Wherein our heroes commit fraud, traffic in antiquities, and (likely) get a parking ticket
Moondancer took a long breath as she approached the storefront at the end of the street. Shiny red letters on a dull black awning proclaimed it as Moonlight Raven’s Lair of the Occult. Crowds of tired, chattering ponies flowed around her, voicing their excitement about weekend plans, or their simple joy about the work-week being over.
She lit her horn and glowered at the spidery lettering on the small piece of parchment that had led her here: Come by the shop after closing time. I want to try another seance!
Moondancer looked up again, shaking her head. As she re-folded the note, a passer-by bumped into her, breaking her concentration and causing her to drop it.
“Sorry about that, ma’am,” said the offending pony in a quick but deep Trottingham accent. Moondancer turned and saw a light-brown-coated stallion bend down to retrieve the note. He hoofed it to her with a mad look in his blue eyes. “Now it’s very important that I remember where I parked: left on Sunset, two rights after that, another left at Barns And No Bell…”
Moondancer blinked. “You… what?”
He shook his spiky, dark-brown mane. “Canterlot’s population is huge! I had to leave my assistant behind to keep the Somepony Else’s Problem Field cranked all the way up. Otherwise everypony from Celestia on down would realize that I’m here, and then they’d start to worry.”
She furrowed her brow. “Okay… who are you, and what are you doing here?”
“Well, for simplicity’s sake, you may as well call me what she does: Doc. Now, as for why I’m here: have you by chance seen a really big, large… donkey sort of thing out wandering around? I mean, we're talking huge, and massive… and confusing, if you would've seen him… or, possibly, her.”
“Uh… no?”
He frowned, then reached into his saddlebag and produced a thin metal tube adorned with lights and dials. “Are you certain?” He shook it, then whacked it with his other forehoof. “Great whickering stallions; according to this, we ought to practically be swimming in donkey-essence right about now.”
Moondancer’s muzzle crinkled. “Um, ew.”
“I don’t understand,” he muttered, glaring at the tube and ambling off into the crowd.
Moondancer watched him disappear into the milling throng of ponies, then shook her head and turned back toward Raven's shop.
She stepped through the door. A bell tinkled above as she gazed about the darkened store. Long rows of shelves stretched across the small space, each laden with gnarled books and a variety of other mystic-looking miscellanea. Free-standing candelabras with tall, drippy red candles flickered here and there. A desk with a typewriter and cash register rested against one side wall. Moondancer’s nose itched at the dusty air.
“Raven?” Moondancer called.
She startled at a loud noise from the back of the store. A door swung open slowly, creaking with a fury as it revealed a mysterious figure in an all-encompassing black cloak…
Moondancer rolled her eyes. “Come on, Raven. I know the routine.”
The figure slumped a little, then brought a hoof up and threw back its hood, revealing a white-coated unicorn with a slick black mane and a ferocious pout on her muzzle. “You’re no fun,” she muttered.
Moondancer sighed. “Well, I’m more fun at the library, or planetarium, or really anywhere that I don’t have to sit in a dusty room for an hour and go through the motions of some weird ritual that isn’t going to accomplish anything.”
Raven cocked her head. “Isn’t that pretty much what happens when you drag me to the library or planetarium?”
“Look, you and I both know that there’s no scientific basis for the belief that there are ghosts or other spirits of the undead. Any time we spend here trying to summon them is time we could spend trying to beat the very real dinner rush.”
Raven’s frown deepened. “Look, I know you don’t believe in the spectral embrace of the hereafter like I do, but I’ve changed a couple things since the last seance, and… I’d really like you to be part of this.” She looked at the floor. “It’s not like I have a lot of other ponies I could share this with.”
“All right, all right.” Moondancer shut the door behind her and turned the lock. Her horn lit up as she flipped the sign hanging in the window from “open” to “closed.” Then she turned and set off toward the back of the shop, casting dirty looks at the dusty tomes and creepy artifacts she passed on her way.
The door creaked a little as they pushed through it. Moondancer’s eyes took in a small room with a cluster of short stone pedestals near the middle. Her breath caught as she turned her head from side to side, noticing what looked like small skulls topping each of them.
“Admit it, I nailed the ambiance,” Raven said.
Moondancer sneezed. “Celestia, it’s even dustier back here than in the shop. And are the skulls… real?”
“Raven grinned. “They are. They’re just mice and rats, though. But I’ve heard the artifact demands the real thing.”
“What artifact?”
Raven closed the door behind them, then used her magic to levitate over a head-wide stone disc from its resting place on the floor. It was the pale color of sandstone, and carved with images of pony skulls and other markings that seemed ripped out of a Daring Do adventure.
Moondancer frowned as she tried to make out an inscription along its edge. “Beware… the voice… that leads… you on?”
“The supplier I got it from said not to worry about that; somepony added that after it was made. But they said it was a genuine artifact of power from Tenochtitlan that can really bring back the dead!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Raven rolled her eyes. “You and I both know that there’s more to the world than just what you can stick under a microscope. Things like emotion, beauty, or the nameless whispers of the dead; how can anypony explain them?”
“Look, let’s just get this over with. What do you need me to do?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Get this over with? Moony… why do you always act like what I care about means so much less than what you care about?”
“Because…” Moondancer’s face contorted as she fell into silent contemplation. “Well, it’s just…”
“Just what? I don’t see why it’s fair for me to have to respect what you do, when it’s clearly not a two-way street.”
Moondancer gestured with a hoof. “Look, the things I study… even science in general… it’s empirical. You can test it all you want; anypony can. It works because you can prove it works.”
Raven lifted the artifact a bit higher. “And what’s wrong with putting this to the test? That’s all I’m asking.” She frowned. “And to do that with you, and without you making me feel bad about it.”
Moondancer’s mouth opened, but she froze at the sound of the shop-bell ringing again.
Raven lowered the artifact to the ground. “Wait here; somepony must have missed the ‘closed’ sign. And Moony, please… try getting into it, at least a little. Maybe you could think about an interesting ghost for us to summon?”
Moondancer watched her head back into the shop, then turned and frowned at the artifact.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a familiar-sounding stallion said from the shop. “I’ve just been playing with my screwdriver, and it seems your shop has got a bit of thinness in the veil that separates the world from the realm of dreamless nightmare beyond…”
Hello, Moondancer, a voice said, seemingly both out of nowhere and everywhere at once.
She startled, then frowned, feeling her eyes drawn toward the artifact. “Raven, are you playing tricks on me?”
Of course not, said the voice. Though I was wondering if you would be so kind as to make a small… request?
A loud sneeze sounded from the shop. “I say! This dust in here… this isn’t Dust of Restless Death, is it? Surely nopony would be foalish enough to cover their entire shop in that?”
Moondancer squinted; a headache was starting to come on. She pressed a hoof to her horn. “Come on Raven, I know that must be you.”
Who cares who it is? I just want you to think hard about what you could summon. There are so many spirits on the other side that long to touch the mortal world again…
“This is stupid,” Moondancer said. “You know what, Raven? If you’re gonna be like this, then I’m not even gonna try.” A faint breeze stirred as she lit her horn and took the artifact in her magic. “Oh mystic artifact, please let me summon forth the ghost of… I dunno, how about.. a giant, three-legged, retired, transvestite, autistic, vampire donkey pirate!”
There was a brief sound of sepulchral laughter. Then: As you wish.
The wind of unclear origin swirled faster, kicking-up a dust tornado. Moondancer coughed and sneezed as she backed away, trying to keep her face covered with a forehoof.
“Oh, no, no!” shouted the stallion’s voice from the shop. “Don’t tell me you actually just—”
Suddenly, a voice cried out from nowhere: “YAAAAARR!!!”
A hammer-blow of force lifted Moondancer off her hooves and slammed her into the wall. She yelped with pain and tried to rise again. A sudden sound of masonry exploding all around her was enough reason to throw her forehooves over her head and lie motionless.
Both the wind and the cacophony intensified. Moondancer tried fruitlessly to block-out the sounds of crumbling stone, splintering wood, and twisting metal… followed all too soon by the frightened shrieks of other ponies. The earth shook once, twice, three times—followed by a massive, wooden thunk—as though some nameless horror was taking its first steps within the mortal realm.
Something touched her back. Moondancer turned and screamed.
Doc recoiled. “You know, I carved a warning on that Trans-Psychic Impeller a couple hundred years ago for a reason!” he shouted over the din.
Raven stood behind him, slack-jawed and pointing a forehoof at something. Moondancer furrowed her brow, and turned her head—
The earth shook several more times as what appeared to be a massive, building-high donkey dressed in pirate’s clothes—and with one leg replaced by an almighty tree-trunk—staggered through the wreckage that had once been Moonlight Raven’s Lair of the Occult. It reared back on its hind leg (and peg-leg), once more bellowing: “YARRRR!”
“A ghost!” Raven said from behind her. “Moony… the artifact worked! You really summoned a ghost!”
Moondancer struggled to replay the events of the last few minutes in her head. “No, that can’t be… it’s corporeal!”
As if in response to her assertion, the creature plowed into a nearby building, grinding it down amid the horrible sounds of shattering glass and crushed bricks.
Doc took Moondancer around the withers and helped her up. “Well, of course it's not really a ghost. Your friend here managed to get her hooves on an ancient technological device that resonates with nearby disembodied consciousnesses… and being a vampire, Eugene there doesn’t really fit well into either ‘dead’ or ‘mortal’ anyway, even though his physical body was destroyed…”
Raven and Moondancer exchanged perplexed looks. They both turned back to him and uttered a single word in unison: “Eugene?”
Doc sighed. “Yes, that’s his name. Or… her name. I forget which. Regardless! The Impeller sensed that Eugene’s consciousness was lingering in a state of wanting to find a place where it belonged, and thanks to her—” he gestured at Raven “—laying down enough Dust of Restless Death to provide an equal body mass in her shop to what Eugene had possessed in life, and thanks to you—” he gestured at Moondancer “—succumbing to the Impeller’s trans-psychic suggestions to use it in a state of mental discord, Eugene’s lingering emotional essence has been drawn into the dust, and sort of stuck-together with the mind-state you were carrying when you activated it!”
Moondancer gawped at him. “What?!”
“Moony! He’s saying Eugene’s spirit isn’t at rest, and that it won’t be until you… stop being all mean and snarky toward me!”
“But… I don’t understand. I didn’t think the artifact was real…”
Doc rolled his eyes. “Why, because you think the ancients of Tenochtitlan were a bunch of savages who were incapable of applying scientific principles in their own way? Or because you just don’t take your friend here seriously, as a rule?”
Moondancer blushed and looked at Raven. “No, that… isn’t how I think about you.”
Raven pouted. “Well, it sure seems like you didn’t take me seriously when you tried to think of the most ridiculous ghost we could possibly summon!”
“Look… I’m sorry, okay? I know sometimes I don’t take you seriously.” Moondancer looked down at the carpet of rubble beneath her. “It’s just that.... What you like to do is so… different than what I’m used to. Sometimes I just don’t see how it matters!”
Raven put a hoof on her withers. “Moony, it matters to me. Even if you don’t believe in all the same things I do, I’d hope the fact that I believe could be enough for you, sometimes.”
“I guess it ought to be.” Moondancer smiled. “Look, I know I’m still not great at this friendship thing sometimes, but I care a lot about you...”
“Oh come on, hug!”
The two mares turned quizzical glances at the stallion. He had his metal tube out again, and was pointing it toward the rampaging Eugene.
“You both heard me; hug!”
Raven threw her forelegs around Moondancer. “Moony, you’re my best friend!”
“And… you’re mine,” Moondancer stammered, returning the hug. “I promise that I’ll never snark at you again about the seances, no matter how many you want to hold…”
The sourceless wind began to pick up again. “No, it’s okay, I can tone them down a little…”
Eugene bellowed once again. They looked up at him, watching as the dust swirled more and more aggressively around his form. He reared-up in a vain attempt to smash another building, but his forehooves disassociated into columns of dust as he brought his weight down on them. That sent him tumbling forward, crashing to the ground… where he exploded in a massive wave of dust that swept across the city.
In an instant, the wind died down to nothingness. Doc gave a cheer and bounded into the midst of the huge dust-pile where Eugene had been.
Raven sat down on her haunches and hoofed dust out of her eyes. A rare smile crossed her face. “Isn’t it beautiful? By finding a way to accept each other and our differences, we’ve brought Eugene the peace he needs to let his spirit be at rest…”
Doc waved a hoof. “Ah, well, it’s more like we used my screwdriver in tandem with your heart-to-heart there to construct an emotional resonance wave that could counteract and dissipate the unstable emotional essence that served as a binding factor for Eugene’s disembodied consciousness… but who’s really keeping score?”
Moondancer gasped and surveyed their destroyed surroundings. “Oh, no. The shop!”
Doc smiled. “Well, I’m sure Miss Raven has insurance, right?”
“I can’t file a claim for this, can I? Isn’t this… kind of my fault?”
“Well, if you want to get technical, it was Moondancer who summoned him…”
“Hey!”
“...And it was the Impeller that helped put the right combination of words in her head…”
Raven frowned. “Well, yeah, but I’m the one who brought it here and planned to use it in the first place…”
Doc cleared his throat. “This seems a useful moment to consider that leaving well enough alone might’ve helped us all avoid this situation in the first place.”
Moondancer put a hoof around Raven’s withers. "Don’t worry, sir; we’ll figure this out together, as friends.”
He winked. “Now there’s just one more thing before I ride off into the proverbial sunset: why don’t you give me the Impeller for safekeeping?”
"Please do," Raven said, digging about in the rubble for a moment before levitating it toward him. He reared up, gripped it in his forehooves, and turned to gaze out at the devastated chunk of city.
Good luck finding where you parked, the Impeller spoke into his head.
Doc's eyes settled on a shallow crater where a street sign once had been.
“Well, that’s just great,” he muttered.
