Equus Mortis: Pony Dreadful

Chapters

Ghost In The Machine
Body And Soul
Insect Dreams
High Plains
Ghost Town
Prarie Ghosts
Reunion
Deep In The Pit
Familiar Faces
Reunited
Friendship Set On Fire
A Finishing Stroke
Separate Ways And Means

Ghost In The Machine

Chapter One

Ghost in the Machine

My dead mother smiled at me. Actually, Marrow Mortis smiled for my father as he snapped the photograph that got blown up to life-size. I had taken the framed picture from Dad’s Manehattan apartment and hung it in my Ponyville house. She was an earth pony like me and had white fur like mine. Her long grey mane, blue eyes and tooth cutie mark once made her stand out in a crowd.

And I’m the one that killed her. At least that’s what my father, Ivory Mortis, dutifully told me several times over the years.

Marrow’s heart quit on her just as I was introduced to Equestria. She was only twenty-five at the time. My father was so driven by grief and the desire to see Marrow again that he murdered a fellow coroner when Nightmare Moon, the goddess that my family once worshiped, deemed that pony unsuitable for Ivory.

He later sacrificed himself to Nightmare Moon to help give her the strength to come back to Equestria. If I and the rest of the Mane Six hadn’t sent her back to the moon, she would have brought with her the faithful dead, my mom likely being among the ranks.

My dad was too cheap to buy a video camera, so I only had dozens of photos and letters from her to help me figure out what kind of mare she was.

Ivory Mortis was a lunatic who once plotted to sacrifice me to Nightmare Moon. Not for the first time, I had to wonder what my mom would have made of this news. What did she see in him in the first place? Was she as nuts as my dad was?

My father was never abusive to me while I lived with him, but he never treated me as anything other than an eighteen-year-long homework assignment. The day after I graduated school, I was sent to the same medical college my father graduated from. No pats on the back, no stirring words of encouragement. Nothing personal. Just business.

My family always kept themselves to themselves, so I kept my bitterness and resentment about my dad’s coldness towards me quiet.

Would my mother have treated me any better if my father had died at my birth? I might not have been so painfully shy during my school years and beyond. I was getting better at climbing out of my shell and making new friends, but the past is a ghost that haunts us all. There would always be the old me just under the surface, waiting to pull me away from the world before it would have a chance to hurt me.

Dodging pain is not the same thing as finding pleasure, however. We all have some ideal haven set in our minds. A paradise that we wish for, a realm where one would always be happy.
I always imagined a tropical island would be my happy haven. No bodies, no misery, no graves to fill or mourners to comfort in their bleakest days.

Such a place could never physically exist for me, of course. So where does one find paradise? My father was so desperate to find it, he committed murder and suicide. When Nightmare Moon brought him back from the dead, he tried to kill me. After he broke two of my legs, I and the Mane Six sent him and Nightmare Moon to the moon. He’s with his beloved goddess now, but I doubt he’s happy. Every day, the world rises over him, reminding him of what he’d lost. His wife. His son. His future.

Because he tried to find paradise. In the worst ways possible. Wherever my paradise was, it couldn’t be found in the path he took. In a way, my father was still guiding me. If I found myself doing something questionable, I would ask myself, “Is this something Dad would do?” If the answer was yes, I’d stop immediately.

My new life as a member of the Mane Six, a protective alliance that hunted down and fought hostile forces like Nightmare Moon and Trixie, didn’t allow for Dad’s kind of morality.

A few months ago, in the dead of winter, Applejack pushed me to get new friends. The people I dealt with at my coroner and mortician jobs didn’t qualify either. Nor did the Mane Six.

•
• * * *
•

Perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that I found two friends at a spring-time burial I arranged. A unicorn had died of old age, and the only ones that attended his funeral were two mares. One was a white unicorn mare with a neon-blue mane and tail. Her large purple sunglasses and bridged eighth notes cutie mark made her stand out in the graveyard’s characteristically bleak setting. The mare’s partner, a grey earth pony mare with a black mane and tail, looked less out of place here, even with her purple treble clef cutie mark.

The oak casket was bolted shut and was ready to be lowered into the grave. In the brisk spring morning air, the graveyard was quiet under the cloudless blue sky.

The grey mare looked around, trying to find anyone that might simply be late in joining them on one of the worst days of their lives.

“Are you sure you sent the invitations, Vinyl?” she inquired.

“For the tenth frickin’ time, yes!” Vinyl sniffed and pulled off her glasses, wiping away another stream of tears. “It’s just that . . . I dunno . . . maybe my dad’s not worth anything to anyone but me!”

“He means something to me, dear. He accepted you and I being together, after all.”

“I know, Octavia. Maybe that’s why no one else is here.” She squeezed her eyes shut in a pained grimace. “Beats Me. Maybe they’re afraid of getting lesbo cooties or somethin’.”

Octavia shot a glance at me as I waited to begin my eulogy. She blushed and whispered in her lover’s ear. “I know you’re upset, but would you please dial it down a little?”

Vinyl opened her eyes and stared at me. They almost looked like twin pools of blood. Albino ponies often have red eyes. Mine were grey because my father’s were as well.

“Heck, you hear worse than this, right, Marty? Mickey? What was your name again?”

“Mortis,” I answered. “Equus Mortis. It’s perfectly all right to grieve. What is said here, stays here. I’ll give the eulogy when you’re ready.”

Vinyl waved a hoof at me as she slipped her glasses back on. “Yeah. Go ahead. Do your thing.”

I cleared my throat. “Record Scratch was a kind and loving father. He raised his only daughter, Vinyl Scratch, in a music-oriented childhood. Her musical talents, some say, rival or even surpass his own. Every father in Equestria would be proud to make such a claim. He shall live on in not only his music, but also in the music, heart and mind of his daughter. Would anyone here like to say anything on Record’s behalf?”

“I would,” replied Octavia. “Vinyl’s father was everything my parents were not. Sweet-natured, patient, caring and understanding. Not a day will go by without him being on my mind. As long as he is remembered, he will never truly be far from those that loved him.”

Vinyl kissed Octavia on the cheek. “That was awesome, babe. I got somethin’ to say, okay?”

She walked over and put a hoof onto her father’s headstone, which read, “Record Scratch - The Music Lives On.”

“I kinda stink at makin’ speeches. Personally, I’d let our music do the talkin’, but I never had to write music for funerals, so I’m stuck, I guess. About all I can say is that death sucks, life is too friggin’ short, and I hope I never have to set foot in this graveyard again. Not even as a new resident. Just dump me in the ocean, I don’t care.”

“Vinyl…” Octavia was blushing a little again.

“Yeah, I know! I-I’m just a little wound up right now.” She wiped her nose as she sniffed. “Dad? Our next album is gonna get dedicated to you. I’m even takin’ a few of your songs and workin’ them into some of our tracks. I’ll make sure no one forgets you. I never will.”

They hugged as Vinyl sobbed into Octavia’s mane.

“That was beautiful, Vinyl. Your father would be proud.”

“Thanks, Tavi. Equus? When you’re done here, I wanna talk to you.”

* * *

After the burial, I met the two mares at the graveyard gates.

Vinyl smiled, her lower lip still trembling with grief. “That was a great speech you gave, Equus.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve seen you at a few of our concerts. I never thought I’d see a mortician bang his head to our tunes, but life’s full of surprises, huh?”

I said, “Well, I couldn’t say anything during the funeral, but I’ve been a Boards of Equestria fan for years. You two are great together.”

Vinyl rubbed her cheek against Octavia’s. “Yeah, I’m just not the same without my mare. Not music-wise. Not life-wise, either. You have a marefriend, Equus?”

Octavia frowned and coughed. “Dear . . .”

“No, my lifestyle doesn’t allow for that. I’m not exactly hot-date material.”

“Maybe you can find somepony special at our next concert. I’m lettin’ you in free for every one of our shows from now on. The next one’s next friday, 8 P.M. at ‘Fleet-foot Faust’s’.”

That was a Canterlot dance-hall where the drinks never sell for less than twelve bits per shot-glass. I prayed that no one died on friday.

“That’s great!” I declared. “Thanks very much!”

Vinyl shrugged. “Hey, I’m always cool with those that respect my dad the way you did. See you then.”

As I watched my favorite group walk down the road, I found myself humming a few of their songs as I trotted back home a little faster than usual. My legs no longer hurt from when my dad smashed them seven months ago. My guts had finally healed after I lost my right kidney from Gilda’s arrow-shot. Just call me the iron pony, I guess.

Folks in town didn’t fear me anymore, even after seeing my pony-skull cutie mark. Once word got around that I helped defeat Trixie, who masterminded the murders of over five hundred homeless Manehattenites, they really warmed up to me.

My father never had a taste for the spotlight, so he would never have been comfortable with the kind of lifestyle I had now. People talked to me on the street. Applejack always gave me apples for free. (No big surprise there, as I stopped her from murdering Trixie. One tends to not forget that sort of thing.) I wasn’t “that spooky little death-pony” anymore, which suited me just fine.

Mom would have been proud of me. The dead always find out the secrets the living keep, Nightmare Moon once told my father (according to one of his journals). If that is true, then Marrow might already be aware of what I’d been up to. Maybe she was already proud of the son she never got to know in life. It’s a nice sentiment, at least.

Since Record Scratch’s funeral was the only job I had this week, I decided to go home and read more of the letters mom sent to dad. The more I read, the more I missed Marrow more than Ivory.

I almost felt like a spy as I read the letters my father never mentioned to me. I found most of them when I was rummaging through the stuff I wanted to keep before the apartment became someone else’s home.

One particularly interesting letter from my mother was dated a few years before she had me. Her elegant cursive writing was a sharp contrast to my father’s precise typewritten responses.

My darling Ivory.

I wish I could be with you during these cold winter months, but my school studies are in Fillydelphia until the spring. You seem to be at your loneliest in winter. The chill also darkens your mood. I think you know that, but it worries me just the same.

For example, you seem to have certain triggers that lead to violence. You recall the time we both went to the Polsky theater to see ‘Avenue P’?

When we left the theater, you were your usual cheerful self, joking and laughing.

It just seems a little strange to me that your temperament changed so suddenly when that mugger demanded our money.

Before I could even blink, you leaped at him. With one swing of your hooves, you snapped one of his knees. He was yowling in pain, but you kept tearing into him. A few more well-aimed blows and he was flat on his face. (Having a coroner’s knowledge of pony anatomy comes in handy in a fight, I suppose.)

Only after he slumped into a blood-stained snowbank, semi-conscious did you back away.

It wasn’t that act of violence that disturbs me, darling. It’s just that you attacked him with only a minimum of effort. It’s almost as if you were already prepared for violence. Not only that, you escorted me away without a trace of fear or remorse on your face.

I’m not worried that you would ever treat me like that, but it is odd that inflicting pain comes so easily to you. Perhaps I am over-reacting.

After all, you were simply protecting me. And you always seem to have the will to do anything you set your mind to. Maybe that’s why I love you.

Try to stay out of trouble, all right?

Take care, Sugar bear.

When I read that, I had to stop reading. Sugar bear. That was the same nickname Rainbow Dash gave Pinkie Pie when they were lovers.

* * *

After my arrow wound healed, I had a private talk with Princess Celestia about Pinkie’s unfair imprisonment in Manehattan’s Kirkbridle institute. Pinkie was mind-controlled by Nightmare Moon when she tortured Rainbow Dash to death. The insane asylum was her only safe haven from those that vowed to kill Pinkie in order to avenge Rainbow. I told Celestia that my skills as a mortician could change Pinkie’s appearance almost completely.

A month ago, Celestia sent me to the asylum. This time, I met Pinkie in a private room that had two of Celestia’s Honor Guards behind the door. I let Pinkie choose her new fur and hair colors. Altering her cutie mark took some doing as her real mark’s magic resisted the stenciled fur dyes.

Pinkie’s bright blue eyes were the same, but her once-pink fur was as white as Rarity’s now. Her blond hair was frizzy and combed back like a Wonderbolt’s. Her three-balloon cutie mark was replaced with a pink birthday present. It still looked a little fuzzy, but it was the best I could do.

We both agreed on her new name, but Pinkie’s destination was kept a secret even from me. As long as she got her freedom back, I didn’t mind the secrecy.

Something troubled me about her during her make-over. Even though she was going to leave that wretched asylum behind forever, she never smiled. She knew her old friends were lost to her. Her old home was gone, as well. In some small way, she was as bad off as my father was now. Their old lives were history. Where would Pinkie find her paradise?

* * *

Friday came, and true to Vinyl Scratch’s word, I was let into the dance-hall for free, much to the annoyance of the other fifty ponies who were still waiting to get in.

The show started off with a large cloud of fog that boiled past the rising stage curtain. Blue and green lights drifted around the miasma as it cleared, revealing Vinyl behind her turn-tables, keyboards and speakers. Octavia was standing nearby on her hind legs as she propped up her cello, which was outlined with white neon.

I thought that her neon-lit bow was strung with pony hair, but as soon as it glided over the cello-strings, I heard warped voices echoing from the speakers.

Llllllistennn to me daaarrling. You-you-you listen to me good.

Octavia lifted her bow and ran what I now realized was really tight-strung audio tape over just one section.

Listennnnn Liisten Listen

Vinyl spun a record at one tenth the normal speed. The resulting old-man voices and semi-comatose horns sounded like they were drifting up from the ocean floor.

Ooohhh, ssweeet Celllesstiiaaaa helllp meeee

Listen tooo meeee

Helllp meeee

Those two sound-bites bounced off each other as a distant techno beat grew louder and more teeth-rattling. Then the ghost-voices stopped, and the music segued to a modern groove. The stage lit up, the crowd went wild and began to stomp their hooves to the music.

Vinyl spotted me and nodded. I waved at her and kept dancing. Just like a normal pony.

Boards Of Equestria was well-known for not only their music but also for dazzling theatrics as well. In the middle of the concert, Vinyl used her magic to pull a rope out of a box, which had several dozen glow-sticks and sliding whistles tied to it. When Vinyl spun the rope around her like a cow-pony, she swatted a few of the sticks with her hoof. A ribbon of green light orbited around her.

When Vinyl’s horn glowed a little brighter, the whistles began to trill out music. She slowly walked towards Octavia, who played an accompanying song on her cello.

Vinyl smiled as she walked behind her partner. White hooves slowly slipped over Octavia’s shoulders while she played. The spinning halo of light and whistles drifted above them before surrounding the mares.

Octavia grinned as Vinyl rested her chin on Octavia’s left shoulder. When they kissed, Vinyl swatted the rope again, making the light turn from green to red.

After the crowd began to cheer, the circle of light began to curve down from the top. Then it rested between the band and the audience. When the mares kissed in that heart-shaped light, every pony around me banged their hooves in wild-eyed approval, whooping and hollering.

An hour later, the show ended with a frantically-paced version of their first song. Vinyl and Octavia played their sound-bites off of each other with expert precision.

Help me to listen to Celestiaaaaa

Celestia listen to meeeeee

Help me be more than I could be on my own

Help me hear my heart beat.

Heart beat

Beat beat beat

Then the stage went black. The crown screamed and cheered for several minutes before it began to thin. It took a half hour for the dance floor to clear.

Vinyl walked over to me after signing a few autographs. “Hey, I’m glad you made it!”

“I’m glad I came. How are you and Octavia holding up?”

“I’m not cryin’ every hour anymore. My babe helps me stay on my hooves more than she knows. Just workin’ on our music helps me stay sane.”

“Even if it sounds a little creepy?” I said, grinning.

“A little creepiness never hurt anypony. Heck, whenever Nightmare Night comes around, I take off my shades and let my red eyes be part of my vampire costume.”

Octavia joined us as she remarked, “I do wish you would dress as something else. You’ve been ‘Vinyltavia, mistress of the dark’ three years in a row.”

Vinyl gave her mare a mock pout and whimpered, “Waahh, you said I look keyoot in black leather. Besides, your name’s in my persona title. I thought you’d be flattered. Hmph!”

“Equus, if you are still looking for a mare, take her off my hooves, would you?”

“Hey, I’m not dressing up in tight leather pants for anypony but you, sugar-puff,” said Vinyl, waggling her eyebrows at Octavia suggestively.

Octavia tried in vain to hide her smirk as she turned and leapt onto the stage. “If you are quite finished making me blush in front of your new friend, perhaps we ought to show him some of our new equipment. You’ve been boasting about it all week.”

“Only bragged about it once. A day. I bet the cello-string trick got your attention, huh, Equus?”

“I must admit, I’ve never seen it before.”

Octavia slowly drew the tape across the cello strings.

Lllisten tooo ussss, Equusss

Octavia jerked away from the cello, staring at her bow.

“Hey, Tavi? How did you do that?” asked Vinyl.

She slowly shook her head. “I didn’t.”

We are coming for you, Equus Mortis. You are going to pay dearly for your betrayal.

The voice was deep and low, but also distant, as if heard from another room.

Octavia dropped the bow, carefully stepping back from her instrument as if it were a rabid dog. Vinyl ran over to her control panels.

“I swear, Equus, I’m not doing this!” Vinyl implored as she looked over the settings.

You are going to die slower than anyone ever has before. We will teach you every kind of pain.

Octavia stamped a hoof impatiently. “Just shut the speakers off!”

“They are off!”

You will wish your father killed you in the castle, Equus Mortis. Prepare yourself.

I was so preoccupied with staring at the speakers, that I didn’t notice that Vinyl had yanked out every speaker plug on stage.

“Equus?” asked Octavia, in a quiet, cautious voice. “Do you know who that was?”

I could only shake my head, my tongue glued to my mouth. My back shivered as I mentally replayed everything the disembodied voice said. What was he talking about?

Vinyl put a hoof on my shoulder. “Why would this dude mention your dad? Maybe he’s family?”

“I’m the last member of my family, Vinyl. I don’t know who that was.”

Octavia said, “I think you had better tell Princess Celestia about this. The sooner the Mane Six gets involved, the better.”

She was right, of course. But how could anyone fight something like this?

My betrayal?

What did he mean?

Author's Note

The theme songs for this chapter are "Late Show" by Laurie Anderson and "Tavi and Scratch-My Roommate Is A Bassist" by Yourenigma

Body And Soul

Chapter Two

Body and Soul

When Princess Celestia was told I was given a disembodied death threat from someone who called me a traitor, she assumed that one of Nightmare Moon’s more fanatical followers might be to blame. Since Twilight Sparkle was the most qualified of the Mane Six to investigate this mystery, she arrived at the dance-hall an hour after the concert.

It chilled me to think that there were still Nightmare Moon followers that could track me down and threaten to end my life, but it didn’t completely surprise me. After all, my career largely consisted of cleaning up the mess the world leaves behind. Ponies have always possessed a limitless capacity for violence and madness. One cannot help but be a bit jaded by all the bloodshed.

Twilight Sparkle was slowly casting a purple-tinged spell over Vinyl’s equipment. After every inch was examined, Twilight sighed and shut her magic off.

“I’m sorry, guys,” said Twilight. “But I can’t find any trace of a ghost in the speakers or anywhere else. If it really was a spirit that threatened Equus, I can’t be sure.”

“What if the voice was a remote radio transmission?” I asked Vinyl, who still pored over her equipment. “Is it possible your speakers got hacked into that way?”

Vinyl shook her head. “Uh-uh. No way. My music is played from a closed circuit. If my stuff was on a wireless network, then maybe the creep who threatened you could have hacked in. But I can’t figure this out.”

Octavia was examining her cello. “One thing I’m curious about. Who would want to hurt you, Equus?”

“It can’t be my dad,” I said. “He’s on the moon. Nightmare Moon had thousands of followers, but they’re still in the land of the dead. They need her to bring them back to Equestria.”

Twilight paced up and down the stage. “Maybe someone else figured out how to raise the dead? No, not even Celestia could do that. Oh, my. This is going to take a while to figure out. Equus? Maybe you should stay in the castle for the time being.”

“I can’t spend the rest of my life fearing the dead, Twilight. I fought my dad, I can fight whatever comes next.”

Vinyl walked over to me and looked me in the eyes. “If you need help, any kind of help at all, give me a shout, okay? Us marshmallows have to stick together.”

It had been ages since anypony called me that. She still had a sense of humor, even in this strange time. No wonder Octavia loved her. Who didn’t need a companion who could lighten the heaviest of moods?

“I will, Vinyl. Thanks.”

As I walked out of the dance-hall, Twilight trotted up beside me. “If you do have any more problems like this, tell me first, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll be at work if you find out anything.”

I sighed as I walked back to town. Life never stays quiet for long. Neither, it seemed, do the dead.

My morgue assistant Flashbulb met me outside the hospital. The red pony’s ears were flat as he said, “We got a bad one, Morty.”

“We never get good bodies, Flashy. Who is it?”

“He’s one of Applejack’s relatives, I suspect. He has an apple cutie mark.”

I followed him to the morgue as I asked, “It’s not Big Mac, is it?”

Flashy shook his head. “No, thank goodness. He’s not from around here, but his body was found near city hall about an hour ago.”

I tried to guess who that might have been. Applejack recently showed me a few of her family photo albums. They were all thicker than Manehattan phone books. The Apple family sure loved planting their seeds. So to speak.

When I saw the body on the examination table, I knew A.J. was going to be livid when she found out who had died. I could tell just by the brown vest and Stetson hat that it was her cousin from Appleoosa. Braeburn.

A thin trickle of blood had dried over both his closed eyes. There was a large knife handle sticking out of his left ear, so the how of his death was obvious. The why would be harder to discover. It always was, in my experience.

“Well, Flashy. Let’s get suited up.”

As I slipped on my hoof-gloves and apron, I was mulling over something that bugged me. Why wasn’t there more blood on his body? His body looked fresh, so he wasn’t drained of blood and then dumped.

I pondered this as Flashbulb and I wheeled him over to the X-ray machine. When the pictures were taken, Flashy took the film to be developed.

It would be a few minutes before he came back, so I set up the numerous cutting tools for Braeburn’s autopsy. Bone-saws, tile-hammer and chisel for his skull, scalpels and the like.

When I put down the last knife, I turned to look at Braeburn.

His eyes were open.

And glaring at me.

Before I could react, His rear legs kicked me away from the table. As I slid across the tile floor, I banged my head on a gurney.

Braeburn jumped off the table and landed on all fours, knocking over the autopsy tools with a sharp clatter.

He picked up a scalpel in one hoof, got up on his rear legs and walked towards me, grinning.

Dizzy with pain, I tried to get up, but my sudden headache made the room tilt slantwise.

“Flashy!” I yelled. “Help me!”

“No one can help you, traitor,” said Braeburn, as he swung the scalpel down.

A chair smashed into his face, knocking him flat on his back.

Braeburn growled and flung the chair aside as Flashbulb leaped onto him, hooves swinging.

I could hear a few meaty-sounding punches as the room got more horizontal for me. I spotted the tile-hammer and grabbed it.

Ducking away from another one of Braeburn’s kicks, I swung the hammer onto his skull. It sounded like I just bashed a ceramic bowl, not flesh and bone.

Braeburn hissed with pain. For a split second, I saw fangs in his gritted teeth.

Flashbulb had landed a few painful looking groin kicks to the apparently-undead cow-pony. My hammer connected a few more times on Braeburn’s head as he struggled to get on his feet.

Braeburn hollered, “You’ll never stop us, Equus Mortis!”

My hammer slammed into his skull once more, making Braeburn’s eyes waver in two directions. He flickered for a second, like a damaged movie clip.

“Who are you, bastard!” yelled Flashbulb.

Braeburn slid onto the floor as he gave up the fight. He grinned, staring at me.

“We are the Vengeful. He’s going to skin you alive, Mortis.”

“Who is?” I demanded. “Tell me!”

“He’ll make you wish you had died instead of your mother.”

I grabbed Braeburn’s shoulders and squeezed. Why did his fur feel like tile? “Who are you talking about?”

He gurgled as his body began to shimmer like heat-haze. “Go . . . find out. Traitor.”

When Braeburn burst into green flames, we both leapt back.

What remained of him left us stunned. Slumped on the floor, with a bashed-in skull, was the biggest insect I had ever seen. It had a dark grey chitinous shell all over it’s body. The head was the same size of an average pony’s, but with solid green eyes, a dorsal fin and a jagged unicorn-like horn. The legs had more holes in them than a moth-eaten shirt. How did these beasts support their own weight?

The small green translucent wings gave a possible answer. This creature reminded me of a huge wasp or beetle. Green slime oozed out of the hole I made.

As Flashbulb dusted himself off, he asked, “I . . . I have never seen a creature like this before.”

“I don’t believe anyone else has either, Flashy.”

“Are you okay?”

“Sore ribs, but I’ve had worse.” I noticed my left eye-lid was twitching. “I’m feeling really wound up, but that’s probably just adrenaline from the fighting. I wish he . . . it . . . whatever, told me who wanted to skin me.”

“Yeah, that would have been helpful. Unless . . .”

“What?”

“Unless you’re meant to go where ever this bug came from and find out for yourself.”

I scratched my head. “We had better get Twilight in here again. Maybe she can tell us what this is.”

* * *

“I don’t know what this is, Equus,” said Twilight as she lifted the body with her magic. She slowly turned it around, studying every detail. “You say it spoke to you?”

“Yes. It called me a traitor.”

Her ears flattened. “Just like at the dance-hall. Is it possible this . . . insect . . . made the voice in Vinyl Scratch’s speakers?”

I said, “This guy’s voice had a higher pitch.”

“Maybe my history books will shed some light on who the Vengeful are. I think this corpse needs to be sent, discreetly, to the castle labs. The scientists there might be able to tell us how a bug can imitate a pony.”

Flashbulb was rubbing his sore leg. “I almost busted a hoof kicking that creature. He has a tough exoskeleton.”

“Flashy, what do this thing’s X-rays show?”

“Ooh, you have X-rays?” chirped Twilight. “That might help!”

She put the bug down onto an examination table as I flicked on the light-wall. The X-rays revealed a beast with no internal skeleton, but plenty of muscle and shell. The grey lumps in the skull looked similar to a pony’s brain. That might explain the magic use and the ability to speak, but not where it came from.

Twilight asked, “Equus, did you say this thing imitated Applejack’s cousin Braeburn?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It’s just that this insect reminds me of a certain species of desert cave-beetle. There are lots of mountains near Appleoosa with large, deep caves.”

Flashy said, “Plenty of breeding ground for this guy’s family, I bet.”

I sighed. “That still doesn’t explain how a giant homicidal bug knew my name and called me a traitor.”

“I take it your Mortis family history book doesn’t mention talking insects?” she inquired.

“No. Just a blood-thirsty goddess and her loony followers.”

“So this is a previously unknown species!” Twilight declared as she stared at the bug again. “This would be exciting if it wasn’t also scary.”

Flashy said, “Morty, this monster told you to go find out who wants you dead. If you go to Appleoosa, you’ll be walking into a trap.”

Rubbing a hoof through my mane, I replied, “I know, Flashy. But I can’t hide forever. What if another bug comes to town and hurts or even kills somepony else, just to get my attention? I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“I’m just worried about you, Morty. Before you came to town, I had to run everything in this morgue. No one else wanted your job.”

I snorted. “I’m not some filly, you know. I’m not as weak as I used to be.”

Flashbulb looked at me wistfully. “When word got around that I worked in the morgue, some idiot spread the rumor that if I took a picture of someone, that pony would soon die. It took a long time for the ponies in this town to realize that wasn’t true. People aren’t kind. Or terribly bright, it seems.”

I was stunned at this news. “I . . . I didn’t know that. You never told me.”

“Most ponies aren’t that bad, I guess. After all, when you helped defeat Nightmare Moon, people started talking to me more often. If anything happened to you or me, would death become scary to them again?”

“Probably, yeah. But listen, Flashy. I’m not going to Appleoosa alone. If I and the rest of the Mane Six can kick both mad goddesses and mass murderers in the flanks, then giant bugs won’t be a problem.”

Flashy gave me a weak grin as he tried to put on a brave face. His ears began to sag. Bless his heart, I kept forgetting how much he liked my company, even when I wasn’t in the best of moods.

I wasn’t afraid of death. After all, I saw what the edge of it before Rainbow Dash pushed me back into the land of the living. Having an inadequate life was something more worthy of concern.

Flashbulb had the same concern I had. I had been too self-absorbed to notice.

I patted him on the shoulder, hoping that would comfort him. “You won’t be alone for long, Flashy. I’ll come home on all four hooves. Stick a cupcake in my eye and all that.”

His ears lifted a bit. “Thanks, Morty.”

“We morticians have to stick together, right?”

After the bug was wrapped in a sheet and carted away by Royal Guard Pegasi, I left the morgue. Perhaps my family history book would tell me who the Vengeful were.

As I walked home, still feeling energized, I found myself looking at other ponies a little longer than what was polite. Nothing like nearly getting killed by a pony mimic to make you paranoid.

The Vengeful were already getting to me. And I hadn’t even left town yet.

Author's Note

Theme songs for this chapter are "Everypony's Gay For Braeburn (except when he tries to kill you)" (Eskerata remix) by Sim Gretina.

:trollestia:

Juuuust kidding. It's actually "Mold" by Aphex Twin

Insect Dreams

Chapter Three

Insect Dreams

We are all driven by fear. Ambition and self-confidence are the main motivators in most people’s lives, but the ever-nagging fear of failure or mere inadequacy spurs most of us on.

Reading my family history book, I found that fear of jail drove what remained of Nightmare Moon’s defeated army to shadowy forests and distant caves. After all, Princess Celestia was eager to imprison the ponies most loyal to her sister. The ones who murdered the most ponies would be executed. Others would face life in prison.

In the last few pages of the book, Quietus Mortis wrote, “It is through the grace and good fortune granted to us by our goddess of the night that we escaped her tyrannical sister. Three thousand loyalists have sworn to follow me anywhere. I cannot say where we shall hide, but we will stay hidden until Nightmare Moon rises again. Then we shall finally take Equestria for our own.”

The last passage read: “Woe unto those who would disrupt Nightmare Moon’s divine return to this world. We shall reap vengeance a thousand-fold against traitors. Every technique used to give Nightmare Moon power will be used many times over upon the faithless.”

That meant severed tendons, slicing off cutie marks, disembowelment and a dozen other methods to inflict almost unimaginable amounts of pain for hours before the victim’s body gave out.

“We shall reap vengeance,” Quietus wrote. Is that what that pony-mimicking monster meant when he said that he was with “The Vengeful?” How did my ancient family get mixed up with enormous insects?

This book was written a thousand years ago. If the Mortis family and the bugs somehow merged, for lack of a better term, why hadn’t we heard from them until now?

Going to Appleoosa to look for answers was the only route anyone could think of. What bothered me was that traveling to that desert town is what the Vengeful wanted. It’s never wise to do what your enemy expects, but they seemed to call the shots for the time being.

* * *

I could only pretend to sleep that night, my nerves too jangled to completely relax. Whenever I began to sleep, I would see the faces of everyone I talked to in the last few days burst into green flame and become giant grey-shelled insects.

He’s going to skin you alive, whispered one creature.

Llliiisten to meee… you are going to dieee, trilled another.

Whispering bugs.

Green fire.

Over and over.

I had, not counting the fretful, scatter-brained half slumber, a total sum of four hours sleep. The voices were still whispering in the back of my mind as I half-heartedly ate my breakfast, my mind still blurring between the waking world and the realm of dreams.

Skin you alive...

Because my mind can sometimes be a cruel beast, I had a sudden half-dream of a giant bug wearing my face like a mask. The way Pinkie Pie wore Rainbow Dash’s face. Because Nightmare Moon thought it would be funny to make Pinkie do that.

My gaping mouth sported a fanged, triumphant grin.

Large blue cat eyes stared at me.

The skin-mask slipped off, leaving bloody smears on the cheeks of . . .

Nightmare Moon.

She laughed and said, “Maybe you’ll take longer to bleed to death than your father.”

A sudden knock on the door yanked me away from that pocket nightmare and made me yelp. My milk bottle slipped out of my hooves. When the glass shattered on my kitchen floor, I heard Spike holler, “I heard glass breaking! Are you okay in there, Equus?”

“Yeah, I’m all right, Spike,” I shouted, grabbing a towel. “Be right out.”

After cleaning up the mess, I unlocked the door.

Twilight was behind him. She looked me over and frowned. “You didn’t sleep well, I take it.”

I shook my head. “It’s hard to do that after getting attacked at my own job.”

Spike said, “Yeah, Twilight told me what happened. How did this bug know where you live?”

“I’ve been racking my brain for hours, but I still have no idea.”

Twilight said, “Well, I do have some news. I studied those X-rays of the creature and did some research on insects. I know this sounds strange, but what attacked you yesterday was nearly starved to death, even though it has no stomach. I also suspect that the grey shell isn’t supposed to be that color.”

I held up a hoof, still trying to shake off my mud-brained sleepiness. “Hold on. How could that thing live without eating food? Why was it starved?”

“No idea. Maybe it somehow metabolized magic?”

I whistled, trying to wrap that slantwise idea around my sleep addled mind. “I suppose anything’s possible. But Equestria is held together by a magical field. Why didn’t this field feed the thing?”

Twilight shrugged, shaking her head. “I don’t know. We’ll never get any answers until we get to Appleoosa. I hope.”

“The Appleoosa express doesn’t leave for at least three more hours,” Spike informed me, cracking his scaly knuckles and smiling. “Man, I can’t wait to use my brass knuckles again.”

“Spike, it’s going to be at least a hundred degrees in the shade out in the desert,” said Twilight. “You aren’t sticking with your black leather outfit, are you?”

He waved her concern away. “Nah. I’ll just wear a sweat band and jeans this time.”

I said, “I wasn’t able to find any references to any group called The Vengeful, Twilight. But the Mortis family did once swear to destroy any traitors to their cause.”

She nodded. “We’ll find the end of the thread soon, Mortis. Meet us at the train station in three hours. Try to get some more sleep, okay? I’ll hold the train for you if you’re late.”

I’ve never had a kinder boss. She was the leader of the Mane Six for a reason, and it wasn’t because she had her Element of Magic in a crown. Twilight always cared about others no matter how tough things were for her.

I yawned and said, “Thanks, Twilight. See you then.”

Talking to Spike and Twilight helped wake me up a little more, but the vision of Nightmare Moon wearing my face was still stuck to the back of my mind. I don’t believe in omens, but I figured my mind was trying to warn me to be careful.

I would sleep on the train-ride to Appleoosa. Right now, I had to drink some sugary tea.

It wasn’t fear that drove me to stay awake. Getting attacked at my morgue only made me angry.

The last time I was mad enough to kill, I stabbed a griffin in the gut and almost skewered her throat. It took every last bit of effort I had to stop myself from being a murderer like my father.

And yet I bashed in the brains of a huge insect yesterday and felt no remorse. If nothing else, I felt as if I drank a gallon of coffee. Wired and ready to race. Was it because it wasn’t really a pony? Not to mention the fact that it tried to kill me?

If I have to kill any more bugs, would I ever feel bad about it? Would I become like my dad and not even know it? My friends would certainly notice. Applejack would be the first to tell me I was taking the fast train to crazy town. She rode those rails herself not too long ago.

I have made more friends in a year’s time than Ivory Mortis probably did in a decade, I bet. I had earned their trust and I trusted them to watch my back.

So why did I still feel nervous?

To help calm my nerves, I turned on my kitchen radio.

Cloudsdale has announced that there will thunderstorms from one to one-fifteen tomorrow aftern . . . There are so many of us, Equus. But there is only one of you. He will make sure your death is slow and glorious.

It was a growling and distant voice, one I had never heard before, but it was similar to what came from Vinyl Scratch’s speakers.

After yanking the plug out and smacking the radio into the sink with shivering hooves, I wasn’t sleepy anymore. The hot jolt of adrenaline from that sudden intrusion brought home why I was so uneasy.

The Vengeful were all around me. And I can’t stab a voice.

I was helpless.

Like a bullied and black-eyed colt in a school yard.

And that only made me even madder. I didn’t care how many death-threats they whispered at me. If I ever got my hooves on who was behind all this, my friends had better keep me from splitting his head open.

Because I don’t think I could stop myself.

Author's Note

The theme song for this chapter is "Midnight Poison" by Aghast Manor

High Plains

Chapter Four

High Plains

Three hours later, I met up with the rest of the Mane Six at the train station. Applejack smiled and waved me over.

She said, “Howdy, Mortis. Say, yew look a little rattled.”

“Did Twilight tell you or the others about how I got a death threat from a mystery voice?”

Applejack nodded, her expression souring a little. “Yeah, she also told me about some varmint imitatin’ my cousin Braeburn and tryin’ to kill yew.”

“Well, I just got another death threat from someone new, this time through my kitchen radio.”

Twilight ran over, eyes wide. “Are you serious? How are you getting haunted in so many places?”

“My Granny Smith once told me 'the dead travel fast’,” quipped Applejack with a resigned shrug. “Guess it’s true.”

Fluttershy came over and asked, “I’m confused. Are we going to look for huge insects or ghosts?”

“Probably both, by the looks of things,” replied Twilight, frowning. She lifted two medical packs out of her satchel. “That’s why I brought these along. If these creatures breed like regular insects, we’ll need a lot of bandages.”

Spike was loading Fluttershy’s animal cage onto the train. It was covered in a white sheet.

“Are we using your hunting hawks again, Fluttershy?” I asked.

“Oh, no. Twilight suggested that I bring my bats this time. Twilight and I will train them to sniff out the insects. Maybe they will even find their nest.”

Twilight added, “Assuming they are nesting creatures, that is.”

Rarity shuddered. “Eww. Bugs. Why did it have to be bugs?”

I sidled up to Applejack. “How are things going for you?”

“Sleepin’ better at night. Ah’m not cryin’ so much anymore. Ah still miss Rainbow somethin’ fierce, but it’s not chewin’ me up inside so much anymore.”

Her grief therapist was doing wonders for Applejack. When Rainbow Dash was murdered, it put her lover into a depression that was as cold as winter’s ice. Applejack endured the snows of the last winter while spending more time in front of Rainbow’s tombstone than at her own home.

Nowadays she didn’t even go near the graveyard. It was best, Applejack decided, to hold onto Rainbow Dash through her fondest memories of their too-brief time together. Grief had wounded her, but she was healing.

I held out a hoof. She smiled and took the offering, hugging me. “I’m glad to hear that, A.J.”.

Spike stepped off the train, reached for one of Rarity’s bags, but dropped it as his eyes bugged. His cheeks suddenly bulged. With a body-shaking belch of green flame, a scroll burned into existence.

Twilight pulled open the scroll with her magic. The more she read, the more her brow wrinkled. “It’s from Princess Celestia. She says the Royal Guard has found more of these insects. Oddly enough, they’re all dead.”

I asked, “Where were they found?”

She read more of the scroll. “One was found on the roof of that dance-hall Boards of Equestria played at. Another was found . . . good grief . . . on the roof of your house, Equus!”

My back shivered as if I had just stepped out of a cold shower.

“Another was found on somepony’s other roof. The strange thing is, they all looked like they died of starvation. Just like the one that attacked you.”

Applejack snorted. “Ah hope they all drop dead like that.”

Rarity inquired, “Whose roof did they find this other bug on?”

“That nasty thing croaked on my house,” declared a familiar voice. “But not before we got a death threat aimed at us this time.”

Vinyl Scratch approached us, her saddlebags jingling as if full of bits. Octavia trotted alongside her.

Octavia added, “Through our recording studio speakers, no less. These insects must somehow be projecting their thoughts into anything electronic.”

Twilight cocked an eyebrow at the two approaching mares. “What did the voice tell you, specifically? Wait a minute, how did you know we were even here?”

“We were told to not help Equus or they would...how did the voice put it, Tavi?”

Octavia stuck her tongue out in revulsion. “Both of us were threatened with . . . ugh . . . disembowelment. He said it was something The Vengeful were well-practiced in.”

Vinyl stopped in front of Twilight. “No one threatens me or my marefriend, so I’m takin’ the fight to whoever’s behind this. To answer your second question, I got a tip from a fan.”

Twilight hung her head and sighed. “Look, I’m sorry that you two were threatened, but my team and I will take care of this. Go to a hotel, and I’ll have Celestia post some guards nearby.”

“Pfft!” replied Vinyl. “Sorry, but I never back down from a threat. I’ve had to deal with tweakers and violent drunks a bunch of times. So has Tavi. And by deal with, I mean punch out.”

Rarity put on the kind of patient smile designed for difficult customers and said, “Darling, it’s not that we don’t appreciate your wanting to volunteer, but we are professionals. We have fought monsters like Nightmare Moon and Trixie, who were far worse than any belligerent alcoholic. Besides, you have no weapons.”

Vinyl snickered as she popped open one of her saddlebags. A long chain of shiny steel blades slipped out, gripped in Vinyl’s red magic. It was at least sixty inches long. The chain connected both ends and surrounded both mares like a lethal halo.

I inquired, “Is that a rope chainsaw?”

“Yeah. Neat, huh? I use this thing to cut down high branches, but I figure the square chisel blades’ll wipe out bugs, too. Watch this.”

The saw whirred as Vinyl aimed it at a nearby tree. The mare stuck her tongue out as she concentrated her magic. A small cloud of sawdust pillowed away from the words she engraved. When Vinyl was satisfied with her work, she slowed the blades to a dull spin.

We all stepped closer to read the message.

Vinyl and Octavia

Together Forever

Applejack smiled as she said, “Aww, ain’t that the cutest thing?”

“I can cut the tree down in ten seconds flat, too,” Vinyl boasted.

Spike chuckled as he walked over to Vinyl. “I hate to break it to you, but the bad guys we fight aren’t just going to sit and let you carve sweet nothings into them.”

Vinyl tilted her head inquisitively as she studied the little dragon. “How old are you?”

“Uh . . . six.”

“They let you risk your neck fightin’ scary monsters and super creeps? Isn’t that willful child endangerment?”

As Spike struggled to snap out of his stunned silence, Twilight used her magic to yank Vinyl’s chainsaw away. “Hey, he may be young, but he’s still more qualified to wield his Element of Harmony than you.”

Vinyl rubbed her chin and studied Spike’s Element of Laughter that was welded onto a set of brass knuckles. “I don’t require mystic doo-dads to kick ass. My magic is all I need. That and my babe here.”

Twilight looked at Octavia. “And what can you bring to the table?”

Octavia walked over the tree Vinyl decorated and turned away from it. With a warm smile, she bucked the tree. A sharp crack and a flurry of leaves later, two deep hoof-prints and an inch-wide splitting of the tree were under Vinyl’s engraving.

Applejack whistled in admiration.

Spike whispered, “Yowza.”.

Twilight’s jaw hung loose.

Octavia said, “I have three brothers. They’re all missing a few teeth.”

Spike raced over to the tree. He traced the prints and crack with his fingers as if he were examining a priceless sculpture. “Oh, yeah,” he said with a sharp-toothed grin. “You can come with us.”

“Spike!” griped Twilight. “That’s not for you to decide!”

I got a nudge in the ribs. Applejack smirked at me. “When Ah said you had to get some friends, Ah didn’t mean somepony that could actually make Twilight clam up.”

“I heard that, A.J.,” Twilight replied sharply. She sighed, rubbing her temples. “Okay, you two can come with us.”

Spike pumped the air. “Yesss! Oonts, oonts, oonts!”

Twilight held up a hoof as she gave Vinyl her chainsaw back. “On the condition that you do what I say. We act as a team at all times. Understood?”

Octavia smiled sweetly. “Of course. Thank you.”

“No problem,” replied Vinyl. “I can’t wait to crack open some bugs.”

I asked, “Vinyl? Who was this fan that tipped you off?”

“He . . . uh . . . asked me not to say.”

I nodded, for I already had a fairly good idea who it was. What Vinyl said only clinched my suspicions.

“Equus? Somethin’ wrong?” asked Applejack.

“No. Someone’s just watching out for me, that’s all.” It had to have been Flashbulb that tipped these two mares off. Vinyl must have asked him where I would be. Flashy figured that I needed all the help I could get.

Applejack cocked her head towards the train. “What are friends for? Come on, let’s ride.”

* * *

Vinyl sat next to me on the train. Her lover sat on Vinyl’s other side.

Applejack smiled as she said, “Yew two are like two seeds in an apple.”

Vinyl chuckled as she nuzzled Octavia’s ear, making her giggle. “Yeah, we met in college. I needed somepony to help me with my music. She showed me that I needed a lover, too.”

Octavia added, “As you have undoubtedly noticed, my favorite marshmallow is very protective.”

“You gotta hang on to what’s precious, right? We’re not here just because a psycho bug threatened me and Octi. Someone’s got it in for Equus, too. We may not know too much about each other, but he’s still my friend.”

I found myself blushing. Still painfully shy.

Vinyl nodded at Applejack. “He’s lucky to have friends like you. Gabby Gums wrote an article about how you carried him out of that castle after Equus’s dad busted two of his legs.”

“Aw, he ain’t that heavy,” A.J. said, winking at me playfully. “Besides, he’s helped me carry some heavy baggage.”

Octavia replied, “Gabby also wrote an article about how close you and Rainbow Dash were. I’m very sorry about what happened.”

Vinyl chimed in, “Same here. I know what it’s like to lose somepony you love. That’s how we met Equus. He gave a great eulogy about my dad.”

“Yeah, that sounds like somethin’ Morty would do.”

I blushed a deeper shade of red while having a sudden fascination with my front hooves.

“Oh, dear,” remarked Octavia. “I do believe he’s glowing red.”

“Just your luck, huh, Equus?” remarked Vinyl. “Surrounded by mares that like you. Too bad none of us are straight.”

All three mares laughed as my cheeks lit up even more. I soon found myself laughing along with them.

It would be a long time before any of us laughed again.

Author's Note

The theme song for this chapter is "Flatlands" by Steve Roach

Ghost Town

Chapter Five

Ghost Town

Half of Appleoosa was on fire, but no one was around to put out the flames. Since the train station was also burning, the train had to stop a ways back.

Twilight pulled the Elements of Harmony out of her saddlebags with her magic. As she gave them to their bearers, she commanded, “Rarity, and I will put out the fires. Equus? You, Vinyl and Octavia will search the left part of town, the rest of you search the right half. Look for survivors and watch each other’s backs.”

We all leapt out and headed for the water tower. Twilight and Rarity used their magic to send streams of water into the fires. The rest of us searched for the locals.

The town’s one set of phone wires were snapped and torn from half a dozen poles, I noticed. Appleoosa might as well have been on the moon, as the nearest town was fifty miles away.

When the town hall’s fires were put out, Vinyl, Octavia and I ran inside. The holes in the roof let smokey beams of midday sun in. The floor was a clotted mess of burned paper and scorched wood chunks. The walls were blackened with fire damage.

“Yo! Anypony in here?” yelled Vinyl.

Our ears swiveled around, waiting for a reply. Only the sizzle of cooling charcoaled wood could be heard.

“Why are we the only ones in town?” Octavia asked.

“Good question, Tavi,” replied Vinyl. “A few fires wouldn’t have scared everypony off. I’m thinkin’ they all got abducted.”

Octavia picked through the rubble. “But this town must have had at least a few hundred residents. Who could have spirited them away?”

“Beats me, babe. Maybe a bunch of those grey bugs snatched ‘em.”

I looked behind a pile of charred roofing beams. There was the corpse of a large insect, lying in a puddle of green blood, the throat torn open. This one had solid black chitin, however. I knelt down for a closer look at the wound.

Twin grooves started from the middle of the neck, between the head and shoulder plating. They dug in deep, like a predator’s bite. Then the gouging teeth cut down and along the throat.
There were defensive scratches on all four hooves. It fought hard against it’s killer.

Whatever did that knew how to tear open throats. No pony has teeth like that. But those giant insects did. Why would they be fighting each other while stealing away ponies? Where was this creature’s opponent?

I lifted a nearby scorched table and found him. Grey and skinny, almost starved looking. Judging by the impact on the table and the cracks on its back and head, I could tell the black insect kicked his opponent into the table hard enough to kill him.

Wait a minute. I looked at the charred floor and saw scuffs and scratches in the floor where the two bugs were fighting. They killed each other in the middle of a burning building. Why would they hate each other enough to do that?

“Equus!” shouted Applejack from across the street.

All three of us ran outside and saw her waving us over to another building. “Yew ain’t gonna believe this,” she said, pointing through a window.

I peered inside. There were shredded bodies of grey and black insects in what I now recognized as a bar. They tore each other apart even in buildings that weren’t on fire.

When I and Applejack stepped through the front door, I saw pony blood on a nearby wall. One dead grey insect was dripping with it.

Dripping blood. Fresh blood.

“This had to have happened in the last hour or so,” I said. “I see a lot of dead insects and pony blood, but no pony bodies.”

Applejack gritted her teeth and snorted. “If these little bastards killed my cousin Braeburn, Ah’m gonna squash ‘em all.”

“There’s a chance he’s still alive, A.J.,” I assured her. “It looks like these grey bugs kidnapped all of Appleoosa’s ponies, and the black bugs tried to stop them.”

“There aren’t any barricades,” observed Octavia. “No resistance to this invasion. Everypony had to have been snatched within five minutes or so.”

Vinyl nodded. “You got it, Tavi. There had to have been a ton of bugs in the air to do this much damage.”

Twilight studied the bug-slaughter. “I don’t get it. No one knew these things existed until they threatened you, Equus. Now they’re killing each other over a species they couldn’t have known about until just recently.”

“If these black critters were huntin’ for food, why didn’t they attack somethin’ easier to hunt, like coyotes or . . .” Applejack’s ears flattened as her eyes bugged out. “Uh oh. Twi? Ah think we’d better see if Chief Thunderhooves’s tribe’s okay.”

Vinyl raised a hoof like a school-foal. “Could I get a refresher course here? Who are you talkin’ about?”

“Chief Thunderhooves is the leader of the local buffalo tribe,” answered Twilight. “We helped his people and Appaloosa with a peace treaty a few years ago.”

Applejack pointed out the front window. “They live a few miles north of here, if Ah remember right. They had to have at least seen the smoke.”

Spike and the other ponies joined us.

“Twilight?” said Spike. “We’ve searched every building, top to bottom. There are a lot of dead bugs, but no ponies.”

Fluttershy said, “My bats have these creature’s scent now, but they can’t find any live ones.”

“One curious thing I noticed,” Rarity pondered. “Several walls and floors in the grocery store have been removed.”

Spike scratched his head. “Yeah, I saw that. What do these bugs need all that wood for?”

Twilight rubbed her chin, using her magic to lift a black insect. “It’s weird that these dark ones are so much healthier than their opponents. What do you think, Equus?”

“I’m not sure what to think,” I said as I examined the blood-soaked grey creature. He was curled into a ball. Something was in his front hooves. When I turned him over, the object slipped onto the floor.

It was a severed pony hoof. Blond fur.

Applejack growled. “That had better not have come from Braeburn.”

Octavia quickly looked away, whispering “Sweet Celestia . . .”

Studying the blood-spatter, I noticed there were two trails of blood. One was larger, with thicker blood spray, as if from a severed limb. The smaller, thinner trail led to the hoof on the floor.

Both trails led to the back of the bar. Following the blood, I saw the trails going out an open door.

I took a step towards the door, but Twilight stopped me. “Hang on, let me and Rarity take point. There might still be bugs hiding somewhere.”

The two unicorns peered outside and waved us to follow.

When the harsh sun hit my eyes, I heard Rarity hiss in surprise. Her ears flattened as she backed away from what she stared at. I followed her gaze at a message painted on the back of the bar. That hoof must have been used as a grisly paint brush, for in thick, blotchy letters of pony blood we read:

WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU, EQUUS. COME TO THE NORTH MALARSON MOUNTAINS OR WE WILL KILL THE HOSTAGES.

A map was glued under the message, a small X of blood marking where we had to go.

Vinyl whistled through her teeth. “Man, can these bastards sink any lower?”

“If these critters live in the mountains, maybe the buffalo’ll know somethin’ about them,” suggested Applejack. “After all, ponies haven’t lived out here all that long.”

“That’s the best lead we have, Applejack,” Twilight conceded. “Let’s go find that tribe. I just hope those monsters didn’t snatch them, too.”

When we walked away from the town. I heard a buzzing sound from behind a building, like a large dragonfly in flight. I turned to see where it came from, but found nothing.

Someone was watching us.

Author's Note

This chapter's theme is "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (soundtrack 1974)" by Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell

Prarie Ghosts

Chapter Six

Prairie Ghosts

Equestria’s badlands have a stark and desolate beauty. Sheer rock cliffs, rolling plains of desert sands and a dry heat that could shrivel any pony into a furry prune before a single drop of sweat could ever be seen. I might have been able to enjoy the view of the approaching jagged mountain peaks if I didn’t think someone was planning to kill me there.

The Malarson Mountains were glowing orange with the setting sun’s light. The swirling clouds were bathed with contrasting shades of red and yellow. We had stopped for a rest at what was supposed to be Chief Thunderhoove’s campsite. There were signs of a quick retreat. No blood or signs of a struggle. Just hundreds of hoof prints, the scattered remains of tents and a recently doused campfire.

Fluttershy was flying in small circles above us as she waited for her bats to return. After a few minutes, they flitted over a nearby hill and began to fly around her as she descended. As they squeaked at her, she nodded.

“Thank you, my friends,” said Fluttershy. “Take a break for a while.” The bats snuggled under her wings.

Twilight asked, “Well, did they find out anything?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Them buffalo ain’t exactly dainty critters, Flutters,” quipped Applejack. “How can they hide well enough to dodge your bats?”

Fluttershy shook her head and sighed. “I have no idea.”

Something about the mish-mash of tracks bugged me. There were several different sizes of buffalo tracks, but one set of prints didn’t match the others. Buffalo hooves are cloven, yet these were pony sized. So many cloven tracks obliterated the pony marks, I almost didn’t notice the two grooves that trailed around the camp. Did this pony carry a cart? Did he go native and run with the buffalo?

Twilight sidled up to me. “It’s possible a pony warned the buffalo about these bugs. Appleoosa’s only a few miles south of here.”

Fluttershy began to fidget as her bats poked their heads out from under her wings, sniffing the air. After climbing out of her embrace, they took to the air once more, squeaking urgently. Fluttershy flew up to them, peering towards the mountains.

“What do you see?” I asked.

Fluttershy pointed north. “Someone’s coming. They say it’s a pony.”

“Where is he?” asked Twilight.

“I can’t tell . . . Oh! There he is! About a quarter mile away.”

Twilight said, “Could you bring whoever it is over here? He might have escaped from Appleoosa.”

“All right. Oh, he sees me." Fluttershy cringed. “Why is he running away?”

I shook my head. “Well, this day keeps getting better.”

Twilight barked to the rest of our group, “Get him!”

Not surprisingly, every other member of the Mane Six out-distanced me. Spike didn’t count as he rode on Twilight’s back.

Vinyl and Octavia were in the lead as we gradually began to close the distance between us and the runner. Whoever was trying to escape us turned right into some thickets and large boulders.

Octavia charged through, tearing open the parched foliage as if they were paper-mache. The hole she left behind was wide enough for two ponies.

I could hear Vinyl yelling, “Hey, stop runnin’! We just wanna talk!”

After a few more zigzags among giant cacti and weeds, Vinyl had had enough of chasing. Her horn glowed as her magic finally grabbed her target.

“Gotcha!” cried Vinyl triumphantly as she dashed into the weeds to snag her prey.

I heard a few meaty-sounding thuds as Octavia joined her partner. Clusters of weeds fell as dust clouds boiled up from the struggling.

“Nooo! Leave me alone!” I heard a mare scream. Wait. That voice. It can’t be her.

“I’ve got her front hooves, Vinyl.”

“I’ll grab her . . . wheels? Hey, she’s in a wheelchair!”

“Ahh! Let go of me! Please! My back’s killing me!”

I heard the others running up behind me. Twilight said, “Nice work, girls. Bring her out.”

Vinyl grunted. “Tryin’ to, but she’s a wriggler.”

“Look, whoever you are,” said Octavia. “You might as well cooperate with us. We just want to ask some questions.”

As the dust began to settle in the cooling dusk breeze, we saw the musicians escort a white mare with a frizzy yellow mane. Even though she was covered in desert sand and twigs from the struggle, I still recognized her.

Twilight squinted at the wheelchair-bound stranger. When she saw the familiar blue eyes, the jig was up. She took a few careful steps towards the mare. Twilight was a fiend for details.
Even with the fur-dye and hair-job, she could recognize the cheekbones, nose and chin.

“Pinkie Pie? Is that you?”

“If I told you my real name’s Surprise, would that fool you?”

Vinyl let go of Pinkie and stepped back, astonished. “Wait, what? She’s the one Nightmare Moon possessed?”

Octavia patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, my. I’m very sorry about this. If we knew who you really were, we wouldn’t have tackled you.”

Twilight ran over and glomped Pinkie in a tight hug, making her wince. “Ow! Careful, Twilight! My back!”

Spike hopped off Twilight’s back and waved the others over. “Hey, everybody!” He cried. “It’s Pinkie Pie!”

Fluttershy and Rarity could scarcely believe their eyes as they joined Twilight in the reunion.

“Darling, how in the world did you end up in the badlands?” asked Rarity.

“Is your back feeling any better?” Fluttershy queried.

“Oh, Pinkie,” Twilight snuffled as tears trickled down her cheeks. “I never thought I’d see you again. When I tried to visit you a few weeks ago, they said you were transferred. They refused to say where.”

“Looks like we have another marshmallow in our group, huh, Equus?” remarked Vinyl. “Who did her dye job?”

“I did,” I answered. “I also did her mane, tail and new cutie marks.”

Twilight slipped out of her hug and stamped over to me. “Why didn’t you tell me she was sent here? Don’t you know how badly we’ve all missed her?”

Cringing from her sudden anger at me, I said, “Because Princess Celestia wouldn’t tell me where Pinkie was going. If only Celestia knew Pinkie’s whereabouts, no one could hunt her down.”

“He’s telling the truth, Twilight,” said Pinkie. “I asked Celestia to send me out here. If I keep my supplies trips in Appleoosa short enough, no one will ever know it was really me. That’s why I ran away when I saw a pegasus near my home. I can’t risk anypony knowing where I live.”

“Do you know where Chief Thunderhooves and his tribe are?” I asked.

She nodded. “Uh-huh. When I saw a bunch of nasty-looking bugs snatch all those poor ponies from Appleoosa, I ran over here to warn the tribe away. They’re safe in a nearby cave.”

Twilight asked, “Did these bugs go into the mountains near here?”

“Yeah. No buffalo tribe goes anywhere near that place, though.”

“Why not?” inquired Octavia.

“Well, Chief Thunderhooves once told me that a thousand years ago, a bunch of . . . what did he call them? Oh! A bunch of ‘prairie ghosts’ moved into the mountain caves. Soon after, the buffalo starting hearing weird noises and seeing floating lights. They think the place is cursed, so every buffalo steers clear.”

My breath caught. “Pinkie, did he say how many of those ghosts there were?”

“Three thousand, according to legend,” she said. “Equus? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think those were ghosts the buffalo saw. Those were followers of Nightmare Moon. It sounds like a group that my great-times-thirty grandfather Quietus Mortis led to escape prosecution for war crimes.”

“Ghosts and bugs,” mused Twilight.

Pinkie wiped away her tears. “I . . . I never thought I’d see any of you girls ever again. I use my Pinkie Sense to help the buffalo find water, but this place sure isn’t Ponyville.”

“Howdy, Pinks.”

Pinkie winced. Her eyes became pinpoints. She began to shiver. “Uhh . . . H-hi. Applejack.”

Applejack slowly walked towards Pinkie. “Never thought I’d lay eyes on you again,” she said in a low, neutral tone. Was she gritting her teeth?

Pinkie cringed as she tried to back away.

Suddenly, Applejack raced towards her, scowling.

Her wheelchair was stuck in place by rocks, so she could only hold up a hoof as Applejack leapt at her.

“Applejack!” Pinkie screamed.

Author's Note

This one's theme is "Panoramic" (Book Of Eli soundtrack) by Atticus Ross

Reunion

Chapter Seven

Reunion

Applejack grabbed Pinkie and stood on her hind legs, lifting her wheelchair up a few inches before it slammed back to the ground. Pinkie screamed as she frantically struggled to get out of that farm-hardened, muscular grip.

“Applejack! Please don’t hurt me! It wasn’t really me that killed Rainbow Dash! Nightmare Moon did it, I swear!”

When Applejack lifted her head, we could see her tears. “Ah know all that, sugarcube.”

They hugged as Applejack began to sob.

Pinkie nuzzled her as she cried, “I’d give anything to bring Dashie back, I swear it!”

“Ah believe you, darlin’.”

“I thought you would have hated me more than anyone else.”

“A couple of months ago, Ah guess Ah did. A grief councelin’ group’s been helpin’ me, though. Ah don’t hate yew, darlin’. Ah just hate the thought of yew gettin’ used by that monster.”

Rarity asked, “How long have you been out here, dear?”

“I’ve been living in an old prospector’s shack for a few weeks.”

“By yourself?” inquired Spike.

She shrugged. “Well, yeah! I can’t run the risk of anypony from Appleoosa recognizing me, even with my makeover. The buffalo never read newspapers, so they don’t know what happened to me.”

“Oh, my,” said Fluttershy. “You must be terribly lonely.”

Pinkie looked at the ground, her hair flattening. “You have no idea. That shack I stay in is near a cliff that has a half-mile drop. On the really bad, ugly nights, I find myself standing on the edge of that cliff with one hoof held up. All I need to do is lift the other hoof and I fall away from a life I hate.”

We huddled around her as a fresh stream of tears came to Pinkie. “But then I think of how Rainbow Dash would react if she found out I committed suicide. She’d hate me for taking my own life.”

The dead always know the secrets the living keep. That’s what Nightmare Moon told my dad. That’s what I told Pinkie after that tyrant was sent back to the moon.

She stamped a hoof. “I can’t stand that idea! Too many people hate me already for something I didn’t do. For Dashie to hate me for something I did do? That’s too terrible to risk. So I put my hoof back on the ground, turn away from the cliff and walk back to my empty home.
I sleep in an empty bed and I sit next to an empty chair.”

Applejack nodded. “Ah know what you mean. Ah almost killed someone not too long ago, but Ah was afraid of gettin’ on Rainbow’s bad side, too. Looks like we have a lot in common.”

Pinkie sniffed, wiping her nose. “For the first time in my life, I’m actually afraid of people. But I’m also lonely. I thought that just being safe from harm would make my life better. But the badlands are worse than the rock farm I tried so hard to get away from. It’s almost as if I’m destined to be this way. To be alone.”

“Ah once felt that way, but Ah’m tellin’ you that’s stinkin’ thinkin’, Pinks,” said Applejack as she picked twigs out of Pinkie’s mane.

She raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. “Really? The life I struggled to find is gone. The only mare I ever loved is dead. There’s nothing but quiet and solitude out here. I hate quiet, it makes me jumpy. I can’t stand solitude, because if I’m not helping others, I just don’t feel alive.”

Twilight sat next to Pinkie. “It had to have been horrible in that asylum.”

“The screaming was the worst,” Pinkie admitted. “Top of their lungs. All day, all night. The only smiles I found there were from ponies that were way worse off than even me. The badlands are a little better than that, I guess.”

Rarity snorted. “Giant bug problems notwithstanding.”

Pinkie’s ears shot up. “Those bugs cut the phone lines before they cleaned out the town. Did a call for help get out before the lines went down? How did you guys get here so fast?”

Octavia said, “Equus was threatened and even attacked by one of those grey insects back in Ponyville recently. A trail of clues led us here. The timing of our arrival is just a coincidence.”

“But how do those icky bugs know you, Equus?” asked Pinkie.

“I’m not sure the insects are entirely to blame,” I replied. “I don’t know how, but I think Quietus somehow hired these creatures to hunt me down and lure me into the Malarson Mountain caves.”

Pinkie scratched her head, puzzled. “Hired them? I don’t think bugs spend bits like we do. What could thousand year old ghosts offer them to do this kind of damage?”

Twilight got up and said, “Only one way to find out. We’re almost out of daylight, so we’d better get going if we want to read the caves by nightfall.”

Applejack brushed away the rocks that kept Pinkie’s wheels in place. “Ah guess you can head on back home, Pinks. We’ll take it from here.”

“Nope. I’m coming with you.”

Taken aback, I said, “What? Pinkie, I don’t want to sound cruel, but you’re not really in full fighting trim anymore.”

Pinkie walked over to me, looking me over. “Do your legs ache whenever it rains? I bet they do. Is it hard to live with just one kidney? Probably. Yet here you are.”

Applejack shook her head in disbelief. “Darlin’, Ah don’t want to sound mean or anythin’, but we’ll be fightin’ a lot of bugs with no hope of reinforcements. How can you help us in yer current condition?”

“I may be in a wheelchair, but I’m still pretty fast.”

Vinyl snorted. “I was faster.”

“Vinyl! Don’t be rude!” growled Octavia.

“Sorry, babe,” said Vinyl, blushing.

Twilight rubbed her chin. “Hmm. Pinkie, if your sense can help the buffalo find water, do you think it can help us find those bugs?”

Pinkie’s hair poofed out like a popcorn kernel. “I bet it could! Let’s go!”

Spike climbed onto Twilight’s back and smiled at Pinkie. “Just like old times, huh?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie squinted at Spike’s brass knuckles. “Hey, what did you do to my Element of Laughter?”

“Twilight gave it an upgrade,” He replied, grinning with pride. “The Element gives me the punching power of a fully grown dragon now.”

Pinkie admired the sculpting job. “Gee, I just used it to fire rainbows.”

Spike shrugged. “Everything changes.”

“Tell me about it,” Pinkie replied, stroking back her blond hair.

* * *

As we continued walking towards the Malarson Mountains, I heard the buzzing sound again, this time from the other side of a nearby hill. Pinkie’s tail began to twitch.

“Uh, guys?” said Pinkie. “I think we’re being followed.”

“You hear that too, huh?” Vinyl replied as she stared out into the purple dusk.

“He must be a scout for whatever’s waiting for us in those mountain caves,” observed Twilight. “I wonder if it’s a black bug or a grey one?”

Pinkie tilted her head in confusion. “Why would that matter?”

“The black insects are fighting the grey ones,” I informed her. “So I guess there’s dissention in their ranks for some reason.”

“So not all bugs are mean?” Pinkie’s ears pricked up. “Cool! Maybe we’ll team up with them.”

Octavia smiled. “I admire your optimism.”

“I’m just happy to be surrounded by ponies that know who I am and don’t care.” Pinkie smiled at Octavia and Vinyl as they walked side by side. “You two are that music group ‘Boards Of Equestria’, right?”

Vinyl lit up, grinning. “Hey, another fan. How did you hear about us, Pinkie?”

“Rainbow Dash used to listen to your music all the time when she was cloud-busting. When we were together, I’d listen with one ear-bud while Dashie banged her head with the other.”

“Octi and I do that in the studio sometimes,” Vinyl remarked.

“I can tell you two have been together for a long time,” Pinkie said.

Octavia raised a brow as she asked, “How did you know?”

“Oh, there’s a bunch of hints. The way you exchange nuzzles once every few minutes. Or how you don’t hold a grudge for the stuff Vinyl said to me.”

“Before I met my mare, I was much quieter,” said Octavia. “My conservative background raised me to keep myself to myself. That included keeping my preference for mares quiet. Vinyl showed me a world where I didn’t have to hide my true self.”

“And I used to be a lot louder and meaner to other ponies.” Vinyl confessed. “Tavi taught me to throttle back on the snark, to think before I open my cookie-hole. I still slip up sometimes. She’s always there to catch me, though.”

Pinkie grinned as she pondered. “So one of you had gotten louder and the other one’s become quieter. Neat!”

Her hair was now as frizzy as a hay-bale. Pinkie’s front legs had a cheerful canter as her wheels bounced over the rocks. If you ignored the white fur and wheelchair, you could swear that she was the same Pinkie Pie Ponyville loved having around before I ever left Manehattan.

Everypony’s mood began to darken, however, as we climbed over a hill and saw the massive cave entrance. You could fit the Ponyville Train in that maw. With the last gleam of fading sunlight, we could see maybe ten hooves into the cave.

“Twilight?” I asked. “Did you say that these mountains have large, deep caves?”

She was lighting her way with her horn. “That’s what I’ve read in Equestria Geographic magazine. Some of these caves have a hundred miles of tunnels.”

“How deep does this cave go?” asked Spike.

“Noone knows.”

I inquired, “Why not?”

“If I remember correctly, this is cave LV426. It has no official name because every pony that’s tried to map this cave has never returned.”

Spike gulped, rubbing his brass knuckles as if it were a lucky talisman. “Oh. No worries, right?”

Twilight grunted as she maximized the bright purple glow. Vinyl trotted over beside her and lit up even more of the cave with her red-tinted magic. Rarity joined them with stellar blue radiance.

Vinyl chuckled. “Hey, it looks like one of my raves, Tavi!”

Octavia rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, dear. The terrifying cave of unknown peril does indeed look like a dance party.”

“Yep! Complete with sparkles! Wait, what?”

Pinkie’s back began to ripple. Her tail trembled. “Ooh, I don’t like this, guys!”

I walked cautiously towards the cave. The three light-beams revealed more of the cave, showing dozens of rocks and stalactites. Some of the rocks gleamed as if encrusted with jewels.
Some of those gleams moved away from the lights.

“My Pinkie sense is going bonkers!” She hollered as her wheels rattled around.

I heard a now-familiar buzzing sound again, but this time from within the cave. It wasn’t just one set of wings beating, however.

Rarity squinted into the cave. “Why are the walls moving?”

We heard hundreds of wings.

And saw hundreds of eyes.

From deep within the cave came a deep, low voice. “Hello, Equus.”

I was so stunned from hearing my name, it took a moment to open my mouth. “Who are you?”

“Do you not know your own family history? When we lost the war and had to scatter across Equestria, I and three thousand of my followers ended up here.”

Shaking my head, I couldn’t deny what I was hearing. It was impossible for normal ponies to live that long. But “normal” parted company with me a long time ago.

“Quietus Mortis?”

The voice chuckled. “Very good. You may be a traitor, but at least you’re educated. And you brought a celebrity with you.”

“What?”

Pinkie walked up to me, her body shivering. “Who’s he talking about?”

“You, Pinkie Pie.”

She frowned and looked away. “There’s no way you could know me.”

“Nightmare Moon did.”

Pinkie’s eyes bulged as she stared into the cave.

“She told me that it was simple to take over your body. Your anger over Rainbow Dash preferring to fornicate with Applejack instead of you made Rainbow’s death easy to achieve. She only made you do something you’ve wanted to do for a while.”

“You lie!” She yelled. “You’re just saying that to hurt me!”

“Oh, I haven’t begun to hurt you yet. But I and my followers will have plenty of practice taking all of you apart. Grab them! Bring Equus to me!”

A sudden gust of wind from the cave kicked up a roiling hill of dust. A sudden brazing of wings pierced our ears.

Then we were smothered by a massive swarm of grey bugs.

Author's Note

The theme song this time is "From The Heart Of Darkness" by Kevin Braheny and Michael Stearns.

Deep In The Pit

Chapter Eight

Deep In The Pit

“Equus!” yelled Twilight. “Stay close to me!”

I could barely hear her over the cacophony of thousands of insect wings. The grey swarm had knocked half of us to the ground. One bug tried to grab me, but I punched him. Another wrapped his hole-filled front legs around my barrel, but Pinkie Pie swung her wheelchair like a mace and swatted the creature away.

Twilight and Rarity used their unicorn magic to blast away a few of the attackers. Fluttershy was the first to get snatched and pulled into the cave. Spike punched one insect with his brass knuckles so hard, the creature’s head snapped with a loud crack.

Vinyl was holding her own by using her unicorn magic to spin her rope chainsaw fast enough to slice in half several opponents. Octavia stayed close to her lover’s side, bucking away the bugs Vinyl missed.

Applejack shot a few of the bugs with her Element, but caused more damage by bucking any that came up behind her into the mountain. Some of her attackers got embedded in the rocks.

In spite of all those efforts, we were outmatched. Pinkie was knocked away as five grey insects grabbed me at once and lifted me off the ground. I struggled to escape, but several arms held me so tight, I could barely breath.

Past the waves of bugs, I could see the cave getting closer.

And then my abductors started punching me.

No, something was hitting them. I craned my head around towards the new assault and saw several black bugs pulling the grey ones away from me. A black one said to his companions, “Take him back to base!”

“Equus!” Twilight shouted. “I can’t see you! Say something!”

I could barely hear myself over all the racket the swarm was making. Waving my legs around was about all I could do since I was still so high off the ground.

“There he is!” cried Rarity. She fired a beam of blue magic at the black bugs that surrounded me. They screamed as they let me go.

Rarity gripped me in her magic, pulling me back to the group.

Then a dozen grey bugs slammed into her, knocking her out. I hit the sand with a teeth-jarring thud. I looked around, shaking my head to clear my vision. Several black bugs were fighting alongside my friends, much to their surprise.

Something landed on my back. I looked up and saw a grey insect with a malevolent grin on it’s face. It raised a perforated hoof and slammed it into my head.

The world fell away.

* * *

The first thing I noticed when I woke was my sore neck. That was due to my head having been strapped to a wooden frame that was propped upright. The strap that dug into my brow wouldn’t even let me turn my head. My Element had been taken off.

As my senses slowly returned, I realized that I had been tied down, my arms and legs spread apart. The harder I struggled to get loose, the more I simply strained my limbs. I was helpless.

Just like in the wood-engravings of my family history book. What did my ancient family do to earth ponies? A lot of things. Sadistic things.

Looking around, I saw a stone floor, walls and ceiling. A fire in a nearby burning pit provided the only light. The dancing orange light made it hard to see every detail of this large room. I wondered why there were so many shelves in here.

My eyes adjusted a bit more. Those weren’t shelves. They were coffin-spaces. I was in a crypt. One that once held three thousand ponies.

A distant wall had a large hole. It was made from outside this room, judging by the rubble.

“Ah, good!” someone said out of my sight. “You’re awake. Now we can begin.”

I heard heavy footsteps, slow and dragging.

At first I thought that another alicorn had walked into my field of vision. After all, the creature was as tall as Princess Celestia and had a horn and wings. The pale grey chitin and the long, stringy blue hair made it obvious that it . . . no, she was one of the insects.

I noticed that her horn was much larger than those of the smaller bugs. There was a three-pronged crown in her thinning hair. Was this beast the hive’s queen? Her large, green feline eyes were drowsy and cloudy.

There were tremors in her joints, as if she were an ancient crone. Her large pale blue gossamer wings were sagging and shredded like wet newspaper. The creature took hesitant breaths, as if struggling to keep from drowning.

The decrepit state of this poor thing almost made me forget who captured me. She grinned and I noticed her long sharp teeth were yellowed. Then a ball of green fire engulfed her head. A white male pony head appeared. He looked a bit like me. Black short-cropped mane. Long muzzle with thin, almost gaunt features.

“Quietus Mortis?” I asked, half-knowing the answer.

“Correct. I and the others have been waiting for you for months.”

“How did you come back from the dead? Nightmare Moon only had enough time to resurrect my dad.”

He nodded, the pony head looking bizarre on such a large insect. “She was working on returning me when you and your friends showed up. I was more than a mere ghost, but was still less than flesh. When your father ran to us with his injuries, I sat in the shadows and bore witness to your betrayal.”

The horn glowed with green magic and a cart was rolled over next to me. I could just barely see my Element resting on one corner of the cart.

“When your father smashed your legs, I wanted to laugh. But I had to stay quiet, or I would have been sent to the moon along with him.”

I ground my teeth, feeling more angry than scared at that point. “If my dad knew why the war between Luna and Celestia really began, he might have thought twice about killing himself.”

Quietus examined what was on the tray. “And I suppose that Princess Celestia told you it was to keep the dead from returning? That the sun served Equestria better than eternal blissful night?”

How could I tell this lunatic the truth, I thought. Then I mentally scolded myself. He’s a fanatic, when do they ever listen to any dogmas but their own?

I had nothing to lose by telling the truth, so I said, “Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon after her lover, Discord, was turned into stone by Princess Celestia. Nightmare Moon wanted to reunite with her reality-warping boyfriend, but her sister wouldn’t allow it. That’s why they fought.”

He tilted his head at me, jaw gaping a little. Quietus frowned and said, “You must think I’m an imbecile. Why would I ever believe that?”

“Discord told me.”

“Impossible. He’s still a statue.”

“Not anymore. Someone stole his body and revived him. He told me the real reason why the two sisters went to war.”

Quietus rolled his eyes. “I suppose Discord’s up to his old tricks again?”

“No, he went back to his home reality.”

“How terribly convenient. I suppose we’ll wring the truth out of your precious princess while Nightmare Moon peels her skin off. She’s good at that, you know. She taught us everything we know about torture, after all.”

He used his magic to lift a skinning knife off the tray. “I wasn’t lying to Pinkie Pie when I said it was easy for Nightmare to take over her body.” He looked into the darkness, a dreamy, wistful look on his face. “I would have given anything to watch the master at work. Rainbow Dash was definitely taken apart with expert care and precision. Our Goddess probably cut perfect circles around the destiny marks before she pulled them off bloodlessly.”

“Actually, no.” That snapped him out of his revelry. “Didn’t Nightmare Moon tell you? I examined Rainbow Dash’s body. The cutie marks were sliced off in jagged circles and muscle was exposed. Blood was spilled.”

The skinning knife suddenly flew onto my throat. The tip slowly bit into my skin.

“Even here, in this sacred temple, you mock your family’s deity and provoke me. Where did you get your habit of defiance? Your father was faithful and your mother was devoted to him and Nightmare Moon.”

Stunned, as if swatted in the face with a hammer, I asked, “How do you know my mom?”

The blade was yanked away as Quietus smiled, pleased at his small victory over me. “The dead always know the secrets the living keep, Equus. The afterlife is much larger than the living world, so it took a very long time for her to find me.”

“Hold on. You said you were more than a ghost in the castle. How did you end up looking like this?”

Quietus chuckled. “I’m so glad you asked. After Nightmare Moon and your father were sent to the moon, I knew that I lacked the strength to attack you directly. So I drifted back to the crypt of my followers.”

He walked around the fire. “She is a very generous Goddess, you know. Every pony she visits is bestowed a small amount of her power. Nightmare Moon knew she was in danger of being sent back to the moon if your father failed to kill you. So she gave me her ability to bring my followers back from the dead, though not at her speed or power.”

Pacing back and forth, in and out of my fixed vision, he continued. “In my case, it would have taken years to get a decent-sized army resurrected, but that little resources problem was resolved by an unexpected visit.”

“The bugs.”

“They call themselves changelings, actually. This body once belonged to the one they named Queen Chrysalis, but I now command what was once her army through her hive-mind-control abilities.”

Struggling to keep up, I said, “I’m not following you. Did you get Nightmare Moon’s mind-control powers as well? How did you take hold of Chrysalis?”

“It was easier than you might imagine. It seems that when the queen and her hive broke into this crypt, they sensed spectral energies from me and the few followers I brought back as ghosts.”

“Sensed you?”

“Fascinating creatures, these changelings. Not only can they fake their appearance, but they also feed on the emotions of others. It seems that ghosts are made of the same magic that keeps these parasites alive. Queen Chrysalis and her hive were desperately hungry after tunneling under Equestria for so long. She needed food for her hive and I needed her abilities as a Queen to suit my plans.”

“You offered to . . . feed this queen? How?”

“By merging. She thought she would get all the free food she wanted by feeding off of my ghost. When she dropped her mental defenses, I immediately took control of her mind. Having a living body gave my resurrection power a huge boost. Dozens of the faithful appeared in this crypt within moments. They were able to commandeer Chrysalis’s small-minded minions quite easily. I had half the hive at my command by the end of the day.”

“Why does Chrysalis look so sick? Why are your changelings grey?”

“Before Chrysalis’s mind finally went, she told me that her race feeds off of love. That’s obviously a lie, as my love for Nightmare Moon is without measure.”

“You’re starving these poor creatures,” I said. “They can’t live off of what drives your family.”

Quietus shrugged. “My army’s numbers grow every day. The longer I stay in this body, the more followers I can drag back from the afterlife. As long as this body remains alive, it will be the doorway for all who wish to help return our Goddess to her rightful glory. Soon, however, my ghost-body will absorb enough pain to reintegrate into flesh, just like with your father.”

“Why did you send changelings to threaten me? Why the assassin?”

“To test my army’s abilities, of course. The first changelings were only strong enough to reach you before they died. I told them to threaten you by any means available in order to guide you to me. The one in your morgue was simply a test to see how much damage a changeling could take before getting killed.”

Now I knew how a test animal felt. “What are you planning?”

Quietus smiled. “Fillydelphia isn’t that far from here. Once the entire hive belongs to me, that city will fall in a day. The hills will be slick with blood once again. By the time your Princess Celestia finds out what’s happened, it will be far too late for heroics. Nightmare Moon will use her sister’s ribs for soup bones by the end of the week.”

Recalling the carnage I saw in Appleoosa, I asked, “Where are the townsfolk?”

He waved a hoof dismissively. “Oh, they’ll be dead in a few hours. It only took half my army to clean out Appleoosa. The other half is busy sharpening their skills at giving our Goddess the same power she gave us all.”

“W-what are you talking about? What power did she give you?”

Quietus looked at me as I had suddenly dropped from the ceiling. “The power to absorb pain, of course. Oh, Equus. Don’t you still bury the dead? Haven’t you felt stronger around the grieving?”

Recalling how oddly perky I was after burying Vinyl Scratch’s father, I nodded. “I haven’t always had that ability.”

“You did after Nightmare Moon entered your dreams. She always leaves a small portion of her magic to those she visits. You should be honored.”

I didn’t feel her magic last winter when Applejack was half-mad with grief over Rainbow’s death. When I stabbed someone that shot me with an arrow, however, I felt like I could wipe out Manehatten with my bare hooves.

It was due to the Spectrum I fell into. That vat of liquid magic that revived Discord must have somehow kick-started Nightmare Moon’s magic.

The memory of killing the changeling, of enjoying the act, came unbidden. Even the death-throes of a giant insect helped feed my then-unnoticed talent.

In spite of what Quietus said, I didn’t feel honored. Was I turning into this monster that abducted me? I felt no remorse over killing a bug. Would I feel awful about killing another pony? Would that be such a big step for me?

Quietus was studying me, waiting to see if I could figure everything out. I surmised, “The changelings are starving because you and your followers only have love for Nightmare Moon. She needs pain and suffering from the living in order to return. That’s why those changelings in Ponyville died so quickly. It’s like trying to live on just bread.”

He picked up a pair of sharpened pliers. “Go on.”

“But your followers’ ghosts are getting stronger from what they’re doing to those poor ponies.”

“Which just goes to show which species is superior,” he said proudly. “The Mortis family has overcome prosecution and even death. Who else can make the same claim? And when the grey changelings die from combat or starvation, the faithful are still kept in this world by me. The Queen has plenty of unhatched changelings that can be used by your family, so death is now only an inconvenience.”

“Then why aren’t you controlling the entire hive? Are those black changelings beyond your limits?”

Quietus growled under his breath. “Chrysalis told me something about a . . . what did she call it? An Under-queen, still a pupae. That unborn insect is what’s keeping me from total control of the hive.”

Then there’s still a chance to fight you, I thought.

“Oh, don’t labor under false hope, Equus. Your friends may not have been killed just yet, but their skins will clothe my followers soon enough. The Under-queen will inevitably be smashed under my new hooves, leaving me the one true leader. As for you? This family crypt is half a mile underground. No one will hear you, no matter what I do to you.”

He put down the pliers and pointed a scalpel at me. “You were warned that the Vengeful were coming for you. You betrayed your family by spoiling Nightmare Moon’s long-awaited return. However, I am going to force you to do right by your family.”

“What are you talking about?”

Quietus got on his knees, studying my cutie marks. “You are about to become part of something glorious, something much greater than yourself and your selfish desires.”

The scalpel drifted towards my right flank.

“Your agony will help give me and our Goddess the power we need to set this world on the path to glory. Hopefully, with your last breath, you will find the strength to thank me.”

The blade rested just above my cutie mark.

“This isn’t murder, Equus.”

The blade pushed into my skin, slicing past the fur.

“It’s absolution.”

As Quietus guided the scalpel around my cutie mark with practiced care, I screamed.

Author's Note

"Dark Father" by Sephiroth is this chapter's theme.

Familiar Faces

Chapter Nine

Familiar Faces

I thrashed in my bonds, trying desperately to break free. But Quietus left nothing to chance. According to my family history book, he had tortured to death hundreds of ponies from all three races. During the war, he was Nightmare Moon’s most trusted source of power. Quietus had perfected the art of skinning a pony alive from head to tail, of removing half the bones of a pony before the victim died of blood loss. He was a top-shelf expert of carefully orchestrated torture.

And I was in agony from his expert skills. He waited until I exhausted myself from struggling against the ropes. Then he cut a perfect circle around my right cutie mark, the blade cutting just the surface layer.

I screamed until my vocal cords felt like they would snap. I was crying so hard I almost didn’t notice that he was gazing at me, smiling like a happy child on his birthday.

“This brings back so many cherished memories. The hills would glisten with blood. All those screams were sweeter to my ears than any song ever written. I even managed to stop up a river with all the organs I had ripped out and collected. It was paradise.”

He held the scalpel up to me. Only the edge was bloody. “Even after a millennium, I still have the expert touch. When I peel off your destiny marks, only the epidermis will be taken. It will look as if you had stayed a blank-flank.”

“Q-Quietus! Please don’t do this! Don’t kill me!”

“Heh. How many times did the unfaithful and treacherous beg for mercy? Every time. How many times did I grant them mercy? None.”

The cutie mark was slowly getting pulled away from my flank. “I’m only giving you what you deserve, Equus. This is just the beginning.”

The final strip of skin that hung onto my cutie mark snapped like a thread. I yelped with pain, which only made Quietus chuckle.

I heard a distant splat of the skin getting tossed to the floor. “That’s one down. Now hold still and this next one will be removed a little quicker.”

When the scalpel sliced into my left flank, I flinched, making the blade dig into my muscles. I howled in blinding agony as I pulled away from the scalpel.

“You did that to yourself,” Quietus scolded. “Just for that, I’ll peel this destiny mark off extra slowly.”

True to his word, I could feel every painful inch of the incision as he carefully drew what felt like another circle. I looked down, tears blurring my vision. He slowly licked his lips, his eyes fully focused on the task of skinning me.

After what felt like an eternity, my remaining cutie mark was stripped away. He got on his feet and held up both of my blood-framed cutie marks. “Nice skinning job, yes? Take a good, long look at them, traitor. You don’t deserve to be a Mortis, so it’s fitting that these are the first to be destroyed.”

After a moment of seeing the twin earth pony skulls looking at each other, they were tossed into the fire. I smelled the acrid stink of my flesh burning. The skulls turned black and curled into orange-tinted scrolls. Through the licking flame and smoke, I saw my cutie marks disintegrate into ash.

I couldn’t even talk anymore. Quietus had won. I had lost. There was nothing left but the torture and my inevitable death. How did it come to this? Only a few days ago, I was dancing to my favorite band. Having fun. Living life.

Is this what Pinkie Pie felt like when I first met her in that insane asylum? No future to look forward to, only a cold, lonely death?

I had finally arrived at the place that I represented. Where optimism is pointless and life can no longer linger.

Slumping in my bonds, I closed my tear-stained eyes and groaned.

“And there it is,” said Quietus. “That one moment when the unfaithful finally resigns to their fate. Perhaps I won’t disembowel you while making you watch, even though that’s one of my favorite tortures.”

He tapped my nose, making me look directly in his eyes. “I think I’ll remove your ribs first. If you can survive that, I’ll let you keep your organs.”

Quietus planted his scalpel under my right lower rib.

The tip slowly pressed into my fur.

A thick drop of blood blossomed and trickled down my belly.

“Quietus Mortis!” shouted what sounded like a mare behind him.

He stiffened in surprise as he turned towards the visitor. A dark grey changeling flew in from the hole in the wall, landed and stomped angrily towards Quietus.

“You promised me you would let me help with Equus’s absolution!” She fumed.

Much to my astonishment, he put the scalpel back onto the table and bowed to the changeling. With a humble, submissive voice, he replied, “I do apologize, my lady. A pony is only as good as his word, and I confess I’ve broken mine. I was simply anxious to get my hooves on y . . .”

She marched between me and him and pointed at my wounds. “I wanted to do this!”

He backed away, ears flattened. “I’m terribly sorry. Let me compensate for my selfish blunder. I’ll let you absolve him.”

“Hmph. Very well. Give me that hammer.”

Quietus levitated a large iron hammer into her waiting hooves. It was the kind they used to pound hot spikes into the hooves.

She waved the hammer around, measuring it’s heft. Looking at me, she grinned.

Looming over her, he asked, “Have you decided what you’re going to break with that?”

Nodding, she replied, “Oh, yes.”

Lifting the hammer, she giggled. I ground my teeth, waiting for the pain to begin again.

She swung the hammer around and smashed Quietus in the head.

With a cry of pain, he fell down sideways, his head bouncing off the floor. His legs thrashed as he tried to right himself.

The hammer thudded into his skull again before it slipped out of her hooves. Quietus growled as he slumped, now unconscious.

I stared at his limp body as the Changeling ran to the table, grabbed the scalpel and frantically began to cut my rear legs free.

“What are you . . .” a hole-poked hoof plugged my mouth.

“Shh! There are more of them outside,” she whispered. She grabbed my Element and put it back on my neck. “When I carry you out of here, shut your eyes and play dead. Got it?”

She glowered at me, leaving no room for argument. I nodded as she sliced off the rest of my bonds. I slid off the upright table, my limbs aching from the bondage. She caught me and gently laid me next to Quietus. My flanks burned and bled even more.

Hoisting me up onto her back, she whispered, “We’re out of here. Be a corpse.”

Staying limp and blind on her back, I could only hear her talking to someone.

The stranger said, “Ah, you finally got a crack at the traitor, eh?”

“He didn’t last long. I’m taking him to the dumping pit.”

“Where’s Quietus? I thought you wanted to know where he was.”

“He’s worn out. Dozing in the crypt. Don’t bother him.”

“Got it. I hope you had fun,” said the voice as she trotted away from him.

“More than you know,” she called behind her.

I bounced on her hard chitin as she trotted around a few corners and up and down a few stairs during what felt like a mile’s journey.

After a few more minutes, she said, “We’re clear. You can open your eyes now.”

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the green ambient lighting given by the bioluminescence of cave algae. I’d be fascinated with the vegetation if my body wasn’t killing me. We were in a long, narrow cave. She stopped and rapped a hoof on a rock. Once. Then three times. One knock again.

A thin slab of rock was pushed aside, revealing a hidden cave. Two black changelings stepped away from the entrance and waved us through, silently.

“There he is!” I heard Twilight shout. “He’s . . . ohh, he’s not so okay.”

My ride stopped and pulled me off her. I laid down on the cool rock as my friends gathered around me. They all survived the assault, but not without cost. Twilight had a black eye. Fluttershy was limping. Rarity’s left eye has three scratches underneath it. Applejack’s back was bandaged. The rest of the group were equally pummeled.

The cave was immense. In several caves above us, groups of black changelings clustered close as they stared at us. Occasionally a changeling would fly overhead.

I sat up, trying to avoid touching my injuries.

The changeling who rescued me said, “I wish I discovered where Quietus kept Equus a little sooner.”

Twilight smiled at her. “I’m just glad you found him. When will Quietus discover he’s gone?”

She shrugged. “I bashed his skull pretty hard. He’ll be out for a little while.”

“Thanks for bringing him to us.”

“It’s the least I could do.” She burst into green flame. A moment later, I saw a mare I recognized but never got a chance to know. “After all, I couldn’t let him destroy my son.”

She smiled maternally at me. White fur like mine. Her long grey mane, ice-blue eyes and tooth cutie mark would make her stand out in a crowd.

It was as if I had never killed her.

“Mom?”

Author's Note

This chapter's theme song is "An Intangible World" by Lacus Somniorum

Reunited

Chapter Ten

Reunited

My dead mother smiled at me. The fact that a shape-shifting bug made this possible only made me feel more light headed, as if I was waking from a vivid dream. Or in my case, a nightmare.

“Yes, little Equus, it’s me. It’s really me. Marrow Mortis.”

I sat up and reached out to her face with a trembling hoof. All I could touch was the hard shell of a changeling. She was there, yet she wasn’t. I might as well have tried to touch a memory.

“Hello, son,” she said, a sob hitching in her voice.

“M-mom . . .”

We hugged each other tight. For a few moments, there was no one else in the world except us. I cried as much as when I was getting tortured, but these tears were the kind I didn’t mind having. After all, how many times in my life have I ever cried tears of joy?

After what felt like an hour later, we broke off the hug. I stared into her beautiful eyes, trying to recall all the photos dad took of her. They didn’t do her nearly enough justice.

Mom said, “I wish changelings could cry actual tears. I’ll just have to settle for yours, dear.”

“Plenty to go around,” I replied.

I heard a whimpering behind me. I turned to see Pinkie Pie trembling as she stared at me.
Seeing a happy reunion should have made her hop for joy as much as her wheelchair allowed, yet she looked terrified.

Then I realized what she was staring at. My bleeding wounds.

“They’re just like Dashie’s,” she whispered. “Just like what I did to poor . . .” Pinkie looked away, keening like a kicked dog.

Applejack ran over and steered her away from me. “It’s okay, sugarcube. Don’t look at ‘em.”

“I remember it all now,” sobbed Pinkie. “Everything I did to Rainbow.”

“It wasn’t you, darlin’. It could never be you.”

They held each other, both shivering from bad memories.

“Mom? Quietus told me that you were looking for him. Is that true?”

“That’s right. I had to use his resurrection powers to get back to the living. All I had to do was tell him I wanted to torture my own son to death for his betrayal. He couldn’t bring me back here fast enough.”

“How did you even know what he was doing?”

Marrow smiled knowingly. “Oh, a certain rainbow-maned mare told me.”

Pinkie’s tail twitched as she whirled around. “You talked to Rainbow Dash?”

Rarity trotted over to my mom. “Does she miss us?”

“Is she lonely?” asked Spike.

Mom had to laugh a little at all the attention she was getting. She held up a hoof to quiet down the barrage of questions. “She loves and misses all of you.” She looked at Applejack and Pinkie Pie. “Especially you two.”

“So . . . awesome . . .” whispered Pinkie.

“Ain’t surprised,” said Applejack. “Still, it’s mighty nice of you to tell us that.”

Mom turned to me. “Rainbow asked me to tell you, and I quote, ‘Hey, Captain Big-Mouth. Thanks for keeping your hay-burger holster shut and not telling Applejack that she and the others needed to move on. Oops, you totally told everypony. I’m polishing my hooves for the butt-kicking I’m going to give you, free of charge, when you finally pop your horseshoes.”

She waited until everypony, including me, stopped giggling. “Ha. I’m kidding. My new boss wouldn’t like me beating up one of his future agents. Oops, there I go, spilling beans. Just like you. Seriously, I’m glad you kept A.J. from killing Trixie, even if it meant telling our secret. Stay cool, skull-butt.’ That’s it. Chatty mare, but she seems happy where she is.”

Twilight rubbed her chin. “Who is Rainbow’s new boss?”

“He’s an interesting fellow. Has ten fingers and toes, black fur, thin muzzle and long, pointed ears. He tracked me down and told me what Quietus was planning to do. Now he’s using me as a kind of spectral homing beacon for when Quietus dies.”

“Ohh, you’re his secret agent mare!” chirped Pinkie.

My mother snickered. “Something like that.”

I said, “Quietus told me that as long as he’s able to keep the changeling’s Queen under his control, he’ll be able to keep his followers in the land of the living.”

A voice rose from outside of my circle of friends. “That will soon change.”

Twilight stepped to the side to let a large battle-scarred black changeling approach me. “So you are the one that Quietus was so eager to lure here,” he said as he peered at my wounds.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Bicho. Chrysalis’s appointed guardian of the Under-Queen.”

“Quietus mentioned her, but he didn’t seem that worried, even if it’s her that’s keeping the entire hive from his control.”

“He’s a lunatic and a fool,” grumbled Bicho. “He’ll pay for stealing away our beloved Queen.”

“Where is this Under-Queen?” I asked.

He pointed towards a nearby pair of changeling guards. A large dark green pupae stood between them. “She will hatch soon. When she does, the entire hive will belong to her. Quietus has little experience with Chrysalis’s powers, so he can never be the master of us all.”

Twilight asked, “Equus, did Quietus tell you what he’s planning to do with the changelings?”

Applejack snorted. “An’ did he say what he’s doin’ with all those ponies from Appleoosa?”

“Apparently that town was a test run,” I said. “Quietus said that they would be dead in a few hours. As soon as the whole hive is under his command, he’ll order them to kill every pony in the nearest city. He thinks that much bloodshed will bring back Nightmare Moon.”

“No!” cried Pinkie as she stamped the ground. “Not again!”

“We gotta save those ponies!” demanded Applejack.

Bicho held up a hoof. “My fellow changelings are looking for them now, but they have to be careful. They can’t risk being discovered.”

Applejack snorted impatiently. “I’ll go help look, if that’s what it takes!”

Fluttershy raised a hoof. “My bats can help find them.”

“It’s not that simple,” explained Bicho. “These mountains have hundreds of miles of caves. Fortunately, my race has a shared hive-mind that not even Quietus can completely control. If we are careful, we can find the prisoners through the eyes of the possessed without giving away our own position.”

“So we just sit here,” Applejack grumbled. She shook her head and walked away.

After Twilight bandaged my wounds, Mom and I found a private corner of the cave. There were a thousand questions bounding around in my head, but one kept hopping higher than all the others.

“Mom? How well did you really know Dad?”

She hung her head and sighed. “I was afraid you would ask that. I suppose you’ve read my letters to him?”

“A few. One that stuck with me was the one where Dad nearly beat a mugger to death after you two went to a theater. He then acted like it was no big deal.”

“You have to understand a few things about your father. Ivory absolutely adored me. He would do anything in the world to make me happy. No sacrifice was too great for him. In order for us to get an apartment that wasn’t in the slums, he worked months of double shifts at the city morgue. But he never complained.”

She brushed my mane away from my eyes. “One of the reasons why I loved him was not only his puritan work ethic, but also his self-confidence. He was always rock-certain about everything he did. That’s why he felt no remorse over nearly killing that criminal.”

“Did you know he sometimes referred to me as the one who killed you? How could anyone be so sure about that?”

She groaned, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry about that. I never would have imagined him calling you something so hateful.”

“Did Rainbow tell you about Cherry Flower?” She was someone my father once loved and even considered marrying. Nightmare Moon told him she wasn’t suitable and would have to be sacrificed to her. Dad used the bathtub as a sacrificial altar.

“Yes. I would have never imagined my husband being that far gone. It might be just as well that you and your friends sent him to the moon. I probably wouldn’t recognize him now.”

Studying my face, she continued. “After Rainbow Dash and her master told me what your father had become after my death, I realized that Ivory had stoic determination, but his most crippling problem was that he wasn’t able to deal with loss. He thought that my untimely death meant never being happy again. He had found paradise in our marriage. When I died, you were all that remained of me.”

“And I wasn’t enough? I thought you two wanted children.”

“We were hoping for a lot of children, as many as the apartment could hold. Losing me must have dug a much deeper wound than I had ever guessed.”

I rubbed my temples, trying to piece everything together just right. Dad wasn’t just a murderer. Wasn’t simply knives and smiles. Nopony kills without cause.

We all have triggers. Pet peeves. Something sets each of us off. Dad nearly killed someone when his only lover was threatened. He sacrificed Cherry Flower out of fear that he would lose his wife. Later, he sacrificed himself so that Nightmare Moon would come back to Equestria, bring Mom back from the dead and reunite them forever.

“Dad killed out of love. He tried to make things the way they used to be through murder and suicide.”

Mom looked thoughtful as she tapped her chin. “A philosopher once said that any act committed out of love goes beyond good or evil.”

“That’s the preferred logic of a sociopath,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “You used to be a coroner, so you’ve seen what love can make some ponies do.”

“Maybe it was more than just love that drove him to kill, Equus. It might have also been fear of a future that he didn’t want any part of. He wanted to be a father and also a husband, but not one or the other.”

“But no one should ever be afraid of the future. It’s the only thing any of us have to look forward to.”

“We’re all afraid of what might come at some point in our lives, dear. My husband was just too emotionally damaged to deal with his fear and loss in a constructive way.”

“Which made it easy for Nightmare Moon to control him.”

Mom put her front hooves on my shoulders. “I’ve been told about the fights you’ve been in. You stabbed a griffin in the gut, I hear.”

“She shot me with an arrow first. Lost a kidney, too.”

“You have your father’s determination. You also have his anger.”

“Yeah, I’m finding that out,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. “Before Quietus tortured me, he said that Nightmare Moon gave me the ability to absorb the pain of others.”

There was an itchy moment of silence between us.

“I . . . I killed one of Quietus’s followers in Ponyville. But all I felt was extra strength.”

“Did you enjoy killing him?”

I grimaced. “Part of me did. Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I’m not . . . exactly like Dad. Am I?”

She smiled and rubbed my cheek. “Ivory never let the world into his life. You have. He wasn’t able to handle losing. You’ve lost so much over the years, but you haven’t let it turn you sour. You resemble your father in another way.”

“What way?”

Bicho ran over to us. “We found them! There are only a few still alive, but we have to go now to get them.”

Pinkie ran over next to me. “All right! Let’s get this done.”

I heard the tremble in her voice. “Pinkie? Are you sure you’re up to this? What we’re about to do is bound to lead Quietus right to us.”

“It’s like what I told you in that nut-house, Equus. No one should die like Dashie and no one should live like me. These changelings know what it’s like to be owned by horrible people.
So do I. I wanna help send this Quietus guy packing.”

Her determination was inspiring. When my mother bashed Quietus in the head, I felt a small surge of power. My destiny marks may have been removed, but I was still a Mortis. My wounds burned like red coals, but I couldn’t stop now.

We would indeed send that bastard packing.

But not before I made him suffer the way I suffered.

As we gathered my friends and several black changelings together for the rescue mission, I pondered what Rainbow said about my eventually working for her boss.

What was Rainbow’s new job, anyway?

Author's Note

"Euphrosyne" by Raison D'etre. Nice tune.

Friendship Set On Fire

Chapter 11

Friendship Set On Fire

Bicho and Twilight led the way for must have been the strangest army in Equestria’s history. As we traveled the hills and valleys of the cave, more and more changelings followed us.

“What’s with these guys?” Vinyl complained, waving off a changeling flying near her head. “They’re actin’ like I’m coated with honey.”

I walked over to her and said, “Quietus told me they feed off of love. Your love of Octavia is like a buffet to them.”

Vinyl tilted her head at me in confusion. “Huh? How does that work?”

Bicho looked behind him and explained, “Love is the greatest, most savory emotion in the world. We changelings devour this energy in order to live.”

Twilight’s ears pricked up. “Have you always been like this?”

“No. According to our elder scriptures, my race once only fed on the magical field that helps keep this world intact. Then a serpentine demon with various animal limbs discovered us. He altered our bodies so that only love or equally powerful emotions could keep us alive. Except for hate, it seems. He was also the same being that gave us the ability to imitate any species of equal size.”

Rarity gasped. “Why in Celestia’s name did he do that?”

“Legends say he desired a race that could infiltrate any country. Then he discovered that we can’t stay disguised forever. Being tired or sick would disrupt the illusion.”

“Why didn’t he return you guys back to the way you were?” asked Pinkie.

“He wanted to see if we could flourish with his new designs. Since we cannot stay above ground for long without being detected, we learned how to absorb love from afar.”

“Talk about a platonic existence,” quipped Vinyl.

Twilight asked, “Is this demon still around?”

“He abandoned us when he fell in love with a goddess. For centuries we prayed for his return so that he would reshape us into what we once were. Then we cast aside prayer and settled for this meager existence.”

Twilight and I exchanged knowing glances. She mouthed his name. Discord.

He sounded distant and weary of the world. “We have known for a long time what it’s like to be used. What Quietus has done to us is far worse. Once word of this gets out, my people will be hunted by the surface races.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, that’s not going to happen. Princess Celestia can help relocate your people."

“Why would she do so much for us?"

Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Because she’s the one who imprisoned the demon, as you call him. He was frozen in stone for the last thousand years.”

Bicho and the rest of the changelings stopped and stared at her in shock. A moment later, he asked, with a twinge of anticipation in his voice, “Can she make him change my race back to the way we were?”

She shook her head apologetically. “She can’t. He was stolen from our princess and then later escaped from this world. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t mean she can’t still help you. After all, no one should fear persecution for something they didn’t do.”

“Been there,” grumbled Pinkie.

Bicho squinted at Twilight. “You are remarkably generous to someone you know almost nothing about.”

“In my hometown, there’s an old saying. ‘Deeds make the pony’. You tried to prevent Appleoosa from getting attacked, at no small cost. Your people kept us from getting killed in front of that cave. That good deed makes you our friends.”

“Just like that?” Bicho looked bewildered.

Pinkie chirped, “Sure! Why not?”

I asked, “Why are you so surprised?”

“As a rule, we have never mingled with the surface world. We don’t know how to make friends with anyone outside the hive.”

He gestured to the changelings that buzzed around us. “My race’s parasitic nature forces us to stay away from the surface, for fear of persecution. Our beloved Queen Chrysalis broke that rule when she struck a deal with that damned pony ghost.” He hung his head and sighed. “Now our hive is falling apart.”

Bicho continued walking again, his fellow changelings dutifully staying close.

“It’ll get better,” reassured Pinkie as she trotted beside Bicho. “I know what it’s like to be in a bad spot, believe me. My friends will turn things around for you, just you wait!”

“I sense something in you,” remarked Bicho. “Did Quietus possess you at some point?”

Pinkie’s ears flattened. “No, but the goddess that he’s trying to bring back did. She . . . she made me kill one of my friends. Now half of Equestria thinks I’m a murderer. That’s why I live in the badlands, to stay out of sight.”

I sidled up to Bicho. “Do you sense something similar in me?”

He regarded me for a moment. “Yes. Are you hiding from the world, too?”

“No. Quietus told me that Nightmare Moon gave me her ability to absorb pain as if it were food.”

“What?” cried Pinkie. “That’s so weird! Once the doctors stopped doping me up, I kept feeling like a million bits tax-free in that asylum. Are you saying that we’re, I dunno, pain vampires?”

“For lack of a better term, yes.”

Twilight asked, “Why would she do that to you guys?”

I shrugged. “I’m a Mortis. Maybe she wanted me to know what it was like to be her. Maybe if I fed off of pain long enough, I would start to like it so much that I’d join her side.”

Pinkie shook her head. “No way in a bazillion years would I ever torture somepony on my own. No matter how good it might make me feel.”

Vinyl said, “I just thought of somethin’. After my dad’s funeral, Tavi and I felt a lot less miserable. Maybe you aren’t just absorbing pain, Equus. You might also have the ability to take it away.”

“Shared pain is lessened, Vinyl,” said Octavia, matter-of-factly. “But pain can’t ever really disappear. It’s not like removing a bad tooth.”

“Finding happiness is not the same as ending pain,” I observed. “We all have some idealistic vision of paradise.”

“I bet your vision’s a tropical island,” Vinyl remarked.

My jaw dropped a little. I asked, “How did you guess?”

She waved a hoof at me. “Pfft. People always imagine a distant island or secret garden where they think they can be happy all by themselves. That was never my idea of paradise. I always imagined my slice of heaven as a mare’s embrace. One that’s warm, grey and ticklish.”

Octavia chuckled. “I never imagined my personal haven with anything other than my cello until I met Vinyl. Now I can’t imagine being happy without her.”

When they gazed into each other’s eyes, the changelings around them appeared to grow a little bigger. It must have been a trick of the ambient lighting, I told myself. That was it. Maybe.

I saw Applejack looking at Vinyl and Octavia wistfully, with a limp tail and drooped ears. Her pain of loss would never be far from her. Changelings flew up to her, but buzzed past for happier climes.

Pinkie nudged me in the ribs. “What’s your idea of heaven, Morty?”

I nodded at my newest friends. “Even if I didn’t have the power to soak up somepony’s pain, I would still help you guys walk away from the graveyard however I could. All I ever wanted was to help people with their grief. The monster fighting’s just something I do to help accomplish that.”

“Ooh, so you’ve found your island already!” said Pinkie.

Looking at my mother, I replied, “There may be more than one island, Pinkie.”

Vinyl smirked. “Well, if you ever need a energy boost, Equus, I’ll come cry on your shoulder.”

“Okay.”

“I was kidding.”

“I wasn’t,” I replied, firing her smirk right back at her.

Vinyl nodded at her marefriend. “Oh, yeah. He’s a keeper.”

Bicho said, “I envy you ponies. You are able to give each other so much love so freely. If just one of you lived with us, we could live like kings.”

Pinkie asked, “You mean you can’t feed each other? None of you can give love?”

“No. We have always been a taking species, Pinkie. We have never given anything to anyone.”

“That’s not true,” insisted Pinkie. “Anyone can give as well as take.”

“You get what you give,” I added. “I don’t think your race is so far removed from us for you to not comprehend that.”

“Our altered nature limits what we can do, Equus,” Bicho said. “But I think I understand what you mean. If one wants love, one must first give love. Right?”

“By Celestia, I think he’s got it,” Octavia remarked.

“Our boy’s finally all grown up.” Vinyl fake-sniffed as she wiped away an invisible tear.

Bicho’s wings twitched as he tilted his head in confusion. “What?”

“It’s a joke, Bicho,” Pinkie assured him while patting his shoulder. Did he grow a little just then? “Someone will have to teach you humor later.”

There was a huge swarm of changelings around us now. We all knew what was at stake. Rescuing the remaining residents of Appleoosa was bound to bring Quietus down on our heads. That suited me just fine. I owed him for nearly murdering me. For bringing so much death into this world. For enslaving a race that never wanted to harm anyone.

When we entered a smaller cave, I could smell a brief whiff of copper. Blood. Lots of spilled blood. Several hundred ponies’s worth, I wagered.

As the scent grew stronger, so did my body. My ears swiveled as they located distant screams. My injuries no longer hurt.

So much pain. So much delicious pain.

Some dark, primal, slope-browed part of me was licking it’s lips in anticipation, pining for the chance to add Quietus’s blood to what was already staining the ground.

“Equus?” said Pinkie, her voice trembling.

“Yes?”

“I wish I had a mirror.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to see what you look like.” Her lower lip was quivering. “Seeing your wounds made me recall everything I did to Rainbow Dash. Right now, you look like me when I was killing her.”

“I’m not a monster, Pinkie.”

“Then why are you grinning?”

What?

Author's Note

"Cyclops" by Yello is good theme song. Let's use that.

A Finishing Stroke

Chapter Twelve

A Finishing Stroke

“I’m serious, Equus,” implored Pinkie. “You look like you’re about to eat somepony.”

“I hate to say this, Pinkie,” Spike admitted, “But you look almost as nuts as him.”

Spike was right. Her hair was going flat, her pupils had shrunk to pin-points and the corners of her mouth were slowly curving upwards. If Rainbow Dash had somehow survived being attacked by Pinkie, she’d have nightmares about that face for months. Pinkie’s white fur made her look like a maniacal ghost.

Just like me.

That stopped me in my tracks. I had to take a breather.

Bicho pointed a hoof down the cave. “What are you waiting for? I can hear the screams!”

Twilight shot him a stern look and said, “Just give them a minute. Equus, you look a lot like when you stabbed Gilda. Are you sure you’re up to this?”

I want to break Quietus’s legs, to peel that chitin off his body like a lobster shell. He needs to scream for mercy that will never come.

“Equus?” Twilight waved a hoof in front of my eyes. “Hello?”

He needs to suffer the way he made me suffer.

I shook my head while taking deep breathes. Pinkie followed my lead, calming down with every exhalation.

After a minute of this, we both looked a little more normal.

Spike looked us over and gave both of us a thumbs-up. “Okay, you two aren’t creepy anymore. Let’s go bust some heads!”

Before I knew it, my mom was nuzzling my ear. “You had his eyes for a moment.”

“Huh?”

“When Ivory had beaten that mugger senseless, he had that same look in his eyes.”

I growled in frustration. “I’m not like him, Mom!” Who was I trying to convince? Her or me?

“True. You have more friends than he ever did. Or even wanted. Just don’t forget what your friends can do for you.”

“They know how to fight,” I replied defensively.

She put a hoof on my shoulder. “That’s not what I mean, Equus.”

Bicho stamped over to me and cried, “Do you want them all to die? Stop holding us up!”

In the last few days, I had been threatened, kicked, bashed in the head and tortured. Bicho had just stepped on my last remaining nerve. We all have triggers that lead to violence. One of mine was getting yelled at, a relic from the bad old days of school.

Before I knew it, I had swung my right hoof back. Bicho was going to get a dent in his skull. Or he would have if my hoof had not gotten gripped in a ball of red magic.

Vinyl’s horn glowed red as she yelled, “Hey! Dude! Time out!”

My hooves scraped against the ground as I tried to pull free from Vinyl’s magic. “Let me go!”

“Save your strength for the enemy, Equus,” insisted Octavia.

Bicho spit on the ground. “This pony is clearly as mad as Quietus.”

“Zip it, Bicho!” Vinyl snapped. “This guy’s been through the grinder. He was almost murdered. Cut him some slack, can’t you?”

In a low, simmering voice, Bicho replied, “I can’t hear my Queen anymore, which means Quietus destroyed her mind. Half my hive is under the thrall of that ancient lunatic. At least a hundred of those who are loyal to me and the Under-Queen have died recently fighting his army. Who’s cutting any slack for me!”

My mother held out a hoof, gesturing at Bicho. “Come here,” she asked, her voice as gentle as a spring breeze.

Whether he was too world-weary to refuse or if it was because Mom had a calming manner he couldn’t resist, Bicho walked over to her and sat down, shoulders slumped. She held him in a loving embrace, her hooves stroking his scaled back.

My mom nuzzled his hard cheek as she said, “I know what it’s like to lose everything you cherish, believe me.”

Vinyl tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “That’s a pretty awesome mom you got.”

“Yeah, I know.” No wonder my dad fell for her so hard.

Pinkie wrapped her arms around both of them. I could hear Bicho whispering to my mom. She stroked his head reassuringly, calming him as if he were a nervous dog in a thunderstorm.

After a minute of this, Bicho slowly pulled away from their mutual embrace. He looked at me, head hung low in shame. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Equus.”

I shrugged, feeling just as crummy about myself. “I’m even more sorry for almost clobbering you. We both know what it’s like to lose our mothers. I guess we have more in common than I thought.”

He smiled and said, “I wish Chrysalis discovered you ponies instead of that crypt. Things would have been so much better for all of us.”

Twilight said, “There’s still time to make things right, Bicho.”

“You’re right,” Bicho replied. “Now let’s go save those ponies.”

* * *

What disturbed me most about the screams in the distant shadows of the cave was how much quieter they had become in the last few minutes. Were we too late to save anypony at all?

Fluttershy’s bats were sent ahead to investigate. When they came back, squeaking frantically, she said, “Oh, dear. They say only a few dozen ponies are alive, but a small army of grey changelings are guarding them.”

Vinyl pulled out her bolo saw and began to slowly spin it around her and Octavia.

Spike hopped onto Twilight’s back, popping his knuckles.

The swarm of changelings around us looked at Bicho in anticipation.

Twilight said, “Bicho? Can your people keep Quietus’s army off our backs while we free the prisoners?”

He nodded. “I’ll have a few fly them back to our camp. Just cut them loose and we’ll do the rest.”

“Good.” Twilight looked us over. “Ready, everypony?”

Pinkie pawed the ground impatiently. “Ready to roll.”

Applejack snorted. “Let’s ride.”

Twilight took a deep, calming breath. “Onward.”

A short run down the cave led to a cavern that was as big as an auditorium. I saw a tunnel near the back of the cave. A few hundred hooves ahead of us were torch lights that gave a yellow flickering glow to several long rows of wooden panels, some of which had advertisements for groceries plastered on. So that’s where Appleoosa’s wood went.

At first I thought that the grey changelings had set up a few fences. But then we ran past them. What we saw on the other side stunned even a career-hardened coroner like me.

It’s one thing to see wood-carvings of ancient torture in my family history book, but real gore always looks worse than what a drawing can convey.

Hundreds of dead ponies hung limp in their bonds. Cutie marks were missing. Wings were sawn off. Gut skins hung flaccid from disembowelment. Nails had been pounded head-deep into the hooves. Half the heads were skinned. Genitals were sliced away. In a distant campfire, I could see intestines smoke and sizzle in the high flames.

I looked at the ground. Troughs were dug between the rows. Blood trickled towards us, dragging skinned faces, organs and feathers away from the slaughter.

It was one thing to see one or more mangled bodies in my line of work. What lay before us was like seeing my eight years of working with the dead in one grisly bundle. Any good mortician or coroner knows how to distance themselves from the work, but how was I supposed to separate myself from this?

The ground squished under my hooves. It took a moment that I was standing in a pool of dirt-thickened blood. We all were. All of us leapt away towards drier ground as if the blood was electrified.

Octavia whispered, “Is that what the voice threatened to do to us?”

Vinyl grit her teeth, looking away from the nightmare. “Okay, these fucks need to die and they need to die bad.”

My heart thudded as the waves of pain I absorbed primed me like a gallon of sugary tea.

He needs to suffer the way he made THEM suffer.

Someone screamed up ahead. We all ran towards the sound as the changelings flew past us. We saw a few more rows of panels surrounding a large fire.

Grey changelings were so busy torturing screaming ponies, they didn’t notice us. Bicho led the charge as he yanked one changeling away and slammed him into a nearby stalactite. Several thick swarms of his army cleared the remaining greys away from their victims.

When the enemies were carried off to a corner of the cave, I turned my attention to the captives. I heard frantic squeaks, hisses and crunching sounds from that seething mass of insects, so I figured Bicho was giving as good as he got.

Only thirty ponies were still alive. Some sobbed and wailed from having their cutie marks sliced away, but were mostly unharmed. Applejack ran up and down the rows and skidded to a stop.

“Braeburn!” she cried.

I joined Applejack and saw that her cousin was crying and bleeding from having his cutie marks removed. Thankfully, that was his only apparent injury. Applejack and I untied him and eased him down to the ground.

Whoever imitated him did a bang-up job. I couldn’t shake the sensation that I was meeting him twice.

He wiped away his tears and squinted at Applejack. “Cuz? Is that really you?”

Applejack sniffed and wiped away her tears as she grinned. “Yep! Now listen, Braeburn. These here black changelings . . . ”

“Huh?”

She coughed. “These here black bugs are friendly. They’re gonna take you and the others someplace safe. We’ll be with you soon.”

After all the ponies were carried off to Bicho’s hideout, he examined the blood-stained panels and knives with shuddering revulsion. “Does this happen often in your world, Equus?”

“Not at this scale. Anymore. But my two jobs deal with a lot of murders and suicides. Love isn’t the only thing we ponies give each other.”

My mom quoted, “Death is our life.”

He scratched his head. “Strange phrase.”

“Family motto,” I replied.

Fluttershy’s bats zipped around her, squeaking. “They say Quietus is coming!”

From the cave I spotted earlier, we heard large, thudding steps and loud buzzing. A wave of grey changelings shot from the cave. They landed and waited. Quietus stepped into view, a bandage tightly wrapped around the back of his grey head.

As he walked, another swirl of grey changelings poured out and crowded behind him.

When he saw us, he grimaced. “Marrow Mortis, I am very disappointed in you. If your husband saw your treachery he would be revolted.”

Mom scowled. “You and I know two very different versions of him.”

My gut did a flip-flop. Oh, crud. I might have felt energized from the pain this monster had brought about, but I also kept getting flashbacks of my cutie marks burning up in a fire. It felt strange to be angry and scared at the same time.

Twilight and Rarity lit up the cave with their magic.

Vinyl’s chainsaw was now zipping at high speed.

“I am going to enjoy taking you and your friends apart, Equus,” said Quietus, his hoof steps slamming the ground in anger. “A blanket made from all of your skins will keep me warm in Nightmare Moon’s eternal night.”

Fluttershy trembled.

Applejack lowered her head and gritted her teeth, spoiling for a fight.

“I’ll make sure you die badly, Equus. Once I break your mother’s legs and wings, she’ll be forced to watch as I slowly pull your guts out.”

Bicho landed next to Twilight. “What’s the plan?”

“Simple,” she grit her teeth as her horn charged up. “We beat him until he stops breathing.”

Quietus pointed at us and yelled, “Kill them! But leave Equus and Marrow to me!”

Twilight fired a hot beam of purple magic at Quietus, but several grey changelings swooped down and took the brunt of the blast.

Since that was good a call to attack as any, my friends and I spread out and around Quietus and his army.

Spike hopped off of Twilight’s back, took a deep breath and released a wagon-sized ball of green fire, incinerating several grey changelings. One swooped down and lifted him off the ground, but Spike punched his attacker with the brass knuckles.

Spike’s custom-made weapon could shatter stones. The changeling’s head exploded in a shower of green goo and grey skull-fragments.

He fell a few feet before Bicho caught him. They nodded and smiled at each other. When Spike pointed at another grey changeling, Bicho chased it down. I had never heard of fly-by punching before, but those two doled out a lot of damage together.

Vinyl’s chainsaw whined as it sliced in half every grey changeling that attacked them. The mares kissed, ignoring the constant splatters of green blood on their fur. It reminded me of their concert. Quietus’s army must have been so starved for love, they were willing to dive into certain death to get a taste.

Applejack was holding her own as her powerful rear legs bucked two grey changelings into a row of blood-coated torture racks. She grabbed a large skinning knife off a nearby table. When one changeling peeled itself off the drying blood, Applejack slammed the knife between it’s wings. It screeched and went limp. She then leapt onto the last changeling and mashed it’s head into a shallow pool of congealed blood. Only after it stopped struggling did she back away.

She didn’t have the same manic grin I once had, only grim determination. I couldn’t help but wonder if this would impede or improve her grief therapy.

Pinkie Pie was so busy using her wheelchair as a wooden mace to flatten her opponents that she probably didn’t notice her own giggling. The more grey changelings screamed from her crushing blows and side-swipes, the more her muscles seemed to grow.

Fluttershy was never much of a nose-to-nose fighter, but she aimed her bats at several changelings. When those animals got into the fight, they became two sets of teeth with wings.

Rarity’s dress-making job had honed her ability to manipulate multiple objects at expert levels. She used her magic to pull multiple spikes out of several corpses and used them like arrows. When her spikes fired through one grey changeling, it fell apart like a cheap toy when it hit the ground.

Twilight was firing long-range purple beams at any enemies that threatened to overwhelm her or any nearby friends.

That left me and Mom. Quietus’s horn glowed and shot a blast at me. I jumped . . . and kept going up. My mother had grabbed me by the barrel and was flying me out of danger. I turned my head and saw blue gossamer wings buzzing out of her back.

Mom whooped and hollered. “Ha! So this is what those pegasi are always going on about! Flying is great!”

Quietus stamped a hoof in frustration as he kept firing and missing us. A few grey changelings flew at us, but one was fried by a green fireball. I heard Spike hollering something about getting ten points. The remaining opponents were skewered to the ceiling by Rarity’s spikes.

My mom hollered over the frantic din of combat, “Can’t you use your Element against him?”

“I only used it in combat once, Mom. Come to think of it, I never really had any real training with it.”

“Rainbow said the same thing,” she pondered. “She also said that all the Elements must be fired at the same time to defeat someone like Nightmare Moon.”

“We’re in a mountain. I don’t think we can send this bastard to the moon.”

She groaned in frustration. “Well, what are we going to do?”

Someone shoved us down. A black blur zinged past us, it’s dark hooves just missing my head.

“Oh! I’m sorry if I startled you!” cried Fluttershy as she let go and flew next us.

Mom said, “That one almost hit us! I thought the black changelings were on our side!”

“They are!” Fluttershy responded. “But we’ve hit a snag. Quietus’s changelings feed off of love, too. The longer we fight them, the stronger they get!”

A green blast pushed all of us sideways into a large stalactite with a massive thud. Marrow screamed as she lost her grip on me. There was at least two hundred hooves of distance between me and the ground. When half that distance closed in, Mom grabbed me again.

Fluttershy squealed in pain, trying to get her left wing straightened out. Another green beam slammed her into a wall, knocking her out.

Mom landed me next to the pegasus. I examined her and confirmed that her breathing was steady, but her wing had snapped at the carpal joint. It would take a month for that to heal.

But when I saw how healthy Quietus had become, I suddenly doubted any of us would live that long. His body had gained the sheen of black volcanic glass. The formerly miserable, tattered wings were healthy enough for Quietus to cautiously hover a few hooves off the ground.

He spotted Bicho in the distance. His now polished horn glowed green and shot him and Spike out of the air. Rarity caught both of them and guided them slowly to the ground.

“So this is the emotion that Chrysalis wanted so badly from me,” pondered Quietus as he admired his now-healthy body. “Perhaps my people should just lobotomize a few ponies until they don’t mind getting raped. That might produce healthier nutrients for my new army.”

Quietus grinned and pointed at Vinyl and Octavia. “It’ll be interesting to see how well that method works on sexual deviants like you two.”

The mares walked steadily towards him, the whirling saw dividing more changelings. “Yeah. Sure, pal,” Vinyl remarked with a sneer. “We’re the deviants. Riiight.”

Bicho was once again airborne with Spike in tow. “Is this all you can do, Quietus?” Fumed Bicho. “Dole out torture and death for your own use? And I thought my race was parasitic.”

“Oh, this?” Quietus made a sweeping gesture over the carnage as if it were an art gallery. “All that you see here is simply a means to an end. Such is the fate of the weak, to pave the way for the strong.”

He looked at me and mom with a resigned head shake. “Which is what the Mortis family once was and shall be again. But you two traitors will never be part of my family.”

Marrow stamped a hoof. “You aren’t family, you sick bastard! You’re just ugly history!”

His horn glowed again as his eyes gleamed with madness. “No, Marrow. I’m the future.”

Just as Quietus prepared to fire, Spike spit a green fireball at his head. In a flash, his blue hair and bandages burst into flame.

As he screamed, he spun around in a blind panic.

Vinyl and Octavia, spotting the chance to attack, charged at him. In a flash of red-tinted saw blades, Quietus’s front right leg had a gaping, slimy hole chewed into it. A few seconds of sawing later, the lower half of his leg was yanked away with a loud crack of snapping chitin.

Quietus whirled his left front hoof out in a wild swing and swatted Vinyl in the head, shattering her glasses. The rope chainsaw wavered from the sudden lack of magical control and spun away like a lethal frisbee. It bounced off a nearby stalactite and landed in some rocks.

Twilight snatched the mares away from him with her magic.

Octavia wiped away a trickle of blood from her lover’s brow. “Vinyl! Are you all right?”

“Ooogh!” Vinyl shook her head, trying to get both her eyes pointed in the same direction. “Feels like I got bashed with a frickin’ tree.”

Twilight cried out, “Everypony! He’s off-balance! Knock him over!”

Rarity tried to fire her beams at Quietus, but his changelings kept blocking her shots.

Bicho flew in a wide circle overhead, aiming Spike like a cannon. One fireball connected with Quietus’s leg-stump, making him topple sideways. They both cheered but stopped when Quietus righted himself with a few flaps of his wings.

“Oh, crap!” cried Spike. “I’m out of ammo, Bicho! Get us out of here!”

Pinkie Pie zipped over to Quietus, her wheelchair bouncing over the rocks. When she was next to him, she swung her chair around, connecting with his rear left leg. In an explosion of wood fragments, her right wheel shattered.

Now helpless and flat on her back, she could only scream as Quietus fell towards her. Then Applejack ran up, bit into her mane and yanked Pinkie way. A second later, he landed with a crunch on what remained of her wheelchair.

Pinkie hugged Applejack. “Just like the old days, huh, A.J.?” she beamed.

Applejack hauled her onto her back, Pinkie’s rear legs dangling uselessly. “Yep,” she said. “Good times. Let’s get you outta here.”

I was so busy staring at what everyone else was doing, I didn’t notice my mom poking me in the shoulder.

“He’s down!” she shouted. “Now’s your chance!”

Since I didn’t want his large legs bashing me like Vinyl, I said to Mom, “Drop me on top of him.”

My mom lifted me up and over Quietus as he howled in pain and rage, struggling to get upright. His wings were frantically buzzing. That made them my first target.

When I was above him, I said, “Okay, right here.”

I landed with a thud on his side, his rocking body making my hooves slip over his glass-smooth shell. Without a second thought, I opened my mouth wide and bit down on his right wing. It was like biting into a large plastic candy wrapper. A shot of delicious, succulent pain flowed into me, giving me the strength to bite down and yank my head sideways.

With a loud ripping sound, his wing peeled away from his body. Quietus arched his back and shrieked.

Now you know how I feel, Quietus. This is your future. But not your absolution.

I spit out the severed wing and chomped into the other. Grunting as I pulled it out, I actually enjoyed the sound of his shrieks. The wing muscles snapped like cheap rubber-bands, which made me giggle as the wing was ripped off.

He managed to buck me off him. As I hit the floor, the remaining wing popped out of my mouth. That’s when my body began to glow green.

Quietus propped himself up on his leg-stump, his long neck craning around behind him. He had gripped me in his magic and pulled me around to face him. But he made the mistake of holding me close to his head.

I bunched up my rear legs and gave him a face-bucking that made him drop me in an instant. He screamed, holding his right hoof over his muzzle. After landing on my rump, which stung only a little, I got up and faced him.

Rearing up, I swung my front hooves down on his right leg, exposing his true face. Quietus’s right eye had swollen shut. Most of his front teeth had been knocked out. Green blood trickled from the hoof-shaped cracks in her right cheek. His remaining eye stared at me with the same fear one gives to an approaching tornado.

I know how to hurt you now. And I wish to keep on hurting you. I . . .

Quietus’s good eye squinted as he gave a short, phlegmy laugh. “It’s addictive, isn’t it?” he chortled.

“What is?”

“The pain of others, of course. Look at you. Giving me more damage than I gave you. I was wrong about you, Equus. You’re a Mortis after all. You’re just like me.”

“I’m nothing like you!”

He grinned a gap-toothed smile. “Really? You killed my assassin without a trace of remorse. You’re fighting me even with your destiny marks cut off, an injury that would have put a lesser pony on the sidelines. You tore my wings away, smiling all the while. But here comes the funny part.”

Raising a brow, I inquired, “Go on.”

“Aren’t you forgetting that I am the doorway between this world and the land of the dead? If you kill me, and let’s be honest, it’s the only way you can stop me, your mother dies, too!”

I felt like a ten-pound block of ice dropped into my gut.

He chuckled. “Murder and matricide in one day? Nightmare Moon would be impressed.”

Not too long ago, if I found myself doing something questionable, I would ask myself, “Is this something dad would do?” If the answer was yes, I’d stop immediately.

And I had been acting a lot like my dad lately. Only he didn’t have the luxury of drinking up pain like water.

I remembered something my mother said in a letter to Dad. “It’s almost as if you were already prepared for violence.”

I almost hit Bicho for simply yelling at me.

Pain energized me and even made me smile, the kind Pinkie Pie had when Nightmare Moon made Pinkie torture her friend to death.

Was I always going to be more like my father than I ever wanted to be, no matter what I did? Would I always have blood on my hooves?

Would history repeat itself, with even more bloodshed and pain?

Just like what Quietus wanted?

Even though this monster had hijacked an insect body, I could still see the tombstones in Quietus’s remaining eye.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from examining hundreds of murders and suicides, it’s that death comes to us all. But death is all Quietus wanted for Equestria. Because that’s all he knew.

I blinked. And looked at him with greater clarity.

As ruthless as this sociopath was, he had a very small life. Inflicting death and torture were the entirety of his talents and ambitions. Nothing else was allowed.

At least my dad knew what love was before Mom died. Before he let Nightmare Moon’s madness consume his life and made him into a monster. Into something I always feared I might become.

My father nearly killed a mugger to protect my mother.

That’s the Ivory Mortis I wanted to remember.

Would killing Quietus be something Dad would do?

If it meant protecting the many ponies that enriched my life in ways my dad would never have allowed for himself?

The many ponies that I loved?

I raised my hooves over his head.

The first blow crushed his muzzle, tooth fragments digging into my hooves.

Quietus shrieked, trying to turn away from me, but it was too late. My agony-charged body felt twice it’s size as I kept wailing on Quietus’s fragmenting skull, the green blood and chitin fragments flying all around me as I kept beating and beating and beating and . . .

“EQUUS MORTIS!” shouted my mother.

I snapped my eyes open, shuddering as if waking from a violent dream.

“Whuh?”

I looked down and saw a portion of Quietus’s jaw dangling from the top of his neck. Only a third of his skull was intact, the rest had been scattered all around his limp body.

My hooves were caked with green blood and dark brown viscera. They began to shiver as a low groan bubbled up my throat.

My mom took me by my shoulders and pulled me away from the body. My groans turned into racking sobs.

“It’s all right, Equus,” she assured me in a soft, maternal voice. I shivered in spite of her warm hug.

“M-mom . . . I . . . c-can’t believe I did that! I couldn’t stop! W-why . . . ”

Through the swirling fog of my grief, a disturbing fact came to mind.

My mother was still here, holding her only son. But I killed Quietus, so everyone he brought back from the land of the dead should have returned there by now.

That meant . . .

Pinkie screamed. When I saw that she was pointing behind me, I turned around. And stopped breathing.

Quietus smiled at me. His original pony body floated above Chrysalis’s body, glowing white with spectral energy.

“I told you before, Equus. When Nightmare Moon brought me back, I was less than flesh, but more than a mere ghost. I’ve absorbed just enough pain from this fight to stay in this world.”

He was giving off more light by the moment.

“I suppose I’ll have to possess you now, Equus. Then I’ll make you kill your mother. With your strength and my skills, it’ll take hours before she dies.”

The glow from within . . . no, from behind him suddenly flared brighter.

His hooves touched my head.

Then two silhouetted hooves reached out from the circle of light, wrapped around his throat and pulled Quietus away from me.

We all stared in jaw-dropped awe at the sight of a back-lit pony rising behind him. A mare. With a short, spiky, colorful mane.

“Gotcha!” she shouted. “Can’t hide if you’re a ghost, pal!”

Quietus thrashed and screamed with wide-eyed terror. “No! Let me go! I won’t go back!”

Applejack, with Pinkie still on her back, ran up and stopped next to me. Tears brimmed in their eyes.

“Dashie?” they asked together.

Clamping a hoof over Quietus’s mouth, Rainbow Dash looked at us and casually asked, “Hey, what’s up?”

When Applejack stepped towards her, Dash held up her free hoof. “Ah-ah! Sorry, guys. Where we’re going, you can’t follow. Not for a long time, anyway.”

Something moved behind Rainbow Dash. A tall, pointy-eared biped waved an arm at her, impatiently barking a language I didn’t recognize.

She blushed and snickered. “Oops! I’m spilling the beans again! Sorry, Anubis! Thanks for your help, Mrs. Mortis! Be good, everypony! Bye!”

Rainbow flapped her wings, yanking Quietus away from this world. A moment later, the light blinked off.

Changelings began to drop all around us. Quietus’s army, after a thousand year wait, was getting dragged back home. The doorway had closed for them.

My mother cried out and fell over.

Panicked, I scooped her up and held her close. My friends and Bicho gathered around us.

“You resemble your father more than you know,” she whispered.

My ears flattened. “I know. I’m a murderer.”

“That’s not what I mean, Equus. He knew what love was, even if he only had love for me. You have love for your friends. And you have made lots of those.”

Vinyl nodded. “Got that right.”

My mom began to tremble.

“Mom? Mom, please don’t die.”

She sighed as her eyes slowly closed. “I’ve been dead for twenty-five years, dear. But I had to come back.”

“Mom . . .”

“I had to come back to save you.”

“Don’t go.”

“I’m so glad I did.”

“Please?”

“I’m proud of you, son.” She began to flicker. “I love you.”

Suddenly I was bathed in green fire, but I didn’t burn.

Marrow Mortis was gone. A limp black changeling was all that remained.

“NO!” I hollered.

Tightly holding the insect in my arms, crying harder than when I was getting tortured, I had suddenly realized something.

I was the only pony in the world that had ever lost his parents twice.

Author's Note

"To Glory" by Two Steps From Hell is orchestral music that will make you bang your head. And read this chapter.

Separate Ways And Means

Chapter Thirteen

Separate Ways And Means

Chrysalis’s body was burning in a funeral pyre made from the torture racks. Oily black smoke curled up and away from the spot where she fell. The wood sizzled from being soaked in pony blood.

Changelings had gathered around their fallen Queen, staring silently into the flames. Bicho was the first to leave the circle and fly over to us.

“I was one of her first hatchlings,” he said to himself more than us.

Normally this would be the time I’d say something comforting to the grieving after the funeral. But I just sat and stared at my gore-slicked hooves, feeling numb. The changeling that my mother once inhabited lay next to me. I just couldn’t bring myself to burn it, so Bicho agreed to bury the body instead. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to help with the burial.

I tried to pull myself away from the few endlessly replaying memories of Mom by watching Vinyl and Rarity build Pinkie Pie a new wheelchair.

Vinyl was skilled enough to cut messages into a tree with her bolo saw, so cutting perfectly shaped wheels from unused panels was easy. Octavia found a hammer and a bucket of nails, so she helped put everything together. Rarity topped off the final touches by smoothing out the rough spots and assembling the back straps. Only unspoiled materials were used, of course.

When Pinkie was eased into her new wheels with Rarity’s magic and strapped in, her grin kept getting bigger by the second. She zipped around us a few times before she screeched to a stop, giggling like a tickled filly.

“This is super-duper-cool!” she rejoiced, bouncing in place. “Thank you girls so much!”

Vinyl sat down next to me and pointed at her handiwork. “Pretty awesome ride, huh?”

“Yeah,” I answered, my tongue feeling like a lead weight.

Octavia sat on my other side and wrapped a hoof over my shoulders. “Your mother was an exceptional mare, Equus. She had a heart as big as the great outdoors.”

“And now she’s gone,” I said.

Vinyl placed a hoof around my back. “Do you remember what Octavia said at my dad’s funeral? ‘As long as he is remembered, he will never truly be far from those that loved him.’ I think the same applies for your mother.”

I shook my head slowly. “I wonder if I’ll always deserve what she did for me.”

Octavia cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I . . . I enjoyed killing Quietus! It was actually fun to hear his screams!” I stared at Octavia, tears building up, my grief firing off in a hot burst. “It was easy to kill him! It should never be easy!”

Staring at the green blood in my fur, I groaned, “I’m a monster.”

“Bullshit,” replied Vinyl sternly.

“What?”

“I said that’s bullshit, Equus. Yeah, you killed that fucker. And you enjoyed it. But you know what? You did the world a big favor by doing so. If you just let Quietus get away with what he wanted to do, all of us would be dead on those racks.”

Vinyl put a hoof on my chin and turned my head to face her. “One thing you gotta keep in mind, Equus, is why you killed him. Did you kill him for fun? Or because he needed to be put down like the mad animal he obviously was?”

“I killed Quietus because he was evil.”

Octavia asked, “And what is evil?”

“Evil is seeing other people as objects. He only saw my death and the death of all these other ponies as absolution.”

Vinyl prompted, “What do you see Quietus’s death as?”

I thought for a moments, trying to find just the right words. I thought about my dad. Mom said he only had love for her. The fact that he was able to love anypony struck me as odd, since my own existence was tolerated, but never cherished by him.

Everything Mom told me about him swirled around in my mind. He wanted more than one child, she said. He didn’t know how to deal with loss, she said.

But what if Mom hadn’t died giving birth to me? What if she lived to give me brothers and sisters? What if his world didn’t bottom out all those years ago? Would he have loved me as much as he loved my mother?

Yes. Yes, he would have.

That’s when I had an important revelation, one I should have had ages ago. I was thinking about my father from the wrong angle. I was asking myself the wrong question. Instead of asking ‘Is this something Dad would do?’ I should have been asking ‘Is this something Dad would do if mom were still alive?’

If I had never met my mother, I would have never asked myself that, would never have gained a fresh perspective.

I could never be the homicidal, emotionally damaged dad I knew, because I was already like the loving, fiercely protective husband my mom knew.

“Quietus’s death was necessary.”

“And why is that?” asked Octavia.

“Because he could only destroy people, but never help them.”

Vinyl smiled and said, “But you help people. You helped me and Tavi here cope at my dad’s funeral. And now you helped save Equestria. Monsters don’t do that.”

“I still feel crummy, though.”

“Yeah, everything that’s happened isn’t like dealing with a blown tire. But listen, when we get back to Ponyville, you can hang with us for a while. A few days of chill ambient tunes will be just the break we need.”

Mom told me to never forget what my friends could do for me. I was too frazzled to understand what she meant then. In the back of my mind, I’ve always known. They help me from getting crazy, from believing the wrong things about myself. They help me gain perspective.

Twilight walked over. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

Looking around, I asked, “Where’s Pinkie?”

She waved a hoof behind us. “She’s talking to Bicho.”

We all got up and walked over to where they were talking in a private huddle. Bicho and Pinkie nodded and turned to face us.

Twilight said, “Well, let’s go, Pinkie. We have to get these ponies back to Appleoosa.”

Pinkie’s ears drooped as she shook her head. “I’m not going with you.”

“Say what?” cried Applejack.

Spike flashed a desperate smile. “You’re joking. Right?”

Pinkie sighed. “I’ve never been more serious, folks. Bicho has agreed to make me an honorary member of the hive.”

Fluttershy asked, “But why? If you go with Bicho, we’ll never see you again.”

“I know that,” Pinkie replied, her voice cracking with stress. “But I told you guys before that I hate being alone, not being able to help others smile. At least here, the changelings can feed off of my love while they find a new home somewhere else.”

She trotted over to me. “You did what you could to make me look like someone I’m not. But I can’t fool ponies forever. Someone would eventually find out who I really am. And then I’d be on the run for the rest of my life.”

Bicho said, “Both my race and Pinkie know what it’s like to be taken advantage of by evil people. Once word gets out about what changelings did to Appleoosa, we’ll need to be far away from here.”

Pinkie gave Bicho a playful nudge. “Besides, somepony needs to teach these guys how to get a sense of humor. Might as well be me.”

Vinyl nodded. “Looks like you found your island, Pinkie.”

Pinkie beamed. “Yep! I’ll finally be surrounded by people that need me. I’ll never be lonesome again. It’s gonna be great!”

Twilight rubbed her chin. “Hmm. Well, if you’re sure. If things don’t pan out for you, just come to my library. I’ll help you however I can.”

“Sure!” Pinkie nodded, but even I could tell that Twilight’s offer would never be considered.

We all gathered around her and gave our farewells.

“Gonna miss yew somethin’ fierce, sugarcube,” Applejack said, giving Pinkie an eye-bulging hug.

Spike said, “I’d give you a hoof-bump, but my Element tends to break things.”

Pinkie shrugged. “Eh, it’s okay. Just use lots of polish on it. Gotta keep that collectible shiny.”

Pinkie and I hugged. “I’m glad to see you in much better spirits,” I said.

“Can’t keep a party pony down, I always say. Equus?”

“Yeah?”

“Rainbow Dash would be proud of you. You’re as brave as she was. Or is. It’s hard to think of her in the past tense since she talked to me and A.J. a half hour ago.”

“Hold onto that, Pinkie. It’ll keep you going.” I rubbed the back of my head and gave her a worried look. “You do know that it’ll be hard living underground, right?”

She shrugged. “Life is hard for everypony. And every changeling. Everything changes. Sometimes for the better. I’ll be okay, Morty. After living in an asylum and a miner’s shed, caves will be a cinch.”

A short while later, we gathered everyone together and set off back to Bicho’s camp. Once there, we discovered that the Under-Queen had hatched. At least Discord’s futzing with the changelings’s designs had efficiency in mind.

She was almost as big as Bicho, but had a long slender neck and blue hair like Chrysalis. Her large green cat eyes studied us. A small tremor in my spine rippled as I recalled Quietus’s cat eyes staring at me before he sliced my cutie marks off.

This Queen won’t be like that, I chided myself. Sweet Celestia, I hope not.

Pinkie bounced around her, which made the Queen’s guards hiss in alarm. “Ooh! She’s cute! What’s her name?”

Bicho scratched his head. “One of my duties is to name Chrysalis’s successor, but I’m stuck for a name.”

“Aww, who’s a keyoot widdle buggy-wuggy?” cooed Pinkie as she made silly faces at the giggling hatchling. “With your bwushable hair and nice shiny chitin?”

“That’s it!” Bicho declared. “Chitin! Queen Chitin!”

Pinkie stuck her tongue out. “Bleah! That’s a little masculine for this cute little Queen. How about . . . ummm . . . Chitina! Yeah!”

Bicho blinked in surprise. “Um, yes! Chitina! Queen Chitina!”

Pinkie pumped a hoof in victory. “Yesss! That’s much more marketable!”

“My pony friends, I have to stay here to watch over the Queen,” declared Bicho. “My guards will escort you and the townsfolk up to the cave entrance. Once you leave, don’t come back. The cave will be collapsed to keep anyone from following us.”

The surviving Appleloosan townsfolk were gathered up by my friends. After waving goodbye to Bicho and Pinkie, we were escorted by several changelings. A few minutes of walking later and I recognized the Mortis family crypt as several changelings hauled boulders over the hole Chysalis had made.

Vinyl nudged me. “Is that where Quietus took you?”

“Yeah. That’s where my cutie marks ended up.”

“Well, while we’re chilling to some tunes, I’ll dig up my black leather pants for you.”

Octavia gave a sharp cough. “Vinyl. Don’t.”

“It’s all right, Octavia,” I said. “Cutie marks don’t grow back. I’m going to be cutie markless for the rest of my life. Even if I gave myself a fur-dye job like I did with Pinkie, it’ll still look fake. Pants are going to be in my new wardrobe from now on.”

Vinyl shrugged. “Hey, you’ll fit right in with the goth and dark ambient crowd. All you need now is dark makeup around your eyes and, I dunno, a raven strapped to your shoulders and you’re all set to go.”

I smiled and giggled. This time, however, my giggles didn’t come from hurting someone. I was just like everypony else. Pain vampire ability notwithstanding.

I told Pinkie that I might have had more than one island of paradise. The island that I would always find happiness in was the knowledge that my mother loved me.

My cutie marks were cut off to reduce my identity, according to my family history book. But I know I’m still a Mortis.

I have Nightmare Moon’s ability to gain strength from the pain of others, but I am not a monster like her or her followers. I have my morals and my friends to keep that from ever happening.

No matter what my enemies try to do to me, I’ll keep fighting back.

Now that I know that my mother and Rainbow Dash are waiting for me in the land of the dead, death no longer holds any terrors for me.

Let the monsters of the world fight me. They’ll find that I’m hard to kill.

But it’s not hard for me to kill monsters. Not anymore.

After all, my name is Equus Mortis. In an old world language, it means “Pony Of Death”.

And in spite of everything that’s happened to me recently, I’ve never been happier to be alive.

THE END

Author's Note

And the theme song for this final chapter is....
"See" by Tycho
Man, this story took ages to write and edit. I hope you folks like the work that I wrote and Rethkir edited.
Until Equus rides again (in a pair of adorable black leather pants), I'll see you pony-folks later!