A collection of side stories from The Chase, chronicling the adventures of the Black Cloaks
The Black Cloaks, the fabled agency that polices magic, has been revived by Princess Twilight Sparkle. This is a collection of short stories and even long stories detailing their exploits. Reading The Chase is helpful, but not required.
“Why are we taking a train? Airship is faster… I hate inefficient transportation,” Lyra Heartstrings whined, protesting the long hours spent on the train. She slouched in her seat and sulked, thoroughly dissatisfied by the entirety of the situation.
Princess Luna, sitting opposite of Lyra Heartstrings, heaved an impatient sigh and then looked out the window. She scowled slightly, hating that Lyra was right, and her ears perked forwards. “We must restore faith in the transportation system. If the ponies see us taking the train, they will begin to travel again. It took so long to get the trains running again after everything that happened this summer,” Luna patiently explained, her nostrils flaring and revealing her frustration.
“I’m starting to feel off,” Lyra said, exhaling sharply and puffing her cheeks out.
Letting out a soft squawk, Freezerburn hopped down off of the back of the seat and perched on Lyra’s head, rubbing his face along her horn, which caused Lyra to go limp in her seat. The unicorn calmed, took a deep breath, and then looked at Luna.
“So… what are we doing exactly?” Lyra inquired in a low voice.
“I suppose a mission briefing is in order,” Luna responded, raising an eyebrow.
“Should we wake Bucky?” Lyra asked, looking over at the slumbering unicorn beside her and narrowing one eye.
“No… he knows already,” Luna replied, her gaze returning to look out the window.
“Oh,” Lyra grunted, her eyes lingering on Bucky with some concern. “He never sleeps enough and when he does go to sleep, it is at a time like now when we have to wake him up in an hour or two.”
Nodding in agreement with Lyra, Princess Luna cleared her throat. “The subject we are looking for is a foal, who, according to witnesses, performed an act of necromancy. Subject in question is an earth pony, which makes the case especially troubling, as for the life of me, I cannot think of a way for an earth pony to commit necromancy, but eyewitness reports are eyewitness reports, and the main report comes from one officer Milkweed. The foal apparently spoke details about the dead that were impossible to know and some of these details led the authorities to find a murderer,” Luna explained, reciting relevant details of the case.
“And I guess you and I will be questioning the witnesses while Bucky questions the foal?” Lyra questioned, her eyes looking upward to look at the corrupted phoenix still perched upon her head. “We’re not going to do anything bad to the foal are we?” she added.
“No Lyra, Bucky would never allow harm to come to what he loves so dearly. If necessary, we scrub the foal’s memories of any arcane knowledge of necromancy and place a mental block to prevent further outside intrusions from nefarious sources who desire to corrupt foals. Our mission is to discover what has happened and prevent it from happening again,” Luna responded in a soft voice, trying to assuage Lyra’s concerns.
“Twilight Sparkle seemed very upset about this case,” Lyra said, now trying to make conversation to pass the time, leaning over slightly to rest upon the unicorn beside her.
“The case is very troubling. An earth pony foal performing what appears to be necromancy. Seems to either be impossible, a con job, or something insidious is moving about unseen in our society, corrupting foals,” Luna replied, her teal eyes now locked on Lyra’s gold eyes.
“And I suppose you came along on this job personally because of the last option,” Lyra remarked, gazing into Luna’s eyes and seeing a fiery intensity.
“Correct,” Luna answered, leaning against the window and resting her against the glass, her eyes blinking slowly, one front hoof tapping upon the window sill. “Between Bucky and I, anything preying upon my subjects will rue the day it crawled out from under its rock.”
“This is also a public reveal mission, isn’t? I mean, we’re going to be seen and remembered as part of Twilight Sparkle’s new public image initiative?” Lyra questioned, her eyes narrowing as the tried to come up with the right words.
“We will do nothing to scrub away the evidence of our passing,” Luna confirmed. “The public will know we are there and will remember us. We want the public to know that magic is now being regulated and enforced.”
“I just hope everything goes smoothly,” Lyra murmured softly, now feeling drowsy herself as she leaned on Bucky, no doubt that Freezerburn the phoenix was the cause of her highly relaxed state.
The city of Tall Tale’s orphanarium was a stark looking building made of imposing grey stone, a relic of the reformation era, where government efficiency and austerity measures meant packing as many orphans into one space as possible. The building, tall, rectangular, had a government imposed minimum of narrow windows, and had seen some small amount of remodeling to make it somewhat friendlier to look upon. Flower beds could be seen in the front near the door. A small playground had been added in the front, where the public could see it, but no foals were outside playing on the bitterly cold autumn day.
A lone black cloaked and hooded figure moved slowly towards the door, all of his features concealed by the cloak, only a long black jagged horn visible, and he paused as he neared the front door, his cloak unmoving in the breeze.
Officer Milkweed was having a rough day. The pegasus cowered in the corner of his office, his eyes darting down to the photograph of his pegasus father and earth pony mother on his desk in front of him. In his office there were two cloaked figures and one blue phoenix that radiated cold, but that wasn’t why Milkweed was shivering.
“Look, Princess Luna, I don’t know what happened,” Milkweed said in a low frightened voice.
“I am not asking you what happened, I want you to tell me what you saw,” Princess Luna instructed in a commanding voice.
“A group of foals found some remains near the treeline where the forest begins on the outskirts of town. The bones of a foal. They reported it to the police… I went out there with officer Crackernacker. The foals showed us the bones. We started to secure the area and then this foal goes over to pick up a leg bone that was some distance away. His name is Larch… he reached out and picks up this leg bone, grabbing it in his fetlock, and when he does, he starts talking all weird, saying the dead foal’s name, where she lived, and he gave us a description of who killed her… a school teacher we suspected but had no evidence of. When we confronted him the second time with knowledge of how he killed her, and where, he lost his mind, flipped out, and started to attack the officers sent to question him… but Larch knew everything about what had happened somehow. He knew the details,” Milkweed explained as he squirmed uncomfortably in her chair, unable to look Princess Luna in the eye, rubbing his front hooves together nervously.
“Anything else?” Lyra asked in a gentle voice.
“Oh… the foal got his mark… a pony skull… after everything was said and done,” Milkweed replied, his eyes darting over to look at Lyra. “I’m not going to get a visit from the Lord of Winter am I? I’ve told you everything I know… I’ve cooperated!”
“You have done very well officer Milkweed. I am going to see that you get promoted for this and a bit of pay raise,” Princess Luna said in a soft subdued voice to soothe Milkweed’s fear. “You have nothing to worry about,” she added, taking note of Milkweed’s deep sigh of relief during her pause.
“We did everything by the book… we shipped the teacher off to Canterlot for processing… I don’t even want to know what is going to happen to him for what he did… raping and killing a little filly foal like that… he had a distinctive mottling pattern on his penis that looked like a key… Larch told us about it… the filly, Goldenmorn, she saw it up close and in detail… before he did… things… to… her… that made… her… bleed to death... Larch talked about how scared she was and how much it hurt… officer Crackernacker threw up everywhere when he heard Larch describe what took place,” Milkweed stammered in a pained voice. “It was the most awful thing I’ve ever heard. I ain’t been able to sleep right since.”
“I assure you officer Milkweed, you will sleep better. You will sleep the untroubled sleep of an innocent foal,” Princess Luna promised in a concerned and loving whisper, her horn flashing with a faint blue light as she spoke.
Collapsing upon his desk, officer Milkweed began to sob, his withers hitching and his wings fluttering at his sides. He bawled loudly, unable to hold it in, clearly broken from his experience. He buried his face in his folded forelegs and tried to hide himself from the two black cloaked figures as he finally let out his grief and his rage, letting the poison out that had been bottled up inside of him since the day everything had taken place.
Settling in to a high backed chair, Bucky eased himself down into the cushion and looked at the frightened colt sitting before him on a ratty looking sofa covered up in an old blanket. The colt was a dark purple-grey with a spiky black mane and there was a pony skull cutie mark upon his hip. Thick faux-wood framed glasses sat upon the colt’s muzzle, making him look rather owlish, his eyes enlarged by the exceptionally thick soda bottle lenses.
“Can you tell me more about what happened?” Bucky inquired softly, his voice like two pieces of silk being drawn across one another. “Look Larch… it is Larch, isn’t it? I want to find out what happened if I can.”
“I don’t remember,” Larch said in a nervous voice. “I remember touching the bone. I picked it up, grabbing by pinching it in my fetlock and then I felt really funny. I don’t remember what happened next, honest. All I remember was sitting in a chair in the police station and a really nice mare was setting hot cocoa in front of me and telling me to take deep breaths,” the colt explained, pushing his glass up on his nasal ridge as he spoke. “I lost a couple of hours and I don’t know what happened,” he insisted.
Taking a deep breath, Bucky let it out slowly. “Larch, I can help you remember what happened, but only the nice things. I suspect you are repressing what took place because of how horrible it was… but I need to figure out what happened so I can find out if you are safe. I need to find out if something really spooky is doing something bad to you. If you give me permission, I can help you remember what I need to know, but I promise, you will not remember any of the bad memories that might hurt you.”
The colt twitched nervously, his glasses nearly sliding off of his muzzle. He looked up at Bucky, his eyes wide with fear. “You’re kinda spooky yourself,” Larch whispered to the hideously scarred unicorn.
“I’m sorry… life has been most unkind to me,” Bucky apologised.
“I don’t think life has been kind to anypony… you should hear some of the foals here talk. I lost my parents to bandits during the collapse,” Larch said in a strained voice. “They were killed for some cans of food.”
“It pains me to hear that,” Bucky softly responded. “I am working very hard to make Equestria a safe place again. The teacher that murdered that foal, Goldenmorn, I work with ponies who will make sure that he never hurts another pony ever again.”
“Are you the boogeypony?” Larch asked nervously, pushing his glass up once again.
“For ponies like that school teacher, I suppose I am. But for colts like you, brave little colts who want to do good, I’m what keeps the dark things away,” Bucky replied in a soothing voice, trying to calm the nervous colt.
“I want to help… you have my permission,” Larch said, looking fearful. “But I don’t want to remember.”
“You won’t,” Bucky promised in a reassuring voice as he leaned forward, his horn glowing with a blue-green light and flooding the room with a luminescent glow. “Now what happened?”
His eyes glowing with the same blue-green light as Bucky’s horn, Larch froze, now unmoving on the couch. “I touched the bone and it spoke to me… it spoke to me and told me things. It has the same voice as the earth,” the colt said in a strange voice.
“Yes, some earth ponies hear the earth… you say the bone spoke to you?” Bucky inquired, a curious expression spreading over the half of his face still capable of expression.
“Yes. It spoke to me. My mother could talk to rocks when she touched them. She could find out which ponies had passed by, she would know things, the rocks would tell her things. Like where ponies had dropped coins or where old treasures were hidden,” Larch said in a wavering voice.
“Hmm, this sort of makes sense. Bones are made of minerals. Was it the little filly’s voice?” Bucky inquired, his surviving eye narrowing as he spoke.
“No,” Larch answered. “Earthen voice. Like gravel being kicked around.”
“I see,” Bucky remarked as he held the foal spellbound. “So there are earth spirits in bones? This wasn’t the foal’s spirit… correct?”
“The earth was watered in the blood of the innocent. The bones had a story to tell and I was able to listen because I can talk to bones. The bones had touched the earth and they were sad,” Larch said his eyes glowing ever brighter. “The earth spoke to me through the bones, which are a part of the earth.”
“Larch?” Bucky asked, releasing his spell. “Do you remember anything we talked about?” he continued.
“We were talking?” Larch responded, blinking his eyes and looking around. “I feel dizzy and kinda light headed.”
“That will pass… so you don’t remember anything?” Bucky repeated.
“No sir,” Larch replied, looking at Bucky with a worried expression.
“Good… now Larch, we need to talk,” Bucky said in a soft voice, a gentle voice he reserved for foals and those too terrified to function. “You have an unusual gift.”
Craning his head around to look at his own cutie mark for a moment and then back up up again to look at Bucky, Larch nodded. “I kinda figured that out on my own.”
“I have a school that just opened. A special school for ponies just like you… how would you like to leave this place?” Bucky invited, looking the foal in the eye.
“Where would I live?” Larch asked in reply.
“The school has dormitories. I dare say that the dorms would be a nicer place than this one. Two foals to a room though. Sorry, no private rooms. And I’d like to think that the cafeteria serves better food. On Tuesdays, we serve bugs!” Bucky responded.
Laughing softly, Larch pushed his glasses up on his muzzle before they slipped off. “You’re funny. What do I have to do to go?”
“Just say the word and come with me. You’ll get a chance to meet Princess Luna… she is a very nice pony,” Bucky answered, trying to be mindful not to smile.
“This place is awful,” Larch said in a low conspiratorial whisper to Bucky.
“It is almost lunch time… how about you and I get out of here, I buy you lunch at the diner down the road, and I’ll even get you a sundae if you’d like. I’m supposed to meet up with my companions there,” Bucky offered in a cajoling voice.
Biting his lip thoughtfully, Larch studied Bucky for several long moments, trying to decide what to do. “Will I ever get adopted?” he asked in a pained voice.
“I don’t know,” Bucky answered honestly. “But you will be looked after by very kind caretakers. You will not be neglected or left to fend for yourself. I have an actual army of caretakers and staff at the school, because I don’t want anypony or anybirdy feeling neglected.”
“That sounds nice. There are over two hundred of us here and only six mares to look after us all,” Larch replied, looking hopeful.
“Oh my… that is not a good ratio,” Bucky grumbled, making a mental note about the situation to see if something could be done.
“I think I’m ready to go,” Larch announced. “I don’t own anything… so we can leave at any time,” he stated.
“You’ve made a good choice,” Bucky praised. “I’m going to help you learn how to channel your gift… you could change the world with a gift like yours. I have a daughter named Piña Colada, whom I love dearly, and she has strong magic. She is an earth pony just like you.”
“Will I remember what the bones I talk to say to me?” Larch asked as he slid off of the ratty couch, his eyes still on Bucky, who was getting out of his chair.
“I don’t know,” Bucky replied as he got to his hooves. “Maybe some day you might.”
“Will I be able to help other ponies?” Larch questioned.
“That is my hope,” Bucky responded, looking down at the foal. “Let’s go. This place is depressing.”
“Will you adopt me?” Larch inquired, following after Bucky as the stallion began to walk towards the door that led to the front hall.
“Oh I dunno Larch… I’m kinda in some seriously hot water right now… I’m not supposed to bring home any more strays … ever. My wives are kinda peeved at me, and rightfully so. I’d best not push my luck… but you can stay at the school. That’s different. That’s not bringing you home,” Bucky explained in reply.
“Haha… you’re clever!” Larch exclaimed.
“Oh… you have no idea,” Bucky chuckled as the pair made their way to the door.
Kneeling down, Sunset Shimmer began to examine the corpse, forcing her body to remain still and not shudder with terror. The unicorn was grey, no trace of colour was left in the body, the cutie mark was faded, the body was somewhat shriveled looking, and there was a small hole bored into the horn near the base.
“He is like the others we have found. All of the thaumaturgical glands have been bled dry. There is no liquid mana left in the body. Presumably drawn out through the horn. Some nefarious force has also drained him, which explains the grey colouration. This is new… the previous bodies still had colouration and their cutie marks, so this is a worrisome development,” Princess Luna said in a low voice, looking over Sunset Shimmer’s crouching form as the unicorn mare examined the body.
“This is like the manufacturing process where we extract mana for arcano-tech devices,” Bucky stated as he looked over the small hotel room.
“Yes and no,” Luna responded. “We extract the raw magical energy we need, but we do not leave holes or bleed them dry. The process is painless, even somewhat pleasurable for some. Something is milking unicorns and killing them,” she explained.
Bursting into the room, Lyra Heartstrings stood in the doorway, her black cloak fluttering in the blustery breeze. She looked jubilant, a smile was on her face, and her golden eyes flashed within her hood. “Good news. The hotel manager remembers who this stallion came in with. Bad news. It was a painted mare of the night. White unicorn, blue and pink mane, lots of makeup. But for once a hotel clerk had useful information and didn’t make the claim of not seeing anything!”
“Lyra, the things you find happiness in concern me,” Bucky muttered.
“Hey, I love my job,” Lyra chirped.
Clearing her throat, Sunset Shimmer lifted her head. “Hey… I’ve found traces of lipstick around the victim’s penis… evidence of oral sex… more importantly, I found magical signatures in the lipstick. I think we’ve found the means with which our victim was potentially put under or knocked out.”
“Wouldn’t lipstick also knock out the pony with the lipstick?” Bucky questioned.
Shaking her head, Sunset Shimmer looked at Bucky. “Master, the wearer of the lipstick might have used an antidote or had some means of immunity,” she explained.
“Fascinating,” Luna stated. “Obtain samples and have them sent to Fever Cure.”
“Shadowbolt involvement?” Bucky questioned, looking at Luna.
“Can you think of anypony better to analyse poisons or pathogens?” Luna responded, raising one imperious eyebrow of superiourity. “Fever Cure and his twisted obsessions might be useful here. Does anypony else have his encyclopaedic knowledge?”
“No,” Bucky answered. “He knows his stuff.”
“So this unicorn, he probably gets paid, goes out, finds himself a nice painted mare, she slathers herself up in red greasy lipstick, gives this pony here the sort of blowjob that sucks his tail through his plothole, incapacitates him, and then some other pony, probably not our gifted cocksucker, comes in and drains this unicorn of his thaumaturgical liquids,” Sunset Shimmer summarised.
“Minion! Your mouth!” Bucky protested, his lip curling back from his teeth as he spoke. He raised his right front hoof and waved it at Sunset Shimmer. “You kiss my foals with that mouth.”
“How is what comes out of your mouth any different, Master?” Sunset Shimmer retorted. “Minion is feeling insolent!” she said and then stuck her tongue out at Bucky.
“Enough, both of you! Mistress is feeling impatient!” Luna commanded, stomping her hoof down upon the filthy carpet. “Both of you are like foals! Annoying little foals!”
“She started it,” Bucky grumbled and then cringed when Luna glowered at him.
“Buckminster, freeze the body, be careful, we need to move it to Canterlot once Sunset Shimmer gets samples. I am going to get my guard to patrol the local dreamscape and see if there are any more clues to be dug up,” Luna instructed, looking somewhat irritated as she glared at Bucky.
Scowling, her muzzle contorted with frustration, Twilight Sparkle stood in the middle of the laboratory hidden within the depths of Canterlot castle, looking at the bodies that had been collected. The most recent was grey and faded, almost like some of the unicorns found during Tirek’s rampage.
Her gaze fell upon Fever Cure, who was busy examining something in a petri dish. Twilight Sparkle didn’t know how she felt about Princess Luna’s Shadowbolt Initiative, taking solar ponies and turning them into creatures of shadow. Fever Cure had changed considerably during his change into a lunicorn, not only gaining shadow magic, but his cutie mark had changed as well, a troubling sign that accepting the Gift of the Night had forever altered his destiny.
“This is interesting,” Fever Cure announced, peering through a magnifying loupe held up to his eye. “These crystalline compounds come from the roots of poison joke plants and have been highly refined. I think it would act like a magical purgative on unicorns, forcing the body to purge everything out of the thaumaturgical system. I need more time to study.”
“This was found in the lipstick?” Twilight Sparkle asked, looking confused.
“No,” Fever Cure snorted, looking impatient. “This was found inside of the most recent victims body, I pulled out one of his thaumaturgical glands, one of the big ones in the neck, and there were crystalline deposits in the tissue.”
“Oh… think we’ll find it in the other bodies?” Twilight Sparkle inquired, now looking curious, her brows furrowing as she stared at the petri dish that Fever Cure was holding.
“I’m betting that we will,” Fever Cure stated, allowing the loupe to fall away from his eye and dangle from a long cord that was clipped to the collar of his lab coat. “I do believe I have found the reason why the bodies look somewhat shriveled and desiccated.”
“Nice work,” Twilight Sparkle praised, looking at Fever Cure. She shivered when she saw his slitted eyes. The change had been profound and the unicorn had taken to the alteration a little too well. He was nothing at all like he once was. Even his demeanour had changed. “So this poison joke extract forces the thaumaturgical system to expel mana?”
“I’m not certain the exact system, but the series of vessels that connect the various mana glands appear to be shriveled… if they shrink, they squeeze out all of the liquid in the system and it has to go somewhere… I do believe it comes out of the hole in the horn,” Fever Cure postulated as he slipped some protective goggles over his eyes.
“So this allows whomever is extracting the raw mana to get a few more drops?” Twilight Sparkle asked as one wing extended and began to rub up against the back of her head. “That makes sense, I suppose if you were after the fluid, every drop would help. There isn’t much to begin with, even a few more ounces squeezed out might be useful.”
“Exactly,” Fever Cure agreed as he slipped the petri dish into a large arcano-tech machine. “Um, you might want to put on protective eyewear,” he suggested.
Springtime in Las Pegasus. The city was rebuilding. New construction was going up in the devastated areas. Bucky hoped that his current visit here would not be like his last visit here. He had made a new year’s resolution to cause less collateral damage. Frowning, Bucky stared out over the city from the high balcony, trying to figure out what was causing this current worrisome crisis that had taken him away from home.
Something out there was draining unicorns for raw mana, a difficult substance to work with, meaning that somepony had to have some sort of facilities to work with the volatile stuff. What was being done with it? What was it being used for? Was it intended to power some infernal device? Were the mirror travelers hard at work again?
There was nothing. No leads. All they had to go on were bodies, drained bodies with tiny little holes bored into their horns and the thaumaturgical system bled dry. There had been no leads from the local painted mares, there was just nothing to go on at all.
“Bucky!” Lyra shouted as she burst into the high rise hotel room they were staying in, she was breathless and flustered, her nostrils flaring as she took heaving breaths.
“Is everything okay Lyra?” Bucky questioned.
“We’ve found a dead hooker. The local police found a body. She’s been murdered. She matches the description from the hotel, it was a long shot, but it paid off, Sunset Shimmer sent me here to tell you that she’s found magical traces in the lipstick on the mare’s lips. She’s the one,” Lyra explained breathlessly.
“Any guesses on how she died?” Bucky inquired in a soothing voice, hoping his calm would spread to Lyra.
“Oh, that part was pretty obvious,” Lyra stated, her eyes blinking rapidly.
“Obvious?” Bucky asked, now beginning to feel slightly impatient.
“Well, her head was torn clean off. Not a clean beheading either… something actually twisted and ripped her head off,” Lyra gushed, entirely too excited about what she was saying and bouncing in place.
“Oh dear,” Bucky gasped.
Standing in the Las Pegasus morgue, Bucky made ready to freeze the body for transfer to Canterlot. The severed head was on a tray on a table near where the headless body was sprawled out. In the corner, one of the coroner assistants was busy puking into a trashcan. Bucky tried to muster pity for the poor pony, but found that he had none. Clearly, the pony had gone into the wrong career field.
“Damnest thing I’ve ever seen,” the coroner said in a gruff voice, a soggy looking cigar hanging out of the corner of her mouth. The mare was middle aged, maybe older, had an iron grey mane and her pelt was stained with nicotine, leaving it a dingy faded yellow.
“Can you tell me anything?” Bucky asked, looking at the cigar chomping mare hopefully, not at all bothered by the smoke.
“Well, her guts were full of cum. So she’s been servicing customers. I suppose she also had a diet rich in protein,” the mare answered, chuckling at her own sick joke. “Seriously, that much cum being digested causes a horrible amount of gas in a pony. She has terrible corpse farts. You’d better freeze her quick before she rips ass once more.”
“I will take your advice into consideration,” Bucky remarked, looking at the mare as she inhaled deeply, causing her cigar to glow.
“I have no idea what ripped her head off,” the coroner stated, shaking her head.
“Personally, I would suspect a golem, which troubles me,” Bucky said in a low voice that revealed nothing of his feeling of worry.
“Oooooh… that makes sense,” the coroner said as smoke trickled out of her nostrils. “Wait, that’s terrifying… there’s a murderous golem loose in the city that doesn’t have proper controls in place about not killing or doing harm.”
“Exactly,” Bucky stated as he moved closer to the body.
“Your apprentice… she left here and went off to look at the crime scene. She took a couple of officers with her. She’s scary… she’s almost as scary as you are, begging your pardon, Lord of Winter,” the coroner said to Bucky, watching him as he studied the head.
“What did she do now?” Bucky inquired in an exasperated voice as he studied the severed head, hoping to find some detail that would prove interesting.
“She didn’t want to wait for a chariot… she was impatient. The crime scene was halfway across the city… she transformed into a dragon, snatched up several officers in her talons, and then flew away with them,” the coroner reported.
“I will have a word with her,” Bucky sighed, sounding more weary than angry.
“There was a lot of screaming and one of the officers soiled himself,” the coroner stated in a low voice as she approached the table to look at the head with Bucky.
In the corner, the assistant finally finished puking.
“Usually there is a lot of screaming and panic when a dragon just appears. Like I said, I will have a word with her. Bad Minion,” Bucky said as he noted a rip in the ear. “She only has one earring. The other one has been torn out.”
Nearby, on the examination table, the headless corpse farted, letting out a truly vile funk and soiling the air. Bucky paused, his nostrils flaring, taking note of the foul aroma. The coroner grunted, muttering something about “not again” under her breath.
And in the corner, the assistant was once again puking into the trashcan.
Looking around carefully, Sunset Shimmer studied the wagon lot in the back of a large factory and warehouse. The factory made snow globes that were sold in the various touristy places in Las Pegasus, and had recently began production. Before the fall of Las Pegasus, the factory had mass manufactured high quality wagon wheels.
One wagon was completely smashed. Something had broken it right in two. It was a buckboard wagon, long, meant to haul cargo, and it was broken in the middle. The two halves were some distance apart. Another wagon had been picked up and thrown by something. It was sitting on top of a pile of rusting machinery left to ruin.
The highly intelligent unicorn could only think of one thing that could do such a feat, something she was entirely too familiar with thanks to Master and his obsessions. She studied the ground, looking for more clues, but already knowing what had done this.
A golem.
“Nopony saw anything?” Sunset Shimmer asked.
“Do you see anypony around?” an officer responded, remembering all too well that just a little while ago the unicorn had been a terrifyingly large orange and red dragon.
“No. This area is kinda empty, which is weird. I mean, big factory right over there,” Sunset Shimmer said as she looked around, her black cloak whipping in the breeze. She looked once more at the broken wagon. Remembering Master’s words about being clever, Sunset Shimmer cast a special magical detection spell. Not a spell that shows where magic is, but one that showed where magic was.
Footsteps slowly appeared on the ground. Big round circles. Large round circles. Sunset Shimmer looked at them and then looked at the officers, feeling entirely too curious. “Hey, what’s off in that direction?”
“Lots and lots of abandoned industrial development. The biggest factory out that way used to turn soybean oil into plastic. Used to employ a lot of ponies before the collapse,” an officer responded. “Most of the smaller developments around it were all support factories and such and a place that made plastic goods, like bowls, cups, and plates.”
“Hmm,” Sunset hummed as she realised that the footprints seemed to lead in that direction. Lifting her head high, the mare peered off into the distance. A golem that size was dangerous and she wasn’t sure she could take it on all by herself, if it was actually over there. “Both of you, go get lots of backup. I mean get everything you can muster. I gotta bad feeling about this.”
The footprints left behind a very noticeable trail. Golems were, by their very natures, magical creatures. Very magical creatures. And everywhere the massive creature had stepped, it had left behind a faint trace of passing magic, something that would only be noticed by a clever unicorn. And Master was teaching Minion how to be exceptionally clever.
The prints ended at a door. A highly warded and very well protected door that reeked of magic. A worrisome sign. Even casting a spell on the door to try and break the spells would set off alarms. A faint cackle escaped Sunset Shimmer’s lips as she pondered the situation. With a flash of magic, she shrank down and became a bright orange and yellow june bug. Crawling forward, she crept through the crack that existed under the door. There were no defenses here. Something had been careless in the creation of the protective wards and spells.
On the other side of the door, Sunset Shimmer became a unicorn again. She felt her stomach gurgle. All of this deep magic was taxing. She was inside of a large factory warehouse. Something acrid was in the air, something bitter, it stung her nostrils and burned her throat. The air was cold in here, far more so than standard air conditioning. Sunset Shimmer could see her breath.
“Bad Minion.”
The voice of her Master suddenly appearing in her ear very nearly caused Sunset Shimmer to lose control of her bladder. She squeezed her hind legs together, lifting one up off of the ground entirely, and squeezed her thighs together to hold everything in.
“What have I told you about going in alone?” Bucky demanded as he slowly coalesced into a solid mass next to Sunset Shimmer. He glared balefully at his student.
“You spooky chewed up creep, I nearly pissed myself,” Sunset Shimmer protested in a very low voice. “How did you get here?”
“A very reasonably sized dragonfly,” Bucky replied nonchalantly. “I didn’t scare half the city to death.”
“I gave them something to talk about and made their lives exciting,” Sunset Shimmer said, sniffing in disdain at Bucky. “We’re dealing with a golem.”
“I know,” Bucky stated in a soft whisper. “Don’t lose your head,” he warned.
“This is going to suck, isn’t it Master?” Sunset inquired sweetly, her voice almost musical and filled with the hint of manic glee. She bounced in place, her knees flexing.
“Probably,” Bucky grumbled, hating his student’s enthusiasm for things that sucked.
“Well then, we should announce our presence and get it over with,” Sunset Shimmer said smartly. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment while steeling her nerve, and then she shouted: “YOOHOO! YOU HAVE VISITORS!”
In the distance, there was a roar. It was the sort of roar that scared most ponies, the sort of roar that even made some ponies faint. Any sane pony would now be running from this sort of roar, but the two unicorns in black cloaks had long ago ditched their sanity, both feeling that it was holding them back from more worthwhile endeavours, like staying alive and surviving through moments of extreme danger.
“Woohoo! Combat! Come get some!” Sunset Shimmer shouted as she made herself ready for the danger to come. “We have a big one!”
“Oh bugger,” Bucky remarked as he began to move.
Sunset Shimmer began casting a variety of spell protections, shield spells, and powerful defensive enchantments. Her hooves glowed for a moment and then her mane and tail poofed into a living fire as she ignited. Her black cloak became a shroud of flame. White flames flared from her eyes, sparks rained down from her body and bounced over the floor.
Meanwhile, Bucky stood there and patiently waited as something thundered towards them, stomping, the whole building shuddered from each thudding footfall. He didn’t have to wait long, something came from around a wall and stomped into full view.
Something over ten feet tall and made of stone.
“Minion, be careful,” Bucky warned as the golem’s massive fist raised high.
Taking off at a run, Sunset Shimmer worked on avoidance while Bucky just stood there. She began dispelling protections, flanking the massive brute. She watched as it brought it’s fist down upon Bucky, and she felt a moment of panic even though she knew it would be okay.
The golem connected with nothing but shadow. It roared in fury and confusion, swiping at the black writhing mass that Bucky had become. Ice began to coat the golem, and a foul smell filled the factory, the terrible stench of raw eggs.
Bucky had learned to hold back the toxic vapour that was his shadow essence, but could not contain all of the stench, only the very worst of it. The nostril raping reek of hydrogen sulphide filled the air.
“Master! Rotten eggs, Master!” Sunset cried as she lit the golem up in an opal green glow, her horn flaring as bright as the sun. She let out an angry snort at the golem began to slow in its movements. She stuck out her tongue at the golem.
Then, the golem ignored Bucky’s shadowy mass and took a swipe at Sunset Shimmer.
“Dirty pool!” Bucky snarled, his disembodied voice echoing oddly around the room. He froze the ground at the golems feet, creating a large sheet of ice. He then teleported himself and Sunset Shimmer some distance away.
Slipping around wildly, the golem fell over with a terrific thud, cracking the floor and causing dust to fall down from the ceiling. It roared in fury, bellowing with rage as it struggling to regain its footing.
“Never touch Minon!” Bucky shouted as dark magic flickered around his long jagged horn. A beam of black energy shot out and struck the golem. One massive stone arm turned to mud, bubbling and burbling as it spread out over the floor. He flooded the golem with even more magic, softening the stone and transmuting it into mud, and as he did so, he heard angry shouting.
“Incoming!” Sunset Shimmer warned as bright light flared all around her and Bucky.
Whirling, Bucky turned to face the two unicorns. Sunset was already stripping away their spell protections. Harmony magic flickered along Bucky’s horn and a beam of energy struck one of the unicorns, then the other.
Both of them ceased spell casting immediately, one clutched his stomach. There was a loud gurgle. The other closed his eyes and whimpered, his tail hiking up in the air and flipping off to the side.
“Master… did you have to?” Sunset Shimmer protested as one unicorn’s backside suddenly exploded, a fine brown mist filling the air behind him.
The other fell over, clutching stomach, his expression a grimace of discomfort.
“You know, having been in your position, I have to say, the only way you will feel better is to stop fighting and let it out. Your intestines have been thoroughly hydrated… Master made a marvellous spell. No known spell defenses work against it because it is not perceived as being hostile magic. Master was helping you by giving you a helpful magical enema, flushing out your bowels for you and leaving you very, very hydrated. You’ll feel better in a day or two,” Sunset Shimmer explained as the other unicorn began to spurt out great gushing blasts of liquified fecal matter. The mare’s nose crinkled and she lifted her head high, pulling it back and away from the sight before her.
“You may experience some discomfort and puckering of your anus. I recommend a soothing lotion,” Bucky said in a helpful well meaning voice. “You probably have a lifetime’s worth of impacted bowel matter in there… you’re going to find that you have lost a lot of weight and will look very slim and attractive. You’re welcome. Sunset Shimmer lost about twenty pounds.”
“MASTER!” Sunset Shimmer protested angrily.
“Well you did… you even seemed happy about it,” Bucky said in a painfully smug voice, turning to look at his apprentice.
“These are personal details. You need not tell everypony that I had twenty pounds of impacted fecal matter lodged in my bowels!” Sunset shouted.
There was a wet whooshing sound from both unicorns as more feculent sludge shot out from their backsides. Both whimpered. The mess began to puddle up on the floor. One unicorn’s stomach made a gurgling sound and then his sides began to heave and clench.
“You may experience loose stool, runny flatulence, and some cramping,” Bucky said helpfully as he began to trot away from the completely helpless unicorns. “This will keep going until you are completely cleaned out. Do you eat a lot of junk food?”
One unicorn whimpered, a begging pleading wordless cry for help, but there was no help to be had. Already, Sunset Shimmer was following after Bucky, her nostrils crinkling as she turned back to look at the mess they were leaving behind. The whole floor was now flooded around the unicorns, and the golem was nothing more than a pile of bubbling mud.
“That went well,” Bucky announced as he pushed his way further into the factory.
“Master, I agree,” Sunset Shimmer responded, nodding her head enthusiastically.
“An underground lair below a factory… when will villains ever learn?” Bucky grumbled as Sunset Shimmer pushed aside a heavy metal slab using her magic. “Speaking as an evil warlock, I hide out in a nice somewhat rustic looking farmhouse near a school for foals and instruct said foals in my evil ways daily. No do gooder heroes ever come to try and root me out.”
“Master, you are a competent villain that has made himself useful to society… in spite of your many nefarious acts, you are seen as a good guy… plus you keep competent help,” Sunset Shimmer said as the rusty metal slab was finally pushed aside, revealing stairs downwards.
“I also try to be a good father… and no pony ever wants to punish a good doting devoted father,” Bucky quipped as he began to go down the stairs. “Stay close Minion. I don’t want you getting hurt again.”
As Bucky emerged at the bottom of the stairs, he was greeted with spellfire. Heavy incoming spellfire, including a few necromantic spells that Bucky simply did not appreciate. He threw his cloak over Sunset Shimmer… there was a burst of cold… and then the cloak fluttered to the ground, laying flat upon the floor.
The six unicorns in the room all stared at the cloak, wondering what had just happened.
One of them, braver than the others, approached the cloak cautiously, knowing that the room was warded against teleportation, so he knew that the invaders had not teleported away. He made it to the cloak, standing near it, and he felt a growing feeling of dreadful apprehension.
“Where did they go?” the unicorn asked, looking around the room at his fellows.
There were several shrugs and one grunt in reply.
Feeling a very foalish sense of fear, compelled to look beneath the cloak, the unicorn banished the foalish thoughts from his mind and then he cautiously reached out with his magic, grabbing the edge of the cloak to lift it and peer beneath.
Under the cloak was a portal to Tartarus. Flames billowed, the stench of rotten eggs assaulted the unicorn’s nose… in the middle of the flames was one terrible eye staring up at him, a crimson eye surrounded by a sickly green. A horrific purple mist drifted from the eye that was surrounded by flames on all sides.
“THE BOOGEYPONY IS REAL!” the unicorn squealed in a frightened foalish voice as he stared into the portal to Tartarus and saw the hideous eye of the boogeypony. “THE BOOGEYPONY IS RE-”
The unicorn’s terrified shrieking was cut off suddenly as a flaming claw shot out from beneath the cloak, grabbed the unicorn by his throat, and then dragged him beneath the cloak. The edge fluttered down the floor and the cloak went flat again. There was one single horrified scream from beneath the cloak that filled the room with a strange disembodied sound.
“I never signed on to fight the boogeypony!” one unicorn shouted as he bolted for the stairs, carefully avoiding the cloak on the ground. He ran away, fleeing up the stairs, dribbling urine on the steps as he departed.
He didn’t get very far, the patch of ice upon the stairs caused him to come tumbling back down. He landed near the cloak… screaming, wide eyed with terror, and immediately began to crawl away while his companions screamed bloody murder.
The edge of the cloak lifted, there was a ferocious belch, and a pony skeleton was vomited out, the bones scattering over the floor, the horned skull visible, each bone having been picked clean, all of the flesh devoured by the hungry boogeypony that clearly had a craving for sweet delicious pony flesh.
One of the unicorns let out a very fillyish scream and then fainted dead away.
“I huuuuuuungerrrrrr,” a voice moaned from beneath the cloak. The ‘r’ sounds rolled into a terrifying growl and the sound echoed around the room strangely.
One of the unicorns stopped screaming and simply went still, his eyes going vacant, filled with a ghastly green light as dark magic overtook him. “The boogeypony must be fed. Give yourself to him,” the unicorn commanded. “He must feast upon your souls!” The unicorn made a gurgle, his eyes rolled back into his head, and then he began to vomit out a endless stream of maggots, a writhing wriggling mass of maggots that poured from his mouth, his nostrils, and then finally his ears, flooding the floor around him.
Fear was now contagious. It spread through the room like wildfire. There was no defense, no protection, no stopping the horror of the boogeypony. One by one, the unicorns succumbed to the fear, telling their fellows it was hopeless before they too, began spewing maggots out in an endless stream.
When there was no credible threat left, the pile of bones upon the floor became a pony, a paralysed pony whose eyes showed the lurid green glow that was the easily identified symptom of dark magical influence. The maggots stopped pouring out of those afflicted by the fear spell. One by one, the bodies dropped down, now helpless, paralysed by the fear and the hideous dark magic that Bucky had brought to bear. The maggots vanished, leaving no trace that they had once been there.
The terrible black cloak rose into the air and Bucky materialised with Sunset Shimmer standing safe beside him. The pair looked around the room, and Bucky chuckled a smug sounding chuckle.
“You alright Minion? One of those necromantic spells got close, I’m worried,” Bucky said after a moment of chortling.
“That was fun! When can we do that again!” Sunset Shimmer shouted. The sunny orange unicorn’s nose crinkled. “Wow, I think somepony shat themselves.”
“Ugh,” Bucky grunted. “I do believe you are right… Minion, I am in a hurry to get out of here. These unicorns won’t be trouble ever again I don’t think,” Bucky said in a disgusted voice, looking at one unicorn whose mane had turned white. He had been the one that had been pulled beneath the cloak.
“There’s a door. I say we introduce ourselves to whomever is left down here,” Sunset Shimmer suggested, her nostrils still crinkling from the smell of feces. “I always thought the boogeypony was just a story… now I am his Minion. Life is funny how it turns out sometimes.”
The large industrial cellar stank of strange chemicals. A mechanical thrum filled the air. In the center of the room was what appeared to be a makeshift hospital. Several unicorns walked around, pacing, nervous, but made no move to attack. A few simple golems walked about, small things, golems made for simple tasks, not attacking.
In the middle of the hospital area, there was a sling hanging from the ceiling, and hanging from that sling was a unicorn, a terrible jaundiced looking pony whose pelt had mostly fallen out, revealing yellowed wrinkled skin that had hung in flabby folds from the unicorn’s body. The most notable feature of the pony in the sling, his legs dangling down towards the floor, his head held in another sling, were the wings. The surgical sutures were still visible, they were weeping pustulent infection.
Somepony had tried surgery to make themselves into an alicorn.
Tubes were inserted into the body at various locations, locations that Bucky and Sunset Shimmer both knew from anatomy lessons, locations where there were major thaumaturgical glands in the body. A clear liquid dribbled through the tubes.
Nearby, there was a vat of greenish liquid that Bucky recognised as changeling goop.
“If you unplug him, he will die,” one of the unicorns said in low voice.
“We’re so close. He’s getting better… he’s recovering,” one announced.
“We know he looks terrible now, but he really is recovering,” another stated in a pleading voice, his eyes filled with worry as Bucky approached.
“You murdered ponies to get the liquid mana you needed for this abomination,” Bucky accused in a flat sounding icy voice.
“Just useless ponies that had nothing else to contribute to society… at least their deaths fueled our great work,” a unicorn replied, being blunt and direct.
“Unicorns deserve to rule… we are owed-”
“YOU ARE OWED NOTHING!” Bucky thundered, whirling to look at the unicorn that was speaking. “As a unicorn you have an obligation to use your magic to protect the least among you… you preyed upon your own kind, your own tribe. We were created to guard the equine race from the threats that the pegasi could not fight… you have violated this sacred trust.”
“So you want to turn all unicorns into alicorns… except for the ones that you deem unworthy and lemme guess… you kill those unicorns, bleed them dry of their liquid mana reserves, and then you continue to make abominations of yourselves,” Sunset Shimmer said in a voice gritty with rage. “This isn’t even garden variety unicorn superiourity, this is a special kind of stupidity. Somewhere, some villages are missing their idiots.”
“Being a unicorn used to mean a life of privilege and respect! We lost Canterlot!” a unicorn retorted angrily.
“None of you in this room are even type threes. I sense a couple of type ones and a few type twos. Tell me, in your perfect society, what is to stop the strong from preying upon you and taking what they need? From where I’m standing, you’re part of the useless unicorns that serve no purpose,” Bucky said in a cruel cutting voice that dripped with acidic truth.
A tense moment filled the room as the unicorns looked around at one another.
“If even one necromantic spell is cast I will be the end of you. Surely you know who I am. I am the Lord of Winter. I have been dead and I have endured the trials of the stygian pits in Tartarus to bring Love back to the world. I am utterly immune to necromantic magic,” Bucky announced in a cold emotionless voice, his horn glowing as he looked around the room, prepared to do whatever needed to be done.
“We have power,” one of the unicorns hissed.
“You release demons into the world and are offered a false hope in exchange!” Bucky roared, turning his terrible Taint filled stare upon the unicorn that spoke. “Do you want to see real power? I could show you. I could make you feel it!”
“You have nothing. I have felt real power,” Sunset Shimmer said, her eyes narrowing. “It requires sacrifice, pain, and suffering… not deals made with demons… give the word Master… I will kill them, cleanly and quickly. Necromancers do not deserve to live.”
“We submit. We surrender. Fighting you will accomplish nothing, but if we surrender at least we can be martyrs for our cause,” a unicorn said, hanging his head in defeat.
His horn glowing with black fire, Bucky shook his head. One by one, the unicorns fell to the floor, shouting and screaming in agony as black crystals grew from their horns. “No… no martyrdom. Nopony will remember you. We will go through and erase every memory of you from those that knew you. We will cut you away like a tumorous growth. We will purge this poison from society. Not a single one of you will ever be remembered, your own mothers will not even remember birthing you. There will be no record of your passing. You will fall into shadow and be completely unknown. And society will go on, having been made better after your erasure.”
“Master, should I unplug the abomination?” Sunset Shimmer asked in a low voice as she looked around at the unicorns with black crystal growths all around her, watching them writhe upon the floor.
“No Minion. You did summon backup, correct? We should keep it alive so Twilight Sparkle can examine it,” Bucky instructed.
“Poor dumb bastards. They actually believed that they would get a public trial. Tsk tsk tsk. Too bad we Black Cloaks don’t work that way,” Sunset Shimmer said, peering around the room with great interest. “By the way Master, I shall expect to be compensated in some fashion for not telling Bon Bon that you told a lie about being immune to necromancy.”
“Minion, how could you?” Bucky protested, looking at his apprentice in disgust.
Back in Canterlot, Bucky watched as Twilight Sparkle and Fever Cure moved around the room, gathering materials and supplies as they prepared to perform an autopsy together. Other doctors also moved about, but Bucky did not know them.
The abomination, still alive, was suspended in a tank of clear liquid, a breathing tube inserted down it’s nostrils, its head held above the clear liquid by a loop of padded strap. Bubbles percolated through the liquid.
“This really is extraordinary,” Twilight Sparkle said in a cold clinical voice.
“It shows signs of healing, natural healing, not necromantic healing,” Fever Cure stated in an oddly excited voice. “The infection was getting better it seems. The sutures show signs of closing. They really were close.”
“Damnable cultists,” a doctor muttered.
“Given enough time, the constant infusion of raw liquid mana would have magically charged the body and I do believe they would have eventually succeeded in making an artificial alicorn,” Twilight Sparkle said in a detached voice that contained no emotion.
“All of the thaumaturgical glands have been enlarged. Sort of like yours has Bucky. Similar, but we do not believe they are quite the same,” Fever Cure stated in a pleased sounding voice, barely able to contain himself as he bounced around in place. “I love fringe science!”
“Yours grew enlarged as well after your… alteration... by Princess Luna and Buckminster,” Twilight Sparkle said as she looked over at Fever Cure.
“I have arrived,” Princess Luna announced as she burst into the room. “Are we ready to begin?” she asked, looking around the room.
“I just hope that some good comes out of the horrible thing we are about to do,” Bucky grumbled, unable to watch as the life support was turned off one switch at a time.
The train moved with what felt like effortless speed over the tracks, heading for Baltimare, but Baltimare was not their destination. For Bucky and Sunset, the train did not go where they were heading and Baltimare was as close as they could get. Bucky had wanted to fly and get the trip over with, but Sunset had insisted on doing a bit of sightseeing, so it had been agreed upon that they would fly out of Baltimare to reach the Hayseed Swamps.
Besides, it would give both Mask and Fever Cure, who were already there, some time to nose around, ask questions, and possibly even solve the case before Bucky and Sunset arrived.
A worrisome problem had revealed itself in a small town called Granther’s Polder, reports had been made of some sort of curse and necromancy was suspected. Foals were sick, there were many deformities, sickness was rampant, and many had died. Bucky and Sunset both were being sent to investigate the situation, with both of them being uniquely suited to deal with necromancy or the dark arts.
For Bucky, this was going to be a simple trip. Find the necromancer responsible, have Sunset Shimmer cast The Purging Flame, and then go home. The evidence, as it was presented, suggested that something was messing around with the natural order and was committing heresy. Vile magic was being used and it seemed like an open and shut case.
Mask and Fever Cure had been sent ahead to ask a few questions, poke around, and examine some of the sick. Bucky was looking forward to seeing them again, it had been a while. While the other Shadowbolts were combative, Mask and Fever Cure both were far more suited for investigative roles.
Yawning, Bucky hoped that those two already had the case wrapped up. It would be as simple as arriving, asking who was responsible, hunting them down, and then dealing with them. Afterwards, he could leave the hot, humid swamp, go home, and go back to the tranquil boredom of homelife.
Granther’s Polder was hot, sticky, and humid. It was hardly even summer and already the temperature was nearing triple digits. Large mosquitos buzzed through the air, making lazy attempts to steal a meal and getting squished for their trouble.
Bucky stood still, looking around, taking it all in. The town itself was a collection of houses, shops, buildings, an old workhouse, a rundown factory, and a dilapidated mansion on top of the hill in the center of town. There was no motel here, no hostel, not even a boarding house. The town was almost dead. The houses and the buildings, the wood had long ago turned grey and faded. The town had lost its lustre. The workhouse was boarded up and the factory no longer functioned; part of it had collapsed in upon itself. Moss hung from the trees and climbing kudzu vines threatened to devour everything. The air was perfumed with the scent of magnolia trees, but the perfume could not hide the smell of rot blowing in from the surrounding swamp.
Blinking, Bucky stood staring at a collection of shacks and shanties, buildings that passed for housing in this place. Granther’s Polder had once been well off, they had once refined a great deal of tar into various products and usable oils. Much of Equestria’s lamp oil had once come from this place and others like it in the Hayseed Swamps. Now, with electricity being so common, lamp oil was no longer a precious commodity.
Looking around, Bucky could not help but feel that this place would be better off if it were abandoned and the ponies relocated to more hospitable regions. There was a dyke around the town that held back the sludge of the swamp. In the distance, vast tar pits bubbled, and the air was filled with a sulfurous stench that made his eyes sting.
“This place has its own charm,” Sunset Shimmer said after looking around for a while.
“This place is a dump—”
“Master!” Sunset’s tone was one of scolding and she gave Bucky a disapproving look. She shook her head. “I bet there is still a lot of history and culture to be had here. I bet there are stories to be told.”
“Yes… Minion, I can imagine them now… we found a hill in the middle of a swamp… we built a settlement and then built levees to hold back the swamp muck… every year we beg the Royal Pony Sisters for more funds to keep the swamp from devouring us… these stories will be fascinating.” Eyes narrowed, Bucky looked around and shuddered with disgust as a mosquito the size of a chickadee flew past his head. Reaching out with his telekinesis, he crushed it, causing it to burst into a bloody, chunky, pulpy mess. It had just eaten it seemed.
“You don’t like this place—”
“Oh, Minion, what could give you that idea?” Bucky asked. “And before you even question me, where do I even begin? How about the fact that I feel like I am breathing soup. The air is in a liquid state. I’ve already got a killer case of swamp arse. I can feel sweat trickling down my back legs. The smell, Minion, the smell… I’ve smelled Appleloosan outhouses left out in the sun that smelled better than this. As for sweating, it is so humid that we can’t even sweat properly to cool off… the one hundred percent humidity keeps the sweat from evapourating. From the looks of things, nopony here has electricity, which means that there is no air conditioning. Minion, this a miserable place. It has no redeeming qualities.”
“Hmph, well.” Sunset tossed her head back and gave Bucky a frustrated glare. Her own hot and sweaty backside made it difficult to argue with him. “We’ll need to find a place to stay.”
“I think I can help you with that,” a mare said as she moved towards Bucky and Sunset. She was pale yellow and had a pale orange mane. “My name is Hibiscus and you must be Lord Buckminster and Sunset Shimmer. We’ve been waiting for you. We’re sorely in need of justice… the residents of Hill House have cursed us.”
“Do you have evidence of this?” Bucky looked at the earth pony mare. She was older, a matron, and it was obvious that she came from strong, sturdy stock. He took note of the mare’s sour stare, her lip curled away from her teeth, and she gave him a stinkeye so terrible that Derpy would have been envious.
“They’re unicorns… the only unicorns in town… the curse is magic… it is rather obvious,” Hibiscus said in a halting voice as she continued to glare at Bucky. After a moment, her expression softened. “My apologies… I fear that we might’ve gotten off on the wrong hoof. I just lost a grandfoal, a filly… we laid her bones to rest not but a week ago. She was born without eyes.”
“Oh my,” Sunset Shimmer gasped.
“By no eyes, I mean no eyes… no eye sockets. Nothing at all where eyes should have been. She lasted all of three days after her birth.” Hibiscus grimaced, shook her head, and then looked at Bucky with pleading eyes. “I’ve done buried several… you gotta help us… I just know that Blackwater and his clan are responsible for all of this… They’re not sick, not at all.”
“We are here to investigate and find out what is going on, but accusing somepony of necromancy and cursing an entire community is serious… the accusation must have evidence. I give you my word, I will try to find who is responsible.” Bucky gave the distraught looking mare a cool stare and felt bad about the disappointment he could see in her eyes.
“Blackwater’s family owns this town. They owned the factory, the refinery, they’re old money… only now, rumour has it, they’re not much better off than the rest of us. The old house on the hill is looking more than a little run down. Each year, it looks a little worse. My family, we owned the workhouse. We used to process alchemical ingredients. At one point, we used to be rather wealthy.” Hibiscus’ eyes narrowed and she turned away from Bucky, looking a little fearful. “We were business associates of House Bitters in Canterlot. When House Bitters fell on hard times, so did we. The last bit of business we had in this town dried up.”
“Have you seen our associates?” Sunset asked, giving Hibiscus a polite smile and changing the subject. She didn’t like how Bucky was squirming, nor did she like the uncomfortable expression upon his face.
“Yes, actually, they’re staying in my house,” Hibiscus replied. “Right now, they are off visiting some of the farmers and swamp folks who live outside of town. I was told to keep an eye out for you.”
“We’d be honoured to be your guests.” Sunset gave Hibiscus a sunny smile and stepped forwards. “If you could lead the way, we would be happy to follow you and we would like to hear what you have to say. Perhaps a bit of a history lesson will give us some insight and give us an idea of where to start looking for clues.” Sunset turned and looked at Bucky, who looked disturbed. She felt a growing sense of worry. Bucky didn’t deal well with anything that had to do with his family and Sunset could not help but wonder why this detail had not been brought up in the briefing.
The house was one of the few still left in good repair. While most of the houses in Granther’s Polder had been constructed out of wood, Hibiscus’ home was made out of rose coloured stone blocks. It was tall, narrow, and sat beside the tall brick workhouse. A decorative tower protruded from the right corner in the front of the house, and the tower was topped with a cupola made of copper and stained glass. While it was pretty, in its own way, it was not ostentatious in the slightest, it was a modest house for a family that had once been well off.
It stood in sharp contrast with the mansion on the top of the hill, which had once been a magnificent white plantation style mansion. Now, most of the white had flaked away and the old mansion looked as though it was crumbling.
Entering, Bucky was pleasantly surprised by how much cooler it was inside of the house. In the middle of the house, a waterfall fell from the top floors. Several fans circulated air, blowing a breeze through the falling water, and the resulting evaporation had cooled the house down considerably. Bucky looked around, uncertain of what was powering the fans.
Standing in the entryway and looking up, Bucky could see a narrow square opening that went from the ground floor to the top floor where the waterfall originated. Around the central open area, there were balconies on each floor that led to the rooms. Just inside the entryway, where the waterfall pool was, there was an indoor garden of flowers and plants. The beauty of the interiour of the house stood out in sharp contrast to the run down appearance of the town.
“I have rooms for you both on the fourth floor… the stairs are in the back.” Hibiscus looked around, her ears perking up, her expression one of impatience. “Coriander! Where are you! We have guests!”
“Coming mother!” A mossy green mare with a muted pink mane appeared on the second floor balcony, looking down, a smile upon her face.
“Coriander is a good mare, but she is absent minded and a bit slow, so please be patient with her. I think it’s part of the curse… you’ll find quite a few ponies in town just like her.” Hibiscus waited, her ears perking when she heard the sounds of hooves on wood. “She will show you to your rooms.”
Bucky watched as Coriander approached. Something seemed… off about her. The mare shuffled, uncoordinated, she had a rather severe underbite, and something about her face just seemed… out of place. Not wanting to be rude, not wanting to stare, he turned to look at Hibiscus and saw that the wise old matron was staring at him.
“When you get settled, I would like for you to meet Laurel and Lavender,” Coriander said in a low voice. “They are both very shy and self conscious about their… condition. Little Laurel and little Lavender, along with many other foals their age, are all… well, deformed. They can be quite hard to look at. I must say, Mask and Fever Cure both are good ponies… they put them both at ease and have been very kind to her. Laurel and Lavender are a living miracle as far as I’m concerned… the doctor said they wouldn’t last a day when they were born.”
“My name is Coriander.” The pale green mare gave Bucky a warm, inviting smile. “Hi.”
“Hello,” Bucky replied, being polite. He could not help but notice that Coriander suffered from a bit of exotropia—her eyes focused outwards, away from one another. He thought of Derpy and felt a twinge of homesickness.
“Would you like to see your room?” Coriander asked.
“Yes, please.” Sunset Shimmer stepped forwards and looked Coriander in the eye. “Your mane is so pretty… how do you manage to keep it looking so nice in all of this humidity?”
Coriander, looking bashful, rubbed her right front leg against the left, her mouth moved, but she did not answer. Her breathing became heavy and she grunted a few times, looking flustered. She stood, staring at Sunset Shimmer, her cheeks darkening with a powerful blush.
“You’re very kind,” Hibiscus said, her voice almost a whisper. “Thank you.”
“Whoever is responsible for this will not think us kind at all.” Bucky’s words carried with them a certain dreadful weight. “Madam, we thank you for your hospitality. We are grateful to be your guests.” Bucky bowed his head and looked Hibiscus in the eye. “I give you my word, I’m going to get down to the bottom of this.”
As Sunset Shimmer entered into a small but comfortable parlour upon the ground floor, she saw a unicorn maid slipping out of another narrow servant’s door. She forced herself to hold her tongue; Sunset remembered Hibiscus’ remark about how the ponies on the hill had to be responsible, because this was magic and they were unicorns.
There was also the fact that Hibiscus and her family had a maid. Sunset reconsidered her position—the maid might live here out of necessity, after all, she had to eat and have a place to rest her weary head when the day was done. She might be working to earn room and board, there was a lot that Sunset Shimmer didn’t know and snap judgements would help nopony.
Some things were apparent though, this family was a bit higher up on the hill than the others. They might not have the mansion on top of the hill, but by the looks of things, they were no less influential. The cost of having pink rose marble hauled out into a swamp had to have been considerable. The parlour, while now a little threadbare and worn down, was filled with what had been expensive furniture. The couches were velvet, fine wools, silk brocades, and rare woods. There were paintings on the walls, Sunset Shimmer assumed the paintings were a collection of matriarchs, a committee of stern, harsh, solemn school marm types, with Hibiscus included among their ranks.
The lights overhead were gas lamps, of course they were, Sunset Shimmer couldn’t imagine this place having electric lights. This town had been built on tar and oil—it had once powered many of Equestria’s lamps, this town had once been instrumental in the battle against the ever present, ever looming darkness. The fittings were fine brass, etched, decorated to a high degree. There were no cobwebs, no sign of dust, everything was immaculate. These were ponies that were clinging to their old way of life in much the same way a drowning pony clings to a life preserver, there was a palpable sense of desperation in the air.
Sunset sat down on a somewhat faded blue fainting couch. The slick fabric had lines of darker blue and a soft, smooth corded texture, almost like corduroy. She sighed, feeling impatient, wondering when Bucky would be coming back down. She wanted to get started, something about this place, this house, unsettled her. She drew in another lungful of cool, moist air. Using a waterfall to cool one’s house was clever, Sunset wanted to know more about how the system worked, but she wasn’t here to study waterfalls and cooling methods for fine houses built in swamps.
She watched as Hibiscus passed in front of an open door, a pegasus stallion following along behind her, and the two of them speaking in low, hushed voices. Sunset’s ears perked, she strained to hear what was being said, but all she could hear was indistinct mumbling.
“Lord Buckminster, this way…”
Sunset saw Hibiscus once more through the open doorway and then she saw Bucky’s cloaked form. Bucky seemed to be moving with deliberate slowness, no doubt he was taking everything in, observing details, and piecing everything together. She watched as he entered the room, his face still hidden within the shadows of his hood, his eyes unseen, Hibiscus would have no way of knowing what Bucky was looking at, what he was studying, what secrets that Bucky was trying to uncover. Sunset could hear the faint clicking of Bucky’s claws on the wooden floor.
“If you will excuse me for one moment,” Hibiscus said as she slipped out of the room, leaving both Sunset and Bucky alone together.
Bucky waited, watching, and when Hibiscus was gone, he turned his hooded head towards Sunset Shimmer. “Anything interesting?” he asked in a low, faint whisper.
“They have a unicorn maid,” Sunset replied in her own secretive whisper, “so the unicorns living at the top of the hill aren’t the only ones in town.”
“Hmm.” Bucky sat down on a couch upholstered in fine red and gold fabric, something that Bucky felt that clashed with the blue couch that Sunset was sitting on, but who was he to judge? “This house has many enchantments, poorly done enchantments, simple enchantments, but there is much magic to be found here. For a family of earth ponies, they are well off and must have known some rather magical unicorns.”
“They had ties with House Bitters,” Sunset said, worried about how Bucky was dealing with that particular bit of information.
“Indeed, and it paid off handsomely.” Bucky cleared his throat. “Minion, while the house itself is quite nice, it is quite modest looking on the outside, at least by standards of wealth. That said, the inside, the furnishings… these are quite opulent. These couches, this room, the rooms we are staying in, these are the sorts of surroundings I had as a foal, furniture such as this could be found in my family’s houses.”
“What are you saying, Master?” Sunset asked.
“Think for a moment, Minion,” Bucky replied, speaking in a low, muted whisper. “This raises a few questions. If these ponies are living in hard times now, as they claim, how did they afford all of this? That kind of money tends to endure… so they are wealthier than they let on, which is possible, the other option is all of this was a gift to keep them loyal.”
“Master?” Sunset’s brows furrowed.
“Minion, this an earth pony family and they wanted to compete with the unicorns on the hill. It is entirely reasonable that the agents of the Bitters family brought with them furniture and housewares to secure favour with the local eyes and ears for their business interests. The agents of House Bitters probably brought with them the less desireable furniture that they threw out, the stuff that didn’t meet their standards, and I’m guessing it ended up here… mind you, this is only a guess… supported by the fact that if this family had any sort of real wealth, they could have left by now, moved to another place, taking their finery with them, and establishing themselves in another place. For whatever reason, they have stayed here in the swamp. I strongly suspect that the agents of House Bitters gave these ponies just enough to give them the illusion of wealth, which goes a long way in a backwater like this.”
Scowling, Sunset didn’t care much for what Bucky had to say, disliking it all the more because there was a good chance that he was right. She glanced at the fine paintings on the wall. How hard would it have been for House Bitters to send one of the artists they patroned down here to paint a picture? It would have inflated the ego of any matriarch in charge quite a bit, would have made them feel important, proud, it would have made them feel like earth ponies who had accomplished some great thing, but as Bucky had said, it was probably to keep them loyal to the business interests of House Bitters.
Ears perking, Sunset turned and looked at the doorway. She could hear hooves and a soft, almost inaudible shuffling sound. Hibiscus entered the room, followed by a younger mare, and a third figure, small, foal sized that Sunset could not see because a couch was in the way. The foal was hiding behind the couch and Sunset could hear heavy breathing.
Funny thing was, it sounded as though there were two ponies with heavy breathing.
“Laurel, Lavender, please, come out and say hello to our guests. Be a good filly,” Hibiscus said in a commanding, but gentle voice.
It took every bit of self discipline that Sunset Shimmer had to deal with what she saw. A filly stepped out from behind the couch, her pelt a muted purple pink. The filly had not one, but two heads. She walked with slow, halting steps, shy, fearful, her movements skittish.
One head was normal, the other was stunted and a bit shrunken. It appeared as though two fillies had merged, keeping separate heads but having a merged body. Hanging just below the filly’s left shoulder, two small, twisted, stunted legs dangled. In front of where the legs sprouted, a second neck protruded, thin, scrawny, warped, and the second head hung from the malformed neck like a growth. Looking at the filly, Sunset felt tears welling up in her eyes and all she could feel was pity.
What had done this?
There was a muffled thump, which almost startled Sunset, and she saw that Bucky had slipped down from the couch where he was sitting. Of course Bucky would endear himself to the filly. Sunset felt a hard lump manifest in her throat. “Come here,” she heard Bucky say. Sunset was having some trouble breathing and her eyes stung.
“Oh, there is twice as much of you to love,” Bucky said as he sat down upon the floor.
Almost holding her breath, Sunset watched as the timid filly approached Bucky. Her mane, a dull blue green on both heads, spilled down her necks and bobbed over her face. The second smaller, stunted head snuffled, it was clear there were some breathing problems, no doubt caused by her malformed features.
“Can you tell me your names?” Bucky asked.
“I’m Laurel,” the well developed head said.
“And I’m Lavender,” the stunted head replied, speaking in a somewhat wheezy voice.
“Oh, you are adorable, come here to me.” Bucky tapped the floor in front of him with his hoof.
It was no surprise that the filly went to Bucky, Sunset watched as the two headed filly moved on weak, trembling legs, going to him, and sitting down. She heard Hibiscus gasp, a matron’s worry, and then she saw Bucky’s foreleg wrap around both Laurel and Lavender.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” Bucky said as he reached up with his talons and grabbed his hood.
As Sunset watched, Bucky tugged his hood down, revealing his face, his deformed, scarred, twisted, scaly face. She saw Laurel and Lavender both looking up, there was no sign of fear, of fright, there was only curiousity. She watched as Bucky lowered his head, dropping himself down to eye level of the little filly in front of him. She saw Laurel raise her right leg and touch the withered, scaled side of Bucky’s face.
“So that’s why he wears the hood,” Hibiscus whispered, her voice low, almost fearful, her eyes locked on Bucky.
Sunset Shimmer heard a giggle coming from both Laurel and Lavender as Bucky continued to hold her. He was whispering something to both of them, but she could not make out what Bucky was saying. He was doing what he did for every foal he encountered, making them feel special, worthwhile, building them up. She heard a weak squeal from Lavender, followed by a laugh, and then Bucky scooped them up from the floor in an affectionate hug.
“Lord Bitters, there has been quite a number of foals just like her that have been born. She is the only one that lived. Many births are stillborn. In the past few years, it has become unbearable. There are more deaths than births.” Hibiscus gave Bucky a pleading look.
“There is something I don’t get,” Bucky replied, shaking his head. “Why would anypony cause a curse like this? What would they hope to gain?”
“I don’t know, I can’t even begin to comprehend it myself.” Hibiscus frowned, her eyebrows furrowing. “Necromancers consort with demons, who knows why they do what they do?” The earth pony matron’s stare turned hard and flinty. “About fifty years ago, Plover, who was at the time, Master of Hill House, was burned to death in the town square for necromancy—”
“Was there proof?” Bucky asked, giving Laurel and Lavender a squeeze.
“I don’t know, maybe.” Hibiscus gave Bucky a troubled look. “That was before my time. An angry mob pulled him from his home. He was a wizard who dabbled in strange magics. Earlier in his life, he had done some questionable things, but seeing as how he was the Master of Hill House, he was never made to answer for what he did. Rumours continued to fester. A foal was born with an extra leg and three eyes… members of Plover’s own family turned against him, furious with him, and gave him to the angry mob.”
“Oh my,” Sunset gasped.
“For all we know, some opportunistic family member might have wanted Plover out of the way and the angry mob might have been very convenient.” Bucky’s voice was cold, somewhat sardonic, and his words had the crushing weight of logic about them.
“Given what happened, somepony might be getting revenge for what happened fifty years ago… it is as likely a motive as anything else,” Hibiscus said to Bucky.
“I am not convinced… at least not yet.” Bucky set the filly down on the floor, steadying her, and then with a nudge, sent her teetering off towards Hibiscus. “But that is why we are here, to determine the truth.”
Sunset Shimmer cleared her throat. “Sounds to me that this trouble started over fifty years ago. If said necromancer was the true cause, it seems to me that these troubling signs would have ended with him, but I’m guessing that for the past fifty years, there has been a lot of birth defects. While I do not rule necromancy out, something is going on here, something that goes beyond just one pony.”
Hibiscus frowned, a sour expression on her face, and Sunset Shimmer was forced to wonder if the mare wanted honest justice or just simple revenge. It was obvious that she wanted the residents of Hill House to suffer, the pitiful sight of Laurel and Lavender was all the motivation that Hibiscus needed, but Sunset Shimmer began to suspect that there was a lot more going on. She wondered what Bucky was already no doubt piecing together. She was curious as to what Mask and Fever Cure had found.
From the sounds of things, there was a mystery here to deal with.
This was a miserable place. No, this was the place where misery came to die when it was too miserable to keep existing. Bucky hated this place. The sun had gone down but it was still over one hundred degrees outside. The humidity remained at one hundred percent. The only thing that had changed with the sun going down was the number of blood sucking parasites in the air. The night was swarming with blood sucking insects.
Reaching out with his telekinesis, Bucky crushed them, smooshed them, smashed them, he zapped them with a shock spell, but the blood sucking horde would not be assuaged. The air was now filled with the scent of swampy decay, sweaty pony, and fried blood sucking bugs.
Reaching a point of irascible fury that was said to be one of his defining characteristics, Bucky transmogrified himself into an axe beaked griffon and then flew off into the night to wage war against the blood sucking menace.
Sunset Shimmer watched him go, sipping a glass of iced tea. As she sat there, sweating, soaked, and drinking sweetened ice tea with lemon, she heard Hibiscus, who was sitting beside her, say, “He seems like the irritable sort.”
Nodding, Sunset replied, “You have no idea.” Sunset, who noticed that Hibiscus seemed quite relaxed now, focused her attention on the old matron. “I bet this town has a lot of history. You strike me as being one of the lorekeepers of your community.”
Sunset’s ears perked as Hibiscus took a deep breath and she waited, hoping that Hibiscus would start talking, perhaps revealing a few details that might be useful. In the distance, there was a thrum of magic, Sunset could feel it, it made her bones vibrate and her teeth hummed in her jaw. The night filled with brilliant flames as a pygmy dragon breathed out a gout of flame and an angry roar filled her ears. Sunset found herself smiling—Bucky could change forms the same way that Rarity could change dresses, typically at a moment’s notice and with devastating effect.
“It could be said that in some ways, I am this town,” Hibiscus said in a low voice. “Blackwater and his family going back for all those generations, they had everything in life handed to them because they were unicorns. They had magic. They never had to work hard a day in their life. They never went swaybacked having to pull wagons or carts or sledges through the muck of the swamp. Just a flash of their horns and their work was done for them. They lived up there in that big white mansion up at the top of the hill and they lorded themselves over the rest of us… looked down their noses at us. They never had to get dirty like the rest of us.”
Silent, Sunset said nothing and waited for more words to come spilling out.
“My family, we worked hard. We broke our backs and we worked harder than anypony else. We had to fight to get what few scraps we had… and after so much hard work, we had ourselves a little bit of luck. Our hard work paid off. After all that sweating, all of that misery, after all of that pain and suffering, we pulled ourselves up out of the muck and we moved a little higher up the hill. It wasn’t much, but we kept moving upwards until we reached the point where we are now… only now, there is nothing. The town is dying and all of our hard work has been for naught.”
The old mare let out a bitter laugh and Sunset felt a twinge of pity for her.
“Now I don’t know what to do. We have nothing left… just the house and everything in it. We can’t even sell the house… nopony wants to buy it. Everything we have is worthless.”
Sunset, who bit down upon her lip and chewed it, wanted to say a few things, but remained silent. She wanted to say, It seems to me that it is time to go off and work hard someplace else and reestablish yourselves. But she didn’t. She wanted to say, For all of your talk about hard work, you strike me as a mare that hasn’t worked a hard day in your life, but you clearly expect it from others. But Sunset Shimmer held her tongue. Bucky was the irrational one and as such, she was expected to be the patient and wise one.
Lifting her iced tea, Sunset Shimmer took a long drink, her ice cubes clinking. As she swallowed, the unicorn maid burst out onto the porch and rushed to Hibiscus’ side. Sunset watched without looking as though she was watching, and her sensitive ears heard the maid whisper, “Zoysia has disappeared again, he can’t be found anywhere.”
Hibiscus rose, getting out of her chair, and she looked at Sunset Shimmer. “You must excuse me, but an important matter has been brought to my attention. I must go and look after something, I do hope you will forgive me for being a poor host.”
Before Sunset could even reply, Hibiscus was gone, hurrying off, and she had gone through the back door, the maid on her heels. Sunset Shimmer took another drink of iced tea and watched as Bucky continued to wage war against the winged horrors of the swamp.
“Having much in the way of luck?” Bucky asked. He looked at Mask and Fever Cure. Both were sweaty, covered in muck, and looked exhausted. Both appeared to have been crawling around through the swamp. It was past midnight now, and the temperature still had not dropped below one hundred degrees. The sound of frogs and insects created an almost deafening cacophony all around them.
“If I may offer my professional opinion,” Mask muttered.
“Oh, please do,” Bucky insisted while making an impatient gesture with his talons.
“I’d rather be in Tartarus. This place sucks.” Mask scowled, looked at his companion, and then back at Bucky. “Giant leeches, giant crawfish that can snip a pony in half with their claws, and don’t even get me started on the blood sucking bugs.”
As Mask was speaking, Bucky’s makeshift bug zapper blasted another sparrow sized mosquito, causing the dark of the night to light up with a bright blue flash.
“Everything here is magical,” Fever Cure said to Bucky. “We don’t know if it is necromantic though, that’s the problem. We’ve been using the orb of undead compulsion, but there seems to be no zombies. There is so much magical background radiation in this place that we can’t tell what’s what. I don’t even know where to begin after seeing some of the birth defects and congenital deformities I’ve seen around here. It could be necromancy, it might be a curse, but trying to find a specific cause strikes me as being almost impossible. The magic here is harmful, hostile, and the local wildlife has become quite fearsome.”
“This is the perfect place to summon demons.” Mask’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Bucky. “With this much magical background radiation, the residual dark magic or necromantic energies from such an act would be nigh undetectable. Necromantic curses, raising the dead, a pony could get away with those kinds of things here… it is a whisper in a room full of shouts.”
“Hmm.” Bucky’s face wrinkled as he began to think about the problem.
“Bucky, there are animated piles of trash and muck and sticks that will attack you in the swamp… something has gone wrong here… I’ve never seen anything like it,” Fever Cure said to Bucky, his ears pitching forwards as he spoke. “Those… whatever they are… they float on the surface of the water looking like so much trash in the water and then they attack you when you get too close. This place is a nightmare come to life.”
“The two of you look like you both could use some rest. Go inside, get cleaned up, get cooled off, and take a load off. I’m going to go have a look around.” Bucky, frowning, was not very happy about slogging through the swamp in the middle of the night.
Mask nodded. “Good luck, Bucky… watch out for the giant flesh eating dragonflies.”
“Wait… what?”
The hill was steep, but the switchbacks that made up the path were manageable. Ruts lined the path, a wagon had been pulled up and down this hill many, many times. Sunset Shimmer climbed the hill, her breathing heavy, she was already panting in the hot, humid, early morning air. There wasn’t much of a view from up here, only trees, swamp, and the dilapidated town down below. A foul miasma hung in the air, the stench of burning and smoke. At some point during the night, something had caught fire out in the swamp, it was still burning, a column of smoke could be seen rising up above the stunted, twisted trees.
Above her, the once white mansion loomed over the town. It was huge, tall, a plantation style mansion that had somehow been built on top of a hill out in the middle of the swamp. The white marble foundation it sat upon appeared to be in good shape, but the rest of the mansion had seen better days. The roof was sagging, the white paint was flaking off, revealing grey, somewhat rotten wood. Along the top floor, the windows all appeared to be boarded over. Seeing as how the roof sagged, Sunset guessed that the top floor probably got soaked every time it rained. The closer she got, the worse off the house appeared to be. One of the front columns was crooked and the balcony above the front door was askew.
The house appeared to be in danger of falling over.
Panting, sweating, soaked, Sunset Shimmer stood on the porch, her sides heaving, wondering why she hadn’t just transmuted herself into another form and flown up here. This was a miserable place—she worried that the heat was melting her brain into mush and making her stupid.
The front door opened and an older pony came out, a unicorn stallion. He looked a bit unkempt, his mane was long and a bit disheveled. His pelt was a faded silver colour and his mane was a muted shade of dull green. He wore glasses with silver frames and darkened lenses, which blocked his eyes from view. Sunset noticed his cutie mark, which was a chess piece, a rook. His knees were getting knobby and his neck was crooked.
“Mister Blackwater?” Sunset asked.
“I am he,” the stallion replied.
Before Sunset could say anything else, the stallion continued. “I know why you are here. I will help you in any way I can… I will cooperate with you completely… I just ask that you help me and I will give you anything you want.”
“And what is it that you want?” Sunset looked at the old pony. He sounded awful, sorrowful, she felt a growing sense of pity for him and she guarded her heart, a little voice in the back of her mind reminding her that this could be a clever ruse.
“I want my daughter back… she’s gone missing… and Hibiscus had something to do with it!” Blackwater replied.
“Can you tell me why you think Hibiscus had something to do with it?” As Sunset spoke, she saw the rage boiling up in the old stallion’s face. He was turning an apoplectic shade of purple and his ears twitched in a fitful manner.
“That rotten grandson of hers was trying to take advantage of my daughter, Brook! When I confronted Hibiscus about it, she flew off the handle and into a fit of rage… there’s witnesses… about half the town saw her screaming at her colt… and heard her too.” Blackwater fell silent and stared at Sunset through his darkened lenses. “Not long after, Brook vanished… she just up and disappeared. This happened right after Hibiscus swore that she would make that rotten grandson of hers sorry for what he did, shaming their family the way he did.”
Sighing, Sunset Shimmer began to realise she was opening a can of worms.
“Sir, do you have any proof that Hibiscus did this? I mean, what reason would she have to make your daughter disappear?” Sunset wanted to ask how a stallion Blackwater’s age had a daughter that was the right age for Hibiscus’ grandson, but Sunset realised that some stallions remained spry well into their elderly years.
“My guess is she’s done traded my daughter off to whatever demon her family had summoned to cause all this trouble. A whole lot of ponies have gone missing over the years. When those investigators came to look into her dealings with the Bitters family, both of them got gone… vanished without a trace they did. Another batch of investigators came out to speak with Hibiscus… both of them got real sick… bloody noses, breathing problems, stomach problems, they both left and I don’t know what happened after that.”
Lips pressing in a tight, straight line, Sunset Shimmer considered Blackwater’s words. Something was going on here, that much was for certain.
“Please… find her… find out what happened to her… I love her more than anything… I… I… I’ll even confess to everything that is going on if you can find out what happened to her, even if she’s dead… I’ll do anything… I’m so sick with worry… I miss her so.”
“Look, Mister Blackwater, confessing to a crime you didn’t do isn’t necessary. It is my job to find out what is going on here… I give you my word, I will do everything in my power to find out what has happened to your daughter.” Sunset Shimmer took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out in a slow exhale. “Now, Mister Blackwater, what can you tell me about what has been going on around here? The more you can tell me, the more I will be able to help you…”
Feeling troubled, Sunset Shimmer gave some serious thought to the ramifications of the actions of both Hibiscus and Blackwater. There was a clear cut case of good old fashioned rivalry here and things had spun out of control. The center had not held. When the town had still been prosperous, when the town had still functioned, these family rivalries were kept in check, at least somewhat, to allow the town to continue to function and to allow both families to continue accumulating wealth. Now, however, with nothing to strive for, with no more wealth coming in, the rivalry had become cutthroat. They were already experiencing a collapse, there could be no worse consequences for their misbehaviour.
Of course, Brook’s disappearance could be explained away with ease—this was a swamp, after all, and it was filled with pony eating monsters, sinkholes, it was a place where bad things happened. Sunset, however, did not suspect that to be the case though.
In the distance, there was a boom followed by a faint rumble. Looking out to the north and east, Sunset Shimmer saw a pillar of fire rise up from the swamps, billowing upwards over the treeline, and the corners of her mouth curled upwards in a manner most involuntary. She found herself smiling at the sight of the rising pillar of fire and as the ground around her trembled, she laughed. It appeared as though Bucky was quite fed up with nature and was taking the fight back to the denizens of the swamp, a good thing for Sunset. Ponies were busy watching Bucky’s battle against the very swamp itself and were now distracted. Sunset Shimmer hoped that this could be used to her advantage; she might catch a pony off guard or have a chance to look around when she wasn’t being watched. And she made no mistake, she could feel eyes on her sometimes.
“I spoke with Mister Blackwater. He told me some interesting things,” Sunset Shimmer said to Hibiscus. Sunset watched as the older matron’s eyes narrowed. “He told me some very interesting things.”
“Like what?” Hibiscus asked, her ears pinning back against her skull as she spoke.
“Nevermind what he told me, I’m more interested in what you can tell me about Brook.” As Sunset Shimmer spoke, she could see that her words drew blood. She saw Hibiscus’ face cloud with fierce anger. As Sunset stood there, waiting, her ears were filled with the sound of a clock upon a glass shelf ticking.
“I don’t know what he told you, but I had nothing to do with that,” Hibiscus said, her words little more than an angry whisper.
“I spoke with Blackwater quite a bit about the whole thing, he said there were plenty of witnesses that saw you get quite angry and make threats—”
“Witnesses, hah! More like Blackwater’s toadies and flunkies, the ponies who hope that he’ll be generous and return the favour if they lie for him!” Hibiscus glared at Sunset, her face contorting into a rage filled somewhat smarmy smile.
“Oh, let me tell you a little something about myself,” Sunset Shimmer offered, holding back her own rising feelings of anger. “See, I’m not the common rube. I’m not some backwater hick that can be lied to. As a Black Cloak, I know when I’m being lied to. I have magic that helps me in that regard. Now, if I was to go out and start asking around about you and how you dealt with Brook, what do you think I would find out from your fellow townsponies?” Much to Sunset’s satisfaction, the smarmy smile vanished and the only thing that was left was an icy, hateful stare.
“Brook bewitched my grandson.” Hibiscus’ lips pressed into a fine, thin line and her ears pitched forwards, pointing at Sunset Shimmer. “Zoysia became insolent and sullen. He started talking back to his mother and to me. I’ll admit, I was angry, but I didn’t do anything to hurt that filly.”
“And what excuse do you have for screaming at Zoysia, berating him, and humiliating him in front of the town? Hmm?” Sunset Shimmer’s eyes narrowed as Hibiscus gave her a spite filled glare.
“He needed to learn a lesson in respect.”
Hibiscus’ reply was quiet, her words were almost spit out, and her eyes glittered with rage. Sunset Shimmer did not like what she was seeing, not at all. It was clear that Hibiscus prefered to be in control and right now, Hibiscus had no control. Sunset Shimmer, worried that further escalation might hurt her investigation, decided to allow things to cool off.
“I’d like to speak with Zoysia, please,” Sunset Shimmer said.
“No.” Hibiscus shook her head.
“No?” Sunset blinked. “You are mistaken if you think that was a request that you could turn down. I will speak to Zoysia and there is nothing you can do to stop me.” Sunset, who felt frustrated, stared back at Hibiscus. So much for allowing the situation to cool down, she thought to herself.
“He’s still a colt, I have a say in who speaks to him and who doesn’t—”
“No, no you do not… it seems to me that you don’t want me speaking to him, which leads me to believe that you have something to hide.” Sunset took a deep breath to check her temper. “Not only will I be speaking to him, but I’ll be doing it far, far away from you so you can’t bully him or intimidate him into silence. Try to stop me.” Sunset could hear Hibiscus grinding her teeth together and she realised that she could have been a little less antagonistic, but Hibiscus really was asking for a good dressing down. She was the matron of a house and one of the leaders of the town, but that was the end of her authority. Her overblown sense of importance was beginning to annoy Sunset; she knew what would happen if Hibiscus continued to throw her weight around and Bucky got involved.
Nothing good would come of that. Nothing good ever came of that.
Hibiscus turned and stomped off, her solid, heavy hooves thumping on the wooden floor as she left, leaving Sunset Shimmer standing alone in the parlour, the heavy hoofbeats causing the various items in the room to rattle.
Waiting, Sunset Shimmer had been promised that she could see Zoysia. She was growing impatient and was worried that Hibiscus was browbeating the poor colt into submission. If she was forced to keep waiting, Sunset was worried that she might become a bad guest and start searching the house.
“Miss Shimmer?”
Sunset turned and looked at the earth pony standing in the room with her. She had not heard him come in. He stood just in front of the servants’ entrance, looking timid and afraid. He was a faded shade of brown with a reddish brown mane. His eyes were an odd looking golden hazel.
“Yes?” Sunset replied, her eyebrow raising.
“My name is Graham… I cannot be seen with you, so I must be brief. Zoysia is my son, please, help him. I think he’s in some trouble. He won’t tell me anything. Get him away from this place. Right now, Hibiscus is busy intimidating him… he’s a fragile sort, he has been since his mother, Nutmeg, died. Please, be gentle with him, he’s shy and sensitive, he’s not a troublemaker. If you are patient with him, he will open up to you.”
Graham, his ears perking, looked around, an expression of extreme panic and fear upon his face. He shook his head, his barrel heaving, and he whispered the words, “I cannot be discovered.”
Sunset watched as Graham slipped through the servants’ door and then was gone. She looked around, her ears perking, and then she noticed the heavy sounds of hooves upon the wooden floor. She looked at the door, waiting, now hearing voices, the fearful sounds of pleading, a whimper, a grunt, and then a colt was shoved through the door and into the room.
The colt was a dark shade of brown, earthy coloured, and he had the most brilliant green mane that Sunset had ever seen. His cutie mark was a patch of grass. He appeared to be in his late teens, and his cheeks were stained with tears.
For a moment, Sunset Shimmer thought about unloading on Hibiscus, but she knew that her bellicose anger would accomplish nothing. But she wanted to, oh how she wanted to. As she stood there, choking back her anger, Hibiscus left, her maid following after her, leaving Sunset and Zoysia alone together.
“Hi, Zoysia… my name is Sunset Shimmer and we’re going to go for a walk to get you away from your grandmother.”
Sunset Shimmer walked in silence, Zoysia following along just behind her, as if he was fearful to be walking next to her. She could sense his fear, she could see it, he walked with his tail tucked between his legs and his ears pinned back against his skull in the most submissive posture one could muster. He looked pitiful, and she felt bad for him.
It was hot, Sunset was sweating, but she had left the cool confines of the house hoping that Zoysia might open up to her if he was away from his overbearing grandmother. Much to her relief, a cloaked figure approached, almost appearing to be floating over the dirt road rather than walking.
“Hi,” a voice said from within the hood.
Zoysia, fearful, did not respond.
“Zoysia, this is Bucky,” Sunset said, introducing her teacher and friend. “He can help you… just like I can help you, but only if you talk to us.”
After what felt like a full minute with no response, Bucky leaned a little closer to Zoysia. “You look troubled… worried… what are you worried about?”
Without warning, Zoysia bolted, taking off at a run. Sunset looked at Bucky, but could not see his face. As the earth pony colt went tearing off at incredible speed, Sunset Shimmer gave Bucky a smile. She then teleported in a bright flash of light.
“Running doesn’t do you much good,” Sunset Shimmer said as she appeared in front of Zoysia. She watched as the colt veered off to one side and kept going. “We can help you… we want to help you… just give us a chance… we can get you away from Hibiscus if that is what you want.”
Sunset Shimmer watched as the colt came to a skidding halt and almost crashed into Bucky, who teleported in front of him. She could see Bucky’s manic grin and hoped that Bucky wouldn’t scare the poor colt by accident.
“Can you really get me away from her?” the colt asked.
“Oh, indeed, we can, but only if you help us,” Bucky replied.
The colt began chewing on his lip and Sunset Shimmer took a step closer, feeling hopeful. The poor colt was wrestling with something, something big. He just needed a bit of encouragement. “Zoysia, if you help us, we can help your father, too. Would you like to get away from here with your father?”
The colt dropped his head, his ears drooping against the sides of his face. He trembled, afraid, his heavy breathing making his sides heave. He lifted his head a little, looked around at some of the ponies staring at him, and then looked at Sunset Shimmer, his eyes glistening with tears.
“I don’t know anything, honest, but I need your help… I’m in real trouble,” Zoysia said.
“Well, I am feeling a little generous. Are you sure that you don’t know anything?” Bucky asked, eyeing the colt from beneath his hood.
“I know what happened to Brook,” the colt whispered in reply.
“Are you certain nopony can see us?” Zoysia asked.
Sunset nodded. “Aversion spell. It’s like invisibility. Ponies don’t want to see us.”
“Usually, I try to sneak away at night, when I can’t be seen.” Zoysia looked around him as he trotted away from the town, following a narrow dirt road that rose up from the swamp. The colt stopped. “Wait, before we go, is there some way we can get some food?”
“Food?” Bucky paused. “You and Sunset keep going. I’ll go scare up some food.” Bucky made a gesture with his talons. “Don’t worry, I’ll find you… just keep going and I’ll catch up.” Bucky, who had some guesses as to what was going on, planned to go find Fever Cure and bring him along. “Sunset, be careful, the flesh eating giant dragonflies are nasty. But they burn well.”
“I always just outrun them,” Zoysia said in a quiet, hesitant, and shy voice.
“Bucky isn’t the running sort, and neither am I.” Sunset gave the colt a grin. “Now, how about you and I get going? Let’s see if we can make it difficult for Bucky to catch up to us.”
Sunset Shimmer walked in silence with Zoysia just behind her. They both walked along a narrow bermed path, a collection of land, logs, rocks, and other debris forming an elevated path that rose up out of the muck. It was narrow, not even wide enough for a wagon, and they had passed several offshoots of the path that lead to little cabins and shacks out in the swamp.
There were signs of life out here. In the distance, smoke rose, probably from chimneys, but maybe from stills—both alchemical and alcohol producing no doubt. Ponies lived out here, the sorts of ponies that had no love and no need for civilization.
It was swelteringly hot, well above a hundred degrees already, and the humidity could not possibly go any higher. Sunset Shimmer was soaked, she felt like she was melting, this place was unbearable.
Overhead, something tinkled in the faint, sticky breeze. Looking up, Sunset saw little wooden pony dolls hanging from a tree. The bodies and heads were carved wood, the legs were hollow tubes of bamboo that banged together in the breeze to make a rather creepy sound. Almost right away, Sunset decided that she didn’t like the wooden ponies hanging in the trees. She wondered what they were for, why they were there, what purpose they served, and who made them. There was strange magic in the world, magic spoken of in stories, in legends, magic that was no doubt real or real enough to inspire a story.
The wooden ponies in the trees were creepy enough to make Sunset Shimmer wonder if they were somehow related to the mysterious goings on around here, perhaps the work of some horrid swamp dwelling cultists that enjoyed demon worship, being creepy, and carving creepy dolls. If that was the case, Sunset Shimmer planned to burn them all and their dolls into ash. The clunking, tinkle-clank sound of the hollow legs banging together made Sunset’s skin crawl as she passed below the herd of wooden ponies now overhead.
Hearing wings, Sunset looked up, trying to peer through the trees. Zoysia, beside her, looked panicked and a little scared. It took a few moments, but Sunset was able to see through the thick canopy just enough to see a large, hideous looking wyvern carrying a unicorn in its claws. No natural born wyvern could ever be that distorted and ugly, barring horrible magical accidents. She knew right away who it was. The unicorn was dropped and would have landed in the muck if Sunset hadn’t caught him. She lowered him down to the bermed path and Fever Cure gave her a grateful smile. He was wearing thick smoked glass goggles to protect his eyes from the daylight.
Overhead, the wyvern poofed out of existence and Bucky popped back into existence to take its place. He floated down like a leaf borne on the breeze, his voluminous black cloak fluttering around him.
“Sorry I took so long,” Bucky said.
“We ran into a real wyvern… a she wyvern… she had a real interest in Bucky—”
“I thought we agreed to not speak of this,” Bucky growled, cutting Fever Cure off.
“She wanted to eat me!” Fever Cure stomped his hoof down upon the berm and the moist, fetid earth made a flatulent sound from the impact. “She thought Bucky was the ugliest flying monster she had ever seen… powerful ugly, and she was in the mood for romance. I was to be the romantic dinner.”
Sunset’s ears perked. Zoysia was laughing, but trying not to do so. Bucky looked irritated. Fever Cure looked quite thankful to be on the ground and in one piece. Sunset could not help herself, and laughter bubbled up from her insides as well.
“What is it with monsters and ugliness? Why is that attractive? And why must ponies be romantic meals? I loathe this swamp and everything to do with it.” As Bucky spoke, he slipped into shadow, his legs becoming little more than dark shadows beneath his cloak.
“You broke her heart, Bucky—”
“Shut it!”
“Just think of the offspring though. She’d be real surprised when those eggs hatched and little wyvern-pony hybrids crawled out.” Fever Cure’s smile vanished and the unicorn became rather serious looking. “Would be a fascinating study. I wonder what their immune system would be like and what medical advances we might make from studying them.”
“I brought food,” Bucky said as he made a wispy, shadowy gesture at the saddlebags on Fever Cure. “We should get moving and get to wherever it is we are going.”
Out this far, the bermed path was almost non existent. Sunset felt her hooves squelching in the mud. She cringed with disgust, each step caused the fetid, rotten ground to squirt out decaying, decomposing, rotten gasses. The ground was farting with almost each and every step. Her eyes watered from the stench and the harshness of the air. She felt sick.
“The Swamp of Never Ending Stench,” Bucky said to Fever Cure.
“No, no, no… the Bog of Eternal Stench… it just sounds classier.”
Gagging, Sunset Shimmer said nothing. Something about the process of turning a common pony into a Shadowbolt had unbolted Fever Cure’s common sense, sanity, and ability to have reasonable, sane conversations. Fever Cure and Bucky had been having a good natured argument for quite some time now. Sunset hated them both just a teeny, tiny bit. Neither Fever Cure nor Bucky seemed to be suffering from the near toxic miasma in the air.
Zoysia didn’t seem to be bothered by it too much either, but he had grown up in it.
As Sunset walked, the giant insects that got too close combusted, bursting into flames and exploding. She was killing bugs by the hundreds, maybe by the thousands, and she knew that she wasn’t even making a dent. These swamps had bugs by the zillions.
“The Marsh of Malodorous Assault.”
“No way, Fever, too highbrow.”
“The Muskeg of Malevolent Miasmas.”
“What in Tartarus is a bloody muskeg?” Bucky demanded.
“Gee boss, you should have been paying more attention in school.”
Still gagging, Sunset Shimmer choked up a laugh and almost puked. She heard Zoysia laughing as well, and she wondered how much of this banter was happening to try and put Zoysia at ease. She would not put it past Bucky to do such a thing. She felt her stomach roil and she swallowed the bitter tasting bile that bubbled in the back of her throat.
“We’re almost there… let me go ahead, please, it’s safer that way,” Zoysia said in a worried, pleading voice.
“Lead the way,” Bucky replied, ignoring the smug look of satisfaction upon Fever Cure’s face. “I, for one, am curious as to why you led us all out this way.”
Sunset Shimmer stood unmoving, saying nothing, her suspicions having been proven true. She watched as Zoysia and Brook stood together, whispering to one another, necking, glad to see one another. Sunset could not help but feel that she was intruding upon a very private moment.
Brook, a filly in the middle of her teenage years, had a large, protruding, rounded stomach. The shack they all stood in was half rotten, the wood succumbing to the swamp. The floor was warped and misshapen.
As Sunset stood watching, it was Bucky that pulled a small basket out of Fever Cure’s saddlebags and set it down upon a low, wooden table that had been made out of an apple crate. Brook shoved Zoysia aside as Bucky pulled open the basket, the filly’s horn ignited, and she began pulling out the food inside the of the basket at once. The famished filly began to devour the food as fast as she could, gulping it down, paying no mind to good manners.
Taking a deep breath, Sunset Shimmer found herself staring into the eyes of Zoysia. He looked both happy and scared, worried and relieved, his face was a chaotic, jumbled mix of emotions.
“This is why I sneak away,” Zoysia said to Sunset. “I bring food to her. I’m trying to be a good father. I don’t know where else to get food, it’s kinda hard to come by, so I’m forced to stick it out with my family.”
Chewing, Brook stood with her head held high, her ears erect, her cheeks bulging, and she studied the ponies standing inside of the shack with her. Her pelt was a pale greenish blue, her mane and tail were a darker, more muted shade of greenish blue.
“I suppose the question that needs to be asked is, Brook, why aren’t you with your father?” Bucky pulled more food out of Fever Cure’s saddlebags and set it down upon the table.
Brook swallowed, her ears twitching, and she smacked her lips together a few times. “My father called me a filthy, dirty harlot with the stink of mud pony about me. And that was just the start of it. The things he said… he said horrible things about Zoysia too.”
“So you ran away,” Bucky replied, sighing.
“I had to.” Brook’s eyes began to glisten with tears. “I had to run away… Daddy threatened to take me to Baltimare to have this abomination in my belly aborted.”
The temperature in the shack plunged, becoming icy, allowing each pony present to see their own breath. The walls creaked as ice accumulated. Brook and Zoysia, swamp dwellers, both stepped closer to one another as they began to shiver from the sudden cold.
“If you will excuse me, I need some air,” Bucky said in a low, strained voice. Saying nothing else, he opened the rotting door on creaky hinges, stepped outside, and shut the door behind him.
Blinking, confused, Brook looked around, trying to understand what had just taken place. Fever Cure stood in the corner, his eyes hidden behind the goggles of thick smoked glass, his face showing no emotion. Sunset Shimmer cleared her throat, thankful for the cold, chilly air.
“Master has daughters of his own. He is very, very fond of them. He has a belief that a father has certain… sacred duties, obligations to his daughters, and those duties are sacrosanct. Master does not have much of a moral code beyond that.” Sunset Shimmer, worried, felt another spike of cold and heard the rotten wood of the shack creak as the bone chilling cold settled in. “Fever Cure, would you please see that Brook is okay? Brook, please, continue eating. If you will excuse me, I’m going to go and check upon my Master.”
Bowing her head, Sunset Shimmer stepped outside.
It was snowing. A fresh layer of snow fell down upon the now frozen swamp. An inch of snow had already blanketed the roof. Sunset paused, looking around, trying to spot Bucky, hoping he hadn’t fled. Her eyes darting to and fro, she spotted him a short distance away, standing on a log that rose up out of the now frozen muck. It was cold enough to make her lungs sting, but the cold felt good after being in the abysmal heat.
She trod over the frozen ground, her eyes locked on Bucky, worried, fearful, knowing he was hurting. She could see his sides heaving beneath his black cloak, which was now being covered in white flakes. Snow swirled around at crazy angles.
“Master?” Sunset placed her hoof down on the log, almost slipped, and then tried again. This time, aided by magic, she made her way up the now slippery incline, her hooves getting traction on the icy, slippery surface.
“I’m sorry.”
Bucky’s words came out as a pained wheeze and Sunset felt her heart aching for him. She moved to his side, standing beside him on the log, wishing there was some way to make him feel better.
“I couldn’t control it… I tried to hold it back, but I couldn’t. My willpower and control has failed me… I couldn’t hold back.”
Sunset looked up at the sky overhead, hardly able to see through the thick canopy. Thick grey snow clouds billowed. She caught a few falling flakes on her tongue and felt tingles running up and down her spine.
“Bucky, we all have surges from time to time… it is why we need to keep our emotions in check. Sometimes though, it is unavoidable. Nopony got hurt. It’s just a little snow.” Sunset bumped up against Bucky, trying to make him feel better. “We need to figure out what to do to help them. Master, we need to get them out of here. With the hostile magic about, we need to get Brook away from this place and get her into a hospital. At least, that seems like the wise course of action to me.”
“Minion, I will not be able to deal with Blackwater and his family. I’m going to leave that unpleasant task to you. I’m sorry, but if I met him face to face… I’d… I’d—”
“You would do something that you would not regret, not in the slightest.”
“Yes, Minion.”
“We still need to get to the bottom of what is going on here,” Sunset said in a low voice as more snowflakes fell upon her muzzle. She went cross eyed trying to look at them. “Keep looking around and searching. I’ll deal with the ponies if you navigate the swamps. One way or another, we’re going to get to the truth of what is going on here in this horrible place.”
Collecting her thoughts, Sunset Shimmer watched as Bucky sat with Zoysia and Brook, doing what many considered that Bucky did best. The air was still cool, which was a welcome relief, but the temperature was rising as the cold spell wore off. Sunset heard Bucky laugh, but she had not heard what had been said.
Brook and Zoysia, both teenagers, had a tough road ahead, but both seemed determined to be free. Beside Sunset, the wooden floorboards creaked. She turned and looked at Fever Cure, who was now sitting beside her. He was leaning close, his muzzle inches from her ear.
“This is outside of my field of specialisation, but even I can see that she is malnourished. She’s sick, she has patches of hair falling out, and she has a distressing lack of body fat for being so far along in her pregnancy. She needs to be away from this place.”
Sunset nodded as she listened to Fever Cure’s whispered words, then replied, “I agree.” She heard Brook laughing, but she hadn’t heard whatever it was that Bucky had just said. Brook and Zoysia were both foals still, close to adulthood, but it was easy to see by watching them that some much needed maturity was not there. With a foal on the way, the maturity would be needed soon enough.
“Something is wrong in this wretched place,” Fever Cure continued, still whispering. “She doesn’t even know how foals are made. Neither does Zoysia. This happened by sheer chance. I spoke with them about doing the deed. They found out about it by accident when they were playing and discovered that it felt good. Both believe she is pregnant just because they love one another. They don’t know.”
A twinge of anger caused Sunset to twitch and she turned to look at Fever Cure. His eyes were hidden behind his smoked glass goggles. He was looking at the teenage couple, his lips pulled away from his teeth, revealing several sharp points.
“Worst part is, I got angry at Mask for calling this place a backwater.” Fever Cure shook his head. “But he was right. Mask was right. This place is a backwater and Bucky is right to hate it.”
“I need to go… it is time to have a few words with Mister Blackwater,” Sunset said to Fever Cure in a low voice.
“By a few words, I hope you mean beating him bloody.” Fever Cure’s ears stood erect as he spoke and he shook his head. “He’s irredeemable, doing what he did, saying what he said, and keeping his own daughter ignorant… that’s unforgivable. At least Bucky is putting things right.”
“Huh?” Sunset’s own ears perked and she tried to listen to the soft conversation on the other side of the room.
Fever Cure raised his hoof and gestured at Bucky. “For the past half an hour Bucky has been explaining to the both of them how little ponies are made and he’s done it in a way that they don’t feel stupid or ashamed. Say what you will about Signore Psicopatico, but he’s good with the little ones.”
Taking a deep, calming breath, Sunset Shimmer prepared herself. She had flown here in the form of a falcon, a swift, capable flier that was able to outpace the dangers of the swamp. The air was hot, stifling, and with the heat and humidity, it was easy to feel one’s temper rising, like mercury in a thermometer.
She ascended the stairs two at a time, crossed the porch, and just as she was about to knock upon the door, it opened. Standing in the doorframe, Blackwater stood peering at her, his eyes narrowed, his face wrinkled with worry and perhaps a bit of fear. Sunset, much to her own credit, said nothing right away, but continued to keep her words held in check.
“What brings you here?” Blackwater asked.
“There is a lot you didn’t tell me about your daughter, Brook. Important details that you failed to mention. I would like to know why—”
Much to Sunset’s shock, the door was slammed in her face, leaving her standing on the porch, stammering and spluttering with rage. She felt the fires within rising up, she felt a hot flash of anger, a real hot flash of anger, and she swallowed, trying to gulp down her rage to keep it contained within.
Horn flaring, Sunset jerked the door open, her opal eyes flashing with terrible rage. The door was almost torn from its hinges. She advanced, her hooves heavy on the half rotted floor, and Blackwater cowered before her, backing up, trying to escape with nowhere to go.
She heard him whimper, a fearful, wordless plea for mercy. Flames burned along the length of her horn and sparks shot from the tip. For a moment, the urge to burn down the sickness around her was unbearable and difficult to resist.
The house smelled of decaying wood, that musty smell of neglect and rot. There was a sharp tang in the air, almost like the scent of black mould. The floorboards were soft beneath her hooves, bending and flexing with each step. This house’s glory days had come and gone.
“Do we have a visitor?”
The small squeaky voice froze Sunset in place. Her jaw clenched, her teeth grinding together, and she turned her head to look through a door on her left. Several frightened looking unicorns all stood staring at her, eyes wide, their faces filled with terror, all of them looking as though they had seen the harbinger of the end.
Except one.
Sunset dropped her gaze at the foal approaching her. A colt. She felt her breath catching in her throat and her barrel hitched. The colt, little more than a yearling, stumbled forwards. The colt had one eye. He was not missing an eye, the colt had one eye, and it was in the middle of his face, just above his nose and just below his horn. The eye was milky white in the middle, misshapen, and the sclera was a strange, sick looking shade of greyish yellow.
“I don’t get any visitors,” the colt said.
Ears perking, Sunset could hear many fearful whimpers as she turned and faced the colt. Nopony moved. Not one horn ignited with magic. No one dared do anything. Sunset took a step forward and lowered her head.
“Hi there,” Sunset Shimmer said in a soft, gentle voice. “Can you tell me your name?”
“My name is Darkwater,” the colt replied. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Sunset Shimmer.” Head down low, Sunset took another step forwards, then another, and then with a slow caution, she bumped her snoot into the colt’s, their noses touching. She felt the colt startle, realised that he had to be completely blind, and then felt the colt press up against her, feeling her face with his nose.
“Please, please, I’m begging you… don’t do anything to my grandson. He’s innocent in all of this… I love him a great deal… look, I’ll tell you anything you want, just don’t do anything to my grandson.”
Lifting her head, Sunset’s vision took on a hazy red glare. She turned her head and looked at Blackwater. “Darkwater, it was very nice to meet you. If you will excuse me, I need to have a word with your grandfather.”
Slamming the door behind her, Sunset Shimmer dragged Blackwater around on the porch so she could look him in the eye. She could hear his hooves scraping over the rotten wood as she jerked him around and she gave him a rough shove to plant him in place.
“You utter, contemptible bastard,” Sunset Shimmer said, her words almost a hateful hiss. “How could you be so heartless? You… you… you cast your own daughter out, think of her as a whore, and you threaten to drag her off for an abortion because she got herself pregnant with an earth pony, but somehow you still love the diseased, malformed little unicorn colt?” Sunset gave Blackwater a violent shake with her magic and his hooves clattered against the decaying wood of the porch. She shook him even harder, so much so that his teeth clacked together and she heard him crying out from pain.
“What gives you the right to treat earth ponies so poorly?” Sunset demanded. When no answer came, she shook Blackwater even harder, causing his head to whip around. “Answer me, damn you!” She stopped shaking the old stallion and waited.
“Darkwater is still a unicorn… still better—OOMF!”
Snarling, Sunset Shimmer slammed Blackwater into the greying wooden pillar that held up the roof over the porch. She heard Blackwater cry out in pain, he was whimpering now, then mumbling about his back. She tossed him down onto the uneven floorboards of the porch, ignoring his pained cries, and then loomed over him, her face contorted into a hateful scowl.
“Brook is going to have that foal with Zoysia. They’re going to be happy… they’re going to get a happy ending… I’m gonna see to it… your daughter is going to know a love that you can’t even imagine, you hateful, spiteful, tribalist old bastard, and she is going to get that love from an earth pony. Think about that, while you sit and rot in this wretched shack of yours, she’s going to be having fat, chubby little foals with an earth pony. And she’s gonna be happy.”
Two hate filled eyes stared up at Sunset Shimmer, eyes filled with hatred, burning with hatred, but also fear. Sunset saw Blackwater’s horn ignite with a tiny spark and for a moment, she hoped that Blackwater would do something foolish. More than anything else at that moment, she just wanted an excuse.
But the horn dimmed and Blackwater closed his eyes as he lay on the warped, twisted boards of the front porch. Sunset Shimmer’s ears perked at a new sound, the sound of Blackwater weeping as he ground his teeth together.
“I’m gonna go… and I’m gonna cool off… and I might be back so we can have a talk. You’d better have something worth listening to if I do come back. But right now… I can’t even look at you, you pathetic, miserable, wretched excuse of a pony.” With nothing left to say, Sunset Shimmer stomped away, hating the swamp, hating this place, and hating herself for losing control.
Still stomping, Sunset raged as she came down the hill and into the town of Granther’s Polder. Ponies, seeing her, avoided her, giving her a wide berth as she made her way towards a tall pink house that loomed over everything else in town. She was hot, sweaty, and filled with rage, which did nothing but make her feel hotter. She wanted a word with Hibiscus, she wanted lots of words with Hibiscus.
“Whoa, there, you look a bit peeved.”
Coming to an abrupt halt, Sunset Shimmer turned and looked at Mask. He too, was wearing heavy smoked glass goggles over his eyes and a broad brimmed hat as well. A water canteen hung from a strap around his neck.
“What happened?” Mask asked, his voice both charming and disarming.
Sunset drew in a deep breath, which felt like shards of hot, broken glass scraping along the inside of her throat. She coughed, tasting hot, bitter bile, and then tried to clear her throat. She blinked when she saw Mask’s canteen held out in front of her.
She yanked out the stopper, lifted the canteen to her lips, and took a greedy pull. Her mouth filled with fire and she almost choked as the liquid caused her gums, lips, cheeks, and the back of her throat to burn. The canteen was not filled with water, but whiskey. Recovering, Sunset gulped it down, and then took another long pull, letting the fiery whiskey slide down her throat. As much as she hated to admit it, she felt better.
“The water here isn’t safe to drink,” Mask said in a low voice, shaking his head. “Whiskey… whiskey is always safe to drink. Just ask Barley O’blivion.”
Wheezing from drinking liquid fire, Sunset Shimmer thought about taking another pull of the canteen. She was feeling better. She was still hot, still angry, but for some reason, she didn’t seem to care quite as much that she was miserable.
“What in Tartarus?” Mask’s words were little more than a mutter.
Sunset, blinking, shook her head and looked at Mask. “What? What’s wrong?”
The unicorn did not reply, but pointed with his hoof instead. Sunset Shimmer craned her head around to have a look at whatever it was that Mask was pointing at. She didn’t see anything, at least not at first. It wasn’t until she looked upwards that she saw what Mask had seen. Seeing it made her blood run cold and all she could do was stand there and stare in shock.
The rotten old plantation mansion blazed with roaring, devouring flames that consumed the old, dry wood with astonishing speed. As Sunset neared the front door, a part of the roof collapsed. She felt her heart leaping up into her throat and thudding just below the base of her tongue. As she pushed the door open, Sunset Shimmer ignited, her pyromantic nature springing forth as a natural defense.
The front entry was almost consumed in flames and smoke, making it very difficult to see. Sunset formed a protective bubble around herself, not to protect her from the intense heat and flames, but from the thick, choking smoke.
She stood, just inside of the door, focusing her magic, trying to get a feel for where the occupants of the house had gone, hoping to rescue them. She felt them below her, down in the cellar. Sunset could not figure out why they would set the house ablaze and bring it down upon their own heads.
With a burst of magic, Sunset Shimmer winked away, making a blind teleport down into the basement of the plantation mansion, hoping to save the occupants from their planned end.
Letting out a snarl of frustration, Sunset Shimmer raised a spell shield. She had not expected to be attacked. The spells of the unicorns weren’t particularly powerful, and Sunset Shimmer was able to block them with little to no effort on her part, but it was annoying.
“Our world has come to an end… let us face our end with dignity!” Blackwater shouted as he unleashed a telekinetic attack that fizzled against Sunset’s shields.
“It doesn’t need to be the end!” Sunset, almost panicked, looked around, trying to get a feel for the situation. Over a dozen ponies, adults, and three younger ponies, foals. One appeared to be a filly on the cusp of her teenage years, a younger filly, and the one eyed colt, Darkwater. The oldest filly was trying to shelter the other two, and she looked afraid. She was not attacking.
Sunset had to make a decision, and fast. There was no way she could subdue all of these ponies and save them. She could only teleport so much mass with her as she winked through the aether. The adults were actually making the flames burn hotter, hastening their end.
Knowing that she had to do something, Sunset Shimmer made a heartbreaking choice. Reaching out with her mind, she placed a shield around the oldest filly and and the two smaller, younger foals. She heard Blackwater shriek something, but she couldn’t make out his words over the roar of the fire, the crackling of the wood, and the creaking of the whole mansion as it strained to keep standing above them.
She felt the others also grabbing the filly and the two younger foals, trying to hold on to them, trying to keep them so they could all face the flames together. Sunset Shimmer let go of a powerful telekinetic pulse, a flat pulse that radiated outwards, not upwards. The force of the blow sent the adults flying. Knowing this was her only opportunity, Sunset Shimmer focused as much magic as she could and then teleported, dragging the considerable mass of three ponies with her through the aether. Just as she began to disincorporate, she heard a scream, a fierce screech of rage that was audible above the sounds of the raging fire consuming the plantation mansion.
Popping back into existence, Sunset, who had strained herself, tumbled down into the mud, her skull threatening to split open and spill her brains out onto the soft, sodden earth. She gagged, tasting smoke and bile.
With a thunderous roar, the mansion collapsed in upon itself, sending a pillar of flame and sparks into the sky. A wave of heat washed over Sunset as she tried to lift her head. She felt magic wrapping around her, shielding her, saving her from the force of the blast.
She coughed, still feeling as though she was going to be sick, and when she turned her head, she saw Mask looking after the three foals. Her stomach lurched and a powerful wave of nausea overtook her. It proved to be too much for her to deal with and a moment later, she vomited up the contents of her stomach. Almost choking, she snorted, trying to get chunks of vomit out of her nose, and then her stomach convulsed for a second time, spilling out another puddle of sick.
Lightheaded, Sunset Shimmer crawled away from her own mess, still gagging, still feeling as though she was going to be sick again. Her head was splitting and more than anything, she wanted to be someplace cool, quiet, and calm. She wanted to be someplace that she could lay down and recover.
But she was not in a place where she could do that. She rose up on her wobbling legs like a newborn foal, trembling, and she lifted her head. She snorted, trying to clear her nose, and her eyes stung from withheld tears and the acrid smoke filling the air.
Already, pegasi were flying overhead, watching as the mansion continued to burn and earth ponies were now cresting the hill, so they too could have a look at the terrific destruction. Sunset wobbled, her addled brain could only think of protecting Darkwater, the deformed one eyed foal, from the crowd. This was the most hated family in all of Granther’s Polder, but the foals were innocent. She heard Mask shouting something, but she could not make out the words.
Just as Sunset Shimmer shook her head, trying to clear it so that she could take control of the situation, everything around her turned to ice, a lovely cool breeze blew over her fevered, sweating skin, and with the cold, Sunset Shimmer knew that order would soon follow.
A reunion of sorts was taking place in the run down shack in the middle of the swamp. Bucky had just dropped them off and turned back into his pony form. Sunset Shimmer, still sick, her horn aching, stood on the mucky ground, and as awful as she felt, she was happy about what she was witnessing.
“Rill! Pond! Darkwater! I thought I’d never see you again!”
“Brook!”
“Pond, oh, how I’ve missed you! And Darkwater… no, stand still, you’ll fall into the muck, let me look at you!”
The sounds of somepony crying filled Sunset’s ears and her eyes glazed over with tears. The chaos of the past hour or so was proving to be too much. Sunset needed rest, she needed to recover. She needed food and something to drink.
“You’re fat.”
“I’m gonna be a mama!”
Almost swooning, Sunset felt somepony brush up against her, offering support. She blinked, turned her head, and saw Fever Cure. She felt herself being lifted in magic, the warm tingle felt good against her skin. She made no protests and allowed herself to be carried inside.
“Grandfather was mad… he was going to burn us.”
Sunset took a long drink of the water that had been conjured. It was cold, Bucky had chilled it and left ice cubes floating in it. There was nothing to eat, Brook had finished off the food while Sunset had been gone.
“I’m scared.”
“Hush, Darkwater, it’s gonna be okay. I’ll take care of you.”
“Okay, Rill.”
Head thudding, Sunset sat upon the decaying floorboards of the shack, glad to hear the voices of those she had saved, but also hurting with every word spoken. Each sound caused the headache to pound the inside of her skull.
“We’ll take care of each other,” Brook said as she rubbed her cheek against Pond. “Zoysia has been looking after me, I know he’ll look after all of you as well. He’s a good pony.”
This complicated things. Sunset Shimmer looked at the group, wondering what would be done. Now that she had rescued them, she worried that they might get pulled apart. Rill and Pond didn’t seem to have any problems with Zoysia, which was a relief. They had not yet learned to hate. Perhaps the seeds had been planted, but Rill and Pond seemed like kind, decent ponies, as of yet still uncorrupted by their family’s hatreds. As for Darkwater, the one eyed colt was blind and still very, very young.
There was no telling if the family would be able to stay together. She thought of Graham, Zoysia’s father, and wondered if he would help, he seemed kind enough. As she sat there, she watched the young filly, Pond, touch Brook’s rounded stomach.
“I want my mama—”
“Darkwater, hush, your mama is gone,” Rill said as she pulled the one eyed colt closer. “You just hush and be thankful that you’re alive. They were gonna burn us… you just hush and you stop crying.”
“But I want my mama…”
Even though she hated Blackwater and his family, Sunset hated everything they stood for and she loathed them for what they had done, she felt her heart breaking for the foals, who were innocent in all of this. Her head throbbed so hard that she saw white flashes in her vision. She saw Rill kissing Darkwater on top of his head, trying to comfort him. For Sunset, she took comfort in the filly consoling the deformed, one eyed colt.
“Tell me, what relation are you to one another?” Bucky asked.
The foals did not answer right away, but Brook, Rill, and Pond all stared at Bucky.
“Look, I’m not here to pass judgement. I just want to help you. You can tell me anything, anything at all. You are not to blame for anything that your parents might have done.” Bucky went silent for a moment, his ears drooping. “I had plenty of family problems myself, trust me.”
Turning and looking at the foals, Sunset’s blood ran cold. She understood what Bucky was getting at, and she realised that way out here in the swamp, there weren’t a whole lot of unicorns to pick from when it came to marriage. She felt sick again and her stomach began doing flip flops. She gagged and covered her muzzle with her fetlock.
“We’re not supposed to talk about this,” Brook said in a low voice, almost a whisper. “Blackwater said that outsiders wouldn’t understand. We have to keep it a secret.”
“They’re gone,” Bucky replied in a gentle, patient voice. “They can’t punish you.”
“I… we… I don’t think we should talk about it,” Brook said, almost stammering.
“Grandfather is gone… he can’t hurt us… he can’t hurt you.” Rill, looking at Brook, turned to look at Bucky. “Grandfather flew into a rage when Brook vanished. She was supposed to marry Uncle Rainwater.
“Rainwater is her cousin,” Pond said, correcting Rill.
“No, he’s her uncle.” Rill looked at Pond and blinked.
“He’s both, I heard it when I was eavesdropping.” Brook closed her eyes and a look of shame crept over her face. She shook her head, her mouth moving, but no words came out. She opened her eyes, which were now glassy with tears. “I didn’t want to be with Rainwater. He was mean and he had the shakes and he was not a nice pony.”
Coughing, Sunset Shimmer almost threw up. She had heard more than enough. She didn’t even want to think about what horrors lurked in the old mansion. She looked at Darkwater and wondered about the source of his deformities.
“We’ll need to sort this out later.” Bucky raised his talons, flexed them, and then looked around the room. “We need to figure out what to do next. I want to keep all of you together, but we need a better place to house you, we need to feed you, and look after your needs. I think poor Sunset needs some time to rest and recover. Mask, Fever Cure, I think it’s time we called in some help, what do you think?”
“I think that’s wise,” Fever Cure replied, his words a low whisper.
“We still need to find the cause of all of this suffering sickness. The swamp is full of strange, bad magic. This whole place festers like a boil. We’re in over our heads.” Mask reached up and rubbed his neck. “I think calling in a few friends would be wise.”
The strange elation that comes with being saved from death and seeing a family member long thought dead had long since worn off. The foals were now a crying, sobbing, heartbroken mess. Sunset Shimmer had left them in the care of Fever Cure, Mask, and Bucky, although she was certain that Bucky would slip off to keep looking.
Sunset Shimmer strolled along the bermed earth path, the walk both wonderful and horrible. She felt miserable, sick, the heat wasn’t helping, but the walk was clearing her head. She needed a clearer head if she was going to talk to Hibiscus. No doubt, the residents of Granther’s Polder were probably reeling from the shock of the house upon the hill burning down to the ground.
All Sunset could think about was leaving this place. She hated it. She hated everything about it. She hated the heat, she hated the humidity, she hated the smell, she hated the taste the air left in her mouth, and she hated what this place was doing to her; she could feel it, it was bringing out the worst in her. This was a place trapped in time, rooted in the traditions of an age that had long since past.
“Hullo.”
Horn glowing, Sunset Shimmer came to a stop. A strange looking earth pony was standing in front of her. He was a light, muddy looking brown, but sort of looked like a zebra. Long curling, looping, intricate black lines had been dyed into his pelt. His face was a maze of fine lines. He had gold earrings, three nostrils, two on the left, one on the right, and a cluster of tumours growing out of his head just behind his right ear.
“Hi.” Sunset stayed her magic, focusing on being polite and non threatening.
“My name is Root. I am a messenger for Mother Malady. She would like to see you.”
“Who is Mother Malady and why does she want to see me?”
“Mother Malady walks between the veil of worlds, this one and the next, and she sees all. She has seen you already and now, she would speak to you.”
Cryptic. “I see.” Sunset shook her head.
“Not yet you don’t, and it is unlikely that you ever will.” Root grinned. “Mother Malady wishes to help you. She does not wish to invite disaster. Your safety is assured.”
Nodding, Sunset acquiesced to the strange, cryptic messenger. “Very well, take me to this Mother Malady of yours. I will speak to her.”
The settlement, if it could be called that, was a collection of shacks built upon stilts, treehouses, platforms, and a crude stone tower that rose up out of the filthy muck. Looking at the tower, Sunset had serious doubts that the current ponies living here had built it, it looked far more like some unicorn’s abode, perhaps a lone alchemist living out in the swamp.
Large sheets of waxed canvas were stretched from tree to tree to collect rainwater for drinking. Gardens grew in barrels secured to tree trunks. There was a lot of ingenuity here. And every single pony was like Root; they all had strange looping lines dyed into their pelts. Many were disfigured, deformed, tumours and growths were common sights.
As Sunset stood on a half rotten wooden platform in front of the old stone tower, the door to the tower opened. Much to Sunset’s surprise, a zebra came out. A zebra stallion. She had expected something else, perhaps something a bit more… motherish. The stallion was old, ancient even, wrinkled, and his stripes were faded grey on yellowed white. He was missing one eye, an eyepatch covered in strange symbols covered the right side of his face, and the other eye had a milky white cataract.
“I am Mother Malady,” the zebra said to Sunset, bowing his head, his neck popping. “And you… you are… you are an Emissary of the Greater Light.” The zebra coughed, then wheezed, then laughed. “You call the servant of the Lesser Light your Master.”
Sunset Shimmer, holding her head high, wished that everypony would be less cryptic and get to the point. She didn’t feel well and she just wasn’t in the mood for this sort of thing.
“Mother Malady,” Sunset said, addressing the zebra stallion by his prefered title. “I am Sunset Shimmer. You wanted to speak to me?”
“Yes I did. I wanted to give you a gift, actually. You have come to a nexus of disease, Golden One. Even now, the sickness courses through your veins, sapping your strength, reducing your vitality, and making you feel poorly.” The zebra’s head drooped. “You have seen the sickness here. Not just the physical disease… but you have felt the diseases of the mind. You have seen Blackwater and looked upon his incestous offspring.”
“I have.” Sunset gave the zebra a curt nod.
Something in the swamp below the wooden platform made a flatulent sound and a wretched smell filled the air, the scent of rot, of decay, of death. Sunset fought back the urge to gag. Her eyes watered and she felt her knees tremble.
“That smell you smell… those gasses help me to peer between the veils, between this world and the next. They are a gift, a blessing from the earth,” Mother Malady explained in a raspy, somewhat wheezing voice. “I saw your arrival. I saw you coming, just like I saw the Black Death. I knew where to send Root to meet you. And when I had this vision, I knew you would need a gift.”
All Sunset could do was cough, the foul miasma filling her lungs and making her feel lightheaded. Her vision fuzzed over and for a moment, she could see bursts of multicoloured light in the corners of her vision. Something dark loomed in her vision, near the edge. A bright shining light, something as bright as the sun filled her eyes, but the darkness persisted.
“Sol causat umbrum,” the zebra murmured to Sunset. “All things serve Her immortal will, even your Master. Her light makes his shadow grow long and dark. You see them, don’t you… you got a glimpse of the veil… this place is full of shadows, but they are not Her shadows, but the shadows of ponies. They are shadows of memories, memories of things that wish to be forgotten. Ghosts of old words spoken. Phantoms of old promises. These shadows have gone bad and these old ghosts now consume the flesh of the living.”
Mother Malady began coughing, a wet, wheezing, racking cough, and Sunset Shimmer’s vision began to clear. She blinked, startled, not knowing what had just happened, but it was something she couldn’t just dismiss. She had felt something. Seen something.
“This was made for you,” a pegasus mare said, coming forwards and holding something in the primaries of her wing out towards Sunset Shimmer.
Using her telekinesis, Sunset Shimmer took the item. It was a small orange pony made of wood. It looked a lot like her. There was a long cord that the small wooden figurine could hang from. The level of detail was unbelievable. Her crimson mane and sunny yellow stripes stood out in bold, bright contrast.
Mother Malady ceased coughing and peered up at Sunset. “I have placed much magic into that talisman. It will protect you. Your time here is done, Golden One. Go and bring your light to others. Bring light to others and drive away these shadows that plague us. We are haunted by old words and false promises.”
“Thank you,” Sunset said in a sincere voice as she hung the small wooden pony around her neck. It was warm and she could feel a faint, strange vibration from within it. She looked down and noticed that it was glowing.
“I must rest.” Mother Malady gave Sunset Shimmer a smile, revealing blood flecked yellow teeth. “As you continue your quest… look for what does not belong. There are many secrets hidden in plain sight.”
“Wait…” Sunset Shimmer lifted her hoof. “Tell me, before I go… you… you’re a bocor… is there necromancy here?”
Mother Malady’s ears pivoted sideways and then drooped down. “There is much that is here. The foulest of shadows came to this place once a long time ago, and its decaying touch has never left. Golden One, if you go looking, you may find things that are far worse.”
“Thank you, Mother Malady. It has been a privilege to speak to you.”
It was odd—Sunset really did feel better. She neared the tall house where Hibiscus lived, feeling quite good. Her headache was gone. It felt as though she had been rejuvenated after a big sleep. The fatigue was gone.
Ponies watched as she passed, their eyes fearful, some of them worried. Up on top of the hill, the ruins of the mansion smouldered. Pegasi flew over the town, moving clouds, trying to get a bit more water to sprinkle down upon the charred remains of the old house.
As Sunset approached the rose coloured stone house, she saw Hibiscus speaking to a group of ponies, all of them looking serious and subdued. As she drew nearer, Hibiscus stopped speaking, lifted her head, and stared at Sunset. The ponies around her vanished.
“Miss Shimmer.”
“Hello, Hibiscus,” Sunset said in greeting. “Did I interrupt something?”
“As mayor, I am responsible for keeping order and managing the town. The fire has left many in quite a dreadful state,” Hibiscus replied. The earth pony shuffled her hooves, let out a sniff, and then tossed her head back to get her mane out of her face. “I understand some foals were rescued—”
“Yes they were and I do not plan to discuss it.”
“But I am the mayor… there are things I need to know.”
“I would venture a guess that you are also a busybody and a gossip. Those foals are now in protective custody and that is all that you need to know.” Sunset Shimmer watched Hibiscus’ nostrils flaring as her ears flicked back and forth. The earth pony seemed perturbed, annoyed, and even a little angry. Sunset was beyond caring. “Think about Laurel and Lavender. Would you want them paraded around and ponies talking trash about them?”
For a moment, Hibiscus gritted her teeth, her eyes narrowed, and then she replied, “No. No, I would not.”
“Then why are you in such a hurry to do that to somepony else’s foals?” Sunset asked.
“I wasn’t.” Hibiscus’ teeth clamped together once more, this time making an audible grinding sound.
“You know, when you lie, it casts a shadow of doubt on everything else you’ve told me.” Sunset’s eyes narrowed and she took a step forward. “I am here to help you. I am here to try and make things better. Since coming here, I’ve found nothing but unpleasantness, small town squabbling, and a bunch of petty, horrible ponies fighting each other just because they can.”
Hibiscus’ withering stare focused upon Sunset, but the earth pony matron said nothing.
“While I am dragging everything out into the open, I need to speak to Graham.”
“Graham Cracker?” Hibiscus’ anger turned to confusion.
“Yep. Him.” Sunset gave Hibiscus a pleasant smile.
“But… but why would you want to talk to him? He has nothing to do with any of this. You don’t need to talk to him… I ask that you leave my family members out of your little crusade of righteousness and that you respect their privacy.”
Sunset’s smile vanished and her eyes narrowed. “My reasons are my own. I don’t owe you an explanation. Hibiscus, let us get one thing straight between us. I am in charge here. I am conducting an investigation. If I ask you to do something, you do it.”
“You’re no better than those bigots on the hill,” Hibiscus spat.
For a moment, Sunset was certain that she was going to lose her temper. She felt the heat rising up inside of her. For one second, she was certain that she was going to burst into flames. She wanted to scream and shout. She wanted to grab Hibiscus and start shaking her, shaking some sense into her. But then she felt a soothing, calming sensation spreading through her chest. She looked down as she felt the fetish dangling from her neck vibrating.
It glowed with a pleasant, sunny glow, and as she looked at the smiling, cheerful looking little unicorn figure of herself, she felt better. Sunset paused. A while ago, the wooden figure hadn’t been smiling. It had looked serene, calm, but also kind of blank. Now, there was no mistaking it, she could see little white teeth and a merry twinkle in the figure's eyes.
“The bigots on the hill were no better and no worse than the bigots living down here,” Sunset Shimmer said in a calm, cheerful voice. “Now, I wish to speak to Graham and after he and I spend some time speaking, you and I are going to have ourselves a little heart to heart.”
Hibiscus’ house was cool, which was a relief. Sunset Shimmer waited in the parlour as Hibiscus no doubt was trying to coerce Graham into saying the right things and behaving in the right way. Earlier, Hibiscus had called her a bigot, accusing her of unicorn superiourity. Sunset couldn’t wait to be out of Granther’s Polder.
She thought about her day so far as she waited, she thought about the fire, the meeting with the strange zebra stallion named Mother Malady, she thought about the curious little fetish hanging around her neck. It had a powerful aura of harmonious energy about it and Sunset could feel a sunny warmth radiating from it.
For the moment, Sunset’s biggest concern was Zoysia and the fillies. They would need a caretaker, a helper, somepony to help look after them. She hoped that Graham would do so, but Sunset was aware that he might be hesitant around the unicorns. Resting, closing her eyes for a moment, Sunset Shimmer thought about Princess Celestia and the white alicorn’s many offerings of advice. Try to trust in the good to be found in ponies.
Princess Celestia believed that all ponies were good, she insisted on this point, but some were less good than they could be, and some worked very, very hard to prove her wrong, but she maintained that all ponies were good. Sunset Shimmer had certainly worked to prove Princess Celestia wrong, and it was still something she suffered a twinge of painful regret about from time to time.
There was a distinct lack of forgiveness in this town and the ponies here clung to the old ways, the old hatreds, and by Princess Celestia’s standards, Sunset reasoned that they were far less good than they could be. Most of them weren’t even trying to be good, by the way things felt. She thought about Blackwater, his family, and shuddered when she thought of the incest that had taken place.
The door opened, interrupting Sunset Shimmer’s thoughts. She looked up and saw Graham Cracker once more. He looked nervous, scared, he was trembling as he peered at her. Sunset felt bad for him—he was like his son, Zoysia, a soft, sensitive type and it appeared that Hibiscus had given him a good browbeating.
“You wanted to see me?” Graham asked in a voice that was little more than a scratchy whisper. He stood just inside of the door, shaking, his ears quivering and jerking.
Sunset Shimmer soundproofed the room with her magic, an effortless act, and then gave Graham a warm, sincere smile. “I have some good news for you, Graham. I think you’ll be happy about it. I also need to talk to you about something very important.”
“Good news would be welcome at this point.” Graham, timid, took a few steps forward, his barrel almost heaving, and he eased himself into a high backed chair, his eyes darting towards the door.
“She can’t hear us in here,” Sunset said. Even as she spoke, Graham appeared to relax a little. “You look like you could use some good news. Now, Graham, before I say anything, take a few deep breaths and try and calm down.” Sunset saw him close his eyes and do as she had requested.
A grandfather clock in the corner ticked, the big brass pendulum swinging back and forth, moving as seconds passed, those seconds became minutes, and the day grew ever shorter with each swing.
“First off, Graham, Zoysia isn’t in trouble… but he is in love—”
“W-w-w-what?” Graham stuttered.
“Zoysia has a filly that he is very much in love with—”
“B-b-b-b-brook,” Graham stammered.
“Yes, Zoysia is in love with Brook.” Sunset Shimmer took a deep breath, hoping that Graham would follow her example, held it until the count of ten, then let it out in a slow huff. “Graham, you are going to be a grandfather—”
Sunset Shimmer was interrupted by the loud thump caused by Graham hitting the floor. She gasped, feeling a moment of alarm and panic. It wasn’t often that stallions fainted. She slipped down off of the sofa where she was sitting and went to his side to see if he was okay.
After checking him over, she worked to revive him.
“Hi there,” Sunset said as Graham’s eyelids began to flutter. “You feeling okay?” She set him down into a chair and then held him up as he began to recover. His incredulous wide eyed stare amused her a great deal.
“You are going to be a grandfather… be happy.” Sunset made sure that Graham was sitting up on his own before she went and returned to the couch, where she sat down. She smoothed out her tail, smiled, and hoped for some kind of reply.
Graham only sat in the chair and stared at her.
“Here’s the deal, Graham. Your son needs your help. Zoysia and Brook are going to have a foal together. Brook has family members that were rescued from the fire… foals, Graham, foals that need a caretaker. Good foals, although one of them is going to have special needs.”
“What do you want from me?” Graham asked.
“Why, I want you to be their caretaker. Rill, Pond, and Darkwater could all use your help. And I know for certain that you are a good stallion, so I can count on you to help them, can’t I?” Sunset Shimmer gave Graham a meaningful look.
“They’re unicorns, they won’t listen to me.” Graham shook his head.
Sunset dismissed his words with a wave of her hoof. “They’re foals. They’re ponies. Graham, here is your chance to do some good. Make the world a better place. Be a good pony… set an example for your son, who just so happens to love a little unicorn lass with a blind, wonderful, heartwarming love. She’s carrying his foal.”
“But I…” Graham continued to shake his head. “I dunno… I—”
Sunset’s smile faded and she leaned forwards. “Let me be blunt. I want to keep them together. They can be a family. They can be happy. You can help me, you can help them, and I can get you away from Hibiscus. I will help you get established. I will get you away from this horrible place full of horrible ponies… or… you can be a horrible pony and you can stay here with the horrible ponies as this place festers, rots, and decays from within, until it collapses upon itself and sinks into the alicorn forsaken swamps.”
Graham blinked in shock.
“Do you want to be away from Hibiscus?” Sunset asked. Her eyebrow arched. “You want to have a nice life with your son, don’t you? Are you willing to do a bit of work? You’re not so cold hearted and calloused that you would turn away a few fillies and a disabled colt, would you?” Sunset cracked her fetlocks and her eyes narrowed. “Do you want to spend the rest of your days in this swamp?”
“No… Nutmeg’s dream was to move away from here and away from Hibiscus,” Graham blurted out in a voice that sounded as though it was an inch away from tears.
“Clock is ticking, Mister Cracker. Zoysia, Brook, and the others have a one way ticket out of here and they’re leaving tonight, never to return. Are you going with them and can I count on you to help them, or are you staying here?” Sunset’s voice was a low, soft, gentle whisper.
Graham’s ears stood up. “My son needs me?”
“More than you know. He’s trying to be real grown up about this. It seems as though somepony left an impression on him and he’s trying to be a stallion about this whole thing. He’s been sneaking food off to Brook for a long time now and he wants to be a good dad.” Sunset cocked her eyebrow at Graham. “I wonder where he got it from?”
Graham gulped, fidgeted in his chair, and looked at Sunset. He looked conflicted, almost in pain, and the entirety of his body showed fear. “How will I care for them? How will I make bits? I only completed primary school… I don’t know how—”
“Hush, Graham… do you want to help or not? Yes or no?” Sunset leaned forwards a little more. “I bet it’s Hibiscus that tells you how worthless you are because you didn’t finish school… she makes you feel small, doesn’t she?”
Graham nodded and licked his lips.
“Just yes or no… that is all I need to hear from you. If you say yes, rest assured, you will get the help you need. You have my word.” Sunset Shimmer waited and she watched as Graham’s squirming in his chair intensified.
“Yes… please, help me… help my son… I’ll do anything for my son, even things I think are impossible,” Graham said as he fell back into his chair and closed his eyes.
“You have made a very good choice, Graham.” Sunset Shimmer let out a sigh and thought about Princess Celestia. It seemed there was some good in ponies after all.
Now there was Hibiscus to deal with, but Sunset Shimmer wasn’t in the mood. She had helped Graham pack up a few things into a bag and had demanded that Hibiscus leave them be. The earth pony matron had wisely said nothing, backed off, and let Graham pack his bag in peace.
Now, Graham was getting acquainted with his new family. The run down rotten little shack was crowded, far too crowded, and the floor was bowing. Sunset paced outside of the shack, she had far too many things on her mind and it had been far too long of a day. She was not looking forward to dealing with Hibiscus.
“Minion?”
Lifting her head, she looked at Bucky, whom she had not heard come outside. He was hooded, as always, and there was a worried scowl on the end of his muzzle. She watched as he came closer.
“It’s been a troubling day, hasn’t it, Minion?”
Nodding, Sunset wished she could sit down, but the ground was nothing but slime covered oozing muck. Frogs were croaking, bugs buzzed, and it felt as though the air was boiling around them. Sunset Shimmer was soaked with sweat and she felt itchy. She wondered if she would ever feel clean again.
“Have I ever told you just how proud I am of you?” Bucky asked.
An unwelcome blush made Sunset feel hotter. It was too hot and far too sticky to be blushing. She failed to hold back a grin and she turned away from Bucky and stared off into the swamp.
“This…” Bucky said as he made a gesture, “this is you at your best. You’re making a difference here. We came out here to find out if this place was cursed. We’re still working on that, but in the meantime, you’ve taken it upon yourself to save a few ponies and try to make things better. You are the best student a teacher could ask for.”
“Master, stop.” Sunset’s blush intensified and she let out a giggle, feeling very much like a school filly again.
“You know, if somepony was to ask me which pony I thought truly deserved to be an alicorn—”
“Master, please, stop!” Sunset Shimmer struggled to get the words out as she continued to titter and the fetish hanging from her neck felt both warm and heavy.
“—I would have to tell them that it would be you.” Bucky leaned in a little bit closer. “One day, I will no longer be here. You will be my replacement. It will be you and Twilight Sparkle working together to make the world a better place. You will be the headmaster of the Founder’s Forge. And seeing you shine in the most troubling of situations… like today… I rest easy knowing that everything I’ve planned for is going to be taken care of by you.”
Off in the distance, something roared, and the birds fell silent. Sunset’s ears perked, but other than being alert, she did nothing else to react. If trouble came, she pitied it. She turned and looked at Bucky. “The best part about being your apprentice is being your friend… Bucky… please, don’t talk about how little time you have. I can’t bear it.”
“I’m sorry, Sunset, but I do so worry that I don’t have enough time to set everything right. There is still so much to do.” Bucky heaved a sigh and a sad smile appeared upon the end of his muzzle.
“We’re managing,” Sunset replied.
“I know we are.” Bucky stood there, motionless, and fell silent, only the sound of his breathing could be heard.
“Bucky, I need some advice… Hibiscus is going to be a tough pony to deal with. She called me a bigot… accused me of unicorn supremacy. I’m gonna need to pry some answers out of her. I’m not sure what to do or how to do it. There’s some bad juju here, as the zebras would say. There are a lot of old wounds and they run deep. How do I get her to talk without opening those old wounds? I don’t want to hurt her or make things worse.”
So many Shadowbolts. There were now so many Shadowbolts that Sunset Shimmer was unable to keep track of all of the new faces. Becoming a Shadowbolt meant a new lease on life, the erasure of all debts, and a scrubbing away of one’s criminal history, if one had a criminal history. Ponies and other creatures from all walks of life were choosing to walk to the darkened path and to serve the Night Court.
Overhead, the zeppelin known as Voidbringer hovered, a ship of sleek design, a new style with the long, thin, delicate looking nacelle with an integrated cabin, all of which was made of sleek, shadow infused aluminium. It blocked out the stars and it’s shiny hull gleamed silver in the moonlight. It was a unique ship in that it was powered by the dark. During the day, it was little more than a common airship, but come nighttime, it was a ship that could cross oceans in hours, or almost anywhere in Equestria for that matter. It was, perhaps, Bucky and Luna’s single greatest creation made in cooperation with one another.
Several of the Shadowbolts now roamed the swamp, having gone hunting. Whatever creatures lurked in the abysmal mire were no longer at the top of the food chain. Bigger, scarier, far more capable predators had arrived.
Sunset watched as Belisama, the shadow-touched griffoness, had a quiet moment of comfort with the one-eyed blind colt Darkwater. Darkwater was scared by all of the hubbub, noise, and strangers milling about, but he seemed to be calming down as Belisama crooned to him. The griffoness’ singing voice was a miraculous thing and it was no wonder that she was the chosen skald of Odin.
Sunset was tired, weary, she needed sleep. It had been far too long a day and now it neared midnight. She was exhausted and she had reached the absolute ends of her endurance. She eyed the airship and wondered if she could get a few hours of shuteye up there, or if she was going to have to go and return to Hibiscus’ house and get some rest there.
She didn’t want to return to Hibiscus’ house. She wanted to go home, to be away from this forsaken swamp. She wanted her familiar room at the top of the squat stone tower. She wanted cool air. She wanted to hear the voices of those she loved. She wanted to be away from this place.
She glanced over at Belisama again, and saw Bucky fawning over her. For a moment, she envied them both. Both were very busy creatures and there were times that they didn’t get a chance to see each other for a while. But they had each other now. Sunset watched as Bucky nuzzled Belisama’s neck as the griffoness continued her crooning for Darkwater.
Looking around, she saw Graham. He looked lost, confused, and a bit scared, but he was holding himself together for Zoysia. As for Zoysia himself, he stood near Brook, yawning, but even in his sleepy state the colt looked excited. Moving away meant a new life for him—for all of them.
Making a decision, Sunset Shimmer decided to spend some time in the rack aboard the Voidbringer.
“As you continue your quest… look for what does not belong. There are many secrets hidden in plain sight.” The words of Mother Malady echoed in Sunset Shimmer’s head as she awoke. She was sweating and she didn’t feel well. It hurt to breathe, her eyes were dry, irritated, and her mouth felt as though it was full of cotton.
Look for what does not belong. Lifting her head, Sunset Shimmer had a good long look at the fetish hanging from her neck, lifting it up in her magic and eyeballing it. It was strange magic, bocor magic, the magic of the zebras. She could not help but wonder if there was some sort of psychic influence imparted upon the fetish.
Blinking her eyes, Sunset Shimmer sat up in bed, rising up to her haunches, the blanket still draped over her. The sun had not risen yet, or so her magic told her. She had not slept much, but she had slept. She yawned and thought about a nice shower.
As she left the narrow bed, she wondered what did not belong in the swamp.
As the sun rose in the east, the temperature outside was one hundred and two degrees, and this was before the one hundred percent humidity was factored in. With the heat index, the temperature could only be measured as miserable.
Sunset Shimmer stood on the outskirts of Granther’s Polder, wondering what the zebra meant by things not belonging. She looked around the town and the only thing she could see that seemed out of place was the rose coloured marble of Hibiscus’ house. Sunset Shimmer’s head tilted to one side. The fancy furniture, the rose coloured marble, the remarkable waterfall and cooling system.
Was that it? Was that what the zebra had been hinting at? What sort of clue was it? And what did it have to do with the apparent curse that this wretched, forsaken town seemed to be under? With the way the zebra spoke, there did seem to be a curse of some sort. Necromancy? Something from the past? Was some sort of horrible curse from long ago festering away, poisoning everything?
It was possible.
Anything was possible.
But what did Hibiscus’ house have to do with it?
Was it what was ‘out of place?’
The mansion up on the hill had been made out of wood. Sunset looked up at the ruin. There were pegasi circling overhead and Sunset wondered what they were doing. She wondered if there had been any remains, and if so, had they been recovered?
Her eyes looked over the town and lingered upon the workhouse. It was now almost a crumbling ruin itself, having seen better days. Some of the windows were broken. It looked dilapidated. It was missing its doors and other bits of wood, all of which were no doubt scavenged and used on something else.
The entire town was made of wooden buildings. There were houses along the base of the hill, a ring of what had once been prosperity, and the outer rings were comprised of run down looking shacks, shanties, and sheds. A dyke had been built around the town to keep the swampy waters out when the region flooded.
The rose pink marble house stood out from everything else. Frowning, Sunset Shimmer decided to pay Hibiscus a visit even though it was still very early in the morning. Perhaps if Sunset was friendly and kind she could pry some answers out of Hibiscus, some old town secrets. There could be no doubt that the earth pony was at least affiliated with the town’s gentry… her family seemed far better off than Blackwater’s, whose mansion had seen better days before burning to the ground.
The unicorn maid had been more than a little grumpy when she let Sunset in, but Sunset forgave her. Standing in the entryway, Sunset watched as the maid departed in a huff, armed with a feather duster, a spray bottle, and cleaning cloth.
It seemed that Hibiscus was in the shower, so Sunset had to wait. She had herself a good look around the entryway, studied the waterfall, and marveled at the simple but effective cooling system. It was cool in here, almost cold even. The breeze was damp and felt good against her heat withered skin.
The furniture in the Blackwater mansion, from what little bit that Sunset could remember, was just as rotten as the mansion itself. The furniture here, while a little worn, still looked newish. It was remarkably well preserved. The whole house had the illusion of fantastic wealth.
Sunset Shimmer tried to put herself into the mind of an earth pony trying to improve their place in the world, with hard work and effort. She thought about trying to endear one’s self to a cold, unfeeling noble house like House Avarice, trying to gain favour, trying to get noticed, trying to make one’s self indispensable.
This family had succeeded. The furniture, the house, and the air circulation system that ran without electricity was proof of that. Sunset, in an analytical mood, shifted the shoe to the other hoof. What good reason would a cold, unfeeling noble house like House Avarice have to give all of this furniture and provide all of this seeming wealth to earth ponies?
The more Sunset thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. The unicorns on the hill would have been far better recipients. The rose marble house would have looked a whole lot better on top of the hill. Why give earth ponies anything at all? Why would House Avarice want to do that? What was there to gain? The corners of Sunset’s mouth were tugged downwards into a scowl by her growing sense of unease.
It bothered her that to sort this out, she had to think like a bigot. She had to think of earth ponies as something less than equine. Something almost but not quite a pony. She felt a growing sense of loathing for earth ponies welling up inside of her and then she felt the warm, happy fuzzy feeling radiating from the fetish hanging from her neck.
This place was getting to her. Something here fed on hate. Something here was corrupt and rotten, almost like Canterlot had once been corrupt and rotten. Standing beside the waterfall, Sunset Shimmer looked up, eyeing the many balconies and walkways up above her. A cool breeze wafted past her as the water fell in an endless loop.
What fell, yet stayed where it was?
A waterfall.
Sunset Shimmer pondered riddles—this place was a riddle.
So much magic had been invested into this dwelling, a priceless gift of magic. The air circulation system alone was out of reach by all but the wealthiest of ponies or well practiced enchanters. Intrigued, Sunset decided to have herself a better look.
Horn glowing, Sunset cast one of Bucky’s fine tuned enchantments upon her eyes, something that would allow her to see magic. It had threads of divination magic woven into it, it was a powerful spell, and it was obnoxiously difficult to cast. It would give most type threes fits to even attempt it and it was challenging for type fours. It was a spell of mind boggling complexity—
But was worth it. Blinking, Sunset looked around. The entire entryway was thick with magic. It was everywhere. Faint glows surrounded everything. She passed through the doors into the parlour and froze in place at what she saw.
The furniture glowed with fierce light, it was almost blinding, and from each piece of furniture, from the clock, from almost every bit of finery in the room, even the rug, a thin silvery ribbon of magic extended and went to the far wall. The ribbons were moving, vibrating, almost as if they were tied to something. Fascinated, Sunset wondered what she had discovered.
Everything in the room was magically linked to something. It made sense now why the furniture was so well preserved—it had been infused with magic. Sunset wondered what everything was connected to and why.
The why might be quite interesting.
The magical ribbons bobbed as whatever they were connected to moved. Sunset watched and she heard the faint sounds of hooves on the other side of the door. The door opened, revealing Hibiscus, and Sunset could see that every single ribbon of magic in the room connected to her.
As the mare passed through the door, Sunset could see ribbons coming down out of the ceiling, more ribbons passing through other walls, hundreds, if not thousands of ribbons, all of them no doubt extending from items and were connected to the mare. Sunset looked around, feeling alarmed, wondering what strange magic was at work here.
Hibiscus was a puppet being pulled by countless strings, or so it seemed to be. Her love of her finery might be caused by magical compulsion. Sunset Shimmer blinked as Hibiscus approached.
“Good morning,” the matron mare said in a low voice. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Sunset replied, trying to be polite. She did her best to not reveal anything. As Hibiscus moved about the room, the ribbons remained connected. She watched as Hibiscus sat down upon a fainting couch and got comfortable.
“Perhaps it is for the best if Graham left this place. He was never happy here. I shall miss him, even though all he did was hide himself away and mope.” Hibiscus let out a haughty sniff and gestured at the sofa beside her. “Do have a seat. I presume that you came to have a chat?”
“I did.” Sunset looked at the sofa and did not want to sit down upon it. What might happen if the ribbons connected themselves to her? Was this the reason she and Bucky had been invited to stay here? The magical ribbons didn’t seem to be connected to anypony but Hibiscus, but Sunset was still wary about what other means of compulsion the house might have. It was, after all, cool, airy, and comfortable, just the sort of place a pony would want to stay inside of.
For some reason, Sunset Shimmer was reminded of a venus fly trap.
Standing there, Sunset Shimmer made a decision. It was time to cut the ribbons. Whatever magic was here, it wasn’t good. Not at all. Sunset thought that a powerful dispelling of magic should be enough to severe all the magical ties to Hibiscus. Sunset wondered what sort of compulsions Hibiscus might be under, how it might affect her behaviour, and what sort of control it had over her.
There was a brilliant flash from Sunset’s horn that illuminated the room, a powerful crackle of magical static, and Sunset Shimmer felt something tugging on her horn. Strange magic… unknown magic. She felt it pushing back, trying to resist, trying to prevent her from undoing it.
Hibiscus sat wide eyed, her stare vacant, she was now unmoving.
Summoning her will, Sunset Shimmer made a powerful mental push and felt the magic around her shatter. The ribbons all tore away, becoming glittering shimmers in the air as they disintegrated. The clock stopped. The faint soft hum of the air circulation system ceased. The house went still.
Hibiscus, sitting wide eyed on the fainting sofa, pitched over and fell down to the floor. She lay unmoving, her eyes vacant, and a puddle of drool began to form around her muzzle. She made no movement save for her own breathing.
Sunset Shimmer felt something pop inside of her ears and then it felt as though some great weight was lifted off of her. She blinked, looked at Hibiscus, and felt afraid for the prone earth pony mare. She moved to Hibiscus’ side just as the door to the parlour was opening.
“What have you done?” the maid demanded. “Do you know what you have done?”
Eyes narrowing, Sunset looked up from Hibiscus’ fallen body and looked at the maid. The maid’s expression was not one of fear, but of fury. For a moment, Sunset feared that the maid would attack her.
But the maid did not attack. Instead, the unicorn pulled something small from a pocket on her pillbox hat, popped it into her mouth, and bit down. Sunset watched in wide eyed horror as the maid began to foam at the mouth, her body convulsing, and then with a heavy thump, the maid fell over, her body thrashing upon the floor as more foam erupted from her mouth.
Sunset Shimmer stood there, slack jawed, not knowing what to do or how to respond.
With a gasp, the maid went still, her bowels and her bladder releasing. It took a moment, but Sunset Shimmer realised that the maid was dead. Sunset shook her head, not believing the strange and tragic turn the morning had taken. She looked down at Hibiscus, who was still breathing, but doing nothing else.
Not knowing what else to do, Sunset Shimmer knew that she needed Bucky.
“This is both brilliant and simple.” Bucky sat down and began to examine a small bedside table, touching it with his talons. The bedroom, on the top floor of the house, was just out of range of Sunset Shimmer’s dispelling burst, and some of the magic was still intact.
“What do you mean?” Sunset asked.
“The magic is relatively simple,” Bucky replied, his eyebrows furrowing, “compulsion spells… which aren’t very difficult. They’re made stronger by the target of the spell having a strong affinity for the items… Hibiscus loved her house and her stuff. Made it that much easier to manipulate her mind. I wonder what they are hiding.”
“How does the maid fit into this?” Sunset sat down beside Bucky and heaved a sigh.
“I would imagine that she did a little spell maintenance. She was under compulsion as well, or so I would guess. Her maid’s outfit still had a little magical residue left on it, but not enough to study.” Bucky placed his talons on top of the bedside table and stroked the smooth wood. “The enchantment on this table is about sixty years old. I would imagine that a very young Hibiscus grew up among other such enchanted items, loving her finery, and hoping that one day, it would all be hers. Minion, these were shackles that were worn willingly.”
“What a horrible thing to say, Master.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true. Compulsion magic can be resisted by the strong minded. Hibiscus was a pony obsessed by finery, of this there can be no doubt. She loved her appearance of wealth and the trappings of being influential. She stood no chance of resisting them.” Bucky shook his head and looked at the bed. “Even the bed is enchanted.”
“So… was the Hibiscus we met anything like her real self, or was she entirely a puppet being pulled on by the strings? Was her attitude and the way she was the result of her personality or the compulsion?” Sunset stood up and began to look around the room, feeling bad for the ponies downstairs, who were grieving the loss of their matron.
“There is no way of knowing, Minion.” Bucky tapped his claws upon the table. “Something important is being hidden away here, Minion. Nopony would go through this much trouble to keep a secret unless it was something important. Something meaningful. Something that could cause a lot of trouble—”
“For a noble house that no longer exists,” Sunset said as she turned to look at Bucky.
“Yes… Hibiscus was just one of their leftover loose ends.” Bucky’s barrel rose and fell as he heaved a sigh. “A forgotten leftover loose end out in the middle of an alicorn forsaken swamp. How I hate this place.”
Sunset Shimmer looked at the mirror on the wall and wondered what enchantments it held. It gave off a faint magical signature. Everything in the room did. The ties were all broken. This wasn’t Hibiscus’ room, it was just another bar in her prison. The thought made Sunset feel depressed. Hibiscus clearly wanted to provide for her family and give them a good life. Her simple wants and needs had been corrupted and used against her. It was all the more depressing that Hibiscus had probably went under the compulsion with no effort made to resist.
“So what do we do now, Master?” Sunset asked as the fetish around her neck began to pulsate with a gentle, throbbing warmth that held the miserable feeling of depression at bay. She felt a little better in spite of everything.
“We keep looking,” Bucky replied, “something took place here. All of these birth defects… I don’t think it is a curse. Something happened here though. Something was hidden away here in this wretched place with the hopes that nopony would ever find it… that nopony would ever care enough to look.”
“The worst part is, we can’t even punish the ponies responsible for this.” Sunset let out a frustrated huff and felt the fetish around her neck doing its best to calm her.
“No, but we can save these ponies from their evil machinations.” Bucky stood up and adjusted his cloak. “Minion, I want to go out and meet with this Mother Malady that you met. I want to speak with him. Her… them.”
“Okay.” Sunset nodded. “That seems like a good idea. Maybe she knows more than she is letting on. I mean, I suspect that she knew about this. Maybe there is something we can learn from her.”
“I hope so, Minion, I hope so…”
Scowling, Sunset Shimmer stomped through the mud as a feral storm dumped rain down upon her. She had hoped that the rain would be cooling, but the rain was more like a hot shower. The air was soupy, almost unbreathable, and somehow, it felt even more humid.
The stench of ozone hung heavy in the air and distant thunder pealed. As Sunset walked, she could not help but notice that her skin was getting itchy. She began to wonder if even the rain was tainted and she tossed up a shield bubble to keep the rain off of her, and then used a spell to dry herself, but the itchiness persisted.
There was something wrong with this swamp. There was an acrid smell in the air, lurking, hidden within the scent of ozone. The rain smelled foul. Sunset Shimmer suffered in silence as she and Bucky approached Mother Malady’s encampment. For some reason, she couldn’t see the mysterious zebra giving Bucky straight answers.
Surrounded by swamp dwellers, Sunset watched and waited as more and more ponies gathered around them. They had been friendly towards her, but there were a lot of suspicious glares directed at Bucky. She hoped that the swampfolk were not hostile.
Mother Malady emerged from a shack, Sunset’s eyes narrowed, and the strange zebra stallion focused his attention on Bucky, ignoring Sunset completely. Sunset tensed, worried, and couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong. As Mother Malady came forward, a pegasus mare shook a gourd filled with something to make it rattle at Bucky.
“And what brings you to my home, Chaos Spirit?” Mother Malady asked as she drew near. “You are not welcome here, Almost Draconequus.”
“I have no intention of staying, I just came out for a few answers, which I suspect that you have.” Bucky shifted and held out his talons. “And I am not a draconequus. Nopony can quite figure out what I am anymore, but I am not a draconequus.”
“You are corruption and chaos,” Mother Malady said. “Every bad thing in the world that you have dealt with has left its mark upon you. It has twisted you and left you deformed. You are no longer a pony… do not even pretend.”
Sunset started forwards, her mouth opening, about to say something in Bucky’s defense, but Bucky held out his talons towards her and made a gesture. Sunset remained silent, feeling irritated and a little angry. How dare Mother Malady say such an awful thing.
“Look, I didn’t come here to cause trouble,” Bucky said.
“No, but trouble came here long ago to cause you.” Mother Malady shook her head and let out a snort.
“No need to be cryptic. The sooner you cut the crap, the sooner I go away and I take all of my chaos and my corruption with me. Give me what I want, and I’ll go away.” Bucky grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth.
“Have you not been twisted enough? Look at you… talons where your left hoof should be. Your neck… your face… those teeth… and is that a goat hoof I see on your right rear leg?” Mother Malady took a step forward and several swamp dwellers let out gasps. “Go home, Twisted One, lest you leave this place even more corrupt than when you came.”
“I’m guessing that you know something about this place, Respected Mother—”
“Do not try to flatter me with your sly draconequus tongue, creature of disorder and disharmony.” Mother Malady pointed her hoof at Bucky and the gourd shaking pegasus let out a startled cry.
“You do know something… now, look, I don’t want to throw my weight around, but I need to know… and if you don’t tell me, that’s impeding my investigation… which would be very, very bad for you. You don’t exactly deal in the cleanest of zebra magics, do you?” Bucky’s lips curled up into a smile and a short, raspy cackle escaped his lips. “Had to come out and hide in the swamps to practice your sex magic… heh heh heh…”
For a moment, Sunset Shimmer worried that Mother Malady would attack Bucky. The zebra stallion looked furious and began stomping his hooves on the wooden platform on which they all stood. The rain was coming down in torrents now, the air had grown thicker, and it had to be more than one hundred and ten degrees outside.
“I do not know what it is, but I know where it lurks. It has gained sentience. It feeds upon the ghosts left behind here.” Mother Malady’s teeth gritted for a moment and her eyes narrowed. “If you go there, it will twist you further. You were made to twist, Corrupted One. You defy everything… you defy the natural order… you resist harmony… look what your defiance has done to you, you unclean spirit of disharmony. What will you take away from this place? You should leave now… this swamp will continue to fester, a forgotten place, a burial ground, a place where secrets go to die.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Bucky said.
“But dealing with it will make you worse.” Mother Malady’s lips pursed and she gave Bucky a thoughtful look. “You will carry some of this corruption with you out into the world. Ask yourself, is it worth it?”
“I’m here to do my job.” Bucky’s talons began to tap upon the wooden planks. “Just tell me where to go. Let me save this place—”
“Who saves the world from you?” Mother Malady asked.
Sunset Shimmer let out an impatient snort. “You were very nice to me, but now you are testing my patience.” The bright orange unicorn strode forwards and stood by Bucky’s side. “We are here to do our jobs. Give us what we want or we shall have to take it by force. Believe me, you don’t want Bucky to do that, and he will.”
“And what would he take from me, I wonder?” Mother Malady remarked. “What mark of chaos would I leave upon him?”
“ENOUGH!” Sunset bellowed, the force of her words causing ponies to scatter, leaving the zebra the only one standing before her and Bucky. “No more mystical, magical, ooky spooky horseapples!”
“Very well… I will tell you what you want to know. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Mother Malady’s head and ears both drooped in defeat and she glanced up at Sunset Shimmer. “South from here, there is a sinkhole known as Granther’s Maelstrom. The swamp pours down into it. There are a series of caves down below. You will find what you are looking for there.” Mother Malady lifted her head a little bit and she gave Sunset a pleading look. “Don’t go there… for your sake. I do not know what it might do to you”—The zebra pointed at Bucky—“but he should be fine. He is made of poison and disease. He has become everything he battles against. He has peered into the abyss for far too long and now the denizens of the abyss shy away in terror, unable to meet his eye.”
“So much flattery.” Bucky rolled his eyes and his talons continued to tap upon the wood in an idle manner. “You sex magic types really know how to work the shaft. And no gag reflex to speak of. Amazing.”
Eyes narrowing, Mother Malady glared at Bucky, giving him a hateful stare. “My magic is just misunderstood… I do good in the world. I have long protected this place from being overwhelmed by negative emotions and utterly crushed by the bleak darkness that lurks below. Long have I battled with what resides in Granther’s Maelstrom. Do not presume to judge me, draconequus spawn. All you do is leave behind mindless rampant destruction and devastation.”
“Spare me your platitudes.” Bucky made a dismissive gesture with his talons, snorted, and then turned to look at Sunset. “Minion, maybe you should listen to the sex magic crackpot here. I don’t know if you should go with me when I go to find this place.”
“Bucky, my place is by your side, for good or for ill.” Sunset turned her fiery gaze upon Mother Malady. “We thank you for your cooperation. Do not make us come back here and investigate this place. I do not think Master likes you.”
“I intend to leave,” Mother Malady replied. “When the dweller in the dark is gone, I see no reason for me to stay in this place.”
Sunset glanced at Bucky, wondering what was going on, and hoping that he would explain more about everything that had just taken place. She had no knowledge of zebra sex magic and she began to wonder what had gone into the making of the fetish hanging around her neck. She wondered what went on here in this settlement out in the swamp.
She watched as Mother Malady turned and walked away, and then she heard Bucky sigh. It was time go and Sunset wondered what awaited them at Granther’s Maelstrom, wherever that was.
Preparing herself, Sunset Shimmer wondered what they would face in Granther’s Maelstrom. Some powerful malignant force, a shadow of some sort, something that Mother Malady had been doing battle with for quite some time, trying to restore some positive energy in a place that was a vortex for negative energy.
She knew that Bucky knew something, she suspected that he knew far more than he let on, but so far, he was remaining tight lipped, something she appreciated. She wanted to unravel this herself—she wanted to figure this out on her own, she wanted to learn from this. Because one day, Bucky would no longer be here and this would be a job she would do on her own.
They had been through so much together… so many adventures. So many foes defeated… some with words, some with magic, some through kindness, and others through brute force. She was proud of their many accomplishments. Their many successes in the past held promise that they would be successful here as well.
As a team, there wasn’t anything that they couldn’t accomplish together. Bucky had been hooves off for most of this trip, letting Sunset deal with everything, and she knew that she was being tested, not just by Bucky, but by Twilight and Princess Celestia as well. This would reflect upon her status as a paladin.
“Are the Shadowbolts coming with us?” Sunset asked in a low voice as both she and Bucky stood on the outskirts of the town of Granther’s Polder. She was sweating, soaked, and her fatigued muscles twitched from worry.
The temperature had soared, reaching a point that Sunset had thought impossible. It was about one hundred and nineteen degrees with one hundred percent humidity. It was also raining, a slow, steady drizzle, making it almost impossible to breathe. The swamp had become a slow cooker. Thinking a very paranoid thought, Sunset felt that it was almost like something was anticipating their visit and had cranked up the heat to exhaust them.
“No, but they can be called in if needed. If we are going to fight with something that uses mind control, I’d rather not be fighting my own Shadowbolts.” Bucky turned and looked at Sunset. “They are strong in battle, but I think we are fighting a psychic enemy.”
Sunset nodded and thought about her experience with the alicorn amulet. She had proven that she had a will of iron, destroying said amulet and saving Bucky’s life. She thought about the amulet’s many tricks as it had tried to worm its way into her mind.
“Master, this course of action seems wise.” Sunset, soaked, wondered why she had even bothered with the rain shield to keep the droplets off. The air was almost a liquid in its current state. “Do you expect tentacles? Liches? Eldritch beings? A trapped demon, perhaps? Perhaps something like the sewer lurkers in Baltimare?”
“Technically, I suspect that I’ve become something of an Eldritch horror myself.” Bucky let out a long sigh and shook his head, sounding tired. “I don’t know what to expect. I feel a presence here that I haven’t felt in a long time… not since the first of my many body changing transmogrifications and alterations.”
Sunset felt her barrel tighten. “The Shetland Isles? The crystal lich?”
“Very astute, Minion,” Bucky replied in a low, almost whispery voice that tended to make ponies shiver when they heard it. “Something is feeding off of all of this. I’m feeding off of it too… it is having a profound effect upon me. I’ll need to leave this place and soon. Mother Malady was correct about a few things.”
Tilting her head, Sunset pondered Bucky’s nature, not quite knowing what to make of him. He had been exposed to strange magics, been altered, had been exposed to the Warp for over four minutes and had come out of it to tell quite a tale. He had been assaulted with necromancy on numerous occasions—death spells, curses, hexes, all manner of terrible things and was building up a resistance to it, perhaps the only creature alive with an inherent, natural resistance to necromantic magics. Bucky could no longer be called a pony, but he was still Bucky, her Master, her teacher, and her friend. She began to fear what this place might do to him.
“Master, whatever is feeding off of this has been doing so for years.” Sunset swallowed, her mouth now feeling dry, and her tongue felt like a dehydrated apricot. “If this is the case, why hasn’t it escaped the sinkhole?”
“Good question… maybe it can’t… yet.” Bucky turned to look at Sunset and his eyes narrowed. “Maybe it needs a body. Maybe it’s too big. Or maybe, it’s like the crystal lich and exists as a chrysalis, waiting for the time when it can transform and ascend.”
Even with the moist heat, Sunset shivered and felt her blood go cold. Something icy crept up her spine, starting from her dock and leaving behind a lingering chill that made her muscles tense and caused a spike of nausea to slither through her guts.
“Defenses up, Minion. I’d rather not have you getting sick… or becoming twisted like me. Are you prepared to go?” The only thing visible under Bucky’s hood was his muzzle, and it was contorted into a scowl.
“I am ready,” Sunset replied, not feeling ready at all, the cold chills and the nausea made her feel weak, small, like a foal afraid of the dark or whatever might lurk beneath the bed or in the closet. She lifted up her head, searched her heart, and thought of Princess Celestia. “I am the Flame, Chosen of the Keeper of the Celestial Mechanics. I bring with me truth and light. I am the Keeper of the Unfailing Flame and my flame will not falter…”
The sinkhole looked like any other patch of swamp. A bowl shaped depression in the land filled with water, muck, and plants. In the middle of the pool of fetid water, there was a maelstrom, a swirling eddy of water as the swamp drained down into the underground cavern below. Sunset reasoned that the opening couldn’t be very big, but had no doubt grown larger with time as the ground eroded. No doubt, one day, it would crumble open and the underground cavern below would be exposed. Water trickled in from all sides as this seemed to be a low point in the swamp, a natural drain.
No doubt, there were limestone caverns down below that were slowly dissolving as the water trickled down, and Sunset had no idea where the water went after it went underground. Probably down into some tremendous aquifer or something.
Looking up, Sunset studied the clouds and noticed that they moved in a strange, unnatural pattern overhead. There was strong magic here and it affected the weather. The clouds were blowing westwards, having come in off of the ocean no doubt, but over the sinkhole, the clouds roiled and swirled, mirroring the mucky maelstrom down below. The trees here had been struck by lightning many times, most of them were split, burnt, half dead, or all dead and rotting away.
Now that they knew where to look, it was obvious that something was going on here. The air was heavy and there was an astonishing lack of bloodthirsty insects. There were no birds here. Nothing swam in the water. There was nothing here. Even the monsters of the swamp avoided this place… never a good sign.
“My first real foe,” Bucky said as he stood atop a rock that rose up out of the muck. “The crystal lich of the Shetland Isles. He was using the shadow wolves to harvest misery and fear from the ponies of the isles, feeding off of it, and making himself stronger. He sought to ascend. Had he been successful, he would have been a real threat to the Royal Pony Sisters and to the major world powers. Princess Celestia and Luna might have had to physically drag him to Tartarus and bind him for the sake of the world, and that would have been disastrous.”
“How so?” Sunset asked.
“For the same reason Luna becoming Nightmare Moon was so disastrous,” Bucky replied.
“Oh.” Sunset paused and gave thought to Bucky’s words. “The world would have seen alicorns at their full power… there would have been rampant devastation and destruction. With populations being what they are, a lot of ponies and other creatures might have died. Princess Celestia would likely have to sacrifice millions to save future generations. Civilisation as we know it might have had to start over and then the world would follow Celestia out of fear rather than trust and goodwill.”
“Exactly.” Bucky turned and his eyes narrowed as he studied his student.
Grinning, Sunset could not help but feel a little proud of herself. Not too proud… when pride cometh, so does the fall, but she was starting to understand the bigger picture. She could see what the major players of the world saw. Those in power. She did not envy the complexity of their responsibilities.
“The crystal lich made a mistake though,” Bucky said, continuing to speak his thoughts out loud. “He failed to take me as a serious threat. I made mistakes too. I took him as too much of a threat. I over prepared and overplanned. Our battle was rather anticlimactic after all of the build up.” Sighing, he stared out at the maelstrom and listened to the sound of the water being sucked down into whatever was below.
Sunset, standing on a log, gazed upon the maelstrom and watched as it swirled. It reminded her of a toilet. The swamp was a giant toilet bowl and this was the place where everything got flushed down. Down below, something lurked. That something was a turd.
Unable to help herself, Sunset Shimmer began to giggle and she felt her spirits rise, some of the fear, doubt, and uncertainty fading away. She saw Bucky looking at her, at least, he appeared to be, his head was turned in her direction.
“I just thought of something funny, I’m sorry, pay me no attention,” Sunset said, apologising. “Do go on, if you must.”
“It is good to hear you laugh, Sunset. After all we’ve been through together, you’ve kept something of yourself that I’ve lost.” Bucky sighed and let out a sardonic, bitter chuckle. “You shouldn’t follow me down into this hole. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Bucky, for shame!” Sunset stomped upon the log she was standing on. “You still haven’t learned, have you?”
“I will never stop trying to keep you out of danger.” Bucky rose up into the air, his cloak billowing around him, he hovered, borne on shadows, and drifted over the murky, filthy water. “Come, let us do what must be done. I suspect that something is expecting us.”
Sunset materialised in the cavern, making a semi-blind teleport, following Bucky in after he had drifted down through the opening as shadow. She stood on slippery, slimey stone and all around her was debris. Branches, garbage, bones, everything in the swamp water got washed down here.
She was surrounded in all manner of spell protections, but she was already beginning to feel rather poor. There was something here… something awful. Her horn flared and the cavern filled with light. All around her were barrels, alchemical barrels, some of them had rotted open and had spilled out goop. Strange glowing fungal growths lined the walls. Strange creatures crawled and slithered around in the sludge. The cavern was as hot as an oven, the heat brought about by decay, like a compost heap, but far, far worse.
This place was a dumping ground for alchemical waste, poisoning everything around it, including Granther’s Polder. Sunset felt a wave of sickness, her spells were not enough to protect her and she knew that continued exposure would have dire consequences. Bucky had no spell protections up at all, and seemed to be just fine. For a moment, she both hated and envied him.
Looking around, Sunset tried to spot anything that might seem out of place, wondering what sort of creature was lurking down here that could be so dangerous. The cavern was rather large with an uneven floor, most of which was submerged as the swamp trickled in from the ceiling. Barrels formed enormous piles, some of which had been stacked, but it seems that somepony gave up and just began to teleport them down here willy-nilly.
And then, Sunset noticed it. A barred gate. She winked, teleporting from the spot she stood over to the ledge in front of the gate. The bars were rusty, crumbling, covered in moisture and slime. She felt Bucky materialise beside her as she reached out and touched the gate.
The gate crumbled completely at her touch the pieces fell down, striking the ledge, many of them bouncing off and falling down into the toxic sludge below. Sunset felt a wet sensation in her nose, and, going cross eyed, she looked down and saw blood trickling from her nostril.
This was bad…
Undeterred, she pressed onwards, stepping into the tunnel beyond the gate. Right away, she felt something on the edge of her awareness, something pressing into her mind. Some malevolent force tried creeping into her consciousness and it grew stronger as she walked down the tunnel, the blood dripping from her nose splashing down upon the stone below her hooves.
Bucky was drifting along beside her and she could not tell if he was drifting along half in and half out of shadow or if he was simply defying gravity again… because he could. Exposure to the Warp had changed him profoundly.
Ahead, a heavy iron door blocked the way. It hadn’t rusted, it was dark, grey, and imposing. Sunset suspected that it was enchanted, but however good the enchantment’s might be, Sunset knew that the door would open one way or another. If worst came to worst, they would just go through the stone around the door, or Bucky would transmute the iron into something else.
Like chocolate pudding.
Scowling, Sunset Shimmer slammed the door with a powerful dispel spell, the very sort of spell that revealed the spider’s web that was Hibiscus’ house. She felt a crackle all around her and using her telekinesis, she pushed the door open.
It creaked, the hinges needing oiling, but the door did open. Much to Sunset’s surprise, there was light on the other side. Something was in here. Lighted sunstones studded the walls, weak sunstones, sunstones not made very well. They flickered and fizzled, catching some of Sunset’s dispelling spell.
The room was dry, dusty, and the skeletons of several ponies were visible, all unicorns. Sunset examined them, the bones were old, a bit crumbly, and dusty. A decaying hat lay on the floor near one of the skeletons, a floppy conical wizard’s hat. A crystal orb lay on the floor and the light inside of it flickered and pulsed.
In the corner at the far end of the room, there was a table piled high with books, an alchemist's basin, and a wooden crate. On the side of the crate was the symbol of House Avarice and the sigil of House Bitters, a hoof firmly planted upon the head of a prone pony and the words “Continendi Omnia” below it.
Sunset began to feel a little better, not quite as sick, this room seemed somehow protected from the noxious waste in the cavern, but she could also feel something pressing in on her mind. She sniffled, her bloody nose beginning to scab over and slow.
There was another door at the end of the room and Sunset watched as Bucky made his way to it, hovering over the bones on the floor. The door was wooden, bound with brass, and decorated.
Bucky stopped at the door and did not go through. He stood there, unmoving, his head bent in concentration. Sunset moved over to the table and began to look around. The books were in good condition with no signs of rot and they gave off a faint magical signature. Examining the spines, Sunset saw that they were books that dabbled in dark magic. Binding magic, soul entrapment, dark enchantments, and there were even a few books that specifically dealt with necromancy.
“Whatever lies beyond this door knows that we are here,” Bucky said in a low whisper. “It waits for us, wanting to be free. I can hear it in my mind, promising me power and rulership. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.”
As Bucky spoke, Sunset began to hear it as well and right away, she knew that whatever it was was trying to divide them, separate them, make them bicker and squabble. It was strong, powerful, and Sunset thought about the alicorn amulet, another artifact of darkness that had tried to dominate her.
She grinned and felt confident that she could resist.
Sunset continued to look over the table, her eyes studying every item she saw. The wooden crate was empty, there was nothing inside of the box, not even cobwebs. On the table, she saw a scrap of yellowed paper and picked it up.
After clearing her throat, she read aloud, “Necromentia Rex Mortis Libris.”
She set the paper down and looked at Bucky. “That doesn’t quite make sense to me.”
“I find the choice of words rather unsettling, myself,” Bucky replied.
Sunset noticed that Bucky had his talons upon the door and she gave a nod. She was ready. Her lungs burned a bit, she had a headache, and her nose still had a slight trickle, but she was ready. She began to summon more spell protections and watched as Bucky opened the door.
Beyond the door was a chamber. The floor was covered in strange symbols, sigils, and runes. In the middle of the room was a pedestal, and upon the pedestal, there was a book. Something about the book was the most horrible thing that Sunset had ever looked at, but she couldn’t say why. Just looking at it made her feel crazy and random thoughts of killing Bucky filled her mind.
She shoved them out and trusted that Bucky was doing the same. The disturbing book appeared to be made out of flesh and there was the unsettling notion that the book was somehow breathing. Looking at it, Sunset was certain that the book was moving somehow, even though it never left its spot upon the pedestal.
“A book?” Sunset shook her head. “A book was threatening the town?”
“A book,” Bucky replied, “but so much more.”
Sunset ignored the psychic scramble in her head, the promises of power, of rule, the promise to subjugate all ponies beneath her, the promise to have an army of the dead to do her bidding. She focused instead upon Bucky, who appeared to be studying the runes on the floor.
“We should just burn it and be done with it—”
“No Minion!” Bucky raised his talons and made a frantic waving gesture.
“But I—”
“Minion, no… if you burn this book, if we try to destroy it, it will release all it contains. It will likely destroy us and the rampaging spirits gathered within the book would be loosed upon the world.”
“Okay…” Sunset eyed the book, not liking it at all, and feeling a strong compulsion to set it on fire. Already, it was changing tactics, trying to entice her into doing something, anything. Sunset couldn’t shake the feeling that the book was breathing and laying on the pedestal, it appeared larger somehow.
“This is a project left unattended to.” Bucky pointed down at the floor at the many markings. “This book was to absorb the misery of Granther’s Polder. The alchemical waste being dumped here made this an ideal spot. I don’t understand everything I’m looking at, but the book draws in misery and suffering to generate power and magic… both of which will assist the reader.”
“So we’ve found a weapon that House Avarice and House Bitters was preparing for their eventual, inevitable conquest of everything,” Sunset said as she fought the urge to set the book on fire and ignored the thoughts of killing Bucky.
“The book sat for so long that it has become sentient, just as Mother Malady has said.” Bucky pulled back his hood and began to examine the tome sitting upon the pedestal. “Both a book and a focusing device… how devious and ingenious.”
“Well, we can’t just leave it here, Master. We need to dispose of it somehow.” Sunset backed away from the book, not liking the thoughts now filling her head. The urge to do something was getting stronger and harder to resist. She watched as Bucky’s talons raised and drew closer to the book. She was filled with an indescribable rage… she wanted the book to be hers.
“Minion, be a good girl and don’t do anything stupid.” Bucky’s voice was a cold, flat monotone, had no emotion, no warmth, and held no trace of love or affection. “Don’t make me put you down.”
Hearing Bucky’s voice, devoid of emotion or feeling, shocked Sunset out of her rage. She blinked, shook her head, which sent spatters of blood across the floor, and focused her will. She gave a forceful shove and sent the suggestions in her mind flying, evicting them.
Her head cleared a little, but she could still hear suggestions being whispered in her ears. Sunset snarled at the book, realising just how dangerous it was, and any other pony exposed to it would be swallowed up and consumed right away.
“For what darker purpose was this book created?” Sunset asked. She shook her head, confused, in pain, and a bit ashamed of herself for allowing the book to provoke a reaction out of her. “It was never just about conquest, was it? I mean, it wasn’t enough just to rule Equestria, or even the world… this goes beyond the pale.”
“House Bitters, High House of Avarice, rulers of all they survey, with the rest of the world as slaves. Not subjects, not citizens, but slaves. The entire world crushed beneath the weight of their hoof. I heard it growing up. It was owed to us. We had the blood of the old regents… the old kings. We were the ponies that had once raised and lowered the sun. The world was owed to us and there were ponies in House Bitters obsessed with a return to our proper status. I was a colt… I never took it seriously. I was too involved in my studies and too wrapped up in myself.”
“And the other Houses within Avarice all hoping for the same.” Sunset stared at the book, hating it, hating what it represented. She had come here expecting a fight. Perhaps some demon, or some lich. Maybe even something with tentacles. All she and Bucky had found was a book. “So what do we do?”
Bucky’s talons lingered on the cover of the book, one twitched, and the flesh bound tome was sliced open. Much to Sunset Shimmer’s shock, the book began bleeding… at least, she thought it was blood. Green goo dribbled out of the sliced open cover and as Sunset watched, the wound began healing, sealing itself shut.
“This is no longer just a book. It has become something else, something we dare not destroy. It would be like popping a boil, but what is inside cannot be released.” Bucky pulled his talons away from the book and looked at Sunset. “There is only one thing that we can do.”
“And that is?” Sunset wiped her nose with her foreleg, staining her fetlock with blood.
“I take the book to Tartarus and we secure it in the place where bad books go.” Bucky’s eyebrows raised and glanced at the book.
Sunset could feel it too… panic. She wondered what Bucky was hearing in his ears, what he was feeling… she wondered what this was doing to him and what the long term consequences might be for the both of them.
“Make no mistake, Minion, this is a bad book. Princess Celestia has a library in Tartarus full of bad books that cannot be destroyed for whatever reason.” Bucky turned and faced the book once more. “You and I have quite a trip ahead of us.”
“Bucky, be careful… I doubt it will go willingly. Are we going to take it with us?” Sunset asked. She watched as Bucky’s eyes closed and she could hear him breathing. His eyes opened and she saw black fire ignite along his horn. Dreadful Taint mist leaked from his left eye. Sunset felt her skin crawl—she loathed dark magic.
Extending his talons, Bucky clawed the air with one swift swipe, and doing so, he tore open a rift in reality. The scent of sulfur filled the room and distant screams could be heard. Sunset felt her blood run cold. She began to wonder if Bucky had grown too powerful and she worried if he could be trusted with the book.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head and shoved those thoughts out of her mind. She ground her teeth and when her eyes opened, Bucky was holding the book in his talons, his claws biting cruelly into the flesh and drawing more green blood. Sunset realised that Bucky was firmly in control and for a moment, she felt a brief flash of pity for the book. Bucky was cold and merciless… the book would find no sympathy, no respite, and she knew that Bucky could be trusted with the terrible artifact.
The whispers in her ears went silent as did the pressure pushing in on her head.
“Minion, flee this place. Teleport out. Get to safety. Go back to town and say nothing about what lurks down here in the depths. Get in touch with Twilight Sparkle and tell her that this place needs a purge… this place needs her harmonic magic to remove the taint. Also send word that this town needs to be evacuated… everypony needs to be moved. Make it happen. Let Twilight know about the alchemical waste.”
“Yes, of course, Master.” Sunset bowed her head and her ears twitched. She was certain that she had just heard a faint squeal of pain coming from the book gripped in Bucky’s talons. She started to say something else, but Bucky stepped through the glowing rift and was gone, the rift closing up behind him with a crackle-pop.
After giving one final glance around the now empty room, Sunset Shimmer prepared to leave, still wondering, still questioning, still asking herself, For what darker purpose…
