The Lulamoon Files

The Lulamoon Files

Chapter Sixteen: Trust Bond

Written by TheCrimsonDM

It was a chaos of color all around us. Every second that went by cracks grew in the windows, and pieces of the roof were being torn off. My heart was racing. I didn’t want to die like this. Applejack was trying to reload her revolver, for whatever good it would do her. I was staring wide eyed up at the ceiling. The sky was blocked out by the chromatic parasprites.

I was going to die here. We were going to die here. This whole time I’d tried to keep Applejack out of this fight, to keep her safe. Here she was, still in the fight, only because of me she was clueless, trapped, and helpless here. It was too late to do anything about it now, too late for my realization to effect anything. If only I’d told her the truth from the beginning, she would have stayed out of this fight or at least she’d be prepared to deal with the consequences. Now she was going to pay for all my lies.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

Applejack dropped her gun and looked back at me. “What?”

“I’m sorry. I should have just told you the truth.”

She blinked at me. “Little late fer apologies now, ain’t it?”

I closed my eyes. “Yeah… If… if there’s anything you want to know. Before they eat us, just ask.”

“Will you tell me everything?”

I nodded. “Everything.”

“Good, now work up some magicy voodoo an’ save our hides.”

I blinked at her. “I can’t? I’m not that strong? Even my shield would just be eaten in s-“

“Music! Trixie! I’ve seen you make music with that darned horn of yer’s when yer good an’ drunk before.”

I blinked. It was true. She was right. I could do that. I looked up, and regretted it. Metal screamed in futile protest as the roof was ripped off entirely and lifted into the sky. My horn lit up and surrounded us with an orchard glow. Musical notes flew off the tip of my horn as a trumpet began playing. I couldn’t play anything but a guitar by hoof, but with my horn I could recall and play all of my favorite melodies so long as I had them memorized, and luckily for us, I did.

I wasn’t sure if it would work at first, but when I saw the parasprites begin dancing I was sure that Applejack had just saved both of our skins. It took her a moment to realize that we needed to move. She unlocked the car door, pulled me out and unlocked my hoofcuffs for me. I grabbed my hat. Together we walked away as the parasprites danced away into the night. We left the half frozen and torn up car behind. The roof came crashing down into the backseat only after we were down the street.

Eventually I felt that it was safe enough for me to stop playing music and did so. Of course the moment I did that Applejack grabbed me and forced me against a brick wall. There was something burning in her eyes, something between anger and confusion.

“My partner, my cousin is dead. Explain.”

“I told her not to go out. I begged. Applejack, I am so sorry, but she’s the one who opened the door. She could have gotten all three of us killed with that stunt.”

“She’s dead!”

“I know… and I’m sorry.”

Applejack let go and sat down. She looked at the cement. “If my pa didn’t die during the prohibition Ah’d go get drunk right about now.”

I nodded. “We still have a bad guy to catch. You in or am I going to have to stop him all alone?”

She shook herself and then met my eyes with a steely gaze. “First Ah have questions and Ah expect answers.”

“I made you a promise.” I regretted the promise now, but never let it be said that Trixie breaks her word.

“How is that guy controlling them parasprites?”

“My guess is with a spell. Most of his monsters are controlled via collars, he even used one on one of Rider’s thugs which breaks the forth law of magic.”

“The forth what of what now?”

“Unicorns aren’t just allowed to use magic whenever and however we please. There are seven laws. Ranging from thou shalt not kill with magic, to thou shalt not speak with the Outsiders.”

“Uh, what’s an outsider?”

“An alien being of terrible power that could destroy our minds by simply being near us. Their rare, but I’ve heard of a few cases of them being seen by unicorns. You know, shortly before going insane.”

“Now Ah’m a police officer, and Ah’ve never heard of these laws of magic. Why?”

“Because we have wardens who go around and kill any unicorns that break the laws of magic. They're our police force. And yes they are sanctioned by our government. But like I said before,” I let out a sigh, “we live in two different worlds.”

“So why isn’t a warden dealing with this warlock?”

“Oh they sent one to do the job, my… parole officer.” I shivered at the thought of encountering Twilight again. “She decided to blame me instead of looking for any other warlocks.”

“You got a parole officer? What in tarnation did you do?”

I looked down at the ground. “Let’s move and talk. We need a car, and a shipping ledger.”

“We got both of those at the station, it’s just a few blocks away.” Applejack got up and we began walking. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Can I even go into the police station? I’m wanted aren’t I?”

“Ah never called that in, only me and… only I know about that. And Ah was in the wrong.”

We walked in silence for a few seconds. The last thing I wanted to do was retell my darkest moment to my friend, but I knew that if I didn’t she’d never forget what I’d said and it would eat her up. I didn’t want to lose her trust a second time. “I was a filly, about thirteen. Me and my friend lived in this little village out in the middle of nowhere. Hoofington.”

Applejack nearly tripped. “Wasn’t that place wiped out by the Great War? Griffons right?”

“No, that was a lie the government made up to hide the truth.” I shivered, but not from the cold. “Me and my friend, Starlight, we had found this old trunk in an abandoned house one day. It had all this cool magic stuff in it, we grew up in an earth pony village, we barely knew how to use telekinesis let alone the fact that there were laws about magic. So we got most of our learning from those books.” I left out the fact that I also found Spike’s skull in there.

“So what was wrong with some learning?”

“It was dark magic. Not all of it, but most of it was. Eventually some bullies beat me up. Starlight wanted revenge so we looked though our books and saw this picture of a bear, a star covered bear that was supposed to be able to scare anypony we wanted too. Of course it was an Outsider, a star being. We summoned it not knowing what it really was. We thought it was maybe the size of a small house. It was as large as a skyscraper.”

Applejack gasped.

“The thing wiped out our village. Killed almost everypony there. We didn’t know how to stop a monster like that. Nopony knew how to stop a monster like that. I wasn’t the one to summon it, Starlight was. She was always better at magic than me. A lot better. So when we realized that it couldn’t be stopped we knew we had to make a decision. I… I set the house on fire with her still in it. She stayed in the top part of the house with all the books. I…”

I turned away and blinked the tears out of my eyes. No need to show weakness to Applejack. “Anyway, her crime was summoning an Outsider. Mine was killing. Yet for some reason the wardens took pitty on me and decided to let me have a second chance. I guess it’s because I stopped the Outsider before it could get to a city? I don’t know, I don’t care. Every wizard hates me because of it, but that doesn’t bother me. I stopped the Ursa Major of Hoofington! So that makes me the greatest, the most powerful, and the most brilliant of all wizards.”

There was silence for a few minutes. Finally when Applejack spoke she sounded soft. “Trixie, Ah’m sorry. Ah shouldn’t have asked, even if you did promise to tell me everything. That was… personal.”

“Yeah well, so was that thing with your dad. I guess we’re just equal now.”

To my surprise Applejack actually smiled at me. “Yeah, guess so. Now let’s find us a ship.”

***

It was only twenty minutes later that we had found the ship. The Sun’s Betrayal was sitting pretty at the harbor near the warehouse that I had first found the monsters hidden in. It was a massive cargo ship that could hold more monsters than I could count. Applejack and me both got into her personal car, a little olive green car that looked much better than my own, and that was before my car was halfway eaten by parasprites.

Once we got in the vehicle rumbled to life and we began down the road I couldn’t help but to worry about our upcoming mission. Infiltrating the ship was one thing, but taking on a full blown wizard that had already shown his skill in ice magic as well as having a personal army of parasprites. This was the second most suicidal adventure I’d ever been on, and I did not look forward to it.

Sure the trust between me and Applejack was back, at least enough that she was willing to work with me to stop Caramel’s killer. Not to mention that when we stopped the warlock I’d finally be freed of Twilight’s wraith. I also couldn’t help but to smile at the notion that I’d be able to pay my rent.

The car ride was for the most part silent. I only had one last cola left. On our way to the docks we passed by an alleyway filled with barrels that contained fires as a group of donkeys and ponies both huddled around it. Too often it was that ponies were left homeless, too often it was that they had to huddle together in back alleys to survive. I distinctly remember that there was a Hoovesvile in Crystal Park filled with the poor. A poor little shanty town made of tents and temporary structures. Luckily I didn’t drag a manticore into their homes earlier.

The problems this city faced, neigh that this country faced were larger than I could handle. I could at least try and keep the poor from being abused by the monsters, the magical, and the immortal. My first step was to find this warlock and to kick his perfect teeth in.

When we did arrive at the dock it was less quiet than I’d hoped. There were groups of ponies using massive cranes to lift closed metal containers onto the ship. We got out and walked toward the ship only to be stopped by a couple of stallions. Their trench coats had rips and tears in them, their hats were beat up and dirty.

“Hold on,” one of the stallions said. “This is private property. You can’t just walk right in here.”

I checked my watch. Ten minutes to midnight, but from the looks of this it would take at least twenty for the workers to get done with the crates. Applejack pulled her badge out and nearly smacked the stallion with it.

“O-officer, I’m sorry,” the stallion said as he backed away.

I leaned in and whispered into Applejack’s ear. “This is bad. It looks like he’s hired out a bunch of ponies.”

Applejack nodded. “What’s yer name?”

The stallion straightened up. “Carrot Duke. Most just call me Duke.”

“Alright Duke, tell me what’s going on here?” She asked.

“We’ve been hired to lift the crates up and put them onto the ship. Got paid in advance too we did.”

“How much?”

“Three whole dollars.”

Applejack nodded. “Well that’s good to hear, but we have reason to suspect that your boss is transporting illegal cargo. Tell your fellow workers that the job’s done and to get out of here before the rest of the force shows up and starts arresting anypony connected to this shipment.”

The stallion’s eyes widened, but he turned around and quickly gathered his fellow ponies. There were ten workers in all, and within five minutes they were leaving. I wanted to thank Applejack but there really wasn’t time. The anchor was being pulled up and the ropes had been untied. Even with a few containers left behind the ship was preparing to leave.

We galloped to the ship. The Ramp was dropped before we even got to it. I wanted to scream. From up above I saw Blueblood looking down on us. I couldn’t be certain but I thought he looked enraged. Still he turned and left, thinking himself victorious. What he didn’t realize was that I was still a wizard and though my powers may have been limited in strength there were a few things I could do. One such thing involved telekinesis.

“Applejack, I’m going to throw you onto the ship. Wait for me, give me ten minutes, tops, if I don’t show up try and find the warlock. Shoot him without question, warning, and without him ever knowing it happened. Otherwise he will probably just kill you.”

“That’s murder, Lulamoon. Ah can’t jus-“

“No, Applejack. That’s the law. Warlocks get killed without question.”

“It’s not mah law.”

I grabbed her in my telekinesis and was prepared to throw her when I saw her eyes go wide. Her leg lashed out and slammed across my side with more than enough force to knock me over. I landed on my side, and where I was just a second ago a sword came swinging down. It hit the concrete and sent sparks flying.

Twilight Sparkle was here.