Trifle Not With Monsters

by Leaf Whisper

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Original Character, Mystery, Rainbow Dash, Horror, Fluttershy, Adventure
Length: 30689

Rainbow Dash, Zipline and Phillip Finder team up to investigate a suspicious therapist whose treatments promise freedom from fear. But this freedom is a deal with the devil. And sometimes, when you make deals with the devil, you end up with him.

A Wonderbolts show goes badly wrong when one of the members throws caution to the wind and seriously injures himself and another pony. Suspecting foul play, Rainbow Dash attempts to investigate, only to find herself in far over her head.

Meanwhile, Zipline turns to a mysterious potion in an attempt to deal with his crippling fear of heights, only to find that the effects aren't what he thought, and his decision may have endangered his family. Phillip Finder pursues his own goals, but finds himself haunted by the demons of his past.

The three of them are all about to learn that when you make a deal with the devil, sometimes you end up with him...but maybe not in the form you expected.

Prereading and editing by themouthofmush, Thunderblast and Twilight is the Best.

Constructive criticism and comments is appreciated.

The Phillip Finder series
The Pony in the Gray Trilby
The Everfree Forest Affair
Time Flies
The Blue Moon Brings Death
Letters to a Candymare
The Face in the Darkness
Checkmate
Secret of the Mare Lisa
The Sun Falls
Clockwork
Behind Locked Doors
Siege of Clovenworth
The Silent Fugitive
Curse of the Taverneigh Blue
Mystery on the Mareish Moors
The Grilled Cheese and the Muletese Falcon
Trifle Not With Monsters
The Fillydelphia Solution
The Sydneigh Ritual
Endgame

Published 2016-06-02 20:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-07-26 20:59:24 UTC

Prologue: Family Matters

"Hold...perfectly...still."

Rainbow Dash obeyed the directive, standing as still as she could. A bright red apple was balanced on top of her head, perched right between her ears. The grass beneath her hooves rustled in the wind that blew across the hills outside Ponyville, warmed by the evening sun. Ten feet away, Zipline aimed a revolver right at her, one eye closed and his tongue held between his teeth in concentration. The weapon quivered dangerously in his grip. Behind her, Scootaloo watched, prancing in place out of sheer excitement.

"I can't look!" Zipline cried, turning away and covering his eyes with his wing. "Scoots, tell me how it turns out!"

Rainbow Dash tensed up, her life flashing before her eyes as she stared down the dark barrel of the gun. Very slowly, Zipline gently squeezed the trigger. A long stream of water burst out of the end and sprayed all over Rainbow's face, causing her to splutter in surprise and Scootaloo to burst out laughing.

"Whoops!" Zipline said in mock surprise, staring at the realistically-designed water pistol. "Sorry, Rainbow."

"Nice prank, Zip," Rainbow Dash chuckled, taking the apple off her head. "But I can think of better. Now, are you going to shoot this apple off my head or not?"

"No, I'm not," Zipline replied, handing off the toy to Scootaloo. "I like a dare as much as the next pony, but I know where to draw the line. I'm gonna do one better, though." He trotted over to a tree and retrieved a long black case. Opening the case up, he pulled out a wooden stocked Summerfield rifle with a polished scope attached to the barrel. Pulling the bolt back, Zipline took a single .30-caliber cartridge out of the case and loaded it into the weapon before walking back to Rainbow and Scootaloo.

"You're going to fly up into the air there," he instructed her, taking out a suppressor and screwing it onto the end of the rifle's barrel. "When you give the signal, you're going to drop the apple, and I'm going to turn around, and shoot the apple before it hits the ground."

"You really think you can do that?" Rainbow smirked.

"You think he can't?" Scootaloo challenged.

Ziplien raised an eyebrow, a cheeky grin plastered across his face. "Do you dare me to?"

"I double dare you to do it," Rainbow Dash grinned back.

"Then get up there and get ready to drop it," Zipline told her. Rainbow spread her wings and took off into the air, flying away a hundred feet and soaring up into the air, until Zipline and Scootaloo were colored specks on the ground far below her. Meanwhile, Zipline turned his back, pulled Scootaloo around so that she would be behind the line of fire, locking the Summerfield rifle's bolt in place. Closing his eyes, he took in a long slow breath, imagining that the air within him was mixing with all his thoughts and emotions. Slowly, he exhaled out through his mouth, picturing all his inner turmoils—all his fear, doubt, hesitation or confusion—being expelled from his body. At his command, his mind became still, detaching itself from his body.

"Ready," he called out.

"Now!" Rainbow shouted, dropping the apple. It began to accelerate towards the ground: from this height, Zipline had less than two seconds to react.

Instantly, Zipline turned around, raising the weapon to his right eye. His body moved on its own, without prompt or command from his stilled mind. He did not rush: the world had seemed to slow around him. He sighted the apple and began to track its slow motion fall, keeping the crosshair dead on center. Without thought, without rush, he squeezed the trigger. A sharp crack pierced the air and the rifle kicked in his hooves.

Less than three feet off the ground, the apple exploded into fragments and rained down onto the ground.

"Yeah!" Scootaloo cheered. "Great shot, dad!"

Smirking, Zipline worked the bolt of his rifle, catching the ejected cartridge with his wing. "Not bad for an old guy, huh?" he called to Rainbow as she flew back towards them.

"Eh, it wasn't bad," Rainbow shrugged. "But Scoots and I have a few tricks of our own. Don't we, Scoots?"

Suddenly, a jet of water hit Zipline in the side of the head. "Hey! Wha—"

"We sure do!" Scootaloo laughed, hitting her father with another blast from the water pistol. Zipline tried to leap out of the way, but found himself under assault by Rainbow Dash, who hurled pine cones at him. He quickly collapsed under the continual double attack. "Mercy! Mercy! I surrender!" he begged through his laughter.

"Yield!" Scootaloo ordered, approaching with the water pistol leveled. Too late, she realized her mistake: with a sudden motion, he knocked the weapon aside, pinned Scootaoo to the ground and began to tickle her. "Ah! Hey, no fair!" she giggled. "Rainbow, help!"

"I'll save you, Scoots!" Rainbow shouted, flying in and snatching Scootaloo up, carrying her high into the air and out of Zipline's reach. Holding her honorary sister tight to her chest with one arm, Rainbow continued to pelt Zipline with pine cones, who ran around in a desperate attempt to dodge the attack.

"Kids! Time to come home, dinner will be ready soon!" a voice called. Everypony turned to see Rain Breeze watching from the edge of the clearing, a motherly smile spread across her face at the sight.

"All right!" Rainbow shouted, lifting Scootaloo up onto her back and flying off towards her home. Zipline watched his daughter and adoptive sister flying with an expression of longing on his face.

"Honey, are you all right?" Rain asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," Zipline said, lifting up a few feet off the ground and flying after the girls.

"You really need to do something about your altophobia," Rain said, walking alongside him. "If you would continue your therapies with me—"

"Sweetie, you have enough patients without adding me to the workload," Zipline cut in. "Besides, that therapy wasn't working with me."

"Because you weren't focusing on them," Rain Breeze said patiently.

"Can you blame me?" Zipline grinned. "I was distracted by the most beautiful mare in the world." He leaned in and began to pepper Rain's cheek with kisses.

"Oh, stop it, you!" Rain squealed, pushing him away. "Come on, dinner's gonna be cold by the time we get back."

Minutes later, the family was gathered around the dinner table at Zipline and Rain Breeze's house, where Rain served them potato salad and grilled carrots.

"Are you still taking Scootaloo to your Wonderbolts show tomorrow?" Zipline asked Rainbow. At the mention of the word "Wonderbolt," Scootaloo began to bounce up and down in her seat in excitement.

"Sure am!" Rainbow said, spooning more carrots onto her plate.

"I want you to take good care of her," Rain Breeze instructed her. "Scootaloo, when you're with Rainbow, you—"

"Do whatever she tells me to, don't talk to strangers, don't go anywhere without her, and if I get lost, find a Guard. I know, mom," Scootaloo rolled her eyes.

Rain sighed and reached out to stroke her daughter's mane. "I just want to make sure you're kept safe," she said.

"Don't worry, Rain," Rainbow reassured her. "She'll be kept completely safe with me."

"All right," Rain conceded. "And sit up straight, dear. The chair's not meant to be bounced on."

"Yes, mom."

Rainbow chewed the carrots slowly, raising her eyes up as she thought. "This needs something..." Getting an idea, she zipped off to the kitchen and came back with a bottle of hot sauce. "Hey, Scoots, do you dare me to eat this with five shakes of hot sauce on it?"

"No way!" Scoots grinned. "I dare you to eat with six shakes of hot sauce!"

"Not if I eat it first!" Zipline counter challenged.

"You're on!" Rainbow Dash shouted, starting to generously shake the hot sauce onto her carrots.

Rain Breeze sighed and lowered her face onto her hoof. "I'm dealing with three children."

Meanwhile, in the suburbs of Ponyville, a trio of ponies sat around a dining room table. A creaky, flickering lamp provided the only light, as the heavy shades were drawn. A disc player set on a nearby shelf blasted out heavy rock music.

"I'm telling you, Sugar Dough, this has got to be the best product we've ever gotten," a fat, greasy-maned unicorn with a cutie mark of a glass of red wine grinned, bending over the table and sticking a straw up his nose. With a long, loud snort, he huffed up a large portion of the snow white powder spread across a tray on the table, then fell back onto the seat, his eyes rolling in pleasure at the rush.

"Don't use up all of it, you fat pig," a skinny pegasus mare with the cutie mark of a trio of cookies and crooked teeth grunted, pulling the tray away. "We gotta sell some of it."

"Hey, c'mon, babe," the fat unicorn slurred as he swayed in his seat. "What's the point of paying for this stuff if we don't take the time to enjoy it?"

The husky unicorn sitting on the other side of the table with his tattooed forelegs folded across his chest snorted and shook out his dark curtain-like mane. "Ruby Port, you might be my brother, but you're an idiot," he grunted.

"Eh, shut up, Gold Mine," Ruby snarled, turning towards his older brother and attempting to focus his gaze on him. "You—"

The argument was interrupted by a knocking at the door. "I'll get it," Sugar said, rising from the table. As soon as she was gone, Ruby Port bent over the tray again, placing the straw in his other nostril. Gold Mine snatched the straw away with his magic.

"Hey! I was just gonna take one more hit!" Ruby protested.

"It's always 'just one more hit' with you," Gold growled. "And the next thing we know—"

Suddenly, there came the sound of an angry shout from Sugar down the hallway, followed by the sounds of blows landing and something crashing to the ground. "Sugar?" Ruby called out, wobbling as he attempted to rise.

"Shut up!" Gold Mine snarled, lighting up his horn and snatching up a revolver from the table. "Stay here." Gold Mine quickly exited the room and proceeded down the hallway. Ruby Port was left on his own in the dark room. His head swam from the effects of the drugs and he had to fight to keep his balance. Maybe he should have gone with Gold...maybe he should take another hit. That'd be just the thing to calm him down and help get rid of that seasick feeling...

"No!" Two gunshots roared, one right after another; the thunderous noise made Ruby reel, his head ringing from pain.

"Gold Mine?" he called out to his brother. "What's going on?"

His answer was for something to fly out from around the corner of the door and smash the single lightbulb, plunging the room into sudden darkness. Ruby yelped in fright as shards of glass and sparks rained down him. Frantically, he attempted to channel magic into his horn to create a source of light, but the attempt to generate the energy made his headache worsen and his stomach turn over in his chest. The pain increased his panic and he stumbled back against the wall.

"Gold? Sugar?" he shouted. The only reply was the music continuing to play from out of the speakers that he could no longer see. His heart in his throat, Ruby gulped like a fish and cried out, "Somepony, please, say something!"

"G'day," growled a voice right next to him, pitched as low as thunder. Terrified, Ruby whirled and instinctively swung his hoof in a sloppy punch at the source of the stranger's voice. His hoof impacted with something solid; the next moment, there was a sharp cracking sound and Ruby Port fell to his knees, howling in pain.

"My wrist! You broke my wrist!"

"There are 204 other bones in your body," the voice snarled. A heavy blow knocked Ruby to the floor and a heavy weight dropped down on the side of his head, pinning him down. Struggling to look up, Ruby saw the silhouette of another pony, black on black, holding him down. The only detail he could see clearly in the dim light was the figure's eyes: gray, as dark as a thundercloud, and twice as cold, peering out from behind long black bangs and the brim of a trilby.

"Now," the intruder said coolly, reaching over and increasing the volume of the speakers, "Do want to tell me which bone you want me to break next, or do you want to tell me who your supplier is?"

Author's Note

And so it begins. After two relatively light-hearted stories, this will be a darker, more horror-themed story.

So what will happen to Rainbow Dash at the Wonderbolts show? And what's waiting beneath the skin?

The nightmare has just begun...

Part 1: Unafraid

The next morning, the sun shone warmly down on the city of Cloudsdale, the light making the cloud-based city shine like polished silver. The Cloudiseum was filling up quickly, the noise of the crowd increasing as the anticipation rose.

Scootaloo followed Rainbow Dash up the steps to the VIP box near the very top of the stadium. The little filly bounced with every step, her wings buzzing with excitement. "I can't believe you managed to get me VIP tickets!" she squealed to Rainbow.

"Being an official Wonderbolt has its perks," Rainbow said, tussling Scootaloo's mane. "C'mon, here's your seat." Rainbow gestured to a royal purple cushion with golden gilding.

"Awesome!" Scootaloo shouted, jumping up onto the cushion excitedly and looking over the Cloudiseum like a queen surveying their kingdom from their palace balcony.

"Best seat in the house, squirt," Rainbow said, giving her a few bits so she could purchase some snacks. "You'll be able to see the whole show from here. Speaking of which," Rainbow added. "I'd better get over to the other Wonderbolts and get ready!"

"Good luck, Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo called as Rainbow flew off towards the Cloudiseum's locker rooms through a tunnel located at the opposite side of the Cloudiseum. Zipping around the corner at high speed, Rainbow burst through the doors into the packed lockers and landed right in front of Spitfire, who was already suited up in her Wonderbolts flight suit. "Reporting for duty, ma'am!" she saluted.

"Good to see you, Crash," Spitfire grinned. "Ready to give us your A-game today?"

"So long as you remembered your allergy medicine today, Snotfire," Rainbow teased in reply, hoofbumping Spitfire. Rainbow trotted over to the locker that she had stored her gear in last night after practice, greeting the other Wonderbolts as she did so.

"How's the wing, Fire Streak?" she greeted her fiery-maned colleague as she changed into her flight suit.

"Fully recovered!" Fire grinned, extending the wing that he had strained last month in practice when he pulled out of a dive too early and collided with a flagpole. "Nothing's gonna go wrong with me today!"

"It'd better not," Misty Fly muttered, zipping up her flight suit.

"Eh, don't worry, Mist," Fire replied, putting a foreleg around her with a confident grin. "Hey, you do something different with your mane today? It looks great!"

"Er...thanks, I guess?" Misty said, staring at her wingpony in confusion. Rainbow studied Fire Streak as she put on her own flight suit. The fiery-maned pony was as good as any of the flyers on the team, he normally wasn't this...bold. In fact, he was usually rather reserved and cautious, always slowing down too early or pulling out of a dive too soon, and whenever he tried to speak to Misty about anything other than flying, his speech usually reduced itself to stammering in seconds.

"You sure he didn't hit his head when he crashed into that flagpole?" Rainbow whispered to Misty.

Misty shrugged. "He's been acting weird ever since he went to that convention after the accident."

"What conven—?"

"All right, listen up, everypony!" Spitfire shouted. Every head turned towards her, the Wonderbolts snapping to attention as one.

"You've all practiced, you've got this routine down pat," Spitfire announced, pacing up and down the lines. "This might be just another show, but I still want you all to go out there and give 'em your best! Clear?!"

"Yes, ma'am!" the team barked back. The pep speech delivered, the Wonderbolts exited the lockers and filed into line in front of the tunnel, preparing to zip out into the warm skies of their home city to greet the roars of the crowd. Rainbow fell in next to her flight partner, Fleetfoot, right behind Spitfire and Soarin. Each of the lead ponies had a bright blue flare strapped around their shoulder. The cheering from crowd filtered down to their anticipating ears, along with the amplified voice of the announcer and the beginning strains of the rock music:

"And here they are, folks: the Wonderbolts!"

"Let's go!" Spitfire and Soarin shouted simultaneously, spreading their wings and taking off with a blur, immediately banking sharply to the left and rising straight up into the air. Rainbow Dash and Fleetfoot zipped out after them, banking hard to the left and shooting upwards, with the rest of the Wonderbolts racing out after them. As she flew upwards, Rainbow glanced down and saw Scootaloo waving at her from her seat, cheering at the top of her lungs. The sight made her grin proudly.

"Now, Rainbow!" Fleetfoot shouted from above her, unhooking the flare from around her shoulder and yanking off the cap. The end came to life, spitting out bright yellow sparks. Flying upside down, Fleetfoot dropped the flare to Rainbow Dash, who caught the flare and twirled it in a circle. Simultaneously, the other Wonderbolt pairs tossed their flares to one another, sending a shower of sparks cascading throughout the Cloudiseum and drawing admiring "oohs" and "aahs" from the crowd.

Dipping down, Rainbow and the other flare-bearing Wonderbolts dived towards the ground, accelerating ever faster as the wind rushed in their ears. Soarin was at her right, matching her speed; Fire Streak was at her left, a thin-lined grin on his face as he pushed himself harder and harder, trying to dive faster. The bottom of the stadium raced towards their faces, providing them a framed view of the solid ground far beneath them. Now! Flaring her wings, Rainbow pulled out of the dive, pushing herself to rise back into the air. Soarin flew up with her, but Fire Streak didn't pull up: he waited until he was almost beneath the Cloudiseum before pulling up sharply, his body almost brushing against the walls of the stadium as he rose back into the air.

That definitely wasn't in the flight plans! Rainbow thought, tossing the flare to Fleetfoot as they flew past each other. In fact, that had been downright dangerous: he could have crashed into the crowd. Out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow saw Fire Streak pass the flare to Misty, speeding so close to her that their wings touched. What was going on? Rainbow had always prided herself on pushing the limits, but she knew that there were lines you didn't cross: Fire was putting himself and his partner in danger with this recklessness. She'd definitely be talking to Spitfire about this after the show.

The group continued the performance without any further hitches, although Fire Streak still caused several near misses, once diving far too close to the crowd and sending a shower of sparks directly onto the ponies in the front row. The spectators didn't seem to mind, however, continuing to watch in awe, cheering with every successful trick that sent fresh colors dancing across the sky.

Finally, it was time for the final trick. The Wonderbolts swooped low to the ground, then started to spiral upwards, each set of partners circling around one another in opposing directions, tossing the flares back and forth. Up and up, they rose into the air, flying in ever tighter circles. The crowd watched in awed silence at their daring as the music swelled.

But out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow watched Fire Streak and Misty Fly. Fire Streak was flying up and up at an increasing speed, moving past the others, forcing Misty to push herself to keep up. He began to fly in tighter circles, buzzing Misty closely several times. Misty had her teeth gritted in determination for the show to go on, but Blaze, instead of working with her, continued to fly faster and faster, higher and higher, tighter and tighter. Rainbow instinctively slowed down to watch, causing Fleetfoot to slow as well.

Down below, some of the audience began to figure out that something was going wrong, pointing up at Streak and Misty, gasping as the orange-maned pegasus grazed his partner.

"They're going to crash!" Scootaloo shouted from her seat.

A moment later, she was proven correct: with a sickening WHAM that echoed throughout the entire stadium, Streak and Misty collided headfirst with one another. The flare tumbled from Misty's grip, spinning towards the ground: the two ponies followed, both having been knocked unconscious by the impact.

Immediately reacting, Rainbow and Fleetfoot dived down after their colleagues, their own flare and the rest of the show forgotten. Rainbow snatched Streak up onto her back while Fleetfoot rescued Misty, both of them immediately flying down to the medical station at the stadium floor. The other Wonderbolts flew down after them as the music abruptly cut out. After a moment of shocked silence, some of the crowd began to cheer, apparently choosing to believe that the whole thing had been part of the show.

Four pegasus paramedics raced out to the unconscious ponies, tenderly lifting them up onto stretchers. "Are they okay?" Rainbow asked, bending over Misty in concern. Misty groaned feebly; a small trickle of blood ran down her face from underneath her mask.

"They're both just unconscious," one of the paramedics reassured her. "We'll take care of them." The medics hurriedly rushed Streak and Misty off to the medical ward, leaving the other Wonderbolts to trot back to the lockers and change out of their flight suits, accepting the underserved applause of the crowd as they did so.

"What was that?" Spitfire snapped as soon as they were back in the service tunnel, out of sight of the crowd. "What was Fire Streak thinking? He could've gotten them both killed out there!"

"Yeah, that was weird," Soarin agreed, taking off his flight goggles. "He's been acting kind of off for a while now, but he's never done anything like that."

"Was he trying to kill himself?" Fleetfoot said. "There's better ways to do it!"

"I was watching him during the whole thing," Rainbow reported. "It was like he...wasn't being careful, like he just didn't care that he was acting dangerously." She thought for a moment. "Misty mentioned that he went to some kind of convention after he had that accident. That was when he started acting weird."

"Yeah, it was some kind of self-help thing for ponies with phobias and anxiety disorders," Soarin said, opening up Fire Streak's locker and rummaging through it. "I think he showed me a flyer for it...yeah, here it is." He pulled out a flyer that showed the image of a pony shaking off a set of black shackles and jumping up into the air with a wide smile. Beneath the pony was the image of an open book with the purple psi symbol on both pages.

"Dr. Miraculous Cure's Seminar for Phobias and Anxiety!" the flyer declared in bold letters. "Free yourself from the shackles of fear and doubt! Live your life the way you want it!" Beneath the title was a list of places and dates of the convention's tour of Equestria. Scanning the list, Rainbow Dash saw that the convention was due in Ponyville tomorrow.

"I'd better get out of here, guys," Rainbow declared, quickly unzipping her flight suit. "I've gotta take Scootaloo home, and then I'm gonna check this convention out. Something's not right about this."

Meanwhile, back in Ponyville, Zipline entered his home through the back door, mopping sweat from his workout off his forehead. Rain Breeze was in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea while she reviewed notes on some of her patients.

"Honey, have you seen this?" Rain called to Zipline as he pulled a bottled water from the fridge and started to chug it down. Turning, Zipline saw Rain holding up a flyer in her magic.

"'Seminar for Phobias and Anxiety?'" he read out loud. "Sweetie, I don't need to go to some fraud's self-help meeting to help me get over my fear of heights."

"Zipline, I've heard a lot about Miraculous Cure," Rain explained. "He's one of the best at helping ponies get over their fears. This could really help you." When Zipline still looked uncertain, Rain put a hoof on his shoulders. "I know it's hard to be a pegasus who's afraid to fly, and it's something that's embarrassing for you. But if you really want to move past this, you should be looking to get some help. And Dr. Cure is somepony who can definitely help you."

Zipline frowned, studying the poster. For a moment, he thought of flying through the air, completely free of the nausea and dizziness that had always plagued him, his daughter laughing as she rode on his shoulders, or even better, flew alongside him as he tutored her in flight.

The vision proved too tempting for him to resist. "All right, I'll go," he nodded.

Phillip Finder sat back on a bench in the Ponyville Park, his eyes closed and his saxophone reed held in his mouth. Music floated out of his instrument, joining the songs of the birds and the wind blowing through the trees. His trilby lay on the bench beside him, eagerly awaiting the occasional bit from a generous passerby.

Fluttershy walked past, her saddlebags loaded with food and other necessities for her animal friends. "Hello, Phillip," she greeted him as she approached.

"G'day," Phillip nodded.

Fluttershy paused for a moment, frowning in thought. "May I speak to you about something?" she asked.

"Shoot," Phillip said, setting his sax down.

"I heard about what you did to those drug dealers yesterday," Fluttershy said. "You sent all three of them to the hospital."

"So?" Phil shrugged.

"So they're ponies!" Fluttershy replied. "Living ponies! The kind you're supposed to be protecting!" When Phillip's only answer was to glare at her, she sighed. "Phil, you've been acting very...aggressively recently. It's starting to get me worried."

"I don't need your concern," Phillip grunted. "I need that scum to get out and stay out of my town."

"That's beside the point," Fluttershy said. "The point is, you're starting to scare ponies." She gestured over to a young couple of unicorns nearby. They eyed Phillip nervously, then quickly trotted out of sight.

"Good," Phil answered, standing up and glowering at Fluttershy. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm supposed to be scary. I—"

He stopped suddenly, his head turning towards a grouping of trees in the distance. A stallion was standing in the shadow of the trees, staring directly at him, a small grin playing about his lips. A spark of recognition flashed in Phillip's mind: he knew that stallion...

"What is it?"

Phillip turned to Fluttershy, who was looking at him in concern. "I saw—" He turned back to see that the stallion had vanished. He stared in silence for a moment, then grunted. "I thought I saw somepony over there."

Fluttershy glanced over, then turned back to Phillip. "Listen, Phillip. I know this is how you've been doing things for a long time, but you're better than this. You're not the monster you think you are."

"And what makes you so sure of that?" he grunted, looking sideways at her.

"Because I'm your friend," Fluttershy said. She paused for a moment, then sighed. "Whatever you've got inside of you...I hope you make your peace with it, because the way you're acting...it's not going to end well."

Phillip did not reply, stonily staring straight ahead. After a moment of silence, Fluttershy walked away, returning home. Once she had left, Phillip finally shook himself out of his reverie with a frustrated grunt. He packed up his saxophone, gathered up the bits he had earned and started off for home. The major drug supplier for the Ponyville region would be coming tomorrow night and he had to get ready.

He glanced back towards the clump of trees where he had seen the stallion watching him. The shadowed face remained fixed in his mind. Even though he knew it was impossible—even though he knew that it couldn't be him—he could swear he knew that face.

It looked like the stallion who had murdered his father.

Author's Note

Quite a bit happening in this chapter. But what does it all mean?

I'm not really sure about how this is starting off. What do you guys think? I'd love to hear some constructive criticism about this story.

Part 2: The Convention

The next afternoon, a crowd of ponies filtered through the opening to the Hedge Maze center in Ponyville, weaving their way through the marked paths to the center. Above them, fluttering banners proudly proclaimed that they were on their way to Dr. Miraculous Cure's Seminar for Phobias and Anxieties. Amongst the crowd was Rainbow Dash, her head low as she passed her gaze back and forth in suspicion. She stared up at one of the banners as she passed underneath it, glaring at the image of the pony shaking off their shackles. What was it about this seminar that had driven Fire Streak to become so callous and fearless that he had nearly gotten himself killed?

Several feet behind her, Zipline walked along, still with some hesitation. All these other ponies, silently judging him for attending this convention. Did they know? Could they deduce his secret, that he was a pegasus who could not fly out of simple cowardice? Would they remember his face?

"This guy better be worth it, Rain," he muttered to himself.

Finally, they breached the center of the hedge maze. Chattering ponies were arranging themselves in rows in front of the stage, which had another banner displayed across it. The royal purple curtains shifted faintly from wind and hidden activity: behind them was a set of purple tents. Zipline found a seat near the back and sat stonily, staring straight ahead like a proper Guard. He did not notice Rainbow Dash creeping in and taking a seat in the middle of the group. The crowd around them chatted amongst themselves, eagerly waiting for the show to begin. Security ponies and assistants in purple t-shirts stood amongst the borders of the group, keeping watch over them.

Finally, the curtains parted, and with a flourish, Dr. Miraculous Cure stepped out onto the stage with a broad smile. He was a light blue unicorn with a long silvery mane and tail and a well-trimmed goatee. His cutie mark was the image from his posters: an open book with the purple psi symbol on both pages. He was dressed in a dark suit and an ivory tie. The crowd applauded at his entry.

"How many ponies here are afraid of something?" he asked, his voice amplified to reach over the noise of the spectator. After a moment of hesitation, most of the ponies in the crowd raised their hooves.

"Fear can be a good thing, when it is controlled," Dr. Cure declared, pacing back and forth across the stage. "From the start of our lives, fear acts as one of our most important teachers. Whenever we are about to do something that might be dangerous, fear is what pulls us back. Fear of being punished taught us to obey the law and our parents, which molded us into good, upstanding citizens. Fear of being hurt teaches us to be careful around dangerous objects or machinery, or to be cautious with strangers.

"But," he continued, stepping off the stage and into the pit to walk amongst the crowd. "Fear is not supposed to control us. It's like our teachers at school: they guide us and provide us with valuable knowledge, but I know I wouldn't have liked having my first grade teacher looking over my shoulder all the time, telling me what to do!" Dr. Cure grinned at his own joke. There was a ripple of chuckling from amongst the crowd.

"I will be honest with you, my friends," Dr. Cure continued, starting to walk up the center aisle of the crowd. "I was once a complete fraidy-pony. I was afraid of the dark, I was afraid of storms, I was afraid of dogs and cats and bugs...if you named it, I was probably scared of it. I had totally submitted to my fears; they ruled me completely, dictated my life." He looked around the crowd, and from the looks on many ponies faces, it was quite clear that there were many who knew exactly what he was talking about.

"But I was able to conquer my fears with a simple method," Dr. Cure stated, continuing to walk up the center aisle. "I learned that fear is not my enemy, it is my servant; I am its master, not the other way around." He paused, turning in a full circle to ensure that he had everypony's attention. "I can demonstrate how I managed to overcome my fears, but first, I will need a volunteer from the audience."

Several hooves immediately went up in eagerness. Dr. Cure and his assistants began to comb the ensemble for any suitable participants. While everypony was distracted, Rainbow slipped out from amongst the pack and began to sneak towards the tent, keeping her head low to avoid anypony's attention.

Dr. Cure's gaze passed over Zipline, who did his best to not react, trying not to draw attention to himself. But like a hawk zeroing in on a tasty field mouse, the psychiatrist's gaze locked onto him. "How about you, sir?" he declared, striding towards him confidently. Every head turned towards Zipline, who cringed internally. His secret was about to be exposed to the world.

"And what's your name?" Dr. Cure asked Zipline, pausing in front of him.

Zipline took a slow breath, feeling the gazes of dozens of ponies boring into him. Rain Breeze was definitely going to have to make this up for him later. "Zipline," he answered, trying to keep his voice even.

"Zipline," Dr. Cure smiled. "You have a very straight-backed posture. Are you, by any chance, in the Royal Guard?"

"Yes, sir. PFC, Solar House Guard."

"Solar House Guard? Most impressive," Dr. Cure nodded. About a third of the ponies applauded. "So, Zipline, being one of the protectors of Princess Celestia herself, you probably consider yourself to be a pretty brave individual, right?"

"Yes, sir," Zipline answered flatly.

"Of course. But is there anything that you're afraid of?"

"No, sir."

Miraculous Cure turned to look at him, shaking his head quietly with a paternal smile. "Anypony who says that they fear nothing is either a fool or a liar, Zipline, and you do not strike me as either." He stepped closer. Zipline felt a sudden urge to step back.

"Nopony is here to make fun of you, my friend. The reason you are here is because you are brave enough to know that you need help, which is the first step to achieving that help. Every single pony here is being brave just by coming here, laying themselves bare for everypony else to see." He looked back at Zipline, giving him an appraising look. "The next step for them is for someone to take another step forward. To admit their fear, and show them that they, too, don't have to be afraid of their fear. And who better than a Royal Guard to help them take that first step?"

The two ponies looked at each other, and where Zipline expected to find challenge and arrogance, he found welcoming and acceptance. He saw the face of somepony reaching out to him from the other side of a wide canyon. He swallowed, looked down at the floor, and spoke softly.

"Heights..."

"What did you say?" Dr. Cure asked, leaning in a little closer.

"I'm scared of heights..."

Zipline cringed, expecting a torrent of jeering laughter; but to his surprise, there was no sound save a sympathetic murmur from the ponies closest to him.

"I see," Dr. Cure said. "Now tell me: is there anything or anypony that is special in your life? The most important thing?"

Zipline didn't even have to think. "My daughter."

"And you would do anything for her, is that correct?"

"What father wouldn't?" Zipline responded, straightening up.

"Of course," Dr. Cure nodded in agreement. "And that is the cure to taming fear: focusing on something stronger. In Zipline's example, if ever his fear of heights becomes something that stops him from being able to live his life the way he wants, he should focus on his daughter, on how he would do anything for her...even conquer his long-term phobia. And that is how, step by step, each of us can conquer fear: by giving us something stronger to put it in its place, and taking it down, one step at a time! Let's have a big round of applause for Zipline!"

At Dr. Cure's call, the crowd burst into applause, whistles and cheers. Zipline stared in utter astonishment. Nopony was looking at him mockingly, no one jeered his weakness: these ponies accepted him, were encouraging him to stand up. Numb with surprise, Zipline barely realized that he was shaking Dr. Cure's hoof until the psychiatrist leaned in close and whispered in his ear.

"Meet with me after the lecture. I have something that will help you with your phobia, as a thank you for participating."

Before Zip could respond, Dr. Cure winked at him and walked away, turning his attention to another volunteer. The numbness in Zipline's body dissipated, eventually replaced with relief. Straightening back up, he turned his full attention to the lecture.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash had snuck around behind the stage to the rows of purple tents where convention exercises and therapies were to take place over the next few days. With all the security and assistants focusing on the lecture out front, this area was deserted. Rainbow crept down the pathway, flanked by the tents on either side, examining the signs posted outside each tent. It appeared that each of the individual tents was intended for a different exercise: one had a sign that said "Aromatic Therapy," while another said "Modeling" and a third read "Counter-conditioning." A small group of tents that was sitting slightly separated from the main body of canopies was roped off and labeled "Staff Quarters," but it was the one next to it that Rainbow Dash's interest focused on immediately.

This tent was small, with faded purple canvas that was roped shut. It sat off on its own, separated from the other tents, as if trying not to be noticed. A small sign in front of it read "PRIVATE" in bold letters.

They couldn't have made it more tempting if they tried. Rainbow zipped over to the tent and pulled open the curtains a bit, peeking inside.

The interior of the tent was almost completely empty. There were only a few small, scattered cushions for sitting on, a hanging oil lantern for light, and a large crate sitting in the corner. Slipping inside, Rainbow crept over to the crate, testing the lid. To her surprise, the box was unlocked, allowing her to open it up and examine the contents.

Inside the crate were a dozen flasks, packed in shipping foam. Curious, Rainbow took out one of the flasks and twisted the top open. The container was filled with a thick milky white liquid. She sniffed it suspiciously: it smelled faintly like oranges.

What was this doing here? Was this Dr. Cure's miraculous cure for fear, which had led Fire Streak to almost kill himself and his partner? After a moment of hesitation, Rainbow tucked the flask beneath her wing. She'd have to have Twilight examine this—

A hoof suddenly clapped down on her shoulder. "Now what do you think you're doing?"

Rainbow whirled around and saw a pegasus standing behind her, glaring at her. This pegasus was dressed in the uniform of a convention security guard, a purple short-sleeved shirt with a golden tag pinned to his right breast, announcing that his name was Star Watcher. He had a green coat and a scruffy brown mane and tail with narrow blue eyes. His cutie mark was a golden telescope imposed on an image of the Big Dipper.

"What is this stuff?" Rainbow demanded, holding up the flask.

"That's none of your business," Star Watcher said gruffly, snatching the flask from her and placing it back in the box. "I'm not sure how fluent you are in Standard Equestrian, but the sign outside says 'Private.' As in, you're not allowed in here, savvy?"

"Did you give any of this stuff to Fire Streak?" Rainbow asked.

"I didn't. This belongs to Dr. Cure. Ergo, you'd have to ask him...except you can't, because I'm escorting you out. Come on." Watcher grabbed Rainbow's foreleg and started to guide her out of the tent.

"Let go!" Rainbow yanked her leg from his grip. "My friend attended this little get-together of yours, and then he got into a bad accident. He and another friend of mine almost died!"

"Dr. Cure and his employees are not responsible for the actions of those who attend this program," Star Watcher told her coldly. "If your friend decided to do something stupid, that's his own decision. We are not liable; you're free to check the statement of release that all of our clients sign for yourself."

Rainbow growled in Star Watcher's face; the security guard merely stared impassively back at her. "Listen to me, you. If I find out that whatever snake oil your boss is selling is putting my friends in danger, then I'm taking him down...and you with him!" And with that, she took flight, disappearing into the sky. Star Watcher watched her vanish into the horizon, scowling.

At that moment, a loud, long round of applause from the attending crowd announced that the lecture had just ended. Dr. Cure's muffled voice invited the attendees to come and participate in the available exercises. With a tromping of dozens of hoofsteps, several ponies filtered around the stage and into the row of tents. Uniformed assistants began to bustle over to the tents, inviting attendees inside to try this therapy or that exercise, to train them to overcome their fears.

Dr. Cure walked down the center mainway, smiling as he acknowledged the thanks of his new patients. Zipline followed along discreetly. What did this doctor want with him now?

"In here," Dr. Cure said, gesturing Zip into the private tent. Zipline entered, somewhat warily; he almost started to reach for the revolver on his hip before remembering that he left it at home, locked in the gun safe.

Dr. Cure entered, closing the tent flap behind him and using his magic to light the oil lantern. "I understand if you're a bit wary, but I must ask you to trust me just a little bit longer." He walked over to the crate sitting off in the corner and lifted it open. He extracted one of the flasks of liquid and brought it over, sitting down on one of the cushions.

"What is that?" Zipline asked.

"The next step of your program," Dr. Cure said. "It's a special potion that I've made."

"What does it do?"

"It will help you with your fears. Just a small prescription of this, and day by day, you'll find that you won't have a problem with your altophobia any longer."

Zipline eyed the flask warily. "And you're just giving this to me? Why not just give it to everypony here?"

Dr. Cure eyed the tent flap, sighed, then continued in a low voice. "Because it's still in its experimental stage."

"So how can you be sure that it works?" Zipline asked, drawing away slightly.

"That's what I want you to help me find out," Dr. Cure said. "I've already given it to a few other ponies—special ponies, like yourself, ponies who can't live their lives the way they want, who can't live up to what they wish to be in the eyes of those they love—and the results I've gotten were positive." He paused, then leaned forward slightly. "I know I'm asking you to take a bit of a risk here, Zipline, but trust me: this will help you become the stallion that you've always wanted to be. This will be the thing that finally frees you. You won't have to be ashamed or afraid anymore."

Zipline hesitated. The flask of liquid seemed to call to him: inside was the key to his dreams, to liberation from the crippling vertigo and crushing shame that had plagued him for so many years. Yet he still was not sure: should he accept the supposed kindness of a stranger?

"Think of it this way," Dr. Cure continued in a low, almost hypnotic voice. "By taking this, you are helping me to help so many just like you, who suffer in silence and terror. You will be helping your daughter, by giving her the role model she needs. And ultimately, you will be helping yourself."

An image danced in front of Zipline's vision: his own daughter, flying high through the sky alongside him. For her to feel the exhilaration of the wind through her wings was the thing that he wanted the most in the world: so much the sweeter it would be if he could share in the experience with her!

The image was enough temptation to convince him. Slowly, he reached out and took the flask. It felt heavy in his hoof, and his foreleg trembled beneath the weight.

"Drink it all down," Dr. Cure instructed. "It might take a day or two to take full effect."

Unscrewing the cap, Zipline stared for a moment at the liquid within. The citrus scent filled his nostrils. He hesitated a moment longer, like a high diver standing right at the edge of the diving board, looking down at the water below.

Think of something stronger than your fear. Think of your daughter.

Closing his eyes, Zipline tilted his head back and raised the potion to his lips, steadily gulping it down. The cool liquid trickled down his throat and filled him up from the core all the way to the ends of his hooves.

"Well done," Dr. Cure said, maintaining the broad smile on his face, although something besides warmth flickered in his eyes.

Outside, the other attendants continued to walk in and out of the convention tents, guided through their fears by the trained assistants. With everypony focused on their hidden demons, nopony noticed a carrier pigeon flying above them, a rolled up length of parchment clutched tight in its beak.

The pigeon flew straight southwest from Ponyville, flying towards its destination with a steady speed even as the sky began to darken. Just as the reddening sun was starting to kiss the horizon, the pigeon dived down towards an old, abandoned amusement park a couple miles north of Applewood. It soared down past a rusting carousel, past a hall of mirrors, and flew through an open window in the back of a crumbling haunted house ride.

The back room was once used as storage for costumes and spare props. Now it was filled with a heady, chemical aroma that wafted upwards from a mass of tubes, beakers and other chemistry equipment that bubbled and hissed with a variety of concoctions. A pegasus stallion with a pale, sickly yellow coat and hair the color of dead grass sat at a lone table, his eyes pressed up against the lenses of a microscope as he jotted notes down onto a pad beside him with a pencil. The pigeon landed next to the stallion and cooed to get his attention.

"Usher," the pony said in a raspy voice. "What news do you bring?"

The pigeon dropped the length of parchment into the pony's waiting hoof. He examined the message intently. "Interesting..." he muttered. "Rainbow Dash..."

There was a whooshing of feathers and a manila envelope marked "Rainbow Dash" landed on the table next to the stallion. The raven who had dropped it off landed next to it and let out a low cry.

"Thank you, Lenore," the pegasus said, stroking the bird with a bony hoof before retrieving the folder and opening it up. He examined the notes and photographs within carefully, his mind already racing.

"Yes," he finally said softly. "I think this will work." Taking out a roll of parchment, the pegasus scribbled down a long note before rolling it up and handing it back to the pigeon. The bird immediately took flight, sailing back to Ponyville. Then the pegasus reached over to a speaker and pressed down on the button. "Come in here," he ordered. A moment later, a door behind him opened opened and a burly unicorn in a dark jacket walked into the room. "Yes, doctor?" the pony asked quietly with a tremulous voice, looking down at the floor.

"Get the ponies ready. We're going to have a delivery tomorrow night. Meanwhile," the doctor added, reaching for another scrap of parchment, "I need to arrange for a small distraction for our detective friend."

Author's Note

That pony sure sounds familiar. But what does the good doctor have to do with all of this?

You'll have to wait and see.

Part 3: Looking Deeper

“I’m telling you, whatever is going on at that convention, it’s dangerous,” Rainbow Dash said, pacing the living room of 221 B Boulevard. Her disheveled mane glowed in the morning sun filtering through the window. Phillip Finder stared evenly at her as he lay sprawled across the sofa, a set of sheet music in his lap.

“Yes, there is something iffy about this,” Phillip agreed. “You know, Fire Streak hasn’t been the only athlete who’s been in an accident recently.” Getting up from the sofa, he strode over to a closet and opened it up to reveal several stacks of newspapers. He perused the stacks for a few moments, then plucked out a few sheets and carried them over to his desk.

“Last week, a high diver almost broke his back when he attempted a quadruple back somersault—something nopony has ever successfully pulled off,” he reported, indicating a small headline on The Manehattan Herald. “Two weeks before that, a knife thrower at a circus seriously injured an assistant while performing an act while blindfolded, which he’d never done before,” he continued, pointing to a section of The Chicoltgo Sun before pulling out a copy of Applewood Sentinel. “And then a week before that, a stunt bicyclist broke three of his legs trying to jump over Mount Monument.”

Rainbow examined each of the articles in growing shock. She pulled out a copy of the flyer that she had kept and started comparing the dates. “This convention was in those towns near the same date as each of these accidents!”

Phillip frowned in thought. “I’d say that this is more than a coincidence.”

“We should go over there and start demanding some answers right now!” Rainbow said.

“Not without some solid evidence,” Phillip replied. “I’d have to do a bit of investigation with this, but first—”

He was interrupted by a knocking on the front door. Striding over to the door, Phillip opened it up to find a messenger handing him a telegraph. He tore the message open and examined it quickly, scowling. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Rainbow asked, looking at the telegraph over his shoulder.

“This drug dealer I’m chasing is as cunning as a dunny rat,” Phillip said. “He bought a train ticket to come here, but he jumped off before it got to the station. Probably in Dodge Junction now; he’s got some connections there that I know of. I’m going to have to go after him.”

“What about this?” Rainbow demanded. “You can’t just drop this case!”

“This has to take priority right now,” Phillip responded. “But while I’m taking care of this, you could do a bit of snooping around the convention. See if you can sneak out a sample of that potion. You should probably ask one of the others for help.”

“Can’t. Rarity’s down in Manehattan checking on her boutique, Applejack went to visit Coloratura in Fillydelphia, Twilight and Flash are in the Crystal Empire on a royal summit, Starlight is visiting Sunburst to do some research, Fluttershy’s meeting with Tree Hugger, and Pinkie Pie…”

“...Yeah,” Phillip nodded. He paused for a moment, then turned to Rainbow. “Look, just be careful while you’re doing this.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I can handle myself, Phil.”

“I know you can, but…”

“Hey, don’t worry; I’ll handle this the same way you would.”

“What’s that supposed to—?” Phillip paused for a moment, then frowned and turned away with a quiet grunt and left the room. “I gotta get going.”

Rainbow frowned after Phillip’s retreating form for a moment, then shrugged and exited the house, taking flight towards her home. Phillip continued packing for the trip to Dodge Junction, gathering any gear he would need and tucking it into the pockets of his vest or into his saddlebag. His head buzzed with thoughts—drugs, Rainbow Dash, seminars, accidents. He stopped for a moment, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath as he ordered his brain to calm down and allow the rational part to take control. Rainbow Dash was indeed capable of taking care of this investigation on her own, at least initially. He would have to catch the drug supplier who had been poisoning Ponyville’s streets quickly and hurry back.

But what did she mean, she’d handle it like he would?

Not now, he told himself. The train to Dodge Junction will be leaving soon, hurry up.

Shaking the thought from his head, he quickly finished packing his gear and departed, making for a fast trot to the train station.

But as he exited the boulevard, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, something that made him stop and turn as a cold touch like an icy hoof ran down his spine. A figure was standing in an alleyway next to him, cloaked in shadow. As soon as Phillip’s gaze fell upon him, the figure turned and disappeared around the corner.

Determined to see his stalker face to face, Phillip sprinted forward, rounding the corner just a second after the other pony; he knew that this alley went straight into a dead end. But as soon as he turned the corner, he stopped and stared in astonishment; the phantom watcher had completely vanished. Phillip looked up, scanning the sky for any retreating pegasi, even though he was sure that the other pony didn’t have wings.

At that moment, he heard the distant sound of a train whistle and squealing brakes coming from the station. That was the train for Dodge Junction pulling into the station; he had to hurry. Phillip turned away and started to jog towards the station, but the face of the pony he’d seen watching him remained fixed in his mind, floating in front of him like a ghost.

He hadn’t gotten a very good look, but he was sure that it was the same pony he’d seen following him yesterday. The pony who looked like his father’s murderer.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash flew slowly towards her cloud house, flying high above Ponyville. She flew over the hedge maze and, looking down, saw that Dr. Cure’s seminar was still going on strong, with several ponies flitting in and out of the arranged tents. She faintly heard Dr. Cure’s amplified voice and realized that he was giving another lecture.

She growled softly. Part of her wanted to just fly down right at that moment and confront him, accuse him in front of everypony of being connected to these dangerous accidents. But she held herself back; she had no proof yet and any act such as that would probably result only in her being thrown out again.

So what should she do? Perhaps she should examine her Daring Do collection for ideas; surely the great adventuress had been in a situation such as this before, and might be able to give her a few ideas…

Rainbow reached her cloud house and paused. There was a note taped to her front door with a special enchanted tape that was designed to work on clouds. Taking the note down, Rainbow examined it. The message was composed of typed letters and words taped down onto a small sheet of paper.

”If you want to know the truth about cure, come to whitetail woods at eight tonight.”

Rainbow stared at the message. Who knew that she was investigating the seminar? Was it one of the workers there who wanted to confess their crimes?

Daring Do wouldn’t have turned down a clue like this; nor would Phillip. And neither would Rainbow Dash. Whoever her mystery assistant was, she’d find out tonight at the Whitetail Woods.

While Rainbow Dash was puzzling over her clue, Zipline stood out in the field where just a couple days earlier, he had been practicing his marksponyship. A pair of cavorting squirrels raced by, chattering happily. The wind blew gently through his wings, which he had spread out in preparation for flight.

Normally, the idea of taking flight would have sent chills up Zipline’s legs. But today, he felt no hesitation, no sense of fear. Whatever Dr. Cure’s potion was, it seemed to be working. Or maybe it was just bravado caused by a placebo and kind words?

Time to find out for sure. Zipline closed his eyes and took in a long slow breath. Once more, he focused on the image of himself flying through the sky with Scootaloo at his side, both of them laughing joyfully. He concentrated so intensely upon this thought that he barely noticed the ground leaving his hooves as he flapped his wings powerfully. He flapped up again, and again, and again, each thrust pushing him higher and higher into the air.

Finally, he stopped, allowing himself to hover. There was nothing but air around him; only his flapping wings kept him from falling. Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked down. The field was thirty feet below him: he was level with the tops of many of the highest trees, and the squirrels he had seen earlier were nothing more than brown dots.

His heart should have frozen in his chest. The vertigo should have swooped down on him like a hawk snatching up a field mouse, assailing him with crippling nausea, cramps and making the world spin around him…

But it didn’t. Nothing happened. He was not afraid.

He was not afraid!

“Yes!” Zipline cheered, looping backwards in the air and doing a full circle. He zipped back and forth, zigzagging across clouds and darting through trees. Elation filled his heart and he shouted for joy. He had mastered his fear, conquered it! God bless Dr. Cure and his miraculous cure!

Getting an idea, he turned and flew directly towards home. It was a Saturday, so Scootaloo would probably be home right now, if she hadn’t already run off with her friends. What a surprise this would be for her!

Spotting the cottage in the distance, he swooped down low. Both his girls were out in the backyard, raking leaves. “Rain! Scootaloo!” he called. Scootaloo looked up just in time for Zipline to snatch her up, taking her up a few feet into the air.

“Hi, Dad!” Scootaloo squealed in delight.

“Honey!” Rain called from below, looking up in a mixture of delight and apprehension at her husband flying with her daughter. “Please be careful!”

“Don’t worry, dear, I’ve got her!” Zipline said, coming back down.

“I see Dr. Cure’s seminar worked with you,” Rain said proudly. “Look at you, already flying around!”

“Well, actually…” Zipline started to say, but stopped himself. He had been about to mention the potion that Dr. Cure had given him, but something held him back. Rain was a worrywart; it was a trait of hers that he constantly teased her about. If she knew that he had taken a strange potion that hadn’t been medically approved yet, she would flip out.

Rain stared at him curiously. “What is it?”

“Yeah,” Zipline said with a smile. “Yeah, it really worked.”

“Wonderful,” Rain smiled.

“Hey, dad! Can we go for a flight?” Scootaloo asked, jumping up and down eagerly.

“Sure can, kiddo!” Zipline said, lifting his daughter up onto his back. “Hang on tight!” With a powerful flap, he pushed himself straight into the air, flying eastwards. “Whoo-hoo!” Scootaloo cheered.

“Be careful!” Rain called after them, watching in sudden concern. Zipline might have been a daredevil; his willingness to push the envelope drove her crazy sometimes. But he’d never do anything to put Scootaloo in danger…

...right?

That night in Ponyville was dark, with thick clouds traversing the sky and battling the moon and stars, who desperately fought to keep shining through the darkness. Rainbow Dash flew low over the Whitetail Woods. The song of night peepers and rustling leaves filled her ears, carried to her by the chill wind.

She landed in the middle of the worn pathway that the annual Running of the Leaves took place on, looking around through the shadowy trees that surrounded her for any sign of anypony. “Hello?” she shouted. “Is anypony there?” Her only response was the distant hooting of an owl. Frowning, Rainbow glanced down at her watch. Eight o’clock.

“Came a long way to get stood up!” Rainbow shouted out again in irritation. This time there was no answer, not even a rustling of leaves. She grumbled to herself. Now what? Patience had never been one of her strong suits. If this pony didn’t show up within five minutes—

“Ow!” Rainbow yelped as something sharp bit her foreleg. She slapped the site of the sting, expecting to squish a mosquito or a horsefly or something. Instead, she found a small metal object implanted in her leg. Yanking it out, Rainbow examined the object in the moonlight filtering through the trees. It was a dart.

Suddenly, Rainbow’s head spun. Her legs turned to jelly and she fell over onto the ground. The world turned into a blur of dark color, stars dancing before her eyes. She tried to get up, but her legs refused to work. With a final exhalation, she fell down onto the ground and her eyes closed.

Meanwhile, several miles east, the small city of Dodge Junction slept peacefully. The moon sat in a clear sky and shone down on the main street, casting long shadows. A slow wind raised a few dust swells, which glistened in the starlight. All was quiet.

For all of ten seconds. Then a tall, lanky unicorn sprinted around the corner, panting heavily as his coat flapped in the wind. He looked over his shoulder, continuing to run blindly down the street; his wide, panic-stricken eyes scanned the darkness, searching for his pursuer.

There! A dark figure rounded the corner behind him. The unicorn fired a series of spells that flew towards the pursuer with a high whistling; the figure immediately ducked back behind cover, moving so fast it seemed that it had vanished into thin air. But it was still there, still chasing him.

Huffing and panting, the unicorn continued to run, desperately searching for someplace to hide. There! An old barn with the door open! He ran over to the barn, using his magic to slam the door shut. In the darkness, he spotted some old stacks of hay bales. Grunting with strain, the unicorn lifted several of the bales and stacked them in front of the door, barricading it. Slowly, he walked backwards, desperately trying to quiet his breathing.

Suddenly, there was a loud crashing as something smashed into the doors. The unicorn whimpered in fright, cowering against the back wall. The thing outside smashed against the doors a few more times, but failed to dislodge the barricade. Eventually, the crashes stopped. After a moment, there was the sound of hoofsteps that retreated into the distance.

The unicorn remained frozen. Was it gone? Had it really been that easy? After a few seconds of silence, he finally allowed himself to breathe again. On reflex, he patted down the inside of his coat. One of his packets was missing. Lighting up his horn in order to see, he looked down on the floor. There it was, just in front of him: a rectangular package of light brown powder. Smiling in relief, the unicorn picked the package back up, quickly inspected it for holes, and put it back in his coat. He was glad he hadn’t lost this; that packet was almost literally worth its weight in gold—

CRASH.

A wrecking ball smashed through the weak wooden wall behind him. Icy hooves dug into his skin and violently threw him through the freshly-created hole, sending him skidding across the dusty ground. He scrambled back up to his hooves, reaching for the five-inch switchblade in his pocket as he stared in horror at the monstrous figure slowly walking towards him.

“Stay the hell back!” the unicorn shouted in desperation, slashing at the thing’s face. It dodged the attack easily and seized his foreleg, bringing its other arm around and smashing his elbow. There was an earsplitting crack, accompanied by the dealer’s scream of pain as his arm broke. A hard blow struck him in the gut, forcing the wind out of his lungs, and he was kicked to the dusty ground. Whimpering in pain, the dealer slowly turned and looked up. In the darkness, all he could see was his attacker’s eyes; gray and dark as storm clouds, glaring down at him in an expression of utmost contempt.

“Oh, God,” he whimpered.

“He can’t save you now,” the attacker snarled in a low, rough accent. “He left you in my hooves.”

Author's Note

Things are progressing quickly, but we're getting into more and more dangerous territory.

While you're waiting for the next chapter, I want to show you guys something. It's a picture that I commissioned by TheFriendlyElephant on deviantArt of my two villain OCs, Zugzwang and Doctor Nevermore. He did wonderfully on it! He also did this picture of Phillip and Daring, which I loved.

Ian is accepting commissions right now and they go for a fair price, so if you want a commission yourself and this style looks pleasing to you, I highly recommend him.

Part 4: The Terror

The next afternoon in Ponyville was cool and dark, a warning of the approaching storms that were scheduled for the day. A harsh wind began to blow, heralding the oncoming rain and sending most ponies running for cover.

All except for two pegasi.

“Let’s go, dad!” Scootaloo cheered, clinging tight to her father’s back as he zigzagged and looped through the sky. Zipline rose above the treetops at a high speed, enjoying the sensation of the wind rushing through his mane, the exhilaration making his heart pound in his chest. A hundred feet above the ground, he stalled briefly, then turned and dove for the ground, speeding up to near-terminal velocity. At the last second, he pulled up, the tips of his wings kissing the grass as he pulled up, laughing.

“How was that, Scoots?” he said, hovering in midair.

“That was awesome!” Scootaloo replied, smiling from ear to ear.

Zipline grinned as well. This was everything that he had dreamed of! Flying free, flying high, his daughter on his shoulders. He was so elated, that he didn’t feel Scootaloo shivering, nor notice that her smile seemed stretched tight.

“Kind of wish Rainbow Dash was here,” Zipline commented.

Scootaloo nodded in agreement. “But it’s getting kind of late,” she added, looking up at the darkening sky. “Mom wouldn’t want us staying out during a storm.”

As if to emphasize her point, there was a distant rumble of thunder. A wave of dark clouds began to roll in over the horizon, bringing in icy winds and rain.

Seeing the storm coming in, Zipline got an idea. “Hang on tight, Scoots!” he shouted, banking hard.

“What are you do—?!” Scootaloo shouted in alarm as Zipline dived right into the midst of the thunderstorm. Thunder rumbled around them, as if trying to warn him off, but Zip ignored the warning. Laughing joyfully, he wooshed through the raging storm, trying to dodge the raindrops. A streak of lightning pierced the sky to his left; he responded by flipping over in midair. Scootaloo cried out in shock, tightening his grip around his neck.

“Dad, stop! Let’s get out of here!” she cried.

“Ah, come on, Scoots, where’s your sense of adventure?” Zipline replied. “Whoo-hoo!” he shouted, zipping up into the clouds. The dark storm clouds pressed around the two of them, as if trying to smother them. Rain pelted every inch of their bodies and thunder rumbled constantly in their ears, as if in disapproval.

“Dad! Stop!” Scootaloo begged.

Zipline just laughed, rolling over and over in midair. “Don’t worry, Scoots, I got—”

At that moment, a streak of lightning burned through the sky just inches from them. Scootaloo screamed in fright, burying her face in Zipline’s mane.

His daughter’s cry snapped Zipline out of his joyful delirium. He stopped in midair, suddenly acutely aware of the trembling, whimpering, delicate little life desperately hanging onto him.

What am I doing? he thought. He was putting his own daughter in danger! Immediately, he dove, flying out of the clouds into clearer, safer skies and making a beeline to home.

“Oh, Scootaloo, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” he shouted, pushing his wings as hard as he could to try to get her to safety. His daughter’s only reply was to whimper and hold him tighter.

As he sped towards their home, Zipline’s mind raced even faster than his wings. He had put both himself and his own daughter in deep danger; worse, he had not thought twice about it, not even realized what he was doing initially. The thought aroused confusion, but not fear.

Dr. Cure’s potion hadn’t just eliminated his fear of heights; it had eliminated his ability to feel fear entirely!

He growled to himself as he recalled Dr. Cure’s voice, his words of encouragement and praise. What a fool he’d been to fall for his honeyed words. Hot anger flowed through his veins, dispelling the chill of the rain. He knew what he had to do.

Finally, they reached their cottage, the lights burning through the surrounding darkness. Alighting at the front porch, Zipline pushed the door open and entered, gently pulling Scootaloo off his shoulders.

“Zipline!” Rain called sternly, entering the room and throwing a towel over the shivering Scootaloo. “I told you to come back inside before it started raining too heavily. Why are you two so wet? Did you go into the storm clouds? You—”

“Rain, not now,” Zipline said shortly, grabbing a rain jacket and tossing it over himself.

“Zipline?” Rain asked, suddenly concerned, a quivering note of fear evident in her voice. “What is it?”

“I’ve made a mistake,” Zipline answered, turning back out the door. “And I’m going to fix it.” Spreading his wings, he took off into the pouring rain, headed for the hedge maze. Rain watched in stunned silence as her husband into the distance, instinctively drawing her still-shaking daughter to her.

The distant rumbling of thunder echoed through the abandoned amusement park, though the rain was still some way off. Inside the back room of the rotting haunted house ride, the pale yellow pegasus bent low over one of his many tables. His hoof hovered over a large box of dirt containing several plants sitting beneath a heat lamp that gave off a low hum. The plants in the box were unusual: each one had five ragged, irregularly shaped leaves, with a marking in the center of each leaf that looked like a yellow eye. A low aroma like meat on the verge of rotting wafted from the leaves.

Doctor Nevermore carefully selected one of the plants, choosing the one that had the most well-defined eyes, and plucked it out of the dirt to expose the roots. The roots looked nothing like a plant: they were dark red and twisted, each root ending in a sharp, claw-like end. Smiling, Doctor Nevermore cut the roots off and placed them into a mortar.

“What is that stuff?” asked the pony standing at the door, nervously shifting from hoof to hoof as he watched the doctor work.

“Draco ungue radix,” Doctor Nevermore explained as he ground the root into powder with a pestle. “In common vernacular, the dragon claw root. It grows only in the warm jungles of the Mysterious South; the tribes there have used it in their rituals since time immemorial. The roots of the plant, when crushed into powder and burned, make a potent hallucinogen, known for generating visions that are both highly realistic and incredibly frightening. It took me years to learn to mix it properly with the correct neurotransmitters and other ingredients, but this plant is the primary component of my fear toxins.”

The other pony was silent. Nevermore glanced up and could tell with one look that most of his lecture had gone well above his henchpony’s head. He sighed and rolled his eyes. Well, it’s not like goons are recommended because of their intelligence…

“Are you sure that the patient is secure?” he asked, pouring the powder into a beaker of bubbling water. The water turned pale red instantly.

“Yes, doctor. She woke up a little while ago. Got quite a mouth on her.”

“We’ll see about that,” Nevermore said, pulling up the hood of his tattered, black cloak and exiting the storeroom. He walked out of the haunted house ride, walking down the dark midway, past the rotting stands of carnival games and snacks with their peeling paint and crumbling boards. The icy wind made his cloak flutter around him like smoke. After a short walk, he reached the former house of mirrors, a small circular building with holes in the roof. Two ponies in trenchcoats, a lanky pegasus with several faint scars around his mouth and a broad-shouldered earth pony with a scraggly beard, stood outside the front door, smoking cigarettes and chatting quietly.

“So that’s the famous Rainbow Dash,” said the pegasus, puffing on his cigarette.

The earth pony grinned, revealing three golden teeth. “Like to see if there’s a treasure at the end of her rainbow.”

The pegasus chuckled. “Me too. Maybe we could double team her. Between the two of us, we could teach her some manners.”

“Bitch got to learn her place,” the earth pony sneered. “She needs to—” He stopped suddenly, the smile disappearing from his blanching face as he saw Nevermore approaching. “Er, doctor,” he whispered.

“I appreciate your eagerness, gentleponies,” Doctor Nevermore said. “But not yet. She needs to be prepared first. Then you can have her.”

“Really?” the two thugs grinned. “Thanks, doc.”

Ignoring them, Doctor Nevermore proceeded to enter the house of mirrors, quietly opening and closing the door behind him. He walked down a short hallway lined with cracked mirrors, his distorted reflection following his every step. Another door waited in front of him; behind it, he could faintly hear angry shouting. Pushing the door open, he beheld a large circular room, harshly lit with a bright, powerful lamp. In the center of the room, right underneath the lamp, was Rainbow Dash. She was tightly strapped down to a metal chair and a blindfold was secured over her eyes. She struggled valiantly against her bonds, growling as she strained against the straps. Several tables loaded with a variety of medical equipment surrounded her.

“Untie me!” Rainbow demanded into the darkness. “When I get out of this, every one of you is going to get your sorry flank kicked into the next week!”

Smirking, Nevermore walked towards her, passing by one of the tables as he did so, pausing briefly to admire the sharp surgical blades arranged on the white plastic. He walked up next to her, so that she heard his hoofsteps and felt his presence. She paused her struggling, turning towards him. “Twilight? Applejack? Who’s there?” she called out uncertainly.

“Your friends aren’t coming to save you, Rainbow Dash,” Nevermore hissed into her ear.

She stiffened in shock, recognizing his voice. Her chest heaved as her breathing accelerated. “You don’t scare me,” she whispered in a tense voice.

“I haven’t tried to yet,” Nevermore replied, reaching for a speaker on a table next to her. He took the attached microphone and strapped it to Rainbow’s chest, right over her heart. She gasped in surprise, flinching from the sudden cold touch. Nevermore then turned the speaker on.

Thud-thump. Thud-thump. Thud-thump. Thud-thump. The sound of Rainbow’s quickening heartbeat filled the room.

“Nopony knows where you are,” Nevermore said, walking to the table with the knives on it. He selected a long, thin scalpel with a triangular blade, designed to slice with precision and strip away the skin. “It will take time for others to realize that you are missing, and even when they do, they will not know where to look.”

“They’ll come,” Rainbow Dash said. He could hear her struggling to keep her voice even. “They’ll come, and when they find you—”

Nevermore interrupted her by turning and placing the scalpel against her neck, applying just enough pressure that she could feel the sharpness of the blade. She gasped and fell silent. Thud-thump, thud-thump, thud-thump, thud-thump.

“It’s all right. I won’t need long,” he explained, allowing the blade to slowly travel up and down her body. “I’ve had a treatment plan prepared for you for many months now.” He allowed the blade to pause at the joint to her wings.

Thud-thump, thud-thump, thud-thump, THUDTHUMP.

“But if you insist on maintaining hope, please do so. The longer you try to hold out, the harder you will feel the blow when it finally falls.” He brought the blade back up to her neck, leaning in close so she could feel his breath on her. “I’m going to bring you to the edge, Rainbow Dash. I’m going to take you into the darkness, and guide you in so deeply that you will never find your way out. You’ll fight and resist every step of the way, but all in vain.

“And then, when I’ve peeled you apart, layer by layer, and stripped your soul bare, when I have broken every shield that you can try to hide behind, when you are literally begging me to kill you just to make the pain stop…”

THUDTHUMPTHUDTHUMPTHUDTHUMPTHUD—

Nevermore suddenly yanked the microphone off her chest, cutting off the sound of her heartbeat. Rainbow Dash froze at the sudden silence, not even daring to breathe.

“Then I’ll kill you,” Nevermore hissed. Rainbow began to breathe again, taking in short, quivering gasps that Nevermore relished. “Oh, hush, little one, don’t cry,” he whispered into her ear in the tone of a parent soothing a child who had just woken up from a nightmare. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

Rainbow shuddered, then renewed her struggles with new, desperate vigor. “HELP! HELP! SOMEPONY HELP!” she screamed out, knowing that there was nopony to hear her.

Laughing raspily, Nevermore replaced the scalpel on the table and selected a glass jar filled with a yellow-green liquid. Unscrewing the top of the jar, he filled a syringe with the liquid, then pressed the syringe against Rainbow’s arm, allowing her to feel the prick of the tip. She stopped struggling, a whimper escaping her.

“Shall we begin?”

Meanwhile, back in Ponyville, Phillip exited the train onto the station platform, rubbing a hoof over his eyes. It had taken him most of last night and yesterday to arrange with the Dodge Junction sheriff and local Guard post for the drug dealer to be extradited to Canterlot for holding and trial. And on top of that, he had slept badly: his dreams were haunted by the feeling of being watched and followed, the familiar face of his phantom stalker flicking in and out of his mind.

The rain on his face revived him a little bit and he started to trot towards his house. Hopefully he could get some rest now...maybe Rainbow Dash would have found something on that convention…

Looking up, he saw Fluttershy trotting towards him, clutching a raincoat around her shivering form. She looked worried; her eyes were wide and searching, and her jaw was clenched. As soon as she saw him, she rushed towards him. “Phillip, Rainbow Dash is missing!”

Her words woke him up instantly. “How long?”

“At least since yesterday,” Fluttershy responded. “I got back from visiting Tree Hugger this morning, and when I went to see her, she wasn’t at her home. I found this note, though.” She pulled out a small folded note and handed it to Phillip.

“‘If you want to know the truth about cure, come to the whitetail woods at eight tonight,’” Phillip read out loud.

“Do you think she’s been kidnapped?” Fluttershy asked, looking horrified at the very thought.

Phillip did not answer her question, although he was sure that he knew the answer. “Come on, I’ll examine this at my lab.”

The two ponies rushed through the rainy streets to 221 B Boulevard, pushing through the door just as the rain began to pour down hard. Not even pausing to shake the rainwater off, they went down into the basement, where Phillip kept his homemade crime laboratory. Dropping the note onto the worktable, Phillip pulled down a magnifier and turned on the lamp so that he could examine the note more closely. Fluttershy hovered over his shoulder, watching him work.

“The only pony who could have known that Rainbow was investigating the seminar would be somepony who attended or worked there,” Phillip said, thinking out loud more for his sake than Fluttershy’s as he examined the type. “Hmm...Fluttershy, on the middle shelf over there, there should be a green notebook, fifth from the left.”

Fluttershy turned to the bookshelf that Phillip had indicated and quickly found the book, handing it to him. He opened it up and began to flip through it; Fluttershy saw that it was a collection of samples of different kinds of type, accompanied by hoofwritten notes.

“Took me two and a half years to make this,” Phillip said, comparing the typed letters taped down to the note to the samples in the book. After several minutes of silence, he tapped his hoof twice on a selection of letters. “Slate type 6. Used in some newspapers, including The Chicoltgo Sun. Makes sense.” He leaned in and examined the paper more closely. “There’s something written underneath here.” Gently, he peeled away the taped-down letters with a tweezer, revealing some words underneath it in a swirling script.

“‘Dedicated to Gentle Glow, the northern star that keeps me moving forwards,’” Phillip read. “This note is originally from a book.”

“Wait a minute,” Fluttershy said. “I know that name…” She closed her eyes in thought for a moment, then said, “Gentle Glow is the wife of Noir Novella. He writes the Detective Wild Goose series.”

Phillip snorted. “I’ve read his work. Penny dreadful sensationalist garbage with an incompetent main character. Might as well be used as manuals to teach detectives what not to do.”

“I like them,” Fluttershy frowned.

Phillip blinked a couple of times, then grunted. “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that whoever wrote this note cut the letters out of a newspaper and taped them down onto a page from one of Manuscript’s books. And in all likelihood, it was somepony who was working at Dr. Cure’s seminar.”

“Which means we should go over there and start asking questions,” Fluttershy said, then immediately let out a squeak of fright when a thunderclap sounded right above the house.

“You sure?” Phillip asked, looking at her in concern.

“I’m sure,” Fluttershy said, pulling the hood of her raincoat over her head.

“Then let’s go,” Phillip said, tucking the note into his vest and zipping his vest all the way up. The two ponies exited the house and started to trot quickly towards the hedge maze through the rain.

Suddenly, Phillip stopped, freezing in place. His head snapped straight up towards the hedge maze, his eyes narrowing as a small shiver that had nothing to do with the icy rain traveled up his body.

“Come on!” he shouted, spurred into a sprint by his crime sense warning, Fluttershy flying close behind.

When Zipline reached the center of the hedge maze, the rain was coming down hard. The seminar was closed for the weather, although the tents still stood sentinel. A couple of security ponies were wandering around, clutching rain jackets and flashlights, and Zipline landed right in front of one. This pony, a pegasus with the name tag Star Watcher, jumped slightly at his sudden appearance. Zipline’s eyes briefly drifted down to the distinctive bulge underneath the other pony's left shoulder.

“Where’s Dr. Cure?” Zipline demanded.

Star Watcher blinked a couple of times, then turned and gestured for Zipline to follow him. He led him over to a private tent near the back of the setup. Opening up the flap, he stuck his head inside. “Dr. Cure, somepony here to see you.”

Zipline pushed past him and entered the tent, shaking his sopping mane out of his eyes. He glared at Dr. Cure, who was sitting at a small table, sipping from a steaming flask of tea and playing solitaire. He smiled up at Zipline as he entered. “I thought I’d be seeing you again, private.”

“What did you do to me?” Zipline demanded.

“I did what I promised to do,” Dr. Cure said evenly. “I took away your fear. All of your fear.”

“You didn’t say that it’d take away my common sense!” Zipline shouted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Star Watcher standing at the entrance to the tent, slowly raising his right hoof towards his coat. “You made me put my daughter in danger!”

“No, you did,” Dr. Cure said, his snake-like smile never leaving his face. “It was your decision, your choices. I merely took away your inhibitions, let your true self emerge.”

“I didn’t—” Zipline sputtered. “You...give me the antidote!”

Dr. Cure took another long sip of tea, staring at Zipline the entire time. “I will,” he said. “But first, you need to do something for me. It’s taken me ages to perfect this formula, and it cost quite a bit. I’m going to have to ask for some of my investment back.”

“I’ll pay you. Whatever you want. Just—”

Dr. Cure chuckled once. “I’m afraid it’s more than you can pay. However, there is a way you can repay me. I was just reading in the local paper that Spoiled Rich has just bought a collection of very expensive diamonds.”

“What?!” Zipline shouted. “You want me to steal for you?!”

“I imagine with your lack of fear and your tactical ability, it would be an easy task for you,” Dr. Cure said. “But if you don’t want to, or if you discuss this with anypony, I’m sure that I could make some time to visit your daughter. The two of us could probably discuss what it’s like to be the daughter of a pegasus who is afraid to fly, and how that has affected her life…”

Dr. Cure had planned this out. He had spent whole nights imagining this moment when he laid down his cards on the table and made his threat, when he saw the fear spread across his puppet’s face.

But he had made a serious miscalculation; he hadn't figured on the possibility that his grip on the strings wasn't as tight as he thought. He had forgotten that his puppet was no longer afraid of anything, and you cannot threaten somepony who fears nothing.

With a roar of fury, Zipline tossed the table aside and seized Dr. Cure by the throat, tightening his grip like a vice. Star Watcher reacted immediately, pulling the gun out of his holster and taking aim. Seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye, Zipline seized the flask of tea that had spilled on the ground and threw it into Star Watcher’s face. The hot liquid scalded the guard’s face, causing him to flinch. Dropping Dr. Cure, Zipline flew forward, seized Star’s gun, and smashed him in the face with it, breaking his nose and sending blood flying. Twisting the weapon out of his hoof, Zipline struck him across the jaw, knocking him down.

“Guards! Guards! Help!” Dr. Cure screamed, stumbling and sprinting out of the tent and into the open area. Flying out after him, Zipline tackled him to the ground, pinning the smaller unicorn in the mud. Other security ponies began to run out into the open, some of them drawing their own weapons.

“Get back!” Zipline shouted in the commanding, authoritative voice that he had been trained to use in the Royal Guard, rising up on his hooves and aiming the stolen weapon in Dr. Cure’s face. “Get back or I’ll shoot him!”

The guards stopped immediately, staring in uncertainty. Having momentarily taken care of the threat, Zipline looked down at the whimpering, shaking unicorn beneath him, staring up at him utter terror, his suit ruined by the rain and mud. Despite his fury, Zipline’s mind was clear; his hoof did not shake as he aimed the weapon directly between his enemy’s eyes.

“Now listen to me,” he snarled. “I’m going to give you til the count of five. And if you don’t give me the antidote, I’m going to open up your skull and spread your brains out over the mud.”

Author's Note

Here's where the story kicks up. This is also usually where my writing just flies right out the window.

I really didn't like writing the scene with Nevermore and Rainbow, but I knew it was necessary. Besides, what did you think a sadistic sociopathic mad scientist would do with his prisoner? Play charades?

Part 5: Breadcrumb Trail

“One.”

“Please!” Dr. Cure begged, shivering beneath Zipline. “I can—”

“Two,” Zipline continued, slowly squeezing the trigger of the gun.

“Let me go! Let me go!” Cure whimpered. “You don’t need to do this!”

“Three.” The hammer of the gun was primed almost all the way back, ready to snap forward and strike the cartridge, sending the bullet flying down the barrel and into the fraud’s brain.

“Help me! Do something!” the doctor screamed out to his security ponies, who stood by in helpless horror.

“Four—”

Suddenly, there was a loud whirring sound and something struck Zipline’s hoof, sending the gun flying out of his grip. Everypony looked up to see the boomerang that had disarmed Zipline flying back to Phillip Finder’s hoof as he ran into the hedge maze center, Fluttershy right on his tail.

“Zipline, stop!” Fluttershy shouted in alarm. “What are you doing?”

“I—” The realization of what he was doing, what he had been so close to doing, suddenly struck Zipline like a lightning bolt; and yet, he only acknowledged his actions from a neutral standpoint, as if it had been somepony else who had forced an unarmed, terrified pony who could not fight back and pointed a loaded gun in his face. The disgust and terror that his actions should have aroused within him did not come, which only disturbed him the more.

“Damn you,” he snarled at Dr. Cure as he slowly got up off him.

Phillip glanced down at Dr. Cure, who was still shaking and whimpering on the ground, looked around at the watching seminar assistants, then at Zipline. “What the hell is going on here?”

Zipline told them the whole story, every syllable shaking with barely suppressed anger. Miraculous Cure lay on the ground, trying to keep as still as possible, as if to avoid attention. The other workers stood by in uncertain silence, flinching every time Zipline glanced up at one of them.

When the story was finished, Phillip stared at Zipline thoughtfully for several seconds of silence. Fluttershy, however, gazed at him with a look of deep compassion and understanding.

“Zipline, how could you think that Scootaloo could ever be ashamed of you?” she said, placing a hoof on Zipline’s shoulder. “She doesn’t care if you’re scared of heights; she loves you, and she’s proud of you.”

Zipline bit his lip in an expression of his feeble shame. “I know. I should have known that, but…”

“I understand,” Fluttershy said, patting his shoulder reassuringly.

Phillip looked down at Miraculous Cure, who was still laying on the ground as if unable to move from terror. “Where did you get this potion?” he asked, his voice icily calm.

“A business partner gave them to me!” Cure blurted.

“Who?”

“I don’t know! We never met face to face. He approached me through a messenger a few months ago while I was low on money; he said he would cover my debts if I would give the potion to a few of my clients and send him reports on the effects, and say that I was the one who made it. He said it was all for some kind of experiment!”

“That potion is responsible for your clients putting themselves and others in severe danger,” Phillip said in a quiet growl that somehow carried over the noise of the rain and wind. “You’re lucky nopony has died, because I would’ve held you personally responsible for it.” Cure swallowed nervously, unable to think of a clever response for once.

“How’d you send the messages to him?” Phillip continued.

“I dropped them off through a series of drops that he’d already arranged!”

“And Rainbow Dash? Where did you take her?”

Zipline looked up at the name. “Rainbow Dash? What did you do to her?” he demanded, pouncing on Cure once again.

“Wh-what are you talking about?” Dr. Cure sputtered. “I didn’t do anything to her!”

“You’re lying!” Zipline shouted, seizing Cure by the throat and squeezing. “Where is she?!”

“Stop! Stop, both of you!” Fluttershy pleaded, pushing Zipline away. “This isn’t right! Hurting him isn’t solving anything!”

Zipline almost seized Fluttershy and threw her aside—how could she understand how he was feeling?—but then he saw the look on her face: one of complete fear—fear of him. For a moment, he flashed back to minutes earlier, when he heard Scootaloo’s scream in the midst of the thunderstorm, and he realized what he was doing. Closing his eyes, he took in a long, slow breath, and with the greatest effort that it had ever taken him in his life, expelled it, releasing his tension and anger.

“You’re right,” he admitted to Fluttershy. “I’m sorry.” Fluttershy slowly released him, although her expression remained apprehensive.

“He’s telling the truth,” Phillip stated. “He didn’t kidnap Rainbow, but somepony here did. You two, keep them all here while I look around.”

Zipline nodded. As Phillip walked away, he stooped over and collected the revolver that he’d taken from Star Watcher. The entire troupe of ponies stepped back as one and Fluttershy gasped quietly. “Zipline—”

Without a word, Zipline emptied the bullets out of the chamber, disassembled the weapon, and tossed the pieces aside, leaving them discarded in the mud. Tempting as it was, it was best that he not risk it, not while he could not feel fear and could not think of the consequences of his actions.

As he turned to keep watch over the collection of suspects, he wondered what the maker of this fear-removing potion had in mind. Obviously, Cure had only intended to use it to make money. But what was it originally intended for? To be used as a weapon? After knowing what he was capable of under its effects, the thought of it being introduced to the public would have chilled Zipline’s blood if he was able to feel horror.

He thought of Rainbow Dash. He glared at the small group of suspects that he was guarding, feeling as though the rage curdling in his chest might burst out of him at any moment. One of them had taken her. What was happening to her?

The rain continued to beat mercilessly down upon them, marking the time that Rainbow was missing. But for now, all they could do was wait.

Meanwhile, Phillip searched the tents that the seminar workers lived in, looking for any clues that could identify the one who had taken Rainbow Dash. The first three tents yielded next to nothing, and with every lead that turned up empty, his concern grew. Maybe he’d been completely wrong: maybe somepony else entirely had seen Rainbow Dash at the seminar and sent the note.

As he passed by a trash can, he peered inside, examining the contents with the aid of his flashlight. Something caught his eye: pushing aside several crumpled takeout wrappers and a rotten apple core, he fished out a page from The Chicoltgo Sun. A quick examination showed that several words and letters had been cut out from it. His stomach unclenched at the sight: his instincts had been right. Now, he just had to find the culprit.

He stepped into the next tent and began to look around. Like all of the other temporary domiciles, this tent was relatively sparse. A cot lay to the side, its sheets tangled up in a pile at the foot of the mattress. On the floor beneath it was a small bag stuffed with clothing and other necessities. Opposite was a folding table and chair. A cooing caught his attention, and he looked around to see a carrier pigeon in a cage on the floor near the bed looking up at him in curiosity.

Phillip studied the items on the table: a quill and ink bottle, some envelopes and stamps, a pair of scissors, an oily rag and a bottle of gun oil, a box of .25 cartridges, and a small stack of paperback books. He pulled out one of the books: “The Thirteenth Dossier: A Wild Goose mystery.” He opened up the book and saw that one of the first pages had been torn out, leaving behind a thin remnant of paper. Extracting the note from his pocket, he held it up to the remnants of the sheet. The note fitted perfectly.

“Hmm,” Phillip grunted, looking down at the carrier pigeon in the cage. Glancing back at the desk, he spotted an envelope that had a name on it: “Star Watcher.” Nodding in satisfaction, he exited the tent and quickly walked back to the shivering suspects. Singling out the pegasus with the bruised jaw, he walked right up to him.

“You sent this note,” he accused, dropping the note at Star Watcher’s feet. “And you used that carrier pigeon to send messages to your mates.” He glared right into the kidnapper’s eyes. “Where is she?”

Star Watcher slowly smirked in reply, holding his gaze steadily. Phillip snarled and seized him by his collar. “Where is she?” he repeated in a low voice.

“Let me try him!” Zipline shouted, starting forward.

“Zipline, no!” Fluttershy protested, placing herself in front of him.

Before anypony could say anything else, Star Watcher chuckled, a low, almost demonic sound that sounded like cracking ice. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he hissed. “Make me bleed, make me beg to talk?” His grin widened, showing his teeth. “You won’t need to; it’s already too late for your friend. The doc’s got her.”

Fluttershy’s hooves flew to her mouth. Some of the color drained from Phillip’s face and Zipline stiffened. They all knew who he meant.

“He’s holed up at the abandoned Happy Day amusement park outside of Applewood,” Star Watcher continued, his grin broadening. “So while you're on your way to rescue her, here's a couple things to ponder: why did I take her, and why did I tell you where to find her?"

Then suddenly, before anypony could react, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a small black sphere, which he threw onto the ground. The smoke bomb detonated immediately, covering the area in a thick cloud of smoke. The crowd of ponies staggered, coughing and choking. By the time the smoke cleared out, Star Watcher had disappeared.

“Damn it!” Zipline snarled, rising a few feet off the ground and turning in midair, trying to find some trace of his quarry.

“No point,” Phillip said. “He’s long gone. We have to save Rainbow Dash.”

“Hold on,” Zipline said. He flew back down to Dr. Cure, who cowered as soon as he approached. “Is there an antidote?”

“Y-yes!” Cure said after a moment. “I was...I forgot about it when you...here.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small vial of purple liquid. Snatching up the vial, Zipline pulled the cork out with his teeth and swallowed the entire contents in one gulp. A coolness spread through his entire body and his breathing slowed as the antidote countered the effect of the potion.

“Good. I’ll take him to the Friendship Castle. Spike can keep him in the dungeon until the Guard picks him up,” Phillip said. “You best get ready. Applewood’s a long way off and we need to hurry.”

“Yes, sir,” Zipline answered. “I’ll get my equipment and meet you at the castle.” And with that, he spread his wings and took flight, heading towards his home. Holding tight onto Cure’s collar, Phillip began to drag him towards the Friendship Castle.

“Phillip?” Fluttershy asked uncertainly. She recognized the look of barely controlled fury in his eyes. The first time she’d seen that look was when he’d protected her from a home invader: he’d almost beaten his face in, and she still wasn’t sure if he would’ve stopped if she hadn’t called him off.

“Fluttershy, I want you to find a callbox and summon the nearest Guard precinct here. Then tell them where Zip and I are going and tell them to hurry. The others are due back today, so tell them, too.”

On an impulse, Fluttershy briefly hugged Phillip. She felt him stiffen within her embrace and for a moment, it seemed as though he might try to throw her off.

“Please be careful,” she whispered, quickly releasing him.

“I always am,” he answered flatly, continuing on his way without a backwards glance. Fluttershy watched him go for a moment before flying off in search of the nearest callbox, leaving behind the bewildered seminar workers shivering in the rain.

Zipline landed in front of his home and entered through the front door. Not even bothering to shake himself off, he trotted up to his bedroom. He passed Scootaloo’s bedroom and paused briefly at the threshold. He could hear her quiet breathing on the other side, and briefly considered entering her room to try to comfort her, to apologize for his behavior and try to explain himself. But the burning shame in his chest held him back: he couldn’t bring himself to face her, not after what he almost did to her.

Instead, he walked away and entered his own bedroom, briefly reflecting that he could at least feel fear again. The lights were on and Rain Breeze was sitting on the bed, staring straight ahead. Zipline knew that she had been staying up waiting for him to come home.

“Zipline?” she whispered, turning to him and getting up off the bed. “What is going on?”

“Rain, Rainbow Dash might be in trouble,” Zipline said shortly, crossing over to the closet and throwing it open. Inside was his armor, polished bright gold. He took the chestpiece and strapped it on, briefly examining the sun logo on the front, which identified him as a member of the Solar House Guard, the protectors of Princess Celestia, and the red circles on the shoulder plates that marked him as a sniper.

“In trouble?” Rain said, her voice rising in alarm as she watched Zipline don the armored horseshoes and knee guards, but skipping the helmet.

Zipline briefly explained the story to her, although he was careful to skip over the part where he shoved a gun into another pony’s face. Rain’s eyes widened as he explained, and when he had finished, she stared at him for a moment in quiet horror before flinging her arms around him. “Zipline, sweetie, you didn’t need to—”

“I know, honey,” Zipline said, gently pushing her off him. “I made a mistake. And I need to fix it.” He walked over to the large safe in the corner of the room, dialing in the combination and opening it open with a creak. Reaching inside, he pulled out a long black case, which he unzipped. Inside was his Summerfield rifle, polished and ready for action. Drawing back the bolt, he inserted a six-round stripper clip and locked a round into the chamber before zipping the case back up. Then he reached in and pulled out a holster carrying a black-handled revolver. Taking out the .38 Official Guard, he opened up the chamber and inserted a speedloader loaded with bullets, then snapped the chamber shut and put it back in the holster. Finally, he took out an ammunition belt preloaded with speedloaders and stripper clips and strapped it on.

As he pulled out a rain jacket and swung it on, he paused for a moment, looking up at his wife’s reflection in the window. The fear in her eyes as she watched him pained him to look at and he quickly looked down.

“If I don’t make it back—” he started to say.

“Don’t say that!” Rain whimpered.

“...tell Scootaloo I love her, and apologize to her for me.” Zipline finished. Pulling the hood up over his head, he swung the rifle case over his shoulder. Turning to his wife, he briefly pulled her into his embrace. She clung to him as if she was trying to keep him from leaving. He buried his face into her mane, trying to briefly extract some comfort from her gentle touch and the scent of her perfume.

He could choose not to leave, he realized. He could just stay here and be safe. But the weight of the armor on his body told him he couldn’t. As a Royal Guard, he was sworn to protect the innocent, and could not shirk from his duty. And besides, this was his honorary daughter.

“Goodbye,” he whispered, slowly pulling himself out of her embrace. She did not make a sound as he left, although as he quietly closed the door behind him, he thought he heard her starting to cry. Quickly, he descended the stairs and exited back into the rainy night. He spread his wings and tried to take flight; but almost as soon as his hooves rose more than ten feet off the ground, his stomach cramped up inside him and the world seemed to tilt like the deck of a ship. Panting, he lowered himself back towards the ground and groaned quietly in disappointment. At least he knew the antidote worked!

After a few minutes of flight, he flew up to the Friendship Castle. Phillip was waiting for him at the front steps. Despite being soaked to the bone, he showed no sign of discomfort.

“Let’s go,” he said as soon as Zipline approached, turning and quickly trotting in the direction of Applewood. Zipline flew after him.

Hang on, Rainbow. We’re coming!

Far away in Applewood, the rain began to fall from the dark sky, pelting the Happy Days amusement park. The former midway was lit up by powerful lamps, illuminating several ponies in hooded coats gathered in a small group.

“You all heard Star Watcher's report. I anticipate that Phillip Finder will be here soon,” Doctor Nevermore said, walking a circle amidst his henchponies, each of whom was drinking from a flask of milky white liquid that smelled like oranges.

“I’m not scared of him,” snarled the lanky pegasus. “He’s just an old creep who thinks he’s a hero.”

“Good,” Doctor Nevermore said. “Now remember, he is not to be killed. Anypony who comes with him can and should be killed, but he is to be captured alive. Understand?”

“Count on us, doc!” the earth pony with the golden teeth grinned. “He’s all ours.”

“Excellent,” Nevermore nodded. “Now, to your posts. I shall check on our patient.” The henchponies scattered to their posts while Nevermore turned and walked to the House of Mirrors.

He smirked to himself. He had not told them that he had secretly arranged for Phillip to be exposed to one of his toxins, a scentless, tasteless airborne variant that caused aggressive behavior, disturbed sleep, and mild hallucinations. Nor had he told them that he did not at all expect them to be able to stop Phillip. He just wanted them to slow him down enough to get ready.

He reached the House of Mirrors. Star Watcher was standing outside, shivering slightly in the rain. The pegasus snapped to attention as Nevermore approached. "Secure yourself in my quarters," Nevermore ordered him. "I want you to be ready in case things start to go wrong."

"Yes, doctor," Star Watcher nodded, flapping towards the haunted ride. Nevermore entered the Hall of Mirrors, passing through the narrow hallway and into the experiment room. Rainbow Dash was still tied to the chair in the center of the room, the blindfold still secured over her eyes. She was shivering in her seat, her breathing ragged.

Quietly, Nevermore proceeded forward, moving slower than a minute hand traveling around the circumference of a clock. As he neared her, he retrieved two items from a nearby table. Finally, he was standing next to her. “Hello,” he whispered into her ear.

Rainbow’s cry of shock was cut off when Nevermore strapped a muzzle over her face, tightly securing it. Then he placed a collar with a very thick black box attached to it around her neck.

“Now listen to me closely,” Nevermore hissed into her ear. “Strapped to your neck is a bomb, which I will detonate if you do not obey me. Phillip Finder will be here soon to rescue you. He may have other ponies with them.” He reached over to another table and retrieved a third item: a small black revolver. He opened up the chamber and ensured that it was fully loaded.

“I want you to kill them. If you don’t, both of you will die.”

Author's Note

It's taken us a while, but we're finally getting to the decisive part of the story.

I took a lot of time to think about where this story is going last night. I've always known what I was trying to do with this story—specifically, what themes I was trying to build on for it—but I think that I might have fumbled a little bit on the delivery. If any of you could give me some constructive criticism on what you think of the plot so far, I'd very much appreciate it.

Part 6:...Lest Ye Become A Monster

The two ponies continued to hurry across the fields west of Ponyville, rushing through the icy wind and rain.

“You planning on running all the way to Applewood?” Zipline called to Phillip, flying behind him.

“No,” Phil answered, peering ahead through the dark sheets of rain as he ran. “I’m looking for transport.”

“What transport?” Zipline asked.

His question was answered by a shrill whistling in the distance. Zipline’s sharp eyes detected the shape of a cargo train steaming across the tracks ahead of them, heading in the same direction as they. Understanding Phillip’s plan, he pushed himself ahead, catching up with the train as it rounded a curve. Seizing the door on a boxcar, he pulled it open and alighted within the empty, mercifully dry interior. Phillip ran up to the train, and Zipline held out his hoof, grabbing him and pulling him aboard.

“How did you know about this train?” he asked in wonder, pulling the hood of his rain jacket down.

“Train schedules and routes are a useful thing to keep in the back of your head,” Phillip answered, trotting over into a corner of the boxcar so he could shake himself off. Removing his flashlight from his shoulder, he set it on the floor and turned it to lantern mode to illuminate the empty interior of the car, casting the two ponies into a strange mixture of light and shadows. They both sat down next to the door, watching the scenery race by as they waited for the train to reach Appleloosa. For several long minutes, there was silence other than the clicking, rattling and whistling of the train.

Finally, Zipline could withstand the guilt and doubt eating at his soul no longer. He swallowed and, without looking towards his partner, spoke. “What I did…”

“You were under the influence of a mind-altering drug that you were manipulated into taking,” Phillip said, his voice surprisingly gentle. He turned to Zipline and touched his shoulder reassuringly. “That wasn’t you that threatened an unarmed pony. You’re better than that.”

Zipline felt as though a great weight had just been taken off his shoulders, but the burning question in his heart remained, barring him from feeling the full relief. Turning, he faced Phillip. “Thanks, but...I was gonna say...isn’t it kind of like what you do?”

Phillip retracted his hoof, a flash of anger crossing his eyes. “I don’t threaten to hurt ponies just because they’re in my way. I do it because I need to.”

“And you get to decide when it’s necessary?” Zipline asked, raising an eyebrow.

Phillip scowled at him. “I don’t enjoy it.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” Zipline replied coolly. “I know what you did to those drug dealers.”

Phillip grunted. “They were scum who sold drugs to foals. They had to be taught a lesson.”

“I’m not saying they didn’t deserve punishment,” Zipline stated, his eyes narrowing as they met Phillip’s. “But I don’t think you really hurt them because you needed to. I think you hurt them because you wanted to. Either way, it’s not right.”

“No, it’s not,” Phillip stated, suddenly unable to meet Zipline’s gaze. “Which is why I can do it. I protect ponies by doing what others can’t. I am not, never was, and never will be a good pony.” He turned away, lapsing back into silence.

“No,” Zipline said softly, turning away to look back out the door. “I guess you’re not.” Neither pony spoke again for the remainder of their journey.

Finally, they reached the outskirts of Applewood, where dirt paths wove through pine trees. Phillip jumped off the train, gesturing for Zipline to follow. “The Happy Days Amusement Park is a half click this way. C’mon.”

The two ponies hurried through the rain, the packed dirt turning into slick mud beneath their hooves. Before long, they reached a stretch of level plain, a single path cutting through a field of overgrown weeds that shivered in the wind. Standing in the center of the plain was a large amusement park, the skeleton of a ferris wheel and a few roller coasters stretching towards the sky. A faint glow rose from the structures, and the two ponies realized that some of the lights were on. A large fence surrounded the entire establishment. The whole thing looked as out of place as though it had been dropped out of the sky.

Zipline looked up at the front gate, which was designed to look like a giant clown head, grinning widely down at them. The paint was peeling and falling apart, and in the dark, the face looked nothing short of maniacal. “Ugh,” he shuddered, reaching up towards the door. “I hate clowns.”

“Wait,” Phillip said, holding him back. “They’d be expecting us to go through the front. Let’s come in from the side.”

“Good plan,” Zipline said. The two of them ran along the long gate, circling the perimeter of the abandoned park. Once they reached the back, Zipline took Phillip beneath his forearms and flew up over the fence. As soon as they rose over the top, they saw that they were behind the midway, which was brightly lit. Quickly, Zipline dropped back down onto the roof of a rotting carousel and both ponies hid behind the large sign on the front. Unslinging his casing from his back, Zipline unzipped it and extracted the rifle. Screwing the suppressor onto the barrel, he laid the rifle down onto the roof and pressed his eye to the scope. Phillip settled down next to him, peering through his monocular.

Four armed ponies stood out in the midway, cast into harsh light from several spotlights taken from the rides. One was standing on the roof of a cotton candy booth, aiming a crossbow at the front gate. Another one was pacing back and forth across the alleyway, tossing a heavy-looking cudgel to himself. Two others were standing at the front of the midway, standing on either side of a figure that lay on the ground, her hooves and wings bound and a black hood over her head. She was too far away for either stallion to see her cutie mark, but neither of them needed to: the cerulean coat and multi-colored tail was enough to make a positive identification.

“Rainbow Dash!” Zipline whispered.

Phillip examined the area. “No cover. I don’t think I can get close without them seeing me.”

“And they’d kill Rainbow if we tried,” Zipline said. “Leaving one option.”

He lined up the crosshairs on the thug on the booth rooftop, automatically adjusting to correct for the crosswind. Closing his eyes, he took in a deep breath and slowly let it out, letting go of everything. No thought, no emotion. No fear, no anger. No regret. No hesitation.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in a toneless voice, and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle jerked into his body with a muted crack. The .30 caliber round raced through the air at 2,800 feet per second and pierced the pony’s skull, drilling into his brain and turning it into soup. Zipline knew it was an instant kill because the target dropped out of his sight so quickly he seemed to just disappear. He drew the bolt back, ejecting the spent cartridge, and locked it back in place, pushing the next round into the chamber.

None of the other three thugs had recognized the sound of the suppressed gunshot over the rain and wind. Zipline lined up his next shot on the pacing thug and fired again. The bullet struck him in the back of his skull, dropping him like a stone.

The other two thugs started to turn around. Prioritizing the lanky pegasus, Zipline lined up the shot and fired again. The bullet dug into the pony’s left temple and exited out of the side of his jaw, taking most of his frontal lobe with it. The last thug, an earth pony with crooked teeth, turned to run for cover.

Calmly, Zipline reloaded and took aim, tracking his target. No different than the falling apple. One last time, he fired. A shower of crimson burst from the pony’s shoulder and through the scope, Zipline could see the pony’s eyes widen in shock, pain and horror as, for the briefest span of time, he felt his heart exploding in his chest. He ran forward a couple more steps, then collapsed into the mud, dead.

Zipline lowered the weapon and pulled the bolt back, ejecting the stripper clip and inserting a fresh clip before slinging it onto his shoulder. He looked down at the midway, examining the four bodies that had, merely twenty seconds ago, been living, breathing, thinking, feeling ponies. He couldn’t let himself feel what he’d done, not yet; but he knew it would hit him later, and it would hurt.

The two stallions climbed down from the carousel and started to hurry towards Rainbow Dash, who was still laying still on the ground. “Rainbow!” Zipline called out. The bound mare did not respond. “No, no, no…!” Zipline muttered, racing to her side. “Rainbow!” he shouted, grabbing the hood and yanking it off her head. Both ponies stared down in shock.

The bound mare was nothing more than a dummy. The wide eyes set in the disturbingly realistic blank face stared straight ahead as though in death.

A moment later, the lights turned off, plunging the entire park into darkness. “Bugger,” Phillip breathed, turning around and looking in every direction. Both stallions instinctively turned on their flashlights, the beams of light struggling to penetrate the rainy darkness. A distant chuckle resounded through the icy air.

“Looking for me?” a raspy voice whispered.

“Show yourself, Nevermore!” Zipline shouted, turning around and drawing his pistol.

“Over here,” the voice spoke again, seeming to come from directly behind the stallions. Both of them whirled around and saw a figure in a ragged black cloak standing behind them. Nevermore sneered at them both from underneath the hood of his cloak. His blood red eyes seemed to shine with malice as he glared at Phillip and Zipline.

“Where’s Rainbow?” Zipline demanded, aiming his pistol right between Nevermore’s eyes.

The doctor chuckled again. “She is mine now.”

With a snarl, Zipline instinctively fired. To his shock, Nevermore instantly disappeared into mist.

“Zipline, calm down,” Phillip said sternly through his teeth. “He’s trying to scare us. You need to—”

“I’m over here,” Nevermore’s voice taunted again from the darkness. Whirling around, Zipline spotted Nevermore hovering in midair to his right and fired once more. Once again, Nevermore instantly disappeared. His taunting laughter echoed through the park.

“Where are you?!” he shouted.

“Behind you.”

Zipline turned. Nevermore was indeed right behind him, his wings spread wide and his hoof raised to strike. Zipline reacted first; in the blink of an eye, he raised his weapon, took aim and fired.

Phillip Finder dropped to the ground, a shower of red blossoming from the hole in his forehead, his eyes wide in shock. Zipline gasped in horror, staring down at the pony he had just shot. His mind reeled, refusing to accept the reality before it.

He heard a sound behind him and turned to see Nevermore behind him, slowly clapping his hooves together, his eyes sparkling with cruel amusement. “Good shot, private,” he sneered. Before Zipline could level his weapon, Nevermore vanished again with a final laugh.

It was an illusion. It had to be a hallucination. It wasn’t real, he couldn’t have...Zipline turned around. Phillip Finder was still lying dead on the ground, staring unseeing up at the sky.

“No, no, no, no!” he screamed out, dropping his weapon and kneeling next to Phillip. He grabbed his shoulders and started shaking him. “Phillip, wake up! Wake up—!”

“Zip, snap out of it!” Somepony grabbed Zipline from behind, turning him around and slapping him hard in the face. The shock dispelled some of his hysteria and he looked up at his rescuer with growing surprise. “But...but I shot…”

“Fear toxin,” Phillip Finder explained, holding Zipline’s shoulders. “Slow, deep breaths. Let it wear off.”

Zipline closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths and waiting for his heart rate to settle. When he opened his eyes again, Phillip was still standing in front of him. The dummy still lay on the ground, but Nevermore was nowhere to be seen.

“You okay?” he asked Phillip.

“Fine,” Phillip said, handing Zipline his revolver back. “You?”

“I’m all right,” Zipline lied, pulling up his rain jacket with a shiver. He decided not to tell Phillip what he had just seen.

“We have to find Rainbow Dash,” Phillip said, turning away and starting to walk up the midway. Zipline followed him, holding the revolver.

“Are you sure you don’t want this?” he asked.

“Don’t like guns,” Phillip said. “Unreliable. Prefer to rely on—”

Suddenly, a door to a funhouse their right lit up. Brightly colored lights danced around the door and a slow, haunting jingle began to play from the speakers set into the wall above; the happy, joyful scene provided a jarring contrast to the horrific context.

“I think he wants us to go in there,” Phillip said.

“You know that’s a trap,” Zipline said.

“Of course it is,” Phillip said, pushing the funhouse door open. Both of them entered the dimly lit hallway. Flickering lights along the walls barely illuminated the peeling, swirling colors on the walls. The hallway split into a T up ahead; apparently, this amusement house was intended to be a sort of maze.

“He’s going to try to split us up,” Phillip said, turning to head left. “We have to stick together.”

“Right,” Zipline agreed, following. “I’ll—whoa!” he cried out as a wall suddenly dropped down between him and Phillip, trapping him on the other side. “Zip!” Phil shouted in alarm.

“I’m okay!” Zipline’s voice called from the other side of the wall. “Just keep going!”

Letting out a breath, Phillip turned and continued down the dark hallway, following the beam of his flashlight at a quick but careful trot. The only sound was his own hoofsteps echoing off the walls that closed around him. He took his baton and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist.

“Rainbow?” he called out, his voice echoing off the walls.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Finder,” a voice responded, seeming to simultaneously come from in front of and behind him.

Phillip gritted his teeth. “I’m not scared of you, Nevermore.”

“It’s not me you should be scared of,” Nevermore taunted in reply.

Phillip turned the corner and half-jumped. Standing in front of him was Ruby Port, the fat pony from the drug house in Ponyville. His eyes widened in panic when he saw him and he staggered back, clutching his broken wrist. “No! Keep away!” he screamed.

Bewildered, Phillip stepped forward, and Ruby disappeared into ashes, leaving Phillip staring. He grunted and shook his head. “Hallucinations don’t bother me, Nevermore,” he called out, continuing down the hallway.

“I’m not trying to bother you, Mr. Finder,” Nevermore’s voice replied in a tone of false gentleness. “I’m trying to show you something.”

There was another scream from up ahead, and Phillip saw the drug dealer that he had caught in Appleloosa on the ground, desperately crawling away. Once again, as Phillip approached, the dealer vanished into ashes with a final, terrified cry.

“Do you know what they call you in the underworld?” Nevermore continued, his voice following Phillip as though he was walking right behind him. “The Storm. A destructive force that cannot be stopped, fought or reasoned with; only feared.”

There was a shout from behind him, and Phillip turned to catch a glimpse of Dirt Nap, the smuggling undertaker that had kidnapped Princess Celestia on the floor right behind him. A moment later, he too turned into ashes.

“Because that’s what you are, Mr. Finder. That’s what you became the moment you declared unending war on every criminal in Equestria. We are all nothing more than the products of our fears; I look at you, Mr. Finder, and I see a pony who has known nothing but violence, loss and death, and it is these things that you bring upon the rest of the world.”

Phillip bit down on his lip to silence his retort, determinedly continuing down the hallway. Three more ponies appeared just ahead, and he recognized all of them; they were the three ponies who had attacked him in the watchtower at Clovenworth prison. The bony black earth pony with the muddy red mane was backing away in horror, but his two companions—the ponies that he had killed—simply stood side by side, their eyes shining with hatred and blame. Blood from their wounds stained their coats and dripped onto the floor. Phillip’s stomach filled with ice at the sight, but he pressed on, pushing right through the images as they dissolved into ash that settled on his head and shoulders.

“Just think, Mr. Finder; how many ponies have suffered and died because of you?” Nevermore continued, an angry tone in his voice. “How many lives have you ruined, how many souls have you damned through your vendetta? And as if that’s not enough, you bring innocent ponies into your war, use them as your soldiers...and you send them to die for you.”

For a brief moment, Rainbow’s face flickered in front of Phillip’s gaze, and his heart missed a beat. Breathing heavily, hooves trembling harder by the second, he continued his walk into hell. With every step, more ponies appeared before him, and he recognized all of them: the criminals he had threatened or beaten backed away in terror, while the attackers that he had killed glared accusingly at him. The constant screams and pleas filled his ears and the layer of ash on the floor grew deeper by the moment.

“You put yourself in the role of judge, jury and executioner,” Nevermore’s snarl rose above the screaming. “You sentence other ponies with a single glance; you destroy the lives of others on a whim, you murder ponies without hesitation. You present yourself as a champion of justice and the law, when the truth is, with the way you deal with the lives of others, you may as well be playing god!”

”Stop it!” Phillip shouted, his voice rebounding through the endless hallway. Instantly, the hallucinations disappeared, banished by his fury. Exhausted by the effort, Phillip slumped, panting.

Suddenly, he heard a roar behind him. Whirling around, his eyes widened in shock as he saw that the walls behind him were suddenly bursting into flames, the intense heat and light rushing at him like a train. Moved to action by sheer panic, Phillip raced forward. Miraculously, a doorway appeared in front of him and he rammed his way through, slamming it shut behind him.

Panting, Phillip got back to his hooves and looked around, blinking in confusion. He recognized where he was...but it was impossible.

On either side of him were buildings, reduced to burnt-out shells. The ground was bare of any plant life, scorched dirt stretching in every direction. The scent of smoke hung in the dry, heavy, still air. There was no sign of any life. The scene was familiar, achingly familiar; this was what Sydneigh had looked like the last time he’d seen it, long ago.

But this wasn’t Sydneigh. That was the Sugarcube corner right in front of him, and he could see the dilapidated roof of Carousel Boutique to his left. This was Ponyville.

“Welcome home, Mr. Finder,” Nevermore’s voice taunted from the nothingness.

“This is not my home,” Phillip growled, pushing forward down the remnants of main street. “This is just one of your sick games.”

“No, you are home, Mr. Finder,” Nevermore replied. “And there’s somepony I want you to meet.”

Somepony walked out of the empty house in front of Phillip. Even though his face was concealed in shadow, he recognized him instantly; it was the phantom stalker, the pony who looked like his father's murderer. He stepped forward, preparing for confrontation, then stopped, his jaw dropping as he finally recognized the other pony.

It was himself. His double grinned at him, his eyes blazing with malice. Bright red scars crisscrossed his entire body.

“No…” Phillip whispered, taking an uncertain step back. Dread filled his entire being; he feared the thing before him, feared it more than anything than he had ever seen.

The duplicate of himself raised his hoof and a ring of flames erupted around Phillip, trapping him within. He cried out and stumbled, collapsing to the ground.

“It’s all your fault,” his twin sneered, his voice a distorted echo of his own. “You killed your father, and you’ve killed dozens of others...like Zipline and Rainbow. Manipulated them, sacrificed them as part of your own personal vendetta, all so you can pretend to be some kind of god! You’re no better than Zugzwang and Nevermore!” He leered down over Phillip’s trembling form.

“What gave you the right? You monster!”

Monster...monster...monster… The accusation, the realization of what he was, echoed in Phillip’s mind.

“I’m not a monster,” he whispered to himself, fighting to get up. “I’m not a monster…”

”Isn’t it kind of like what you do?”

“I’m not a monster…” he choked out.

”I don’t think you hurt them because you needed to. I think you hurt them because you wanted to.”

“I’m not a monster…” His voice came in a pained whisper, barely audible over the voices in his head, the crackling of the flames and his twin’s taunting laughter.

”I am not, never was, and never will be a good pony.”

“I’m not a monster…” Phillip chanted feebly, curling up into a fetal position on the ground. “I’m not a monster…”

Zipline crept along the dark hallway, tightly gripping his revolver, barely daring to breathe. He had to remind himself to keep calm with every step.

“Rainbow Dash!” he called out. No reply. He took another step forward and heard something click. Suddenly, the wall beside him opened up, the floor tilted beneath him and he tumbled out of the funhouse and back into the rain. He scrambled back to his hooves, recollecting his weapon, when he heard hoofsteps behind him. He whirled around, raising his weapon, but froze when he recognized the newcomer.

“Rainbow Dash?” He holstered his weapon and hurried over to the mare. “Are you all right? What—”

He stopped, suddenly realizing that something was wrong. Rainbow Dash was wearing a muzzle over her face and had a collar secured around her neck with a lock. There was a black box on the collar with a blinking red light on it. She was shaking violently, her chest heaving with breath, and her bright red eyes glared at him with a mixture of terror and rage.

“Rainbow?”

Nevermore’s voice spoke over a hidden speaker, echoing through the park: ”Kill him.”

Before Zipline had time to react, Rainbow charged right at him, ramming into him at full speed and sending him skidding backwards across the mud. She tried to follow up with a flying dive kick, but Zipline rolled out of the way. “Rainbow, stop!” he cried.

But Rainbow Dash did not seem to hear him, whirling around kicking at his head. Zipline ducked, then propelled himself into the air, trying to get away from her. “It’s me! It’s Zipline!”

With a muffled shout of mingled fear, desperation and rage, Rainbow Dash flew up after him, tackling him in midair. The two pegasi struggled in the sky. Rainbow began to fly higher up into the air, dragging Zipline with her. Zipline inadvertently glanced down and saw the ground several feet below, spiraling away from him. His stomach clenched and his head spun with vertigo; his wings froze up in panic.

“Listen to me!” he begged. “You have to fight it! You have to—”

His plea was interrupted by a hard knee strike to his gut. His grip on Rainbow slackened and he felt himself falling. Rainbow drew her knees up and kicked him hard in the chest, sending him rocketing down to the ground and crashing into a booth. Heavy boards cascaded down onto him, pinning him to the ground. Dazed, he looked up to see Rainbow Dash landing in front of him. She stared down at him, her eyes wide over the muzzle. She trembled from cold and adrenaline.

“Rainbow…” he said weakly through his aching ribs.

”Kill him now, Rainbow Dash.”

Slowly, Rainbow reached down and pulled a gun out of a holster beneath her wing. She clutched it tight, her hoof shaking. Zipline froze, staring at the weapon in horror.

”If you don’t kill him, then I will. I will make it slow and painful. And I will make you watch. And then I will kill you.”

She raised the gun. Rain dripped off the black barrel, which she pointed directly at Zipline’s face.

“Rainbow Dash…” Zipline begged, his blood running cold at the sight.

”Good girl…” Nevermore’s voice whispered. ”Good girl…”

The gun went still, aimed right between Zipline’s eyes. The hammer of the weapon slowly drew back.

“Please…”

BLAM.

Author's Note

Now that's a cliffhanger.

But what happens next? You're going to have to wait and see...

Part 7: Wake Up

The heat from the flames cut through his body, all the way through to his mind, making it impossible to think. All Phillip could do was continue to lie on the ground, choking on the hot air as he whispered to himself, “I’m not a monster...I’m not a monster…” He shut his eyes, reaching down deep inside himself, searching his broken will for a relief that would not come. “Please, please, tell me I’m not…”

“You don’t have to be,” a voice suddenly spoke, rising above the noise of the fire. Looking up, Phillip was surprised to find Fluttershy standing over him, looking down at him with concern, seemingly unaffected by the flames.

“You’re not the monster that you think you are,” she said, her calm, reassuring voice reverberating inside Phillip’s core.

“How can you know that?” Phillip whispered, looking up at the hallucination.

“Because I’m your friend,” Fluttershy answered gently. “I know there is good in you.” She reached down a hoof to help him up.

Phillip hesitated. He glanced up at his disfigured twin, who was still pacing outside the ring of flames. The harsh gray eyes—his eyes—narrowed at Fluttershy, the flames reflecting within them.

He would hurt her, just like he hurt and corrupted everypony else near him. She would join the multitudes of corpses that had gathered at his hooves if she remained with him.

“Phillip, please,” Fluttershy pleaded, still holding her hoof out. “You have to trust me.”

Slowly, Phillip raised his hoof and took Fluttershy’s. Her touch was cool, her coat soft against his. With surprising strength, she gently pulled him up to his hooves.

Instantly, the monster Phillip snarled and stepped forward, glaring at Fluttershy with an expression of unbridled hatred.

Immediately, instinctively, Phillip stood up, pushing Fluttershy behind him and spreading his forelegs to shield her. “I won’t let you hurt her!” he stated, his voice as firm as steel. And as he spoke those words, he knew they were true. He would not hurt her, could never hurt her or any of his friends.

His monstrous reflection’s face twisted into a sneer and he drew back his hoof. Knowing what was going to happen, Phillip turned and hugged Fluttershy to his chest as tightly as he could. A jet of flame erupted around him, burning every inch of him, roaring in his ears like a bellowing dragon. His nerves all screamed at once, but he gritted his teeth against the pain, continuing to tightly hold Fluttershy, protecting her with his own body.

“You have to make him stop, Phillip!” Fluttershy shouted over the roar of the flames. “You have to make your peace with him!”

Phillip knew that she was right. He knew what he had to do, but he dreaded approaching his tormentor, feared having to face it. “Will you stay with me?” he cried out to her.

She looked up at him, and even in the midst of his fire and brimstone hell, he saw peace in her blue eyes. “Always,” she reassured him, her voice coming from within him, within his heart.

He looked down at her, and felt his resolve harden in his gut. Nodding, he turned and faced his attacker, glaring towards him through the shimmering lights of the twisting, dancing flames. His muscles stiffened, momentarily refusing to move out of sheer fear; but he felt Fluttershy’s precious touch at his back and pushed forward, continuing to shield his friend behind him. Step by step, he moved closer to his target, to himself. The pain increased by the second, the heat scorching his eyes and making it hard to breathe, but he continued to advance. The terror twisted in his chest, but he concentrated on the pegasus behind him, clinging to him as he marched forward.

He would shield her, protect her; and he would do the same as all of his friends, all of his ponies. He loved them. He would not be a monster for them.

As he approached, he saw his reflection’s face change from anger to fear. The other pony backed away, continuing to fire jets of flame as he tried to retreat, but with one final effort, Phillip Finder lunged forward. His forelegs wrapped around his duplicate and he hugged himself tight, embracing him, accepting him. His twin’s hooves dug into his sides, burning him with concentrated heat in an attempt to force him to let go.

“I’m sorry!” Phillip choked out through the pain.

His duplicate tightened within his embrace, lowering his hooves. The heat dissipated away.

“I’m so sorry,” Phillip whispered, begging for the strength to forgive himself.

His other half trembled within his grasp. There was a quiet rumbling of thunder from above and the heavens opened up, releasing a cooling downfall of rain. With a soft hissing, the flames died away. The gentle water on his back eased the pain and cleared the smoke from air. Pulling back, he looked down at the pony in his embrace. A thirteen-year-old blank-flanked colt looked back up at him; the gray eyes, partially hidden behind the black bangs, stared up at him in desperation, silently telling of a horrible pain.

“It’s okay,” he reassured himself. “It’s going to be okay.” He brought the little colt back into his embrace, and he felt Fluttershy’s arms around them both, and he knew that it would be all right. He closed his eyes, breathing slowly.

When he opened them again, Fluttershy and his younger self had both vanished. He was standing in the middle of a large, dark room, surrounded by sets of burnt-out houses and dusty streets. With the clarity of mind, he could see the crude illusion for what it was. But the streams of water running down his face were no hallucination.

But already, Nevermore’s fear toxin was beginning to whisper in his mind once again: doubt crept up behind him like a shadow. Shaking his head, he focused on his one objective: Escape. Find Zipline and Rainbow Dash.

He looked around, only to find that there was no sign of a door or any exit. Of course there wouldn’t be: Nevermore wouldn’t have intended to allow his test subject to leave.

So he’d have to make his own door. Moving to the outer wall, he tapped his hoof against it. It resounded hollow. Grunting in satisfaction, he backed up several feet, lowered his shoulder and charged. With an almighty crash, he burst through the wall. Cold wind and icy rain embraced him; he was back outside the funhouse. Getting back to his hooves, he turned on the spot, wondering which way to turn.

Suddenly, five thunderclaps resounded through the darkness, one right after the other in a staccato rhythm. He whirled around towards the gunshots, his heart leaping to his throat. And then he ran.

It took Zipline several seconds to realize that he wasn’t dead. He slowly opened his eyes, his heart pounding in his ears, and looked up.

Rainbow Dash was still standing in front of him, her eyes shining with terror and remorse. The gun was held in her trembling hoof, pointed several feet away from him; she had jerked the weapon aside as she fired. Slowly, she dropped the gun, which crashed into the mud, and stepped back. Her breath, muffled by the muzzle, came rapid and heavy.

”Hmm. Well, I suppose it was too much to expect that experiment to succeed the first time,” Nevermore mused over the speakers.

“Rainbow,” Zipline called out, trying to reach out to her. “Rainbow, it’s okay…”

”No, Rainbow Dash, it is not okay,” Nevermore interjected. ”I would like to remind you that you do still have a bomb strapped to your neck, after all, so it’d be in your best interest to keep a level head, however hard that might be.”

Zipline’s heart skipped a beat at the word “bomb.” He looked at the collar around Rainbow’s neck, realizing what the box with the blinking red light must be. His eyes were attracted to the faint glimmering of the lock securing the collar to her.

His hoof, still pinned to his side, felt something familiar: the polished wooden grip of his Official Guard. As if a switch had been thrown, his mind instantly stilled and focused. He stared at the lock, calculating distance and trajectory, correcting for wind and bullet drop. His heart rate slowed. His breathing calmed. He knew what he had to do, knew what he was going to do.

“Rainbow,” he commanded, his voice steady. “Hold still.”

In one fluid motion, he drew the pistol, locking back the hammer. He raised his arm, taking aim. The sights lined up perfectly. He could see Rainbow’s eyes over them, widening in shock. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger.

The pistol jerked in his hoof. His bullet sailed true. It carved through the air and struck the lock, snapping it off. The collar fell to the ground. Not a single hair on Rainbow’s mane was harmed.

”No!” Nevermore’s furious voice bellowed. The collar began to beep rapidly, the red light flashing in warning.

Instantly recovering, Rainbow snatched the explosive collar off the ground and tossed it high into the sky not a moment too soon. With a blinding flash and a great roar that shook the sky, the bomb detonated harmlessly. Panting, Rainbow reached up and jerked off the muzzle, letting it fall to the ground as she rushed over to Zipline. “Are you okay?” she croaked out as she started to pull rubble off of him.

“I’m okay, Rainbow,” he assured her. “You—look out!”

Rainbow Dash looked up and immediately kicked backwards, striking the cloaked figure rushing up behind her and sending him sprawling into the mud. Quickly rolling back to his hooves, Nevermore pulled a long serrated knife out of his cloak. “I’ll cut through your neck until I feel bone!” he snarled, leaping at Rainbow Dash. The deadly blade sang through the air, missing Rainbow by inches as she dodged to the side. She grabbed his foreleg with both of her hooves, but he countered by kneeing her in the gut and shoving her away.

Zipline raised his pistol, aiming for Nevermore’s back. But as soon as he displayed the weapon, there was a raspy screech from above. A raven swooped down and snatched Zipline’s pistol out of his hoof, dropping it far out of reach. Lenore then swooped around and dove at Rainbow as she struggled with Nevermore, her sharpened claws prepared for attack. Spotting the incoming raven out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow kicked Nevermore away and swung her hoof out, striking Lenore. The raven tumbled out of the sky and splashed into the mud.

“Leave her alone!” Nevermore screeched in fury. He cut at Rainbow several times in rapid succession, forcing her to cartwheel away. Still pinned beneath the rubble, Zipline could only watch helplessly as his honorary daughter fought for her life.

Nevermore paused in his attack, then lunged forward with a low stab. Rainbow shifted away from the blade, sweeping her foreleg down and sending the weapon spinning away, then raised her leg and kicked, striking Nevermore in the chest. He skidded backwards, collapsing to one knee. Rainbow gracefully whirled around, following up with a spinning kick to Nevermore’s head. He ducked beneath the attack and kicked out, knocking Rainbow’s leg out from beneath her and causing her to sprawl onto the ground. Spreading his wings, he flew over to his dropped knife, snatching it up.

Zipline glanced down and spotted Rainbow’s discarded revolver on the ground near his hoof. “Rainbow!” he shouted, kicking the weapon towards her. She rolled over and grabbed the gun as Nevermore approached, his blade raised for the killing stroke. Rolling over onto her back, Rainbow raised the gun, gripping it tight in both hooves, and fired repeatedly. Five gunshots cracked through the air, one right after another, stopping the cloaked pegasus in his tracks. The gun clicked on empty, but Rainbow kept pulling the trigger for a few seconds before eventually stopping. For a moment, nopony moved. Every eye looked down to Nevermore’s heaving chest.

There was no sign of any wound. No holes, no blood. Nothing. “Wha…?” Rainbow whispered in disbelief.

His red eyes narrowing and his crooked teeth parted in a sneer, Nevermore shook his head at Rainbow. “Blanks, Rainbow Dash. Of course I anticipated that you might fight back.”

His boast was interrupted when Rainbow threw the pistol at him, striking him in the mouth. He staggered back, giving Rainbow enough time to get back to her hooves. Growling, Nevermore attacked again, lunging at her chest. Rainbow deflected the attack to the side; but as the blade passed by, Nevermore dropped the knife, catching it in his other hoof, and cut at Rainbow’s stomach. She pulled back almost too late; the very tip of the blade scraped against her skin. Rainbow lashed out with a roundhouse kick to Nevermore’s ribs, doubling him over, then front kicked him in the chest to stagger him. With a furious yell, she jumped, spun, and kicked out again, striking Nevermore in the head. He flew backwards and collapsed heavily to the ground, groaning. Rainbow stood over him, breathing heavily, trembling from a combination of fatigue, cold and fear.

“You did it, Rainbow!” Zipline cheered. “Now come here and help me out—”

But Rainbow Dash did not seem to hear him. Stalking over to the dropped Guard Official, she snatched it up and walked back to Nevermore. Growling, she raised the gun, aiming it directly between Nevermore’s unfocused eyes. Her hoof did not shake.

“Rainbow, no!” Zipline cried.

Rainbow gritted her teeth in fury, but hesitated. Her grip on the weapon tightened.

“Rainbow, don’t,” Zipline begged her. “He’s beaten. Don’t let him win; prove that you’re better than him.”

Rainbow Dash stared down at Nevermore for several long seconds, continuing to aim the gun steady.

“Please, Rainbow,” Zipline whispered. “Please don’t.”

The anger in Rainbow’s eyes gradually dissipated. Slowly, she lowered her hoof and tossed the gun aside. Moving slowly, like a zombie, she walked over to Zipline and started to pull rubble off of him. As soon as he was free, Zipline stood up and hugged Rainbow to his chest, stroking her back reassuringly. She collapsed into his chest, trembling once more.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered into ear, speaking in the same tone he used to calm Scootaloo when she had awoken from a nightmare. “I’m here now, it’s okay—”

A sudden movement grabbed his attention. Looking up, he saw that Nevermore had regained consciousness and was charging at them both, his knife raised to attack and murder in his blood red eyes. Immediately, he turned while still holding Rainbow Dash to his chest, knowing that he didn’t have time to block the attack…

At that moment, a loud whirring noise pierced the air. Something struck Nevermore’s hoof, disarming him. “What?” he snapped, his head turning to follow the spinning boomerang as it arced through the air and returned to the hoof of its master. Easily catching the boomerang as he ran towards the group, Phillip snapped out his baton and lunged at Nevermore, who was forced to take flight to avoid the attack. He hovered above the group, his slumped posture and heaving shoulders indicating his exhaustion.

“Impossible!” he shouted down at Phillip, who glared up at him. “You were exposed to enough toxin to drive five ponies insane! How did you…?” His voice trailed off as he looked between Phillip and Zipline and Rainbow Dash. Zipline was still shielding Rainbow Dash in his arms, while Phillip had moved close to them, spreading his forelegs wide.

“Of course…” he breathed, realization dawning in his eyes. “Of course. I understand now.” Abruptly, he looked up towards the front gate of the amusement park. Zipline, Rainbow and Phillip heard it as well: the distant wail of approaching sirens, both ambulances and Applewood City Guards. “Star Watcher, time to go.”

At his command, there was a sudden flash and a smoke bomb erupted amidst the group. Coughing and choking, the three ponies clung to one another. The smoke cleared quickly, and everypony looked up in time to catch a glimpse of Nevermore, clutching Lenore to his chest and leaning on Star Watcher for support, before he and his companion disappeared into the clouds.

He had escaped once more, but none of them had the energy to care. Zipline pulled Rainbow into his embrace once more, slowly stroking her mane and quietly shushing her as she shivered. Phillip put his forelegs around them both, simultaneously supporting them and allowing them to support him as the approaching sirens stopped outside the gates.

Scant seconds later, Twilight, Flash, Fluttershy, Starlight, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were there, their hooves around them, their voices ringing indistinctly in their ears as they bustled them into waiting ambulances. Blankets were draped over them, paramedics checked their vitals, and warm drinks were pressed into their hooves. It was not until the carriages started to carry them far, far away from the park that any of them felt warm again.

One hour later, Phillip and Zipline were standing in a hospital room at the Starshine Way Hospital, staring silently out the rain-streaked window. Both of them had been patched up for minor injuries and were now waiting for the doctors to finish checking on Rainbow Dash. Thunder rumbled distantly and a flash of lightning flickered across the sky, momentarily illuminating the famous Applewood sign.

“Hey,” Zipline suddenly said, continuing to look forwards instead of at Phillip. “What I said about you in the train...I—”

“No,” Phillip interrupted without looking up. “You were right.” He sighed deeply, then continued a slower, quieter tone. “I got a long look at myself tonight, and I realized that I didn’t like what I saw. I...I’m going to try to fix some things in my life.”

Zipline turned to Phillip, examining his cold, exhausted expression. “Well, if you ever need help, you can count on me to be there for you,” he said, extending a wing and placing it over Phillip, pulling him close to his side. Phillip tensed at the unexpected touch, but slowly relaxed, looking up at him.

“Thank you, Zip,” he said.

“Hey, what’s a buddy for, right?” Zipline grinned.

At that moment, a doctor walked into the room behind him. Both Zipline and Phillip looked up eagerly.

“Rainbow’s all right,” the doctor told them. “She’s dehydrated, exhausted, and has a few minor injuries, but nothing major.”

“Oh, thank God,” Zipline sighed, clutching his chest as if trying to prevent his heart from leaping out.

“We’re going to keep her here overnight for monitoring,” the doctor continued, “but I expect that she’ll be all right...physically, at least.”

“We’ll handle the mental part, doc,” Zipline replied. “Don’t worry, my girl is tough.”

The doctor nodded and exited. Zipline stood up, sighing, his armor rattling. “I’d best go make my report to the sergeant. Then I'll call Ponyville and let Rain know what happened."

Phillip nodded. Zipline briefly embraced him once more before exiting, disappearing down the hallway. Phillip looked out the window for a moment longer, then slowly walked out of the room and down the hallway to Rainbow’s room. Slowly, he peeked into the room.

Rainbow Dash was laying in bed, fast asleep. There was a full pitcher of water and glass on the table next to her; the heart monitor she was hooked up to beeped steadily. Her friends were all gathered around her, most of them asleep. Flash was standing guard next to the door. As Phillip looked in, he looked around and smiled at him. Phillip nodded back, then stepped outside. He sat down in the hallway outside, staring down at the white tile floor. He could faintly hear music coming from a radio in the room down the hallway. He leaned against the wall, suddenly acutely aware of how tired he was. He wanted to sleep, but could not; an uncomfortable squirming in his gut prevented him from lowering his guard.

“Phillip?”

Looking up, Phillip saw Fluttershy exiting the room and approaching him. She sat down next to him and slowly reached out a hoof. He gladly took it and she allowed him to lean against her. Her touch was cool, her coat soft against his. He smiled in relief and closed his eyes. As the last chorus of the song rang in his ears, he finally relaxed and allowed sleep to overcome him.

He would protect them.

And they would protect him.

Author's Note

Big chapter, big importance.

We'll wrap this up in the next chapter, but for now, I think it's time for everypony to take a well-deserved rest.

Epilogue: My Demons

Two days later…

Rainbow Dash lay back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, which was painted a pleasant heliotrope color. The scent of lilies hung in the air, mixing with the fumes of dandelion tea, and she breathed deeply, allowing the scents to comfort her.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk right now,” a voice like summer rain on a window came from her left. “But refusing to confront your problems isn’t going to help anypony, least of all you.”

Turning, Rainbow looked at Rain Breeze, who was seated on a chair a few feet away from her, holding a notepad and pencil in her magic. She smiled gently at her.

Rainbow swallowed and looked back up at the ceiling. “How’s Zipline?” she asked.

“Zipline is fine,” Rain Breeze answered. “He’s having a disciplinary hearing right now, I think.”

Rainbow sat up suddenly at the words. “Is he in trouble?” she asked.

“He...made mistakes,” Rain Breeze explained, choosing to look at her notepad instead of at Rainbow. “And he has to be held accountable for him, he knows that. But he told me that he doesn’t care what they do to him, as long as you’re safe.” She looked back up at him. “But that’s not what we’re here about. We’re here to talk about you, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow sighed and settled back down onto the couch, continuing to stare up at the ceiling. The blurred images of her captivity raced through her mind like a kaleidoscope. But one image stood out clearly: her own hoof, clutching a gun, aimed directly at Zipline’s face.

“Rain Breeze,” she whispered. “Do you think I’m a bad pony?”

Rain looked up at Rainbow. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because I almost...I almost killed Zipline!” Rainbow burst out. Tears stinging at her eyes, she recounted the whole story, telling of the chemical tortures that Nevermore had put her through, how he had forced her to attack Zipline, how she had aimed the gun into his face and pulled the trigger. Rain listened silently, patiently, her face softening into an expression of motherly concern. When Rainbow finished her tale, she flopped back down onto the couch, tears freely running down her face. Rain sat for a moment, allowing her to cry for a few moments, to release the tension that she’d been holding inside her. Finally, she levitated over a hanky and began to gently wipe Rainbow’s eyes.

“Sweetie, you’re not a bad pony,” she said, taking Rainbow’s hoof in both of her own. “You’re a very good pony who had a horrible, horrible thing happen to you.” She smiled at her. “Zipline told me what happened already.”

“He did?” Rainbow whimpered.

“He told me that you couldn’t do it,” Rain continued, rubbing Rainbow’s hoof reassuringly. “You pointed the gun aside at the last second. Even after all that, you couldn’t bring yourself to kill somepony you loved. That speaks to the goodness of your heart; that is something that nopony, not even Nevermore, can take away from you.”

Rainbow sniffled and sat back up, calming herself down.

“Rainbow, listen. If you ever want to talk to me about anything, my door is always open,” Rain stated. “You’re family to us, after all; we look out for each other.”

Rainbow smiled and hugged Rain. “Thank you.”

“Of course, honey,” Rain smiled, hugging her back. She glanced up at the sunshine yellow clock on the wall. “Now, I’m sorry Rainbow, but we’ve run out of time. Why don’t you go play with Scootaloo? I’m sure that she’s been looking forward to seeing you again.”

“Great!” Rainbow said, quickly lighting back up. “Thanks for making time for me, Rain!” She trotted out the door.

“Anytime, dear,” Rain called after her. Settling back onto the couch, she set aside her notes, tucking them into a folder and putting them into the drawer of the table next to her. Taking out a fresh folder, she opened it up and rested it on her lap, examining the preliminary notes contained within as she prepared for her next patient.

The clock reached 10:30. There was a knocking at the door. Right on time, as expected. “Come in,” Rain called.

The door opened wide and Phillip Finder entered, doffing his trilby and placing it on the hatrack in the corner.

“Hello, Phillip,” Rain greeted him.

“G’day, Doctor Breeze,” Phillip answered dully as he walked over to the couch and laid down upon it.

“Phillip, please,” Rain corrected. “Call me Rain.”

He blinked, continuing to look up at the ceiling. “Right.” He paused. “Sorry, it’s just...I’ve never done this before.”

“I understand. First-time patient jitters,” Rain nodded with a small smile. “There’s no real secret to this. You just need to talk.”

“About what?” Phillip asked, looking uncertain.

“About whatever’s on your mind. About whatever’s troubling you,” Rain told him.

Still he hesitated. Rain sighed. “Phillip, I cannot help you if you do not trust me,” she chided him gently. “I am here to help you, not judge you. Nothing of what you say in this room leaves this room. On that you have my promise.”

Phillip blinked once more, then took a deep breath and began to speak.

“It’s funny,” he said. “I feel I owe Nevermore a favor for this. If it wasn’t for that night, I wouldn’t have realized how tired I am.”

“Tired?” Rain queried, taking a note in her notepad.

“Tired of being alone,” Phillip explained. “Tired of pushing against the rest of the world. Tired of being angry and scared all the time.” He paused, then spoke in a quieter tone. “Tired of being a monster.” He rolled over and looked over at Rain Breeze.

“Rain, tell me the truth,” he said softly. “Is it possible for a pony to change?”

Rain smiled at him and reached out, taking his hoof in her own. “They can if they truly want to. And if they need help doing it, then that’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She patted his hoof reassuringly and settled back in her chair. “Now, where do you want to start?”

Phillip lay back on the couch. Rain noticed that his posture had already relaxed slightly since he had entered.

“I guess it started with my dad…”

“And that, gentleponies, is the truth, and nothing but,” Zipline declared, standing at attention before his judges. The heat of the lamp above him made sweat trickle down his brow, and he hoped that none of them mistook that for nervousness.

Seated on the other side of the wide table, three Royal Guardsponies stared imperiously at him. “You realize that you acted recklessly and endangered several ponies through your foolish decisions,” glared a Master Sergeant unicorn with a dark brown coat and a black, helmet-like mane, adorned in the armor of a Solar House Guard.

“There is no excuse for my poor decisions in taking the potion, I know that,” Zipline stated, refusing to bow his head in shame. “And I know that I acted rashly when Rainbow Dash was abducted. But I would also like to state that I had to act quickly to save her life. I have seen and experienced firsthoof what Doctor Nevermore does to hostages; I cannot bear to think what would’ve happened to Rainbow if we had arrived too late.” He stared back coolly at the sergeant. “In the same circumstance, even if it hadn’t been my honorary daughter’s life in danger, I would have done much the same.”

The sergeant blinked, then looked at the other two ponies on the chair. On the other side was a pegasus lieutenant with a short, sky blue mane and aqua green coat, also from the Solar House Guard. He looked at Zipline over the top of his steepled hooves, considering him carefully.

“Commendable as your rescue was, Private, it could very easily have gone much worse,” Lieutenant Steady Stream stated. “You should’ve reported the abduction and waited for backup.” He glanced down at the folder in front of him. “This is another addition to your long disciplinary record, Private. It is becoming obvious that we cannot trust you to follow instructions. And we cannot have ponies we do not trust in the Solar House Guard...or indeed, in the Royal Guard at all.”

Zipline’s shoulders slumped, but he forced himself to stand bravely, looking up with a neutral expression. He had made his choices; now it was time to face the consequences.

“How can you be certain that we cannot trust him?” the third pony asked.

Every head turned to the speaker. This was a tall black unicorn with a long white mane tied back in a ponytail and sparkling blue eyes. A pair of polished silver bars adorned the collar of his golden armor.

“I, too, have read Private Zipline’s record,” Captain Polaris stated, looking directly at Zipline. “And while I agree that he...can be a challenge at times, he has never done anything that demonstrates that he cannot be counted on when he is needed.”

“But sir—” the sergeant protested.

“He knows when it is acceptable to relax and when it is time to be serious,” Polaris continued as if he had not heard. “And his record also indicates that when lives are at stake, he is always the first to run towards the danger and the last to leave his post, and he never panics or loses focus. I personally recall his actions during the invasion of the giant cocaktrices at the apex of the Secretariat Comet: he remained at Princess Celestia’s side the entire time and personally downed no less than four of the creatures.”

Lieutenant Stream begrudgingly nodded in assent.

“Personally, if one of my daughters, or one of the Princesses was in danger, I would want somepony like Zipline to be on the rescue team,” Polaris continued, a small smile briefly crossing his face. “I agree that many of his actions over the past few days are less than commendable, but I also find it impressive that he is willing to take responsibility for them by confessing of his free will.”

Zipline straightened up, hope filling his core once more.

“This is what I recommend,” Polaris stated, serious once more. “Zipline will have all furloughs and leave temporarily suspended and he will be reassigned to desk duty. He will also have his firearms license suspended until he can retake the training and safety course. This way, he will be in a position where he can be monitored and where it will be...unlikely that he can get himself into any serious trouble until he can prove to us that he can be trusted.”

The other two ponies looked at Polaris, then at each other. Zipline stood statue still, heart pit-pattering his chest.

Finally, both ponies nodded in assent. “Very well. This sounds fair,” the sergeant agreed.

“If we are in agreement, then, this hearing is adjourned,” Polaris stated. “Private?”

Feeling as though he was floating, held aloft by sheer relief, Zipline stepped forward, removing a small square of paper from a pocket in his armor and handing it to Lieutenant Stream. The lieutenant took the firearms license and tucked it into his folder.

“Now, report to Warrant Officer Bookend and have him give you something to do,” he ordered, a small smirk tugging at his lips. “I’m sure he can find you something productive.”

“Yes, sir,” Zipline saluted. Turning on his heels, he strode to the door and opened it.

“Zipline.”

Zipline turned around and caught Captain Polaris’ eyes. “And do something about that phobia of yours.”

“Yes, sir,” Zipline saluted. Polaris returned the salute, a small smile crossing his features once more.

Smiling in reply, Zipline exited into the hallway and started to trot down the hallway towards Bookend’s office. He glanced out one of the palace’s high windows at the shining, sun-kissed city outside and sighed happily.

Nevermore and Star Watcher might still be loose, but his wife and daughters were safe, Miraculous Cure was in jail awaiting trial, and he’d been allowed to stay in the Guard. At the moment, he had nothing to fear.

“We only got here today. You should be resting, doctor,” Star Watcher stated, allowing Doctor Nevermore to lean against him as they trotted down the dark hallway. "Besides, the master may be busy."

“This is necessary, Star Watcher,” Nevermore grunted in reply. As he spoke, he winced softly and reached up to massage his bandaged ribs. “I must speak with him.”

“Very well, doctor,” Star Watcher assented. They turned a corner and found themselves facing a set of double doors. Two ponies, swords at their hips, stood guard.

“He’s in a meeting now—” one of them started to say. Nevermore fixed him with his iciest glare. “—but I doubt he’d mind if you came in, doctor,” the guard gulped.

“Look after Lenore,” Nevermore instructed Star Watcher as he pushed the doors open and entered the room.

The cavernous chamber was cool and dim, the only light coming from a dimly-lit crystalline chandelier that hung from the ceiling. The far wall was adorned with a large fresco of The Last Judgement, an abstract depiction of the damned being sentenced to eternal punishment in Hell. A large golden pipe organ was set in the back of the room.

Zugzwang was sitting at the pipe organ, his back to the door. His hoof slowly stroked the keys in solemn thought. Three other ponies stood behind him, all of them arguing.

“No, I’m not insulting the Scorchers’ reputation, I’m simply stating that five thousand bits a pony is a pretty steep price,” a pale green unicorn with a light brown mane, tail and beard, blue eyes, and a cutie mark of a suitcase and two gold bits declared in a Mareish accent. He was tossing a gold bit to himself, scowling at the mare next to him.

“Big job means big pay. That’s the offer, and that’s what we expect,” snarled the mare. She was a dark orange earth pony with a long, scruffy, fiery red mane and tail and smokey gray eyes. The right side of her face and all four of her hooves were adorned in burn scars. She was dressed in a fraying turnout jacket, which she had spray-painted with a large facsimile of her cutie mark: a burning match. The decoration was enhanced by the numerous cuts and bullet holes in the jacket. Even with the large jacket covering her, Nevermore could see that she was built as solidly as a mountain.

“I still do not see why you have to get the Scorchers to perform this job,” sniffed the third visitor, a pure white unicorn mare with a long mane of silvery-blonde hair streaked with scarlet. She held a cigarette holder in a pale red magical aura. Her cutie mark was a golden envelope addressed in red ink, with an inkpot of scarlet ink and a scarlet quill. “The Scarlets are more than capable of performing such a task, and much more quietly—”

“No,” Zugzwang stated, silencing the three visitors. “Tinderspark and the Scorchers will be the ones to perform this assignment, and Lucky Bit will ensure that they are adequately paid for their services.”

“Thank you,” Tinderspark grunted, nodding. She turned on her heels and quickly exited the room, barely glancing up at Nevermore as she passed him.

“You realize that this is a lot of money,” Lucky Bit told Zugzwang, still tossing the coin to himself.

“You have to spend money to make money, mein freund,” Zugzwang replied without turning around. “I thought you would have learned that during your time in the Mareish Mob.”

Lucky chewed his lip in thought for a moment, then nodded. “Right. I’ll go get the money sorted out.” He turned around and spotted Nevermore standing there. He gasped in shock, dropping his coin, then recollected himself and exited as quickly as he could.

“Mein Geliebte, I want you to contact your best strike teams. I will have a task for them later,” Zugzwang declared, turning to Scarlet Letter and taking her hoof with a smile. "And afterwards, perhaps the two of us may have some private time to spend."

“Of course, my dove,” Scarlet Letter replied, kissing Zugzwang on the lips.

"How is Crimson?" Zugzwang asked.

"He's starting to walk now," Scarlet replied excitedly. "Soon, he will be walking and talking."

"Wunderbar," Zugzwang breathed, apparently delighted, although Nevermore could see the false emotion in his black eyes.

"We shall see you later," Scarlet winked, blowing a kiss at Zugzwang as she turned away. Placing her cigarette holder between her teeth, she turned and exited, being careful not to look directly at Nevermore. As soon as the door shut, Zugzwang turned to Nevermore, his face twisting into a mask of barely controlled fury.

"Du verdammter Idiot," he snarled. "Do you have any idea how much your failed experiment cost me?"

Nevermore stared coolly back at Zugzwang as his benefactor stomped towards him.

"At least tell me you learned something from this fiasco," Zugzwang huffed, trying to return himself to some level of calm. "Having to remove you from the board this early is not beneficial—"

“I understand now,” Doctor Nevermore breathed, stepping forward. “I know how to truly break Phillip Finder; his friends.”

Zugzwang paused, extracting a cigarette and lighter from the pockets of his suit. "Go on," he whispered, lighting the cigarette and placing it into his mouth.

“They form the foundation of his mind, of his spirit,” Nevermore explained, a grin crossing his face as he thought of the delicious torments he could create with this knowledge. “Merely kill them, and they will live on his soul. But tear them down, cast them so low that they cannot be built up again…”

“...and the foundation crumbles,” Zugzwang smiled. “Yes. Yes, I see.”

“I have many ideas,” Nevermore said, almost licking his lips in eagerness. “I will need time to prepare them, however.”

“You shall have what you need, doctor,” Zugzwang reassured him. He glanced up at the grandfather clock in the corner. “I have a representative from the Griffon Mafia coming soon; I expect it will be a most profitable meeting. I recommend you begin your work as quickly as possible.”

“Of course,” Nevermore said, turning and trotting quickly back to the door. As the doctor exited, Zugzwang reached beneath his suit and extracted a small pouch that he wore around his neck. Taking out the object contained within, he stared at it hungrily, slowly turning it over in his magic to examine every inch of it.

“Soon,” he whispered. “Soon.”

Author's Note

Rainbow's okay, Phillip's getting help, and Zipline got to keep his job. That's good!

Nevermore is still free and Zugzwang has something big planned. That's not good!

And with that, we finish this story. I hope you enjoyed Trifle Not With Monsters. Phillip Finder and friends will return in The Fillydelphia Solution, coming soon!

Minor revision 8/18

Chapter notes

—This story is loosely based on the Batman story Fear for Sale, originally published in Detective Comics #571 (February 1987), and on Never Fear, an episode of The New Batman Adventures.
—The title of the story is from a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche: "Trifle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster yourself." This quote is symbolic of the story's theme.

Prologue
—Zipline may be a daredevil who can't resist a dare, but gun safety is the one thing he is adamant on; he knows that guns aren't toys, and is very careful with them.
—Summerfield rifle: play on Springfield rifle, considered one of the best bolt-action rifles ever made.
—suppressor: that is the proper name; it's not a silencer. Gunshots with a suppressor are still pretty loud (they don't sound at all like they do in movies), but are less likely to damage the shooter's hearing and can make the sound of the gunshot harder to identify or locate.
—Zipline has trained himself to enter an almost Zen-like trance state when he's shooting, so that he can aim and fire without having to think.
—Music: Monster by Skillet, representative of the theme of this story.
—"There are 204 other bones in your body": the equine skeleton has 205 bones, I looked it up.

Part 1
—"Snotfire": my headcanon is that this is Spitfire's nickname. She forgot to take her allergy medicine one morning and sneezed all over the coach, earning the name.
—Note: the pony who killed Phillip's father died in prison several years prior to the series starting.

Part 2
—Aromatic therapy uses smells to help alter one's mood. Modeling is a psychotherapy where a patient learns new behaviors by imitating others. Counter conditioning is a psychotherapy that involves training a patient to react differently to a stimulus: for example, by briefly exposing a patient to something that frightens them and then giving them a reward if they do not panic.
—Usher: a reference to The Fall of the House of Usher.

Part 3
—"cunning as a dunny rat": Australian expression, "very clever."

Part 4
—dragon claw root: reference to the "devil's foot," a similar hallucinogenic plant that was a key part of the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Devil's Foot.
—Detective Wild Goose: as in wild goose chase. Subtle reference to the Monsieur Lecoq mystery series written by Émile Gaboriau. According to A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes had a very similar opinion of Lecoq that Phillip does of Wild Goose.

Part 5
—The Thirteenth Dossier: play on Le Dossier No. 113 or Dossier No. 113, one of the Monsieur Lecoq stories.
—Fact: no two papers will tear the same way. The pattern of fibers within individual pieces of paper are as unique as fingerprints.
—A stripper clip was a sort of early magazine, originally used in bolt-action rifles like the Springfield rifle. A speedloader is a clip for holding bullets, designed to allow a gun such as a revolver to be loaded quickly and easily.
—.38 Official Guard: play on the Colt Official Police, one of the best-selling guns designed for law enforcement, especially in the 1950s. Choosing a sidearm for Zipline was difficult: I originally settled on the Colt Single Action Army "Peacemaker" revolver, but scrapped it for two reasons: one, the Peacekeeper is a cowboy weapon, and that's not an association I want to build with Zipline; two, it's a single action weapon (the hammer has to be manually pulled back before each shot), and I wanted him to have a double action weapon.
—moving slower than a minute hand traveling around the circumference of a clock: reference to a line from The Tell-Tale Heart: "A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine."

Part 6
—The Springfield M1903 rifle has a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second and its rate of fire is 10-15 rounds per minute, about one round per four to six seconds.
—I can imagine Nevermore applauding Zipline like Starlight applauding Twilight in The Cutie Re-Mark.
—Phillip can use guns and will if he has to, but he doesn't like them.
—The funhouse music was Freddy's jingle from the first Five Nights At Freddy's game. The tune is a rendition of The Toreador March from Bizet's Carmen.
—Phillip tries to avoid the Let's Split Up trope, but Nevermore is having none of that.
—"The Storm": the storm motif is something that I've built around Phillip since the very start of the series. I almost made his nickname "The Oncoming Storm," but the Doctor Who reference was too obvious.
—Nevermore's breaking The Reason You Suck speech took several cues from the Doctor Who series, including in particular the episode A Good Man Goes to War. This scene summarizes the theme of this story: revealing to Phillip the reality of his brutal antihero tactics and how it affects himself and other ponies.
—Dirt Nap aided Dr. Nevermore in previous story The Sun Falls.
—The trio of ponies are from previous story The Siege of Clovenworth.
—Remember how the stalker pony was always described as looking like the pony who killed Phillp's father? Who has Phillip blamed for his father's death for years? Himself.

Part 7
—This is the first time that Phillip has been able to face his fear of fire.
—Actually, as the Mythbusters proved, it's almost impossible to blow a lock off with a bullet. But this is a fictional series, so I think I deserve some slack.
—“I’ll cut through your neck until I feel bone!”: reference to the first Scream film.
—Music: My Demons by Starset, which fits Phillip very well.

Epilogue
—Captain Polaris of the Canterlot Guard is a minor protagonist who has appeared a few times in past stories. Lieutenant Steady Stream is the commander of the Solar House Guard, Zipline's division.
—Zipline's disciplinary record has to do mostly with his habit of pranking other Guards and taking dares.
—the invasion of the giant cocaktrices at the apex of the Secretariat comet: reference to the My Little Pony comics, issue #4.
—The Last Judgement: I actually had Bosch's version of the painting in mind, not Michaelangelo's.
—Lucky Bit is a member of the Mareish Mob who is now allied with Zugzwang. He appeared in Mystery on the Mareish Moors.
—Tinderspark is a psychopathic arsonist and leader of the Scorcher gang. This is her first time appearing on print: her debut appearance was in one of my voice acting videos, a collab with NeighlyReads, that I have since deleted as it is no longer canon. We will learn more about her in the future.
—Scarlet Letter is a former noblemare and leader of the Scarlet gang. She last appeared in the prequel, The Grilled Cheese and the Muletese Falcon.
—What do you think is in Zugzwang's pouch?

Author's Note

Chapter notes.