Ponest Dungeon

Chapter 8: Calamitous Cannon

Week 23, Day 4, Early Afternoon

The Everfree was as gloomy as ever, allowing only the smallest amount of sunlight possible to filter through its boughs.

“Okay.” Shining stopped and carefully unloaded Rainbow onto a patch of stilt grass which grew along the side of the old road. “I’ve got that cramp again, I’ll need a few.” He started stretching, trying to get the built-up tension out of his right shoulder. The joint cracked, bringing a grimace to his muzzle.

While he didn’t say anything, Flash grunted as he dropped to his knees and carefully shifted his withers so that Rarity rolled off of him to lay next to Rainbow. “I’m good for a rest.” He shuffled over to another patch of verdant cushion.

“We’re making horrible time.” Twilight levitated a pocket watch in front of her, before stowing it back into her bags. “If only Rainbow and Rarity would recover, we wouldn’t have to carry them.”

Cadance knelt next to the two unconscious mares. “Nothing to be done for it.”

Bon Bon and Lyra approached the opposite edge of the road. “Hay, while everypony else is resting, we’re going off-trail to look for berries, or something—anything really—that isn’t muffintack. We’ll be right back.”

Flash gave Shining a knowing look, then made an obscene pantomime as the two mares headed off into the brush.

Shining rolled his eyes as he tried to massage the needling pain out of his shoulder.

“Storm coming in,” Cadance said warily, pointing up towards the unbroken Everfree canopy.

Twilight raised an eyebrow as she took a seat next to Flash. There was nothing to see except the perpetual gloom. “How can you even tell?”

“It’s a pegasus thing. I can smell it on the wind, feel the pressure change.” She frowned. “It’s… it’s coming this way.” The frown gave way to a look of greater concern. “It’s… actually coming straight for us… fast.”

“Hon.” Flash’s voice was a few pitches higher than normal. His hackles rose. “What in the Tartarus?”

“Get off the road.” Cadance’s voice was a terrified monotone. Her eyes were wide and she shook.

Shining cocked his head. “What—”

“Get off the road!” Cadance moved swiftly, galloping to Rarity and grabbing her with both wings to haul her further into the brush. “This isn’t a natural storm! Something is pushing or dragging it along!”

Snails joined Cadance and helped her to pull Rarity into cover.

Twilight and Shining looked on, dumbfounded, as Flash pulled Rainbow out of sight.

Then, what little light had managed to make it through the treetops dimmed even further, blanketing the area in pitch blackness. A breeze kicked up, gaining steadily in intensity until both Shining’s and Twilight's manes started flapping in it.

Shining watched Twilight light her horn and back away from the road. His own hackles rose and he smelled the sharp tang of ozone tickling his nostrils. Cadance was right, there was something inherently wrong about what was coming their way. Without a second thought, he dove towards Twilight’s hornglow right before she snuffed it out. He couldn’t see her in the pervasive darkness, but he settled himself into a spot that he felt was close to her, while also affording him a view back to the road.

“Shiny.” Twilight’s voice was the one he remembered from when he used to read her scary stories when they were younger. “What—”

“Shhhh,” he shushed her. He could feel himself trembling. What in Equestria was happening? He’d never seen weather move this fast without a contingent of pegasi pushing it along. What could possibly—

First came the thunder, unlike anything he’d ever heard from a storm before. The noise was a continuous staccato, boom after boom after boom. There wasn’t even time for the rumbling after each crash to dissipate before a new explosion occurred.

Then he saw it. Or thought he saw it. Something moved down the pitch-blackness of the Old Road at breakneck speed, bringing the deafening clash and blinding flashes of lighting strikes—actual honest-to-Celestia lightning—with each stride.

Throwing his forehooves over his ears, he was unable to shield his senses from the relentless assault of sound.

And then, whatever it was, stopped right before them—mere hoofsteps away. Echoes of the cacophony and the white-blue crackles of electricity faded into the tenebrous branches of the forest. They left behind a persistent tinnitus in Shining’s ears as well as afterimages burned into his retinas. He could barely see glowing embers where the arcs of lighting had struck.

But what drew his attention was a single pair of blazing eyes which seemed to hover in the middle of the road. They pierced through the gloom, surveying the surrounding brush until they swept over Shining and Twilight’s hiding spot. From the approaching storm clouds, there was a sudden flash of lightning which briefly illuminated both the road and the surrounding woods where everypony had been hiding.

Upon seeing what stood in the road, Shining opened his mouth to shout to the others. But before he could say anything, all other sounds were drowned out in a torrential downpour.

Berry’s blunderbuss fired, removing the left half of a stallion’s face. They were dead before they hit the bloodied floor of the tavern, joining the dozen or so other idiots who had dared invade her home.

“Second damned time this month.” As Berry reloaded, she watched Bulk charge a stallion who was armed with a blunderbuss of his own. The weapon discharged, but Bulk only took a glancing hit to one of his forelegs. When the invader turned to run, Bulk grabbed one of their hind legs and their firearm. The stallion’s terrified expression changed to one of surprised and horrified pain as Bulk spitroasted him with his own gun.

Another stallion entered the bar, and Berry took aim at his midsection. His mortified attention however, was solely on Bulk, causing him to turn his back on her as he drew a dagger with a shaking hoof. Presented with a more satisfying target, Berry lowered her aim and pulled the trigger, blowing the stallion’s… stallionhood off. The shrieking pony fell to the floor and rolled around, wailing. A smirk crossed her muzzle. She was getting better at the crotch shots.

Another quartet of invaders burst through the front door, firing their weapons in Berry’s general direction. Ducking behind the bar, she sat with her back to the room as she reloaded. First, she poured a decent measure of powder down the barrel, followed by a hoofful of pellets, a striking cap for the hammer, and—

Popping back up, Berry winced as something whizzed incredibly close past her head. She screamed in rage and unloaded a full load of ursa-shot into the chest of the mare who’d just shot at her.

Taking refuge again, Berry felt an odd numbing burn in her left ear and reached up to see if she could try to rub some feeling back into it. Just when her hoof failed to make contact where it should have, her eyes caught sight of something that lay on the floor just behind the bar. It was part of an ear, furred in a color that was disturbingly close to the light mulberry of her own coat. It twitched in a small puddle of blood.

“Oh,” Berry shouted out over the frantic sounds of combat that rang throughout the establishment, “I know you bastards did not just shoot my ear off!”

The warm wetness creeping down the side of Berry’s head did little to reinforce the statement.

Bulk dove over the bar, destroying a pile of dishes Berry had just spent the morning cleaning. He crawled over, huddled next to her as best as a massive beast like him could manage, and dropped a bleeding foreleg—that was not his own—to the floor. While he sported several gunshot wounds, the majority of the blood and gore that covered him was definitely not his own.

“Everypony else make it upstairs?” Berry could talk and load at the same time.

Bulk nodded, then put his hooves over his head when a gunshot shattered a nearby bottle of pear brandy.

“Hay!” Berry said with an eye twitch. “That. Was. Imported!” was as suitable a warcry as any when she vaulted the counter and charged a very surprised stallion who was mid-reload. Swinging the butt of her blunderbuss around, she shattered his jaw. When he dropped to the floor whimpering, she stomped a hoof, cracking his skull open.

The only remaining companion of the invader, a tan-furred gunmare, opened her mouth in shock. Any sounds that she would have normally made became a muffled groan as Berry shoved her blunderbuss halfway down the mare’s throat and pulled the trigger.

Stumbling along the smoke-filled streets, Blueblood heard a shout from behind him, and took off galloping for all he was worth towards the abbey. While the crumbling edifice had seen better days, its outer walls were constructed of large stone blocks. He was fairly certain the mortared granite would be proof against the gunfire that had become ubiquitous in town.

There was a nearby firearm report and Blueblood felt pain in his left flank. A quick look confirmed several small wounds leaking blood, likely ursa-shot at long range. He didn’t intend for his pursuers to get any closer.

Blueblood ducked down a side alley, for what seemed to be, and could very well have been, the hundredth time that day. But this time, as he kept to the backsides of some buildings until he was sure he’d lost whoever’d been tailing him, he actually had confidence that he wasn’t just running from shadows—somepony had actually tried to kill him.

“That’s weird consolation, but I should probably take it,” he muttered.

Jumping back out onto one of the main roads, he resumed his trek up the hill to the abbey. It took far less time than he was expecting, and he wasn’t even out of breath when he reached the top. If anything, he felt stronger now.

Stopping for a minute to gauge whether the abbey was the safe-haven he’d assumed it to be, Blueblood felt his ears perk. An odd clattering sound on the cobbles nearby had him looking down to see ursa-shot pellets. As another clacked off of the cobbles, he followed its trajectory back up to his flank, which spat out two more of the lead balls before the wounds there sealed themselves.

What is happening to me?

But there was no time to think. He crested the hill leading up to the abbey, threw open one of its massive oak doors, dove inside, and kicked it shut behind him. He quickly turned, expecting to survey the interior of the building. Instead, he came muzzle to muzzle with Monsignor Mare. He almost jumped out of his skin.

“Prince,” Monsignor Mare said. She held a hoof to his face. “Oh my, you’re covered in dried blood!”

He had no way to explain his grievous head injury, the unclear means by which it healed… to say nothing of what he’d done to Carrot the previous night. “It’s pretty bad out there.” The lie came easily.

Monsignor Mare gestured to a throng of huddled ponies “I’m glad to see you have joined the others who have come to bask in faith during this time of crisis.”

“I don’t have time for your sermons.” Blueblood pushed past her into the main hall. He surveyed the dozens of villagers who cowered within. “Okay everypony, we need to take these pews and use them to barricade the doors. We’re only going to leave one that’s easy to open, in case more survivors show up.”

Survivors? Celestia said. You have high opinions regarding the abilities of these peasants, if you think there will be more survivors.

“Shut up!” Blueblood hissed to himself. “Or, if we live, so help me, I’ll have Ametrine take your form every time we go at it!”

Celestia responded with silence.

“Gallop!” Octavia yelled at Yona and Aloe. “Gallop for your lives! Get to the abbey!”

Yona charged into the barricades just outside the estate’s front gates, sending wooden planks, and the ponies that had been standing next to them, flying through the air. Aloe convulsed as Lotus possessed her, and then followed in Yona’s wake, stabbing the backs, sides, and stomachs of anypony who’d been knocked over by the yak’s passing. Once they were clear of the bivouac, they started up the steeply inclined road that led to the abbey.

“What about sending them to Berry’s?” Applejack slammed the door in the Zecora-thing’s face. She then bucked the latch, deforming it and hopefully buying them some time.

“I’m afraid we may need to trust that Ms. Shine’s considerable tenacity will see her through,” Octavia said, slowly backing away from the door as it rattled from repeated impacts. She had to think of a way to salvage the situation. “Whatever that Zecora-thing is, it just changed our plans. Big Mac, Vinyl: Yona and Aloe just punched a hole through the invaders’ lines. Your job now is to widen it, so we may regroup at the abbey.”

Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted as the estate’s front doors ripped from their hinges and knocked her to the ground.

“Try to stop me with a door?” Zecora slithered out of the building on legs that bent in far more places than they should. “Surely, you can do much more!”

Octavia helped Applejack scramble to her hooves. Panic welled in her chest. She thought of changing, but quickly dismissed the idea; Zecora had just demonstrated that she was capable of sprouting sharp spikes from herself, and probably wouldn’t hesitate to turn into a sea urchin if she tried to eat her…

“Hey there, Zecora!”

Octavia and Zecora both turned to face Vinyl, who had come galloping back with her boombox dialed past eleven.

“Got something for ya!”

Eyes widening in realization, Octavia gave Applejack a hasty shove out of harm’s way before hitting the deck herself. She clapped hooves over her ears as an onslaught of concussive sound waves blasted Zecora back into the manor, causing the entryway to collapse on her.

Applejack was faster to get back to her feet than Octavia was. Blinking out dizziness from her proximity to Vinyl’s blast, it was only after hearing some gunshots from the gate, and panicked shouts from the Apples, that Octavia turned to her longtime friend and smiled. “Good job Vinyl. Now let’s—”

Vinyl suddenly—inexplicably—flew away from her, towards the manor.

She was standing there one second and then—

Time stopped for Octavia. She could see Vinyl’s glasses, still hanging in mid-air, next to a detached hoofgrip for a boombox. Both were just floating there, amidst a peculiar red mist. Her eyes blinked with the swiftness of an advancing glacier. When she tried to shift her gaze, even though it was only by a tiny little bit, she found that it happened with a sticky slowness that reminded her of the honey that she liked with her afternoon tea.

Octavia may have gasped—she couldn’t tell—as she beheld where Vinyl’s mortal remains had landed in a bloody, broken heap.

An incredible, but distant, explosion sounded. Vinyl’s glasses fell to the ground, and her boombox shattered against the wall of the manor, right next to the embedded cannonball that had ended her life.

“VINYL!” Octavia galloped to her stricken friend and fell to her knees. She was vaguely aware of the shouting of the Apple siblings behind her, but she paid them no heed as they became more frantic and distant. Nor did her conscious mind recognize the futility of reaching down into the gooey puddle to cradle Vinyl’s misshapen head.

Octavia turned it to face her—and stared at the jawless, eyeless mass, trying to find something—anything—that resembled her friend.

There would be no saving her.

Octavia carefully lay Vinyl’s head upon the ground, and slowly rose to her hooves. She kept her eyes glued to her fallen friend, even when she heard the clicking of multiple firearms being cocked.

There would be no fond farewells.

Octavia turned to face down two-dozen armed ponies rushing to array themselves just outside of the estate gates, cutting her off from the Apples, who had carved their way through the enemy line, and were fleeing up the hill towards the abbey. As her eyes followed them, she caught sight of a massive cannon in the streets beyond. Fresh smoke rose from its barrel.

It was responsible. Her teeth clenched.

There would be no more of Vinyl’s bad jokes.

Crimson bled down from the top of her field of vision until the myriad colors of the world had been drowned in a bloodsoaked monochrome.

There would be no more music.

She changed.

Her perceptions grew numb as she allowed the shark to take over. Normally, she would have at least tried to control the beast, to direct it, to give it some semblance of purpose, to give it an indication of when it should stop killing.

But not this time.

Octavia rushed through the gates with the speed of a mare possessed. Three of the gunmares were in shreds before they even knew it. Yet their stupefaction did nothing to soothe her predatory madness, nor to slow her inexorable charge. The terror stitched across the muzzles of the next several she batted aside like ninepins did nothing to satiate the pain she felt. The feeling of emptiness in her heart could not be filled, no matter how many of the screaming equines she devoured on her way across the street, towards the contraption that had torn a hole through her soul.

There would be no more life.

The stink of her prey’s desperation all but choked Octavia’s nostrils, only encouraging the beast to continue the onslaught; to destroy. Them. All.

The crew of the cannon panicked as Octavia plowed towards them, her assault having devolved into a horrid feeding frenzy. A dozen ponies were felled; dozens more were unwillingly shoved forward by their fellows, failing utterly to fend off the savage ferocity of her rampage. The massive weapon was turned upon the portion of their forces Octavia was tearing apart. The matchmare lit the fuse and fired through them.

There would be no more—

Applejack couldn’t feel her left foreleg.

She knew that she and Big Mac would die if they went back for Octavia, or would’ve died if they’d stayed. That didn’t stop her from pushing against the powerful grip that Big Mac was using to physically drag her up the hill towards the Abbey, and away from the cannon and its remaining defenders. It didn’t dull the pain in her barrel on that same side, which had come courtesy of panicked gunfire she and her brother had endured as they charged through the enemy bivouac. And it didn’t blunt her feelings of guilt that they shouldn’t have left Octavia to die as she had when the cannon fired through a massive knot of the armed ponies, tearing a ragged hole into the giant shark’s side.

There were so many of the invaders. Even now, more groups of the hostiles were filtering in from the surrounding streets. Perhaps fifty or so had already rallied around their abominable death machine. The Cannon’s supplies were in disarray after Octavia’s assault, but it looked like the rest were readying to push up the abbey hillside after them.

“AJ,” Big Mac panted. “Please… stop fighting me. We… we gotta go now.”

Applejack calmed for a moment, humoring him. He let her go immediately. She staggered on her numb leg before giving up and steadying herself with the three that still worked. Then she took a moment to really look at her brother.

He was out of breath and soaked in sweat. Which was crazy; he could carry five of her without getting tired. But when she looked down, she could see a long trail of crimson trailing behind them, and a puddle beneath him that grew wider by the second.

Reaching over to his robes, Applejack hoofed them aside and gasped. The ragged cavity that had been opened in his chest exposed internals that had been riddled with lead pellets.

“Brother.” Applejack couldn’t think of anything else to say as she looked up at his face.

There were shouts behind them.

“I’m sorry AJ,” he said. Applejack could see that his teeth were stained red with his own blood. “Y’all are gonna have to go on ahead without me.”

“NO!” Applejack screamed. “No! It’s just the two of us! I can’t—”

Big Mac put a hoof to her lips. “Better that there’s only one of us, than none of us.” He turned to face down the hill at their pursuers. “Don’t let the Apples die off, little sis. Get to the abbey. Don’t you dare make me die for nothing.”

“G—Goodbye, Brother.” Applejack hugged Big Mac one last time before turning to limp up the hill. She paused for a moment as the sounds of desperate combat reached her ears. Against her better judgement, she looked back at the hopeless battle Big Mac was waging.

She cursed her hesitation as a gunmare jumped out of a side road to block her ascent.

“Going somewhere?” The mare pulled the hammer back on her blunderbuss. “Stupid backwater—” her ears perked and she spun back to face the way she’d just come from “—huh?”

A large runed sword impacted the mare’s face and buried itself up to the hilt, the blade erupting from the back of her head.

“For Harmony’s sake—”

Applejack felt her eyes go wide as Double Diamond’s team galloped towards her from the alleyway.

“—don't let that stallion die alone!” Double wrapped his teeth around his sword and kicked it free from the now-frozen head. He sheathed the weapon, and wrapped a foreleg under the shoulder of Applejack’s wounded leg.

Double nodded to his team and they saluted him once before moving down the hill to join Big Mac.

Applejack saw something pass between the eyes of the teammates in that salute. Something about their postures and body language screamed—

“Farewell,” Double whispered, through a voice hoarse from more than just frost, as he began hauling Applejack up the hillside.

“What the hay are y’all doing, breakin’ off from your team like this?”

He gave her a slight smirk. “Oh, y’know, just giving a pretty mare a lift. And not letting the Apples die off.”

The words struck Applejack silent. How could he know what Big Mac just said? warred with, Did he just call me pretty?!

Instead, she focused on what she could feel. It was clear enough that Double wasn’t nearly as strong as Big Mac; even without Applejack actively resisting the ascent, the two made poor time struggling towards the Abbey. It didn’t help that his armor was numbingly cold to the touch, and it only seemed to get colder as they made more distance from the fighting ponies.

But Applejack saw a mix of calmness and confidence on Double’s face as they climbed. His eyes, which were the same deep blue as glacier ice, stared forward as he exerted himself. The determination she saw there was something she hadn’t seen in most other ponies. She redoubled her own efforts accordingly.

After what seemed like an eternity, they crested the hill to the plateau upon which the Abbey had been built.

“Hurry!” Blueblood shouted from partway behind a massive set of wooden doors.

As Applejack and Double stumbled past the building’s threshold, she heard the cannon fire again. There was a pause, followed by a second explosion. She hadn’t seen it happen, but she knew in that instant that Big Mac was dead.

Double’s team, minus Double, arrived just as Big Mac dropped to the ground, felled by a blunderbuss to the stomach. Night dove into action, delivering a devastating aerial buck which broke bones and sent the offending gunmare tumbling down the hillside. She sidestepped as Party rolled past her and swung his sickle blade, removing the forelegs of a mare who didn’t dodge fast enough.

Kneeling next to Big Mac, Sugar Belle lit her horn and closed his wounds. “You know, Starlight foresaw this moment.”

Big Mac struggled to look up at her as his flesh slowly knitted together.

“I thought this was going to happen during our last mission, honestly.” Sugar helped Big Mac to his hooves. “But the ‘war machine of terrible implication’ seals the deal.” She pointed down the hill to where the crew was loading the cannon, not with a regular cannonball, but with a fuse bomb. “We all die here. There’s no stopping it.” A thin smile creased her features and wrinkled her eye bandages. “But our efforts here will buy our friends enough time to survive this. I can’t think of a better end.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac picked up his fallen flail in his bloodied teeth. Charging forward, he swung the weapon at a cluster of eager-looking marauders. He raked it across the back of a mare, completely flaying the skin away from her withers to her dock, leaving her rolling on the ground, shrieking in agony.

Remaining behind the others, Sugar Belle struggled to heal the group as they pressed forward into the invaders. She flared her horn almost continuously to seal cuts, heal bruises, and mend cracked bones. But the growing pain in her horn confirmed that she was being pushed well past her limit, unable to keep up as injuries were inflicted on the team faster than she could mend them.

And more of the invaders were coming. One by one, their foes fell; but they now faced a press of four-dozen reinforcements streaming in from side streets. There was no way they could win against those odds. But if they retreated, everypony else would perish. Their only choice was to…

Descend to their deaths.

Sugar Belle reached into the neckline of her robes and pulled out the locket Starlight had given her. It was unremarkable in appearance; just plain reflective silver with a small recessed catch to open it.

“Whatever you do, don’t open it until you are descending to your death.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll know when it happens.”

“What does it do?”

“It will crack open your life force, and use it as fuel to power your magic.”

“Won’t that—”

“It will kill you. Painfully.”

“... But it will buy time for the others?”

“Yes.”

Sugar Belle opened the locket, and gasped as a silver scarab jumped out of it and immediately tore into her chest. She frantically pawed her hoof at where it began to burrow, but it was already beneath her skin. A freezing pain lanced deep inside of her, traveling towards her heart. Then there was a sudden, horrible pressure; it felt like she was one of Party’s balloons, squeezed to bursting. As the strain increased, reaching unbearable levels, she let out a moan of agony.

And then she popped.

She gasped as a sudden surge of energy flowed up from her chest. Her vital essence ignited her eyes in their sockets, burning through the thick bandages that covered them. Screaming in torment, Sugar Belle unleashed her empowered magics upon the team, and they rose to their hooves, completely ignoring the effects of their injuries. She wailed behind them, driving the group forward despite their accrual of minor, major, and even mortal wounds. She knew they would stand until she had expended every last piece of herself.

Together, Big Mac, Party Favor, and Night Glider became death incarnate descending upon the thick mass of attackers flowing in to reinforce their hold on the bivouac in front of the manor. The numerically superior invaders broke swiftly under the brutal onslaught of the seemingly invincible team, and were routed back towards the cannon. Many were so desperate to flee the group’s fury that several were trampled to death by their own allies.

When the four ponies reached the base of the hillside, Sugar Belle collapsed to the ground, smoke pouring from her charred, empty eye sockets, and from her blackened horn.

As Sugar Belle felt the last of herself fading away, she heard somepony shakily approach and kneel next to her: “Big… Mac,” she wheezed.

A pair of hooves grabbed one of hers and lifted it lightly into the air.

“Starlight said something... about you and me.” Sugar coughed dryly. “In another time, another… place.”

The hooves squeezed her hoof between them.

“She said we were… happy there.” Sugar coughed again, this time wet, and weaker. “Maybe… we’ll see each other,” she rasped. “In… another time… another—” Her next breath almost didn’t come. And the one after that—

The hooves gripping her tightened as her own grasp failed.

Night Glider gently placed Sugar Belle’s lifeless hoof onto the ground. She glanced over to Big Mac and winced when pain radiated up her neck from her shattered left wing. There was no point in telling him. There hadn’t been time, so she let Sugar Belle die thinking the message had been received. Letting her pass peacefully, it was the least she could do.

Big Mac was standing, but looked even worse than when they’d first come across him. In addition to several bone-deep gashes that had exposed or removed entire organs, he had a hoof-sized hole, made by a point-blank blunderbuss shot, that went clean through his gut and out the other side. His left foreleg had also been severed at the knee.

Party Favor hadn’t fared much better. Part of his mane was missing from the back of his neck. It was hanging off of a cut flap of loose skin that had peeled down to his throat. Several of his vertebrae were notched and exposed, with the nerves likely severed. He also sported his own variety of deep gashes, gouges, and abrasions.

Sugar Belle had kept them alive, somehow. How she’d done it was a mystery to Night. The charred eye sockets were testament to whatever crazy unicorn juju she’d unleashed. It was no wonder the invaders broke, with Sugar screaming like a banshee, and the rest of them ignoring obviously fatal injuries.

But now Sugar was dead, and her magic was fading. And since it had been all that was holding them together, they were dying.

Night looked down at her own mortal wound. It had come from a stallion who had hilted his sword into her chest, only for her to crush his trachea with a punch and then pull the blade out and behead him. The hole went right through her heart and out her back. It was finally starting to bleed.

It wouldn’t be long now.

Especially not with the cannon lining up a shot at them.

“At least—” Party Favor coughed blood into his hoof “—at least we get to go out… with a bang.” Half of his face went completely slack, and he collapsed to his knees.

“Eeyup.” Big Mac’s emerald eyes sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. “At least AJ and Double Diamond are safe.”

The two looked over to Night Glider.

“Thanks for putting me on the spot, you two.” She tried to laugh, but only coughed up blood.

The cannon fired.

The bomb embedded itself in the roadway between the trio, its fuse almost completely burned.

Night Glider closed her eyes. “At least we die together.”

The bomb exploded.

As Applejack and Double Diamond cleared the threshold, Blueblood called for a group of ponies to stack pews in front of the last door. Nopony else looked to be heading for the abbey; at least not anypony who wouldn’t try to kill them. He turned and took stock of everypony who was gathered in the abbey: About four dozen civilians, who were either barricading entrances or huddling in fear; Yona and Aloe, who were helping reinforce the barricades; Monsignor Mare, who was sermonizing a plethora of paralyzed ponies; and the last two to reach the abbey’s safety, who were sitting on their haunches and panting with exertion.

Blueblood approached the pair. Applejack stared at the floor, but her brows were furrowed in what must have been an admixture of grief, pain, and rage. Double Diamond sat next to her, and had placed a hoof upon her withers in a conciliatory manner. He’d also removed his helmet, which was rare. He looked rather distraught.

“I’m sorry for your losses.” Blueblood hoped he was managing a sufficiently apologetic tone to cover his building panic. “I’d ask you this later if I could, but we don’t have time: Yona told me that you saw… Zecora.” Even with his best efforts, he wasn’t sure that he was keeping his demeanor calm.

“She killed Solmare.” Applejack’s voice shook. “Tried to kill us too. And she sounded crazy, rhyming about who she was gonna kill next.”

Double started at that particular piece of news, a shocked expression dominating his face.

“Dammit,” Blueblood said, sitting on his haunches and grinding his hooves into his temples. “Who the Tartarus let them out? They weren’t ready yet!”

“Let what out?” Applejack asked.

“The fleshforms,” Blueblood said, continuing to massage his scalp. “Ametrine was doing so well that I figured a few more couldn’t hurt—”

“More things like her? How many?” Applejack’s question was accentuated by her wide eyes and lowered ears.

“Five,” Blueblood said. “Just as Ametrine came to us in Amethyst’s form, the ones I was keeping came as Zecora, and Moondancer’s team.”

“But… Starlight insisted that wouldn’t be an issue,” Double said, shaking his head. “She told us that the ‘five without form’ would be all bark and no bite.”

Blueblood waved his hoof and sneered. “Forgive me if I don’t subscribe to Stalight’s prognostications.”

Double looked to the ground, his eyes moving back and forth ever so slightly, as if in deep thought. “She downplayed their ferocity. Not to sing her praises or anything, especially not in this situation, but all of her other predictions have unfolded exactly as she described them to us. Solmare’s demise… If I’d known they were this dangerous, I’d have mentioned this sooner, or even acted to stop it, pact or no. She… she said that she’s the one who would let them out.”

One of Blueblood’s eyes developed a serious twitch. “What did you just say?”

Double rubbed at his forehead with one hoof. “Starlight said that she would release your abominations—damn, how did she put it?—something about letting you see just how hot the fire was that you were playing with… was—something like that; she loved her damn riddles. But… she made it sound like they’d be an irritation, not a lethal threat.”

“Wait a minute,” Blueblood said in a threatening, low tone. “Have you talked to Starlight since we lost track of her?”

“No. The last time we saw her was right before our last mission. But only one of the riddles she told us remains, something about her bringing a ‘sour puss’ to town.”

“Sour Puss?” Blueblood made a face as if he’d actually eaten something sour. “That’s the name of another one of Neighsay’s crotch-spawns.” He waved a hoof. “I think it’s safe to assume these are his mercenaries, then. Despite the carnage they’ve wrought, we’ve killed plenty of Neighsay’s overachieving wet dreams. Him and his forces are just ponies. They can be felled, they can be beaten.”

Pacing, Blueblood considered the implications of Starlight’s betrayal. “I am far more worried about the fleshforms. I can’t believe Starlight released them, on purpose! She knows how dangerous they are… Harmony above, is she daft?!” Blueblood felt the blood drain from his face. “They didn’t like me very much when I last spent time with them…”

“They didn’t like you?” Applejack looked particularly worried. “How angry are we talkin’ here?”

“They tried to break out of my sarcophagus—”

“Sarcophagus?!”

“—and shred me like confetti.”

Double looked fairly worried as well. “Well… she said that they wouldn’t kill anypony… but they did kill Solmare.” Blueblood saw the doubt in Double’s eyes; if he was lying, Blueblood couldn’t tell. Apparently, being left out of the loop on a town invasion, and a quintet of lethal, murderous monsters, had shaken his faith in Starlight.

“She planned all of this.” Blueblood could feel the blood rushing back to his face. “She had to have prepared everything to happen this way. This assault came while our two most experienced teams were in the field, and while those of us who were actually here were unprepared and separated. The lives of every dead villager and company member are on her hooves. Assuming we get out of here in one piece, I can’t let her live. Not after this.”

Double was back to looking at the floor in contemplation. “We should probably focus on surviving this battle first, then worry about things like… her execution… later.”

Applejack looked to the barricaded door. “We sure as sugar can’t stay locked up in here forever.”

“We don’t have the numbers to fight our way out of the abbey.” Double looked around the room. “We have four fighting ponies, five if we count you, Prince. There are still a few dozen enemy combatants out there. We would be overwhelmed, and the civilians would be slaughtered.”

“You’re both right.” Blueblood paced. “We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place here. If we leave now, we’re dead; if we stay until they blow in the walls with that damned cannon of theirs, we’re dead.” He ground a hoof into his forehead.

“Maybe Tempest has an idea,” Applejack suggested.

“Rut me sideways,” Blueblood said. “I completely forgot…” He reached out with his senses, trying to raise Tempest’s group with his corrupted viewer-hoof. Furrowing his brow in confusion, he shook his head to clear it. “I… I can’t see or hear them at all. I’ve been too damn busy running for my life to notice, but—” he closed his eyes for a few moments before reopening them “—I don’t have any connection at all to Tempest’s group.”

“Y’all saying we can’t even call for backup?” Applejack asked.

Pacing again, Blueblood kept his brow furrowed. “Where is Ametrine? I bet she’d know why I can’t reach them.”

The smoke was visible from well outside of Ponyville. It was what drew Ametrine out of her hasty redoubt in the Everfree and back into town. She picked her way through the streets slowly, eyeing several blazing buildings that baked the surrounding streets and belched out black smoke. If she’d needed to breathe, she was sure that the soot, which plumed up into the air and drifted along at ground level, would have given her a coughing fit.

But the loss of the buildings was a mere curiosity. What truly struck her were the bodies.

They were strewn upon the ground, unmoving. Many had looks of pain or horror permanently etched into their features. She didn’t recognize them, didn’t know their names… they were anonymous, lifeless, lacerated chunks of flesh. Yet seeing them—and indeed, so many of them—arrayed before her filled Ametrine with a feeling she couldn’t quite place. All she knew was that it hurt her stomach and made her want to vomit.

In the midst of her disquietude, she failed to notice a group of three hooded ponies, one mare and two stallions—one of whom was enormous—approaching her with daggers and pistols drawn. She looked up with a start as the mare asked: “Are you… Ametrine?”

Taking in the full sight of the shifty group of mercenaries, Ametrine nodded.

“My name is Dagger,” the mare said. She pointed to the smaller stallion, and then the larger one. “This is Two Bit, and this is Dredger. Starlight sent us to retrieve you and to bring you to her and Lord Sour Puss.”

Ametrine fell in alongside them. They passed more bodies as they moved further into town, but not more than two-dozen total. Still… actually seeing them, thinking of their lives being snuffed out for the sake of her revenge… the feeling ate at Ametrine from inside.

On the approach to the abbey, as they passed a crude fortification in front of the manor, she noticed a considerably larger number of dead, all of which were in various stages of dismemberment. Of the intact corpses, most were dressed in the same livery as her escorts. Ametrine paused when she saw a dozen hooded ponies standing around the massive heap of Octavia’s shark form. Next to her was a enormous cannon, likely what caused the giant hole in her side. One of the hooded ponies, a stallion, was holding his forehooves wide and joking about catching something “this big.”

It was bizarre, staring into Octavia’s massive black eyes. They were lifeless, like a doll’s eyes, devoid of any semblance of sapience. The feeling in her gut turned into a cold, icy spike. She felt heat in her face, and wanted to—

“Right up here,” Dagger said, dragging Ametrine’s attention away from the scene. Following along seemed preferable to watching the mercenaries dance on top of Octavia.

At the base of the hill, she saw a blackened section of road being observed—if such an action could be attributed to a blind mare—by Starlight, and a stallion who she assumed must be Sour Puss.

Ametrine watched with disgust as the flippant, rail-thin pony placed a forehoof down, stepping on the remains of Big Mac. To her, it was like a perversion of the pose that some intrepid explorer might make, with a hoof laid on top of the highest point of a mountain peak that they had just climbed.

“Starlight,” Ametrine said, through teeth she hadn’t realized she’d clenched.

“Ametrine,” Starlight replied, in a frustratingly cheery manner.

“Who the Tartarus is this?” demanded Sour.

“I told you about her,” Starlight said. “This little pony was instrumental in helping to make sure your invasion went off without a hitch.”

I was?

“She was?” Sour said the words just as the question popped into Ametrine’s head.

“Of course,” Starlight said. “She has wanted revenge on the Prince for almost as long as your family, and was more than willing to be a party to this. She’s also spent months building up a false sense of camaraderie and intimacy between herself and Blueblood.”

Yes, completely false, Ametrine told herself.

“Her efforts lulled him into feeling comfortable and secure,” Starlight continued. “I’d go so far as to say he genuinely cares about her now. This ultimate act of betrayal will hurt him all the deeper if he knows that she was responsible.”

Ametrine put a hoof to her mouth. She tried to disguise it as covering a laugh, but in actuality it was to keep her from retching, not that she had a stomach. If anypony noticed, Ametrine couldn’t tell. Having been killed by a knife before, she knew the feeling of cold steel entering her body. It felt the same now, only she had been stabbed in her abdomen instead of her head.

Betrayal. Starlight said that this was an act of betrayal.

The knife in Ametrine’s guts twisted.

“Excellent,” Sour said. “I don’t just want him dead; I want him broken.”

“That is, indeed, an excellent plan.” The Zecora-thing emerged from a roiling cloud of soot. She was walking with a slightly unnatural gait, as if her bones were made out of rubber. “One we should use, as soon as we can.”

Her innards lurched again as the four other fleshforms—still in the guise of Moondancer and her team—slithered in Zecora’s wake. Their motions could barely be considered pony-like at all.

Ametrine shivered. Of course she knew Blue had kept them. She had hoped that they’d injure him at some point, or do something else that would make him get rid of them. She’d even considered burning them in their stone sarcophagus. Yet she’d always been stayed by some small part of her that wished for him to succeed. If he had, then she would have had… a true sibling. Somepony who knew what she was going through; somepony who would actually care.

A single look at her actual siblings, with their incomplete physiology and eyes full of hate, told her that they cared little for the betterment of themselves, or of any possible connection to her. No, the blind rage she saw there was a hideous reflection of what had driven her for so long: taking revenge on their keeper. Only for them, it was all that existed.

They disgusted her. Despite all of her wants for a true sibling, these… things were not that for her, and they never could be.

“Why do they move like that?” Sour asked.

“Oh—” Starlight’s voice was coy “—they’re the fleshforms I told you about.”

“The abominations?!” Sour’s face contorted with disgust. “I thought I told you that I wanted nothing to do with them!”

“I know.” Starlight smiled the fake smile that Ametrine had begun to easily recognize. “But I needed something to drive the company members out of the manor. And since there’s no way in Tartarus you’re getting that cannon up the hill to the abbey with the ponies you have left, I figured we’d need some extra marepower, to let ourselves in.”

“What are you talking about?” Sour gestured down the hill with one foreleg. “The cannon has wheels and will easily—”

The cannon crashed to the ground, one of the axles having spontaneously snapped in twain.

“Son of a—” Sour galloped back down to the cannon and started shrieking in displeasure at the crew, who had been trying to push the massive contraption when it collapsed.

“Why are you using them?”Ametrine hissed the question at Starlight. “You have to know better, even more so than me!”

“But this is what you wanted.” Starlight tilted her head, as if in mock curiosity. “They want revenge on Blueblood for their imprisonment. I thought you longed for the same thing? He broke his promise to fulfill your wishes, risked you returning… there. Then he subsequently imprisoned you. And to top it all off, you said he’s been treating you like an object. You told me that you wanted revenge on Blueblood more than anything.”

“I… do.” Do I? Ametrine could swear that Starlight was eyeing her up, despite the obvious lack of eyes. If she knew everything, then Starlight had to know what she was thinking, but that also meant— “But you just said that Blue… actually cares about me?”

“I did,” Starlight said. “And he does. You've heard the others speak of his past promiscuity, right? You didn’t think he just randomly decided to go from an endless string of one-night stands to monogamy, did you? But you have to ask yourself: can you truly forgive him for what he’s done to you?”

Ametrine’s mind raced. Can I? “I—”

“Apparently, we will not be able to do this quickly.” Sour walked over from the crippled cannon. “It will take some time to consolidate our forces to seize the abbey.” He looked over to the fleshforms. “We’ll use your blasted abominations to break in, but only if there is no other way. I don’t want to spend any more time around your monsters than I have to.”

“Don’t worry,” Starlight said. “You won’t be around them much longer.”