Rampant

Another colt, saddled full with bags and pots and blankets, smiled big and bright as he arrived near Ponyville. The dawn was just breaking, and though clouds remained poised on the edge of the horizon, the rain had ceased for the moment. He breathed in deep the fresh morning air, even through a shuttered gaze and a strain in his back.

The name of this colt was utterly useless. This colt had no horn, but he stayed cheerful despite what little use he was. Rather than march down into town, he paused where he stood at the top of the farthest visible hill from it, tilting his gaze to his right, out of the sun, toward a mare he had stopped just beside.

“Oh, hey, need me to carry that for you? I can, if you want,” he said through a muffled grunt, lifting his shoulders a bit. “Not a big deal for me. I’ve still got a pretty light load.”

The mare beside him had only a pair of small saddlebags slung over her back, closer to her rear than what was the normal fashion. A huge pair of amber-lensed sunglasses were perched beneath her horn, covering nearly half her face. Only the frown seared under them was visible of her expression.

“I mean, in case you want me to,” the colt said. “I know this stuff looks heavy, but it’s really not for me.”

“I carry my own things,” the mare said.

Her gaze remained fixed. The mare had been there all night, but even she wasn’t the first there on the hill—over a dozen more ponies surrounded both her and the colt. She lay on all four knees, chin raised high, but she stared at Ponyville without distraction.

Hiking up his load again, the colt said, “I know, I know, but just in case you—”

He stopped as the mare gazed toward him. Her fur was pure white, though splashed and specked with mud, and her mane flowed away from the rest of her body despite the weight of the rain in it, streaks of fluorescent blue winding through all the wispy gray. She didn’t lower her sunglasses. Although her tone was on the edge of a growl, she enunciated every word as she said, “You have picked an absolutely horrible day to attempt making small talk with me. Shut the fuck up.”

The colt turned his eyes the fuck away. “Okay, Miss Sparkle. I’m sorry.”

Regalia Sparkle looked back to Ponyville, gaze shifting only between all the distant little ponies perched on its wall, watching her right back. She said, “How many are here now?”

Peering around their camp for her, the colt took only a peek back at her as he said, “Well, with me here, now it’s sixteen. Thirteen soldiers, including you, Miss Sparkle.”

Regalia scowled, but her voice was calm again. “Set up breakfast anyway. We mustn’t let everypony get too hungry.”

Rampant

Ponyville, Part Four

Ch. 5: A Name Like One Other

Rainbow shifted her weight onto her other side as she loitered by the front door, her face long since hanging limp. Pinkie reserved a similar expression, even her constant thrill waning as she lay on all fours, hooves pressed into her cheeks. Twilight just sighed between them. Line was the only one helping his mother pack.

Fluttershy slid one more picture into her saddlebags, still wiping away her tears. She flipped through several frames already inside, though with how little room was left between them, she couldn’t really see the pictures. She mumbled nonetheless as she checked them. Line watched from behind, looking at everything else in her bags.

“All right, Ma, any more and the weight’s gonna tire you out. You sure all those are the pictures you really want to bring?” Line said.

Fluttershy paused for several seconds, then lowered herself back to the bag as she rummaged again. “Yes, I—I think I packed the most important pictures.”

Line stepped up to her and put his hoof on her shoulder. “Let’s go ahead and close up them bags, then. We still got a lot else to do today.”

He smiled as Fluttershy looked up to him. She didn’t return the gesture, but she put a hoof on his cheek as she looked just below his eyes. “Oh, Silver, look at you. How much sleep did you get last night? You can stay here while the girls and I go to the library first, if you need to, just to get some more sleep.”

Line pulled her hoof away, saying, “Gods, Ma, I should be tellin’ you that. You’re old enough that it’s my job to care for you now, y’know? You ain’t so young for these kinds of adventures anymore.”

Fluttershy wiped at her eyes again, but her little frown broke as she grinned back at her son. She reached over and gave him the biggest hug an old mare could give, eyes clenched shut. Line pulled his momma in the same, one leg back around her, but turned his face away from the other three as a blush came over him. None of them offered a fuck anyway.

As Fluttershy eventually let go of him, Line stepped back and said, “Any-way, it really is time to get a move on. We got a schedule to keep.”

Rainbow made a small hoof pump which Twilight smacked away. Pinkie just rolled over onto her back, letting her legs dangle mostly above her.

“Oh, wait, oh—I forgot one of the most important pictures!” Fluttershy said, turning back to the stairs. “I have to get it first, just wait—”

Line bowed and shook his head as Fluttershy hobbled back up to her room, Twilight shoving a hoof over Rainbow’s mouth before the pegasus could say what she was really feeling. Fluttershy came back down one step at a time just a minute later, however, with one last frame tucked in between her lips. Line stepped back over to her bags, pulling the flap back for her, but rather than packing it, she walked up to the other mares and set the frame down in front of them.

“This is my husband,” Fluttershy said with only a faint smile. “I was never able to introduce him to you girls. I always wanted to.”

The trio leaned down to it, except for Pinkie, who peered at it upside down. The photograph was of a colt with a filly over his back, smiling straight into the camera, a cheeky grin immortalized under gray eyes. Fluttershy put a hoof on top of the frame and murmured, “I keep this one on my nightstand, and it’s the most important picture to me, because I don’t have my husband anymore. I told Silver that I love all of his pictures just as much, but I still have Silver, and I don’t have my husband anymore….”

Rainbow’s expression softened back into a smile. “Aw, look at that. You got yourself a good-looking colt, Fluttershy!”

“You must have been so cute together!” Pinkie cooed.

Twilight pointed above the colt and asked, “But who’s that little filly playing on top of him?”

Behind Fluttershy, Line shook his head hard and fast at the mares. Twilight raised one eyebrow at him, but Fluttershy didn’t notice. Fluttershy just lowered her head, saying, “That’s Silver’s eldest sister. She was never very happy in our house, but… I tried very hard to make it happy for her. Silver says it wasn’t my fault, but I wish I could have done something to make her stay. I haven’t seen her in such a long time.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said, glancing from Line to Fluttershy. “That, uh, really sucks. But hey, we’ve still got a mission to focus on, right? Let’s get out of here.”

Fluttershy’s head jolted back up, and she moved her hoof back over her mouth for a moment. Her eyes lit up with a frown. “Oh, my goodness, you’re right. Applejack is still waiting for our help. Silver, dear, help me put on my saddlebags!”

Though it took another minute to pack and re-check all the frames, Line hoisted Fluttershy’s bags over her carefully, not letting go until the weight had settled over her. After plopping his hat back on, he slung his own bag over himself with a hard thunk as Fluttershy trotted up to the other mares. Pinkie rolled back onto her hooves by Twilight’s side as Line turned toward everyone.

“All right, any questions gotta come now. No talking outside—we keep quiet ‘til we’re back indoors. Even if our tail don’t bust us for breaking daytime curfew, any other student out there that sees us will.”

Twilight raised her hoof and said, “What if those, uh—corpse eaters, right? What will happen if they attack soon?”

“Might be attackin’ now,” Line said. “Hardly matters. We ain’t part of the militia, so we won’t be fightin’ ‘em.”

Rainbow didn’t raise her hoof, but said anyway, “You think they might get through? They sound kind of bada—uh—bad… bad. They sound tough.”

Fluttershy looked only a little confused. Line said, “Don’t you worry about them. If anything good’s come outta that wall the school built, it’s keepin’ corpse eaters out. The school knows how to fend ‘em off right, even if they ain’t good for nothing else.”

Pinkie raised her hoof next, wiggling it in the air, but waited until Line nodded at her to speak. She said, “I don’t have any questions!”

Line rolled his eyes, then glanced back around the group as he pulled his hat down further. “All right, remember—we stay quiet out there.”

“Hardly a challenge,” Rainbow said, stretching out her forelegs and flexing her wings. “I don’t know if you remember or not, but we’re actually pretty good adventurers. Moving quietly ain’t no thang.”

-

Splotch. Splitch. Splotch.

The rain was still away, but its gift to the earth remained. Twilight walked just behind Line, but she could barely reduce the noise even walking in his wider hoofprints. The only one in the troupe not marching directly in mud was Rainbow, flying at their formation’s flank, but she wore the same deep frown as most everyone below.

The noise was compounded by Pinkie as she bounced ahead of everyone else, smiling and humming despite every splash. Rainbow swooped over and grabbed her, letting her dangle over the mud as they went on. Pinkie eyes remained bright even though they were closed, still humming.

Even through several crossroads back around the center of town, the group passed not even another echo. The houses they passed remained fully closed, their windows shut, their shades drawn. No one even peeked at their progress.

Line paused everyone as he held out a hoof before Twilight, stopping just before the next corner. He leaned out from it hat first, eyes darting around for several seconds before he lowered his hoof again. He stayed quiet, but said, “Looks like we made it all right.”

He trotted ahead again, all the others but Twilight following. Twilight cantered ahead of them instead, neck already craning upward as the last vestige of good old Ponyville met her sight: her library.

“Finally back home,” she sighed. “And it’s—uh…”

Her slight grin faded further as her gaze kept wandering around the exterior. She stopped in the middle of the road as she said, “Well, it’s almost like I remember it.”

The branches drooped a bit more than she remembered, granted, but the tree was still standing after twenty years. The leaves were a bit gone, too, but the wood hadn’t rotted or anything. The windows were all shattered, except for one that was merely smeared in dust. That was a fine-looking window otherwise. The sign out front was missing, the candle painted on the door had peeled, and the balconies had slightly collapsed—except not really slightly, but completely.

“Yikes,” Rainbow said, eyeing the glass in the dirt. “That kind of sucks. I’ll bet the town kept up Rarity’s boutique just fine, too, while they let the library get wrecked like this.”

“Still got to stay quiet,” Line said. “You’ll get to see, though—the school does all its big public events right out in front of Rarity’s old place. Executions, for instance.”

Wriggling out of Rainbow’s grasp, Pinkie grabbed her own knees in front of her chest nd she cannonballed back into the mud with a horrendous splash. Hinie flat on the earth, she raised a dripping hoof and opened her mouth wide—pausing as she turned to the glares of both Line and Twilight, fully splattered just a meter from her.

“That’s fine,” Twilight muttered, shaking off a single hoof. “I’m sure he didn’t mean too quiet or anything. It’s fine.”

Pinkie lowered her hoof and instead whispered to Line, even then straining her vocal chords, “I just wanted to say that you make this sound so exciting!”

Fluttershy was already at the doorstep, unmuddened. She shoved at the door twice, wincing with each push, before turning back to the rest of the group. “I think it’s locked. Oh, how will we get in now?”

Though still soaked, Line shook off what he could and stepped up first, ushering his mother aside as he put his forehooves upon the door. He grunted, shoving much harder than Fluttershy, and pulled back after another few seconds. With a glance back to the other mares and a nod at the door, he said, “All right then, girls, time for a little teamwork. Come on up.”

As Rainbow landed beside him, smirking, she said, “Well, that doesn’t make me worry about what’s on the other side at all.”

Line furrowed his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing scary or dangerous at all,” Pinkie said, already by Line’s other side. She hopped against the door. “Now push!”

The three of them pressed into the door, the hinges creaking against their strain, just barely budging—and their legs wavered as their hind hooves scraped backward. Line shoved himself lower, putting his shoulders into it. Another creak met them, but the struggle ended in vain as their legs gave out at the same time, all three of them collapsing against the door in a heap.

Watching from behind, Twilight was still cleaning herself off. Wiping what she could out of her mane, she rolled her eyes in between narrowing them as she pointed toward a panel at the side of the door. “See that?”

Everyone looked at the panel.

“You press that,” Twilight said.

Rainbow reached up and pressed the panel. With a quieter creak, the door clicked open just a bit. Line pulled his hat down a little further, grunting as he and the others stepped back off the porch so Rainbow could pull it open all the way.

“Different mechanisms nowadays,” Line muttered.

Twilight rolled her eyes and just whispered, “Wipe your hooves on the porch!”

Line was already the last one in besides her, offering only a quick scrape of each hoof as more mud slipped off his back anyway. Twilight grumbled as she shook off her hind legs with each step forward, wiping for several seconds at the porch, but she paused before the library’s threshold.

She looked up again around the branches for a moment more. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. Straightening her back, she trotted inside and said, “All right, we only have time to check the medical titles, so everypony grab—”

Twilight looked around, the same as everyone else. Nothing was there. The shelves were there, of course, even the table, even her rug, but those were nothing—her books were all gone. Every shelf was empty. Her whole face curled. “What the hell?”

Line turned back and put a hoof to his mouth, hissing, “Gods, shut the door first!”

Flowerpots were still there, her bed was still there, the curtains were still there—the ladder, the telescope, her pedestal—Twilight looked back at her shelves in between glancing everywhere else, finding no books. Even as Pinkie nudged right behind her, pressing the door closed again, Twilight repeated, “Who the hell took all my books?”

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy said, looking around much slower. “I have no idea who would do such a thing, but this is horrible!”

“Guess all the books got borrowed,” Line said, pulling his hat off for a quick shake. “It’s a public library, right?”

“Yes,” Twilight said, “my public library!”

Rainbow flapped by one of the upper shelves, wiping a hoof over the surface. Inspecting her hoof, she said, “Whoever took them, it was a long time ago. This dust is pretty thick.”

“Damn it!” Twilight said, stomping one leg. “The school must have taken them, the rotten thieves, pilfering a perfectly good collection for their own ill-gotten gain! Silver, where would they have taken them?”

“Gods, I don’t know where they put that kind of stuff,” Line said. “‘Sides, the school don’t need your stuff. They don’t even use books to teach much—”

“How would you know?” Twilight said, taking a step closer as she faced him down. “You said you never even went there! You have no idea how they teach their curriculums, so how the—how the damn hell would you know if they took my collection?”

“Twilight,” Fluttershy said, putting a hoof over her friend’s shoulder. “Please, calm down.”

Twilight looked back at her. Fluttershy’s jaw was set firm, even though the same kind of concern as before shone through the wrinkles around her eyes. She rubbed Twilight’s shoulder and said, “Getting angry is the easy thing to do, Twilight, but that won’t help us. You’re the smartest of us all, too, so I think you should use that mind for something better right now, okay?”

Twilight shook her head, but didn’t pull away. “But it’s just—this is—it just feels like a low blow, darn it… no matter how tough it got, this was our bastion. We came here for times exactly like this, and now we have nowhere to turn. We still don’t know anything useful about the bloodlust!”

“If it makes you feel better, I remember a couple of times your library was totally, completely useless,” Pinkie said, “and we had to ask Zecora for help instead. Not even your books had all the answers back then!”

“Thank you,” Twilight said with a slump, glowering back at Pinkie. “That would make me feel a lot better if only Zecora wasn’t in jail and she hadn’t already said she doesn’t know a thing about the bloodlust.”

Rainbow flapped back around and landed by the others, saying, “Okay, I have a plan. It might sound crazy at first, but just hear me out: what if we coltnap the mayor instead?”

Everyone else turned to her, but no one responded. Rainbow looked back at them all one at a time even as they continued to stare at her. As soon as she opened her mouth to speak again, Line said, “That’s even dumber than what we already got, and you’re dumb for thinkin’ it.”

“I don’t feel that would be very wise, or even really effective…” Fluttershy muttered.

Even Pinkie’s voice remained flat. “There’s no way at all we could ever take him. He is super big.”

Rainbow frowned in turn at all of them. Twilight sighed, bowing her head and collecting her breath, then looking back to the others as she said, “I guess it was a long shot that we’d find anything about the bloodlust here, anyway; I don’t recall reading anything about it that might be similar. Considering that, our next hope is figuring out where exactly it started. We’ll have to be able to learn more there. So, for now, let’s just keep our current plan.”

“And with that,” Line said, raising an open foreleg, “let’s get us a big group hug to kick out the doldrums!”

Fluttershy embraced him without question, smiling, but the other mares paused. Line raised his brow and his other foreleg, saying, “Hey, I’m serious. Gimme some fur here.”

Pinkie joined the circle next, wiggling in and nestling a hoof around Fluttershy, and Twilight and Rainbow joined in after a further moment of hesitation. The latter two held their face further away from the group hug even as Line leaned in, nodding to the left and whispering, “We can’t come up with a new plan now anyway. Got eyes and ears on us through the windows.”

“Really?” Pinkie said, turning the direction of his hint. Line grabbed her by the head and yanked her back into the huddle, almost toppling the others as he did. Peeking through from the other side of the window, another head ducked just as quickly, grabbing with it the raven-maned head of someone else.

“Mmm, this is a good hug,” Line said aloud, patting those around him. “Let’s just keep this going a minute more, I like this.”

Even as Twilight restrained a grimace toward Line, pulling farther away from him, she whispered, “Let’s just go save Applejack. I’m confident in the plan we’ve already got.”

“Fine, okay,” Rainbow muttered, going with the sway as Line kept jostling the hug. She looked to Twilight. “But stage fright’s no joke, okay? I’m just saying. It’s not a big deal to me, but I’m just saying you might not expect how the pressure keeps piling on itself until you feel crushed with—”

“Okay, thanks, that was a good hug,” Line announced, a stumble reverberating through the group as he released everyone. “So, anyway, our plan. I think we should just keep movin’, then. No objections from y’all others?”

“I think that it’s for the best,” Fluttershy said, still smiling as Pinkie didn’t let go of their individual hug.

Rainbow rolled her eyes as she stepped back, taking a couple of flaps before hopping into the air again. She crossed her forelegs, saying, “Well, we’ve at least got a Plan B now. Just saying.”

Pinkie pumped her other hoof high into the air as she giggled, “Then let’s get the last part of this part of the adventure going!”

Line laid a hoof on her shoulder, and she looked back to him even while keeping her hoof suspended. He looked upon her with a softer gaze and said, “Seriously, you got to shut up.”

-

All surfaces were scrubbed clean, shinier than the mayor’s own beard after every time a corpse came through the morgue, but the odor from today persisted through all the scrubbing. Posh Virtue winced his nostrils under the wettened cloth levitating over his lower face, his gaze sharp on the table in the center of the morgue.

“Now see if you can raise one hoof over your head. Good. Now the other—good,” the mortician said, standing in front of Virtue and looking at one of her corpses. “Now hop off this table. There you go. I want you to walk in a straight line from one end of the room to the other, okay?”

There were only four ponies in the room: Virtue, his guard, the mortician, and a body. Virtue watched only the body as it pushed itself off from the inspection table with nary a wobble.

“How many years—how long has it been now?” the corpse asked, its mouth now moving without struggle.

“You’ve been dead only a month, Jenkins, don’t be so melodramatic,” the mayor said, gaze darting between each muscle flexing in the corpse’s walk. “Just be grateful there was a suitable body available for you at all.”

“I’m grateful, sure, but it’s still sad that I’m walking around in my brother’s body,” the corpse said, turning a bit slowly at the end of the room. “I mean, that’s pretty sad, me and my brother dying within a month of each other. It’s like we both had the same tragic destiny—at least a mini one. And what’s the purpose? Was I brought back for a special mission?”

The mayor harrumphed. “Gods no.”

“Oh,” the corpse said. “Then, am I just going back to my regular shifts on the—”

“Jenkins, while of course I hope you had a nice rest, there’s no need for us to get chatty right now. This is business.”

The corpse pouted. The mortician leaned down and checked a clipboard hanging off the side of the table, glancing back to the corpse after each line. As she stood back up, she said, “Well, as officially as it counts, I guess I pronounce you alive again. Time is eleven hours and thirty-six minutes. Congratulations.”

Virtue wrinkled his nose again. “And with that, can you fix this putrid smell already?”

“Sure, with a shower,” the mortician said. “I’m not really as proficient as your zebra expert at this sort of thing yet.”

The mayor lowered his cloth, folding it like a pocket square as his frown soured further. “Fine, but it better not stick on me once I leave. Now come stand over here by me, Jenkins.”

The corpse rounded the end of the room again, returning faster to the middle even as he muttered, “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

Turning back a moment as the corpse stood before him, Virtue hovered the cloth over to his guard at the door, tossing it on his head. Upon looking back at the body, Virtue leaned away, then down, and stabbed his horn through the corpse’s throat.

The corpse rasped instantly, tumbling down as it pulled itself off from the mayor’s horn, scrabbling a hoof over his neck—but its panic slowed as it patted around the hole, no blood flowing onto its hoof nor coughed out of its mouth. Virtue leaned further down as he looked all over the corpse’s wound, saying, “It doesn’t appear that hurt, did it, Jenkins?”

The corpse looked back up at the mayor, eyes wide as they came, and shook its head just a little. Virtue tilted his head down again and plunged his horn through the corpse’s forehead, pulling it out himself this time a second later. The mayor straightened himself up, hovering his cloth back over as he wiped his horn. His frown dissipated. The corpse lay still again, eyes locked open.

The mortician leaned onto her knees as she checked the body again, one hoof beside the hole in its throat. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she said, “Time of new death, eleven hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

“I had a feeling that would do it,” Virtue said, grinning. “Second try—not bad, hmm? Now toss him back in a box.”

He turned to the door and trotted away, dropping the cloth back on his guard as he passed. Only once the mayor had passed did the guard shake it off, wincing as he followed the mayor out into the main hallway.

“Next on the agenda?” Virtue said, shaking his mane back a bit as he checked his reflection in the windows of other doors in the hall on his way out.

The guard stood up straighter even without the mayor looking at him. “The execution, sir, for that bloodlusted mare.”

Virtue’s horn glowed as he pushed open a set of double doors back into the morgue’s entry room. “The newcomers are going to it as well, correct?”

“Looks like it, sir,” the guard said. “Fluttershy and her son are leading the way for them around town, sir.”

“Damn shame they got involved,” Virtue said. “Can’t bring myself to be too harsh on her, but she was a bad influence on her boy. Breaking curfew, trying to save a mad criminal. Damn shame all around.”

The guard sped up a little to keep pace with the mayor. “They can be apprehended anytime you like, sir.”

“Oh, no, none of that,” Virtue said. “Whatever they’re planning is related to that goddamn zebra. I won’t give them the criminal or the zebra, but I will let them scurry about until we learn what the hell it is they’re really up to.”

A lab-coated student upstairs opened the front door for the mayor, but Virtue paused at the threshold before stepping out. Though a hooded and well-stocked carriage waited for him just outside, his grin ended as he looked to the sky and lifted a hoof out the door, retreating and shaking it off immediately.

His guard stepped out first and flapped open an umbrella, soaking his own flank as he waited for the mayor to exit. Despite the umbrella available to him, Virtue stayed another few seconds as he watched even heavier clouds taking their cue all along the horizon, the rain falling harder and louder than before as it pounded over the mud.

Virtue scowled. “I feel like this figures.”

-

The rain poured down in streams down the northern hill outside Ponyville. The meals were finished and the pots had already been put away. All the tents were still folded up over the backs of several pack bearers. Every pony there stood at attention behind Regalia, still laying at the front and center, watching.

Her sunglasses were perched the same as earlier, her mane still flowing through the weight of the rain. Without turning her gaze, she tilted her head to the left and asked, “How many are here now?”

The colt nearest her side, his pack shaking over his own shivering, said, “There’s, uh… there’s, uh, twenty-seven now. There’s twenty soldiers besides you, Miss Sparkle.”

Regalia unbent her forelegs from underneath herself, turning out her knees and pushing back up onto all fours, mud rolling slowly off her fur. She turned around to her soldiers, but it wasn’t just water and dirt splashed over them—dried blood still spattered their coats, every one of the unicorns’ mouths rimmed in red.

“There will be no new meals today from Ponyville. Should all go well, however, there will be rewards,” she called out, raising her chin high. “Now look alive, you curs.”

None responded, but all watched. Regalia turned back to Ponyville, gaze set forward. Her horn glowed not blue, but an intense orange, and in half a second the glow enveloped her whole body. With a flare and rush of wind, she disappeared in the light.

In the same rush, she burst onto the north gate around a dozen militia, all of them turning in the same long moment, gazes widening as they nearly fell over each other in a grab for their weapons. Regalia flitted her gaze past them to the largest pony there, a stallion standing twice as tall as nearly anyone else even at a slouch. Even the captain stared as wide as his fellows, though he made no scramble.

“What the hell are you doing here, Regalia?” he said, keeping his tone despite himself.

Regalia made no struggle as she let the militia surround her. She levitated her soaked sunglasses to a perch over her horn as she turned toward the captain, her orange eyes brightly recognizable even through the rain, and asked, “Where’s Twilight Sparkle?”