Author's Note

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

(Apostle's Creed)

Destruction

Samantha fidgeted on the ancient throne, not knowing that she looked for all the world like some savage queen. Her gun twirled in her hand idly, beside a leg lazily slung over the armrest.

How in apprehension like a God, indeed.

Fitting that it was shooting on her mind, eating away at her thoughts. Her hands itched with the remembered feeling of the handgun roaring. She remembered the smell of smokeless powder and of burning. Her mind was crisscrossed with the burning streets of towns she remembered from a youth spent running from such things.

Malthus was late, but not so seriously late that she had truly begun to worry. He was a bit older and she hadn’t indicated that this meeting of minds was urgent. She had needed discretion.

The prox alarms fired. She smiled softly. There he was. She waited, still idly twirling her gun, unloaded for now, and she’d show him if asked. She needed to talk now, and shoot later.

And so it was that instead of the old man with darkening skin, she was greeted by a trio of four-legged visitors peeking into the throne room; two ponies and one zebra. She froze, mouth open in wonder. A unicorn. An honest to God unicorn. A winged pony. Pegasus!

Whatever foolish utterance would have left her mouth, it was cut short by the realization that her translating talisman was not around her neck. She cursed softly, and tried not to search too quickly. She didn’t want to frighten them off.

Yet, they were about to step into something far bigger than they knew. Horror seized her. This was the worst time. She was about to have a council of war and here these three were coming to say hello and shoot the breeze with the strange new neighbor. Dammit. She had to distract them or send them packing. Some lie that would work…

Except she felt a sudden chill and lost her balance. She fell to the ground, filled with a dread she did not understand. She searched, knowing the feeling, and found a much better constructed talisman floating--actually floating--towards her. The unicorn--a strange purple creature with what colud only be called a sheepish smile--seemed to indicate it.

Trembling, Samantha touched the talisman. Her arm felt frozen off, but she grasped it and slipped it on.

The dread did not leave, but she was acclimating bit by bit. She felt like she could breathe again.

“H-hey,” she managed. Talking was hard.

“Hello! Oh, good, it worked!” the unicorn said in a bright, cheerful voice. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. This is Fluttershy, and you already know Zecora!”

Sam blinked at them. There wasn’t much else she could do. Words swam around in her head, trying to connect each to each and simply failed to do so.

The one who had spoken, Twilight Sparkle, continued smiling. Her eyes darted from Sam to Zecora, as if she were trying to will Zecora to help her.

“This… this might be a…” Sam shivered. “This might be a bad time.”

Twilight tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

Sam continued shivering as the magic worked. “Bad.. Something bad is about to happen. My friend and I…. have to fight a monster.”

It wasn’t a lie, she reasoned. The Blackshirt was a monster. She had spoken to him and looked into his soulless, hungry eyes. He was without heart. He was without forethought beyond mere plotting. What did he see behind him but remembered perversities?

She did not think of it like this. She simply knew that Costello was a monster.

“A m-monster?” The pegasus, bright yellow in an afront to Terrestrial nature, backed up. Her head swiveled furiously, as if expecting the monster to emerge.

Sam bit her lip. This was not what she had expected--it was the worst possible thing that could happen right now. She had to make them leave before Malthus arrived. Or before they saw--

“What sort of monster have you seen? To face you such, few are keen,” Zecora said. She narrowed her eyes. “The creatures here have run and hide, they tremble when you range wide.”

“It’s…” Sam looked down at Zecora and wilted. “It’s hard to explain.”

Her radio crackled to life.

“Marshall? Miss Marshall, I believe we may have a problem.”

Wild-eyed, Sam dug through her kit to retrieve the old radio. It kept hissing as she slammed the button down. “What? What’s going on? You’re late.”

“I have a native here,” Malthus said, his voice sounding strange and tinny. “I came across him. I thought maybe he’d fallen into one of your traps.”

Sam froze. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, and she wanted to look at her visitors. She wanted to see their reactions. Could they understand him? Could they…

“Is it… are they alright?” Sam asked and then grit her teeth in frustration.

“No. It wasn’t one of your traps, I think. Or, if it was, it was a moment of surprising violence from you. There is a lot of blood.” A pause. “I am not sure it would be wise to carry it with me.”

“Why the hell not? I have bandages. It would be safer here.”

“It would attract predators to me, I think. I would rather not take on that risk.”

Sam bit back a curse. “Really showing your true colors, old man. Is that how the Concordat works? You know, I have three natives here with me, and I would be glad to tell them.”

A longer silence. “I am on my way with the injured one.”

She put the radio away and turned to the ponies. They looked at her with confusion. It was Zecora who spoke first.

“You call us natives, which implies travelling. I think your origin needs unravelling. What did you speak of, through the strange device? We heard two voices, but saw two eyes.”

“It’s a radio,” Sam said, searching for an explanation that would make sense. “It… I can communicate with others through it.”

“It works like a scrying stone, then,” said Twilight, and her smile returned. “Oh, but I don’t… oh that’s fascinating. I don’t feel any magic from it, so you must have done it some other way. How does it work?”

Sam blinked. “I… I really don’t know.” Her shivering returned.

Twilight Sparkle finally noticed. “Are you alright? You seem… well, pale. Or something. Maybe that’s normal. Is that normal? Fluttershy, is--”

“It’s you,” Sam said. “Or this… this thing,” she held the talisman up. “The first time I met Zecora it was overwhelming.”

Twilight Sparkle took a step forward. She had been far away before, but with each step, Sam felt the crushing cold weight even heavier. She whined softly, and then Twilight stopped her advanced with a troubled expression.

“It’s almost an allergy,” she muttered to herself. “Don’t move, please. May I scan you with my magic? I’ll be quick, I promise. It should be safe, even if it’s uncomfortable. I think you might be very sick, miss…” Twilight blinked. “I forgot your name,” she said, almost absently.

“Sam,” Samantha said, teeth chattering. “Can you hurry?”

Twilight’s horn began to glow, and then Sam felt like her body had simply ceased to exist. She tried to scream but couldn’t. It only lasted seconds, but those seconds were a nightmare of cold and growing darkness. Could she die like this? Had it been a trick? Of course it had. They had been doing this on purpose all along--

And then suddenly she was warm again. The cold was mostly gone at once, replaced by only the faintest unease. The talisman resting in the valley of her chest was only a slightly cool presence. She stared down at the unicorn in front of her.

“What did you do?” she asked, no longer forcing herself to speak. “I feel… I feel better. Warmer.”

Twilight nodded. “I’m not sure how long this will work. Basically, I’ve put a shield around you. Every creature has magic, Sam. Some have a better control over that magic than others. Your species has some of the worst control mechanisms I’ve ever seen.” She paused, and then her ears flattened against her head. “Sorry, that was probably rude.”

Sam, despite herself, cracked a little smile. “It’s fine.”

“Just the passive thaumic energy in the air was enough to send you into what we call arcane shock. What you’ve been experiencing is what unicorns experience when they draw too much magic and then hurt themselves. I think just by being here, we’ve been making it worse. I’m so sorry, Sam. We never meant to hurt you! I only hope I can find a more permanent solution.”

“But what did you do?”

“I’m not sure how to explain it, because it would take knowing about anima magic, and…” Fluttershy nudged her with a hoof. “Well, I can try. Imagine your spirit is… kind of like a hole. Magic is like water. Water rolls downhill, right? Well, that’s what’s been happening to you. You attract passive magic from everything around you and it gets to be too much if you encounter anything more magical than standard fauna and flora. So, I erected walls around your spirit, so that a lot of that water, er, magic, doesn’t get through and flood you. That’s a terrible picture. Really gotta work on those, Twilight…” She looked away, muttering.

“You didn’t… you didn’t change anything though, right?”

Twilight snapped back. “No! No no no no of course not. That would be evil. That would be a sin against the very spirit of magic! I would never directly touch somepony else’s soul.” She shivered. “That’s just…”

“Okay. I believe you,” Sam said softly. “I’m sorry, but all three of you have come at a bad time, and I think I need your help. There’s a pony on the way with my… friend. My friend found him wounded in the forest and he’s carrying him here. I don’t know anything about ponies, but we have bandages…” She faltered. “I’m really sorry, but I need your help. I don’t know how bad he is.”

Zecora strode forward. “Say no more, Sam of Earth. This healer now will prove her worth.” She turned to her companions. “Twilight, before you now I lay my burden down. Fetch me water. Fluttershy, retrieve the supplies our friend has and bring them to me. Samantha, show her your store and then you must help me find a cleaner place than this.”

They worked fast. Sam brought out her bedroll, honestly not caring that it would be ruined at this point. Twilight cast spells to sterilize the side room they had set up for the injured pony, and Fluttershy had returned with bandages. Twilight brought water in Sam’s canteens.

The proximity alarm went off in her brain, and Sam jumped, startling her new companions.

“Someone’s here,” she said, and she bolted for the central chamber. The others called for her, but she didn’t answer. She needed to make sure it was Malthus and not the Federal deciding he was tired of waiting. Her hand rested on the pistol at her hip.

She realized it was unloaded. She cursed. Before she could do anything about it, Malthus entered the great hall with a dark gray, almost black pony on his shoulder.

“You’d better have a place to put this one!” Malthus shouted as he sprinted through the hall. She led him down the side hall, to where Twilight and the others waited.

The pony that Malthus laid down on her bedroll was a nightmare with flesh. He bled profusely--red blood, she noticed with a growing nausea--and was obviously somewhere between waking and sleep from blood loss. His movements were weak, slow, pathetic. Like a dying insect beneath a boot, he moved more from expectation than from purpose. Sam saw that his legs were ruined, and saw that the hindlegs didn’t move at all. She knew suddenly that whatever had tracked this pony down had broken his back.

Fluttershy gasped and backpedaled, gibbering. Twilight looked away and seemed ready to vomit. Zecora? Zecora stood steely-eyed and ready, calling for water as soon as the injured pony was laid down. She began to work. With the rise and fall of her musical voice, Fluttershy found herself calming and working with her in tandem.

Twilight and the two humans were ejected from the room. Sam slid the talisman off for a moment and glared at Malthus.

“What the hell, man? Were you really gonna leave him?” she asked.

Malthus glared back, shifting his weight so that his hand touched the butt of his rifle as it hung low on the sling. “I do not ask you to approve, miss. I’ll be, how did you say it? Straight with you. Something big is in those woods, something I would rather not meet. I’ve seen its tracks all over the place, a lot of ‘em close to this castle. That poor thing is bleeding profusely, and if it’s the thing that our mutual friend found…” He tapped his temple. “Think, huntress. Use those skills.”

Samantha swallowed. “I haven’t… Well, shit, no I wouldn’t. I’ve been caught up with Zecora. Of course I didn’t see it. You still can’t leave a man behind.”

Malthus raised an eyebrow at that. “Of course,” he said after a moment. “No, ah, man left behind.”

Samantha felt there was something beneath those words that she didn’t like, but Twilight tugged on her pant leg and she slipped her talisman back on. “Sorry, Twilight. I needed to ask my friend here something.”

Twilight seemed a little peeved, but all she did to vent it was give a little huff. “It’s fine. I’m sorry I got mad. I know that privacy is important.” The last bit was almost an inaudible grumble, but then she moved on with a clear, bright voice. “Right! We’ve done all we can do. May I ask your friend what happened or where he found this pony? Does he know his name?”

She shrugged and looked to the Concordat. “Do you know his name, she asks,” Samantha relayed. “Also, I think that I’ve still got the other talisman, so let’s find it for you.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable wearing untested and unknown alien technology,” Malthus said stiffly.

“God, Concordat is whiny,” Sam grumbled. “Do what you want. Also, she’s still got a question.”

“His name? I have no idea. Where I found him? Not far from here. Maybe a hundred yards past the tree line.” He paused. “Can it understand me?”

“She, and no.”

“I think it may have been caught in one of your more violent snares. Did you set many pit traps?”

Sam went cold. “I… what do you mean by that?”

Closing his eyes, Malthus stroked his temples. “Christ. Pitfalls. Spikes at the bottom? Things that people fall into?”

“I put old Apache-style traps around. They aren’t what you’re thinking of, I don’t think. I ain’t a spike trap kind of girl,” Sam said, adding the last bit with a lower voice that creaked. “Ain’t really my speed.”

“Because I have suspicions regarding its rather severe injuries. The Federal agent is out there, right? Unfortunate, but we need to keep it in mind. He has, by your account, already attacked the wildlife. Something big, it seemed like. He may have moved on to the smaller sort of native wildlife and thus been checking your traps when you are gone. Possible?”

Sam chewed on her lip and looked at Twilight. “Yes, he could have. But none of my traps would do that.”

“Sam?” Twilight looked up at her, uncertain. “What are you talking about?”

Samantha stared down at her. Then, she knelt next to the pony who came up to her waist so that they were almost face to face.

“Twilight, I’m going to assume that Zecora told you that humans eat meat, right?”

“She told us you did, yes… I’ve known griffons, though! So it’s not that bad,” she added, and Sam thought for a moment that she was trying to seem brave. She was reminded of herself, a younger Samantha, naturally dark, wiry hair in her face in tightest braids, trying to be brave in the aftermath of firebombing.

“I’m glad you don’t think any worse of me,” Sam said quietly. She looked at Malthus, who rolled his eyes and looked away. She suddenly didn’t care what he thought at all. “Twilight, I hunt with traps. Do you know how those might work?”

“I have an inkling, yes. I’ve never had a need to do such a thing myself, but Equestrian rangers learn to create simple snares when working with monsters on the borders. I’ve studied them before. I understand the concept. I could probably make one, if I had to.”

“Heh, bet you could. You seem like a smart one,” Sam said. “The monster I mentioned earlier is smart, Twilight. Malthus thinks that it might have used my traps to hurt that pony. I don’t know if he’s right or not. I… I don’t know what to say. I didn’t mean to.”

Twilight paled. “Are they that… bad?”

The gravity of the question was not lost on Samantha. She looked into the large, soulful, expressive eyes of this tiny alien and realized the questions beneath the surface one. It was a strange moment, really. In the next room, a pony’s life hung like a pendulum. In this room, two strangers in a strange land, at odds with one another despite their common foe. A single question, and two creatures looking into each others eyes and knowing that each was really asking a very different question.

What are you, really?

“Mine aren’t,” Sam answered. Only a few seconds had passed. “Mine have never done… that,” she added, gesturing towards the wounded Perique. “Mine were always meant to be clean. I didn’t torture anything. I didn’t hurt it beyond what I had to.”

Malthus huffed. “Well and good, and it is good miss, don’t give me that look. But it doesn’t matter what you did. What matters is how things are now. That madman is going to ruin our reputation on this world before we can even get an expedition mounted. Idiot.”

Sam thought about commenting. She wanted to. She wanted to ask if he was even worried about that poor pony. She wanted to snidely ask what his conquistadors needed with a good reputation--though she did not have enough history in her caw to ask such a thing in the most damning way. Had she, she might have asked the middle-aged cartographer if he had known how Columbus’ reputation in the Indies was stellar, until he came back with chains.

Instead, she spoke to Twilight. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I… I didn’t mean to hurt ponies.”

“It’s okay.” Twilight smiled at her weakly. “I believe you. And your friend brought him here, even though the smell might have attracted predators. The Everfree is dangerous, after all.”

“So he wasn’t bullshitting. What sort of things we talkin’?” Samantha asked, suddenly hyperaware of the open doorway.

“Well, cockatrices… manticores… timberwolves…” Twilight looked up and right, her voice taking on a new tone as if she was reciting from a lengthy book’s list. “Hydras, but probably not around here…”

“So myths and monsters,” Sam grumbled. She held out a hand. “I get it, Twilight. Er… Just Twilight is okay, right?”

“Of course!” Twilight smiled at her. She held out a hoof. “I guess technically we’ve not had a chance to meet for real.”

“Yeah…” Sam awkwardly grasped the hoof. Twilight looked puzzled, and then chuckled. “Just like Spike, with those strange fingers. It’s a hoofbump. We do it sort of like this.” She drew her leg back and tapped her front hooves together flat.

Sam turned to Malthus. “Shake my hand,” she said and thrust it forward. A confused Concordat stared at her until her glare compelled him. Once their hands were clasped, the Pioneer turned to Twilight with a grin. “We shake hands. Like that.”

Twilight was, as always, fascinated.

Perhaps they would have continued talking in this way, awkward and frenetic. Perhaps Twilight would have felt a little less nervous around the human who made traps and the human who did not smile, and perhaps the Cartographer would have acclimated to the cold ice in his gut that marked her presence. It was eating at him. The parts of his body that did not actively ache were numb and freezing. His mind was racing.

Twilight had restricted her magic. Consciously, she reigned in even her passive thaumic energy best she could.

The Pioneer might have eventually admitted what sort of creature it was that she called her enemy. Twilight might have understood her plight.

Many things might have happened that did not happen because at that moment something roared.

Twilight froze mid-word, staring up at Sam with a look of blind terror. It was a terror Sam shared and recognized--it was the look of a horse in a stable fire. She’d seen it before. She knew what came next.

She shook Twilight. “What is it?”

There wasn’t an immediate answer, just Twilight stuttering. She let out a frustrated growl and pulled up the Judge, loading it while crouched. Malthus already had his rifle up, and had it trained on the open doors.

“M-manticore! Oh, where’s Fluttershy? Fluttershy! FLUTTERSHY!”

Twilight bolted back towards the injured pony’s room. Samantha had loaded her revolver and had it up.

“Well,” Malthus said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Sam replied without much heat. “Go out with honor.”

“Honor is a bit unprofitable.”

“Fuck, I hate you rich sons of bitches. Money is all you think about,” she growled. “I’d give you three days in the badlands, the whole lot of you East Coasters, and when you died nobody’d mourn you.”

“Charming.”

Another roar. It was closer now. Twilight returned to two armed humans with their guns waiting. She tried to get Sam’s attention. “Sam! Sam, Fluttershy can deal with the Manticore!”

Fluttershy trembled. “I-It sounds so s-scared! Twilight, something is wrong!”

“The hell? If you’re trying to tell me she can fight, then I’m gonna call--”

Twilight shook her head and stomped her hoof. “No! Fluttershy calmed the manticore we ran into before!”

“Twilight! Twilight, something is very wron--” The rest of Fluttershy’s words were drowned out in another road, this one even closer. “It’s not right! I don’t know why it’s doing this. This isn’t how it hunts!”

Sam’s proximity alarms went wild in her head. She ground her teeth together.

“If she’s gonna do something, she’s got about three seconds.”

“Twilight, I don’t think I can--”

“You two need to get back!”

“Shut up and watch, Republic!”

Twilight growled in frustration. Her horn flared with lavender light and the doors glowed in tandem as she slammed them shut. The humans jumepd back, startled and confused. Fluttershy was hid under her own legs, her ears glued to her skull, her eyes squeezed shut.

“It’ll hold for a minute,” Twilight said, her voice tight. She swallowed. “My magic will keep those doors closed.”

“Christ a’mighty,” grumbled Sam, staring.

“What the hell just happened?” Malthus asked. He turned on Sam with wide eyes. “What happened? Did they do that? Did you?”

“She used her…” Sam worked her mouth in futility. “Magic,” she managed. “She calls it magic. I don’t know how it works. Magic is how the talisman translator thing works. Hell, it’s how they work. You know that weird feeling we get? It’s their magic or whatever the hell it is. They can’t help it. They just ooze the stuff.”

Malthus winced and took a step back. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Wonderful. Wonderful. What did it do?”

“She shut the doors. She, Concordat. Mind your manners, now,” she added, and there was something dangerous in her voice. “Push and I might have to mind ‘em for you.”

“This is stupid, Marshall. Stop talking to it and talk to me. How does this power work? Can they all do it? Does it differ by sub-species?”

“Ain’t sure,” Sam lied. She glared. “Look, let’s talk after that thing is dead or gone.”

“Fine. We’ll--”

Once again, an interruption. Something beat against the doors with savage strength. In a moment of surreality, Samantha imagined it wasn’t so much hunting as running, and they were the ones trapping it and not the other way around.

Malthus moved. He laid down between the two thrones, in front of the Pioneer’s camp, and set his gun level with the worn stone. He said nothing. He waited for the charge. What things did he see? Where did his mind go? She did not have time to ponder what he had seen in Mauritania or on the Mason Front, for the door began to buckle, inch by inch. She backed up. Twilight beside her retreated, muttering.

“Twilight, I don’t think this thing is gonna calm down,” Sam said. “Whatever your friend can do, I don’t think it’s gonna work this time. You got any of that fancy magic that can help?”

“Y-you sound like Applejack,” Twilight said, disoriented. “I don’t know much offensive magic… I never had a reason to know it before…”

“Now’s the time,” Sam said.

Another boom. Another.

Sam knew with a start that the Federal watched. The pieces fell into place.

Why take one when you can have them sit and wait in a nice little trap? It made sense, really. The impossibility of luring a creature without it destroying you itself was lost on her. She was too focused on what felt true in the moment. He had planned this. Wounded the pony, lied to her, drawn them together. She just hadn’t seen it, and now Zecora and her friends were going to pay the price.

Suddenly, Sam was furious. “Tell your friend to hide if she can’t fight! Go on! We’ll hold it off.”

Fluttershy fled.

The door burst into stray timber.

A manticore stood in the gap, but it was not like the manticore that Fluttershy had tamed. This manticore was not hurting and lost--oh, it hurt and it was lost, but where Fluttershy had calmed a troubled heart, there was nothing here to calm. This was all fury and terror. Sam did not see the dried blood over its wounds, but perhaps she didn’t need to see. She did not need to see the marks of its battles with the man in black.

Sam has hunted boars, scarred by battle and mutated by radiation and bio-waste. She has seen murder reflected in an inhuman eye as it came for her. The berserker mix of terror and wrath. She sees it again, a dozenfold.

The Federal is perhaps beyond, waiting in the trees. The Manticore is driven on, trapped now between gods whose magical fields drive it mad. It has long lost anything like reason or cleverness. It only wants out. It wants out forever.

Before it could work up a charge, Malthus fired. Once. Twice. It began to move. Three times. Four.

He fired with precision and with steely calm. The Conquistador shot wild and giddy. The Pioneer aimed with her heart. The Cartographer, the Concordat, shot only with his mind. He was a strategist and a planner. His plans had plans. Every shot landed where it was called for, and nowhere else.

The manticore advanced, yet it shuddered under the rifle fire. Yet, wounds that would have made it cry off before did little to deter it now.

Twilight screamed and her horn glowed beside Sam, who was backing up. Her mind froze. The rifle fired. Her own gun was pointed at the things face. She could… she could…

She could see the injured pony, blood weeping from his wounds. She could see the streets of Amarillo on fire. She could hear the report of rifles as they picked off the children in the street. Pacification.

Sam lost it.

She roared and her gun roared with her. .454 Casull is the last argument of kings, and so she drove it home and then ran to the side, all but scooping up a frantic Twilight. The unicorn finally finished whatever spell she was weaving, and Sam barely registered the hot beam of purple thaumic energy that lanced at the Manticore and burned its shoulder.

Yet it continued, unable to conceive of retreat in its frenzy. It did not understand guns even now. But it understood movement, and so it bounded after the Pioneer and the pony that she carried over her shoulder.

“Let me go! Let me down!”

Twilight was squirming, panicking. Sam was barely there. She swung the judge back and fired again at the creature, then took a sharp turn and let Twilight down as she went to ground. The chamber turned. The manticore stumbled as a screaming Twilight blasted its legs and then ran just as Malthus shot again, hitting it in the scruff of the neck.

Sam tried to regain her feet even as she fired again, but underestimated the blowback. She fell back to earth. Her head was full of burning cities and angry boars. She had to fire! She had to fire again! She did so. The Manticore roared, but it was less of a battle cry and something closer to a scream of pain. IT advanced, only for Malthus to place a bullet through it’s right front leg and send it sprawling. Another shot. It tried to rise but it couldn’t.

Sam was on her feet again. Malthus had stopped firing.

She approached, the Judge up. The Manticore groaned. She thought it sounded like weeping and her breath caught.

Twilight approached from the side. “It’s… It’s done,” she said. “I don’t think it can…”

Sam cocked the Judge a final time. “No,” she answered. “It can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong, Twilight, but it isn’t leaving here. It can’t. You should probably look away,” she added, softly.

Twilight stiffened. “Are you… but…”

“It’s sick, I think,” Sam croaked.

“But…”

“Please don’t watch,” Sam said, louder than she had intended. “Just… just turn around.” I don’t want you to see me finish it, she did not add.

Twilight shook slightly and turned. She walked away a bit, not wanting to be nearby. Sam was grateful that the anxious one, the one called Fluttershy, was not here to watch. Or Zecora. She could not even wish the Blackshirt there so she could finish him as well.

Samantha released the tortured manticore.