Chapter 1: You're Off The Frickin' Chain!
The door slammed shut behind Twilight, echoing dully through the cavernous hall of the throne room. Celestia sat, her stony gaze fixed on Twilight, in her gilded chair, watching as Twilight nervously made her way across the empty room. Her hooves thudded against the marble floor, muted somewhat by the carpet.
When Twilight reached the foot of the steps leading to the throne, she looked up, bending her foreleg slightly. “Princess,” she said respectfully, “you summoned me?”
Princess Celestia regarded Twilight with the demeanor of a drill sergeant inspecting his troops. “I did,” she said. “I assume you’ve heard about the recent rash of kidnappings that have taken place in this city’s streets as of late?”
Twilight had to think for a moment. “Uhh… No—Wait! Yeah, I saw it in the newspaper. Something about them only targeting young, married ponies with good credit and eligibility for bank loans.”
“Yes, that’s correct.” Celestia rose up, walked down the steps on light hooves, and brushed past Twilight. She wandered over to a nearby window and stared out it at the bustling city below. “I can’t figure out what they’re after,” she said, the frustration in her voice betraying her calm attitude. “I mean, usually it’s virgins, or tax collectors, but couples with good credit? What are they playing at?”
Twilight followed Celestia to the window. She looked out. An elderly pony dragging a cart that was far too heavy for him trudged down the street. Seconds later, a younger pony came up, knocked the old pony over, and stole his cart. Twilight pretended not to notice. “Do you have any clues?” she asked.
Celestia sighed. “I ordered the Royal Guard to search for clues, but they turned up nothing, as usual. I don’t even know why I keep them around. They couldn’t find their own hooves if they weren’t attached to their legs. But, as always, those damn unions are too stubborn to budge. I swear, giving them the right to protest was one of my worst decisions ever. Along with freedom of speech, but that’s another discussion entirely.”
“Luna’s socialist uprising sure did change a lot of things, didn’t it?” Twilight chuckled quietly. “Imagine, a Pony’s Republic of Equestria. How ridiculous.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I don’t know what you expect with the guards. I mean, their armor is made by the lowest bidder, and almost all of the recruits are high school dropouts. They’re not exactly the ‘cream of the crop’, so to speak. Heck, most just enlist because they think the uniform gets them a ton of loose mares. Poor bastards are just that hopeful.”
Celestia cast an exhausted glance at Twilight. “I know, but you’d think they’d at least be able to manage something as simple tracking down a few elusive kidnappers.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Apparently that is too much to ask of them. Fools, the lot of them. But that brings me to why I summoned you,” Celestia said, turning her head to look down at Twilight. “It’s become clear to me that this won’t be solved by the Royal Guard alone, and no amount of taxpayer money is going to change. Goodness knows I’ve tossed enough their way.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I’m not really seeing how I fit into this yet.”
“Oh, that’s the fun part,” said Celestia, a sly smile coming over her face.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m not gonna like where this is going?”
“Twilight, do you still have your twelfth birthday present in your room?”
Twilight nodded. “Sure, why?”
Celestia pulled out a pair of black sunglasses and slipped them on, sticking a toothpick in her mouth at the same time. “Like I said, if you want a job done right, do it with your personal student and a whole lot of extra ammo.”
“Wait, but I haven’t used that shotgun in years!” Twilight said. “Besides, how does that help us with investigating the kidnappings?”
“Oh, it doesn’t. It’s gonna help us with solving those kidnappings, though.” Celestia’s horn glowed a fiery golden light, bringing forth in a brilliant flash a pink AK-47 with extended magazines and attachable grenade launcher. “See, I already narrowed down the kidnappings to a shady business sector in the abandoned crystal caves underneath Canterlot. Usually it’s a place for those illegal sugarcube sales, salt lick factories, cheap diamond dog sweat shops, and worse of all, timeshare dealings.”
Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof, drawing in a heavy breath. “Timeshare salesponies? But how can it be? I thought they were exiled years ago during the Summer of ‘69?”
“Oh, they were. A bloody year that was. Lost a lot of good ponies then. Countless succumbed to the salesponies’ schemes and bought beachside property at lowered price margins for an overhead expenditure that was guaranteed a sales increase in only a couple of years time.” Celestia sighed, shaking her head slowly. “Poor fools never even bothered to read the fine print. Those properties degraded in value faster than they increased in expenditure sales. It was a slow, awful death for the lot of them. In the end, they were practically begging to be given a quick end through bankruptcy. It took years to get the real estate market back to its former condition. And even then, it never fully recovered.”
“The sub-prime mortgage loan crisis nearly crashed the economy, if I remember right,” Twilight said. “Banks were lending to ponies that couldn’t afford it, and making risky bets on those loans while selling them to foreign markets as a safe investment. Also, wasn’t that the time that cock fighting was made legal again to stimulate the markets?”
“Well, that, and we had a surplus of cocks.”
“I suppose a city only needs so many cocks,” Twilight said thoughtfully. “But how can you be sure it’s the timeshare salesponies again? How could they have gotten back into the city so easily?”
“Twilight, an entire changeling army invaded the city,” Celestia said, holding back an instinctful groan. “Which, once again, is a reason why the Royal Guards are more useless than Luna.”
“Ouch,” said Twilight, flinching.
“What, too mean?”
“No, it’s just that was a pretty sweet burn.”
Celestia nodded. “At least she can boost her self-esteem somewhat by raising the moon. I don’t have to bother with that chore anymore. But the guards do absolutely nothing for me! Who got trapped on the sun when Nightmare Moon returned? Sure wasn’t one of my guards that was supposed to be protecting me! Who got used as a tennis ball by Discord when he was released? Didn’t see a guard in sight! And do I even need to remind you how a cheese-leg insect beat me up while all the guards were sitting on their asses doing nothing? Do I?”
“Um, princess, you’re on fire,” Twilight pointed out, a flame starting to spread in Celestia’s mane. “Again, I might add. Should I get the fire extinguisher?”
“I don’t need the fire extinguisher!” Celestia yelled. “I feel fine! Twilight!” she shouted, suddenly grabbing Twilight’s shoulder. “Are you with me?”
“Uhh, do I have a choice?”
“No, you don’t. As my student, you unwillingly signed off all choices you have to me. You did the same thing with Spike, remember?”
Twilight pursed her lips, nodded. “Then I guess I am.”
Celestia smiled. “Good, because we’re about to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And I’m—”
“All out of gum?” Twilight interrupted. “Because if you want, there’s a drug store down the street and I can buy you some. It’s only a bit or two.”
“No, I don’t need any—just, nevermind.” Celestia jabbed a hoof over her shoulder towards the corridor. “Go get your shotgun and meet me back here at o’six hundred.”
“Isn’t it already, like, three in the afternoon?”
“Fine, then meet me at sixteen hundred.”
“So… about an hour?” Twilight shrugged. “All right, but don’t be surprised if Big Daddy Poppin’ isn’t too pleased about being woken up like this.”
“It’s a gun, Twilight. It doesn’t have feelings.”
Twilight frowned, pouting big, adorable puppy eyes to her mentor. “Daddy does.”
“No, he—just go get him!”
Twilight held up her hooves. “Alright, alright. I’m going.”
Celestia rolled her eyes as she watched Twilight walk away. As soon as the door had shut again, she made a kissy face at her AK-47. “You know I didn’t mean that, Julius,” she said. “I know you care.” Snuggling her gun like you would a teddy bear, she strolled back to the throne and awaited Twilight’s return.
Meanwhile, in the seedy underbelly of Canterlot—which, being in Canterlot, was still surprisingly bright and colorful with decent lighting—dark forms sat around a table. They were all hooded, a demonic symbol flickered in the middle of the table while black candles were lit around them. A low hanging smoke surrounded them from an unknown source. They all hummed hymns, the collective noise of muttered chanting giving the meeting place a sinister mood.
Eventually, one of the hooded figures stood up and drew back his hood, revealing the ordinary face of a stallion with black-framed glasses. “Okay, fellas, that’ll do for the voice lessons tonight. We’ll be sure to wow everyone with our acapella performance in a week’s time at The Lusty Canterlotian Maid.”
The group of ponies nodded, muttered agreements going around. The lead stallion cleared his voice, catching everyone’s attention. Drawing out a list from his robes, he said, “Now, as you all know, tonight is the night we shall summon from the lost realm our dark lord and master from his eternal exile to reclaim this vile world. Unfortunately, Terry had work tonight and couldn’t make it, but I thought it’d be considerate if we took pictures of this momentous occasion so he feels like he didn’t miss out. Bootstrap, did you bring the camera?”
Another hooded pony stood up, showing off a cheap, one-bit camera you’d buy from a tourist stand. “Uh… yeah, right here, boss!”
“Excellent! Tonight marks a new beginning for all of Equestria! And with this camera, we shall capture it all in glorious Polaroid so future generations can look back on this day of reckoning! And it’ll make a nice addition to the groups’ scrapbook.”
The collected group of ponies shared a sinister laugh, the candles flickering as an insidious presence drew itself in the room.
“Oh, our beloved matriarch of evil has returned to us!” the lead stallion cheered, the cultists following by stomping their hooves on the floor in approval. Underneath the table, the stallion withdrew an oddly shaped skull and an old tome. Placing the skull in the center of the table while flipping through a couple of pages in the book, the stallion cleared his voice and said, “Oh dark one, lord of the black, son of the night, bringer of doom and destruction to the lands, heed my call!”
The skull shook and spasmed, the eyeholes filling with a strange, vile energy that made them flash red. Flames shot from the cracks and eyeholes, and instantly the room was alight with all the fires of Tartarus itself. Finally, the skull floated up in the air, surrounded in a red flame of malicious power.
“What? What was that? Are you going through a tunnel?” the skull shouted. “I think our connection is bad! I told you this skull was shoddy.”
The stallion closed the book with a thump and sighed. “I said ‘Oh dark one, lord of the black, son of the—’”
“What? I can’t understand what you’re saying! Speak louder!”
“I said—”
“What? Repeat yourself!”
“Oh, forget it!” The stallion slammed his hoof on the table, causing several of the candles to nearly topple over. “Overall summary is that our plans are going off without a hitch, and tonight as the moon hangs directly over the earth, our time has finally come. The rapture is at hand!”
“Uh, boss!” Bootstrap called out, waving a hoof obliviously in the air.
“Yes, Bootstrap?”
“Shouldn’t, we, uh… do the ritual around six or somethin’? That way we don’t have to wait all night.”
The stallion chuckled, shaking his head. “Bootstrap, Bootstrap, Bootstrap, you really don’t know how these dark summoning rituals work, do you? It needs to be done at a specific time and place. That time just so happens to be when the moon is hanging directly over the earth, which will allow us to summon our master using the sacrificial finalization of the remainder of our kidnappees’ submissions to a summer cruise ship contest after sitting through a thirty-minute power point.”
“But Princess Pony Burger has a half-price hayshake special near twelve in the mornin’, and I don’t wanna miss it,” said Bootstrap.
Many of the other cultists nodded and muttered their agreement. Groaning, the stallion rubbed the bridge of his nose and said, “Fine, fine, we’ll reschedule. We’ll move the summoning ritual to six, then perform our weekly D&D game at seven, and after that we’ll go for hayshakes. How does that sound?”
“Yaaay!” the cultists cheered.
“What? Did someone mention hayshakes? I want milkshakes!” the skull yelled, spinning around in midair. “Where’s the hayshakes? Your dark master demands it, along with sprinkles and whipped cream!”
As the cultists discussed amongst themselves what flavored dairy product they’d have at the half-price special, Bootstrap slinked over to the lead stallion and whispered, “Boss, what are we gonna do if the Royal Guards find out ‘bout our plan? I mean, their credit history and financial stability suck. We can’t really use the ol’ tactics of trying to sell them beachside condos, can we?”
“Don’t worry, Bootstrap, I got it covered,” the stallion assured him, looking back over to the floating, fiery skull head of their soon to be released dark master. “Even if they did find our secret hideout, they wouldn’t make it here in one piece, I can assure you that.”
“Princess, are you sure this is the place?”
Celestia cast a sideways glance at Twilight. The pair of mares were currently holed up in a ditch where, directly before them, an ominous cave stood with a sign stating Bargain Timeshares: Properties So Cheap, It’s Pure Evil. It hung over the top, flashing bright-red. “No, Twilight, I’m not sure. I just thought this would just be a nice place to stop and have a couple mochaccinos.”
“Wait, I thought you were on a diet? Or did you break down after two weeks like all the other times?”
“No, I—just forget it.” Celestia got up and withdrew her AK-47, loading in a new magazine and flicking the selector switch to ‘fully automatic’. “We need to stop these kidnappings once and for all, which is why we’re gonna go straight to the source of their operations. Cut off the head of the snake, and the body will die.”
Twilight pulled herself out of the ditch, trying her best not to get her shotgun dirty. “Wait, we’re killing snakes now? I thought we were going to beat up some cultists.”
Celestia sighed, waiting for Twilight to catch up. “Twilight, I meant metaphorically kill a snake. We’re still gonna beat up some cultists.”
“Wait, I’m confused. Are we beating up a snake, and then metaphorically killing cultists?”
“...Yeah, let’s go with that.” Celestia stood next to the entrance of the cave, keeping her AK-47 close to her sides as she snuck a peek into the tunnel. “I think I can see a light down there. You fully loaded?”
Twilight pulled back the hammer on her shotgun, nodding, her grin wide and ready. “All raring to go, princess.”
“Good. We’ll make this quick. Take down any guards you see. Be swift, be efficient, and totally ripping off my sister here, be the night.” Celestia charged down the tunnel, shooting to and fro at the ceiling with wild abandon. “And remember, we bought loads of extra ammo, so you might as well use it!”
“Look, man, all’s I’m sayin’ is that ain’t no fuggin’ way the Manehatten Mutts lose to some third-rate, podunk, backwater team like the Seaddle Seadogs.” The guard threw his hooves in the air. “S’all I’m sayin’.”
The other guard scoffed, shaking his head slowly. “See’s, that’s the type of thinkin’ that gets you’s losin’ bets all the time. The Mutts have been tankin’ ever since their centerfield got his shoulder popped outta place divin’ for that flyball. Never went in right is what I heard. Plus, Seadogs got the home team advantage. Double whammy like that puts my bits on the Seadogs ‘nstead of those loser Mutts.”
“Bro, lemme tell you a little somethin’ ‘bout the Mutts. Don’t you ever count them out. You think they need some fuggin’ hack like Buddy Balducci playin’ center for them? Guy couldn’t catch a ball if it hit ‘im in the face.” He jabbed the other guard’s shoulder with his hoof. “Your Seadogs on the other hand? Those fuggin’ guys, man, those fuggin’ guys haven’t won a fuggin’ game in thirty-seven fuggin’ years, man. And you’re tellin’ me that they’re gonna beat a triple A team like the Mutts?” He jabbed the guard again. “Bro, you need to get your fuggin’ head checked by some kinda psychologist or somethin’, see if you got some kinda condition that makes you an idiot.”
“You might wanna get yourself checked up some time soon, considerin’...” The guard smiled smugly, leaning back in his seat with his hooves resting behind his head. “Y’all traded off your best player to the Los Pegasus Cardinals last season. Everypony with a brain knows Rad Radish had BA this side of Equestria, and those slouches at the Mutts traded him off like a chewed up piece of gum. So, how’s my bet against the Mutts in favor of the Seadogs lookin’ now, hotshot?”
“Tch, don’t even get me started, man. I’ve got half a mind to—” The guard stopped, his ears twitching. “Hey, did you hear that?”
The other guard’s ears perked up. They both looked around, their ears flitting this way and that, trying to listen for any sounds.
The first guard grabbed his gun, already loading in a round. “I swear, if it’s another foalscout selling those damn cookies…”
“Shh, shh,” said the second guard, waving his hoof. “Shut up, man, I can hear something.” He leaned forward, his hoof up to his ear. “I think… I think I hear someone yelling.”
The first guard squinted. “What? You’re hearing things, man.”
“Yeah, I am. And what I’m hearing is someone yelling.”
“Alright, so suppose you’re right. Why would anyone yell down here?”
The second guard shrugged. “Maybe it’s some kind of surprise attack?”
The first guard’s eyebrow rose. “A surprise attack? While yelling?”
“You’re telling me that wouldn’t surprise you?”
The other guard shrugged. “Well, maybe, but that seems like such a cliche. I mean, if you wanted to do a surprise attack that’s different than the typical surprise attack, everyone would assume you’d do a reversal of it and get rid of the element of surprise instead, which involves a lot of yelling. You gotta be blind to not see somethin’ like that comin’ for a surprise surprise attack.”
The first guard blinked a few times, opened his mouth, closed it, then just hummed under his breath. “That… makes a surprisingly high amount of sense.”
“And so does this!” Twilight shouted from behind the two, appearing out of the shadows with her shotgun trained on the pair of guards. Celestia quickly came into view from exiting the tunnels, her rifle shooting non-stop while she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Halting in her tracks, Celestia was quick to cease the waste of bullets and instead focus her attention and sights of the guards. “Ha, fell for the oldest trick in the book. The surprise surprise surprise attack!”
“Damn, I’m surprised,” the first guard said, holding his hooves up in surrender while Twilight began tying the two back to back with some rope.
“Eh, not me, really,” the other guard said.
Finishing with tying the two guards up, Twilight smirked. “Okay, princess, all set here. So what do we do with the prisoners?”
“Just leave ‘em. They’re simple goons anyway. It’s not like they’re going to do anything.”
“That’s what we’re paid for,” the first guard said dryly.
“Wait, can’t we question the two of them?” Twilight poked one of the guard’s cheeks with the barrel of her shotgun, causing his eyeballs to nearly pop out of his skull at the close proximity he was to having his brain blown out of his head. “Like stuff about the—”
“The timeshare cult is down the tunnel, take a left, then a right, then another left! If you go past the churro stand, you’ve gone too far!” The guard with the gun shoved in his face began to bawl his eyes out like a little filly. “They’re about to summon their dark god of evil in fifteen minutes! Please, don’t kill me! I don’t have good enough healthcare coverage to die!”
Twilight pulled away the shotgun, frowning. “I’m not gonna kill you. Why would I do that?”
Celestia sighed. “You’re not supposed to tell them that, Twilight.”
“But why would I lie to them?”
“Because—wait, no, we don’t have time for this! By what that guard just said, we have fifteen minutes before their dark god is summoned!” Celestia loaded a new magazine into her AK-47. “We have no time to waste!”
“Do we just leave the prisoners here, then?”
“Eh, we’ll come back in about an hour or so.” Twilight and Celestia quickly disappeared down the tunnel the guards were supposed to be guarding with their very lives. “I hope you guys don’t need to go to the bathroom anytime soon.”
Left alone to their own devices, both guards got in a more comfortable position tied up to one another on the floor, an awkward silence dragging on for several seconds. Finally, the other guard said, “Well, like I was sayin’ before, ain’t no way those chump Mutts are gonna win against the Seadogs. Not even if Tartarus freezes over do they gots a shot.”
“Ay, ay. Lemme tell you somethin’.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re an idiot.”
Twilight chewed on her churro, Celestia dipping hers in an icing dip before taking a bite out of it. Both mares enjoyed their desserts, smacking their lips while partaking in the delicious treat.
“Hey, Celestia, didn’t that goon say if we get to the churro stand, we’ve gone too far?”
“I seem to recall that,” Celestia replied, licking some cinnamon off her hoof. “But he also said we had fifteen minutes to stop the dark cultists, so it’s not like we’re in any rush.”
“But didn’t it take two minutes to get here, then ten minutes waiting in line at the stand, and then another two minutes eating and talking like this?” Twilight checked her watch. “Whoops, my mistake, we’ve been eating and talking for two minutes and thirty seconds now.”
“So we’ve still got thirty seconds, then. It’s no problem,” said Celestia, taking another bite from the churro.
“Actually, we probably only have twenty at this rate,” said Twilight.
Celestia put her churro down. “Oh… We should probably go then.”
The two mares raced down the tunnels, returning to the correct route that the goon had first set for them, ending with a large steel door blocking their path. A small metal view panel could be seen directly in its center.
Knocking on the door, Twilight called out, “Hey, any evil cultists in here?”
A metal panel slid out, revealing a pair of dimwitted eyes staring down at Twilight. “Duh… nope, just timeshare salesponies right here, miss. Are you here about our offer for—”
“Yep, this is the place,” Celestia said, her horn flaring with magic. In an instant the steel door fell off its hinges atop the door consultant, Celestia and Twilight nonchalantly trotting over his crushed form.
“Wait, I didn’t even mention about our raffle for eligible timeshare members!” he called out, both mares wisely ignoring him.
Busting into the evil headquarters of the timeshare ponies’ lair, Celestia and Twilight stuck their respective firearms at the cultists gathered around the table.
“Okay, this is a stick up!” Twilight shouted, firing a single shot in the air. “Everypony get to the ground, and no one needs to get hurt, ya hear me!”
“Twilight, we’re not robbing them, we’re merely here to beat them to a bloody pulp!” Celestia hissed in Twilight’s ear. “Although, once we’re done, I’m not opposed to a little looting.”
Twilight lowered her gun, shooting Celestia an angry look. “You always do this to me, princess!”
“What?” Celestia said, suddenly taken aback.
Waving her gun around haphazardly, Twilight said, “You step all over my lines, and get in the way. Can’t I just have this one thing?”
Celestia threw up her hooves. “Well, excuse me, princess. I didn’t know it meant so much to you.”
“Of course it means something to me!” Twilight shouted, accidentally firing a shot into the ceiling again. “I’ve waited my whole life to hold somepony up.”
“All right, all right, calm down, Twilight.” Celestia shook her head. “Go ahead, do your—aww crap.” She looked over just as the cult members were completing their ritual.
Light burst forth from the skull’s eyeholes and jaw, demonic laughter pouring from the abysmal plane of suffering the cultists’ god was from. The lead cultist stallion waved at the pair, holding up a stack of signed transaction forms. “You’re too late now, fools! While you were busy bickering like bitches, we finally got our six-hundred and sixty-sixth condo lease signed and paid for! Now nothing can stop our dark god from returning from where he once came from!”
“Oh no, Celestia, what do we do?” Twilight asked, the howl of complete madness and evil incarnate screaming from the skull.
Celestia aimed her sights on her bony target. “Simple enough, Twilight. We keep on shooting until it dies.”
“Oh yeah, forgot about that.”
Both mares fired a flurry of shots at the skull, cultist members ducking down to avoid spray bullets, while most hits were merely deflected off the skull’s exterior due to the strange magic flowing out of it.
“You fools! Do you really think such drivel can defeat a god like me?” the skull boomed, his voice causing the entire room to shake. The shaking continued, growing to a full blown earthquake that threatened to put the lair under a ton of rocks. Shining in a brighter light, blinding everypony nearby, the skull croaked out one final laugh. “Now for you all to see the face of your doom, the dealer of death, and finally—”
A dark cloud of dust poured from the skull’s eye sockets, swirling and taking form into a physical appearance on the table. It was a large red centaur with a coat of pure black and horns curved inward in a threatening appearance of stabbing a victim through the gut. He had razor sharp fangs and chilling yellow eyes, his body muscular and mean, power coursing through every fiber of his being. Also, he had on a pretty snazzy light brown business suit with matching red tie, all perfectly dry cleaned with not a wrinkle to be seen.
“—your timeshare salesman for this evening. The name’s Tirek,” he spoke, putting on a pair of black-frame glasses. “And how many ponies do I have to kill to get you two to buy some beachfront property?”
“By the gods, it’s worse than I ever could have imagined!” Celestia said, taking a step back. “It’s… it’s… it’s Tirek, the first major threat against ponykind!”
Twilight frowned, raising her shotgun up to align with Tirek’s skull. “And I suppose now he’ll be the last one, at least for the time being.”
Her shotgun fired, yet not a scratch could be seen on Tirek. Looking at her gun in shock, Twilight’s eyes traveled back to Tirek, the corporate entity of evil holding up a hand with a single slug held between his fingers.
Dropping the bullet to the ground, Tirek hopped off the table, crushing the bullet to dust upon his descent underneath his hoof. “Now then,” he began, pulling out a folder from inside his coat pocket while he dabbed a pen to his tongue, “this is the perfect time to buy with the real estate sector as saturated as it is. They’re practically giving these properties away.”
“Don’t listen to him, Twilight!” Celestia demanded, holding both hooves to her ears. “He’ll try to twist your soul to his will! Don’t listen to his deals and special promotional offers no matter what!”
“Then how do we beat him?” Twilight asked, turning towards her mentor.
A dark shadow fell over Twilight, completely covering her in darkness. “You don’t, my dear,” Tirek cackled, black tendrils of darkness pooling up from his shadow to grab at Twilight’s hooves. “All you can do is sign a lease for some beachfront property, which I can guarantee will liquidate in a five year period, assuring you of a great pool of assets after such a time.”
“You heartless monster! Do you have not a shred of decency in your body?” Celestia asked.
Tirek chuckled. “Not since college where I majored in business and minored in art history I haven’t!”
Celestia scowled, gritting her teeth in a hard-pressed frown. “You’re even worse than your legends portray you. Twilight, get down, it’s boom-boom time!”
Twilight bucked and rolled to the side, Tirek completely wide open for an attack. Holding his hands at his side and tapping his chest with a finger, he said, “Call your pitiful attacks whatever you like, but they’ll never—”
“Boom!” Celestia shouted, firing off the grenade launcher function of her AK-47. The explosive projectile was quickly caught by Tirek, only for him to realize what exactly Celestia meant by boom-boom. As the explosion sent Tirek spinning back from the blast and filling the room in fire that sucked the air out of the lair, Celestia pumped her AK-47. “Boom!” she shouted once more, shooting out another grenade right where Tirek had just fallen, not letting up as once more another explosion ripped through the room, filling it was smoke, dust, falling debris, and worst of all, flames.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Tirek stood up, surrounded by a wall of flames. He brushed himself off as casually as one would after stepping off a crowded bus. Tirek smirked, his eyes reflecting the angry red flames. “Really now, you didn’t think that would stop me, did you?”
Twilight’s eyes went wide. She raised her shotgun instinctively and fired a shot at Tirek, the shell rattling to the floor, before she turned to Celestia. “Princess we need—whoa.”
Celestia was now down on one knee with a bazooka balanced on her shoulder. She was looking through the scope with a triumphant grin on her face. “I wasn’t finished yet, Tirek!” With a battlecry, she squeezed the trigger and sent a high-powered explosive rocket hurtling towards Tirek’s face.
The explosion rocked the room, which caused part of the ceiling to collapse, and probably gave Twilight moderate to severe tonitis, but despite all this, Tirek was utterly unfazed. Not a wrinkle on his suit, while everything around him was reduced to ashes and rubble. He arched an eyebrow, saying, “I was hoping for something with a bit more… boom.”
Celestia growled, tossing aside the bazooka and instead reaching for the trusty bowie knife she always kept handy. Before she could lunge at Tirek though, he wagged his finger and pointed towards the hole in the ceiling. With a mighty leap, he jumped out of the room and into the air, where he looked down on Celestia and Twilight, laughing deeply.
Twilight seethed, cocking her shotgun. “Oh, that son of a—princess, wait!”
Celestia unfurled her wings and, with a heavy beat, lifted into the air, chasing after Tirek without so much as a second to think.
“Dammit,” Twilight muttered, unfurling her wings as well and following the princess.
Celestia soared towards Tirek, her bowie knife locked in between her jaws as she charged an assault on the dark god with hooves of fury, which were also on fire. The flaming fist projections dislodged from Celestia’s hooves once she got close to Tirek, the bowie knife coming next in a stabbing motion in an all-out triple assault.
Tirek merely yawned, fanning the fiery projectiles launched at him in a nonchalant manner, the destruction magic being reduced to steam in but a moment. Then, when Celestia was within his grasp, Tirek halted the knife’s descent to his throat with his thumb and forefinger, Celestia desperately trying to force her weapon through his defenses, but Tirek’s strength was unmatched.
“My, my, Celestia, I was expecting better from you,” he laughed. With a flick of his wrist, Celestia was sent flying back, her knife still in Tirek grip. Inspecting the bowie with mild interest, Tirek continued. “I mean, your credit score wasn’t half bad, and you would have been able to get a loan easily enough from most banks in the Canterlot private sector.”
“Like I’ll ever fall for the bank’s monstrous interest rates! If I was to get a loan from them, I won’t be able to pay it back for well over two millenniums!” she shouted. Already her mane was sparking and frizzing at the edges, powerful magics flowing through her body.
Tirek smirked. “And that’s where we differ, Celestia. I think about the big picture, while you worry yourself away with the trivial details. But, it matters not.” Tirek crushed her knife—made from dragonbane and the finest demon’s blood ebay could buy—into fine dust, and let it drift away in the breeze. “Soon enough, you’ll just be another trivial detail I’ll have to fix myself.”
“Like hell you will, you corporate desk monkey!” Celestia hissed.
Tirek held a hand up to his ear. “Oh, what was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of my assets increasing at a phenomenal rate given the rate expenditure of—”
“Expenditure this, whacko!” Twilight screamed, having finally reached the pair. Just as Tirek’s head turned around, Twilight smashed against his noggin the butt of her shotgun. Then, when he was momentarily dazed, she shot him point blank, right in between the eyes. The dark god was sent spinning backwards, descending towards the ground in a freefall. Blowing smoke from the end of her barrel, Twilight smiled victoriously. “And that’s how Sparkle gets stuff done.”
Celestia rolled her eyes, drifting towards her student. “Twilight, was that expenditure line even needed? It makes no sense.”
Twilight shrugged, straddling her shotgun against her shoulder. “I dunno, it sounded cool in my head when I jumped him.”
“And wouldn’t it have made more sense to sneak-attack him before yelling and alerting him of your presence?”
Twilight pointed an accusing hoof at Celestia. “Hey now, I don’t see you defeating any dark gods of death and timeshares!”
“And I didn’t either,” a voice spoke behind the two mares, his shadow blocking out the sun.
Turning around slowly, the pair was confronted with Tirek once more, his calm expression covered in soot and shotgun pellets. Withdrawing a cloth from the inner pocket of his jacket, he wiped his face. “I must say, you two are becoming more difficult potential clients than I once realized.”
“But… but how?” Twilight whispered.
“How did you survive that?” Celestia added.
Tirek chuckled, tucking the cloth back into his pocket. “Firm secret. Same reason why I can fly without wings.” Cracking his knuckles with a sinister smirk spread out on his lips, he said, “And right now, I’m a bit curious if you two can as well. Care to test that theory out?”
“Can we be included in the control group?” Twilight asked.
Her answer was met sharply with a response of a swiped claw that would’ve torn out her throat if she hadn’t ducked down in time.
“I take that as a no!” Twilight shouted, flying away in a tactical deployment of strategic brilliance… which, in other words, was a retreat.
Celestia grit her teeth, she whipped out a pair of pistols from holsters strapped to her sides. “Alright, I’m gettin’ real sick of your face, Tirek!” she shouted. “I’m gonna wipe that smug grin off your face if it’s the last thing I do!” Cocking both guns at the same time, her mane went from a mix of soft colors to a blazing red and yellow. With a powerful stroke of her wings, she dove towards Tirek, screaming incoherently.
Twilight watched as Celestia began firing her pistols wildly, Tirek easily dodging, or simply deflecting each bullet before it could cause any damage. Like the villain at the end of a long-running TV series, he simply stood there, arms crossed, laughing maniacally.
“Give up, ponies!” he cackled. “My contracts are ironclad. There’s no escaping the legal ramifications of owning a timeshare. You’ve been outmatched, outsmarted, and most of all, outbalanced! My financial score is leagues above what you could ever hope to conjure up!”
“Oh yeah? Let’s see how well your contracts hold up against this!” Celestia, taking the opportunity of Tirek being distracted by his own mocking jeers, had flown up beneath him and was now right behind the dark overlord. With her pistols pressed against his head, she alternated shots, firing over and over again until both clips were empty.
Tirek yawned, cracking his neck. He turned around, grabbed the pistols from Celestia’s magic, and tossed them aside. Celestia’s jaw dropped.
“What are you?” she whispered.
Tirek grinned, grabbing Celestia by the neck and pulling her close. His snake-like tongue tickled her ear as he whispered back to her, “I’m a timeshare salesman.” He lifted Celestia up as she struggled against his powerful grip, kicking at his waist and head, unable to make him even budge. Then, with a wicked smile, he tightened his grip, squeezing Celestia’s throat until she felt like her head was going to pop off. The flames in her mane started to die out, the inferno being reduced to a dying light.
Just as the world started to fade to black, Celestia saw her pupil, and now her only hope, pick something up off the ground and fly towards Tirek. She struggled to stay awake, and managed to keep her eyes open long enough to see Twilight fly up behind Tirek, scream something like, “Hey, Tirek, eat this!” and then smash a white object over his head.
Unbelievably, the blow staggered Tirek. He dropped Celestia from his grip. She fell to the ground, spiraling downwards, unable to work up the strength to stop her fall. Suddenly, she felt herself slowing, caught in some purple glow. She looked up, seeing that Twilight’s horn was glowing a fierce purple while the rest of her was quite literally on fire.
Her horn was working its magic, but her hooves had a job of their own. She was repeatedly smashing something small and vaguely whitish against Tirek’s head. Every time she struck him, he slumped a bit more. Inexplicably, where bullets had failed, small whitish objects were succeeding. Twilight raised the thing one more time, bringing it down with enough force to crack the object in half, sending shards flying all over the room while Tirek lost control of his flight and plummeted to the ground.
He landed in a heap on the earth, his multiple legs twitching while his face oozed blood and snot from a broken nose.
Panting, Twilight pointed her hoof at Tirek and shouted, “And stay down, you monkey-suit loser!”
“Twilight, how did you do it?” Celestia asked, regaining enough of her power to regain her flight. “I mean, we tried everything against him, but nothing worked.”
“I knew that whatever we tried against him was useless, so I went back to the cultist lair to find out Tirek’s weakness.” Twilight held up her victory weapon proudly. It was the oddly shaped alien skull from before, the one Tirek had been summoned out of. “While over there, I found the cultist leader, gave him a wet-willie, stole his lunch money, and got the secret on how to defeat Tirek. Apparently, only a ‘hooman’ can beat him, but since those evolutionary dead-ends died out years ago, I got the next best thing! The skull of the hooman that banished Tirek in the first place!”
“Amazing,” Celestia whispered. She inspected the skull closer, the makeshift weapon covered in blood and bits of bone. “The one weakness to an evil god of doom and overpriced condos is the skull of an extinct race of weird looking monkeys. Or alligators. I’m not an expert on skulls.”
“Actually, even in its ruined state, the skull draws similarities to—”
Before Twilight could finish, a dark orb of pure black magic blasted towards the two, engulfing everything in its path like a black hole of destruction and pain. The duo barely dodged it in time, Twilight nearly dropping the skull as well.
Tirek rose from the earth once more, his easy-going and amused expression from before replaced with pure fury. Approaching Celestia, he directed a blow towards her that surely would have crushed every rib in her body had she not conjured a hastily made magical shield to protect herself. The shield broke in an instant, Celestia being flung away like a piece of driftwood in a tsunami, crashing into the side of Canterlot Mountain in a mighty explosion of dust and rocks.
Directing his attention to Twilight, Tirek growled and flew to her with the speed that put lightning to shame. He held her by the throat, forcing all the air from her lungs with just a squeeze of his grip.
“Did you actually think you can defeat me with a mere trinket?” Tirek hissed, blood spraying from his lips onto Twilight’s face. “Did you actually think a mare such as yourself could defeat a god? Did you? I’ve been selling condos to the Old Ones before you even existed! I’ve been ripping off ponies since your pathetic race first learned to walk! I’ve been bolstering my assets with third-party dealing propositions since the beginning of time!” Tirek forced the broken half of the skull out of Twilight’s hoof and crushed it in two, the top half and part of the jaw falling to the ground. “You never had a chance.”
“You’ll… never win… Tirek,” Twilight weakly gasped.
Tirek sneered, increasing the pressure on her throat with more force than ever. The fires of her mane were nothing but wisps of smoke now, the light in Twilight’s eyes flickering.
“Oh, but I believe I already have, you uninsured worm.” Directing his hand over the landscape of Equestria, he cackled madly. “In fact, once I’m done with you two, there’ll be no stopping me! From here to Manehatten, condos and expensively priced hotels as far as the eye could see! And with a two percent cut rate and mild interest expenditure, I’ll ensure the total domination of not just Equestria, but the entire world!” Looking back at Twilight, whose light coat had turned a dark blue, Tirek added the final squeeze to stamp out her resistance once and for all. “I have already won, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Tirek’s smirk fell into a frown, while his eyes drifted up to stare at his forehead. At the top of his skull stuck out like a pillar the jawbone from the skull he had just broken in two.
“Forgetting about me so soon?” Celestia called out, forcing the jawbone in a bit deeper into Tirek’s skull. “See, Twilight, you call out the badass one-liner after you attack them!”
Tirek’s lips gurgled blood, and Twilight took her chance to escape from his grip. Breathing in over and over again to make up for her lack of oxygen from earlier before, Twilight wiped some of Tirek’s blood from her muzzle. “But the badass one-liner looks cooler before you kick their ass.”
“Then wouldn’t this would be more of a post-mortem one-liner instead?” Celestia asked, tapping her chin with a hoof in thought.
“Actually, pre-mortem. I think Tirek is still alive.”
Both mares turned to Tirek, who was struggling to dislodge the jawbone from the top of his head.
“Oh yeah, should probably take care of that,” Celestia said.
“You want to do the honors?”
“Oh no, I insist, you go for it.”
“But you’re the princess.”
“You’re one too.”
“Yeah, but you’re a senior princess. You should get to do it.”
Sighing, Celestia said, “Okay, how about we both do it?”
Twilight smiled with excited glee. “Oh boy, do you mean we actually get to do it?”
“Indeed. Finally, all those dance lessons shall be worth it!” Celestia stuck out her hoof, which Twilight hoof-bumped. “Time for…”
“Tremorous Celestial Sundering Shredding Light of Cyclonic Butchery ©!” they shouted at the same time, a brilliant flash of light shining high above them.
For some strange reason, a guitar solo started to play, and all light in the immediate area disappeared except for a spotlight directed at Celestia and Twilight. An eagles screech sounded in the distance, as the heavenly light began to draw Celestia and Twilight into its power, high above Tirek while the two performed complex dance moves, perfectly synchronized to the heavy metal tune.
The two were enveloped in a golden flame, the magics arising from such a spectacle amazing to behold and magnificent to gaze upon. The two began to spin, the flames transforming into an inferno of golds and reds until a tornado of pure magic rotated far overhead. Then, the guitar solo was met with a wicked base and killer set of drums, kicking it up a notch to full blown epic territory of music themes.
The tornado began to descend downwards, picking up speed as it swirled faster and faster, becoming a torrent of unmatched magical might direct solely on Tirek, who was still floundering about trying to dig the jawbone out of his head.
“Tremorous!” Celestia and Twilight broke apart at the last moment before hitting Tirek, instead dual slashing him from either side with flaming swords made of physical magic.
“Celestial!” Twilight, who was directly behind Tirek, bucked him upside the head, while Celestia in turn bucked him against the chin as he bent forward due to the force of Twilight’s strike, the double-hitter knocking all his teeth out in one go.
“Sundering!” Both mares began to deliver a flurry of blows against the already beaten down dark overlord. The multitude of the strikes coupled with the abandonment of holding back resulted in Triek being spun around in a circle made up of fire, hooves, and agony.
“Shredding!” Holding out their hooves, claws of a blinding light formed on their hooves. First Twilight, then Celestia, each already putting their new, razor-sharp appendages to good use by slashing and flaying Tirek’s still rotating body, literally performing an attack of a thousand cuts along with third degree burns.
“Light!” With perfect sequence, Celestia and Twilight simultaneously uppercutted Tirek, sending his bruised and beaten body ascending to the lower atmosphere.
“Of!” The duo were quick to join him as he entered the upper atmosphere. Stopping him from blasting out of the planet’s gravity altogether, instead they performed a dual buck of such astonishing power that ponies on the ground swore that there were two suns at the time they were staring up at the sky. The force of the explosion sent Tirek ricocheting down to the surface like meteorite destined to crash into the ground.
“Cyclonic!” The mares followed his path to the surface in another cyclone of magical energy, more powerful than the last. The two objects approached the ground at breakneck speeds, fire trailing from both as they broke through the lower atmosphere. One couldn’t tell whether Tirek would meet the ground first, or the princesses, but whatever it’d be, it was sure to be a close call.
“Butchery ©!”
The explosion was said to rock the entire mountain of Canterlot, nearly sending some towers in the castle to break in two. The aftershock itself ripped thousands of trees from their roots, while the blast from the initial crash site burned anything and everything to a crisp that was nearby. Out in what was once an abandoned field near the mountain was now a huge crater in the earth, smoke and dust pouring out from its mile wide size.
Floating above the crash site were Twilight and Celestia, their fiery forms of furious fearsomeness now gone and replaced with their typical looks. Both were covered in soot, bruises, dust, and grime, but overall they seemed to have survived the total annihilation of Tirek without serious injury.
“Jeez… I really hope I’m not held responsible for this,” Celestia muttered, overlooking the thousands of downed trees and small brushfires sprouting up on the grassy plains here and there. “I can’t afford those damn liberal agenda environmentalists groups on my case again.”
“Wouldn’t the more important thing to worry about is whether Tirek is actually dead this time?” Twilight asked.
“Oh yeah, that too.”
Celestia and Twilight flew down to the center of the crater, where the smoking corpse of Tirek could be found. His lower equine body was an absolute trainwreck, while his upper body had been beaten to broken bones and mincemeat.
Using the but of her shotgun, Twilight poked Tirek’s body. “Eeyup, pretty sure he’s dead.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Celestia sighed. “Finally, we don’t have to worry about him or his damn timeshare cultists anymore.”
“Actually, I think I might pull through,” Tirek gurgled. His head looked up, or rather, half his head, the other half having been torn off in the ensuing fight. “I think if I go to a hospital right now I might—”
“AH, HE’S A ZOMBIE!” Twilight screamed, smashing her shotgun against Tirek’s head. “DIE ZOMBIE!”
Celestia held Twilight back, tisking under her breath. “Now, now, Twilight, I expected better from my student.” Celestia hovered a boulder over Tirek’s body and repeatedly smashed it against his skull. “DIE ZOMBIE, DIE YOU SICK UNDEAD SON OF A BITCH!” Letting the boulder drop to turn to Twilight with a sweet smile on her lips, Celestia said, “See, now that’s how you kill a zombie.”
Twilight frowned. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you know how to kill a zombie.”
Celestia hesitated. “Wait… why?”
Pointing over the older mare’s shoulder, Twilight said, “Because it looks like this thing ain’t finished yet.”
Celestia slowly turned around. There, across the broken and beaten landscape, a teeming mass of fleshy bodies shambled towards them. Moans emanated from the crowd, growing louder the closer they got. Celestia squinted. She could see that these ponies were not normal, that parts of them had rotted and fallen off. The shamblers had arisen, and they were making their way towards the mares with an undying hunger driving each step.
Celestia sighed.
“I’ll go get more ammo.”