Chapter Seven

Macellarius

I dreamt of white fur sopping wet with blood. Knives and smiles. It would be a very long time before I stepped into a bathtub again.

As soon as everyone was awake, I grabbed Dad’s old green leather Wonderbolts Show jacket. When Applejack slipped it on, her lower lip trembled. Rainbow Dash would have been tickled to see AJ show off the winged lightning bolt emblem. It was a little big for her, but she didn’t care. Applejack rolled up the sleeves, popped up the wool-covered lapels and stuck out her chest as if she were the Wonderbolts captain.

Spike remarked, “Hey, you look a little like Commander Easy-glider.”

“That ought to warm you up,” I said.

“At least yer daddy had good taste in clothes, if nothin’ else.” Before I could react, I was gripped in a tight hug. “Thanks, Equus. This means more than you know.”

After hurrying everyone out the door, I took us out to the nearest Equestrian House of Pancakes. I insisted that Fluttershy bring her hunting hawks with her as I never wanted to go back to my apartment ever again. She asked her birds to wait outside, not wanting to cause a scene.

As I picked at my breakfast, Twilight looked at my bloodshot eyes. “You look like me yesterday morning.”

“I suspect I feel even worse than you did.”

Her ears turned down. “Oh, dear. Were your father’s journals that bad?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll tell you about it later.”

Rarity sipped at her tea and asked, “What exactly are we going to do today, Twilight?”

“Equus and I will be visiting Bunsen Flask’s apartment. I got the address from a thesis he wrote. Fluttershy? I hope you’re ready to dose your hunting hawks with the diluted Spectrum.”

Fluttershy was reading a local paper. Her ears flicked as she looked up. “Hm? Oh! I’m sorry. I was just reading this strange article.”

“What’s got yer attention, Flutters?” inquired Applejack.

“Uhm, well, it says here that nearly five hundred homeless ponies have disappeared over the last month. I hope they’re okay.”

Hoo, boy, I thought. How do I break it to her?

I said, “Fluttershy, I would imagine that some of them wound up in a shelter. It’s impossible to sleep outside in a Manehatten winter. A few others might have hitched a ride to warmer climates, but most of the homeless… don’t fare so well.”

She stopped reading and put aside the paper. Her ears were flat as she looked away. “I know what winters can do. I’ve had to deal with frozen animals, you know.”

I blushed, realizing that I should have known that. I forgot that Fluttershy was no stranger to sad endings of lives. Shy doesn’t always mean sheltered.

“You’re right, Fluttershy. I’m sorry.”

Twilight munched on a waffle, deep in thought. “Isn’t five hundred missing ponies in a month a bit steep, Equus? Even for this city?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Until someone important gets snatched, the police won’t be all that motivated to help.”

Everypony stared at me as I had declared myself King Mortis of Equestria.

“That’s just the way it is in the big city, guys,” I said, holding up my hooves apologetically.

“Good grief, Equus,” Rarity commented. “How do you keep from becoming too cynical?”

Twilight added, “Especially in your line of work.”

“There’s comfort in cynicism. If you expect nothing good from people, nothing is all you get. Looking on the bright side of life takes effort, but it’s worth it. I just try to be a better pony than my dad. That’s what keeps me going.”

“How did yer daddy find comfort?” asked Applejack.

I shook my head, my bloody dream flitting in my mind’s eye for a moment. “You don’t want to know.”

Fluttershy raised a hoof. “Um, Twilight? Once my hawks and I are in the air, how do I get in touch with you if we find anything?”

“I’m glad you asked,” said Twilight. “Each of us will get city maps. I’ll mark where Equus and I will be. If you find Discord, you mark the place on your map and come back to us. Knock on the window, and we’ll all meet in the building’s lobby.”

Spike smiled. “Huh. Sounds simple enough. Discord’s probably stashed in an abandoned warehouse.”

Rarity chuckled and gave Spike a playful nudge. “Just like what those silly-looking villains in one of your comic books would do?”

“That’s not a bad place to start looking, actually,” I said.

“Thanks!” said Spike, beaming.

Twilight pointed a fork at Spike. “It would take a lot of effort for even the strongest pegasi to carry Discord over a hundred miles. I’m willing to bet that whoever did that job is juiced up on Spectrum. If that’s the case, we’ll be facing ponies that are stronger and faster than us.”

“But Spectrum also made you loopy, Twilight.” I reminded her. “Even if the bad guys are, shall we say, augmented, we have the advantage of self-control.”

Rarity chimed in. “And we also have the Elements of Harmony. If just being near Spectrum can make Spike’s Element flare up, what will happen if we are surrounded by that liquid?”

Spike rubbed his hands in anticipation as he grinned. “Oooh, man. This is gonna be good.”

Ten minutes later, we were done with breakfast. We each got city maps from a nearby newsvendor.

I pulled a jar of the diluted spectrum from my saddlebag. After I popped open the lid, I yanked out a spoon from my apartment. “Are you ready, Fluttershy?”

She took a deep calming breath and called her hawks over. When they stood at attention like feathered soldiers, she said, “I’m going to give you two something. It will help you track down your quarry, okay? Just let me know if I’m giving you too much.”

She gave each of them a half-teaspoon of the mixture. A few seconds later, they started twitching and flapping frantically.

“Oh! Oh, my goodness! Calm down! Please!”

They shrieked and jumped back when Fluttershy tried to pet them. The poor mare was getting almost as frazzled as they were when they suddenly shot up and flew down the street. She took off after them, yelling “I think I gave them too much!”

I rubbed the back of my head after I put the jar and spoon away in my saddlebag. “I hope this works.”

Twilight put a hoof on my shoulder. “Fluttershy will sort them out, don’t worry. Let’s get to Bunsen’s apartment.”

The Mareiott was in the upper class district. The rent there was double what dad could ever afford to pay. In that part of town, the carts were newer, the clothes had higher thread-counts and the roads were kept clear of pot-holes and garbage. Rarity’s eyes gleamed as she ogled the five-digit price-tag clothing stores.

After Twilight showed her identification to the apartment manager, we were taken to the Bunsen’s residence. When Twilight walked in, she gasped with delight at all the science books, diagrams and charts lying around.

“What exactly are we looking for, Twilight?” asked Rarity.

“Well, it would be nice if we can find the formula for Spectrum,” replied Twilight. “A picture of Trixie smooching Bunsen would be good, too.”

“You have a serious mad-on about her, don’t you?”

Twilight sat on a chair, sighed and nodded. “I should have told Princess Celestia about Trixie. Then maybe she wouldn’t have gotten so close to Discord’s weird little box. Maybe Bunsen Flask would still be alive.”

Applejack walked over to her, patted her on the shoulder and said, “I know how yew feel, darlin’, believe me.”

“We all have regrets, dear,” Rarity commented. “Anypony that says otherwise is either a liar or a sociopath.”

Twilight said, “I know. Thanks, girls.”

Spike held up a framed photograph. “Hey, Equus? Is this the guy that died?”

Looking over the picture, I replied, “Yes, that’s him. Twilight? Is that Trixie next to Bunsen?”

“What? Let me see that.”

She lifted the picture out of Spike’s hands and squinted at it. “Oh, brother. I thought he had better taste than that.”

Rarity trotted over. “Whatever do you mean, Twilight?” She got a closer look at the photo. “Oh, my. That explains how Trixie got under his skin.”

I rolled my eyes. “By slipping into his marriage bed. She’s got to be half his age.”

Twilight read the plaque’s marriage date. “She must have married him after she escaped Celestia’s guards. I knew she had a silver tongue, but I didn’t think Bunsen Flask was gullible enough to fall for her lines.”

“The best way to control someone is to play to their expectations.” I replied. “Maybe she read the same thesis that you did, tracked him down and wooed him with promises of scientific breakthroughs. Among other things.”

Twilight frowned. “That sounds like her. All Trixie ever seemed to want was control.”

Spike scratched his head in confusion. “But why would she kill him or at least have someone else do the job? Wouldn’t she eventually get busted for that?”

Rarity added, “Perhaps she got all she ever wanted from him. Look at this.”

We turned to look at what she held in her magic grip. It was a blueprint of a six-sided box with holes in each side. The box was eighteen inches square. Diagrams showed the inner workings. Wires, tubes and valves criss-crossed over each other in a confusing mess.

“That’s the Draconequus Device!” exclaimed Twilight. “I don’t know how, but he must have figured out how to open it. Nopony else was able to do that.”

Spike rubbed his eyes as he tried in vain to make sense of what we were staring at. “How accurate is all that, anyway? I thought no one was supposed to take that thing out of Celestia’s castle.”

“Bunsen Flask has… had a flawless memory,” said Twilight.

“Ah’d say Trixie had all the luck in the world, marryin’ him. Check this out.” Applejack pointed at some paperwork on a nearby table.

There was a full-color photograph of a jar of Spectrum. In a corner were the words “Success! The model works! This sample was made from three chickens.”

“Chickens?” asked Applejack. “What do chickens have to do with all this?”

Twilight looked over the papers. “According to these research notes, the only way that Bunsen was able to get Spectrum without stealing the box was to memorize the contents, reverse-engineer it and… feed it live animals?”

I rubbed my chin. “I don’t recall my family history book saying anything about how Spectrum was made. If it was that easy to manufacture, I would think that Celestia would have figured that out ages ago.”

Spike shrugged. “Maybe Bunsen was doing it wrong. What if he just forced the machine to crank out the fluid that way because he couldn’t figure out everything about the box?”

Twilight smiled at him. “Interesting theory, Spike.”

He shrugged. “Eh, I have my moments.”

I began to think about how much Spectrum that jar in the picture held. Three chickens made what looked like a cup of liquid rainbow. Discord was almost twenty hooves tall. There weren’t that many farm animals in Manehatten that could release enough Spectrum to revive Discord.

What would Trixie and Bunsen Flask use instead?

I began to feel the same chill in my spine that I felt after my bath.

“Hey, Equus?” asked Twilight. “What’s wrong? You look frightened.”

“Twilight, how ruthless would you say Trixie was?”

“She tried to take my position in Ponyville and then attempted theft of government property, so I’d say she was pretty determined to get her way. Why?”

I was just about to tell Twilight my theory, when we all jumped at a loud banging at the window. Fluttershy was pressing her city map against the glass. Her hunting hawks were wheeling around her, still loopy from the formula.

We all ran over and looked at the circle she drew over a bayside property. I recognized the area. I had to examine a few mob hits out there. No cart traffic, no prying eyes. Perfect for what I suspect Trixie and Bunsen were doing.

Twilight copied the location on her map and mouthed the word “lobby” to Fluttershy. She nodded and flew down.

A few minutes later we all gathered together in the lobby. Fluttershy was gasping for breath. Her hawks were drinking out of a nearby decorative fountain, flapping and twitching.

Twilight nuzzled Fluttershy. “Are you all right? You look like you flew over half the city.”

“I… whew… almost did.” She wheezed, shaking off her sweat. “My hawks… huff… say warehouse number one zero one… hoo… is loaded with Spectrum. There’s a few pegasus guards and I think I saw… hahh… a griffin, but I’m not sure.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” asked Spike, rubbing his brass knuckles.

Fluttershy looked worried as she added, “There’s something else. A lot of carts… whoof... labeled ‘Homes for The Homeless’ are parked outside. I saw… huff… a few homeless ponies get escorted in, but I never saw anyone come out.”

I grimaced. “I doubt anyone not juiced up on Spectrum ever leaves, Fluttershy.”

“What makes you say that, Equus?” asked Fluttershy.

“Call it a hunch. We might want to hurry, Twilight.”

Twilight paced. “Well, we can’t just march in there. I’d rather take out the guards one section a time, not have them all pounce on us at once. Fluttershy, did you or the hawks spot any place we could sneak in?”

“We can’t fly in now without being spotted. We could wait until nightfall.”

Spike tapped Twilight on the shoulder. “Hey, Twilight? Why not just go though the sewers?”

“Hmm. Not bad. Is that what your comic book heroes do?” she asked with a growing smile.

“Heh. Yeah, they practically live in the city waterworks.”

Rarity tsked and shook her head. “I somehow knew my suit would get mucky at some point.”

“Celestia will buy you a new outfit, Rarity. Let’s go, everyone.”

When we were a quarter-mile from the warehouse, Twilight lifted a manhole cover with her magic, peered inside and nodded. “This will take us under the warehouse. I’ll go first.”

Twilight lit her horn so that the moldy brickwork glowed bright purple.

The air grew colder as we got closer to the bay. I began to smell something other than salt water, though. Because the other odors of the sewer were blending with the ocean water, I couldn’t quite place it.

Spike sniffed around. His long forked tongue snaked out, tasting the air. “Uh, guys? I think I smell blood.”

“Darling, are your carnivore senses telling you this?” asked Rarity. “I can barely smell anything.”

Applejack snorted. “That’s ‘cause yer gettin’ stuffed up from the cold. Ah’m sniffin’ the same thing. Fluttershy, what’re yer hawks tellin’ yew?”

The hawks shivered and made a few peeping noises at Fluttershy. “They smell more than blood. There’s something up there they don’t recognize. Or like.”

“This manhole should open up inside the warehouse,” informed Twilight. “Everybody put their Elements on. Keep it quiet. We need to take out the guards inside the building first. Then we find Discord.”

Using just enough of her magic to slowly lift the cover, she slowly peered around. The cover was gently put aside. Twilight climbed out, whispering, “It’s okay. We’re in an empty room.”

Once everyone was out of the sewer, Twilight almost opened a nearby door when we all heard voices on the other side. She looked at us and tapped her lips with a hoof.

“Where’s my mom?” asked a filly.

A colt replied, “She’s upstairs, kid. I’m takin’ you to meet her.”

“Why did you take my hair and shoes?”

“Sheesh, stop asking questions, would you?”

We heard their hoofsteps go up some stairs and above the room.

A door closed.

The filly screamed, but was silenced instantly.

Then the mechanized growl of what sounded like a blender grinded for ten seconds before shutting off.

A door creaked open.

Only one pony came down and walked past our room.

We could only stare at each other with flattened ears and wide eyes.

Twilight opened the door a crack, peeked around and slowly walked out. We followed close behind. The walls were covered in half-peeled paint. Dust-caked papers were bunched in piles. This place hadn’t seen legal business take place since before I was born.

She looked up the stairway and saw a faded green door lit by a single bulb. “Wait a minute.”

When Twilight walked up the steps, Rarity whispered, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find Discord. We have to check every door, so keep an eye out for guards.”

I squinted up at her. Even in the thin, milky light I could tell her hoof was shaking a little as she struggled to turn the doorknob. She almost seemed relieved when it wouldn’t budge.

She came back down and led us down the hallway. Another door was opened carefully. The room beyond had large cardboard bins lined along one wall. A long, yellow fluorescent bulb lent a sickly tint to the room.

I peeked over the edge of one bin. It was half-filled with children’s toys.

Spike jumped up one bin, gripped the edge and peered at what looked like a deflated plush animal. “Equus, what am I looking at?” he asked.

Rarity lit her horn, her blue magic glowing brighter than the abysmal lamp. She looked inside and her ears flattened again. “That’s… tail hair, Spike. Lots of it.”

He let go of the bin-edge, shaking his head. “Why in the world would anyone keep that much hair? What would you do with it, re-string the world’s violins?”

“Ah’m seeing a lotta clothes in this bin,” said Applejack. “Don’t think they’re donations, though.”

“Let’s keep moving, everyone,” said Twilight as she cautiously opened another door.

The only lighting here came from a nearby open door. The room was empty save for a large pile of what seemed to be scrap metal.

When Rarity approached the mound with her glowing horn, we could see familiar shapes.

Horseshoes. All shapes and sizes.

At least five hundred ponies’ worth.

Fluttershy cringed and shivered as she put two and two together. “Oh. Oh, my. T-this is… is…”

“Horrifying?” asked a deep voice from the next room.

She jumped at the voice. Twilight trotted over to the open door, gave a quick glance around and waved at us to follow her in.

We were probably in the middle of the warehouse as we were surrounded by catwalks on all sides. A long white plastic tube snaked down from the ceiling. The tube led to a nearby platform that held what appeared to be a large stump-grinder. The tube was fixed to the side of the grinder with the Draconequus Device replica that Bunsen Flask made.

A thin drop of Spectrum slipped out of the tube’s mouth and splattered onto a tall, slender iron cage that was in the middle of a large iron vat. The cage had a thick iron pad-lock on one side.

As we approached the vat, all of our Elements began to glow.

“Ghastly is another word for this place,” growled the cage’s resident.

One of my ancient family members described him as “the many-beasted one.” He looked like what resulted from a zoo exploding and the staff members having to stitch together what they could pull from the rubble.

He was wearing an iron collar that held in place an iron box at the back of his neck.

“Discord, I presume?” inquired Twilight.

“It’s the nose, isn’t it? Always gives me away.”

I asked, “Did Trixie bring you here?”

“You mean the crack-brained blue unicorn? Yes, but she had lots of help.” He peered at my flanks. “Hey, you’re from the Mortis family, aren’t you?”

My mouth popped open. “How did you know that?”

Discord snorted disdainfully. “Being turned to stone made me immortal, but not senile. Princess Luna had a bunch of you spooky-looking ponies fawning over her, writing down how many times I dated her, how I warped the world, that sort of thing.”

“What’s with all this iron?” asked Spike.

“It seems that Trixie is just smart enough to be dangerous. She somehow figured out that iron and magic aren’t bosom buddies. Since my powers are magic, I’m trapped like a rat in this cage until she lets me out.”

Twilight tilted her head in confusion. “What’s that thing around your neck?”

Discord sighed. “She’s dangerous enough to be psychotic. The box on my neck has an iron spike aimed at my brain. If I disobey my new master, she’ll remote-fire this thing and I get a new unicorn horn.”

I had to get up on my hind legs to peer over the vat’s edge. The liquid rainbow had reached Discord’s hips, but his skin was still stone-grey halfway up his body.

Discord snaked his head down to get a closer look at me. “Your family got even creepier when Luna lost her mind and became Nightmare Moon. Celestia told me all about how her sister got power from ritual sacrifices. For a race of herbivores, you ponies have an insatiable thirst for blood.”

Twilight gasped. “You lie! Why would Princess Celestia tell you anything?”

He waved a lion paw at her as if she were a bothersome mosquito. “Pssh! Princess Sun-butt spent centuries regaling me with her endless tales of woe about her sister.” His deep voice changed to a grating mocking falsetto. “Ohhh, Discord! Why did you drive my sister to madness? Why didn’t you leave her alone?”

Discord snorted in disgust as he crossed his arms and regained his natural voice. “What that rainbow-maned marshmallow never seemed to cop to was that her sister was koo-koo in the coconut before I ever showed up. I know politicians are often clueless, but come on!”

I scratched my head. “If she was that weird, why did you seduce her?”

“Heh. I have a weakness for loonies, I guess. Since I can warp reality to just about anything I can imagine, I wanted someone who was as slant-wise as I am.”

Rarity asked, “Is that why you gave Luna and Celestia this liquid rainbow you’re soaking in? To make them easier to control?”

Discord shivered. “Believe me, I never made my formula this way. My original formula only made my playmates more fun to be around, that’s all. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

“Equestria’s jails are full of people who say that,” replied Twilight. “You deserve… wait, what did you mean, you never made it that way?”

“It doesn’t matter how this fluid is made,” said a mare above us. “What matters is that Discord belongs to me.”

We all turned to the new voice. Standing next to the stump-grinder was a light blue unicorn. She wore a black cape and suit. She was smiling with malice as she spotted her old foe.

“Hello, Twilight Spackle. I mean, Sparkle.”

Twilight growled from the insult. “Trixie Lulamoon. I knew it had to be you behind all this.”

“Oh, I never could have accomplished so much by myself. I had some help from someone else who also left Ponyville in disgrace.”

A brown griffin with white head-feathers walked out onto a nearby catwalk, wielding a large crossbow. She wore a flack jacket that was layered with knives and arrows.

“Oh, man, this is just rich!” said the griffin. “I never thought I would lay eyes on you dweebs again.”

“Gilda?” said everyone except me.

She smiled and said, “The one and only.” Gilda squinted at me. “Hey, creepy-dude? Ain’t you the one that examined Rainbow Dash? Shame she got fragged. Dash was once a pal of mine.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Are you the one that shot Bunsen Flask in the head?”

Gilda frowned. “How did… do you know?”

“His body was found in a Ponyville river with a gut full of liquid rainbow. And with one of your arrows in his brain.” I turned to Trixie who was just as appalled. “My guess is your now-ex-husband found out how you were making this fluid, chugged a few mouthfuls for evidence and tried to fly off to the authorities. But your heavy caught him in the act and hunted him down.”

Trixie stamped a hoof. “Blast it, Gilda! You told me you got rid of his body!”

The griffin shrugged. “Hey, Bunsen died near the southern coast. His body sank out of sight. I though maybe the sharks would eat him. How was I supposed to know the rivers there flowed inland?”

“Everypony learns that in second grade, Gilda.” remarked Twilight.

“Ooh, whoopy-doo,” Gilda retorted with crossed eyes and finger wiggles. “I ain’t a pony, dweeb.”

Trixie rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Once we get a little more of my formula into Discord’s vat, he’ll be back to normal.”

“Something’s been bugging me this entire time.” I said. “How did you know this stuff would work like the Elements of Harmony?”

She smirked at me. “You silly little death-pony. We Lulamoons also fought alongside the goddess of the night, but it wasn’t for her, it was so that we could get our hooves on Discord. Only magic can counter magic. I am the first member of my family to prove an old theory that Discord’s stone shell can be dissolved like a cracker. All that was needed was his formula.”

“My dad never mentioned any other families.”

“Of course he didn’t. Fanatics never get the big picture, do they? Scientists can be just as blind. Bunsen Flask was a genius, but he was also very lonely. And so desperate to please me.”

Twilight shuddered. “What are you going to do with Discord? Make him bring Nightmare Moon back to Equestria?”

Trixie snickered and began to laugh. “Oh, Twilight Trickle, you are just as clueless as Bunsen was! No, Nightmare Moon can rot on the moon for all I care. Especially since Discord is going to reset reality just for me.”

Author's Note

Latin lesson #7 Macellarius (slaughterhouse)
Soundtrack for this chapter: "Quake track #1" by Trent Reznor