“Darling… I think you’re being Pinkie. And as much as I normally enjoy Pinkie Pie, we may have just a little too much on our plates right now-“
“And that’s exactly why I’m still laughing.” Pinkie looked back at the door, beyond which were likely three now-terrified foals. They hadn’t exactly been told why they were Crusading inside, under Pinkie and Rarity’s supervision, or where Dash was right now, and for good reason. “Rarity, I’m just as concerned about Twi as you are, maybe more. But I can’t let that show. Did you see in there? How they got more scared then we’ve ever seen them, when we started acting scared?”
Rarity nodded. “Because they look up to us, all of us adults. Because we have to be strong, because if we start acting like there’s no hope, then as far as they’re concerned, there isn’t. I’m still being Pinkie, because the longer everything’s alright as far as they know, the happier they are, no matter what happens.”
Rarity nodded again. Of course. What would Sweetie think? Pinkie smiled a little bit, and her mane poofed up just a little. “Good. Now, Rarity, we’ve scared them. We’re gonna show them nothing’s wrong, because we’re both gonna go back in there, smiling, and just act like everything’s okay. For them. Alright?”
Rarity nodded one last time, and tried her best to smile. It came out looking as forced as it was. “Silly. That’s a terrible fake smile, and you know it. Think of… Think of something funny. Like that time you escaped a bunch of meany Diamond Dogs by whining at them.” The memory made Rarity smile, for real this time, and Pinkie did so too.
“That’s it, Rarity. For them. Smile, smile, smile!” Her hair still wasn’t as poofy as it was before, but it would do. Both smiling, they entered the shop again, and resumed what they were doing before.
Emperor Gerard, of the Gryphon Empire, he who had claimed his title from the last Emperor in a duel to the death hundreds of years ago, and had lived everlasting since claiming his head, was not expecting a letter from his good friend and ally, Princess Celestia. Certainly not on a Tuesday. Tuesdays had always been slow, and he could never figure out why, not in his 342 years upon the throne.
And as the message was read to him, more out of tradition than any worry of Celestia using exploding runes, he realized that this Tuesday was an exception. For this Tuesday, Celestia wanted him to send all his troops into Equestria to support her own, in what had to be a last-ditch strategy for her. His military advisor was informed, of course, and strongly recommended he did not comply with her wishes.
He didn’t give a damn. Celestia was his friend, and Equestria had certainly shown the power of Friendship in recent years. He’d back her up with everything he had.
“Send them in. All of them.”
Rainbow Dash glared at Fluttershy through the bars of the cell. It was a long, drawn out, spiteful glare, and Dash would have been proud of it had she not been trying to use it on Fluttershy.
“Dash, please don’t look at me like that. We both know I did this for your own good.” And then the glare broke, because no matter how annoyed she was at Fluttershy, she couldn’t keep it up.
“Flutters, I want to go help find Twilight. Is that so wrong?”
“It is when she might be dangerous, Dash. Trust me, let the guard handle this.”
“If you ask me, you’re putting way too much faith in the guard. What do you think they’ll do when they find her, huh? I know I’d bring her back in one piece, but they might bring her back in a bag for all we know!” Fluttershy eeped, and put her head in her forelegs. Dash instantly regretted it. “Aw, buck. Flutters, com’ere. You know I didn’t mean it.”
Fluttershy gave her wings a lethargic flap, and hopped across against the cell’s bars, which Dash hugged her through. “Sh, Sh. Come on, she’ll get back fine, and this’ll all blow over.” Fluttershy started sobbing outright into Dash’s shoulder, and Dash felt herself starting to tear up as well.
No pony as awesome as her had to cry if she didn’t want to. She was so awesome, she could’ve sucked that tear right the buck back into her face with the tiniest bit of effort.
It was a good thing she wanted to, then. She let out a few sobs herself, before starting to rock Fluttershy back and forth. Her scratchy voice began to sing one of Flutter’s favorite lullabies.
“Hush now, quiet now, it’s to lay your sleepy head…”
The Emperor’s third Air/Ground infantry division, like all the others, was in motion. As were all the others, Gilda bitterly thought. This was a stupid idea. They were going to go occupy Equestria, even if it was defensively, and it was a stupid idea to try and request this right now. Nonetheless, her paws brought her to her commanding officer’s desk. Lieutenant Gaston looked up at her. “Corporal Gilda. We’re on a schedule, what is it?”
She bit back a snappy retort, and remained rigid, business-like. “Sir. Requesting permission to ship out with one of the squads en route to Ponyville. Sir.” The Lieutenant eyed her up and down.
“I see. That’s an awful lot of paperwork to fill out right now, especially considering a personal request. Why should I put you on that Airship?”
“Sir, I’ve friends in Ponyville. I want to make sure they’re safe.”
“And you’re not alone in that. You’re the sixth Gryphon to come in here asking for the same thing, except in different cities. Denied.” Gilda blinked. She hadn’t expected that.
“Sir, with all due respect… I haven’t been the best of friends. No, that’s not… Sir, pardon my Prench, but I was being an ass the last time I saw them. Please, sir.” The older Gryphon leaned back in his chair.
“I was wondering where you’d come back from last time, having obviously been crying like you were. These the same friends you keep talking about? The rainbow one, and the pretty yellow one?”
“Yes sir. I’ve been a friend to Rainbow Dash since Junior Speedsters. I… Didn’t take well to her having found new friends. And I didn’t recognize Fluttershy immediately.” Gaston clicked his beak.
“So, you want to be transferred to Ponyville, huh?”
“Yes, sir. More than anything else, sir. I gotta keep them safe.” There were a few seconds of silence, and more than a few meaningful glances at the stack of papers already on the Lieutenant’s desk. Gilda busied herself with examining the Lieutenant’s rug.
“Request granted, Corporal. Get going.” Gilda looked up, surprised.
“You… You mean it?”
“I said request granted, didn’t I?” Gilda was grinning now, and bolted towards the door. She stopped in the doorframe, however, and looked back at the Lieutenant.
“Sir, I know you hate me doing this on duty, but… Thanks, Dad.” The older Gryphon smiled.
“Well, glad to see you stuck to protocol for a whole five minutes. Scoot, fuzzbucket. I liked your pony friends. I’m pretty sure this won’t amount to anything, but just in case… Keep them outta the line of fire, eh?” Gilda nodded, and ran back towards her locker to pack her equipment.
To say the silence was heavy, following Twilight’s description of just how she had gotten her meager charge of Dark Magic and her second kill immediately afterwards, simply wouldn’t do it justice.
And yet, there was simply no good way to break it. Sombra attempted all the same.
“Well. I have had to do many things… before, but to think you had to do them too, so soon… I had hoped I would be able to shield you from this. At least for a little while.” Twilight’s lip was trembling.
“I never thought… I mean, my life was going so well, I had never thought I would have had to… I know Gryphons and such hunt, but this wasn’t anything like that, I can’t… I can’t even…” She choked off, sobbing. Sombra had taken a seat a short distance away from her, facing her in the bottom of the cave. He couldn’t let her go on like this, he knew that, he was supposed to comfort her, but how?
“Twilight? …Would you like a hug?” It was a tiny thing, but he remembered hugging. Buried in some part of his brain, he could remember being hugged at some point. Even a thousand years and some days spent dead, he could remember hugging, and that it was comforting. He could only hope Twilight thought so too.
She looked back at him, surprised, and almost looked like she would say no… But then she nodded, and scooted closer, until she was hugging him with all her might, like a giant stuffed toy. Awkwardly, Sombra returned the best he could, being as he was slightly out of practice. Twilight’s sniffles slowed, and stopped, and she pulled her hooves back. Sombra only kept his around her a few seconds longer, but they eventually pulled completely apart.
Twilight looked oddly embarrassed now. “Right. Right. Okay. We need a plan.”
“That we do. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m… I’m fine. Come on, let’s put our heads together. We’re a couple of geniuses, I’m pretty sure we can come up with something. What’s our ultimate goal?”
“Well, I would have said revenge against Canterlot, or Princess Celestia specifically, but I know you’re close…”
“No. No, revenge sounds good about now. She killed you. I’m not gonna let that pass. But I did say ultimate goal. What about you? What was your plan a thousand years ago? ‘First the Crystal Empire, and then the world?’”
“Hm. Perhaps eventually. I was more obsessed with power than anything else. Thinking about it now, I really hadn’t planned much further than the Crystal Empire.”
“Well, control of the continent sounds good, at least for now. That means Equestria, the Gryphon Empire, Saddle Arabia, all of it.”
“A lofty goal, my Queen. And how shall we accomplish this?” He could’ve said anything else, but there was a spark in her eyes now. A little prodding, and it would be an inferno, one that would dominate all in it’s way. She was on a roll, and he wanted to see just where she’d roll to.
“Alright. So… We’re near the top of Dragonsbreath mountain. Ponyville is just a ways to the west, almost midway between here and Canterhorn mountain.”
“And we should attack there first?”
“Attack?! No! No, we… No. Maybe invade, certainly, but not attack. I’m not sure I could do with Ponyville being destroyed.” She paused. “All the same though… Attacking that close, and that obviously… Celestia would roll over us in moments. If we do invade, it would have to be stealthily, so much so that almost nopony would notice. We could only afford to be noticed after we had accumulated a strong standing force, one that could resist an attack from Canterlot, maybe even take it outright.”
“Apologies, but could you clarify? Are we, or are we not attacking, pardon, invading Ponyville?”
“Infiltrating! We’ll be infiltrating, nothing else. Only to the extent that we can go get my friends.” That wasn’t quite where he’d thought she would roll to.
“Your friends?”
“Yes, my friends. I think… I think I could convince them to join us.” Now he was downright skeptical.
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea…”
“Sombra, they’re my friends. I’ve sent friendship reports. One of those was about trusting them and their choices, and they learned that just as much as me. I know they’re my friends, so they’ll accept you! Right!?” Her hair was curling, like she had accumulated massive amounts of static electricity, and her teeth were making a downright disconcerting grinding noise.
“My Queen… Perhaps there are certain situations wherein those reports are not applicable?”
“That’s crazy talk! I wrote those reports, and Celestia liked them, so that means they must be right! They’re always right!”
“Twilight. Remember who has made themselves our greatest foe. I’m not disagreeing with you, merely stating…” Oh dear, he was probably going to regret this. “…It is a workable plan. But we must plan it out. How shall we reach Ponyville? I’m sure with most of Equestria on high alert, we can hardly approach, even under cover of night.”
Thankfully, she had seemed to become a little less… manic. “Right. And they’ll be watching for magic. So we can’t just mist in. We’ll be walking, and we’ll be doing so down this mountain, which is almost guaranteed to turn us into outright targets for predators, like that Mountain Lion.”
“And the Everfree, close as it huddles to Ponyville, is off-limits for the exact same reasons.” This gave Twilight pause.
“I thought it was fine a week ago. What do you mean?”
Sombra bit his lip. “I have not had much time to study it, but something about my presence alone seemed to agitate it. Such was one of the reasons I deigned to construct my castle north, in the mountains. It is a place where, I believe, chaos magic of some sort has been allowed to take root, and settle into an anachronistic rhythm. Controlled chaos.”
Twilight blinked at him. “I knew it was weird, but I didn’t know it was that weird… Chaotic how?”
“Like… It was designed, originally, for a goal, and it was given power, but it lost sight of what that goal was in the process. It felt it needed to defend itself from my presence, and it roused an Ursa Major to do so.”
He fidgeted nervously. Ursas were dangerous when he was at full strength, and fighting it then had been out of the question. He had been forced to run, leaving a half-mile of destroyed jungle in his wake. And it had been angry with him, like it knew of dark magic, and wished to destroy it.
“Crap. I don’t think I could take an Ursa myself… Although… Can you imagine how much power, how much magic we could probably siphon from it?”
“Let’s… hold off on that idea for now.”
“Spoilsport. Alright, approaching on ground, broad daylight, or through the Everfree is out of the question. What about aerial? I have wings.”
“ I do not, and they will likely be watching the sky.”
“Fuck. You’re right. Then what in Tartarus are we left with?” She blinked again, and turned towards him. “Could we-“
“No. I’m sorry, but trust me on this one. Nothing from Tartarus. Such is a canister of worms that none should ever open.”
“But I know Cerberus, and I haven’t any better idea…”
“Trust me, Twilight. No breaking into Tartarus.”
“Fine. Teleporting?”
“That would be like sending up a flare at both ends.”
“Dammit!” She stood, and Sombra could swear he saw smoke curling up from her nostrils. “Dammit!” Her horn was glowing now, and Sombra shifted ever so slightly out of her immediate line of fire. “DAMMIT!” And then, lacking any other target, she released the bolt of magic directly at the cluster of rocks, the only other formation of note in the cave.
With an earsplitting crack, like a hammer a mile long had flattened a mountain, the rocks imploded, scattering gravel across the cave… and revealing a hole behind where the cluster had been. Twilight stopped, staring at what had to have been the outlet for what had previously been an underground lake. “…Dammit?”
Sombra stood, and trotted past the stunned Alicorn, to the hole. Poking his head inside, he inspected the slope, the height, the width, and potential light sources. There was the sound of approaching hooves, and Twilight was next to him.
“Hmm. Twilight, I would assume this cave leads down to ground level, perhaps below. If it’s part of a series of caves, some of those volcanic in nature, it may take us underneath Ponyville.”
“And we’d have our way in.”
“Indeed.”
The cave sloped downwards at an angle that, while not impossible to traverse, was by all definitions precarious by the light of their horns. They had to watch their step most of the way, and in several places where it made hard turns underneath itself when met with a vein of ore, the had to lower each other down gently with their magic.
“If we intend to make this our base of operations, one of the many renovations we shall have to make is adding stairs to this passage.”
“That reminds me actually, what is up with all the stairs (snrk) in all of your castles?”
“Two reasons, Twilight. First, elevators had not been invented yet. Second, no army, no matter how well-trained or disciplined, is going to be in any condition to fight after marching up sixty flights of stairs. And that is if we do not pick them off on the way up.”
“Clever. So you want to make this more easily-accessible, but also much harder?”
“Correct. At least the first part will not be hard. This tunnel is wide enough for a pony twice my height to move around freely, if they do not mind a lack of horizontal movement.”
“Actually, that’s a good point. Surely the river couldn’t have carved this out?”
“And these rocks are jagged, not smooth. Curious.”
“It’s almost like somepony carved out a much a smaller tunnel, so they could get at-“ And then a sound reached her ears, one that made them both get quiet very quickly.
Singing.
More specifically, really bad singing.
Silently, Sombra crept forward, motioning for Twilight to follow. By this point, the tunnels’ slope had mostly flattened out, and had essentially become a corridor. Albeit a particularly natural one. He poked his around one last corridor, and was rewarded with the sight of a tunnel junction, with one of the walls being mined by… Something. Whatever it was, it was a terrible singer.
“Diggy diggy hole…”
“Twilight…” He hissed, just loud enough for her to hear. “What is that creature?” She crept past him, glancing around the corner.
“Hey, it’s a Diamond Dog! We went into their cave systems before, my friends and I, to rescue Rarity! The tunnels must extend under this mountain, I bet to try and steal the Dragon’s hoard really stealthily…” She glanced again. “Looks like it’s just the one. We can take him down, and follow these all the way to Ponyville if we need to.” Sombra nodded, and as one, they began creeping down the tunnel, their already-silent hoofsteps masked by the awful singing.
“Oh, I am a Dog and I’m digging a hole! Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hole!” Entering the junction, which was round, with tunnels splitting off in every direction, Sombra kept an eye out for any other Dogs. Twilight was only a few hooves behind the Dog when she felt the ground shake.
Thinking fast, she picked the Dog up in her magic, holding him just far enough above her that he couldn’t reach her with his pickaxe. Only a split second later, the ground exploded all around them, as six Diamond Dogs emerged holding swords and shields. Another half-dozen dropped in from inside the ceiling, and Two wearing much heavier armor popped out directly underneath her and Sombra.
Sombra was grabbed around his barrel, and the Diamond Dog retreated downwards, slamming him onto the cave floor. Such was enough to knock him dizzy and unable to cast anything. Twilight, on the other hoof, now had a hostage. “Stay back! I’ll kill him, don’t think I won’t! Where’s your leader?!”
A tense moment passed, wherein all the armored Dogs glanced at each other. Then a voice, like a high-pitched growl, came from one of the side tunnels.
“So! Pony returns! And she brings friend! Which we told her explicitly to do neither of!” The voice could belong to none other, then… whatever that smaller Diamond Dog’s name had been. Come to think of it, they hadn’t actually asked at any point before. He emerged, flanked by the other two dogs, and crossed his arms while leaning against a cave wall.
“And I apologize. However, we need passage through these tunnels-“
“Diamond Dog tunnels not personal highway! What right do Ponies have to use Dog tunnels like? After threatening pack member?” Sombra spoke up from his position on the floor, having regained his breath.
“Perhaps we can discuss a trade?”
“Fine! Ponies drop Honeydew, and leave way they came.”
“That’s not a trade!”
“In exchange, we do not kill Ponies for trespassing, again!”
Sombra caught on quickly. “Not just any crystals. Have you ever acquired… Dark Crystals?” The Dog arched a dirty eyebrow.
“What Dark Crystals? Tunnels already plenty dark.”
“Can you construct anything out of your own crystals?”
“No. Crystals fragile. Not good materials.”
“These ones are.”
“Dogs not believe you. Leave now.”
“I can prove it, but you will have to let me up.” The Dog gritted his teeth as his brain chugged along, and growled.
“Grrrrrg… Fine. Steel-toe, let black Pony up.”
“And move your goons back!” Twilight shouted, waving the dog around in her levitation. He was beginning to look slightly sick.
“Pushing it, Pony. Dogs! Back six paces!” The twelve dogs surrounding them moved as one, retreating back exactly six paces. Sombra found himself released, and stood, searching the tunnel. There were a few patches of lichen, just enough for what he needed. His magic reached out, bleeding the life from the organism, and giving him a few sparks of dark magic. The aura would provide the rest.
“Name something you’d build. Something simple, I don’t have much at the moment.”
“Hm. Pickaxe.” Sombra nodded, and went about forming the magic into a crystalline form, which he then grew into the rough shape of a pickaxe, shaving away fragments to be reused or to be turned back into dark magic. When he was finished a minute later, he had a black, glassy pick, admittedly without any soft angles.
“A pick. Take it, as a gift of our goodwill.” He dropped it into the claws of the nearest Diamond Dog, who examined it. He wiggled the head, which, as it was all one piece, didn’t move. He even gave it a few thumps with his fist for good measure. Satisfied, he looked to the shortest dog.
“It’s stronger than our own attempts.”
“Than give, dolt!” He snatched the dark pick out of the claws of the other dog, and walked to a nearby wall. He gave the pickaxe a swing, and struck it with all his tiny might.
The pick didn’t just impact it. It cleaved through, smashing thirty pounds of solid stone from where it had rested for millennia, and revealing a small vein of coal behind it. The Dog looked down at the pick with awe in his eyes, and turned back to Sombra and Twilight.
“If Ponies can make more of these… Where do Ponies need to go on personal highway?”
Sheriff Silver Star was having a downright shitty day.
First, some danged fool up in Canterlot, whose name he suspected ended in “-elestia”, had apparently decided to assign two squads of Gryphon soldiers in defense of his town without telling him beforehand. Then, after he got all the catbird’s living arrangements figured out, he walked back outside to find everypony had downright disappeared. And that was when one’a them damned bug-ponies clubbed him round the head and dragged him to the saloon.
The dagnabbed Changelings had taken all of Appleloosa by surprise, and the Gryphons there, and had stuck them all in some goop ‘fore leaving them lying around the saloon. And of course, nopony could reach even a single bottle of booze. He’d tried, shit had he tried, and the fuckin’ teases had even left him hanging upside down over the bar, but he just couldn’t stretch far enough.
Around him, all of the good citizens of Appleloosa, all fifty-six of them, were stuck willy-nilly to the floor, to the walls, and to the ceiling. Closest to him was Braeburn, stuck against the front of the bar.
“Braeburn!” He hissed, catching his attention while avoiding the guards’. “Can ya’ll get free?” The stallion in question gave a wiggle, and shook his head. Sheriff Silver Star looked back up at his own coating of green crap, and began muttering to himself. “Tarnation. Wish I had that fancy six-shooter my pa gave me. I don’t like being able to kill that easy, it ain’t right, but I reckon that’s jes’ ‘bout what we need right now…”
A sound outside the saloon caught his attention. Heavy hoofsteps on the planks outside. There was a final creak as the saloon doors opened, and in strode the biggest damn changeling he’d seen in his life. And also the fifth changeling he’d ever seen in his life.
“Ah, ponies of Appleloosa. A pleasure to meet all of you. I’m ever so sorry it had to be like this, but I don’t think we could’ve just walked into town to resupply, could we?” She paused, as if waiting for an answer. When the building remained silent, she made a grumbling sound and began pacing.
“Fine. Be like that. Anyway, it doesn’t particularly matter. Who among you is the leader?” Sheriff Silver Star looked at her.
“I’m the Sheriff of this here town. Why are ya’ll askin’?”
“Why, to negotiate your surrender, of course. I do hope things are not so far gone that we cannot work out a deal?”
“Deal? Ya’ll waltz into our fair town, goo us all up, and expect us to cut a deal with ya’ll? If’n ya’ll want food, take it. Jes’ leave us alone, we ain’t done nuthin to ya.”
“Well, there is a problem with that. We feed off of love, which you may have noticed, would have been next to impossible to acquire here no matter how we went about it. So, here’s our deal. We take, say, half the males of this town. For breeding and farming. In return, we leave the rest of you unharmed.”
“No deal.”
She sighed. “No, I didn’t think so. A pity. I would have even let you choose which ones. No, Sheriff, I didn’t want to do this, but-“ She paused, smacking her lips. “Odd. Somepony in this room is already giving me love. Who…?” She looked down at Braeburn, who was desperately trying to avert his eyes.
She crouched down, making herself level with the yellow stallion. “Interesting. What is your name?”
“Uh, Braeburn, ma’am. Sorry to distract ya.”
“Oh, think nothing of it, Braeburn. I am Queen Chrysalis. Most ponies in your position are terrified, not amorous. You are not?”
“No ma’am. Pardon my say-so, but… ya’ll are right pretty.”
“Well, thank you. I’m glad somepony in this town is willing to be civil. And I shall be too. Hold still.” She began rubbing her forehooves together, another coat of goo emitting from the holes, and then started painting Braeburn’s cocoon with it. It bubbled, and then started melting away, while he looked at her, surprised.
“Thank ya kindly, ma’am. And, uh… Welcome to Aaaappleloosa?” Chrysalis chuckled, and helped him to his hooves.
“And it is a wonderful town, first impressions notwithstanding. Tell me, Braeburn, would you be willing to resume negotiations in lieu of the Sheriff?”
“Ah reckon ah can do that. Ah figure we can talk this out like civilized creatures, don’t ya’ll?”
“ I believe we can.” Above him, Sheriff Silver Star spat a single word.
“Traitor.” Both Braeburn and Chrysalis looked up at him in surprise.
“Hey, no need for that, Silver.”
“And why’s that? After what this thing’s done, ya’ll wanna talk nice with it? Didn’t ya’ll hear ‘bout Canterlot? How she invaded and lied and replaced one of the Princesses?” Chrysalis glared at him.
“I only did what I had to do for my brood’s survival. And it still failed. We’ve been slowly starving ever since, dropping one by one. Even our hive, out in the Badlands, has been overtaken by Quarry Eels. We’ve been living in the nooks and crannies ever since, until my scout reported Equestria was in trouble.”
“Better ya’ll starve out there. ‘Cause here in Equestria, we don’t take kindly to your kind replacing our loved ones.” Braeburn frowned at him.
“Sheriff Silver Star, that’s enough. No creature deserves that, no matter what they done. And they’re willing to be peaceable about it, long as we give ‘em the chance.” He turned to Chrysalis. “Ah’m getting feelin’s o’ hostility in here. Mebbe we should talk somewhere else?”
“I couldn’t agree more. We’ve established a temporary hive just outside of town in some old mines. They’re much more stable now. Please, follow me… Handsome.” She turned, swishing her tail underneath his chin and flashing him a glimpse underneath, before trotting out the door.
Braeburn couldn’t follow her fast enough.
The second she was off the first shift, Gilda was in the air, making a beeline for Dash’s cloud house. She landed on the porch, shaking her wings, and walked to her door. She gave the filled mailbox a glance, and considered her options.
Damn. Looks like she’s been out for a few days. Or she just got too lazy to check her mail. Still, if she’s not in, I’m gonna have to start asking around. Well… Worth a shot, all the same.
Her mind made up, she have the door a quick series of thumps, three, four, then two more. Their old code, back at flight camp. There was a squeak from inside, a gut-wrenchingly familiar one. She put her beak up to the door, and took a deep breath.
“Fluttershy?” There was silence, tense silence, for a few seconds, before Gilda’s well-trained ears caught the sound of somepony shuffling towards the door, quiet as a mouse. Even then, she almost didn’t catch the reply.
“Gilda?”
“Hey.”
“…What are you doing here?”
“I was kinda looking for Dash, but… well… I gotta speak to you too, Flutters.”
“Okay.” Gilda nodded, not caring that Fluttershy couldn’t see her through the door, and sat down, leaning against it. She started toying idly with the flintlock pistol on her hip as she talked.
“Flutters… I fucked up.” There was an eep sound from inside, and Gilda wished she could have picked a different word. “Sorry. Not just for saying that, but for the whole thing here a couple years ago. I… I’d just come back on leave since I got drafted, and I wanted to see my old friend Rainbow. And she… She had kinda been my only friend, ever. We Gryphons, we’re not good at all this friendship crap. I’m, like, really sucky at it, myself. I couldn’t even make any friends in my platoon. And when I came to visit pretty much the only friend I’d ever had, just to find out she’d basically replaced me… I didn’t take that shit well.”
There was another eep sound. “And, uh, sorry I keep cursing. I’ve been in the military for a while now, and you get used to it after a while. Anyway. Sorry for what I did to you. It wasn’t nice, shit, it wasn’t anywhere close to nice. I didn’t remember you, cause I only met you, like, twice, so to me you were just some pony who got in my way. And I was an asshole.”
“And I’m sorry it took this goddamn long to say all this. After that party, I just went straight back home, threw myself into my work. Got up to Corporal. But… I always regretted what I did, and I was always looking for a chance to come back here. That’s why I’m here now, actually. Pulled some strings, probably pissed off a couple of Gryphons, but I did it all so I would get assigned here. Just to say sorry.”
The wind blew past her, a gentle breeze, as the house wasn’t too high up. Maybe a hundred paws, at the most. Still, it was enough for the wind chime at the end of the porch. It made a gentle, ringing series of notes as the stone in the center tapped the scrap-metal pipes.
Abstractly, Gilda recognized it as one they’d built back in Junior Speedsters, as an arts-and-crafts project. The string had been replaced, as had the wooden base, but the rainbow-coloured pipes were still there. Dash had spent the whole class digging through the piles, looking for the perfect ones, only to run out of time as she pulled out the last.
Gilda had found them again, “borrowed” them from the class (They were gonna take their wind chimes home anyway, so no biggy) and built a second wind chime for Dash, using them. She’d been amazed when Gilda found her the next day, and gave it to her. That was really how they’d become such good friends.
Fluttershy’s voice sounded sorta like the wind chime, too. “Gilda? You really mean it? This isn’t a prank?”
“Fuck no. You don’t joke around about shit like this, even I know that. It’s not funny, it’s just mean.”
“…Okay… I’m… I’m going to open the door.” Gilda got back up, popping her back while she waited. She’d started slouching again. Well, basic didn’t break all of her habits.
The door creaked open, and a tiny yellow snout poked out, protected from the world by a long, pink mane, like a bunny making sure it was safe outside. Gilda suddenly realized she must’ve looked a sight, with her sweat-stained barding and her weapons still on her. Still, she had more important things on her mind at the moment.
“’Shy? Is everything alright? Where is Dash, anyway?”
“Um… Please don’t do anything drastic, but… I came by to make sure Tank was alright, because she can’t take care of her while she’s in jail-“
“What- She’s where?!”
“Dagnabbit, Dash, we’re worried sick ‘bout you, all of us girls.”
“And I’m worried sick about Twilight. Am I allowed to do anything about it, Applejack?”
“No, because-“
“Because apparently being an Element of Harmony isn’t enough for Celestia. Because apparently being her friend isn’t enough for Celestia. Because Celestia wants her dead now.”
“Rainbow! Ya’ll take that back!”
“See, I’ve been watching out this window for the whole day. Started as a distraction, but I just started paying attention to the whole town. And I’ve noticed a heck of a lot more Gryphons runnin’ around, with armor and guns.”
“Celestia asked for assistance from the Gryphons, yeah, but-“
“But nothing. That’s a move against public enemy number one, not a friend who’s gone missing.”
“Dash, you, ah… ugh! Listen to buckin’ reason!” Behind her, the door opened, and a Gryphon wearing heavy armor stepped through.
“Visiting hours are finished in five minutes.”
“What? The Sheriff’s office don’t have visitin’ hours.”
“It does now. I’m assuming control of the local police force. And you have five minutes to get out of my building.” Behind Applejack, Dash sighed.
“AJ, don’t worry about me. Worry about Twilight, she needs it more I do. I’m just stuck in here. The food’s shit, but I’m good.” Quietly, the Gryphon closed the door. Applejack turned around to face Dash again. She had one more trick up her metaphorical sleeve.
“Fine, Dash. Fine. But what about the weather team?”
“What about the weather team? You know they don’t need me, it’s just rogue clouds from the Everfree. Not even a rain shower in the next week.”
“Everfree’s gettin’ rowdy. From what ah heard, they had ta call in some of the reserves ‘cause of a twister that durn near wiped out Carrot Top’s crops.”
“What? Why?”
“Dunno. That’s yer job, Dash, and you’re shirkin’ it in here.”
“…No. I… I can’t. I’d be letting Twilight down.”
“Dash, she don’t even know ya’ll are in here! She might have forgotten us completely under that danged Sombra’s-“ Dash spun around, slamming her hooves on the bars of her cell.
“NO! It doesn’t matter how crazy Twi is, she’d never forget about us! And I’m not gonna forget about her! I’m not getting out of here unless you let me see my friend!”
“Gee, Dash, I didn’t know you missed me that much.” And suddenly, Gilda was leaning against the doorframe. She must’ve snuck in when Dash and Applejack weren’t looking. Leaning around her to look inside, was Fluttershy, looking terrified. Dash suddenly realized she was terrified because of her.
“G?”
“You know it. What’d you do this time, Rainbutt?” She stood up, walking to the cell bars, and Applejack moved out of her way.
“I’m being stubborn, but what- What are you doing back in Ponyville, G? I thought me and all my friends were lame?”
“Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I? Well… I’m sorry. But the pink one was fuckin’ with me, I’m seri-“
“Gilda.” Fluttershy’s voice cut the Gryphon off better than a gunshot would’ve.
“Sorry. In fact… Yeah. That, a couple dozen more times. I’m sorry I fucked up so bad here. Been regrettin’ it for a while. Where is the pink weirdo, anyway? I especially wanna say sorry to her.”
“Can ya’ll stop calling her ‘the pink weirdo’ first?” Gilda turned to the Earth pony beside her.
“Eh, maybe. Weird ain’t exactly bad, and If you think about it, I’m right. Wait… Shit, you’re that Apple pony, aren’t you?”
“Applejack. Ah remember ya’ll now. You got one heck of a nerve comin’ back here.”
“Hey, wait one second. I said I’m sorry. You wanna know what I had to do to come here and say that?”
“Ah’m a big believer in actions speakin’ louder than words. Go on.”
“You know that Gryphon out there riding your asses about visiting hours? That’s Corporal Hookbeak. Nasty sonofabitch. Him and his whole division. I only caught a ride out here with him cause he was coming here, and I knew this might be my last chance for a while to do the same. And to personally protect my friends.” She turned to Dash. “Come on. Lemme do that, at least. Gamma division is made up almost entirely of assholes.”
Dash looked surprised. “They assigned a whole division out here? Just to Ponyville?”
“Damn straight. Prime target for your Egghead friend.”
“Twilight wouldn’t attack Ponyville. Not in a hundred years.”
“Brass thinks different. Orders, sorry. But If I see her, I’ll make sure to play nice, unless she tries to pull something. I don’t have much authority In this division though, so we gotta hope I run into her first.”
“Yeah. We gotta find her.”
“Hold up, Dash, ya’ll can’t be thinkin’ a draggin’ Gilda into this too-“
“I’m thinkin’ about it, yeah. Also thinkin’ of bustin’ outta here.”
Gilda rose a feathery eyebrow. “Hang on just one second, Nyan Dash. I can probably get you released under my care.”
“Well, shoot. Now I gotta come along to keep an eye on ya’ll.” Dash nodded, and turned to Fluttershy.
“How about you, Flutters? You don’t have to come along if you don’t wanna.”
“No… She’s my friend too. And I think with all that’s going on… She may need a little kindness.”
For the first time in a week, Dash smirked her trademark smirk, and motioned for everypony… No, everyone, to come closer. “Alright. So here’s what we’re gonna do…”
Pinkie Pie sat at the counter of Sugarcube Corner. Around her, the Cakes baked and restocked the shelves, and the customers ordered food. Come to think of it, she probably should have been paying attention to that.
“Sorry, Pokey. Kinda zoned out there for a second. Could you try that again.?”
“Oh, sure! Just some coffee, one sugar, one cream. And a cinnamon roll, please.”
“Gotcha.” Pinkie expected him to find a table and wait for him to tell her his order was ready, but he kept standing around the counter. He seemed… sad, sorta. She didn’t like when her friends were sad. She was about to ask why he seemed sad, but he beat her to it.
“Pinkie, are you okay?”
“Yeah, just peachy. Why?”
“Well, you don’t seem yourself. Usually you’re all happy and bouncy and yeparoony, but today… You look like somepony put salt in your coffee, instead of sugar.”
“Sorry, just… It’s been a hard couple of days.”
“You… didn’t actually put salt in your coffee, did you?” That got a little giggle out of her.
“Silly. And I only did that once.”
“Alright. And you’re sure you feel okay?”
“…Kinda.”
“Kinda? Look, Pinkie,” He leaned over the counter, into her eyes. “Pinkie, when you’re down, so’s the rest of Ponyville. But you gotta remember, Pinkie, everypony in Ponyville’s your friend. You can tell us anything, alright? We’re here for you, and whether you need a shoulder to cry on or somepony to throw a party for you instead, you just gotta ask. We’re worried about you.” He punctuated the last sentence with a hug across the counter, which Pinkie eagerly returned.
Which, considering just how far Pokey was leaning over the counter, may not have been the best idea. “Twitchy tail!” was just about all Pinkie could squeak out before they both landed with a thump. They lay there in shocked silence for a second, before Mrs. Cake popped out of the kitchen.
“Pinkie, the new load of donuts are out of the oven, and- um.” She looked over the scene. “Pinkie, I’m pretty open-minded, but I’m pretty sure that’s against the health codes this close to the kitchen during business hours.”
“Hiya, Mrs. Cake! Pokey wanted hot coffee, with sugar and cream!”
“…I’m sure he did. But can you keep any poking on that side of the counter? And preferably out of the view of foals?”
“Gotcha, Mrs. Cake!” The plump mare in question backed into the kitchen, snickering to herself. Pinkie did a quick somersault, taking Pokey with her, and landing perfectly on her hooves. Pokey found himself on the other side of the counter, and dizzy.
“…Okay. Uhm… Pinkie, I’m not sure if you were just going with the flow or not, but if you want that kind of attention too-“
“Aww, thanks Pokey! And I might just take you up on that offer, later.”
“Hey, whatever makes Pinkie act like Pinkie again.” He gave her another smile, and began trotting towards a nearby table. Mr. Cake exited the kitchen, carrying a tray with a cup of coffee to the counter, and he gave Pinkie a look.
“Pinkie, why is my wife suddenly giggling like a schoolfilly?”
“…No idea, Mr. Cake!”
“Weird. Anyway, the cinnamon rolls are gonna be a couple minutes. We’re gonna have to make ‘em from scratch.”
“Okie dokie lokey Mr. Cake!” With that, he disappeared into the kitchen again, leaving Pinkie Pie with her thoughts. She had some good friends, she really did. More than the girls, too, although after that, the only thing that could really make her any happier than she already was-
“Pinkie! In here!” Was hissing her name quietly from the basement door! She glanced around Sugarcube Corner again, and seeing only Pokey carefully using a level on his horn, ducked into the basement. Twilight shut the door behind her without a peep.
“Twilight!” She squeaked happily, practically crushing the purple unicorn with her hug. She tensed up really weirdly for a second, but she settled back into it afterwards, so Pinkie didn’t fault her that. “It’s so good to see you Twi! The Princess was saying all these meany mean things about you, like you’d gone evil and eloped with that meanypants Sombra and killed a bunch of guards and totally blew off Cheerilee’s birthday party and how’d you get in the basement anyway, silly? That’s weird, even for me, and I’m Pinkie! So if I’m saying it’s weird, then its super humongous extra duper weird! But we gotta go tell everypony you’re okay, and Pokey’s right upstairs and he doesn’t really know you personally but I’m pretty sure he’d be happy too and-“
“Pinkie! I’m happy to see you too, but bring the motor mouth down a gear, all right?”
“Yeppers!” And then she down next to her on the steps. Although she tilted her head pretty quickly to look at her from another angle. “Twi, have you been using weird eyedrops or something? Did you go off prescription? I did that once, which was really confusing, because I don’t have a prescription.”
“What? Eyedrops?”
“Youse got green eyes, Twah!” Pinkie said, in an odd accent for seemingly no reason. “An’ the onley otha ponay ah know wit’ green eyes is dat meany-pants Sombra!”
The voice of another pony, a stallion with a weirdly husky growl, came from further down the stairs. “I’m not quite sure what ‘meany-pants’ means, but I can infer enough that I should feel insulted.”
Pinkie gasped. “Ooh! I don’t recognize that voice! That means new pony! Or it’s Bon-Bon again! Is that you, Bon-Bon?”
“Who?”
“Omigosh it’s not Bon-Bon new ponyyyyy!” Pinkie Pie was halfway to the door again when she found she wasn’t moving anymore. She looked down, and discovered she was floating. “Wheeee! Twi! New pony! I can fly now! I mean, I could before with my Ornithopter, but now I can do it all on my own! Yehaa!” And with that, she kicked off the wall and spun around in a circle.
“Pinkie.”
“Yes Twilight?” She stopped in midair somehow, defying one of the laws of physics. She wasn’t sure which one, but she knew she had to set an example to keep all the others in line. And it was kind of a dick, ‘cause it was always screwing up her party artillery trajectories. So really, screw that law, it could go eat… something not very nice! Like a peanut butter cupcake! Eugh, peanut butter.
“Pinkie? You just stopped and started blinking to yourself, like Gummy.” And also, she was upside down. And Twi’s horn was glowing. Oh, wait a second…
“Twilight! First, I’m not, although I aspire to be and greatly admire the Winslow, actually the Winslow. Second, why’d you stop me? Doesn’t the new pony want a party?”
“Pinkie, I think some ponies would get very angry and murder-y if they knew who the new pony was.”
“My Queen, how do you know this pony again? She confuses me, and makes me crave rock candy. But she primarily confuses me.”
“Oooh! You like rock candy? Then I know what to serve at your party! I bet I could make a cake out of rock candy! But I don’t know what to put on the cake! Who are you again?” There was the sound of a chuckle, and the new pony spoke again from the shadows at the bottom of the steps.
“Hmm. I’ll give you a hint.” And then, a pony loomed out of the darkness, purple mist curling from his eyes and teeth like razors and fur like pure shadow and omigosh it was Sombra! Who then croaked out, “Cryyyyyystalsssss…” just like in the Crystal Empire!
“Ahhhhhhh! Twi! It’s Sombra! He’s come to eat my suntan lotion, just like I dreamed! Twi, he’s evil, we gotta get Dashie and Aj and Flutters and… Why is he laughing? And not an evil villain laugh?” And just like she said, he was what one could only really call mildly mischievously snickering. Which wasn’t evil. Dash rated that on a good day.
“Hehehehe… Oh, it’s been too long. I needed that. I changed my mind, my dear. The Pink One can stay, for she amuses me.”
“Grand.” Twilight deadpanned. Pinkie screwed up her face for a second, thinking. It wasn’t hard, it was just for appearances, because ponies always knew that when another pony makes that face, they were thinking. Or constipated. Which would be kinda awful upside down.
“Weeeeeeell… You did kinda enslave a buncha ponies a thousand years ago, you’re kinda thought of as public enemy number one at the moment… But Twilight obviously likes you, and you know how to laugh without sounding inherently evil… Okay, I’ll give you a second chance! But you better not screw up your party just to be mean, buster! Or be mean in general! Or I’ll call you a meanypants again! And then we’ll kick your patooty!”
Sombra just smiled at her for a second, before saying, “That’s may be the cutest threat I’ve ever heard. Twilight, if all of your friends are like this, I’m rather in support of this plan now.”
“Works for me! Twi, can you let me down now? And not in the mopey way, in the no-longer-being-held-up-by-magic way!”
“Are you going to go out there and set up a party, drawing attention to the fact that Sombra is now in Ponyville?”
“Nope! Also all the blood’s going to my head.”
“…Fine.”
“Yay!” As soon as she hit the stairs, she bounced down to Sombra and gripped him in a bone-crushing hug. “Think of this as a ‘Welcome to Ponyville pre-party’! You’re gonna get another bigger party later though, I Pinkie Promise ‘cause you’re acting like a friend now, and I like having friends!” Almost as soon as she had hugged him, she was gone again, leaving only a Pinkie-shaped cloud of dust and a small cloth bag hanging off Sombra’s horn. He pulled the drawstrings apart, to find… Oh! Rock Candy!
Pinkie Pie had reached the top of the stairs once more, but hadn’t opened the door yet. “Twi, quick question?”
“Yes, Pinkie?”
“You’re gonna go find the rest of our friends now, right?”
“Yeah, I wanted to tell you girls I’m okay. And see if you were still my friends.”
“Of course we are, silly! ‘Cause the Twilight Sparkle we know wouldn’t really kill a bunch of guards and wound Princess Celestia! We’ll always be that pony’s friends, and you’re that pony!”
A weirdly forlorn look came over Twilight’s muzzle. “Yeah… I’m that pony…”
“Yippee! Everypony’s being nice today! Gilda’s back in town, and from what I saw, she’s being nice too!”
“Wait, Gilda’s back in town?”
“Uh-huh! And a buncha other Gryphons besides. They’re all wearing armor, and they’re not being very nice, but I sure hope Gilda is…”
“Why’s that?”
“’Cause she was leading Dashie and AJ and Flutterbutt to Sweet Apple Acres earlier! They looked like they were up to something, but I didn’t get to ask what, I was on my shift! Oh! My shift! Omigosh, I’ve been down here a really long time! I bet poor Pokey’s gonna be jonesing for his Cinnamon Roll by now, and the Cakes are gonna be wondering where I ran off to! Sorry Twi, I gotta go, duty calls!” And in a blink, she was back outside the basement, back at the counter. She could just hear Twilight say something along the lines of, “Oh… kay…”
And just in time too! Mr. Cake poked his head out of the kitchen, and looked at her. “Hey Pinkie. Everything alright up here? Been kinda quiet for a while.”
“Yeppers Mr. Cake! I had to go talk to a purple Unicorn in the basement, but I’m back now! What’d I miss?”
He glanced back at the rest of Sugarcube Corner. The only thing that had really changed was that Pokey had gotten his cup of Coffee from the counter, and was sipping it while reading a newspaper.
“Doesn’t look like much. Cinnamon Rolls are done, tho. I’ll bring those out.”
“Okie dokie lokie, Mr. Cake!”
“So, Squirt and the others won’t mind us using this?”
“Nah, they’re at Rares’. Woulda used the barn, but Big Mac’s in there now fixing one’the wagons. ‘Sides, ain’t nothing wrong with using the clubhouse.”
“Dash, if you wanted us to be this close you just hadda ask… Although doin’ it in a filly’s clubhouse is kind of a turnoff for me.”
“Eep!”
“Chill, Flutterbutt. Just jokin’ around. So what’s this plan, Dash?”
“Alright. So, let’s say Twi comes back to town.”
“Not ta take that train’a thought off the tracks ‘fore it leaves the station, but why would she do that?”
“’Cause I know Twi. Egghead can’t stay away from her books for too long. And she’s, well, an egghead. Betcha she’ll sneak into town somehow. And we gotta help her out.”
“…Dash, you know I was stationed here to kill her on sight, yeah?”
“And are you going to, G?”
“No, but there’s one helluva difference between turning a blind eye to a friend of a friend and outright assisting a criminal.”
“Now hold up jes’ one second. We all know, present company exceptin’, that no way, no how, would Twi pull what they’re all sayin’ she did. Ah’m thinkin’ we ain’t got the whole story, an’ maybe she don’t either.”
“…This could all be a misunderstanding… Twilight didn’t kill those guards?”
“Sorry, Flutters. Our intel definitely said a buncha dead guards, but I don’t trust the part where it said it was your friends’ fault.”
“Shaky ground, G, shaky ground…”
“Sorry. Everything’s gonna be fine, Flutters.”
“…It’s okay…”
“So, as I was saying, our egghead’s gonna try to sneak back. So where do you think she’s gonna try to go first?”
“Shoot, reckon that’d be the library.”
“Boom. Problem is-“
“Problem is, all our squads were told to stay the hell away from the Library, ‘cause that was where the only Royal Guards in town are still stationed.”
“Thanks G. So, we have to let Twilight know somehow, and set up her stuff somewhere else.”
“An’ it’s gotta be somewhere none’a us have any solid connection to.”
“Wha- Applejack!”
“Whoa, nelly! Ah’m jes’ sayin, ya’ll proved we ain’t gonna do no good in jail. An’ where do ya’ll think they’ll search first?”
“…Fine. And we can’t pin it on anypony else in town either. I’m not tossing anypony in Ponyville out to dry.”
“…She can stay at my house… I don’t mind…”
“Flutters, don’ take this th’ wrong way, but ya’ll ain’t exactly a jailbird.”
“Snrk!”
“G…”
“Aw, come on Dash, the Apple pony made a funny! Can’t I laugh at that?”
“Jes’ tryin’ ta lighten the mood. Gotta have some humour, or it’ll all get depressin’ real quick-like.”
“…Fine. But seriously, anypony got any ideas? I didn’t think planning would be this hard.”
“Sugarcube, ya’ll are doin’ a mighty fine job anyhow. I’m sure Twi would be proud.”
“Nah, not really. She made all the best plans, ever since the first night we met her- Hey, wait a sec, that’s it!”
“Pardon?”
“Whut?”
“…?”
“Back when we first met her! ‘The Night that Lasted a Week’? We could set her up in the old castle, in the Everfree!”
“Dunno, Dash. Kinda remote.”
“An’ I did say th’ Everfree’s bein’ a bit more free than usual…”
“…Not that there’s anything wrong with it… well, maybe just a few teensy-weensy things…”
“No no, listen. You girls work here in town, being sneaky and collecting everything she’ll need, and I can fly back and forth to get it there! Fastest Pegasus in Equestria, remember?”
“…Shoot. Ah jes’ realized ah actually like Dash’s plan.”
“Isn’t that, like, a sign of the apocalypse or something?”
“Hey, AJ, G, come on, you were just saying how proud she’d be of me…”
“Ah know, ah know. We’re jes’ yanking yer reins.”
“It’s a …workable plan, Dash. I’ll see what I can do on my end, you read?”
“Cool. I’ll go scout it out, right? AJ, can you handle food and stuff, maybe some camping supplies? I didn’t see any beds last time we were up there.”
“Eeyup. Ah’ll see what we can get outta the stores.”
“Great! Meet back here in… what, an hour?”
“Copy.”
“You got it.”
“…Um… I’ll go tell Pinkie Pie and Rarity, if that’s all right… And you don’t have anything else for me to… oh, you’ve already left… Okay then… Go team? …Woo-hoo?”
Applejack tapped the wheel of the cart with her hoof, testing to make sure Big Mac’s repairs would hold. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, she could trust him with her life, but it was more out of habit than anything else. Sure, it would hold, but she wouldn’t feel comfortable with it unless she tested it. And even then, it wouldn’t feel right until she’d already been using it for an hour or so, and got used to the new wobble.
It held, as the repairs always did, and she smiled before starting to load up the cart with crates of apples. Four crates of Sweet Apple Acre’s best, kept edible by the only Unicorn magic Granny would allow in the process; a stasis spell. Which, coincidentally, had been put on by Twilight. Funny how things came ‘round like that. Granted, after a while it started dyin’ ‘em a funny blue, but they still tasted the same.
With the crates loaded, Applejack followed with the sleeping bags, a few loads of firewood, a spare axe, and tents. Plural, jes’ in case. After which, she stared at the cart. She was forgettin’ something, she knew that, but she didn’t know what. She hated that feelin’. She went over the list one more time in her head. She wasn’t no Twi, but she could keep a simple list straight. Food, tents, sleeping bags, firewood, axe, what else?
She smirked as she realized jes’ what Twi would probably miss most. Some of her books. Well, she couldn’t get into the Library, but Applejack knew Granny probably had a few books lyin’ ‘round the farmhouse. Sure, they might keep Twi occupied for only a couple days at the most, but that was better than nothing.
She turned and exited the barn, making a beeline towards the house, but she stopped as she passed by Jerry. (Jerry being Bloomberg’s brother, havin’ come from the same apple.) She could’ve sworn she’d heard somepony whisper “AJ!” to her. Which was a mite creepy, seeing as there wasn’t nopony nearby to make the sound. Weren’t nopony in front of her, behind her, or either side. She was too far away from either the farmhouse or the barn for the whisper to come from there. Maybe somepony was hiding behind one of the trees?
“AJ! Up here!” came the whisper again. Slowly, she looked upward into Jerry’s branches, where Twi and a pony that could only be Sombra were tangled in the branches.
“Twi? Great as it is ta see ya, why in the sam hill are ya wrapped in mah tree? An’ why’s that rat up there with ya?” Sombra craned his neck to face Twi, and muttered somethin’ that sounded a whole heckuva lot like, “Will all of your friends have such colourful insults?”
“AJ! Thank goodness, I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if you hadn’t heard me. We had to climb up here when your brother almost saw us, and I slipped, and when we tried to magic our way out we only got more tangled!”
Applejack sighed. “One sec, Twi.” She turned, and tapped Jerry with her hind hoof. Eeyup. Still ol’ Jerry. She wound up, before giving him a perfect kick, and Twi dropped right out of his branches like a newborn Timberwolf.
“Um. Applejack, was it? You seem to have forgotten me.”
“Didn’t forgit nothin’, Sombrero. Gonna have me a nice talk with mah friend first.” Twi brushed herself off, before frowning at her.
“There’s no need for that, Applejack. I trust Sombra with my life.”
“An’ I don’t, Sugarcube. Don’t reckon I got much reason to, neither, what with the whole disappearing theme he’s got goin’. First the Crystal Empire, then you. Seems an’ awful lot like I shoulda knocked him down jes’ to give him a kick in th’ head, actually-“
“AJ! How dare you!” This right threw Applejack for a loop. “Whoa, what- What’s all this now?”
“This is you threatening my special somepony. Apologize, and let him down now.” AJ hadn’t noticed before, but Twi was wearin’ what looked an awful lot like Sombra’s cape, but with her colours ‘stead of his. Her eyes looked downright off as well, what with the green glow and the purple mist, the whole nine yards. Applejack sighed again.
“Aw, Tartarus, he done got you sucked up in his whole scheme, now didn’t he? Ah can’t say exactly what I was expectin’, but it sure weren’t this. Fact, I was kinda hopin’ this were all some mighty big misunderstandin’, and ya’ll had just plum fergot ta return a Library book or somethin…”
“Applejack, Let him down from the Tree.”
She glanced back up at the Stallion, who seemed to be.. eating a small bag of rock candy. Alright then. “Twi, I can’t do that, ya’ll know it. He’s an evil dictator, and he’d lie an’ cheat an’ do anything to-“ She was cut off as a purple tendril of magic –darker purple than usual, too- grabbed her ‘round the throat.
“Yeah, that’s about enough of that. I don’t want you insulting him.”
Applejack struggled to get her next sentence out, but it made it all the same. “Ya…don’t really…love him…all jes’… a trick…”
Twilight snarled, tightening her grip. “Don’t give me that. I know you’re a damned good judge of character, AJ, so judge this carefully.” She pulled her closer, leaning right into her face. “I love Sombra, Applejack. He might’ve done quite a bit of bad, but Celestia’s starting to do much worse, and he’s at least willing to stop. I trust him to stop. I can help him be a good guy, AJ, but if Ponies like you aren’t willing to even give him a chance…” She gave one last squeeze, fully cutting off Applejack’s air. “Then I guess I’ll just have to make them give him, and us, a chance.”
Applejack’s eyes were darting around wildly, and the veins in her eyes were starting to bulge, but she was still trying to choke out something. “…dun…do…this…”
Sombra’s voice cut through the red haze Twilight had found herself in. “My Queen, you’re killing her.”
“Good.” She was starting to turn a light blue. Not unlike one of her stasis spells.
“As much as I dislike being on her side, Twilight, this isn’t right.”
“Neither is the way she’s treating you.” AJ’s vision was starting to get spotty, large terrifyin’ blobs crawling across her vision like giant ants…
“Twilight Sparkle. She’s your friend.” That did it. The magic imploded, dropping AJ to the dirt below with a thump, where she started taking huge, gasping breaths. She was immediately grabbed again by Twi, and she panicked fer another second, but relaxed slightly as she realized it was a hug instead of a choke-hold.
“Applejack! Omigoshomigoshomigosh I can’t believe I just did that! Are you alright?” Applejack managed to get enough strength back to pry Twi off her, and push her away.
“Git away from me, Twi.”
“Applejack, I said I’m-“
“Git. Away. From. Me.” Twi seemed shocked silent by that, but she still backed up a step. “Ya’ll jes’ plum near kilt me. Ain’t happy ‘bout that. Now ya’ll listen and listen good.” Twilight nodded, as did Sombra above in the tree. “I was plannin’ to help ya’ll, Twi. Weren’t plannin on ya’ll bringin that monster in with ya. And us Apples, we may let one monster in on trust and hard work, but two’s jes outta the question.”
“AJ, I-“
“Shut it. Now, ya’ll are in luck. Already packed yer cart, and it’s in the barn. Go. Take it. An’ I’ll give ya’ll a half hour’s head start afore I call the guard. But that’s all the help yer gonna get from me, lessin ya shape up yer act.”
“…Thank you, AJ. I’m sorry.”
“Sayin’ it once didn’t help. Twice won’t neither.” With that, she turned to leave, only pausing by Jerry’s trunk. “Well, last bit a’ help after this.” With another kick, Sombra fell out of the branches, and right on his ass.
Applejack bucked a tree.
Rainbow Dash was about half a kilo from the old ruins when something slammed into her, knocking her out of the sky. She was falling before she knew it, crashing through at least three trees, before bodily slamming into the ground. She laid there for a moment, just catching her breath, during which a Batpony came into her vision.
“…Who…”
“Name, rank, serial number. Now.” He didn’t have a scratch on him, not after having tackled her through a bucking tree, and for that Dash decided she hated him. As she stared at him, his armor flickered just the tiniest bit, as did his fur. Midnight purple shifted to dull orange –but just for a nanosecond. So he wasn’t normally a Batpony, then.
He snarled, and prodded her ribs. “Name, rank, and serial number! On the double!”
“Uh… Dash, Rainbow. Wonderbolt! E419!” The not-Batpony raised an eyebrow.
“Really? A wonderbolt? This ain’t a public relations op. Can’t have you wandering around in restricted airspace. State your business, Cadet.”
“I was… I was gonna go check out the old Everfree Ruins, ‘Cause I thought Twilight Sparkle might be hiding there-“
“She isn’t. You’re wasting your time.” A few feet away, a Batpony unicorn seemed to fade out of the shadows, and approached them silently. The Pegasus called out to him without looking. “Scan her.” The Unicorn’s horn lit, and he moved it up and down the length of Rainbow’s torso before nodding.
“She’s clean and clear. No illusion spells, no bugs.”
“Good.” He glared at her again. “Get out of here, Cadet. Consider this a warning: The Everfree Ruins are to be considered a restricted area, by the orders of Princess Luna.”
“Restricted- Since when?”
“Since it became a military archeological dig. Scram.” Rainbow glanced around the clearing again. She could totally outfly this chump. And that Unicorn ass couldn’t muster enough force to stop her before she got out of range.
Then, she noticed a faint shimmer hanging on the edge of the clearing. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, before realizing that it was really there. It was another Unicorn, cloaked. And surrounding her, now that she knew what to look for, were many more. Almost the entire clearing was completely surrounded. She could escape one unicorn’s grasp… But escaping this many was out of the question.
Seeing her squinting around, the Batpony Pegasus smirked. “Noticed them, huh? No funny business. Just leave, nice and slow, and we won’t have any problems. Got it?” She wanted to gloat, to be as much an ass to him as he had to her, but she had this annoying feeling that if she did, she’d end up in a cell again. Frankly, once was enough for this week.
She extended her wings, and began to flap almost lethargically, moving painfully slowly. She was leaving for now… But mark her bucking words, she was gonna be coming back to find out what all this crap was about.
Real soon, jackass. Real soon.
On the other side of the street from the Golden Oaks Library, the intrepid duo of Gilda and Fluttershy wasn’t doing much better. While Gilda was sizing up their security, Fluttershy was cowering inside a trash can. This had slowed them down somewhat. Gilda poked the side of the metal cylinder again.
“C’mon, Flutterbutt. Seriously. Guards be damned, they gotta let us into the library still. It’s a public building.”
A timid squeak came as the reply. “But…they’re so big, and their armor is so shiny, and they all look so very angry…”
Gilda glanced back at the front door, than to the trash can. “Yeah, all that stuff’s true, but trust me; that’s just the military posturing they’re doing. Those soldiers are ponies, just like… well, you, and they’re soldiers, just like me. One way or another, we’re gonna get in there. Alright?”
“…You can go on without me, really, I don’t mind…”
Gilda sighed, before picking up the trashcan and lifting it a metre off the ground. “Up an’ at ‘em, Atom Man!” And then she flipped the can upside down, shaking it until a yellow Pegasus fell out onto her rear with an “Eep!” Gilda set the can back down, landing next to the Pegasus in question, who was busy trying to hide inside her hair.
“Fluttershy, come on! Dash needs us, and really, Twilight needs us! I don’t care If you have to hide between my legs like a shy foal the whole time, I’m going inside that Library, and you’re coming with me! Are you gonna let Twilight down?”
“…No…”
“Yeah, didn’t think so! Just stick close. Doesn’t matter what kinda crap they’re gonna try and pull, they won’t be allowed to hurt us. Alright?” At Fluttershy’s tentative nod, Gilda set out across the street, and they both arrived at the door in seconds. One of the guards barked a warning, eyes somehow never shifting from some spot a metre in front of him.
“Halt! State your business with Emperor Shining Armor and/or Princess Mi Amore Cadenza!” Gilda flashed him her rank patches.
“Gotta get inside the Library. Military bidness. Scoot.”
“Denied. Get outta here, catbird.”
Gilda’s beak dropped. “What the fuck did you just call me?”
There was the ghost of a grin on his buddy’s face as the stallion spoke again. “I called you a catbird. Gotta problem with that, beakshit?”
Gilda snarled. “Yeah, I got a problem with that! Do you have any idea how racist that is, you fuckin’ Canterlot prick?”
The stallion’s eyes gleamed, and he twitched the polearm he had, just shifting his hold enough to remind her of its presence. “Well, I know you featherfucks decided now was a good time to invade. I can’t stand the idea of you beaks playing soldier on our land, eating our food and terrorizing our citizens, and I’m pretty sure the Emperor don’t neither.”
His buddy noticed Fluttershy, and nudged him, whispering. “Dude. Hot mare, right behind her. Looks fuckin’ terrified.” He turned to face her completely. “Heya, baby. What say you ditch this catty bitch and you and me go out for drinks sometime?”
Fluttershy shrunk back underneath Gilda, stammering, “Well, I.. uh… I don’t drink… and you’re not being particularly nice to my friend, and…”
The first guardpony just scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Tell ya what, my commanding officer isn’t watching right now, why don’t you,” he pointed at Fluttershy with his hoof. “Go into that alley over there,” He moved his hoof to the alley in question. “And then you and me, we’ll fuck, yeah?” Fluttershy’s eyes got wide as dinner plates.
The Guardpony smirked at this. “Surprised, huh? I’ll even bet my buddy here’ll fuck your catbird friend, if she can keep her fucking catty attitude to herself for four fucking seconds. How’s that?” Gilda’s claws started clawing along the ground, like she was already imagining tearing the pony’s throat out…
But she didn’t get the chance. What the guardpony had interpreted as shock from the yellow mare had only been that near the beginning, quickly becoming pure anger. Fluttershy leapt into the air, fluttering her wings to appear larger, and started shouting. “How dare you!”
“What-“
“How DARE you! You think mares are just your playthings, items for your fellow guardsponies to stare at and have sex with? I’ll remind you, sir, that our Royal Highnesses, both of them, are mares! And what would Princess Celestia have to say, should she find out that her guards are such pigs?”
“Listen, bitch-“
“She’d banish you to the moon! Without air! But she’d make you immortal, just so you could experience asphyxiating not quite to death for every second of the next miserable thousand years! And Luna! What would Princess Luna do?”
“I… I don’t-“
“She’d gut you where you bucking stand!” Fluttershy screamed at him, at the top of her lungs. “Now, we have business here, and you’d do well to get the BUCK out of our way, and maybe, just maybe, I won’t tell the rulers of the Crystal Empire, who, might I remind you, are just inside, how you’ve treated us! I don’t even know what they’ll do!”
Gilda looked up and down the street as Fluttershy glared at the cowed guard, seeing what must have been everypony from here to Trottingham drop what they were doing to stare at Fluttershy. Surely that couldn’t have been sweet little Fluttershy that just said that? Of course not! It was absurd! And Gilda wasn’t with her in the slightest. Nope, no way, no how. Just happened to be standing here.
Fluttershy looked back to Gilda, and for a second, she could see an inferno in those eyes, the fires a hundred times worse than that of Tartarus, and the it was gone. “Um… This way, Gilda?”
Another book flew off the shelf. Captain Shining Armor checked the title, flicked through it for a second, and then dumped it onto the reshelving pile, conveniently placed on the reshelving cart. He had been at this for the past four hours, and they had not made any progress whatsoever. He was in the process of flicking through yet another book (A reference guide to carnivorous plants that used all the different forms of mind control to lure prey) when Cadance approached, sparing a glance at the nearly-overloaded cart next to him.
“You know, when Twilight comes back, she’s going to have an out-and-out conniption when she sees the state of her personal library.”
Shining scoffed. “Nah. Reshelving’s what she does when she gets bored. Spike once told me she did it six times in one day, just because she didn’t have anything better to do. It wouldn’t be as bad if she didn’t seem to have a vendetta against the Dewey Decimal system.”
“Still, don’t you think we should at least try to keep them in order?”
Shining hugged his wife, the book on carnivorous plants dropping into the pile as he motioned around them. “Cady, I’m guessing that if Twily’s going to come back conscious and lucid, then she’s going to want something to do while she mulls over everything. Reshelving’s perfect. I’m basically doing her a favour.”
Cadance frowned. “I suppose. It’s just a weird way to-“ She was interrupted by a commotion from outside the door, like the guard on duty was being screeched at.
“How many of you gold-plated asshats, sorry Flutters, do I hafta go through before we can talk to your all-important Emperor? He can’t be that busy, surely he’s got time to talk to a couple of our favorite fugitive’s friends!”
Shining glanced back at Cadance. “You got the transdimensional non-corporeal entities section?” At her nod, he continued. “I’m gonna go check that out. Seems a couple ponies didn’t quite get the whole ‘crime scene’ memo.” Trotting quickly to the door, he poked his head out. “Captain Flash Sentry, is there a problem?”
Standing outside the door, in Twilight’s living room, were two Ponies and a Gryphon. One of the ponies he recognized as Twily’s friend Fluttershy, and the other was his personal Captain of the guard, Flash. He wouldn’t have used such formal terms with his friend normally, but it would be unprofessional to do so in front of civvies. Although, come to think of it, the Gryphon was wearing Gryphon combat plating. He checked to make sure none of her weapons were drawn, and found that he didn’t have to start another diplomatic incident today.
Flash nodded to him. “Captain. These two got past the door guards, I’m making sure they’re not interfering with our operation. Seems they want to speak with you.”
Shining nodded. “Very well. We’ve hit a bit of a standstill anyway.” His voice softened. “Hey Fluttershy. How ya taking all this?”
“Oh… It’s a bit… overwhelming, but I’m doing my best to help.” The Gryphon raised a eyebrow, or whatever the Gryphon term for that was (crest?), at him.
“You know Fluttershy?”
“I’m Twilight Sparkle’s big brother.” The Gryphon whistled.
“Damn, everypony’s better off than I am. Gilda. Corporal Gilda Redbeak.”
“Mm. Friend of a friend?”
“Guess so, yeah.” Shining nodded at this, and turned to Flash.
“They’re cleared for entry, then. Can you go check the door guards? See what the hell they’re playing at?” Gilda cleared her throat, and all three ponies looked at her.
“They displayed hostile, racist, and sexist opinions to us both. Fluttershy here… Neutralized them.”
Shining blinked. “Is that so? Flash, change of plans. Go check on those two idiots. If they’re still conscious, inform them of their demotion, effective immediately. I will not have my guards displaying such attitudes on or off duty.”
Flash grinned, already making for the stairs down. “Consider it done, with extreme pleasure sir.” As the sound of his hoofsteps faded, Shining looked back to the two females.
“So, what are you two planning?” Gilda began sputtering, while Fluttershy looked away.
“We… we weren’t planning anything!”
“Sure you weren’t. Listen, Gilda, or Corporal if you’d like, I want to find my little sis and make sure she’s alright even more than you do. If you’ve got any schemes that have even the slightest chance of working, I want in.”
Surprisingly, Fluttershy was the one to speak up now. “We were going to try and get supplies for Twilight, tell Pinkie and Rarity, and then meet back on Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Supplies?”
“Books.”
“Ah, should’ve guessed. Well there are plenty of those round here. Anything you guys need in particular?”
Fluttershy looked away for a second, before mumbling, “I bet there’s something she’d like in her secret room…And maybe a hint as to where we can find her…”
Shining mouth hung open. “Secret room. She has a- okay, admittedly, that’s not entirely surprising. Where?”
Fluttershy began leading them to Twilight’s bedroom, explaining along the way. “Behind a bookcase, of course. There’s a bust of Celestia, and you pull on the horn.” Opening the door, she moved to the desk, and did just that. With a sound that was a combination of a creak and a grind, a nearby bookcase opened outwards, revealing a doorway.
Shining poked his head inside the room. It seemed to have been about ten feet square, except the outer curve of the library had taken up most of the outside corner. Satisfied his sis hadn’t booby-trapped the room, he stepped inside it fully. Along the two walls that weren’t curved were two shelves, one for books, and the other seemingly for potions and containers of various spellcasting ingredients. A single, dim lightbulb was hanging from the low ceiling.
“Clear.” He stepped inside, and began inspecting the potions and ingredients. Fluttershy began skimming the books, and Gilda stood there, looking awkward as she realized she wasn’t going to fit inside.
“I’ll, uh… I dunno, poke around the kitchen. Maybe talk with that Flash guy.”
“Mm. I’d tell you not to, but I think the most criminal thing she did in that kitchen was try to make evil pancakes. Tell Flash he’s off duty, that’ll get him to open up.” With a nod, Gilda left, and Shining picked up an orange potion, reading the label. Fire resistance. Poisonous to Dragons. So, even Spike likely didn’t know about this room.
He picked up another. Gender-swapping… nope. Nopenopenope. Didn’t wanna know why Twilight had that. Shaking the mental images out of his head, he moved to another. Distillation of… Hydra blood? Hydras were an endangered species, albeit a downright dangerous one, so why did his little sis have this? Where did she even get it? He sat that one down as well, this time picking up a jar. As he read the label, he nearly threw up.
The thump as the jar was set down on the shelf a little too hard caught Fluttershy’s attention. “Erm… Is there something wrong?” Despite Shining shaking his head, Fluttershy checked the shelf for herself. Please don’t find it, please don’t find it…
“A Jar of… Whale oil? Where did she even…?” Her eyes widened, and she gently set the jar down. “Oh. Well… I think we should all have a nice talk with Twilight as soon as she gets back, about what ‘Sanctity of life’ means.” They noticed the piece of paper stuck to the top at nearly the same time, and Shining was the one to blow off the layer of dust. Fluttershy made an adorable sneeze sound as he began reading.
“Note to self: Tests proved conclusive, in that Whale oil could be refined into workable fuel source. However, the process has also made it extremely explosive, and therefore too dangerous for public use. I’m shelving this one. For Celestia’s sake, Spike, if you find this, DO NOT TOUCH IT. Twilight.” Shining paled as he realized how carelessly he had set it back onto the shelf. Was it still…? No, it would have detonated long before if it had been hard enough.
Any further investigation was interrupted by Cadance’s panicked voice. “Shiny? Where did you go? And where’s the guard? Shiny!?” He was back out into the hallway before he realized what he was doing, and turned the corner to find his wife, her eyes darting around in paranoia. She jumped when he bolted around the corner, and yelled, “The Cat’s meow was stolen by the rat!”
Shining paused just in front of her, replying with the other half of the phrase. “But the dog stole it back to give to the cat.” As he finished, she leapt on him, hugging as though he’d leave. “Sorry Cady. I didn’t even realize I was leaving you alone, and I know how much you hate that…”
“It’s alright, just… Just tell me next time. Don’t run off. Please.”
“Wow, you two are weird. And sappy. What the heck was that?” They both turned to find Gilda had flown up to the first floor, and was hanging off the chandelier’s chain.
Cadance glanced back at him, her wings twitching nervously. “Should we tell her?” Shining sighed. “Might as well. We’re changing that one tomorrow anyway.” He turned to the Gryphon, and found that Flash had followed her up, eating a bagel.
“You heard about how our wedding was kind of a disaster, yeah?”
“Wedding… Wedding… Oh! That was you two? You guys made us have to dig up the Changeling protocols from the archives. Anyway, you were saying?”
“Well, Cady here got replaced and I got mind-controlled. She was left in a cave basically to rot, and I barely knew what was going on half the time. Afterwards, we came up with pass-phrases so we could know we were each other, and we change them weekly so they can’t be discovered.”
Flash smacked his lips. “Actually, pretty much everypony he knows got one. Those don’t change nearly as often, thankfully. Mine’s kind of an in-joke, for instance.” Seeing Gilda’s curious look, he explained. “Mine is ‘We have got to stop bumping into each other like this.”
Cadance cleared her throat, catching Gilda’s attention. “I suppose we’ll need one for you too. Shiny?”
In response, Shining had pulled out a notebook, and picked a random page. “How about, ‘Death and Life have their determined appointments’ and the response is, ‘Riches and honour depend upon heaven’?”
Gilda smirked. “Sounds like something out of a Con Mane movie.”
Shining sighed, sliding the book back into his armor. “Yeah, yeah. I pretty much just wrote down whatever I could think of at the time.”
Fluttershy walked in shortly after he had put the notebook away. “Er, is everything alright here?”
Cadance coughed, and said, “Fluttershy, is that a new manestyle?”
Fluttershy grinned, and said, “Oh no, I just had Harry style it for me.”
With a nod, Cadance spoke again. “So, how are you doing? Is there anything you need, or…?”
Shining cringed, and nudged her. “Well, there’s something we need to show you now.”
Rarity was just finishing up the stitching on Fleur’s dress, when her floorboards started to make thumping sounds. She jumped, before hesitantly putting her ear to the floor. Not directly touching it, of course, but close enough to hear through them.
“Crap. Forgot about that.”
“Purple pony forget what? Next pony not have basement?”
“Yeah, Rarity had it filled in. Try… ten metres to the north. That should be where the door is.” Thus started a sound not unlike something tunneling very loudly, and Rarity followed it all the way to her new walk-in closet.
There was another thump. “Oh come on!”
“Pony not plan this part out very well.”
“Shut up.”
“Twilight, I believe I can simply blast a hole upwards, but I’ll want you and the Dogs out of the way. Just in case ponies nowadays make their floors out of sturdier stuff.” Rarity started as she recognized that voice. She’d only heard it say a few words, but she would’ve recognized it anywhere in a heartbeat. That voice had nearly brought the Crystal Empire down for the second time in a thousand years, and had almost kept her from the simply fabulous style of the Crystal Ponies for far! Too! Long!
She also realized just what that voice had said and slammed the door shut, with not a second to spare. There was a muted ‘thump’, followed by the clatter of floorboards. She delicately pushed the door open with her hoof, to find a chillingly-familiar black Unicorn pointing a curved horn… well, not quite at her, as the tip was pointed at the ceiling, but…
Said Unicorn was joined by a familiar purple Alicorn, who grabbed his horn as best she could with her hooves. “Gah! No! Hold fire!” The horn powered down immediately, and she began telling him off. “Sombra, I told you, I don’t like the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ mentality. I know it’s instinct by this point but I will make you relax, or my name isn’t-“
“Twilight?” Is it was certainly her, but Rarity instantly began to pick up little things about her appearance that differed greatly from the Twilight Sparkle she knew and loved. As a friend. Trying to get Twilight to give love back would have been a serious mistake for several reasons.
No, this one’s coat seemed to have darkened, as slight as the difference was. Oddly enough, it didn’t seem like the fur itself had darkened, but it was instead more like… Like Twilight was constantly in shadow, as odd as that sounded. Her horn had curved as well, smoothing out and pointing upwards in a manner almost identical to Sombra’s, and her eyes had taken on a green tinge that simultaneously leaked the barest hint of purple mist. Finally she wore a ragged red and white cloak, which Sombra was completely lacking, and her hooves were covered in a set of metal boots, like battle armor. The whole ensemble was topped off by a tiara that looked almost, but not quite, like the Element of Magic, were it warped by dark energies.
Slowly, this new Twilight turned around to face her. “Twilight?” Rarity repeated, as if to subconsciously make sure it was really her, and not some poor imposter. Twilight slowly grinned that adorkable smile she knew so well, and sat down in front of the new hole in her floor.
“Um. Hey, Rarity. How have you been?”
“Oh, fine, I suppose. Thank you for your concern, Darling.”
They both looked at each other, Rarity’s mind quickly filling with so many questions about where she had gone, or why she was hanging about with that cad Sombra, but all of those came to an abrupt halt as another familiar face popped out of the hole behind them.
“Smelled jewels! Where are- You! Whiny pony!”
“You! You ruffians!” The diminutive Diamond Dog desperately deigned to dig downwards, but was quickly seized by the fashionista’s bright green magical aura and yanked back to the surface fully. She held the Dog by the scruff of its neck as she glared at Twilight. “Darling, why on Arcadia have you decided to associate yourself with these mongrels?” She glanced to the Unicorn again. “Or that monosyllabic madpony behind you?”
Twilight glared at her in response. “You too, huh? Well, at least that one was creative, if inaccurate. Rarity, it’s great to see you again, but if this is how you’re going to act then-“
Rarity pounced on Twilight within a second, the Dog thumping onto the hardwood floor forgotten, making her tense up until she realized she was being hugged, and the offensive spell shifting back into her background aura. “Perish the thought, Twilight! I’m sure you have a good explanation, it’s quite simply that the facts don’t line up at the moment, and that took me by surprise.” She paused, moving back the slightest bit. “You…do have a good explanation, yes?”
Twilight smiled, nodding. “Hopefully, yes. Although if we could speak somewhere other than your admittedly-spacious closet, that’d be nice. What about the shop?”
Rarity nodded, and stepped back, turning to the door. She found her path blocked by an annoyed canine. “Whiny Pony drop dog on head. Rover not happy.”
She quickly fixed it with a glare that, while it was nothing compared to Fluttershy’s, still managed to threaten pain in the form of whining, very obviously. “You’re smearing dirt all over my clean floors.”
The dog glanced down, seemingly noticing for the first time how long it had been since one of his tunnels had accidentally hit a water pocket. He swallowed. “Rover drop charges of dropping. Whin… whi…White pony have pleasant day.” He carefully stepped around Rarity, giving her a wide berth, before dropping back into the hole.
With a smile, Rarity turned back to Twilight and Sombra, who had watched the exchange with wide eyes. “Well? Come, come, I’m being a rather terrible host. Follow me!” She led the out into the main room of her shop, which was split into three sections. The largest by far was the main room, scattered with equinequins wearing dresses she’d designed, many right outside in plain sight, for appearance’s sake.. They had just exited the walk-in closet, which, through what Twilight suspected was a spatial distortion spell, managed to fit under the stairs to the first floor. To their left was the door to the changing rooms.
Rarity stopped at a couch she had set up in the shop, and sat upon it like a neighgyptian goddess. She politely motioned toward another nearby couch, where Twilight and Sombra sat. As soon as they had settled in, Twilight began explaining. “Right, well. Sombra first, I think. He… approached me, disguised, a little while back. He was, and still is, being much more approachable than last time.”
“Well, I should hope so, Darling.”
“Ha ha. He offered me a book written by Starswirl the Bearded, and we began meeting to discuss the book and the spells within…”
Corporal Hookbeak, Commander of Gamma Division, glared at the pink Pony watching the counter. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know where she is?’”
Said pink Pony tilted her head and grinned at him. It was thoroughly unnerving. He could do without the grinning. Goddamn soft-snouts. “Well, you said you wanted to know where my friend is, and I’m telling you that I don’t know where my friend is. So, want anything else? Cupcake? Muffin? A ‘welcome to Ponyville mister grumpyGryphon’ party?”
Corporal Hookbeak slammed a claw on the counter, the impact sending a spiderweb of cracks across the plexiglass. The pink mare jumped back, and Hookbeak chuckled at the sight. “Don’t give me that bull. You’re one of those other ‘Elements of Harmony’ things, aren’t you? Then she’d be one of the first ponies she’d go to.”
One of his soldiers snapped his beak at the hoofsteps of an approaching pony. Undeterred, a powder-blue hoof landed on his shoulder. “Hey! She said she didn’t know, leave her-“
Hookbeak spun, punching the pony right in his soft face. It made a satisfying ‘crunch’ sound as he flew backwards, sliding across the tiles after he touched down. As soon as the pink Pony realized what happened, she shrieked, launching herself across the cracked counter. On pure instinct, Hookbeak caught her by the nape of her neck, his talons digging into her fur and penetrating the skin slightly. She squeaked, her hooves windmilling through the air towards the other pony.
The saloon door to the kitchen smacked wide open, revealing a short, portly, and livid mare holding a skillet threateningly. A tall, lanky stallion followed her, his eyes focusing on the pink mare in his grasp. “Pinkie! What’s going on?”
The pink pony wriggled in his grasp as she answered, Hookbeak’s claws digging further into her flesh. “These meanies hurt Pokey! I wanna make sure he’s okay!” A lucky kick slammed into his other foreleg, knocking it out from beneath him, and causing him to fall on the floor. Now freed, the pink Pony galloped to the blue one, holding him up and inspecting his broken snout.
Hookbeak scrambled to his feet, his claws digging into the floorboards now, just in time to catch a skillet slamming into his face. He slumped back to the ground, and Sergeant Dagger drew his pistol, pointing it at the stocky mare now standing on the counter. “Stop right there! You and you,” he said pointing the pistol at the skillet-wielding mare and the pink pony respectively, “Are under arrest for assaulting an officer of the Gryphon military!”
Wiping a claw through his beak to clear the blood, Hookbeak growled out, “The nerve of these civvies… We’ll have to make an example. You.” He pointed a blood-stained claw at the lanky stallion. “This business is closed, pending her trial. And I’ll be having words with the Mayor, once we can get her out of her office, about permanently closing this shithole.”
Another one of his soldiers, Private Bluewing, was already cuffing the stocky mare. They were pony cuffs, designed so they could only move their forelegs enough to walk, and slowly at that. With her under the careful watch of Sergeant Dagger, Private Bluewing moved to the pink pony, who was holding a napkin to the blue unicorn’s snout. The lanky stallion gaped at them, his jaw working up and down, though lacking any sound.
“You… You can’t…”
“We have full authority. Back down now, Civvie.” Still shell-shocked, the lanky stallion sat down with a thump. Satisfied, Hookbeak turned to find Bluewing was trying to get close enough to put the cuffs on the pink pony. She was standing atop a table on her hind hooves… somehow, and fighting him off with her forehooves. Every time he got close enough to put the cuffs on, the pink Pony smacked them out of his claws, or pegged him in the nose. Behind her was the blue Unicorn, who had grabbed a salt shaker in his magic.
The Pink mare’s eyes widened as her cotton-candy tail shook. “Twitchy-“ then a chair smacked into the side of her head, knocking her off the table and into dreamland. Hookbeak turned to Dagger, who was brushing off his claws. “Nice throw.”
“Thank you, sir.” Bluewing cuffed the mare, who was starting to come around already, and began herding them out the front door. Dagger continued on as Hookbeak put a claw on Bluewing’s shoulder. “And you, nice effort. I’ll remember that when promotions start rolling around.”
“Thank you, sir!” And just like that, he was following Dagger down the street to the jail. At the same time, another Gryphon was approaching by wing. Hookbeak recognized him as Private Dust Trail.
“Sir! We have a sighting of the fugitive!” That caught his attention.
“Where?”
“Apple farm about a mile down the east road, sir! Local resident reported it!”
Hookbeak thought back to the briefing. There was something about one of the Elements being an apple farmer. “Good! Assemble a squad, I’ll meet them there. If we don’t catch her, then we can at least interrogate another Element.”
“Sir yes sir!” Private Trail leapt back into the sky, streaking towards the jail. Hookbeak turned back, looking down at the blue Unicorn. The lanky Stallion had crossed the shop’s expanse, and was bandaging up his snout with a medical kit. “Have a pleasant day, Sir.”
They both gaped at him as he ran down the street. Pokey staggered to his feet, despite Carrot’s attempts to keep him sitting down. “We haf to go-“
Carrot put a hoof on his shoulder. “Listen, I’m angry too, but there’s nothing we can do! Don’t you work for the mayor’s office?”
Pokey nodded. “Yeah. I wuz wunderin why Mayor Mare told me I wuz off today, and why zhe wouldn’t talk to me faze to faze. Guezz now I know.” He shook his head, to clear the spots from his vision. “Doezn’t matter. I’m gunna go kick that rude zucker’s tail zo far up hiz plot he’ll be cleaning fur outta hiz tonzilz-“
“Wait wait wait! Okay, hang on. He’s a better fighter than you, trained by the-“
“He zucker-punched me, I know if I can juzt get one hit in-“
“You can’t, that’s the point! And listen, for Celestia’s sake! I know how we can help!”
Pokey regarded him with a slightly glassy gaze. “Okay, I’m liztening.”
Carrot pointed down the street, the opposite way from the jail. “There’s a bunch of Royal Guards stationed at the library. They’re not gonna stand for this any more than you are, AND they have the authority to handle it!”
Pokey put a hoof to his snout, where the blood had started soaking through the bandages. “…Fine. But you gotta do the talkin’. I zound ztupid.”