“Ahh! Chimera! Run away!”
Agatha sighed as the pony with the rose cutie mark galloped away, followed closely by her two companions. “Are they seriously going to do that every time we come into town?” The goat head and her sisters had been visiting Ponyville on a fairly regular basis for nearly two months now, and most ponies had figured out that the three-headed monster had no intention of hunting them during these visits.
That, however, didn’t mean that the trio was in complete agreement about this “no hunting” policy. The tiger head groaned aloud as one of the pink flower ponies tripped over her hooves in an effort to get away. “This isn’t fair... that pony would have been an easy kill. And really, we’d be doing them a favor by weeding out the weak ones for them.”
“For the last time, Eleanor, ponies don’t think that way,” Agatha said. “They’re all about helping those in trouble, and that sort of thing.”
“But why? It makes no sense,” Eleanor retorted.
“Of course it doesn’t,” Agatha said, “but you know perfectly well that attacking a pony would ruin any chance that Irene has with Spike.”
“Filly filets are overrated, anyway,” the snake that served as the chimera’s tail chimed in before retreating back to her daydreams about the youthful drake.
Eleanor ignored the viper’s comment and continued to focus her ire on Agatha. “Don’t you go yammering about Irene’s relationship with Spike. You aren’t even interested in furthering the species.”
“If I could further the species with a cute little nanny, I’ll have you know I’d be very interested in it,” Agatha replied calmly. She was used to Eleanor’s complaints about her lack of attraction to male goats by now, and had long been in the habit of shrugging them off. “As I’ve always said, I’m willing to be reasonable regarding you and Irene.”
“You have not always said that,” Eleanor insisted. “In fact, you only started saying that once you realized that you could spend time with that purple pony princess while Irene was dating Spike. In fact, I’d say you’re taking advantage of the fact that you don’t need to concern yourself with motherhood.”
It was a somewhat oblique accusation, but Agatha figured it out immediately. “I have no romantic attachment to Twilight Sparkle,” she insisted. “If you were willing to pay attention during our conversations instead of sleeping, you’d know that we were discussing matters of education.”
“Yeah, right,” Eleanor said. “You’re always going on about being practical, but there’s no way we’ll ever really need to do this ‘reading’ thing in the swamp. You must have some other reason, and I bet it’s her.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Agatha said as she abruptly returned her gaze to the street before her (conveniently hiding the sudden blush in her cheeks from view). “Reading enriches the mind, which means it will make me smarter, and if I’m smarter, we’ll be a more effective predator. It’s as simple as that.”
The goat head refused to acknowledge the series of retorts that Eleanor tossed her way; in a few moments, none of them would matter, because soon, they would emerge into the town’s main square, where the library—
Agatha and Eleanor abruptly halted as their destination came into view; the subsequent jostling roused Irene from her reverie. “Oh, are we here already? Where’s Spike?” The viper looked around eagerly for her hopefully-maybe-someday-boyfriend, but the drake was nowhere to be seen... nor, for that matter, was the large tree where he lived. “Why did we stop?” Irene asked. “Come on, we need to get to the library, or we’ll be late.”
“We’re... we’re already here,” Agatha answered, her voice cracking. It was true: they were definitely in the right place—the library’s front door was still there. But the rest of the tree was gone, with nothing left but an irregular, blackened stump with one or two dead limbs jutting away from the mass. The grass all around the library was charred as well, and here and there, one could spy the ashy remains of pieces of... paper....
“No!” Agatha cried taking her sisters completely by surprise as she bounded through the door, knocking it off its weakened hinges.
“Damn it, Agatha, do you want to snap our necks?” Eleanor growled as she recovered from the whiplash.
Agatha, however, was too busy sifting through the wreckage to pay any attention. “Where are they? What happened? Why aren’t they here?!”
“Why aren’t what here?” Eleanor asked irritably.
“The books, you boneheaded fool!” Agatha shouted. “This library was full of them, but now it’s gone, and the books are gone with it!”
“So?”
“I can’t read anything if there’s nothing for me to read!”
“Um...” Irene said hesitantly. “There’s a piece of paper over here with some of those scribbly marks on it. Maybe you can read that.”
In a flash, Agatha had caught up the wayward page in her paw and was staring at it intently. “It’s no use,” she said forlornly after several fruitless minutes. “The words are too long. Twilight’s only taught me how to read the short ones.”
“You don’t think that Spike went away with the library too, do you?” Irene asked nervously.
“Of course he didn’t,” Eleanor said, clearly annoyed by Agatha’s distress and anxious to keep her other sister from joining in. “Spike has legs, so he could have easily run away from whatever destroyed the paper things.”
“Don’t say that!” Agatha cried out. “You don’t know that they’re destroyed. They... they might have gotten some of them out.”
“They also might have let us know that this meeting had been called off, but—”
“But it hasn’t been called off!” Irene said excitedly. “There’s Spike now. Yoohoo! Spike!” the snake called out, waving her body around to maximize her visibility.
Agatha looked in the direction her sister was shouting towards, and sure enough, the young purple dragon was hurrying towards them as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. “Irene! Agatha! Sorry I—whoa!” Spike’s greeting was cut short as he slipped on some debris and fell face-first into the ground. “Ugh... sorry for being late. Twilight only just remembered that nopony’s had the chance to tell you guys what happened. Oh, uh, hi, Eleanor,” he hastily added when he noticed the disgruntled look on the tiger’s face.
However, if Eleanor had any comments to go with that expression, she never got the chance to say them; as far as Agatha was concerned, there were more pressing matters than Eleanor’s umbrage at not receiving an immediate greeting. “Spike, what happened? Where are the books?”
“Oh, uh, right. Well, you know how Twilight’s a princess, and how she and her friends have saved Equestria a bunch of times?”
“Ooh! Let me guess!” Irene called out. “The library came to life and tried to take over, so Twilight had to put it down.”
“Uh, no, not that,” Spike said, “though that library in the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters came close... but never mind. Basically, this nasty centaur tried to take over.”
“He tried to take over a library?” Irene asked. “That’s odd. Did the library try to break away from Equestria, and that’s why Twilight had to destroy it?”
“Twilight didn’t destroy the library, Tirek did!” Spike blurted out in frustration.
“Tirek?” Agatha asked as she searched her memory for any sign of the name.
“He’s the centaur I just mentioned. He was fighting with Twilight, and he shot some magic at her, and she got out of the way... but he hit the library... and... well....” Spike was having difficulty finishing his sentence. Apparently, the rush of memories was not sitting well with him. “This was just a few days ago.”
“Oh... that’s right,” Eleanor said. “This was your den, too, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah...” Spike said.
“I see. I, er, I’m sorry for your loss.” This rather unexpected show of sympathy from Eleanor silenced both of her sisters as she continued. “Er, it’s not much, but if you and your princess friend need a place to stay, I’m sure we can make room in our den for you.”
“Um, thanks,” Spike said, “but that won’t be necessary.” He raised his arm and pointed a claw towards a crystalline, tree-shaped building that hadn’t been there the last time the chimera came to town. “We’ve already got a new place. It’s actually really nice, even if it isn’t quite the same.”
“But the books... they’re okay, right?” Agatha asked. “They’re just being moved to the nice, new building, right?”
“Er... well, the ones that we could recover have been moved...” Spike said uncertainly.
“And... you were able to get most of them, right?” Agatha asked pleadingly.
Spike just awkwardly stared at his claws in silence.
“But the really good ones, they made it, didn’t they? Twilight still has The Little Red Tractor That Huffed and Puffed, doesn’t she? And Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie, right?”
The diminutive dragon slowly shook his head.
The fearsome, caprine scowl wasn’t completely able to mask the trembling of her lower lip. “Not... not even Charlie The Choo-Choo?”
“I’m sorry, Agatha,” Spike said with a sigh.
“But I hadn’t finished reading it yet! I need to know what happens to Charlie. Unless... do you know, Spike?”
The dragon awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “I, uh, don’t think I can help you there. I’ve never read it myself, and without the book, I can’t really tell you anything.”
“You... can’t?” Agatha said, her voice trembling as she furiously wracked her mind for any line of thinking that could allow her to deny the truth for a few more precious seconds.
“I don’t really know what else to say,” Spike said with a helpless shrug. “Anyway, like you can probably guess, Twilight and me are really busy right now, so we’re going to have to put off our meeting until later on.”
“Aww...” Irene said with obvious disappointment. “When will that be?”
“I’m not sure... maybe a week, maybe more if more things come up. But we’ll definitely have a better idea by the time Applejack makes her next delivery through the swamp, so she can tell you more then.”
“So that’s it?” Agatha asked through grinding teeth. “We’re supposed to just wait before we can learn anything about what happened? Not even an assignment for the next reading lesson for a distraction?”
“Uh, well...” Spike scanned over the debris. “Well, there’s not much in here, but...” The dragon paused as his gaze moved out into the marketplace, then suddenly his expression brightened. “I’ve got it!”
He rushed out of the library’s ruins ran over to a small newsstand. A few minutes later, he returned with a somewhat crudely printed bundle of papers in his claws. “Sorry that took so long. I didn’t have any bits on me, so I had to convince the salespony to put this on Twilight’s tab.”
“What is it?” Agatha asked as she took the newspaper from Spike.
“It’s the most recent edition of the Foal Free Press. That’s the student newspaper that they print at the local schoolhouse. It should tell you everything you need to know about what happened.”
“Really? Everything?”
“Uh, well, maybe not everything. I mean, that newspaper is written by foals, after all. For the whole story, you’d probably need to read a grown-up newspaper like the Ponyville Express. But I’m pretty sure that this one is somewhere around your reading level. The way I see it, if you take this back to your den, you’ll be able to practice reading, and you’ll be able to learn what happened. Sounds like a good plan, don’t you think?”
Actually, it didn’t sound like a very good plan to Agatha, but by this point, Eleanor was becoming visibly irritated, so she accepted it anyway. Thus, after a brief pause so Irene could flick her tongue a few times against Spike’s cheek, the trio headed back to the swamp, with the newspaper held safely in the viper’s coils. However, once the three of them returned to their den, the Foal Free Press had turned out to be a fairly interesting read, even if it wasn’t a particularly easy one. The student newspaper, despite consisting mostly of short words, was still a bit above Agatha’s reading level, and as a result, some of the details were a little fuzzy, especially the part where they explained why Tirek and Twilight had been fighting in the first place.
From what Agatha could tell, Tirek had been hunting ponies—not to eat them, but to take their magic (this had temporarily snared Eleanor’s attention, but the tiger lost interest when she realized that the article didn’t give any information on predatory techniques they could use themselves). Twilight, being a princess, had been given the job of protecting them, and then things got really confusing, because it seemed as though Twilight lost her power, but won anyway. Naturally, that was utterly ridiculous, and Agatha just assumed that she’d misunderstood something. The reporter must have meant that Twilight hadn’t used all of her power to win; perhaps she decided to conserve her strength by outwitting her foe. Yes... that had to be it. Surely a pony with Twilight’s intellect could defeat any nemesis through sheer cunning alone.
And yet, despite the occasionally confusing nature of the article, the most difficult part for Agatha to understand was the very end, precisely because the words were so easy to comprehend. “She let him live?!”
This outburst was enough to distract both of her sisters from the remains of the rodent of unusual size that they’d been feasting on all evening. “Who let who live?” Irene asked.
“Twilight!” Agatha said, shaking the newspaper in her paw. “After everything Tirek did, she let him live!”
Eleanor groaned. “Well, what can you expect from a pony? They don’t eat meat. It’s not like his carcass would have put any food on her plate.”
“Are you sure that’s what it says?” Irene asked. “I mean, she was supposed to protect the ponies, right? Why would she let him escape?”
Agatha shook her head. “He didn’t escape. She just locked him up and put him in Tartarus. I... I just don’t understand it! She loved those books, but Tirek destroyed them. Nobody will ever be able to read them again. They’re gone, forever, and...” The goat paused to swallow down a sob. “...and now I’ll never find out what happened to Charlie the Choo-Choo.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I still don’t see what you find so appealing about that book. The pictures looked really creepy, especially that train’s smile.”
“Are you really that naïve?” Agatha responded, indignant that her favorite character could be so casually maligned. “Charlie’s smile was the best thing about him. When you see that smile, you know that he’s thinking about things, and when people spend a lot of time thinking, but not a lot of time talking, that means they only share the really good thoughts, and the bad ones are kept hidden away where nobody will ever find them.”
Irene didn’t seem convinced by this literary analysis; however, she still did her best to assuage her sister’s worries. “Well, don’t they usually make more than one copy of a book? I’m pretty sure Spike mentioned copies one time when we were talking.”
“Don’t be a fool, Irene,” Agatha scoffed. “When was the last time two storytellers told a tale the same way? Another book wouldn’t be the same story. Even if it had all the same words, it would still be a different Charlie.”
“So?” Eleanor asked through a mouth half-full of muscle and sinew. “What do you care about a train?”
“Charlie wasn’t just a train. Charlie was alive. The book said so. He was alive and he was happy and all he wanted was to be a happy choo-choo train until the day he died, and now I’ll never know if he got what he wanted, because Tirek destroyed his book!” By now, Agatha had progressed beyond shouting to full-throated screams of rage, cowing both of her sisters, who rarely saw the goat head getting this emotional over anything. She leapt to her feet and began pacing about the den, oblivious to the fact that she was dragging her sisters away from their meal.
Agatha’s rant continued, “And Twilight... Twilight let him live! He must have destroyed countless other books, with who knows how many stories, but she let the bastard live!”
“Well, ponies don’t really like to kill other creatures unless they really need to,” Irene said. “Spike explained it to me. They only ever do that sort of thing when they need to feed their meat-eating pets. Twilight... well, she probably didn’t...” the viper trailed off when she noticed the hard stare her sister was giving her.
“Twilight probably didn’t what?” Agatha prompted angrily.
“I... um... I don’t know...” Irene replied weakly.
“I still don’t see why you’re getting worked up about this,” Eleanor said. “It’s not like there’s anything we can do about it.”
Agatha didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she looked back at the slightly crumpled newspaper, still lying where she dropped it next to the unfinished rodent carcass. As she recalled the paragraph that had set her off, an idea slowly formed in her mind—a risky idea, to be sure, but one that seemed to grow more plausible as it continued to congeal. “We can do it,” she announced softly.
“Really?” Irene said with a broad smile. “That’s great! Oh, wait—were you talking about going to that spa place before the next date with Spike?”
“No, you airhead, I mean that we can finish the job that Twilight couldn’t. Think about it: right now, Tirek is frail, weak, and locked in a cage in Tartarus. The only reason he didn’t get what he deserved is because Twilight couldn’t go through with it. Well, if a pony doesn’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done, maybe a predator will.”
“Whoa, hold up,” Eleanor said. “I’m glad you’re finally starting to appreciate our role as a predator, but what do we get out of this?”
“Eleanor, last week, Tirek was hunting down all of the ponies in Equestria. Everyone cowered in fear at his name.”
“So?”
“So, what do you think will happen when word gets out that we finished him off?”
Eleanor opened her mouth as if to reply, but nothing came out. It was as if the implications of her sister’s idea were emerging before her, clear as day. The tiger’s mouth curled up into a fanged smile as she realized just how much the trio would be feared when all of Equestria learned that they’d vanquished the ponies’ greatest foe. “You know, Agatha, I just might make a respectable predator out of you yet.”
Agatha smiled and turned her attention to her tail. “How about you, Irene?”
“I don’t know...” the snake said. “I’m not sure Spike would be too happy about it.”
“But Tirek destroyed his home, didn’t he?” Agatha said. “That means he must have also destroyed Spike’s hoard.”
“Spike doesn’t have a hoard, though,” Irene said.
“Are you sure?” Agatha said. “Maybe he does have a hoard, but he’s just trying to keep it a secret.”
“But why would he do that?”
“How should I know?” Agatha asked. “It’s his hoard. He probably thought that it would stay safe if nobody knew about it, but Tirek proved him wrong—and now he can’t get his revenge, because that would mean he’d have to admit that he had a hoard. But you have the chance to help him get that revenge by going after Tirek with us. Understand?”
“I think so... wait, no, I don’t understand it at all. How is destroying Tirek’s house going to do anything?”
Agatha groaned. “Look, Irene, just follow our lead, and later, Spike will thank you, okay?”
“Oh, okay!” Irene said brightly. “Let’s do the thing you said before the other thing I didn’t understand.”
“Right,” Agatha said as a wicked smile formed on her mouth. “Let’s kill Tirek.”
Agatha’s plan was a simple one. She and her sisters would go to the gates of Tartarus, and, once they’d taken stock of the situation, they’d sneak in, find Tirek, kill him, and get out. There would be no taunting, no blustering, and no gloating when they found their foe: they’d simply finish him off and be done with it. Notoriety would come later, after they’d informed Princess Twilight of their deed, for which they would doubtless be showered with fame and honors, virtually ensuring that no other predators would ever dare to challenge their dominance of the fire swamp and almost certainly impressing a certain purple dragon with their prowess. There was just one tiny problem: none of them had the slightest idea where Tartarus actually was, and the Foal Free Press didn’t give Agatha any hints.
Irene initially suggested asking Twilight, but after some consideration, Agatha decided against this. As obviously intelligent as the alicorn was, she’d also shown herself capable of serious misjudgement when she neglected to execute her enemy, and it seemed likely that she would disapprove of the venture if she was informed about it ahead of time. Ponies were weird like that.
On the other paw, Twilight probably wasn’t the only pony who knew where Tartarus was, so it seemed that asking somepony else could work. Thus, they headed towards the outskirts of Ponyville, hoping to find somepony who could point them in the right direction. Settling down behind a large bush for cover, the trio scanned the road for anypony that looked reasonably knowledgable.
“I’m bored,” Irene whined about thirty seconds later.
“Keep quiet!” Agatha said angrily. “You’ll blow our cover.”
“Why are we even bothering to hide?” Eleanor said. “It’s not as though we’re hunting.”
“Because most ponies wouldn’t even think of approaching a chimera in the first place,” Agatha said. “We’ve already gone over this.”
“Besides, when you hide in a bush, you get to pretend you’re a super-secret-agent, and then you get to have cool background music!” Pinkie Pie added.
“That’s not really what I meant, but I suppose you’ve got a point, Pinkie,” Agatha replied. It took her nearly three seconds to realize the implications of what she’d said. “Pinkie Pie?!” Agatha exclaimed, turning her neck to address the earth pony who was now crouched next to the chimera. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m hiding in a bush, obviously,” Pinkie said with a cheerful grin. “What are you doing here?”
Agatha didn’t bother answering the question. “Why are you hiding in a bush?”
“Because I don’t want to be found. That’s the reason that most ponies hide,” she added when she saw the slack-jawed expression on the goat’s face. “So, how have you been? I don’t think I’ve seen you since your party.”
Agatha did her best to shove the memories of the conspicuously ill-attended welcome party that Pinkie had thrown for the chimera to the back of her mind. “Er, we’re fine, I suppose. Actually...” she trailed off for a second, unsure of whether to continue. Soon, though, she’d made up her mind. “I was wondering if you could help us out. We’re trying to find the entrance to Tartarus. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, do you?”
“Why do you want to go to Tartarus?” Pinkie asked with a curious look on her face. “Is it for their famous tartar sauce? Because Tartarus doesn’t actually have a famous tartar sauce. Trust me, I’ve checked.”
“Er, we can’t tell you,” Agatha said, thinking as fast as she could. “It’s... well, it’s going to be a bit of a surprise... for Twilight?”
“For Twilight?”
“Uh, yes,” Agatha said with a nod. “I, er, we thought she might need some cheering up after what happened to the library.”
“Really? There’s something in Tartarus that would cheer Twilight up?”
“Er, um, we’re pretty sure there is,” Agatha added hastily. “But, ah, we don’t want to go into too much detail. It might give away the surprise.”
“Oh... well, that’s really nice of you!” Pinkie said. “Do you want me to throw a surprise party to go with your surprise?”
“Ah, no, I don’t think that will be necessary, right, girls?” Agatha looked over at her sisters, who soon caved under the power of her glare and rapidly shook their heads.
“Aw... oh, well. I suppose that leaves me more time to plan for the other five parties left this week. Um, I’d invite you to a few of them, but I’m pretty sure most of the other ponies are still scared of you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, uh, that’s not a problem. If you can just tell us how to get to Tartarus...”
“Well, luckily for you, the entrance to Tartarus isn’t too far away from here.” Pinkie extended one of her forelegs towards a road leading out of the western part of Ponyville. “You just head down that way for a few hours until you smell brimstone, then take a left. You can’t miss it.”
As it turned out, Pinkie Pie’s directions were quite accurate; the sun still had yet to sink below the horizon when the pungent odor of rotten eggs began to fill the sisters’ nostrils. The scent lead them to the entrance of a cave, which on first glance bore a resemblance to their own den, only considerably roomier. However, there was a barely visible glow emanating from deep within the cave’s recess, which Agatha and her sisters approached with caution. Soon, they’d turned a corner and saw that the light came from a vast, shadowy cavern filled with countless rocky spires, each illuminated by a dim, magical light at its summit. The massive towers, which Agatha assumed housed the various prisoners, were all connected by a maze of treacherously narrow stone bridges over an impossibly deep maw. This, it seemed, was the entrance to Tartarus proper.
However, the most prominent feature of the entryway had nothing to do with rock formations: astride the path stood a huge black bulldog with a nasty-looking temperament and three heads—though for rather obvious reasons, the sisters found this last detail significantly less foreboding than most visitors to Tartarus.
“That’s weird,” Irene said in a hushed tone from their hiding place behind a rock formation. “I didn’t know dogs could be chimeras, too.”
“They can’t, and he isn’t,” Agatha said. “Er, I mean, they aren’t... maybe.”
Eleanor picked up on the reason behind her sister’s pronoun confusion almost immediately. “It doesn’t seem to act like three creatures crammed together in a single body,” she said. “Look at how all three heads react to everything at the same time. It’s in pretty much the same way, too.”
“Uh, okay,” Irene said, “so what does that mean?”
“It’s just one dog that happens to have three heads, I think,” Eleanor said.
“So... that’s good, right?” Irene said. “We’ve got him outnumbered three to one, then.”
Agatha couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice as she glanced back at her sister and responded: “It wouldn’t make much difference if we outnumbered him nineteen to one, considering that we can’t exactly separate and flank him,” Agatha said.
“Oh,” said Irene. “Well, do you have another plan?”
“Maybe I would have one if I could concentrate instead of trying to carry on a conversation,” Agatha said with a glare. After a few seconds, she picked up a large rock from the ground and hefted it about in her paw, gauging its weight.
“You can’t seriously be thinking about chucking that thing at one of its heads,” Eleanor said. “For starters, you’re going to need at least two more, and after the first toss, you’ll lose the element of surprise.”
“Not if I don’t hit him, I won’t,” Agatha said as a sly grin emerged on her face.
“Oh! Are we going to throw the rock over him so that we do the thing where we get him to look one way and sneak in behind his back?” Irene asked.
“Well, technically, I suppose that’s correct, but I was thinking of adding a few extra steps in the middle, just to play it safe,” Agatha said. She turned to Eleanor. “Mind if I just take the lead instead of explaining in detail?”
Eleanor raised one of her eyebrows. “That depends. Are you planning on doing something violent?”
“Yes.”
“Then go right ahead,” the tiger said with a smile.
Agatha lobbed the rock past the monster’s head, and when, as she’d hoped, all three heads turned towards the clatter, she leapt on top of him. Before the canine could fully register what was happening, she’d balled her two front paws into fists and slammed them into the back of the beast’s side heads. This, naturally, got the full attention of the central head which turned to view its attacker in time to get a headbutt to the face from the goat, knocking it out cold. As the chimera leapt from the unconscious form of Cerberus, her sisters voiced their approval.
“That was so cool!” Irene said. “It was like, ‘Whoa!’ and then, ‘Wham!’ and then ‘Blammo!’”
“Nice work,” Eleanor concurred with an approving nod. “Though I’m not sure why you didn’t use our claws.”
“Eh, I’m pretty sure the ponies wouldn’t like it if we actually took this guy out permanently. They probably feel safer knowing he’s guarding this place. Besides, we’re here for Tirek.” With that, the sisters bounded into the chasms and spires of Tartarus.
Having spent most of her day coordinating the placement of furniture in her new palace, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, decided that she’d earned the right to indulge in something decadently unhealthy, which was why she and Spike had trekked over to Sugarcube Corner for some pineapple upside-down cake. Still, a princess’ work is never done, and as Pinkie Pie rang up her purchase, Twilight decided to see if she couldn’t get some help with her to-do list. “Say, Pinkie,” she said as she placed the carefully boxed cake in her saddlebag, “are you going to be around Sweet Apple Acres any time soon?”
“I hadn’t planned on it, but I certainly wouldn’t mind dropping in,” Pinkie replied. “Why, do you need Applejack for something?”
“It’s not particularly urgent,” Twilight said. “I just need her to pass on a message to the chimera for me. I’m fairly certain that Spike and I will be able to manage a meetup with them next week at the usual time, but it’s not like you need to go out of your way to pass that on.”
“Oh, that won’t be any trouble at all,” Pinkie replied with her usual cheerfulness. “It’s just too bad you didn’t meet up with me earlier. I could have just told them myself.”
“Really?” Twilight said with a look of surprise. “Were you in the fire geyser swamp today?”
“Oh, no. I was just running an errand for the Cakes and I saw them on the outskirts of town.”
“What were they doing there, though? They normally avoid hunting near Ponyville to keep from upsetting the townsponies.”
“Oh, uh, well, you see...” Pinkie trailed off as a look of dawning comprehension formed on her face; apparently, she had just realized that she may have said too much. “Er, well, they had decided to, uh, take a day trip. You know, broaden their horizons a little.”
Twilight wasn’t in the mood to let this slide. “Pinkie, where are they going?”
“I can’t tell you,” Pinkie said.
“Why? Did you make a Pinkie Promise?”
“No... but I don’t want to ruin the surprise. I mean, not that there is a surprise to be ruined—in fact, you should probably just assume that they’re doing something completely predictable.”
“They’re going somewhere to surprise me?”
“No,” Pinkie said with much more confidence. “They are definitely not going somewhere so that they can wait to surprise you.”
“I see... so they’re doing something nice as a surprise, then.”
“Uh... I guess that might be true. I mean, they never said they weren’t....” Pinkie replied as she did her best to keep the expression on her face as neutral as possible.
“Maybe it has something to do with the library,” Spike suggested, sitting up from his spot on Twilight’s back. “Even Eleanor offered to let us stay in their den when she found out. And don’t get me started on Agatha.”
“Agatha? What do you mean, Spike?” Twilight asked.
“She was the one who was the most bent out of shape when I talked to them,” Spike explained. “Especially since I couldn’t tell her what happened to Charlie the Choo-Choo.”
“Isn’t that that one really creepy book for foals?” Pinkie asked.
“Yeah,” Twilight replied. “Agatha started reading it at the end of last week’s lesson. She really seemed to like it for some reason. I offered to let her take the book home with her, but she was concerned that it would get dirty in the swamp. Honestly, I don’t think it would be much of a loss; none of the local foals liked it very much, and it was taking up shelf space, but I suppose there’s a reader out there for every book.”
“Well, anyway,” Spike continued, “she really wanted to know what happened, so I figured she could read about it herself in the Foal Free Press.”
“What?” Twilight said as her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.
“I just figured that it would be closer to Agatha’s reading level than anything else, and there was a huge article about it on the front page. Why? Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?!” Twilight exclaimed. “Spike, did you actually read the article?”
“Uh... no....”
Twilight groaned, cradling her head in her hooves “Apparently, the editor decided to let Diamond Tiara write it—you know, to give her a chance to redeem herself? But what she actually turned in is completely over the top! I mean, sure, Tirek caused a whole lot of trouble, but that malarkey about how I should have killed him to protect ‘national security’ is a lot of ill-informed hogwash!”
“Well, she is just a foal,” Pinkie Pie said. “She probably thinks that using the fancy-sounding words that grown-ups use when they argue about politics makes her sound smart and mature and stuff.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure I’m going to have to spend a bunch of time explaining why it’s wrong to Agatha the next time I see her. She’s still a predator like her sisters, after all, and she probably won’t understand why I didn’t just kill him to protect my friends.”
“Yeah,” Spike said, “especially since Tirek destroyed something important to you. That might even be harder for them to understand than the whole ‘magic draining’ thing he was doing.”
Twilight looked confused. “What? You mean the library? Why would that be a reason to use lethal force? I mean, sure, it’s unfortunate, and I’m going to miss it terribly, but everypony knows that books are relatively easy to replace.”
Suddenly, Spike looked like he’d just bitten into an overripe tourmaline. “Er... Twilight? Agatha isn’t exactly ‘everypony.’ I mean, before she started lessons with you, she’d probably never seen a book in her entire life.”
Twilight’s eyes widened in alarm as she processed the implications. “Oh no.... You’re right.... She probably doesn’t understand. In our lessons, she keeps asking about how the stories change when you read them more than once. I... Now that I think of it, I’m not entirely sure she realizes that most books aren’t sentient. And if that’s the case, then when Tirek destroyed the library, she’d assume....” The alicorn trailed off as the full horror of what the goat head must have felt when she’d seen the library’s ruins became clear to her. She turned back to Pinkie Pie. “You’re certain she said they were doing something for me?”
“Well, I...” the earth pony replied, eyeing the princess with concern. Apparently, she still didn’t like the idea of deliberately giving away a surprise. “If I said ‘yes,’ would it mean something bad?”
“Very bad,” Twilight stated bluntly. “Especially if they’re doing something that’s even remotely related to Tirek. Diamond Tiara’s article would have told Agatha some things about him, but what it doesn’t explain is that he’s still extremely dangerous, even in his weakened state. If she’s convinced her sisters to help her do what I think they’re doing, they could be in serious trouble. So Pinkie, I need to ask you: Are they going to Tartarus?”
Pinkie looked stunned for a moment, and looked around the room as if searching for some means to avoid answering the question. But eventually, her resolve wilted. “Yeah, that’s where they’re going. Assuming they didn’t get lost, they’re probably there by now.”
Twilight turned to the dragon on her back. “Hold on tight, Spike. We need to get moving.”
Fortunately for Agatha and her sisters, most of the residents of Tartarus were either sleeping or engaged in deep navel-gazing as they contemplated their fates, which made it much easier to sneak around in search of their quarry. The element of surprise was absolutely essential to Agatha’s plan to deal justice to the centaur; although she was fairly confident that she and her sisters would be able to hold their own in a fair fight, as far as she was concerned, a fair fight was the last thing that Tirek deserved. The trio moved quickly from spire to spire, peering in on the prisoners as they whiled away their sentences in magically lit alcoves at the summit of each peak. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to the cell assignments; monstrous beasts were interspersed with corrupted sorcerers and otherworldly abominations. Eventually, though, the process of elimination led them to a towering crag that housed a single cage at its peak; inside this cage, a scrawny, ancient-looking creature lay sleeping.
“That must be him,” Agatha said quietly.
“Are you sure?” Irene said. “I think that’s too many legs for a minotaur.”
“This guy’s supposed to be a centaur,” Eleanor countered. “I’m with you, Agatha. I think we’ve found our target.”
Agatha nodded. “Okay, here’s the plan: since it looks like he’s sleeping, Irene can just slither in and bite him. Pump some venom in there, and he’ll be dead before anyone knows what’s happening.”
Irene, however looked uneasy. “I don’t know... I’ve never tried using venom on anything bigger than our prey. I’m not sure one bite will be enough to do it.”
“Oh, don’t chicken out on me, Irene,” Agatha said. “Even if it doesn’t finish the job, it’ll still help.”
Irene shook her head. “Look, I don’t like using my venom for anything that isn’t hunting or protecting myself, and this isn’t either.”
“But you’re doing this for Spike, aren’t you?” Agatha countered.
“Actually, I, uh, I’m really starting to wonder about that. I mean, Spike doesn’t really seem like the type who’s all about revenge, you know?”
Agatha groaned. “Okay, fine. Eleanor, you’re the best at using our claws. We’ll swipe at a really big vein, and he’ll just bleed out. It’s messy, but it’ll be quick.”
“Sounds good to me,” the tiger said in agreement. The chimera slowly approached the cage, their ears attentive, listening for any change in Tirek’s deep, regular breaths. The centaur lay on a mat in the center of the cage; the sisters’ approach hadn’t stirred him.
“Not quite as big as I was expecting,” Eleanor said quietly.
“The newspaper said he gets bigger after absorbing magic,” Agatha said. “Right now, he’s got nothing.”
“Um, do we have any magic he might absorb?” Irene asked, with a clearly worried tone in her voice.
“Don’t be silly,” Agatha said. “We’re perfectly normal. It’s just the ponies who have to worry about him when he’s like this.”
Eleanor slowly inserted one of her paws through the bars of the cage. “I can’t... quite... reach him....” she said as her extended claw fell short of making contact with Tirek’s body.
Agatha let out a soft groan. “Well, then let’s try it from a different spot.”
The trio moved to another side of the cage, closer to the centaur’s head. “Yeah...” Eleanor said with undisguised glee. “I can rip into his face, easy. I can even yank out that nose ring for extra pain.”
“I don’t want him in pain, I want him dead,” Agatha insisted. “Can you reach the jugular?”
“Shouldn’t... be a problem.” Eleanor pressed her shoulder as far into the cage as she could, raised her paw high in the air, and with all of her strength, brought her deadly claws down towards Tirek’s neck... but at that moment, the centaur moved his head slightly, and instead of a fountain of blood from a major artery, all that resulted was a large but superficial cut across the bridge of his nose.
Tirek let out a roar of pain as he got to his hooves, leaving barely enough time for Eleanor to retreat before he could grab her leg. “Coward!” he shouted in a scratchy, constrained voice. “What craven plan of those dastardly ponies is this? If execution is to be my lot, I demand that it be performed by one of those so-called princesses themselves.”
“Maniacs like you don’t get to make demands,” Agatha said once she had regained her bearings. She figured that since the element of surprise was gone, there wouldn’t be much risk in talking. “Besides, we aren’t here under anyone’s orders but our own.”
“A likely story,” Tirek said with obvious suspicion. “What reason could a chimera possibly have to come all the way out to Tartarus to assassinate me?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with books,” Irene said.
“Shut up, Irene,” Agatha growled through clenched teeth before returning her attention to Tirek. “It doesn’t matter what our reasons are. What matters is that we’re here to finish the job.”
Tirek, however, didn’t seem to find such forceful declarations to be particularly intimidating. “And those weak-willed ponies actually gave you their approval?”
“Ah, well...” This was not good. Agatha could tell that Tirek had a sharp mind that was always thinking, like Twilight or Charlie. Only smart people asked questions like that, and you had to be extra careful when answering a smart person’s question. “Who cares? It’s not like you’ll be around to complain once we’re finished.”
At this, Tirek gave Agatha a thin-lipped smile, and for the first time, the goat thought she understood why Eleanor found Charlie the Choo-Choo’s grin unsettling. Tirek was forming an idea, and odds were that it would be a dangerous one. After a long silence, the centaur spoke up, still in his emaciated rasp: “But how exactly do you think you can kill me?”
“What are you talking about?” Agatha said. “You’re trapped in that cage and almost completely powerless.”
Tirek chuckled. “My dear, this cage isn’t just here to protect the innocent from me. It also protects me from revenge-seekers like you—and as I’m not currently dying in a pool of my own blood, I’d say it worked rather well.”
The snake on the chimera’s tail nudged Agatha in the back of the head. “How did he figure out we were here for revenge?”
“Shut up, Irene,” Agatha said. “What’s your point?” she asked Tirek.
“My point is that it seems that the only way you’ll actually be able to do what you came here to do... is to let me out.”
Agatha eyed the centaur with suspicion. “Even if we did decide to let you out, how could we? Your cage doesn’t have a lock.”
“It doesn’t need one,” Tirek said. “There’s a fob on one of the collars of the guard, Cerberus. Surely you saw him when you came in?”
“The three-headed dog? Yeah, we, uh, caught him napping and snuck by him,” Agatha said.
“I don’t think he was napping until we caught him, though,” said Irene, which made Tirek’s eyes light up with a sudden enthusiasm and earned the snake a glare from her sisters.
Agatha decided that the best way to deal with her sister’s loose lips was to pretend she hadn’t said anything. “What does this thing look like?”
“A dark-blue sapphire,” Tirek replied. “It’s small, but it’s set in gold, so it should stand out when you’re looking for it.”
Agatha paused. Clearly, letting Tirek out of his cage would be risky—otherwise, he wouldn’t be so keen for them to do it. But it was equally clear that he was just as safe from them in his cell as they were from him. For a brief moment, she considered walking away from the whole business, but then she remembered Charlie, the smiling locomotive who only wanted to race along beneath the bright blue sky, but would never have the chance thanks to this demented maniac. “We’ll be right back.”
Cerberus was still out cold when the sisters found him, and the sapphire was right where Tirek had said it would be. They spent a minute or two struggling to remove it before Eleanor simply cut the entire collar from the middle neck. A few minutes later, they’d returned to the centaur, who seemed unable to completely hide the smugness in his grin.
“Okay, we’ve got the doohickey,” Agatha said. “How do we use it?”
“It’s a relatively simple matter,” Tirek said. “There’s a small slot on the top of this cage that’s just big enough for the fob. You simply put it in, like a key into a lock, and press down. Then the bars disappear... and we can settle your matter.”
With a great leap, the chimera jumped on top of Tirek’s cage. It took some searching, but they soon found the crevice he had described. Agatha yanked the sapphire off of the collar and held it in her paw. All she needed to do now was put it in... but she hesitated.
“He’s up to something,” Eleanor said quietly. “What if it does something else?”
“It wouldn’t do him any good unless he can get out of his cage,” Agatha replied, but still she held the sapphire in her paw. “You’re right, though,” she said. “He is up to something. Once we’ve opened the cage, I think our best bet will be to jump him immediately, before he can do whatever it is he’s planning. He can’t be that quick.”
“Sounds good,” Eleanor said with a nod.
“Irene?” Agatha asked. “How about you?”
The viper was considerably less confident than her sisters. “Let’s just get this over with,” she said, staring back towards the entrance. “I think I heard something moving.”
“That’s probably just the guard dog,” Agatha said. “I’ll bet he’s starting to wake up.” After slowly exhaling a deep breath, she carefully fitted the jewel into its slot. “Okay,” she said. “Now, we just have to press it.”
Beneath them, Tirek was getting excited. “Yes, that’s it... just press the button, and you’ll be able to give me exactly what I deserve.”
Agatha slowly lowered her paw as Tirek continued to repeat the word, “Yes...” over and over, until—
“No!”
Before Agatha could figure out what was going on, a pink aura surrounded the sapphire and yanked it out of its slot. Agatha turned and saw Twilight Sparkle standing at the entrance to the alcove, just in front of the bridge, breathing heavily, as if she’d been rushing as fast as she could to get there. Spike hopped off her back and grabbed the gem that was floating in front of the alicorn. “Do you think you’ll be alright taking that back to Cerberus?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Pinkie told me where she’d hidden some balls around here for emergencies, so I should be okay if he wakes up.” With that, the dragon scurried down the bridge towards the entrance to Tartarus.
“Curse you, Twilight Sparkle!” Tirek shouted hoarsely.
“It’s nice to see you too, Tirek,” she replied, almost managing to mask her sarcasm. “Are you three alright?” she asked, turning her attention to the chimera on top of the cage.
“We’re fine,” Irene answered, “though Agatha looks like she can’t decide whether to start yelling or trying to hide.”
“Shut up, Irene!” Agatha said as she and her sisters bounded off the cage and landed in front of the alicorn princess. “Why did you have to interrupt? We were about to finish him off,” she said indignantly.
“I couldn’t let you do that,” Twilight said.
“Why? Some sort of high-and-mighty idea of mercy?”
Twilight let out a sigh. “Well, there’s that, but more importantly, I didn’t want you to get killed.”
“We had the situation under control,” Agatha insisted. “He’s only dangerous to ponies right now.”
Twilight shook her head. “Actually, if you had been able to free him with that jewel, it would have meant that you have enough magic for him to consume and begin growing powerful again. You wouldn’t have had a chance in, well, Tartarus. Tirek would have sucked you dry, and since you’d already taken out Cerberus, he’d have been free to terrorize Equestria again.”
Agatha looked back at the centaur, who merely snarled at her and retreated to a corner of his cell. Agatha looked dumbstruck. “But... but the newspaper...”
“The filly who wrote that article could only include things that she already knew. Specific security measures like this wouldn’t be public knowledge.”
“Um... are we in trouble?” Irene asked.
Twilight shook her head again. “No, not really. I was able to stop you before you caused too much damage, and besides that, you’re still considered to be ‘wild’ for legal purposes, so there’s quite a bit of leeway.”
“So this whole thing was just a waste of time, then,” Eleanor said grumpily.
“Well, I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste, though I wish there had been a better way for me to learn how important the library was to Agatha—that’s why you came here, right?”
“Yes,” Agatha said, “and I still don’t understand why you’re letting Tirek live. He killed your books!”
“No, he didn’t,” Twilight explained. “None of the books in the library were alive. I probably should have explained this better, but books don’t tell stories the same way that living creatures do. A story in a book will be exactly the same each time you read it, and if you read a copy of the book, the story will still be the same. The only thing that changes is the reader’s imagination.”
“So... if I read a different Charlie the Choo-Choo book... it will still be the same Charlie?”
“Well, I’m not entirely certain why you’d want to read it, but yes, it would be the same Charlie.”
“But then, Eleanor was right!” Agatha cried out.
“You’re darned right, I am!”
“Shut up, Ire—I mean, Eleanor.” Agatha returned her attention to her tutor. “I just don’t understand... I nearly let him escape for nothing, but you’re going to let it slide? That kind of foolishness would get someone killed back in the swamp! You can’t just forgive that.”
“Actually, I can,” Twilight said, as she smiled for the first time since her arrival, “because I used to make mistakes like that, too.”
This admission stunned Agatha; Twilight Sparkle, the most intelligent being she’d ever met, had actually made mistakes? “You... you did?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve never had the chance to tell you about the ‘Want It, Need It’ spell. I don’t really want to get into all the details right now, but I thought that I had to show proof that I’d learned something about friendship, so I deliberately created a problem to solve by enchanting a doll so the ponies in Ponyville would fight over it. It got way out of control, and by the end, I really made a mess of things. I thought for sure that Princess Celestia would drop me as a student, but she forgave me instead, because... well... she’s my friend, and friends forgive each other.”
“I see...” Agatha said. “Wait... are you saying we’re... friends?” This was something new; up until now, she’d assumed that Twilight was politely tolerating her for Spike’s benefit. The notion that Twilight Sparkle, the smartest of all ponies, might think of her as a friend, however... well, she wasn’t actually sure what it meant right now. “So, that... does that mean you, um... care about me?”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Eleanor groaned. “You’re not going to get all sappy, are you?”
“Sappy?” Twilight repeated, clearly confused. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing!” Agatha said quickly as she slapped a paw over her sister’s mouth. “So, um, if you’re forgiving me, does that mean you’ll keep giving me reading lessons?”
“Of course,” Twilight said, “though it might be a little while until I can get another copy of Charlie the Choo-Choo. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No,” said Agatha with a wistful shake of her head as she, her sisters, and Twilight Sparkle started walking back towards the entrance to Tartarus. “I don’t think that will be a problem at all.”
Author's Note
In addition to all my fan fiction, I've also got an original short story available for purchase. It's called "The Empty Hand," it features cosmic horror in the Boston underworld, and it's currently available in eBook form on Amazon:
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca
Amazon.co.uk
For anyone who would rather support me for my pony-related content, I also have a Patreon.
