Ponest Dungeon

by Moosetasm

Rating: mature
Tags: Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mystery, Other, Adventure, Prince Blueblood, Tempest Shadow, My Little Pony: The Movie, Violence, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Dark, Death, Alternate Universe, Main 6
Length: 179810

Celestia is missing. Without her, four unicorns' magic must be sacrificed each day to raise and lower the sun and moon. Her only heir travels to Ponyville and the Everfree to mount a rescue expedition into the horrifying depths—of the Ponest Dungeon.

Celestia is missing. Without her, four unicorns' magic must be permanently sacrificed each day to raise and lower the sun and moon, lest the lands of Equestria freeze and the ponies' crops wither.

In Canterlot, Prince Blueblood—Celestia's only living heir—receives a letter of pernicious portent. He begrudgingly travels to Ponyville in hopes of mounting a rescue operation for the missing monarch. He begins hiring mercenaries to scout ruins within the Everfree Forest, where—soon—everypony slowly begins to succumb to the horrors—of the Ponest Dungeon.

Image used with artist's permission.

Special thanks to my editors:
MissytheAngle - Without whom Arc 1 would still be in editing pass 2 limbo.
CoffeeMinion - For his editing prowess, moral support, and for putting up with me for so long; it's been years now for this project.

Featured! Thank you so much everypony!
2020: November 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, & 20
2023: November 29 & 30, December 1 & 2

Published 2019-07-07 17:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-12-02 21:59:10 UTC

A Mysterious Missive

PONEST DUNGEON

Arc 1: The Recombinant Rictus

Chapter 1: A Mysterious Missive

Week 0, Day 2, Morning—?

Blueblood slammed his hooves down, cracking the surface of the antique wooden table that had hosted countless councils before—but none with the gravity of the gathering at hoof. “Chancellor Neighsay, would you truly drag us all down this mad path of inaction? You'd insist on following peacetime protocol, demanding that we waste time forming committees and endlessly debating semantics, when there is a clear and present crisis at hoof?”

The Chancellor met his gaze with an imperious nod. “Aye. It would be rash to follow the course of action you've suggested without all due analysis.”

“Analysis.” Blueblood pressed a hoof to his forehead in response to a sudden disbelief-induced headache. “The clocks have struck ten already, and yet the only illumination in this kingdom is from that accursed comet!” His hoof gestured out the window towards the baleful green glow, which seemed almost alive in the night sky. Its owner had appeared in the early hours; the arrival was as mysterious as it was foreboding. “We have had neither contact directly from Celestia, nor from anypony who can confirm her status. If she is indisposed, your plan will take precious time we do not have; whereas my plan will have the sun up within the hour. We can put your committees together after the immediate crisis—”

“At what cost, Prince?” Neighsay interjected. “Raising the Sun via Starswirl’s ancient method would permanently drain four unicorns of their magic!”

“Yes, it would,” Blueblood said, his tone even. “But if we wait a week for your committees to form, and longer for them to accomplish anything, our crops will die, the land will freeze—”

“And if Celestia is just late in raising the sun today—” Neighsay harrumphed. “We all know she’s been unreliable these past several months. If we do this, that’s four unicorns who will have made the ultimate sacrifice for naught. And the backlash from the public will be tremendous!”

Blueblood chuckled darkly, then lit his horn as he rose from his seat. A long and finely-balanced sword levitated out from its scabbard beneath his chair. His eyes flicked from pony to pony as he trotted from the front of the gathered council toward the desk where Neighsay sat, leading the way with the blade. The change in atmosphere was immediate; the stench of fear—the council’s uncertainty—was palpable. “Tell me, Chancellor: are you more interested in your political career than in the safety of Equestria?”

“I—” Neighsay flinched as Blueblood drew nearer. His eyes flicked around the room, searching in vain for somepony to come to his aid. “What are you doing?! You can’t threaten a—hrrkk!”

There was a collective gasp from the council as Blueblood brought his muzzle close to the Chancellor's, leaning over the hilt of the sword he'd freshly sheathed in Neighsay’s throat. He locked eyes with the dying pony, and thought that what he saw was surprise and fear.

Blueblood whispered, so that only the Chancellor could hear: “My only regret is that, in killing you, I cannot make sure that you are one of the first four.”

The frantic quality in Neighsay’s expression began to abate as his lifeblood cascaded down his chest and forelegs, pooling at his hooves. Soon the light in his eyes faded entirely, and Blueblood withdrew the sword, allowing Neighsay’s body to slump forward upon his desk.

“Look well upon this traitor,” Blueblood shouted over the growing chorus of protest. “Consider if you, too, would dare place your own interests first, delaying action, when there is only one clear course!”

Week 0, Day 2, Evening

With Blueblood’s resolve made clear to all, the council had moved swiftly; the logistics were straightforward to plan out, and messengers were immediately sent to implement them.

The entire council, Blueblood included, had shared a collective sigh of relief when they saw the sun finally begin to rise above the horizon, just as the castle clocks struck noon. Their cautious optimism had climbed in tandem with the sun as it began its arc through the sky.

But that had been ten hours ago.

The sun, now a giant red wound on the horizon, was setting much later than normal, despite having provided several hours less sunlight than was customary for this time of year.

Blueblood grunted in partial relief as he lowered himself onto a lavish cushion in his private quarters. He rubbed his hooves, which ached from hours of standing in council, against his temples. Yet his efforts to dispel the troubling thoughts that dwelled there were in vain, and only exacerbated his headache. He hoped, with only the barest of expectations for success, that the edicts he had enacted earlier in the day would keep the kingdom from collapsing overnight.

Blueblood shook his head from side to side, hoping it would clear. Despite his great exhaustion, he suspected he would need a hefty nightcap to help bring him into the comforting embrace of unconsciousness.

So he grunted with the effort of standing again, walked over to the table where he kept his assorted liquors, lit his horn, and used his magic to remove one of the darker bottles. Another tiny surge of magic and the cork popped free, allowing him to pour a generous measure of the maroon liquid into a crystal cup. He recorked the bottle, but opted to carry it with him as he walked back to his cushion. The hovering glass followed close behind.

He took a sip of the heady liquid and felt the built-up tension of the day begin to melt away as the fiery warmth of the drink spread through his chest. Soon two brimming glasses of a wine that cost more than what most ponies made in a month had vanished down his gullet. Yet it didn’t fully dull the edge of the day’s events.

“Where are you, Auntie?” he slurred to the vacant quarters as he tilted the bottle to refill his emptied glass yet again.

He almost spilled his drink in surprise at the sudden and furious rapping at his chamber door, almost as if it had come in cryptic response to his query.

After taking another swig of the wine, Blueblood barked his answer. “What?”

“Message for you, Sir.” The voice was barely audible through the thick door that separated his room from the hall, but it clearly contained a distressing note of urgency that chilled Blueblood to the bone.

Standing on shaky legs, Blueblood staggered towards the door. “Come in.”

The door opened inward, revealing Ditzy Doo, the wall-eyed pegasus who had served as Celestia’s personal chauffeur for the last several years. Blueblood’s gaze was not drawn to the mare’s haggard appearance—which probably rivalled his own—but to the crumpled envelope she bore on an extended wing.

Ditzy’s presence alone filled him with a creeping sense of dread. If she’s here, then where in Tartarus is Celestia?

As Blueblood reached out for the parchment, he saw that his entire foreleg was visibly shaking, despite the alcohol coursing through his veins. The uncontrollable tremors in his own limb gave him pause; he downed another glass of wine to try and steady his nerves further, then poured himself what remained from the bottle. Only then did he grasp the envelope in his magic. A quick look revealed that his name was hastily scrawled across the front, and that the back was affixed with—

“Aunt Celestia’s royal seal…”

Blueblood felt a confusing mixture of anticipation, anxiety, and mounting terror. He looked up to press Ditzy for questions and startled when he saw that the mare had somehow vanished from the room. If not for the muddy hoofprints which now marred his imported Saddle Arabian rug, it would be as if she had never been there.

Returning his attention to the folded parchment, Blueblood broke the seal, opened the envelope, and pulled the letter from within. As his eyes perused the document, they widened. The glass of wine fell, forgotten, its red liquid spilling across the carpet in a pattern that would later remind him too much of the blood that had crept down Neighsay’s fur earlier in the day.

He finished reading as the last bleeding rays of sun fell below the horizon, painting Blueblood’s entire room in shades of crimson. And soon the fading radiance of the sun slowly gave way to an unearthly green glow.

Glancing out his window and towards the sky, Blueblood saw the comet he’d noticed earlier in the day. It sat there, blazing away, mocking his senses with its unnatural color and inexplicable appearance in the absence of the sun.

“Ruin,” he whispered, looking at the letter again.

Dear Nephew,

Ruin has come to our little ponies.

You remember the Castle of the Two Sisters, palatial and majestic, sitting impassively above the river that stretches, surreptitiously snake-like, through the surrounding forest of Everfree?

My sister and I lived all our early years in that archaic ruin, contenting ourselves with the whimsical and fantastic pastimes of our youths. And yet, amid such seeming happiness, my sister began to tire of her role in the diarchy, pursuing forbidden lore and——sinister rites.

Upon her banishment, while searching through her chambers for some sensible reason for her descent into darkness, I came across peculiar records she had gathered, which suggested that the castle itself was a conduit for some ancient, wondrous, and yet unidentifiable force.

Utilizing the curios and ceremonies recovered from my sister's personal effects, I resolved my every effort towards the discovery and exhumation of those ancient interred mysteries, dwindling the crown’s supposedly neigh inexhaustible fortune on——stalwart stallions——and steady spadework.

At long last, in the umbral darkness under the oldest hoof-carved stones of the lowest levels of the castle, we disinterred that Tartarus-damned gateway of prehistoric malignancy.

Each of our hoofsteps disturbed the primordial terrain, for we were in a festering TOMB of INSANITY. When all of the others had perished, I alone retreated through those stygian galleries of time immemorial——

Until merciful oblivion claimed my senses——

You remember the Castle of the Two Sisters, palatial and majestic?

IT IS A CANCEROUS ANATHEMA!

I BEG you, return to the Everfree, embrace your heritage, and deliver our little ponies from the insatiable grasping darkness——

of the Ponest Dungeon.

Plans and Preparations

Chapter 2: Plans and Preparations

Week 0, Day 3, Dawn

“Prince Blueblood, as a fellow member of the Royal Council, I feel that I must protest: you simply cannot leave Canterlot at this time!”

Blueblood recognized the voice of Lord Fancy Pants, but he didn’t look up from overseeing a group of swarthy stallions who were hefting luggage and supplies onto the storage rack of Ditzy’s stagecoach just outside of Canterlot Castle. “You mean the other members of the council convinced you to come and try to talk some sense into me, because of our friendship?” He paused and chuckled. “What are your feelings on the matter, Fancy?”

Blueblood’s refusal to use Fancy’s title or surname caused the normally unflappable unicorn to hesitate. “We… I understand that Celestia’s letter has left you feeling distraught. The council… oh, bugger the council, Blue. You know I understand completely: you desire to discover what events have transpired, and I would wish to do the same, were I in your place. But please, Blue… if you leave now, I fear that things will deteriorate here very quickly.”

Blueblood turned and locked eyes with Fancy, favoring him with an expression that only barely echoed the resounding sense of pain and internal conflict that he felt. “If I stay, Fancy, things will still deteriorate, albeit more slowly. But I cannot, in good conscience, remain sequestered here in Canterlot, where I’m rendered impotent to find an actual permanent solution to this problem. By investigating the Castle of the Two Sisters, I will have, at the very least, some chance to find and rescue Celestia or to… I don’t know… maybe even harness the power that she spoke of in her letter. If it was fathomless to one such as her, it would likely serve as an adequate replacement should she be unfit to resume her duties with the cycle of the sun and moon after my return.”

Fancy Pants scoffed. “Blue… you could not be so foalish as to want to harness whatever evil power she unearthed?”

“Evil?” Blueblood scoffed. “Fancy, old friend, there is no such thing as ‘evil.’ I have seen and studied quite a bit under Auntie’s tutelage, and while I have seen many a pony who would use various magicks for nefarious purposes, I have never seen anything to lead me to believe that ‘evil,’ as you put it, exists anywhere other than in the minds of ponies with bad intentions. Natural forces are powerful and dangerous. This magick she uncovered is no more evil than a manticore or a hydra or a badlands dust-storm; all will kill you, but try as ponies might to ascribe pony characteristics to these things, none of them are malignant by nature.”

“But Blue,” Fancy pleaded, “surely you see the unfavorable results of her actions: it was her pursuit of this power that she says is the reason for the crown’s current—and quite distressing—lack of funds. That very same power which drove her to excavate those accursed ruins, that caused her to place her own life in jeopardy, that consumed her entire expedition, that drove her to write you that letter?”

Blueblood shot Fancy a hard look. “Yes. That letter of which you speak, in which she begged me to go.” His look softened again. “Fancy… I would not be going if I felt even the slightest inkling that my efforts would be better spent here.”

A hint of a smile came to Blueblood’s face. “Besides, I’m not leaving the Royal Council in charge. Even when not pursuing their own agendas, they take forever to accomplish even simple tasks. The kingdom needs leadership that can respond quickly to this new situation, yet fairly represents all three races. That’s why I am electing to follow the precedent I found in the ancient texts on pony law, which predates Alicorn rule, and to name a Triumvirate to rule in my absence. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns will all have one representative.”

He hoofed Fancy a roll of parchment which bore his personal seal. “Here is my signed proclamation. I want you to read it before the council, old friend.”

Fancy Pants looked suddenly less comfortable, if such a thing were possible, than he had mere few moments ago. “If I were to hazard a guess, would I be correct in assuming that I—”

“Will have the dubious honor of sitting in the unicorn chair,” Blueblood finished. “Fancy, old friend… you are the only unicorn smart enough, level headed enough and, most importantly, kind enough for me to trust with this task.”

The frown on Fancy’s muzzle deepened “You will, of course, understand if I express... concern over your concept of the word ‘kind,’ due to the incident with Neighsay—”

“Regrettable,” Blueblood interrupted, “but necessary. He would have had us starving and frozen before taking action.”

“I understand, old colt, but I’m still concerned,” Fancy said. His expression slowly morphed into one of curiosity. “Who will the other two ponies be?”

A prideful smile found its way to Blueblood’s muzzle as he nodded. “For the earth ponies, I’ve selected the Countess—”

“Coloratura? But I was under the distinct impression that she had quit politics to pursue… music, was it?”

This elicited a bark of laughter from Blueblood. “Yes, indeed she despises politics. She will want to turn the position down, I’ll wager.” He put a hoof on Fancy’s withers. “But don’t let her decline, Fancy; she has the admiration and respect of the earth ponies and she won’t allow any dishonest politicking or fillybustering to prevent you three from doing what you need to.”

“Well, I must say, I am feeling slightly less apprehensive about this already. Who is the pegasus representative?”

“For them, I selected Soarin. He’s… why are you looking at me like that?”

“Well, pardon the impertinence, Blue, but I thought… what I mean to say, is… it's common knowledge, isn’t it? Isn’t… isn’t Soarin… dead? The talented flier disaster was big news.”

Blueblood shook his head. “Rumors of Soarin’s death were greatly exaggerated outside of Cloudsdale. Out of the four Wonderbolts who tried to save that insane unicorn diva, Soarin is the only who survived—though he crashed through a tree. One of his wings got caught on his way through and arrested his momentum enough to prevent him from perishing on impact. But the wing itself… was mostly left behind in the tree.”

Fancy held a hoof to his muzzle. “How dreadful. But you say that he’s—”

“He made a recovery afterwards but the Wonderbolts retired him on full pension after that, which is probably why everypony thinks he died; he did attend every event prior, and his sudden absence at shows was noticed more than his sudden interest in isolation and altruism. Suffice it to say, he’s been living in relative obscurity since the incident. The only time he goes anywhere is to console the families of those who didn’t make it—including the diva’s family. He visits them every year on the anniversary, makes sure they don’t need help with bills, or anything else. He’s a pony of integrity and generosity, if I’ve ever seen one.”

The last bag was thrown onto the stagecoach and the pony porters proceeded to push off. Ditzy Doo, having an apparent preternatural sense for timing, immediately landed by the coach’s flight harness and started strapping herself in.

Ignoring as Fancy stood to the side and looked on with a worried expression, Blueblood double-checked the carriage. He made sure that the bags which carried his garments, the trunks with his personal effects, and the cases of wine, were loaded and secured.

The attendants flowed around the approaching platemail-clad form of Shining Armor, who had been serving as captain of Prince Blueblood’s personal guard. He was accompanied by a shifty-looking, boiled-leather clad, rainbow-maned pegasus that Blueblood didn’t immediately recognize. Shining seemed to be chatting about something that had the colorful one blushing furiously.

Fancy gave Blueblood a pained expression. “If you will not be dissuaded from leaving on this… quest, Blueblood, please at least take more guards than just Shining Armor and this vagabond.”

“Hey, chump! Who are you calling a—whatever you just called me?”

Shining Armor looked askance at his pegasus companion. “Rainbow Dash, that’s Lord Fancy Pants… and, if we’re being honest, you do look like a vagabond.” The statement was met with an angry, betrayed look.

Blueblood facehoofed. “Shining—” his voice carried a tone of exasperation “—take your friend here… Miss Dash, was it? Anyway get in the coach; we’ll be leaving momentarily.” He turned back to Fancy before either pony could respond. “Fancy, I can’t in good conscience take more guards from what is already a severely depleted force. You’ll need organized protection here far more than I will in Ponyville, especially once the populace finds out about the cost of keeping the solar cycle going.” He then placed a hoof on Fancy Pants’ withers, and paused briefly. But moments later—foregoing all traditional decorum—he wrapped his other hoof around the stallion in a tight embrace. “Goodbye, Fancy. I know the dangers of this journey… and if I do not return, I want you to know that you have always been like a brother to me.”

When Blueblood released Fancy Pants from his grip, he was not surprised to see that tears flowed freely down Fancy’s muzzle. He placed a hoof to Fancy’s chest. “Harden your heart to it, old colt. You’re the leader of a nation now, and can’t be wasting your tears on the likes of me.”

“Return,” Fancy choked on barely restrained sobs as he spoke the words, “swiftly, and safely.”

Blueblood gave Fancy a sad, knowing smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Ordeal On the Old Road

Chapter 3: Ordeal On the Old Road

Week 0, Day 3, Morning

Blueblood’s eyes followed the weathered gambling chip that Rainbow Dash alternated between twirling, throwing and deftly catching, or rolling it along her forelegs or wings. The dexterous display continued for many minutes, undeterred by the air-carriage’s erratic jostling.

In time, Blueblood’s curiosity got the better of him. “So,” he called to Shining Armor over the sound of wind outside the carriage, “where did you discover Miss Dash here?”

Shining looked up from polishing the already mirror-finish of his helmet, a grim smile on his muzzle. “The castle dungeons.”

Blueblood’s eyes widened slightly and turned towards Rainbow. “You don’t say?”

“It was a misunderstanding!” Rainbow had almost jumped from her seat, her outburst at a volume that was excessive even considering the windy conditions outside.

Shining put out a gauntleted hoof to boop Rainbow’s muzzle and gently pushed her back into the seat. “Shush, you.” He turned back to Blueblood, grinning like a lunatic. “She was caught cheating at a game of Old Mare. A stallion on the other side of the table didn’t take too kindly to that and pulled a gun on her. He demanded that she pay for their drinks—” Shining looked over at Rainbow, his grin widening as her face turned a shade of deep crimson, which was clearly visible despite the fact that she quickly folded her forelegs and pretended to look away “—so she shot him under the table… in his stallionhood.”

Blueblood cringed at the mere thought of having his genitals forcibly removed by way of a speeding lead slug. The carriage seemed to shudder in sympathy, rocking its occupants back and forth before stabilizing.

“Blasted turbulence,” Blueblood muttered while waving a hoof to shoo a mosquito that had managed to sneak into the cabin despite the drawn curtains. “Ugh, it’s making me airsick—is it always this bad around Ponyville?”

Shining shook his head. “No, must be a scheduled gale.” He raised his voice to compensate for the sudden elevated volume of the wind, which had increased in both intensity and pitch, becoming almost a buzz. “Well, where was I? Right, the magistrate cleared her of attempted murder, since she’d been drawn on first, but she was given fifteen days in the dungeons for cheating at cards. She’s also been banned from every gambling establishment in Canterlot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d heard of her in Ponyville too, with a story like that—”

Shining stopped speaking to slap at a particularly large mosquito that had landed on the unarmored part of his foreleg and shoved its sizable proboscis through his fur and into his flesh. When he withdrew his hoof it was both smeared with the smashed remnants of the insect, and also dripping with the blood that the bug had managed to extract in the mere moments it had been at work.

“Disgusting!” Shining bent to wipe the mosquito remains and blood off on the lowest possible part of his tabard. “Anyhow, I met her on her first day serving her sentence. I was looking for some shrewd contacts that could do things I legally couldn’t. We talked a bit, hit it off immediately, and I decided to get her out of there before she had the chance to experience some of the finer qualities of dungeon-life. You know, like waste-buckets, or the food—which I think is served in the same buckets the waste is carried out in…”

Slapping his hooves together and crushing another winged bloodsucker, Shining grinned. “We’ve been fast friends ever since; we’ve both saved each others’ hides so often, we stopped keeping count—”

As Rainbow opened her mouth to interject, Shining lit his horn to clamp her jaw shut in his magic. “Well, I have, at any rate,” he said, grinning again and releasing his grip. “When you told me what we were doing and where we were going, she’s the first pony I thought of to help us out. And when I asked her if she wanted to help out, she readily agreed—”

“After he offered me lots of bits,” Rainbow added helpfully, which earned her a glare from Shining. She stuck her tongue out at him, then flicked her hoof out lightning-quick, smacking one of the mosquitos hard enough that it was dead before it struck the wall of the coach. “Is there a swamp nearby or something? These things are coming out of the woodwork.”

Blueblood swatted at another mosquito invader, eventually smashing it against the roof of the carriage. The hum from outside had definitely gotten higher in pitch. “I didn’t see one on any of the maps…” He crushed one of the bugs that had the audacity to land on his muzzle. “Not on this side of Ponyville, at any rate. Well, I’m glad to have your services, Miss Dash. We’ll have great need of—”

He cut off as the stagecoach tilted precipitously to one side, throwing Rainbow and Shining clear across the cabin. They struck the side door with a sickening crunch, followed by the entire doorframe ripping free of its mountings. Almost the entire side of the carriage, as well as Rainbow and Shining, went careening away from the coach and through what appeared to be an almost solid wall of droning mosquitos. As they were swallowed by the swarm of insects, Blueblood could barely hear their or Ditzy’s panicked shrieks over the deafening whine.

“Sweet Celestia!” Blueblood screamed, his forehooves wrapped in a deathgrip around one of the seat’s support planks. But his supposed good fortune was short lived, as the wood gave way with a loud, splintering crack, and he was sent hurtling through the now-gaping hole in the side of the carriage.

Blueblood wailed in terror as he fell through the cloud of swarming insects. At least one entered his mouth, and another clogged a nostril, though they were quickly blown off due to his rapid descent.

As he plummeted towards the ground, his speed increasing and his mortality rushing to meet him, all he could see was the swiftly approaching inevitability of solid impact with dirt and stone. His scream cut out as his lungs fully emptied and he closed his eyes in expectation of imminent death.

He felt a violent wrenching motion in his shoulders and chest which would have knocked the air out of him, had any remained. Instead, he gasped for breath.

“Celestia, you two are heavy,” Rainbow swore as her wings worked overtime to keep herself and the two stallions airborne. “Ever think of going on a diet, Prince?”

“Get us… down!” Blueblood emphasized the exclamation by pointing his hoof up at a smaller cloud of the biting insects that had broken away from the carriage to follow them.

“Right!” And with a grunt through her gritted teeth, Rainbow beat her wings, put on a staggering burst of speed, and began weaving back and forth in a display of aerial dexterity that Blueblood wouldn’t have thought possible—much less by one mare carrying two stallions. Their insectoid pursuers gave chase for several moments, but Rainbow’s determined dodging among nearby trees continued to keep them at bay. Soon the swarm abandoned its chase; it turned again to follow the carriage, which now seemed to be lurching through the air in the general direction of Ponyville.

Rainbow swooped to ground level and haphazardly deposited Blueblood and Shining in a heap in the middle of the road, before collapsing onto her haunches.

Shining walked towards the remains of the stagecoach door and picked up his severely dented and scuffed helmet, an expression of acute disappointment etched across his features. He looked up at Blueblood and sighed as he donned the piece of armor. “It’s going to take me a week to get it reshaped and polished again,” he griped.

Blueblood shakily stood, panting as he tried to regain his hooves. He stumbled, holding out a hoof, which Shining immediately grabbed to help support him. “Oh, I’m dizzy… What about Ditzy… Miss Dash… did you see—”

“Yeah, she managed to get away from them once she straightened out and put some speed on. No stupid bugs are gonna outfly Ditzy, not with all those flying competitions she used to win… well, before her eyes got all derped, anyway.”

“Well… not like… we could… catch up to her… anyway—” Blueblood couldn’t get ahold of his breath. As a sudden wave of nausea passed over him, he shot a hoof up to his muzzle. “I’m going to be sick—” He rushed to the side of the road and explosively emptied the contents of his digestive tract.

Out of the corner of his eye, Blueblood could see Shining shaking his head from side to side. Shining turned to Rainbow. “Dash, any idea how far out we are?”

“Not really,” she replied. “But I can just fly up and—”

Something in the tall grass where he’d been vomiting caught Blueblood’s eye. Its shape was indistinct, but the scant details he could make out appeared red and pustulent… and it stank of death. “No—Gkkkh—Don’t go!” Blueblood called.

“What is it?” Shining asked as he approached, curiosity and concern evident in his voice.

Blueblood shakily pushed aside a hoofful of the thick vegetation, revealing the mangled corpse of a pegasus mare. He heard Shining Armor mutter an epithet. Wiping a forehoof across his muzzle in a futile attempt to remove the taste of residual bile, Blueblood stared at the cadaver. Unbidden alarm bells rang in his head. “This doesn’t make sense; where are the flies? A body, out in the open like this—it should be swarming, bloated… oh—oh, Celestia—” The thought didn’t agree with him and he began to retch and gag into the grass again.

When Blueblood was able to lift his head again, he saw that Shining had taken his sword sheath in his magic, and was using it to move golden stalks out of the way. “She looks like she’s been… mummified or something,” Shining said as he got a better look at the pony. He tapped her with the scabbard, producing a hollow sound. “She’s completely desiccated, and it looks like she’s covered in a ton of—oh, Tartarus.” He held up his foreleg and Blueblood watched as he compared it to the corpse; the red welt on his leg was almost the same size and shape as the myriad welts that covered the dead mare.

Blueblood watched as panicked realization dawned on Shining’s face. A feeling of dread slowly crept through his own skin as well, like an unending swarm of tiny spiders. Despite not having any bites of his own, Blueblood’s foreleg suddenly itched with a ferocity borne of acute paranoia.

Shining betrayed his calm, cool exterior by flinching away from the corpse in what appeared to be a panicked leap, nickering as he shook his limbs. “Celestia damned things sucked her dry!”

“Impossible,” Blueblood rasped, his retching thankfully abated for the moment. “I was expeditioning out in the Hayseed Swamps a few years ago and ran into swarms like this; they never sucked anypony dry. If you didn’t close your tent flaps correctly in the evening, you could wind up looking like you were having a bout of the pony-pox by the end of the night, though. There was one particular imbecile in our party whose bite-ridden hide was all the warning we ever needed against not even sleeping in a tent at all... and he survived, just with an itchy coat to show for it.”

Shining took another few steps back to the corpse, and a series of shudders passed over him. “You’re right. I feel like a foal now, don’t I?” The statement apparently didn’t prevent him from scratching absently at his foreleg as he lit his horn. Forgoing his sword sheath this time, Shining enveloped the entire body with his magic and, with a grunt of effort, flipped it onto its other side. “Well,” he said upon observing the massive, hoof-sized, puckered wound in the side of the mare’s barrel, “I think I found what did her in… all the surrounding skin is pulled towards the wound. Whatever did this to her is much larger than a simple mosquito—”

Blueblood suppressed jitters of his own. “If there is something larger out there, we shouldn’t linger.”

Shining nodded and looked over at Rainbow Dash, who was craning her head about, squinting her eyes.

All Blueblood could see when he turned his gaze skyward was the intense glare of the sun and some kind of distant shimmer in the air.

“More of them?” Shining asked.

“Yeah,” Rainbow replied as she continued to scan the azure sky from horizon to horizon. “They’re everywhere, and I don’t see any pegasi; they must all be grounded, or... like our friend here.”

“We go to Ponyville on hoof then,” Blueblood declared. “We should be able to reach it by nightfall if we follow the road.”

They began their trot towards the town, Blueblood hoping that they would actually arrive before the sun set. It was about a half hour later when he saw Shining hold up a hoof, freezing everypony in their tracks.

“Get off the road,” Shining whispered to them.

Blueblood looked out from the questionable cover of the shrub that he had dove into. Aside from some trees further down the road, he was able to see what looked like an overturned cart. “What do you make of it?”

“Brigands usually have the run of these lanes,” Shining replied from the oak tree he’d wedged himself against. He warily eyed the wrecked wagon which sat in the center of the cobbled road. “If it weren’t for those blasted mosquitos, I’d have Rainbow fly up to see if there’s an ambush waiting… I think it’s safe enough to just assume that there is.”

“Should we try to go around, find a side path then?” Blueblood asked. “We’re close; I can see the outskirts of Ponyville from here.”

Rainbow stuck her head out from the leafy boughs of the tree Shining was hiding behind. “I say we spring the trap. There isn’t enough cover for more than one or two ponies. And let’s not forget how awesome I am; two goons won’t be a problem.”

Shining sighed. “I agree with Dash on this one; the three of us shouldn’t have issues with one or two bandits.” The statement earned an emphatic grin and hoof pump from Rainbow.

“Very well then,” Blueblood began. “How do you propose we approach?”

Shining scanned the area again. “You stay here. Dash and I will run up and take care of anypony foolish enough to try and ambush us. If any of them flee in this direction, feel free to take them out or stay hidden as you see fit, though I don’t see that being an issue. If we need your help or if it’s safe, we’ll signal.”

“Sounds easy enough.” Blueblood grinned.

Shining’s expression remained impassive. “Nothing is easy when it comes to killing.” He fastened his helmet strap, closed the visor, and turned. “C’mon Dash,” Shining’s voice sounded tinny, muffled as it was by his armor. “Let’s do this.”

Blueblood lowered himself further into the shelter of his shrubbery as the others approached the wagon. Shining moved ahead of Rainbow with an air of menacing purpose, unsheathing his sword and holding it aloft. Rainbow had landed and slinked closely behind on the ground. Her wings pulled her pistol out, shoved a powder cartridge and bullet into the barrel, pulled the hammer back, and set a percussion cap on the striking cone.

A large stallion leapt out from behind the wagon with a shout while brandishing a dagger in his mouth. The “boom-crack” of Rainbow’s pistol firing immediately preceeded sudden flashes of red on the bandit, both blossoming on his chest, as well as erupting out of his back.

Shining did not waste the opportunity and brought his sword down on the bandit’s head, cleaving through part of it.

The bandit stood, frozen for a moment, as his left ear and a sizable chunk of his green-furred skull tumbled to the ground, leaving the remaining portion of his brain exposed to open air. The question of whether the confused look on his face was related to the speed and ferocity of the counterattack, or whether it was due to the missing portion of his central nervous system, soon proved irrelevant. The mortally wounded stallion took a few shaky steps backward, his lifeblood pouring down his chest and face. Opening his mouth as if to speak, the stallion instead issued a sound not dissimilar from a distressed donkey before collapsing into a shuddering heap on the ground, his own fluids spreading out below him and soaking into the spaces between the road cobbles.

After looking around briefly, Shining gave the sign for Blueblood to approach. As Blueblood trotted up to the scene, he saw Shining kneel next to the now-still corpse of the bandit. Then he noticed, as he watched Shining quickly stand, that Shining had taken something from the body and placed it into his own belt pouch.

“Find anything?”

“No, nothing.”

A small itch began in Blueblood’s mind. His query had been more conversational than interrogative; he didn’t think that a common bandit such as this would have anything of value or import on them. Yet Shining had clearly not spoken the truth. Blueblood quickly rationalized it as a cognitive distortion; surely Shining only meant that he had not found anything useful regarding their current predicament. A few looted coins or gems would probably not even register to somepony such as Shining when there was still possible danger lurking nearby.

Not wanting to exacerbate an already stressful situation by bringing attention to the falsehood, Blueblood shifted the topic. “What about the wagon?”

“Just a crate full of crests,” Rainbow answered as she rifled through the splintered remains. She popped up from the wreckage holding an emblazoned shield.

The crest was distantly familiar to Blueblood. At the center of the coat of arms was an imposing, gated tower, superimposed over a tri-colored field. The sky-blue upper-left field contained an image of the sun in the same colors and style as Celestia’s cutie mark. The dark-violet of the upper-right field was contrasted by a white crescent moon. The base of the tower reached to the bottom of the shield, where it formed a wooden gate that bisected a field of black, with some strange radiance depicted as creeping up on either side, as if reaching for the fields. Arcing above everything else was a black semicircle with five inward-facing spikes.

The mystery of the emblem piqued Blueblood’s curiosity. “We should try to bring them with us to Ponyville,” he said. “They have to have been loaded up for a reason.”

Shining shook his head. “Sorry, Sir; we’ll have to come back for them later, or send somepony. I can’t see us carrying more than one or two without becoming overburdened, which would make us more vulnerable to any other bandits who might be waiting ahead.”

“Very well, but I’m taking that one with us.” Blueblood looked down the road and squinted his eyes. “Well, at least we’re almost there. I mean, what are the chances of us getting attacked again?”

Week 0, Day 3, Afternoon

Rainbow Dash’s pistol went flying wildly through the air as she choked back a scream of pain. The ragged red line that ran across her foreleg wept lifeblood into her fur as she scrambled away from the sword-wielding mare.

“I like your mane, little pegasus. I think I’ll wear it once I skin y—”

In a remarkable burst of speed, Rainbow reversed her direction and charged. Her dagger was drawn in an instant, and she ducked beneath the bandit’s guard before sweeping up and driving the point into the bottom of their jaw, through their mouth, and into their brain. She then had to use one of her rear hooves for leverage to pull the blade out, which precipitated the bandit’s collapse.

Rainbow turned to see that Shining Armor had locked swords with the other bandit, and they had begun circling each other in some macabre mockery of a dance as they both vied for position. She tried to see if there was some way she could jump in to kill the stallion before he hurt Shining, but there just weren’t any openings.

The combat waltz was abruptly halted when Blueblood’s sword came down heavily onto the bandit’s back, causing him to shriek as his spinal column was cleft in twain and his back legs gave out.

Shining stepped back from the crippled bandit and watched as Blueblood approached him.

“Oh Celestia,” the bandit wept as he scraped his forelegs against the cobbles in a futile attempt to drag himself away from Blueblood’s inexorable advance. “My hind legs. I can’t feel my—”

Blueblood used a forehoof to press the bandit’s head to the ground.

“What—No! Please, no!” The stallion shrieked as Blueblood carefully placed the tip of his sword in the bandit’s upturned ear. “Mercy, please, mercy! We… we were just… we’re starving! We—hrrk!” his words devolved into a death rattle as Blueblood thrust downward, the force sufficient to drive the blade through bone and into the cobbles below.

“Wasn’t even a very good lie,” Blueblood muttered as he pulled the sword free. He kicked one of the bandit’s saddlebags open and several circular loaves of bread fell out, one rolling into the pool of spreading crimson by the stallion’s head. “Ponyville is one of the most food-rich towns in all of Equestria; it’s practically impossible to starve out here.”

“Are you trying to justify killing him?” Shining asked. “Because you don’t have to. They’d have killed us and taken our possessions. I honestly think you should have let him bleed out and die slowly.” He spat upon the ground. “If any other bandits saw the results, they’d be dissuaded.”

“I think this is sufficient,” Blueblood said, indicating the exposed muscle and bone of the stallion’s back. As he began to rummage through the bandit’s bags, pocketing any bits he found, he heard uneven hoofsteps and turned to see Rainbow stowing her recovered pistol back into its holster. “How’s your leg, Miss Dash?”

“It’s fine,” was Rainbow’s curt response. Yet blood trailed from the gash all the way down to her hoof, causing her to leave bloody “U” marks with every step.

With a quick look to verify the sun’s low position in the sky, Blueblood turned back to Rainbow. “Well, get it bandaged, quickly. The sun will be down within the hour, and I don’t fancy spending the night out here.”

Week 0, Day 3, Dusk

Blueblood sighed in relief as the three travelers were ushered into town by the day’s final rays of sunlight. A single pony, wielding a bell in one hoof, stood in the middle of the road, observing their approach. If the records Blueblood had reviewed about the hamlet were correct, that would make the pony Cheese Sandwich, the Ponyville Town Crier.

“Hey look, it’s the conquering heroes,” Cheese said, with entirely too much enthusiasm. “Ditzy sends her regards… they took her up to the sanitarium to get all those bug-bites checked out after she dragged herself into the tavern. That silly goose! Going to get a drink after flying around through the mosquito swarms; can you even imagine?”

“I’m glad that she’s doing all right.” Blueblood made a show of looking around. “Where is everypony? Did nopony receive word that we would be arriving today?”

“Not until now, Prince! Ditzy was kinda out of it. Too much mosquito anesthetic! But don’t worry, I’ll remedy that in a jiffy!”

“No, that’s quite al—”

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” Cheese’s voice boomed with such astonishing volume that Blueblood was sure it could be heard clear across the hamlet. The ringing bell added to the unexpected cacophony.

Rainbow cringed and quickly clapped her hooves to her ears.

Shining Armor swiftly removed his helmet and slapped at his twitching ears.

“Prince Blueblood, Regent of Equestria, has graced Ponyville with his royal presence! Hear ye! Hear ye!”

They watched as Cheese strolled away into town to continue proclaiming the news, despite the fact that he probably didn’t need to actually walk the town to ensure everypony heard him.

Even after Cheese had moved out of sight, the lack of the town’s response was as definite as it was conspicuous.

“Celestia, I hope he doesn’t do that all night,” Rainbow said, rubbing at her ears.

Blueblood grinned. “At least he’s suited to the job. There are plenty of towns that would kill for a crier with a set of lungs like that. Either way…” He looked around for a few moments. “Well, that looks like Celestia’s townhouse and... there’s what’s left of the stagecoach.”

They approached the battered carriage and took note that all of the luggage that had been present earlier in the day was missing.

“Stolen?” Shining furrowed his brow, having apparently come to the same calamitous conclusion as Blueblood.

Walking to the townhouse’s front door, Blueblood opened it, and raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise at what he saw. “No, they’re right here,” he said.

“Celestia above,” Rainbow said, her voice dripping with incredulity, “she unpacked the carriage before getting herself medical care?”

“Well, Cheese did say she was acting loopy,” offered Shining.

“Quite.” Blueblood turned to face the others and released a tension-filled sigh. “Today has taken a toll on my constitution. Since Ditzy is… indisposed, I shall show you to some of the guest rooms so you can rest. Then I plan to retire for the evening. We can start fresh tomorrow.”

“Good, all that plot-kicking tired me out,” Rainbow said, the last word morphing into a yawn, which she stifled with her bandaged hoof.

Shining nodded, scratching absently at his foreleg. “Yeah, nothing wears you out like several life -and-death struggles all packed into one day.”

Blueblood stifled a yawn of his own. “Tomorrow we will plan our next course of action. We are noticeably short on horsepower, so securing some allies will be first on our agenda.”

After they had grabbed their own personal bags, Blueblood led the others past beshadowed paintings and antiques which lined the expansive hallways of the manor. They eventually found the guest-rooms and Blueblood abandoned Shining and Rainbow to rest for the evening.

Later, after a lengthy search, he found the master’s chambers. As he lay in his own bed, Blueblood found himself shifting constantly in a vain attempt to drift off to sleep. His mind continued to return to the bandit he’d killed. He turned over onto his side, away from the window, after a draft had moved the curtains, allowing a stray ray of greenish light from outside to glint off of a nearby fabric-draped chair. The pattern of the material looked momentarily like the exposed muscle and bone in the back of the stallion he had killed.

Forcing his eyes shut, Blueblood inhaled deeply in an attempt to slow his racing heart.

Unfortunately, the lack of visual input allowed his mind’s eye to freely expose him to images of the bandit’s terrified face; specifically of his upturned eye, which darted around frantically as its owner fruitlessly searched for somepony to come to their aid. The eye shuddered and the pupil contracted to a pinprick, almost in sync with the blade pushing inwards. Breathing again slowly, he watched the bandit’s eye roll back in its socket, and Blueblood was unable to ignore the taut features of their face as they slackened.

Blueblood inhaled again, his muzzle twitching violently as he was practically gagged under the thorough assault of a stench which reeked of the pungent putrefaction of death. He felt like he could practically smell the stallion’s fear, even over the other remembered scents: the earthiness of the rotting grass; the acridness of sweat; the metallic hints of the stallion’s blood as it spilled out and filled the air with its rich and tangy aroma; even over the poignant odor of his urine and excrement as he voided himself out of fear, paralysis, or both.

The last time Blueblood had smelled fear like that had been in the council chambers as he’d approached Neighsay. Blueblood had expected a look of betrayal or indignity from Neighsay in his final moments, but in those dying eyes, with the rest of the room brimming with the piercing perfume of palpable panic, there had only been animalistic fear and pleading.

Blueblood grumbled and turned over again, back towards the window, as he tried to rid his mind of both the images and odors.

Then he heard a wet thump in the room. Eyes shooting open, Blueblood swiveled his ears in the direction he thought he’d heard the noise. A peculiar sense of dread suffused his being, though he had never experienced anything remotely like the clarity of awareness and slowing of perception that triggered when he noticed that single sound. If he were able to put words to it, he would say that he felt hunted. He listened and waited in the deafening silence of the room for some other indication as to whether the terrifying noise was real or if it had only been the product of a stressful day combined with the blurring of reality typically induced by impending slumber.

As his eyes scanned the room for threats, real or imagined, Blueblood looked back over the chair by the window and felt his brows climb as he realized that the seat was occupied. The features of the pony, even shrouded as they were by shadow, outlined a tall, gaunt figure who resembled Neighsay far too much for Blueblood’s liking. A stray draft moved one of the window curtains and, for a brief, horrifying moment, revealed the Chancellor’s corpse in all of its grotesque morbidity.

Blueblood bolted upright in the bed, and blinked at the empty chair in bewilderment. The green comet-light shone on his sword, which he had earlier hung from the seatback, glinting off of two gems in the crossguard, giving the impression of eyes. His traveling cloak was draped across the chair as well, in a manner such clothing might sit on a gaunt pony. Mentally berating himself for allowing his imagination to transform such mundane objects into an unfathomable horror, he took a few breaths to steady his pounding heart. When the furious beating sound abated, he realized that the room was completely silent, save for the distant sound of Rainbow Dash’s raucous snoring.

Sighing with relief, Blueblood took another breath before laying back down. Now thoroughly exhausted, he closed his eyes and turned away again from the window. Another inhale, and his nostrils were again filled with the overwhelming scent of fear.

As his eyes shot open, Blueblood saw something that instilled abject terror into the very fibre of his being: he was muzzle to muzzle with the dead bandit.

The stallion’s wiry fur had lost its healthy sheen and was matted with both mud and dried blood. His skin hung loosely from his bones in the few places it hadn’t begun to slough off. Worst, though, were the stallion’s eyes. While milky with death, they wept bloody tears down his muzzle as they stared into Blueblood’s own eyes. Echoes of the horror that defined the bandit’s last moments drilled their way into Blueblood’s soul.

“Please, no,” the corpse whispered to him in a pitiful wet voice that unleashed a slurry of blood and bile down the bandit’s chin and onto the pristine white sheets.

Blueblood felt a horrifying paralysis take hold of him as a sudden chill seized his very core. Try as he might, he couldn’t will himself to move away from the apparition, even as it reached out with its bloodied, dead foreleg to caress the left side of his muzzle with a damp hoof. The feeling was like ice, his face numbing anywhere the frosty touch moved.

“You’re… warm,” the dead stallion said, his sodden voice brimming with despondency and need. Blueblood felt the bandit’s frigid frog fondling his face, leeching heat away at an alarming rate. “I’m so cold. Why am I so cold?”

His heart pounding wildly, Blueblood wished more than anything that the experience would end, that he could be somewhere, anywhere else.

His desire was mercifully granted as he fainted into unconsciousness.

Halcyon Hamlet

Chapter 4: Halcyon Hamlet

Week 0, Day 4, Dawn

As Blueblood entered the servant’s dining nook, he saw Shining Armor take a bite out of a bagel he must have liberated from the pantry. Blueblood assumed that—like himself—Shining had avoided the main dining room, since both the table and chairs were still covered with dust cloths.

Shining wrinkled his nose and regarded Blueblood in the sort of manner one normally reserved for steaming piles on the sidewalk. “You look horrible, Sir.” And he had only gotten a look at Blueblood’s right side.

“Thank you, Shining. I feel about as well as I imagine I look—” Blueblood began to take a deep breath, but halted short. He craned his neck around to his barrel and jerked away, one hoof rising to his muzzle. “—and smell, apparently.” He lit his horn, grabbed an apple from the small table, and took a slow bite out of the fruit, savoring the juiciness.

“Woah, Shining what’s that smell?” Rainbow’s voice sounded from an adjacent room, her volume increasing in tandem with the sound of her hoofsteps. “I thought Blueblood said that all of the latrines were outside—” She ceased speaking as she entered the room and nearly bumped muzzles with the Prince. Her hoof immediately shot up to her face, whether in surprise, to cover her nose, or to prevent her gorge from escaping her mouth was up for debate. “I mean… what is that… flowery and… not totally-nasty smell?”

“A problem that will be remedied shortly,” Blueblood replied flatly, exasperation evident in his eyes.

Lowering her hoof from her muzzle, but keeping her eyes on Blueblood, Rainbow morphed her expression from one of disgust into one of quizzicality. “Um, what’s up with the fur on your face?”

“What do you mean?” The apple fell back to the table, forgotten as Blueblood brushed at his face with one hoof. Seeing nothing there, he began to rotate in place and tried, with abject futility, to maneuver his view so that he could visually inspect his muzzle. The spectacle might have been comical, were it not for the crazed look in his eyes. “Where? I can’t see… what is it!?”

Shining stood from his seat, his countenance beset by a look that teetered precariously between confusion and concern. “There’s dried blood all over the left side of your face, Sir. Did you hit your head or cut yourself or some—”

Blueblood’s sudden and intense rigidity prompted Shining to swiftly silence himself mid-sentence.

“...Sir?” was all Shining could manage after an indefinite amount of uncomfortable silence had passed.

“It—” Blueblood dared not mention the horrific dream he’d had the previous evening, especially not in light of the blood which was apparently smeared upon his face. Inspiration struck as he noticed Shining scratching absentmindedly at his own foreleg. “It must have been one of those blasted mosquitos. Probably smashed it on my own face and didn’t realize it…”

While the others seemed satisfied, Blueblood wasn’t so sure. The more he thought back on the previous evening, the more his muzzle tingled, and the weaker the excuse seemed. If it was all just a dream, then why was his mind racing to try and justify the terror that ran through his veins, like a fire that sapped heat instead of spreading it?

“Are you ok, Sir?” Shining’s concerned query removed him from his reverie.

“Just nerves,” Blueblood replied, the lie coming to him easily due to years of politicking. “Just nerves.”

“Well, it’ll take a few days to get this place fully livable,” Shining said with a grin. “And who knows how long Ditzy will be hospitalized for.”

“Yes, yes,” Blueblood waved a forehoof dismissively. “You and Miss Dash see what you can do about getting this place into working order. I’m going to see if I can find Celestia’s records.”

Week 0, Day 7, Afternoon

Unoiled hinges groaned in protest as Blueblood shouldered open the door he’d found at the top of a stone spiral staircase. By his estimates of the steepness of the ascent, he figured that it ran all the way from one of the doorways in the east wing of the first floor, all the way up to the third floor of the manor.

The opening door kicked a thick layer of dust into the air, eliciting a violent sneeze from Blueblood. Sunlight poured into the room through greenhouse-style windows that lined the entirety of the roof and each of the walls down to chest height. Curtains of illuminated dust obscured his vision, only allowing him to barely make out two rows of five boxy support pillars.

After coughing into one hoof Blueblood tried to wave away the choking cloud as he progressed into the room. He could begin to see the outlines of paintings and charts which adorned the pillars. A glint of reflected light next to the wall of glass at the far end caught his eye, prompting him to walk towards it.

“An observatory,” Blueblood said as he beheld an antique telescope and smiled. As an amateur astronomer, he was certain he would be able to make good use of the instrument. His muzzle turned down into a frown. “Perhaps I can use you to have a look at that comet after we find Celestia,” he mused to himself while he approached the piece of astrological equipment.

His advance abruptly arrested, and Blueblood looked down to see that he’d run chest-first into a table that he somehow hadn’t seen despite its placement in the middle of the room. Circular and about three hoof-spans across, the piece of ancient furniture was covered with all manner of runes which both defied classification and made his eyes water slightly. He spotted several suspicious lines in the dust on the floor which suggested that the table had just been dragged from a spot against one of the pillars.

But the only hoofprints in the room were his.

Blueblood’s hackles suddenly rose as he felt unseen eyes upon him. “Hello?” His voice was swallowed by the vacant room, defying his expectation of any manner of echo. He turned in place, looking for the source of his sudden dread. “Hello?”

A sudden rustling sound drew his gaze back to the table, where he saw that his tail had swished some of the dust from the surface, revealing more of the painfully enigmatic runes, and a single piece of parchment.

Lighting his horn, Blueblood looked back and forth, still uneasy with the questionably empty observatory. Finding nothing despite his intense scrutiny, he allowed his piqued curiosity to overcome his wariness and spared a glance back to the parchment. Lifting it with his magic, it hovered in front of his face. He lifted an eyebrow as he read.

Week 1, Day 1, Morning

Ponyville’s tavern, a dilapidated, structurally questionable building belonging to one Berry Punch, was surprisingly loud for so early an hour. Blueblood wondered if the town actually believed that ten in the morning was a good time for boisterous drinking; with the massive hole in the thatched roof, they could probably hear every last shout from within. Regardless of his own distaste for the atmosphere, Blueblood took Shining’s advice; such locations were typically the best places to find itinerant seasoned mercenaries.

The inside of the establishment was thankfully in better condition than the outside. A tarp had been stretched below the roof hole, and sloped down to an empty barrel, which sat next to several that were filled with water. A set of stairs ran up the right side of the expansive barroom, to a balcony against the back wall. Several working-colts leaned on the railing, looking down at the gambling and drinking tables for prospective clients.

Below the balcony was the bar itself, being mared by a wine-colored earth pony. If the town records Blueblood had read were accurate, it was Berry Punch, owner and proprietor. She had wine glass in front of her, and was taking occasional sips as she looked out over the commotion.

Berry’s gaze moved to Blueblood as he, Shining, and Rainbow approached. “What’ll you three have?”

“We’re here on business,” Blueblood said. “Looking to do some hiring.”

“Fine by me,” Berry said, following a sip from her glass. “As long as you buy drinks, that is.”

Blueblood grinned. “Three ciders—” he saw Shining make a hoof-gesture in Rainbow’s direction. “Better make that four,” he said, hoping he’d properly divined Shining’s meaning. His hopes were rewarded when Rainbow gleefully took two of the cider mugs for herself.

Placing a simply worded piece of parchment on the notice board outside the tavern’s front door brought them remarkably poor results, not wholly unexpected for the first day. Still, the severity of the ineptitude displayed by the applicants who approached them left Blueblood questioning if he should continue his recruitment efforts locally.

Most were ponies who either had never been on an expedition before, or had no place being on one in the first place. One was a farmhoof who simply wanted to get away from the chores his parents forced upon him; he couldn’t even lift Shining’s longsword from the table. Another was a merchant who said she wanted some adventure in her life; when Rainbow Dash aimed and cocked an unloaded pistol at the merchant, she shrieked and then ran away crying. As the day continued to wear on, Blueblood found himself shaking his head in disappointment at the prospects.

It was late afternoon when a figure in a long curving mask and fully-concealing dark robes approached the table to introduce herself. Various vials and flasks were held by loops of fabric or stuffed into half-pouches that had been sewn into her garments. But it was her discreetly sheathed knife that caught Blueblood’s attention.

It was the way it was worn—not displayed obviously, yet properly placed for an easy draw and resheathing, as well as the uneven wear and tooth-marks on the grip—that told Blueblood that the figure knew how to wield the weapon. And, more importantly, that she did so frequently.

As Blueblood regarded the masked pony standing across from him, he realized that this would be the first time that day that he did not have to give the hoof signal for Shining or Rainbow to scare the potential away. “So, what do you bring to the proverbial table?”

“Potions to injure and keep our foes at bay. Also, here is my resume.” A gloved hoof set a piece of paper upon the uneven surface of the thick oak table that Blueblood had commandeered.

“Your name is… Zecora?” Blueblood looked up from the proffered parchment which, aside from being penned in a progressive prose, presented a list of previous professional posts and performance, even providing those poorly planned pursuits which had produced pitiably poor payoffs. Blueblood was impressed; usually mercenaries were stingy with details regarding prior botched jobs, and most tended to value a false reputation of perfection over an accurate accounting. He found himself curious about her name and accent, which most definitely were not local. If Blueblood had to guess, he would say that a female zebra stood before him; not that anypony could tell with her concealing attire.

“Your pronunciation is better than most.” Zecora tilted her expressionless mask slightly, giving Blueblood the impression that she was eyeing him. “But your pallor and eyes; have you seen a ghost?”

“Didn’t sleep well; it’s these Tartarus damned mosquitos,” Blueblood lied as he smashed one of the offending insects on the tavern’s thick, oaken table. He scraped the mess off with a half-hearted grunt of disgust and used his unbloodied hoof to try and rub the bags out from under his eyes.

The reflective goggles of the plague mask regarded him for a moment before Zecora’s voice sounded from within. “I know that look all too well; horse-apples to me, you need not sell.”

“Watch your tone around Prince Blueblood, you—”

Blueblood held up a hoof. “She means nothing hostile by it, Shining. And,” he stared into Zecora’s mask as he spoke, “I wouldn’t want to work for somepony who wasn’t forthright about themselves either, especially considering the dangers inherent in what you’ll be doing.”

Running his hoof through his mane was more of an attempt for Blueblood to gather his thoughts and consider proper phrasing than it was an actual attempt to straighten his errant hair. “Zecora, I did not sleep well because… I have killed more ponies in the last two days than I have in the last two years.”

Zecora stood silently for a moment before speaking. “It is well, if killing haunts you; but know it bothers me less, Mister Blue.”

Blueblood grinned grimly. “Excellent, welcome a—”

The mask canted to the side. “To work for you, I have not agreed. There is one more thing from you I need.”

As Blueblood’s patience vanished, so did his grin. “What do you want?”

“Of course, to discuss my fee. This Zebra does not work for free.”

A laugh almost escaped Blueblood’s lips. “My apologies, again. I was getting ahead of myself.”

It was a matter of minutes to discuss Zecora’s pay. In the end, she insisted on rates by the day.

Week 1, Day 1, Afternoon

The crumbling masonry of the Abbey was in keeping with the rest of Ponyville. Like most buildings in town, it appeared as if somepony had erected the structure and then forgotten to perform even the most basic maintenance over the following decades. Or centuries, Blueblood thought as he took in the sight of tattered tapestries and sundered stained-glass windows. Also in abundance were rows of wooden benches, which were strewn haphazardly about, suggesting they had not been used in a long time. Monsignor Mare was supposed to be the community’s religious leader, but he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since entering town.

Blueblood was actually unsure as to why he’d come; being related by blood to the object of worship made him singularly faithless. He supposed he was drawn to the place by a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia. Despite his heathen beliefs, he was inclined to show respect in such a place, and lowered himself in a gesture of supplication before the altar which, aside from bearing Celestia’s well-known cutie mark, bore the same unmistakable emblem as the shield they had recovered from the wagon yesterday.

The local ponyfolk identified the symbol as Celestia’s family crest and indeed Blueblood had noticed its presence in several places throughout her townhouse. He found himself perplexed as to why he had never seen it before coming to Ponyville; he was beginning to wonder if Celestia was hiding more than just her nascent researches into the hidden mysteries of the world.

“You are Prince Blueblood?”

The voice shook Blueblood from the reverie he hadn’t realized he was indulging. He stood and turned his head to see a unicorn mare whose colors ranged through various shades of magenta and purple. She was encased in a robes of worn cloth and a suit of platemail, wore a rusted mace strapped to her belt, and had a thick tome, which spilled out of the saddlebag it had been forced into.

“Who wants to know?” Blueblood replied, immediately on guard.

“I am Amethyst Star. I understand you are mounting an expedition into the Everfree, to the Castle of the Two Sisters.”

“What of it? And why didn’t you speak with me while I was in the Tavern?” Blueblood was wary. That this mare had approached him, not only after he had left the tavern, but also after his companions had returned to the townhouse, raised his suspicions. He found himself searching for signs of a possible ambush.

“I apologize for not approaching you earlier, but I find the tavern to be extremely distasteful; it offends three of my vows directly.”

Blueblood noticed the holy symbols set into her armor and suddenly understood; “You’re a holy vestal, aren’t you? Forbidden from drinking, gambling, and pleasures of the flesh? Ah… it makes sense now, the tavern has those things in abundance. You probably wouldn’t be violating your sacred oaths just by stepping hoof in there, though.”

Amethyst shook her head. “No, but Berry Punch had me banned from her establishment after I publicly protested her den of debauchery.”

“My apologies then,” Blueblood said, forcing his muzzle into a wan smile. “Truth be told, I’m not particularly fond of the place either. I think I’ll be holding all further recruitment meetings at Celestia’s townhouse—is that why you’ve stalked me to the church then? You wish to join the expedition team?”

Amethyst nodded her head. “Indeed, I do.”

“Follow me then; we’ll discuss your qualifications. If I bring you aboard, we’ll have enough ponies to perform an initial foray into the Everfree.” As Blueblood walked away from the altar, he saw Amethyst prostrate herself one last time in front of it before turning to follow him.

Week 1, Day 1, Dusk

After the sun had set, the five ponies returned to the townhouse and gathered in a large hall around a lengthy table which was strewn with ancient maps and diagrams. A dozen or so lit candles provided scant but sufficient illumination.

“So, you’ll be directing us from the manor?” Shining Armor sounded relieved that Blueblood wouldn’t be joining the expedition.

“Yes,” Blueblood nodded as he spoke. “Aunt Celestia seems to have a plethora of papers secreted away around the manor. It will likely take me months to sort through all of it. But this particular parchment—a set of instructions—was the sole occupant of the enchanted table I uncovered in the observatory. They describe a basic spell which will allow me to link up to four individuals to the table. Through a magical viewing window, I will be able to see and hear your surroundings from the observatory. I should also be able to communicate to you any information I’m able to unearth about either your location or about things you encounter.”

“But now—” Blueblood turned his attention to the largest of the diagrams. “—for the map I found in her study.” Clearing away the other papers, he gestured over the mostly blank parchment. “As you can see, her records are woefully inadequate. The first expedition is going to be to quickly survey—” He tapped a hoof on one of the few sections of the map that had notes on it. “—this small section of the ruins adjacent to the castle. The journal I found with this map indicates that this small basement that she catalogued here—” His hoof tapped on a specific building. “—is actually an opening into sprawling network of labyrinthine catacombs underneath the area.”

Blueblood regarded the scantly filled-in map with a frown. “This reconnoiter is to both test the waters and to get a better idea of what other areas might be suitable for exploration. You should be able to camp safely in the above-ground portion of the ruins. We have no idea what kind of dangers lurk below and it will behoove us to do this as carefully as possible. Do not tarry for more than a day, not on this first trip. I’m not sure how much equipment I want to load you down with either; Celestia’s records speak of the crypts containing ‘wealth beyond measure,’ the return of which will be of utmost importance in funding our continuing efforts.”

“I thought you said she’d exhausted the royal treasury,” Amethyst pointed out.

“She had,” was Blueblood’s terse reply.

Amethyst’s frown made it clear that she wasn’t satisfied with the answer.

“I have no legitimate idea,” Blueblood added. “This is one of the main reasons we’re performing these scouting missions. All of the accounts Celestia kept in this townhouse are either incomplete or contradictory. One of the largest mysteries is the location of her accounting ledger; she managed to spend millions of bits from the royal coffers, yet still somehow managed to recover none of the wealth she states she discovered in her pursuits. So, while I do want you expending extra effort on retrieving bits and valuables, recovery of records and mapping the area will have to be of a higher priority. We need to try to understand her methods amidst all of this madness.”

“I talked about the route to the ruins with some of the locals,” Rainbow said. “They say it’s about a one day trot along the old road through the Everfree. We should be able to get there and get out in as few as three days, though we should plan on four or five, in case of delays.”

“Does anypony have any other questions or have anything else to add?” Blueblood looked around and saw only heads shaking from side-to-side. “Ok, we’ll get you provisioned first thing tomorrow, and then you can head out. I’m going to retire for the evening; the last few nights have not been kind, and I feel that getting a little extra sleep couldn’t hurt.”

Week 1, Day 1, Evening

“You haven’t just killed me, you fool—”

Blueblood opened his eyes, and was again face to face with a corpse.

Neighsay’s presence in his bed was a shocking, almost comical, occurrence; it would have prompted a quip about scandal and impropriety had Blueblood not been shaking with terror.

“—you’ve doomed all of Equestria to destruction!”

Blueblood’s trembling ceased as he came to the realization that Neighsay was just as pretentious in death as he had been in life. And, that he must be dreaming. His brows furrowed as he looked at the worm-ridden muzzle that was staring accusingly at him. “You were never a pony of action, Neighsay. But you would have surely killed us all with your inaction.”

“And you have killed us more surely than I could have ever—”

“You are unbelievable!” Blueblood poked Neighsay’s maggoty snout with his hoof, eliciting a sickening squelch. “Your arguments were always pompous; your views pedantic! You never even bothered to consider the reality of the situation!”

As his voice raised in volume, Blueblood became painfully aware of the fact that he was laying in bed arguing with the corpse of a pony he’d murdered two days ago. “You were always concerned with how you appeared to the public and the other members of the council,” he sneered at Neighsay. “You may just be a dream, but I find it hard to believe that even this version of you isn’t mortified to find yourself in the bed of another council member—the Prince, no less!”

Neighsay reached out with his forelegs, his hooves latching onto Blueblood’s head with a vice-like strength belied by their advanced state of decay. “You speak of impropriety?”

“What—” Blueblood’s eyes widened as he used his forehooves to struggle against Neighsay’s iron-grip and approaching muzzle. He strained with all of his might to try and wrest himself away from the advancing cadaver, grunting with exertion.

“I’ll show you impropriety!”

As Neighsay’s decomposing lips opened, Blueblood opened his own mouth to scream his displeasure.

Neighsay pressed his muzzle into Blueblood’s in a morbid mockery of a kiss. The cold clamminess of the contact raised Blueblood’s gorge as the Chancellor’s bloated tongue swam into his mouth, immediately dissuading Blueblood from attempting to clench his jaw closed, lest he wind up with the severed lump of flesh in his mouth.

Shooting his eyes about the room wildly, Blueblood looked for something, anything, to defend himself from his assailant. His eyes locked on the sheathed sword hanging by his traveling cloak. He lit his horn to draw the blade and hover it towards himself, but he gagged as the tongue continued to writhe about. He scrunched his eyes closed, concentrating on bringing the sword to his rescue. Blueblood thrust the sword down, through Neighsay, and the mattress—

Neighsay’s entire body went rigid and he gripped Blueblood’s head tighter, causing sharp pain to radiate across Blueblood’s scalp.

You’re not supposed to feel pain in a dream, Blueblood frantically thought as Neighsay started to convulse. Worse, the echoes of a retching sound began to reverberate through the Chancellor’s throat.

Blueblood’s eyes widened as he realized that Neighsay was going to vomit. He thrashed, raining his hooves upon the Chancellor’s skull, cracking bone and tearing away skin, but not loosening the bony grip even slightly. He flailed with his hind limbs as well, kicking and pushing for all he was worth, straining the muscles in his back and even eliciting several pops from his joints and spine.

It wasn’t enough.

Week 1, Day 2, Dawn

The cold light of pre-dawn shone down onto a fine wooden table strewn with alleged food. Prince Blueblood shifted his aching body in his chair and looked up with heavy-bagged eyes at Ditzy Doo, who had finally been given a clean bill of health by the Sanitarium… and who evidently also ran the Ponyville general-store… and had brought an inordinate amount of supplies for them to sift through.

“You dragged me… us out of bed, to show us this,” Blueblood uttered through lips that bore some kind of foul-smelling crust.

“You bet I did,” came the impassioned reply, punctuated by Ditzy’s outstretched, bite-ridden forelegs. “You said you needed to be ready to go first thing, so I brought the best stuff! Look at these muffin-rations, they’ll keep for as long as ya need! Plus, they’re iron fortified!”

Blueblood looked skeptically at the baked goods, tapping at one with a hoof.

“Don’t worry about it, Sir,” Shining took a bite of one of the muffins that Ditzy had spent the last few minutes stuffing into their bags, producing a noise not dissimilar from that of a wooden board snapping. He worked his jaw once, and he made a regretful, strained face, and began to masticate with a sound that suggested that the “iron” content of the baked goods was in ingot form.

“They’re hardtack.” Rainbow illustrated this by slamming a muffin against the countertop, putting a sizable dent in the polished wood. The muffin was unharmed.

“Hay! You break it, you bought it!” Derpy crossed her forehooves and glared at Rainbow—well at least one of her eyes did.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow said as she waved the statement off and hoofed the muffin into her pack. “Either way, Ditzy’s right; this stuff will keep for months, maybe years. I don’t even think bugs can eat it.” She looked over to where Shining was still trying to choke down a single mouthful of the stuff. “I’m not sure we can either,” she said with a grin.

“Well then, since we’re getting an early start on provisioning… here are some torches.” Blueblood levitated a bundle over to Rainbow. “They’re for those of you without horns, and to lighten the strain on those of you with them.”

“Ahh, and what are these?” Zecora asked, prodding at a small rack of thin, wiry metal objects. “Of what use are premade skeleton keys?”

“They’re magic!” Ditzy grinned. “You put one into a lock and it reshapes itself and opens the lock without fail! They only work once though.”

Blueblood inspected one of the intricate pieces of metal. “How much are they, Ditzy?”

“Two hundred bits!”

“Two hundred b—That’s robbery! How about I trade you for some—” he leaned in conspiratorially “—crests we picked up, no questions asked?”

“Hay, Prince, crests ain’t gonna put Dinky through college. Now I can get them cheaper, but I’d have to go to somepony who has noooo experience in metalworking, or magic.”

After thinking for a moment, Blueblood snatched up three keys and hoofed them over to Zecora.

“Laudanum?” Amethyst Star said reproachfully as she tinked a hoof against a decent sized glass bottle. “How does tincture of opium count as expedition supplies?”

“I shouldn’t think you’d need any since you have holy healing powers,” Blueblood said. “But here, grab a shovel. Never know when you’ll need to clear some rubble.” He paused, his brows suddenly furrowed. He then turned his glare towards Zecora. “Oh great, now you have me rhyming!” He could swear that he heard Zecora chuckle at him from under the mask.

Blueblood lit his horn and raised up several sacks of bits onto the table, noticing with no small amount of dismay that he was spending over half of what little money he had been able to scrape together for the expedition. If the party didn’t recover sufficient wealth on the mission, the entire operation could be over before it even had a chance to get started.

Ditzy happily went about counting the bits as everypony else tightened straps and checked their gear.

With a loud swallow, Shining finally cleared the muffin from his mouth, which made a noticeable bulge as it worked its way down his throat. “Ok everypony,” he choked out, “let's get to this, daylight's burning!”

Ruins Reconnoiter

Chapter 5: Ruins Reconnoiter

Week 1, Day 2, Afternoon

The sun, which had been a constant companion in Ponyville due to the grounding of the weather ponies, was conspicuously absent in the woods of the Everfree. As the party continued deeper into the forest, they found that the canopy quickly closed overhead and swathed them in a cloak of perpetual gloom. The shadows grew frequent and sinister in appearance, their multitude matched only by the plethora of random noises which emanated from all directions.

As Shining led the others, he was on constant watch for ambush, his eyes checking every tree and rock for anything out of the ordinary, which in the Everfree Forest, was pretty much everything. “We’ve been traveling all day… it’s odd that we haven’t run into so much as a timber wolf out here.”

Blueblood’s disembodied voice, which had been following them since town, answered Shining’s statement.

Let me see here… Celestia’s notes say that the section of the old road, from Ponyville to the Castle, is imbued with some form of… enchantment. It is proof against encroachment by the forest and its inhabitants. Animals and beasts seem to be able to cross it, but refuse to use it for travel or hunting purposes.

“What about bandits?” Rainbow quickly asked.

They would have to leave the road to mount any kind of practical ambush, which would leave them open to attack from the local wildlife, which Celestia’s journals describe as: pernicious, perilous, and puissant.

“She’s a fan of the ‘p’ words, then,” came Rainbow’s sardonic reply.

“Maybe we could harness this magic somehow,” said Amethyst. “If we can unlock the secrets of this section of the old road, perhaps we can repel the mosquito swarms from the town. The weather teams haven’t been able to—”

Amethyst ceased speaking and everypony stopped walking as Shining held up a hoof. Ahead was an area of sunshine; the trees were beginning to clear. Everypony galloped ahead, thankful for actual daylight after the gloom of the forest. They saw that the sun was low in the sky, almost having reached the horizon, but was still high enough that they would still have enough light left to set up their camp without expending any torches.

Strangely enough, though the rays warmed their bodies, they did not lift anypony’s spirits. The surroundings were bleak and lifeless, and the ground swiftly transitioned from soil into a plateau of sterile rock and gravel which had halted all tree and shrub growth. Even lichens and vines seemed loath to grow there.

And then there was the castle, or what remained of it. The crumbling edifice loomed almost a mile away in the distance, its bone-like spires seeming to shimmer, as if they were baking in the heat of a midday sun, despite the clearly advanced hour. The haze was mesmerizing, but not at all in a comforting way.

The ruins, which occupied about a half mile radius around the castle, looked equally uninviting. They had an eerie stillness and silence about them, giving the impression of a massive city-wide tomb. After the noisiness of the Everfree Forest, the lack of birds, insects, and even vegetation, was unnerving. Suddenly, the prospect of camping anywhere near the malign structures seemed like a very poor idea.

“Sir?” Shining asked.

Yes?

“We are going to forego camping inside the ruins,” Shining said. “There’s something… wrong here. My hackles are up just from looking at them—”

“Mine too,” added Rainbow.

“This area puts me ill at ease,” Zecora said. “It’s like my blood is going to freeze.”

“This place is evil,” murmured Amethyst.

Week 1, Day 2, Afternoon

Blueblood facehoofed. “Again, with calling it evil,” he muttered to himself. Perched on a sumptuous cushion, Blueblood overlooked the sturdy, candle-lit observation table to which Celestia had affixed her viewing enchantment. Above the ancient filigree of incomprehensible runework, translucent apparitions of the party, who had begun to set up camp, were contained within a hazily-outlined sphere of arcane energies.

With the accumulated dust having been long cleared out, the multitude of windows provided a breathtaking view of both the surrounding town, as well as the Everfree Forest. With the telescope Celestia had installed, he could probably even see the ruins of the distant castle, though probably not the individual ponies.

Raising his voice, he spoke to the group. “If you are getting a bad vibe from the place, you would do well to avoid sleeping there. Strong magic can induce the effects you’re feeling. You’ll probably want to camp under the tree cover then; it’ll get cold on that rock-face at night.”

Will do,Shining said. We’ll enter the crypts first thing tomorrow.

“I’ll check in again in the morning then,” Blueblood said, following the instructional parchment’s directions to magically place the viewing enchantment into a passive state. The sphere of remote-viewing shrank to a pinprick.

Sitting in the room, Blueblood began preparations for the morrow. He checked his supplies of map-grade parchment and inks, inspected his measuring and graphing tools to make sure they were calibrated for surveying, and made sure that he had a spare bottle of wine stashed under the table.

Now that he had the time, he took it upon himself to look out the windows around the town. With the sun setting, he observed as the town was bathed in the various colors of the encroaching evening. He watched until the final red rays swept through the hamlet, leaving only the glow of the moon and the green comet.

A wave of anxiety passed over Blueblood as he considered going back to his room for the evening. He’d rushed everypony out of the manor earlier that morning; the primary reason being the bloodied sheets which he had laid next to his bed—a realization that had had him wondering if he’d lost his mind. The modicum of hope that he’d held on to, that he’d dreamed that horrid encounter the previous night, had been dashed with the rising of the sun.

Avoiding his chambers all day had been easy enough: he’d spent most of his time in the observatory. Still, now he could only dwell on the glaring physicality of the diced corpse, and the especially sickening fact that he had been forced to ingest the Chancellor’s regurgitations—drinking an entire bottle of wine, from the case of rare vintage he’d packed for the journey, hadn’t helped any to remove the taste of blood and bile from his palate.

“How in Tartarus did that foal-fornicator’s corpse get into my room?” Blueblood demanded of the green comet. He observed the heavenly body for a few more minutes, mesmerized by the way the light shifted across its coma. “I wonder if anypony has named you,” he said absentmindedly.

At a sudden hint of sound, Blueblood spun around, eyes scanning the room. But he saw nothing but the empty observatory… and the telescope.

He berated himself; surely the feeling of being watched was due purely to the bizarre and traumatizing nature of the incidents during the previous two nights. Looking at the archaic device for several long moments, Blueblood felt almost as if it were calling to him, beckoning him to observe the comet through its array of magnifying lenses.

“I should send a letter to the Equestrian Astrological Society tomorrow,” Blueblood said absentmindedly as he walked over to the telescope and began to angle it towards the comet. “I’m probably the first pony to have laid eyes on you; I should be the one to name you.”

The telescope itself was likely older than he; the exquisite craftsponyship, mixed with the brilliant patina, hinted that the probable age of the instrument was at least a few hundred years. Looking through the finderscope to check the alignment of the primary lens, Blueblood blinked as he felt his eye water from the magnified and concentrated luminescence. The confidence he felt, that he would be able to get a decent view of the comet’s nucleus, was only slightly offset as he attached a smoked-glass filter onto the primary lens.

Dabbing at his wet eye with a hoofkerchief, he was surprised to see the fabric come away bloody. Checking the smaller scope, he saw that there was some dribbled crimson there as well. “Clumsy oaf,” he berated himself. “You’re so blasted drunk you went and cut your own eye socket on the glass lens.” He wiped down the finderscope and dabbed again at his own eye, which was apparently still bleeding slightly.

Sighing, Blueblood looked over to the telescope and swabbed a little more blood from his eye. “Let’s get a look at you, then,” he said.

As he pressed his right eye to the main eyepiece, Blueblood saw…

Blueblood saw.

He screamed as he tried to cover up his gushing socket with one hoof, but it was too late: he’d already seen everything; he’d seen it all.

“Oh… Celestia,” he wept, tears from his left eye, and a stream of blood from the right.

Week 1, Day 3, Dawn

The rising sun framed the Castle of the Two Sisters like a halo, though not like anything that one would expect from so holy an image. Instead, it looked as if rays of blood lanced through the building, painting the sky in shades of death. The haze was also still present, adding a further air of malignancy to the view.

“Well,” Shining said, looking at the imposing sight, “we’re not being paid by the hour.” He began to walk towards the the city ruins which lay in the castle’s shadow.

Once inside the city’s outer curtain wall, they were greeted by the remnants of the once majestic place. Red light bathed every surface, making it seem that the walls were bleeding from every crack and fissure, and the random piles of rubble appeared to be piled bodies.

Rainbow pointed towards a crumbling stone archway about a hundred mare lengths ahead, only a fraction of the way from the wall to the keep. Stairs were barely apparent beyond the crumbling entrance. “That looks like the way down to the catacombs.”

“One of many,” Shining said, pulling out a hastily made copy of the map from Celestia’s records. “It does seem as good a starting point as any—Sir, are you ready to start mapping as we go?”

Yes. I’ll tell you if I need you to slow down, but I doubt that will be an issue.

Shining approached the stairs, his horn lit, and his sword hovering magically beside him. “My old Ponish is a bit rusty—” he said as he looked at a carved inscription above the entryway.

“Mortem manet omnes nos,” Amethyst read. “Death awaits us all.”

“Cheery,” Rainbow observed.

Shining shrugged and started down the stone stairs. Rainbow shadowed close behind Shining, her pistol held tightly in her teeth. Zecora released the catch on her dagger, unbuttoned a few of her flask pockets and allowed for some distance to open up before following. Amethyst remained close behind Zecora, her mace drawn.

As Shining exited the stairwell, he looked around the tenebrous vestibule, and flared the glow from his horn, the sudden incandescence revealing several twisted forms that immediately fled from the flash. The illumination was far less than they had hoped, swallowed up by their surroundings and fading quickly, despite the brightness in their immediate vicinity.

Shining, you should light up some torches and conserve your magic. The sound of pouring liquid could be heard. If you and Amethyst keep light spells going, you’re going to be too worn out to deal with anything you might find down there.

“Rainbow,” Shining said as he let the glow from his horn decrease in intensity. “Break out the torches.” Once they’d been passed out and his was ignited, he pointed his torch at a barely visible doorway. The motion repelled the shadows, which crept around the periphery of their lights like a circling pack of wolves. “That looks like a pretty lengthy hallway. Let’s follow it first. Everypony be on your guard.”

“Eight left,” Rainbow informed Shining as she lit her torch off of his.

“Well,” Shining replied, “if it seems like we are in danger of exhausting our supply, we’ll make our way towards the exit.”

Thus emboldened, the four ponies worked their way down the hallway that Shining had pointed out. The corridor itself was not incredibly long, but the four had to navigate fallen rubble and large cobwebs that threatened, in some places, to span the entire width of the passage.

The first door opened into a room set with a multitude of caskets and sarcophagi.

Shining approached one of the caskets to inspect it. “Empty… why would it—”

“Shining! Watch out!” Rainbow shouted, throwing her torch past Shining and into the face of an ambulatory pony skeleton, staggering it backwards. She aimed and fired, her shot shattering a decent portion of the skull, but failing to halt the bones’ advance.

“Sweet Celestia!” Shining swore as he backpedaled from the approaching monstrosity.

Zecora threw a glass vial past Shining, which shattered against the skeleton, coating most of it in a bubbling green liquid. Whatever was in the flask caused the bones to smoke and sizzle. It was only a matter of moments before the monster was reduced to a smoldering pile of charred calcification.

Is everypony ok?

There was a series of acknowledgments as each of the four ponies checked themselves over.

“Undead monstrosities?” Amethyst growled the question. “I expected bandits, or grave-robbers. What in Tartarus is going on down here?”

This is most distressing. Those crypts house the bones of my entire family line. It’s supposed to be a place of rest, not a place where the dead walk.

“Somepony must have desecrated it.” Amethyst’s statement had drawn all eyes to her, as well as an incredibly uncomfortable silence. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy, everypony. The dead don’t just casually rise from their graves. It takes time and power for undead to be created. Can none of you feel the evil that’s been built up here? Somepony in Celestia’s retinue must have been practicing necromancy behind her back, maybe—”

We don’t know anything yet, came Blueblood’s forceful reply. We’ve only seen a single skeleton, nothing to indicate large scale necromantic activity—

There was a “sploosh” sound, and a red stain began to spread across the side of the white robes which covered Amethyst’s barrel. She looked up to see that a cup-wielding, robed skeleton that had splashed her; it brought the cup to its mouth and vomited more red liquid into the goblet.

Amethyst shrieked in undignified shock, pain, and terror as she felt the liquid seep into her fur and burn her skin.

Shining swore and brought his sword down in a sweeping arc that smashed the robed skeleton to pieces.

Rainbow jumped ahead of him and slashed at another progressing bony horror, breaking several of its ribs. She was then beset by that skeleton and another that had joined it. Both monsters lunged at her and missed; Rainbow swiftly countered, destroying her first attacker and smashing the foreleg of the second.

Zecora upended a vial of liquid onto the smoking portion of Amethyst’s robes, after which both the sizzling and Amethyst’s screaming abated.

Amethyst held up a hoof and a bolt of radiance erupted downwards from the ceiling, completely shattering the final skeleton.

The four stood there for a moment, breathing heavily in the aftermath of the attack.

Is anypony injured?

“Just a slight burn to Amethyst’s side. My potion was able to turn the tide.”

“That’s more than just one skeleton,” Amethyst said through clenched teeth. She also noticed Shining Armor hoof something from a stone coffin into his own robes.

Four undead attacking as a group… that's probably a good indication that there’s a necromancer down there. I recommend you watch your backs, since any corpse could be reanimated and… well, you’re in the catacombs, so there could be quite a few.

“No kidding,” snarked Rainbow.

“Focus, Dash,” Shining said. “Ok everypony, this changes nothing; we knew something was wrong here. Let’s get this section mapped and cleared out so we can get back to town.”

The others nodded their assent.

I’ll try to keep an eye out— There was a sigh.—but this spell is fairly limited. I didn’t see those monstrosities until they were right on top of you.

“Don’t worry about it, Sir,” Shining said as he looked in some of the caskets and sarcophagi. “We should be able to handle it.” He finished rummaging. “Well, it doesn’t look like there’s any other missing skeletons in this room, let’s move to the next one.”

Once Shining had turned away to exit the room, Amethyst furrowed her eyebrows as she watched him leave.

Week 1, Day 3, Noon

After coming to his senses the previous night, Blueblood had realized that he couldn’t see anything to the right of his muzzle, and had quickly found a mirror to inspect himself.

He’d been horrified to see that the entirety of his right eye had turned black as pitch, almost as if his pupil had somehow expanded to consume the rest of his eyeball. It also continued to weep blood. Crimson continuously seeped out from the socket, which had necessitated the fashioning of an impromptu eyepatch from a hoofkerchief.

He’d needed to create a second one in the morning, this time utilizing fabric from a pillowcase—the original and the pillow beneath had been completely ruined by ocular discharge after he’d drunk himself to sleep last night.

He couldn’t even recall what he had seen that had taken his vision, the knowledge seemingly lost along with his sight. Truly, the only upside that Blueblood was able to claim regarding the previous evening was the mysterious lack of molestation on his part by the recently deceased—something that had truly vexed him, since he had been singularly unable to dispose of Neighsay’s remains.

In the morning, despite having the benefit of only a single eye, he had managed to drag the glistening pile of sheets into his chamber fireplace. The damp remains had resisted incineration at first but, after he’d fanned the flames to sufficient height, they eventually burned away to ash. He only wished that the act hadn’t filled the entire manor with the smell of roasting flesh.

Blueblood was sure that nopony on the team suspected anything was amiss, as he had gotten to the observatory and checked in just as the team had finished breaking their fast. He had dared hope that the expedition would be straightforward, but those expectations had been dashed at the first sign of animate corpses.

The party now seemed to be making decent headway, progressing through the ruined crypts. Blueblood felt a knot of trepidation in his stomach regarding the apparent abundance of the trotting dead in the catacombs. Their very presence shone a new light onto the visitations he’d had the previous nights, though he couldn’t quite wrap his head around how somepony had managed to acquire and then smuggle Neighsay’s corpse all the way to Ponyville for reanimation. He spent much of his time pondering the implications of a necromancer lurking in the catacombs. Wishing he could delay those thoughts until the group was out of danger, he instead guided the party as best as he could to ensure the expedition’s success.

Despite the party’s lack of serious injuries so far, Blueblood was worried about their mental health. Most of the group was starting to look frazzled, and he was worried that Amethyst was in serious danger of misplacing her feculence if the unruly undead deemed to douse her with much more of that caustic crimson concoction.

Taking advantage of a break in the action, brought about by the group having to dig through a collapsed portion of tunnel, Blueblood took a few moments to adjust the arrangement of maps on the table. Using a pencil and a ruler, Blueblood had catalogued the tunnels as the four ponies progressed. He had also made rough technical sketches of some of the undead the group had encountered. But cartography and map-making were his special talent, and had assisted greatly in his efforts to compensate for only having the use of one eye. He allowed himself a proud grin at the progress being made.

Tracing out the halls of your lineage?

Blueblood bolted upright from his cushion, horn lit, sword drawn, and his good eye darting around, searching for targets. “Who’s there?” he demanded as he stumbled to turn completely around. His scrutiny of the shadows, which were prevalent and seemingly motile despite the time of day, caused him to flinch at every imagined movement.

Eventually, you will know the woeful magnitude of my shortcomings.

“Celestia?” he asked the empty room.

There was no answer.

The platemail-clad skeleton, which Blueblood had quickly—and quite unoriginally—dubbed a “defender,” was giving the party more problems than the other denizens of the catacombs. It continued to interpose itself and block any attacks meant for its companions, which was problematic since it and its large wooden shield seemed rather resistant to damage.

Shining now sported several gashes, from a series of lucky skeleton attacks in the preceding hallways and rooms. Zecora only had a few dark stains on her robes, mostly from the cup-wielding horrors Blueblood had designated as “courtiers,” and seemed relatively uninjured. Amethyst was covered head-to-hoof in red stains and, despite lack of obvious injury, was suffering from a severe tremor in one of her eyes. Rainbow was unscathed, having miraculously dodged every attack sent her way so far.

“Gotcha!” Rainbow shouted as she fired her pistol at one of the courtiers, hitting the interposed shield of the defender instead. Despite her quick reflexes and sailor-level swearing, she was unable to avoid the retaliatory back-hoofed shield bash, which sent her flying past Zecora and into Amethyst.

Zecora dodged a stream of red liquid from the courtier, and then a crossbow bolt from a skeletal arbalester, allowing her to retreat unharmed to a position where she could lob vials again.

Shining swung the butt of his sword, cracking the side of the defender’s head, staggering it. “Now!” he shouted.

Zecora threw a sachet over the pile of bones that had been a skeletal soldier, and doused both the courtier and arbalester. Amethyst roared as she unleashed a bolt of solar radiance which severely damaged the courtier.

Rainbow dove past Shining and the defender, planted both hooves on the arbalester, and kicked off of it while she swiped, breaking off the front of its ribcage. She swung and decapitated the smoking courtier when it tried to splash her with liquid, but was then spun around, stumbling to a sitting position after receiving a crossbow bolt to one of her kidneys.

Amethyst pointed her hoof at Rainbow and a surge of light passed between them, popping the bolt out of Rainbow’s back and sealing the wound—mostly.

The defender shook its skull and advanced again.

Shining moved to attack, but the defender slammed him with its shield, smashing him into a pillar. He stood there, stunned for several moments.

Rainbow got up on all four hooves and immediately took a crossbow bolt to the center of her chest. She tried to gasp but was rewarded with only a wet gurgle. She tasted blood as it ran from her mouth down her chin, and she collapsed to the ground.

Zecora lobbed another vial that stuck the arbalester, dissolving them away into a sizzling pile.

Amethyst kept her hoof pointed at Rainbow Dash and blasted her again with radiant energy, causing the new crossbow bolt to be forced out, and allowing Rainbow to inhale a ragged breath—

Just in time for the defender to bury its axe into Rainbow’s ribs, eliciting her to shriek and vomit a gout of blood across the stone floor.

“Aaaaugh!” Amethyst shrieked at the defender. “Stop killing Rainbow Dash!” She irradiated the stricken pony with healing powers and again Rainbow, now with a shocked and haunted look in her eyes, gasped back to life.

Shining bellowed a battle cry as he surged forward and brought his sword down, removing the defender’s shield-foreleg.

Zecora lobbed a vial right into the defender’s face, coating its entire skull in bubbling green causticity.

As the defender brought the axe back for another swing, its skull and most of its upper half dissolved away, leaving the rest to collapse to the floor.

Everypony stood there panting for a moment, with the notable exception of Rainbow Dash, who seemed more interested in remaining curled on the floor, twitching and stroking her own tail.

“You ok there, Dash?” Shining asked as he extended a hoof towards the panicked, prone pegasus.

“Don’t touch me!” Rainbow screamed.

Shining jumped back, looking quite hurt at the exclamation. Everypony else stood there for a moment, watching as Rainbow lay there, shaking. “Rainbow—”

“We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you!” Rainbow said from the ground. She started muttering to herself, various incomprehensible phrases passing between her lips.

“We should leave this place,” Amethyst offered, her look a mixture of concern and fear. “Rainbow’s not in any shape to continue, and quite frankly, neither am I. We’ve already accomplished a great deal, between the journal pages, that accounting ledger, those chests and cabinets with all of the bits, gems, and trinkets… Let’s head back while we still can.”

“We’re also on our last torches,” Shining pointed out.

I concur. I’ve already mapped out what I need to in your current location and, if Rainbow can’t fight, I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks.

“Alright, Sir,” Shining said, looking down towards the huddled mare. “Rainbow, let’s go.” He kept his voice as calm and soothing as he could. “We’re leaving this place… I’ll—I’ll buy you a cider when we get back to town.”

Shining felt a tightening in his chest when Rainbow didn’t immediately jump to her hooves. After a few moments she did start moving, though, allowing him to sigh in relief.

With Rainbow Dash motile again, the party started to shuffle their way towards the exit of the catacombs.

“We’ll camp on the edge of the Everfree and head out first light,” Shining said, flashing Rainbow a grin. “Should be home by happy-hour tomorrow.”

Rainbow only responded by wiping at the tears which streamed down her muzzle, crushing Shining’s spirit and removing the smile from his face.

Excellent, I’ll keep my eye out for you until then.

Week 1, Day 3, Midnight

“You’re definitely larger,” Blueblood said to the comet as he stood in the observatory, his gaze pointed skyward. A fresh patch covered the left side of his face, but his right eye, as black and foreboding as the night sky it was pointed towards, absorbed the entirety of the stygian heavens.

“Why can I see you? I haven’t been able to see anything with this eye since last night, but now you are as clear as day…”

Blueblood paused, listening to the sounds of the room. For a moment, he could swear that he heard whispers, speaking unidentifiable syllables which made his brain hurt—but the only sound was that of his own breathing and heartbeat.

He’d given up on sleep earlier when he’d first heard those insistent-yet-incoherent vocalizations. They’d led him all the way from his room downstairs to the spiral staircase, and then up to the observatory. Much to his surprise, he discovered that he could still see the comet with his right eye, even through his eyelid, the patch, and through the gloomy clouds which had crept in earlier on a stale breeze from the Everfree.

Thankfully, the bleeding had stopped. Never really an aficionado of sanitariums, Blueblood was relieved that he wouldn’t have need of the surely capable Nurse Redheart’s care—not that leeches would be able to prevent his eye from gushing blood, though.

Why he’d covered the left side of his face, and exposed the umbral malignancy that had replaced his right eye, was completely unknown to him. It must have been that whispering he thought that he heard. No actual words were being spoken to him, but there was still an implacable impetus for him to continue.

Slowly rotating his ears, Blueblood listened again. Still there was nothing, regardless of how he positioned himself. He concluded that the whispers were not actually audible, even though they did take on some semblance of sound in the manner he was perceiving them. This led him to believe that they were originating in his mind, like a daydream or memory, which was odd since he’d never heard anything like them before.

Blueblood’s ears perked; he had definitely heard something this time. Swiftly hoofing the patch back over the right side of his face, Blueblood attempted to look around the observatory. Silently cursing his decision to not bring his sword when he’d left his chambers, he was nevertheless glad that covering his left eye had allowed his night-vision to acclimate to the gloom. The whispers were still frustratingly present, though their tone had changed considerably, to one of warning—they knew.

“Who’s there?” Blueblood demanded of the darkness. “I know you’re there, and you should know I don’t take kindly to trespassers.” He slowly worked his way along one wall as he spoke, keeping himself fully within the shadow provided by the angle of the moon to one of the pillars.

“You… monster,” said a stallion’s voice.

His ears focusing on the source of the statement, Blueblood strained his vision in the same place and was rewarded with the vague outline of a hooded pony on the opposite side of the observatory. From his tone and pitch, Blueblood guessed that the pony was quite a bit younger than him, barely a stallion in his own right. He also vaguely recognized the accent and voice which, although he couldn’t quite put his hoof on it, reminded him of Neighsay.

“Monster?” Blueblood said. “You sneak into my house in the middle of the night, and dare to call me the monster?”

The hooded figure stepped out into the moonlight and drew back their hood, revealing a tenuous, trim, young unicorn. Despite his healthy complexion, it looked like he’d gotten about as much sleep as Blueblood had over the last week. “Yes,” he sneered. “You are a murderer and a coward!”

Remaining silent, Blueblood regarded the pony for several moments before he finally remembered. “I know you,” he said, lighting his horn enough to illuminate the entire room. “You’re… Cynic, aren’t you? Youngest of Neighsay’s—”

“Don’t you dare say his name, murderer!” Cynic shouted, brandishing a dagger in his own magical field as tears of rage and anguish streamed down his face. “You killed my father! And then you got away with it! You… you… you—”

“Your father was a fool and a traitor.” The bluntness of Blueblood’s statement stopped the stammering Cynic and caused him to lower his gaze and the knife slightly. “I pitied him for the former, and executed him for the latter.”

Tears continued to run down Cynic’s muzzle as he raised both knife and gaze again. “Why?” He gestured emphatically with the knife.

“It’s been ten days since Celestia has vanished,” Blueblood said as he approached Cynic. “This is what I was afraid of. Your father wanted to delay the raising of the sun with his blasted committees, and if I’d let him… sure, forty unicorns would still have their magic, but this land would be frozen by—”

“Lies! The pegasi can keep the land warm for weeks without—”

“Celestia above, you are your father’s son,” Blueblood said, facehoofing. “Always the debate, always arguing for the scientific minority, even when the threat is clear and present.” He put his hoof down and furrowed his brows. “I refuse to argue weather-engineering with a knife-wielding trespasser. Now, I’ll tell you once, and only once: leave my residence, now. If you do, I’ll even be so generous as to forego having you arrested and executed for this attempted assassination.”

His eyes narrowing, Cynic’s pointed an accusatory hoof at Blueblood. “I’m not leaving! Not until I—”

There was the sound of a meaty thud.

Cynic stumbled forward a hoofstep. “—ge… et juz… jush tish—” The knife dropped out of the air and his horn-glow flickered a few times before sputtering out. His expression became one of confusion as he raised his hoof to the back of his head and started pawing at it. A sickly sucking sound issued forth as he pulled at what he found there. With a wince and a wet ‘pop,’ he brought his hoof around to where he could stare at it, and the object it now held, in abject confusion.

Cynic’s legs wavered, then buckled, causing him to fall onto his haunches. There was a metal clatter as a bloodied drawing-compass hit the floor.

Blueblood approached the partially paralyzed pony and knelt down next to him. “Damnit kid, why did you make me—looks like I clipped your brain stem there, champ. Missed all the major veins and arteries though.” He sighed heavily and sat down next to the unmoving unicorn. “The horrible thing, is that you won’t die like this… not for a while at any rate… damnit.”

Picking up the dropped knife in his magic, Blueblood looked into Cynic’s confused, yet still hate-filled eyes. “It will be a mercy, if I kill you now—you know that, right? Otherwise you’ll either take hours or even days to die. Worse would be if you live, crippled for life…”

“Muh brujjers… kii you,” Cynic managed to slur out.

Blueblood stood to his hooves and looked down at Cynic. “I didn’t want to kill you, or your father—” Raising the knife to the prone pony’s neck, Blueblood narrowed his eye. “—but if your brothers are dead-set on coming for me?” He slid the blade across the young stallion’s throat and watched as crimson flowed down Cynic’s convulsing chest. “Well… I’m just going to have to make this into a family tradition.”

Week 1, Day 4, Afternoon

“I need a Celestia-damned drink,” muttered Rainbow Dash as the party entered Ponyville proper.

Shining trotted up beside her. “Rainbow, I know I said I’d buy you a cider when we got back, but… you can wait until after we meet with the Prince to get sloshed, can’t you?”

Her dispiritingly despondent expression was the only answer Shining needed.

He smiled at the thought of possibly cheering Rainbow up after having had to endure the trip home with her persistent pessimism. “Fine,” he said, flipping her some bits. “You can go, but only because you’re adorable when you pout.”

Rainbow, while looking slightly relieved, still managed to glower at him. “I’m not that adorable.” She threw her saddlebags at him. “There, I don’t want anypony interrupting me, unless it’s to join in.”

Grinning with relief, Shining watched as Rainbow dashed over to the tavern. “I… think she’ll be ok,” he said, gladness threatening to enter his voice.

“Her soul would have been better served praying at the abbey,” Amethyst said.

Shining shook his head. “Naw, Rainbow loves her cider, it’s prolly the best thing for her right now. We should hurry up, I want to get back to her before she’s passed out on the floor.”

As they approached Celestia’s townhouse, they saw that the massive front doors were open, occupied by the conversing forms of Cheese and Ditzy, though it appeared that Cheese was actually doing most of the talking.

“And I said ‘hey, ma! What’s with all the sauerkraut? And my—oh, hey! Look who’s back! Gotta go tell the town!”

Amethyst, Shining and Zecora covered their ears with their hooves as fast as was ponily possible, still barely in time to avoid going deaf from Cheese’s proclamation.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Prince’s troops have returned with only one casualty! I repeat—”

“Hay!” Shining shouted, causing Cheese to look at him expectantly. “Rainbow is still alive, she just went to the tavern!”

“Oh,” Cheese said, going googly-eyed. “Well, how was I supposed to know that?”

Shining facehoofed, then immediately regretted not using that hoof to cover an ear when Cheese began again.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Prince’s troops have returned unscathed! No casualties! I repeat—”

Zecora removed her hooves from her head once Cheese had achieved sufficient distance from the group. “It is among my greatest fears, the damage he causes to my ears!”

“No kidding,” Shining said, rubbing at his own head. “Hay Ditzy, where’s the Prince?”

“In the drawing room,” answered the bubbly mare. “Here, I’ll take you!”

As Ditzy led them through the halls of the townhouse, Shining’s nose twitched at a peculiar, smoky odor. He’d felt as if he’d almost identified it when the drawing room doors opened and something else snatched away his attention.

“What in Celestia’s name happened to your eye?”

Blueblood was seated on a comfortable-looking cushion, in front of a large wooden table. His right eye was hidden under a paisley-patterned patch. “I was attacked last night by one of Neighsay’s colts—Cynic, I believe.”

His eyes widening, Shining approached for a closer inspection. “He put your eye out? Celestia above.” He scrutinized the patch closely, despite Blueblood leaning away from the invasion of personal space.

“It’s not out, it’s… complicated.”

“Having only one eye is pretty complicated. Have you had Nurse Redheart take a look at it?”

“Suffice to say, I have taken care of it,” Blueblood said cooly. “And I will appreciate it if you don’t ask me any more questions about it.”

Shining sat back. “Right, Sir. Sorry, Sir. It’s just… it’s my job to protect you… and you were attacked while I was out. I’m just looking out for your well-being.”

“And I appreciate it Shining, I really do, but I’m not a foal. If I need your assistance being dragged to the sanitarium, I’ll ask.”

Sweeping a foreleg across the table to clear it of a stack of parchment, Blueblood gestured to the now empty space. “Well, let’s see what you managed to recover.”

Some saddlebags were upended; these contained coins, gems, and some odd-looking trinkets. Other saddlebags were laid down carefully, with books or parchment then carefully removed from within.

As eyes all around the table took in the haul, Shining used a hoof to nudge a particularly fat ruby. “From the coin count, and the going rate for these gems, I’d estimate we brought in about eight thousand.”

“That we found money, was no surprise,” Zecora said. “But how much did we spend on supplies?”

Checking his own accounting ledger, Blueblood responded: “Forty-eight hundred—”

This earned a series of cringes from around the table.

“Yes,” Blueblood said. “Mounting these expeditions is going to be costly. Food and torches, while not impressive in cost individually, add up over several days for several ponies. We may need to be more sparing in the future if we’re to be able to continue our efforts.”

Laying the ledger down, Blueblood continued: “I was able to bring seven thousand with us from Canterlot. After supplies, we were down to twenty-two hundred, and now we’re up to ten thousand, two hundred… I’m giving you each six hundred for personal wages, rated at two hundred per day you were out there. I know it may sound a bit generous, but the work is exceptionally dangerous, and I expect you all to be responsible and do what you need to in town in order to unwind. That only leaves us a profit margin of eight hundred bits, which is not nearly enough if we hope to do any longer expeditions.”

“Is there any inherent value in the documentation we recovered?” Amethyst asked. “Some of the loose parchment looked like deeds, but others looked like requisition orders… only Shining had any kind of experience with legal forms, and—”

“I wasn’t able to decipher most of it,” Shining finished.

Frowning slightly, Blueblood started to look through the piles of papers. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Some of these are, indeed, proof of property ownership—and Celestia has apparently acquired a great deal of the land surrounding Ponyville—but some of these are supply vouchers…” Opening the recovered accounting ledger, Blueblood whistled sharply.

“What is it?” Shining asked.

Suppressing a short laugh, Blueblood continued to flip through the pages as he spoke. “Well, I’ve found what she did with the missing bits: this ledger accounts for the millions she spent, a vast amount of which was expended in an effort to rebuild this town and several areas of surrounding countryside. This is her master ledger, it is quite fortuitous that it is one of the books you recovered. Considering how many hundreds of volumes she must have stored away, you finding this on your first trip in—”

Is extremely fortunate.

Jumping to his hooves, and startling all ponies present, Blueblood looked frantically around the room. “Did you all hear that?”

“Hear what?” Shining eyed Blueblood with an exercised expression.

Looking around slowly once more, Blueblood sat back on the cushion. “Sorry, my nerves are shot. Attempted assassinations will do that to you, I suppose—” he sighed. “All of this adventuring is starting to get to me, putting me on edge.”

“With your safety compromised like this, I don’t think we can leave you alone here, Sir. I think—”

“I concur with you on that, Shining,” Blueblood said. “It’s time to recruit some more ponies.”

“What about the documents?” Amethyst tapped a hoof impatiently

“Right,” responded Blueblood. “Shining, Rainbow, and I discovered a cart with crates containing emblems on our way into town. I’ll need you all to rush out and retrieve the rest at some point this week—”

“For Celestia’s sake, why?” Shining looked confused and mildly irritated.

“Because,” Blueblood stated, “those emblems are proof of either alliance, or agreement regarding all of Celestia’s expenditures.”

“This does make a lot of sense,” Zecora said. “Using tokens for copious recompense.”

“Zecora is right on the muzzle with this one,” Blueblood said. “Why carry around one hundred thousand bits—which would be dozens of crates—when you can carry around a single crate with a few proofs of allegiance, which could be worth ten times the amount? That shield that I took back with us is indicative of a favor owed to Celestia by a household listed in this book.”

“So,” Shining remarked, “what you’re saying is that Celestia isn’t dealing in monetary currency?”

“Correct,” Blueblood replied. “She definitely expended bits—in staggering amounts—but she converted it into a much more valuable form of currency.”

“Influence,” Shining said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

“Yes. She makes particular mention of paintings and busts in this ledger—they will have Celestia’s family emblem located on them, though smaller than with the crests—and it will be of utmost importance that we retrieve these as well.”

“Do you think it will be worth it, to try and call-in all of these debts and favors?” Shining asked.

“Yes. It will be vital to our efforts that we continue with Celestia’s efforts to restore the town—”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Amethyst interrupted. “If she was restoring the town, then why is it falling apart?”

Sighing heavily, Blueblood allowed a warm, nostalgic smile to creep onto his face. “Because, if my Aunt was anything, it was melodramatic. Why spend ten to twenty years, slowly restoring a town piece by piece, and not really getting any gratitude for it? Ponies do tend to only see what isn’t currently being fixed. Why do that when you can announce one day that you are going to restore the entire town, all at once, and all inside of a single year? When Aunt Celestia did something, she did it big.” Blueblood seemed to think for a few moments and the smile suddenly vanished from his muzzle, replaced with a look of pain. “Does… when she… does something, she does it big.”

Week 1, Day 4, Evening

Blueblood opened his eyes, coming muzzle to muzzle with Cynic.

The rotted corpse pointed an accusatory hoof at him. “You killed—hrkk!”

The stallion’s own glowing knife had jammed itself up under his jaw and driven itself through his mouth and into his dead brain.

“Ready for you this time, you undead bastards,” Blueblood spat at the struggling corpse. His horn was already lit from grabbing the knife, but it flared slightly as he enveloped the entirety of Cynic’s writhing form, dragging it towards the fireplace he’d purposefully left blazing, despite the hot weather. With a grunt of effort, Blueblood heaved the twitching cadaver into the flames, eliciting muffled shrieks through sealed lips as the rotting flesh began to catch and fill the room with the odor of roasting meat.

With the firelight reflected in his eye, he grinned as he watched the squirming pile burn. “I don’t know what part of Tartarus you crawled out of, but when you get back, make sure you tell them how I sent you there.”

Fresh Faces

Chapter 6: Fresh Faces

Week 2, Day 2, Morning

The sounds of a great many pony voices carried from the townhouse foyer, down the hall, and into the room where Blueblood sat with his original recruits.

“Word must be spreading about the expedition,” Shining said, looking over the applicant list. “Some of these ponies are from the towns neighboring Ponyville. I was starting to worry that we’d have to start accepting some of the underqualified locals.”

Blueblood looked at the reorganized space that they had designated as a drawing room. Tall windows on the back wall allowed sunlight in for illumination, and a massive chandelier hung from the twenty hoof high ceiling. The enormous antique table in the center had room for far more than the five ponies currently sitting around it. “I’m just glad Ditzy was able to fix up the townhouse to the point where we can actually do the recruiting from here, especially in light of both the assassination attempt, and the… noise at the tavern. The relative calm of the manor definitely makes for a much better venue”.

Everypony at the table, with the notable exception of the incredibly hungover Rainbow Dash, looked much better after having had a few full days of rest.

Ditzy brought trays of various fruits and grains for the fledgling company to break their fast.

“So many earth ponies and unicorns,” Blueblood commented, putting down the interviewee list and taking a bite out of a pear.

“Yeah, about that,” Rainbow said as she tore a piece off of a loaf of bread, “we’d have as many pegasus ponies on there if it weren’t for the mosquitos. Anypony who tries to fly into town is getting driven off, or worse. There are reports of pegasus corpses and crashed chariots all up and down the old road out of town.”

“Blast it all,” Blueblood struck the table, jostling several plates and cups. “We will need the diversity the pegasi bring if our forces are to be properly balanced. We need to find the source of these—” he smashed a mosquito on the table, “—damnable things!”

Tilting her head slightly, Zecora wiped at one of the eye lenses of her mask. “If the mosquitos, you wish to destroy: to the Everfree, we must deploy.”

“I know,” Shining said, “everypony has seen the swarms coming out of the forest, but we have no idea where they are spawning in those woods, and the Everfree is incredibly vast.”

There was another angling of the mask, and Zecora’s hoof raised to her chin. “With the mosquito buzzing, there always comes fog… our best chance then, is to try Froggy Bottom Bog.” She pulled her mask slightly away from her face and slid a hoofful of oats into her muzzle.

Blueblood scratched his chin in thought for a moment. “I have noticed that.” He looked out the window at the cloudless morning sky. “Alright, Zecora. After we finish here, you and Rainbow will go scout out the bog, see if there is any merit to the idea. Be quick, and return before it starts getting dark, you’ll have plenty of light to work with.”

“Be wary, these things aren’t like normal mosquitos,” Amethyst said, setting a goblet of orange juice back to the table. “They won’t hesitate to swarm you, direct sunlight or not.”

Rainbow nodded. “I know, I flew through—”

“Fell through,” Shining coughed.

“Flew through—” Rainbow said, glaring daggers at Shining’s shameless grin, “—a swarm of them before. I know how nasty they can be.”

Finishing a small plate of greens, Zecora tightened the straps of her mask. “Miss Dash, we cannot stay, if we wish to be done today.”

“Right,” Rainbow answered, following Zecora’s lead to stand and head from the table.

“Be careful,” Shining called after them.

“Don’t worry, Shining,” Blueblood said when he noticed his personal guard’s worried expression. “I’m not going to send either of you two on errands until I have more trustworthy ponies to stick around here… speaking of which, Ditzy!”

“Yes, sir!”

Clock!

Ditzy’s sudden appearance and sloppy salute didn’t worry Blueblood so much as the fact that she physically hoof-punched herself in the head every time she did it. He even thought he saw a welt swelling up where she kept hitting herself.

“You can send in the first round of applicants now.”

“Yes, sir!”

Blueblood cringed.

Clock!

After the bubbly mare had staggered from the drawing room, the three heard a pair of incoming hoofsteps… and a click-clacking sound. A pair of earth ponies sauntered into the room, a dog close on their heels. The smaller of the pair, an orange mare, wore ragged leathers and carried a crude cudgel. The large, red stallion carried a flail and wore, aside from the tattered robes covering his scarred flesh, a metal collar and bracelet, which had both outward and inward facing spikes. The dog was a brown and white border collie.

“Welcome, I am Prince Blueblood, and you are—”

The mare cut him off with a bout of energetic verbal diarrhea: “Name’s Applejack, yer lordship, and this here is Big Macintosh—”

“Eeyup,” confirmed the red giant.

“—and this here,” she indicated the dog, “is Winona—”

The dog also barked in confirmation.

“—and we’re—”

Blueblood held up a hoof. “I’m well aware of the exploits of the legendary duo, ‘Mac-Jack.’ The Royal Guard has a file on your exactions of ‘righteous justice.’” He looked between the three. “At last count, over twenty confirmed beatings and maulings, dozens more suspected… you’ve definitely proved your abilities, although I worry about—”

“If you’ll pardon my interruption, Prince,” Applejack said, “we only break the spines of the dishonest, those who prey on other—”

“Sir,” Amethyst interjected when she saw Blueblood was about to hold his hoof up again, “Big Macintosh there is a holy flagellant. His life is dedicated to purity and justice. Their reputation should only speak to the depth of their convictions.”

“A flagellant?” Blueblood eyed Big Mac for a moment. “Show me the mark.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said as he lifted a portion of robe that had covered his barrel. The exposed hide was scarred as much as the rest of him, but it also bore the enormous spiked-collar brand used by the religious extremists who called themselves “flagellants.”

Newly aspiring members would have the plain-collar portion of the brand applied first, a process which weeded out the weak and faint of heart; most could not endure even this level of agony and would quit without ever obtaining a single spike-brand. If the candidate did not pass out or beg for the pain to stop, they would then have to demand each of the spikes be bestowed upon them—one at a time, up to five total—to show the depths of their convictions in the face of unimaginable suffering.

Big Mac’s weathered hide showed all five spikes.

Blueblood steepled his hooves. “We’ll need your unique brand of ruthlessness in the coming days. We cover basic necessities, food and lodging, while you’re not out on dangerous errands, and pay 200 bits per day while on a dangerous mission. If those rates are acceptable, you can consider yourselves hired.”

Applejack bowed. “Yessir, we’re just happier than a hog in mud to join your company, right Big Mac?”

“Eeyup.”

Marking some parchment, Blueblood indicated the drawing room door. “Ditzy will show you to your rooms and give you a tour of the guest wing, dining area, and common area. You may feel free to leave the estate at any time, but while on grounds, please restrict yourself to those areas… any other questions?”

“Eeynope.”

Week 2, Day 2, Afternoon

The perpetual press of pathetic prospects continued well into the afternoon, the crowd of ponies that had gathered over the previous week having piled up to positively preposterous proportions. Unfortunately the day-long hire session, aside from the Apple siblings, had only presented cannon-fodder quality applicants, including a stallion whose name was actually—

“Cannon Fodder…” Blueblood looked up from the resumé with an expression that straddled the line between general disbelief and severe constipation.

“That’s me!” The exuberance practically bled from the stallion, which might have explained the rust-red coloration of his fur.

“Under qualifications, you put—” Blueblood checked the parchment again to make sure he hadn’t hallucinated the listed attribute. “—that you can… and I’m quoting you here; ‘take a savage beating like a champ.’”

Shining pressed one of his forehooves into his head with an audible grinding sound while Amethyst tapped her hoof and eyed the bottle of wine Blueblood had set on the table. She looked like she was in serious danger of violating her vow of abstinence.

“That’s right sir!” Cannon said with a toothy grin.

Shining lit his horn and smashed a priceless-looking antique chair over Cannon’s head, knocking the applicant into immediate unconsciousness.

Frowning, Blueblood glanced over at Shining. “That chair was probably older than both of us combined.”

“Sorry sir,” Shining replied. I just wanted to see if his story checked out.” He looked down at the senseless stallion. “He obviously lied on his resumé, sir.”

Cracking something that could have either been a smirk or a wince, Blueblood waved a hoof at Ditzy. “Take him out, please. Next!”

Looking down at the two colt unicorns who had just been led into the drawing room together, Blueblood decided that two o’clock was, most decidedly, not too early to begin drinking. He uncorked his bottle and poured himself a generous measure of wine. “And you are?”

“You tell him!” the short one said as he nudged the taller of the two. He was pudgy, opal-coated, carrying a mace and wearing a suit of slipshod plate that barely covered his vitals.

“Hay! We both agreed to introduce ourselves, eh?” The second pony, who was taller, amber-coated, carrying a massive crossbow, and encased in equally second-hoof plate, looked down at his companion. “Me introducing us both don’t work there, now does it, eh?”

Blueblood’s eye twitched. Downing the first cup, he quickly poured himself a second. He was going to need somepony to start screening the applicants at this rate, lest he start randomly murdering potential new hires—

“I’m Snips,” the pudgy one finally said.

“And my name is Snails, your grace. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Charmed,” Blueblood managed between a series of gulps that emptied his goblet again. He blatantly ignored the askance look that Shining was giving him. “So then,” he said as he filled his cup again to brimming, “what are your areas of expertise?”

“Well now, I’m really good with this here arbalest,” Snails said, unslinging the massive weapon.

“Well, I suppose a demonstration is in order,” Shining said with a grin.

With a massive twang, the—apparently loaded—arbalest fired a bolt, which crossed the room and imbedded itself into Shining’s chair, the shaft lightly brushing his neck.

Raising a hoof to where the projectile had brushed him, Shining’s hoof came away red. Eyes narrowing, he placed his forehooves on the table, lit his horn, and unsheathed his sword. “Shooting me in the neck is not an acceptable—” He stopped shouting when he realized Blueblood was tapping his shoulder.

Blueblood’s brows were raised in surprise. His hoof trailed from Shining’s shoulder to where the head of the arbalest bolt was buried into the seat… and the twitching insect legs that protruded from the sides of the shaft. “He just shot a mosquito off of you… even at this range, that’s incredible hoof-eye coordination.”

Shining still looked pretty livid, so Blueblood offered him the remainder of the wine while turning his own gaze to Snips. “What about you?”

“I’m a holy vestal!” Snips replied, causing Amethyst to assume a position not dissimilar to the one Shining was frozen in.

“Really, you two? Blueblood asked, switching his gaze from Shining to Amethyst and back again. “I thought if anypony was going to get physically violent today, that it’d be me.”

Pointing a hoof at the diminutive unicorn, Amethyst seemed momentarily at a loss for words. “You! There’s—there’s no way that you passed the trials! You’re too young! How—”

Snips shrugged and pointed a hoof to the room’s chandelier, causing the lighting levels to increase dramatically, and causing a smoking insect to fall to the floor. “Yeah, the head priest seemed pretty confused too.”

The sound of Amethyst’s jaw dropping was interrupted by a sudden staccato of approaching hooffalls from outside the drawing room door.

“No! The Prince is in an important meeting, you’ll have to wait—I said wait!! You can’t go in there!” Ditzy’s voice also dopplered towards the door.

Shining stood and lifted his sword from where it had fallen on the table as the door was bucked inwards.

Zecora staggered into the room with Rainbow Dash sprawled across her back, took several shaky steps into the room, shrugged Rainbow onto the ground, and then collapsed.

Shining dropped his sword and ran to Rainbow’s side, as Snips and Amethyst moved in to douse the fallen ponies with healing energies.

“Dash!” Shining shook Rainbow as he spoke, his voice despondent. “What in Tartarus happened?”

Blueblood slowly approached, not wishing to crowd the injured. He could see that Rainbow was covered in well over a hundred mosquito bites, with a much larger gash also evident on her side. He wasn’t able to spot any signs of small insect bites on Zecora, though there were several weeping punctures in her robes.

Zecora shuddered to consciousness first, coughing violently and scrambling to remove her mask. When the false visage fell away, the sight elicited gasps from all of the ponies present—

Except for Blueblood. He continued his unhurried advance, giving Zecora time to recover. Having seen Zebras before, he wasn’t startled by her stripes. In fact, he found himself slightly—and considering the circumstances, quite inappropriately—enamored by her exotic appearance. Still, it was strange to see her without the mask. That she always wore it was a choice, and Blueblood felt almost like seeing her uncovered like this was an invasion of her privacy. Still, he had to know; “You found it, I assume.”

Zecora nodded her head. “Yes, indeed we found the hive. In the bog, the swarms do thrive. Rainbow threw a torch, whilst I hid, in hope the swarms, we’d soon be rid. Their home indeed, they did defend. Upon us then, they did descend. From us, our blood, they did deprive. A miracle, that we did survive.”

As Snips and Amethyst worked, Zecora lay back down and closed her eyes. Her breathing became more regular and she seemed to slowly recover, her wounds sealing and the welts that covered her hide receding.

Rainbow, on the other hoof, was showing far less promptness in her reaction to the healing magicks.

“Celestia above,” swore Shining as he cradled Rainbow’s unconscious form, looking up with a horrified expression. He turned Rainbow so that the gash in her side faced Blueblood directly.

A gasp escaped Blueblood’s lips as he recognized the massive, puckered wound. “It’s the same as on the corpse we found on the road.” He looked over at Snips and Snails, saw their youth and inexperience, and immediately wished that he had more wine. “You two are hired. 200 bits per day for hazard pay, living expenses otherwise… Now that we know where to strike, we need to do this, and do it fast—Ditzy!”

Clock!

“Yes, Sir!” She had entered the drawing room right behind Zecora and Rainbow, but hadn’t made herself particularly conspicuous until that moment.

“Grab the Apples, dismiss the other applicants for today, and get the provisions together. We have our second team, and they’re going to Froggy Bottom Bog, first thing tomorrow, to clear out these—” He smashed another mosquito against the table. “—damnable pests, once and for all!”

Bloody Bottom Bog

Chapter 7: Bloody-Bottom Bog

Week 2, Day 3, Morning

Froggy-Bottom Bog seemed to be wreathed in a perpetual bank of fog, which limited visibility to a mere fifty hoof-lengths or so. What was visible was a flat expanse of murky water, marsh grasses, shrubs, and moss, both on the spongy ground and hanging from the few trees that managed to grow higher than pony height.

With Snips and Snails being too small, the majority of the extra torch bundles—brought for the express purpose of obliteration of the hives—were carried by Applejack and Big Mac. They regretted not being able to use them now to keep the fog at bay, or to swat at the the mosquitos which—while present—were not nearly as prevalent as expected, especially considering Rainbow and Zecora’s conditions upon their return to Ponyville.

Running a hoof along the rotted iron gate, which ran quite inexplicably through this part of the swamp, Applejack made a staccato of clinking sounds as she struck each vertical bar. “Boy-howdy! Have ya never seen nothin’ like this before?”

“Eeynope,” Big Mac replied, craning his head to look about the reeds and pools, alert for any sign of motion.

When the Castle of the Two Sisters was still occupied, there was a dam that diverted the outflow from Saddle Lake. That, combined with the pegasi preventing rain in this lowland area, made the area the perfect combination of flat, dry, and isolated from the common ponies, making it quite popular with the nobility of the time.

Snips rolled his eyes flippantly. “C’mon, Prince Blueblood! If we wanted a history lesson, we wouldn’t have dropped out of school!”

Snails frowned at his shorter friend. “Hay, I like history! It’s fun to listen to, eh?”

“It is not!”

“Quit yer yammerin, you two!” Applejack practically shouted. “Just cause Big Mac and I don’t talk much don’t mean you need to be making up for it!”

Big Mac made a shushing sound, prompting everypony to draw weapons and tense.

A lone figure walked towards them out from the mists, and everypony relaxed slightly when they saw the image resolve into a butter-colored pegasus, attired in worn leather and tattered furs, a primitive glaive strapped to her back.

“Well howdy, Miss!” Applejack exclaimed as she approached the mystery mare, her hoof outstretched in greeting.

The pegasus released a timid shriek and promptly bolted into the mists from whence she came.

Everypony stood silently for a moment.

“Well… that happened,” commented Snips.

“Eeyup,” added a nonplussed Big Mac.

Snails scratched an ear with his arbalest. “You think that maybe she had to use the little filly’s room?”

“No,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “I don’t think that was it, not at all.”

Week 2, Day 3, Noon

Entering the gate had proved easy enough, though the hinges protested like a mule, producing a sound not unlike somepony’s suffering screams, and partially dispersing the mists which occluded most things in the bog. This exposed parts of the interior of the enclosed area, offering brief glimpses of the crests of crumbling masonry and other sunken structures.

The party’s going was slow; despite the occasional path of solid and compacted dirt or the series of walkable stone tiles that littered the swamp, the mostly soggy ground had long ago contorted itself into meandering dead-ends and pitfalls. The lack of opposition was surprising, but welcome, and they were lucky enough to happen across a few intact structures which contained valuables.

As they continued further into the swamp, the mosquitos became more prevalent. A low hum, which resolved itself into an intense buzzing, was the first thing that alerted them to the hive.

Using a stand of reeds as cover, Applejack stole a glance across a shallow pond at the insect nest. “Landsakes—” was the most she could manage when she first laid eyes on the papery structure, which reached from the ground all the way up into the tree canopy. “That there hive is bigger’n a barn!”

“How are we supposed to even get close enough to burn it with all those bugs?” Snips asked, indicating the cloud, which contained thousands—maybe even more than that—of mosquitos, that swirled around the massive nest.

“Uhh, how aboot we use my arbalest, eh? We can launch the torches in from here, and it’ll burn down before they even know it, eh?”

Applejack blinked. “Well now, that there’s a mighty impressive plan, Snails.”

“Eeyup.”

“Hoof me over a lit torch then, eh?” Snails said as he strained his magic into cocking the giant weapon.

Big Mac grabbed a torch in his mouth, and struck his flint and steel set together a few times until the oiled rag at the end ignited—and he was immediately swarmed by hundreds of the mosquitos. The viciousness of their assault was rivaled only by the enraged scream that issued forth from Big Mac as he was overwhelmed. He staggered around randomly at first, but then dove forward into the pool that had separated them from their target.

At first, the others thought he was only trying to escape the swarm, until they saw him using his strong hooves to push himself through the water towards the hive, even as dozens of mosquitos thrust their proboscises into his ears, scalp, muzzle, and eyes.

Snips spun around as fast as he could, unleashing vertical columns of holy light to daze, disorient, and incinerate the smaller swarms that had come to claim the remainder of the group.

Snails used his magic to swing the arbalest like a massive club, swatting a painfully small number of the flying bloodsuckers.

“Put ‘em up, Winona!” cried Applejack as she flailed with her cudgel.

Snarling ferociously, Winona snapped her jaws repeatedly, devastating dozens of mosquitos as she danced about, a whirling dervish of doggie death.

Big Mac swam for all he was worth, crimson trailing behind as he overexerted himself and ripped his flagellation scabs open in the process. Smelling the fresh blood, the majority of the insects turned their attentions towards him. As he rose from the peaty water, lit torch still clenched in his teeth, they covered him from head to hoof in a veritable blanket of buzzing bloodsuckers.

His screams were choked off as the swarm forced its way into the sides of his mouth and into his nostrils. Big Mac staggered forward and thrust the still-lit torch into the soft wall of the hive. The outer layer of brittle paper gave way easily and the edges of the tear smoldered slightly, but did not catch.

Clenching his teeth, which resulted in a slight splintering of the torch, Big Mac released one more loud bellow through his teeth as he dove headfirst into the hive.

With a sudden fwoomp, an engulfing fire surged out to consume the nest, the resultant high-pitched screams and pops of burning insects piercing in their intensity.

“Big Mac, NO!” Applejack screamed from the edge of the pool, her hoof outstretched.

Look out! There’s something in the water!

Surely, Big Mac’s passing had dislodged several large clumps of moss and other vegetation during his frantic swim across the pool. A sudden large ripple in the water had gone unnoticed by Applejack, but the verbal warning caused her to flinch backwards, just in time to avoid a flash of teeth that clamped shut in a manner that would have likely severed her foreleg had she not moved.

“What is that thing?” shrieked Snips, pointing a shaking hoof at the massive reptilian amalgamation which consisted of far too many scales, teeth, and, horrifyingly, eyes.

It’s a Cragodile!

Applejack bucked the jaws when they tried to snap shut on her again. “That ain’t no Cragodilian I’ve ever seen!”

It appears to be mutated… Well, I think you’ve just inadvertently named the beast, Applejack: Cragodilian, it is.

Snips blasted the monster’s face with blinding light, temporarily stunning it, while Snails lined up a shot. With a loud twang, the arbalest fired, the loosed bolt burying itself feathers-deep into one of the Cragodilian’s many eyes.

Shaking off the dazzling light, the Cragodilian roared and spun in place, its tail whipping Applejack into some shrubs and causing Snips and Snails to duck for cover. It then rounded on Snips, biting furiously at him with its razor-sharp teeth.

Blocking desperately with his mace, Snips was driven back by the savagery of the assault. “Snails! Shoot it! Shoot—” His sentence cut into a blood-curdling scream of agony as, while in the middle of his panic-induced backpedaling, the beast caught his left foreleg in its vice-like jaws, rending the colt’s flesh and snapping the bones in the pulverized limb like brittle twigs.

The Cragodilian swung its head around violently, ripping Snips’ foreleg from its socket with a sickly tearing sound and pop, and sending the remainder of Snips flying through the air into the nearby pool. It opened its jaws as it choked back the crushed appendage, then advanced as it set its remaining myriad eyes on the frantic, floundering form of Snips.

“You stay away from him, eh?!” Snails yelled as he fired a bolt that ricocheted harmlessly off of the back of the repulsive reptile’s scale-shielded skull.

Thrashing turbulently, Snips screamed in a tone that explicitly expressed the heights of his horror. “No! Don’t let it get me, Snails! Please!” As he backstroked for his life, the blood from his savaged stump trailed behind him, right into the gaping maw of the beast, mere hoof-lengths away now.

Snails cocked the arbalest again and aimed it. “Celestia above, please don’t let me miss again,” he prayed.

Snips watched as the jaws opened again, saw the cavernous gullet which lead to the beast’s gizzard, the bits of his flesh that still clung to its bloodied teeth. He closed his eyes to try and shield what little remained of his wits, and felt teeth bite down—on his shoulders.

“Pull, Winona! PULL!”

Feeling himself bodily dragged up onto semi-solid ground, Snips risked opening his eyes—and immediately regretted it as the Crocodilian’s mouth snapped shut a hair’s breadth away from his rear hooves. It was no further away, despite Snips being dragged backwards at a fairly decent pace. They were close enough to the burning hive that he could hear, aside from the sounds of exertion which escaped Winona as she exerted every effort to save his life, the crackling and popping of dying insects.

A second crossbow bolt buried itself into one of the monstrosity’s eyes, eliciting a horrifying roar that chilled Snips’ blood. The sight of its injury allowed him to risk hope, to dare imagine that he was going to survive the encounter—until the jaws swung back and snapped shut halfway up the hocks of both of his hind legs.

As Winona struggled to keep the beast from wrenching him away from her, Snips’ screams devolved into wails, his world having been reduced to a blood-soaked monochrome of suffering. With an awful tearing sound, and a sensation that made him sick to his stomach, he felt himself suddenly being pulled backwards again. The color draining from his vision, he saw the monster swallow his rear legs, lower its head, and charge again.

“Mom—Mommy!” was the only thing that Snips’ fear addled mind could think to say. All of his presumptions of independence and self-sufficiency were shattered in the face of the inexorable approach of that terrible, toothy maw. His mind seeked refuge in the symbol of ultimate safety and security, a place that so many ponies regress to in their weakest moments.

As the teeth bit into his barrel, his hindquarters entirely engulfed by the creature’s slavering mouth, Snips coughed wetly. He suddenly realized that he didn’t feel any pain, instead experiencing a warm, floating sensation that slowly enveloped him as his vision darkened, and as the sounds around him muffled.

An overwhelming feeling of sleepiness swept through his body as he felt himself pulled wholly into the Cragodilian’s mouth, and heard a distant-sounding yelp as Winona released him. Struggling and failing to keep his eyes open, Snips could swear that he heard somepony calling his name as everything faded into darkness.

“Snips!” Snails cried as he fired another bolt, and another, and another, at the monster. “Sniiiiiips!” His shots, as poorly aimed as they were due to the tears streaming down his muzzle, were just bouncing off of the beast’s scaly hide. He could only watch in abject horror, as the Cragodilian closed its jaws, ending Snips’ life with a grisly crunch.

Galloping up to Snails, who had fallen to his knees in tears, Applejack tried to avoid stumbling as she made a few foreleg gestures. “Put it up, Winona!” When she arrived at the crying colt, she placed a hoof on his sob-wracked withers. “Snails, listen close, now. I know yer in pain, more pain ‘n anypony oughta feel, but ya gotta dry yer eyes now. Ya need to help me kill this thing, or we ain’t gonna be alive long enough to mourn later.”

Wiping at his eyes, Snails could see the wetness that marred the fur on Applejack’s own muzzle. “Mac was your brother… Snips was my best friend,” Snails said, turning to the beast and furrowing his eyebrows. “Hay, you!” he shouted. “I’m not gonna let you kill anypony else’s best friends, or brothers, eh?!”

Aiming at the monster proved to be a little more difficult due to it and Winona circling and snapping at each other. Steadying the arbalest in his magic, he sighted down the length of the tiller, took a breath, and fired, putting out another of the beast’s eyes and staggering it.

As the monster stumbled, Winona took the opportunity and jumped to the top of the Cragodilian’s head, biting repeatedly at its exposed eyes, eliciting a howl of pained displeasure as several more were destroyed. A sudden whipping motion of the creature’s neck sent Winona flying to the ground with a painful yelp.

“Winona!” Applejack yelled as she galloped towards her fallen pet. Despite the speed with which she was closing in, she could see that she wasn’t going to arrive before the beast reached Winona, who wasn’t going to get to her paws in time to avoid the monster’s attack. Her own scream of defiance was overpowered by the sound of a much deeper, more resounding bellow—

Covered in gashes, bites, and burns, Big Mac burst from the conflagrating insect nest with a thunderous howl and shoulder-tackle that took the Cragodilian completely by surprise. Pinning it to the ground, he rained his massive hooves down on the back of the beast’s head, the staccato of booming impacts sending the reptilian monstrosity reeling.

“Eeynope!” Big Mac grabbed the beast’s tail as it scrambled to retreat back into the safety of the water, digging his hooves in and dragging its struggling form away. Twisting around, he forced the monster onto its backside, allowing him to jump up onto its upturned stomach.

Applejack arrived and tackled one of the Cragodilian’s forelegs, pinning it to the ground as Big Mac started hammering away at its scaled belly. The beast tried to to rock itself back and forth in an attempt to throw off its attackers and assume an upright position, but Snails jumped onto the other foreleg, effectively immobilizing it and ruining the effort.

“Kill it, big brother,” Applejack screamed as they all struggled, “kill it now!”

Big Mac raised his right foreleg and brought his spiked bracelet across the Cragodilian’s abdomen, tearing through scale and bone. He growled an affirmation as he plunged his hoof upwards into the gash, eliciting a series of violent spasms from the monster as bones were broken and its internal organs were invaded.

Releasing a keening ululation, the Cragodilian convulsed several times as Big Mac fished around in its chest cavity, thrusting his limb elbow-deep into the bloody gore-hole. The noises the creature was making raised to a fever pitch when Big Mac wrenched his foreleg free, a large pulsating cyst held in his frog.

After a few more shuddering shakes, the Cragodilian released its last trembling breath. The excised heart, as stubborn as its owner, continued to beat for several seconds before becoming still.

Everypony sat panting for several moments.

Triage the wounded and return immediately. This mission is over.

“What about Snips?” Snails stared at the beast’s corpse as he spoke, his voice raw with emotion.

You’ll need to leave him. You—you don’t want to see him again after what’s happened, trust me… Snails… you have my sympathies.

Big Mac stood, scowling at the monstrous corpse as Applejack approached him.

“Yer alive.” Applejack delivered the statement flatly.

“Eeyu—”

Crack!

Her slap silenced him, though it didn’t appear to so much as move his head.

“Our parents ‘r dead!” she screamed at him, as tears streamed down her muzzle. “Don’t ya ever scare me like that again, ya hear?”

Big Mac did not hesitate to wrap his forehooves around her.

“All we’ve got left is each other Mac,” she wept into his chest.

He looked down at her sob-wracked form, his own expression stoic. “...Eeyup.”

Week 2, Day 3, Afternoon

“Celestia above,” said Amethyst, her hooves having dug gouges into the table while they’d watched the fight. “That’s no way for anypony to die.”

Shining only shook his head sadly.

“This is no place for the weak, or the foalhardy.” Blueblood’s face was impassive as he spoke. “And that colt was weak. I knew it… but my foalishness cost him his life.” He stood. “I will be in my chambers, thinking. I do not know if my heart is up to sending more ponies to deaths like… that.”

“Sir,” Shining said as Blueblood started to walk away. “More ponies will die during this endeavor, some quickly, mercifully, but others… not. This place… we cannot just walk away from it, Sir. Whatever Celestia began, we need to finish, especially if there are more horrors like the one we just saw. Left unchecked, those kinds of things would devastate the countryside. Imagine if it had gotten into town? You’ll have to get used to the losses—”

“I know,” Blueblood said, looking suddenly tired, “I know.”

Week 2, Day 3, Evening

Blueblood drank. He didn’t even bother with a glass anymore, just shoving the dark bottle into his muzzle and guzzling the spirits within.

“I swore I’d never do it Auntie,” Blueblood lamented to his room’s fireplace, his voice heavily slurred. “I swore I’d never knowingly send a pony to their death. But I knew! I saw it in the little one’s face! He was no fighter! I sent him, knowing he wouldn't make it…”

Worry yourself not with the mounting price of this expedition; its worthy goal allows you generous breadth in your selection of tactics.

“Celestia?” He spun around. “Auntie?” Blueblood knew he’d heard the voice this time. Dropping the bottle, he looked around the room, under the bed, behind his dresser, in the washroom. He looked down at his forehooves and saw four blurry versions of them. “I need to stop drinking so much,” he slurred. “I’m hallu—halluc—hearing things.”

Looking down to the empty bottle, and the adjacent puddle of wine, he thought he saw something. Scrambling to his knees, he thrust his face at the standing liquid and stared at his own reflection therein.

He sighed at his own foalishness and rose to his hooves so that he could stagger over to his own bed.

It will be here soon.

Blueblood spun to face the fireplace.

You will have to choose.

Approaching the pile of ashes slowly, Blueblood looked intently at the powdered remains. His horn lit, and the spot was cleared away, exposing a charred skull and the hiltless knife thrust up through the roof of its mouth.

Surrounding the knife in his magical field, he lifted it up sidelong to his own face. A short exhale and the white ash was blown away, revealing his heavily distorted reflection—and the equally mangled reflection of another pony right behind him. Despite the blurriness, the coloration left no doubt as to who it was.

“Auntie!” Blueblood spun around but was greeted with the empty room. He looked back into the knife-reflection and saw that nothing was there.

Examining the weapon closely, he decided to move it to his bedside table. “For when Snips comes to see me tonight,” he said.

Mistakes Were Made

Chapter 9: Mistakes Were Made

Week 6, Day 1, Morning

“Are you alright, Shining?” Amethyst asked as they trotted down the old road.

Looking forward, Shining saw that Lyra and Bon Bon were ahead of them by several dozen paces. “I’m fine,” he lied, surprised at how swiftly the untruth had come to his lips. He forced a smile to his muzzle. “How about you? How are you holding up?”

Seeming to think on the question, for longer than Shining thought was necessary, Amethyst finally turned to him. “Just a little sore from where that wagon axle pressed into my back, but otherwise… good; no major problems here.”

After walking in silence for a few minutes, Shining turned back to Amethyst. “So, are my lies as obvious as yours?”

Eyes narrowing, Amethyst regarded him cooly. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine, fine,” Shining said. “But that only leaves me with the rumors I heard from the others—”

“What—” Amethyst’s muzzle turned crimson as she asked the question “—what did you hear?”

Observing her from the corner of his eye, Shining allowed a mischievous grin to creep onto his muzzle. “Just that you went into Blueblood’s chambers for quite a while, and then came out—” he gestured at her clothing and armor in a sweeping motion “—without any clothes on, and then the two of you went straight to the baths.”

“And?” Amethyst’s confusion was genuine.

“Oh, c’mon, Amethyst. It doesn’t take a genius to see that you and Blueblood are—” Shining pantomimed a lewd gesture with his forehooves.

“Ugh!” Amethyst made a disgusted face to accompany the outburst. “How could you possibly think that?!”

“How could I not?” Shining laughed. “Blueblood is the crown-prince of Equestria. He’s rich—well, despite the finance issues on this campaign. He’s politically powerful, has a good physique, he’s charming—Tartarus, if I were into stallions, I’d have tried to get a piece of him by now. And, as his personal guard, let’s just say he’s been highly… promiscuous in the past. And you’re saying you’re not even mildly interested?”

Eyes narrowing, Amethyst glared at Shining. “Not in the slightest.”

His smirk threatening to bisect his head, Shining pressed further. “You into mares then?”

Poking a hoof at his breastplate, Amethyst rolled her eyes. “I’m saving myself for Harmony, you clod!” She turned her head up and away as she harrumphed. “As a holy vestal, I never have done any such thing, and I never will!” She put on a sudden burst of speed, trotting off to catch up to the others and leaving a shocked Shining to bring up the rear.

As his startled expression melted away, Shining grinned. “Oh, she is far too easy to tease.” He shook his head and sighed. “At least Rainbow fights back—aaand I’m talking to myself, great.” He hurried to follow after the others.

Week 6, Day 1, Noon

“Look,” the plum-coated mare said. “I’m usually on the receiving end of this speech, so it’s saying something that I’m the one giving it to you: don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Go to Tar-tar-bus, Bury-shine,” Rainbow slurred. “Go to Tarshtarsh and git me more shider!”

“No,” Berryshine crossed her forehooves. “You are cut-off! Celestia, it’s only noon! Even I don’t think this level of drinking is healthy!”

In the manner of most Equestrian lushes, Rainbow responded by attempting to do… something. What that was, nopony would ever know, since she only succeeded in slamming her face into the bar and subsequently, herself into unconsciousness.

“Dammit.” Prodding at Rainbow’s unmoving form with a hoof, Berryshine sighed. It was too early in the day for her to be hauling drunks out of her bar. She looked around and settled her eyes on the mare entering the tavern, the one who had the bad habit of insulting her cider quality. Berryshine was fairly certain she worked for Blueblood. “Hey, Applejack,” she called over to her.

Turning to look at Berryshine, Applejack nodded. “Howdy Berry! How can I help y’all?”

“This one,” Berryshine said, indicating Rainbow, “belongs to the Prince, right?”

“Well, I don’t rightly reckon if he ‘owns’ her or not. But I know she sure-as-sugar works for him.”

“And you work for him too?”

“That’s right,” Applejack drawled.

“Good.” Berryshine crossed her forelegs again. “Haul her sorry flank back to your boss, and tell him she’s got to lay off. I don’t need her dying in my bar; it’s bad for business.”

Trotting over to the bar, Applejack shrugged and hefted Rainbow onto her back. “There anything else I can help you with?”

“Yeah, tell him that his Zebra is banned from the brothel.”

Applejack canted her head precariously to the side. “Pardon?”

“It’s bad enough that she’s been freaking out all my working-colts and customers with her bizarre wordplay.” Berryshine shuddered and shook her head. “Anyways,” she gestured one hoof in a circle as she spoke, “our bordello is a reputable one; we don’t do any of that hardcore kinky stuff she’s apparently into. If she wants that, she can go to Las Pegasus.”

“Anything else?”

Putting her hood to her chin for a moment, Berryshine thought. “No. Nopony else has caused any problems—yet.”

“And Miss Dash here can come back after—”

“After she sobers up and figures out how to last until at least happy hour,” Berryshine said flatly.

“Alrighty, then,” Applejack drawled. “I’ll catch up with y'all later.”

Week 6, Day 2, Dawn

Blueblood awoke refreshed for the first time in weeks; the wards that Amethyst had installed apparently having done their job admirably. He had experienced neither undead visitations nor visions of the comet since she had finished the inscriptions and incantations yesterday. For the first time since Celestia’s disappearance, he was starting to feel optimistic about things.

Of course, Amethyst had said that the measures she had taken were merely temporary, and would need to be renewed each week until she could spend enough time and material to permanently protect his chambers from nocturnal intrusion.

There was still the lingering apprehension from Amethyst’s cryptic vision; but even so, he couldn’t keep a smile from his muzzle as he walked the manor.

“Ditzy,” he called after the mare when he saw her staggering down the hallway ahead of him.

“Yes, Sir!”

Blueblood cringed in anticipation of an impact that never came. The fact that she didn’t hit herself was very encouraging; it meant that she’d taken their little chat regarding head trauma to heart. It also helped elevate Blueblood’s already good spirits. “How are things going with our guests so far, Ditzy?”

“No problems, Sir!” Ditzy seemed to be in a cheery mood as well. “We have a lot of perishables coming in since you called in those favors. We can prolly take twice the ponies we currently have staying here without straining our supply of comestibles.”

“Okay,” Blueblood said. “But how are the company members doing? I trust everypony is out enjoying themselves?”

Ditzy chuckled mirthlessly, her affect suddenly one of embarrassment rather than joviality. “Uhhh… about that, Sir.”

“Oh Celestia.” Blueblood facehoofed, his good mood suddenly soured. “What happened?”

Week 6, Day 2, Dawn

“Where’s the Prince?”

“No idea, Lyra,” came Bon Bon’s terse response. She went back to gnawing on a hoofful of muffintack, which was what the company members were calling Ditzy’s unique hardtack creations.

“I wasn’t asking you, candy-flank,” Lyra said, sticking her tongue out.

“I don’t know,” Shining said, putting his helmet and polish down. “He normally checks in with us by now.” Placing his hoof to his chin for a moment, Shining closed his eyes in concentration. “It could be an issue with Celestia’s spell—after all, Blueblood has only used it a few times; he’s no expert, and since it usually takes months of repetition to memorize a spell, he probably hasn’t yet. If he misplaced the copy of the incantation, or if there’s unexpected interference, he might not be able to reach us.”

“Well,” Amethyst said, looking at the others. “What do we do?”

“Don’t look at us,” said Bon Bon, waving her forehooves in a warding motion. “We’re just hirelings.”

“Speak for yourself, moody,” Lyra quipped from her seat. “I say we just go in. We have spare parchment, we can map the place without the Prince looking over our withers.”

Amethyst glowered. “That is unacceptable! We need Blueblood’s instructions to make sure we’re exploring the correct part of the ruins. And he needs to see where we’re going to accurately map the place.”

“What do you suggest, Amethyst?” Shining asked.

Amethyst looked thoughtful for a moment. “We should wait until he contacts us, and head back tomorrow if we have no word from him before then.”

“What?!” Lyra shouted. “I didn’t trot all the way out here just to turn around on account of a little magical snafu!”

“We can’t proceed—”

“I actually agree with Lyra on this,” Shining said, silencing Amethyst. “We were dangerously low on funding after the Froggy Bottom Bog fiasco. The bandit clearing and the excursion the other team made into the ruins did little to replenish the company’s coffers. Blueblood spent the majority of our remaining funds on the supplies for this trip. If we return from this mission with nothing to show for it, that’s it; we won’t have the bits to continue any further expeditions. Tartarus, we might not have enough to pay everypony for this little soirée.”

“In we go then,” said Bon Bon. “I, for one, am doing this for the money.”

“But we haven’t—”

“Sorry Amethyst,” Shining said. “It’s three against one.”

Week 6, Day 2, Morning

“You can’t ban my ponies from your establishment!”

If Berryshine felt at all intimidated by Blueblood’s posturing and bellowing, she didn’t show it. “I can, I did and, if I feel the need to in the future, I will. Anypony disrupts my business, or hassles my working-colts, they can say hello to the door. Or to Bulk’s hooves,” she said gesturing to the flexing, grotesquely over-muscled stallion who seemed to be acting as both bouncer and gigolo.

“YEEEAAAAHHH!” Bulk Biceps said conversationally.

Narrowing his eyes, Blueblood turned away from the bulging pegasus abomination and back towards Berryshine. “What did she even do? Rhyme?” He crossed his forehooves.

Berryshine gestured for one of her colts to approach. “If only,” she said, forcing one of Blueblood’s eyebrows to climb. “Ok, Quibble Pants,” she said to the scantily clad stallion who’d approached. “Tell the Prince here exactly what happened when you were with Zecora.”

Blueblood furrowed his brows in anticipation of an underwhelming tale of deviance that couldn’t possibly top anything perpetrated by the Canterlot elite. As he listened to the words of the overly-vocal stallion however, his eyebrows rose and his eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Then Blueblood saw the wounds.

They weren’t kidding.

Week 6, Day 2, Morning

This exploration of the ruins had been going incredibly well so far; too smoothly for Shining’s liking. “Keep an eye out everypony, my gut is telling me that we’re due for some bad luck here.”

“Come on Shining,” Lyra said, igniting another torch. “That’s six whole rooms since we’ve gotten here, and all without any signs of creepy-crawlies, and all filled with chests and cabinets stuffed to the brim with bits, gems, and even some of those deeds and crests that Blueblood is so in love with.”

“Shining’s right,” Amethyst cut in. “Last time we were here, the accursed things were coming out of the woodwork. It would be foalish to just assume that they’d all vanished.”

As the party entered another room, there were exasperated sighs at the sight of nothing, save a few pillars and an open stone sarcophagus.

Taking a quick look at the deepening shadows cast by his waning torch, Shining waited a few moments before motioning to the others. “Well, there’s nothing jumping out at us, and we can’t loot the coffin there. I’ll check to make sure the skeleton’s still there but otherwise, let’s hurry onto the next room.”

Following Bon Bon and Lyra as they exited the room, Amethyst turned for a moment and caught a glimpse of Shining hoofing something from the sarcophagus into his robes, which stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to the other two mares for a moment. “You two hold in the hallway for a minute or two, I need to discuss something with Shining.”

“Sure,” Bon Bon said, discarding her spent torch and lighting another. “Just don’t take too long, couldn’t afford a ton of these for the trip.”

Nodding, Amethyst pushed back into the room, almost colliding with Shining as he approached the exit.

“Amethyst?” Shining said in a questioning tone as she lit her horn and closed the door behind herself.

Not knowing quite how to pose the question, Amethyst decided to be direct. “What did you just take?”

Shining Armor’s brows furrowed. “Take? What? What are you talking about?”

Sitting back on her haunches, Amethyst crossed her forehooves. “I saw you take something from the coffin there.”

His expression taking on a look of genuine confusion, Shining stood in place. “If this is about my teasing you earlier, I’m sorry. I was just trying to lighten the mood, Rainbow usually loves a good verbal sparring match.”

Lighting her horn, Amethyst pulled at a section of Shining’s robes.

“Hey!” Shining exclaimed as a golden chain and pendant was withdrawn from his robes. “What are you doing?!”

The jewelry hung, suspended in the air between them, its very presence accusatory in nature.

“I have to report this to Blueblood,” Amethyst said, still holding the ornate necklace in the air between them. “I saw you do the same thing on our last trip, but I didn’t want to believe that you were stealing from him, from the company.”

Shining Armor just stared at Amethyst and the pendant like she was a hangmare with a noose in hoof.

“Why Shining?” Amethyst couldn't keep the sadness from her voice. “You’ve worked for Blueblood for years, he pays you well; you don’t need to be stealing! Especially not from the dead!”

“I didn’t take that!” Shining insisted. “I never—” His expression became suddenly dark. “You… you did this?”

“What?” Amethyst stood to her hooves, with a surprised look on her face; she was completely taken aback by the unwarranted accusation.

Sneering, Shining began to advance on Amethyst. “You’ve been getting closer with Blueblood these last few weeks. He’s starting to confide things in you, treat you with more respect, all the while, he’s been cutting me out, treating me like a new recruit—” His eyes widened as he stepped backwards. “Have you been turning him against me?”

The shocking and absurd nature of Shining’s words had stunned Amethyst into silence; her brain couldn’t form any kind of coherent defense with which to debate the madness that Shining now wielded against her.

“You have, haven’t you? You want to be his… his… just his! And you were going to use that—” Shining pointed with manic energy at the pendant. “—to frame me? Knock me from his good graces and take my place?” He lit his horn and opened the door with enough violence to almost tear it from its hinges. “I won’t let you!” he hissed as he stomped past her and into the hall.

Staring at the empty doorway and the quickly retreating torchlight, Amethyst struggled to wrap her mind around what had just happened. “He’s insane,” she muttered to herself after several moments had passed.

A sudden twinge of fear made itself known in her gut. “I… have to tell Blueblood when we get back,” she said as she stuffed the necklace into her robes and trotted out of the room after the others.

When Amethyst’s hooffalls had faded, a purple glow appeared from behind one of the pillars. As the pony that had been hiding there stepped out from behind it, they looked in the direction of the open doorway and scowled.

Week 6, Day 2, Noon

Blueblood had decided to take the time to track Zecora down after his conversation with Berryshine and Quibble Pants. She hadn’t been in the manor, nor at the blacksmith.

He’d finally found her in front of a blue vendor cart labeled “Great and Powerful Trinkets.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie thinks you will appreciate this enchanted cauldron,” pontificated a blue unicorn with a starry cape and equally-starry, oversized wizard hat. “It will allow you to mix more potent concoctions for use against your foes.”

Canting her head, Zecora continued to inspect the engraved metal pot. “The cauldron, yes, I do desire. The price though, I do not admire.”

Trixie seemed unperturbed as she kicked into the second phase of her sales pitch. “The Great and Powerful Trixie only charges cost plus expenses. You won’t find cheaper elsewhere!”

“Easy it would be, for you to lie. Since there’s no other vendor here, to verify.”

“While the Great and Powerful Trixie takes great offense at that insinuation, she is willing to offer you a discount since you seem to be a—”

“Excuse me, Trixie,” Blueblood said as he approached the cart. “I need to talk to Zecora here for a moment.”

Trixie harrumphed. “The Great and Powerful Trixie will wait, but won't wait all day,” she huffed as Blueblood led Zecora away from the cart.

When they’d gotten far enough that Blueblood was satisfied that they wouldn’t be overheard, he turned to Zecora. “What is wrong with you?!”

She canted her head, regarding him again through the expressionless lenses. “Of what wrong do you refer? Is it something that you heard?”

Sitting back, Blueblood crossed his forehooves. “Berryshine said you were a ‘bit rough’ with one of her colts.”

The laugh that issued from Zecora’s mask took Blueblood completely by surprise.

Furrowing his brows, Blueblood waited for the zebra’s laughter to die down. “This isn’t funny, Zecora. Firstly, they’ve banned you from the brothel. Secondly, the nature of why you were banned is circulating in the rumor mill. It reflects poorly on the others, as well as myself.”

Zecora sat and ceased her chuckling. “Please tell me what you heard, for such a reaction is quite absurd.”

Blueblood sighed. “Well, I’ll just start with the worst of it; Quibble Pants said you tried to cut him with your knife and burn him with your acids. I’ve seen the injuries but I didn’t know if it was you—”

“That accounting sounds true,” Zecora said. “Though succeed, I did, Mister Blue.”

Settling his eye on Zecora, Blueblood thought carefully on what to say next. “Why do you think such things are acceptable? I’ve known my fair share of mares, and I’ve received reports on what shenanigans the nobility gets up to, and I’ve never run into anything like what you practice. Is this some custom native to your home?”

Zecora shook her head. “In my homeland, such activities would not be permitted. Only abroad did I find such acts committed.”

“I won’t pretend to know what the draw is,” Blueblood said.

Putting a hoof to her chin, Zecora tilted her head slightly. “In hurting oneself, one can find release. The practice, once started, is quite difficult to cease.”

“But hurting others—”

“To cause pain, is to exert control,” Zecora explained. “It is pleasurable then, to exact a heavy toll.”

Blueblood was mentally brought back to his dealings with Neighsay, the bandit, Cynic—both alive and dead—and realized that each time he’d been in complete control of the existence of another individual, he’d reveled in it. The revelation was disquieting, but fascinating.

“I was hoping our chat would give me some grounds to persuade Berryshine to allow you to being able to use the brothel again,” Blueblood said, trying to dispel all manner of stirring thoughts. “But, since you aren’t refuting any of the claims, there isn’t going to be anything I can do about it.”

Zecora shrugged in a non-committal manner. “Other diversions, I can find. It is easy to substitute, if one has the mind.”

“Well, as long as you’re fine with the situation—” Blueblood stopped speaking as Zecora kicked the glove from her left forehoof and lightly traced it up his right foreleg. He swallowed the sudden lump that had formed in his throat. “...what are you—”

“To the brothel, I can no longer go,” she said as her hoof reached his shoulder and began to make slow circles there. “So it is your body, Prince, I wish to know.”

Reaching down below Zecora’s chin, Blueblood lifted his hoof. He pushed her mask up and back until it and the hood it was attached to fell across the zebra’s withers. He took in her exotic appearance again, taking in the sight of her stripes and mohawked mane. His eye met with hers, which burned with desire. He exerted every ounce of self-control to prevent pressing his muzzle to hers right in the middle of the street. “I’ll have you know that you’re turning me on, despite your incessant rhyming.”

“Hush now, Prince,” she said, placing her hoof to his lips. “Words with me, you need not mince.”

Throwing caution to the wind, Blueblood batted away Zecora’s hoof. Grabbing her roughly by the neck with his hoof, he dragged her into a passionate kiss. As he lost himself in the feeling of their intertwined tongues, a slightly distant voice made itself heard.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is here to sell amazing and astounding curiosities, not watch you two ‘getting it on…’ though she will if you’re inclined to continue.”

Pulling away, Blueblood stared daggers at the salesmare. “We really should get back to the manor,” he said to Zecora. He looked at the few ponies that were in the general vicinity of Trixie’s cart. Most had stopped walking and were staring right at them.

“Great,” Blueblood muttered, “That little stunt will probably have this town’s rumor mill going for the next month. Tartarus, Amethyst is probably going to quote scripture to me about—” His eyes widened. “Celestia above,” he swore. “What time is it? I forgot about the expedition! How could I—Zecora, back to the manor, quickly! We need to go!”

“Wait! Come back!” Trixie yelled after them. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is willing to haggle further!”

Galloping hard back to the manor, Blueblood and Zecora shouldered their way through the front doors once they’d arrived. They navigated the hallways and stairs, which seemed far too numerous than remembered in their haste.

As they finally burst through the observatory doors, Blueblood ran to the observation table and lit his horn.

The pinprick of light expanded slowly, showing the party standing in a hallway. The group was standing in front of some kind of twisted plinth, which seemed to have grown around some kind of red orb. Sound slowly began to filter through the enchantment as it powered up.

—‘the sacrifice of fire is the gate to ruin,’ Shining said, in what Blueblood felt was a somewhat exasperated tone. ’Place a torch if you crave the void…’ Well, why the Tartarus not?

“NO!”

Blueblood’s frantic exclamation wasn’t heard; the enchantment wouldn’t be able to transmit sound for another minute or two. Blueblood could only watch in horror as all of the party’s torches were suddenly extinguished, and the screaming began.

“Oh Celestia, no,” Blueblood breathed.

Hopeless Horror

Chapter 10: Hopeless Horror

Week 6, Day 2, Noon

“Where is it?!” Amethyst spun in circles, unable to get her bearings in the infernal gloom.

“I don’t know!” Shining yelled as he bumped into her. His horn was lit, as was hers and Lyra’s, but the light they gave off, even combined, was pitiable at best.

They’d only seen a glimpse of… it. When it had come, the light had fled, as if radiance itself could not bear to exist in the same space as that shambling horror.

Lyra released a hideous scream, which startled the others. They watched her vague silhouette as her hornlight evaporated and her body distorted into her monstrous, possessed form.

Despite the horror closer at hoof, Shining squinted into the blackness. He slowly turned his head, scanning for any sign of movement. He finally pointed his sword at a gleam which reflected off of a multitude of what could only tenuously be described as eyes. “There!”

“Fire in the hole!” Everypony shielded their eyes at Bon Bon’s warning, but they were still able to see a blinding flare of light around the edges of their vision as the flash-bomb explosion sounded.

The noise unleashed by the stricken creature was indescribably horrible; it was a keening ululation that spoke of untold aeons of slaughter in the name of uncaring omnipotent masters. The suffering demise of entire civilizations could be boiled down into a single syllable of that vocalization, if it could truly be called such.

Everypony threw their hooves over their ears, straining in pain as they tried to muffle the assault on their aural senses—

Everypony except for Amethyst.

“No,” she whispered. She’d heard that sound before, back when she’d peered into Blueblood’s eye. “No,” she said again, louder this time.

The shambler ceased its screeching and turned its eyes upon her.

She could… see in its eyes: it knew her fear; it knew that she had heard it before; it knew that she’d seen her own death; and it knew that it was going to help bring about that finality.

“NO!” Amethyst screamed as she turned, tears of terror trailing from her eyes.

Shining watched in abject disbelief as she bolted. “Amethyst! Where the Tartarus are you going?” He raised his voice to call after her retreating form, “Amethyst!”

Amethyst could only wail again in denial as her body galloped blindly down the hallway, the terrible sounds behind her testament to the shambler giving chase. Her ears became deafened by the pounding of her own heart and she couldn’t hear the warnings from the others as the shambler reached out with a clawed pseudopod of malign intent.

A fiery pain raked across Amethyst’s stomach and she tripped as her hind legs suddenly became entangled in something.

Struggling to regain her hooves proved futile, as her legs were hopelessly snared in something sticky and wet. She resolved instead to turn onto her back, waves of pain radiating from her gut as she moved, only managing to get to her side. Daring to light her horn, she saw it. Mere hooflengths from her, it opened its maw wide as it advanced to consume her.

“No.” The word was meaningless, pathetic in the scope of its own inadequacy in the face of this thing that had been since the cosmos was young.

“N—”

A large bipedal monstrosity tackled the shambling horror, slamming it into a wall. Lyra turned to look at Amethyst as she grappled with the shambler. “Amethyst you need to get—oh, horseapples.”

Following Lyra’s gaze, Amethyst looked down at herself and gasped—or tried to, at least. Her abdomen was rent open, a ragged, meaty chasm bordered by blood and bone. Her intestines had spilled out upon the floor, trailing behind her and having intertwined with her hind legs like the twisted roots of some macabre tree. She felt suddenly cold, shivering as her hornlight sputtered out along with her hope.

Shining galloped into view and flared the light from his horn, illuminating the shambler for just long enough to see it as it bit deeply into Lyra’s neck. The mare-monster’s scream turned wet as blood burbled from her ruined throat.

“LYRA!” shrieked Bon Bon as she arrived. She laid into the horror with her axe, severing one of the clawed pseudopods. The fleshy appendage dissolved into thin air, and a replacement swiftly formed from the stump of the original.

Shining screamed as he swung his sword into the thing’s back, slicing through multiple layers of gelatinous putrescence. He ducked as a series of tendrils whipped out to strike at him.

Amethyst listened as the fight raged around her, brief flashes of light occasionally allowing her a glimpse of Shining and Bon Bon’s desperate struggle. She whimpered as she tried to untangle her guts from her legs and stuff them back into herself, but the act was as impossible as it was absurd. Trying to call upon her healing magic proved as futile as trying to shove her insides back where they belonged; the numbing agony made her unable to concentrate.

This was what she’d seen, what she’d felt. The only thing remaining—

“Hello,” a mare’s voice said.

Amethyst’s blood turned to ice when she heard it, but she still held out hope as she tried to turn her head to see the mare. She opened her mouth to speak—no, to beg. But she only succeeded in coughing up blood.

“Stay still, let me help you there,” the mare said as she lit her horn with a purple glow, levitating a heavily-inscribed pony-skull in her magic. The kindness in her smile and tone belied the burning hatred in her eyes.

As Amethyst watched with great trepidation, she saw a series of… holes open in the air. Her eyes widened as blood-red tentacles slithered from the portals, wrapping around and grasping the shambler’s bulk, holding it fast.

“What the—” Turning his head, Shining’s eyebrows rose when he saw the new arrival. “T-Twilight?! What are you—”

“No time for a reunion, B-B-B-F-F,” Twilight managed, grunting with exertion and holding her eyes shut against the strain. “I can’t hold it much longer!”

“Where do I even hit it?” Shining yelled. “It doesn’t have organs!”

“Nnng—there!” A spot on the shambler began to glow brightly and Twilight shuddered as her hornlight started to flicker, the overexertion from the second spell having brought her to her limit.

Shining aimed his sword carefully and thrust it with all of his might into the mote of lavender luminescence. His blade bit deep into the inky, foul-smelling flesh of the beast until the tip of the blade struck something solid—

And the shambler was gone, vanished without a trace.

Twilight fell to her knees, struggling to catch her breath as her hornglow faded.

Igniting a torch, Shining jammed it into a crack in the wall. The sight that greeted him was grim; Lyra had returned to pony form, and was sputtering in a growing pool of the blood gushing from her neck. Amethyst had been eviscerated, and was swimming in her own entrails. “Celestia above… my healing magic isn’t nearly powerful enough to—”

“Allow me, then,” Twilight said, levitating the skull again and turning to Lyra.

Bon Bon had removed her helmet and was cradling Lyra’s head in one forehoof, the other pressed hard against the neck-wound. “Don’t leave me, best friend,” she said, as tears ran down both of their muzzles.

Lyra couldn’t respond, her throat was nothing but a mangled ruin; it was a miracle she was able to breathe at all.

Twilight’s hornglow flared in intensity—

Lyra screamed in agony as the flesh all over her body split in several places, especially in the region of her neck, which came apart and spattered Bon Bon with her “best friend’s” blood. Just as quickly as the wounds had opened, they knitted themselves back together, leaving Lyra gore-stained but otherwise unharmed.

“Sweet Celestia,” Shining swore.

“Celestia has nothing to do with this power,” Twilight boasted. “Shining, I’ve found a source of magic more powerful than anything Celestia—”

Shining cleared his throat and gestured to the weakly writhing puddle of Amethyst on the floor.

Gritting her teeth, Twilight briefly looked at Shining before turning to look at Amethyst and then at the wall. “Oh, right, sorry—I’m… I’m not healing her.”

“What?!” Shining’s brows raised. “Why not?”

“She wants to ruin you,” Twilight said. “If I don’t heal her, she can’t hurt you.”

Struggling to raise a hoof as Twilight backed up, Amethyst only managed a strangled groan. She couldn’t even summon tears to cry at her fate, the fluid loss she had suffered leaving both her eyes and her throat dry. Amethyst refused to shut her eyes, though. She didn’t want to face her end with them closed.

“Please, save her Twily,” Shining said. He was looking at Amethyst, his face bearing a pained expression.

“But… Shiny... you said she was going to lie about you. That she—”

Shining placed a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “Everything she said is true, Twily. She’s right—I… I need help. I’m going to check into the sanitarium when we get back. I know it’s going to be trouble for me, just… please, don’t let her die.”

Watching as Twilight stood silently for a moment, Amethyst’s vision began to darken and a feeling of sleepiness began to wash over her. When she saw Twilight’s horn ignite, Amethyst’s eyes closed as the last of her strength drained away.

Her horn’s glow flaring in intensity, Twilight directed the powers of the void towards Amethyst.

Just as with Lyra, Amethyst was wracked by the eldritch energies being channeled into her body, her skin splitting and weeping blood as the spell did its work. Mercifully, she had lost consciousness, and could not feel the tremendous pain as her already mangled form was further damaged by the initial phase of the healing magic.

Twilight levitated her magically inscribed skull into the air, using it as a focus to repair Amethyst’s wounds. Unexpectedly, she noticed a strange reaction between her own void-based energy and the harmonic magic that Amethyst was infused with—

Without warning, Amethyst exploded in a shower of gore and bone shrapnel, covering everypony in a disgusting mixture of blood, various chunks of organs, and new wounds where shards of shattered calcification had penetrated their hides.

Bon Bon slowly removed her helmet, revealing wide eyes and clenched teeth. Using one of her forehooves, Lyra wiped blood from her shocked face and brushed away a piece of intestine that hung from one of her ears.

“What the Tartarus just happened?” Shining struggled to frantically rip his own helmet off. When he finally succeeded at freeing his head from its red-spattered prison, he pointed an accusatory hoof at Twilight. “Why did you do that?!” His face contorted in anger. “You didn’t have to! If you didn’t want her to live, you just had to wait!”

Twilight, who had just brushed a bloody flap of furred skin from her own muzzle, had twin lines of tears cleaning the blood from two very narrow portions of her face. “I… I tried to save her!” she wailed. “I—I don’t know what happened!

I… know…A familiar voice resounded through the room, speaking haltingly, completely devoid of emotion.

Shining looked around, his face a mixture of confusion. “Blueblood?”

...Yes. I’m here, now.

“What—”

The energies… they were of… opposing types. They… combined… violently…

His look morphing from confusion to anger, Shining paced, looking up towards the ceiling as if Blueblood were hovering above them. “Sir, where were you?”

That… hardly matters right now, I wasn’t there when you needed me—and Amethyst…Several moments passed. You all must return safely—gather what you can, and return…

“Sir…” Shining looked to the ground. “How much… did you overhear about—”

I already knew, Shining. Follow my orders and we’ll speak further when you’re all safely back here.

“Sir!?” Shining yelled at the ceiling. “SIR!!!”

Week 6, Day 2, Afternoon

Sitting back numbly, Blueblood ignored Shining’s demands for his attention and closed the viewing window back to a pinprick. Turning a defeated eye to Zecora’s unmasked face, he stared for a moment at the eerily silent zebra, hopelessness etched across his own features.

“I killed her, Zecora. Just as surely as if I’d been the one to gut her and detonate her myself.” He turned back towards the faintly glowing pinprick of light. “I acted as a foal; my carelessness and lack of self-awareness killed her.”

“About her death, I will offer a thought,” Zecora said in a soft tone, placing her forehooves on his shoulders and beginning to knead them. “The monster killed her, your fault, it was not.”

Grunting in pain as she pulverized a knot in his neck, Blueblood tried to relax and allow her to continue. “But I could have done something—”

“There was no way for you to know.” Zecora slid her hooves down, past his neck, and to his chest. “Which way, that things would go.”

He closed his eye as his breathing became heavy in response to her hooves as they rubbed across his body, working slowly downwards. Reaching back with one hoof, he gripped her neck and pulled her forward, gasping as he felt her teeth clench down on his ear. “But I—”

“For this, yourself, you choose to hate,” Zecora whispered into his ear. “But self-loathing is selfish, and will not change her fate.”

His mood suddenly shattered, Blueblood opened his eye to stare at the dormant spell, a frustrated and exasperated expression etched across his muzzle. Pulling himself away from the caressing hooves and playful nibbles, he waved his forehoof dismissively at the zebra. “No offense, Zecora, but get out of here. Now.”

After waiting a few moments in silence, he heard her hooffalls as she left the room without another word. Silently cursing himself for allowing her to get him so worked up—in more ways than one—he stood to his hooves and tried to walk off his arousal. Briefly thinking of visiting the brothel later himself, Blueblood dismissed the idea as he realized that the only place which was warded against the undead was his room—he didn’t even want to think about the explanations and, most likely, bribes that would be required if one of Berryshine’s whores saw or was injured by a walking corpse.

He would just have to live with being pent up.

“Dammit,” he swore.

Week 6, Day 2, Evening

The fire was blazing away, keeping the chill from the four ponies as they rested under the shadowy boughs of the Everfree.

“—so, after I ‘failed’ the entrance exam to Celestia’s snob-school for wealthy and privileged unicorns, I realized that her way couldn’t possibly be the true path to magical greatness,” Twilight said. “So I left to pursue magic my own way.”

“You ran away,” Shining clarified, mainly to exposit for the two mercenaries present.

“If I had passed the exam I wouldn’t have been living at home anyways,” Twilight argued. “And you were already off training with Celestia’s Courageous Crusaders. I see that worked out well for you—bodyguard to a Prince, can’t get more important than that—so it’s not like you or them were going to be missing me.”

Shining’s expression turned sour. “Mom and Dad were worried sick about you. They spent every bit they had to hire private investigators to look for you, even after the authorities declared you legally dead.”

Her eyes turned down, and Twilight shook her head. “I couldn’t go back, Shiny. It broke my heart when I saw their expressions after the test. I know they said that they weren’t disappointed, but I saw how upset they were. I wasn’t thinking really, I just wanted to get as far away as I could.”

“How did you even survive?” Shining asked. “You weren’t exactly fillyscout material, so I doubt you just trekked down the mountain and travelled cross-country.”

Shrugging, Twilight held her forehooves towards the fire and rubbed them together. “At first, I just galloped away as fast as I could. While I was pausing for a breather in one of the markets, I thought I overheard a donkey saying something about going out by Manehatten. I figured it was far enough away from Canterlot, so I hopped in the back of his wagon while he was distracted.”

Lyra cocked her head. “How did he not notice you?”

Twilight waved a forehoof. “Oh, he found me as soon as he set up camp the first day after we left Canterlot. His name was Cranky. He wanted nothing to do with me, and wanted to take me straight back, but luckily I’d spent the entire trip to that point making a list of reasons why he shouldn’t.”

“You told him that you’d say that he foalnapped you if he brought you back, didn’t you?” Bon Bon deadpanned.

Twilight blushed. “How did you—”

Lyra and Bon Bon broke into a series of chuckles, causing Twilight to redden further. The much-needed levity relieved a small amount of the tension that they had all been feeling since Amethyst's untimely demise.

“Well,” Shining said. “Then what?”

Twilight lit her horn and picked up a stick to poke at the fire. “Well, Cranky said he wasn’t actually going to Manehatten, seeing as how he’d just come from there; he was actually traveling all over Equestria, and he begrudgingly decided to take me along. He taught me how to camp and survive in the wilderness, and whenever we did wind up in town, he let me study magic at whatever local libraries were available.”

“So,” Shining said, “you just travelled around Equestria with someone whom you basically reverse foalnapped into taking care of you until now?”

“Of course not,” Twilight said, knocking over a log with her stick and eliciting a column of sparks to fly upwards from the fire. “I left Cranky after I was old enough to look after myself—poor old guy actually seemed sad to see me go…” She paused for a moment, a wistful look on her face. “Well, then I went to Manehatten. When I finally did get there, I met another unicorn mare in the public library. She was a few years older than me, but she was really smart, and had an innate knack for magic like I did.”

“She loved books too?” Shining barked out a single laugh. “I bet you two hit it off.”

Blushing again, Twilight reached a forehoof back to rub at her mane. “Actually, we got into a lot of fights at first.”

Shining’s eyes widened.

“Yeah,” Twilight continued, “we were both hungry for knowledge, and we both wanted to read the same texts. One day, they kicked us both out for making a ruckus over Clopcraft’s Treatises on Extraplanar Entities.”

“You got kicked out of the Manehatten public library over a single book?” Shining’s voice was incredulous.

“It wasn’t just any book! Wait—that’s not the point anyway! So… we started arguing in the street, yelling our reasons for who deserved the book more at each other. We started arguing our research, our theories—”

“And then you started making out furiously—OW!” Lyra rubbed the back of her head, Bon Bon having hoof-slapped her. “What was that for?”

“Rude,” Bon Bon said, waggling her hoof back and forth at her “best friend.” Looking back at Twilight, who was blushing again, she gestured with a forehoof. “Ignore Lyra. Please, continue.”

“Uh—umm,” Twilight stammered. “Right. We started to realize that we were the only two ponies who actually knew the material in the book; we’d both originally supposed that the other didn’t actually know the subject matter at all. So, we went back the next day and tried researching together. We started making significant progress, more than we would have alone. Before we knew it, we’d exhausted Manehatten’s entire library of magical texts, and then we started traveling Equestria to uncover more knowledge.”

“So she’s here too?” Bon Bon looked around warily.

“Oh, no,” Twilight chuckled. “Starlight hates nature; she’s in town.”

“But,” Shining said, “it’s no coincidence that you’re both here, now.”

Twilight moved the stick again and it snapped, falling completely into the fire. “No,” she said. “It’s not a coincidence at all. About six weeks ago, we both sensed an unprecedented surge of magic from this area. The only time we’d ever felt anything remotely close power-wise, was when we happened to be in the same town as Celestia during a Summer Sun Celebration. We’re pretty sure we’re the only ponies who detected it, since we’re the only ones who’ve shown up. Nopony seems to really bother to check for eldritch energy, probably since it’s so rare; normally ponies only divine for harmonic and necromantic signatures. ”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Shining gestured back towards the ruins. “This whole place radiates strong necromancy; I can feel it in my bones, and I’m not even trained in detection magic.”

“Yes. Yes it does,” Twilight said. “The catacombs radiate energy consistent with a powerful necromancer; and those energies have begun to seep into the surrounding acres.

“However,” she gestured to the Castle of the Two Sisters, then angled her hoof downwards. “From the divinations I’ve conducted, I’ve discovered that beneath the castle, farther down than the catacombs, there is a power which gives off an eldritch signature which is orders of magnitude greater than our necromancer friend. Multiple… orders; so at least one hundred times worse than a necromancer who is more potent than anything me and Starlight have ever previously encountered.”

Shining would have paled if he weren’t already white. “And the surrounding—”

“This whole region is infected with it,” Twilight confirmed. “Including Ponyville. We’re in the belly of the beast, so to speak.”

Flitting his eyes back and forth as he thought, Shining finally settled them on Twilight. “We need to warn Blueblood.”

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,” Twilight said with a dismissive hoof-wave. “Whatever it is, it seems to be a passive entity, like most of its kind. This kind of power spike is probably just it stirring in its slumber. As long as nopony has experienced any direct manifestations, then Blueblood should have nothing to worry about.

Week 6, Day 2, Evening

“Hello, Blue.” the Amethyst-thing said, its voice rough and wet.

Blueblood recoiled, falling out of the bed. The only consolation he had in falling head-first onto the floor was that Amethyst’s corpse had the decency to not be in bed with him when it woke him up.

He looked across the bed at something that—at least vaguely—resembled Amethyst. It was as if somepony had chopped her into pieces, and then tried to put those pieces back together again… poorly.

“No—NO! You said that the wards would keep—”

“Out the undead, I know,” it interrupted, looking around at the various sigils and runes Amethyst had inscribed around the room. “The wards look intact, Blue, so what stands before you now… whatever I am, is not undead.”

Warily rising to his hooves, Blueblood eyed the grotesque amalgamation of pony parts. “Why aren’t you trying to taunt me, or attack me, like the others?”

It shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I harbor you no ill will? Unlike the others, we were friends in life. Plus, I knew that I was risking my life working for you; even if I was scared of the foretelling of my own death, I’m the one that chose to go face it.”

Finally perceiving the complete lack of aggression, Blueblood shifted his feelings from outright fear towards morbid fascination. “What are you?”

The expression the Amethyst-thing managed with its patchwork face was one of thoughtful contemplation. “I am not entirely sure, though I think I remember coming from someplace… dark; someplace… that wants you to be a part of it. Yes. Yes, that’s why we were sent. But… I wasn’t Amethyst—no, not Amethyst at all—not until I met you.”

His eyes darting around, Blueblood forced his mind to dwell on the implications of the Amethyst-thing’s words. “You’re some kind of… what then? A psychic imprint?”

“...Does that make sense?”

“Maybe? Yes? No? No it doesn’t,” Blueblood said, waving a hoof dismissively. “None of this makes sense; you’re dead, but now you’re here—sort of—but how did you even get here this fast? It’s miles to where—wait… Shining burned your body. I didn’t see him do it, but he told me he did when I checked in.”

“So I’m appearing to you as I did when you last saw me?”

“No,” Blueblood said, fixing it with an intense gaze of understanding. “You’re how I see you—” he tapped his own head with a hoof “—here.” An idea, which the rational part of his brain told him was pure folly, formulated slowly in his head. Despite the risks, his heart implored him to try.

Scrunching his eye shut, Blueblood thought, hard. A disgusting squelching noise came from across the bed, and it was all he could do to keep from opening his eye until he’d pictured her… just… right.

“Huh,” she said, her voice sounding significantly more like Amethyst’s than before. “Not bad, Blue.”

Opening his eye, he saw Amethyst standing there. She was perfect—just like she’d been after he’d seen her come out of the bath—and just as unclothed.

Blushing a deep shade of red, Blueblood quickly turned away. “Sorry, I should have pictured you some clothes.”

“We’re ponies,” Amethyst said flatly. “Nudity doesn’t really matter if half of the species walks around completely unclothed, now does it, Blue?”

Frowning, Blueblood turned back to look at her. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re attractive, or that I’m in need of a good— “No, I suppose not,” he said, the expression on his face becoming pained. “You look like her… but do you—”

“Think like her?” She paused, seemingly in thought. “Hard to say—I’m more convinced now that what I am is a reflection of what you knew about your Amethyst; I’m like a copy, colored by your recollections. I… am flattered that you took the effort to make me look… nice.”

His eye passing over her, Blueblood scrutinized Amethyst in a desperate attempt to find some imperfection or blatant deformity that would show that she was still… a monster. “I just wanted to see you… in the flesh again, so to speak.” He paused. “Even though you’re not like the others, you’ll be gone after tonight anyway, won’t you?”

Amethyst nodded. “I can't properly explain it, but I… know that I have to return. But not until… I’ve gotten a piece of you.”

“A piece?” Blueblood cocked his head.

Taking a cautious step towards the foot of the bed, Amethyst slowly began to circle towards Blueblood, eyeing him with obvious curiosity. He responded by stepping towards the headboard, aiming to keep as much of the mattress between them as possible.

“Again, it’s hard to explain. It… wants you here, Blue. It… wants to make you a part of this place. To do that, It needs to sample you, your memories, your body, so that It can adapt itself to you. It will also corrupt you, given time, so that you adapt… to It. The best way It knows how, is slowly, gently—like a death, by inches. Just like Celestia, It will integrate you, piece… by piece.”

His eye widening further at the mention of Celestia’s name, Blueblood quickly moved around the bed, sat on his haunches, and grabbed Amethyst’s withers with his forehooves. “Celestia—do you know where she is?”

“No,” Amethyst said. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Furrowing his brow, he stared hard into her right eye. “You said ‘It.’ What is… ‘It?’”

A look of horrified recollection appeared on Amethyst’s face and tears began to stream down her muzzle. “The Darkness—” She shook her head as she wept. “Oh Blue, the Darkness—”

Blueblood found himself wrapping his forelegs around Amethyst in a tight embrace. As she sat and sobbed against him, he realized that it didn’t matter that she was likely some monster spawned from whatever… thing lurked in this place. She’d become Amethyst the instant she’d entered his presence. As he rubbed his hoof along her back to calm her, a steady increase in his heart rate, along with increased blood flow to a particular area of his body, made him painfully aware that he was becoming aroused.

But his thoughts dwelled on other questions: How much of her was the Amethyst he thought he knew? How much of her was the real Amethyst? Any part at all? Was any part of her still part of the darkness that she claimed wanted to devour him, body and soul? He’d changed her… could he change her further? Should he?

All he knew, as he held her, was that he didn’t want to let go. If he did, he would lose her again: her, their blossoming friendship, and everything that he’d hoped would come from it. He scrunched his eye closed as he focused on that hope—

Amethyst started to rub his back with one of her forehooves, and she pulled away slightly, allowing both of her eyes to meet his one. “Blue—”

“I… don’t want you to leave, Amethyst.” He stared into her eyes as he moved a forehoof to rub her shoulder.

She eyed him worriedly as she divined his intentions. “You... you shouldn’t do this,” Amethyst said, placing her other forehoof on his, as if to remove it—

—Just wanting some companionship, Blueblood wished for her to want that from him as well—

—and she allowed him to continue.

“I shouldn’t?” He teased. “You don’t want it? You seem like you do.”

“I do… no—I don’t… I don’t know. Not before—but now… I feel my heart aching for it—”

Blueblood silenced Amethyst by pressing his muzzle into hers. Her expression slowly melted from one of surprise to one of contentment as she returned his kiss and she wrapped her forelegs around him and pulled him close.

As their forehooves began to explore each other’s bodies, Amethyst pulled away again, her face contorted with conflicting emotion. “I want this,” she said with uncertainty. “But I don’t know if it’s because of me, or you, or… It. I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Blueblood said forcefully, his voice filled with a surprising amount of need that even he hadn’t realized he possessed. “Does it?”

“It—” Amethyst paused for a moment, her eyes fluttering in a peculiar fashion.

“Doesn’t matter,” Blueblood said again, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“It… doesn’t matter?” Amethyst’s voice was uncertain.

“Does it?” Blueblood’s words were less a question and more of a punctuation of a statement. Sweat had beaded on his forehead, and he shook slightly with effort.

“It doesn’t matter,” Amethyst said, more confident this time. “It doesn’t matter at all, does it?”

They fell back into a passionate kiss, pressing and rubbing their bodies together, their forehooves now groping desperately at each other.

Blueblood moved Amethyst to the bed, where she fell onto her back. Swept up in the moment, he nickered as he surveyed her supine body with unrestrained animalistic desire. As he moved to mount on top of her, he saw fresh tears streaming down her face.

“I’m a holy vestal,” Amethyst wept, otherwise unmoving. “I’ve taken a vow of chastity; I can’t want this—how can I want this? My body is screaming yes… but Blue—I’m terrified, Blue. It’s like I’m not controlling myself at all.”

A hoof impacted Blueblood’s face, the force sufficient that when he finished shaking his head, he felt swelling and blood in his mouth. He spat onto the floor and heard a click-clacking as one of his teeth bounced out of the gob of blood, to skitter across the hardwood paneling. He looked down to realize that he’d hit himself.

This is wrong, his mind screamed at him.

As he felt the incredible desire deflate within him, he beheld Amethyst’s sob-wracked body, splayed out across the bed. The sight nauseated him—what had he almost done? “It was me,” he gasped, as he fell backwards onto his haunches. “Celestia above, it was me.”

Sitting up, Amethyst looked at him with a peculiar expression, which alternated between sadness, relief, and anger. “I… don’t want this,” she said. “You stopped—I’m so glad that you stopped. But… damn you for starting.”

“I’m sorry, Amethyst,” Blueblood said in a despondent tone, shaking his head from side to side. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

“I do,” she said. “You’re lonely, and you needed something to take you away from the horror of everything that’s been happening.”

“How—”

“I know,” she said spitefully, “because you made me feel the same way.”

“I’m sorry,” Blueblood repeated, looking down to the floor.

“I don’t want your apologies,” Amethyst said as she rolled off of the opposite side of the bed, rising to her hooves. “I want your help.”

“Anything,” Blueblood said, on the verge of tears.

“I… I don’t want to go back,” Amethyst stammered. “I won’t go back.”

“We’ll figure something out then.” Blueblood said, “Maybe Celestia had a spell or some—”

“No.” Amethyst looked more certain in that moment than Blueblood had ever seen from either her or the original. “If I try to stay, It will just force me to return.” She looked to his fireplace. “You’ve denied It your body and mind for all except the first time It came for you. If I return, It will have more of both than It could have hoped to gather with all those that came before me.”

“No!” Blueblood’s vision blurred, and he felt hot tears rush down his face. “I know what you’re going to suggest—I refuse! I won’t do it! Even if we… never had something, and even if it’s wrong for me to want more now, there’s still a part of me that does! A part of me that can’t bear losing you again—not after having just gotten you back!”

“Blue, I’m not her; I’m just a copy. I’m no more real than the painting of Celestia over your fireplace, or the statues of her in the garden. I’m just painted on a higher quality canvas.” She looked directly into his eye. “Let’s be honest now, Blue: if this fantasy you just tried to act out with me was what you thought of her, then you never had her in the first place.”

Gritting his teeth, Blueblood stood, and forced himself to return Amethyst’s gaze. “What do you want me to do?”

Looking down at his bedside table, Amethyst opened the drawer with a forehoof. She looked at what lay within it for several moments before looking back up at him, her own eyes refilling with tears. “I can’t even use my horn to lift it, Blue—I’m not a real pony… so I don’t even have any magic…”

Blueblood felt like somepony had attached a leaden weight to his heart. He walked over to Amethyst, and embraced her again. “...I’m sorry, for all that I’ve done to you,” he said as she closed her eyes and buried her face into his chest. “You may not have been the real Amethyst, but you were real enough… to me.” The sound of Blueblood’s horn igniting almost drowned out his own whisper as he stroked Amethyst’s mane; “Shhhh, everything’s ok now; I’ll make sure you can’t go back.”

Amethyst held him tighter, pressing her face further into his fur. “Thank y—”

Her forelegs went limp and fell to her sides as Blueblood thrust Cynic’s knife into the base of her skull.

“No,” he gasped through his tears. He held her tighter, ignoring as her muscles relaxed in death. “Thank you, for everything.”

Imminent Impact

Chapter 11: Imminent Impact

Week 7, Day 1, Morning

“It takes a big stallion to do something like this, Shining,” Blueblood said, his forehoof on Shining’s withers as they stood in front of the dilapidated Ponyville Sanitarium.

“I’m sorry it came to this, Sir.” Shining looked quite different without his highly polished suit of platemail and his sword. “I just hope they can do something for me. This… need to take things… it’s gone too far. I’ve turned a blind eye to it for too long. I’ve let it take too much of my soul. Plus… I owe it to Amethyst.”

Trying to look as convincing as possible, Blueblood gave Shining his best diplomatic smile. “It may not look like much, but I’ve checked into the place, and they have the best success rate for curing illnesses, physical and mental, in all of Equestria. They must spend all of their bits on updates to their training and quality staff, instead of wasting it on aesthetics; I can probably help them out in that regard by calling in a few of Celestia’s favors.”

“Well,” Shining said, swallowing a lump that had formed in his throat. “Let’s do this, before I lose my nerve.”

The two walked into the facility’s foyer, where they were approached by a white-coated mare with a nurse-cap atop her head.

“I’m Nurse Redheart,” she said. “How can I help you today?” She turned her head to face Shining when Blueblood halted a few hoofsteps behind him.

“I’m here to commit myself for treatment,” Shining said, his voice crisp and clear, though it contained an almost undetectable quaver.

With a grace borne of excessive repetition, Redheart hoofed a clipboard and a pair of pens from a pocket in her lab coat. “Who will be paying for your treatment?”

“That would be me,” Blueblood said, stepping forward.

“Ok,” Redheart said, writing notes on the forms attached to the clipboard. She removed the front several pages and hoofed the clipboard and a pen to Shining. “I need you to fill out these medical history, release, and consent to treatment forms.” She hoofed one of the pages she’d removed to Blueblood and gave him the second pen. “And I need you to sign this to confirm that you understand the cost of treatment and that you will pay us for administering it.”

While Blueblood quickly signed the payment form and gave it back to Redheart, it took Shining several minutes to work through and complete most of his forms. “What’s all this wording under consent to treatment?” he asked.

“Just the standard verbiage,” Redheart said. “Most of it is to make sure you won’t turn around and try to sue us for treating you.”

“Ah,” Shining said, quickly signing the remainder of the forms and hoofing them back to Redheart.

Once she had checked through the forms, Redheart looked up and smiled at them. “Okay, these appear to all be in order. Wait here; I’ll be right back.”

She trotted off through a set of double-doors, which closed behind her, to leave the two stallions standing alone in the foyer.

“Well,” Shining said, nervousness very apparent in his voice, “I guess this is it.”

Blueblood put a comforting forehoof on Shining’s withers again. “I know you’re stressed out, but do try to stop worrying about it; it will help them cure you faster.”

The sound of rolling wheels became audible and Redheart appeared through the double doors pushing a medical stretcher. “Okay, Shining,” she said with a smile, “here’s your ride!” She took one of his forehooves and led him towards the gurney. “From here on out, you’ll be exposed to the most intensive medical treatments available to ponykind. We’ll have you better in no time!”

“Why are there straps?!” Shining looked less than enthusiastic as Nurse Redheart laid him down and buckled his legs to the stretcher. “You don’t need to restrain me, I’m admitting myself!”

Redheart smiled at him. “I know, Shining, but this is standard procedure until the Doctor has seen you and verified that you aren’t a danger to yourself or others.”

“Well, at least I can still use my—”

With a deft motion, Redheart slid an intricate metal band down Shining’s horn, fitting it snugly once it reached the base.

“Wait, what’s that?!”

“Magic nullifier,” Redheart replied in a conversational tone. “Can’t have you hurting yourself or others with your magic either, now can we?”

Shining began to struggle against the restraints. “Hey!” he yelled, a look of building panic quickly consuming his features. “I didn’t agree to that!”

“He seems a bit agitated,” Blueblood said, watching as Shining writhed on the gurney.

“Don’t worry, Prince,” Nurse Redheart said. “We’ll take good care of Shining here.” She hoofed a large syringe from her lab coat. “I’ll just give him something to help calm him down.”

“What?! No!” His thrashing now frantic, Shining strained at the straps, trying to force his body away from the approaching hypodermic. “I don’t like needles! I don’t need to be sedated!”

“I’d better go,” Blueblood said, looking quite uncomfortable at the scene unfolding before him.

“We’ll see you later then, Prince,” she said as she stuck the syringe into the foreleg of the now-screaming Shining Armor and depressed the plunger. “Doctor Horse is really quite amazing. Shining should be ready in a few weeks or so.”

Not really paying attention to the fact that Shining’s shouting and frenzied struggles were slowly abating, Blueblood left the sanitarium with as much haste as he could manage without betraying his calm, cool exterior. Once out the front door, he pulled himself to the side, put a hoof on the wall, and started breathing heavily. “Oh… I do not… envy him… at all,” the wide-eyed Prince managed between gasps for air.

Things like this were the reason he hated sanitariums.

Week 7, Day 2, Afternoon

The drawing room, which normally received a decent amount of natural light during this time of the day, was illuminated primarily by candles. A storm had blown in from the east during the latter half of the day, darkening the skies and filling the air with a hint of ozone. Even indoors, the air felt heavy with electrical charge, almost like a dry winter day. The wind which brought the tempest was audible even with the drawing room windows closed, and threatened to overpower conversation held at a normal volume.

“This is Starlight Glimmer,” Twilight said loudly, indicating the lilac-coated unicorn mare, who was suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning. “We’re co-researchers in the field of the occult.”

“Charmed,” Blueblood said after a thunderclap sounded. He steepled his hooves above the drawing room table. “Twilight demonstrated extraordinary prowess in combat against the shambler in the catacombs. Since you two study together, I assume that your abilities are similar to Twilight’s?”

Starlight snorted. “Identical, actually.”

“Identical?” Blueblood asked, nonplussed.

“Yes, identical,” Starlight replied in a sharp tone, punctuated by a flash and crack of thunder. “Nothing drives friends apart faster than differences in ability, so we both strived to be on equal hoofing in each of the disciplines we studied.”

“That,” Blueblood said, “is… fascinating.” His tone and facial expression suggested that it was anything but.

“I know!” Starlight seemed genuinely enthusiastic. “I can’t wait to try and see if we can’t get some of the other recruits to try and strive for equality—”

“Starlight,” Twilight facehoofed as she spoke, “you promised not to push the ‘equality’ thing anymore.”

Starlight harrumphed in time with another of the storm’s rumblings. “Fine, but we’ll see who wants to discuss it when everypony is tearing themselves apart over their differences!”

Turning slightly, Blueblood coughed as he pointed a hoof at the drawing room doors. “Ditzy should still be in the foyer; she will provide you with our now-standard contract, welcome aboard.”

After the two mares left, Blueblood looked around the empty room, sighing when a bolt of lightning struck just outside of town. “You’re a fool to take on all these administrative duties yourself, old colt.” Thunder washed out the end of his statement.

But of whose council could you possibly avail yourself now that your closest advisors are dead, insane, drunk, or jilted?

Knocking his chair over, Blueblood jumped to his hooves. “Auntie?” He turned around, despite knowing that there was nopony in the room with him. His eyes locked on the painting of Celestia that hung behind his chair. “Where are you?” After spinning a few more times, Blueblood stared at the painting with his eye narrowed. “Answer me!”

A bolt of lightning struck directly outside the drawing room window and Blueblood fell, startled back into his chair.

“What is the question?”

The unfamiliar, booming voice was almost as forceful as the splitting of the air which preceded it. The air of command it carried almost had Blueblood scrambling for an answer before he could even formulate a proper response. Instead, he turned to the double doors to the drawing room, which Twilight and Starlight had left open.

To say that the unicorn who stood in the doorway was imposing would be like saying that Cheese Sandwich was “slightly loud,” especially since she was suddenly backlit as another bolt of lightning tore into the estate grounds somewhere outside. With her impressive height, statuesque build, dark plum coat, black-plated armor, and her glaring facial scars—which included a broken horn—the mare’s mere presence exuded a sense of authoritative power.

“Who… are you? Who let you in?” Blueblood rapid fired the questions at the new arrival in an attempt to give himself time to think, and possibly find a weapon in case the pony meant him harm. He eyed a poleaxe wielded by one of the suits of armor flanking the door.

“My name is Tempest Shadow,” she said in a voice as unyielding as the stone from which she appeared to be chiseled, “and I let myself in, right before you hired me.”

“Hired you?” Blueblood struggled to hide the incredulity from his voice. Over the years, of all of the diplomats and nobles he’d faced, most had only but a fraction of the force of personality as this mare. Thankfully, he’d been in more intimidating encounters, especially recently. “I’ll need to see your qualifications first,” he said in a flat tone.

“Of course,” she said, effortlessly slamming a piece of parchment onto the planning desk with enough force to rattle the massive piece of furniture.

Lighting his horn, Blueblood carefully peeled the page from where it had been pressed into the wood grain and began to read. The list of campaigns Tempest had attended was impressive, to say the least. What was more impressive was that he actually recognized some of the actions she’d been a part of, including one in which—

“...You’re the Badlands Butcher,” he said in surprise, looking up from the resumé. “The scarred warrior who appears, typically during a—” Lightning flashed nearby again, followed swiftly by a peak of thunder. He looked out the window at the thunderous gale and then back at Tempest. “—raging thunderstorm…”

The look she gave him could fry a pony’s skin as surely as the wild arcs of electricity dancing about outside.

“They also say you dynamited the eyries of Mount Aris; massacred the hippogriffs, including non-combatants—mothers and hatchlings—” He studied her reactions intently as he spoke; he realized that he may as well have been trying to read the emotions of a rock… a very disapproving rock.

“That’s right,” she said, her tone neither seeking, nor expecting, forgiveness. “I’ve killed just about everything that’s trotted, flown or swum at one time or another. And now I’ve come here, to kill… for you.”

“Why me?” he asked, again gauging for any kind of reaction.

Tempest eyed him as if he were the one being interviewed. “I have always strived to better my abilities, by testing myself against the hardest, strongest opponents,” she said. “When I heard the news, that there was an expedition to the Everfree, and that it had already met with losses, due to inexplicable horrors—”

Blueblood facehooved. His attempts at distributing propaganda to weed out the weak may have gone… a bit too far.

“—the likes of which have not been seen by ponies in this age… I knew that I needed to be part of it.”

Quickly changing the subject, Blueblood came back to something else which had caught his eye; “This says you were a top general for your previous employer,” Blueblood said, tapping the resumé. “You were even given a force of your own to command. Why did you leave the service of this... ‘Storm King?’”

“Because he was dead,” she said flatly.

“Dead?” Blueblood wanted to look at the parchment again, but a sudden feeling in his gut told him that he needed to keep his eye on Tempest. “How? Was he assassinated while you were away on campaign?”

“No,” she said conversationally. “I killed him.”

“Why,” Blueblood asked, cautiously standing to his hooves, “would you kill your employer?”

“He promised me something,” Tempest said. “Equestria was his next invasion target. He needed Celestia’s essence—or some other such nonsense—for an artifact he was creating. When word reached us that the Princess was gone, I asked him what other task I would need to perform to get what was owed.” Her sneer could crack mirrors. “He was upset enough by the setback that he made the mistake of telling me that he had never intended to deliver on his promise—”

Blueblood leaned forwards. “And?”

Tempest’s eyes bulged in their sockets slightly. “I took one of the petrification spheres we had produced for subduing Celestia, and used it on him. Once he had transformed into stone, I bucked him from our airship—we were a mile up at the time.”

“So—” Blueblood slowly seated himself again. “—how do I know you won’t just… up and kill me if the company’s account runs dry and I’m unable to pay you?”

“Because,” she said, “if you fail to give me my due as a result of misfortune or happenstance, I can understand that. I’ve run expeditions of my own; I know that cost overruns and financial disaster strike. What I could not forgive—” The sneer returned to her face. “—was the blatant deception. As long as you do not willingly renege on your promises, you will not find yourself the target of my wrath.”

“You are truly as mercenary as they get, aren’t you?” The rhetorical question received no response from Tempest, other than a continuation of her perpetual glare. Steepling his hooves, Blueblood looked down at his master roster list, lit his horn, and dipped a quill in the inkwell closest to him. “How fortuitous then, that I need ponies as shrewd as you; you may now consider yourself hired. Ditzy will be in the foyer with the necessary contract paperwork and housing arrangements.”

Without another word, Tempest performed a crisp about-face and walked out of the room, leaving Blueblood to make a mental note to refrain from making any promises he couldn’t keep with that one.

Week 7, Day 4, Evening

The fire burned with a healthy yellowish-orange light, illuminating the group and providing them with some warmth against the cold that sunset had brought. More importantly, it kept the baleful greenish light of the comet away from them. In recent nights, the intensity of the comet seemed to have increased. Just being under the malign glow made one’s skin crawl.

“Ok,” Rainbow flipped her good-luck chip high into the air. “It’s late and Blueblood isn’t watching us anymore, so… what do you think, Tempest?”

“I think,” Tempest replied flatly, without sparing the others a glance from where she lay with her back to the fire, “that your predilection for inane banter is quite irritating. You should sleep, or focus on the mission-at-hoof and keep an eye out for the bandits which have been plaguing this road. The four we dispatched earlier cannot be solely responsible for the reports we’ve heard from the locals.”

Rainbow gesticulated wildly. “You mean the one bandit who took three of us to kill and the three who you absolutely wrecked all by yourself? Tartarus, you practically punched a hole through that one mare! And you almost took that stallion’s head clean off when you broke his neck like a twig!”

“You are exaggerating,” Tempest replied in a tone which bled exasperation as surely as the fluid which had leaked out of that mare once Tempest had buried a hoof knee deep in her chest. “Go to sleep.”

“Yeah, you’re no fun.” Catching her chip out of the air with a flick of her wing, Rainbow spun around to face Applejack. “What about you, houndmare?”

“What about me?” Applejack said, keeping her gaze aimed at the fire.

“Oh, come on!” Rainbow proceeded to flick the chip back and forth between her wings rapidly. “Blueblood’s been pretty tight-lipped about Amethyst’s death, so has everypony else that went out with her. What do you think happened?”

Frowning, Applejack turned to Rainbow with a flat expression. “I reckon she got killed, Dash.”

“Eeyup,” agreed Big Mac.

Winona barked.

Taking to the air, Rainbow hovered a few inches off the ground and pulled down on her cheeks with both forehooves. “Well, duh! What I mean is, how do you think it happened?”

“Well,” Applejack said, “I can’t rightly say as I know.”

Rainbow landed and twirled her chip on one of her primaries. “But if it’s something that killed one of our company members, we should know—”

“You claim that this is need-to-know information, Miss Dash,” Tempest said, in a voice which could have silenced a torch-wielding mob. “However, it is my understanding that the reason you were not present to view the incident first-hoof was because you were—how shall I put this?—passed out in the townhouse foyer, drunk off your flank.”

The sky-blue of Rainbow’s face burned red.

“You only lack this information because of your own careless actions, Miss Dash,” Tempest rumbled in a voice as merciless as the knee she’d used to break a bandit’s back earlier in the day. “Besides, given this company’s records, the general level of competence of its members, and the fact that we all know exactly what happened in Froggy Bottom Bog, but not during that mission, the answer to your question is painfully obvious.”

“Oh?” Rainbow said, her voice a mixture of embarrassed and incredulous. “You think you know what happened then?”

Tempest released a sigh which spoke of a level of resignation which one would normally reserve for surrendering an entire nation to their most reviled enemy. “She was killed by the actions or inactions… of either Blueblood himself, or another company member.”

The silence which followed was broken only by the popping and crackling from the fire, and the occasional buzz or chirp of a nighttime insect.

Week 7, Day 4, Night

The viewing window shrank to a pinprick.

If Blueblood had any color to his fur, it would have surely drained away after hearing Tempest’s declaration. “Everypony who knew swore to secrecy; how—”

Her eyes hold the secrets of a hundred campaigns.

“Auntie?” Blueblood started, and then looked slowly around the observatory. “Where are you?” His gaze stopped on the observation enchantment. “You used this thing so much. Are you… attached to it somehow?” He paused for a few moments in thought, then leaned in close to the table. “You’re right, though. Of course Tempest knew. She’s been through enough conflicts that she has to have run into similar situations; I’m not going to be able to get anything past her.”

As Blueblood turned his eye to the faintly glowing pinprick, a shiver ran down his spine. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew I was watching when she said it.” He frowned. “Are you going to be trouble for me, Tempest?”

Only if you cross her.

“Hopefully she doesn’t decide to cross me first,” Blueblood said. “I doubt I’d survive if she did.”

Looking skyward, Blueblood scratched at a sudden itch around his blinded eye. “Auntie… if you really can hear me, tell me about the comet.”

It, as well as what you carry, is a blazing malevolence from beyond the stars—

Week 8, Day 6, Evening

Two bandits, a stallion and mare, screamed as their hooves were pierced completely through by the caltrops Bon Bon had thrown in the wake of their reckless charge.

Grinning like a madmare, Starlight squinted, the illumination from her horn magnifying. A swirling vortex formed in the air next to the hobbled bandits and a cluster of massive tentacles emerged from it. With a blood curdling shriek, the bandits were dragged back through the portal from which the fleshy limbs had emerged.

“Incoming!” Lyra shouted as she grasped a stallion bandit in her monstrous hands and threw him—with a quarter spin—towards Tempest.

Turning around, Tempest kicked out a hind hoof. She struck the stallion’s face forcefully enough that, with a sickening crack, his entire muzzle turned sideways… without the rest of his skull following suit. The broken brigand landed several paces away, writhing in agony until one of Tempest’s knees slammed down and crushed his windpipe.

“Crosscut, NO!” shrieked a mare as she charged, only to be impaled when Tempest swiftly lowered her jagged horn. With neck muscles bulging as if they were threatening to tear themselves from her skin at any moment, Tempest lifted the squirming bandit into the air, and ignited her highly unstable magic. The resulting eruption was reminiscent of a watermelon which had been exposed to an oversized hammer.

“Easy as pie,” Tempest casually remarked as pieces of bandit—which resembled cherry filling far too much for everypony else’s liking—rained down from the dimming sky. With the setting sun beginning to dip below the horizon, the last rays of crimson light crept across their surroundings. The red merged with that of the spattered remains, which appeared to bleed out until everything was covered in ghastly shades of death.

When the last of the daytime illumination faded, all colors slowly changed to the sickly green of the comet overhead.

“That thing is—” Lyra made a beastial sound as she reverted to pony form. “—almost as bright as the moon!”

“Has it always been that bright?” Starlight asked.

Bon Bon removed her helmet. “You don’t get outside much, do you Starlight? It’s been getting steadily brighter for the last two months. We kinda thought you or Twilight, being occult experts and all, would know more about it.”

“Nope,” Starlight said, shaking her head. “But I’ll ask Twilight when we get back.”

Looking over to Tempest, Bon Bon saw that the statuesque mare had her narrowed gaze pointed skyward. “What do you think about the comet, Tempest?”

“We should return at once,” Tempest stated in a tone of voice which made it clear that she was voicing a command, not an opinion.

Week 8, Day 7, Morning

“I’ve brought you all here regarding the comet, which I’m sure you’ve all seen by now,” Blueblood said. He shifted in his seat, looking more perturbed than usual as he addressed the others.

All of the ponies he had hired into the company had gathered at his summons, with the notable exception of Shining Armor, who was still in treatment.

“Was it always visible during the day?” Rainbow’s question and pointed hoof drew the attention of the others to the drawing room windows. Hanging like a gangrenous sore in the sky, the comet was definitely visible, despite the sun bearing down from almost directly overhead, and yesterday’s thunderstorm having dissipated as swiftly and inexplicably as it had formed.

Blueblood shook his head. “I’ve been keeping an eye on it since its appearance two months ago, and, while it has been steadily increasing in size, it was only visible at night until today. I figured I’d fill you all in on the comet so you don’t start spreading insane rumors around town.”

He dropped a stack of sealed envelopes on the table. “Unfortunately, my letters to the Canterlot Astrological Society have all been returned as undeliverable. I didn’t know why until my other inquiries to Canterlot bore some fruit on the matter; apparently every last researcher who’s had a look at the comet through a telescope has met—for lack of a better description—some horrible fate.”

The news earned him some confused and worried glances.

“How could a pony get hurt looking through a telescope?” Lyra’s surprisingly relevant question earned some sympathetic, yet whispered acknowledgments from the others.

Using a hoof to straighten out a piece of parchment, Blueblood’s eye moved back and forth as he read from the page. “Since its appearance, twenty seven members of the Astrological Society have been found dead at their telescopes, their eyes having ruptured. Several guard reports state that it looked like… ‘they had exploded from within.’”

This announcement prompted murmurs of consternation from almost everypony present.

“That’s not all,” Blueblood said, holding up a hoof. “Fifty two members of the Astrological Society have been committed to Canterlot Sanitarium with various debilitating mental ailments, which all presented within the last eight weeks.” He stared at the parchment for a moment, almost as if he didn’t believe what was written on it. “Also, in that time, seventy two members of the Astrological Society were found in their homes… having apparently committed suicide.”

The murmurs turned into gasps. Ditzy may have actually fainted—either that or she slipped on her own tail; Blueblood never could be sure with her.

Finally taking his hoof from the parchment, Blueblood looked up. “The remaining one hundred and forty two registered members of the Astrological Society are… missing.”

Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. “All of them?”

Blueblood nodded.

“Missing?” Rainbow looked unconvinced. “How did they lose track of over a hundred ponies?”

Sighing in exasperation, Blueblood turned to Rainbow. “Because, regardless of what everypony thinks, the Equestrian government is not some all-knowing, constantly-spying-on-its-citizens kind of organization; they can’t even track down a single pony without some kind of concerted effort, much less over a hundred.”

Turning away from Starlight, with whom she’d been whispering, Twilight raised a hoof. Starlight facehoofed.

“Yes, Twilight?” Blueblood prompted.

“Why the sudden increase in the comet’s luminescence?” Twilight asked. “Surely we would have been able to see it before today—if only faintly—but it’s pretty visible all of a sudden… isn’t that odd?”

“It is odd, but I don’t know the cause,” he said. “Without the use of telescopes or other proper instrumentation we can’t get a good enough look at the thing to figure out important information, like size, composition, heading, etcetera.”

“Why is it getting brighter, like, right now?” Rainbow’s question again caused everypony to turn to the window.

Indeed, the comet had become much brighter. Its tail still burned a brilliant green, but had lengthened, and now showed a peculiar smoke-like blackness interwoven with it. Most distressing, was that it seemed to actually be moving across the sky.

“Celestia above, I’m an idiot,” Blueblood said, his blood turning to ice water.

“It’s in the atmosphere,” Twilight said as the color drained from her face. “If we can see it here, and it’s been large enough for us to see without a telescope—” She swallowed loudly. “—we’re probably in the blast radius.”

Blueblood hit his hoof against the table several times in an attempt to quiet the sudden commotion that arose from those assembled.

When the panicked conversations ceased to die down, a sudden, loud impact cut violently through the room as Tempest splintered the surface of the antique table with her hoof. “Be silent,” she said to nopony in particular, her voice promising painful retribution should the command go unheeded.

The quiet which followed was deafening.

“Thank you, Tempest,” Blueblood said, eyeing the irreparable damage she’d done to the table. He looked out the window at the comet, now making very visible progress across the sky. “It will hit any minute now,” he breathed. “There’s nothing to be done but batten down the hatches, everypony shutter as many windows as you can before it lands. If you see or feel the impact, get away from the windows, they're probably all going to blow out when the shockwave hits us.”

“The royal emergency meteor decree,” Twilight said nodding. “Didn’t that replace the old duck and cover—”

Jumping to his hooves, Blueblood started magicking windows open so he could pull the storm shutters closed. “Less talking, more battening, Twilight!” he shouted as the others scrambled from the room to fortify the manor.

Rainbow Dash remained behind, looking ill for a moment—which, for once didn’t seem to have anything to do with a cider hangover—or had less to do with one, at any rate. “What about the townsponies?”

As if in response, Cheese Sandwich could be heard through opened windows as Blueblood continued to shutter them.

“Hear ye, hear ye!”

“Looks like Cheese has it handled,” Blueblood said, looking relieved.

“The sky is falling! Come out into the streets and repent with me! The sky—”

“Damnit,” Blueblood said, his face instantly twisting into a grimace.

Rainbow saluted—“On it!”—and then tore through one of the open windows in a rapid rainbow-colored blur of motion.

“No!” Blueblood called after her. “Stay inside!”

But Rainbow was already long gone.

“Ugh.” Blueblood facehoofed as he continued to magically secure the windows. “She’s going to die.”

Week 8, Day 7, Noon

“Get out of the street, Cheese! And tell everypony to get indoors!” Rainbow could see the comet, now blazing westward across the sky.

“Oh, hello Rainbow,” Cheese said in an upbeat tone. “Fine day for a meteor to wipe us all out, amirite?”

Rainbow crossed her forelegs in agitation as she continued to hover. “First off: everypony said it’s a comet. Second: it’s only going to wipe out ponies who stay outside! If you’re crazy enough to stay out here, at least tell everypony else to get inside!”

Cheese looked at Rainbow like she was the one acting crazy. “Hey, I’m as willing as the next mare to take somepony at their word, but you don’t exactly strike me as an expert on falling meteors.”

Hovering for a moment with her jaw dropped, Rainbow just stared at Cheese with an expression alternating between confusion, disbelief, and frustration. “C’mon, Cheese! It’s like any other natural disaster! The safest place is indoors!”

“Unless it’s an earthquake!” Cheese cheerfully added.

“Right,” Rainbow said slowly, not sure if the speed of her vocalization was for Cheese’s benefit or her own. “But this isn’t an earthqua—” She used a hoof to shield her eyes as a bright flash of light illuminated the sky to the west. Moments later the earth began to shake.

Cheese smiled widely as he looked up at her from his spot on the tremor-wracked ground.

“I hate you,” Rainbow said, just before a wall of condensed air smashed her from the sky.

Neutralizing the Necromancer

Chapter 13 Neutralizing the Necromancer

Week 10, Day 5, Afternoon

“There were no signs of them,” Tempest reported bluntly.

“Nothing?” Blueblood’s eyes twitched a little as he looked between Bon Bon, Lyra, Tempest, and Zecora. “Not even a trace?”

“We just spent the better part of three days scouring the surrounding countryside,” Tempest said cooly. “If they had left the farm, or were killed by any of the animals or bandits we were forced to dispatch, we would have found them. Your implicit instructions to not enter Sweet Apple Acres, lest we share their fate, were tactically sound.”

Sitting back in his chair, Blueblood stared dumbly at the hoofmark Tempest had previously hammered into the drawing room table. “Four ponies… gone.” He sighed and flicked a piece of parchment across the table. “Just like… that.”

Tempest didn’t even bat an eye. “It happens.”

Opening his mouth to protest, Blueblood closed it when he found that he had no valid argument with which to counter Tempest’s statement. He looked back at the table for a few moments before raising his eyes back up to hers. “You said bandits… and animals?”

“Correct,” Tempest said. “Although the term ‘creatures’ might be more appropriate.”

Blueblood raised an eyebrow.

“We encountered several diseased canines,” Tempest said. “The most disturbing thing about them was their ferocity, despite extensive deformities and obvious tissue necrosis.”

Shaking his head, Blueblood grabbed a stack of papers. “Sounds like our necromancer friend again—”

“Possibly,” Tempest said, “but these beasts were alive. I suspect that it is some form of eldritch corruption that altered them. But I am no expert.”

“It is truly a shame that we no longer have Miss Sparkle or Miss Glimmer to call upon,” Blueblood said. “Their expertise would have been very valuable in determining these creatures’ origins.”

“Miss Glimmer is blind and bedridden,” Tempest said. “And, despite everypony’s reluctance to consider the possibility, Miss Sparkle is likely dead. We will need to ramp up our recruitment efforts, or we will be ill equipped to keep creatures like these cancerous canines in check.”

“Don’t forget about the spiders!” Lyra piped in, while trying to magically pull strands of webbing from her mane.

Tempest’s retaliatory glare could have brought a pot of cold water to a boil within seconds. “We also did encounter some vastly overgrown spiders. I think it is safe to say that the corruption… is spreading.”

Blueblood remained silent. He wanted to formulate some sort of plan to deal with this newly emergent threat, but found his mind wandering towards estimating how much wine was left in the crates he’d brought from Canterlot. The thing in his foreleg squirmed slightly. It was going to take at least one bottle for him to calm himself from all of this—probably more.

Week 11, Day 2, Afternoon

The giant spider’s fangs shattered when Tempest's foreleg-plate smashed into its mandibles. Her follow-up buck obliterated the arachnid, sending ichor and chitin spraying through the air.

Bon Bon threw a hook attached to the end of a rope, snagging one of the spiders that was trying to sling webs at the group from a distance. She dragged the creature within grabbing distance of Lyra, who promptly stepped on its head, grinding it into the ground.

Zecora poured a healing salve on one of the bites that Lyra had acquired, and watched it seal shut. “Less wounds, I would have to mend,” she said as she threw an acid-sachet into a spider’s face, “if you just tried to defend.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“She means—” Bon Bon ducked under a set of fangs to bury her axe in the underside of a spider. “—you need to try dodging a little so she doesn’t have to heal you as much!”

“I resent that remar—” Lyra shrieked as a pony-sized spider sank its fangs into her neck.

Bon Bon jumped up and buried her axe into the arachnid’s back, causing her, the spider and Lyra to fall to the ground. Zecora quickly approached them to start pouring several vials of liquid onto the now purple-faced Lyra.

“The reports Blueblood asked us to investigate were correct,” Tempest said. “There are definitely more of the creatures than there were last time.” Looking back at the state of the others, she sighed. “We should head back.”

Week 12, Day 1, Dawn

The sun rose, illuminating Ponyville in the bright rays of what promised to be a cloudless, and likely sweltering day. As the light passed over a ramshackle wagon with purple siding and a star-pattern-roofed, it revealed four very disoriented ponies.

Snails looked around “What—”

“Just—” Applejack cut in.

“Happened?” Twilight finished.

Big Mac shrugged. “I think—”

“What just happened is that you four just put on the most pathetic performance the Great and Powerful Trixie has ever seen!”

Everypony turned towards the wagon that housed the Great and Powerful Trixie.

“If you’ve got the bits, The Great and Powerful Trixie can help you spice up your act—oooh. Or if you’re willing to part with some of that.” She pointed at several oddly glowing shards that littered the ground around the group.

Twilight looked at the others, receiving only shrugs in return. “How about we get back to you, Trixie? We’re kinda working.”

Harrumphing, Trixie crossed her forelegs and leaned on the half door at the back of her wagon. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is feeling generous, and will take a rain-check on your purchasing of items to astound and impress! But don’t tarry too long! The Great and Powerful Trixie will pick up stakes and move if this town doesn’t provide her with some actual business!”

“Twilight?” Applejack looked at Twilight as they shoveled the shards into their bags.

“Yes Applejack?” Twilight met the other mare’s eyes.

“What’re the chances—” Applejack looked at the ground. “I mean… those were just copies of my family, right?” She turned hopeful eyes back up to Twilight. “That means they’re still there on the farm somewhere, right?”

Twilight couldn’t stand to look Applejack in the eyes and instead chose to stare at the ground. “I don’t think so; from the destruction we saw, I think everything inside the stone barricades was burned to death in the blast. What we fought were just… echoes of the ponies who died when the comet landed.” She reached a hoof out and placed it on Applejack’s withers. “I’m afraid everypony who was on your family farm is dead; Applejack, I’m so sorry.”

When Twilight dared to look, she saw that Applejack’s eyes were burning like coals. “Somepony’s gonna pay for this, Twilight; I swear it.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac’s eyes were uncharacteristically dark.

Week 12, Day 1, Morning

“Well,” Blueblood said, “I’m glad to know you’re alive. We gave up hope you’d return after the first week passed. So, you were unable to retrieve anything from the farmstead?” The news caused Blueblood more anxiety than he cared to let on; the company’s coffers were extremely low after the farm trip, and the subsequent search and rescue mission, as well as the creature clearing the week before. The company would now need a successful haul to prevent them from going bankrupt.

Blueblood caught Twilight staring at his eye, now fully restored. He had been pleased that the arctic blue of his irises had not been permanently altered while he’d housed the comet’s strange color. He’d noticed that the other company members—with the exception of Tempest—seemed unsettled when he stared at them now; whether this was a side effect of the color, or resulted from something else, he couldn’t say.

Twilight was silent for a moment, looking between Blueblood and the eternally stoic Tempest. “Not exactly,” she finally replied. She lifted a hefty bag onto the drawing room table. Glowing shards spilled out when she undid the clasp. “These came back with us when the entity ejected us from the farm.”

“What are they?” Blueblood lit his horn and tried to pick one up with his magic, but found that he couldn’t lift the shard. It felt… “slippery” was the best word his brain could apply to the sensation.

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied, “but the farmhooves that attacked us had these growing out of them. Equestrian magic acts weird around the shards. I think this is because they hold some form of magical charge that operates on a wavelength that disrupts arcane frequencies.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Blueblood said as he leaned forward and picked up one of the shards in his hoof. “Can we use them? Or sell them?”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin. “Well, we do have a trinket vendor in town.”

Blueblood looked up from the bag with a flat expression. “I assume you mean Trixie,” he said in an equally flat voice.

“She’s expressed interest in the shards,” Twilight replied, nodding. “She might even be able to make items for us. As for their sale value… I don’t even want to guess. The only ponies who would likely be interested in these would be those who study the occult; a regular trinket maker would find these impossible to work with since they disrupt thaumatics so much.”

“All right then.” Blueblood hoofed the shards back into the bag and pushed it towards Twilight. “Take these to her and see what she can do, or if she needs more.”

“Okay,” Twilight said. She turned to go, but then stopped and looked back at Blueblood. “Is… Shining out of treatment yet?”

“No,” Blueblood replied. “Nurse Redheart said that he’s making good progress though, and should be ready to leave sometime next week. Oh, before I forget!” He deposited four pouches onto the table in front of Twilight as she turned back around. “That’s your group’s pay, spend it wisely.”

Blueblood thought for a moment. “How are the Apples?”

“It looks like they’re taking it surprisingly well,” Twilight answered.

Blueblood’s eyebrows rose at her tone. “But?”

“It’s made them very upset,” Twilight said, frowning. “They’ve sworn vengeance against whoever is responsible… and you did tell them Celestia designed and installed the array…”

“Yes,” Blueblood said. “And she designed it to attract the comet.”

“On purpose?!” Twilight's eyes were wide.

“Yes,” Blueblood replied. “Her motives for doing so are unknown. But I knew Celestia; the thought that she would willingly bring harm to others for absolutely no reason is drastically out of character for her.”

Tears began to well up in Twilight’s eyes. “We killed so many copies of Applejack & Big Mac’s family. I don’t know if I could deal with it if I had to kill a family member. But this… I don’t know how I’m going to be able to tell them.”

“You won’t,” Tempest boomed.

“I… won’t?” Twilight asked.

“No,” Blueblood confirmed. “You won’t.”

“But I—”

“Miss Sparkle,” Tempest said, “one of this company’s primary goals is the safe return of Celestia.”

Twilight’s eyes widened in comprehension. She raised a forehoof to her chin in thought. “They’d… they’d definitely want to kill her. I can’t tell them, can I? But… then why even tell me?”

“We figured you were too smart,” Blueblood said. “I didn’t want to risk not telling you and then have you discover the truth on your own. Any other questions?”

Twilight shook her head and turned to leave.

Blueblood thought he heard Twilight mutter the words “so many books” as she trotted out of the room with the money purses levitated in her magic.

“You didn’t tell her about Starlight.” Tempest said once she had closed the study doors.

Blueblood frowned. In his experience, Tempest rarely asked actual questions; she seemed to like making statements that required him to make an explanation.

“No, I didn’t,” Blueblood replied. “It’s been two damned weeks, and we still don’t know what’s wrong with Starlight. We can’t take her to the sanitarium; they’re not going to understand anything about treating some strange color that renders a pony blind. Starlight is learned in the occult which, ironically enough, makes her the best pony for figuring out how to fix the problem.”

Tempest continued to look at him from the corner of one eye. “We discussed this two weeks ago; Twilight is also an expert on the occult. You must have a reason for not including her.”

Blueblood nodded. “She’s knowledgeable, but rash. You weren’t here for when she detonated Amethyst—”

The thing in Blueblood’s left foreleg squirmed and he clamped down on it with his right one.

Shifting slightly, Tempest moved her gaze away from Blueblood and towards a single shard that had rolled under one of the many pieces of parchment on the table. “I would say that we should have Starlight have a look at your leg—”

“Look at?” Blueblood cut in. “Are you trying to develop a sense of humor on me, Tempest?”

She turned to face him, her normal scowl having deepened. “Absolutely not; I was going to say ‘but we’ll have to wait until after we cure her.’”

Blueblood released his leg, the thing beneath his skin having apparently decided to calm itself. “Well… that’s assuming, of course, that there is a cure.”

Week 12, Day 1, Noon

Holding one of the shards in her hoof, Trixie turned to Twilight. “The Great and Powerful Trixie will have to experiment with these before she can tell you what can be created from them. They aren’t like regular gems, or even enchanted gems.” She tapped the shard with her other hoof. “But fear not! The Great and Powerful Trixie will be able to create something that will be sure to amaze and astound you!”

“Thanks, Trixie.” Twilight looked into the bag that held the rest of the shards. “How many will you need?”

“All of them,” Trixie replied.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “All of them?”

“That, is what the Great and Powerful Trixie said.”

Feeling pensive, Twilight alternated her gaze between the bag and Trixie. “Can I at least keep a few for my own studies?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t see why not; you can keep three of the smaller ones.”

Sighing in relief, Twilight grabbed three crystals from the bag before hoofing it over to Trixie.

Just as Twilight was about to leave, she spied an item on one of the shelves in Trixie’s cart. “What book is that?” She pointed a hoof.

Trixie levitated the tome over to Twilight. “Ah, fine choice; I can see you have a keen eye for interesting literature.” She opened the book so Twilight could peek inside. “This, is a ‘book of intuition.’ Using the techniques described therein gives you a sense—instinctual in nature—that allows you to react to near future events!”

Twilight read from the two pages she could see. “Is there a practical application?”

“Trixie has used it in the past to avoid potholes and bandits.”

“Hrmm—” Twilight did like the idea; plus it was another book for her to read. “I’ll take it!”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie thanks you for your patronage,” Trixie said, bowing. Somehow, Trixie managed to sell her the book for far more than she had originally been willing to pay.

Twilight silently cursed herself for not forcing Starlight to let them read Bartering for Beginners. Despite the highway robbery, she couldn’t help but giggle excitedly as she trotted away with the new book open. She was so engaged in reading as she went, that she didn’t even notice the loose cobble that she miraculously avoided. Nor did she notice the near collision with Ditzy Doo, which resulted in the wall-eyed caretaker swerving and running face-first into a street lamp.

Week 12, Day 1, Evening

“So,” Blueblood said to the assembled company, “to sum up the last hour of numbers and maps, we need a successful expedition resulting in a sizeable profit or… this enterprise will be bankrupt.”

There were sharp intakes of breath all around.

Ditzy fainted, hitting the floor with a thump.

Blueblood reminded himself to get the wine cellar key from her when she woke up. “The best place for acquiring bits and valuables thus far has been the catacombs underneath the ruins which lead up to the Castle of the Two Sisters. Since the company’s future is at stake, I’m going to be sending in our heavy-hitters.”

Everypony turned to Tempest.

Putting a hoof to his forehead, Blueblood chuckled. “It’s that obvious, is it?”

Lyra threw out her forehooves. “Tempest has more kills than the rest of the company combined!”

“That,” Tempest said, “is a blatant exaggeration.”

“Close enough though,” Blueblood said. “Tempest, you’re definitely going.” He turned away from her. “Big Mac?”

“Eeyup?” he answered.

“You wrestled that damnable cragodilian,” Blueblood said.

“Eeyup.”

“And you won; you’re going.”

Big Mac looked over at Applejack, who nodded. He turned back to Blueblood. “Eeyup.”

“Lyra.” Blueblood turned his gaze to her. “You actually turn into a monster. Plus I saw that there’s a good combat synergy between you and Tempest.”

Bon Bon patted her “best friend” on the withers. “You’ll do great, bestie.” Lyra smiled and hugged Bon Bon in response.

“Twilight,” Blueblood said, turning away from the “best friends” to face his final pick. “They are going to need your versatility, both with healing and your ability to… do horrific things.”

Straightening in her seat, Twilight met eyes with Blueblood. “I won’t let you down.”

He looked at all of the assembled ponies. “Anypony not chosen for this mission, do not take it personally. You have all proved yourselves in combat and are all essential to this company’s success, especially in the long term. But we need this win. The team succeeds, or we’re finished.”

Week 12, Day 3, Afternoon

The last of the skeletons was pulled into a portal by a group of grasping tentacles. A locked chest was bucked open by Tempest and looted by Lyra.

“How much is that so far?” Tempest looked back to Twilight, who was cataloguing the haul in a weathered journal.

“About sixty-five-hundred,” Twilight replied. “That’s just in bits. The assorted gems will probably add another few thousand to that. Plus there’s the heirlooms.”

“We’ll clear a few more rooms then,” Tempest said. “Mr. Macintosh—” She gestured to the door to the next hallway. “—if you please?”

Big Mac bucked the wooden door off of its hinges and moved to step forward into the umbral corridor.”

Tempest held up a hoof. “Stop. Something is wrong,” she said into the darkened tunnel.

Big Mac warily eyed the darkness ahead. “Eeyup.”

Lyra looked at the two larger ponies and then down the seemingly empty hallway. “What’s up with you two? We’ve been kicking serious flank down here, and it’s not like you guys to be skittish.”

“We are not being skittish,” Tempest said with a glare. “I feel eyes on us. There is an ambush ahead.”

Twilight lit her horn for a few moments. “I do sense a powerful necromantic presence ahead.”

“The necromancer?” Tempest asked.

“No,” Twilight replied. “Whatever it is, it isn’t giving off a strong enough aura for it to be the necromancer. But it’s still much nastier than any of the run-of-the-mill skeletons we’ve been encountering.”

“Then I’ll go first,” Tempest said.

“Eeynope.” Big Mac stood in front and locked eyes with Tempest. For several moments, the two monumental ponies stared at each other with narrowed eyes.

“You flagellants are gluttons for punishment, aren’t you?” Tempest said with a thin smile. “Well then—” She gestured to the corridor. “—be my guest.”

Big Mac grinned and took about a dozen steps into the tunnel. He jumped back a pace as a ghoulish monstrosity sprang up from a pile of refuse, snarled, and lunged at him. Catching its claws with his forehooves, he growled back almost as loudly.

The creature appeared to have once been a pony. Exposure to potent necromantic energies had distorted it, however. Its teeth had become jagged and sharp, its forehooves had elongated into wicked claws, and it was enormous; easily head and shoulders above Big Mac. It snapped its fanged maw, trying to tear his face off.

Tempest sidestepped Big Mac and dove for the ghoul’s hind legs, smashing her forehooves into its knees and breaking them with a loud crunch.

The monster fell to its haunches, and Big Mac was able to easily flip it over to its back. Raising both hooves to smash the ghoul’s face in, he screamed in agony as a second of the monstrosities jumped over the first and sank its teeth into his neck.

A bestial roar sounded, preceding a long aquamarine limb snaking around the creature’s neck. With a violent jerking motion, Lyra clenched her arm tightly and twisted, her muscles straining against those of the monster. Suddenly, a series of loud cracks sounded out, heralding the breaking of the ghoul’s vertebrae. She dropped it to the ground as its milky-white eyes rolled back in their sockets.

Twilight lit her horn, causing her carved skull to glow and painfully sealing Big Mac’s wounds.

Tempest stomped on the crippled ghoul’s head, collapsing it and spreading vile diseased brain matter across the floor. “Nastier indeed, Miss Sparkle.” She glanced over to Twilight and narrowed her eyes. “Just how accurate is your detection spell?”

“Umm,” Twilight said, “it’s very accurate at short range, but that falls off exponentially as the distance increases.

“But you are still able to get an accurate bearing on the necromancer?” Tempest asked.

“I think so,” Twilight said.

“Good,” Tempest said. “Continue to take bearings and marking it on our map as we finish this area off.”

“I still don’t understand what the point—” With a roar, Lyra returned to pony form. “—of doing that is.”

“Triangulation,” Twilight said. “If we get enough bearings on the necromancer from different locations, then we should be able to calculate their location.”

Lyra looked at Twilight and Tempest with wide eyes. “That’s possible?”

“Possible,” Twilight said, “but difficult, especially with only one excursion like this. I know what calculations need to be run, but it will probably take me a long time to do them.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you do the numbers,” Tempest said. “That colt, Snails, has already proven his competence with geometry when he swiftly calculated the trajectory of the comet. The only question which now needs answering is how many points of reference he’ll need.”

Week 12, Day 4, Afternoon

Snails looked at the map and the bearings. “These are all the bearings you got there, eh?”

“Yes,” Tempest said. “Can you—”

Lifting a protractor, a ruler, and a quill, Snails started to draw lines radiating from each of the points. They all seemed to pass through a certain part of the ruins, but did not seem to be much overlap. “With what we have, I can narrow it down to a few-acre-wide swath inside the city ruins, but I’m gonna need one more set of bearings, probably from somewhere—” He circled an area on the map. “—around here. That way I can compare them and give you something more helpful, like a more accurate location inside of a few acres, eh?”

Tempest looked at the map. “I will find Blueblood and inform him that our next mission location will be there.” She turned to leave.

“He’s been spending an awful lot of time in the wine cellar there recently. That’s prolly where you’ll find him, eh?”

Remaining in place for a few moments, Tempest clenched her jaw tightly. Then she began to head for the estate basements.

Week 13, Day 4, Evening

Tempest swiftly approached the Tavern. The shoulder-plate of her armor, freshly scuffed and scratched from combat, struck the doors with enough force to almost remove them from their hinges. The looks of outrage on both Berry Shine’s and Bulk Biceps’ faces were quickly replaced by ones of bowel-loosened terror when they took in Tempest’s appearance and her eyes skewered theirs.

Snails sat alone, nursing a cider and staring reverently at the rusted mace which lay upon the table in front of him.

“How long?” Tempest slammed the map down next to Snips’ old weapon. She then upended a small saddlebag, which spilled out a protractor, a ruler, and a quill.

Looking at the map and tools, Snails lit his horn and drew on the map, new lines crisscrossing the previous ones. In less than a minute he had reduced the search area for the necromancer to a small section of the catacombs. “There.”

Tempest unceremoniously shoved the completed map into her armor and turned to leave. She made it a single hoofstep from the table when she paused and turned her head halfway back towards Snails. “You do well honoring your fallen comrade by continuing to work and move forward. I won’t lie to you and say that it gets easier, because it doesn’t. Make the pain a part of the armor you wear. Don’t make the mistake of trying to let time dull that pain, or—before you know it—you’ll have forgotten everything about him.”

Snails met Tempest’s eyes which, for once, weren’t set in a hard glare.

She turned back to the exit and started to walk. “Never allow yourself to forget. You won’t just lose the bad times; you’ll also lose the good times as well.”

Week 13, Day 5, Morning

“Next two applicants!” Ditzy said with a small titter. She hoofed two pieces of parchment across the table towards Blueblood, Tempest, and Twilight.

“So,” Blueblood began, “your name is… Octavia Melody?”

Octavia unslung the giant cello case from her back, set it to the side, and performed a short bow. “Yes, Sir; that is correct.”

Putting her resumé down, he looked at the grey-coated mare. He took note that she spoke in a Trottingham accent, something usually rare even in Canterlot. “It says here that you… ah… turn into a monster?”

She nodded her head. “Yes, that is correct.”

Steepling his hooves, Blueblood looked her over. “Well, I don’t suppose a demonstration would be appropriate here, but if that is your only skill, I would want some form of proof or testimony or—”

“Yeah, she totally turns into a monster,” her companion, Vinyl Scratch—a goggled, white-coated mare with neon blue hair & highlights—said.

“Into something physically intimidating?” Blueblood pressed.

Vinyl grinned. “Well, if by that you mean ‘can she tear a stallion in half?’ Then yeah; it’s pretty rad when she goes into ‘frenzy’ mode.”

Turning his attention to Vinyl, he took a quick look at her resumé. “This says that you’re… a doctor?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Vinyl said.

Blueblood didn’t bother to hold back his incredulity. “No offense, Miss Scratch, but you don’t look like a doctor—”

There was a loud thumping sound outside that made Blueblood turn around. There wasn’t much that he could see, as Tempest had immediately interposed herself between him and the window.

Blueblood was thankful for her quick actions when, moments later, the drawing room windows exploded inwards, showering him, Tempest, Twilight, and the massive drawing room table with glass.

Twilight shrieked and held her hooves to her eyes and face. She fell to the ground and rolled around, wailing.

Blueblood could hear grinding as Tempest grit her teeth, and saw a pony-sized boulder had struck her broadside. The cracking of bones had been audible, but she didn’t flinch, even when a thin line of blood began to trickle from her mouth. “Run. I’ll cover you—”

Blueblood saw a golden magical aura surround Tempest; she narrowed her eyes as she was hurled out of the window with tremendous force. She didn’t make any noise as her trajectory took her past the wall that surrounded Celestia’s estate.

Blueblood vaulted over the table just before a unicorn appeared in a golden flash and ran a sword through the chair he had just been occupying.

Blueblood made a quick visual assessment of the stallion. He was tall and thin, with a bland-colored coat, and his facial features seemed oddly familiar.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Blueblood shouted as comprehension dawned on him.

“You killed my father and my brother,” the unicorn said as he turned and unsheathed his sword from the chair. “You will die this day, by my hooves, you piece of filth.”

“Your family just doesn’t have any survival instinct, does it?” Blueblood hoped his goading would cause this obviously powerful unicorn to make some kind of mistake.

The unicorn approached. “I’ll have my vengeance, Prince. I don’t care if I will be hunted for the rest of my life if it means that I get to see you die.”

Blueblood dodged a sword swing and used his magic to grab a halberd from one of the suits of armor that flanked the drawing room door. “Well somepony’s a gloomy-gus,” he said as the weapon floated next to him.

“I’m surprised you know my name, Prince. From what my father spoke of you, I’d hardly expect you to—”

“Wait.” Blueblood held up a hoof. “Your name… actually is ‘Gloomy Gus?’”

“Yes,” Gloomy scowled, swinging his sword again and again, his sudden and furious assault keeping Blueblood on the defensive. “I’ll be more satisfied knowing that you knew who it was that killed you!”

Blueblood was driven back until his flank butted against the wall. Another swing from Gloomy and his halberd was cut in half, the pieces flying in opposite directions.

Gloomy approached and pinned Blueblood to the wall with his magic as he held his sword above them both. “I’m going to enjoy this, Prince.”

“Hay!” Blueblood and Gloomy turned just in time to see that Vinyl had pulled something out of her saddlebags. The peculiar item resembled one of the portable “boomboxes” that had gone out of style decades prior. A rippling wave of distortion passed through the air into Gloomy, sending him flying.

“Just what the doctor ordered!” Vinyl yelled. “Aw, yeah!”

Blueblood gasped as he saw Octavia change. Her entire form elongated, to physically fill a decent portion of the room. The sight of fur retracting into leathered skin and terrifyingly razor-sharp teeth replacing regular equine dentition filled him with horror and revulsion, yet somehow still gave him a bizarre feeling of hope.

As Octavia slowly sauntered over to Gloomy, the severely stunned stallion stood to his hooves, looking up at what could only be described as a great white shark on hooves. “What the f—”

Octavia’s gaping maw snapped forward, closing on Gloomy’s withers and the front of his barrel. There was a sickening crunch as she lifted the flailing, screaming pony into the air. The screaming turned into a wet shriek that abruptly cut off when she swung her head back and forth; her massive teeth acted as a saw and cut right through muscle and bone like a knife through warm butter—only with a few dozen more knives.

Gloomy’s back two thirds fell to the floor, twitching. The contents of his rib cage spilled out through the gaping hole that used to be his head, neck, and collar.

Blueblood watched in horrified fascination as Octavia growled and threw her head back, while opening her jaw. He could see the terrified expression on Gloomy’s fully intact—and possibly still conscious—upper portion as it was flung to the back of Octavia’s mouth and then swallowed.

Blueblood stood still for a moment, watching as Octavia shrank back to pony form. Then he looked again at the corpse. And then back to Octavia.

“Where… where the Tartarus did his head go?”

Vinyl laughed. “Uh, she ate it, duh.”

Octavia herself didn’t look too thrilled about the question, or the fact that her front was spattered in pony blood.

Blueblood couldn’t stop looking between the corpse and Octavia. “Yes, but it was a whole pony head and neck and… your barrel isn’t large enough to hold that!”

Vinyl laughed again. “She turns into a giant shark. Did you expect anything about that to make sense?”

Before Blueblood could answer, Tempest burst through the window, death gleaming in her eyes. “Where is the one who threw me?”

Blueblood gestured at the partial corpse.

Tempest’s expression returned to her “normal” bowel-loosening scowl. “He’s lucky I didn’t get my hooves on him. He’d have begged for this end.”

“Don’t worry,” Blueblood said, “Neighsay has a lot of kids. And they seem to just keep lining up for the chopping block; I wager you’ll get your chance to kill at least one.”

“Vinyl,” Blueblood said, pointing towards Twilight, who was still sobbing and covering her glass-shrapnel covered face. “Your resumé said you were a doctor?”

“Oh, yeah!” Vinyl said. “A spin doctor!”

Unable to furrow his brows any further, Blueblood turned to Tempest. “Get Zecora, she may be the only pony on hoof who can treat her.” He then looked back at Octavia and Vinyl. “Oh, you’re both hired, by the way; welcome aboard.”

Week 13, Day 5, Evening

“How are you feeling, Starlight? Have you been getting any rest?”

Starlight turned over, showing Twilight that her eye bandages had soaked through with blood again. “You’ve found where the necromancer is hiding, and you’re going to send a group to fight her?”

“How did—”

“I’m blind, Twilight.” She sat up in the bed, twin trails of blood running down her muzzle from her sockets. She turned to face her. “But… I don’t need eyes to see; not anymore.”

Twilight watched as Starlight rolled out of the bed and began to circle her. This wasn’t like anything she had ever heard about before, and they had studied many things together.

Starlight stopped right in front of Twilight, turning to face her dead on. “I see everything now. I see the past, the present, the future; they’re all the same to me. I see that you were going to tell me that you managed to heal your eyes after they were shredded by glass—Is it odd that I’m not really envious? Or is it more odd that I secretly wish you’d been unable to fix them?”

Worry creeping into her mind, Twilight put her left forehoof to Starlight’s withers, cringing as she looked at the crimson bandages. “Starlight, you cured Blueblood of this… blindness. We can use your technique to restore your sight as well, only this time we’ll figure some way to exile that color, so it won’t come back.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Starlight asked. “I couldn’t dream of abandoning this avenue of sensation that I now walk.” She chuckled. “Besides, I know that—blind or not—Blueblood will eventually have me killed. I desire to live as long as possible and to give ponykind the best chance for survival; my best chances lie with remaining blind.”

“What?” Twilight was taken aback. “Blueblood may be ruthless on occasion, but he has no reason to have you killed!”

“He will,” Starlight said. “I’ve seen it; for me, it has already happened.”

Twilight found herself at a complete loss for words.

“Leave me now, Twilight; you have a necromancer to defeat. She’s waiting for you. Besides, I need more rest; the blood loss is quite… draining.”

After leaving the room and thinking for a moment, Twilight started. “Her,” she’d said. Starlight knew the necromancer was a mare. If Starlight really could see the future now. “I won’t let her be killed,” she promised herself. “By the powers of the void, I won’t allow it.”

Week 14, Day 1, Morning

Blueblood hoofed the magical skeleton keys to Twilight, noticing the bags under her eyes. “You sure you’re up for this? You haven’t had a break since you went to the farm.”

“I’m fine,” Twilight snapped. “Starlight and I have been tracking this necromancer for a while now. Since she can’t, I’m going to be there when they’re taken down.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, “I know you tackled those ruins all by yourself, but I’m still worried you might be overdoing it.”

“Starlight wasn’t overdoing it,” Twilight said flatly.

Blueblood cringed. “That was an unfortunate accident, you know it’s normally much safer here.”

“Then I’ll take a break after this mission,” Twilight replied. “Besides, you’re sending Lyra, Bon Bon, and Tempest with me; what could possibly—”

He held up a hoof. “Don’t tempt fate, Twilight. Not here, not in this place.”

“Ok,” she said “but still, I think we have this well in hoof.”

“Of course we do!” Lyra chimed in as she stuffed torches into her saddlebags. “We’re professionals!”

Bon Bon sighed.

“Come, we’re wasting time.” Tempest was—thankfully—all business, as usual.

Week 14, Day 1, Afternoon

The group trotted through the Everfree at a fairly decent pace. Tempest wouldn’t have it any other way; too many operations she’d been a part of in the past had allowed members to waste time and resources. She would have been completely satisfied with their progress had Lyra been able to keep her muzzle shut.

“Think we’ll run into another shambler?” Lyra was referring to the designation given to the monster that had mauled Amethyst.

“Unlikely,” Tempest replied. “I read the after-action report. We now know how to summon one; all we need to do is avoid placing a lit torch into one of those altars.”

“How long have you two been together?” Twilight directed the question at Bon Bon and Lyra.

Tempest suppressed the urge to express her distaste at the unnecessary socialization; they were on a mission, not in the barracks or on personal time. She instead lead by example, remaining silent as the others prattled on.

“A few years now,” Bon Bon replied. “After my unit was disbanded, I found myself wandering around Canterlot without any real direction, just taking odd jobs to keep myself from having to sleep on the streets. I took to bounty hunting because it paid well and matched my skill set. I ran into Lyra here when I was hunting down a stallion by the name of Steelback. After a few weeks of looking for the guy, I finally managed to track him down to this bar in the city outskirts. I walk in, see him hitting on a mare at the bar who obviously wasn’t interested—”

“That was me!” Lyra added helpfully.

“Well, let's just say that I was going to put the hurt to the guy anyways because of his record, but he went and made the mistake of grabbing a hoofful of Lyra’s flank.” Bon Bon chuckled. “The next thing I know, she turns into this huge bipedal monster, picks Steelback up by one foreleg and one hind leg, and BAM!” She smashed her hooves together.

“Steelback didn’t live up to his name,” Lyra said with a shrug.

Twilight recoiled slightly. “You broke his back?”

“Yeah,” Lyra replied. “What? He deserved it.”

Scrunching her face, Twilight tilted her head. “I don’t know if anypony deserves—”

“He did deserve it, Twilight,” Bon Bon cut in. “His wanted poster had him listed as a murderer and rapist.”

“That doesn’t guarantee he did those things though,” Twilight said. “Anypony can just draw up a wanted poster, and put whatever they want on it.”

“Well, considering how hot and heavy he was forcing his moves on Lyra,” Bon Bon replied, “I was leaning towards believing the charges.”

Lyra nodded emphatically. “He did say some pretty pervy stuff. Something about scalding me with candle wax and then sticking the candle in my—”

“Lyra!” Bon Bon scowled. “Too much information!”

“What?” Lyra crossed her forehooves. “He’s the one who said all that stuff, not me!”

“Quiet, all of you,” Tempest’s order silenced the inane conversation. “We’re here,” she said, indicating the ruins as they became visible up ahead.

Week 14, Day 2, Afternoon

Tempest smashed another skeleton that had the audacity to try attacking her. “There seems to be an increase—” she obliterated yet another advancing necromantic horror, “—in the number of undead since our last visit here.”

“We’ve gone through more than twice the number of undead this time than we’ve encountered on any previous trip,” replied Twilight as she magically stitched Lyra’s gaping chest-wound closed.

“That means we’re on the right track,” Bon Bon said. “When hunting down a quarry, they throw everything they have at you if they feel cornered.”

“It’s a shame Blueblood—raughhh—can’t use that spell to keep an eye on us anymore,” Lyra said as she returned to pony form. “It was nice knowing we had somepony back at base that could look things up for us or tell us what to take and what to leave.”

“I’m fine without him watching our every move,” Bon Bon said as they started down another hallway. “We’re competent professionals. We know what we’re doing.”

“Yes,” Tempest said. “We are professionals. But it never hurts to have an extra edge; I would gladly trade privacy for a working advantage.”

“I guess,” Bon Bon conceded as she bucked a door open. “But reinforcements would be a whole day away—ewww, do you feel that?” She shivered as she moved to step into the new room.

Everypony in the group felt a sudden chill overtake them. The air had not actually gotten any colder, yet everypony’s hackles had risen.

“They are near,” Tempest said, her eyes narrowing.

Together they burst into the room, expecting another swarm of undead; instead, they were greeted by a slim, lilac-coated unicorn. Her horn curved back in a peculiar fashion, and her turquoise colored mane moved, as if in a nonexistent breeze.

She looked up at them, and they were struck by her beauty.

“Is that her?” Lyra asked, sounding quite unsure.

“Am I who?” The mare asked, in a pleasant voice.

“The necromancer who’s been animating the dead in these crypts,” Tempest boomed. “Are you them?”

“My name is Mistmane,” the unicorn said. “I came to this place—”

“Wait-wait-wait,” Twilight interrupted. “You’re the Mistmane? One of the pillars of old Equestria?”

“I don’t know what your definition of ‘pillar’ means, child, but I am Mistmane.”

“She doesn’t seem like a necromancer,” Lyra said.

“Looks can be deceiving,” Tempest said coldly. “How did you get down here? Why are you here?”

Mistmane watched the group as they fanned out. “In my old home, I sacrificed my beauty and youth to help an old friend of mine, and the toll it took on me was quite severe. My health swiftly degenerated and I was forced to look for methods to prevent my body from failing.”

She smiled. “I found that all things contain some amount of life. Animals, of course, and plants. But what other ponies never realized was that there is life in other things as well: rocks, the earth itself, the air. I figured that if I could find a way to siphon just a small amount of that life energy, that I would be able to restore myself to health and beauty without harming any living creature. Imagine what I could have done with that knowledge, the ability to heal ponies by draining the energy from a rock, or patch of dirt? The lives that could be saved.”

Beginning to pace, Mistmane walked towards a wall which had several bone-filled alcoves. “In my searches, I found it extremely difficult to draw the life force from inanimate objects. As a different medium, things which have never been living have the life energy locked away inside, like how ice holds water within it. I needed to find a way to heat the ice, so to speak. So, I experimented, using the next logical step, objects that had once been alive.”

Mistmane frowned “I was distraught to find that it was far easier to siphon the remaining life force from the dead. But it worked. Unfortunately, I discovered that my newly recovered strength and youth, were only temporary when I used the life energies of the deceased. The effects only lasted for a day or so, if that. Truly, I was frustrated by, and abhorred the fact that the essence of living beings yielded the most stable restoration. Why, a single living pony could provide enough energy to keep me restored for weeks. And that same amount of energy... could animate dozens of undead.”

Tempest dropped into a fighting stance.

“It was then—” Mistmane grinned as a horde of skeletons began to animate behind her. “—that I realized that necromancy was a far superior magical discipline than mere harmony magic. And now—”

Mistmane wasn’t able to finish her sentence, because Tempest had jumped at, landed on, and was now mercilessly pummeling her; her face in particular was receiving a series of loud, cracking blows.

“Please… please… stop!” Mistmane’s voice somehow cried above the crashing of hooves raining down upon her failing flesh.

Tempest did stop for a moment, only to look down on the broken necromancer with utter contempt. “Mercy? You beg for mercy? You must think me a fool. If you are the real Mistmane, then you’ve been alive over a thousand years; in order to keep your beauty and youth this long, you have to have killed more ponies than I’ve known in my entire lifetime.”

“I… can… tell… you… secrets—” Mistmane gasped through her fractured muzzle. “—restore… your… horn—”

Tempest landed a hoof on Mistmane’s face with such force that her skull completely collapsed, spraying blood and grey matter in all directions.

The army of undead immediately collapsed. Mistmane’s body twitched, and something rolled away from it, coming to a rest against Twilight’s hoof.

After pulling a few rolls of parchment from Mistmane’s robes, and removing the rune-inscribed metal collar she wore, Tempest stepped back several hoof lengths and lit her horn. “I’ve already had one idiot who tempted me with that; never again.” From her fractured horn shot an unstable blast of angry teal fire, which struck the corpse and set it ablaze.

“This is some kind of magical artifact,” Twilight said, lifting the stone orb in her magic. “I could have sworn I read about something like this before…”

Week 14, Day 2, Evening

“One out of six,” Starlight said to herself as she unwrapped the crimson-stained bandages from her head. “Generosity has been found, and soon its bearer shall arrive.” She frowned to herself. “This kinda takes the excitement out of life, watching everything play out exactly as I know it’s going to…”

When the bandages fell away, and exposed the black orbs which her eyeballs had become, more blood poured from the sockets.

She sighed. “Good thing I’m supposed to take care of my eyes right now; this blood is getting really annoying.”

She levitated the needle and thread towards her face. “I am so glad Twilight insisted we read that medical procedures book while we were in Whinnyapolis,” she said as she pushed the needle through her upper eyelid.

Starlight hummed a song as she stitched her eyes shut. It kept her mind off of the pain, and off of the knowledge of what she knew she would soon have to do.

Serious Side-Effects

Chapter 14: Serious Side-Effects

Week 15, Day 1, Morning

“What is this?” Nurse Redheart asked, tapping the red gem sitting on the table which stood between them.

“It’s… a Ruby,” Shining answered, an incredulous look on his face.

“Does it belong to you?” Redheart pressed.

He frowned at the obvious question. “No…”

“I see,” Redheart turned away from the table as she spoke. “You shouldn’t have any problems with me looking in this direction, then.”

With beads of sweat beginning to run down his face and neck, Shining looked at the ruby on the table. It shone from the dim lighting of the room, the deep red reflections catching his eye and kindling his desire. Unbidden, his hoof reached towards the gem on the table. When his hoof touched the smooth surface, he hissed and recoiled, as if burned by fire.

“Oh my,” Redheart said in a patronizing tone. She walked around to Shining Armor’s backside, leaning her muzzle close to his ear. “Are we still feeling the urge to take things that don’t belong to us?” Her whisper tickled the fur in and around his ear.

She continued walking until she was completely out of his line of sight. “Take the gem, Shining. It’s not yours, but when has that stopped you in the past?”

Shining groaned in discomfort as he followed Redheart’s command. He knew the outcome of such, but he was powerless against her voice. As his hoof touched the ruby, pain wracked his body. He ground his teeth together as the burning sensation lanced up his foreleg. He continued to follow her instruction, despite the suffering consuming him. Soon his entire body was engulfed by it, and all he could feel were the waves of agony that passed over him as he howled.

Week 15, Day 1, Noon

“As you can see, Prince,” Doctor Horse said from the other side of the one way mirror, “Shining will now be overwhelmed with excruciating pain, should his kleptomania ever attempt to manifest itself.”

“Um—” Blueblood stared in fascinated horror at the scene unfolding on the other side of the silvered glass. “—will he be able to actually pick up valuables that I need him to recover when I send him on expeditions?”

Favoring him with a confused look, Doctor Horse gestured at Redheart and Shining. “Prince, you specifically requested that Shining be cured of his kleptomania; we’ve done just that.”

“Yes,” Blueblood said. “But if you’ve ‘cured’ him by giving him Kleptophobia instead, then you’ve solved no problems at all; just traded one mental disorder for another.”

“There are always side-effects when repairing a damaged mind,” Horse said, making a “tut-tut” motion with a hoof. “And let's be honest, kleptophobia is a manageable side-effect. The real problem, that you thought he could steal from you or others, has been solved!”

“I suppose so,” Blueblood conceded, frowning as he watched Shining collapse into a weeping heap on the floor. “Is he ready to be released? His sister hasn’t seen him in a long time and is eager for his return.”

Doctor Horse nodded. “I don’t see why not; he’s made excellent progress. Before we do, however, I thought you might want to check on the other patient from your company first—”

“Rainbow Dash,” Blueblood confirmed. “How is she?”

“Well, when she was brought in, I would have told you that I didn’t expect her to survive. But now… it might be better if I show you.”

Blueblood followed Doctor Horse as he left the viewing room and headed towards an office. “Why aren’t we heading to the treatment rooms?”

“You’ll see,” Doctor Horse replied. Once they were in the office, Horse closed the door with his magic and started rifling through some folders on a fancy desk that rested near the back wall.

Blueblood took a moment to look around the room, taking in the framed diplomas, bookcases filled with medical texts, and a glass case which contained several unique specimens and pieces of outdated medical equipment.

“Please have a look at these,” Doctor Horse said as he magicked a folder filled with x-rays to Blueblood.

Shuffling through the images, Blueblood cocked an eyebrow and glanced over at Doctor Horse. “What am I looking at?”

“That,” Horse replied, indicating the translucent images, “is the broken bone of a young adult patient, mending over the course of eight weeks. I took one picture per week from their file to show you a time-lapse of their recovery. As you can see, the process is very slow, and the bone is not at even a fraction of full strength until more than three quarters of the way through the healing process—”

“Doctor,” Blueblood said as he put the folder down on the table, “if these aren’t x-rays of Rainbow Dash, then why am I looking at them?”

“Because,” Doctor Horse said, levitating a different folder to Blueblood, “these are the x-rays taken of Rainbow Dash on the day she was brought in.”

Blueblood cringed when he saw the image. “She broke—”

“Every bone in her body, yes,” Horse replied. “The upper body and skull fractures were especially bad. She must have been hovering at roof height; her forward half caught the brunt of the blast.”

As he hoofed through the images, Blueblood raised first one eyebrow and then, as he reached the final image, the other. He looked up at the Doctor with confused eyes. “Okay, her bones have healed, and it took eight weeks. But isn’t that a normal bone-mending time frame?”

Doctor Horse nodded. “It is, but compare the two sets of x-rays.”

“Okay, the first patient healed in eight weeks. I can see minor cracks where their bones were broken, and some minor bulging where the bones knitted together. And in Rainbow’s—” Blueblood’s eyes widened. “How is this even possible?” He shuffled through the pictures again. “There are no signs of previous injury!”

“Yes, it’s quite astonishing, really,” Horse said, frowning. “My theory is that she received some kind of magical infusion, but not from myself or any of my staff. Not to mention that even magical healing of broken limbs leaves some kind of minor scarring of the bones. I’ve cast multiple diagnostic spells but have been unable to track the energies to their source.”

“What kind of magic?” Blueblood suspected that he knew what the answer would be.

“Harmony magic,” Doctor Horse replied.

Blueblood furrowed his brow in thought. “That’s not what I expected.” He noticed the doctor’s puzzled glance. “We just defeated a necromancer, and there are other wild magicks about in this region. I’m relieved to hear that harmony is exerting its influence here.”

“I just wish I knew what was causing it,” Horse said, shaking his head. “The upside is that she’s ready for discharge as well. She won’t even need any physical therapy because whatever happened to her restored her to pre-injury condition.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, nonplussed. “That’s a plus.”

Week 15, Day 1, Afternoon

“Shining!” Twilight almost tackled her brother to the ground as he exited the sanitarium.

“Hey Twily,” he replied, smiling and returning her hug. “How have you been?”

“Oh, y’know,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hoof, “going on missions, earning bits, killing monsters and necromancers.”

Shining Armor laughed. “You really know how to downplay your own accomplishments Twily—”

“Shining,” she whined, “I’m not a little filly anymore! Call me Twilight!”

“Sorry, Twily,” Shining replied with a teasing grin. “As your older brother, I invoke the ancient laws of siblingdom, whereby I will exercise my right to call you by the most adorable nickname possible.”

Twilight crossed her forelegs. “There are no such laws! You made that up!”

“Sorry, Twily,” he chuckled. “I am honorbound by the knight’s code to uphold the ancient laws and—”

“Ugh!” Twilight groaned and pulled on her face with her hooves. “Fine! But only you get to call me that, BBBFF!”

“Hay guys!”

Twilight turned to see Rainbow Dash and Blueblood exiting the sanitarium. Blueblood was hovering an accounting ledger and frowning intensely, while Rainbow seemed to be in pretty high spirits.

“Dash! You’re okay!” Shining pushed past Blueblood and tightly embraced Rainbow.

“Shining,” Rainbow gasped. “You’re crushing me.”

“She just healed all of her fractured bones,” Blueblood said with a stone of mild exasperation. “Please don’t break her again, at least not until our finances are no longer in arrears.”

Shining let up slightly but maintained the embrace, causing Rainbow’s face to redden slightly.

“You can… uh… let go of me anytime,” Rainbow said.

Finally releasing Rainbow, Shining turned to walk with the others. “Sorry Dash, just glad to see you’re okay after hearing what the doctors were saying.”

Dash beat a hoof against her chest. “No stupid comet shockwave is gonna keep this mare down!”

Twilight frowned. “They told us you broke—”

“Every bone in my body!” Rainbow cut in proudly. “I even broke some more than once!”

“They haven’t ruled out brain damage,” Blueblood stated flatly, earning a dirty look from Rainbow and chuckles from Twilight and Shining.

“That’s not funny,” Rainbow said, crossing her forehooves as she hovered besides the others.

Blueblood grinned. “Good to have you back, Dash. Twilight, would you mind helping me get these two up to date on what’s been happening?”

“I’d love to,” Twilight said with a smile.

Week 15, Day 3, Afternoon

Shining spun around, bisecting the head of one of the bandits, sending her to the ground and the top of her mane and both ears flying into the face of another bandit.

The stallion, who received the bloody lump of flesh, bone, and gray matter to the face, shrieked in dismay, wailing like a filly until Rainbow buried a dagger into his skull.

“I never thought that I would ever hear myself say this,” Shining said as his sword blocked a desperate overhead chop by another stallion who was probably lamenting his poorly-chosen life in banditry. “Because I’ve never been a fan of killing—” He spun himself and the swords so that he could see Rainbow behind the bandit. “—but I sure did miss this.”

“I know what you mean,” Rainbow said as she put her pistol up to the bandit’s head and pulled the trigger. She put a hoof up to keep the majority of the gore from splattering onto her face. She looked around at the dozen or so dead bandits—including the remains of the huge one that “Sharktavia” was devouring with extreme prejudice—and holstered her weapons. “I was going stir crazy in that sanitarium. But… for a little bit just now, I was worried I was going to get dropped again.”

Shining frowned. “Don’t jinx it, Dash. That’s how you kept getting nailed in the first place, all the showboating and tempting fate.”

“Well,” Rainbow retorted sharply, “I’m fine now. Apparently all it took was being blown up by a comet to get my groove back—”

“Did I hear you say you want to groove?!” Vinyl came to a sliding halt next to Rainbow with her dubiously-portable sound-cannon.

Rainbow blanched. “Naw, I’m good, really—”

It was too late.

“AWWWW—” Vinyl swiftly removed her shades, revealing a glimpse of two ruby-red irises, before putting her shades back on in a manner reminiscent of Mareami police detectives. “—YEEEEEAAAAAAH!!!”

Miles away, back in the townhouse drawing room, Blueblood raised an eyebrow as his wine glass rattled, in rhythm, on the table.

Week 16, Day 2, Morning

Looking at the pile of correspondence that lay stacked in front of him, Blueblood sighed as he levitated each envelope in turn, using a small knife to cut open each letter so he could read it.

“Well,” he said as he perused one letter. “It seems the Hoofields and McColts are honoring the crests we’ve sent them. We’ll have enough produce coming in that we should be able to support more ponies than we’re currently housing.”

“Well, that’s good news,” Twilight said flatly. “We were about to start rationing the food; feeding a dozen ponies was beginning to strain our current supplies.”

Rainbow crossed her forehooves. “Don’t act relieved that we aren’t going to starve there, egghead; not all of us sit around for a living and actually need the energy.”

“Says the mare who has been bedridden for the last eight weeks,” teased Shining.

“How in Equestria did you ponies accomplish anything before I showed up?” Tempest asked in a voice that expressed extreme exasperation.

Blueblood only heard half of what was being said. He froze when he saw the next letter floating in his magic. All of the other envelopes fell to the drawing room table as he stared at the wax seal upon it.

It was three crowns; Fancy Pants’ personal mark.

Instead of cutting the seal in half, as he had done for the other letters, Blueblood carefully pried at the wax until it came undone from the parchment, and opened the letter. While he looked concerned as he started, a smile came to his face the further he read.

Dear Prince Blueblood,

I hope that this letter finds you well. Things are progressing in Canterlot, slightly better than we had first anticipated.

The exodus of unicorns from the city was not as drastic as we had predicted, mostly due to a proactive publicity campaign devised by Countess Coloratura. Due to her swift thinking, as well as Soarin’s skills with logistical planning, we have turned this catastrophe around into something that is at least manageable.

With the comet now gone from the skies, the public has also calmed somewhat, although the entire Canterlot Astrological Society has been effectively wiped out; you will not be able to expect any aid from us regarding your inquiries into the comet’s origins, or anything else astrology related, for that matter. This incident has probably set us back decades, if not more, on our progress with astrological researches.

On a positive note, since the rioting has calmed down, I will be able to send ponies to assist you in your efforts. I’ve hoof-selected the most talented from the royal guard; all are recent, top-of-their-class graduates from Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns. They will also be bringing some funds that I was able to liberate from the crown’s coffers before we put a strict lockdown on spending. I hope it is enough to keep your expedition going strong.

With business now out of the way, I shall respond to your personal inquiries, Blue. Firstly, Fleur is doing well and sends well wishes to you. She is mildly perturbed that you didn’t say goodbye to her before you left, but she expects you to make it up to her upon your return. I’d personally recommend a bottle of Celestia’s Reserve summer wine; you know it’s her favorite.

As for myself, I’m finding my new position challenging, but not overwhelming. I’d like to think that my performance thus far has substantiated your confidence in me. I’ve had to give up a good deal of the socializing I used to partake in; being a leader in a state of emergency means that free time is a luxury I cannot afford. Still, I’ve managed a few events, and have started planning this year’s Grand Galloping Gala. I don’t know if you would be able to make it, but if you could, there are many who would be delighted.

Wishing for your swift and safe return,

Lord Fancy Pants

“It’s a good thing we set up that supply chain,” Blueblood said. “We’re going to have some company in the next few days.”

The others looked at him expectantly.

Tempest raised an eyebrow. “Indeed?”

Blueblood couldn’t keep the giddy smile from his face. “Let me tell you all about it.”

Week 16, Day 3, Afternoon

Snails yelped as the ghoul descended upon him, charging past all of his companions. He failed to evade in time, and claws raked his foreleg, slicing all the way to the bone.

Applejack bucked the ghoul in the head, staggering it so that Winona could drag it to the ground and worry it to pieces. “Why do you reckon there’s still bushell-loads of undead after we killed that there necromancer thing?”

“Well,” Twilight said, lighting her horn and painfully stitching Snails’ right foreleg back together, “we don’t know how long Mistmane was operating in the catacombs before we defeated her.” She unleashed a hail of tentacles that struck the skeletal defender and courtier, obliterating the latter. “Who knows how many things she animated in that time. Blueblood even said that Celestia knew about her presence, which means she’d been operating for at least four months, and probably much longer than that.”

“Boy howdy,” Applejack said. “I’m not sure I like the implications there.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said as he bucked the skeletal defender into powder.

Winona growled as she tore out the staggered ghoul’s spine.

“The important thing,” Twilight said, “is that Mistmane can’t make any more. We’ll only face dwindling numbers from now on.”

“Then why,” Applejack drawled, “do more powerful types, like this here ghoul-thingie, keep showing up?”

Looking over at Applejack, Twilight frowned. “With Mistmane’s death—well, permanent death—her reservoir of necromantic energy is seeping into the surrounding—” she lit her horn and closed her eyes for a few moments. Then she opened them widely. “Oh, no.”

“Twilight?” Snails tilted his head. “Something's wrong, eh?”

Twilight nodded. “Mistmane was brimming with necromantic energy when we defeated her.” She swallowed. “I just checked; the amount of local necromantic energy isn’t dissipating like I thought it would. It’s just saturating the area further, and now seems to be growing. Mistmane kept the undead controlled and in one area; killing her may have actually made the situation worse.”

Week 16, Day 5, Morning

“It says here, that your name is… Plainity?” Blueblood looked up from the resumé at the peculiarly dressed unicorn standing in front of him. Pink leather vest over a yellow ruffled shirt? Who in Tartarus taught this mare about color coordination?

“Absolutely, darling, I am Plainity.”

“Do I… know you?” Blueblood squinted at the mare.

She waved a hoof dismissively. “I don’t see how you could, Prince; we’ve never met.”

“I don’t know; there’s something familiar—” Blueblood’s eyes widened, “wait… I do know you!”

“Whatever do you mean, darling?” The white unicorn mare put on a shaky smile and forced a chuckle.

Blueblood stood from his seat and glowered at the mare. His horn lit and the mare’s blue hat was yanked from her head, causing her violet mane to spill across her neck. “I knew it; Plainity isn’t your real name, is it?”

Tempest cracked her neck and tensed, obviously waiting for Blueblood’s word to pounce on the mare and beat her senseless, or to death. The others followed suit and stood, Shining unclipping the top of his sword sheath, Twilight lighting her horn, and Rainbow drawing her pistol.

“I… I don’t know what you mean,” the mare said as she slowly backed towards the double doors of the drawing room.

“Oh no,” Blueblood insisted. “I was there; I saw you, Diva, at the young talented flier competition.” He exhaled loudly through his nose, sputtering somewhat. “You killed two Wonderbolts that day, and crippled another, a good friend of mine.”

As the mare turned to run from the room, Blueblood lit his horn and slammed the drawing room doors shut. When she turned back to face him, he sneered. “Lady… Rarity, I believe?”

Her eyes filled with resolve. “Yes, I was… that is, to say… I am Rarity,” she admitted.

Blueblood leaned forward on the table. “Where do I even begin, Miss Rarity? Your crimes warrant death; killing two members of the Wonderbolts, crippling a third.” He paused, the aptitudes the mare would require to accomplish such feats flying through his head. “But… the fact remains that you were able to dispatch three of the Equestrian military’s finest fighters. Despite my own abhorrence over your actions, I cannot deny that such skills would have… value in our current endeavors—”

“WHAT?!” Rainbow Dash jumped to a standing position, slamming her forehooves down on the table. “You can’t be serious, Blueblood!”

“I’m deadly serious, Dash—”

“She murdered Wonderbolts!” Rainbow cut Blueblood off again. “She deserves—”

Tempest dropped a hoof to the floor, the resounding impact silencing the entire room. “Do not interrupt the Prince again, Miss Dash, or I will forcibly remove you from this meeting.” Her eyes bulged in their sockets, the force of her gaze driving Rainbow Dash back into her seat.

“Dash,” Blueblood looked away from the towering terror that was Tempest, back towards Rainbow. “I haven’t hired her yet. If her explanations do not satisfy me, she will perish, right here, right now.”

Blueblood turned back to Rarity, who had begun to sweat profusely. “How about we start with some things that have been vexing me here: how in Tartarus did you survive? There was a body… so whose remains did I bring to your parents? Soarin has been paying your family a stipend every year… have you been taking advantage of one of the kindest stallions I know?”

Rarity flinched as each question was asked, but didn’t have enough time to answer as Blueblood bombarded her. When he had finally paused to take a breath, she held up a hoof. “It was never my intention to hurt anypony.”

“Hard to believe,” Blueblood said, trying to keep the red from his face and the sudden squirming in his foreleg under control. “So you’d best make your case now. And make it good; your life depends on it.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Rarity steadied herself and looked Blueblood in the eyes. “I was trying to fake my own death. I won’t bore you with my motives; suffice it to say I needed to disappear.”

Blueblood’s eyes narrowed. “You killed three ponies to escape your old life?”

“No,” Rarity said. “Not three, exactly; the mare who you buried was a cadaver I… ah… liberated from the Canterlot morgue. Her chart said that she had no family that wished to claim her body… so I claimed it. I cast a small preservation spell on the corpse and hurled it from the stands the night before the talented flier competition was set to begin, figuring nopony would look on the ground until after my… dramatic fall. My plan was to hurl myself from the stands, and then teleport to safety just before hitting the ground.” Some red worked its way into her muzzle. “Unfortunately, on my jump, I tripped; the clouds turned out to be stickier than I’d imagined, you see. Instead of a controlled fall, I was spiraling out of control and couldn’t straighten myself into a dive, which allowed the Wonderbolts time to react and even to catch up to me.”

Blueblood bared his teeth. “But you attacked them—”

Rarity shook her head. “Not at all—at least, not on purpose. I was flailing every-which-way to try and stabilize my fall enough so that I could choose a clear spot and concentrate to teleport there.” She shook her head solemnly. “Before I even knew what was happening, three of my hooves felt like they were on fire, and I saw three pegasi hurtling away from me at high speed. Their impacts stabilized me enough that I was able to perform the spell mere moments before impact.”

A look of despondency had set itself into Rarity’s features. “I hadn’t planned on any deaths, you see. Once I realized what I had done, I realized that my new life wasn’t worth the cost. But they’d already discovered my… ‘body’ and I realized I couldn’t go back to my old life either. I had to seek out the Canterlot mafia to see if they could help with my situation. Don Giovaneigh was able to create a new identity for me. But, without any capital of my own, this left me indebted to him. I had to pay my debt by working for him, doing many… unsavory things. Once I had paid my debts, I started sending all of my earnings to that charity that Soarin started after he recovered.”

Blueblood’s eyebrows rose in sudden recognition. “You’re that Plainity?”

Rarity nodded.

“You’re the largest donor to the charity aside from myself,” Blueblood said, his brow furrowed in confusion. “How can you possibly afford to send as much as you do?”

“Well,” Rarity said, “not to put too fine a point on it: working for Don Giovaneigh paid exceptionally well, mostly because of all of the grave robbing he assigned to me.”

Blueblood’s eyes narrowed. “You steal from the dead?”

“Of course, Darling,” Rarity said. Her own expression turned incredulous as she saw his. “Would you rather I stole from the living?”

Shaking his head, Blueblood scoffed. “Of course not. But—”

“Come now, Prince,” Rarity said, “Surely you don’t believe that the dead need the wealth that has been buried with them?”

Blueblood frowned. “It’s indecent—”

“Yes, Darling it is,” Rarity cut him off. “But it’s impractical to bury riches with a corpse who will never have a use for it.”

“We have been recovering low amounts of wealth from our expeditions,” Tempest said. “If you allow us to expand our acquisition targets to include the coffins and sarcophagi, we might actually start seeing some sustainability out of this venture.”

Blueblood steepled his hooves. “Hrmmm… I’ll think on it. But first, Miss Rarity?”

“Yes, Prince?”

“You are hired; anypony who can inadvertently take out three Wonderbolts and survive a fall from cloud height without wings is a dangerous pony indeed. I would be a fool not to hire you.”

Rarity breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you Prince—”

“Don’t thank me,” Blueblood narrowed his eyes and pointed a hoof at Rarity. “And don’t make me regret it either.”

Week 16, Day 5, Noon

“Hey, Rarity!”

Rarity turned to see Rainbow Dash flying up to her in the mansion hallway. “Yes, Miss… Dash, was it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. “Is it true; you’re the one who caused the Young Flier disaster?”

Sighing, Rarity looked up at Rainbow. “Unfortunately yes, it’s—”

Rainbow hoof-slapped Rarity across the face, almost knocking her to the floor with the force of the impact.

“You killed two of my idols that day,” Rainbow said through gritted teeth. “And you crippled another. I don’t care what Blueblood says about us needing your ‘talent.’ You’d better watch your back, cause I don’t know when I’m going to decide to put ‘ole Stabby here in it.”

Rarity’s hoof went from holding her cheek to covering her mouth. She stifled a titter.

Her brows furrowing in anger, Rainbow glared at Rarity. “You think that’s funny?”

“No… Darling…” Rarity failed to prevent a few snorts from working their way through her muzzle. “It’s just… you named your knife… and you named it… ‘Stabby?’” She snorted again.

One of Rainbow’s eyes started twitching uncontrollably. “That’s… that’s not funny!”

Rarity burst out laughing.

Rainbow scrunched her face as it discolored to a deep shade of crimson. “Stop laughing!”

“Please,” Rarity’s voice was completely mocking in tone, “don’t stab me with—” She snorted. “—Mr. Stabby!” She fell against the wall and started pounding a hoof on it.

Red having blurred out the rest of her vision, Rainbow raised her dagger and swung it at Rarity’s back.

A black-armored hoof caught Rainbow’s foreleg before her dagger could end Rarity’s life. Tempest stood there, towering over both ponies. “Rainbow Dash,” she said with a voice that was felt as much as it was heard. “Blueblood will be most displeased if you kill a member of his company.”

“But I—”

Rainbow stopped talking when Tempest shoved her muzzle into Rainbow’s face and hit the pegasus with her trademark bowel-loosening glare. “You instigated this, Miss Dash. I am ending it. NOW.” She intensified her stare. “And if you later kill Miss Rarity, be aware that I will find out, then I will find you, then I will remove your ability to disappoint me in the future.”

Rainbow might have peed a little.

Tempest turned her withering gaze upon Rarity, pinning her to the wall with it. “You have the privilege of the Prince’s protection only so long as you remain a member of this company. Don’t go antagonizing anypony else. If the Prince decides you are more trouble than you’re worth, he will cut you loose. I wouldn’t bet on your chances of survival if that happens.”

Looming over the two ponies, Tempest pierced both with a look that could curdle fresh milk. “Do I make myself clear?”

Rainbow and Rarity both nodded their heads in affirmation.

“Good,” Tempest boomed. “Now, disperse.”

The two ponies swiftly made themselves scarce as Blueblood exited the drawing room.

Week 16, Day 5, Afternoon

“You’re having trouble with your foreleg again.” Tempest faced straight ahead as she and Blueblood walked through the halls.

“You saw it acting up during the meeting, I assume?” Blueblood asked.

“Yes,” Tempest replied. “When you were interrogating that mare; it looked like it was ready to rip out of your skin and fly across the table at her. Thankfully, everypony else was too focused on her story to notice.”

“You noticed,” Blueblood stressed.

“I notice many things,” Tempest said. “But most of the other ponies in your employ seem to have the situational awareness of a turnip.”

Stifling a snort, Blueblood turned to look at Tempest. “Was that a joke I just heard from you?”

“I’m sorry,” Tempest stopped and turned her head to face him. “I don’t have a sense of humor that I’m aware of.” She turned forward and they both resumed walking. “It’s getting worse then.”

“No,” Blueblood said, looking down at the offending limb. “But it isn’t getting any better either.”

Tempest started up the observatory stairs. “Miss Glimmer might have some insight into it. She’s been spouting predictions and… questionable tidbits of wisdom ever since she lost her vision.”

Blueblood shook his head. “My foreleg can wait; we have more important things to look into, like that stone orb you recovered.”

“Miss Sparkle insists that she has seen it somewhere before, but is unable to recall where.” Tempest turned an eye to Blueblood. “Miss Sparkle has a very poor memory, which is why I believe she relies so much on notes and organization. Miss Glimmer, on the other hoof—”

Stifling a laugh, Blueblood stopped his ascent, prompting Tempest to do so as well. “You really want me to go see Starlight, don’t you?”

Tempest looked back at him over her withers. “If you fall victim to your mysterious ailment, the company would be left in a shaky position.”

Blueblood smirked. “Glad to know you care about me, Tempest.”

“I don’t,” Tempest replied. “I care about not having to look for new work because another of my employers got themselves killed.” She turned and walked up the stairs again. “I really don’t need to have two dead bosses in a row on my resumé.”

His smile fading to a deep frown, Blueblood followed Tempest up the stairs. “Good to know you have my best interests in mind, at least.”

Week 16, Day 5, Dusk

“Fascinating.” Twilight was transfixed, tentatively tapping a forehoof against the wooden fragments she held aloft in her telekinesis.

“Well?” One of Blueblood’s hind hooves was tapping an impatient staccato against the observatory floor.

Looking over to Blueblood with a nonplussed expression, Twilight tilted her head to the side. “Well what?”

Sighing, Blueblood facehoofed. “I already told you this. I brought you up here to inspect the table wreckage and see if you can use it and the observation spell scroll to reverse engineer the spell itself and replicate it without risking it being hijacked by some eldritch abomination.” He took a deep breath. “That’s why I gave you access to all of Celestia’s notes on the spell and the table… weeks ago.”

Twilight somehow managed to tilt her head even further. “Wait, did you do any research into this spell before you started using it?”

“No,” Blueblood replied. “I only read Celestia’s notes on executing the spell with the table she had prepared.”

Looking shocked, Twilight rubbed a forehoof into her forehead. “You just cast a spell without testing it, or looking at its makeup to see exactly what it was you were doing?” Her question was laced with incredulity. “All this time I thought you knew exactly what the viewing window was!”

“Well, I didn’t,” Blueblood responded. “I had no reason to suspect Celestia or her motives at the time. Why would I question what appeared to be a simple application of harmony magic?”

“Well, if you had looked into the spell,” Twilight gesticulated wildly with a forehoof as she spoke, “and Celestia’s notes on preparing it, you would already know that what you want is impossible.”

“Impossible?” Blueblood said in clear disbelief.

“Yes,” Twilight replied. “Impossible. The spell on the scroll is only, like you said, a burst of harmony magic.”

“Then why—”

“Because,” Twilight cut Blueblood off, “the viewing window is not a spell at all.”

Furrowing his brow, Blueblood continued to stare at Twilight. “Then what in Tartarus is it?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” Twilight said as she scrunched her snout. “The technical version would take far too long, so I’ll give you the laypony terms.”

She cleared her throat. “The viewing window is actually a creature of eldritch origins.”

“What—”

“Let me explain before you go asking anything,” Twilight said. “Firstly, this creature isn’t like any from this world; it is essentially a blob of psychically moldable protoplasm which is able to take on any shape or properties its summoner desires. The one Celestia had bound to this table was made to violate this world’s laws of physics. The creature itself acted as a gateway, with two openings that are not physically connected. Think of it like a tunnel. The creature’s visual senses and aural senses are located on the one side. Light and sound go in, and are expelled out the other.”

Twilight indicated the splintered table. “The receiving end needs to be anchored to something permanent, or you would have to go through an arduous summoning, binding, and forming ritual every time you wanted to use the window. Once the creature is bound, the spell on Celestia’s scroll can be used. The first part of the spell is a burst of harmony magic which causes extreme pain to the creature, awakening it and forcing it to reflexively open the receiving end, as well as forcing it to tether the sensory end to living individuals of your choosing.”

Now pacing, Twilight continued her explanation; “The second part, opening or closing the viewing window, is essentially the same, You blast the creature with more harmony magic, causing pain so it reflexively opens or closes the viewing aperture. This is also why it takes a few minutes for the creature to be able to transmit from the receiving side to the sensory side; the harmony magic essentially causes the side struck to be paralyzed for that amount of time.”

Looking at Blueblood’s puzzled expression, Twilight sighed. “Those are the basics. Now you can ask your questions.”

“So,” Blueblood began, “if we want to use the viewing window again, we need to… summon another of these things?”

“Unless you just-so-happen to have one laying around,” Twilight said with a smug grin, “then yes.”

Blueblood flitted his eyes back and forth for several moments before turning back to Twilight, a manic look consuming his expression. “Does it need to be alive?”

Twilight’s grin vanished.

Week 16, Day 6, Evening

When Blueblood arrived in the manor’s basement later in the evening, he found Twilight staring at a stone sarcophagus, as she apparently had been for some time. Having given her directions to a specific spot in the estates cellars, he’d also told her to meet him there after their chat in the observatory. He had been delayed trying to find something for Tempest to do so she wouldn’t follow them down.

Ignoring the squirming under the skin of his foreleg, Blueblood cleared his throat. “Are you going to open it?”

Not looking at him, Twilight took a tentative step towards the rune-covered, hermetically sealed coffin. “You really have one of these things you say have been attacking you?”

“Yes,” Blueblood replied. “I burned them all, except for this one; I… just couldn’t bring myself to do it.” He furrowed his brows. “Have you just been standing there this whole time? Honestly, with the level of curiosity I’ve seen out of you, I’m surprised you didn't try to open it before I arrived.”

“Where did you even get this?” Twilight asked, gesturing at the container.

Blueblood frowned. “According to Celestia’s records, this was actually to be my coffin once she’d outlived me. I know she loved to plan ahead,” he said glumly.

Her gaze shifting away from Blueblood again, Twilight took another step. “What about these runes? I’ve never seen anything like them.”

Blueblood tilted his head. “You’ve never seen them before?”

“Never,” Twilight said as she approached the coffin. “What does it look like?”

“I don’t know.”

His answer caused Twilight to turn around and face him. “You don’t know what you put in there?”

Blueblood pointed a forehoof at Twilight. “You said it yourself; it’s able to change shape. Even if it was shaped a certain way when it went in, it may have reverted back to flesh-goop, or become something else by now; it could even have taken the shape of... another pony.”

“Well then,” Twilight said as she placed her hooves on the stone lid, “I guess we’re going to find out.” She looked back at Blueblood. “I’m able to defend myself if it’s hostile, but what about you?”

Keeping his eyes fixed on Twilight’s unlit horn, Blueblood crossed his forehooves. “These things don’t scare me anymore. Not since I figured out how to ward against them.”

Twilight’s eyes had widened significantly at Blueblood’s statement. She quickly turned back to the sarcophagus and heaved her weight against the slab of stone which sat atop it. With a grunt of effort, she pushed the heavy lid so that it rotated to the side and exposed the coffin’s interior. She slowly approached and peered over the stone lip of the container, her flank facing towards Blueblood. She made a sudden choked sound, apparently gasping at what she saw.

“What is it?” Blueblood asked as Twilight jerked backwards, pale and shaky.

She stepped away from the sarcophagus, a look of horror upon her face.

“How—how is it—” Twilight stammered. She backed away further, her trembling increasing.

“How is it what?” Blueblood asked, not moving from where he stood.

Twilight shook her head. “I’ll never forget that face, Blueblood. Never.”

Blueblood remained where he was. “Amethyst?” he said in a questioning tone.

Continuing to shake her head, Twilight turned to face him. “No, it’s—”

“Twilight,” Blueblood said, “I know.”

“What?” Twilight’s face turned to one of confusion.

“When Amethyst died,” Blueblood said, “one of the protoplasmic creatures came to me, taking her form. It was scared of returning to whence it came, and by the end of our encounter, I knew that she had obtained sapience, something no other of her kind had previously achieved. I drove a knife through her skull to kill her, but the act hurt me greatly. It made me realize I couldn’t just destroy her body for all time.”

He slowly approached Twilight. “When the party returned, and I learned of Twilight’s skills in the eldritch arts—”

“Why are you talking about me like I’m not here?” Twilight demanded.

“—I took one of her own books… and used the eldritch runes I found within to seal Amethyst within the sarcophagus.”

The look on Twilight’s face was similar to what one might expect upon catching a foal with their hoof in the cookie jar.

Blueblood was almost upon her. “So I’ll say again: Amethyst, I know Twilight is in the sarcophagus. My only question for you: is she still alive?”

He leaned his head over the rim, revealing that Twilight was, indeed laying in the sarcophagus, unconscious. He noticed the barely perceptible rise and fall of her barrel; she was breathing. He turned his head, looking to the mare standing next to him—

It was no longer Twilight.

His expression lacking any form of surprise, Blueblood addressed the Amethyst-copy; “I’ll assume Twilight here—”

“Stumbled upon my resting place not too long ago, I think.” Amethyst winced. “I’d forgotten I wasn’t her; I’d forgotten I was me. Tartarus, I wasn’t even pony shaped when I struck out at her. When I took her shape, I was able to think again, but I soon forgot. I… don’t know why I was acting irrationally, trying to hide what I’d done. It’s a good thing you came so quickly, or she might have suffocated in there. Then I just decided—I don’t know why—to wait for you.”

“To attack me, then?” Blueblood asked.

“Well,” Amethyst said, gritting her teeth, “I do remember you promising to kill me—”

“No,” Blueblood pointed a hoof at Amethyst as he spoke. “I promised to keep you from going back. After I ‘killed’ you—however crazy that sounds—I realized that I couldn’t go through with disposing of your remains. You were dead, you weren’t going back—but you’re not dead—do you still feel the pull to return?”

Amethyst closed her eyes, remaining silent for several moments. “No,” she said as she opened her eyes. “I don’t understand. Did it relinquish Its control once It believed I was… terminated?” She stared at him silently for several moments. “Why?” She suddenly asked.

“Why did It?” Blueblood asked. “You give me too much credit if you think I know anything about Its desires.”

“No,” Amethyst replied. “You. Why did you really keep me?”

“I—” Blueblood’s face flushed furiously and he turned away. “I…”

Her hoof reached under his chin and gripped one of his reddened cheeks, turning it to face her. He was painted with a mixture of embarrassment and shock.

“You… you shouldn’t be able to touch me,” Blueblood said. “I’ve… warded myself.” His hoof drew out a pendant, on which he had etched a curved-line pentagram with a flaming eye inside the central pentagon, all in accordance with instructions he’d found in the same book as the runes he placed on the sarcophagus. He pressed the medallion to Amethyst’s chest, but there was no reaction. “Gloomy Gus’ flesh copy recoiled at the mere sight of this. He fled right into my fireplace with when I showed it to him.”

“My guess,” Amethyst mused, “is that it only works on those under the sway of eldritch forces. I am my own mare now—thanks to you.” She poked a hoof to the medallion on Blueblood’s chest. “But I won’t let you dodge my question. Now tell me; why?”

Blueblood sighed. “You’ve seen me at my lowest,” he said quietly. “You’ve seen me at my most vulnerable. And in those few moments we shared—as wrong and screwed up as it was—you gave me a more meaningful relationship than any I’ve ever had.” He pulled his head away again. “I couldn’t just condemn you to the darkness, even if I thought you were dead.”

“You—” Amethyst paused, an incredulous look upon her features. “So, what; you’re in love with me?”

Turning back to face what he knew was no more than an eldritch spawned abomination, his face became a twitching rictus of conflicting emotions as he weighed the possible answers. He knew that there were only two from which he could choose. The Amethyst-copy that stood before him was nothing more than a blob of errant flesh, given form and thought by his own sick and twisted desires.

Blueblood realized that he didn’t care. “Yes.”

The silence which followed was deafening.

And then Amethyst began to laugh. At first it was only a stifled chuckle, but it soon devolved into a fit of guffaws, which prompted Blueblood to blanch.

As mortification overtook his features, he found that he could only stutter, “Wh-Why are you—”

“How could I possibly love you?” she hissed in his face. “You tried to rape me! Did you forget that?! And then you didn’t even have the decency to follow up on your promise and end my miserable existence!” Her eyes glared daggers into his. “I have more reason to hate and despise you than any other creature on this pathetic world, including… It.”

“But I—”

“You what?!” she yelled into his face, keeping pace with him as he attempted to back away from her. “You think that suddenly deciding not to rape me redeems you after the fact that you were going to do it in the first place? You somehow thought that I wouldn’t think that the depraved act of you keeping my corpse in a sealed stone box isn’t the creepiest thing that I’ve ever heard? I was created by your thoughts, and even I think that’s just—”

Blueblood had finally collided his flank into one of the stone walls. His face was shaded completely red with embarrassment from the verbal beratement. He didn’t even have the presence of mind to consider what would happen if she actually decided to attack him while he was defenseless like this. All he could do was sweat and hope that he could weather the verbal onslaught she was unleashing upon him.

“What you did—” Amethyst exhaled hot breath upon Blueblood’s face, “—what you’ve done—” her voice became husky “—is unforgivable. It’s—” it dropped to the level of a breathy whisper, “despicable.”

And her lips met his.

Blueblood’s eyes widened in shock as Amethyst reached a foreleg behind his head and pulled him into the kiss. He flailed his own forelegs in confusion for a moment before settling one behind her head, and the other down on her withers. He was wholly unprepared for the ferocity of her lips pressing against his, the feeling of breath exiting her nostrils and warming his muzzle. His confusion slowly melted away and his eyes began to flutter closed as he luxuriated in the pleasure of their passionate embrace. The entire experience was dizzying, especially once his oxygen began to run out.

When she pulled away, Blueblood struggled to gasp for breath. “I uh,” he stammered. “I think I’m getting some mixed signals here.”

“Then I’ll make it simple for you,” Amethyst growled as her glare took on a hungry, predatory aspect. “Rut me.”

“Um,” Blueblood said as his gaze was drawn to the sarcophagus, “The flesh is willing,” he said indicating his stimulated lower half. “But… ah… Twilight’s still over there—”

“Shut up and rut me, you fool.”

Equestrian Elite

Chapter 15: Equestrian Elite

Week 17, Day 1, Dawn

“You look horrible,” Tempest commented as she walked by Blueblood’s side. She was referring to his disheveled mane, his half-lidded bloodshot eyes, and the twin lines of matted fur running down his cheeks. “And it looks like you’ve been crying.”

“I wasn’t able to sleep last night,” Blueblood casually lied, grumbling and wincing as a stray mote of morning sunlight crossed his face. “My eyes get all watery when I can’t—”

Tempest sniffed the air. “And you smell like coitus.”

Blueblood winced. “What do you mean?”

She glanced sidelong at him. “To put it eloquently: you reek in the same manner as a Trottingham whorehouse.” She looked forward again. “Though I am intrigued as to what could have brought you to tears.”

“Tears of joy, of course,” Blueblood muttered in a manner which did more than merely insinuate that he didn’t believe his own words.

“Of course,” Tempest replied in a non-committal way. “On today’s agenda, we’ll need to prepare more accommodations for our new arrivals.”

“Yes, yes,” Blueblood replied in an indifferent tone.

Tempest briefly glanced towards him, but he took no notice. “Fancy’s elites should be arriving today, you know.”

“Uh huh,” Blueblood said automatically.

“Shall I have Ditzy prepare food for them?”

“Whatever you think is best, there.”

Tempest’s eyes cooly regarded the prince. “I was planning on skinning them all alive and using their hides to make boiled-leather armor.”

“Sounds good.”

Tempest stopped walking.

It took Blueblood a moment to realize he’d walked a little past her. “Hmm? Why did you—”

“Hold this for me for a moment,” Tempest said as she slipped the gauntlet off of her right foreleg and hoofed it over to Blueblood.

First looking at the gauntlet with a nonplussed expression, he then turned his eyes to Tempest. He watched as she looked first to the left and then to the right. Blueblood followed her gaze but saw nopony in the hall with them. “Um… why am I holding—”

Tempest swatted Blueblood across the face with the back of her right forehoof. Her right foreleg then snaked down and grabbed her gauntlet out of the air after Blueblood dropped it in shock.

“Harmony above!” Blueblood felt as if she’d struck him in the muzzle with a sack of bricks. “What was that—”

“Ahh, Prince,” Tempest said in a calm but firm tone. “I see you’re finally awake. The elite soldiers sent by Lord Pants should be arriving by noon; you were ecstatic about this event just the other day.”

Still rubbing his aching cheek, and trying to make sure his jaw wasn’t dislocated, Blueblood glared at Tempest. “You could have just poked me.”

“I did,” Tempest replied flatly, reattaching her gauntlet and turning to resume her trot to the drawing room.

Week 17, Day 1, Morning

“Twilight?” Blueblood asked, absentmindedly rubbing a hoof against his cheek and looking around at the rest of the company members, who were gathered around the massive drawing room table.

Somehow, Twilight managed to look even more unkempt than Blueblood as she struggled to raise her head from the table.

“Ah.” The single syllable sighed forth from Tempest’s muzzle.

Blueblood’s eye twitched as low murmurs and a snicker or two came from the other ponies. “Twilight,” he pointed a hoof towards the stone orb on the center of the drawing room table, “how is the research progressing on the artifact you recovered from Mistmane?”

“It’s—” she rubbed her forehead with a hoof, “coming along.” She squinted her eyes. “It’s—ugh,” she grunted in pain. “My head hurts. I must have hit it pretty bad, or something last night; I can’t even remember most of our meeting.”

Steepling his hooves, Blueblood kept his gaze on Twilight. “Maybe you should rest then. We both agreed that you needed to rest after the last expedition, after all.”

Nodding slowly, Twilight shakily rose from her seat.

Shining Armor looked to Blueblood and, after Blueblood nodded his head, stood to assist his sister to her room.

Rarity stood and blocked the siblings’ path. “Hold on just a moment, my dear.” She lit her horn and rummaged in her saddlebag for a moment before producing a vial of amber liquid. “Drink this right before you lay down and your head will feel much better; enough that you’ll be able to rest, at least.”

Shining lit his horn and took hold of the vial. “Thank you, Rarity. What do we owe you for it?”

“Why nothing at all, darling.” Rarity smiled. “I’m just glad to be able to help is all.”

Supporting Twilight with a forehoof, Shining slowly helped her from the room. Unseen to the gathered ponies, the stone sphere at the center of the drawing room table glowed ever so slightly for a just a moment.

“I wonder what really happened to her,” Rarity said after the two siblings had exited the drawing room and closed the doors.

“Pardon?” Blueblood asked with a slight widening of his eyes.

“Darling,” Rarity said, “if she simply hit her head, then I’m a mule.”

Blueblood canted his head. “If she hit her head, she hit her head, Miss Rarity.”

“You make a valid point, Prince,” Rarity said. “But the fact of the matter is, she did not.”

Scowling, Blueblood directed his gaze towards Rarity. “By what means do you claim to know this?”

“Quite simple really,” Rarity replied. “A head injury severe enough to scramble memory would have left one doozy of a bump or welt upon Miss Sparkle’s head.”

“Her hair was pretty disheveled,” Blueblood said as he swung a foreleg out for emphasis. “The lump could have been under there.”

“Except she wasn’t holding her hoof to that part of her head, Dear.” Rarity steepled her own hooves and glanced at Blueblood.

Blueblood’s veins suddenly turned to ice. He felt the sudden scrutiny in her gaze. His mind reeled as to how quickly she had caught on that he knew more than he was telling.

“To top it off,” Rarity continued, “head trauma from an impact doesn’t tend to leave bruising and ligature marks like the ones I just observed around her neck.”

The world slowed to a stop for Blueblood. “You think she was strangled?” As the words flowed out of his suddenly dry mouth, slow as molasses, he racked his brain to try and outthink the grave robber sitting before him.

“Yes.” She didn’t take her gaze off of Blueblood.

Feeling her eyes observing his every movement, Blueblood forced himself to stillness, denying her keen senses as they looked for some indicator of guilt. He cursed himself as he remembered that she had worked for a crime syndicate. Lying and seeing through lies was probably her bread and butter.

But Blueblood was a politician, born and raised. He lifted an eyebrow in the most skeptical manner he could muster. “Okay,” he said. “I’m game; who did it?”

Rarity’s eyes widened in shock, and she seemed at a loss for words.

Blueblood breathed an internal sigh of relief. Learning a set of skills later in life didn’t hold a candle to be raised in them. He allowed his face to rest into a neutral expression.

“W-well,” Rarity stammered, “I haven’t… deduced that far yet.”

“Induced,” Blueblood corrected, with the barest hint of derision in his voice.

Rarity frowned. “What—”

“Deduction is a logical conclusion made from irrefutable facts,” Blueblood slowly explained. “We know that A equals B and that B equals C; logically we deduce that A equals C. Now,” he gestured towards the set of doors, “all of your evidence regarding this alleged assault is predicated on assumptions.” He tsked. “Even your verbiage is shaky; you use ‘would have’s’ and ‘doesn’t tend to’s.”

“Well I—”

“Look,” Blueblood said, placing both forehooves on the table. “I will hear no more baseless accusations or half baked theories. If you want to investigate this little mystery that you’ve concocted, you can do so on your own time.”

“Of course,” Rarity replied. “I would be more than happy to lend my own time to this effort.”

“First you give away a vial of expensive medicine, and now you’re just… volunteering your free time. How very generous of you,” Blueblood snarked.

Everypony became silent; their attention was pulled away from the argument as the orb in the center of the table began to emit an eerie, oscillating, deep-violet light.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Lyra’s question violently punctured the silence like a party balloon exposed to an errant unicorn horn.

Blueblood stared at the pulsating artifact. “We don’t know anything about it—”

The glow abruptly intensified and then the stone sphere suddenly sailed through the air towards Rarity at high speed.

Tempest moved as quickly as her namesake, her hoof colliding with the gliding glowing globe mid-air. The dead center strike stopped the orb’s momentum completely—and also shattered it into a dozen pieces.

Following the falling shards with his eyes, Blueblood was unable to stifle a sharp intake of breath. “Tempest—” he stared at the still-glowing fragments scattered over the table, “—what have you done?”

“Damned reflexes,” the mountainous mare mused humorlessly. “They die hard.”

“It was coming right for me,” Rarity said. “But… why?”

The stone pieces began to rattle on the table surface, startling everypony for a second time. They lifted into the air and again made a beeline for Rarity. They dodged Tempest’s attempts to block their progress, zipping past and around her, until they began a sparkling orbit around Rarity.

“Ah!” Rarity shrieked shrilly as the shards continued to circle her, their luminescence bathing her in a violet magical field. She released another cry of alarm as she was lifted bodily into the air.

At this point, the other ponies in the room—with the notable exceptions of Tempest, Blueblood, and Rainbow Dash—had tried to make as much distance as they could between the rapidly-rising and resplendently-radiant mare. The orb fragments began to rotate faster and faster, the amount of light emanating from them growing in magnitude in sync with their increase in speed.

As the shards accelerated into a blur, Rarity began to emit a bright illumination as well, the combined intensity of both her and the fragments joined into a blinding white light that soon washed out all other colors in the room. The only things still visible in the brilliance were the outlines of the fragments and Rarity herself.

All of the fragments then rushed together; at first wrapping tightly all the way around her neck, but then all gathering directly in front. Releasing another blinding flash, the shards vanished, along with all of the illumination that had been soaking the room mere moments ago.

Standing just below where she had been levitating, Rarity looked around the room with a look of abject confusion plastered across her muzzle. “What just—”

“Interesting new necklace there,” Blueblood commented, indicating the golden collar that now encircled Rarity’s neck.

Rarity looked down to see the violet gem set into the front of the piece of jewelry. “This is peculiar,” she said, her ears twitching. “I’m hearing a single word repeating in my head right now; like it’s being forced into my brain.”

“What word?” Blueblood pressed.

Gingerly lifting her gaze from the gem, Rarity looked Blueblood in the eye.

“Generosity.”

Week 17, Day 1, Noon

“You want me to what?”

Blueblood held up his forehooves in a symbolic defensive gesture at Amethyst’s question. “This is the only way I think we’ll be able to keep your true origins a secret,” he insisted. “I’ll just lie and say that I read Celestia’s notes and managed to summon a fleshform, then molded you to this shape to honor the original Amethyst’s passing.”

“Oh, I’m sure everypony will appreciate that,” Amethyst snarked. She turned to return to her cellar hiding place.

“Look,” Blueblood said, “we need one of your kind for the viewing window. Since you aren’t mindless, we won’t have to actually bind you to anything. I trust you a lot more than I trust any random entity I manage to conjure.”

“Then you’re a fool,” Amethyst said. “I’m more likely to derail your plans due to my intense hatred of you.”

“Again,” Blueblood said slowly, “getting mixed signals here. Especially since we—”

“Please,” Amethyst interjected. “If you think that last night was anything other than me needing to blow off two months of pent-up pelvic aggression, then you’ll really need to tell me how the weather up your own flank is.”

“So… you used me,” Blueblood said in a tone straddling the line between disappointment and disgust.

“Says the stallion who tried to do the same to me,” Amethyst snarled over her shoulder as she stalked towards the shadows.

Blueblood turned away. “They’ll find you, you know.”

Amethyst’s hoofsteps stopped.

“Twilight may not remember that you attacked her, but everypony else is alerted to something being wrong in the manor due to the dubious nature of her injuries. They want to search the grounds, investigate. I can’t very well tell them to ignore what they’ve already seen, because that will just bring suspicion down on myself. But… if you agree to be the window, I can just present you to the others, and draw suspicion away from you. I’m willing to bet once they find out what you are, the investigation will be long forgotten. Besides, this will give you a chance to talk to the others. I know you can’t possibly enjoy it down here, especially if last night was any indicator.”

Amethyst grumbled. “What even makes you think that they will accept me? I’m a monster.”

Blueblood smirked. “Lyra turns into a scantily furred, bipedal colossus, and Octavia turns into a giant shark-on-legs; you will fit right in.”

“Wonderful,” Amethyst snarked again, “I’ll fit right in with the rest of the freaks.” She sighed. “Well, go; meet your new arrivals. Don’t come back to find me again until you’re ready for me to ‘appear,’” she said as she walked away.

Listening to the retreating hoofsteps, Blueblood allowed the smile to vanish from his face.

“It’s a passable plan,” Tempest’s voice suddenly said.

“GAH!” Blueblood almost successfully jumped out of his skin.

“You should have let me in on it sooner,” Tempest continued as she appeared from behind a support beam. “A lie is more convincing when told by more than one individual.”

“How long have you been there?” Blueblood blurted.

Tempest approached him. “Long enough to know that your plan has some flaws that could cause it to fall apart without a little added assistance.”

“You’re not angry?” Blueblood cocked an eyebrow. “You said you’d lay me to rest if I lied to you.”

“No,” Tempest clarified. “I said I would kill you if you didn’t keep your promises to me. And I am not fool enough to think I would be privy to all of your dealings until I had proven myself.”

“And,” Blueblood said, “you don’t care that I… umm…”

“My only perturbation regarding the fact that you had intercourse with an eldritch abomination,” Tempest stated flatly, “is that I think it may affect your performance as this company’s leader.”

“So… you’re willing to assist me with this, then?”

Tempest looked at him as if he’d just asked the most asinine question in the world. “It’s my job,” she replied.

Week 17, Day 1, Afternoon

The mare who approached the drawing room table had fur that was the same color as the rolls of parchment she was levitating towards Blueblood. She used a hoof to push her spectacles closer to her eyes. “Our credentials, your grace,” she announced.

“Moondancer,” Blueblood said without opening the ribboned scrolls, “you’ve been the royal antiquarian for years now; we know each other; you can cut the ceremony.”

“Sorry Prince,” Moondancer said, “I wasn’t sure how formal you were keeping things.”

Blueblood sighed. “I’m surrounded by mercenaries, Moony,” he said, eliciting a blush from the mare as he gestured to the other members of the company. “Standard procedure has been mostly left by the wayside.” He looked at the other ponies by Moondancer’s side, who all wore full suits of platemail. “These three however, I do not know.”

One of the armored ponies stepped forward and removed her helmet, revealing her to be a blue-furred mare with lighter and darker blue stripes in her mane. She smiled with teeth so white that they could probably be used to weaponize reflected light. “My name is Minuette,” she announced, “Holy Vestal of Celestia.”

After Minuette stepped back, the next plated pony of the group stepped forward and raised her visor, revealing a cream colored muzzle and light blue eyes. “Twinkleshine; Celestial Crusader.”

“And I am Lemon Hearts,” slurred the metal-masked mare who was wrapped head to hoof in white bandages anywhere they weren’t covered in slabs of iron, “Devotee to Celestia.”

“She volunteered for the sun raising procedure,” Moondancer clarified to the confused countenances caused by the unfamiliar title.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Blueblood said with no small degree of sincerity, steepling his hooves as he spoke. “Is it true what they say?” he asked Lemon Hearts. “That the nerve endings in the unicorn body fry out in response to the sudden surge and then utter lack of magic?”

Lemon Hearts affected a bow. “It is true, Prince; I feel nothing. The doctors told me that it is similar to the scourge of leprosy, before ponykind developed treatments for that ailment, at any rate.”

After digesting that information for a few moments, Blueblood looked back over the four Canterlot Elites. “Well,” he said, “Lord Fancy Pants has told me that you are the best that Canterlot has to offer and he does not give out praise lightly. I will be expecting much of you; namely, I need you for an immediate mission.”

“We live to serve the crown,” Moondancer and the other elites announced automatically.

“Very well,” Blueblood replied. “The first order of business is the Everfree Forest. The undead corruption which originated from the ruins has spread into the surrounding forest and the townsponies have reported things like skeletons, timberwolves, and other nightmarish creatures beginning to range outside of the forest proper, even coming close to town. We’ve been sending patrols to take care of any creatures that exit the forest, and to take care of bandits as well. Moondancer, I need your team to go into the Everfree itself and do a sweep to clear out the acres closest to town. We need to drive these horrors back into the shadows from whence they came.”

“When can we set out?” Moondancer asked.

“We’ll have the logistics worked out in a few days,” Blueblood replied.

“Excellent,” Moondancer said. “But before we prepare—” She unhitched one of her saddlebags, a motion mirrored by her companions, and they all dropped the pouches onto the table. The clinking of coins could be heard within as the bags settled. “Ten thousand bits, from Lord Fancy Pants.”

“Ten… thousand?” Blueblood’s tone betrayed his shock. “I didn’t think he’d be able to spare even half of that.”

Moondancer pushed her spectacles back up her muzzle. “Lord Fancy Pants thinks very highly of you, Prince.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, suppressing a smile. “Let us get you moved in for a proper night’s rest first, we’ll discuss deployment details tomorrow, and hopefully have you properly provisioned by the end of the week.”

Week 17, Day 6, Evening

The gathered group of ponies consisted of whom Blueblood considered his trusted inner circle: Shining, Rainbow, Zecora, Tempest, and Twilight. He’d tried to invite Starlight, but she’d already known what he was planning on revealing, and showed no interest in attending. A brief consideration had been given to inviting Bon Bon, but he decided against it since that meant Lyra would be close behind. Those who arrived were confused as to why Blueblood had decided that they should all meet in the manor’s cellars.

“Alright everypony,” Blueblood announced, “I’m going to show you something, and I need you all to not freak out.”

“Well,” Twilight said, “we won’t know if we’ll ‘freak out’ until you show us whatever it is.”

Sighing, Blueblood looked into the deeper shadows at the end of a series of wine kegs. “You can come out now—slowly, so you don’t spook anypony.”

As Amethyst emerged from the tenebrous corners of the basement, a wash of different emotions fell over the ponies present.

“No,” Shining breathed, a look of confusion and terror creeping across his muzzle. “It… can’t be.”

“I do not believe my eyes,” Zecora said. “By what sorcery do the dead rise?!”

Twilight remained silent, looking fascinated but wary.

“Uh,” Rainbow Dash seemed more confused than anything. “Didn’t you guys say she died?”

“She did,” Tempest confirmed, her facial expression not changing even slightly.

“Then,” Shining said, “who… or what, is it?”

Amethyst pointed a hoof at Blueblood. “He made this,” she said while bringing her hoof back to indicate herself, “to honor her.”

“Blueblood,” Shining’s voice shook with a combination of frustration and rage, “what… what have you done?”

Blueblood held a placating hoof out to Shining. “Let me explain before you have a complete conniption fit, Shining.”

“I’m not—”

Rainbow put a hoof on Shining’s withers, and he flinched slightly, but then visibly calmed down as Rainbow ran her hoof back and forth. “Let him explain, Shiny.”

“Ok,” Blueblood said, “first things first: this is not Amethyst.” He paused before he starting mixing in the deliberate falsehoods. “She is an eldritch fleshform that I summoned using Celestia’s notes and records. I did this because she can turn into anything, like the viewing window that we used up until the Farmstead breach. I’m keeping her in pony-form while she’s not remote viewing for us. This is my choice, for some very important reasons.”

Blueblood looked around at the group, which had gone completely silent with shock. “Now, Celestia’s notes indicated that raw fleshforms are mindless, but that one molded into pony form can gain sentience… and with time, even sapience. This would be a boon to us. Even if she eventually decides not to work with us, she can give us invaluable insight into the enemy. Plus… I believe she has already obtained sentience; she is aware of her surroundings.”

“So,” Shining said, “it’s not Amethyst?”

“No,” Blueblood answered. “She isn’t. But—while we know she isn’t Amethyst, I want you to treat her as you would any other pony. She actually chose a name for herself: ‘Ametrine.’ Being able to choose a name means that she is on the verge of being able to self-actualize—if she hasn’t done so already. I will not abide any intolerance towards her because of her origins. She is one of us now. We already have two members of this company who are not wholly pony, and they haven’t gotten any blowback from the others. I expect the same for her.”

“Why did you make it look like her?” Shining croaked the question through dry vocal chords.

“It’s obvious,” Tempest said. “He could only mold Ametrine here into the form of a pony he had already seen. Forming her into a duplicate of a pony who was still alive would cause problems for both her and the original. Nopony is going to mistake Ametrine here for Amethyst, because they all know that Amethyst is dead.”

“I know; I watched her die,” Shining spat.

Blueblood shook his head from side to side. “And you’ll watch others die before we’re done here, Shining. This place is unkind; we can expect more losses before the end. Having ponies like Ametrine on our side will help tip the scales in our favor. It doesn’t matter who she looks like.”

When Shining declined to protest again, Blueblood looked around at the others. “Does anypony else have any objections before I introduce our new member to the others?”

Twilight raised a hoof. “Lyra and Bon Bon may not react too well to seeing the face of a comrade who literally exploded right in front of them. Their reaction may be as… poor as my brother’s.”

“Noted,” Blueblood said. “We’ll inform them first, separately from the others so that we can talk them through it.”

“We’d best hurry then,” Tempest stated. “Time is wasting, and we have many ponies to speak with.”

Blueblood nodded. “Once we notify everypony, I want you all to turn in early; get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be busy: Ametrine here will have her first test run as the window tomorrow. The Canterlot Elite will have their first mission as well.” He looked over to Ametrine. “Let’s hope both of you are able to deliver.”

The look she gave him was full of venom.

Wrecking the Weald

Chapter 16: Wrecking the Weald

Week 18, Day 1, Dawn

“If any of you are squeamish,” Ametrine said, “you’ll probably want to look away now.”

Moondancer scoffed. “I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would faze any of us; we’re Canterlot’s Elite force,” she said, indicating the rest of her team with a hoof.

“Suit yourself,” Ametrine replied with a shrug towards Blueblood.

“Do it,” Blueblood said with a nod. “We need to see if this works so they can get moving. Sweeping the forest is going to be a multi-day excursion as-is, and daylight’s wasting.”

“Okay then,” Ametrine said, arching her back slowly, exhaling sharply as she affected a stretch. The sounds of snapping bones and tearing flesh became audible from her barrel as her exhale drew out into an ear rending shriek.

“Mother of Celestia,” Moondancer whispered, her color draining as Ametrine’s face opened.

Fur peeled away from skin, which peeled away from muscle and sinew, which peeled away from bone, all of it swirling around… a growing view of the room they were in. As Ametrine’s flesh continued to rend itself asunder, the window grew in size.

There was a sudden eruption of rank fluid from the visor of Twinkleshine’s helmet, filling the air with the putrid smell of bile. She hoofed at her metal faceplate until she was able to raise it, allowing more of her disgorged stomach contents to pour out onto the floor while she continued to retch violently.

Frowning, Blueblood turned from the vomiting mare to gaze at the new gore-bordered viewing window. “Moony, I hope your team isn’t this squeamish in the field; this display is… tame compared to some of what we’ve seen so far. And Ametrine here is a friendly.”

“Girls?” Moondancer addressed the others, while straightening her own posture and forcing the doubt from her features.

“Such displays do not bother me,” slurred Lemon Hearts, her eyes gleaming dully from behind her mask. “I see worse in the mirror whenever I take my faceplate off.”

Minuette shrugged. “Only thing that bugs me is dirty teeth—Twinkleshine, remember to rinse and brush after you’re done regurgitating there. Stomach acid is Tartarus on your enamel.”

“I’m fine,” Twinkleshine insisted in a voice made raw by her own gorge. “I must have eaten something that disagreed with me is all. I’m fit for duty; a little bad breath won’t slow me down.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, waving a hoof and seeing his actions mirrored in Ametrine’s ‘display,’ “I think you’re all set to go—I’ll see if Ditzy can get you a dinner-mint or something before you all leave, Twinkleshine.”

“C’mon girls,” Moondancer said with a final, tentative glance towards the grotesque thing that Ametrine had become, “let’s go and show these mercenaries how real Canterlot soldiers fight!”

Week 18, Day 2, Morning

The Canterlot soldiers fought well enough to impress Blueblood far more than they had with the display they had given him earlier the day before. He and Tempest sat in the observatory, watching through Ametrine as Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine tore through a slinking series of skeletons. “They’re working very well as a team,” he said, grinning when he saw Minuette heal Moondancer of a gash she’d received in the initial ambush of unruly undead. “They really are something spectacular, aren’t they?”

“If they weren’t,” Tempest observed, “then I’d fear that this country’s defenses are in much worse shape than even the Storm King’s most optimistic invasion projections.” She narrowed her eyes at the image of Twinkleshine twirling her sword around before smashing a skeleton to pieces with it. “They have great skill and ability,” she said with a look of annoyance, “but they lack combat experience—look at how they waste their energy on flair, when they should be worrying more about the economy of their motions.”

Blueblood frowned as his trained eye started to pick up on more of the elite team’s showboating. “I see what you mean.” He scratched his chin. “It’ll be difficult to break them of habits like this if we keep them together.”

“However,” Tempest said, “you are quite correct in your assessment that they work together well as a team; look there—” Tempest pointed a hoof towards Lemon Hearts, who had pressed forward of the others’ position, leaving her flank exposed.

A small group of skeletons moved to take advantage of Lemon Heart’s exposed position, only for Twinkleshine to charge forward and catch them in a pincer maneuver and wipe them out.

“They anticipate each other’s tactics,” Tempest said. “They do it well enough to cover each other’s tactical errors as well.” She looked to Blueblood. “I feel that separating them would greatly reduce their combat effectiveness.”

Blueblood waved his hoof in a circular motion at the display. “Well, if we don’t want to separate them, then what do you think will work?”

“The potential I see in them as a combat team is great,” Tempest said. “I think if we just note their flaws during these missions, I can drill fixes into them as a squad.” She looked at the image of the elites in the bone-strewn aftermath of their successful fight. “I’ve only rarely seen such synergy in a group before.” The faintest hint of a smirk worked its way onto her hardened features. “I think they could very well wind up being our best team, given the proper guidance.”

“I knew Fancy would come through for us,” Blueblood said with a toothy grin. “And Moony—er… Moondancer, I mean. She’s looking to be a good leader; far different than the shy bookworm I knew growing up.” His face settled into a contented grin. “Things are finally starting to look up.”

“Be wary,” Tempest said, looking back to Blueblood. “Triumphant pride—”

“Precipitates a dizzying fall,” Blueblood finished the saying. “I know the adage well enough.”

“Just make sure you have the wisdom to heed it then,” Tempest replied. “I know that I will not allow myself to feel optimistic about our circumstances until things irrevocably turn in our favor.”

“Wait,” Blueblood said. “But you always say that things can never turn irrevocably in somepony’s favor.”

“Exactly.”

Week 18, Day 2, Evening

“An Element-of-what-now?” Rainbow cocked her head.

“It’s called an Element of Harmony,” Twilight said. “One of six. The literature says that each gravitates towards and chooses individuals who exemplify the trait they represent.”

“So,” Blueblood said, “despite a life build on deceit and stealing, the forces of Harmony consider Miss Rarity here… generous?”

“I told you what I do with all of my earnings!” Rarity hissed. “If I’d kept the money for myself, I’d be swimming in wealth, not surviving with just the clothes on my back.”

“Twilight,” Tempest said, with a surprisingly light rap on the table. “What do these Elements do?”

“Well…” Twilight scratched the back of her head. “The literature becomes very vague after that. It says that the magic they summon is the most powerful known to all of ponykind.”

“Then let’s focus on what we do know,” Blueblood said. “What does your research claim to know for certain?”

Placing a thick book upon the drawing room table, Twilight opened it to a page depicting six crystals arrayed around Celestia. “The Elements of Harmony are what gave the Princess the strength to banish Nightmare Moon over a thousand years ago. Before that, Celestia and Luna used them to defeat Discord—a manifestation of Chaos—and Sombra, the Mad King. All of those victories are attributed to the use of the Elements.”

Blueblood steepled his hooves. “Do you think they’ll be powerful enough to banish whatever is under the castle ruins?”

“I…” Twilight frowned. “I don’t have the slightest. We can try using the one we have to see what happens?”

Gritting his teeth, Blueblood shook his head. “No, that’s too risky. Let’s see if we can acquire either more of the Elements or more information before we start trying to activate them all willie-nillie.”

“I concur,” Tempest said. “It would be foalish for us to risk using artifacts with unknown properties… unless we have no other alternative.”

“Keep researching Twilight.” Blueblood stared at the illustration of the Elements. “You have my permission to look through all of Celestia’s journals and notes as well. Perhaps you’ll find something that I’ve missed.”

Week 18, Day 3, Afternoon

Moondancer set her pack on the drawing room table, unloading several knicknacks from it. The gathered ponies looked on in confusion.

“What’s all this?” Blueblood asked, levitating one of the objects in front of his face.

“Things we can sell,” Moondancer replied. “I know ponies who will spend good bits for these pieces.”

Blueblood frowned as he examined the curiosity he’d picked up. “It looks like any other random refuse that we’ve found floating around in the catacomb ruins.”

“Well,” Moondancer said, “we found these scattered amongst the ruins in the Everfree, and I am confident that these particular items will fetch a decent price. It’s a shame you didn’t have an antiquarian in your employ sooner,” she admonished. “You wouldn’t have had nearly as much financial trouble.”

“Really?” Blueblood didn’t sound convinced. “How much do you think all of this is actually worth?”

“For these fifteen small pieces and these statuettes?” Moondancer pulled out a notebook, then looked at the ceiling and started whispering numbers to herself. She finally glanced back at Blueblood. “Twelve thousand.”

“Twelve thousand?” Blueblood’s eye twitched. “Harmony above, how much have we been leaving behind on all of our past expeditions?” He ran a shaky hoof through his mane as he considered the stress and uncertainty he could have saved himself.

Frowning, Moondancer started to hoof the trinkets back into the bag. “Quite a few bits worth, I’m afraid. I’ll make the trek to Canterlot tomorrow so I can get all of this sold to my contacts up there. I should be back sometime the day after.”

“Don’t go alone,” Blueblood warned. “I’ve been getting reports from the recruit prospects that some bandits have taken up residence along the old road again. I’m pretty sure that the only reason you made it here unharmed was because the four of you were traveling together. I’ve been meaning to send a team out to see if we can clear out the brigand infestation—Octavia?”

“M’Lord?” Octavia responded.

Looking between Octavia and several other ponies at the table, Blueblood steepled his hooves. “Take Vinyl and the Apples, prep for an expedition starting tomorrow. I’m sick of these bandits making the trip to town a problem. You are going to sweep down the old road, and clear them out. Understood?”

Octavia rose from her seat and affected a bow. “Perfectly, M’Lord.” She looked at the rest of her team. “Let us go to make preparations,” she said, walking towards the exit. The Apples followed close behind her, but Vinyl seemed lost in thought until she suddenly saw the others leaving. She bolted up and followed them into the hall.

“You seem certain that they will be up to the task,” Tempest said.

“You weren’t in the room for ‘Sharktavia,’ Tempest,” Blueblood said.

“Yeah,” Piped in Shining. “I’ve seen her in action. She is terrifying, maybe even more so than you.”

Tempest glanced towards the two stallions and raised an eyebrow. “Doubtful.”

Week 19, Day 2, Evening

Vinyl lit her horn and forcefully threw another log onto the campfire, eliciting a shower of sparks, as well causing the others to jump back in surprise.

“What in the hay is wrong with you?!” Applejack shouted. “We had a rough enough day with them there three bandit ambushes! We don’t need any more little surprises like that!”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac agreed.

Winona barked.

“Aww cmon!” Vinyl threw her hooves out for emphasis. “You can’t be serious; it’s just more wood on the campfire! Besides, sending the sparks up like that will scare all the critters away from us!”

Applejack shook her head. “It don’t do us much good if we can’t rest up, now does it?”

“Eeynope,” said Big Mac.

Winona barked again.

“Whatevs,” Vinyl said, pulling out her sound cannon. “If you rubes are gonna be like this, then I’m just gonna rock-out on my side of the fire.”

“Then how,” Applejack said, “are we supposed to get any rest?” She stood and glared over the flames.

Vinyl scowled right back. “Well maybe you should just get used to it!”

“Eeynope,” Big Mac said, standing to his full height.

Winona began to growl.

And then, as they all stared at each other in a mixture of exasperation and burgeoning hatred, a single, haunting note echoed from where Octavia sat. Everypony turned to look at the cellist as she began to play.

The melody was adiago, slowly describing a terrible anger and uncontrollable buildup in fury. The notes carried hints of frustration and building tension, culminating in a frenzied climax.

As the composition continued, the gathered ponies could feel their emotions being swept up and carried along. Just as the chords had reached their peak, mirroring how the ponies had felt moments before, they relaxed into a soothing theme. The resolution released the harmonic tensions which had encompassed the first measure of the piece, and those gathered could feel their stress bleeding away as Octavia continued to perform.

The impromptu outdoor concert continued until everypony present was devoid of even the slightest hints of tension. The composition had actually put Winona and Vinyl to sleep.

“Landsakes,” Applejack said after Octavia had put her bow down. “I ain’t never heard music like that before.”

“Eeynope,” Big Mac agreed

Applejack looked over to where, with shrouded eyes, Octavia sat. “Where’d you learn to play that?”

“I taught myself,” Octavia answered. “When the shark became part of my life, I realized that I already had the means with which to tame it; music soothes the savage beast. When I play like that, there is no set structure. I just… go where the rhythm takes me.”

“Well,” Applejack said after another long while, “thank you kindly for the music. I think it’s time we hit the hay.”

“Goodnight,” Octavia said, watching the Apples lay down. “I’ll keep watch.”

“You sure you don’t need the rest?” Applejack said.

“I’ll be fine,” Octavia reassured her. “Besides,” she said, her voice but a whisper as she heard the breathing of her companions fall into the regular rhythm of unconsciousness, “sharks apparently only sleep half of their brain at a time.”

An hour later, Octavia stood to her hooves and sniffed at the air. If only the brigands knew that her nose was sensitive enough to detect the dried blood on their weapons from miles away, they might have thought to actually wash them off after their odious acts of banditry. Under the waning light of a crescent moon, Octavia strode forth to greet those fools whilst they slumbered, her smile filled with sharp, serrated teeth.

Week 19, Day 5, Evening

“Blueblood?” Ametrine stared at the fire the Prince had started in his bedroom hearth, lit to dispose of any evening horrors that might come calling. She tentatively entered his chambers and turned her gaze towards him.

“Yes, Amethy—” Blueblood swore at himself internally as she scowled at his slipup. “Ametrine… sorry, force of habit.”

“You miss her.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No,” Blueblood replied. “I don’t. You were right before; I never really knew her. What I miss… never existed in the first place.” He sighed. “I’m sorry; I’ve made this about me. I’m pretty good at that, aren’t I? What did you want to say?”

Turning away from him, Ametrine sighed. “Thank you.”

Blueblood blinked, not sure he’d heard correctly. “What?”

Ametrine turned towards him and scowled. “I said thank you, ya ignoramus.”

After recovering from his momentary shock, Blueblood chuckled. “Such vitriol; are you sure you want to thank me?”

“Look,” Ametrine said, “we both know it’s hard for me to get over what you did to me, and that it will continue to be hard. But… but giving me a second chance—no, a first chance—” she looked at him with an expression Blueblood never thought he’d see upon her features: a smile.

“Does this mean—”

“That I forgive you?” The smile vanished as Ametrine snorted. “Maybe after I’ve slept in a bed instead of on a stone slab or on the floor for a month, I’ll think about it.”

Gesturing towards his own mattress, Blueblood turned to Ametrine. “Well, there’s always my bed—”

Ametrine’s expression couldn’t possibly have soured any more than it did in that moment.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Blueblood said as Ametrine moved to leave.

“You are unbelievable!” Ametrine hissed at him.

“I didn’t mean with me!” Blueblood insisted. “I’m serious; I don’t get a lot of sleep anyways, and until you feel comfortable bunking with the others, I’d like to offer you my room, it’s the least I can do.”

“Uh huh,” Ametrine snarked, “and where will you sleep?”

“The observatory.”

Blueblood’s answer seemed to silence her. Ametrine gazed around the room and shook her head. “No, I’ll sleep up there; this place has nothing but bad memories for me.”

“Well, it is nice up there,” Blueblood said. He let the silence draw out a few more moments before speaking again; “I can help you haul a mattress and some blankets up there and you can sleep under the stars.” He thought for a moment. “The stars are actually quite beautiful. Have you ever seen the stars before?” he asked.

“No,” Ametrine replied.

“Well,” Blueblood said, “let me help move you up there, and then you can let me show you.”

Ametrine raised an eyebrow. “Fine, but it’ll have to be pretty fantastic to warrant me tolerating your presence for very long.”

“Trust me,” Blueblood said.

Ametrine narrowed her eyes. “As if.”

Week 19, Day 5, Late Evening

“So,” Blueblood said, panting as he rolled off of Ametrine, managing to tangle himself in one of the blankets they’d brought up for her bedding, “did you see stars?”

“Shut up… and burn in… Tartarus, you rut-stick,” Ametrine replied breathlessly, aiming a weak punch at his shoulder.

Blueblood held up a forehoof to himself to feign injury from the love-tap. “So violent.” He harrumphed and turned away from her. “And so many mixed signals. Hay, if you want me to leave, I can just go back to my room.”

Ametrine gripped him with her forehooves and dragged him towards her, rolling him into a kiss. She released him only after they were both winded again. “Hay,” she growled, “I didn’t say I was done… tolerating you yet—”

“Blueblood!” Twilight shouted as she burst into the observatory, a plethora of parchment poised in the air behind her. “You’ll never believe what I—” Twilight’s manic speech devolved into embarrassed stammering when she laid eyes on the prone couple. “I-I… I’ll come back later, when you’re not—” she coughed “—with each other,” she verbally fumbled as she turned to leave.

“What is it, Twilight?” Blueblood asked, leaning up on one elbow, pulling the blankets to cover as much of Ametrine as he could, and looking over her reddening muzzle. “You’re already here; the damage is done. You may as well spit it out.”

Twilight slowly turned around, her own face having turned a deep shade of crimson. “I—” she cleared her throat “—I found… something.”

Blueblood’s nodded his head slightly. “I gathered that from your extremely exuberant entrance, Twilight. Now, what did you find?”

“An opening,” Twilight said, her manic tone beginning to return. “A… massive gateway of some kind, in the basement of the castle.”

“Impossible,” Blueblood said. “I know that Celestia did say in her letter to me that the castle was acting as a kind of gateway.” He shook his head from side to side. “But she was speaking metaphorically; nothing in her maps, notes, or journals mention any actual physical portal like that.”

“No,” Twilight said. “They don’t—at least not on the surface.”

This earned a raised eyebrow from Blueblood. “What do you mean?”

Twilight held up one of the more massive rolls of parchment with her telekinesis and unrolled it, holding it so that both she and Blueblood could see it. “This, as I’m sure you’re well aware, is a floor plan of the castle.”

Nodding, Blueblood looked between the map and Twilight. “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

Poking a hoof against the depiction of the first floor, Twilight slid a second piece of paper next to the sketch. It showed a deformed monster with a large pair of eyes and a wide, slavering maw. Included were separate brush strokes which circled certain parts of the creature and showed notes on its anatomy.

“I’ve seen that page too Twilight, but I don’t see what—” and then he saw it. “Harmony above.” The illustration was done in such a way that, when compared side by side, features of the monster and the notes synced up with the map almost perfectly. “This is… incredible. But, even though they match up, I still don’t see anything that points towards any kind of gate.”

“Not on this floor, no,” Twilight replied, “but as you can see here, the eyes match the spiral staircases here… and here, and the open mouth matches the main entryway.”

“Okay,” Blueblood replied as his mind made the connections. “I’m following you.”

Twilight passed another page of parchment over the map, this one depicting a beast with multiple tiny mouths strewn about its countenance. “This is the second cellar.” She poked at the corresponding location on the castle floorplan. “All of these mouths match with doorways or archways into other parts of the cellar. Again, the eyes match up with staircases.”

“Okay,” Blueblood said, “so you’re saying that the symbolism is the same from map to map? Eyes mean stairways, and mouths mean doors or other portals?”

“Exactly,” Twilight replied, pulling a final illustration sheet over to the map. This one depicted an enormous creature whose eyes and head shape matched it with the castle’s deepest basement. It was more of an expansive cavern, though, since it seemed to be located several levels below the last of the castle’s worked foundations.

“Wait,” Blueblood said, looking at the creature’s oversized, tentacle-rimmed maw. “The mouth doesn’t fit on the map.”

“Not on the drawn portion of the map,” Twilight said, pointing towards the bottommost part of the map sketch, where the sharp lines which defined cavern walls elsewhere faded into incompletion.

Blueblood’s blood froze in his veins as comprehension dawned upon him. The entrance to the depths Celestia spoke of was right there the whole time, staring them in the face. He had always assumed that the map was incomplete because Celestia had stopped bothering to record the deeper she excavated. He was ripped from his reverie by the sounds of sobbing. Looking down, he saw that Ametrine was shaking against him.

Ametrine was staring in Twilight’s direction, her eyes flicking between the map and the illustration. “That is it,” she gasped. “That is where the shadows reside.”

Twilight regarded Ametrine with a confused and wary expression.

“It awaits you there,” Ametrine choked out. “Death… and Darkness.”

Resolve filling his veins with vengeful fire, Blueblood stood and stared at the map with furrowed brows. “Then let’s not keep It waiting.”

Foalhardy Foray

Chapter 17: Foalhardy Foray

Week 20, Day 1, Morning

“The ‘Ponest’ Dungeon?” Rainbow asked in an incredulous tone. “What in the Tartarus kind of name is that?”

“It’s the name Celestia gave to it in her letter,” Blueblood replied. “She also refers to it by that moniker in all of her notes. I have no idea why she calls it that, nor do I know what we can possibly expect from the place.” He steepled his hooves. “All we do know is the supposed location of the entrance. Any group we send is going to be blundering in blind. As such, for the initial incursion, I am going to ask for volunteers.”

“My team volunteers,” Moondancer said without hesitation.

“You are sure?” Blueblood asked. “All of you? You need to realize that this mission is to penetrate the source of the blight that has struck this land. Twilight and Starlight have both informed me that what lurks below those foundations is orders of magnitude more powerful than the necromancer we defeated. That fiend was capable of overrunning the countryside with their foul undead. You could be facing a tide of unending horrors once you enter that place.”

“All the more reason to send us,” slurred Lemon Hearts. “We will bring Celestia’s light to that darkest of dungeons.”

The other two members of Moondancer’s team nodded in assent.

Looking over his hooves at the four mares, Blueblood sighed. “Well, at least we’re sending in the best.”

Week 20, Day 2, Morning

“Last chance to back out,” Blueblood said as Moondancer shoved another hoofful of muffintack into her saddlebags.

Moondancer glared at him. “I swear Blueblood, if you insinuate that my team isn’t up for this one more time, I’m going to clock you!”

Taking a step back, Blueblood held up his hooves in a placating manner. “I’m not insinuating anything, Moony, I—”

“And stop calling me that!” Moondancer hissed. “If we’re going to have any kind of working relationship, you need to start treating me more like a soldier. It took me a long time to earn the respect of my peers. I don’t need you calling me childish nicknames and undermining that.”

“I’m sorry… Moondancer,” Blueblood said. “I didn’t realize… it’s just we were friends before, so I thought…”

Moondancer sighed. “I’m sorry, Blue. I just—” she sighed “—this is the real test, isn’t it? We cleaned house on our sweep through the weald, without any real resistance. But this place… it’s different. It’s more dangerous than anything any of your ponies have faced before… and I’m nervous. Confident, but nervous. But you constantly asking if we’re sure, not treating me like the dangerous mare I am… it undermines that confidence. Do you—”

“Officer Moondancer,” Blueblood interrupted. “I have every confidence in you and your team’s ability to successfully navigate the Ponest Dungeon. You are Canterlot’s best, and I look forward to your successful report when you return.”

“Thank you Sir,” Moondancer said with a smile. She reached over with a forehoof and drew Blueblood into a hug. “See you when we return, Blue.”

Week 20, Day 3, Dawn

Several of the company were gathered in the observatory, waiting for Ametrine to announce that Moondancer’s team was about to breach the entryway.

“Celestia’s notes don’t describe anything specific about the dungeon itself,” Blueblood said. “Just a lot of fevered scribblings about how it is a ‘realm of death and madness.’”

“That’s not very quantitative,” Twilight observed.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Thanks for that one, egghead—OW!” She looked over to Shining, who had just elbowed her in the side. “What? She is an egghead!”

Shining furrowed his brows. “That’s my sister you’re talking about, Dashie.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said. “Right.” She forced a few embarrassed chuckles.

“Soon the dungeon’s secrets we will know,” Zecora intoned. “Once Moondancer’s party travels below.”

“You are able to see them now,” Tempest said to Ametrine, ignoring the unnecessary drama unfolding around her.

“Yes,” Ametrine replied. “I can’t really explain it in terms of normal senses. The closest I can manage to say is that it’s like I’m watching the field team at the same time that I’m watching what is going on here.” She shrugged. “For example, they’re finishing breakfast right now: Moondancer is cleaning her mess kit, Lemon Hearts is praying to Celestia, Twinkleshine is polishing her armor, and Minuette is running some kind of twine through her teeth—that last tidbit is actually the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It sounds like she’s flossing,” Tempest replied. “Minuette is of the mind that dental health is paramount, and partakes in more tooth cleaning rituals than the average pony.”

“Ah,” Ametrine said in a nonplussed tone. “Oh!” She turned towards Blueblood. “Blue, they’re approaching the main castle ruins now!”

“Okay, everypony, moment of truth,” Blueblood said as he motioned for everypony to form a circle. “Ametrine? Whenever you’re ready.”

Ametrine responded by shrieking and morphing into the remote-viewing window. As her own features were torn asunder to swirl in the air, the image of Moondancer’s group swam into focus.

Week 20, Day 3, Morning

“Roger that Sir,” Moondancer said as the group stepped hoof through the shattered doors that fronted the monolithic castle of the Two Sisters. She gasped when she beheld the interior. While sundered stone had fallen in many places, the architecture of the structure was magnificent. The ceiling, which was mostly intact, was at least fifty hooves high. In abundance were marble columns, every last inch of which was covered with elaborate carvings depicting the sun, the moon, and representatives of all three pony races. “This place must have been replete in its own resplendence when it was fully intact,” she said to nopony in particular.

“Over here,” Lemon Hearts slurred. “The stairway down that he mentioned.”

“All right everypony,” Moondancer said, “down we go.”

Lemon Hearts took the lead, slinking slowly down the stairs with her massive cleaver of a sword held in her jaws.

Twinkleshine followed closely behind, levitating her drawn longsword in the air beside herself.

Next was Minuette, whose cudgel was still hanging from her saddle, though she had her holy book hovering at the ready next to her.

Moondancer brought up the rear, her magical censer floating nearby.

As they descended the steps, the worked stone showed significant signs of wear. The first basement was utterly devoid of any inhabitants or obstacles, much to everypony’s relief. Continuing downward, they observed as crumbling stone blocks and bricks gave way to worked rock passages, seemingly bored through the living earth itself. Even further down, all signs of craftsmareship vanished, leading into a series of completely natural looking tunnels.

Stepping hoof onto the base of the slope of one particularly steep descent, Lemon Hearts suddenly shuddered. “This place feels wrong,” she said.

“How often do you tell us you can’t ‘feel’ anything Lemon?” Twinkleshine larked.

“I’m telling you,” Lemon Hearts insisted, “I can actually feel something, and it feels wrong.”

Hold, Blueblood’s voice echoed through the darkened space, bringing the party to a halt. If Lemon Hearts is able to detect a disturbance, it might actually be because her sense of touch has been removed. Without the extra sensory input, she might be able to feel unseen things that the rest of you cannot. Lemon Hearts, what exactly do you feel?

“I can’t explain it,” came Lemon Hearts’ slurred reply. “It’s like a tingling on my skin… but it’s making me sick to my stomach.”

“I’m not detecting… anything,” Moondancer said in a confused tone. “Not even eldritch energy. That’s weird. I was almost overwhelmed by the flood of it when we were on the surface, so what gives?”

Remember, I told you we wouldn’t know what to expect, Blueblood replied. You are in uncharted territory. Everything you’re seeing for the first time, we’re also seeing for the first time. So be careful.

“Sweet mother of Celestia,” Twinkleshine blurted out.

Week 20, Day 3, Morning

“What in Tartarus is that?” Shining asked, a slight tremor in his voice.

“Only a horror of prodigious size,” Zecora breathed, “would need that door, which meets my eyes.”

“It’s unreal,” Rainbow whispered.

What was displayed in the viewing window consisted of two colossal pieces of unidentifiable stone. Each slab was of such size that the ponies approaching it appeared to be ants. The party’s torchlight illuminated only about a tenth of the way up the the massive door, and what was clearly visible was completely covered in bas-relief images depicting all manner of unspeakable horrors.

Tempest looked back and forth at the others; the sudden anxiety breeding between them was practically tangible. “Get ahold of yourselves,” she snapped, catching the attention of the gathered ponies. “It’s just a large door, and means nothing by itself other than that its makers had no forethought about having it open into a series of tunnels that are a mere fraction of its preposterous size.”

“Tempest is right,” Blueblood said. “It’s probably just ornamental. It’s at least a hundred hooves high, and the tunnels the party came through are maybe two ponies in height and width at the largest.”

Blueblood, Moondancer’s voice came across the connection, My eyeball measure puts the door at about a hundred and twenty hoofspans in height, about seventy wide. There was intense quiet as the party approached the damnable portal.

“I-impossible…” Twilight trailed off.

“What?” Blueblood waved a hoof in front of Twilight to get her attention. “What is it?”

Twilight continued to stare at the display. “I… know those symbols and designs,” she said in a shaky voice. “I read about them in an ancient text, the griffin pnakteric treatises. I… I discounted it at the time because so many esoteric texts claim to know the true origins of so many things, and so few actually deliver—”

“Damnit Twilight,” Blueblood said as he gripped her shoulders in his forehooves and turned her to face him. “What. Is. It?”

Shaking slightly, Twilight looked him in the eyes. “If what I read is to be believed, then behind that door... is the beginning, and the end… of all life.”

Blueblood, I don’t know how in Tartarus we’re supposed to open this thing. We’re looking at kilotonnes, maybe even megatonnes of stone here. It would take an entire Equestrian Corps of Engineers brigade weeks to set up the necessary machinery to try and breach this thing—Twinkleshine, get away from there!

Week 20, Day 3, 11:59 am

“But look, Moondancer—” Twinkleshine pointed her forehoof to a horseshoe-shaped symbol “—it’s shaped just right; it’s even the exact same size as my hoof,” she said in a mesmerized voice. “Almost… almost as if it was made for me—”

“No!” Moondancer shouted. “Don’t touch it!”

But Twinkleshine’s hoof settled against the symbol, seeming to sink into it slightly. “It’s… warm,” she said, turning back to the others.

Week 20, Day 3, 12:00 pm

Twinkleshine! Moondancer’s scream filled the observatory.

The display went dark as the party’s torches were extinguished. Blueblood shoved his face up to Ametrine. “What is going on down there? Moondancer?! Celestia dammit, somepony answer me!” He felt a sudden pain in his left foreleg and clamped his right hoof down on it. He could feel whatever was in there moving; it felt like it was trying to rip itself free from his skin.

The room suddenly darkened as the sun outside the observatory turned blacker than the blackest pitch.

Rainbow looked up at the stygian sky. “What in Tartarus is happening?”

Crimson poured down from Twilight’s eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. She fell to the floor coughing blood out onto the wooden floorboards. “Something… is… awakening,” she managed between hacks and gags.

Zecora swiftly moved to attend to Twilight, while everypony simply watched.

Where’d she go?! Moondancer’s panicked voice sounded again, followed by another terrifying sound—one that caused a collective shudder to pass through everypony as they slowly turned to stare at the umbral display. Of the ponies present, only Rainbow Dash and Tempest had never heard that cadence of screech before.

“Not again,” Blueblood whispered. The writhing in his foreleg abated at the sound of that horrible keening ululation, almost as if hearing that noxious note soothed it into complacency.

“What is it?” Tempest demanded, her eyes boring into the blank viewing window. She turned and glared with great intensity at him. “Blueblood!”

“Ametrine was right,” Twilight said, still dribbling blood. “Shadow and death—you hear it Blueblood?”

“Yes,” he replied, still clutching his foreleg. “But… this one is different somehow.”

Shining leaned forward. “Yes, the other shambler had a more… stable shriek. This one sounds broken… cracking, corrupted.”

“Correct,” Twilight coughed. “Which… means there’s something down there giving off enough eldritch energy to corrupt an ancient being borne in the darkest reaches of the universe.”

“Moondancer,” Blueblood spoke mere inches from Ametrine, “Moondancer, can you—”

Week 20, Day 3, 12:01 pm

—hear me?

Spinning around in the pitch blackness, Moondancer tried to get her bearings amidst the cacophony of shouts, screams, and whatever horrific sound that creature was making. “Do you see it? Lemon? Minuette? Twinkleshine? Anypony?!”

A sudden flash of brilliance erupted from Minuette’s horn, illuminating the grisly scene: Twinkleshine was being pulled, hindquarters-first, into a circular fang-rimmed maw. She was struggling in vain against a series of fleshy rope-like appendages which pulled her further towards the pit of slavering doom. The only thing preventing her from being drawn in fully was that her hind hooves had found purchase around the edges of the mouth. Twinkleshine’s gaskins bulged with the strain in her effort to not be devoured.

Turning her head to face the abrupt illumination proved to be Twinkleshine’s downfall. As she twisted, one of her hooves slipped, causing her hind legs to fall into the terrifying toothy tunnel. She cried out in pain and terror as the fangs crunched down on her rear limbs.

Lemon Hearts tried to charge the monstrosity, only for a vermillion-tipped tentacle to slap her past the others.

Completely frozen, Moondancer could only watch on in petrified panic as Minuette struggled to maintain her lighting spell while raining down holy bolts of energy onto the massive creature that was chewing her friend.

Wordless screeches and whinnies of fear and anguish poured from Twinkleshine’s muzzle as the monstrous maw mangled her flesh. The stricken crusader screamed in agony as the creature pulled her further in and bit down again. Twinkleshine’s shriek descended into a wet gurgle as she sprayed blood across the chamber, showering Moondancer in crimson warmth. With her lungs and other vital organs well and truly punctured, Twinkleshine mercifully passed from both consciousness and life.

Week 20, Day 3, 12:02 pm

The ponies in the observation room could only watch on in horror as the scene unfolded. Shining pulled Rainbow’s frozen gaze away from the gruesome display and held her trembling form. While Zecora slowly poured a healing drought down Twilight’s throat, Tempest and Blueblood had their eyes glued to the massacre. They both watched the flashes of illuminated action in horrid fascination.

Lemon Hearts was back up on her hooves and hacked her meat-cleaver of a sword into the shambler’s thick hide, though to little effect.

Minuette continued to hurl bolts of holy light towards the shambler. But again, the damage was negligible.

“Moondancer! Answer me! Gah!” Blueblood turned to Twilight, away from the image of the petrified pony that was Moondancer. “They smashed through timberwolves and bandits without issue,” he said. “And Shining was able to kill that other shambler with a single sword strike.” He leaned closer. “Why in Tartarus are their weapons not working?”

“The creature’s dermal density must be significantly higher than that of the other shambler,” Twilight replied haltingly from Zecora’s grasp. “From the brief flashes we’re seeing, it appears to be covered in tumors and other cancerous growths. For all its departure from the natural order we all know, a shambler is still a sleek, graceful creature. This… thing is but a mere mockery of the eons-old predator we faced last time. It has lost a great deal of agility, but seems to have made up for it with sheer durability.” She finally met her bloodied eyes with Blueblood’s. “They can’t win; they need to get out of there.”

I know,” Blueblood grumbled. “Moondancer! Damnit Moondancer, snap out of it or you’re going—”

Week 20, Day 3, 12:03 pm

—to die down there!

Her body still refusing to move, Moondancer stared numbly as two hook-covered tentacles wrapped themselves around Lemon Hearts.

Lemon Hearts roared in anger as one of the ropy appendages wrapped around her barrel just behind her front legs, whilst another snaked around her barrel just in front of her hind legs. She thrust her sword into one of the creature’s eyes, eliciting a pained screech.

All hope that the creature had been injured was quickly dispelled as the tentacles pulled taut. With a sickeningly wet tearing sound, Lemon Hearts was ripped in two, her front half thrown to land at Moondancer’s hooves, trailing glistening viscera through the air as it traveled. Her flank was shoved into the waiting monstrous maw.

“Moony—” Lemon Hearts sputtered blood as she reached a shaking forehoof towards her friend and leader. “Get… get out… of—” The light faded from her eyes and she lay still, blood pooling beneath where her muzzle had landed.

Moondancer stared numbly at her deceased friend as comprehension and denial warred within her.

“No!” Minuette yelled as a hooked tentacle wrapped around one of her legs and began to draw her in. She looked at the lamprey-like mouth, the fangs coated in the blood and gore of the shambler’s previous two victims. “Not like this!” she screamed as another ropy tendril wrapped around her neck. “The teeth!” Her vocalizations elevated to a keening shriek as she gazed into the monster’s fang-fest of a digestive tract.

Suddenly, a violent tremor ran through Minuette’s body. As she shook, a manic grin spread across her countenance. “Such dirty teeth!” She stopped struggling to escape and actually started trying to crawl towards the creature faster, head-first. “Let me in there and I’ll clean them for you!” She cackled as she levitated a rope from her saddlebags and moved it in front of her. She ran it along and around several of the fangs, managing to remove a small bit of the gore that had caked on them before they clamped down on her head and permanently ceased her efforts.

Moondancer shut her tear-filled eyes tightly, blocking out the sight of the carnage, but not the ghastly sounds of crunching and slurping.

Moony, Blueblood’s voice dripped with sadness, Moony, please—

Moondancer drew her dagger, leaving her magical censer discarded and forgotten. “I’m sorry Blue,” she said. “Please, tell Fancy that I’m sorry.”

No! Blueblood shouted. No, you get out of there! Run now! You can still—

The wretched reverberation of the shambler’s breathing echoed in Moondancer’s ears. She dragged the dagger across her own throat.

Week 20, Day 3, 12:05 pm

The display cut out, no longer showing anything, not even darkness. As if in response, the sky outside the observatory began to lighten.

“What happened?” Blueblood demanded. “Why did the picture go away?”

Sickening squelches and the cracking of bones heralded Ametrine’s reversion to pony form. The noises she made were all too reminiscent of the butchery that had just occurred. “They’re all dead.”

Blueblood blinked. “What?”

“They’re dead,” Ametrine reiterated. “Everypony is dead, Blueblood.” Upon seeing his nonplussed expression, she continued; “I can only tether myself to living creatures. Once the last of the party was gone, I lost connection.”

“Our best team,” Tempest said as she glanced towards a grandfather clock, in a tone as serious as the death they had just witnessed, “all massacred in less than five minutes.” She turned to Blueblood. “Unless we can find a way to counter this creature, our situation will quickly become untenable. And this isn’t the first time one of our ponies has lost their composure in the face of the more grotesque of these monstrosities. We will need to temper the resolve of our force if we want to continue this campaign.”

“Do we?” Blueblood’s voice was filled with the weariness that he was beginning to feel in his bones. His foreleg began to squirm again, though he paid it no heed.

“Do we… what?” Shining asked.

Blueblood looked towards Shining, unable to disguise the look of utter exhaustion covering his face. He turned to all of the ponies he had gathered into the observatory, seeing the looks of sorrow, despair, and worry.

“Do we want… to continue this campaign?”

End of Arc 1: The Recombinant Rictus

Author's Note

Ok everypony:

Arc One: The Recombinant Rictus is complete.

There will be a pause in posting as I get Arc Two ready for consumption. I’ll blog as updates happen to keep everypony in the know.

Arc 2 Prologue: Appalling Aftermath

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Arc 2 Chapter 1: Astrological Apotheosis

PONEST DUNGEON

Arc 2: Month of Madness

Chapter 1: Astrological Apotheosis

Week 20, Day 4, Morning

Blueblood stood at the head of the drawing room table, foregoing the comfort of the cushioned chair that he normally indulged in. Despite knowing he looked as disheveled as he felt, his eyes were sharp as he surveyed all of the company members, who easily fit inside the massive room. Seated to his left were Shining, Rainbow, Twilight, Snails, and the Apples. Tempest stood immediately to his right, her preference for standing precluding her from taking a chair. To her right sat Zecora, Lyra, Bon Bon, Octavia, Vinyl, and Rarity. Even Starlight had deigned to join them for the first time since her sight was taken, sitting next to the Apples.

“Yesterday,” Blueblood said in an angry tone, before taking a breath to even out his voice. “The events of yesterday have steeled my resolve that our mission here is both just and necessary.” He paused for a moment and forced himself to take a few more slow breaths. “We lost four of Canterlot’s finest warriors to the Ponest Dungeon, as well as dozens of townsfolk and potential recruits to an attack from a deranged cult. I believe that it is no coincidence that these events happened at the same time.”

The proclamation elicited a series of gasps from several of the seated ponies.

“The most troubling thing about the cult,” Blueblood said, “is that I’ve been able to personally identify most of the attackers with intact faces—”

“They’re Canterlot nobility?” Twilight asked.

“Not exactly, Twilight,” Blueblood replied. “While some are indeed nobles, there is one thing that they all definitely have in common: they’re all members of the Canterlot Astrological Society.”

There were more startled horse-noises from around the table. Ditzy fainted.

“It’s my belief,” Blueblood said over the rising clamor, “that they are none other than the members of the Society who were recently reported as missing.”

“Wait a minute,” Rainbow said. “I thought there were like, a hundred and fifty of them?”

“A hundred and forty-two,” Blueblood said. “And we only found twenty-four of them in the aftermath of the tavern bloodbath.”

“That means,” said Shining, “that there’s still over a hundred of them out there.” He looked worriedly at the others. “There’s only seventeen members in the company; they outnumber us more than seven to one.”

The sudden panicked commotion at the table was interrupted by Tempest slamming her hoof down, cracking a floorboard. “Your worry is unfounded,” she boomed at the others. “Seven ponies were able to dispatch all twenty-four of the assailants with nary a scratch between them. Taking into account that two of those ponies were civilians, it should be pretty obvious that these cultists are about as skilled at combat as you would expect your average astrologer to be.”

“Tempest is right,” Blueblood said. “The only reason they managed to kill anypony at all was because they ambushed a bunch of unprepared mercenaries and unarmed civilians in the darkness of the eclipse. Once Starlight here, her little band of mercenaries, and the bar staff started fighting back, the cultists were defeated swiftly.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Starlight’s what?”

“Long story,” Starlight said with a dismissive hoof-wave. “But Blueblood will give you—”

“The short version,” Blueblood said, “is that our blind seer here did some off-the-books recruiting, and luck placed her and four skilled fighters in the tavern during the attack. This doubtlessly saved the lives of Berry, her remaining staff, and several patrons. Their heroics have earned them formal interviews for the company. I’ll conduct those later.”

Placing both forehooves on the table, Blueblood leaned forward. “That brings us to twenty-one members, including Ametrine, Ditzy and myself. But I’ll be blunt: it’s not enough for us to just have the numbers. We have to learn from these setbacks or we’ll be doomed to repeat them.

“So,” Blueblood continued, “let’s go over the issues that led to this catastrophe. First, the weapons that the Canterlot elite team brought with them were wholly ineffective. Second, everypony on the team committed irrational actions that either directly or indirectly contributed to the expediency of their deaths. Lastly, to address the issues in town: we had nopony watching the hamlet.”

“Well,” Twilight said, “we already have Trixie working on the equipment end of things.”

“Unfortunately,” Blueblood said, “seeing as how Trixie has yet to produce even a single shard-based item for us, I have little faith in her ability to produce sufficient quantities of weaponry and armor to equip even one pony, less so all of our current company members, and much less any more we hire on.”

“If it’s a shard supply issue, we could always go get more of those comet shards,” Lyra piped in.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Twilight said. “Last time we went to Sweet Apple Acres… with the way space and time are twisted there, I don’t even know how we managed to make it back alive.”

“There is a blacksmith in town,” Shining stated. “Rivet’s Metalworking.”

Tempest’s eyes shot to Shining when he said the name. “The Blacksmith’s name is Rivet then.”

“That’s right,” Blueblood said. “We’ll check with Rivet; maybe he’ll be able to figure out what went wrong with the Canterlot team’s equipment, and if he’s sufficiently skilled, we can find a way to correct the issues, or flat out replace what we need to. And I suppose if Trixie finally starts coming through for us with her promised shard-forging, then more expeditions to the farm may be warranted.”

“As far as the second item,” Blueblood said, looking around at the others. “I know it’s hard to predict how a pony will react in certain situations, but there has to be a way to at least lessen the chances of somepony breaking under mission pressure.”

“I recommend two things,” Tempest said. “First: discipline and combat training.” Her eyes pierced each of those sitting at the table. “Second: exposure.”

“So you’re saying,” Applejack drawled, “that we need to expose ourselves to horrors if we’re gonna be up and fighting them?”

“It would be in controlled circumstances,” Blueblood said.

Applejack canted her head precariously. “Controlled how, exactly?”

“He probably wants to ‘use’ me,” Ametrine drawled back, in an eerily perfect imitation of Applejack's voice.

Applejack’s eyes widened and her brows threatened to rise up off of her head.

Narrowing his eyes disapprovingly at Ametrine, Blueblood nodded. “Not just you though,” he said. “Octavia, Lyra; both of you also have the ability to turn into things that are, quite frankly, terrifying. I think between the three of you, we can expose members of the company to enough monstrosity to desensitize them to it.”

“Or cause them to have a psychological breakdown,” Tempest said plainly. All the gathered ponies turned to stare at her. “Either way, we will know who we can and cannot send into the field.”

“We’ll try to avoid breakdowns,” Blueblood said quickly. “Finally, on the last item, we’re going to have a rotating watch on the town. I’m going to break us down into groups of four. It’s not going to be a difficult detail, and I don’t expect you to do even basic law enforcement. You’ll just hang out around town, keep an eye out for anypony suspicious, and report them to me here immediately.

“And on a final note,” Blueblood said with a brief glance towards Rainbow Dash. “This manor is now officially dry. No alcohol of any form is to be kept on the premises.”

“WHAT?!” Rainbow Dash jumped from her seat and hovered over the table, throwing all four of her legs out in protest.

“Dash,” Shining said, pulling Rainbow back into her seat with his magic. “Let him explain first.” He looked towards Blueblood. “There is an explanation, right?”

“Yes,” Blueblood replied in a weary tone. “The explanation is that it’s my fault. I’ve just sworn off drinking.” He sighed heavily. “Those of you who know me, and even those of you who are fairly new, know of my excessive drinking habits. And the undeniable fact is that if there is any alcohol in the townhouse, I will inevitably find and consume it.”

“But—” Rainbow sputtered.

“You may satisfy your own urges at the tavern,” Blueblood said. “Rainbow, I don’t care how you—” he turned to address the whole table “—or anypony else chooses to unwind, just so long as no alcohol makes it back to the manor. If I’m going to run this company properly, I can’t be constantly slammed off my flank. I’ll apologize for my general irritability in advance; Harmony knows drinking is how I de-stress.”

“Any other business?” Blueblood asked the table as he lowered his forehooves back to the floor. When he received no response, he nodded. “Ok, let’s talk about the town patrol groups.”

Week 20, Day 4, Evening

“All I’m saying,” Rainbow shouted despite the diminished noise of Berry’s only half-full tavern, “is that I think he’s letting this place get to him.”

“You’re just saying that because you can’t bring cider back to the manor anymore,” Shining retorted.

“C’mon,” Dash said, turning to the others who had gathered with them, “back me up here!”

“My opinion matters not,” Zecora said. “For it is you who is deprived of draught.”

“Back me up here Snails!” Rainbow turned to where Snails normally sat. “Uhh, right, he’s not here. Where is he anyway? He’s like… always in here.”

Everypony else at the table shrugged.

“How about you, egg—I mean Twilight?” Rainbow looked on with pleading eyes.

Twilight tentatively sipped at a glass of sarsaparilla. “I don’t drink, it’s bad for you. I’m just here because you all asked me to come.”

Dash pulled down on her cheeks with her forehooves as she slumped onto the bar. “Ugh! You’re all impossible!”

“Hello everypony,” Starlight said as she approached the group.

Shining pushed a chair out from the table. “Want to have a seat?”

Starlight shook her head “I’m afraid I’m not really welcome in the establishment at the moment.” She gestured to the bar, where Berry was giving her the stink-eye. “But if you could, please give this to Aloe when she refills your drinks.” An envelope floated from Starlight’s saddlebags to the table.

“H-hello,” Aloe said to the darkness of the alleyway she faced. “Is anypony there?” A slight breeze caused her fur to stand on end. She looked at the letter again to make sure she was in the right place. Her eyes darted around from shadow to shadow, one imagined threat to another, in building panic. Where are they? was all her frightened mind could think to ask.

“Over here,” a voice whispered from the tenebrous shadows.

Taking a wary step towards the practically palpable darkness, Aloe squinted her eyes in a vain attempt to discern any details. “I can’t see you,” she whispered back into the gloom.

“Don’t worry,” came the response. “Just walk forward.”

Swallowing the large lump that had formed in her throat, Aloe took another tentative step into the umbral alley. “Where are—”

Aloe was cut off as abnormally strong hooves pulled her to one side, stifling her screams with an inescapable grip around her muzzle. She heard the creaking of a door as she was wrenched out of the merely dim lighting and into a pitch-black building. Darkness flooded her senses, bringing equally tenebrous terror. Then she was pushed, stumbling blindly, as a door slammed shut behind her.

A single source of illumination appeared, seemingly blinding in its intensity until Aloe’s eyes adjusted. When she could finally see again, she saw Starlight lift a candle with her magic and then ignite the wick.

“You’re here right on time,” Starlight said, snuffing out her horn. “Sorry about the lack of light, but most ponies wouldn’t understand what we are about to do, so I prefer secrecy.”

“Your letter,” Aloe said in a halting voice. “Your letter said you could help me bring my sister back.”

“Yes,” Starlight said with a mirthless grin. “It did.” She circled the room and lit a few more candles, revealing two separate circles painted on the wooden floor planks.

The designs were unlike anything Aloe had ever seen before, and her gaze was drawn along the curving red lines which made up the motifs. The patterns seemed to writhe in place, and looking at the glyphs for any length of time caused her eyes to water.

“I know that you brought the items I requested,” Starlight said, holding out a hoof.

Aloe pulled out a blood-spattered collar and headband which otherwise matched the pristine ones that she wore. “Here.” She placed them into Starlight’s outstretched hoof.

“I know you’ll just say yes,” Starlight said. “But I also know that I need to ask anyway. So, are you absolutely certain you want your sister back?”

“Yes!” Aloe didn’t even hesitate.

Starlight’s smile had a false aspect to it that rose Aloe’s hackles.

“Excellent,” Starlight said, laying the bloodied articles of clothing within the center of one of the circles. “Stand there, please.” She pointed to the center of the other circle.

Aloe wasted no time in stepping onto the indicated spot. “How long will this take? Berry will get worried if I’m gone for too long.”

“Don’t worry,” Starlight said, her saccharine smile giving Aloe the exact opposite impression. “Everything will be over… very quickly.”

In the dark alley outside the building, a cat prowled. She spied a rat nibbling on a piece of refuse. She moved stealthily, using the shadows to mask her approach. The rat lifted its nose to sniff the air for a second, completely unaware of its impending doom.

Just as the cat was about to pounce and secure her dinner, a loud pony scream sounded from the nearby door, scaring the rat away and ruining her hunt.

The pained voice was horrible; it sounded like something was being killed in there.

No, it was some things—there was more than one shrieking voice.

Week 20, Day 5, Morning

“You again?” Blueblood said as Cannon Fodder walked into the drawing room and hoofed his resumé onto the table.

To Blueblood’s left, Shining let out a groan of exasperation. Tempest merely pierced the blood-red stallion with her trademark bowel-evacuation-inducing gaze.

“Yes sir!” Cannon replied with the same enthusiasm he’d shown before, when Shining had ended the previous interview with a chair smashed over Cannon’s head.

“So,” Blueblood asked while reading the list of qualifications. “You can still take a beating like a champ?”

“Yes sir!” Cannon replied again. “And now there’s an addition!”

A chair—not one of the antique ones, to Blueblood’s relief—shattered over Cannon’s head, showering splinters across the table. Tempest dropped into a fighting stance instantly, but then relaxed after seeing that it was Shining whose horn was lit and that Blueblood hadn’t flinched. When she turned her gaze back to Cannon, however, she raised an eyebrow.

Shining narrowed his eyes.

Blueblood steepled his hooves.

Cannon Fodder hadn’t been moved by the impact in the slightest; he seemed completely uninjured.

It was only then that Blueblood noticed that Cannon’s head—no, his entire body—was mildly depilated in several locations, with a network of thick-looking calluses visible under the thinned-out fur.

“Impressive,” Blueblood said, perhaps genuinely. “Tempest, see how much of a beating he can really take.”

Cannon’s smile widened as Tempest cracked her neck and vaulted the table.

Week 20, Day 5, Noon

The dining room lay on the opposite side of the manor from the drawing room. It was long but narrow, with paintings and busts lining one wall, and tall windows on the other. A table occupied the center, running almost the entire length of the room, and could easily accommodate double the company’s current complement.

“Sore fetlocks?” Blueblood asked Tempest as they entered the spacious room.

Leveling a withering glare at Blueblood, Tempest cracked her fetlock joints. “Hardly,” she replied. “Though I am impressed with that stallion’s endurance; it was like I was beating on a lump of iron.”

Sitting down at the dining room table, Blueblood grinned. “You have experience beating on iron?” he said in a sardonic tone.

“Yes,” Tempest replied, earning a shocked expression from Blueblood. “After reaching a certain level of physical ability, wood becomes too brittle of a material to practice strikes against. Even iron loses its value as a training aid after time.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, “that explains why getting slapped by you is like getting hit with a skillet.”

“Getting hit with a skillet,” Tempest said flatly. “You are also speaking from experience, I assume.” She hoofed some walnuts from a bowl and effortlessly cracked them open with one hoof.

Blushing, Blueblood put one hoof behind his head. “Ahh,” he stammered. “Let’s just say that in my more promiscuous days, a scullery maid and I disagreed on a matter of… unsolicited advances.”

“Fascinating,” Tempest said, in a tone that insinuated exactly the opposite. “Either way, his claims of unbreakable bones and general immunity to blunt force trauma were surprisingly true. I daresay that he might have a greater capacity for enduring physical punishment than even myself.”

“I doubt that. After all, Shining did put a quick end to his claim of blade-proof skin. I think he may have something against Cannon there.” Blueblood used his magic to drag a plate of fresh fruit to sit in front of him, and popped a strawberry onto his tongue. He savored the sweet tartness of its juice as he chewed. “Have you seen Starlight today?”

“No,” Tempest replied. “Not since the meeting yesterday morning.”

“She’s been acting like a ghost,” Blueblood said with a frown. “Ever since she sewed her eyes up, it’s like we’re the ones who have been blind.” A sigh escaped his lips. “What did you think about her little squad?”

“They seem competent. I am unfamiliar with their techniques, but they were certainly effective during the tavern fight. The only one of them who actually strikes me as peculiar was Sugar Belle.”

“Oh?”

“She has… an air about her. Similar to the feeling I get from Starlight, though less intense.”

“You think she’s a prognosticator as well?” Blueblood’s ears perked up.

“She does keep her eyes bandaged.”

“Interesting. Well, we’ll find out sooner or later, I suppose.” Blueblood popped some more fruit into his mouth, but spat it out and pushed the plate away as he realized it was grapes. “Sorry. Reminds me too much of the wine I’m not drinking.”

“Speaking of which, the last of the crates shipped out this morning. The manor is officially dry.”

A tear may have rolled down Blueblood’s cheek.

“Shining and I were planning to speak with this... Rivet,” Tempest said. “But first I want to go and personally inspect what kind of equipment Canterlot is distributing to their soldiers. We may be able to work with the blacksmith on improvements, or we may need to commission entirely new designs. This is assuming we receive more reinforcements from Canterlot, of course.”

“Of course,” Blueblood said. “The round trip to Canterlot will take two days or so, though.”

“Correct. I will prepare this evening and leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Do you want an escort?”

Tempest gave a small, short exhale. One might have gotten the impression that she felt it was a burden to have an escort. “I will take Twilight, Lyra, and Bon Bon. No bandits should be able to stand against us. I will tell them at the afternoon briefing.”

Week 20, Day 5, Afternoon

Starlight walked into the drawing room, much to the surprise of Blueblood and his inner circle of advisors. She wasted no time with pleasantries and upended a large saddlebag onto the table.

Twilight and Shining each raised an eyebrow in unison. Rainbow stopped throwing her lucky chip between her wings. Zecora’s mask was, as expected, completely unreadable. Tempest just continued to glare.

“What’s all this?” Blueblood asked as he looked at the items, which appeared to be guard-issue: a large cleaver-style sword, a broadsword, a mace, and a censer. They were not brand new; there were nicks, chips, scrapes, gouges, and other signs indicative of heavy use.

“Look closer,” Starlight said, grinning that damnable smile of hers.

“Where did you,” Blueblood said in a halting tone as realization dawned on him. He lifted the censer in his magic and beheld the name engraved upon it.

Moondancer

Blueblood’s eyes widened and he stared at her. “You… retrieved their gear?” He stood to his hooves, shaking. His eyes narrowed. “You went into the Ponest Dungeon,” he hissed, “by yourself?!”

“I knew that you would need their gear specifically,” Starlight said lightly. “I merely saved you having to send a squad on a round trip to Canterlot for gear that—while similar—would have been different from what Moondancer’s team used.”

“How did you survive?” Tempest demanded in a harsh tone.

“Chip,” Starlight said, magically flinging a bit into the air and knocking Rainbow’s lucky chip out of its trajectory between her wings, much to the pegasus’ alarm. “Bird,” she said, a moment before a goldfinch landed on a shrub next to the windows and started chirping loudly. “Aaand… Ditzy.”

“Ditzy what—” Blueblood stopped speaking as Ditzy walked into the drawing room carrying a tray of refreshments. While maintaining her ever-present rictus-grin, she tilted her head in confusion as she looked around with one of her eyes to see everypony staring at her.

“Muffins and juice anypony?” Ditzy asked in a nervous tone.

As Ditzy unloaded the food onto the table, Tempest glared at Starlight with an intensity that could compress coal into diamonds.

“Are you trying to tell us,” Blueblood asked, “that your prognostications are accurate enough to allow you to avoid all enemy confrontations?”

“The only other plausible explanation is that I’m in command of all of the cultists that now infest the ruins, and that I made them go down and retrieve the equipment.”

“Wait,” Blueblood said. “The ruins are infested?”

“With far more than just the Canterlot Astrological Society,” Starlight said. “Ponies from all over Equestria own telescopes, you know.”

“How many?” Blueblood’s eyes darted back and forth as he tried to do the mental arithmetic himself. He mind reeled from the staggering implications of the entire nation has been affected.

“Hundreds,” Starlight said, lighting her horn and levitating a muffin to herself. She bit into the baked good and chewed.

“If you knew all of this,” Blueblood said, his face becoming red, “then why didn’t you tell us yesterday?” He ground his teeth together loudly. “Do you find it amusing to string us along like this, risk our lives, and then spring these blasted revelations after the fact?!”

“I was busy with other things yesterday—” She sighed when she saw Blueblood draw his sword “—oh dear, I wasn’t looking forward to this part.”

“I’ll bet you weren’t!” Blueblood shouted, vaulting over the table towards Starlight and tackling her to the floor. He pressed down on her neck with both forelegs, and positioned his sword to strike.

“No!” Twilight yelled, lighting her horn. A crimson tentacle tore through a rent in the air and wrapped itself around both Blueblood and his sword, but it froze in place as Tempest’s black-armored foreleg snaked around Twilight’s neck.

“Unhoof the Prince,” Tempest commanded.

“Let go of my sister!” Shining said, lighting his horn and pressing his sword against the side of Tempest’s neck. “I won’t ask you again—” He stopped speaking when a dagger pressed against the front of his neck.

“To Blueblood, we are all employed,” Zecora said. “Stand down, so conflict we’ll avoid.”

There was a series of clicks as the barrel of Rainbow’s pistol pressed against the side of Zecora’s head. “If you so much as scratch him,” Rainbow hissed, “I’ll turn your head into a canoe.”

The Marexican stand-off was interrupted by a loud snort. Everypony who had eyes slowly turned them to where Ditzy had covered her muzzle with one hoof. A tiny titter escaped from between her lips. It was followed by a choked chuckle. Then Ditzy fell to the floor, dissolved into delirium, and hopelessly howled with convulsive cackles.

Blueblood sighed. “On three everypony?”

The entangled ponies nodded.

“One, two, three.”

Everypony very slowly, very carefully released each other from their deadly stalemate.

Blueblood approached and studied Ditzy’s hysterically thrashing figure. His mouth opened and closed several times, reminiscent of a fish out of water.

“Is she ok?” Twilight asked, staring wide-eyed at the convulsing caretaker.

“I don’t know,” Blueblood admitted with a frown. “This is the first time I’ve seen her like this—”

Ditzy abruptly stopped laughing, righted herself, saluted, then exited the drawing room with a spring in her step.

Rainbow scratched at her mane. “Uh, what just happened?”

Starlight stood. “I fear that Ditzy’s extensive service to Celestia may have… adversely affected her.”

Rainbow blinked at Starlight, completely nonplussed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that there’s more to Celestia’s… ah… status than we’ve been told… isn’t there, Prince?”

Blueblood’s pulse hammered as he turned to face Starlight. “Get out of my sight.” He felt his teeth scraping together in his mouth as he spoke through them. “If you pull something like this again, there’s nothing in Equestria that will be able to save you from my wrath.”

“You’re almost right,” Starlight said in a sad, yet knowing tone. “Nothing from Equestria will be able to spare me from your wrath.” She turned and left the room, leaving the heavy doors open behind her.

Everypony just stared at the exit to the hallway.

“Well that wasn’t ominous.” Rainbow’s voice shattered the oppressive silence like a sledgehammer liberally applied to a stained glass window.

Arc 2 Chapter 2: Beleaguering the Blacksmith

Chapter 2: Beleaguering the Blacksmith

Week 20, Day 6, Dawn

“I’ve been past Rivet’s Metalworking a few times,” Shining said to Tempest as they walked in the growing daylight. “It looked like it was about one or two steps from being condemned. I’m not sure if Blueblood is going to want us to go to Rivet for upgrades in weapon quality when he can’t even keep his own business from falling apart.”

“Nonsense.” Tempest glared straight ahead. “As a blacksmith, Rivet would have a completely different skill set than a mason or carpenter. If we do find out who is responsible for building maintenance in this town, however, we may wish to make them disappear so that somepony with actual competence can take their place.”

“That’s a joke, right?”

“I never joke,” Tempest said flatly.

Shining looked over to Tempest. “Speaking of serious things, are you going to talk about yesterday?”

“Only if there is something you wish to discuss.”

“Well yeah,” Shining said. “Because we were all ready to kill each other.”

Tempest scoffed “Hardly. Twilight was not going to kill Blueblood by merely restraining him and I was not going to kill her with a mere headlock.” She turned to Shining and pierced him with a look that was both accusatory and reprimanding. “Now, you are the one who escalated things into potentially deadly territory.” Tempest huffed wryly as she faced forward again. “You are skilled enough with a sword to know that you were not going to be able to reliably kill me with that weapon unless you had placed it differently. With what little of the blade was pressed against my neck, I doubt you would have been able to cut down to the jugular. And I know that you know that. But still, you drawing a deadly weapon laid the precedent for others to do the same.”

Shining swallowed. “So, I almost got everypony killed when I—”

“Like I told Blueblood last night,” Tempest interrupted, “from my vantage point, I was able to see that Zecora purposefully had the back of her knife pressed to your neck, not the cutting edge. And Miss Dash,” Tempest huffed again. “Miss Dash failed to load her weapon before threatening Zecora with it.”

Shining breathed out a sigh of relief. “So,” he said, “nopony was actually trying to kill each other.”

“Except for Blueblood.”

“Yeah,” Shining said. “He had the same look in his eyes yesterday as he did when he killed Neighsay.”

“While I cannot speak from personal experience, as you can, it was clear enough what he intended when he pinned Starlight to the floor and readied to strike. I later voiced my opinions regarding his apparent willingness to dispatch her.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Tempest replied. “Blueblood is aware of the possible consequences to company morale, but he stood by his choice. Starlight treated us like pawns in a chess match, and he has made it quite clear what the consequences will be should she do it again.”

“You really think that’s what she’s doing?”

“Yes,” Tempest growled. “It appears that she has much more knowledge of the current overall situation than any of us. And she controls the flow of information to ensure that we act in specific ways.” Her eyes narrowed. “I personally despise that she chooses to use her ability in this manner. She could easily use it to help us in our efforts, but instead uses it to play these petty games.” She turned to look directly into Shining’s eyes. “Blueblood would have been right to kill her.”

“But didn’t you just say you’d have advised Blueblood against killing her?”

“What is right seldom agrees with the reality of sudden shortages in both marepower and morale.”

Shining looked away from Tempest’s scrutinizing gaze, choosing instead to focus on the muddy road. “I’m definitely not happy with her. But I don’t think I’d go so far as to say that it would be doing the right thing to kill her.”

“Open up your eyes,” Tempest said, not unkindly. “She is playing with the lives of ponies. That includes the life of your sister.”

His eyes shot up to meet hers.

“Yes.” Tempest stopped walking, bringing them both to a halt. “That is how you should be feeling about this situation.” She nodded her head to the side. “Later, though; we are here.”

Shining frowned at the dilapidated structure before them. Its back half was tilted to the point where it seemed to be in serious danger of collapse, and its front didn’t look too much better. A sign proclaiming “Rivet’s Metalworking” hung at an angle, from only one chain.

“Your selflessness is an admirable trait,” Tempest said. “But do not let it blind you to your own needs, and the needs of those closest to you.”

After thinking for a few moments, Shining turned to Tempest. “I appreciate the advice, though I can’t help but feel you’re being… uncharacteristically open.”

“Do not read too much into it,” Tempest replied. “I just hate watching ponies make the same exact mistakes I’ve made in the past.” She walked up to the rotted wooden door on the front of the building and knocked. “It is like watching one of the many wrecks of the friendship express, before they decommissioned that death-trap.”

Week 20, Day 6, Morning

“Do you believe me now, Twilight?” Starlight used her magic to spread jam on a piece of toast.

Twilight sighed. “Oh, I believe that he’s going to want you killed now. But what I don’t understand is why you’re provoking him into doing it!” She slammed her hoof down on the dining room table, causing her orange juice to slosh outside the glass.

Taking a bite out of the toast, Starlight shrugged. “It has to be this way. Despite what your brother and miss giant-grumpy-pants are discussing right now, while I do know a lot about what is going on, I don’t really have control over it. And I am not playing petty games!”

Twilight just sat and glared at Starlight.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Starlight’s tone was defensive. “I’m serious.” She took another bite of toast. “There are a ton of things that I have absolutely no control over. There are events I’ve thought of trying to change, but every time I look at the outcomes, I find that my actions would cause chains of effect to just swing back around and make things ten times worse. So, I’ve decided to limit myself to reverting what’s already been changed. It’s less stress and a lot less work than trying to write an entirely new outcome.” Finishing her toast, she used her magic to pull her glass of juice closer.

“And just how long did you look at all of these other outcomes?” Twilight said.

“Long enough to know that I can’t prevent my own death,” Starlight replied glumly. “You remember when you came to see me about the necromancer?”

“Yeah. It was the first time I’d seen you since… since it happened to you.”

Starlight sipped her juice. “Well, that was when I finally accepted my fate, as soon as you walked through the door. Before then, I spent every waking hour just trying to find a way to… not die.” She frowned. “You have no idea what it’s like to be able to see yourself, before you even start, wasting weeks of your life looking into the future. But when you showed up, to tell me what I already knew, I decided to do my part to save our world from destruction.”

Twilight rubbed a hoof on her temple. “That sounds a little grandiose, even for you, Starlight.”

Starlight shook her head slowly. “Nevertheless, it’s true. Things are happening now that will determine the fate of all of Equestria. Everypony is a cog in the giant machine that moves things forward. My role is relatively minor, but yours—” a sigh escaped her lips “—isn’t. I’ll be long gone when your… your sacrifice… becomes the turning point.” With that, she finished her juice and got up to leave.

Twilight watched as Starlight left. “Just tell me one thing.”

Starlight stopped.

“Who kills you?”

“If I tell you, it will change things… and not for the better.” Starlight sidestepped as Tempest entered the dining room, exchanging frowns with her.

Starlight held a shaking hoof over her heart. “Not for the better, at all.”

Week 20, Day 6, Morning

Shining shook his head at the ever-slumping interior of Rivet’s Metalworking. The sagging roof was hard enough to look at from the outside; now within, he saw jagged lances of sunlight streaming down from on high, illuminating birds that flapped between nests in the rafters. However, much to his relief, the actual blacksmithing setup seemed to be in top condition. A sturdy, mahogany weapon rack comprising much of one wall displayed a gleaming array of freshly-forged death-dealing equipment. The furnace, anvils, and workbenches shone in a manner suggesting they were regularly cleaned and polished, resulting in a very professional workspace despite the building’s advanced state of disrepair.

Rivet himself eyed them warily as they approached. He was a large, very muscular, dark-orange coated earth pony who had an impressive amount of dark stubble poking through his muzzle fur. Shining noted an air of irritation in both his stiff motions and guarded bearing, as if he was averse to being distracted from practicing his craft.

“What do you need?” Rivet was straight to business, apparently not one for wasting time with idle banter or friendly greeting.

Shining had agreed to let Tempest take the lead. But he furrowed his brow and glanced at her as a moment of hesitation stretched into uncomfortable silence. Tempest, in a manner quite uncharacteristic of her normal behavior, stared at Rivet with what appeared to be mild confusion, rather than her typical disapproving scowl.

Rivet returned the stare. “Something wrong with my face?”

“Apologies,” Tempest said, quite unapologetically. “I thought you looked familiar for a moment.” She proceeded to unload the saddlebag of weapons they’d brought onto one of the workbenches. “We need you to assess these.”

Rivet grunted and walked over to the pile. He picked up Lemon Hearts’ cleaver-style sword. His critical eye ran up and down the length of the blade several times. “Shoddy work.” He slid a hoof along the cutting edge, where it caught on several chips and dents. “This lump of scrap is in bad shape, but I’m willing to bet it hasn’t seen action more than twice.”

“I believe you are correct,” Tempest replied.

Reaching up, Rivet hung the blade by its crossguard from one of several leather straps that trailed down from the room’s primary—or perhaps only remaining—support beam. He knocked a hoof against the blade and turned his head so that his ear was right up next to it. He repeated the process a few times, striking the blade in a different location each time.

“Yeah,” Rivet said, “there’s your problem.”

“Substandard quality, then,” Tempest said harshly.

“That’s putting it lightly.” Rivet tapped the blade again. “Bad temper. Tartarus, I’m hesitant to say that this is even made from a proper steel alloy.” He made a face at the cleaver, as if it had made a disparaging comment about his heritage. “One thing is for sure, though; whoever did the original forging needs to go back and apprentice under somepony who knows what they’re doing.”

Shining tried to angle himself to get a better view. “How can you tell?”

Rivet continued his aural inspection. “The sound is all wrong; the metal is too soft.” He pointed a hoof at the large divots which were prevalent in the blade edge. “I’m sure you noticed all these deformations. Some of the deeper ones might still be there if the blade were forged and tempered properly, but they wouldn’t be anywhere near as severe as what I’m seeing here. This is more a hunk of molded iron instead of a proper steel blade.”

Shining felt heat in his face. “This blade was provided by the Equestrian Guard.”

“Yeah.” Rivet put a hoof to his chin. “It definitely makes sense now. They feel like they don’t really need quality when they’re outfitting hundreds or thousands of ponies at a time. It’s pretty common practice nowadays for them to just go with this lousy mass-produced drop-forge garbage. They probably figure the Guard don’t even face real threats half of the time anyhow.”

The warmth in Shining’s face intensified. He wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment, rage, or both. Guard issue weapons were supposed to be top of the line; he’d never had any problems with—

“Give me your sword, son.” Rivet hadn’t seemed to notice Shining’s silent flusterment, instead having extended a requesting hoof.

Shining begrudgingly unsheathed his own sword and hoofed it over to Rivet.

Hanging Shining’s sword up on a strap next to the one holding Lemon’s, Rivet commenced another quick but thorough examination. “I can already tell, from the hilt artistry and the sheen on the blade, that this is a superior piece of work.” Rivet struck Lemon’s blade with a hoof, and then Shining’s.

“The pitch is different,” Tempest observed.

“Right you are,” Rivet said. “The young stallion’s sword here is—” He paused, then moved his ear closer and tapped the blade a few more times. His brows furrowed in concentration as he continued to hit along the sword’s length. “Saying that it is just a much better alloy would be the understatement of the year. An honest-to-Celestia master-smith made this.” After a few more hoof impacts, Rivet’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, my. And they added some magical enchantments to this beauty as well.”

Rivet continued to carefully listen to the reverberating metal. “This is a higher quality item than even something a high-ranking guard officer would be entitled to. There is earth pony magic embedded in this blade. It’s a technique that’s only employed by earth pony master smiths.” A few more taps, and Rivet grinned. “There’s a unicorn enchantment on the blade as well.” The grin widened. “Let me guess, you’re a personal bodyguard for a member of the royal family.”

“How did—”

“This kind of quality comes at a price,” Rivet said, cutting Shining off. “Only the extravagance afforded by royalty can or would spend the bits to make a blade like this.”

Shining scrutinized the weapon that had been given to him when he’d been promoted to Blueblood’s personal meat-shield. “It can’t possibly cost that much.”

Rivet grunted. “If I were to wager, I’d say that a blade with the same enchantments as yours would set the crown back around… fifty-five hundred bits.”

If Shining had been drinking anything, he would have immediately spit it out. “Fifty-five… hundred?”

“That would be for just a plain blade, mind you.” Rivet began to point to different parts of the sword. “With this decorative hilt, the finely etched gilding on both it and the blade itself, not to mention the inset gems, which do appear to be flawless.” He took a step back and looked at the blade the way a pony would look at a painting in a gallery. “With all of the artistry, this weapon could easily sell for ten times the price of a similarly enchanted blade.”

“Fifty-five… thousand?” Shining was surprised he’d managed to actually say the words without stuttering. He looked at his weapon with newly discovered wonder.

Meanwhile, Rivet looked completely unaffected by the number. “Eh, closer to seventy-five, really. That’s silver inlay, and this intricate runework is just exquisite. It’s probably representative of at least a few hundred marehours between the various component parts.”

Shining Armor stared dumbly at the sword that Blueblood had given to him without pomp or ceremony. “Seventy…” His breath hitched in his throat. So much for not stuttering. “Seventy-five thousand?”

I’ve been hacking things to pieces with something that costs more than my parents’ house!

Rivet struck Lemon’s cleaver again. “By comparison, the most the crown could have spent on this piece of junk is a whopping hundred and fifty bits.” Sighing, Rivet hit the cleaver again. “And more than likely, less than that. It’s such a shame, really. Instead of wasting millions on pointless extravagance like the Grand Galloping Gala, they could at least make sure that their soldiers have quality equipment that doesn’t endanger their lives in combat—”

His words dying in his throat, Rivet looked to the cleaver, then down to the floor. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Somepony died because of the substandard quality of this gear?”

“Correct,” Tempest said. “We lost four ponies.”

Rivet unhooked Lemon’s cleaver and dropped it unceremoniously onto the bench, as if it had personally offended him. Perhaps it had, by merely existing. “You have my condolences.”

“They are appreciated,” Tempest said. “But we are more interested in preventing future occurrences like this.”

Rivet pointed to the weapons rack. “Even five hundred bits would be sufficient for me to make you a fresh weapon, forged from proper steel. I consider it a point of pride that I have never made, and will never make a blade that would easily dent or chip during regular usage.”

Tempest looked back to Shining’s weapon. “Tell me about the earth pony enchantments you mentioned. Surely you must be capable of using your own abilities to create such an effect.”

“Yes,” Rivet said. “The end result would be an increase in both the durability and efficacy of the item. The costs would be manageable, at around one thousand bits to enchant an existing item.”

Shining’s blood went cold at the number. For the cost of my weapon, fifty members of the Equestrian Guard could have been equipped with actual enchanted blades. And Moondancer’s team… The wonder that Shining had felt regarding the quality of his sword melted away, leaving only a vile feeling of contempt and disgust for the waste its very creation represented.

Tempest had moved closer and was inspecting Shining’s sword. “I doubt you can perform unicorn enchantments.”

Rivet crossed his forelegs. “I know the methods. And the unicorn—” he coughed conspicuously into a hoof “—need not be alive, nor even attached to their horn, for me to be able to make use of it. Just have to grind it up and inlay the powder into some etched runes.”

Shining felt his gorge rise at the suggestion, yet Rivet placed a hoof to his chin as if in blissful contemplation. “However, if we’re talking about bigger jobs, it’d probably be less trouble just to hire a unicorn assistant and direct them in the proper techniques.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, even then, exotic materials and extra labor would be required; the additional cost would be around three thousand bits.”

Tempest intensified her scowl. “While that seems rather exorbitant, it does line up with what you quoted as the base price for a weapon similar to what Mister Armor carries.”

“I’d quote you lower if I could,” Rivet replied. “Honestly, I’d enjoy the work. But it gets expensive when you’re mixing more than one type of magic.”

“Interesting,” Tempest said. “Then you could also perform pegasus enchantments.”

Rivet tightened his lips. “Yes. I've done it before. The resulting elemental effects are very impressive. But it does require powdered pegasus feathers, assistant or not. You prolly wouldn’t be interested; trying to apply all three enchantments would be incredibly expensive, prohibitively so.”

“Just say it,” Tempest said flatly.

“Six thousand, and that's on top of the other costs.” Rivet weathered the heat of Tempest’s increasingly intense gaze in a manner that was testament to how he managed to endure working near a blast furnace all day. “Plus, I would need at least one, preferably two assistants. The first would have to be a unicorn, to prevent the combined enchantments from unraveling. A pegasus assistant would make the whole process easier as well.”

Shining stepped forward. “With all due respect, we’re interested in your skills, not in growing your pool of apprentices. Why do we have to pay six thousand for an earth, unicorn, and pegasus enchantment, when we could just get a pegasus enchant?

Rivet shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Enchantments need to be layered properly, or they will just unravel. You have to understand, the different types of pony magic are very peculiar as to what they will bond with. Earth pony magic will stick to plain minerals and metals. Unicorn magic will only stick to something that already has inherent magical properties, or things that have already been enchanted, typically by earth pony magic. As for pegasus magic…” He grimaced. “Working with pegasus magic is like trying to herd cats. It wants to do pretty much anything other than stick to other things. You need to trap it, cage it, and then anchor it in place with unicorn magic.” He shrugged. “And it’s feisty, just like a cat. If you lose your hold on it, and it tries to escape, there’s a good chance that it’ll tear you up just for trying to keep it from getting away.

Shining looked at Tempest, and frowned at the interest he saw reflected in the cant of her chin. “That sounds needlessly complicated, and risky.”

“If it were easy,” Rivet said, “everypony would have enchanted gear. I consider myself pretty skilled, and while I can manage unicorn enchantments on my own, the only way to safely apply pegasus enchantments is with an assistant or two. One would pin the pegasus magic in place while the other would prevent the other enchantments from unraveling while I finish binding it all together.”

“Do you have any prospective assistants in mind?” Shining asked.

“I’ve been looking, and have found a few prospects. Orphans in need of a profession, mostly.”

“Orphans.” Tempest took a step towards Rivet, scrutinizing him as she had done when they first arrived.

Rivet noticed and returned the probing gaze. “You’re eyeing me up again, and I don’t much care for it.”

Raising a forehoof onto one of the workstools, Tempest undid the straps on, and removed one of her gauntlets. She hoofed it over to Rivet. “Tell me what you make of this.”

Looking singularly unimpressed, Rivet hung the gauntlet on a strap and began a cursory visual inspection. “Why do you soldier ponies always insist on painting your armor black?”

Tempest regarded Rivet coolly. “The armor is not painted.”

“What?” Rivet looked at the gauntlet, closer this time. Scraping a hoof across its surface resulted in a light line of abraded keratin, instead of flakes of paint. As his hoof struck the metal several times and he brought himself closer and closer to it, his ear twitched in faint recognition. His eyes widened and he looked over at Tempest as if somepony had just walked over his grave.

“Who… who are you?” There was a quaver in Rivet’s voice. His previous air of surly, yet professional confidence had vanished like foggy breath on a cold day.

Tempest took one step towards Rivet. “Tell me your assessment.”

Rivet looked at the hanging gauntlet like it was a venomous snake. He swallowed loudly. “Storm Steel. Without a doubt.”

“Ah.” Tempest took another deliberate step forward. “You know of it.”

Slowly, as if dealing with a predator that might spring at any moment, Rivet stepped backwards. “I… worked with some… master smiths, years ago.” He licked his lips nervously. “But… the Storm King… took both of them, and their techniques from Equestria.”

Shining watched in shocked confusion as Tempest slowly backed Rivet into a corner of the workshop, the terror on the smith’s face growing by the second.

Tempest stared into Rivet’s eyes. “The Storm King was obsessed with maintaining his image. Anything proprietary had to be kept strictly in-house. And whenever he discovered something that he thought would fit, he would first ruthlessly acquire it… then make sure that no one else could.”

“Please—” Rivet’s voice cracked as Tempest bore down on him like a slow-motion avalanche. “Don’t—”

“I didn’t remember the name immediately, but the likeness is unmistakable; you are truly the Rivet they spoke of. If you are the son of Bolt and Pin, the master metalworkers who first synthesized storm steel—” Tempest knelt, and bowed her head. “Then you have my most sincere condolences.”

Shining watched Rivet’s expression morph from one of fear to one of shock. His gaze lowered to the floor. “They’re… they’re dead?”

“Yes,” Tempest replied. “Once the Storm King was confident that his own smiths had learned the technique for creating storm steel from them…”

The thought turned Shining’s stomach. He’d seen—and caused—more than his share of death. But family was irreplaceable, and killing loyal noncombatants was dirty pool.

Tempest furrowed her brow. “My telling you this will not bring your parents back. But it might give you some solace to know that the Storm King is dead.”

Rivet trembled, either from sadness, rage, or both. “I always thought… that maybe… I’d see them again, somehow.” He looked up from the floor.

“I knew your parents.” Tempest locked eyes with Rivet. “You resemble Bolt the most, but… you have Pin’s eyes.”

“How did they die?”

“I do not know.” Tempest stood. “I was away, on the campaign to subjugate Mount Aris, when it happened.” She looked back to the dangling gauntlet. “I would have advised the Storm King against it, had I been there. I often told your parents that it was dangerous to acquiesce to his demands to teach their secrets to his smiths, rather than to continue to create for him.

“I reiterated my concerns to them before I left for Aris. I don’t know why they finally gave in. Perhaps they felt they would be permitted to return home if they were no longer needed.” Her gaze hardened. “Or perhaps they were tired of being his slaves.”

Tempest reached into her chestplate. When she withdrew her hoof, it held a small stone orb. She held it out to Rivet.

“What is this?” Rivet carefully took hold of the trinket. He turned it over in his grip, carefully examining it.

Tempest glared at the orb. “The Storm King met his end when he was petrified and sent hurtling from a high-altitude airship. He shattered upon impact.” She pointed a hoof. “That is his right eye. The left was not recoverable.”

Rivet stared at the orb. One side clearly had an iris and pupil. “How did you get this? Unless—” He looked up at Tempest.

“Since it happened—”

“You killed the Storm King, didn’t you?”

“—I’ve kept it as a reminder.”

“You did.”

“Do with it what you will.”

“If you killed him, then you have my—”

“No.” Tempest hadn’t shouted, but the force behind the word halted Rivet mid-sentence. “Never thank me. And do not dare to forgive me.” Tempest’s eyes burned like coals. “I did not kill the Storm King because of what he did to your parents, or because of what he did to countless other innocents. I was deeply involved in far too many of his schemes, planned and executed too many campaigns in his name. Never will I be able to claim that I wasn’t a willing party to the carnage he wrought. This token I have presented to you does nothing to make up for what you, or your family, has lost.”

Rivet narrowed his eyes at the orb. “But it’s a start.” He dropped the stone eye onto the floor, and brought his hoof down hard enough to pulverize it. When he raised his hoof, only a fine gray powder remained. “Good riddance.”

“Yes, just a start.” Tempest reached up to the dangling gauntlet, grabbed it, and placed it on one of the workbenches. She then removed her other gauntlet.

Rivet crossed his forelegs. “What are you doing?”

Tempest placed her other gauntlet down, and began to undo the straps which held her platemail in place. “Removing my armor.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

“After I killed the Storm King, his minions violently expressed their displeasure regarding my actions. I was forced to use his own flagship to lay waste to his fleet of dirigibles. His entire fighting force was obliterated in the ensuing conflict. I hunted down the remnants, and made certain that none survived. All of their storm steel equipment, and all of the storm steel used in the construction of those dirigibles, either burned in the ensuing wrecks, or sank to the bottom of the South Luna Ocean. As for the flagship itself, a diminutive associate of mine took command of it and left the region, headed westward, for lands unknown.”

Tempest finished placing the last metal plate onto the workbench. “This is all of the storm steel that remains in Equestria. It is your parent’s legacy.”

She glanced towards Rivet again, before turning back to the pile of dark metal. “As it was never mine to begin with, I am returning it.”

Rivet walked to the workbench and carefully scrutinized one of the plates. He blinked, then pulled out a loupe, fitted it into his eye, and examined the metal very closely. He finally looked up, astonishment written across his face. “How long did it take them to make this particular suit of armor?”

“Three months from when I requested it.” Tempest stared at the metal plates. “They delivered it to me right before the Aris campaign. The Storm King had been most displeased that they were taking so long, especially when they claimed that they were unable to work on any other items for his army during that time. I was surprised that the process for design alteration was so lengthy.”

“That’s because it should have only taken them one month to both redesign and create a full suit of armor to fit you,” Rivet said.

Tempest swiftly turned her gaze back to Rivet. “Explain.”

Lifting a single plate, Rivet turned it ever so slowly, until the light caught the faintest hint of designs inlaid into the metal. “Have you ever noticed this patterning before?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I almost missed it, myself. Hard to find unless you know to look for it. This… this is not a rushed or forced job: the very shape of each individual plate, the precise fitting, the subtle nuances in the design, these tiny inlaid runes that are only visible from certain angles, and the gracefully hidden filigree along the edges; all of these things show a level of care and effort that could not exist in something created under any form of duress.”

Rivet placed the plate carefully back onto the workbench. “If I were to somehow create a suit of armor that compared to the quality of this, I would gladly retire.”

Rivet locked eyes with Tempest.

“This suit… is a magnum opus.”

Tempest’s eyes widened in the closest approximation to shock that Shining had ever seen from her.

“Regardless of what you’ve done, real or imagined, they made a career-defining suit of armor for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the last suit they ever wanted to make.” Rivet ran a hoof lightly along one of the plates. “It would be a crime against the craft itself to melt this down, or to even try to refit it for another individual. But, more importantly to me, since they chose to make this specifically for you, it would go against their wishes for anyone else to have it.”

Tempest opened her mouth, but then closed it, seemingly at a loss for words.

“They must have thought very highly of you,” Rivet said.

“I… cannot fathom why,” Tempest finally managed. “Why… they would deign to bestow such an honor upon me.”

“Maybe they saw something good in you.” Rivet looked at Tempest, as if he were trying to see that very same quality. “Something… decent, perhaps.”

Tempest looked at Rivet as if he’d suffered brain damage. “Nothing I did in the Storm King’s employ could be considered even remotely decent.”

“You said you warned them,” Rivet said. “How many other seemingly small or insignificant things did you do? Even the faintest light brings hope in darkness. Obviously it was enough for them to do this.”

Tempest stared silently at the armor.

Rivet tapped one of the plates. “I’ll tell you right now, that there is already an earth pony enchantment on this. I’ll bet you’ve never had to polish out any scratches, or repair any dings or dents?”

“Correct,” Tempest said. “I always assumed it was because I wasn’t utilizing my full strength in combat.”

Shining, who was quite uncomfortable with sharing what should have been a private moment between Tempest and Rivet, had been slowly backing towards the front door. He halted upon hearing Tempest’s statement. “Wait.” Shining looked askance at her. “You’re telling me… that you’ve been taking it easy on our missions?”

“More like grudging restraint,” Tempest replied. “Knowing that this was the only extant storm steel armor in all of Equestria, I was loath to risk permanent damage to it.”

His head threatening to go completely sideways, Shining stared at Tempest’s statuesque build and rippling musculature. “Why do you even bother with armor?”

“I have enough scars. I do not need to add to them.” Tempest gave Shining a sharp glare, which caused him to look away to focus on the armor itself.

Rivet looked up from the plates. “Since I have a unicorn assistant in mind, you could leave the armor with me. If you give me one, maybe two weeks, I will have a unicorn enchantment layered on top of what is already there.”

Tempest turned her glare on him. “I’ve already explained this; you owe me nothing.”

“Oh, I know,” Rivet said. “That’s why you’re going to pay me to do it. You somehow think that you owe me. So, you can repay that debt with your patronage. In addition to me needing the business—” He gently ran a hoof along one of the plates again “—working on something my parents made… might be like spending time with them again.”

Tempest nodded, then opened her saddlebag and reached inside. “Your proposal is… acceptable.”

Shining took a closer look at one of the plates. “You’re sure that you want him to work with this… masterpiece? You both just said that everyone who knew the secret to creating it is dead. Can it even be replaced if something goes wrong?”

Tempest fished a lumpy sack from her saddlebags. “It likely cannot be replaced if damaged or destroyed. But I am more than willing to leave that in the hooves of the heir to the storm steel legacy.” She opened the sack, revealing an assortment of gems, one of which—

“That’s the something-hedron that the shambler dropped.” Shining’s voice was tinged with what was now becoming habitual confusion. “Why do you have it?”

“Trapezohedron. And when I first joined the company, the Prince made it well known that he was having issues unloading the gemstones acquired during previous missions. I’ve been buying all of them from him since then, at cost.”

Shining stared at the massive gem. “But Blueblood said that that particular gem was worth—”

“Thirty-five hundred,” Tempest said, hoofing the trapezohedron over to Rivet. Several emeralds and sapphires joined the enigmatic gem. “Together the gems are priced at six thousand. That should cover both my gauntlets and the armor.”

Rivet nodded, collected the gems, and took them to the till.

“How could you possibly afford to buy up all of his gems?” Shining asked.

Tempest released a well-practiced, exasperated sigh. “I was the top general for a profit-driven warlord for years, I had unrestricted access to the treasury vault on his flagship, and all of that was before I cast him over the side of said flagship like an anchor without a chain. Suffice it to say, I am not working for the Prince because I need the money.”

“You being loaded does explain all those exotic teas you drink.” Shining watched as Rivet threw the weapons they’d brought with them into a smelting crucible. “But, more to the point, I think we can safely report back that Rivet will be able to supply our company members with equipment that won’t break as soon as somepony looks at it.”

Arc 2 Chapter 3: Replenishing the Ranks

Chapter 3: Replenishing the Ranks

Week 20, Day 7, Dawn

Blueblood stumbled into the drawing room, blearily rubbing sleep from his eyes as he took his seat at the massive planning table.

He glanced over to where Tempest was already seated, with what he considered to be a disturbingly relaxed look upon her features. She appeared to be nearing the end of her breakfast. Blueblood could smell the lingering fragrance of some exotic tea wafting from a saucered cup, and watched as she ate what appeared to be a lemon-poppyseed scone.

Ditzy placed a bowl of spiced oats down in front of Blueblood, tilting her head in response to his massive frown and half-mast eyes. Her own rictus grin remained constant even as she poured him a generous helping of orange juice.

Blueblood looked with disdain at the food and drink laid out before him. His foreleg squirmed.

He wanted a real drink.

Badly.

Meanwhile, Twilight shuffled in and accepted a plate of apples for her breakfast. She gave a hearty thanks to Ditzy and took a sip of juice, before starting on one of the fruits.

Still only half awake, Blueblood was distracted by Tempest’s rippling physique, his sleep-addled mind noting that something seemed different with her today. One of his eyebrows raised as he suddenly realized that it was the fact that he could actually see said physique.

While a normal pony’s instinctual desire would be to turn away abashedly, Blueblood continued to eye the bulging contours. “Tempest.” His tone contained equal parts of irritation and confusion. “Where’s your armor?”

“At the blacksmith’s,” she replied, in a confoundingly light tone, spraying crumbs as she spoke. “Rivet appears to be quite competent at his craft. I am of the opinion that we should use some of our heirloom influence to bolster his business.” She sipped her tea.

“Well then,” Blueblood said, slightly surprised. He warily eyed his own oats. “Just don’t make too many commitments. I’m already spending a bunch of favors to look into fixing up Berry’s Tavern.”

“Of course,” Tempest replied, sipping her tea contentedly again.

“Ditzy!” Blueblood cringed at the loudness of his own voice.

“Yes sir!” Ditzy exclaimed, executing a proper salute for probably the first time.

“How many applicants do we have for this morning?” he asked.

“Ten!”

Blueblood expelled a long, drawn out sigh. Then he inhaled and sighed again.

Twilight looked at him askance.

As she finished her tea, Tempest’s contented expression compressed down into her more standard glare. “Start sending them in, Ditzy.”

Blueblood allowed his face to fall to the table with a clunk. His muzzle narrowly avoided his oats. “I really don’t want to do this today,” he groaned.

“You have been sober for less than a week,” Tempest said with overbearing reproach. “I would think that you had more constitution than that.”

“Oh,” Blueblood said, pushing the oats away, “I’m not dying. I just wish I were.”

He lifted his head as a fully-armored earth pony mare entered through the double doors close behind Ditzy. Her armor consisted of a bucket-helmet and chainmail, with a white tabard draped over it. A stylized sun with a... decidedly non-equine face was emblazoned on the front of the tabard. She was armed with a small round shield and longsword. Her shield shared the same sun emblem as her tabard.

Blueblood used his magic to grab the resumé that Ditzy placed onto the drawing room table. “Your name,” he said, “is… Solmare?”

“Yes!” the mare replied jovially. “I am a warrior of the sun!” She reared up on the tips of her hind hooves and thrust both forehooves skyward. “I have come to these lands to seek my very own sun!”

Blueblood blinked. Then he blinked again.

“Praise the sun!” she shouted.

He really wanted that drink. “Continue without me Tempest,” Blueblood said, standing up. “I… need a moment.” He grumbled as he walked past Twilight, the beaming Solmare, and then out of the room.

Twilight raised an eyebrow and watched Blueblood leave. “Where’s he going?”

“To turn in his three-day sobriety token, no doubt,” Tempest said flatly. “Back to the matter at hoof, Twilight.”

“Even with Blueblood gone?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” Tempest boomed. “Solmare—” Tempest furrowed her brow as she read the resumé, which was written in a flowing script and somehow managed to be laden with purple prose “—your qualifications seem to be… ambiguous, at best.”

“My abilities are hard to quantify,” Solmare replied, in a disturbingly buoyant tone. She held up a hoof and a shortspear-sized bolt of lightning crackled into existence in her grasp.

“How?” Twilight rose and put two hooves on the table. “You’re an earth pony! How can you wield lightning like a pegasus? And how did you even generate it without being a unicorn?”

“I create these holy bolts through the strength of my convictions,” Solmare said, allowing the bolt of energy to dissipate and lowering her hoof.

“Interesting,” Tempest said, perhaps genuinely. “Ditzy, standard contract, show her to the barracks.”

Ditzy obliged, leading Solmare from the room.

“Should we really be continuing the morning interviews without Blueblood?” Twilight asked.

“Of course.” Tempest’s voice rumbled like a thunderstorm. “The Prince’s overreaction to that slightly eccentric sun-worshiper was just due to his sudden self-inflicted sobriety… Probably.”

“Well,” Twilight said, “he was muttering something about it being ‘too damned early for this.’”

“The Prince does appear to have been sleep deprived these last few days,” Tempest said in a guarded tone. “And I will admit to hearing… odd noises coming from the vicinity of his quarters after the sun sets.”

“Probably just him and… Ametrine.” Twilight shuddered slightly.

Tempest raised an eyebrow. “So, you know that the two of them are engaged in intimate activity, then.”

Twilight’s cheeks reddened. “You knew?”

“Yes,” Tempest replied in a tone decidedly flatter than the surface of the drawing room table.

“But… how can you be comfortable with that?”

“I informed the Prince about my reservations. But he is a grown stallion, and is free to make whatever mistakes he wishes.”

Twilight threw her hooves out for emphasis “But he risks both physical and mental corruption by being in such close contact with… her.”

“Your concern comes far too late.”

“What do you mean?”

Tempest spared an unthreatening glance towards Twilight. “During your expedition to Sweet Apple Acres, there was an incident. While I was present, my comprehension of what happened is limited. I believe that eldritch energy from the comet reacted unfavorably with the viewing window, and the subsequent explosion—”

“Explosion?!”

“—transferred something from the table and into the Prince. The Prince’s eye already held the same color as what blew up the window when mixed with what left it. Starlight focused her own eldritch energies into the Prince, in an attempt to force out the color and prevent him from also exploding. She succeeded, but that odd color jumped into Starlight instead. Apparently, the saturation of eldritch energies left him with some… physical side effects as well.”

“Such as?” Twilight pressed.

“I am not going to explain further at this time,” Tempest said with a hint of impatience. “Back to business. Solmare has demonstrated an ability I have not seen in earth ponies before. But, by your own admission, the breadth of your studies has been quite liberal. I am curious as to your opinion on her.”

“She sure was cheery.”

“Indeed. A little too much for my tastes. But that does little to explain her abnormal abilities.”

“I honestly have no idea. She insisted it was through the ‘strength of her convictions,’ but I’ve never seen or read about earth ponies being able to do any magic that isn’t directly tied to their physical ability, or to the land or materials they work. And I didn’t see or sense any kind of magical artifacts on her.”

“She is a conundrum then,” Tempest said. “Perhaps she may reveal her secrets when we see her in action.”

“Maybe.” Twilight didn’t strike Tempest as sounding entirely convinced, but in the ensuing silence, neither of them pressed the matter. “I suppose we should call in the next applicant.”

“Agreed,” Tempest said. “Next!”

The mauve unicorn filly had to stand on her hind legs to place the resumé onto the drawing room table.

“Too young,” Tempest boomed.

“You’d probably be better off playing war than actually participating in it,” Twilight said, not unkindly.

“Ummm.” Twilight cringed as the muscular mare brandished her sword-hilt at them, clenching the bladed edge of the weapon firmly in her mouth.

“It appears that you do not know how to properly hold a sword,” Tempest said. “You have the physique, but obviously are unskilled. Join a militia somewhere, get some experience. We don’t have the time or resources to train you from scratch.”

“Your resumé says you are fearless,” Tempest said coldly.

“You will never meet a braver stallion!” The applicant declared haughtily.

Twilight cast a sidelong glance to Tempest. She could tell from the slim smile on Tempest’s face what was about to happen, and scooched her chair in.

“I see.” Tempest rose to her hooves. She slowly walked behind Twilight and around the side of the drawing room table.

Beads of sweat became visible on the stallion’s forehead.

“If you are so bold—” Tempest slowly approached, her muscles visibly tensing like those of a predatory animal rearing to pounce “—then you shouldn’t be scared—” she quickly placed her muzzle right in front of his, and bored into his eyes with her harshest glare “—of little. Old. Me.”

The sound of liquid pattering on the floor heralded a series of gasping sobs as the stallion was reduced to a blubbering mess. “Please don’t hurt me!” he wailed.

“Ditzy,” Tempest said. “Drag this coward out of my sight.” She wrinkled her nose. “And get a mop.”

As Ditzy dragged the stallion away, Tempest sneered. “Pathetic.”

“I highly doubt that you and your pregnant wife would make good mercenaries,” Tempest said to the doughy couple. “Go back to your bakery.”

“Please do,” Twilight said. “This town desperately needs a viable starch alternative to muffintack.”

“Ditzy, you’re already a member of the company.”

“No, we don’t have a dental plan,” Twilight said.

“Especially since the closest pony we had to a dentist was, ironically, eaten by a giant toothy horror,” Tempest added.

Week 20, Day 7, Late Morning

“How many applicants has that been?” Twilight asked.

“Eight,” Tempest replied. “Only one of which warranted consideration,” she said with a hint of disgust. “Blueblood is going to need to expand his recruitment network if we are already scraping the bottom of the barrel here.”

“Well, two left.”

“Indeed,” Tempest said. “Next!”

Tempest’s teacup rattled on its saucer. She glanced down as it rattled again.

“Be careful, miss,” Ditzy said from the hallway. “All of these vases are antiques—”

There was the sound of something extremely heavy striking and shattering on the floor, followed by a groan from Ditzy.

And then the next applicant appeared, her massive form blocking the door to the hallway. The creature was maybe three times as massive as a pony. A thick metal helmet with a mesh visor covered her head, but did nothing to hide the thick, upward curved horns that stuck out from both sides. Two chains with absurdly thick links, one coming down each side, trailed from the back of the helmet to almost touch the ground, reminiscent of braided hair. Despite having thick, brown fur—long enough that it brushed lightly against the ground—evenly along her length, scars could be seen crisscrossing her body. Upon her forelegs were large spiked gauntlets.

As she forced her way into the room, one of her gauntlets tangled slightly with one of her chains, causing her to stumble and almost take one of the doors right off of its hinges. She quickly righted herself from the slip-up and approached the table.

“A yak?” Twilight asked, nonplussed.

“Yona is best yak!” Yona proclaimed.

“You are dressed in the manner of a pit fighter,” Tempest said, eyes flicking over Yona’s hide. “And your scars speak of experience.”

Ditzy walked around the roadblock that was Yona and placed a piece of parchment in front of Tempest.

Tempest examined the resumé. “You were born and raised in Yakyakistan, daughter to Prince Rutherford. You spent five years in the yak fighting pits.” She looked up from the parchment. “Five years is far longer than the average fighter. Most are crippled or retire within the first year.”

“Yona never beaten!” Yona said in a forceful tone. “Yona fight many creatures, and Yona always win!”

“You must have had a good reason to leave the fighting pits though.”

“Yona bored! Pit fights too easy! Yona want challenge!”

“Bored of the Yakyakistan ‘death pits,’ you say.” Tempest felt genuine warmth suffuse her barrel as she gave a deep smile. “You remind me of myself: always seeking to test your limits. You may consider yourself hired. Ditzy will give you the standard contract—”

“No!” Yona shouted.

Her eyes widening ever so slightly, Tempest leaned forward before piercing Yona with her harshest glare. “You seem to think our standard contract is not appropriate.”

“Yona not ‘standard!’” Yona stomped a hoof—which resulted in another priceless vase meeting its demise—and unflinchingly returned Tempest’s gaze. “Yona want special contract!”

“And so you shall have it,” Tempest said. “Ditzy, she’s at least twice as big as other ponies. Give her twice the rate. But understand: I’ll be expecting much of you.”

Ditzy nodded and led Yona out of the room. This time Yona managed to avoid the door.

Twilight flinched as the sounds of crunching porcelain echoed from the hallway. “Are you sure that Blueblood will approve of her? Especially with that rate hike?”

“I have no doubt. My standards are strict, and I brook no fools.”

“Yona seemed pretty clumsy.”

“Yet despite that, she has fought and won consistently in gladiatorial matches. For five whole years. It shows immense strength in the face of adversity. I can relate.”

Twilight glanced up towards Tempest’s forehead.

Tempest sucked in a breath that would presage the upbraiding of a lifetime if the young mare mentioned her horn. But the storm passed as Twilight quickly averted her gaze down towards the table.

Ditzy returned after a few minutes of silence between them.

“Next,” Tempest commanded.

Twilight’s stomach growled loudly, prompting a brief glance from Tempest.

“There is only one more, then we can have lunch.” Tempest’s voice brooked no argument. “Ditzy, next.”

The mare who Ditzy showed through the door next was pink, with a brownish-red spattered headband holding back an azure mane.

“I recognize you,” Tempest said. “You are Aloe, one of Berry’s waitstaff from the tavern.” She furrowed her brow. “I somehow doubt that a barmaid would have the skillset required to participate in mercenary work.”

“Believe us,” Aloe said, with a slight reverberation in her voice. “We didn’t think so either. But that has changed.”

“We?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” Aloe replied. “We. Lotus Blossom and myself.”

“Lotus Blossom died,” Tempest said, not unkindly. “You are most certainly grieving. Trying to join the company right now screams ‘suicide attempt’ to me. I will not allow it.”

“You don’t understand.” The odd, overlapping echo in Aloe’s voice droned in Tempest’s ears, feeling almost as if a swarm of mosquitoes were somehow given voice. “We’re both here, now.”

“Sorry,” Tempest said flatly, “eccentricity is one thing, but we cannot accept applicants that may have serious mental problems—”

Aloe stomped a forehoof.

Suddenly, razor-sharp brambles burst forth from the floor and attempted to wrap themselves around Tempest and Twilight.

Tempest reflexively backflipped away from the verdant vines of branching brambles. She heard Twilight shout in alarm, as evidently her attempts to jump from her seat had proven less successful than Tempest’s. She had instead become hopelessly entangled in the lacerating greenery.

“Interesting,” Tempest said, swiftly striking at some of the vines. The blow freed Twilight, but ended up cutting her foreleg. She harrumphed. Blood trickled slowly down from her wound. And as she kept her gaze locked upon Aloe, she beheld the sight of something fading into existence. It resembled nothing more than a spectral, skeletal pony, hovering in the air over Aloe for a moment.

Then the thing dove into Aloe from above. She arched her back and neck, letting out a shriek of surprise as she was lifted off the ground. Her head snapped forward, and in an instant, she threw herself at blinding speed towards Tempest. Her eyes sparkled with a maniacal glee that matched the equally sadistic smile on her muzzle. She swiftly drew a concealed knife and aimed it at Tempest’s throat.

Tempest barely dodged the preternaturally fast attack, and pulled her limbs close, shrinking her stance, attempting to preserve her own economy of motion in response to Aloe’s now-supernatural quickness. Yet she easily deflected the next few swipes, and soon Tempest was only mildly irritated at the ferocious assault.

“You see sister?” Aloe’s voice had changed in both pitch and tenor, though it still reverberated. “I am the stronger one!” Confusingly, the statements seemed to be directed at nopony in particular. She continued to furiously swing her knife, unable to breach Tempest's tight guard.

A ghostly “No!” echoed through the room, and the skeletal spirit was visibly ejected from Aloe’s body. “No, Lotus!” Aloe’s tone was firm. She deftly jumped back from Tempest, just barely avoiding a foreleg swipe that would’ve knocked her cold. The blow instead struck the knife from her mouth, snapping it in two and sending the halves flying.

Aloe lifted a single hoof in the “hold” gesture. “This may be our body now, but I am in charge!” She turned the hoof, revealing a blossomed flower which had not been there previously. She blew upon it and the petals dissolved into the air, becoming a green mist that enveloped Tempest and sealed her minor wounds.

Tempest brushed herself off nonchalantly. “So, you are possessed by a disembodied spirit. Twilight, what is your assessment of Miss Aloe? You have a more comprehensive understanding of necromancy than I.”

“It appears that Aloe here is soulbound with the spirit of her dead sister,” Twilight said, frowning. “Starlight and I researched soul binding while we were studying counters to powerful necromancy.” She shook her head. “But we came to the conclusion that most souls are far too attuned to the body they originate in for the process to be viable. You can’t just cram somepony’s soul into another body, and even making a specially prepared container is extremely difficult. It’s like a soul is a key that has to fit into a lock, which would be the body. And since no two locks are the same—”

“But they were twins,” Tempest said, watching Twilight’s eyes widen in realization.

“Yes,” came the reverberant reply.

“Abnormality abounds today,” Tempest said. “You are the second earth pony we have seen today who was able to perform magical feats without a horn, wings, or an artifact. I assume it is a direct result of this… merger.”

“We were told that one plus one equals more than just two,” Aloe said.

“Told by who?” Twilight asked.

“They told us not to tell,” Aloe said.

“But they told you that you were greater than the sum of your parts,” Tempest said. “That would imply that extra power was conferred upon you when this happened.”

“Actually,” Twilight said. “If she has the combined magical power of two earth pony souls, it could explain the exponential increase in the efficacy of her abilities.”

“Laypony terms, Twilight.”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin. “One earth pony’s magic might allow them to be very fast, faster than any unicorn or pegasus could ever be without help from an artifact. But that display just now seemed to surpass what is possible for even an earth pony using a speed boosting artifact.”

“I will attest to the fact that I have never witnessed anypony move that swiftly before,” Tempest said. “Any creature either.”

Twilight paced. “An earth pony can make plants grow and can infuse healing plants with their magic to make them more potent, but that growth and infusion takes time, days, weeks. Those vines sprouted impossibly fast, and… and that healing flower… I can’t even begin—”

“You certainly are no longer a simple barmaid,” Tempest interrupted. “Ditzy will give you the standard company contract. But you two will have to be the ones to break the news to Berryshine that we poached you for ourselves.”

“We agree,” Aloe said. She followed Ditzy out of the drawing room.

“Two earth ponies with such volatile magic at their command,” Twilight said. “And all in one day! The chances of us meeting one such pony are extremely low. The chances of us meeting two—”

“Are pointless,” Tempest said. “We are casting an ever-wider net across Equestria to bring in rare and exceptional individuals. It is only natural that we will begin to see stranger things as we continue our hiring efforts.”

A churning sound emanated from Twilight’s gut.

“With no more applicants, I suppose we may adjourn for lunch.”

“Good,” Twilight said, her stomach grumbling again. “I’m starving!”

As they stood to leave, Twilight’s stomach made more noise and her face contorted. She fell to her haunches and wrapped both of her forelegs around her midsection.

“Miss Sparkle, there is no need to be dramatic; we will go to eat now.”

Twilight vomited blood, which arced clear across the drawing room table and spattered all over the room’s gold-trimmed carpet.

Tempest raised an eyebrow. “MEDIC!”

Week 20, Day 7, Late Morning

Blueblood sat in the empty wine cellar, his haunches pressed into the cold dirt floor. The cool, damp air was perfect for storing the alcohol that he had just had excommunicated from the premises. It was also quite effective at allowing a chill to seep through his coat, to penetrate his skin and settle in his bones. He stared into the hidden room that had once contained crates of wine. An ensconced torch burned slowly by the stairs, providing dim, but adequate illumination.

“How pathetic am I?” he asked the vacant space. “I’m so hard up for a drink that I’m hanging out in the place where I last saw it.” A sudden headache caused him to press his right hoof to his forehead. His left foreleg squirmed, causing his stance to waver.

Groaning, Blueblood sat back against the cold stone of the wall and leaned his head back, feeling the coolness begin to seep through his fur. “If I could just have one drop—”

His ears perked in response to a scuttling sound. He looked towards the back of the hidden storage chamber, and caught a glint of something in the darkness.

“Is somepony there?” he called out, standing to his hooves.

Silence.

He took a tentative step through the jagged hole in the wall. The shadows cast by both himself and the uneven masonry occluded his sight. Igniting his horn, he took one step, and then another, slowly turning his head, trying to pinpoint the source of the scurrying sounds.

Spotting movement at the edges of his vision, Blueblood stopped and flared his horn, revealing a large rat. He grimaced at the verminous intruder, and marveled that it was perhaps half the length of one of his own forelegs. It was leaned over something green and reflective.

Another step closer. Now Blueblood could see that it was a broken bottle, and that the rat was helping itself to the contents. Tsking once, he waved his right foreleg about in an attempt to scare the rodent away. “Shoo! Shoo!”

It slowly turned its head toward him.

He felt his blood go cold.

“Sweet mother of Celestia.”

Eyes reflecting red light were expected. But he was not prepared for the number of eyes that now gazed upon him. And that was not its only deformity. As it turned, the pair of scything claws which had replaced its forelegs clinked off of the bottle and dug into the packed dirt of the floor. Red liquid dripped from an elongated, dagger-like snout positioned grotesquely above the creature’s hissing maw. Diseased-looking lesions covered its body, oozing putridity as exposed muscles worked beneath them.

Blueblood only managed a single step backwards before the beast launched itself at him with a horrifying shriek. He stumbled backward, holding up both of his forelegs instinctively, trying to shield his face. The rat-thing obliged him by latching onto the cannon of his left foreleg with its talons, holding on even as Blueblood fell, screaming, onto his backside. It reared its head, hissed loudly, then drove its spike-face into Blueblood’s foreleg.

The pain was immediate. His lungs gasped of their own accord as sharp, intolerable agony eclipsed his thinking-brain. Howling wordlessly, Blueblood rolled to the side, pinned the hissing creature with the leg it was impaling, brought his right hoof high into the air, and slammed it down on the rat’s body as hard as he could. He piled on more blows, again and again, until his shoulders ached almost as much from exertion as his cannon did from its assailant. But the thing’s grasp slackend amid a multitude of sickening cracks, giving him a hoof-hold upon conscious thought once more.

He glanced at his wounded leg, cursed under his breath, and looked away again. The full length of the rat-thing’s damned snout was buried into his flesh. It would have to come out. He mentally braced himself for the task ahead.

Placing his free forehoof upon the crushed rodent, Blueblood slowly pulled his impaled foreleg up and away from it. He had to perform the occasional wiggle whenever suction trapped the spike in the surrounding flesh. He watched with sick fascination as centimare after centimare of the sharp snout emerged from his cannon.

There was a popping sound as it finally came free. A wave of queasiness threatened to overtake Blueblood, and his right hoof shot up to his mouth. He retched into that hoof several times, suddenly very glad that he had decided to skip breakfast that morning. But any feeling of relief was, unfortunately, short-lived. The nausea returned, only much faster and with profound intensity. He sprayed bile onto the floor, gagging as the vile taste of his own sick attacked his mouth, leaving only an acrid stench that assaulted his nostrils.

As he continued to cough and choke, Blueblood became acutely aware of a warm sensation in his left foreleg. His mind immediately jumped to thoughts of infection, especially considering the nature of his attacker. He cursed his decision to have all alcohol, even of the medicinal variety, removed from the premises.

But then he remembered the shattered bottle.

He glanced toward it, studying its calm, dark surface. It would be a waste of good wine, but it would probably be enough to sterilize the… bite? Was it a bite? He wasn’t sure what to call getting snout-stabbed by a mutant rat. But, seeing as getting it sterilized was pretty high on his priority list, he hobbled over towards the back of the secret room.

Odd, he thought. The rat must have been drinking from the bottle when I disturbed it. So… did it have some of the wine dripping from its snout already? That would explain the tingling he felt from the wound. He raised an eyebrow. Had the rat stabbed him with a sterilized snout?

“No point in taking chances.” Blueblood reached for the bottle. Just before coming in contact with it, however, he flinched. The light itching in his foreleg was escalating into an intense burning that rivaled his stab-wound..

Gasping from the pain, Blueblood fell to his haunches and gripped his left foreleg tightly with his right one. Fiery agony arced up his leg and into his chest, spreading from there to every part of his body. Tremors began to overtake him. He shook violently, his perception blurring, the world going in and out of focus rapidly. But then, after weathering a particularly painful visual distortion which caused him to close his eyes, his vision regained crystal clarity.

But not of the cellar.

He caught a glimpse of It.

He knew.

“Harmony above.”

His words were meaningless.

They were a futile attempt by a feeble mind, to describe the feelings of astonishment, revulsion, and horror at this unwanted revelation.

But it all made sense. The symbols those accursed cultists wore were a calamitous confirmation to what his mind now struggled to grasp.

The thing that slumbered beneath.

He couldn’t possibly describe It in any tongue of ponykind, or even in the tongues of the other species known to ponykind. But he could see… something. A blindingly bright, yet bone chillingly cold, white light seeped through his perception, almost like it was tearing a hole through reality itself. Despite not being able to directly see the source of that baleful illumination, it seared itself into the edges of both his eyes and mind. He felt sure that, to actually behold that infinite malignance in its entirety, would cause him to combust like a moth that had flown too close to a flame.

Only a thin layer of reality stood between him and that unfathomable hideousness, protecting him from the ultimate knowledge of what resided within. Reality struggled to act like the moon during an almost complete solar eclipse, blocking all but a thin crescent of chilling radiance. There was a single deafening pulse, which caused the blinding coldness to throb around the edges of the crescent, the unholy oscillation threatening to spill over and engulf his drowning senses. Another pulse, and reality began to split. Five blinding cracks appeared, spreading out perpendicular from the crescent, threatening to expose him to the source. Another, and the cracks grew. And grew. And grew. His brain burned with the realization that the pulses were occurring in a pattern, one that was disturbingly similar to the beating of a heart.

Blueblood opened his eyes.

Ditzy was there. Above him. Staring back at him. With both eyes.

“D-Ditzy,” he stammered.

Walking up to him, Ditzy wiped a hoof across his cheek. It came away red. “You saw it,” she said.

“Yes,” Blueblood said immediately, his stomach churning with horror. “But I...only … caught a glimpse.”

“And you didn’t break.” Her rictus of a grin widened, and one of her eyes began to wander again.

“No.” Blueblood’s tone was more resolute than he actually felt. “No, I did not.” He stood to his hooves and looked at Ditzy. That’s why she’s been so squirrelly since we arrived, he thought. Anypony who saw that would— “Has anypony else seen it?”

“No sir!” she said. “Just me… and Cheese!”

“And Cheese…” Blueblood pondered if there might be deeper significance for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, at least that makes sense.” He put a hoof to his forehead in a vain attempt to stymie the throbbing. “I’m going to have to talk to the others about this. As crazy as it is, they need to know.” Then he looked down in confusion at his left foreleg.

The wound was gone.

He ran a hoof up and down its length. “My wound? What in Tartarus?!” It felt… normal. And it was then that he noticed something else. “Huh… the squirming stopped. And here I was worried that—”

And then his hoof tore open, the flesh of his foreleg peeling back like the petals of some horrible, gory, parody of a flower.

“Ooooh,” Ditzy said, mesmerized, “pretty!”

“Oh balls,” Blueblood cursed.

Week 20, Day 7, Noon

Zecora poured another vial of healing drought into Twilight’s blood-flecked muzzle.

Blood continued to dribble from Twilight’s ears, eyes, and nose.

“This happened to her during the Ponest Dungeon excursion as well,” Tempest hissed.

“To find the cause we must,” Zecora said. “Else Twilight’s body may be bust.”

Tempest narrowed her eyes and bit back a retort that she knew would do nothing to improve the situation. But the sound of stumbling hooves at the drawing room door drew her eyes away from Zecora. Ditzy and Blueblood shuffled past, with the former appearing to support the latter.

“Prince,” Tempest boomed, trotting out to the hallway. “Miss Sparkle seems to have been injured and—”

“Sorry Tempest.” Blueblood turned slightly, and Tempest felt an eyebrow rise at the sight of twin crimson streaks running from his eyes down his muzzle. More concerning, was when she spied a bloody rag wrapped around his left foreleg. “I have some problems of my own right now.” He and Ditzy continued to stumble towards the foyer.

“Zecora, tend to Miss Sparkle as best you can. Something has just come up.” Tempest galloped after Blueblood and Ditzy, only barely hearing the rhymed acknowledgement from Zecora.

Upon entering the foyer, Tempest grabbed Blueblood from Ditzy and threw him across her back like a saddlebag full of potatoes. “I will assume that you wish to be taken to your room.” She charged up the steps, leaving Ditzy to trail behind, as she began considering what kind of misadventure could’ve injured both his hoof and eyes. Booby trap? Attack within the manor? Self-inflicted facehoof gone wrong? Considering the Prince’s burgeoning struggle with sobriety, the latter possibility seemed most likely.

She reached the landing, turned down the hall to Blueblood’s room, and punched his door open with a forehoof. Her irritation deepened at the sight of Ametrine yelping and rolling off Blueblood’s bed onto the floor.

“Yeesh,” Ametrine said from where she’d landed. “Ever try knocking?”

Tempest responded by bucking Blueblood off of her back and onto the bed. “The Prince is injured.” She began unraveling the bloodied cloth from Blueblood’s left foreleg, and clenched her teeth at the sight of the mangled mass of raw flesh underneath. “And it is not a minor injury. Ditzy, go get Miss… Glimmer.” She injected more than her standard amount of venom into the name as she said it. “She is the only one who has first-hoof experience with the Prince’s… limb issues.”

“Yes sir!” Ditzy proclaimed, turning and running face-first into Starlight.

“Already here,” Starlight said, walking around Ditzy and into the room. Blood trickled from her ears, nose and mouth. Possibly her eyes as well, but the bandages wrapped around them were thick enough to hide it if they were.

“You seem to be afflicted in a similar way as Miss Sparkle,” Tempest said. “No matter; heal him, and tell me what you know of how this happened.”

“Oh,” Starlight said with a smile and a tilt of her head, “he’s not injured. Are you, Prince?”

Blueblood looked over to her and lifted his bloody, misshapen appendage. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Ametrine.” Starlight turned her face in the fleshform’s direction.

“What?” Ametrine poked her head up from behind the bed.

“You are the best chance he has of getting this under control.” Starlight turned toward the door. “Adieu, everypony.” And then she left.

“Ametrine.” Tempest held the mental image of cracking granite as she injected firmness into her tone. “While Miss Glimmer has done nothing to garner my trust, she has proven her pinpoint predictive abilities and expressed apparent confidence that you can solve this issue. So solve it.”

Crawling up onto the bed next to Blueblood, Ametrine examined his foreleg. “I’m not exactly a medic,” she said.

Looking over to Ditzy, Tempest’s eyes narrowed. “Miss Doo, I am afraid you will have to leave.”

“No,” Blueblood said. “Ditzy… stay, close the door.”

“Prince,” Tempest said in a dangerous voice.

“She already knows,” Blueblood said. “She likely knows more than me, even.”

“Very well.” Tempest did not lighten her scowl in the slightest as Ditzy closed the door.

“Wait a minute,” Ametrine said, as she continued to inspect the limb. “Blue, what are you thinking about right now?”

Blueblood coughed out a laugh. “Seriously?” He waved his mangled limb at her. “I wonder what it could be?” He stared in morbid fascination at his own leg. “It’s exactly as bad as I thought it could be.”

“Exactly?” Ametrine tilted her head.

“Yes,” Blueblood said through gritted teeth, “exactly.”

“It could be worse.” A devilish grin worked its way across Ametrine’s muzzle.

“Oh really?” Blueblood’s voice was filled with both panic and incredulity.

“This had better be going somewhere,” Tempest added.

Ametrine gave her a wry smile. “Don’t worry, it is.” Her grin turned cruel, and fixed her eyes on Blueblood’s leg. “Because in a moment, painfully spiked bramble growths could start sprouting from your leg bones, jutting out in all directions.”

Blueblood’s brow raised in horrified confusion. His eyes dilated, and then he screamed. Sharp thorn-like protrusions erupted from the meat of his leg. “What did you do?!” he shrieked.

“Nothing,” Ametrine said smugly. “Starlight’s right, this isn’t an injury.”

“Ametrine.” Years of battlefield discipline allowed Tempest to halt her muscles’ instinctive urge to start pounding the nonsensical creature’s face in. “Explain.”

“Simple,” Ametrine said, holding out her left foreleg. The skin peeled back from it, leaving a deformed mass that bore close resemblance to Blueblood’s leg. And then, to complete the look, horrific spikes erupted from it. It was a perfect copy of what Blueblood now sported. “Looks like the corruption has taken his entire leg now, for sure.”

Leveling a predatory glare at Blueblood, Ametrine crept closer to him. “You were skilled enough at this when we first met,” she teased. “Did you forget already?” She feigned a hurt look, then snickered.

Blueblood closed his eyes. Tempest watched beads of sweat appear on his forehead as he took on a look of concentration.

With painstaking slowness, the spines retracted into Blueblood’s leg. Then the bones and musculature reshaped themselves back into something resembling a normal equine limb. Finally, new sheets of skin and fur slid down to cover the leg, with keratin bubbling out of the bottom to form a new hoof at the end.

Blueblood sighed as he opened up his eyes. “It worked,” he said, his tone both unbelieving and exhausted. Then his eyes then narrowed at Ametrine. “You didn’t have to specify ‘painful,’ did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” Her smile widened. “But let’s be honest; you totally deserved it.”

Tempest’s brow returned to its normal scowl. “Since you are not injured,” she said, “I think we can move to the topic of how this happened.”

“I… don’t know.”

Tempest glared at him. “Then describe, in detail, the events that led up to it happening.”

Tempest listened as Blueblood recounted the assault by the mutant rat. She made a mental note to look into acquiring some cats to de-rat the cellars, but otherwise didn’t feel the experience connected entirely to the outcome. “I am not certain that I understand,” she said. “Several company members have sustained injuries from the teeth and claws of similarly mutated creatures in the field. Yet we have had no similar instances.”

“Maybe it’s because the corruption was already there to start with?” Ametrine said off-hoofedly, sitting upright on the edge of the bed and kicking her back hooves.

“Possible,” Tempest said thoughtfully, “but I do not simply trust that to be the case. Something may have happened either before or after the attack that you are leaving out, Prince.”

“Before?” Blueblood said in a confused tone. “The rat was… drinking from a broken bottle of wine that was on the floor.” He shook his head. “That can’t be it. If anything, that would have sterilized the wound slightly.”

“It is unlikely,” Tempest said. “But we should check regardless, especially if nothing else of note happened after the attack.”

“After,” Blueblood said, his voice shaking. “After the attack… I saw… it.”

Ametrine froze.

“It,” Tempest said flatly.

“It,” Blueblood struggled for words. “I can’t even properly describe… it. It pulsed, like a heart. Maybe? I don’t know, it hurt to even try to perceive it.”

“Nopony can describe the darkness,” Ametrine said, a tremor running through her. “You see now, why I didn’t want to go back?”

“Yes.” Blueblood shook his head in an attempt to remove the image that had been seared into his mind. “Tempest… this thing, this… ‘Heart’ of the Ponest Dungeon, is why we are here. I know now, that the incredible threat it poses is not only physical in nature.”

“I had a vision the other day, when you found me passed out in the cellar. Shining interrupted us before I could tell you what I saw; that Celestia is dead, slain by her own hooves. I know in my own heart, that what dwells at the epicenter of this spreading corruption, The Heart is wholly responsible for driving her to suicide. It will kill, or drive to madness, everything—not just in Equestria, but everywhere else as well—if we don’t find a way to stop it.”

The shock of hearing Celestia was not merely missing, but dead, reverberated through Tempest’s thoughts. Yet the news of such a potent entity was, in itself, exhilarating. Warmth filled her barrel as her heartbeat quickened, and she blinked through moistening eyes as she stared at the ceiling. “It sounds like this ‘Heart’ can kill anything.” She lowered her gaze and harrumphed, trying to cover the moment of naked emotion. “Finally, something worthy of my time.”

Blueblood looked at her, his expression one of horrified confusion.

“You must remember when we met.” Tempest turned to the door and looked back over her shoulders. “I joined this company so that I might face off against the most extreme challenges ever encountered by ponykind. This news…” She paused, and basked in the prospect of something that could once again test her limits. “This is excellent.”

“But for now, I am going to go get that bottle.” Tempest passed through the threshold of Blueblood’s room. “Maybe Zecora will find something peculiar about it.”

“Tempest,” Blueblood called after her.

She stopped.

“Thank you,” he said.

Tempest did not look back. “I have done nothing. Thank Ametrine… and Miss Glimmer.” Another pause, in which she remembered the knock-on effects this news might have with more “typical” ponies, inasmuch as any of those they’d recruited were typical. “We should inform the others of Celestia’s demise. It is only right that they know that one of the company’s primary goals is no longer obtainable.”

“They won’t take it well,” Blueblood said.

She shook her head. “The ponies of this company are more resilient than you give them credit for. Perhaps you still are used to the whimsical and flighty nature of politicians, who change their tune to whichever way the wind blows. The ponies you have hired… I guarantee that they are made of sterner stuff.”

Week 20, Day 7, Afternoon

Twilight seemed to be resting comfortably after the last vial of liquid had been emptied down her throat.

Zecora sat back to her haunches and breathed a sigh of relief. She had felt like things were touch and go for a few minutes. But eventually her medicines had worked their magic and stabilized Twilight’s condition.

“Got a minute?” Starlight asked from the doors to the drawing room, startling her.

Looking up, Zecora took note of the blood running from Starlight’s ears, nose, and mouth.

“Quickly Miss Glimmer, come here and drink this,” Zecora said, producing a vial. “I see, like Miss Twilight, you’ve something amiss.”

Starlight lifted the vial in her magic and gulped it down.

Zecora was again relieved to see the flow of blood come to a halt. “Twilight is now doing well,” she said. “But how you feel, please do tell.”

“I feel much better now,” Starlight said. “Thank you, Zecora.” She turned her head. “It looks like she fared worse than I did… but you fixed her up.” She plastered on a grin that Zecora felt was just a little too wide. “You’re a miracle worker.”

Zecora scrutinized Starlight. It seemed as if she was hiding her feelings behind that fake smile, and also being hesitant about something. “Your words are very kind,” she said. “Is something on your mind?”

“Yes,” Starlight said. “I wanted to give you something at an appropriate time, but since this is the second time this week that I’ve randomly started bleeding from everywhere, I figured I may as well give it to you now.” She opened her saddlebags and started to rummage.

“You brought a gift for me?” Zecora was genuinely surprised. “Whatever could it be?

Starlight held out an iron ring which had a dozen empty sachets attached to it. “You throw so many of those chemical pouches on missions,” Starlight said. “I figured that having them on a ring like this would make things much easier for you. Now you can just grab them off this ring, instead of having to fish around in your pockets every time you wanted to throw one.”

Zecora smiled under her mask, and accepted the metal loop.

“Oh,” Starlight said, magically reaching into her saddlebags again, “and here’s something so you can attach it to the outside of your coat pockets.”

A thin lace hung in the air between them, and Zecora took hold of it as well. “Thank you for this gift you bring,” she said. “I will make use of this ring.”

Starlight turned to leave. Zecora didn’t see the smile immediately vanished from her face, replaced by an expression of profound sadness and regret. Nor did she see or hear when Starlight began to sob, and choked out a whisper: “I’m so sorry.”

Week 20, Day 7, Evening

Dear Countess Coloratura,

I pray that this letter finds you well.

As I am sure you are aware, the time for the Grand Galloping Gala will soon be upon us. I know that you absolutely abhor the political aspect of social events such as this. Still, as the representatives of the three pony tribes, you, Soarin, and myself will be expected to attend. We must continue to maintain an air of control during these times of unfolding chaos.

I have taken care of the catering arrangements, while Soarin has assured me that all of the nobility and other guests have been notified. I will assume that you have already done a wonderful job organizing the entertainment for the event.

Enclosed with this letter is a bottle of wine sent to us by Prince Blueblood himself! He had neigh-on a hundred crates of this peculiar vintage delivered. He said we should use it for the Grand Galloping Gala, and I am of the same mind; one hundred cases of free wine would lower the Gala’s price tag by an impressive amount.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the quality of this wine before we finalize the decision. While I hate to prevail upon you, unfortunately I’m not able to taste it myself, as my doctor has told me that my past overindulgences have left my liver fit to burst if I should tax it any further. And Soarin faces a similar problem due to interactions with his pain medication. So I’m afraid, my dear, that you are the only one of us who could render an opinion of whether we should use this wine or not. However, I have the utmost confidence in that opinion. Your refined palate is legendary in Canterlot’s upper circles, and I know you will be truthful if this proves to be a substandard terroir.

I look forward to your response, and to seeing you again in the council meeting at the beginning of the week.

Sincerely,

Duke Fancy Pants

Coloratura put the letter on her study desk. “Swift Post!” she called out for her personal messenger.

A pegasus with a pristine white coat entered. “Madam?”

“Can you please pen a letter to Lord Fancy Pants, thanking him for the wine and telling him I’ll have the details regarding the Gala entertainment to him by the end of next week?”

“Yes, Madam.” Swift turned to leave.

“Oh, one more thing,” Coloratura called out to him.

“Ma’am?”

She hoofed the bottle of wine over to Swift. “Could you please place that with my personal collection?”

“Not going to drink it now, ma’am?”

“No,” Coloratura said wearily. “I’ll have to try it some other time. I have budgets to balance, petitions to read, unicorns to designate for magical draining, hangings to arrange; I’m swamped.”

“You should get some rest,” Swift said.

“That is not your place.” Her expression would have been a formidable glare had her eyes not been threatening to close on their own.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Swift took the bottle and exited.

“What I wouldn’t give for a pick-me-up,” Coloratura said to nopony in particular. Perhaps the wine did sound tempting after all…

No. Duty called. She sighed, resigning herself to another sleepless night of work.

Arc 2 Chapter 4: Lamentable Loss

Chapter 4: Lamentable Loss

Week 21, Day 1, Morning

“The Heart?” Rainbow asked, echoing murmurs of confusion amongst the gathered company members. Everypony was seated at the drawing room table, with the notable exceptions of Tempest, who never sat, and Yona, who was too large for the chairs.

“What is with this place and weirdo names?” Rainbow sounded both irritated and sober. “First it’s the ‘Ponest Dungeon,’ and now the name of the thing we’re fighting is just ‘The Heart?’” She pressed her hooves to the sides of her head. “Feels like I’m taking crazy pills over here.”

Blueblood tried not to succumb to his irritation at Rainbow’s stubborn narrow-mindedness. “The thing has no name. It has no language. How can something have a name, if it needs no language?”

The unintentional, unanswerable riddle caused the room to quiet down.

“The Heart.” He sighed. “This designation I’m giving to the thing now is as good a name as any, since it is the heart of this spreading corruption.”

Blueblood knew that there was no good time to broach the next topic, so he just jumped into it, like a foal into the deep end of an empty pool. “There’s something else you all deserve to know, since you signed on for a campaign whose ultimate goal was to rescue the Princess, alive and well.”

Everypony, with the exceptions of Tempest, leaned forward, ears perked.

“Unfortunately.” Blueblood took a deep breath. “That goal is no longer possible. I’ve recently learned that Princess Celestia… is dead.”

The commotion amongst the gathered ponies was as intense as it was instantaneous. Even Tempest’s thunderous stamping on the floor failed to bring the room to order. And Blueblood understood it, though he tuned out the specifics. Their goddess, the one who had raised the sun every day for their entire lives, had been laid low, exposed as merely mortal. Up until this point, all of these ponies would’ve held out hope that she would eventually return, and that they could all take the sunrise for granted again. The loss of four unicorns’ magic per day in her stead was perhaps distant and abstract to many of them, but most understood the grave sacrifices being made to purchase a portion of normalcy.

But still, he could not let them vent forever; he needed to regain order. He used his magic to lift the flintlock he’d brought for just this occasion.

The pistol shot was deafening within the confines of the drawing room, causing most of the gathered ponies to cover their ears. Some even ducked under the table for cover. Ditzy fainted.

“Okay,” Blueblood said, dropping the smoking pistol to the table and steepling his hooves. “Now that the blind panicking is over, I’ll inform you of what this means for this company.” He used his magic to place a long scroll of parchment onto the table. “This is an addendum to your contracts. It stipulates that the company’s primary goal is now to find the source of the corruption within the Ponest Dungeon—The Heart—and destroy it. You may either sign, or leave with a severance payment. The decision is yours.” He sat back and waited for everypony to leave the room, fully expecting that there would be nopony left.

Instead, there was only silence.

“This… Heart.” Rainbow shook with barely contained rage. “The Heart is what killed her?”

“I have no doubt that it is responsible for her death.”

“Then I’m in.” Rainbow grabbed a quill with her wing.

“Wait.” Blueblood blocked the first signature line with a hoof before Rainbow could begin to sign. “You understand the danger, correct? There is a good chance that we will not succeed. Even I don’t fully understand how powerful this thing is, or what its true nature is.”

Rainbow shrugged, nudged his hoof aside, and signed her name on the parchment. “I don’t need to know what it is. If this Heart-thing killed Celestia, there’s no way I can let that slide.”

“She’s right,” Shining said, lighting his horn and signing the parchment. “Celestia was more than just a ruler. She was someone who was special to everypony. And I personally won’t rest until we take vengeance on The Heart.”

There was a murmur of agreement amongst everycreature in the room.

Blueblood watched in a daze as one pony after another renewed their contract with him. A strange emotion suffused his being; it was not quite joy, nor was it relief, despite things turning out much better than he had hoped. These ponies had just agreed to lay down their lives in an endeavor that could very well end in failure. But at least they wouldn’t die alone.

“How long has she been dead?”

Twilight’s question broke Blueblood from his trance.

“Apparently since before we even started this endeavor,” Blueblood replied. “Our goal of finding her was doomed to failure before it even began.”

That silenced the room again.

“And,” Blueblood said, steepling his hooves, “I will go ahead right now, and say that the same may very well be true of this expedition.” He shook his head. “We know dreadfully little about our enemy, other than the fact that they are located under the Castle of the Two Sisters, and wield a power magnitudes greater than anything we’ve ever seen. Every twisted monstrosity we have encountered can be attributed to The Heart. The necromancer we defeated, and her hordes of undead, were merely pawns.”

Blueblood gestured to the new-hires. “We’ve just picked up seven fresh recruits,” he said. “They will not be the last; we must build an army if we are to even hope of making a dent in this place.”

Gritting his teeth, Blueblood slammed his hooves down on the table and rose to a standing position. “I want to say something encouraging to you all. Something like ‘have hope,’ or ‘have faith.’ But I find that I, myself, have little of either, and do not wish to render myself a hypocrite. Instead, I will tell you to be ready for combat always; we have been attacked multiple times even within the supposed safety of these walls. Any questions?”

“How soon before we get sent out?” Rainbow’s wing rested on her pistol. “I’m itching for some payback already!”

“In a day or two,” Blueblood answered. “We have sufficient funding to send two expeditions at once, thanks to the previous efforts of Moondancer and her crew. I intend to step up the pressure on the Ponest Dungeon.” He leaned forward over the table. “Let’s see if we can’t give The Heart a coronary, shall we?”

Seeing nothing but nods and hearing nothing but acknowledgements, Blueblood sat, and steepled his hooves. “Dismissed,” he said. “And may Harmony have mercy on our souls.”

Week 21, Day 2, Morning

Blueblood sat at the drawing room table, across from Solmare, Yona, Aloe, and Rarity. “For your first assignment, I need you four to make a sweep up the old road, to Canterlot and back. Those damnable bandits have been harassing travelers and our supply chain again, and I want their heads on pikes before the week is out.” He hoofed a piece of parchment onto the table. It was a map of the road, marked red where bandits had been spotted or where corpses had been found. “Any questions?”

“Do we take prisoners?” Rarity asked.

“No,” Blueblood replied. “Kill. Them. All.”

Rarity opened her mouth, as if to speak, but then she closed it.

Suspecting that she might be apprehensive enough that it could affect her performance on the job, Blueblood locked his eyes onto her necklace. “Rarity, while your sympathy for these bandits is indeed generous, it is also misguided. You should save your pity for those who they have robbed and killed. Remember that I am sending you because of the deaths they have caused.”

With a furrowing of her brow, Rarity locked eyes with him and nodded.

Blueblood looked to the others. “Does anycreature else have concerns?”

“Yona hate bandits,” Yona casually observed.

“You don’t care how we kill them, do you?” Aloe asked.

Blueblood studied Aloe’s flattened expression. “I would normally say that I don’t care,” he said. “But now I need to know why you even asked that question.”

“Lotus didn’t take dying very well,” Aloe said. “She has a lot of pent up aggression, and may… go overboard.”

Blueblood steepled his hooves. “Ponies will be glad for bandits to be killed, or even punished. But don’t do anything that’s going to scare the locals or make them fear us. We’ve generated enough gratitude from our bandit and wildlife patrols to offset the ill-will stemming from a few incidents in and around Berry’s tavern. I’d appreciate it if we could keep the villagers on our side; it’ll make things much easier for us.”

Blueblood looked over to Solmare. “How about you? Any questions?”

“Do you even praise?” Eyes scrutinized Blueblood from the dark recesses of the bucket helm.

“Okay then,” Blueblood said, clapping his hooves together. “You’ll be heading out tomorrow. Tempest will be the one directing you after you link up through Ametrine. Report to the observatory for linking at six this evening, and Tempest will then take you to the storage room for provisioning. If you’re late, Tempest will not be amused. That should scare you. For now, just rest and prepare yourselves for tomorrow. Dismissed.”

Solmare, Yona, Aloe, and Rarity rose from their seats to leave the drawing room.

“Rarity,” Blueblood said.

“Yes, Prince?” Rarity stopped in the doorway and looked at him with confusion.

“Have you or Twilight figured out anything about your fancy new necklace there?”

“Sorry,” Rarity said, touching a hoof to the Element of Generosity. “Twilight’s research has turned up… vague results at best. We’ve both tried poking and prodding it with both hooves and magic, but to no noticeable effect.”

Blueblood frowned. “So it hasn’t done anything since it spontaneously formed around your neck, then?”

“Nothing,” Rarity confirmed.

“Then take it with you. It may react during conflict, as it did in the drawing room. If it does anything at all, let Tempest know.”

Rarity nodded. She turned and left.

“Ditzy,” Blueblood called.

“Yes sir!” Ditzy performed a crisp salute, which was ruined by the rictus grin on her muzzle.

“Send in Shining’s team.”

Saluting again, Ditzy somehow widened her grin and left the drawing room.

Looking down at his left foreleg, Blueblood felt a familiar discomfort as it pulsed and squirmed. Ametrine has been coaching him for the last several days on how to control and shape the leg. But even with the constant practice, he still couldn’t get the damned writhing to stop.

Shining entered the room, his freshly polished helmet hanging from his saddlebag. Rainbow trailed close behind him, still twirling and tossing her gambling chip. Zecora came next, her vials lightly clinking against each other in her pockets, and multiple pouches hanging from an odd metal ring. Lastly came Twilight, her runed skull peeking out from a stuffed saddlebag pouch, and a book hovering in front of her muzzle.

“Welcome,” Blueblood said. “As I said the other day, we’re going to be trying to send two expeditions per week from now on.” He steepled his hooves. “I just finished briefing one of the new teams. They’ll be linking up with Ametrine for this mission.”

“So, you’re sending us in without using the viewing window?” Rainbow Dash grinned. “No problem! You can count on us! All of us—”

Blueblood held up his left hoof. “Well,” he said, “you won’t be using Ametrine. The fact of the matter is, we have a second viewing window.”

“What?!” Twilight exclaimed. “How long have you had it?”

“Only a few days now,” Blueblood replied. “We’ve only just got it up and running today. It’s… mostly reliable. As you three have worked for me the longest, and Twilight is Shining’s sister, I feel that I can trust you to know about it.”

“All then, that we wish to know,” Zecora said, “is where you keep this new window.”

Blueblood’s muzzle twisted into a macabre mixture of a simultaneous grin and wince. He lit his horn and closed the drawing room doors, as well as all of the window shutters. “Try not to scream, everypony.” And his left foreleg, which he had left hanging in the air, peeled open like a sinewy banana.

Three jaws dropped. Zecora reached up and removed her mask. It was actually four jaws that had dropped.

To their credit, nopony screamed.

“Sir?” Shining turned to Blueblood after the others had left the drawing room. He hesitated, then closed the doors after them.

“Yes Shining, what is it?” Blueblood shuffled some papers with his magic.

“Does anypony else know?” Shining asked.

Sighing, Blueblood looked up from the pile of parchment. “You’re not going to accuse me of trying to replace you again, are you?”

Shining grinned. “As long as you’re not actually trying to replace me—kidding! I’m kidding!” Blueblood’s flattened expression had him raising his forehooves in a playful warding gesture.

“Tempest knows,” Blueblood said. “And before you go accusing me of letting her in on something ahead of you, she found out when my leg erupted into a tangle of tentacles that tried to choke the life out of her… I think you walked in on the tail end of that little incident.”

“In the basement, after the massacre?” Worry was foremost in Shining’s mind. “Did this just randomly happen?”

“No, Shining,” Blueblood said. “When your sister’s team breached the farmstead, a surge of eldritch power destroyed the previous viewing window, and caused a chain reaction of events that left Starlight blind, and infected my foreleg with this. I’ve been keeping it a secret from everypony since then. A few days ago, something changed. I can only assume that when the Ponest Dungeon put out enough wooj to blot out the sun, that it must have done something to the corruption in my leg.”

Blueblood held up his left foreleg. Shining flinched, now having seen what the thing was capable of. “Ametrine has been of great assistance in helping me to deal with this. I think that I managed the window activation pretty well, all things considered.”

“Sir, you almost put my eye out when you sprouted those… bone growths.”

“Well, I do seem to have a few issues with the flesh shaping aspect. I’m still working on it, obviously. But I did get the window up and running, and it’s only been a few days. It’s strange; creating the window… it’s almost like it was second nature to me.” He seemed to pause for a moment in thought.

“Sir…” Shining shifted on his hooves, trying to work out the best way to broach an uncomfortable subject. “I know you don’t believe in true evil—”

“Oh,” Blueblood interrupted, “after what I’ve seen, I now definitely believe in evil.” The words caught Shining off guard, and he resorted to gaping. “Don’t look at me like that… I saw The Heart the other day. Well, I saw part of it, or its shadow… or the reverse of a shadow… I can’t really explain. Either way, I don’t think The Heart can be safely beheld by a mortal mind. Even Celestia succumbed to this thing.”

The words did nothing to allay Shining’s disquietude. “Then how are we going to defeat it, if it can do that even to one such as Celestia?”

“Because… I do not believe that Celestia had the advantage that I now possess.”

“What advantage?”

“This,” Blueblood said as he held up his left foreleg. “I have the benefit of being able to slowly adapt to this… thing. Also, we have Ametrine, a being created by The Heart, but who has turned against it. Even without Celestia’s immortality, we have two assets that should help us succeed where she could not. I mean, right now, I understand what Ametrine meant by being able to perceive the ponies she was linked to while not actually ‘looking’ at them. I… don’t know how to describe it in Equish; words fail to grasp even the basic concepts of the… feeling?” He shook his head. “Either way, I think I can get used to it, get used to this… multiplacedness. By steeping myself in this newness, I should be much better prepared to deal with The Heart.”

Normally, Shining found Blueblood’s determination inspiring, or at least clarifying. But what he now saw writ upon Blueblood’s face made his hackles rise. The use of the word “steeping” brought an unbidden mental image to his mind, of Blueblood wrapped in burlap, and repeatedly dunked into boiling water. “If you repeatedly expose yourself to The Heart, and its—” Shining couldn’t believe he was about to use the word “—wooj, then don’t you risk being injured by, or even fully corrupted by it?”

“I do,” Blueblood said. “Which is why I will ask you, as somepony who I can trust, to tell me if I’ve started to change.”

“You… you trust me with that?”

“Of course I do Shining,” Blueblood said. “With Moondancer’s death, you are now the only one who knew me well before we all came here. You are the only one who can possibly know if I truly start to change.”

“But then why aren’t you keeping me in the loop on these things?” Shining closed his eyes tightly and put a hoof to the growing pain in his forehead. “Why didn’t you tell me about your leg back when it first happened?”

“Would that be like me at all, Shining?”

He barked with sudden laughter and an accompanying release of tension. “You’re right Sir. You’ve never been free with the flow of information.” He reopened his eyes. “But… another question: why risk me in the field if I’m the only one who can tell if you’ve changed?”

“You’re a soldier.” Blueblood smiled. “Always have been, always will be. I saw you chomping at the proverbial bit when Moondancer’s team went into the Ponest Dungeon, and every other time you’ve stayed back and watched. Not putting you in the field is a waste.”

Shining couldn’t help but smile. “I’m glad you feel that way, Sir.”

Blueblood returned the smile. “Dismissed, Shining.”

“Yes Sir!” Shining saluted, turned, opened the drawing room door.

“Shining.”

The bottom dropped out of Shining Armor’s stomach. The change in tone was one he’d heard before. He turned his head back to see that all hints of mirth had vanished from Blueblood’s face.

“If I do change… if I become a danger to others…”

Knowing what Blueblood was going to say, Shining opened his mouth to object, but found his throat suddenly dry. He realized that, were their roles reversed, he would be asking the same thing.

“You’ll need to… put me down.”

Words failed him as he looked upon the pained expression etched on Blueblood’s muzzle. Instead, Shining nodded in affirmation.

Relief eased the features of Blueblood’s face. “Thank you, Shining.”

Week 21, Day 3, Afternoon

The shadowy boughs of the Everfree hung with gloomy menace. The sky above was curtained by clouds that had moved in just around noon, reducing the already poor visibility and trapping the stifling afternoon heat within the forest. In addition to the high temperatures, a complete lack of wind refused to provide any relief, and only exacerbated what had already been an oppressively humid day.

Shining and Twilight lit their horns in an attempt to fight back against the encroaching darkness, keeping themselves, Rainbow, and Zecora in a relative bubble of illumination.

“Lovely day we’re having,” Rainbow snarked.

“It’s bound to be a sign of the encroaching corruption,” Twilight said. “Everything’s being touched, changed…”

“Your worries may prove to be well-founded,” Zecora said. “But let us keep our perspectives grounded.”

“I suppose…”

Shining could see from the furrowing of Twilight’s brows that she wasn’t satisfied with cutting off her concerns, though. “What is it?”

“It’s… Blueblood.” A faint blush reddened her cheeks. “He’s being… touched and corrupted… in a more direct way.”

It took Shining a moment to catch her implication, but his eyebrows climbed as he finally got there. “Of course he’d be sleeping with Ametrine.”

Twilight nodded, sweat dripping from her chin. “I kinda walked in on them.”

Shining shook his head. “For any other pony, I’d say that sleeping with an eldritch abomination would set off all kinds of alarm bells.” He magically dragged a kerchief across his face, soaking up a good amount of moisture from his fur. “But Blueblood is probably the most promiscuous pony I know. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t slept with more company members.”

Rainbow, whose pegasus biology inured her to weather extremes, was entirely sweat-free. She chuckled. “He can’t be that bad, Shiny.” One of her wings caught her lucky chip out of the air.

“He’s slept with a quarter of the royal council,” Shining said flatly, ignoring the others’ glances of disgust or shock. “And don’t get me started on the castle staff.”

“Of the castle staff,” Zecora said, with a hint of bitterness in her voice, “I’ll bet he’s had more than half.” If she was sweating under her heavy mask and robes, nopony else could tell.

“You’re… not wrong.” Shining shook his head, sending some sweat droplets flying.

“Should we really be discussing this?” Rainbow asked. “You said he can see and hear everything we do.”

“He doesn’t care. He’s well aware of the rumors… or facts. He doesn’t even care if we embellish them; such exaggerations only add to his legend as a sexual tyrannosaurus.”

“Rulers are weird,” Rainbow said.

“Well, like you said, he’s listening,” Shining said with a smile. “All I’ll say is that I don’t think I’d ever be able to deal with rulership.”

“The number of social faux pas would be tremendous.” Twilight giggled. “Not to mention how you treat fillies.”

“Twily,” Shining said, with a hint of warning in his voice, “don’t you dare—”

“This one time,” Twilight began.

Shining groaned.

“Shining threw me like a javelin to catch a buckball out of the air,” Twilight finished.

He facehoofed.

“You threw a family member into the air to catch something?” Rainbow asked. “No offense Shiny, but… she doesn’t have wings; that was pretty bone-headed, even for you.”

“You threw a foal who could not fly?! Truly, sir Shining, were you high?”

“For the record, no,” Shining grumbled. “And don’t worry, I won’t be doing it again. I don’t even think I’ll end up being a family stallion, at this rate.”

“Oh c’mon Shiny,” Rainbow teased. “If I were your wife, you could toss me all you wanted!”

Shining stopped dead in his tracks. A furious blush crept over his face.

Both Twilight and Zecora stopped as well, leaving Rainbow to continue forward, laughing hysterically.

Turning her head back and forth between Shining and Rainbow, Twilight stifled a laugh. “The knight falls for the rogue; it’s like a bad romance novel.”

If he could have set fire to Twilight with his gaze alone, Shining would have. “You… don’t know what you’re talking about.” The redness of his muzzle deepened further.

“Oh c’mon Shiny,” Twilight said. “I kinda suspected before, with you two being so close all the time and—”

“I’m not listening!” Shining immediately trotted off to catch up with Rainbow.

“Wow,” Twilight said. “He’s got it bad.”

Zecora chuckled. “It is possible that he does not know, that he loves Miss Rainbow.”

“Let’s go.” Twilight snorted a laugh.

Week 21, Day 4, Morning

The sound of Yona’s war-bellow drew the wide eyes of the bandits. But before they had time to react, one of them, a stallion, was already impaled on one of her horns, coughing gouts of blood out onto the charging yak’s backside.

Yona steered the speared stallion into a collision course with a wall, collapsing the bandit’s ribcage in a unison of snaps. Even more blood vomited from the dead stallion’s mouth. Yona stumbled away, slightly staggered by the impact.

A brigand mare lifted a foreleg blade and took a step towards the dazed yak. “Stupid freaking yaks,” she said.

“Excuse me darling.”

The brigand turned to see a gorgeous unicorn mare with a tall hat and a seductive smile on her muzzle. “Buh?”

“Hold this for me, will you, dear?” Rarity buried a dagger into the top of the brigand’s head. A quick twist, and the blade snapped off at the hilt.

“Burfurdiglarp!!” exclaimed the brigand as her central nervous system was exposed to much higher quantities of low-quality iron and sooty atmosphere than it was used to.

Solmare shouted something incomprehensible as she lanced a brigand mare with a bolt of sun-yellow lightning. The charred corpse convulsed and dropped the shotgun it had been in the middle reloading.

The final bandit mare lifted a foreleg blade and growled. The snarl abruptly turned into a wet cough, followed by her collapse. Her back and side were covered with multiple stab wounds.

Lotus stood behind the crumpled mare, a bloody knife in her grinning mouth. The spectre of Aloe, who was floating behind her, facehoofed as Lotus began to rapid-fire stab the cadaver.

Week 21, Day 4, Morning

Tempest grunted in annoyance at the viewing display comprising Ametrine’s split-open barrel.

Blueblood stared blankly at the image. “Maybe we were wrong, and should have split those three new-hires into different groups,” he said.

“Our other teams already have high levels of synergy,” Tempest said. “Rarity was the only unattached, untested member of the company. Your decision to group these four together, as you did, seemed a wise choice at the time.” One of her eyes twitched as another fight began to unfold. She blew out a single huff of irritation.

Blueblood sighed as well. “Judging by the unsubtle and dissatisfied noises you’re making over there, I assume that you’re agreeing with me that it was actually a horrible idea.”

“Each member of this team seems remarkably proficient in murder,” Tempest said with a deepening scowl. “Proficient enough that they have avoided casualties, despite their complete and utter lack of coordination or teamwork.”

“It could be worse,” Blueblood said.

“It is brittle.” Tempest somehow managed to narrow her eyes even further without closing them entirely. “I should have known better; advised you against this grouping. My own failure in judgement is at fault here. Rarity worked alone as a grave robber for years. Yona fought in the pits for years, alone. Solmare…” She shook her head. “No pony even knows where that mare came from. Her abilities are all as potent as they are unique; she must have journeyed alone for a long time to reach us. And Aloe… I hardly expected her to be a paragon of unit cohesion. I was hoping that one of them would show some form of leadership potential, or that they would have some kind, any kind, of synergy. We will likely have to separate them after this mission.”

One of Tempest’s eyes twitched again as she watched the group disperse again to go after yet more bandits. “Also, with the exception of Solmare, the entire group’s equipment is substandard.” The statement was punctuated by Yona crumpling a gauntlet on a bandit’s face. The yak then discarded her broken accessory into the face of another bandit, with deadly results. “We will need to have Rivet provide—” Aloe struck a blow that snapped off her dagger’s blade from its hilt “—this team with new, higher durability gear. At this rate, it will be a miracle if they are able to complete their patrol with the equipment they brought with them.”

The image of Rarity knelt next to a felled bandit and retrieved the bandit’s daggers.

“Although Rarity is showing a degree of in-the-field resourcefulness,” Tempest said with begrudging approval.

She turned her gaze to Blueblood for a moment, curious if he was still watching Ametrine’s display, or if he was focused on his own. “Shining’s team must be doing well if you can find the time to converse with me about mine.”

Blueblood harrumphed. “They’re doing fine,” he said. “They’ve been tearing through the cultists easily enough; just like you said, astronomers don’t seem to have any predilection towards combat.” His eyes closed for a few moments. “Shining just cut somepony in half—they had blades strapped to their forelegs, if you can believe it. Meanwhile, Zecora is melting the faces… well, skull… faces… off of some courtiers. I’m actually surprised that the undead don’t seem to be trying to kill the cultists; they actually seem to be working together. I guess that without the Necromancer to guide them, they’re succumbing to The Heart’s control, just as the cultists have.” He shuffled closer. “Why so glum? Something eating you?”

“You may not need to open your foreleg to keep an eye on Shining’s team,” Tempest said in a menacing tone, “but I need to put my full concentration into what Ametrine can show me if I am to catalogue and correct the deficiencies of this team.”

“Fine, fine,” Blueblood grumbled. “Wait a minute… this is new.”

Tempest turned her head for the first time.

“Tell your team to hold up a moment, I may need you here,” Blueblood said, as his foreleg tore open into something reminiscent of a split ribcage. Between the strings of dripping bone and sinew, the gory display flickered to life. “Be careful Shining,” Blueblood said. “We’ve—”

—never seen skeletons like these two before.

True enough, Shining thought as he looked around a bend in the hallway at the first monstrosity, a massive amalgamation of bones which easily stood two hooves taller than Big Macintosh. To top it off, it was covered head to hindquarters in full plate. The second one was more regular-pony sized, but had saddlebags filled with what looked like spears.

“We’ll be careful Sir,” Shining said.

Hold on. Blueblood’s command halted the group’s advance. Designation for the big guy is “captain.” “Spearmare…” should be obvious.

Wait, Tempest’s voice boomed over the link. There is another one over there, just out of your line of sight. I haven’t seen one like it before either. Looks like it’s carrying a battle standard.

Good catch Tempest, Blueblood said. We’ll go with “bearer” for that one, then.

“A battle standard, huh?” Shining said. “Well, if there’s only three, I’m sure we can handle it.”

Lunging out around the bend, Shining delivered a staggering blow to the captain’s head, knocking It bodily into a wall. He pushed up against the bony behemoth, holding it in place. He grinned as Rainbow jumped forward, ducking between them, and began hacking at the massive skeletal hind legs with Mister Stabby, putting several notable notches in both of them.

The spearmare and bearer advanced, but a sudden burst of chemicals before them heralded Zecora’s countercharge. Shining turned his head to see her plucking more satchets from her new dispenser ring and hurling them. And Twilight brought up the rear, sticking near Zecora as they advanced together. Twilight’s horn glowed, and rents in reality opened, raining down a hail of magically summoned tentacles upon the two smaller foes.

“Looks like we got this,” Shining said with a smirk.

Then the captain pushed back with supernatural force, sending Shining scrambling to stay upright. He brought his sword around in a defensive posture just as his assailant slammed its forehooves down to the ground, creating a tremor that knocked everypony in the party, except Rainbow, to the floor.

The spearmare flanked to the left. It threw a javelin. Shining’s breath caught as it hit Rainbow and stuck into her right side, spinning her around and sending her to the floor. Mister Stabby went skittering into the darkness.

Shining stood and lunged towards Rainbow, only to have the bearer interpose itself, still brandishing its battle standard. He was now close enough to see—and feel revulsion—that the standard was made of genuine pony-hide. The hideous tapestry of patchworked cutie-marks was arranged in such a way that everything came together into a series of cryptic designs. As the creature raised the amalgamation of pony flesh into the air, it began to glow. A similar luminescence enveloped the skeletal trio, and within moments, all visible damage to them vanished.

Get up everypony! They’re advancing on you!

“On it,” Shining said as he tried to circle around to get between the bearer and Rainbow.

The captain charged Shining. It swung a forehoof that knocked his sword flying. Then, as if in retribution for his earlier attempt, it pressed him forcefully against a wall. Shining could hear the creaking of his breastplate under the pressure and grunted as he tried to push the captain off of him and draw breath.

“Hay! Bonehead!”

The captain turned, coming face-to-barrel with Rainbow’s pistol. The weapon discharged and blew the captain’s head to pieces. It also left Shining’s ears ringing as he was dropped, dazed and reeling, to the floor.

Rainbow stumbled and also fell to the ground, blood and entrails pouring from the gaping hole in her side. She convulsed as lavender motes of energy sprang from Twilight’s levitating skull and painfully stitched her guts back together.

“Don’t worry Shiny,” Twilight said, “I’ve got Rainbow—” Her sentence suddenly turned into a wet gurgle as a javelin pierced through her back, passing all the way through until it erupted from her stomach and pinned her to the spot.

The bearer moved forward and the collapsed pile that had been the captain started to rattle.

Seeing Twilight injured in such a manner, Shining let out a primordial scream, rose to his hooves, and charge-tackled the bearer. He started wildly raining his hooves down against it, breaking several rib bones and sending its jaw flying.

“Shining, beware! Satchets in air!”

Zecora’s words pierced Shining’s violent trance, and he turned to see her lining up a good throwing angle. He watched her tug at a satchet on her dispenser ring. But instead of retrieving a single pouch as she’d intended, the thin lace affixing the ring to her coat snapped, and she ended up lifting almost a dozen sachets above her head at once. She paused mid-throw as she noticed what had happened.

The spearmare, however, did not pause.

It threw a javelin at Zecora.

Shining’s subconscious mind recognized what was happening, and the entire combat slowed down to a terrifying crawl. He was forced to watch the events of mere moments stretch out into a seeming eternity.

The javelin pierced through the bundle of sachets Zecora held, before it arced downward. It then punctured through Zecora’s long coat and embedded itself into the cobbled floor, effectively trapping her in place.

The vitriolic contents of the entire bundle of sachets poured out onto her.

Zecora let out a shout of alarm as she was completely doused in a misty multitude of reactive reagents. Her short cry was swiftly replaced by a shriek, and then a long, pained scream as she struggled in vain to unpin her coat from the floor, and to remove her smoldering clothes. Greenish smoke, and the acrid smell of cooking flesh, wafted up from the stricken zebra.

“No!” Shining yelled as the flow of time sped back up. With a sudden surge of resolve, adrenaline coursed unchecked through his veins and empowered his forelegs. He gave a predatory growl, grabbed the bearer’s head, ripped it clean off, and crushed it to dust between his hooves.

Another shot rang out. Shining saw it punch a hole through the spearmare’s head, but not completely destroy it.

“Dammit!” Rainbow shouted as she struggled to pour a fresh load of powder into her firearm.

Shining jumped to his hooves, just in time for the spearmare to grab another javelin from its bag and throw it, skewering Twilight again.

Rainbow finished loading the pistol and pulled back on the hammer. She placed a firing cap, took careful aim, fired—

And missed.

Zecora’s screams stole Shining’s attention from the other parts of their deteriorating situation. He gazed in horror at her robes and mask, which had been burned all the way through in several places. The potent acids had started to work on her head and back, dissolving both fur and flesh, exposing sinew and bone.

Roaring like a manticore, Shining charged in a frenzied gallop towards the spearmare, who quickly set a spear to counter his advance. He caught the point of the weapon in his shoulder, causing his whole right foreleg to seize up. Nevertheless, he still full-body-tackled the skeleton and pinned the grinning monstrosity to the floor with his left foreleg.

Shining heard a series of clicks nearby.

“Dodge this.” Rainbow placed her pistol against the spearmare’s head and pulled the trigger. The skull exploded in a shower of bone and residual corruption.

“Twilight!” Shining tried to turn and almost whacked Rainbow with the spear that was still embedded in him. “We need—” He stopped when he saw that Twilight was having issues pulling out the second javelin, which had caused several of her vitals to spill out onto the floor. “Help her!” he shouted at Rainbow, before turning back to where Zecora lay in a smoldering heap.

“But Shiny—” Rainbow was looking at the spear sprouting from his shoulder like a stunted sapling.

“I’ll live, Dashie,” Shining said through clenched teeth. “You have to hurry, there’s no time!”

As Rainbow galloped to help Twilight, Shining pushed himself up off of the inanimate skeleton, gripped the haft of the embedded spear with his teeth, and pulled it out of his shoulder. He was vaguely aware of the sound of clattering as he stumbled over to Zecora.

What lay collapsed upon the ground in front of Shining bore little resemblance to the zebra he’d grown to call friend over the last several months. Zecora’s mask had melted almost completely away, and the upper left quarter of her face had been reduced to hissing bone. Her screams were now nothing more than gargling whimpers.

“Dammit Zecora! Stay with me!” Removing his helmet and lighting his horn, Shining poured healing magic into Zecora. He didn’t know if his magic would’ve been enough to save her even at full capacity, much less through a haze of blood-loss and pain. As it was, the caustic chemicals were eating away at her flesh faster than he could force it to regrow.

Zecora looked at Shining with her remaining eye. She tried to say something, but winced in pain and inhaled a ragged breath.

“Stay still,” Shining said, trying to keep his voice even. “Don’t worry, Zecora; Twilight will be here in a second or two and then you’ll be fine.” What was left of her expression told him that neither of them believed the well-intentioned lie.

Zecora opened her mouth and started to wheeze out partial words.

Shining leaned close, placing his ear as close as he dared.

“There is only one… thing now, that I fear,” Zecora said. The effort caused her to cough up blood, which began to smoke on her lips and chin. “Please, do not… leave… me… down…” Her features slackened and she went limp.

“No!” Shining grabbed Zecora with both forehooves and shook her as he spoke. His left forehoof sizzled where it came in contact with her blood. “No, no, no, not again!”

Shining was there, once more. Amethyst was on the floor, her own entrails wrapped around her legs like tinsel on a hearthswarming tree. He watched as Twilight tried to save her by blasting her full of eldritch energy. The resulting reaction between that energy, and Amethyst’s internal well of Harmony, produced an explosion which obliterated Amethyst and left them drenched in… her.

Twilight had used her own energies, yes; but it reacted with something.

That power.

It was far more than anything he had ever seen Amethyst use, but it was there, within her. A connection to Harmony, just like his own. If he had even a fraction of what she had residing within himself… then there was a chance that he could save Zecora.

In the now, Shining dug into the drained recesses of his own reservoir of Harmony. Exhaustion and injury had emptied it; there was nothing left to draw on. He would have to rest, would have to wait for it to refill.

No.

There was no time. Shining reached, pressing against the confines of the limitations placed by himself, by the world, by Harmony itself. And it was there, as he stretched his own boundaries, that he found it. A steady trickle of distilled Harmony, leading from his own empty stores, back to a source. He followed that stream, deeper and deeper within himself, until he saw it: a golden halo seeping through the cracks of what he could only assume was the bridge that connected his physical body directly to the Harmony that he channeled.

But the flow was weak. It was not nearly enough to be able to accomplish what he needed to do. There was nothing he had, no tools with which to open it further.

No; that was incorrect.

Twilight. She called on powerful things, otherworldly entities. Their potency was vast, forcing her to open gateways in order to allow a small amount of that power through. But she used different techniques, different methods. The way she manipulated these things, it wasn’t something that he could ever accomplish… or could he?

Shining combed his mind, straining to remember every instance, every time she opened one of her portals. The answer presented itself to him, clear as crystal. Whenever she opened a portal, the obscure incantation she used was the same.

Always.

Heedless of his own safety, he spoke the word, if it could truly be called such. It was more of an idea, a concept, than it was a mere string of syllables. He saw a sudden surge in the flow, and he beamed that what he now had would surely be enough to accomplish—

If the trickle of distilled Harmony that flowed from the bridge were like a tap placed into a cider keg, then the blasphemous word he had spoken took a proverbial axe to the side of that keg. The resultant surge of Harmony was as overwhelming as it was painful.

Horror dawned upon him as he realized that the incantation was not merely obscure, but eldritch.

He had just mixed eldritch magic and Harmony.

Inside of himself.

Before he could dwell on it further, Shining’s horn blazed bright enough to wash out his vision, and he was wracked by the feeling that his skin was being stripped from his body in the same manner that Time Turner would remove his clothes in Berry’s brothel—only with less erotic dancing, and more unfathomable pain. Then a new phase grew out of the last one, and quite suddenly the sensation of having his skin discarded paled in comparison to the torture of his blood beginning to boil in his veins. Each heartbeat sent pulsing, sharp, stinging pain throughout the entirety of his physical being. And yet all of that was paradise compared to the unnameable experience of his very soul beginning to burn. It was a feeling of heat so intense that it circled back around to freezing-out his nerves in an oversaturated, shuddering chill.

With what little remained of his conscious mind, Shining fought to direct the raw, undiluted flow of Harmony erupting from his forehead down onto Zecora. He saturated both her corpse and their surroundings, heedless of the small flames that erupted out of the creases in his armor, seeming to emulate a stove that had been overloaded with firewood.

Abruptly, the flow stopped. Shining fell back, completely out of breath, his fur singed in many places, and smoke rising from him like morning fog off of a lake.

“She’s gone Shiny!” Twilight limped over with the assistance of Rainbow. She had obviously come as fast as she possibly could, since she was using one of her hooves to keep her insides… inside. The look of pain on her face was from more than just her wounds, however. “What you just did… How did you even know how to… You… Do you realize what you just did?! You could have killed yourself!”

Shining tried to form coherent words, but only wound up coughing uncontrollably instead. He struggled for each breath; each inhalation burned in his chest, as if it were on fire. Which seemed entirely plausible since he produced black smoke with every cough. Pain suffused the entirety of his body and mind; it felt like being scalded by boiling water, only it was everywhere, including inside. The very idea that it was possible for a pony to channel that much Harmony was unthinkable. As he beheld the charred fur, the smoke which still rose from him, he realized that he very easily could have—

“You could have gone up like a Romane candle, you dumbflank… idiot… stupid!” Twilight was shaking, the motes of eldritch energy which were stitching her wounds closed moving erratically. “Did you stop to think about how this could affect me, your sister; how I would feel if I had to watch you turn into a pony torch?”

Shining was about to say something in his own defense—

“Did you even stop for one second to consider how this could affect the ones who care about you? About how it would make Rainbow feel? I know you love her! And she loves you too! You… you… stupid!”

All the arguments Shining had been mentally preparing, and all feelings of righteousness he harbored died when Twilight said Rainbow’s name. He looked over to Rainbow and saw that her eyes were wide, and that her body was trembling.

“Can you imagine what it would do to her if you died right in front of her?!”

Shining stared into Rainbow’s eyes. He saw a pain there that he knew very well. Memories flooded into him, of the time right after Twilight had vanished, and of two years later, when the authorities had declared her legally dead. The very idea of thoughtlessly inflicting such a burden on Dash filled him with shame. Averting his gaze, he chose to focus instead on Zecora.

Is Twilight right? What does it say about how it makes me feel to see Dashie’s fear and pain, that I would rather look upon Zecora’s smoldering remains?

Unbidden, Tempest’s words wormed their way into his consciousness. “Your selflessness is an admirable trait. But do not let it blind you to your needs, and the needs of those closest to you.”

“Shiny.” A wing draped over his withers.

Shining glanced over to where he’d dropped his helmet and stared down at it. He couldn’t look Rainbow in the eyes, not if he would see pain there. “I’m sorry Dash. I… I wasn’t thinking. Twilight’s right; I’m stupid.”

Several moments of relative silence passed, the only sound being that of Twilight’s flesh being magically knitted back together.

Shining saw Rainbow reach a hoof under his chin. He put up no resistance as she lifted his gaze to meet hers. The look on her face was one he’d never seen before. There was pain written there, yes. But there was also something else… a tired smile.

“Hi Stupid, I’m Rainbow Dash.”

He tried to laugh, but all that came out was a cough and some smoke.

“Forgiven, Dummy.” She sat next to him, and pulled him closer with her wing.

Shining… Blueblood’s voice quavered. We should… honor Zecora’s final wishes. After you all heal up… Bring her back here.

Shining looked back to the corpse. One eye stared back at him, filled with pleading. Raising his left foreleg to close Zecora’s intact eye, he saw that his hoof still had acid on it, and was hissing slightly. Lowering his left foreleg, he tried to complete the deed with his right, only to find he could barely move the limb; his wounded shoulder had locked up. The attempt to light his horn resulted in only a few errant sparks falling from its tip, and a splitting headache.

When he looked up, he saw scorch marks on his horn. His already-heavy heart sank further as he considered whether he’d caused irreparable damage to his own ability to channel Harmony magic. Which meant, at the very least, he wouldn’t be able to heal until they returned to Ponyville. A mental picture of Amethyst exploding came to the forefront of his mind when he thought of Twilight trying to seal his wounds with her magic. Until then, he couldn’t even do something as simple as—

Much to Shining’s relief, Rainbow reached out with the wing that wasn’t wrapped around him, and brushed it down over Zecora’s face, closing the eye for him.

Rainbow pulled Shining closer, and the two ponies stared at their fallen comrade.

“You weren’t a pony Zecora,” Shining said. “But wherever you are now, brave warrior, we’ll meet again. There is only one place where the valorous go when they die.”

As Twilight started to heal Rainbow’s wounds, her mind drifted into deep reflection on what she could or should say to them. They were family, or would be someday, if Shining ever pulled his head out of his rump and made things official. It felt important to share the knowledge she’d gained about the dark forces arrayed against them. But then she saw the expressions on their faces. Sadness did predominate there, but Shining’s words had injected a faint glimmer of hope.

There was no way that Twilight would take that away from them.

She reflected on her prior research with Starlight, covering many different explorations of, and explanations for, the physical laws that governed reality… and beyond. However, since Starlight’s blinding, Twilight had begun her own lines of research based on her explorations into the crypts, her reading of Celestia’s journals, and from the things she’d seen when Moondancer’s team was massacred.

Seeing Zecora die in a melting mess before them echoed memories of the few ancient, and often forbidden, texts that correlated with her own observations. And though she knew correlation did not automatically equal causation, the signatures of eldritch energy present in the captain, spearmare, and bearer, all seemed damningly reminiscent of arcane power-matrices scrawled in dead languages on the most dangerous of tomes she’d encountered. More than mere necromancy was at work here. There were hints of techniques and rituals long-forgotten, and for good reason. They were things not even she and Starlight had dared emulate, regardless of how many lines they had already crossed.

If such techniques were being used, here, now… then progress was no longer something to be judged by the number of books she’d read, or the amount of magic she could channel through herself. Instead, it would be measured by the others in progressive realization, and dawning horror.

Twilight remained silent. There was no way that she could ruin the moment by telling them the things that she knew, even as she watched Zecora’s blood soak into the ground much, much faster than it should have been able to.

The pitch-blackness of the manor’s cellar was pierced by the sounds of uncontrollable sobbing. Starlight lit her horn, slightly brightening the small space in which she’d sequestered herself. She sat on a patch of packed dirt floor, in a corner as far as possible from the stairs which led up to the ground floor.

While she didn’t need the light itself, the incidental illumination revealed the twin lines of wetness that poured out from under her eye bandages, and down her muzzle. She sniffled ineffectually, snot having already run down from her nose, to where it slowly dripped from her chin.

A dagger lifted into the air, carried on the thaumaturgical currents of her channeled eldritch energies.

The blade slowly turned towards her, alternating between different vital spots; eyes, throat, carotid artery, jugular vein.

She’d known that Zecora was going to die screaming. And that her “gift” of the satchet ring would precipitate it. Doubting her own predictions was something she’d stopped doing weeks ago. But—and she knew this too—it would never prepare her for the emotional impact of actually experiencing the events.

Everything prior to this point had been excusable, as either triage during a chaotic situation, or just a matter of not acting when her own efforts would have failed to produce reasonable change, or even change things for the worse.

But this time…

With a wracking sob, Starlight flared her horn, and the dagger flew towards one of her eye sockets at high speed. She gritted her teeth to prepare for the inevitable, but then suddenly reversed the direction of her telekinesis, stopping the blade just as it pierced into the cloth bandages around her eyes.

She struggled against herself, letting grief and rage war unchecked in her mind, causing a violent tug of war with the dagger. Seemingly of its own accord, it alternately tried to push into, or away from, her blackened eyes, which had cursed her with this singularly frustrating ability of foresight. And she thrashed about wildly as her muzzle issued streams of words, almost unbidden, that reflected her unraveling psyche:

“How could you?!”

“I had to…”

“You killed Zecora!”

“I know…”

“On purpose!”

“If I didn’t…”

“You murdered her! You monster!”

“You know I had to…”

“No! You could have done something!”

“I couldn’t…”

“Yes you could!”

“I don’t have a choice…”

“You do have a choice!”

“No…”

“You have a choice, you piece of—”

“NO! I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!”

Starlight’s scream echoed in the cellar, slowly dying with each repetition until it faded into nothingness. Her writhing subsided. A breathless calm settled over her, born from acceptance—not of herself, but of the futility of everything. She couldn’t fight it anymore. She didn’t have a choice.

“None of us do,” she whispered to herself.

The dagger pulled away from her face, and moved down to her left foreleg. Starlight dragged the blade across the outward-facing side of the limb, cutting through fur and skin, whilst carefully avoiding all of the major arteries and veins. She hissed at the pain she felt, but continued until she’d made an incision into her subdermis which straddled half of the circumference of her leg.

“None of us do.”

She cut another line into herself.

“None of us do.”

And another.

“None of us do.”

And another.

“None of us do.”

And—

Week 21, Day 4, Noon

Blueblood stared at the bowl of nuts and fruit that Ditzy had prepared for his lunch. His frown deepened and he pushed the bowl away with a sigh.

“I should not have to tell you that you need to eat,” Tempest said from across him. “Because only foals need to have that explained to them.”

Blueblood blinked at the bluntness of the statement. He looked around the opulent dining room, which was empty except for the two of them.

“You know I would never say such a thing in front of the others,” Tempest said sternly.

“Sorry,” Blueblood said. “Years spent in the royal court have me looking for spectator reactions anyway.” He sighed again. “What a simple time that was, where the only threats were from tittering sycophants and scandals.” He raised his forehooves and shook them haphazardly. “Oh no! The Prince’s top General just berated him!” The sarcastic display raised a smile from neither pony. “Guaranteed front page of the newspaper material, right there,” he said, slamming a hoof down on the table. “Dammit! And do you know what the worst part is?”

“Zecora’s death would be lucky to make the obituaries,” Tempest said, not unkindly.

“Exactly!” Blueblood backhoofed his plate off the table. “To Tartarus with them all!”

Tempest calmly sipped her tea. “I normally do not engage in the support of rampant alcoholism,” she said. “But you were a much more stable individual before you went dry.”

“I’ve relied on that blasted crutch for too long.” He quickly stood and began pacing up and down one side of the table. “I’d rather be angry and alert—” He slammed a hoof down on the table. “—than… soothed and sedated!”

“You are taking Zecora’s death particularly hard,” Tempest said.

“We were—” Blueblood paused for a moment “—almost intimate.”

In a rare showing, Tempest furrowed her brow in confusion. “Almost intimate does not sound like you.”

“Hardy-har-har,” Blueblood said with a frown. “It was when Amethyst died.” He turned away. “You… you don’t need or want to hear this.”

“Tell me,” Tempest said, in something approaching empathy. “You need to talk about it or you will carry this much longer than you have to.” Her features hardened again. “Besides, I despise moping employers.”

“What if I want to suffer?” Blueblood said to the wall.

“Then I will break one of your bones for you.” Tempest cracked one of her fetlock joints.

“Fine, I’ll talk.” Blueblood sat down again. “Zecora and I were chatting about her being kicked out of the brothel.”

That particular piece of news raised an eyebrow.

“Anyway, one thing led to another and then we were kissing in the streets.” Blueblood sighed heavily. “I was supposed to be watching the viewer, keeping an eye on the team. I remembered just in time to walk in on them summoning the shambler. None of them ever told me why they were being so reckless as to mess with that altar in the first place. While I’ve privately wagered it had something to do with Shining’s now-cured kleptomania, it was ultimately my fault for being so neglectful.”

Tempest nodded.

“Afterwards, Zecora started getting all touchy and feely. And… I let her. We probably both figured that it would take our minds off of what happened.” Blueblood put a hoof to his forehead. “Then I went and freaked out on her, told her to get lost.” Letting his hoof drop to the table, he looked up at Tempest, who was listening intently. “I never apologized, Tempest.”

“Regrets come with every death,” Tempest said, in a solid, steady tone. “There are things left unsaid, things left undone, things that you think should have been done differently. All of this is normal, whether the deceased is friend, foe, or even a complete stranger.”

“Are you going to tell me to ‘get over it?’”

“No,” Tempest replied. “You are the only one capable of doing that. You cannot rely on others to forgive you, or you will never be able to move forward.”

“So, what am I supposed to do? Just stop caring?”

“Whatever you do, you must never do that.” Tempest’s eyes glittered like fire. “The day you feel nothing upon witnessing the death of another pony… is the day you cease to be a pony yourself.” She looked away with an odd combination of glaring wistfulness. “While I do not bother to debate the necessity of the deaths I have caused, I regret each and every one.”

Blueblood pondered for a moment, considering how he felt about that philosophy. His thoughts, however, kept returning to one thing that had haunted him since his arrival. “Still, at least you don’t have the dead coming back to visit afterwards.”

“I will assume you are being literal,” Tempest said. “I really should not be surprised at this point, considering our mission, locale, and your distinct predilection for attracting every malevolence under the sun.”

“Well, I—”

“And then fornicating with it,” Tempest added bluntly.

“That’s fair.”

“Everything is beginning to make more sense now,” Tempest said. “Amethyst coming back as Ametrine, the piles of bones that you have hidden around the grounds—”

Blueblood facehoofed.

“—not to mention the sounds coming from the stone sarcophagi in the cellar.”

Blueblood ground his hooves into his temples. “You didn’t think of mentioning that you’d noticed these things earlier?”

“You obviously had things well enough in hoof,” Tempest said. “Otherwise, I am sure you would have asked for assistance.”

“Speaking of which—” Blueblood sighed “—could you stop by my room later tonight—”

Tempest narrowed her eyes.

“Not for that!”

Week 21, Day 4, Night

Blueblood tossed and turned under the covers. The grilling Tempest had subjected him to earlier had left him feeling exhausted enough that, for the first time in ages, sleep instantly claimed him upon laying in his bed. Despite that, it seemed his mind conjured plenty of phantoms to haunt his dreams.

Something slid into the room, the noise of its entry partially masked by the distressed sounds Blueblood was making. There was a sickening series of squelches, followed by the light sound of hoofsteps. The acid-marred visage of Zecora walked out to be illuminated by the moonlight. Slowy, the Zecora-thing approached where Blueblood slept. It reached out a hoof to touch the prince.

Suddenly, something grabbed it by the shoulder and it was violently spun around.

“Hello Zecora,” Tempest said.

The Zecora thing stared at Tempest with eyes that expressed both shock and fear. It backed slowly until its flank hit a wall. “I.. I just arrived in this place!”

“And you will be leaving shortly.” Tempest cracked her neck. “Any requests before I send you to dreamland?”

The Zecora thing looked absolutely terrified. “Please, Tempest! Not in the face!”

Narrowing her eyes, Tempest gave the creature her number-one glare. “Request... denied.”

The Zecora-thing tried to fight back in a blind panic, but what followed was ten straight minutes of Tempest beating the ever-living shit out of the fleshform, until it finally collapsed into a gelatinous pile of unconsciousness.

Arc 2 Chapter 5: Delving Deep

Chapter 5: Delving Deep

Week 21, Day 7, Evening

Unlike the other company members who had been killed, Zecora was the first to have her body returned to town. In addition to all of Blueblood’s mercenaries, a good deal of the town also turned out for the funeral. Even Starlight had shown up, apparently granting herself a brief reprieve from a self-imposed exile to her own room.

The rain had also decided to attend as well. A storm had moved in from the Everfree without warning, almost as if it had come specifically to pay its respects. One might have almost thought that the blighted forest felt sorry, considering the intensity of the downpour.

Monsignor Mare stood before the drenched gathering of ponies, dressed in a long black robe. She quoted from the Harmonicum and performed the Equestrian rites for the recently departed.

“I never understood scripture,” Blueblood grumbled, after a particularly obscure passage was read. He wasn’t sure if he’d been heard due to the severity of the deluge.

Shining’s right foreleg was in a sling, and he was standing as best as he could on only three legs. He had to hop slightly so that he could better face Blueblood. “I’m more surprised that you’re allowing the Monsignor to perform an Equestrian ceremony. Zebrica is a completely different culture. The funerary rites are equally different, I’m sure.”

Blueblood swept a hoof, indicating those who’d gathered. “The funeral is not for Zecora, it’s for them.”

“You’re right.” Shining looked around at the massive turnout, trying to ignore the spikes of pain from his shoulder as he turned slightly. “The company definitely needed this.” He watched as four ponies lifted the casket into the air, with the assistance ropes and pulleys attached to a scaffold. “They need to know that if they die, that there is at least a chance that their remains will be able to return here, to rest in peace.”

“Rest in peace,” Blueblood muttered. “What a farce.” He furrowed his brow and blinked away water. “All of it is a farce.”

Shining looked at Blueblood askance.

“Look at this.” Blueblood’s voice was filled with contempt. “We know Celestia is dead. Yet here, we have a mare in a robe, claiming communion with the divine?” His manic gaze pierced into Shining’s eyes. “What greater insanity could there possibly be?”

“But Sir.” Shining was hesitant to continue the conversation, since Zecora was being lowered into the ground as they spoke. “We know that Harmony exists. We have an Element of Harmony in our possession. I channel Harmony energy.”

Blueblood shook his head. “We’ve recommitted scores of skeletons, dozens of desperados, and countless creatures to the earth.” He glared at Monsignor Mare with hateful eyes. “But to what end?” he hissed. “Our efforts have yielded us naught!” His voice rose with every word. “As our victories mount, so too does resistance!”

Eyes started to turn towards them, away from the lowering casket, as Blueblood’s exclamations rose above the level of the rain. He lowered his voice again. “Shining—”

The ropes went slack, and were withdrawn from the gaping hole in the ground. Shining couldn’t shake the idea that the casket had just been swallowed up by the tainted earth. Nor could he ignore the feeling that the pit, where Zecora now lay, beckoned for more to join her.

Blueblood didn’t take his eyes from that earthy maw. “I’m sorry about that outburst, Shining. I’m just… very upset that she’s gone.”

“Me too,” Shining said, his hardened eyes set on the grave as workmares began to shovel mud into it. “Me too.”

Week 22, Day 1, Noon

Berry’s bar was bustling, her new wait-staff, dealers, and courtesans all catering to itinerants, permanent residents, and members of Blueblood’s company. The repairs and expansions were coming along nicely. Berry was pleased enough that she was actually giving members of Blueblood’s company discounts for drinks and other services as thanks for all of the renovations.

Rainbow Dash sat at a table, her muzzle streaked by tears. She stared at her mug of cider with bloodshot eyes. Then she pounded it down. Waking up at the crack of dawn, she’d gone straight to the bar and just started drinking. After the fifth one, she’d lost count of how many she’d had.

Rainbow knew that Berry probably wouldn’t cut her off, out of sympathy. Everypony in town seemed to know who had witnessed Zecora’s gruesome demise. She saw that Berry was eyeing her warily, probably expecting her to pass out in the bar again.

But Rainbow was too distraught to pass out. Even the customary wooziness that accompanied her usual bouts of heavy drinking wasn’t as prevalent as she was hoping it’d be. Months of working with Zecora had started them along a path from mere acquaintances towards actual friendship. The sudden loss felt like a hole had been punched through her chest.

Rainbow had put on a brave face at the time Zecora had died, and again at the funeral. But doing so hurt her in ways she couldn’t properly describe. Her grief made her want to shout to the heavens, to scream her outrage and curse Harmony itself for allowing such a thing. It wouldn’t help. Nothing helped.

At first, Rainbow had hoped that Shining would be able to be there for her, but she couldn’t even spend time with him. He’d been hurt so badly and his medical care delayed for so long that, even with the whole team of Sanitarium doctors who were currently working on him, his right shoulder would likely suffer from a permanent loss in its range of motion. And to top it off, his horn had been damaged. Depending on how things went with it, he would be lucky to only have a serious reduction in his ability to channel magic. The worst case scenario, however, would be that he might not be able to use magic, ever again. It would be like a pegasus losing their wings.

The reminder of losing a piece of oneself had Rainbow reflexively reaching down to her scabbard, which she found to be empty. As if to add insult to injury regarding everything that happened, she’d been unable to find Mister Stabby after the fight. Her mother and father had given her that knife. They, of course, were the ones who had named it. Rainbow had found the name silly and childish, but had adored the gift all the same. It and her pistol, Mister Shooty, were the only two things she’d had to remember her parents by on her journeys across Equestria. Losing it… was almost like losing one of them.

“One more over here,” Rainbow called out to the bar.

Berry brought it over personally this time.

Rainbow looked up at her, not even trying to stem the flow of tears from her eyes.

“I know it’s bad for you,” Berry said. “I lost members of my family in that eclipse attack, so I can understand needing to drown it out.” She put the fresh mug on the table. “Try not to drink yourself to death.” Then she grabbed the empty mug and returned to the bar.

Looking at the foaming mug, Rainbow probed the emotional abyss inside herself. Maybe if she drank enough, she could overflow it with frothy cider, and move on. Despite repeating the lie to herself several times, a small part of her knew that there was no way to fill that hole; not with booze, at any rate.

Rainbow found that she didn’t care, and reached for her drink.

A mug was set down on the table across from her.

Lifting her head, Rainbow saw a mare she hadn’t been expecting.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie does not like to see ponies as upset as you look right now,” Trixie said.

“Well,” Rainbow said, sniffling a few times, “I’m not moving, so go look somewhere else.” She had tried to make her voice sound forceful, but even she knew that it just ended up sounding pathetic.

Trixie took off her ridiculously large wizard’s hat and set it on the table. “The Great and Powerful Trixie would like to help, if she can.”

“What?” Rainbow sniffed some more and began to sway a little bit. Apparently the previous cider had finally kicked in.

“Speak about your problems, and The Great and Powerful Trixie will listen.”

“How is that going to help?” Rainbow wiped the back of one foreleg across her nose.

“Talking helps, apparently. Trixie read about it in one of the many amazing and astonishing books that she sells. One said something about how talking about one’s problems helps with processing. Trixie thinks she understands the concept, but doesn’t claim to be an expert on mental well-being.”

“What?”

Trixie pointed at Rainbow. “You, talk.” She pointed at herself. “Trixie listen.” Then she made weird circular movements with her hooves that were reminiscent of a turning wheel. “You process; feel better.”

Rainbow felt her stomach turn as her eyes followed Trixie’s hoof-motions. “Fine, just stop doing that.”

While skeptical at first, Rainbow started to talk. Once the words started to flow, however, it was as if a dam had burst. She was unable to stop, recounting to Trixie… everything, really. About the times before she knew Shining, after they’d met, her experiences in Blueblood’s company, things that had been going wrong recently, and finally, everything that happened on that last, ill-fated mission.

Amazingly, both mugs of cider remained untouched on the table, the plethora of words not allowing time for drink. The sun lowered in the sky, eventually beginning to set, and heralding the bar’s evening rush.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie has never experienced loss of the magnitude you describe,” Trixie said. “While she cannot do anything regarding the loss of your friend, she may be able to do something else for you.”

“Yeah?” Rainbow said, actually feeling better than she’d expected. She realized that she’d sobered up during her lengthy recap. “What could you do?”

“Follow Trixie,” Trixie said.

Rainbow first walked to the bar, grabbing bits out of her pouch to pay her tab. She was surprised when Berry turned her away, telling her that her drinks were on the house.

Completely nonplussed by the mere concept of free alcohol, Rainbow instead followed Trixie out the door, and towards the wagon where Trixie sold her wares.

Trixie opened the door to the wagon and beckoned for Rainbow to enter first.

The inside of the wagon was cramped, to say the least. Rainbow barely had room to turn around and face Trixie when she also entered. The interior was littered with various boxes that were each filled to the brim with assorted books, trinkets, and baubles. If Rainbow were being honest, she’d have said that it looked like a flea market had vomited in there.

“Now,” Trixie said. “Trixie needs two things from you.”

“I thought you were going to do something for me.”

“Yes,” Trixie replied. “But Trixie will need the scabbard you kept Mister Stabby in, as well as the hoof you most often wielded him with.”

“You want to cut off my hoof?” Rainbow felt a sudden, irrational paranoia as she became painfully aware that her flank was backed up against the inside of Trixie’s wagon, and that there was no room for her to extend her wings. Things began to slow down as adrenaline was pumped into her veins and she began to hyperventilate.

Trixie, apparently unaware of Rainbow’s engaged fight or flight response, sputtered and waved a hoof in dismissal. “No. The Great and Powerful Trixie does not do such things. She only needs to borrow the scabbard, and for you to hold out your hoof.”

Rainbow struggled to bring her breathing under control, mentally placing her body on autopilot so that it could mechanically unbuckle the empty scabbard while she tried to bring her own heart rate down. Taking a deep breath, Rainbow hoofed the scabbard over to Trixie. She berated herself for the random panic attack.

“Now,” Trixie said, sprinkling some oddly glowing shards into the scabbard, “hold out your hoof.”

Hesitating, Rainbow looked at Trixie like she was a viper that could strike at any moment. A few more slow breaths, and Rainbow complied.

Rainbow watched as Trixie placed a large, luminescent crystal into her outstretched hoof. The gem was a peculiar sight, with a mixture of aquamarine and teal light shining from deep within. For its size, the weight was surprisingly light, and she felt its temperature to be simultaneously warm and cold. It also seemed to buzz, emanating a peculiar vibration that began to travel up her foreleg. Yet… it produced no sound… at least, not one she could hear. As the resonance spread to the rest of her body, she found it to be oddly soothing. Her breathing and heart rate slowed, and it was not long before she felt wholly calm. The crystal briefly scintillated in some unnamable color, before returning to its original illumination.

Trixie seemed to take that as a sign. “Okay. Now, Trixie needs you to close your eyes and think about Mister Stabby. Think of when he was given to you, of times that you remember using him, and of the moment you lost him.”

“Why do I have to—”

“Just do it. It won’t work if you don’t.”

Rainbow, who still had no idea what was going on, closed her eyes and thought hard. Her parents had always been over-supportive, even when she tried to rebel against their plans for her by declaring that she would travel Equestria as an “adventurer,” which was, essentially, a nice way of saying “murder-hobo.” The first memories which came to mind when she steered it in the direction Trixie had asked, were those when her parents presented her with the dual gifts of Mister Stabby and Mister Shooty. She’d cried tears of joy, buoyed by the knowledge that her mother and father would support her even in her overt defiance of their wishes. Those memories were followed by her immediate embarrassment when she heard the names of the weapons, which had—of course—been permanently engraved into the blade and barrel of each, respectively. Over time, she had actually grown quite fond of those names; so much so, that she had almost gotten into several lethal confrontations whenever somepony had mocked them.

She thought of the different times she would use both dagger and pistol in concert, one after the other, sometimes both simultaneously. While dispatching foes or neutering stallions under-the-table were memorable events in their own right, the performance of parlor tricks came to the forefront of Rainbow’s mind as what she liked the most about the weapon duo. Once, she had balanced Mister Stabby on one hoof while shooting a coin out of the air with Mister Shooty. Good times. And then, finally, she came to that moment when Mister Stabby had been knocked away from her, skittering off into the darkness like—

Rainbow felt the crystal in her hoof shift. It was suddenly heavier, and the balance had changed.

There was a confused hum from Trixie.

“What is it?” Rainbow asked. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

“The results… are not quite what The Great and Powerful Trixie was expecting.”

Rainbow opened her eyes and looked at what she was now holding in her hoof. “What…” She didn’t have actual words to express her feelings at that moment. Most swirled around confusion and disbelief. What she held in her hoof was a dagger and a pistol. The blade had “Mister Stabby” engraved upon it, and the barrel of the pistol had “Mister Shooty” similarly engraved. They were both very much as she remembered them. But… she had left Mister Shooty in his holster…

Reaching for her pistol holster, Rainbow found it clasped, but empty. “Wait, what did you do?”

“Trixie has been experimenting with the crystals that Twilight Sparkle gave her,” Trixie said. “They have an odd effect on both space and time. By providing a physical and mental link, we were able to reach out and retrieve your dagger… and apparently your pistol as well.”

“But that’s great!” Rainbow said. “Mister Stabby is back!” She unfolded a wing and grabbed Mister Shooty so that she could try some hoof twirling with her newly returned dagger. “Now I have—” the two weapons moved together when she lifted the pistol. “—what?”

Rainbow closely inspected both items and saw that they were fused together, the dagger having merged with both the underbarrel ramrod, and the barrel itself, which made it parallel with the pistol’s line of fire. Using her other wing to pull at the two, she found that they were inseparable. She could see that a series of crystalline growths had formed around the point of connection and gave off the same unnatural luminescence as the larger crystal Trixie had given her.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is unsure how this happened,” Trixie said. “You focused on memories of only Mister Stabby, correct?”

“I thought about both,” Rainbow said, feeling very confused. “I always used them together, so all memories of one—”

“—are connected to memories of the other,” Trixie finished. “The Great and Powerful Trixie apologizes, Rainbow Dash. The childhood gifts your parents gave you are now irrevocably joined.”

“This is the most awesome thing ever!” Rainbow said.

Trixie tilted her head in confusion. “Come again?”

“It’s both a knife, and a gun!” Rainbow twirled the weapon in a manner which was simultaneously impressive and incredibly dangerous in the close confines of Trixie’s wagon.

“Pow!” Rainbow said, aiming up and pulling the trigger.

Both mares jumped in surprise when the firearm discharged, blowing a hole through the roof of Trixie’s wagon.

As both mares rubbed at their tinnitus-ridden ears, Trixie gave Rainbow a death glare.

“But it wasn’t loaded!” Rainbow said, looking down the barrel. “I never carry Mister Shooty around loaded, that’s just irresponsible!”

Trixie gave Rainbow a flat look, but then eyed the knife-gun suspiciously. She used a hoof to carefully direct the business-end away from Rainbow’s face.

“Fire it again,” Trixie said.

“You want me to reload and shoot another hole in your roof?” Rainbow asked.

“No,” Trixie said. “Aim it up, right now, and pull the trigger.”

“I don’t know what you expect to happen,” Rainbow said, aiming up and placing a primary on the trigger. “I mean it’s empty for—”

The weapon discharged again, blowing a second hole through the roof.

It took a while for the ringing in their ears to drop to manageable levels. When it finally did, Rainbow carefully inspected the weapon. “How?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie also assumes that you thought about firing the weapon, and never about when it was empty?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “That sounds about right.” She shook her head. “Wait, are you telling me that I never have to reload it?”

“Trixie thinks it is safe to assume that,” Trixie said. “The weapon seems to be resetting itself… in… time, or… something. Trixie would bet that the bullet is being returned to the barrel after every shot, and that the gunpowder is acting in a similar fashion.”

“Okay,” Rainbow said, “this is beyond awesome! I don’t know how to thank you for this, Trixie!”

“Twilight Sparkle has already paid The Great and Powerful Trixie for both the experiments and any produced equipment,” Trixie said.

Rainbow held up the knife-gun, and looked it over again. “It needs a new name,” she said. “It’s made out of both Mister Stabby and Mister Shooty… but I can’t just call it one or the other.” She rubbed her temple with her free hoof.

Trixie tilted her head slightly. “Trixie never understood the practice of naming inanimate objects. But she supposes you could combine the names. Mister Stabby and Mister Shooty together become Mister Stabooty.”

It was Rainbow’s turn to give Trixie a flat look.

“No.” Rainbow turned the weapon over in her hooves. “This bad boy needs to have a name that’s as cool and awesome as he is.” She ran a hoof along the barrel and then the blade. “Something that can both cut you like a strong wind, and pelt you with a hail of—”

Rainbow grinned. “Oh yeah. The only name I could ever give to an awesome gun-knife like this is—”

A moment or two passed.

“Is?” Trixie asked.

“I was pausing for dramatic effect.”

“Ahh,” Trixie replied. Her flat look had decided to grace Rainbow with its presence again.

“You ruined it though,” Rainbow said. “Now I have to start over.”

Waving her hoof in a gesture to continue, Trixie sighed. “By all means.”

“The only name I could ever give to an awesome gun-knife like this is—” Rainbow paused again.

Trixie may or may not have looked at a pocketwatch in the interim.

“Squall.”

Week 22, Day 2, Morning

Heavy wind buffeted against the shuttered windows of the drawing room. The newly re-reconstituted weather team, headed by a pegasus named Thunderlane, was doing their best to repel the gale-force winds, despite their lack of numbers. The storm that had arrived for Zecora’s funeral had not dissipated after drenching Ponyville for two whole days, and risked flooding both the town and the surrounding county if it couldn’t be dispersed. The hope was that they would be able to drive the weather system to the northeast, to where it could then continue past the Everfree, the ruins, and into the mountains.

Blueblood closed his splayed-open left foreleg, dispelling the view of both Thunderlane’s struggling team, and the lone company member he’d asked to tag along: Night Glider. He turned back to the team gathered before him; he was relieved to see relatively little horror played upon their faces, and was separately relieved that he hadn’t sprayed blood or almost impaled anypony this time around. “Does anypony have an issue with this here?” He waggled his foreleg around. “Because this is… a thing now.”

Octavia crossed her forelegs. “I turn into a shark.”

Vinyl bobbed her head to some tune that was probably blaring inside her headphones. “What she said!”

Applejack shrugged. “Yeah yer Princeship, the whole shark-thang makes your leg-window-mabob look like small apples.”

“Eeyup.”

Winona barked.

Blueblood wanted to punch himself for worrying about how everypony would take it. After the initial shock, first Shining’s group, and now Applejack’s group, had just accepted his weird monster-arm. Tempest was right; the members of the company were made of stern stuff, and he needed to stop underestimating them.

“Okay then. I want you to start your patrol in the part of the catacombs where Shining’s team left off,” Blueblood pointed at the corresponding point on the map. Then he pointed at another marked area closeby. “Tempest will be using Ametrine to direct a team over here in this section. Running both teams close together at the same time is intentional. You all know what happened to Zecora; should either team encounter insurmountable resistance or suffer casualties, we’re going to have you group together and withdraw.”

“Y’all sound pretty sure we’re gonna lose somepony else,” Applejack replied.

“What we saw down there was new and powerful,” Blueblood said. “This way there’s backup for each team nearby. I’d send you all in larger groups, but you’ve been in those tunnels; more than four ponies would only have you all stepping on each other’s hooves. At least this way you’re not completely alone.”

“Who will constitute the second team?” Octavia asked, after a particularly energetic clattering of the shutters.

“The other team will be Starlight’s four recruits,” Blueblood said. “They proved themselves in the tavern, but that was apparently under the direction of Starlight’s supernatural foresight. I want to make sure that they can operate without it.”

“That’s it?” Vinyl asked. She didn’t wait for a response. “No problem, we got this.”

“That is all. Get your rest and relaxation in today, and report for equipment this evening. Dismissed.”

After the team exited the drawing room, Blueblood leaned back in his chair and sighed as the wood creaked.

“Ow!” the chair exclaimed, causing Blueblood to yelp and vault from it onto the drawing room table, where he stood on the tips of his hind hooves with what he hoped weren’t comically wide eyes.

“You need to lose some weight,” Ametrine said as the back of the chair splintered and formed into her head.

“What?! Why?!” Blueblood yelled from his elevated position. “I… I’ve been sitting on you for the last three hours!” He shook himself out. “Nyahh! Do you have any idea how creepy that is?”

“Yup,” Ametrine’s head said with a smile. “But that filly-shriek you just gave off was totally worth having your bum rubbing back and forth on me the whole time.” She lifted a chair leg to her mouth conspiratorially. “But, ahem, somepony needs to wipe said bottom a little better after using the little filly’s room. There’s an odor…”

“What,” Blueblood said, trying in vain to remove the mortified expression from his face. “Do. You. Want?”

“Trying to replace me already?” Ametrine asked as she resumed her pony form. “Am I that much of a nuisance to you? Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I can sense their presence, you know.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Blueblood said, perhaps genuinely.

“Four plus one equals five,” Ametrine said as she sauntered out of the room. She turned her head to scowl at Blueblood. “You think I’m difficult? Multiply that by five, then maybe more than that. I shudder to think of the implications of what you’re doing—” she suddenly took on a playful aspect “—oh, speaking of shuddering: later, you, me, observatory, candlestick, whodunnit, rawr.” Her foreleg turned into a cat paw and made clawing motions.

Blushing furiously as she left, Blueblood stayed up on the table on his tippy-hooves.

“You should not let the others see you like this,” Tempest said as she stopped walking past the drawing room doors. He felt her eyes mercilessly scrutinize him. “You look like a ballerina doing position five, en pointe.”

Blueblood’s blush deepened and he dropped onto all four hooves. “She was my chair,” he protested.

“Ah,” Tempest said. “She tried that on me yesterday. Now she knows how a chair feels when its back is broken.”

“How did you know?” Blueblood hopped down from the table.

“She was not an antique,” Tempest replied flatly. “I am surprised you didn’t notice. Probably another side effect of your sobriety.”

“Probably,” Blueblood muttered.

“She is also correct,” Tempest said. “What you are planning has too many variables. These… flesh creatures will not turn out the way you expect, especially if Ametrine is any indication.”

“Probably.”

“If you were only raising one of these things at a time, I would be less concerned. But with the fleshforms of both Moondancer’s team and Zecora, you have five total. It is quite the risk.”

“Probably.”

“You have also been seriously neglecting them. You have not even been down to the cellar since I dumped the Zecora-form into that flesh-pit sarcophagus of yours. Without direction, they may wind up being more of a danger to our company than the threats we face in the ruins.

“Probably.”

Tempest narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps I need to wake you up again, Prince.”

“No!” Blueblood immediately backed out of slapping distance. “I’m paying attention! It’s just that we continue to run into newer, larger terrors. We need to be able to meet these things on equal hoofing. Having a Sharktavia or Lyra equivalent for every team would vastly increase our company’s survival rates.” He sighed. “And I’ve tried to put aside time to spend with them, but I’ve just been too busy. It should be fine to leave them there for a little bit until things slow down though, right? I left Ametrine in there for months.”

“And the resentment she holds for you regarding that act is likely far greater than you believe. Do not mistake her willingness to indulge in both of your carnal appetites for gratitude or loyalty. Your treatment of these newer fleshforms only risks reminding her of what you put her through. Also, I never see you two together whenever you aren’t in your room, or in the observatory. Only engaging with her as a window and as a sex toy—”

“I do not—”

“—will make her even more resentful of you and make her think that you see her just like you do the fleshforms in that stone coffin. It does not help that you forced her to teach you how to replace her with your own leg. You need to be more mindful of these things, Prince. You risk making her think that she’s completely replaceable to you.”

“But she isn’t! She should know that. Tempest, I’ll take this all into consideration. Really, I will. But it’ll have to go on the back burner for now, I have too many things to do, and no time to do them in.”

“Prince.” Blueblood looked up and saw what he could only describe as parental concern written across Tempest’s scowling face. “I am not trying to pester you over meaningless social faux pas. Regardless of what you think or feel, Ametrine is dangerous. Not paying attention to her will come back to bite you.”

“Come on, Tempest.” Blueblood waved a hoof dismissively. “It’s not like Ametrine is planning to murder me, or anything.”

“I get to watch him die, right?” Ametrine tried to rest her hooves on top of the sarcophagus, but they were repulsed by the runic enchantments which sealed it shut. She could feel the struggles of her sisters within the confines of the stone coffin. It was the very same one she had once been trapped in, exactly as they were now.

“Yes.” Starlight walked into the light given off by the containment wards. “You will have your chance to face him, when he believes that everything he has worked for lies in ruins. He will be cornered and at his weakest, and you will have the chance to end his life with your own hooves.”

“Good.” Ametrine looked up from the impromptu prison. “I want him to suffer before he dies. Just like he’s made me suffer… like how he’s made us suffer.” She traced a hoof along the crackling runes. “I can’t mean anything to him, if he’s moving so fast to replace me.” Her eyes narrowed. “And this must be what he thinks of me, and my sisters, and how we should be treated. He hasn’t even taken the time or effort to fully form their bodies or minds. They’re almost-mindless monsters, made by a monster. If he succeeds in recreating what he did with me… I’ll help them. I’ll… I’ll at least treat them better than this.”

“Just remember to go through Zecora’s things, as we discussed.”

“Yeah, I’ll remember.” Ametrine looked over to Starlight and gestured to the red-stained cloth wrapped around her left foreleg. “What’s up with the bandages?”

“I’m blind.” Starlight lifted the wrapped limb. “I bump into things and get hurt rather easily.”

“Yeah, right.” Ametrine didn’t buy that for a second. Starlight was prescient enough to predict how to walk without assistance, and never bumped into anything she didn’t mean to. In fact, she probably knew very well that her lie hadn’t been believed. “What do you get out of this, long-game chess-mare?”

“Death.”

“Then why do it?”

“You’ll understand, in time. For now, I’ll tell you that I serve a purpose greater than myself. My death is essential, so that others might live. As for my leg, I know you know I lied about it. I don’t know why I did it, only that I would, that you wouldn’t believe—yadda, yadda. The funny thing about being able to see the future is that I continue to do things that I know are pointless, just so that I don’t rock the temporal boat, so to speak. Since you are genuinely interested about my leg, I will tell you that I cut myself, on purpose.”

Ametrine’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“Big Mac would be a better pony to ask about the practice of flagellation. Suffice it to say that, even though I know what needs to be done before my time is up, my mind is fragile, like that of other ponies. Apparently, the only way I can live with myself, both with what I have already done, and what I will have to do, is by punishing myself for it. Repeatedly.”

Shaking her head, Ametrine returned her gaze to the sarcophagus. “Sacrificing for others, making yourself suffer… I don’t think I could ever understand that kind of thinking.”

“Oh, but you can… Oh, but you will.” Starlight smiled, perhaps genuinely. “In time.”

Ametrine looked at Starlight with half lidded eyes. “Doubtful.”

“Oh, I guarantee it.”

Week 22, Day 3, Morning

The sound of the front door opening, and of his assistant’s panicked galloping to the back room, caused Rivet to look up from an intricate set of runes that he’d been painting onto a storm steel plate. He watched as Tempest entered his business and made her way over to inspect the marequin that supported her armor.

“I see you are making progress,” Tempest said.

Rivet nodded. Things had both sped up and slowed down as a result of the complete makeover his shop had undergone during the previous week. The structure had been righted, reinforced, and the back end rebuilt. Fresh thatch kept out the rain that had drenched the rest of Ponyville and washed out a few other businesses only a few days earlier. These improvements allowed him to work without being interrupted by sudden streams of water, or the shifting of a wall which held equipment. But at the same time, workmares had been in and out of his building, and cluttering up his floor and workspace. At least he was breaking even on time lost versus time gained.

“I’ve forged up the other items you requested,” Rivet said, indicating an open bag which contained several daggers and a massive set of gauntlets. “But I assume you’re mostly here to check up on your own gear.”

“Correct.”

“I’m almost done with the initial set of flux runes.” Rivet pointed to the suit of storm steel. Complex sigils, of a disturbing shade of hot-pink, had been painted on almost every plate. It had taken him longer than he was willing to admit, the protective wards his parents had created were resilient, and needed to be finagled into accepting a new enchantment. “Just a few more days and my assistant and I should have the actual enchantment in order for you.”

“I trust the garish designs are temporary.”

“Yeah,” Rivet said. “I wouldn’t dare supply somepony with a suit of black armor covered in pink designs. That would just be—”

Tempest leveled a glare at Rivet. “It would be reminiscent of the mythical deity of unbridled and chaotic hedonism.”

“Yes, that…” Rivet waved his hoof dismissively. “But don’t worry, once the enchantments take hold, the different layers will boil right off. The color coding is honestly only there so my assistant will know which layer of runes is which.”

“That little filly is your apprentice, then.” Tempest pointed a hoof towards the back room. “I saw her run in there when I first arrived.”

“Her name is Dinky.” Rivet shook his head. “I thought she was an orphan at first, but it turns out her mother just has four separate jobs.”

“Four jobs seems… excessive for a single mother.”

Rivet barked out a laugh. “Well, turns out Ditzy owns the town general store, is a valet, a property caretaker, and a member of the Wonderbolts reserve.”

“Ditzy Doo… I was unaware that Ditzy was a member of the Wonderbolts, or a mother, for that matter.”

“Oh? You know her?”

“Yes,” Tempest said. “Blueblood's company employs her for three-quarters of those jobs.” Tempest glanced towards the door to the back room, and Rivet heard the door slam shut.

Rivet glanced at the door, then back to Tempest. He chuckled softly. “Dinky’s skittish. You won’t need your gear in the next few days, right?”

“I have never ‘needed’ anything but myself. Depending on others, relying on things to protect you—” She shook her head. “No. The best way to survive is all by oneself.”

Rivet shrugged. “If you say so.” He watched as Tempest moved to leave.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Rivet echoed, only with less menacing curiosity.

“What is this?” Tempest pointed at a sheet of parchment laid out on one of the workbenches near the front door.

Rivet walked over, tisked, then rolled up the diagram. “It’s nothing. Just something two colleagues from Canterlot were working on. They wanted a second opinion on the design; balance, failure pressures, etcetera.”

“It looked like a cannon of some sort,” Tempest said.

“Well, they might be needing one to help quell the riots up in Canterlot.” Rivet frowned. “There’s been quite a bit of unrest ever since they started sucking the magic out of unicorns to keep the sun going, y’know.”

“I do,” Tempest said, her eyes still scrutinizing the outside of the rolled-up parchment. “Despite the freshly inked letters ‘FF,’ the ink of the diagrams is quite faded.” Her eyes swiveled to his. “This is a design out of antiquity.”

“More than likely.” Rivet felt surprised by how quickly Tempest had analyzed the scroll, seeing as how she’d only had a few moments. “My guess is that they’ve found a bunch of these things in castle storage and want to refurbish them or something. Who’d have thought the Princess would need cannons?”

“Celestia was not nearly as beneficent as her propaganda made her out to be. Did your associates say who they were working for?”

“No.” Even if Rivet knew, he wouldn’t have said so. The Flim Flam brothers rarely divulged the specifics of their dealings, usually because of how illicit they tended to be. Even mentioning their names could get him noticed by the types of ponies he didn’t want to know. “It’s safe to assume it’s the royal council. They’re the only ones who’d have legal access to the castle stores, at any rate.”

“We may need something similar for our own company,” Tempest said. “Do you think yourself able to construct one of these?”

Rivet scoffed and shook his head. “Impossible. I’d need an enormous forge, much larger than anything I could hope to build by myself, even with several assistants. This is a job for one of the large royal smelting vats. You ever see one? Thing is larger than my entire business.”

“A shame.” Tempest turned to leave. “Such a weapon would be most useful.” She walked towards the door. “I will return in one week for my armor.”

After Tempest had exited the building, the door to the back room opened. “Mister Rivet, Sir?”

“Yes, Dinky?”

“There’s a strange unicorn in the back room.” Dinky walked out into the storefront.

“What?” Rivet turned to see Starlight exit the back room just behind Dinky. Her left foreleg was bandaged, with fresh redness seeping into the fabric. “You’re the blind seer that has the town all up in a tizzy.”

“Yes,” Starlight replied. “Yes, I am.”

“What do you want?” Rivet didn’t have time for fortune tellers, he had a business to run.

“I know that you don’t have time for fortune tellers,” Starlight said, “what with you having a business to run and all.” She produced a mason jar filled to the brim with a multicolored powder. “I was wondering if you could use this.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. He knew exactly what it looked like, but definitely wanted verification. “Is that—”

“Ground pegasus feathers,” Starlight said. “Perfect for making pegasus enchantments, if I’m not mistaken.”

“What do you want?” Rivet repeated, replacing his surprised expression with a distrustful scowl. The jar Starlight held contained hundreds of feathers worth of dust, which was easily enough to account for several fully plucked pegasi. He was shrewd though, and knew not to ask where she’d gotten them.

Starlight dropped a separate pouch onto one of his workbenches. It tipped over, spilling gems across the surface. She looked over at the armoured marequin. “I know you’re shrewd, and know not to ask where I got any of this. So, let’s talk about cost instead, shall we?”

The room where Shining rested was hewn from the same depressingly-dark stone as the rest of the sanitarium. All that decorated the space was the single bed in which he laid, and a splintery end table containing a copy of the Saint Reigns edition of the Harmonicum. A door made of thick, magically-reinforced oak planks served the dual purpose of keeping Shining in the room, while also shielding him from the screams of the other patients. The only lighting came from a single gas lamp that hung from the ceiling, well out of his reach.

With his right foreleg in a sling, a nullification ring on his horn, and abject pain lancing through his neck and barrel anytime he tried to shift position, Shining wasn’t able to do much more than lay there and think.

Shining’s shoulder injury had been much worse than he, or even the doctors, had previously thought. A piece of cloth had apparently been driven deep into the wound and began to fester just after Zecora’s funeral. The ensuing surgery had taken hours, with his anesthetic consisting of the same bottle of whiskey that had been used to disinfect the inside of his shoulder. According to the doctors, he was lucky not to have lost the leg entirely.

Staring at the ceiling, Shining thought on how Dr. Horse had told him that he would have a permanent limp, as well as sporadic pain in the joint, for the rest of his life. The severity of each would be dependent on how much he strained it, but he would still be able to use the leg.

That had been the good news.

Dr. Horse had told Shining that while what had happened to his horn had been painful, the damage was mostly superficial. The keratin sheath had taken the brunt of the magical overload, and the living bone underneath had been strained, but would heal.

His connection to Harmony, however, was a different story. He would not be able to channel Harmony magic.

Ever again.

The way it had been explained to Shining, breaching his own mental connection to Harmony had been like destroying a dam that had taken his entire life to build. The resulting flood of energy had washed away any traces of the effort he had expended over the years to allow him to store and release Harmony. The damage was irreparable, and he was too old to try and build new connections from scratch.

Connections to the divine.

Yet again, his thoughts strayed in dark directions, such as wondering whether he could get his bedsheets attached to the hanging lantern, whether he could tie a slip knot with one hoof, and whether either could support his weight. The divine had been the focus of both his beliefs and his identity ever since he’d started down that path as a foal. The news of Celestia’s death had been devastating, but still abstract, for his connection to Harmony had remained. But now?

Naught but emptiness. And a lantern. And tangle of bedsheets…

He reached up with his left foreleg and scratched at the spot where the nullification ring had settled on his horn. They’d told him that it was for his own safety, much as they had the last time he’d been a guest at the sanitarium. It was also to prevent him from causing more damage to his horn; he would still be able to perform basic telekinesis with it, provided he didn’t destroy it beforehoof.

A heavy knock jolted him out of his reverie. He shot up to a sitting position, which resulted in a wave of pain radiating outwards from his shoulder. His left hoof clasped the wound immediately.

A series of metallic clanks heralded the door being unbolted. With the squeal of metal hinges, the door swung inward, and in walked Nurse Redheart, who looked rather perturbed. Following right behind her was Rainbow.

“Dashie?” Shining would have jumped out of bed if his leg hadn’t been in a sling.

“Hi Shiny.” Rainbow tried to get around Redheart, but the nurse was very skilled at body-blocking.

“You have a visitor, Mister Armor.” She glared back towards Rainbow. “Who we cannot seem to disarm.”

“I told you this already, I can’t take it off!” Rainbow drew what appeared to be a—

Harmony above, she welded her knife onto her gun. Wait, didn’t her parents give her those? Wait, didn’t she lose Mister Stabby?

Shining just tried to calm his thoughts for a minute before his head exploded. Taking a page from his sister’s book on dealing with the unexpected, he tried to rationalize. It was Dash, she lived by the rule of cool. She was bound to try something like welding weapons together at some point. He just figured she’d try it with something less… sentimental.

Rainbow threw the weapon out of the room and into the hallway, then closed the door.

So much for sentimentality.

Redheart continued to glare at Rainbow.

“What’s the problem?” Shining looked between the two. “I mean she just—”

Rainbow drew the gun-knife again.

“What?”

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Redheart said, opening the door. She pointed her hoof at her own eyes, then at Rainbow, narrowed her eyes, and slowly backed out of the room.

“Okay Dashie,” Shining said once the door had slammed shut. “What happened?”

“Remember how I lost Mister Stabby?”

“Okay, so that did happen.”

“What are they putting in your meds, Shiny?”

“Just asked myself the same question, if I’m being honest.”

They both shared a chuckle.

Shining pointed a hoof at Rainbow’s new weapon. “Seriously though, I remember we couldn’t find Mister Stabby in that tunnel, but you going and welding a new knife onto Mister Shooty is a bit drastic.”

“It’s not welded.” Rainbow displayed the side of the weapon to him.

She was right, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t any solder connecting the two items, and—he saw the engravings.

“Wait.” Shining felt a headache coming on. “You said you lost Mister Stabby, but this is him right here.”

“Yeah, Trixie did something with those crystals Twilight brought back from the farm. She said something about time-stuff and space-stuff, and I wasn’t really paying attention because of how awesome Squall here is.”

“Squall?”

“Yeah, he needed a name, so I gave him a cool one.”

“But its made from—”

“He’s made from.”

“Okay; he’s made from Mr. Stabby and Mr. Shooty, yes?”

Rainbow nodded emphatically.

“If you combine those—”

The expression that crossed Rainbow’s face was one that one might expect of a cow staring down a swiftly approaching Friendship Express locomotive.

“—you get Mr. Stabooty.”

“No—” Rainbow dragged the word out for a good ten seconds. “—not you too, Shiny!”

Shining smiled. “How many?”

Rainbow shot him the most pitiful expression ever. “Everypony I’ve told about him so far!”

He laughed. It was hearty and deep.

Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Especially if she was there with him.

Week 22, Day 4, Morning

“Is this the place?” Applejack consulted the map Blueblood had provided. Winona followed close beside her, taking an olfactory interest in the inked parchment.

The part of the catacombs her team had entered was as dark and cobweb-ridden as any other, but there was something that definitely teased at Applejack’s senses.

Taking a look at the map, Big Mac nodded his head. “Eeyup.”

Octavia turned her nose up and inhaled deeply though it. “Something smells wrong.”

“Yeah,” Applejack said. “That’s what’s been itching my fannie. The rest of these here tunnels smell like—”

“Like dust,” Octavia said. “It’s the odor of old death, where the stench of rot, and even mold, has long since faded.” She inhaled deeply through her nose again. “What I smell now… is much more fresh.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac agreed after taking a whiff of his own.

Be careful then, Blueblood said. Every time we’ve run into something new, it’s managed to surprise us and cost us dearly.

Octavia looked over to her headbanging companion. “You heard that, Vinyl?”

“Totally Octi.” Vinyl tapped her boombox with a forehoof. “Just revving up the old bass cannon here.” When she put the hoof back down, it landed on a collapsed skeleton. “I’m guessing these are the bones of what Shining’s team fought?”

Winona rushed to the piles and started sniffing around them.

“Likely,” Octavia said, kneeling down to inspect the remains. “This one has corrosion burns. I can smell the lingering odor of Zecora’s acids… and blood, less than a week old.”

“Did Shining’s team notice that these guys were parked outside this massive door?” Vinyl pointed a hoof at a particularly large arch of carved stone.

It was about two marelengths in height, allowing it to reach almost to the ceiling. The edges were flush with the rest of the tunnel wall, making it very easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. Which begged the question—

“How in tarnation did you see this here door while wearing shades… indoors?” Applejack demanded.

“I dunno.” Vinyl shrugged. “It’s actually pretty clear to me where it is with these on.”

“Let me see those glasses.” Applejack held out a hoof.

“No way!” Vinyl said. “Normal light hurts my eyes; I’m photosensitive! I could go blind!”

“Then close your eyes for a moment,” Applejack drawled, looking around at the barely lit hallway.

Vinyl growled. “Ugh, fine.” She closed her eyes and held out her violet shades.

Applejack carefully took the shades and donned them. “Holy moly.”

After her vision focused, Applejack could see the entire hallway as if it was well illuminated, although it was only in the violet monotone afforded by the glasses. The edges of all of the tunnel’s stonework seemed to glitter, making the doorway stand out like a sore hoof.

“How come you never told us you could see without the torches?!” Applejack hoofed the shades back to Vinyl.

“I dunno. Being able to actually see didn’t seem like something I needed to bring up.”

Vinyl, Blueblood said, if your glasses can truly allow you and others to see in those tunnels, we need to know where you got them, and if we can find or make more. This could be a tremendous asset.

“Okay,” Vinyl said with a shrug, “I’ll give you my prescription when we get back, I guess.”

“Well now.” Applejack pushed against the stone doorway. “It looks like we’re gonna need your strength, big brother.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac pressed his shoulder up against the door’s surface and pushed…

And pushed…

And pushed…

Big Mac looked up at the door and furrowed his brows. Grunting, he tried to leverage himself so all of his legs could work against the door. Eventually, he came away panting. “Eeynope,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Didn’t even budge,” Applejack said, tracing a hoof along the jamb. “Looks like it might have been mortared shut… but it would have to be from the other side.”

Octavia stared at the immovable portal “That is most peculiar.”

“What’s peculiar,” Vinyl said, as she cranked a few dials next to her head, “is how much time we’re taking to realize we gotta blast this thing!” She unmounted the boombox and placed it on the ground in front of herself. “I’d move if I was you, Big Red!”

Big Mac’s eyes widened and he scurried out of the way in a very unstallionlike manner.

“OH YEAH!” Vinyl proclaimed over the sudden cacophony of sonic pressure waves that completely drowned out the sounds of Blueblood’s frantic protests.

No! Those tunnels are old, unstable!

“WHAT?!” Blueblood shouted at Tempest.

Tempest wasn’t sure it was physically possible for her to be more exasperated than she was in that moment. She brushed a piece of bloody bone from her shoulder. “I will not waste words with you until your hearing returns,” she said, realizing the irony only after she spoke.

“DON’T BOTHER!” Blueblood shouted. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU ANYWAY!”

Releasing an uncustomary sigh, Tempest flicked her own ears. The tinnitus caused by both the boombox, and the subsequent explosion of Blueblood’s forearm, was proving to be quite irritating. “Double Diamond,” she said through Ametrine, “move your team to Applejack’s location. We have reason to believe they may be in need of assistance.”

Roger ma’am, Double Diamond replied. Enemy or self-inflicted?

“Move your flanks or I will find some friendly fire for you,” Tempest replied sharply. She’d been impressed by both the skill and coordination of Double’s team. But she noticed that Double liked to make quips, especially when situations started to become more stressful. It probably helped him and his team to cope, but was equal parts inefficient and irritating. She looked over to Blueblood, who was staring at her and slapping at his ears with his intact hoof.

Tempest sighed again. “At least you figured out how to not be crippled by pain when that limb of yours is damaged.”

“WHAT?!”

“What in Tarnation was that?” Applejack slapped at her ringing ears. She looked at the wall and saw that aside from a slight shift in the position of one of the rock slabs, the door remained closed.

“You should see,” Octavia said as she brushed a large quantity of ceiling-dust from herself, “how she cleans dishes.”

“Eeynope,” Big Mac replied as he cleaned some small rocks and other debris from his coat.

“Should be easy now,” Vinyl said, putting a hoof to the door on the right and effortlessly pushing the panel out of the way.

On the other side of the massive door was a long chamber that extended away into distant darkness. Its only obvious features were a line of pillars that flanked the door and seemed to go on without end.

“See?” Vinyl pumped a forehoof. “Easy as—”

The hinges of the door that had been pushed open popped with the twang of tortured metal finding final peace, allowing the door to fall into the first of the pillars to the right. The loud crash startled everypony.

“Pwew,” Vinyl sighed as the dust settled. “For a moment there, I thought it was gonna—”

Octavia facehooved as the first pillar violently tore from the ceiling and smashed into the next pillar in line, knocking it down.

And that pillar smashed into the next.

Which smashed into the next.

And the next.

The curious quartet watched the domino-effect of toppling pillars with the horrified fascination one would normally reserve for a train-wreck.

In time, the awful sounds of collapsing stone subsided. Yet, not all was silence. Applejack perked her ears up at what sounded like crumbling and rolling in the unseen distance. She swiveled her ears, tracking the sound of something large rolling across the far side of the dark chamber from right to left.

“Wow,” Vinyl said as the weighty crash of a distant pillar on the left side of the chamber echoed back toward them. “What are the odds, eh?”

“Vinyl,” Octavia said, as the onrushing sounds made it clear that a new domino-effect was now heading towards them instead of away. “You’ve killed us, haven’t you?”

“Move it, you two!” Applejack yelled, grabbing Octavia and diving to the right. She saw a blur of red as Big Mac shoved Vinyl out of the way to the left…

Big Mac was still standing in front of the door as the final pillar slammed into it, causing it to swing open at tremendous speed. It would have killed him, but his rear hooves suddenly slid backwards, bringing him with them. His unexpected slip-up caused the massive stone slab to miss his muzzle by less than a quarter hoof-length. Instead of tearing from its hinges, it continued to swivel until it shattered against the tunnel wall, which also crumbled to rubble.

The passageway from which they had come then collapsed with a deafening roar of falling dirt and stone. The violent shaking in the corridor continued, and light shone from the room they had just opened.

All four ponies watched in nonplussed stupefaction as the now-unsupported roof of the room caved in, crashing into, and then through the floor. As it gave way, muted daylight began to filter down from outside.

After a few minutes, the dust settled enough for the four ponies to stop coughing and actually get a look at their newly transformed surroundings. It looked like the passageway that continued past the door had collapsed as well, which left the only traversable route as being into the now-collapsed and roofless room, which was open to the storm-wracked sky.

The room itself no longer even closely resembled a room; it was now more of an open-topped depression, like a crater or sinkhole. And it went deeper than the level of the catacombs they were on. The staccato of raindrops from the displaced Ponyville downpour beat a rhythm that even Vinyl would have trouble matching.

Looking around at the others and seeing that there were no injuries, Applejack let out a sigh of relief. “Looks like everything’s a-okay down here, your Princeship,” she said. A few seconds passed in silence. “Uh, hello?”

On the other side of the rubble, Starlight coughed. “Oh Vinyl, what are the odds, indeed.” She rubbed at the base of her horn with her bloody, bandaged foreleg. “Ugh, I knew Big Mac was heavy, but that took some serious effort.” Then she scrunched her face. “Damn. I told myself I wouldn’t talk to myself… Aaaaaaand I’m still doing it.” She walked back towards the exit.

“Don’t touch it!” Blueblood exclaimed as Twilight carefully examined the bloody stump that his foreleg had turned into.

“And you say you can’t sense them anymore?” Twilight asked as she shone her hornlight over the mangled appendage.

“It’s not like when Zecora died,” Blueblood said. “If that’s what you mean, anyways. With her, I felt the connection… It was like a rope where somepony let go of the other end. With this… it was more like I was the one who let go of the rope—well, dropped it really. In hindsight, moving my point of view to directly between Vinyl and the door was probably a poor decision.”

“Probably,” Tempest said, keeping her eyes on Ametrine’s display. “Double Diamond’s team has met with heavy resistance on their way over to Applejack’s last known location.”

“That’s to be expected,” Blueblood said. “The monsters guarding that door were the toughest our teams have come up against.”

Another obstacle, ma’am, Double Diamond announced. This passage is supposed to connect directly to the hallway they were in, but I don’t think we can move this blockage. The debris is too large; some of the blocks are larger than I am. It does look like this is a recent collapse, ma’am.

“Vinyl’s sound cannon probably brought the whole tunnel down,” Blueblood said, wincing as Twilight probed his wound.

I don’t know much about acoustics, Sir, Double Diamond said. But I’ve seen her fire that cannon thing before, and it tends to break stuff up into smaller pieces. The size of this debris makes me think it wasn’t a direct hit. It’s more likely that this is a secondary collapse.

“Still,” Tempest said, “she is rather trigger-happy with that device. She may use it again.”

“I don’t think so,” Blueblood said with a shake of his head. “There’s no way they’d let her do that again, especially if it’s what triggered the cave-ins. It’d be suicide in those catacomb tunnels.”

“Fire the damn thing again!” Applejack shouted.

Vinyl aimed her boombox at the roof of the tunnel and slammed it with a series of sick beats.

The hound-like pony-pursuers covered their ears in pain and backed away from the group as the ceiling collapsed between them, spraying water everywhere.

Winona whined and pawed at her ears.

“‘Let’s go into the hole’ she said.” Vinyl pantomimed a very poor imitation of Applejack. “‘We can’t climb out of this sinkhole, so our best bet is to go down!’ The hecc, fam?!”

“You're right,” Applejack said glumly. “This is turning out to be a mighty stupid idea on my part.” She rested against the tunnel wall and took a few deep breaths. “What in the Sam Hill are these critters what been chasing us?”

“No clue,” Vinyl said, twisting some more dials on her boombox. “But they sure don’t like to rock out!”

“I’ve heard rumors of creatures like this,” Octavia said. “Subterranean canids who are fiercely territorial. They are called ‘diamond dogs,’ mostly because of a fascination with precious gems.”

“Well they got us in a right bit of a pickle here,” Applejack said. “The water level is rising, those things cut off our escape route, and we had to collapse this here chunk o’ tunnel to keep them from catching up and overwhelming us. How many did y’all see?”

Big Mac shrugged.

“I dunno,” Vinyl said, “maybe like… ten?”

“I visually counted sixteen,” Octavia said. “And I could smell about a dozen more beyond that.”

“Over twenty,” Applejack said as some of the color drained from her face. “How many do you think you could deal with, Octavia?”

“Any more than four at a time would be exceptionally difficult,” Octavia replied. “I’d put my uppermost limit at six.”

“How about you, Big Mac?” Applejack asked. “About the same?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac replied.

Applejack counted on one hoof. “That leaves at least sixteen between Vinyl, Winona, and myself… yeah, we can’t win against those kinds of odds.”

Sounds of baying echoed throughout the tunnels.

“We’re just stuck between a rock and a hard place then,” Applejack said in a resigned tone.

“Personally,” said a monotonous voice from the tunnel in front of them, “I’d choose the rock.”

Everypony almost jumped out of their skins as a gray mare with a purple mane stepped into the light.

“I’d always choose the rock.”

Week 22, Day 4, Afternoon

“What do you mean you don’t want to ‘risk’ healing it?” Blueblood demanded of Twilight.

“Yes,” Tempest said in a voice which threatened untold amounts of pain, “please explain.”

Twilight motioned for Blueblood to follow her to the opposite side of the observatory, which earned her a searing glance from Tempest. While Twilight was unnerved by the glare, she didn’t dare risk saying what she needed to in front of Ametrine.

Blueblood followed her, until they were right by the door, and at least out of casual conversation earshot.

“Okay.” Blueblood fixed her with a glare of his own. “What don’t you want to tell her?”

Twilight sat on her haunches for a moment to think about how to best explain what she needed to. She absentmindedly tapped her forehooves together. “Okay. The reason your leg is—was able to do all that funky stuff, and the reason I didn’t speak up about it earlier, are one and the same.”

“Go on.”

“It's… alive.”

“Sorry, what?”

“It’s alive. Celestia’s table was a fleshform, it blew up, some of it entered you… and now it’s your leg—well, now it’s your stump-leg. Anyway, it’s joined with you, like some kind of parasite.”

Blueblood glanced over to where Tempest sat in front of Ametrine. “I can see why you dragged me over here.”

Twilight stood and started pacing. “I was horrified that you’d somehow become infected—”

“Wait.” Blueblood did not look amused. “How long have you known this?”

“Since Tempest described the incident in question.”

Blueblood put a hoof to his forehead, either in deep thought, or because of an extreme headache; Twilight wasn’t sure.

So she decided to continue. “But my fears were mitigated when I scanned you a few times—”

“Without my permission, I assume.”

“—yes. And realized that it wasn’t spreading any further, and was actually slowly losing power every time you used it. If all it had was the energy Starlight dumped into you, and it didn’t have a way of recharging, then it’d eventually just… run out. A few more missions, maybe as many as a half dozen, and the energy would be gone, the fleshform would starve, and your leg would be back to normal—maybe with a few mutations, but normal-ish, mostly, maybe, probably.”

“So,” Blueblood lifted his stump as he spoke, “you’re saying that my leg was a fleshform, that it’s run out of power, and that’s why it isn’t healing on its own?”

“Well, there’s still some energy, or you’d just be spraying blood everywhere right now.” Twilight took a few steps to the side, moving to a position that wasn’t directly in front of a possible sanguine geyser. “But we can just stitch that closed, and then you won’t have to worry about having a fleshform for a leg anymore.”

“So,” Blueblood ground his other hoof into the side of his head, “my choices are: live a ‘normal’ life without my left foreleg, or… what?”

“If I blast you with my eldritch healing magic,” Twilight said, “I’m not sure what will happen at this point. Yes, it might allow your leg to grow back. But it might not. Worse, it’ll probably cause that… thing to spread further.”

“Probably?” Blueblood stared daggers at Twilight. “You’re not healing me on a ‘maybe?!’”

“Dammit Blueblood!” Twilight yelled, poking a hoof at his chest, and drawing Tempest’s and Ametrine’s attention. “I may have intently studied the occult, but I’ve never experimented on ponies before! I wouldn’t test out stuff like this on anything with even a hint of sapience. I have no idea what is happening to you, and there’s no way I could know without conducting all manner of horrific experiments!”

Twilight backed away slowly, realizing that she’d hoof-poked the three-legged Prince into a corner and managed to render his eyes as wide as dinner plates. And also caused Tempest to rise to a standing position, which was usually a prelude to violence. She tried to lower her voice. “All I can do is track the energy and see which parts of you have already succumbed to infection. Vinyl’s music box blasted this thing hard enough to give you a chance to be rid of it forever… do you really want to undo that?”

“No.” Blueblood’s tone was hard, resolute. He motioned to Tempest, who swiftly made her way over. “I don’t want it back.”

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief.

“Which is why Tempest is going to have to hold me down while you do it.”

Eyes widening, Twilight watched in stunned stupefaction as Tempest shrugged, then pinned Blueblood with a headlock.

“Twilight,” Blueblood said in a choked voice. “My wants are meaningless compared to what has to be done.”

Week 22, Day 4, Afternoon

“My name is Maud,” the newcomer said monotonously to the partially petrified ponies. “You don’t look like miners. Besides, if you’re looking for ores to sell, there aren’t any in the strata of this layer that would earn you very many bits. What are you four doing down here?”

“We got lost,” Applejack said. “But wait… if you said there’s nothing valuable down here, then what are you doing here?”

“I didn’t say there wasn’t anything of value down here,” Maud droned. “Just nothing you could sell for bits. I’m down here looking for new material.”

“Material?” Octavia asked. “Material for what?”

“For my comedy routine,” Maud replied without a single hint of sarcasm. “I’m a jester by trade.”

Applejack snorted. “That’s actually pretty funny. Going into a cave for comedy material, you must knock em dead up top!”

“It’s a common mistake,” Maud said, “but that part wasn’t a joke.”

Everypony went silent.

“I like to make jokes about rocks,” Maud said. “All of my jokes are about rocks.”

“Awesome,” Vinyl said.

Applejack, Big Mac, and Octavia blinked. Then blinked again.

“Boy… howdy,” was all Applejack could manage.

“Anyway,” Maud said, “the diamond dogs will be here soon, they can track you in these tunnels by scent. Even with all the water.”

“Wait,” Octavia said. “How have you evaded them? Can they not track you?” She sniffed the air. All she could detect was the scent of the party, rainwater, and exposed earth. The muted odor of diamond dog was present, and the direction it emanated from changed as the beasts worked to circle around them again. “How odd, I can’t smell you either.”

“Of course you and the doggos can’t smell her, Octi,” Vinyl said.

“How do you know that?” Octavia asked. “And if you do know, then why not?”

“It’s obvious Octi,” Vinyl said. “She smells like rocks.”

“Vinyl.” Octavia ground a hoof into her forehead. “That’s crazy.”

“She’s right.” Maud pointed a hoof at Vinyl. “I do smell like rocks. They can’t seem to smell me at all. I’ve been down here for the last week.”

“B-but,” Octavia stammered at Vinyl, “how… how did you know?”

“Pretty simple Octi,” Vinyl said. “She likes rocks, and I like to rock. We’re practically the same pony!”

Octavia stood still for a few moments, completely nonplussed. “Let’s get the Tartarus out of here.”

Twilight lit her horn and blasted Blueblood with a beam of violet, eldritch healing energy.

Blueblood gritted his teeth as fissures opened all across his body, exposing muscle and bone in several places. Then the bones in his foreleg began to reconstruct themselves: first, the metacarpal and sesamoid; then, the long and short pasterns; and finally the coffin bone. Veined musculature crept up the bones, soon followed by skin and fur. Finally, his hoof regrew.

Twilight extinguished her horn and waited a few moments before breathing a sigh of relief.

“See?” Blueblood grinned. “Nothing to worry about.”

Then his eyes started to glow red.

Tempest briefly considered new employment options. She understood that there were some warlords in Griffonstone that might need a competent general. But, then again, her resumé would be a hard sell if both of her previous employers—rulers of kingdoms in their own right—were killed under her watch. Plus, The Heart was the first real excitement she’d experienced since she beat Queen Chrysalis to death. She harrumphed. “Prince, you, of all ponies, should know better than to tempt fate.”

“What are you talking abou—ow OW OW!” Blueblood’s inevitable scream of pain was punctuated by spines erupting from his left shoulder. A sickening series of snaps and cracks emanated from his left foreleg as the bones within it broke and reformed, contorting the limb into a giant five-taloned claw. More spines burst out along its length, and then, to everypony’s horror—especially Blueblood’s—a scattered assortment of new eyes erupted as well.

“Harmony above,” Blueblood moaned. “I can see out of my leg… so many… damned eyes!” The ocular organs blinked intermittently. “How… how do I hold them all shut?”

Ametrine reverted to pony form and, much to Tempest’s extreme irritation, started laughing uncontrollably. She fell to the floor and rolled around, wracked with throes of hilarity.

“This is less than amusing,” Tempest rumbled at the roly-poly prone polymorphic pony.

“Oh!” Ametrine barely managed words between chuckles. “Oh, he deserves this so much!”

“Even so,” Tempest said, heedless of Blueblood’s hurt glance in her direction, “the Prince needs your assistance. I also need you back as a viewer so I can continue to direct my team.”

“Fine.” Ametrine rolled her legs around her body, without changing the positioning of her head or torso, until she had somehow assumed a standing position. Then she ripped her chest apart, her ribs opening like a mouth, which held the viewer window.

“You were supposed to help him,” Tempest growled.

I can’t. Remember last time?

“Miss Sparkle.” Tempest turned her fiery gaze upon Twilight. “Do… something.”

“Uh,” Twilight mumbled, her eyes flitting back and forth as she presumably tried to think of a solution.

Blueblood screamed again as more of the spiny growths erupted from his skin. The area of corruption was creeping further up his side.

Twilight shrugged to herself, lit her horn, and summoned a swarm of tiny motes of violet light. Another flare of light from her horn, and the motes flew at Blueblood, where they cut into his skin with seemingly reckless abandon.

“Miss Sparkle.” Tempest raised a hoof in preparation to strike Twilight down.

“Hold on!” Twilight squinted as she scrutinized the cuts being made into Blueblood’s hide. “I need to complete the design!”

Tempest turned and watched as the bloodied lines resolved into an impromptu alchemical-formulae-style border pattern. Instead of harmonic or hermetic icons however, there were blasphemous sigils that seemed to squirm on Blueblood’s living flesh.

The corruption continued to advance until it hit the magical barrier Twilight had carved into Blueblood.

“Pwew,” Twilight said. “That should stop it from spreading at least.”

“Why,” Blueblood said through clenched teeth, “is it spreading?”

Twilight glared at him. “How in the Void should I know?” She gesticulated wildly as she spoke. “I warned you this could happen!”

“She did,” Tempest said with a shrug. “You accepted this as a possible outcome, Prince.”

“But,” Blueblood said, flexing the giant monster-claw, “I didn’t think it would be this bad! I can’t let the others see me like this!”

An extra appendage formed from the base of Ametrine, branching into two pony forehooves, holding a bow and a violin.

“Ugh,” Blueblood groaned as Ametrine began to perform a piece that somehow managed to portray elements of both sadness and mockery. “I wish I never took those damned violin lessons Auntie forced on me.”

“Why would that matter?” Twilight said with a tilt of her head.

“Amethyst never played the violin,” Blueblood said, his brows furrowing and his frown deepening. “So Ametrine must have gotten that skill from me… and now she’s using it to play Neighovacci’s ‘Too Bad, So Sad.’”

“At least she knows how to tease with class,” Tempest said without a hint of mirth.

“Look out!” Applejack gave a heavily armored canine face a one-two combo from her hind legs: Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee. The stunned monstrosity stumbled backwards into one of his compatriots, who had been about to tackle Big Mac. Their collision halted the diamond dog charge through the knee-deep water.

“Now!” Octavia swiftly lowered the hoof she’d been holding above her head.

“Are you ready to ROCK?!” Vinyl yelled as she aimed at the ceiling above the collapsed canines. Sonic vibrations pulsed from her boombox, quickly shaking the massive masonry apart. The resulting cascade of stony debris pinned the stunned diamond dogs underwater and sent a wave past the group.

Maud stepped up to the pile and tapped one of the boulders. “You crushed them with igneous rocks,” she said. “That wasn’t very gneiss.”

Vinyl burst out laughing. She held a hoof to her gut as the guffaws continued. “Oh,” she said, “oh, that was a good one!”

Applejack, Big Mac, and Octavia looked pensively towards Maud for confirmation.

“The rest of you can laugh too,” Maud said stoically. “That was the joke.”

Week 22, Day 4, Evening

“I can’t control it,” Blueblood said, finally opening his eyes after several minutes of straining himself. “Whatever happened this time around, now I can’t change my leg as I please.”

“Well,” Twilight said, “it could be worse.” She finished tightening a long strip of cloth with her magic.

“Please don’t say anything about painful spiky growths.” Blueblood frowned at Ametrine. “I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime.”

The results of Twilight’s efforts left Blueblood’s entire left foreleg and left shoulder wrapped in bandages. It was bulky, but it hid the deformities well enough, and—more importantly—covered the extra eyes. Seeing so much had started to give him a searing headache.

Ma’am,Double Diamond reported, the storm is still dumping water on the ruins, but it looks like it’s moving north into the mountains. We found a freshly formed sinkhole on the surface above where you said Applejack’s party was supposed to be. I had Night Glider scout the bottom of the pit. She says there’s chest-deep water down there, and that there were at least a dozen tunnels that branched off in different directions. She couldn’t find any hoofprints, for obvious reasons. But one of the tunnels had recently collapsed about a hundred hooves in or so.”

“Hmm,” Tempest hmmed to herself.

“What are you thinking Tempest?” Blueblood asked.

“They could be alive,” Tempest replied. “Granted, the level of devastation wrought by the sinkhole is likely beyond any of the team’s capabilities. If they caused a chain reaction of sorts, that could explain the size of the affected area. But the single collapsed tunnel does seem to be something that the group could be responsible for, whether with Vinyl’s noise box, or Big Mac and Sharktavia’s freakish strength. Though why they would choose to collapse a tunnel they were in is a mystery.”

“Hmm indeed,” Blueblood said.

“For now though,” Tempest said, turning to the viewing window, “Double Diamond, you and your team should set up camp on the eastern outskirts of the ruins. Try to find someplace dry to spend the night. Contact Ametrine if anything noteworthy happens. Over, and out.”

Ametrine took the cue to change back into her pony form. Stretching, she cracked several joints and her neck.

“I know you don’t actually have to do that.” Blueblood narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah,” Ametrine replied, “but it makes others more comfortable when I do ‘normal’ stuff like that.”

“Normal,” Blueblood scoffed, with a wave of his bandaged foreleg. “What does that word even mean anymore?”

Everypony except Vinyl rubbed at ears that ached from the repeated use of her sound cannon. Winona had taken a position as far from the sound mare as was possible whilst they were traversing the tunnels, but due to the rising water, had finally taken refuge on Applejack’s back.

There was a single chest-high pedestal which stood in the center of the room they’d splashed into. Atop the pillar of intricately carved stone, sat a massive tome. They’d arrived just in time; another hooflength or so, and the book would be under the rising water.

“If this ain’t a trap,” Applejack said, scanning the shadowy corners, “then I’m a filthy Pear.”

Octavia sniffed the air. “I can’t smell the diamond dogs anymore. I think they’ve decided to leave us be, for the time being.”

“It’s probably because of the flooding,” Maud said.

“Yeah,” Applejack said. “Even if they can still track us, they’re prolly worried about drowning down here if the water level keeps rising.” She slowly trudged over to the pillar and examined the book. “It’s got a picture of a sun on it.” She opened it with her muzzle and began browsing the text. “Looks like one of the Princess’ journals. She’s mighty organized, has a table of contents and every—”

A word caught Applejack’s eye. At first she was confused, her brow furrowed in thought. But then her eyes widened and she started flipping through the tome at a fast pace, only stopping when she’d reached a section very close to the end of the book. Her eyes narrowed into a scowl and she grit her teeth as she absorbed the confirmation of her darkest possible suspicions.

“Yo, AJ,” Vinyl called. “You’re grinding your teeth louder than the flowin’ water. What’s up?”

Applejack turned blazing eyes on Vinyl, but then settled her gaze on Big Mac, whose hakles must be rising as he saw just how angry she’d become.

“Blueblood has a lot to answer for,” Applejack growled.

Week 22, Day 4-5, Midnight

“It seems that nopony’s coming,” Blueblood said, laying on his back and staring up through the glass roof of the observatory.

“Well,” Ametrine said salaciously, throwing a hoof across his chest. “That means nopony died, right? Let’s celebrate.” She ran her hoof in a circle through Blueblood’s fur.

“How is Double Diamond’s team doing?” Blueblood really wanted to change the subject.

Ametrine pouted. “What’s wrong Blue?”

He turned his head to face her. “Are you serious?” he asked. “My left foreleg is a mutated monstrosity, and four ponies’ lives hang in the balance!”

“How is this different than any other day for you?”

Blueblood stared at her and blinked a few times. “Touché,” he said with a frown, “it’s not any different than most days here.” He sighed and turned away from Ametrine. “And that is a problem. Things like this shouldn’t be the new status quo. It isn’t… normal.”

“Normal is overrated.” Ametrine pulled him close.

Hearing a strange rustling sound, Blueblood looked down at the white stallion foreleg that was wrapped around him. He swiftly turned his head and came muzzle to muzzle with… himself.

“You know that one expression,” his doppelgänger said to him, in his own patented sultry voice, “when ponies tell another pony to ‘go rut themselves?’ I was thinking—”

“Nope,” Blueblood said as he rolled away from Ametrine. “Nope, nope, nope.” He shook his head and stood to his hooves. “Nope.”

“Now you sound like that Big Mac stallion,” whined the simulacrum. “If you want—” Ametrine changed from Blueblood into Big Mac. “—I can be this for you instead,” Ametrine said in Big Mac’s drawl. “Eeyup!”

Blueblood looked over the impressive stallion and blushed. He steadied his breathing. “I’m… just… not in the mood, okay?”

“Well I am,” Faux Mac said. “I want you so badly right now.”

“It’s not always about what you want, y’know!” Blueblood threw his forelegs out in exasperation.

“Ain’t you the pot calling the kettle black?”

“What?” Blueblood said.

“Blue.” Ametrine reverted to her normal form. “When was the last time you ever took somepony else into consideration when making a decision?”

Blueblood opened his mouth, but no words came out. His head twitched as he thought.

“Let’s be honest with each other again, Blue,” Ametrine said, not unkindly. “Everything you’ve done up to this point has, in one way or another, been about you. Think about it; everything you say and do revolves around you somehow. Even after Zecora’s funeral, I heard you and Shining. It was all about how you felt and how hard it was going to be on you. You never once addressed how everypony else would take it.”

Working his mouth slowly as his brain churned, Blueblood found that he had no response.

She’s right, of course.

He narrowed his eyes at Celestia’s mocking voice.

“I knew my own egocentricity had to have come from somewhere.” Ametrine shrugged. “I mean, I must have gotten it from you; you’re practically my father, having created me and raised me and everything.”

My own nephew, an incestuous lecher; how disappointing.

“Shut up!” Blueblood hissed.

Ametrine jumped back from the sudden vitriol. Her eyes narrowed. “You should leave.”

Blueblood shook his head in confusion. “Wait, I didn’t mean you!”

“Out,” Ametrine stomped a forehoof and pointed the other at the door.

“I wasn’t yelling at you!”

Ametrine’s response was as unexpected as it was violent. Her skin and fur tore open to reveal a plethora of scything talons and teeth. She pinned Blueblood’s back to one of the observatory pillars. Several of her bladed appendages pressed to his neck and other vitals. “I said: Get. Out.” She growled the words through no less than three slavering mouths.

“Ametrine,” Blueblood said carefully, as sharp bony growths pushed into him. “I was yelling at Celestia. I… she’s my left foreleg, I can’t get her out of my head!”

A single eye, the size of a large hoof, placed itself directly in front of his muzzle. It blinked. “Ah,” Ametrine’s multitude of mouths said. “A sibling of mine is hiding inside you. I couldn’t sense her like I could the others. How sneaky of her.” Several smiles formed. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

The various claws withdrew, and Blueblood fell back to his hooves. He shook his head to clear it, but the sound of Ametrine shifting forms caused him to look at her. For several moments, he didn’t say anything. He was too stunned by what he saw.

Well then… I really don’t know what to say to that.

“A-Auntie?” Blueblood asked, his eyes taking on a haunted aspect. He stared at Celestia, who stood before him just as he last remembered her. Tall, regal, coat as white as driven snow, flowing mane in all of the colors of the sunrise, and those magenta eyes… which were more sultry with desire than he ever remembered them being… except maybe around cake.

“Auntie—” Blueblood’s words were cut off by the many emotions which flooded through him as he took in the pony who had set his entire expedition in motion.

“Hush nephew,” Celestia said, placing a hoof to his lips. “I’m here now.”

“No.” Blueblood pushed the hoof down. “You’re dead… I mean, Celestia is dead—”

Long alabaster forelegs wrapped around him and pulled him close. “I never gave you the affection you deserved. Let me make it up to you now.”

I… I really don’t approve of this, nephew—

“This is wrong,” Blueblood weakly protested as Celestia lowered him into Ametrine’s bed. “So very, very wrong… but I really feel like sticking it to this voice in my head.”

“Then you can do that by sticking it to me,” Celestia growled hungrily.

“I am so going to Tartarus for this,” Blueblood said, grinning maniacally as the voice in his head started making panicked entreaties for him to stop.

But he didn’t listen.

“There!” Applejack said, spotting stairs leading up at the end of a corridor. Stairs were good; it’d get them out of the water that was almost cresting their backs, and give Vinyl a rest from magically levitating everypony’s gear above water level. Less thrilling was that still more water was cascading down those steps towards them.

“Wait!” Octavia said as quietly as she dared. “Put out the torch!”

“But it’s our last one, Octi,” Vinyl said. “Once it’s out, I’ll be the only one who can still—.”

Applejack’s eyes boggled as Octavia unceremoniously slapped the torch down into the water.

“Hay,” Big Mac said, “what the—”

“Hold on,” Applejack all but whispered, pointing toward the stairs. Realization dawned on the others’ faces that they could see that far, and even—faintly—see each other, due to red light streaming down from the top. But then that light went out too, plunging them into darkness.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Vinyl said loudly.

“Dammit Vinyl,” Octavia hissed. “Now they know we’re here.”

Applejack squinted into the darkness “Who knows we’re here? I can't see anything, how about the rest of y’all?”

“Eeynope.”

Winona barked.

“I mean, I’m just seeing stairs,” Vinyl said. “Guess the good news is they’re not coming for us yet?”

“Wait.” Octavia sniffed the air. “Four ponies; two stallions and two mares.”

“How do you know that?” Applejack asked. She then thought for a second and tilted her head. “Oh, right, shark.”

“Also,” Octavia said, sniffing again, “I smell… frost.”

“Frost?” Applejack asked.

“Frost,” Octavia confirmed.

“Filly!” said Vinyl.

The others stared at Vinyl.

“Eeynope,” Big Mac declared.

Octavia looked up the stairs. “Double Diamond! Is that you?”

“Octavia?”

Two horns lit at the top of the stairs, revealing Party Favor and Sugar Belle.

“Ametrine,” Double said. “We’ve found them, I repeat, we’ve—” A peculiar expression crossed his muzzle, soon to be replaced by one of mild disgust. “Alright then…”

They proceeded up the stairs and through a shattered section of the dungeon’s stone wall, into a cavernous space that sloped far enough upward to escape the water rushing down the corridor. Then it was only a matter of minutes to get the campfire going again. Everypony huddled around it to either drive off the evening chill, or to dry off..

“Sure is good to see some friendly faces down here” Applejack said, holding her hooves close to the fire. “We all lost our connection to Blueblood a while back, and just been tryin’ to make our own way as best we could figure.”

Double nodded. “Something happened with Blueblood’s link a few hours back,” Double said. “All I know is we got ordered to join up and extract you after it happened.”

“So whatever it was didn’t mess up your link with Ametrine? Looked like you was havin’ trouble reaching her a minute ago.”

“All I got out of Ametrine just now were some… grunting noises,” Double said flatly, taking another swig from a bottle of peppermint liqueur he’d brought on the trip. When he pulled it away from his lips, his breath frosted in the warm, humid air. “Then she told me to call back later.” He held the bottle out to Party.

Party laughed in an erratic fashion, canting his head precariously to one side as he inserted one long balloon through another he’d tied into a ring.

“Yeah,” Sugar said. “Thanks for the imagery, Party.” She magically grabbed the bottle and took a swig. The irony of her not actually being able to see the lewd motion through her blinders was not lost on Applejack.

“Who’s the new mare?” Night Glider asked, passing the bottle with one wing and pointing the other at Maud.

“That’s Maud,” Applejack said, accepting the bottle and taking a swig. “She’s a… jester by trade.”

Party gave another unstable laugh. “This is perfect,” he giggled. “A funnymare and two apples in a cave with some cold heat.” His lewd balloon construct was pointed at the bottle.

“Horseapples,” Double said, eyes wide as he looked between the members of Applejack’s team. “He’s right.”

“Right about what?” Octavia asked, declining and passing the bottle to Vinyl, who took a drink for both of them.

“One of them must have the book, then,” Night said.

“What b—” Applejack stopped speaking as she realized.

“Starlight told us,” Double said. “She’s always been a weird one, but suddenly being able to precisely predict the future really took the cake. Still weird though, since she gave her predictions to us in riddles so we couldn’t suss them out immediately. Something to the effect of: ‘you will encounter the book of misdeeds when you find a funnymare with two apples in a cave, where you will share cold heat.’” He made circles in the air with a forehoof.

“Two apples is pretty obvious,” Double said, pointing between Applejack and Big Mac. “The funnymare is Maud over there—”

“I’m not a hundred percent convinced on that one,” Applejack muttered.

“Cold heat,” Double said, as Maud passed him the bottle, “is my good old friend peppermint brandy, here. I never thought about it that way. Good catch, Party.”

Party just giggled to himself.

“So then,” Double said, “I assume that one of you has this so-called ‘book of misdeeds.’ Starlight told us that anypony who had the book would be filled with ‘righteous fire’—her words.” He looked between the other ponies until his gaze stopped on Applejack.

“I see fire in your eyes,” Double said, inclining his head to Applejack. “And Starlight told me that, as a practitioner of cold, I would have to be the one to quench the blaze. So, no pressure here, it falls to me to calm your rage Applejack, lest we all perish.”

“All?” Octavia asked.

“Yes,” Double replied with a sigh, which produced a small cloud of condensation. “She said that the heat of the bearer’s hatred would be sufficient to ignite the feelings of those around them, ushering in a conflagration that would destroy ponykind’s best chance at fighting the evil that blights this land… yeah, melodramatic, even for Starlight.”

“Celestia killed my family,” Applejack said through gritted teeth.

“WHAT?!” Big Mac’s wide-eyed exclamation caused everypony to jump.

“One of many sins I’m afraid,” Double said. Looking at Applejack, he sighed out a foggy breath. “You’ve seen the thickness of the tome,” he said. “I do not mean to lessen the severity of your loss, but she is guilty of far greater transgressions, against both ponykind… and even nature itself.”

“I gathered,” Applejack said. “And that angers me mighty powerful. But what I can’t forgive, is that the journal said that any unicorn with half an ounce of sense would be able to tell that those stones were built specifically to do what happened.”

“Blueblood,” Big Mac growled.

Applejack nodded, furrowing her brows. “Blueblood lied to us,” she spat, as if the word itself left a bad taste in her mouth.

“I’ve no doubt of that,” Double said. “He’s lied about a great many things. But that is unsurprising, given his position.”

“What do you mean?” Applejack said.

“He’s a politician,” Double said. “More importantly, he’s a leader. I’m sure he weighed the company’s success against honesty to you before making that choice. I would ask you to consider this: Blueblood is not directly or even indirectly responsible for the deaths of your family. Nor is he responsible for any of the other horrible things Celestia has done. He lied to protect her, yes. But if he told you and your brother the truth, there is a pretty good chance you’d both have been enraged enough to kill her if we ever did manage to rescue her. It’s moot now, since we know she’s dead, but what choice did he have at the time? Also consider that now, with the true scope of this company’s responsibility becoming clear, that Blueblood is going to have to do more egregious things. Not because he wants to, but because failure to do so will result in the end of our world.

“Please,” Double said, placing a numbingly-ice-cold gauntleted forehoof onto one of Applejack’s forelegs. “Forgive him, for all of our sakes.”

“I’ll… I’ll think on it,” Applejack said. Looking up into Double’s eyes, she noticed for perhaps the first time just how strikingly clear a shade of blue they were, and how they glittered in the darkness. “This all seems a bit much, y’know? Starlight talking in riddles and getting you to relay the message for her? She coulda just stopped and told me when we got back.”

There was absolute silence. Party Favor’s expression melted from one of frivolity to one of profound sadness. Sugar Belle wrapped her forehooves around Night Glider and they both sniffled.

“Well, you see…” Double paused to take another swig and then poured out a measure of brandy onto the ground. Despite his stoic expression, tears slowly trickled down his muzzle, freezing into veins of ice as they did so. “The next time we meet her will be in death.”

Week 22, Day 5, Pre-Dawn

Staring didn’t help. Nor did clenching his teeth, grunting with effort, or even smacking his foreleg against the observatory’s desk.

Blueblood frowned at his bandaged limb, the five razor-sharp claws at the end having torn through the fabric. “Do something,” he demanded. “You were so malleable before. Dammit!” He smacked it against the observatory table again, then prised it away, leaving five puncture marks in the wood.

“Save that fire for if you wanna have another go,” Ametrine hummed. “Or, if you think she’s still in there, use it on her.”

“What do you mean?” Blueblood asked. “She’s in my leg and my head.”

“Oh? But she’s still an entity separate from the whole, yes?”

“Well, I can’t exactly go into my own body to drive her out, now can I?”

“Maybe,” Ametrine said with a grin. “But that might take a while for you to figure out. Besides, I’m thinking that I know how you gained control in the first place.”

“What?!” Blueblood stood, slamming one hoof on the table and digging into the wood grain with his claw. “How can you possibly know?”

“I pay attention,” Ametrine said, morphing her forehooves into something resembling griffin talons. She reached under the table, and then pulled out a glass vial, which contained a viscous red liquid.

“What is that?” Blueblood asked warily. “You don’t expect me to drink that, I hope.”

“Not at all,” Ametrine said, placing the vial on the table and gripping Blueblood’s bandaged limb. “But this might hurt a bit.”

“What might—”

Ametrine tightened her grip around his leg, eliciting a gasp of surprise from Blueblood. She moved quickly, her left claw passing to his barrel, where it brushed against the inside of the bandages, cutting them. The cloth fell away to expose the band of carved runes, which ran in a circle from his withers down to his barrel.

“Ametrine,” Blueblood said as he felt a sharp edge pressing into the fur above one of his ribs, “what are you—”

Ametrine drove the claw into Blueblood’s flesh, bisecting the ward that Twilight had created. Before he could even scream out in pain, Ametrine gripped the loose flap of skin and pulled hard, tearing a large strip of the band of runes away in one deft motion.

Blueblood howled in pain. He tried to pull away from Ametrine. His thrashing and squirming was immediately halted as a half dozen more limbs erupted from Ametrine’s sides and held him still.

“One more,” Ametrine said, before reaching under his leg from the other side and gripping the skin there.

“No!” Blueblood screamed, redoubling his futile struggles.

Sighing, Ametrine yanked up and away, peeling until she met where she’d reached with the other flap. A quick flick of her claw, and the flesh came free, the epidermal strip of protective warding now hanging in front of Blueblood’s tear-streaked face.

“What…” Blueblood panted between words, looking in shock at the band of exposed dermis: “What… the… Tartarus… is… wrong… with… you?!”

“Oh shut up, you big foal,” Ametrine chided as she dropped the bloody skin onto the table and picked up the vial of liquid.

“What is that?” Blueblood asked through clenched teeth.

“It’s your favorite,” Ametrine said. She unstoppered the vial. “And since you’re whining so much, I’m sure a little more won't hurt.”

“A little more,” Blueblood said, unable to form coherent thoughts through the intensity of the pain. “A little more what?!”

“Wine,” Ametrine said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s what was left of the wine that your rat friend was drinking. It’s a pun: wine, whining… Y’know what? Forget it.” Before Blueblood could protest, she poured the vial out directly onto the wound.

At first, there was just the brutal sting from the alcohol flowing over Blueblood’s raw and exposed nerves. He hissed at the sensation. But then his vision whited out as new floods of unbearable pain washed across his senses. He scrunched his eyes shut, only for him to see—

It was happening again.

But it was much worse this time.

That infernal heartbeat.

The cold light appeared, still hidden behind the thin veil. The pulses continued. The cracks appeared.

Only this time…

They connected.

Reality split.

Blueblood could see it.

The Heart.

He screamed.

His throat was rent raw from that single wretched wail, which stretched from his mouth into a seeming eternity.

Arc 2 Chapter 6: Flash Frenzy

Chapter 6: Flash Frenzy

Week 22, Day 5, Pre-Dawn

The dagger slid across Starlight’s leg. She didn’t even hiss from the pain anymore. Holding up her blood-soaked pastern, she eyelessly inspected it and released a weary sigh. Becoming used to the feeling of the cold steel cutting through her flesh, and experiencing the warm wave of pleasure which followed afterwards, was not something that she’d been expecting when she’d begun to mutilate herself. It was a good thing that death would soon claim her; self-punishment didn’t work if you started to enjoy it.

She swiveled her ears to face the wall to the next room as she wrapped a fresh set of bandages around her limb.

Silence.

Finally.

Shining Armor and Rainbow Dash, who were together in the next room over, had been celebrating Shining’s release from the sanitarium. Vigorously. They’d remained loudly awake into the wee hours of the morning. And knocked a book or two off her shelves.

Now—thankfully—the only noises Starlight could hear were the relatively quiet ones in the room with her. Twilight slept soundly in the bed on the opposite side of the room, peacefully dreaming about… books, no doubt. It was always books with her.

Then, there was the hissing of the protective wards Starlight had surreptitiously placed around the room. She knew that when Ametrine exposed Blueblood to more of the infected wine that the result would be a lethal surge of eldritch energies. The warding had done its job in preventing both Twilight and herself from suffering horrible deaths, which would have involved them bleeding out from every orifice.

With that wonderful thought now in hindsight, she turned her attention to the room’s only window. Hints of approaching daylight were barely beginning to make themselves known upon the sliver of sky visible through storm shutters.

Not that Starlight could see it, of course.

Starlight hadn’t slept, and not just because of the racket next door. She knew she wouldn’t. Just like she also knew that she would have to leave before the two teams returned, despite how much she wanted to see her four friends one last time. More important to her, though, was that they would be hurt by not being able to see her. They’d been through so much together. Before she’d met Twilight, they’d been the only real friends she’d ever had. The last time they had parted was truly the last time that they would all be together and alive.

If only there was more time.

Time.

She scoffed internally at how little of it she now had. The irony of her running out of the most valuable of commodities when she could foresee all things was not lost on her. Her hooves shook as she considered her future, or lack thereof. Everything she’d done, and everything that she knew she would have to do, had convinced her that she deserved nothing less than the worst death imaginable.

But something else weighed on her mind. This would be her last chance. Her last chance… for what? Redemption? Legacy? Striking the raw side of her left foreleg against the wall, she hissed as much-desired feelings of pain finally lanced through the limb. She would have to settle for solace.

The sound of Twilight stirring in the other bed caused Starlight’s ears to perk.

“What was that?” Twilight mumbled sleepily.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” Starlight said to the mostly-unconscious pony. “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.”

“Starlight,” Twilight whined, rolling over to face her, but keeping her eyes closed. “What time is it?”

“It’s early,” Starlight said. “I just wanted to tell you that before I headed out.”

“Tell me what?” Twilight barely lifted her head from her pillow before dropping it back down with a poof and a yawn.

“That I’m sorry,” Starlight said, feeling wetness running down her muzzle. She’d been crying a lot lately. Which was good, because she needed to get it out of her system so that she could be strong for the others later. “I know why things are the way they are.”

“Starlight,” Twilight mumbled into her pillow. “You’re not making any sense.” She hugged her blankets around herself more tightly and yawned again. “If you don’t start—” another terrific yawn “—making sense I’m gonna go back to sleep.”

“I—” Starlight struggled for words “—I know the reason for why this world is as horrible as it is. I never even knew this world was horrible until I saw the alternatives.” She knew that her desperate struggles to explain things to Twilight would come to naught. But she also knew she would try anyway. “A single pony, driven by revenge… changed things.”

Twilight groaned and rolled back over to face away from Starlight, grumbling into her pillow.

“I see her so clearly now.” Starlight choked on her own tears. “When I think of all the darkness in this land… the death, the suffering… and how it came out of petty jealousy.” She sightlessly inspected her foreleg. No matter how thoroughly she scarred it, it wouldn’t make up for her transgressions. “What kind of monster would so callously abuse time travel, heedless of the risks and ripple effects? The lost lives, the lost friendships…”

“Time travel?” Twilight said, rolling onto her back, her eyes still closed. “We both know that’s not scientifically possible. Your story is not scientifically possible,” she sing-songed in a sleepy voice, before letting out a terrific yawn. “Besides—” another yawn “—you’re my only friend.”

The taste of that particular irony was bitter, indeed.

Tears flowed freely down Starlight’s face. “You could have known so much more.”

Twilight mumbled something incomprehensible. But after a few silent moments, Starlight heard her issue a light snore.

“I’m so sorry.” Starlight got up from the bed. Sniffling, she turned her head towards Twilight. Without eyes, she regarded her best friend one final time. “At least you’ll live longer than me.”

Starlight pulled a book out from her saddlebags. It was a thick leatherbound tome, with a brass banding on the spine, singed patterning at the corners of the cover, and a stylized brass unicorn head on the front. The eye of the pony glowed with a faint, unnamable luminescence.

As she left the book on Twilight’s bed-side table, Starlight paused for a moment, just listening to Twilight breathe.

“Farewell, best friend.”

Week 22, Day 5, Morning

The route from the ruins to the Everfree was normally a stone-cobbled trail with nary more than a single tiny creek, usually a single hoof-span across, barring passage. Which is why Applejack’s and Double’s groups stood, perplexed, at the roaring torrent, at least several mare lengths wide, which now crossed their path.

“Well… that's new.” Applejack looked at the wide swath of water that flowed past.

“Most curious,” Double Diamond said, canting his head. “And most troublesome for our future endeavors.” He pointed a hoof as part of the streambank tore free and was washed downstream.

“Look,” Maud said, pointing. “The force of the current has already eroded the topsoil away to the underlying regolith.” She walked dangerously close to the edge of the water. “If the intensity of this stream doesn’t let up, it won’t be long before it gets to the saprolite layer and then the bedrock.”

“Pardon?” Applejack said.

“She’s saying that the water is cutting into the soil,” Vinyl said. “What, none of you guys ever took earth pony science in school?”

“At the rate it’s going—” Double took a step back as more of the embankment collapsed “—it’ll dig out a sizable gorge in no time.” He looked up into the sky. “Tempest? Can you inform Blueblood that access to the ruins are now cut off? He’ll need to build a bridge, or something similar.”

Understood. The stream appears to be flowing from north to south. I recommend you follow it north. You should come upon Saddle Lake, which is where I suspect it is sourced.”

“Good idea,” Night Glider said. “Saddle Lake is small; it’s really more of a large pool or tiny pond. We shouldn’t have problems either walking around it or crossing one of its tributaries.”

Blueblood had never slept worse in his life.

Rolling from the tangled, sodden sheets into the lancing light of dawn was like crashing through a pane of glass. Not even the night he’d spent three years previously with the Van Kloppen sisters—and brother—had left him feeling more like his head was a cracked cask of wine, spilling its contents out faster than the product of his own dry-heaves. He’d had nights of no sleep that had been more satisfying, if only for their clarity—of which there was none here.

He staggered from the bed—how had he even gotten into his bed?—hearing half-perceived noises from Ametrine behind him. He plowed into, and toppled, a chair… into the blazing hearth. New rippling growths upon his left leg burst forth, stabilizing him, and preventing him from sharing the chair’s fate. His eyesight fractured once again, though the pain of it was negligible.

It was nothing compared to the thirst.

His self-awareness at an all-time low, Blueblood had only the presence of mind to stand still and bark for Tempest until he collapsed on his rump, retching soundlessly. He had no clue how long he sat there, feeling alone, cold, and empty.

Yet in time, his nose perked with the scent of something warm. Something tantalizing. His eyes flicked upward as he salivated uncontrollably.

“Prince,” came a resonant boom that could only be Tempest.

“N—Nopony… today,” he stammered through slavering jaws. “K—keep… all… out.”

The plum-colored mass before him jerked; likely in a nod—disapproving, of course. It said a few more words. The only one he recognized was: “Ametrine?”

“N—No. Not… even Ametrine.”

The mass receded. Sound and color dropped away into a void of lost perception.

Yet the desperate thirst remained. It wracked him, left him shivering so badly that he couldn’t even scream.

After what seemed like hours later, Blueblood cringed at the squeal of his bedroom door opening. He was vaguely aware of hoofsteps as somepony entered.

Blueblood tried to say something along the lines of: “I said no visitors!” Although he wasn’t sure he was actually forming words; he may have just been gibbering incomprehensibly.

Without warning, the curtains were drawn, the windows opened, and the shutters thrown wide, flooding the room with even more of the accursed sunlight that singed his senses like a hot poker cauterizing a wound. Blueblood hissed and gave vocalization to his displeasure with a series of growls and snarls.

The voice which spoke to him was too damned cheery for his tastes. While the majority of the words she spoke were swallowed by waves of nausea and pain, he distinctly heard mention of “the gloriousness of the sun,” as well as something about “incandescence”—which had to mean it was Solmare. Her nonsense tried his patience on the best of days, much less one where his head felt like a coconut that had been exposed to Tempest’s hooves.

Blueblood felt himself hefted from the ground, and laid carefully in his bed. He tried to berate Solmare, but he was pretty sure that he just moaned through clenched teeth. With great effort, he managed to hold his vision straight enough to watch Solmare walk to the fireplace and hold out a hoof.

A blueish-white light emanated from Solmare’s outstretched hoof and the fire roared higher.

Although the warmth from the newly kindled flames penetrated his fur and reached his skin, Blueblood shivered. It felt like ice water ran through his veins, chilling him to the bone. When Solmare pulled the blankets up over him, it only intensified the cold, as if he were trapping it under the thick covers instead of his own body heat. He kicked the blankets off and writhed as waves of freezing agony passed through him.

He saw Solmare watching him, the bucket helmet obscuring every possible indicator of expression except for the eyes, which scrutinized him with merciless mirth. She pulled a flask from her robes, pulled the stopper from it, approached him, and held it to his lips. The material of the container glowed as if it were on fire.

Blueblood tried to pull away. Thirst beyond belief consumed his senses, but the smell coming from the flask was that of embers and heat. A hoof shot behind his head and fixed it in place with an iron grip. He opened his mouth to moan and found that liquid was being poured into it.

It burned. There was no other way to describe the sensation. Fire rushed down his throat and into his stomach, where it exploded outwards into his limbs. Though there was pain, there was also relief. Whereas before he felt as if he were dying, now he felt as if he were mending; painfully so, but mending nonetheless. His struggles slowed, and then ceased.

“W-What was that?” Blueblood pulled the blankets up to his neck now that he could feel his own body heat again.

Solmare walked to the fireplace and held out the flask, which had ceased to glow, revealing itself to be made from a huge emerald. Flames and embers flowed from the blaze, through the air, and then into the flask.

Blueblood turned away from the fire. “Okay, I’m hallucinating.” He was unsure of how long he continued to lay there, although it felt like days. His body continued to painfully mend itself. Despite the extreme exhaustion he felt, unconsciousness refused to take him. And yet Solmare stood watch over him, like a guardian angel.

“Great, now I’m delirious, too.”

Week 22, Day 5, Late Afternoon

The teams spent the better part of the day hiking through the edge of the Everfree forest, following the stream’s bank over rocks and fallen trees, all in hopes of finding an easier place to traverse it. Night Glider made several scouting runs during that time, none of which were ultimately successful. Their collective grumbling only intensified as they resigned themselves to circling the whole way around Saddle Lake.

“Well, butter my buns if that ain’t a proper lake,” Applejack said, emerging through the treeline and into full view of the swollen monstrosity stretching away from them much farther than she would’ve imagined. Scores of trees and shrubs were partially underwater nearby, a testament to the severity of the recent flooding. The definitive border of the opposing shoreline was lost in a thicket of half-submerged timber.

Double grunted alongside her. “This looks less like a lake and more like a small sea.”

“I know!” Party Favor giggled. “I can sea that!”

“Knock it off,” Double said, rubbing the temple of his helmet with one hoof. “It’ll take us a whole day to make it around this thing. That’s if we’re lucky.” He gazed out over the expanse of murky water. “Night, I hate to make you do this again, but scout out a path for us. And… keep an eye out for anything dangerous. Something smells wrong.”

“I smell it too,” Octavia said. “It’s peculiar, out of place, but… strangely familiar.”

Everypony started to sniff at the air.

“Sugar Belle,” Double said as she approached the edge of the lake, “you probably don’t want to get too close to it—”

Sugar responded by dipping a hoof into the water, and then bringing the damp extremity up to her muzzle. She briefly rested her tongue on the wetness, scrunched her face, and spat. “It’s salt water,” she announced.

“Salt?” Applejack looked at the lake and canted her head. “That… that don’t make no sense!”

“No,” Double said, “it doesn’t.” He looked around warily. “Night, be quick with your reconnoiter. The rest of us will get the camp set up. We’ll do it well away from the water’s edge; I don’t think it’s the best idea to be close to this pelagic oddity after sunset. Even without the smell, this place just doesn’t feel right.”

Week 22, Day 6, Morning

“Your leg,” Twilight stammered, as she sat down at the drawing room table, “it’s better—how?”

Despite his left foreleg having returned to its original shape, Blueblood looked like he hadn’t slept all night, maybe longer. Dark circles lay underneath eyes that were dull with exhaustion. “The problem resolved itself… somehow.” Blueblood made a circular motion with one hoof. “First there was wine, then Solmare shoved some weird potion down my throat.” A bowl of oats sat untouched in front of him. “Then she stayed with me all night, too—and not like that. She just stood there, watching me the whole time. It was weird. And then she didn’t even tag along with me to breakfast.”

“I think she fasts as part of her weird sun religion or something, I’ve never seen that mare eat.” Shaking her head, Twilight accepted her own bowl of oats from Ditzy and sat down. “Everything is crazy these last few days,” she muttered. “First Starlight went missing yesterday, and now your leg is randomly fixed.”

“What do you mean, she’s missing?” Blueblood turned his head and raised his eyebrows.

Twilight finished chewing a spoonful of her breakfast. “I mean that I woke up yesterday, and she wasn’t there like she normally is. And nopony has seen her.”

“She left westward from town early yesterday,” Tempest announced as she entered the drawing room, “just before sunrise, while I was doing my morning laps around town.” She sat down and waited for Ditzy. “I would have told any other pony not to go out alone, but the effort would have been wasted on Starlight. She is as stubborn as she is prescient.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, “as long as you think she’ll be ok.”

“I never said that,” Tempest replied with a nicker. “I just know that any attempt to stop her would be fruitless. Her ability to so precisely predict the future is quite irritating.” She grabbed the bowl of oats that Ditzy placed in front of her.

“I was going to ask why you disobeyed my order,” Blueblood said.

“You were feverish and delirious. I thought it was prudent to have Solmare watch over you, to make sure you didn’t expire.”

Blueblood shrugged. “Did your instructions include forcing some weird fire potion down my throat?”

“Prince, I—” Tempest was cut off by the sound of galloping hooves echoing from the hallway.

“Hey Tempest,” Ametrine said cheerfully, as she abruptly did a small hop and slid into the drawing room on her hooves.

“You are energetic today.” Tempest took a bite of oats.

“And you’re grumpy as usual,” Ametrine fired back.

“I am not needlessly cheerful. I am also engaged in an important conversation with the Prince. Give me a brief report on what Double Diamond’s team is up to, so we may return to the matter at hoof.”

“Eh,” Ametrine said, “they’re under attack.”

Tempest choked down the last of her breakfast and stood. “Open up, now.”

“What the Tartarus are these things?” Vinyl shouted as she dove out of the way of a rusty harpoon.

The scaled quadruped before her started reeling in its weapon by the long rope it trailed from. In many ways, it resembled a pony. But its gilled visage ended in a maw of needle-like teeth, and in place of its back legs was a fleshy, prehensile fin. It gasped oddly in the morning air, before emitting a sound something like: “Shooooooooooo.”

Vinyl jumped back from another finned fishpony bursting up from a cluster of reeds with a gurgling battle-cry of “Beeeeeeeeeee.”

“Dooooooooooo,” growled a third pelagic abomination that came flopping toward her.

“Celestia-damned sea ponies,” Applejack spat, bucking a rotted tree that crashed down squarely onto two of Vinyl’s attackers, while tearing an arm off the third. She then dodged behind another partially submerged tree several hoof lengths from the water’s edge, narrowly avoiding a fusillade of rusty harpoons.

“Aren’t these supposed to be confined to coastal areas?” Octavia asked. She burst out of a waterlogged shrub and brought her cello case down on the head of a shaman, staggering them.

“Eeyup,” Big Mac replied, grabbing one of the offending harpoons in his mouth, yanking a sea pony bodily from the water, and raking his spiked bracelet ineffectively against its tough belly scales. He released the weapon as its owner pulled back towards the other monstrosities.

“I knew we shouldn’t have let the others scout ahead,” Applejack said as she bucked a sea pony in the face. She wasn’t even sure if it was one of the ones that had thrown a harpoon at her; they all looked alike. “Splitting the party ain’t never a good idea.”

“Yo yo yo,” Vinyl called out to the aquatic abominations, “what do you call the area next to the water?”

The gaggle of monstrosities paused for a moment and exchanged confused glances.

“It’s the BEAT, cha!”

Octavia facehoofed as the sea ponies were blasted through the air and back into deeper water by concussive sonic waves.

“I see what you did there,” Maud deadpanned. “You utilized how ‘beat’ sounds like part of the word ‘beach.’ Your material regarding crushed silica is masterful.”

Vinyl draped a forehoof over Maud’s withers. “See Octi,” she gloated, “other ponies get my jokes!”

“Vinyl,” Octavia said in an exasperated tone. She sighed and looked at the rapidly retreating fish ponies. “Perhaps I should go out and finish them off?”

“No,” Applejack said. Splitting the group had already left them down members who could have made that ambush far less dangerous. “We need to find the others, and find out—”

“Find out if we’ve also been ambushed by sea ponies,” Double said as he and the others emerged onto the silty bank from the forest. They all looked cut up & bruised, but there were no serious injuries. “We’ve been able to avoid them thanks to Tempest. She directed us to a path that looped around through the woods and away from the water. We can take it to get back to the old road without having to deal with any more of these things.”

“Celestia-damned sea ponies,” Party Favor cackled, “with their blasphemous shoo’s, their bee’s and their doo’s!’” He devolved into unstable fits of laughter, which then deteriorated into a fit of sobbing.

Applejack wasn’t sure what to say to Party’s display of emotional whiplash. She settled for raising an eyebrow.

“His whole family was killed by sea ponies,” Night Glider whispered to her. She then put a hoof to her chin in thought. “At least, we think so. They may have just stolen his lunch when he was a foal, or popped one of his balloons; he’s not very coherent when it comes to discussing his past.”

“Brian!” Party favor wailed. “Briiiiaaaaaaan!”

“We need to keep moving,” Double said. “I’ve had my fill of sea ponies after just one fight.”

“Let’s stick together this time,” Applejack drawled. “If we keep up the pace, hopefully we’ll be in town by sundown.”

Week 22, Day 6, Night

A single lit candle barely illuminated the drawing room desk. Blueblood was cast in wavering shades of orange and red, while Applejack and Double Diamond stood across from him. Their eyes reflected red in the candlelight.

“We should send teams to map out both the diamond dog warrens, and this newly-flooded cove surrounding Saddle Lake,” Blueblood said while he looked at the woefully incomplete maps which were laid out between piles of recovered coins, gems, and artifacts. “Meanwhile, the ruins, warrens, and Castle of the Two Sisters will be less accessible to us unless we build a bridge to span this new river ravine. Otherwise it’ll be an extra day of travel to and from. The ruins were large enough,” he muttered. “With all this new ground to cover, we are truly a mere speck in a sea of spreading corruption.”

“Speaking of corruption—” Applejack pulled a thick book from her saddlebags.

Lighting his horn, Blueblood lifted the tome from Applejack’s outstretched hoof and folded open the cover. Seeing the table of contents, his eyes skimmed down the page, his eyes narrowing as he read. He halted when he reached a certain line.

“Yes.” Blueblood lifted his weary eyes to meet the fire of Applejack’s gaze. “I lied to you.”

“I know why,” Applejack said. “It would hurt me something awful to say something that could endanger my own kin.” Her eyes hardened. “But you shouldn’t have lied.”

“Never lead, Applejack,” Blueblood said, setting the book down. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Lies come with the job.”

“I am a leader,” Applejack said, stomping a hoof. “And I wouldn’t have betrayed you if you told me! I said I’d uphold the company mission when I signed on, and I. Don’t. Lie.”

Blueblood saw a small smile cross Diamond’s lips. He didn’t ascribe much meaning to it, but he felt sure that he hadn’t imagined it. “Noted,” he said. Then he opened the book again and reread the title of the first entry: “The Waif.” Looking up at the others’ expressions made his whole body feel heavier, somehow. “It seems my aunt’s depredations are worse than we thought. What this may portend for our company is a matter for another day. Applejack, Double Diamond, you both did well leading your teams through considerable adversity, and you are both free to go. Ditzy will see to your payment.”

As the two team leaders exited the room, he heard the faint sound of somepony silently stepping out from the shadows in one of the room’s corners.

“Any other pony,” Blueblood said without looking to face her, “wouldn’t have heard you breathing over there, Tempest.”

“I’m not sure that you qualify anymore,” Tempest said, eyeing Blueblood warily.

“I’m not sure either,” Blueblood said in a tone as dark as the room. “I haven’t eaten since Ametrine and Solmare… did what they did.” He turned his left foreleg back and forth in front of himself, looking as fascinated at the appendage as somepony possibly could after not having slept for days. “Truth be told, I don’t feel hungry at all.” He frowned. “I’m thirsty… but water and juice haven’t been sitting well with me. The last thing that satisfied me was Solmare’s potion.” He looked towards Tempest with eyes that screamed with exhaustion. “And I haven’t been able to sleep, despite the fact that I’ve never felt more tired in my entire life.”

Tempest nodded slowly. “While I sent Solmare to watch over you, I am… disturbed… that she would administer medication without seeking approval from either myself or a doctor at the sanitarium.” Her eyes blazed with cold fire. “Her decision to make herself scarce since then does not bode well either, save for her own chances of survival.”

“Whatever she did helped, Tempest. You’re under orders not to kill or harm her in any significant way until I can get more information out of her.”

“Very well,” she said, inclining her head. “Though I will register my concern that not summarily beating her half to death sets a bad precedent.”

“I don’t care,” he grumbled, turning away. “I just wish my guts would stop churning long enough to let me get some damned sleep.”

“Warm milk,” Tempest said. “That should help to both settle your stomach and let you rest.”

“Thanks.” Blueblood managed a wan smile.

Week 23, Day 1, Evening

Blueblood sat at the drawing room table, barely cognizant of his surroundings. Having gone without sleep, food, or drink in days, he was unsure how he was even still alive. His hearing returned to the tail end of whatever plans Tempest had been explaining to him.

“Octavia should be the one to coordinate the efforts of my group,” Tempest said. Her intense gaze could have burned a hole through sheet iron. “As one of the most level-headed company members remaining in the hamlet, and as somepony who routinely experiences disturbing physical transformations not unlike Ametrine’s into her display-form, she is the best suited for the role. I spoke with Double and Applejack yesterday, and they described her innate leadership skills as exemplary, second only to her predatory instincts in the field.”

“That’s high praise.” Blueblood nodded. “While I am loath to send you out on a mission to build a bridge, instead of utilizing your extreme competency here, I cannot deny that your presence would benefit us out in the field.”

“I am certain it is the correct choice,” Tempest said. “The ponies I’ve chosen for my team are the best for the job. Snails has an arbalest, so he can fire the ropes across the new ravine. Bon Bon has an axe in case the wood we bring with us isn’t sufficient. Lyra has… hands, and is much better suited than others in the company for construction. As for myself, I can act as an anchor for one of the sides.” The corner of her mouth turned up slightly. “Plus, I wanted to try out the improvements Rivet made to my armor.”

With his eyes half-lidded from ongoing sleep deprivation, Blueblood looked down at the open journal which lay upon the drawing room table. “If the disturbing contents of Celestia’s journal are to be believed, I would have preferred that we reassembled the ‘surefire’ team. The only problem with that is that Big Mac and Octavia are still physically recovering from their last excursion. I trust that you will be able to make up the difference?”

“Absolutely,” Tempest said without a hint of doubt.

“Good,” Blueblood said. He steepled his hooves. “What about the mare who Applejack’s team met?”

“Maud Pie,” Tempest said. “She comes from a family of rock-farmers, and chose to return to them shortly after returning with the others. The upside is that she said she would speak to her family members about possibly joining us.”

“We can always use more help.” Blueblood leafed through the book on the table. “Send in Shining so I can brief him. And good luck. If we’re right—”

“If the Pillar of Old Equestria, Somnambula, is present in the warrens underneath the catacombs,” Tempest said in the manner of a master executioner, “then I shall reintroduce her to Mistmane.” She then performed a crisp about-face and walked out of the drawing room.

Blueblood used his magic to lift a glass of water from the table. He stared longingly at the drink, licked his dry lips, and poured the liquid into his mouth. With a violent heave, Blueblood turned his head and retched, spraying water all over the floor. Tears would have come to his eyes were he not already severely dehydrated.

How many days has it been?

“Sir,” Shining said as he limped into the drawing room. Despite the pain, he had a spring in his step. It was hard not to, given all of the time he’d been spending with Rainbow ever since he’d been discharged from the sanitarium.

“Shining,” Blueblood said, appearing to compose himself. “I’m sending your team to Saddle Lake.”

“To explore the new area, I assume?”

“No. Not now, at any rate. We definitely do need the area mapped, but there’s something far more pressing.” Blueblood pushed a book across the desk to Shining, appearing to make an effort to avoid the edges of the giant Tempest-hoof-shaped divot.

Shining looked down at the journal and began to read. If his faith weren’t already reduced to a steaming ruin by prior events, the words on those pages would have shaken it. He raised his gaze to meet Blueblood’s. “Is this right?”

“Yes,” Blueblood replied. “Celestia apparently had all of the Elements of Harmony in her possession at one point. After banishing her sister to reside in the moon, she distributed them to the legendary Six Pillars of Old Equestria, whom she plucked from an eternal limbo via dubious sorcery. According to the journal, she gave Generosity to Mistmane, who resided in the ruined crypts studying necromancy. Since that information matches with our team’s observations, I think it’s fair to assume she wasn’t lying… this time. The journal also goes on to describe the pillars: where they spent their time, their habits, and in some cases, her last interactions with them—none of which left them the same.”

“Wow,” was all Shining could manage. It was a lot to take in. But still, he was finding himself less and less surprised the more he heard of Celestia’s crimes.

“So here’s the good news: after reading through most of this thing, I think I’ve locked down where two more of the elements are.” Blueblood put his hoof down on a map that showed the Everfree and castle ruins. “Tempest and her team are going to enter the warrens here after setting up a proper bridge. They will be tasked with retrieving the Element of Laughter… no, that’s not a joke. Your team will be going after the Element of Loyalty, which she entrusted to Flash Magnus. Although he may not be its current bearer, as Celestia seems to have—” he cleared his throat “—sacrificed him to the sea ponies.”

“Sacrificed?” Shining scrunched his face. He wasn’t even sure what use for a regular pony a sea pony could possibly have. Maybe they ate them. The thought made him shudder.

“Yes,” Blueblublood said. “Betraying the pony to whom she gave the Element of Loyalty is just one of Celestia’s intensely ironic transgressions.”

Shining shook his head slowly, letting himself dwell on the residual pain still throbbing at the base of his horn from his catastrophic overuse of Harmony magic.

“I know that look,” Blueblood said. “Come on, Shining; out with it.”

Despite the sudden dryness in his mouth, Shining managed to croak: “Well, so what if we find the Elements?” His jaw clenched in anger. “Celestia claimed to be the essence and embodiment of Harmony. Look where that’s gotten any of us.”

“You’re not wrong. Mostly. But Celestia’s writings speak of Harmony issuing from a fundamental source wholly dissimilar to the eldtritch energies of The Heart. You know better than most that we’ve faced misfortune with harnessing Harmony so far. But I can’t ignore that Celestia took very strong, and very specific, steps to separate the Elements from each other—and to keep others from retrieving them.”

“I… suppose that could mean she saw value in them, and the power they possess.”

“Or a threat. Regardless—” Blueblood steepled his hooves “—I need you and your team to recover the Element.”

“But Sir, without Zecora, I’m short one pony.”

Blueblood stared flatly at Shining. “Rarity will be joining your team as its fourth member.”

“Sir—” Shining didn’t even know where to begin telling Blueblood how bad of an idea that was. Maybe he could start by mentioning the crude crayon-drawn cartoon likenesses of Rarity that Rainbow used for target practice… “—I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”

“Shining,” Blueblood said tersely, “I know that Rainbow has a problem with Rarity, but—and forgive my being blunt—the Element she bears gives her a connection to Harmony that you no longer possess, which may be an asset in retrieving Flash Magnus’ Element. Besides, you’re Rainbow’s superior, and if the recent rumors I’ve been overhearing are true, her lover.”

Shining felt heat flood into his face.

“So, make it work.”

“Y-yes Sir,” Shining stammered. He looked behind himself to make sure the drawing room doors were closed before looking back towards Blueblood. “Sir… can I ask—”

A ghost of a smile touched the corner of Blueblood’s mouth. “The entire company knew you two were an item before I started getting noise complaints from the rooms next to yours. And if you’re really interested in when I first figured out, it was on our initial carriage ride here. Took you two long enough to start knocking horseshoes.”

Somehow, the intensity of the heat across Shining’s face intensified. He could actually see the red emanating from his own muzzle. “I… I should go then.”

“Hold on a second,” Blueblood said, his hooded eyes giving off an air of combined exhaustion and exasperation. “While I’m obviously the last pony who should be lecturing anypony else on carnal restraint, you might want to take into consideration that your sister occupies one of the rooms next to yours. She made the complaints.”

Apparently Shining’s face could catch fire, as the heat he felt was approaching that of red-hot coals, which was, coincidentally, the same color radiating from every part of his own face that he could see.

“I’ll see about moving you two to a room less… adjacent to ones that are occupied.” Blueblood pulled a long piece of parchment from a pile which appeared to have an extensive list written upon it. Blueblood pushed it in Shining’s direction. “But until then, please try to refrain from prompting your sister to create checklists like this. She’s actually catalogued the number of thumps and any overheard words; she alphabetized those, by the way. Every. Single. Noise.”

Shining quickly nodded, turned about, and tried to leave before his face could explode.

“One more thing.”

Shining stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t dare turn around. “Sir?”

“Who is Squall?”

Shining shouldered through the drawing room doors and bolted down the hallway as quickly as his legs would take him. In his mind, it wasn’t nearly fast enough.

Week 23, Day 3, Morning

The inexplicably rising water levels of Saddle Lake had flooded the surrounding lowlands, resulting in knee-deep salt-water covering most of the terrain. This resulted in both slowed motion and the complication of normally simple movements for Shining’s party—and seemingly endless utterances of “Ew!,” “Ick!,” and “Gross!” from Rarity.

Resistance was light until they descended into a series of swamped caves that were water-hewn from some kind of limestone, and honeycombed the area surrounding what the company was now colloquially calling the “Saddle Sea.” But then came more of the harpoon wielding sea ponies, attacking from seemingly every angle. The group had taken to calling them “groupers,” after a species of large-mouthed fish that they somewhat resembled. And they were accompanied by smaller ones that tossed around a bizarre form of aquatic-eldritch magic; those, they called “shamans.” They’d decided that “thrall” was a most appropriate moniker for the bloated, trotting corpses that followed in the others’ wake.

Yet they dispatched them quickly. Shining avoided a vicious bite from one of the last few groupers by pivoting on his right foreleg, which caused his shoulder to scream in agony. Magically swinging his sword downward onto the creature’s neck with all of his might, he severed its spine but failed to decapitate it as he’d intended. He knew that he was going to have a long recovery ahead of him, if his loss of swing power and aching horn was any indicator.

He watched Rainbow dodge a thrown harpoon as she spun through the air and planted Squall's blade squarely in the back of a grouper’s head. The creature ululated as black ichor sprayed from its mouth. Pulling the trigger, Rainbow blew the front of the creature’s face out. She flipped off of the almost-headless creature before she splashed back down into the ubiquitous water.

“That’s the last one,” Shining said. “Hay Dashie, how is Stabooty working out for you?”

“His name is Squall!” Rainbow glared at Shining. “And he is awesome!”

“Squall?” Shining shook his head, even as his internal voice warned him that to continue would cost him. “I thought you settled on Stabooty, it’s so much more appropriate.”

“Shining.” Rainbow drew the word out and lowered her tone to one she usually used before committing to murder… or neutering.

“I’m kidding!” Shining stuck up his hooves in a playful warding gesture.

“Good.” Rainbow holstered Squall. “If you badmouth Mister Stabooty again—” Her eyes narrowed, and one twitched. “Squall. If you badmouth Squall again…”

Shining decided to quickly change the topic before he found himself castrated. He wiped the blood and saltwater from his blade. “This stuff is going to be murder on my gear,” he conspicuously whined. “Blueblood knows I like to keep my equipment—”

“Shiny,” Rainbow cut in with a chuckle. “We know.” She narrowed her eyes and looked back towards the other two ponies. “Hay Twilight, how’s the drama queen back there?”

“She’s fine,” came Twilight’s snappy response. She’d been pissy since Rarity had backpedaled into her at the beginning of the ambush, causing both mares to take a briny bath.

Rarity put on the most haughty expression Shining had ever seen. “I am not a drama queen!”

Rainbow’s expression flattened. “There’s seaweed in your mane.”

“Ew!” Rarity shrieked, shaking her head back and forth. “Gross, gross, gross!”

“Why did we bring her again?” Rainbow asked.

“Because Zecora is dead.” Shining realized he’d said that perhaps a bit too harshly. He tried his best to put on his leadership face and ignore Rainbow’s hurt expression. “Now quit instigating, and stick to the mission.”

Rainbow leveled a death-glare at him. Then she stalked off into the tunnel ahead.

Shining watched her stomp through the muck. “Guess I’m sleeping alone tonight then.”

“Good,” Twilight said. “Without you two going at it, I might finally be able to get some sleep.”

Shining’s face burned, and he contemplated how he might have to get used to being permanently shaded red.

Week 23, Day 3, Noon

Blueblood squinted into his open leg window. Watching Tempest’s team build a bridge was about as exciting as it sounded. The going was slow, and would likely take them the rest of the day.

“I honestly hadn’t heard anything while bunking in the room next to Mister Shining and Miss Rainbow,” Octavia said, continuing to watch her group through Ametrine.

“You’re probably desensitized to any kind of volume issues after having lived with Vinyl for so long,” Blueblood said absentmindedly. The exhaustion was not helping him concentrate on Tempest’s team.

“Prince Blueblood, I know that I don’t exactly sleep now that I’m part shark, so I’m not the best of judges when it comes to this.” Octavia looked over to him, and he saw the concern written across her muzzle. “But you look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“Haven’t eaten either,” Blueblood griped. “Haven’t wanted to.”

“Well,” Octavia said, “I understand the part about not being able to sleep. But… I’m always hungry.”

“How is Shining’s team doing?” Blueblood asked, changing the subject as his stomach twisted.

“They’re working their way through a side branch of the flooded cave system. The directions from Celestia’s journal appear to be spot on.” Octavia scrutinized the picture provided by Ametrine’s window. “Prince, may I ask you a question?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Why did you decide to have me direct a team?”

“Double Diamond recommended you.”

Octavia turned to look at him again. “He did?”

“Yes.” Blueblood smiled. Or grimaced; he was thirsty enough that he wasn’t sure what kind of face he was making anymore. “When I spoke to him, he said that you almost managed to ambush his team in the warrens. He also said that you were able to direct the others when Applejack was busy… looking at him.”

“I… did notice that,” Octavia said.

“Either way, I needed someone with a level head and tactical acumen watching Ametrine here while Tempest was in the field. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she demands to be deployed more often after this.”

Octavia nodded. “Tempest is a mare of action. She’s an impressive physical specimen, especially for a unicorn. Her level of physical fitness puts most of us earth ponies to shame. While her skills as a commander are exemplary, I don’t understand why you won’t just bite into my delectably juicy neck and suck the blood out of my carotid artery right now.”

“What did you just say?” Blueblood almost strained his neck with how fast he’d turned it. His eyes shot to Octavia’s.

“I said,” Octavia replied, while keeping her gaze on Shining’s group, “that her skills as a commander are exemplary, but not nearly as refined as her uncanny ability to violently end life.” She looked over to Blueblood and met his gaze. “Why are you eyeing me like a vagrant who has been presented with a hayburger and fries?”

“Sorry,” Blueblood managed, shaking his head. “I just thought I heard you say… something else. Something that made me… thirsty for a moment.”

Their attention was suddenly brought to Octavia’s window as a haunting sound pierced through it.

Shiny! Rainbow Dash’s voice boomed through Ametrine. What in the hay are you doing?!

Rainbow dove out of the way of Shining’s sword as it swung down and splashed into the water. “Shiny!” she yelled. “What’s wrong with you?” The monster is over there!” She pointed a hoof towards a seaweed-draped, towering terror.

Easily twice as tall as a pony, the creature had no legs, and was decidedly pelagic in appearance. This included thick, amber-colored metallic scales, a body that descended into a finned tail, and a horrifically fanged maw. It had two arms, reminiscent of Lyra’s, though the monster’s ended in wicked, webbed claws. One grasped a massive conch shell while the other swiped at Rarity. There were only two things that indicated it could have once been a pony: One was the ragged remains of an amaranth mane which hung limply from the top of its vaguely equine head and neck. The other was a pair of fins that sprouted from its back, which had a disturbingly pegasus-wing quality to them.

“I—” Shining spoke in a halting manner, lurching as he swung at Rainbow again. “—must serve… my king!” His blade stopped a mere hooflength from her face.

Twilight struggled to keep a magical tentacle wrapped around Shining’s sword. “Shiny, stop! Rainbow is not your enemy!”

A dagger whizzed by Rainbow’s head and landed squarely in one of the creature’s eyes, eliciting a howl of pain and rage.

“It seems you don’t have an eye for fashion!” Rarity shouted.

“I can’t hold him,” Twilight said, her voice straining. The tentacle she had summoned started to tear as Shining flared the light from his horn with a horrible growl.

Rainbow jumped back as realization struck: if Shining hadn't been struggling with his injuries, her face would have already been cut in two. “Shiny! Please, Shiny!”

“He’s mine now.” The pelagic beast croaked as it pulled the blade from its eye. The vocalization felt viscous and slippery to one’s ears, almost as if oil itself had somehow been given voice.

“He’s not yours!” Rarity squared off with the monstrosity. “Give him back to us, you selfish ruffian!”

Without warning, Rarity’s necklace gave off an intense violet glow. Before anypony could react, a blast of blinding, colored illumination fired from it and engulfed Shining Armor.

Shining suddenly collapsed. His sword, no longer controlled by his magic, was wrenched back by Twilight’s tentacle.

The blade flew precariously in Twilight’s direction. She dodged at the last second, preventing the sword from embedding in her face; instead it sliced into her left cheek, nicking the bone underneath. She cried out in pain as she reared-up, grabbed the bleeding wound with a hoof, and fell backwards into the water.

There was a loud whoosh of air and a blown wake as Rainbow rocketed back towards Shining, grabbed him, and lifted his head above the water.

Fall back! Octavia’s voice echoed throughout the chamber.

The transmission seemed to jolt Shining to wakefulness, and he struggled to his hooves with Rainbow‘s assistance.

Rainbow turned her gaze to the monstrosity to see that it was grasping his head and thrashing about as if in pain. It was hurt, they could beat it. “Why? We have—” She stopped speaking when her eyes beheld Rarity.

Rarity had fallen to her knees. But that was not the most disconcerting thing. Even in the flickering light of their torches, it was easy to see that the actual color had been drained from both Rarity’s mane and eyes. She almost looked like a faded photograph.

“Rainbow.” Shining struggled to stay standing. “We can’t—”

“I won’t leave her,” Rainbow said, quickly propelling herself towards the collapsing mare. Gripping Rarity by the neck, Rainbow lifted her just before she sank beneath the water. “Don’t think this means I’m friends with you or anything.” She hauled Rarity up onto her back, and dodged a tail swipe from the scaly colossus.

Fall back! You can regroup after ascertaining the extent—

“—of Rarity’s injuries,” Octavia commanded.

The party followed her orders, with Rainbow hefting Rarity and following the others as they trudged away from the howling—

“Siren,” Octavia said. “It’s a siren.” She turned to see that Blueblood was standing over her, uncomfortably close, the ravenous expression from earlier distorting his features. At least his leg was closed up. “Prince?”

“Sorry,” Blueblood said, without actually giving Octavia any space. “Just… riveted by the action is all.” He suddenly backed up several hooflengths and tilted his head oddly. “Good job by the way. You made the right call to have the party withdraw. With Rarity down and Shining staggered, they were in no shape to continue.”

“Thank you,” Octavia said, eyeing Blueblood warily. “Prince?”

“Well,” Blueblood said in a very distracted manner, “I’ll umm… leave you… to it, since you’re doing so well.” He abruptly turned around and barreled down the observatory stairs.

“Miss Ametrine,” Octavia said.

Ametrine responded by cracking and squelching a head into existence under the viewing window. “What’s up?” she asked.

“Do you think,” Octavia asked, “that Prince Blueblood is acting… odd today?”

“He sure is,” Ametrine said merrily. “You should check on him!”

Octavia looked at Ametrine and raised an eyebrow. She felt that that was a most peculiar reaction. “But what about Shining’s group?”

“Don’t worry,” Ametrine said. “I’ll keep a careful watch on them and I’ll call for you if they get in trouble.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Positive! Besides, I’ve watched Blue and Tempest command teams a bunch of times! They’re in good hooves!”

“All right then.” Octavia stood. She eyed Ametrine warily before slowly turning and walking down the stairs.

“Finally,” Ametrine said, assuming her pony form. She shook her head a few times. “Starlight, do you know anything about—”

The feeling you’re experiencing is a result of your exposure to the harmonic energy of the Element of Generosity, Starlight said. It feels good to take burdens from others, doesn't it? Remember when I told you that I would help you find purpose? This is part of it.

Ametrine nodded to herself. “As long as it works,” she said. “I’ve hated this feeling, Starlight; that I’m just a tool to be used by Blueblood.” She raised an eyebrow. “But now… you’re right. I feel a drive I haven’t felt before.” A genuine smile creased her lips. “I’m ready on this end.”

Good. Now, find a safe place and do as I’ve instructed. I'll meet up with you and the other five tomorrow. Remain strong, Ametrine, and I promise you’ll find the purpose you’ve been searching for.

Ametrine’s smile vanished.

The other five.

She knew they were dangerous. Born of the same darkness as herself, they were as mutable as she had been… but Blueblood had neglected them, kept them in their coffin as if they were tools that weren’t currently needed—much like how he was now treating her. But using him in return, to make herself feel better, was insufficient to sate her needs. She wanted more.

She wanted revenge.

For being created.

Her features reshaped into an identical copy of Octavia. “Oi,” she said in a perfect imitation of Octavia’s Trottingham accent. “Oi, you lotta tossers!” She furrowed her brows. “Blimey,” she said as she exited the observatory. “How can she stand talking like this?”

Shining’s group pulled back to the cave entrance and hastily made camp on a raised stone slab that lay just inside. Shining helped Rainbow place Rarity on the ground next to the fire.

Rarity was deathly still, her breathing uneven and the color still fading from her body.

“I’ll scout around to make sure nothing sneaks up on us.” Rainbow turned to leave.

“No.” Shining stepped in front of Rainbow. “Dashie, we need to talk.”

At first looking like she was going to refuse, Rainbow suddenly cast her worry-filled eyes down to the sleeping mare. “What did Rarity do?”

“She freed me.” Shining took a seat next to Rarity. “I don’t know how she did it, Rainbow.” He sighed. “I was wandering in darkness. I only wanted to fulfil… his wishes. I would have fought all of his enemies if I had to. But then, Rarity arrived in a wave of light that let me see again. And I know she did it… for the two of us.”

“How do you know?”

Shining could only shake his head. He had no idea how that information had been conveyed to him. All he knew was that the knowledge was irrefutable in his mind.

Twilight dropped Shining’s sword next to Rarity. Somehow she’d managed to keep a hold on it even though it had nearly killed her. She seemed to be ignoring the gash on her left cheek, despite the fact that blood was flowing from it and down her neck. A flattened beam of lavender energy emanated from her horn and passed back and forth over Rarity; likely a scan of some kind. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s almost as if—”

A branch snapped.

Rainbow spun, and aimed Squall towards the shrubs outside the cave. “Come out,” she called, “or I’ll shoot.”

Shining remained by Rarity’s side as Twilight rose to her hooves.

A few tense moments passed before a hoof stepped out into the open. Then came the rest of the pony, who turned out to be a pink pegasus mare, with light purple eyes and a tricolored mane of light violet, rose, and pale gold. She was armored in full plate and carried a holstered mace and a slung shield.

Struggling through the intense pain in his shoulder, Shining rose to his hooves, only to freeze in place, utterly speechless. What could he even say to a marefriend he hadn’t seen in years?

“Impossible,” Twilight said softly as she canted her head to the side. “Cadance?”

“Twilight?” Cadance tilted her own head in confusion.

Twilight slowly approached Cadance.

Blinking furiously, Cadance shook her head, as if to dispel a ghost. “What are you doing out here Twilight? It’s dangerous!”

“I should say the same for you,” Twilight retorted. “I have three other ponies with me; you’re out here alone.”

“Not alone,” said a voice from within the cave.

Shining interposed himself in front of Rarity, and Rainbow spun around to see a spear less than a hooflength from her own face.

The gamboge pegasus stallion with the weapon hung from the high ceiling by all four hooves, the spear itself held in one wing. His eyes, which sparkled the same deep blue as his mane, belied a hint of suppressed ferocity. “I won’t allow my wife to be harmed,” he said, dropping with a splash to all fours, but keeping the spear trained on Rainbow.

Cadance motioned for him to lower his spear with one of her wing. “Flash, put your weapon away; this is the Twilight I told you about.” She studied Twilight with great attentiveness, her gaze wandering to take in every part of her. “I haven’t seen you since you were very little. My, how you’ve grown!”

Flash slowly hooked his spear back through his saddlebag straps, and reached out to Rainbow with his wing. “Flash Sentry,” he said.

Rainbow echoed Flash’s motions, slowly holstering Squall before reaching out with her wing to shake his. “Rainbow Dash,” she said. It was when she let go that she noticed the bloody, bandaged stump where his left wing should have been.

Flash followed her gaze and winced. “That is a tale for another time,” he said. He turned to Cadance. “C’mere, sweetums!”

Rolling her eyes, Cadance walked over to Flash and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek.

“Really?” Flash whined. “I risk myself to save you from this rainbowed rapscallion, and that’s all I get?”

Cadance responded by ruffling his mane playfully. “Not the time, hunny bun.”

“We’re actually in the middle of a mission.” Twilight looked to where Rarity lay. “We had to withdraw from a fight with a Siren after something happened to Rarity.”

“Hello Cadance.” Shining choked on his own words.

Spinning to face him, Cadance opened her mouth and did her best impression of a suffocating fish. “Shining?”

“Shining?” Flash cocked his head. “As in Twilight’s brother, Shining Armor?” He turned to face Cadance. “Cady, didn’t you say you were sweet on him when you were younger?”

Looking on as a fierce blush crept across Cadance’s muzzle, Shining struggled to swallow the lump that had formed in his own throat.

There’s no time for introductions, Octavia said. we’ve looked through the journal, and Blueblood is certain that the siren is Flash Magnus. He’s worried that Rarity’s condition may be related to Magnus still being alive. Shining, your team needs to go back in and take him down as soon as possible.

Shining looked down at Rarity. “But we’re down a pony.”

Take that Flash.

“As funny as having one Flash fight the other Flash would be,” Rainbow deadpanned, “we only just met him.”

“Huh?” Flash looked between Rainbow and Shining. “Who are you talking to?”

“It’s an enchantment,” Twilight said. “We’re in contact with our company back in Ponyville.”

With Rarity out of commission, Flash’s high level of agility will make for a good replacement.

“Okay,” Shining said, “we’ll take him.”

“Hay now,” Flash said. “I didn’t agree to go fight some siren-thing.”

“You should.” Cadance approached Rarity. “They’re already down one pony. It’s the right thing to do.” She sat down. “I’ll watch this one.”

Flash harrumphed. “The things I do for love.”

Week 23, Day 3, Evening

“Prince?” Octavia called as she searched the estate.

“I saw him go into town,” Double Diamond said, looking down from the grandfather clock in the foyer. Party Favor, Night Glider, and Sugar Belle were all standing beside him and echoed his movements.

Octavia couldn’t quite place the look Double was giving her. There was a sadness that tugged at the corner of his eyes, but resolution showed in the tightening of his jaw. The effect was distracting enough that she felt it warranted a question from her. She started to open her mouth.

“He said he was going to Berry’s tavern.” Double’s voice sounded like it did when he’d been passing around that bottle of alcohol. He focused his gaze on hers. “You have to go get him.” Double’s eyes narrowed, conveying to her a sense of urgency. “Hurry.”

As Octavia turned away from Double Diamond’s team, she couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of finality to their parting. The moment was soon lost however, as she galloped full-tilt out the front of the manor and towards the tavern.

Berry’s tavern had undergone renovations since Blueblood had called in some of Celestia’s favors. The largest improvement was that the gaping hole in the roof had finally been patched. Apparently, replacing the loose floorboards wasn’t on the list of extensive repairs; Octavia stumbled immediately after she shouldered her way through the door, lurching her way past Bulk Biceps as she tried to regain her balance.

“Hay!” Berry shouted. “Where are you galloping off to in such a hurry?”

“YEEEEAAAAH!” inquired Bulk.

“The Prince,” Octavia panted. “Where is the Prince?”

“Upstairs with Carrot Top,” Berry said. “He’s about to put a carrot in her top, if you catch my meaning.”

Octavia rolled her eyes and galloped for the stairway.

“Hay!” Berry’s shouts followed Octavia’s frantic scramble up the stairs. “C.T. doesn’t do group jobs! I mean… if she does, it’ll be double!”

Pushing the door open, Octavia stood, shocked, as she took in the scene before her.

At the back of the room, Blueblood had the golden-coated, orange-maned mare—Carrot Top, Octavia assumed—pinned face-first up against the wall, his muzzle buried in the side of her neck. Small whimpering moans came from Carrot’s throat as Blueblood moved his head around with a puckering, sucking sound.

“Oh,” Octavia said. She felt heat in her face. “I’ll uh… um. I’ll leave you to it then—”

Blueblood turned to face her.

“Harmony… above.” Octavia’s eyes widened and she felt heat drain from her face as the blood left it. She quickly reached back and closed the door.

Blueblood’s wide, dilated eyes betrayed a sense of surprise and, upon registering Octavia’s presence, shame. The eeriness of the scene was intensified by the fact that his eyes glowed red, giving her the impression that she was staring into the soul of a demon. More terrifying were the carnivorous fangs that had sprouted from both his upper and lower jaws, turning his mouth into that of a predator.

And then there was the blood.

There was so much of it, smeared across Blueblood’s muzzle and running down Carrot’s neck, that Octavia was surprised Carrot was still alive. Octavia’s fur stood on end and she grit her sharpening teeth as she inhaled the metallic aroma.

It was euphoric.

“Help me,” Carrot sobbed pitifully.

Tempest stood in front of the campfire, allowing the heat to soak through her armor, fur and skin. It kept the evening chill at bay. Her ears perked.

“What was that?” Lyra’s question caused everypony else to jump to their hooves.

Snails swiveled his ears back and forth. “Eh? I didn’t hear nothing, eh?”

Bon Bon slowly turned her head. “Snails is right, I don’t—”

A sharp hiss from Tempest made everypony hold their breath. She nodded her head towards the warrens entrance and made a series of deliberate hoof signals.

Nodding, Bon Bon silently took up a position flanking the left entrance of the tunnel.

Lyra and Snails looked at Tempest with blank expressions.

If it were physically possible for Tempest to ignite the two with her gaze alone, it would have happened right then and there. She settled for a death glare and blatantly pointing of her hoof to the side of the tunnel opposite of Bon Bon. Thankfully the two could figure that much out.

Tempest stared into the darkness where she’d heard the noise right before Lyra had opened her mouth.

It had been a single, deliberate hoofstep.

A drop of water landed on Rainbow’s muzzle, causing her to wrinkle her face. “It’s in there,” she whispered, gesturing through a set of stone doors. She silently withdrew Squall from his holster.

Flanking one side of the entry, Flash drew his spear. “Is there a plan of attack here?”

“We hit it hard and fast,” Shining said. “We can’t give it the opportunity to use that conch to control one of us again.”

Raising a hoof, Twilight got everypony’s attention. “Did anypony see if it was carrying the Element?”

Shining and Rainbow shook their heads. Flash just looked confused.

“Then I agree with Shiny on this one,” Twilight said. Her cheek wound was still bleeding slightly. “Bring it down before it can enchant one of us.”

“Ok.” Shining drew his sword and lightly pressed his left shoulder against one of the doors. “One, two—” he threw the door open and charged the startled siren “—THREE!”

Swinging hard, Shining hacked his sword into the siren’s side. Despite him not penetrating its scales, it responded with a shriek and backhanded him through the air, into Rainbow, and into a jagged, barnacle-encrusted wall.

Flash performed a sideways flip to avoid Shining and threw his spear, clipping the Siren in the shoulder. He jumped back to avoid a swift charge and tripped backwards over Rainbow, causing her to sputter and swear. Rolling with the fall, Flash quickly righted himself.

Red circles of runic inscriptions appeared both above and below the Siren as Twilight chanted, finally resolving into a single eye-watering sigil that caused its thick scales to crack and flake.

As Rainbow Dash rose to her hooves from the briny water, she came muzzle to conch with the siren. A haunting note was blasted directly into her face.

Almost deafened by the concussive sound, Rainbow was left dazed and reeling. A voice cut through her mind, a call to action in defense of her king. It told her that her king’s life mattered more than anything, that those with her in the cave were enemies. Grunting, Rainbow took several shaky steps to stand in front of the Siren.

“Dash!” Shining emerged from the water. “Dash, no!”

As Rainbow turned to face Shining, she knew what she had to do. A swift flick of her wing, and time slowed as she lifted Squall. Her movements were steady, while everything around her moved as if through thick tar. Squall’s sights lined up with Shining’s mortified expression, which morphed to one of confusion when Rainbow winked at him.

Spinning, Rainbow wing-punched the Siren in the gut with Squall, piercing scales and impaling vital organs.

“Nopony—” Rainbow spoke through clenched teeth “—and I mean nopony, can make me betray my friends.”

She pulled the trigger.

Releasing a pain-filled shriek, the siren stumbled backwards, trailing viscera in the brackish water.

There was a whooshing sound as a large quantity of sand sprayed out of the Siren’s conch shell and into the air. The sand glowed with an intense red color.

“Woah.” Rainbow took a shocked step back as the sand flew towards her. The illumination from the cloud increased in intensity as it began to swirl about her faster and faster. She was bodily lifted into the air and the water was repelled beneath her.

The others held their hooves up to shield their eyes as the radiance was elevated to blinding levels. In a final flash of brilliance, a golden necklace, with a red lightning bolt gem in its center, formed around Rainbow’s neck.

She heard a single word echoing throughout her mind.

“Hay, siren!” Rainbow planted all four hooves on the ground and lined up with it.

The siren, still holding its bleeding stomach-wound, turned to face Dash.

“Have a taste of Loyalty, fish-face!”

Shining watched as Rainbow’s necklace erupted in crimson light, blasting the siren right between the eyes. The Harmonic energy washed over it, which caused it to produce the unholy keening that Shining had begun to associate with it being injured. But that screeching soon devolved into a pitiful wailing—wailing that was decidedly pony in nature.

As the Element of Loyalty ceased its bombardment, Shining beheld a pony. While horribly deformed, with far too many pelagic features, it was now actually recognizable as a pegasus; as Flash Magnus.

With a deep wheeze, Magnus fell forward to land on shaky hooves that were barely able to hold him upright. “Cel—” he croaked. “Celestia… you traitor!” Despite his damp fur, tears ran clearly down his muzzle. He looked up shakily at Shining and the others, then back at himself and gasped. “No.” He sobbed in defeat. “Please, no.”

Shining galloped over to Rainbow and caught her as she collapsed under her own weight. The color had drained from her just as it had from Rarity. He ran a damp hoof through her fading mane, before turning to Magnus with a look of anger.

“Kill me,” Magnus begged.

Shining motioned for Flash Sentry to approach, and passed Rainbow over and onto his back.

Turning to face Magnus again, Shining slowly walked towards him. He lit his horn, lifting his sword from the brackish water and raised it to strike… As he observed the shaking pony, his thoughts of violence and retribution melted away, to be replaced by pity. He slowly lowered his blade. “We can help you, Magnus.”

Magnus looked Shining in the eyes. “You know my name,” he said. “But you do not know what I have done, or what has been done to me.”

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done.” The words came to Shining’s mouth unbidden, as if a new purpose had seized him. “Celestia lied to all of us. We’ve all done things in her name that we likely wouldn’t have, had we known her true nature.”

Magnus shook his head “You… you don’t understand.” He motioned for Shining to come closer.

While wary at first, Shining saw that Magnus was having trouble standing, despite being supported by the water. He leaned forward, so that his ear was close to Magnus’ muzzle.

“The sea ponies—” Magnus’s voice hitched as he whispered “—they did… things to me. After… after she gave me to them.”

Shining’s eyes widened as he listened. What they’d done to Magnus was far worse than anything he had imagined prior. Those words bored into his brain, like worms through an apple. That Equish could be used to describe what Magus related to him… the very idea was repulsive to Shining. He knew that the imagery resulting from those revelations would haunt him, lingering forever in his mind, as long as he lived.

Perhaps longer.

Magnus finished speaking, and fell back onto his scaled haunches.

Shining stepped back and turned around. Regardless of what expression any of the others had been wearing prior, they quickly changed to ones of concern as he locked eyes with each member of the group.

Shining hesitated. Regardless of what Magnus had done, he had been tricked by Celestia. They all had. But what had been done to Magnus… Shining spun, his sword flashing through the air.

Flash Magnus’ head toppled from his shoulders, the expression upon it one of profound relief.

Arc 2 Chapter 7: Abrupt Assault

Chapter 7: Abrupt Assault

Week 23, Day 3, Evening

Sequestered in the wine cellar, Ametrine watched in fascination as Flash Magnus begged for Shining to take his life. She listened closely as he whispered to Shining. But something about that whisper—perhaps the tone of pleading, perhaps the simple brush of lips on ear—unleashed a flood of thoughts, feelings, and half-remembered images, from the night when she’d first met Blue. An old, familiar ache returned as the Heart’s will to corrupt him via her body once again warred with what remained of Blueblood’s imprint of Amethyst on her—soul? She scoffed at the very notion.

But the wave of feelings continued, unrelenting, sweeping her toward the place she dared not go. She felt the hot coals of desire that must have burned in less-used corners of Amethyst’s heart, and relished her own pleasure at having stoked those into flame. Yet with that same thought came a stab of ice that pierced her from dock to barrel, as she was brought back to the moment when Blue had... had almost...

He’d wanted her. No; he’d wanted Amethyst. But she’d been there. Her will—her nascent soul—had been so pliable.

Corruptible.

She shivered once more at how he’d touched her that night. How he’d whispered his desire in her ear, then nibbled it. How his will had made a slave of her, until all that had remained of the Amethyst imprint within her lay broken, weeping, and petrified with horror.

But those tears had caused him to relent. And amid the overwhelming sadness and shame of that moment, she’d also felt relief.

Gazing now upon Magnus’ final moments, and having heard how his captors had been far less merciful than Blue, she couldn’t help but see a familiar echo in the expression upon his face.

Ametrine used Octavia’s voice to congratulate the team for accomplishing the mission, told them to set up camp for the night, and to bring Rarity and Rainbow back to Ponyville as quickly as possible.

With a series of cracks and squelches, Ametrine returned to her pony form. “Why do I feel anger and despair like I did when I asked Blueblood to kill me?” She slammed a hoof down on the observatory table. “Starlight! What is going on? You said I’d begin to understand!”

You are beginning to understand.

“Understand? But I’m in pain! Not body-pain, feeling-pain! You said I would be free after this!”

You are free. Free to feel or not feel as you see fit. Now that you have been exposed to both Generosity and Loyalty, you know what it is like to lose, and what it is like to be betrayed. You are now no longer bound solely by your biology. I regret that I will not live to see you achieve the rest.

“What!?” Ametrine shouted her question. “How is this better? How can these feelings possibly be better?”

Because, as horrible as you feel now, know that you can feel equally as good. I’m sorry, but I will have to speak with you when we meet again later. I must attend to tasks of my own, and will have to sever the window connections now.

The disconnect from both Starlight, and from Shining’s group, was as sudden as it was surreptitious. Whatever Starlight had done, Ametrine barely felt it when she lost contact with the group.

Ametrine shook with contrasting emotions. Shining’s group was in the clear, but she didn’t know about Tempest’s group. And now, with both teams cut off, she felt as if she’d abandoned both of them.

And for what?

Her own selfish desire for revenge?

It made her feel like she had stabbed herself in the gut. If she had a stomach, she was sure she would have vomited.

Swinging her head back and forth to try and shake loose the distressing thoughts, Ametrine galloped up the cellar stairs, down the hallway to the foyer, past Double’s team, and out the front door of the manor.

As the buildings flew past her in a blur, she realized that she had no destination in mind. Even after the town was behind her, she continued onward. All she wanted to do was to get away.

The group moved silently through the gloom. In the unlit warrens, darkness held dominion.

Tempest lit her own horn briefly, casting the passage in unsteady shades of teal and cyan. The others had finally picked up on her hoof gestures and followed her instructions, advancing slowly through the tenebrous tunnels.

A sudden sound immediately halted their advance.

It was a pony whistling.

The sound ceased as quickly as it had begun.

“Hello, Tempest.”

Tempest recognized the voice. Gritting her teeth, she slowly turned her head, swiveling her ears to zero in on the location of the voice. “Starlight Glimmer. What is the meaning of this?”

“I’m afraid that I can’t let you leave here, Tempest.”

Tempest squinted, trying to find any visual clues in the darkness. “You are foolish if you think yourself capable of restraining me.”

“Not as foolish as you for walking right into my trap.”

“Traitor,” Tempest growled. She saw a brief, light-blue glow ahead, and charged, violently smashing through several wooden pews that had apparently been positioned in a futile attempt to stop her implacable advance. An unexpected series of thunderous explosions sounded under her hooves as she galloped, shattering the floor and sending splinters of rock and wood to ricochet off of the sides of the tunnel. Cracks quickly snaked up the walls from the ruined floor.

“Heads up.”

The roof above Tempest buckled. She dove forward, rolling past the wall of falling debris. A quick flare of her horn and look behind verified that the wreckage reached all the way to the ceiling. She could barely hear the confused voices of the rest of her party on the other side of the collapse.

“Don’t worry,” Starlight said. “They made it out unscathed.” She frowned. “I’m... afraid I won’t be able to say the same for you.”

“Betrayal and attempted murder of your fellow company members. This has earned you a painful death at my hooves.” Tempest cracked her neck. “Well, Blind Prophet, if you have any last words, I suggest you say them before I cave your skull in.”

“I just wanted you to know that I take absolutely no joy in this.”

Starlight tilted her head. Her mouth twisted into a wince as the sound of splitting stone reached the ears of both mares.

“Oh, and: look out below?”

Tempest glanced up at the myriad cracks that had formed in the stone ceiling leading from the pile of rubble behind herself all the way to Starlight. Her eyes flicked down to meet Starlight’s. “Ah,” she said in a moment of stoic understanding. Then she tensed her muscles and leaped, her body rocketing towards Starlight like a batpony out of Tartarus, the death in her eyes screaming as if to make up for the complete lack of her own vocalizations.

The entire tunnel collapsed upon her.

When the dust cleared—not that Starlight needed eyes, or visibility—one of Tempest’s gauntlets could clearly be seen sticking out from under a fairly large stone block. It was less than a hair’s breadth from making contact with Starlight.

Sighing, Starlight turned around to leave. “I’m sorry it had to be this way, Tempest.”

“Prince Blueblood—” Octavia swallowed and ran her tongue across her own teeth, cutting it on her transforming razor-sharp dentition. The taste of blood in her mouth did nothing to help her resist the heady aroma emanating from Carrot’s open neck wound. She really shouldn’t have skipped lunch. For want of a Celestia-damned daisy sandwich.

“We need to get out of here,” Octavia said with a shake of her head. “And we need to get Carrot to the Sanitarium.”

“I—” Blueblood looked wide-eyed, confused, and, most distressingly, scared “—I don’t know what happened!”

“First,” Octavia pointed a hoof to Carrot, “let her go. We need to get a bandage on that wound, and get her some medical treatment.”

Blueblood released Carrot and leaned against the wall.

“Good.” Octavia breathed a sigh of relief. “We can take care of the rumor-mill and work on damage control after—”

Carrot stumbled over and wrapped her forelegs around Octavia. “Thank you, Octavia! Thank you!” Her rent neck was right in front of Octavia’s face.

“Nnnggg—” Octavia struggled to not breathe through her nose, but the odor was too pungent, too close. She could taste it on the air. She inhaled deeply. Her eyes turned black and her mouth began to enlarge.

“Octavia?” Carrot sounded reasonably confused.

Octavia didn’t reply; the shark had taken the reins.

Carrot’s forelegs were forced apart by Octavia’s expanding girth, and she was knocked backwards onto her haunches. Looking up at the merciless toothy snout which graced the front end of the deep-sea-garbage-disposal that was the mutant great white Sharktavia, Carrot lost all control of her bodily functions.

Sharktavia devoured her anyway.

Carrot’s back half landed in front of him, trailing intestines and a copious amount of blood.

Blueblood fell onto his rear and kicked his hind legs at the floor, moving himself backwards until he was pressed up against the door to the fresh air balcony.

Sharktavia opened her massive maw and closed it on Carrot’s rear half. The jaws lifted the carcass high into the air and opened again, allowing what remained of Carrot to fall into the shark’s gullet.

Faced with the lopsided decision between fight or flight, Blueblood promptly shouldered his way through the doorway and dove off of the side of the balcony. Plummeting to the ground seemed far safer than facing that wall of teeth.

The ground of the alley however, approached him at higher speed than he’d expected, and he was a little too slow in bringing his hooves up to prevent his head from cracking off of the cobbles…

The reedy stallion eyed-up Starlight. “Well? Are they dead?”

“They won’t be able to catch us before you strike Ponyville,” Starlight said. “And their communications have been cut off, so they won’t even know there’s a problem. Don’t worry, Sour Puss; you’ll have your chance to confront the murderer of your father and brothers.”

“I’ll have more than just a chance,” Sour declared, his chartreuse fur bristling. “Have your infernal prognostications foreseen that I would hire over a hundred mercenaries? Or that I would bring—”

“A war machine of terrible implication?” Starlight gave Sour a flat look. “You had better hope that the Flim Flam brothers didn’t skimp on the quality of the materials they used to refurbish that oversized cannon that you liberated from the castle stores. If it isn’t enough to secure your victory—” A grim smirk crossed her muzzle. “—the resultant failure would mean your excruciating death.”

“Of course,” Sour spat. “I am no fool. I paid those two handsomely for their engineering prowess. They’d have been fools to cheat me.”

Or just acting as their nature dictates, prioritizing their own survival over yours. How ironic…

“Now,” Sour said, “it’ll take us all night to reach where my forces are arrayed outside of Ponyville. Let’s go.”

As he galloped away, Starlight shook her head and let out a humorless chuckle.

Week 23, Day 4, Dawn

“Why won’t they wake up?” Shining shook Rainbow Dash, his face scrunched with worry. He ran a hoof through her greyed-out mane.

“I don’t know,” Twilight said, scratching absentmindedly at the crimson-stained bandage on her cheek. “The color loss is especially confusing.”

“Well,” Flash said, “Cadance and I can help you carry these two back to Ponyville.” He held up Magnus’ conch and inspected it. “Your company sounds interesting enough. I think the two of us would be up for joining.”

Shining raised his eyebrows. “Even after seeing that monstrosity last night?”

“Heh.” Flash grinned. “That was nothing compared to Cady here when it’s her time of the—OW!”

Cadance had smacked Flash upside the head with one of her wings. “Honey dumpling, I’d hate for you to say something that’d get you kicked out of bed for a while.”

“Sorry sweetums,” Flash replied, rubbing the back of his head.

Cadance smirked. “Forgiven, this time.” She turned to Shining. “You said that there should be a bridge now?”

“Yeah,” Shining replied. “Tempest’s team set it up yesterday. They should be scouting out the warrens by now. Tempest sure likes to get her team up early.”

“They probably can’t be doing worse than us,” Twilight said.

“Hey Octavia,” Shining said, “how is Tempest’s team doing? And where are they?”

He waited for a few moments.

“Octavia?”

Hours of frantic digging had given way to exhaustion, and finally tense slumber. Now, in the cold light of dawn, the remainder of Tempest’s team milled about the collapsed cave entrance listlessly, occasionally shaking in the morning chill.

“I haven’t been able to get in touch with Blueblood,” Bon Bon said in a grim tone. “Can anypony else hear him say anything?”

Snails put a hoof to his chin. “Not since yesterday, eh?”

“What about Tempest?” Lyra’s eyes glistened with barely contained tears.

“We did everything we could,” Bon Bon said with a shake of her head. “It would take a bigger group of ponies days to dig out the entire tunnel she and Starlight were in. There’s no way Tempest survived.”

“What do we do then?” Lyra threw out her forehooves for emphasis.

“We head back.” Bon Bon rubbed the sides of her head. “We could continue on in a different tunnel with just the three of us, but the loss of Tempest is... huge. Unless Blueblood contacts us with instructions before we can finish breaking camp, we need to return to Ponyville.”

Snails scratched his head. “I wonder why he’s not talking to us, eh?”

The first rays of the coming day formed large shadows in the streets of Ponyville. Flitting between these umbral columns was a rather disheveled Prince Blueblood. He carefully approached the edge of a building and risked a look around the corner. After a few moments of staring point-blank at a wooden beam that made up the corner of the building, he realized that he couldn’t get a decent view from that angle, so he painstakingly re-adjusted himself until he was able to see—

Nothing, really.

“No sign of the… ummm—” Blueblood said. His eyes dissected his surroundings, searching for any possible sign of the… what was he running from again? It was the big fishy thing, with the teeth, and the killing and the pony-eatings.

Shark, nephew. You’ve been running from a shark.

“Shark!” Blueblood’s exclamation startled him, so he lowered his voice to what he thought was a whisper. “Thanks, voice in my head.”

He’d been running and hiding in a panicked haze for a while now, but he wasn’t entirely sure for how long. Yet… he’d never felt more refreshed and awake in his entire life. What was odd, was that he wasn’t even out of breath after all the galloping. Though he did have a splitting headache, which was making thoughts and things and stuff a little fuzzy. His vision went out of focus and he shook his head in an attempt to fix it. As for the voice, it had been talking to him for as long as he could remember, usually right after one of the bouts of blinding pain.

I’m glad that you’re finally beginning to speak in coherent sentences, nephew. I was worried for a few hours there, between the shattered skull and loss of cerebrospinal fluids.

“Who are you, voice?” Blueblood looked up to the surrounding rooftops, as if they might be where the voice—that wasn’t a voice—was hiding.

That isn’t important right now, nephew. What is important is that you need to start working your way back to the manor—

“Why in Celestia’s cake-laden rump would I want to go to manure?”

I’m not sure where to start responding to that. Although the fact that the shape of my rear is an epithet is both disturbing and disappointing to me.

Blueblood dove across the space between alleys, and rushed to the nearest wall, pressing himself up against it. He looked around the corner, only to see that he had turned the wrong way, and was staring at the broadside of the building.

“This place is a damned maze. I’ll never be able to find my way back to—” Pain coursed through his head again, but when it passed, his thoughts seemed much clearer.

Okay, Nephew. Can you understand me now?

“Of course I can, Auntie. I wish you’d stop talking though, this headache is killing me.” He dove back across the alley, hid behind a barrel and scanned his surroundings. A shadow gave him the distinct impression of something standing at the exit to the street, causing him to take cover again.

I was about to recommend that you head to the manor.

“I would, Auntie, but I’m kinda running for my life here.”

No, nephew… you’re not. You’re really not. Look around: the sun is high. Try thinking clearly: why continue running, when running from a predator only emboldens them into chasing you harder?

“It’s instinctual,” Blueblood whispered. “Predators usually stalk until they’re within pouncing range, but they will bolt after prey that has detected them and makes a break for it.”

Fascinating. Then why did you—

“Why did I run?” Blueblood chuckled mirthlessly. “Just as predators are designed to chase, prey animals like ponies are hardwired to either freeze or run. I didn’t think; my fight or flight response chose for me. It chose wisely; Sharktavia would have devoured me. Also, she’s terrifying.”

Good. This is the most lucid you’ve been since your perilous plummet. But what now? You’ve been running for over twelve hours. Celestia’s voice wasn’t mocking for once.

“I don’t know—” Blueblood did a dive roll across an alleyway and pressed himself up against the wall. Threats seemed to lurk everywhere. “I just want to make sure that Sharktavia’s not still in devouring mode. Wait… did you just say twelve hours?!”

Constable Cuffs sipped her cocoa. Her eyes were at half-mast, but not because of a lack of sleep. In fact, she had slept well; she had slept very well. No; she was squinting at what was unfolding before her because what she saw told her that it was going to be one of those days.

She watched as the Prince dove across the same alleyway he’d been “sneaking” around for the last two hours—possibly longer; she had only responded to the prowler call around that time. His eyes were wide, fully dilated, and he had… strawberry jam, or something similar, smeared all over his face.

Daisy pointed a hoof at Blueblood. “Well?!”

“Well what?” Cuffs lowered her aviator shades to look at the flower-vendor.

“Well what?!” Daisy pointed her hoof again, repeatedly, violently even, as Blueblood started stage-whispering to himself about sharks, or somesuch. “Aren’t you going to arrest him?”

“Arrest the Prince? Are you mad?”

“No! But he obviously is!”

“Miss Daisy, I appreciate you, Roseluck, and Lilly reporting this to me. But this isn’t some terrible and horrible disaster, as your complaint alleges. He’s not even doing anything illegal.” She put her shades back on. “I can’t just arrest the heir to the throne because he’s acting weird. Do you have any idea how many of the nobles we’d have to detain for being weirdos?”

Blueblood dove into a dumpster. His head poked up from the refuse, a cardboard box impaled on his horn.

Lilly gave Cuffs a dirty look. It was akin to ones she’d seen before from ponies who were planning to file a complaint about her conduct. Complaints meant follow-ups; follow-ups meant paperwork. And if it came to that, she knew a couple hours spent writing up a summary of Lilly’s pointless issue with the Prince now could save all kinds of bureaucratic nonsense later.

Cuffs sighed and took another sip of her cocoa, mentally crossing-off much of her schedule for the rest of the day and replacing it with desk work. Maybe she’d get lucky and the town would get invaded or something instead…

Week 23, Day 4, Morning

“Ungh,” Octavia groaned as she lifted a hoof off the ground and grabbed for something nearby that might support her weight. Her hoof found purchase on something soft, and she opened her eyes to see her bed. Apparently she’d made it back to her and Vinyl’s room, though only as far as the floor next to her bed.

She felt bloated and queasy, as she usually did after consuming far more than her pony form possibly could. The metallic taste of stale blood lingered in her mouth, disgusting her almost as much as the persistent acridness of pony waste. She usually tried not to eat ponies in their entirety, since—like most animals—they tended to void themselves either in moments of extreme terror, or upon death. But losing control like that hadn’t happened in a long time. She normally kept herself fed well enough that it didn’t come up very often.

“I need to get this wretched taste out of my mouth,” she mumbled as she rose to her hooves.

“You eat somepony whole again?”

Ugh. Vinyl.

Looking over to the other bed, Octavia saw her friend laying there. Vinyl was listening to music on her headphones, as usual.

Octavia stood to her hooves. “I’m not talking about it, Vinyl.”

“Well,” Vinyl replied, bobbing her head to some unheard beat, “I have some flavored paste in my satchel if you need something to make your mouth all minty-fresh.”

Octavia smiled. “Thank you, Vinyl.” Sometimes she could be helpful. “Do you know if the Prince got back last night?”

Vinyl shook her head. “Not that I know of. You came in pretty late though. Or early. Went straight into a food coma. Kinda how I guessed you ate somepony; you don’t normally sleep.” She lowered her shades. “You didn't eat Blueblood, did you?”

“I… don’t think so,” Octavia said. “But I’m certain that Miss Berry… is going to need a new prostitute.”

“Where the Tartarus is Carrot?”

Berry is on the warpath this morning, Bulk thought as he watched the tirade.

“And what the Tartarus happened to her room?”

Bulk looked on with worry. Berry didn't get to this level of animated very often.

“It’s supposed to be a Celestia-damned sex room, not a latrine!”

Bulk hadn’t seen the full extent of the carnal carnage in the room, but the stench upon entering was eye-watering. He knew he’d be the one cleaning up that particular mess.

“And now you’re telling me Carrot didn’t give you the house cut before she skedaddled off to wherever?”

“Yes ma’am!” Just nod and agree, and maybe you’ll get away with just cleaning up the mess.

“How did you not see anything?”

“I don't know ma’am!” Your bar is closer to the room than my spot by the front door.

“Urgh!” Berry stomped a hoof. “I am going to kill that mare! This is what I get for my charity, is it?”

“Yes ma’am!” Charity…

“I take her in off the streets, give her a place to sleep, food to eat, and this is how she repays me?”

“Yes ma’am!” Bulk could crush a stallion’s head in his bare hooves, but there was no way he’d cross Berry. First, she was family… demented family, but family, nonetheless. Second, she was a sadistic monster, Celestia help you if she let that side show.

“I’ll skin her alive and throw her in the salt barrel!”

“Yes ma’am!” Great, she’s swinging a kitchen knife around and pantomiming now.

“If she were a stallion, I’d cut off her—”

The door to the tavern burst open and a stallion entered, gun in hoof. “Ok, everypony hooves in the air, and nopony gets hurt!”

Bulk stepped out of the way, allowing Berry a direct line of sight to the unfortunate trespasser. The stallion made the mistake of turning to follow Bulk with their gun.

Berry’s knife flew through the space Bulk had just occupied and the stallion fell to the floor with a pained shriek, both forehooves shooting between his hind legs.

A quick trip to the bar, and a few moments later, Berry walked over to point her blunderbuss in the stallion’s whimpering face. She stood one hoof on the stallion’s convulsing withers. “I’m in a generous mood, so I’ll give you a pretty simple choice. Either I shoot you in the head and you die a stallion, or I reach below, get my knife, and you bleed out a mare.”

Bulk shuddered. Better to work for a demon than to stand in her path.

Week 23, Day 4, Almost Noon

“What was that noise?” Octavia lifted her head from the brunch-bowl of minted oats that Vinyl had brought her.

“Sounds like somepony tried to steal from Berry again,” Vinyl laughed.

Octavia chuckled as well. She had long ago given up on understanding how Vinyl could hear anything over the cacophony that emanated from her earphones at all hours of the day. She wondered who the poor unfortunate was—her smile vanished. “Oh… I hope that wasn’t the Prince.”

“Wouldn’t that be funny?” Vinyl asked.

There was another gunshot.

“Huh,” Vinyl said. “That wasn’t Berry’s blunderbuss.”

Yet another shot rang through the morning air. And another, and another.

“Gather the others,” Octavia said, narrowing an eye.

“On it.” Vinyl hopped to her hooves and galloped out of their room.

Walking out into the hallway, Octavia looked out one of the manor’s front windows and watched as a small crowd of panicked villagers ran past in front of the estate’s main gate. She could see smoke rising from several places in town.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” The voice of Cheese Sandwich penetrated the paned glass. “Ponyville is under attack! I repeat, Ponyville is under attack!”

“Oh dear.”

Deep in the warrens, something stirred.

A shadow rose from the ruined floor.

Thought coalesced into a single word.

Blueblood.

The shadow tore through the darkness.

Anything, living or dead, that stood in its way, would be obliterated.

It had but one purpose, and nothing would stop it.

Blueblood looked out from behind a stack of crates in the new alleyway where he’d taken refuge. It had taken him a few blocks worth of cat-and-mouse to lose the Ponyville constable. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been watching him, but it was probably long enough that he was going to need some character witnesses to prevent him being committed to the sanitarium.

The sound of a discharging firearm echoed throughout the town.

“What the Tartarus?”

Sounds like gunfire.

“Sounded like Berry’s blunderbuss.”

It did have a distinct sound to it.

More gunshots rang out, though…

“Okay, those aren’t Berry’s.”

“Hear ye, hear ye!” Blueblood flinched at the sound of Cheese Sandwich’s ridiculously-volumed voice. “Ponyville is under attack! I repeat, Ponyville is under attack!”

Instead of this circuitous route, it might be more prudent to head directly to the estate.

A dozen or so hooded ponies galloped down the road towards the manor.

Never mind.

“Figures,” Blueblood said. “I just can’t seem to get a break.”

Only if it’s your head, nephew.

“Auntie, you’re not helping.”

Perhaps the abbey might make a better shelter?

“How’s that?”

Well, there is the fact that it’s made out of giant stone blocks.

“Yeah, it’ll make a great tomb, like the one you left for me in the cellar.”

Fine, Celestia said flippantly, choose whichever tomb you like better.

Blueblood furrowed his brows and then galloped as fast as he could.

Towards the abbey.

A raging inferno engulfed the thatched-roof cottage on one side of the alley, filling the whole area with a thick cloud of soot. Despite this, a chilly breeze caused the breaths of the four hooded invaders to mist in the inexplicably frigid air.

“Why is it so cold?” one of them asked.

Fully-armored from head-to-hoof in a suit of matte steel, Double Diamond stepped forth from the smoke and blasted the invaders with a flash of frost, immediately immobilizing the four fools in their tenuous tracks. He stepped to the side to allow Night Glider to swiftly swoop in and buck the mare who was carrying a blunderbuss, shattering her into hundreds of crimson ice shards.

A chain garrote, wielded by Party Favor, wrapped around the neck of one of the frozen stallions, and snapped his head clean off. Pushing past him, Sugar Belle raised both of her forehooves and tapped the two remaining ponies on their noses.

“Boop,” Sugar announced. She turned around. “Oh, and Touch of Death.”

Large cracks suddenly appeared in the two ponies. The fissures spread and spread, splintering throughout the frozen forms until they burst into twin clouds of red mist.

Night stretched her wings. “Was that the third or fourth group of goons we’ve killed?”

“Dunno,” Party replied. “I’m not too comfortable with counting down the number of enemy grunts to my death today.” His voice was glum as he looked down to examine something on the ground.

“You going to be ok?” Night extended a consoling wing.

Party lit his horn, then pointed the disembodied stallion’s muzzle to face Night. “I won’t lose my head over it,” Party said, trying to work the mouth with his magic. The jaw snapped off and he made a frowny-face at his broken puppet.

“Well,” Night sighed, “at least you’re fine.”

“Come on,” Double said, walking in the direction the invaders had come from. “I know we want to spend as much as possible of our remaining time talking to each other, but we have a date with destiny.” He looked back to the others, relishing their faces for as long as he dared.

Week 23, Day 4, Noon

The thin rays of sun which crept through the boughs of the Everfree illuminated the six ponies as they traveled. Four were on their hooves, but Rainbow Dash was being carried by Shining Armor, just as Rarity was being carried by Flash Sentry. They were trailing quite a distance behind Cadance and Twilight.

Briefly looking back to the stallions, Cadance turned and gave Twilight a curious glance. “How much further, do you think?”

“We’re not even halfway there,” Twilight replied. “We could make it in a few hours at a brisk trot, but as it is, we’ll be lucky to get there by nightfall. We’re moving too slow, being weighed down with two casualties and all.”

“That’s rather clinical.” Cadance looked ahead again.

“It is what it is.” Twilight shrugged. “My eldritch magic doesn’t seem to be able to do anything for them, so we need to get them to the sanitarium post-haste.”

“I wish I had a horn.” Cadance looked over to Twilight, who had cocked an eyebrow in her direction.

Cadance let out a giggle. “So I could use Harmony magic and try to help your friends. I’ve always been a bit jealous of your magic, ever since I used to foal-sit you.”

“Well, you can fly. And that was something I was always jealous of you for.”

“I remember we had a lot of fun pretending that you could.” Cadance looked up wistfully.

“Yay.” Twilight’s voice was brimming with sarcasm. “We can both do things that the other envies and will never be able to do.”

A frown creased Cadance’s muzzle. “What happened to you, Twilight?”

The question seemed to push Twilight to look at the ground as they continued to walk.

“You used to be so upbeat, and energetic, and ‘Sunshine, Sunshine—’”

“Stop,” Twilight interrupted, shaking her head. “I’m not a foal anymore. I’ve given up on… sunshine, and rainbows, and puppies… and Harmony.”

“Oh Twilight.” Cadance felt no small degree of sadness and disappointment at her words.

Twilight looked back at the ground, expressionless. “I think I lost my last claims to foalish innocence after I exploded a mare, drenching myself and my companions in her internal organs.”

Cadance raised a wing to her mouth in shock.

“I’ve seen things, Cadance.” Twilight looked up to the canopy of ancient trees, her eyes looking past the opaque ceiling of leaves. “At first, I just read about them in books. But I’ve actually seen them. Now… now they speak to me, and I call on their limitless power. Harmony—” Twilight gazed straight ahead, strange swirling lights dancing about within her eyes “—Harmony is much weaker, Cadance. It is a drop of water in the ocean of the infinite.”

Cadance felt her muzzle contorting into an expression of confusion and concern.

“Harmony is an aberration, not the status quo.”

Lyra sat in the middle of the path back to Ponyville, hanging her head. She lit her horn intermittently to move a stick in the campfire the group had set for lunch.

“Lyra,” Bon Bon said, “don’t blame yourself. Tempest was in command and she got herself killed. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Bonny—” Lyra looked over to her best friend “—what are we gonna do? We lost Tempest and we’re not even bringing back anything to show for it!”

“Lyra—”

“No, Bon Bon.” Lyra knocked over a log and sent embers flying into the sky. “I’m not downplaying when Amethyst died or anything. That was horrible. But at least when that happened, we had bits and gems, and we defeated that shambler thing.” She threw the stick violently into the fire. “Now, we have nothing! Tempest died for nothing!”

Snails turned his head to the road back to the ruins. “Hay, somepony’s coming, eh?”

Ears perking, Lyra and Bon Bon turned to face the direction they’d come.

“Twilight?” Bon Bon called out.

Sure enough, Twilight approached the impromptu camp with a pink pegasus by her side. In the distance, Shining and another pegasus could be seen carrying the unconscious forms of Rainbow and Rarity.

“Bon Bon,” Twilight said, “thank the Void you’re all ok.” She looked around expectantly. “Wait, where’s Tempest?”

“Dead,” Lyra said forcefully.

“What?!” Twilight couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d been spontaneously struck by lightning.

“Yes.” Bon Bon turned her gaze to Lyra and then back to Twilight. “Your… friend Starlight collapsed a tunnel on top of her.”

Twilight’s face contorted, one eyebrow threatening to rise off of her head, while the other lowered into a squint. Her lips drew back, exposing her teeth and twitching under her squinted eye. “Wh—what?!”

The pink pegasus looked between the two. “I suppose,” she said, “that some catching up is in order, for both of our groups.”

“Move it, ponies!” Octavia shouted as the staccato of firearm reports and the distant sounds of stallion lamentations filtered through the manor’s front door.

Applejack and Big Mac came dashing out of the hallway which led to the dining room. “What’s going on?”

“An unknown force is attacking the town.” Octavia watched as Yona and Aloe descended from the top of the foyer stairs. The door to the east wing opened and Solmare appeared, for the first time in days.

Applejack frowned. “Of course a commotion starts the instant I leave Winona at the sanitarium for a deworming.”

Octavia took a position behind the front door and peeked outside through one of the flanking windows. The stone wall which surrounded the estate was tall enough that ponies weren’t going to easily scale it, but it also prevented her from seeing anything other than what was directly outside the front gates. Still, she was able to see groups of hooded, armed ponies moving about. She counted at least two dozen but, judging by how many were stopping in the street to drop off crates or materials and then leaving, the number was likely much higher than that. The ponies who were remaining just outside the property were beginning to construct crude barricades.

Turning, Octavia looked back and forth at the assembled ponies—and yak. “Okay everycreature, these invaders are organized and well-armed. There are a lot of them as well, at least twenty out front, and there’s enough commotion in the town that it’s safe to assume there are many more. Let’s assume at least a hundred. We’ll need to craft our plan of attack carefully if we’re to be successful here. We’ll break into two groups. Yona, Aloe, Solmare—” She directed them to her right, where they gathered and stood in front of the door to the east wing. “You three will head out of the east wing exit. These assailants seem to be grouping up at the front gate; you should be able to get to the rear gate undetected if the rest of us distract them. The first shot we heard was from Berry’s gun, so I need you to go to the tavern to check on everypony there and make sure they’re okay. Hole up in the bar if you can, but if the position can’t be held, bring as many ponies as you can to the abbey; it’s the most defensible structure in town. If you see Double’s team, send them here.”

Yona’s group nodded.

Octavia turned to the Apples and Vinyl. “Now for the four of us—”

The door to the east wing opened just as Octavia turned away.

“—we’ll start by charging their barricade setup in front of the manor. That should buy Yona’s team enough time to—”

Solmare bellowed in pain, prompting everyone to spin to face her. She hung several hooflengths off of the ground, in a reared up position. A hideously large spike protruded from between her forelegs. From a bloody hole in Solmare’s back snaked a long, meaty appendage, which terminated at the shoulder of a familiar, striped mare. She threw Solmare to the floor, then walked past as Solmare swiftly bled out onto the foyer floor.

“Bloody Tartarus,” Octavia breathed.

“Solmare’s who first caught my eye.” Zecora’s voice was filled with manic mirth. “But who will be the next to die?”

As the shadow tore towards Ponyville, a storm of darkness followed.

Arc 2 Chapter 8: Calamitous Cannon

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.”

Arc 3 Prologue: Rebounding Reclamation

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Arc 3 Chapter 1: Course to Canterlot

PONEST DUNGEON

Arc 3: Insidious Infection

Chapter 1: Course to Canterlot

Week 23, Day 5, Pre-Dawn

When Blueblood led the others outside to the stagecoach, the sky was still doing its best impression of neighagara falls. Double had been sitting in the foyer when they came downstairs, and had immediately jumped to his hooves when Blueblood said they were leaving for Canterlot.

Ditzy buckled herself into the vehicle flight harness as the others gathered around and warily eyed the questionably-safe transport. While the carriage had been “repaired” in the many months since Ditzy had crashed it into the manor, it looked like it was on the verge of giving up the ghost.

“Remind me to actually get this thing fixed,” Blueblood said to Tempest.

“If we survive,” Tempest retorted, “we will look into getting a new one. The poetic nature of my death potentially occurring in the same manner as the Storm King’s is not lost on me.”

Aloe jumped in without a word, apparently ignoring the ramshackle nature of the ride. The sodden wood of the frame creaked in protest for her.

“So,” Double said with a puff of frost, “which of us is the unlucky pony who’ll be riding up front?” The rain began to freeze into a thin sheet of ice on his armor.

“It sounds like you just volunteered,” Tempest said as she climbed into the rickety vehicle.

“You’re the best suited for it anyhow,” Blueblood said, placing a hoof on Double’s withers. He made a face then struggled for a moment to pry it off of the glazed surface of the armor. “You’re the only one who isn’t going to be freezing their flank off up there.”

“I highly dislike heights,” Double said.

“Aren’t you from way up in the mountains?” Ametrine asked.

“Yes,” Double said. “I particularly relish viewing the vistas, I take comfort in the cold, and I absolutely savor skiing. But I prefer to enjoy all of those activities whilst on the ground.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Ametrine said, grinning. “Ditzy and this coach have a perfect record.”

Blueblood heard the mounting mischief bleeding from Ametrine’s voice and shoved her unceremoniously into the stagecoach.

“Well,” Double said, sounding somewhat relieved. “If it has a perfect record—”

“Of crashing!” Ametrine’s head had snaked out of a window on an unnaturally long neck.

Blueblood wasn’t sure how he could see a white pony—in full plate, no less—blanch, but it was apparently possible.

“I volunteer!” Solmare said with a raucous laugh. “I will revel in closer proximity to the glory of this world’s sun!”

“Sold.” Double crammed himself into the passenger cabin.

Blueblood looked to the completely overcast sky, and the rain that fell from it. “This is going to be a rocky trip,” he muttered.

Week 23, Day 5, Morning

Despite Blueblood’s concerns, once the carriage had moved north of the city limits, the skies cleared. The passengers had hoped for a slight bit of heat to dry them out after weathering the downpour. While the stagecoach’s black paint job had the occupants baking in their seats, there was so much humidity that the cabin had turned into more of a sauna than anything else.

Solmare shouted something about incandescence.

“At least she’s enjoying herself,” Double said. He seemed to be regretting his choice to get into the overpacked oven that the stagecoach had become. His fear of heights had been temporarily forgotten in the sweltering confines, as evidenced by the fact that he had removed his helmet and stuck his head out the closest window, in the manner of most household pets.

“Okay Tempest,” Blueblood said, wiping a copious amount of sweat from his brow. “You’ve worked for me for too long now, and with the mystique gone, the mystery still remains.”

Tempest’s eyes were closed, and yet she still managed to look particularly disinterested. “It is hot,” she said, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of her head, as if in emphasis of the statement. “We should be resting to conserve our energy, and to get some actual sleep before we arrive. We have no idea what the situation in Canterlot is, or what may be required of us physically or mentally.”

“No,” Blueblood said. “I must know.” He swept a foreleg out a window. “You ride into town, a storm comes. Why?”

Tempest sighed and knocked on her chestplate. “Storm Steel. The name of the alloy, while trademarked, is not just for marketing purposes.”

“You’re kidding,” Blueblood said. “You’re kidding, right? You’ve got to be pulling my leg.”

“I never kid,” Tempest said. “Normal walking speed won’t do it, nor will a casual trot. Galloping, or an airship moving at full steam, over several kilomares will pull all the excess moisture and static electricity from the air in a sort of magical weather-wake. I read up on the specifications, but I honestly never fully understood the earth pony metallurgy or the magical mechanics. The Storm King though, he never even cared enough to try to understand. He was far more obsessed with the theatrics than with the actual practical applications of being able to drag a storm along. While I found his histrionics distasteful, I do have to concede that many immediate surrenders resulted from the intimidation factor alone.”

“What about all that lightning that was arcing off of you outside the Abbey?” Ametrine had actually melted into a fleshy puddle on the floor. Nopony seemed to care that she had gone amorphous around their hooves.

“I will have to confirm with Rivet when we return,” Tempest said. “But I suspect that Starlight Glimmer had him add a pegasus lightning enchantment to my armor without my knowledge.” The menace in her voice was as palpable as the heat. “I know the armor is his parent’s legacy, but what he did could have endangered my life and the lives of others.”

“Please don’t kill him,” Blueblood said. “He’s the only competent metal worker in the whole town.”

“I will not harm him,” Tempest said. “He is far more than merely competent. The quality of his work is exceptional, and the efficacy of the enchantments he added are rivaled only by his efforts to keep their existence hidden from me. It would be a pity to waste such talent.”

“We’ll have a nice long chat with him about it,” Blueblood said, smacking a mosquito who’d taken advantage of the open windows and his arm therein.

Blueblood watched as Tempest rested. He realized that she hadn’t slept in over two days. It was odd, he still felt fully refreshed, if a bit parched.

Looking over to the other side of the coach, he noticed Aloe was just resting quietly in her corner, somehow dry as a bone.

“Aloe,” Blueblood said. “How in the great blue-blazes are you not sweating?”

“We owned and operated our own bathhouse and sauna for years,” Aloe said. “This is nothing.”

Double Diamond tried to cram more of himself out the window at the mention of a sauna.

“Really?” Blueblood was genuinely interested. “What happened to make you two start working for Berry?”

“Well,” Aloe said, “business was great for a long time. But last year, we started having a problem with our boiler and some of the pipes that connected it to the different rooms. We weren’t plumbers or mechanics, so we hired some experts to fix the problem.”

“Experts?” Blueblood said. “I think I know where this is going.”

“Yeah,” Aloe said. “There were two of them. We both trusted them at first, they were twins, just like us. They took our bits, told us they had an ingenious workaround that would save us a ton of money in the long run.” Aloe convulsed as Lotus possessed her. “Those goat rutters cheated us!” Aloe forced her way back into her own body. “It turns out that the only thing they were experts at was burning our bathhouse to the ground. Bastards skipped town before we could kill them. Berry was kind enough to take us in after that. She even had us waiting tables instead of working the bordello, which we’ve learned is rather generous for her.”

“Twins eh?” Blueblood said. “Do you remember their names? I want to make sure to avoid hiring them if I can help it.”

“Their names were Flim and Flam,” Aloe said.

Tempest’s eyes shot open. She scowled before closing them again.

Proctor had donned his tight suit of blackened leather armor after leaving Ponyville. He remembered the days when he was a fresh spy for the house, and many of the others used to joke behind his back that it made him look like an edgelord. That had changed months ago, however. None of the others laughed when he was able to sneak up behind Snoops and dispatch the old coot because of it. Now Proctor was the family Spymaster, and nopony had dared challenge him since he’d delivered Snoops’ head to Neighsay. Well… nopony that anypony else knew about. There was a fairly high turnover rate for the family spies for a time, until the smartest ones got the message.

As Proctor progressed down the sultry hallway, the damp air carried the ever-pungent stench of blood and excrement. A heavily muscled gaoler saw his approach and immediately stepped aside. Whether the motion was out of respect or fear, Proctor did not know, nor did he care. The sounds of screams could be heard echoing down the halls. He stopped before a swollen oak door that was as unremarkable as the rest he had passed in the dungeon.

Carefully lifting a hoof, he knocked. One long, four short, two long.

“Come.” The voice which sounded through the oak planks was filled with equal parts command and ruthlessness.

Proctor pushed open the door, but did not enter. He knew that the invitation was not physical in nature. Instead, he took notice of the contents of the room. Various implements of torture were strewn about: blades, hammers, straps, pliers, and a small fire with metal rods thrust into the coals. Two sets of twin unicorn stallions looked in his direction as the door groaned open on unoiled hinges.

Proctor knew the two ponies who were standing, knew them very well, indeed. Wet Blanket and Killjoy stood over the two other twins, who Proctor did not visually recognize. The reports from his other agents, however, had told him that they must be Flim and Flam, two entrepreneurs known exclusively for the trail of ruined businesses and lives that they left in their wake.

Flim and Flam were strapped down to separate tables, and both had inhibitor rings which looked to have been soldered onto their horns. Their coats, where they were not blemished by dirt, burnt hair, or blood, looked to be of a sort of lightly grayed olive coloration. Their manes were striped red and white, and one of the pair, Flam, if Proctor’s information was right, had a mustache. Two sets of emerald eyes begged him for salvation.

Proctor was used to seeing such things, his services were as essential as they were time-sensitive. He knelt and faced Killjoy, ignoring the wordless pleas of the two torturees.

“Ah, Proctor.” Killjoy turned away from the table Flim was bound to. “Report.”

“Blueblood is still alive, and Sour is dead, M’Lord.”

If Killjoy harbored any emotional reaction to the news, no evidence presented itself across his muzzle. “Expected. Sour was as inept as he was cowardly.”

“Good riddance,” said Wet Blanket, his voice overflowing with hatred and disgust in equal measure. “Killjoy, that means there’s just the three of us left.”

“Obviously,” Killjoy said, putting down a surgical saw he’d been holding in his magic. “What of the cannon, Proctor?”

“The cannon fired three shots,” Proctor said. “Afterwards, when the crew tried to move it, two of the wheels collapsed, effectively immobilizing it.”

“Impressive, Flim and Flam,” Killjoy said. “Three shots, on the dot. Your ingenuity has surpassed what I expected.” He looked between the two, then over to his twin. “True to my word, Wet Blanket here will not receive my permission to castrate the both of you.”

Wet Blanket slammed a horrific device, with a great many unnecessary spikes and blades, onto one of the tables.

Looks of relief washed across the FlimFlam brothers’ faces.

“You did well sabotaging the cannon for us,” Killjoy said. “I feel obligated to let you in on a little secret.” His expression remained unreadable. “After all, you two deserve it.”

Proctor knew what was coming next.

“Blanket,” Killjoy said, “I know that you have been aching to, so why not show them your special talent?”

“What is it?” Flim asked, his curiosity briefly winning out over his terror.

Blanket walked over, a malevolent grin on his face, and a thick looking comforter and bucket of water levitating next to him. He magically wrapped the blanket around Flim’s head.

“No!” Flam yelled.

“My apologies,” Killjoy said, his voice and face devoid of emotion. “You did well. But you betrayed Sour, and I never trust traitors, even ones that I’ve created. Believe me, suffocation is far less painful than what had awaited you for failure. Death by red-hot poker, or by live vivisection would have been quite unpleasant, I assure you. And I did spare you the castration. You’ll die as stallions.”

Both brothers struggled desperately against their restraints as Blanket slowly poured out the bucket onto the cloth wrapped around Flim’s head.

Tears streamed down Flam’s contorted face as the water continued to soak into the fabric around his brother’s head.

Flim’s struggles were frantic at first, his muffled screams of fear and distress loud. But as the comforter dampened, and the ability of air to pass through it diminished, his struggles became weaker and weaker.

When Flim’s movements finally ceased, Flam violently renewed his efforts to break free. He pulled so hard against the restraints that they cut into his flesh, drawing blood and causing the color to drain from his extremities. “Brother!” Flam shouted. His joints popped loudly as he strained himself even further. “BROTHER!”

Flam’s emerald eyes locked with Killjoy’s. The fear was gone from them, replaced with seething fury. Flam’s teeth ground against each other with such force that one of them cracked from crown to root.

Killjoy held up a hoof to halt Blanket, who was mid-approach with another comforter.

“Interesting,” Killjoy said, a look of genuine intrigue crossing his face as he looked into that hateful gaze. He approached and keeled, placing his muzzle just outside of the reach of Flam’s teeth. “Tell me. Describe to me in detail the depths of your rage.”

“You’ve killed my brother,” Flam growled. “You’ll pay for this! I swear it!”

“Disappointing,” Killjoy said, standing. “I was hoping that such intense anger would produce something more… original.”

“This isn’t the end,” Flam hissed. “Nothing will stop us from our revenge! My brother and I will come back from beyond the veil! You know our ingenuity! We will outsmart death itself to strike at you when you least expect it!”

“Ah,” Killjoy said, “now that was an admirable threat.” Not even the barest hint of emotion creased his features. “I’ve never heard that one before. I will be truly impressed if you can carry it out. Until then, I wish you luck with your… aspirations.”

Killjoy’s hoof dropped.

Wet Blanket wrapped the comforter tightly around Flam’s head and watched with a sadistic grin as Flam began to thrash. Flam strained against his restraints, convulsing wildly as he slowly died.

Killjoy watched the display dispassionately. Proctor knew that he only remained to confirm the deaths in person.

Proctor knew Killjoy was right. Traitors like the Flim Flam brothers deserved nothing less than an excruciating death. The speed with which they were suffocated was too good for them.

Week 23, Day 5, Noon

“We’re coming up on the base of Canterlot Mountain,” Double said. He was practically hanging out of the window now, the stagecoach having become too hot for him only an hour or so into the trip.

Blueblood looked out a window and let out a sigh of contentment.

Despite the heat, the humidity, and the glaring sun, Canterlot and the mountain it sat upon were beautiful. The towering spires, the waterfalls, the rainbows produced by those waterfalls were all enough to take a pony’s breath away.

“Magnificent,” Blueblood said. “I’ll never get tired of the view when returning home.”

They would soon be upon the mists which billowed out from where the falling water crashed upon the rocks at the base of the mountain. If Ditzy was up for it, Blueblood would have her fly the carriage through, hopefully cooling everypony and the carriage off.

“I’ve never seen the mists this close,” Double said. “They’re gorgeous.”

“They are indeed,” Blueblood agreed. He rapped a hoof on the front of the coach, and Solmare’s helmeted head appeared in the front window. “Can you ask Ditzy if we can go through the mist? We’d all like to cool off back here.”

Solmare nodded and Blueblood could hear her yelling to Ditzy over the wind, and the increasing roar of the waterfalls as they approached. The stagecoach started to bank towards the curtains of moisture.

“What’s with that dark patch of mist over there?” Double yelled back into the cabin.

Blueblood stuck his head out a window and looked to where Double was pointing. At first he didn't see anything, just the enormous curtain of water and the roiling white clouds of haziness where they crashed upon the rocks.

But then Blueblood saw the dark patch, descending beside the mists of the waterfall, not inside them, and not billowing out from the base.

“Rut me sideways.”

He’d seen something just like it before.

Blueblood started pounding on the front window again, though this time there was a frantic urgency to the rapping.

Tempest’s eyes shot open.

“Solmare!” Blueblood shouted at the mare when her helmet appeared. “Tell Ditzy to steer us away! Tell her to get us away from the waterfall!”

Solmare cocked her head in confusion, but then turned and started yelling to Ditzy.

“What is it?” Double asked, eyes locked on the massive cloud which had leveled out above the mists and was now heading directly for them.

“If I’m right,” Blueblood said, “and I hope I’m not, then that is a swarm of large mosquitos. Just like when I first made the trip to Ponyville.”

Double struggled to pull himself back into the stagecoach. He managed after a few moments of shifting himself so his armor wouldn't catch on the window frame.

“No,” Tempest said, leaning her head against the inside of the cabin to look out the window. “They are not the mutant mosquitoes your records describe. But possibly more deadly in this instance.”

“What?” Blueblood looked out the window again.

The cloud was much larger than Blueblood had originally thought, easily taking up several acres. But Tempest was right. Even at the stage coach’s current distance, Blueblood was able to start picking out individuals from the—flock.

“It’s a flock of birds,” Blueblood said.

“Yes,” Tempest said, closing the window closest to her. “From the looks of it, tens of, maybe hundreds of thousands of them. And they are… flocking this way, at high speed.”

Blueblood’s eyes widened and he quickly shut his own window. Double and Aloe took the hint and closed theirs as well.

“What about Solmare and Ditzy?” Ametrine morphed back into her pony form.

“There’s no room in here for Solmare,” Blueblood said around Ametrine’s flank. “And Ditzy needs to fly the stagecoach.”

There was a thump.

“Brace yourselves,” Tempest said.

There was another thump, and another, and another. Then the sounds of birds impacting against the stagecoach became a sound reminiscent of a violent hail storm. The vehicle veered hard to the left, and the right-side windows of the coach were swiftly occupied by bird corpses. Ditzy’s cries of distress could barely be heard over the machinegun sound of impacting avians.

Solmare suddenly slammed into the left side of the stagecoach, apparently having been knocked out of the drivers box by the two dozen starlings that had plastered themselves against her armor. She seemed to be holding on due to one of her forelegs being wrapped through the carriage’s top luggage rails. Judging by the angle from which she was hanging, that foreleg was broken in at least two places—which didn’t stop Solmare from laughing jovially, however.

The stagecoach shuddered from the repeated impacts, started to lose altitude, and tilted precariously to the left.

“Oh dammit,” Blueblood said as he wrapped a hoof around part of his seat. “Not again.”

“AGAIN?!” Double seemed to be panicking, doubly so, if his four-leg grip on his seat were any indicator.

Tempest was pressing her hooves to the ceiling and floor of the carriage, effectively holding herself in place. The wood paneling of both groaned in protest. “We don’t have any pegasi to catch us if the stagecoach decides to repeat its performance during your last trip, Prince.”

“REPEAT PERFORMANCE?!” Wood splintered as Double doubled-down on his death grip.

“No,” Ametrine said. “We don’t have any spare pegasi… But you’ve got me!”

Aloe held onto her own seat as the g-forces started to lift her lower half into the air. “Do you even know how to fly?”

A pair of bat wings tore forth from Ametrine‘s back. “How hard can it be?”

“It takes years for a pegasus to learn how to fly properly,” Blueblood said, still holding on for dear life as his legs rose from the floor.

“I’ll be fine,” Ametrine said. “A fall isn’t gonna kill me.”

Suddenly, the sound of impacts slowed drastically, and within a few seconds, stopped. Everypony who had been rising into the air from the sharp banking of the carriage slowly lowered back to the floor.

Blueblood let out a sigh of relief. “I guess we won’t have to find out.”

“Aww.” Ametrine frowned.

The stagecoach was still tilting a bit to the left, but had started to right itself.

“We are continuing to lose altitude,” Tempest observed.

Aloe looked out the front window. “Ditzy has a bird… scratch that, several birds jammed into her mouth. And caught in her feathers. And pretty much everywhere else. It looks like she’s trying to bring us in for a landing—” several birds smacked into the front window “—she just managed to spit out a few, at least.”

Solmare continued to laugh raucously as she hung from her shattered leg.

The stagecoach landing went surprisingly well, considering that the number of bird corpses plastered to it had effectively doubled its weight. Nopony died, which was a miracle in and of itself. The damage sustained by the coach however was significant. All four wheels broke off the axles, the steering harness snapped in half, and the drivers box was crushed when the front of the carriage impacted a sizable rock.

“What is it the pegasi say?” Ametrine asked as everypony else struggled to regain their senses. “Any landing you can walk away from?”

“It’s a stupid saying,” Blueblood snapped, holding his twinging neck with one hoof. He looked to make sure Ditzy was out of earshot. “And pegasi are stupid for saying it.”

Double vaulted from the carriage and tightly embraced the boulder that had caved in the driver’s box. The display was a far cry from the ‘harbinger of winter and death’ aura that he normally tried to exude.

“Okay,” Blueblood said, stepping out onto terra firma. “I’m now officially turned off to flying.”

“Need me to turn you on then?” Ametrine said as she performed a sultry swagger out of the stagecoach.

“Not the time or place,” Blueblood said, batting away a leathery wing that had brushed up against his… face, definitely his face; anywhere else would have been completely inappropriate. He turned around to where Solmare was dangling. “You okay?”

“I will recover,” Solmare said, “so long as I can bask in the glorious radiance of the sun!”

“Tempest,” Blueblood said. “Help me get her down. Aloe—” he pointed around the front of the stagecoach. “—check on Ditzy, make sure she’s okay, and help her remove the birds, if you can. Double, you just… keep hugging that rock.”

After Solmare’s shattered leg was unwrapped from the top luggage rack, she reached into her tabard and removed her flask, which was again glowing with luminescence similar to hot coals. She quaffed down some of the contents, and with a sickening series of cracks, her shattered foreleg mended itself.

Aloe returned with Ditzy, who looked only a little worse for wear. The rictus grin remained stubbornly upon her wall-eyed face, despite the foreign feathers which littered her coat and wings.

“Okay,” Blueblood said, looking south to see the dark cloud continuing on its way. “Birds don’t normally move in flocks that big.”

“They also tend to fly in flocks of only a single species,” Tempest said, inspecting the right side of the stagecoach. “I count at least twelve different breeds on this side of the carriage. There could be more, but they are fairly mangled.”

Blueblood scratched at the back of his head. “What would make—”

There was a chittering sound, and a squirrel ran between them.

“Animals can detect impending disaster,” Double said, prying himself from the rock he’d been embracing. “They can sense things far better than we ponies can. Things like earthquakes, volcanoes, large storms, and sometimes even plagues and wars trigger their survival instincts, which direct them to flee—”

There was more chittering and a dozen squirrels ran past them. Everypony looked to the side of the mountain. And saw the swarm.

“Case in point,” Double said flatly, as hundreds of squirrels, rabbits, snakes, frogs, and other assorted mammals, reptiles and amphibians ran around, or even through the group.

“They’re all coming from the direction of Canterlot.” Blueblood felt stupid for having to state the obvious.

Double looked up to the distant city. “It’s too much of a coincidence for this to not be related to the wine. If the incoming calamity is bad enough to cause such an exodus…”

“We need to hurry.” Blueblood glanced over to the broken stagecoach, then to the steep ascent up the mountain. “But we’ll have to travel by hoof. I only hope we make it in time.”

Week 23, Day 5, Afternoon

After the group watched the vast majority of the animals pass, they started walking towards the closest section of the old road. Tempest took the lead, navigating the group of ponies over the rocky terrain at the base of the falls, which soon gave way to a lightly wooded area.

“I can’t wait until we hit the road and can start gaining some altitude,” Double said, wiping frozen sweat from his brow. “These lowland temperatures are murder.”

Blueblood wrung the sweat out of his hoofkerchief and applied it to his forehead, immediately drenching it again. “When we were closer to the falls, the mists were pretty refreshing,” But this far out, all that moisture is just soaking into the air and adding to the humidity.”

“You two seem to be the only ones complaining,” Tempest said, gesturing to the others.

“That’s unfair for you to say,” Blueblood said. “Solmare could be on fire, and she’d be happy as long as the sun was out—”

“True!” Solmare had her head held up high, luxuriating in the sun and heat.

“—Aloe worked in a sauna for a long time—”

Aloe wasn’t even sweating.

“—Ametrine… are you hot, Ametrine?”

“No,” she replied. “I just turn my blood from warm to cold.”

“Why were you a puddle in the stagecoach then?” Double asked.

“Everyone kept saying they were melting,” Ametrine said. “So I thought it’d be funny if I actually melted.”

Blueblood stared at her for a moment. “Okay, Ametrine doesn’t even have body heat. Ditzy’s a pegasus, they have all kinds of built-in weather tolerance—”

“Hay! I resemble that remark!”

“And… and you?” Blueblood demanded.

Tempest turned her sweat-streaked muzzle to face Blueblood. “You are aware that I served in the badlands campaigns,” she said. “I also took part in the expedition to clear out the southern hayseed swamps. Then there was the siege on klugetown…”

Blueblood shook his head. “You’re only making my point for me!”

“What I’m trying to say,” Tempest said, “is that I have been to places with higher temperatures and higher humidities. The point that I am trying to make is that I am not complaining.”

“Still unfair,” Blueblood said as he wiped away more sweat.

“Halt!” A stallion voice sounded from above them.

The entire group ground to a stop.

Blueblood knew a member of the royal guard when he heard one. He looked up.

“I said don’t move!” The pegasus giving the order was clad entirely in golden armor and was positioned so that his outline was shielded by as much glare as the sun could possibly provide. The only ponies provided that type of armor or trained in that technique were members of the Solar branch of the Equestrian Guard. They were supposed to become his personal guard in the event of Celestia’s death.

“Wait.” the voice sounded uncertain. “Prince… Prince Blueblood?”

“In the flesh,” Blueblood said.

The figure dropped to the ground and then to his knees. “My Leige! I’m so sorry! I saw the lack of heraldry, the armor and weapons, and just assumed you were bandits or mercenaries! Please accept my apologies, your Royal Highness!”

Now that the sun wasn’t in his eyes, Blueblood could see that the stallion had a white coat and light blue mane.

“Forgiven,” Blueblood said, “Forgiven before you even asked the second time. We do look like a mercenary band. And stop kneeling, at ease.”

When the pegasus rose back to his hooves, Blueblood could see a set of golden irises.

“Whitewash?” Blueblood said.

“M’Lord... you remember me?”

“Since I know you aren’t allowed to call me by anything less,” Blueblood said, waving a hoof, “let’s just go with ‘Prince.’ The other titles are too long or pretentious for my tastes. And of course I remember you, Wash! You took that stray arrow for me during the Equestria Games archery competition two years ago, how could I ever forget that?”

Wash scratched the back of his head. “Just um… doin my job. Didn’t expect you to remember me for doing that.”

“Seriously?” Blueblood said flatly. “You were in the hospital for a week.”

Wash shrugged.

“Speaking of your job,” Blueblood said, gesturing at the incredible slope, “we’re at the bottom of the mountain. The Solar Guard always protects royals or council members. Why are you even down here?”

“The animals,” Wash said. “You’ve probably seen them if you’ve been down here. Something spooked pretty much every free-roaming critter out of the city, and as far as I can tell, the entire mountainside. Lord Pants sent a bunch of us to see if the entire mountain had been cleared out and to report back if that were the case.”

“I can tell you right now,” Blueblood said, “the bird megaflock downed our carriage on the rocks at the base of the waterfall, and they kept flying till they were out of sight. The rest of the animals all ran past us and they just kept right on going as well.”

Wash seemed to mull the information for a moment before looking up at Blueblood. “Prince,” he said, “we all thought you would be remaining in Ponyville for the foreseeable future… and we weren’t informed that you would be traveling to Canterlot.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, “if Fancy is so short-staffed that he’s sending his personal bodyguards to reconnoiter the countryside, I’m sure you understand exactly why we didn’t send advance notice. I’m trying to get to Lord Pants regarding an urgent matter.”

“Understood,” Wash said. He looked up the mountainside. “I can go retrieve an air carriage—”

A whine came from Double’s direction.

To his credit, Blueblood successfully suppressed a groan of his own.

“We just survived a crash,” Blueblood said. “I don’t think any of us are up for another airborne trip. If we’re close to the old road, we can make the trek. Besides, with you having to fly up, grab more guards, two coaches, then fly down here again, we won’t even make up any time.”

“True enough,” Wash said. He pointed in the direction the group had been headed. “The road is just over there. The least I can do is escort you to Lord Pants myself.”

“Much obliged,” Blueblood said as they started walking.

Week 23, Day 5, Late Afternoon

One of the foreign dignitary conference rooms had been repurposed into the office of the Unicorn representative to the Equestrian Triumvirate. Stacks of parchment cluttered a centrally placed desk, which was the only piece of utilitarian furniture in the entire room. The walls were adorned with paintings of famous figures from Equestria’s extensive history. A large grandfather clock dominated the space between two of the room’s massive windows. Decorative chairs were strategically placed about, and one ornamental cabinet held a variety of expensive alcohols in crystal decanters, with matching drinking glasses.

Fancy Pants sat at the desk. reading through reports, approving expenditures, and otherwise working his way through the piles of paperwork which cluttered the tabletop. He wearily looked up at the clock.

“Five o’clock,” Fancy noted to himself, making a mental note that he had less than thirty minutes until he would have to head back to his chambers to prepare himself for the Gala. Inspecting the piles of unfinished paperwork, he sighed and began to ponder just how late he could show up to the event without causing a major scandal.

“Lord Pants!” The voice of one of the Solar Guard jolted Fancy from his reverie.

“What is it?” Fancy asked, looking up to see a winded cerulean pegasus standing just outside the office.

Walking inside and taking a few steadying breaths, the guardspony removed her helmet, revealing it to be Zap Catcher, one of the guards he’d sent down the mountain to scout regarding the unexplained animal exodus. “It’s Prince Blueblood,” she said.

Fancy immediately stood to his hooves, knocking his chair back to land on the floor. Equal parts exhilaration and terror came to his mind as his brain performed mental gymnastics to determine why in Equestria he was being brought news about Blueblood in such an irregular fashion.

“He’s coming to see you,” Zap said. “Whitewash is escorting him and a band of mercenaries up the old road as we speak.”

“The Prince isn’t taking an air coach?” Fancy’s assumptions continued to war with each other.

“Apparently theirs was caught in a flock of the birds that fled the mountain,” Zap said. “They crashed down by the rocks and Wash spotted them just as they made it to the road. I stumbled across them just past the city outskirts, and Wash told me to fly straight to you.”

“Did the Prince say why he was here?” Fancy hadn’t received a letter from Blueblood saying he was coming to the Gala, so Fancy figured that either it’d been lost in post, or that there was another, more pressing reason for the Prince’s return.

“He mentioned something about the wine at the Gala,” Zap said.

“Wine at the Gala?” Fancy sighed.

Of course Blue would be worried about the Gala wine. He practically subsists on the stuff.

“The Prince was quite insistent that we not serve the wine, something about it being off. Seeing as how Neighsay’s children have it out for him, I thought that it was more important to inform you that he was here than it was to recall a few crate-loads of soured wine.”

“True enough,” Fancy said. “We’ll worry about swapping out the Gala refreshments after the Prince is safely in the castle.” He paused for a moment. “You said that the Prince was traveling with a band of mercenaries?”

“Well,” Zap said, “I don’t know what else I’d call them. They were all armed or armored in one fashion or another, none of their equipment held any matching signs or sigil, and a few of them looked downright vicious.”

“Shining Armor wasn’t with him?”

“No M’Lord,” Zap said. “Though I did see Celestia’s personal valet, Ditzy.”

“This is all… most peculiar,” Fancy said. He walked around the side of the table, abandoning the remainder of the paperwork. “Assemble a squad to meet me at the castle entrance, we’ll greet the Prince there.”

Zap saluted and left.

Fancy glanced at the clock again. “At least I’ll have a passable excuse for missing the opening toast,” he said to himself.

“The Prince is in Canterlot M’Lord,” Proctor said.

Killjoy did not turn away from the full-length mirror, continuing to button his dress shirt. “Expected,” he said. “Blueblood has been content to remain in Ponyville and weather my brothers’ assassination attempts, but it was a distinct possibility that repeated assaults, especially one involving troops, would prompt retaliation. How many has he brought with him?”

“Six,” Proctor said.

“Your assessment of his escorts?”

“Three are dangerous,” Proctor said. “Each of them are easily worth several of our rank and file troops.”

“And?”

“One is Tempest Shadow.”

“Ah,” Killjoy said, “the Badlands Butcher comes to Canterlot.” An almost undetectable grin worked its way to the corners of his mouth. “And the remaining two?”

“They appear to be non-combatants,” Proctor said. “One is the Princess’ valet, Ditzy. The other is a mare who I’ve only once seen outside of the manor grounds. All of my previous sightings of her have been through the windows of either Blueblood’s room or the observatory.”

“A mistress then,” Killjoy said. “He must be very attached to her if he is willing to forgo a fifth soldier for her presence.”

“M’Lord,” Proctor said, “even though I was only able to clearly observe her a few times, I have the distinct impression that something was… off about her.”

“Off?” Killjoy looked over to Proctor. “That is the least descriptive assessment of an individual you have ever given me, Proctor.”

“There were numerous small things that I noticed,” Proctor said. “Separate, they would be quirks. But taken together, in context, they lead me to believe that she is exceptionally dangerous, perhaps more so than any of the others.”

Killjoy started to tie his cravat. “Explain.”

“Something about the way she moved was just a little too fluid for a random civilian. She left the safety of the town without an escort of any kind, despite the well-known increase in bandit activity in the surrounding countryside. Some of Sour’s troops were sent into a part of the town well away from his main force, specifically to escort her to him. She appeared revulsed by, but not afraid of, the five flesh creatures that Sour used to breach the abbey. The sounds of desperate fighting coming from the abbey ceased immediately after she was escorted into the building, and then four of the five flesh creatures fled, followed shortly after by Sour.”

“Interesting,” Killjoy said as he donned his suit coat. “You are quite correct that any of those things could be easily explained away.”

“Of course, M’Lord.”

“But,” Killjoy said, as he pinned a rose to his lapel. “You have never reported inaccurate information to me before, nor have you ever reported something that you thought did not require careful consideration.”

Straightening, Killjoy inspected himself in the mirror. He straightened the cravat slightly. “It will be expected that we confront the Prince. Inform Wet Blanket that Blueblood is in Canterlot, and tell him that he is to take two squads to harass the Prince.”

“M’Lord,” Proctor said, “do you wish for me to inform Lord Downer?”

“No,” Killjoy said. “Downer has never approved of our family’s moves against the Prince. Besides, he does not understand what it is that I’m trying to accomplish. He has his own spies, and will have likely sent his own guards to defend the Prince. In addition to the troops that Lord Pants is sure to send, they will probably number around two squads. Sending a similar number with Wet Blanket should be sufficient to delay and otherwise irritate the Prince.”

“What shall I do after informing Baron Blanket, M’Lord?”

“Observe the outcome and report back to me,” Killjoy said. “Do not interfere.”

“Even if—”

“Even if Blanket is at risk of being killed,” Killjoy said. “Despite him being my twin brother, I am not one for sentiment. The order is to harass the Prince, not to attack. He knows that if he oversteps what I’ve told him to do, he deserves the results.”

“Understood M’Lord,” Proctor said.

The streets of Canterlot were not as Blueblood remembered them. Guard patrols were infrequent in the outskirts of the city, at least less frequent than they used to be. As they moved closer towards the center of the city, the guard presence increased tremendously, despite the conspicuous absence of ponies on the streets. There were a few, but nothing anywhere close to what passed for normal crowds in the past.

“It’s so different,” Blueblood said. “Amazing what’s changed in just the last five months.”

“Civic unrest must have been sufficient to warrant martial law,” Tempest said. “Even if the declaration was later rescinded, the citizenry is likely wary of being caught in the streets during another disturbance.”

“Prince Blueblood!” A voice called from a squad of ten armored ponies in burgundy livery as they approached Blueblood’s group.

“Damn,” Blueblood said. “Burgundy is the Neighsay family color.

“They do not have a hostile bearing,” Tempest said.

Blueblood wasn’t convinced. “Be on your guard anyhow.”

“I am always on my guard,” Tempest replied.

The armored ponies quickly surrounded Blueblood and his party, but much to his surprise, took up a defensive stance, facing outwards. The leader of the group approached and removed her helmet. Blueblood recognized her.

“Captain Sentinel,” Blueblood said curtly. “To what do I owe the… pleasure?”

“I’m here on orders from Chancellor Downer,” Sentinel said. “We’re here to escort you safely to the castle.”

Blueblood breathed a sigh of relief. Downer, while in many ways like Neighsay, was a pony of a completely different temperament than the rest of the family. Blueblood actually got along with the third heir to the Neighsay dynasty prior to killing his father.

Downer seemed to have stepped into the vacated chancellor role, which meant that his two older brothers had passed on it. “Chancellor Downer believes there to be a threat?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Sentinel said. “The Chancellor believes there is a high chance that Baron Blanket will try to intercept you before you reach the Castle.”

“What about Viscount Killjoy?” Blueblood said.

“Lord Downer doesn’t think he’ll try anything since the Gala is tonight,” Sentinel said.

“We’d better get moving then.” Blueblood started walking towards the castle, with his group in tow, and Downer’s guards flanking.

Week 23, Day 5, Evening

The sun was low in the sky, just about to dip below the horizon. As shadows lengthened and the city’s magical lighting was activated, Blueblood and his entourage reached the castle gates. Fancy Pants stood at the entrance with ten members of the Solar Guard, led by Zap Catcher.

“Duke Pants!” Blueblood called out.

“Prince Blueblood!” Fancy felt his muzzle crease into a wide smile at the sight of his friend. “It has been too long! Are you here for the… Gala…” his voice trailed off as he saw the state of the Prince. He’d expected Blueblood to be slightly disheveled after an air coach crash and a walk up the mountain. But he’d also expected the Prince to have dressed for the Gala.

Instead, Blueblood seemed to be dressed in strictly practical attire, and his mercenaries were wearing purely utilitarian gear, with not even a surcoat or decorative tabard amongst them. They looked ready for combat… No, he realized with a chill down his spine, ready for war.

“We don’t have time,” Blueblood said. “You got my message and removed the wine from the Gala?”

“I got your message about the wine,” Fancy said. “But it was of more paramount importance to have an escort for you. I’ve reason to believe—”

“That Neighsay’s children are out to kill me,” Blueblood said. “I already know that, and have thwarted several attempts on my life already. But please old friend—” Blueblood placed a hoof onto Fancy’s withers. “—please tell me you ordered the servants to remove that wine from the Gala.”

“No,” Fancy said, a feeling of sudden dread building in his stomach. “Not yet. Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“There’s no time to lose then,” Blueblood said, making hoof signals that directed the Solar Guard to turn and advance into the castle proper.

They responded to his orders with professional alacrity.

“It would take too long to explain,” Blueblood said as he followed the Solar Guard. “The simplest thing to do is to just treat this situation as if the entire load is poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” Fancy felt a falling sensation in his gut. He stepped up his own pace. “We must make haste!”

They all crammed into the main hallway, which could really only accommodate five ponies abreast, moving at a brisk trot towards the castle’s inner courtyard. The Solar Guard remained in the lead, with Downer’s soldiers bringing up the rear.

Fancy turned to Blueblood. “I’m sorry, Prince. I didn't realize how bad the situation was.”

“I understand,” Blueblood said. “I only pray we’re not too late.”

“The Gala doesn’t officially start until six o’clock,” Fancy said, shooting a look at a clock as they passed. Five minutes to six. “We’re almost there, and should arrive just before the opening toast. We have plenty of time.”

“Time, I’m afraid, is a luxury you do not have,” said a malicious voice, as twenty armed ponies in burgundy livery stepped out from various side passages to block the hallway.

The Solar Guard reared up as they were forced to come to an abrupt halt.

Wet Blanket swaggered out into view, an uncorked bottle of wine magically suspended in the air next to him.

He took a swig from it.

Fancy heard a strangled gasp come from Blueblood. He looked back to see that Blueblood’s eyes were wide, and that he was staring intently at the Baron. The expression overall seemed to be one of shocked and terrified anticipation.

“Baron Wet Blanket,” Fancy used his most commanding voice as he turned his head back to the hallway blockade. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Oh this?” Blanket held the bottle aloft, lifted it, and swallowed another mouthful. “I just wanted to welcome the Prince back to the capitol, that’s all. Seeing as how that meant I’d miss the opening toast, I figured I’d just snag this little guy for myself.” He shook the bottle in the air in front of him.

“You fool!” Fancy yelled. “We were on our way to the Gala to stop them from serving that! It’s tainted! Maybe even poisoned!”

Blanket took another swig. “If it’s poisoned—”

Fancy could swear that he saw something wrong with Blanket's mouth in the dim hallway lighting.

“—then why does it make me feel—” Blanket’s eyes started to glow red, and his lips pulled back in a snarl.

The teeth. Sweet, merciful Celestia, THE TEETH.

“—so good?” Blanket downed the rest of the wine and threw the bottle against the wall, shattering it. Red dribbled from his lips. “Kill them all,” he said in an animalistic tone.

“But M’Lord,” one of Blanket’s soldiers said, looking back to the Baron “Lord Killjoy’s orders—”

Blanket opened his mouth impossibly wide and bit into the surprised soldier’s throat. Wrenching his head back, Blanket tore out the soldier’s trachea in one swift motion. He then buried his muzzle into the gargling pony’s neck and began to make horrible sucking sounds.

Everypony, including Blanket’s own soldiers, watched in horror as the Baron slurped down copious amounts of blood from the soldier’s vicious wound.

Finally, Blanket dropped the lifeless body to the floor.

“Kill them all,” Blanket repeated.

His soldiers looked between the wall of armed guards on Fancy’s side of the hall, then back towards their sanguine-soaked, monstrous master. Performing the only sensible action available to them, they fled down the side halls, away from both adversaries. Some were so panicked that they dropped their weapons.

“Can’t find good help these days,” Blanket snarled, bloody spittle spraying as he talked.

The Solar Guard backed slowly into Fancy and Blueblood, pushing them towards Blueblood’s mercenaries and Downer’s soldiers.

“Let my ponies to the front,” Blueblood hissed into Fancy’s ear.

Fancy turned to face his longtime friend, expecting to see sheer insanity or terror in those eyes. Instead, he found only rock-solid determination.

“They’re the only ones who have ever faced horrors like this,” Blueblood finished.

Indeed, when Fancy turned to Blueblood’s group, he saw that, while their teeth were gritted in pre-combat anxiety, they were not terrified. Which was quite unlike the abject fear expressed by the Solar Guard and Downer’s soldiers.

An unnaturally elongated tongue, covered in wicked barbs, crept out of the Baron’s mouth. “You all look like such tasty morsels.” He grinned, with his mouth full of jagged teeth and stringy bits of pony flesh.

And then, screaming echoed from the direction of the Gala.

“It sounds like this party is just getting started,” the Baron hissed, his toothy smile widening to preposterous proportions.

Arc 3 Chapter 2: Grand Galloping Gala

Chapter 2: Grand Galloping Gala

Week 23, Day 5, Evening

The hall where the Gala was being held was enormous, easily able to fit the hundreds of guests that had accepted their invitations. Banners in all manner of colors were hung from the walls, representing the myriad royal houses of Canterlot. Stood near a burgundy standard were two brothers who, while both similarly thin to the point of gauntness, could not have looked further apart in appearance.

Downer’s fur was a conglomeration of bright colors. Yellow coat, bronzed mane, and sparkling golden irises stood in stark contrast to the varying shades of gray which was his older brother.

“I expect you sent a full squad?” Killjoy eyed up Downer like he was a pinned insect.

“Yes,” Downer replied. “And Duke Pants is sure to send a full squad of his own. I’ll bet that you knew that, and sent twice that number… with Blanket, if his absence is any indicator.”

“Your intuition is improving,” Killjoy said.

Downer’s hackles rose at the unexpected and undesired compliment. He furrowed his brow. “These antics will not serve our family well,” he said. “The clandestine assassination attempts were one thing, but sending Sour and a contingent to Ponyville, and now assaulting the Prince inside of the castle walls…” He glared at Killjoy. “You risk much, Brother. If fighting actually breaks out here, there will be Tartarus to pay.”

Killjoy magically placed another hors devour he had no plans of eating onto his plate. “You wound me, brother. You may not have been present while we were gathered around father’s body, but surely you know that I explicitly informed our younger siblings that I would tolerate no violence against the Prince.”

“Then why risk a confrontation on castle grounds?” Downer threw a forehoof out for emphasis. “The risks—”

“I know the risks,” Killjoy said, completely unperturbed. “You figured my reasoning just now. With what we’ve all sent, there will be a stalemate. The Prince will be delayed in his arrival here, as will whatever other business he may have in Canterlot. Word of our harassment will spread, our family’s name will once again have bite, and the other noble houses will not sense weakness and descend on us like the vultures they are.”

“I still don’t approve,” Downer said. “There will be plenty of time for you to play these games—”

“Do not lecture me,” Killjoy interrupted with such intensity that Downer took a fear-induced step back. “The council may have felt that it was legally required to elevate your rank to the same as mine so that you could assume the role of chancellor. But never forget that I am still the eldest. I am the one who approves or disapproves of what our family does, not you. Even if I decided to choose to burn our family to the ground, then you would have to sit back and watch.”

Killjoy had carefully controlled his expression and tone of voice during the outburst. The effort required had been significant, since he didn’t actually feel anger regarding the matter. Younger siblings always tested their limits, and needed to be reminded of their place from time to time. Creating the illusion of a believable emotional outburst was something that had taken him years of practice. But, his calculated display of severe agitation surely made the episode all the more terrifying for Downer, if his shaking legs were any indication.

“You’re a monster, Killjoy.” Downer almost looked as if he was about to start crying.

Killjoy never forgot how fragile his brother was, and many thought that he didn’t care for Downer’s wellbeing. The truth was quite the opposite, however, Killjoy had invested far too much time and effort in the now-youngest son of Neighsay.

“The toast is soon,” Killjoy said, using his magic to lift a wine glass from a nearby refreshments table. “Once the Gala starts, you can drink away your troubles. Maybe you’ll even forget all about how pathetic and weak you truly are.”

“Burn in Tartarus,” Downer said, violently snatching an entire bottle from the table and storming away.

The susurrus of the gathered gentry began to die down, and Killjoy could see movement at the far side of the hall.

In the distance, upon the raised announcement dais, Countess Coloratura held a wine glass in one hoof. “I would like to dedicate this toast to a new beginning,” she said. “A metamorphosis, if you will. All of you know that this has been a rough year. But tonight, we will shed our old selves, and we will be ready to emerge from this crisis stronger than ever before.”

Coloratura raised her glass. “Salude, to new beginnings.”

As the crowd mimicked the gesture and the words, Killjoy did as well. It was expected of him.

Out of the corner of Killjoy’s eye, he spotted a dark figure moving towards him at full tilt. He only knew one pony who could move that fast without causing a ruckus.

Coloratura drank from her glass, the mass of aristocracy following suit.

As Killjoy brought the wine towards his lips, there was a silvery flash of metal. The glass shattered, and was knocked away from him. He slowly, deliberately turned to face Proctor, who certainly had not missed, nor been mistaken in the action he had taken.

“Is the wine poisoned?” Killjoy asked for confirmation of the only possible reason that Proctor would act in such a manner.

Proctor fell to his knees at Killjoy’s hooves. “Worse, M’Lord,” he said, “it is much more than merely poisoned. Baron Blanket—”

One of the nearby nobles, an orange stallion, let out a savage snarl and bit into the neck of his rose-colored companion, eliciting a shriek of pain and fear.

Behind them, a mare bit open the foreleg of the stallion who had been holding hooves with her during the toast.

Similar scenes began to play out across the hall, couples turning on each other with ravenous abandon. Some were so overcome with this inexplicable yet insatiable hunger, that they were driven to tear into their own flesh rather than take time to close the distance to the nearest potential victim.

Of the closest, most were unknown to Killjoy, being mere business ponies and not members of the aristocracy. But one mare, the Baroness of Quillton—as evidenced by her blood-stained Gala dress—had buried her face into the neck of her decapitated husband, and was feasting on a mixture of flesh and arterial spray pumped by a heart that didn’t quite know that its owner was dead.

“Fascinating,” Killjoy said, transfixed by the havoc that was unfolding around him. In all of his years of careful calculations, he could have never predicted an event such as he was witnessing.

“M’Lord,” Proctor said, deflecting a disembodied foreleg that had the audacity to fly in Killjoy’s direction, “you are not safe here. We must leave.”

A quick survey of the several dozen or so cannibalistic ponies surrounding them reminded Killjoy that he had, of course, come to the same conclusion. Still, the very sight of the vast majority of the Canterlot upper class tearing itself apart was completely captivating.

The butchery which now dominated the hall was overshadowed by a commotion upon the announcement dais. Countess Coloratura had undergone a startling metamorphosis of her own, only it was far more flagrant and monstrous than what was happening in Killjoy’s immediate vicinity. Her hideous form ripped bodies in twain and feasted upon innards as they spilled out onto the floor.

The pair made haste in skirting the outside perimeter of the hall. From the crowd, a bloodied mare lunged for Killjoy, sharp fangs bared. Proctor swung a hoof, and a dagger flew from it, embedding itself in the mare’s brain. Her charge faltered, and she crashed into a couple of fighting nobles who then turned to devour her instead of each other.

“You told me that the Countess received the wine for the Gala from Duke Pants—” Killjoy said, as they swiftly approached the exit to the Gala-turned-abattoir, “—who had received it from Blueblood. I believe we have discovered the real reason for the Prince’s trip to Canterlot.”

Proctor bucked a table to block a charge by several snarling stallions, and sent another of his knives into the face of one that had the bright idea to try and climb over the tabletop.

“I saw Blanket leave the hall with a bottle,” Killjoy said as he and Proctor exited the charnel house of a party. “Knowing his hedonistic tendencies, I assume he drank some?”

“The whole bottle,” Proctor verified.

“Then our first priority is to gather what forces we have remaining. We will sequester ourselves at the family manse, to plan for—”

“Leaving so soon, brother?”

Killjoy turned to see Downer, standing back in the entryway to the Gala hall. He was drenched in blood that was most certainly not his own. His glowing eyes were wild with hunger, and something else which, ironically, Killjoy had tried for years to cultivate in his sibling.

Cruelty.

“Most unexpected.”

The Baron lashed out at the front row of Solar Guard ponies with such ferocity that one of them was hurled through the air, their collapsed helmet testament to their death before they even struck the wall with a meaty thud. Two more were knocked to the floor, with broken limbs twisted at horrific angles.

The Solar Guard thrust their spears at the Baron in retaliation, but he easily dodged the weapons, and even snapped his jaws forwards, biting one haft in twain.

“Tempest,” Blueblood said, gesturing his foreleg in an arcing motion, “up and over!”

“Done.” Grabbing a surprised yet boisterous Solmare with one hoof, Tempest vaulted clean over both lines of the Solar Guard, landing herself and Solmare directly in front of the Baron.

“And who,” the Baron hissed, “are—”

Tempest shattered his jaw with a crushing right hook, arcs of electricity crackling around the point of impact. She followed up with a one-two combo which broke his collarbone and shoulder. She continued to land strike after strike, eliciting more bone-breaking cracks and sparks.

The Baron bent unnaturally, and backhoofed Tempest through the air and straight into the Solar Guard, knocking the entirety of both rows down like bowling pins.

“Not much of a talker eh?” The Baron grinned as his bones reset themselves. “It’s ok, I just need you to scream—”

Solmare buried her sword into the Baron’s head.

The Baron staggered backwards a few hoofsteps, a look of confusion twitching across his face. Then he dropped to the floor.

“What is with the Neighsay family predilection towards monologuing themselves to death?” Blueblood said, helping to pull the wounded back away from—

“Tempest?” The word hung in the air as he pushed his way past the others. He ignored their protestations and closed the distance between himself and the indomitable mare.

“I am fine,” Tempest said, rising slowly from the floor. Her legs had an uncustomary unsteady wobble to them.

That didn’t stop Blueblood from feeling a wave of relief wash over himself.

“Hit me right on the chin,” she said, one hoof rubbing her muzzle. Her balance stabilized. “I was careless, and did not notice that his limbs bent in ways they shouldn’t have.”

“Well,” Blueblood said. “Now you know.”

A squelch sounded behind him, as well as a meaty impact on metal. Blueblood spun, drawing his sword. He was surprised to see that Solmare was flying through the air towards him.

Tempest interposed herself, though slower than Blueblood had seen her do so in the past. Still, Tempest was fast enough to intercept the airborne pony, though both her and Solmare crumpled to the ground on impact.

The Baron stood, and pulled the sword from his own head with the hoof he had used to slap Solmare away. “Fine,” he said. “No chit-chat.” He dropped the sword to the ground and advanced.

Blueblood kept his own sword between them, and positioned himself in front of Tempest and Solmare. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against the monstrosity that now approached, but the stupidity brought on by shock prevented him from thinking of what else he could possibly do.

A large, runed sword flew through the air and planted itself into the Baron’s chest.

“Seriously?” The Baron’s monstrous incredulity seemed to know no bounds. He grabbed the hilt of the blade in one hoof. But before he could remove it, the sword began to glow with a pale blue light. Ice crystals spread from where the blade had embedded itself, freezing the surrounding flesh, and even the Baron’s hoof.

Blueblood glanced back and saw that Double was holding out a hoof which sparkled with the same color and intensity as the sword. Double began to shake with exertion. His eyes, also shining inside his helmet, showed the strain of whatever magical shenanigans he was performing.

“What?!” The Baron pulled at the luminescent weapon with his frozen foreleg in a desperate attempt to dislodge it. There was the sound of cracking ice, and he grinned wider as he tried to snap the hilt of the sword off.

His hoof snapped off instead.

Shrieking in animalistic displeasure, the Baron swatted at the blade with his frozen stump, his frantic efforts only succeeding in chipping more of his own limb off.

Tempest rolled Solmare off of herself and stood. She may have moved slower and her legs may have shook a bit more, but her teeth were clenched and indefatigable will drove her towards the Baron.

Double collapsed to his knees, his outstretched hoof dropping. The mystical glow vanished from both him and his embedded sword.

Tempest wound up and swung.

It was perhaps the most ungraceful punch Blueblood had ever seen from Tempest. That did not stop it from also being the most devastating blow that Blueblood had ever seen her deliver. The Baron’s chest didn’t merely collapse, or shatter. With an incredible flash of lightning and crack of thunder, the Baron’s chest detonated like a bomb. Arcs of electricity, shards of ice, and chunks of flesh blasted outwards in all directions.

When his vision finally swam back into focus, Blueblood felt a multitude of minor injuries. There were nicks and scrapes, and definitely some bruising. The others around him seemed to have fared just about the same. Everypony in the hallway had been knocked down.

Everypony except for Tempest.

Remaining upright, Tempest was the only thing that hadn’t been toppled to the floor in the explosion. She stood like an indestructible obelisk of stone.

An angry one, at that.

The Baron had been blasted backwards, a ragged chasm where most of his chest should have been. His shoulder and stump of a foreleg were tenuously attached to the rest of his body, but were still barely able to be held against him to prevent his innards from spilling out. When he saw that his tormentor was still standing, he turned and made a swift three-legged retreat.

Tempest remained unwavering, but did not pursue the wounded Baron. Blueblood opened his mouth to say something to her, but he closed it when she spontaneously collapsed.

Blueblood scrambled over bits of flesh, bone, and ice, until he reached Tempest, who had clearly borne the brunt of the blast. Her armor was only slightly scuffed, a testament to its materials and enchantments. But when he turned her over, he saw that her face was covered in deep lacerations. The injury that had surely felled her however, was the jagged piece of bone lodged in her neck.

The shard of calcification had severed something vital, as blood flowed freely from where it jutted. He saw that crimson had soaked through her chestpiece, and even reached as far down as her greaves before she’d collapsed.

“Medic!” Blueblood shouted to the others, unsure of how to treat such an injury. His basic first-aid training told him to put pressure on a bleeding wound, but conflicted sharply with how to treat embedded objects, which was not to touch it.

Aloe knelt next to him and removed a glowing blossom from her robes. “Back please,” she said.

Scooching away, Blueblood closed his eyes and lifted a foreleg to rub at his forehead to try and soothe the concussion-induced headache, which hadn’t quite gone away yet. The wetness he felt prompted him to open his eyes. He saw that his forelegs were covered in Tempest’s blood, and he reflexively hissed an inhale through his nose. The metallic smell flooded his nostrils.

Oh no.

Blueblood frantically looked for something, anything made of fabric—that he wasn’t wearing—to wipe his hooves on. He could already feel his teeth begin to change, and surely his eyes had begun to glow. His tongue wanted to lash out of his mouth and lap the delicious blood from his foreleg, to sate the thirst that now began to overwhelm his senses.

Looks like the jig is up, Nephew. Celestia’s voice was the last one he needed right then and there. Will they attack you next, if they see you as the monster?”

“Auntie,” Blueblood growled through his expanding fangs, “if you’re not going to help, then shut up.”

“Hey.”

Blueblood looked up to see Ametrine standing right in front of him. He blinked in confusion as she booped his snoot.

Then her hoof engulfed his nostrils. Before he could even think to struggle, something acrid was blasted into his sinuses.

Falling back, Blueblood began to cough uncontrollably, the smell of blood long forgotten by his chemically burned nasal receptors. As he sputtered and gagged, he felt his teeth returning to normal.

“You’re welcome,” Ametrine whispered in his ear, with dubious levels of injected sexiness, and possibly tongue.

When he’d finally stopped retching, he saw that Aloe had moved over to kneel by Solmare’s broken body and was shaking her head from side to side.

“Dead?” Blueblood asked.

“Yeah,” Aloe said. “But isn’t the first time I’ve seen her die. Seems to be a minor setback for her.”

“You seem rather calm about her spontaneously resurrecting from the dead.”

“I’m sharing a body with my dead twin sister,” Aloe retorted.

“Touché.” Blueblood stood and walked over to Tempest. “How is she?”

“Unconscious,” Aloe said. “I’m no doctor, but she’s definitely lost a lot of blood. I’ve closed her wounds, but it may take some time for her to recover.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, “the Baron was right, time is a luxury we do not have.” He looked up at the remaining Solar Guard. One was dead, and two were out of commission with broken limbs. The rest seemed to be in okay shape physically speaking, but they looked about ready to break. On his team, Tempest and Solmare were down. Double looked to be extremely fatigued from whatever mystical mumbo jumbo he did with his sword. And Aloe was busy tending to the wounded.

“No choice,” Blueblood said. “Ametrine, on me. We’re going to the Gala hall to rescue any survivors.”

“Blue,” Fancy said, his wide, shaking eyes a clear testament to the shock and dismay he must have been feeling at the current turn of events. “You can’t go! You’ll be killed!”

Blueblood stared his old friend in the eyes. “There are worse things than death, Fancy.”

“I’ll go with you,” Whitewash said, the determination in his voice overpowering the fear which wracked his body with the shakes.

“Me too,” Zap Catcher said. She seemed to be slightly less paralyzed by terror.

“Right,” Blueblood said, “you two with me.” He turned. “Fancy, get everypony else somewhere safe. If almost everypony at the party drank that wine, the keep and inner courtyard will likely be infested, so try the Solar Guard barracks in the outer courtyard. Gather everypony who can wield a weapon, don’t let anypony wander off alone. Once we save who we can, we’ll meet you there.”

Fancy opened his mouth, likely to protest.

“Don’t worry, old colt.” Blueblood placed a hoof on Fancy’s withers. “Things like this are, unfortunately, becoming a regular occurrence for me.”

“We’ll await your return,” Fancy said. “Celestia be with—”

“No,” Blueblood blurted.

The look on Fancy's face couldn’t decide what expression it wanted to wear. “What?”

“I’ll explain later.” Blueblood shook his head.

Trying to destroy my legacy already, Nephew?

Blueblood leaned up against the wall away from the others, pretending to catch his breath. “You did that yourself,” he whispered. “It will be a mercy for me to only tell everypony that you are dead, without bringing up your transgressions.”

But am I truly dead? After all, I live on in—

“You are no more Celestia than Ametrine is Amethyst,” he hissed.

There's a big difference between Ametrine and myself, Nephew.

“Oh?” Blueblood said. “And what would that be, Auntie?”

You made Ametrine. She’s an imprint of you tempered by your memories of Amethyst.

“So?” Blueblood was genuinely confused. “So what?”

I was made by Celestia. I am an imprint of her, tempered by her own mind. I’m as close to the real thing as it gets.

There was no retort. Blueblood couldn’t argue against that difference. She was right. But still, she wasn’t Celestia. Just a copy. He found himself wondering what would happen if he was copied. Would it be him? If he was turning into one of these things, what would he be? Worse, with everything that had already happened to him… was he even himself now?

Blueblood shook the thoughts from his mind. Have an existential crisis later, he told himself.

“Done talking to my sister?” Ametrine looked jealous.

“Yes, she was being snippy.” Blueblood turned to his volunteers. “Let’s go. We follow the screams.”

It took less than a minute of galloping down the halls before Blueblood’s impromptu band came across a fight.

“I’m feeling heavily conflicted about intervening here,” Blueblood said as they approached.

Downer appeared mostly normal, though he was snarling and gnashing ragged fangs at his older sibling.

Killjoy dropped to one forehoof and swung his hind legs around to double-buck one of Downer’s forelegs, shattering it. The Chancellor fell muzzle-first to the floor, but rolled forward over his own snapping neck. He lashed out with his hind hooves, sending Killjoy flying into a wall.

Blueblood recognized Proctor, the Neighsay family spymaster, as he rose up from the wreckage of a broken display case, from where he threw two daggers. Both embedded into Downer’s throat, but they only seemed to irritate the blood-crazed pony.

After taking a quick survey of their surroundings, Blueblood lit his horn and tore a chandelier down from the ceiling, dropping it right onto Downer’s head.

Killjoy looked up to see Blueblood and his group approaching. “Most unexpected.” He winced as he rose to his hooves.

“We can kill each other later.” Blueblood took a position beside Killjoy. “Bigger problems and all of that.”

“You’re a fool if you think I want you dead,” Killjoy said.

Blueblood did a double-take. “Come again?”

“I’ve taken deliberate action to save your life several times already.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Blueblood said. “But I’ll have to take your word for it right now.”

Downer tore the chandelier to pieces, growling as he stood. “You ungrateful wretch!” He pointed a hoof at Blueblood. “I send troops to defend you against my brothers, and instead you join them against me?”

Blueblood got the distinct impression that the unnatural facial contortions taking place on Downer’s misshapen muzzle were indicative of extreme rage. Or constipation. Or both. “No offense, but you’re a bloodsucking monster right now, Downer.”

Downer looked at the group of six ponies that were arrayed before him. His eyes moved towards Ametrine and narrowed. “To be continued,” he spat, before diving out of one of the priceless stained-glass windows which adorned the hall.

Taking a swift peek out the window, Blueblood caught a glimpse of Downer’s swift retreat across the castle grounds.

“The Gala is just ahead,” Blueblood said. He turned to Killjoy, scarcely believing what he was about to ask. “Will you join us? We need to go to the hall to check for—”

“It’s unlikely anypony is alive in there,” Killjoy said, his voice devoid of empathy. “Almost the entirety of Canterlot’s nobility has been infected by… whatever this is.” He locked his eyes with Blueblood’s, a shocking lack of accusation in them considering what he said next. “You know exactly what is happening here, don’t you? Almost everypony thinks that Coloratura alone provided the refreshments for tonight. But those of us with the right connections know that it was Duke Pants who provided the wine to her, and that you are the one who provided it to him.”

“I didn’t know it was tainted until earlier today,” Blueblood said. “That’s why I came. You have to know that I couldn’t possibly have wanted this.”

“This whole situation is too chaotic for me to make any assumptions regarding your motives,” Killjoy said. “But I do know that going to the Gala hall right now would be tantamount to suicide.”

“M’Lord,” Proctor said. “Traveling alone would be just as dangerous right now. There could be others as ferocious as Chancellor Downer roaming the castle grounds.”

Killjoy looked at his underling, then at the shattered window. “A valid assessment.” He turned to Blueblood. “Very well, we shall accompany you. But we will not linger in the Gala hall. Once you see that everypony is dead or changed, we leave. Know that I prioritize my own survival over yours.”

“Likewise,” Blueblood said, quite surprised that his request had been accepted. “Well then, let’s see who’s left.”

“Wait,” Killjoy said, turning to look at a particularly large cabinet. “How much can you magically lift?”

There were ten survivors who had managed to both band together, and then fight their way to one corner of the Gala hall. They’d watched in horror as other unaffected ponies nearby or those who had joined their impromptu group were dragged away by clutching hooves and biting fangs. They could do nothing as their fellow Gala guests were pulled down and torn to bloody shreds. The knowledge that their own hastily assembled barricade — consisting of a dozen or so overturned tables and chairs — would offer only a brief respite remained foremost in their minds. Especially as the infected began to run out of victims in the center of the massive room and turn their attention elsewhere.

“I think we’re managing to hold them off for now,” Soarin said, breathing heavily. The color of his light cornflower blue fur was marred with matted blood and bits of flesh, thankfully none of which belonged to him. He dropped a splintered piece of wood and tore the top leg off of one of the tables that had been knocked onto its side. It was the third make-shift weapon he’d made. “Just remember to keep yourself armed. Better that these things bite wood than your leg. These clubs may be a little on the fragile side, but they’ve been working at beating them back so far.”

True enough, most of the infected nobles had ceased their attacks and turned on each other after having been batted away by the besieged ponies.

“Duke Soarin,” Sunburst said, his voice shaking, “we can’t stay here forever, there’s hundreds of these things!” The unicorn archivist’s gamboge-colored fur was spattered with an assortment of blood and gore that exceeded that of most of the other survivors. Soarin had seen him beat down three frenzied ponies using a bound volume of Clover’s Treatise on Love and Peace. Hoity Toity mentioned that the assorted innards actually accentuated the reds in Sunburst’s mane, which did little to reassure the frazzled stallion.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Sapphire Shores said, “but I ain’t stickin around here to get eaten by no blood-crazy vamponies!”

“Vamponies aren’t real!”

“Then what do you call all of this?!”

“What are we gonna do?!”

“Ze vampoonies are nöt going to get zis mare!”

“Vamponies are so last season!”

As the others argued, drawing the attention of the infected, Soarin had half a mind to solo fight his way out of there, and leave them all behind. He was thwarted however, by his irritatingly overactive sense of common decency.

“Quiet!” He hissed. “You’re attracting them with all of your petty bickering! Sunburst is right, if we don’t try to make our way to an exit, these things will eventually tear through—”

As if to accentuate Soarin’s point, a barrage of impacts began to shake the barricades. At first the noises were just the poundings of hooves, but slowly changed into the sounds of talons digging into the wood.

“What in Celestia’s name?” Soarin backed away from one of the tables, just in time to avoid a bloodied claw that burst through. “Okay ponies, we’re out of time. Everypony grab a chair or table leg, we’re on the same side of the hall as an exit. Just keep your flanks to the wall, and smash any of these bloodsuckers that gets too close.”

There were nods of acknowledgement from Sapphire, Sunburst, Photo Finish, Hoity Toity and Fleur De Lis. Jet Set, Upper Crust, Filthy Rich and Spoiled Rich looked far less than enthusiastic. Though the monstrous foreleg that was swiping through the table seemed to be giving everypony the required motivation for leaving.

Fancy is never going to forgive me if Fleur gets hurt, Soarin thought. Not that he’d let it happen, but this situation had spiraled out of control long ago.

Moving to the leftmost table, the closest one to the exit, Soarin looked at the others and extended his wing. He held up three primaries, then counted them down.

Three.

Two.

One.

Soarin pressed his wingless side up against the table and heaved with all of his might. The snarling of the vamponies—damnit, now I’m thinking of them by that name—could clearly be heard as the table came apart from the others.

A set of snapping jaws clamped shut a hair’s-breadth from Soarin’s shoulder. The offending head was mashed to a pulp by Sunburst’s massive book.

Fleur sent an assortment of forks and butter knives flying into the face of another monstrosity that tried to charge the group, allowing the group to push along the wall.

Hoity Toity was bringing up the rear when he suddenly let out a filly-scream. A trio of frenzied ponies had latched onto various parts of him and were biting out ragged chunks of his flesh.

Jet Set swung a table leg, breaking the face of one of the horrors that was snacking on the pony incarnation of fashion, but was tackled by another that leapt from the crowd. Upper Crust removed the creature with a chair swung like a golf club, but Jet’s throat had already been torn out. She fell to her knees and hugged her dying husband, even as a half dozen more infected ponies converged on and tore into the three of them.

A flash heralded Photo Finish’s camera blinding a frenzied stallion, who then promptly received a broken skull, courtesy of a chair leg wielded by Sapphire Shores.

Filthy Rich bucked a table to block some infected from separating the group, and yanked Spoiled away from a spanning set of jaws.

“Damnit,” Soarin said, as five more of the bloodied monsters moved to block their way. More started to crowd in behind them. “Okay everypony, it looks like we’ll have to fight our way—”

Without warning, a large cabinet was heaved out of the exit hallway and smashed into one of the monsters that had been blocking their way to the exit.

As the tainted nobles collapsed and the other ones spun around, Soarin turned his head to where the miraculous piece or airborne furniture had originated. Of all of the ponies to come charging into the Gala hall, the last one Soarin expected to see coming to their rescue was Viscount Killjoy. And right beside him was—

“Prince Blueblood?”

The Prince turned to Soarin and magically threw his sword at a noble who had more deformed teeth than a pony from Trottingham. The weapon impaled the monster’s neck and spun it away from Soarin, back into the crowd.

That was your only weapon, Nephew.

Blueblood cursed his own idiocy as dozens of the other creatures in the hall turned towards him, letting out animalistic snarls. He took a step back as he suddenly felt profound regret over his life choices.

“Expected,” Killjoy said, as Proctor moved to his side and guarded his flank. “We’ll clear the way to the survivors. Prince, keep our line of retreat open.” The two charged into the middle of the group that had cut off the survivors’ escape, and began to spin in a tight circle with each other, their hooves and knives flashing out and sending injured or dead nobles reeling away in all directions.

Wash and Zap charged in behind Blueblood, throwing their spears.

Wash caught a vampony mare in the neck, right before she was able to bite a unicorn who had been fending her off with an enormous book.

Is that Clover’s Treatise on Love and Peace?

If the seal on the cover is not a forgery, then that is my personal copy. Can’t trust the royal archives with anything these days.

Zap’s spear pierced the throat of one of the monsters, the tip passing all the way through to where it embedded itself in the head of another noble. The two spear-attached ponies almost clotheslined Duke Soarin on their way to the floor.

Wait a minute, Blueblood thought. I don’t have to talk out loud for you to hear me?

You are a slow learner, Nephew.

Ametrine walked into the hall, and suddenly all of the frenzied hissing stopped. All glowing eyes in the room turned from whatever they had been focused on before, whether it had been the bodies of the mutilated dead, the uninfected survivors, or even Blueblood. All of the monsters stared at her.

A harsh screech sounded from the direction of the announcement dais. Mounted upon a pile of dismembered dead at the base of the stage, was an overly-large, horrid abomination that looked like an amalgamation of pony, mosquito, and… other. Its elongated blade-snout and massive claws were soaked in blood and trailed the gleaming viscera of a dozen victims. One forelimb of the thing was pointed directly at Ametrine.

The other infected in the hall echoed the screech, eliciting winces from everypony.

Blueblood turned to Ametrine. “They don’t seem to like you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Ametrine replied as she turned to face a swarm of nobles who were scrambling over each other from the direction of the dais. Blueblood magic-pulled a drawer from the cabinet he and Killjoy had thrown and interposed it between himself and a dozen nobles who were trying to advance and force him either further into the Gala hall or into the exit hallway.

“Balls,” Blueblood hissed as he broke the drawer on the subsequently shattered face of the Baroness of Quillton.

There goes a quarter of the nation’s quill supply.

Wash and Zap had drawn their swords and were hacking away, but the nobles vastly outnumbered them. In a fighting retreat, Blueblood and the others were forced away from their position at the exit hallway.

Stumbling backwards to avoid the flurry of claws and teeth, Blueblood quickly found himself rump to rump with Killjoy.

“You had one job,” Killjoy said.

The survivors and their erstwhile rescuers quickly formed a circle and began to frantically fend off attacks from all angles. The press of corrupted nobility forced the circle to shrink, the sheer numbers making it impossible to hold any ground.

There was nowhere for them to go, and the flanks of the desperate defenders pressed together as they ran out of space to maneuver.

But then there was a sudden, short, yet intense vibration that travelled up from the floor, through Blueblood’s hooves and up his legs, until it settled somewhere in his gut.

The others felt it too.

All combat stopped.

The sudden silence was almost as unnerving as the tremor which had preceded it. Everypony was confused at first, survivor and monster alike looking down at the floor as if to somehow suss out where the deep shudder had originated.

Blueblood, however, was frantically scanning the walls with his eyes. There had only been one time that he had ever felt something similar. It had been when he was overseeing the commission of yet another of the obscenely large statues that littered the Canterlot Castle grounds like discarded Gala wine glasses. The sculptor had sneezed and her chisel had slipped, striking the multi-tonne chunk of marble too hard, and in just the right location.

The sharp sound of cracking stone was unmistakable.

Having found nothing on the walls, Blueblood traversed his eyes upwards and felt his jaw drop.

A large crack had formed in the domed roof of the Gala hall, running all the way from one side to the other. It was almost directly above them. There was another shudder, and a second crack appeared at a slanted angle to the first, bisecting it.

“Oh shit.” Blueblood’s voice cut through the dead silence that had befallen the Gala hall. The other survivors, and even the monsters looked at him after he’d uttered the epithet. Then they followed his gaze upwards, just in time to see a third fissure cross the other two.

Before anypony else could vocalize their shocked realizations, a vaguely triangular section of the marble ceiling, roughly 30 hoof-lengths across and weighing nearly 65 tonnes, fell towards the party below.

Blueblood barely had enough time to take a single step backwards before the hoof-thick slab of stone crashed to the floor. It did so less than a mare’s length from his face, crushing the two-dozen stupefied monsters which had stood between the survivors and the exit before doing so. The horde of monsters backed away from the cloud of powdered masonry kicked up by the impact. This gave the survivors some breathing room, which was only proverbial in nature due to the choking particulates which filled the air.

As the dust settled, four mares could be seen standing atop the massive chunk of rock, their flanks to the hallway as they faced out upon the monstrous horde.

The bakers-dozen of survivors, a couple hundred infected nobility, and one unholy mosquito-abomination all stared in complete bewilderment at the new arrivals, who may or may not have been striking poses.

Blueblood recognized one of the mares immediately.

“Maud?”

“We heard that there was a rocking party nearby,” Maud monotoned, taking what was probably supposed to be a dramatic step forward. Her face was still as expressionless as a mask, just as Blueblood remembered. But she’d shed the spelunking outfit in which he’d last seen her. Now she wore a checkered tabard over a leather cuirass, and a cap with three bells, which matched the ones attached to the front of her rear horseshoes. A sickle and knife were conspicuously strapped to her left and right saddlebags, respectively.

“We sensed it really,” breathed another of the quartet. She reached up with a robed limb, a pink hoof emerging to pull back her brocade hood ever so slightly. The receding shadows revealed an intense pair of crystal-blue eyes which stared out from the darkness.

The third was scantily clad in fur-lined leather armor, which left most of her own grayish coat exposed and lent serious doubt as to the garb’s protective qualities. A massive glaive was strapped across her back, contrasting wildly with what could only be described as a bashful expression, which consisted of violet eyes hidden partway behind a mane of greenish-gray. “We weren’t invited,” she mumbled.

“So we decided to crash!” boomed the fourth, whose voice carried the distinct scratchiness of somepony who firmly believed that indoor volumes were something that happened to other ponies. Angry amber eyes burned out from her grayish-blue face. Her flat, light-grey mane ran all the way down to the suit of green-tinted black platemail that she wore. She shifted a sheathed, enormous cleaver of a blade as she stepped down from the massive chunk of stone, causing one of her hind hooves to come down on the protruding head of one of the crushed monstrosities. Sneering back in disdain, she ground the creature's skull to paste before turning back to the horde.

“I’m Limestone Pie,” she bellowed, hoof clacking against her breastplate with a sound that indicated that it was made of some kind of stone, and not metal. “Me and my sisters are tenth generation rock farmers,” she waved a hoof to indicate herself and the other three. “And you may be a bunch of flesh eating monsters—” her hoof swung back out in an accusatory fashion at the bloodied nobility “—but I bet you all have soft hooves, from counting money your whole lives.”

The wide-eyed looks of confusion worn by the infected nobility swiftly morphed into scowls of anger. Teeth gnashed, and claws clenched in anticipation as the horde slowly advanced.

Maud turned to face Blueblood. “You should be taking this opportunity to get the others to safety.”

Blueblood scrambled up onto the marble slab along with the rest of the survivors. He frantically motioned to Soarin and the others. “Get them out of here,” he rasped, his throat raw from inhaled marble powder. “Fancy is mustering the troops at the Solar Guard barracks.”

Soarin and the other survivors needed no further incentive to make a hasty egress into the exit hallway, leaving only the self-proclaimed rock farmers and Blueblood’s impromptu coterie standing to face the mass of monstrosities.

The odds have turned in your favor, Nephew.

Auntie, I fail to see how the situation has changed.

Well, now you’re only outnumbered thirty to one.

The horde charged.

“Pinkamena,” Maud held up a hoof in the direction of the robed mare. “Marble.” She raised her other hoof in the direction of the mare with the glaive. Her hooves dropped. “Now.”

Pinkamena aimed her hooves towards the monsters coming from the dais and shockingly — in more ways than one — unleashed a torrent of magenta lightning. The arcing electricity danced across the front line of nobles, causing them to freeze in place and convulse. Their fellows crashed into them from behind, resulting in a multi-pony pileup and abrupt end to the assault from that direction.

Marble had moved to stand between Blueblood and Killjoy. She was obviously blushing, which was visible despite her mane covering the majority of her expression. On Maud’s command, she flipped her head back, casting her mane away from her face and exposing a visage that had contorted into a horrifying aspect of intense rage “—BACK OFF!”

The sudden, unnatural outburst resulted in a stumbling series of collisions as hooves and claws were dug into the floor in attempts to halt or even reverse the stampede.

Limestone reached back and grabbed the cleaver from her back. “You rich-flank bloodsuckers will never understand true strength,” she mouthed around the grip. And then she spun, hurling the weapon, but not towards the charging horde.

In a testament to Limestone’s earth pony strength, the blade flipped end over end until it embedded itself in the ceiling next to the gaping hole the sisters had made upon their entrance. Cracks swiftly formed outward from the point of impact, the mere sight of the further-damaged roof bringing the remainder of the advancing nobles to an abrupt halt.

“What’s the matter?” Limestone taunted, sitting on her haunches and beckoning with both forehooves. “Come at me, pones!”

The massive monstrosity on the dais brought its gaze down from the ceiling, before shrieking in displeasure. It took to the air on buzzing gossamer wings, hovered menacingly for a moment, and then exited the gala hall by crashing through one of the more intricate twenty-hoof-tall stained glass windows.

“These abominations appear to prefer the most expensive method of egress,” Killjoy observed callously.

With their monstrous leader in both literal and proverbial flight, the infected nobility routed. The horde of blood-soaked ponies fled in direct lines away from the sisters and Blueblood’s band, smashing through the ornate oak doors on the opposite side of the hall, tearing their way through service entrances, or running out onto the castle verandas and jumping over balconies. The sheer number of fleeing creatures meant that some were trampled or crushed to paste as the few exits were swiftly bottlenecked.

“Cowards,” Limestone spat to the fleeing flanks of the bloodsuckers.

“Perhaps,” Killjoy said as the nobility continued to climb over each other in their desperation to escape. “It would be foolish to remain, however. With the survivors already evacuated, their — and more importantly our — best chances for survival are for us to regroup with them and escort them to the guard barracks.”

“Agreed,” Blueblood said. “These things could be all over the castle grounds by now, so everypony keep an eye out for possible ambushes.”

Maud, Marble, and Pinkamena nodded in affirmation.

Limestone harrumphed and stomped a hoof. Her massive sword fell from the ceiling and landed in her outstretched foreleg. She returned the weapon to her back and motioned to Blueblood. “After you.”

As they withdrew, Blueblood took a moment to retrieve his sword and survey the devastated Gala hall. Dozens of bodies littered the floor, most in varying degrees of dismemberment. There were at least a hundred dead. It would be hard to count the exact number of fatalities considering how many of the corpses had been reduced to unidentifiable pieces or, in some cases, paste.

It only took a few minutes for Blueblood’s group to catch up to Soarin and the other survivors. Of the ponies Soarin seemed to be leading, six remained.

Only seven survivors… total? Holy me.

Auntie, you are not helping.

“Blueblood?” Fleur stared at the Prince with wide eyes. She was shaking.

“Fleur?” Blueblood said, walking up beside her. “Fancy didn’t say you’d be here. I’d have thought he’d be frothing at the bit to come save you if he thought you were in danger here.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be here yet,” Fleur said. “I was going to wait until Fancy was done with his duties for the day, but I needed to discuss my next job with Hoity Toity, so he escorted me…” Tears flowed down from her eyes. “I… I left a note in our quarters—”

“Don’t worry, Fleur. Fancy is safe, and we’ll get you safely back to him.” Blueblood tried to smile in an encouraging manner, but dared not stop to comfort Fleur until they were safely at the barracks. He winced slightly as he caught sight of some blood that had been splashed across Fleur’s neck during her escape,

There was a mental sigh. Your fangs are coming out again, nephew.

Blueblood dragged his eyes away from Fleur’s neck and realized Celestia was right; he’d been thinking about taking a small bite. He forced himself to look around at the hallway instead. His mind wandered back to the hall, and the lack of guard corpses therein. “Where in Tartarus were all the guards? An event this large would have had two dozen at least, and really should have had more than that.”

“Coloratura.”

Killjoy and Soarin had spoken at the same time.

“What about her?” Blueblood looked between the two.

Killjoy gestured for Soarin to continue.

“The Countess,” Soarin said. “She insisted that everypony, not just the guests, but the servants and guards, be allowed to have at least one glass of wine at the toast. Something about a new day for Canterlot, and not wanting to leave anypony out.” He swallowed. “There were very few ponies who didn’t touch the wine.”

“There are easily hundreds of these things,” Killjoy said. “We’ll need to mobilize the entirety of the Equestrian Guard, including the reserves.”

“Fancy should have started mustering troops at the barracks,” Blueblood said. “Let’s keep moving, I don’t want to run into any more of these wretched creatures unless I’m better prepared to cave their skulls in.”

Expressions of horror crossed the faces of the survivors.

You really do need to work on that tact, Nephew.

I’m saving it up for dealing with our “saviors.”

Blueblood slowed his pace until he was walking alongside Maud. “That was pretty fortuitous timing,” he said. “The four of you dropping in really saved our hides. I guess this means I’ll have to hire all four of you—”

Maud took a deliberate, calculated step away from Blueblood, causing him to furrow his brow in confusion. His expression quickly reversed into one of surprise as Limestone physically interjected herself between the two.

Blueblood caught a glimpse of a vague nod from Maud before she and the other sisters continued onward, leaving him alone at the rear of the group with Limestone.

“Look here,” Limestone said, shoving her muzzle well within Blueblood’s physical comfort zone. “I’ll let it slide because we just met, but you sure as hay had better remember something when dealing with me and my sisters.”

When no further words immediately followed, Blueblood frowned at the purposeful silence.

She’s forcing you to ask a question? Celestia sounded impressed. Surprising that this common mare knows something about how to manipulate a conversation.

Great, I suppose it’s somewhat fitting that the game of poisoned words should find me again upon my return to Canterlot.

Still, he had to take the bait.

“Oh?”

To her credit, Limestone did not show any signs indicating appreciation of her verbal victory. “Yeah,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’m the eldest, you want a ticket to the Pie show, you come to ME.”

“Understood,” Blueblood replied.

“Good.” The look of disdain never left Limestone’s face. “Now what do you want from the Pie sisters?”

“To hire you,” Blueblood said. “I assumed that was why you came—”

“Oh, you just assumed that we came up here to talk to you, didn’t you, Prince Important! You never even thought to question why we were here in Canterlot instead of down in Ponyville, where your company headquarters are?”

Blueblood would have felt stupid if—

If this diatribe isn’t rehearsed, then this mare would make a formidable live-debater.

Agreed. This mare has an axe to grind.

“You never thought, even for an instant, that maybe a bunch of earth ponies like us were up here in Canterlot for other reasons? Like selling the blood and sweat of our brow?”

I thought you were skilled in oratory.

Shut up and let me think!

“You just think that our work is beneath you, don’t you, mister Hoity Toity?”

Harmony above.

The name had presented itself unexpectedly, but shook Blueblood to his core. Everything had been happening so quickly, and Limestone had been laying into him with such intensity that he hadn’t stopped to think about what had just happened to them all. But the mention of Hoity Toity opened his mind to avenues of thought which enraged him.

Blueblood hated flaying another pony with words if they didn’t deserve it. But after what Limestone had just said…

“I’m not Hoity Toity,” Blueblood said flatly.

“Yeah you are, you—”

“Hoity Toity is dead.”

Limestone closed her mouth.

“I never knew Hoity Toity all that well,” Blueblood said, looking forward. “And I never will. His body is back in the Gala hall. He perished before my team arrived.”

“I’m.. sorry,” Limestone said, though her expression was still one of anger.

“Not sorry enough,” Blueblood said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Limestone’s voice rose in defiance of Blueblood’s words. Her eyes tried to bore holes in the side of his head.

“You have legitimate complaints against the Canterlot nobility and the Crown,” Blueblood said. “It’s no secret that the rich exploit the poor, and that we live lives of decadence and luxury whilst ponies such as you toil away in the fields.”

Here comes the dramatic head turn.

And for once, I’m not proud to use it.

Blueblood performed a dramatic head-turn that had years of practice behind it. This time was different though. The suddenness of the motion and the intensity of his gaze caused Limestone to back away. “How much earlier than my team did you arrive?”

The two ponies stopped walking. The rest of the group continued ahead, oblivious to Blueblood and Limestone falling even further behind.

“Those calculated cuts in the roof,” Blueblood said, closing his eyes and shaking his head, as if to try and dispel the truth that gnawed at his mind. “The timing of your drop. The poses.” He opened his eyes. “The rehearsed speech and tactics.”

Limestone clenched her jaw, and ground her teeth together.

“You could have intervened earlier, saved more ponies.”

Her eyes never left his. There was no guilt there.

“How many could you have saved? How many did you let die?”

“We were there before the toast,” Limestone spat. The venom drove Blueblood back a step. “We let them all die! They deserved it! You all deserved it!”

“Why even bother to save me and my team at all then? You hated us enough to watch the massacre happen without lifting a hoof. But then to come in and miraculously save the day—”

Limestone shoved her muzzle against his and pressed a forehoof into his chest. “I didn’t save your sorry flank because I wanted to!”

“Then why?” Blueblood stared daggers into the burning cinders of Limestone’s eyes.

“It was chosen for us.” Limestone stepped back. “Maud came back and said you were interested in hiring us. US! The Pies! Who farmed the marble for this castle! For the foundations of Canterlot! Who got stiffed on the bill! Because it was ‘for the good of Equestria!’”

Auntie, your depredations span entire generations.

“Maud said we should help you, also ‘for the good of Equestria.’”

Limestone shook in place, the sound of her teeth scraping against one another was like a hoof on a chalkboard as she hissed words through them.

“Mother and Father didn’t tell my sisters about what the crown did to our family. ‘It’s only passed on to the first-born, they said… Well I said we should stay and work our family land, like we have for generations, leave the rich to deal with the problems of the rich. But Maud insisted.”

Tears began to form at the corners of Limestone’s eyes

“Mother and Father said to take it to the Choosing Stone. I was happy, there was no way that it would choose you over us…

“The Choosing Stone said that we had to abandon our land, that it was our destiny to live and die at your hooves, to help you drive a dagger into the Dark Heart of Equestria.”

Blueblood felt his eyes widen.

The Heart.

“But it didn’t say anything about saving a bunch of privileged leeches from themselves.”

“I’ll bet it didn’t,” Blueblood said.

“No,” Limestone said, “it didn’t.”

“So, you sat there and watched, because you thought they had it coming?”

“You’re damn right I did.”

Blueblood continued to stare into those emerald pits of burning intensity. “You’re partially right,” he said. “We’ve all got it coming.” He took a resigned breath. “Regardless of your actions up to this point, you said you’re here to help kill the poisoned heart at the center of this madness?"

Limestone Nodded.

"You and your sisters are hired.”

Arc 3 Chapter 3: Post Party

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Prologue: The Sun Sets

PONEST DUNGEON

Prologue: The Sun Sets

Week 0, Day 1, Afternoon

Puffing and panting from exertion, Celestia pulled down on the thick wooden plank with a foreleg, securing the metal-riveted door against her persistent pursuers. Her alabaster hooves and the pasterns above were bare; her fur, which showed signs of matting, brought attention to the painfully obvious lack of royal regalia which typically adorned her limbs.

She deposited her massive frame onto a creaking bench, which was situated next to the remains of a splintery scrivener’s table. The desk still held the various scribing tools of its original owner, to which Celestia added by taking her weathered saddlebag and upending it upon the uneven surface. A curious collection of trinkets and talismans fell upon the former work-space: a small stone figurine of a grotesque tusked beast from inner-Zebrica, a peculiar star-shaped jade pendant which was covered in a bizarre pattern of crisscrossing lines and inexplicable groupings of dots, a roughly chipped flint arrowhead, the hoof-sized fossil-tooth of some great pelagic fish, several shattered pieces of a pony’s horn, a hoofful of bits, and a bottle of black ink.

No quill…

Her bloodshot eyes glanced around the desk, focusing on sealing wax, parchment, envelopes… but no quills.

An insidious idea wormed its way into her brain and brought her gaze towards her sides.

Her eyes widened at what they saw.

I didn’t realize it was so bad… but there are still some left… and a feather is a feather, after all...

She reached back and affixed her incisors around the bloodied stump of one of her once-glorious wings. Clamping down with all the strength her aching jaw could muster, she pulled forth a single bloodied feather.

Echoing thumps, which Celestia feared might not be mere hoofsteps, approached the door. The loosened latch jostled slightly, and the door bent back into the bar with the loud groan of distressed lumber. There was a long pause, followed by sudden, jarring thud, as an unseen force slammed up against the door.

No! I need more time!

Out of instinct, Celestia tried to light her horn to pick up her impromptu quill—and immediately doubled over as pain blossomed like a fiery flower in her forehead and then snaked to her spine in channels of ice and heat. White spots flashed in her vision like the burning wisps of troubling memories she wished she could forget. The searing sensation of absolute agony was accompanied by an uncontrolled eruption of arcane energy from her horn, which ignited one of the moth-bitten tapestries that still hung from the walls of the room.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! I don’t have time for this!

In panic, she swept a shaking hoof across the table’s rough surface, scattering the various knicknacks she had gathered, as well as the shattered remnants of her horn. She hastily hoofed one of the pieces of parchment to the cracked veneer and grabbed the blood-stained feather in her mouth. Her splintered hooves worked furiously at the slippery cap of the ink vial.

“Here! She’s in here!” The sound of crunching metal, most likely crumpling armor, as well as a pained profanity, punctuated the next crash against the door.

With a curse and a single swift stroke, Celestia smashed her hoof onto the vial, spattering liquid blackness onto her formerly pristine coat and sending it flowing across the table, where it soaked into the thirsty grain of the ancient wood. She dipped the feather into what remained of the shattered inkwell and pressed it to the parchment, writing as legibly as she dared, given how little time she likely had.

The incessant pounding against the door became a steady rhythm—an unholy drumbeat—that pressured her to finish her task before they could stop her.

As Celestia finished penning the final sentence, she heaved a sigh of relief. It was as if a titanic weight had been lifted from her withers. She folded the letter as gracefully as she could with her one clean hoof and slid it carefully into one of the envelopes.

Grabbing the closest of the bitter-tasting blocks of burgundy-colored sealing wax in her teeth, Celestia stumbled towards the flaming tapestry. Ironically, the burning fabric depicted youthful versions of herself and her sister Luna frollicking through a sunlit meadow. She held her face close enough to the blaze to soften the wax, causing her to flinch as the hairs on her nose singed. Soon after, she plunged the mouthed molten stick onto the expectant envelope, leaving a crimson blob that reminded her far too much of fetid flesh. She fumbled for her ancestral signet necklace, and once she had a firm hoof on it, she pressed it into the paraffin, sealing the envelope as surely as she had sealed her own fate.

The sickening sound of splintering wood reached her ears and caused them to twitch. “Almost! Keep hitting it!” came the voices from outside.

Don’t forget!

She flipped the envelope over and set to scrawling the first—indeed the only—name that materialized in her mind: Blueblood. With the task of completing the letter accomplished, she pushed it to the side.

Celestia fumbled her raw muzzle about in her second saddlebag, which hung in precarious proximity to the mangled ruin of her other wing, and heaved the contents onto the now-cleared workspace. Her hoof trembled as she reached for the surprisingly simple combination of metal mechanism, prefixed piping, and worked wood.

It’s amazing how something so small can be so deadly…

There was another sickening crunch, and one of the metal bands popped from the door, creating a rain of rivets and a shower of splinters. “Hang on Princess! We’re almost there!”

She held the object in one unsteady hoof and checked the main tube to make sure that everything was still in place—it was. She brought her other hoof to the back end and pulled down, eliciting a series of metallic clicks…

Captain Ironback, along with Sergeants Steadfast and Stalwart, all slammed their shoulders into the door once again, putting their names to the test. “Almost there, lads,” the Captain barked. He didn’t care if the wither plates of his armor were completely ruined, he didn’t care if his shoulders were on fire from the pain, and he didn’t care that he was disobeying direct orders. The bloody trail of meat and feathers he’d seen were reason enough to steel his resolve as he continued to throw himself against the barricade again and again. “Don't do anything rash, Princess! You’re not well! Let us help you!”

The impact that rang the door’s death knell came with the sounds of splintering wood and the clangs and twangs of metal bars and rivets falling to the floor like stricken soldiers. The wooden planks split completely down the center, and Ironback, unprepared for the sudden give, stumbled through the bifurcated door—only to behold a sight that would haunt his thoughts for the remaining few moments of his life:

Celestia was gone.

In her place stood a grotesque mockery. Her magnificent horn had shattered, reduced in resplendence to naught but a nub. Her wondrous wings, which once proudly protruded from her sides, were now no more than faintly feathered flaps of hide hung over marrow-marred, broken bones. Her warm and welcoming expression, set upon the features of refined royalty, had been replaced by a rictus of terror on the rent and tenebrous carrion that now served as her muzzle.

Worst was the fate that had befallen her eyes, which used to be so alive with mirth and motherly care. The red-rimmed orbs were now fully bloodshot, and darted around like hungry hummingbirds with nary a flower to fixate upon. The unspeakable darkness that Ironback saw in those eyes caused him to draw his own sword in a bout of bowel-clenching fear, and reduced his continence to the level of a foal’s.

The warmth running down Ironback’s hind legs brought enough clarity to his mind that, at last, he noticed a detail that had barely registered in comparison to the incredible deterioration of his splendorous sovereign: in one blackened hoof, she held a guard-issue flintlock pistol, whose barrel was shoved shakily against her own head.

Celestia’s muzzle adopted an equally terrifying and uncertain grin—or perhaps a wince—as she spoke: “You can’t touch me now!”

Her cracked words rallied what little remained of Ironback’s dwindling resolve. He threw himself across the room as swiftly as he could. “No! Princess! Don’t!”

“The single, lone stallion stands alone, watching, by himself, in complete and total solitude, as the soldiers swarm the Castle of the Two Sisters, like ants at a picnic.” The pony slowly lifted his sombrero with one hoof so that he could angle his eyes upward, towards the castle.

A gray wing waved in his field of vision. “Uhhh, Cheese, I’m right here.”

“Aww, muffins, Ditzy! You ruined my dramatic monologue!”

“Sorry, Cheese,” Ditzy Doo said. She tried to follow his gaze to the upper floors with her left eye, while her right remained fixed on him. “You can start over if you want.”

Cheese Sandwich’s entire body shivered. “Too late for a retake, Ditzy; my Cheesy-Sense is telling me that we’re about to bear witness to something—”

A single gunshot rang out, shattering more than just the relative silence the two ponies shared in the shadow of the looming edifice.

Cheese’s eyes dilated fully, and he swayed for a moment before collapsing to the ground, claimed by the spectre of unconsciousness.

Ditzy’s eyes inexplicably straightened, her right eye drawn towards where her left was focused. She could swear that she saw something terrible, something even beyond what her mind could consider to be horrible, something… unspeakable. Unnameable. Yet indisputably physical. It chilled the air with its breath, if what It issued could be called breath. Ditzy blinked away bloody tears and she held her head in her hooves as her shattered mind fought for some semblance of coherence about the essence, entity, or presence looming over her.

But then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the dreadful vision of fathomless evil was gone.

Looking down at Cheese’s seizure-ridden, supine form with her left eye, Ditzy’s right eye warily wandered of its own accord towards her right hoof. A letter sat upon the upturned frog of her hoof, its presence as preposterous as the wonders she’d just witnessed. She examined the envelope and, after marveling at the royal-emblem wax-seal, turned the letter over to read the writing on the other side.

An unexpected series of involuntary laughs pushed their way through her clenched teeth.

Cheese’s shivering suddenly stopped. “W… What happened, Ditzy?” His voice was quiet, flat, and devoid of emotion.

Ditzy turned to Cheese and stifled a giggle. “I dunno, but I… I need… to deliver this letter.”

“Of course…” Cheese’s barrel shuddered with sudden laughter. “Yes, yes, my Cheesy-Sense says that you need to get that letter to somepony… Blue.”

Both of them devolved into a chorus of cackling. They laughed until their jaws ached, and their lips pulled back into rictuses of horror. But even as they laughed, they both wept, sending bloody-red streams surging down their muzzles.

Requisite Respite

Chapter 8: Requisite Respite

Week 3, Day 3, Morning

The recovery mission was not going as smoothly as Shining had envisioned.

He’d set out with Amethyst to the broken-down cart they’d passed on the old road in the hopes that the two of them could retrieve the crests he assumed still lay within. More ponies would have been preferable, but Rainbow and Zecora were still recuperating, as were survivors of the ill-fated undertaking in Froggy Bottom Bog.

Shining had thought that the two of them would be more than suited to a simple gallop-and-grab, but four brigands had descended upon them whilst they were unpacking one of the crates.

Spinning in a broad circle, Shining swung his sword, the tip of it striking the closest bandit in her temple. The blade passed through her eye, the bridge of her muzzle, her other eye, and her other temple.

The stricken mare screamed as she fell to the ground, and continued to wail in agony as she held her hooves up to her ruined face. “I can’t see! Oh Celestia, I can’t see!”

Shining moved to put the suffering mare out of her misery, and would have, had one of her stallion companions not charged and bucked him into Amethyst and, subsequently, the broken-down crest-wagon. The vehicle, already severely damaged, collapsed, burying Amethyst in debris and pinning Shining’s back half to the ground.

Struggling to free himself, Shining watched as the stallion approached, sword drawn in clenched teeth. “You’re going to pay for cutting up my mare’s face. I think I’ll take your marefriend there and—” The bandit suddenly turned his head up and to the side, his eyes going wide and his hoof raising to point shakily. “Oh Celestia, what in Tartarus is that?!”

As the other brigands looked in the indicated direction, Shining saw a massive mint-colored blur bowl into the bandit, using two massive claw-like appendages to grasp him by the neck and a hind leg, and then summarily lift him over its head.

The being was terrifying; easily twice the head-height of a normal pony, bipedal, with long gangly limbs, a flat face, completely devoid of piliation everywhere but the mane and eyebrows—and yet the eyes, disturbing as their placement was, were unmistakably those of a pony. It wore rags that hung to its hips and flanks, and chains that hung across its disturbingly vertical barrel.

“Oh Celestia, put me down!” shrieked the raised bandit, his sword dropping when he made his horrified exclamation.

“Anything you say,” replied the abomination, swinging the bandit about by his hind leg like a living flail; first cracking his head off of the cobbles, and then hurling his dazed and bleeding form into another one of the brigands.

The only bandit still standing spun on their hooves and ran face-first into an axe swung by a beige mare, who was wearing a rugged-looking suit of scale mail. Hints of a blue and pink mane peeked out from under an iron helmet.

The bipedal monstrosity bounded over to the other two stunned brigands, raised one of its forelimbs, and lowered one of its chains to shackle the two bandits together.

The axe-wielding mare put her forehooves on the bandit’s muzzle—which occupied both sides of her axe—and shoved him off the blade, ruining his face in the process.

“Damnit,” she swore.

“Bon Bon, you need to—” the monstrosity’s statement was cut short as it devolved into a roar, which further devolved into an ear-rending scream. Its limbs shortened, its posture normalized to horizontal, its body sprouted fur all over, and its chains moved—seemingly of their own accord—to wrap around its barrel. With its newly formed hooves, it shakily latched a padlock through the chains across its chest. The transformation having completed, it now looked very much like a unicorn mare—who started talking again as if her sentence hadn’t just been interrupted by a horrifying metamorphosis; “—stop hitting them in the face like that. We’ll never be able to collect the bounties if the authorities can’t identify them!”

Bon Bon removed her helmet. “Well, I didn’t cut her face,” she indicated the now-still, eyeless brigand mare. “And I wouldn’t have had to hit him in the face if he didn’t panic and run when you let the beast out, Lyra!”

The two looked at each other with expressions which Shining felt bordered on murderous anger—and then they chuckled, clenched teeth replaced with warm smiles as they placed forehooves on each other’s withers.

“Sorry, best friend.”

“Sorry, best friend.”

The two hugged, then pulled away slightly, gazing intently into each other’s eyes. They each tilted their heads and moved as if to press their muzzles together.

“Uh, excuse me,” Shining said from his position half-buried under the cart.

Both mares turned from their “argument” to look at the pinned pony.

“Do you two think you could maybe… help us out here?”

Amethyst’s muffled vocalization of agreement could barely be heard from under the collapsed cart.

Week 3, Day 3, Noon

“You know,” Shining said, pointing at the stallion strapped to Bon Bon’s back, “that’s the second bandit we’ve run into who was more interested in tough-talk than in situational awareness.”

“Yeah,” Bon Bon replied, “the profession of banditry doesn’t tend to attract the smartest of ponies.”

“I wonder if it’s something they teach in bandit school,” Lyra mused, earning her a flat look from the others—but especially Bon Bon.

“Speaking of professions,” Amethyst said as she tried to tighten a strap that had six crests attached to it. “Lyra, was it?”

“Yep.”

“So,” Amethyst pressed, “what is this I hear about you turning into a giant monster?”

“That?” Lyra waved a hoof dismissively. “That’s just a foreign spirit possessing my body.”

Amethyst’s eyebrows threatened to rise off of her head. “That’s insane,” she said. “Why would you risk your soul by allowing some foreign entity to share your body?!”

“I didn’t really have much choice in the matter,” Lyra replied, shifting the weight of the two face-mangled corpses strung across her back. “While I was looking through all of the restricted texts, it just… happened.”

“Just… happened?” Amethyst furrowed her brows.

“Yeah! One minute I’m reading over the forbidden litany of soul transference, and the next, wham! 12 hooves high, upright, and arms and hands!”

“Just from reading it?” Amethyst said with no small amount of incredulity evident in her voice.

“Somepony can’t read unless it’s out loud,” Bon Bon deadpanned, her expression one of half-lidded exasperation. She elbowed one of her bound and gagged passengers in the face when they tried to mumble something.

“Well,” Shining said, “if Rainbow were here, I’m sure she’d find that hilarious; but I’m a lot less inclined to feel that way. I’m more worried about—are you in control? Or does it control you when… ‘it’ manifests?”

Lyra looked skyward, a thoughtful expression on her muzzle. “It’s like letting a wild animal out of a cage, except… I’m riding it, watching what it does, telling it what to do. It listens to me most of the time, and I can force it back into its cage if I need to. That’s really the best I can do to explain it, it’s just so… exhilarating, and terrifying at the same time.”

Shining raised an eyebrow, taking a moment to process what he’d heard. He turned his head to Lyra’s companion. “How about you, Miss Bon Bon?”

She shrugged in response. “Just your average bounty hunter here. After we turn these degenerates over to the Ponyville authorities—prolly take them a week or two to verify these scumbags’ identities and pay us properly—we’ll prolly look for employment with your outfit. From what you told us, the pay sounds decent enough.”

Glancing at Lyra, Shining frowned. “We’ll have to see what Blueblood thinks. He’s the one bankrolling the entire operation anyhow.”

Week 4, Day 2, Afternoon

Rainbow held a weathered ceramic disk motionless in her hoof. She stared at her lucky gambling chip as if it might somehow hold the answers that she hadn’t been able to find at the bottom of countless cider mugs. With her gaze unwavering, the raucous sounds of the tavern around her slowly faded away as her mind replayed events of the past few weeks again and again.

She’d been making fools of the undead, they hadn’t even touched her until they met that big one with the shield.

The arbalest bolt sank into her flank. It hurt, but she knew she could deal with it; she was awesome, after all. The feeling of Amethyst’s holy magic knitting her wound actually hurt more than when the injury had been inflicted.

But then she turned and felt the wind driven from her. She blinked stupidly at the feathered wooden dowel sticking out of her chest. When she tried to breathe, she only drew in a lungful of blood and sputtered. The healing magic hit her again and, while the pain was excruciating, she was able to draw breath again—

Until the fire tore through her side, causing her to spray blood like some kind of macabre fountain. This couldn’t be happening to her! She was the best there was! They couldn’t touch her earlier! But now, she was drifting swiftly into the dark clutches of death. The shadows danced around the edges of her vision, closing in like a pack of hungry timber wolves. There was only a pinprick of light left, with horrors closing in from all sides.

“Stop killing Rainbow Dash!” The pain this time was unbearable as her side repaired itself and she gasped back from the brink of death. She inhaled frantically, like somepony who had been about to drown, but broke the surface of the water just in the nick of time.

She’d almost died.

And she’d almost died again, in the bog.

Zecora looked at the enormous thrumming hive and then to her. “When you see the fire flash, run with me, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow had barely lit the torch when they were both swarmed. Thousands of tiny needles shoved their way into her skin. At first it was painful and irritating, but manageable… but there were so many, so very, very many. She’d started to get dizzy and then… she never saw what had stabbed her. But she felt the sharp, fiery pain in her side. It all went numb. And then everything went dark.

If Zecora hadn’t carried her out of there—

“Stop killing Rainbow Dash!”

She couldn’t breathe; her lungs were filled with blood.

“Run with me, Rainbow Dash!”

She couldn’t move; the mosquito anesthetic numbed her.

“Stop killing Rainbow Dash!”

There was only pain.

“Run with me, Rainbow Dash!”

There was only fear.

“Rainbow Dash!”

There was only… despair.

“Rainbow Dash!”

The voices called to her, encouraging her to keep going, to keep fighting. But all she could focus on was her own impending doom.

“Rainbow Dash!”

Everypony’s doom.

“Rainbow Dash!”

We’re all doomed—

A hoof shoved her roughly. “Rainbow Dash!”

Her lucky chip fell to the table with a clatter. Rainbow looked up slowly into Shining Armor’s worried eyes.

“Celestia above, Dash,” Shining said. “How many have you had? You’ve been over here all day—”

Rainbow didn’t know what to say, if anything. All she really wanted to do was curl up, or cry, or scream. She downed the remainder of her cider mug instead.

“Woah! Hold on there, Dash!” Shining put a hoof on her withers, but she shrugged him off and turned away.

Rainbow raised a forehoof. “Barkeep! One more here!”

Shining put a forehoof over hers and forced it down to the table. “Dash, you need to stop drinking. Blueblood wants you, me, Amethyst and Zecora to do a patrol up and down the old road. Some bandits—”

Slapping his hoof away, Rainbow raised her forehoof again. “Keep ‘em coming, Berry!”

“Dash.” Shining interposed himself between Rainbow and the bar. “We have work to do.”

“Go away,” Rainbow grumbled.

A pained expression crossed Shining’s face. “Dash… I know you got hurt pretty bad, twice. But you’ve gotta get back on the horse, and on the wagon too. You drinking this much isn’t going to fix anything.”

“Thanks, mom.” Rainbow tried to lean so that she could see the bar around Shining, but he kept maneuvering himself to be in her way. When it became clear that she’d have to stand up, she shakily rose to her hooves and took a step towards the bar.

Shining placed his forehoof on her withers again. “The Dash I know would be too awesome to drown her worries away.”

Rainbow froze in place and didn’t reply.

“She’d face those worries,” Shining continued, “tell them that there’s no way they’d be able to keep her down, because—”

Placing a hoof on Shining’s lips, Rainbow stifled a chuckle. “Ok, fine. I’ll go with you, just stop being so corny.”

“It’s not corny if it’s true!” Shining said in a laughably argumentative tone.

Rainbow smiled and hit him in the shoulder. “That makes it even more corny, you dope.” She stumbled and put her forehoof across his withers for balance. “You said something about bandits?”

“Forgetting something?” Shining was grinning like an idiot again.

Rainbow thrust a wing out and retrieved her lucky chip. “Not that I’ll need this, you understand?”

Shining’s smile widened. “Of course.”

Week 4, Day 3, Afternoon

The bandit stallion screamed as his face was eaten away by whatever Zecora packed into her sachets. As he clawed at the shrieking ruin that used to be his muzzle, his forehooves began to melt away as well.

Rainbow landed nearby, slashing open the throat of a mare, who had tried to throw a knife at her. She spun around and fired her pistol point-blank into the dissolving bandit, partially to put him out of his misery, and partially to stop the unholy noises he was making. “What is with these bozos, Shining? Didn’t they get the hint after you, Amethyst and the ‘best friends’ cleared out a bunch of them last week?”

“Maybe they learn slow,” Shining said as he drove his sword into a prone bandit’s back.

“Hay!” one of the bandits yelled. “Don’t talk like we’re not—” The bandit was silenced when Amethyst’s cudgel cracked his skull open.

“I mean seriously! What are they think—” Rainbow kicked the throat-slit mare onto her back and recoiled as she was shot in the chest point-blank with a pistol the bandit had been laying on. Shocked, she stumbled backwards a few steps before collapsing in a heap.

Amethyst blasted Rainbow with a surge of healing energies, forcing out the bullet and mostly closing the entry hole. Zecora galloped close and upended a vial of blue liquid, which fully healed the remainder of Rainbow’s wound.

Swearing like a sailor, Shining spun around and brought his sword down on the bandit-mare’s neck, severing her head from her body. “Dash, are you—”

“Why?” Rainbow looked up at the others with tears in her eyes. “What am I doing wrong? Why does this keep happening?”

Amethyst and Zecora glanced at each other and shuffled their hooves awkwardly.

Shining frowned. “We should head back. I think that was the last of them anyhow.”

Week 5, Day 1, Evening

The entirety of the company, with the conspicuous exception of Rainbow Dash, sat at the drawing room table with Blueblood. Steepling his forehooves, he looked around at the gathered ponies. “With the mosquito problem eradicated, and the old road bandits driven off, it's time to get back to tracking down the necromancer who’s been defiling the catacomb ruins. Now, I don’t like sending anypony out on two missions in a row like this. But with Snips dead—Celestia rest his poor soul—and no encouraging prospective recruits, our second team is down one pony, and is going to need one of your expertise,” he said, indicating Amethyst, Shining, and Zecora. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to—”

“There is no need to insist,” Zecora said with a raised hoof. “I am more than happy to assist.”

“Thank you, Zecora.” Blueblood looked at the Apples and Snails. “Now, I know the memory of that swamp-beast is probably still fresh in your minds. Are all three of you still up for this?”

Applejack nodded. “I reckon we ain’t got no problem smashin’ up a buncha old bones, your grace.”

“Eeyup,” said Big Mac.

Winona barked.

Blueblood looked over to Snails. “What about you?”

Looking intently at the table for a moment, Snails raised his dark-blue eyes and locked them on Blueblood. “Me and Snips were gonna adventure around Equestria together. I’d be letting Snips down if I didn’t keep on going, eh? And I’m not gonna let him down again.”

Putting both of his hooves on the table, Blueblood stood. “Very well, then. You four will leave tomorrow. Get some rest.”

Week 5, Day 4, Evening

Applejack watched with tired, yet somehow wide eyes as Rainbow Dash pounded down yet another cider. “Celestia above, Rainbow, cider’s meant to be enjoyed! You ain’t but getting half of the experience chugging it like that!”

It looked like Rainbow tried to flip Applejack the hoof, but all she managed to do was knock one of her mugs over. She let out a slurred, drunken shriek and started trying to lap the beverage from the table before it could drip to the floor.

Shaking her head, Applejack took a sip of her own cider, cringing at the taste. She put the mug down and turned to the bartender. “Landsakes! Now, what in tarnation is this here, Berry? I just got back from wrangling a bushel-full of skeletons in a bunch of dark tunnels, and all I wanted was to sit down and have some taste of home! Now, I know Sweet Apple acres is just outside of town. And I know what Sweet Apple Acres cider tastes like. And this ain’t Sweet Apple Acres cider!”

Wiping down a mug using a questionably clean rag, Berry looked at Applejack with exasperation written cleanly across her features. “That’s because Sweet Apple Acres stopped selling to me years ago.”

“Stopped selling?” Applejack asked.

“Yes,” Berry replied. “They’ve been sending all of their cider up to Canterlot ever since they had Celestia put in all those ‘upgrades.’ They’re prolly making loads of bits selling it to the rich ponies up there, never mind that now us country bumpkins need to order our cider from Appleoosa if we want anything to drink.”

Applejack slammed a hoof on the table. “Hogwash! That don’t sound like Granny Smith, not at all. She was always looking out for the local ponyfolk. I ain’t gonna believe she’d keep y’all from buying her cider unless something or somepony was forcing her hoof.”

“Well,” Berry said, “I don’t know why she suddenly stopped; I just know that she did. Hay… you’re an Apple; that makes you family, right? Maybe you can trot on over there and ask her what’s going on?

“No,” Applejack said. “I burnt that bridge long ago. She ain’t got time for somepony like me that just up and left. Especially not after my brother followed me and left her all alone, too.”

“Well, until you can put your petty family squabbles aside and get us cider from Sweet Apple Acres, I guess you’ll have to live with what we get from—” Berry looked at the brand burnt into the side of the keg she had on the bar. “—Braeburn’s Brokeback Beverages.”

Week 5, Day 5, Morning

“You’re hired.”

Blueblood could feel the heat of Shining’s glare as he instructed Ditzy to escort Lyra and Bon Bon to their rooms. Amethyst, on the other hoof, didn’t seem to be nearly as perturbed.

Once the two mares had left, Shining turned to Blueblood. “Sir, why did you just hire them? We need to be careful with Lyra there. That… thing within her, that she says she’s keeping contained with those magical chains and locks, I don’t trust her when she says it’s not dangerous to us.”

“Your concern is noted,” Blueblood said, “but we’re short-staffed and I can’t keep overworking all of you. I had to send Zecora on the ruins expedition earlier this week because we lost Snips. Granted, she dealt with exposure to the undead better than the Apples and Snails. But two missions in a row have left her exhausted enough that she opted for bed rest instead of attending this hiring session. She likely won’t be able to join you on the next ruins excursion I’m planning. Not to mention that Miss Dash is still a wreck after last week.”

Lighting his horn, Blueblood lifted a piece of parchment from the table. “Besides, after witnessing the horror that was the mission to Froggy Bottom Bog, I thought it would be beneficial to have something monstrous on our side—you said she picked a pony up and swung them around as an improvised weapon?”

Shining’s frown intensified. “Yes, she did, but—”

“And,” Blueblood interjected, “she did not attack you or Amethyst, despite your proximity to the bandits?”

“No, she didn’t.”

Sighing, Blueblood favored Shining with an exasperated expression. “Then what’s the problem?”

Releasing a sigh of his own, Shining shook his head. “I… don’t know, Sir. They just… unnerve me—and I thought you’d just turn them down out-of-hoof.”

Blueblood gave him a hard look. “Shining, just the other week you advised me on just how perilous this undertaking was, and how we would have to keep at it. We can’t just turn down applicants because they’re too dangerous; that defeats the whole purpose of trying to recruit effective fighting ponies in the first place!” He rubbed his hooves against his temples. “Do you have any idea how many unqualified applicants I’ve had to turn down these last few weeks?”

“I know, Sir, I just—”

“Shining,” Blueblood said, “you and Amethyst here have barely had two weeks to recover from having a cart fall on you and nearly break your backs. I shouldn’t have even sent you both on that bandit patrol last week. Amethyst has been resting up. You should follow her example, go up to the abbey and meditate, or pray or… something. I need you both ready for the next excursion.”

“Yes… Sir.” Shining turned and walked out of the room, head lowered. It looked like he was walking to his own execution.

“What are your thoughts, Amethyst?” Blueblood felt less sure now that Shining had left.

She gave him a measured look. “I share Shining’s reservations about Lyra, Prince. But I also concur with your assessment; we would be fools not to utilize her. I’d much rather see her transform into a monster to mangle our foes than see another of our allies torn to shreds.”

Blueblood smiled, perhaps warmly. “I’m glad you see things the way that I do, especially since there… there is something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, for a while now.”

Amethyst raised an eyebrow.

Week 5, Day 5, Afternoon

“Prince,” Amethyst’s voice was surprisingly steady as she knelt, shifting through the fireplace ashes with a cautious forehoof.

“Call me Blue,” Blueblood responded. “If you’re going to be acting as my spiritual doctor for this particular problem, I’d rather we were on closer terms.”

“As you wish, Prin—Blue. If what you’re telling me is true, then you really should have come to me sooner—” As her hoof caught on and flipped a charred skull, she recoiled, as if stung by a wasp. “Celestia above!”

Blueblood frowned. “Swearing is very unlike you, Amethyst.”

“Apologies,” Amethyst said, looking upward and making the sign of the sun. She quickly stood and brushed her soot-stained hoof on the lower part of her robes. “I thought maybe the stress was getting to you, giving you nightmares or something… but this is definitive proof—this is bad! Prin—Blue—we need to get you to the sanitarium! Make sure you haven’t been infected—”

“No sanitarium,” Blueblood said firmly. “Especially now that I know I’m not crazy.”

“But… you said at least two of these… things managed to make contact with you. You don’t even know what that bandit corpse did, but Neighsay pumped your stomach full of necromantic material—” Her face discolored slightly. “Especially since we’ve known that there’s a necromancer on the loose! You can’t take this lightly.”

“That is why I’ve confided in you, Amethyst.” Blueblood stopped just short of placing his hoof on her withers. “You are a holy vestal. You have the ability to detect if I’ve been tainted by foul necromancy, and to purify me if I have.”

“Blue—” She regarded him with a stern expression but eventually released a sigh of resignation. “Alright, stand still then.” Amethyst put her hoof to her chest and her horn started to glow faintly.

After a few moments, the glowing stopped.

Looking at Blueblood with a relieved expression, Amethyst smiled. “You’re clean. I don’t detect any necromantic energies within you.”

Blueblood released a heavy breath. “Well, thank Celestia for that, at least. Now we can focus on figuring out how and why it’s happening, and on preventing it in the future.”

“Absolutely,” Amethyst said. “I’ll start working on wards to keep your chamber free of any undead trespassers and then I can start trying to trace the energies—” She looked at the patch on the right side of Blueblood’s face. “Blue, you said you haven’t been to the sanitarium… has anypony looked at your eye yet?”

“No. Do you—do you think you can do something about it?”

She grinned. “I won’t know till I see it.”

Reluctantly, Blueblood reached a hoof up and removed the patch from the right side of his face.

Gasping, Amethyst leaned closer. “I’ve… never seen anything like it,” she said, angling for a better look at Blueblood’s stygian eye. “It’s like the pupil expanded to encompass everything else—but there are no veins… I don’t see the normal markings I’d expect to see on the back of your retina, and it’s not reflecting any light at all.”

“Any ideas?” Blueblood asked.

Lighting her horn, Amethyst pointed it at Blueblood’s eye. “Maybe, but I want to do a diagnostic first. Let me try to—”

Amethyst lay on her side, the cold and wet stone floor sucking the heat from her body. Horrible sounds echoed around her—the clash of metal, feral roaring, shouting—but it was too dark for her to see properly. She felt tears streaming down her muzzle in a torrent, as her body was wracked with sobs. Her numbed forehooves, which were pressed against her barrel, were filled with something warm, ropey, and slippery. A flash of light revealed—

“Snap out of it!” Blueblood slapped her muzzle, and Amethyst was painfully brought back to the physicality of his bedroom.

Her vision blurred, dampness soaking into her muzzle, but Amethyst couldn’t even move to wipe the tears from her eyes. She was in shock; paralyzed, despite every instinct screaming impulses at her to gallop away, somewhere, anywhere other than where she was at that very moment.

“Are you okay?” Blueblood’s question barely registered in her racing thoughts. “Amethyst!” He shook her slightly. “Amethyst!”

Turning her gaze towards Blueblood, Amethyst saw the concern etched across his features. She felt as if her heart had started to slow down—only for fear to grip her insides, like a massive twisting claw, as her eyes wandered over the right side of his face. While once again covered by the patch, it rekindled knowledge of what lay within that nightmarish orb of unreflective darkness. A bout of sudden shudders shook through her at the traumatic recollection of what she had witnessed, and a shameful blush rose to her face as she felt a wet warmth run down her hind legs.

“Amethyst! Amethyst, are you—what the—” Blueblood looked down. “Celestia above.” He quickly looked around the room, and carefully lead her towards a cushion. “Okay, okay, let’s sit you down for a moment.”

Despite her body not wanting to move, Amethyst somehow allowed herself to be pulled, stumbling and sniffling, to the floor pillow. Her legs collapsed under her when she reached it and she broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.

Blueblood kept a steady hoof on her withers as she wept. “Umm… calm down, okay?” He mentally berated himself for his lack of finesse. “It’s all right now,” he said to her in the most gentle voice he could muster. “Just… just breathe, and everything will be okay? Just breathe.”

Struggling for some time to do just as he said, eventually Amethyst calmed slightly. As her tears abated, and she found herself able to speak again, she looked up at Blueblood’s worried face and babbled “I—I’m sorry, I—”

“Hush,” he said, placing his other hoof to her shoulder. “You’re okay now, that’s all that matters for the moment.”

Her face burned crimson as she looked down at herself. “But I—”

Blueblood moved his hoof from her shoulder to her chin, and raised it so that she could look him in his eye. “Forget about that. The important thing is that you’re okay.”

Despite the tremors that still ran through her, she managed a weak nod.

Still looking her in the eye, Blueblood’s hoof moved to Amethyst’s shoulder again. “What happened?”

Amethyst struggled to think of the events, step by step. “I… cast a simple diagnostic spell, to see what had happened to the structure of your eye. But it—it was only supposed to show me what your eye looked like on the inside. Whatever happened… it took over my spell and flooded all of my senses. It was like I was living a memory, except that it was something that hasn’t ever happened to me.”

Another round of jitters passed through Amethyst as she attempted to focus on the memory. “There was fighting… it was pitch black… I was badly hurt.” She began to tear up again, and her left forehoof gripped itself tightly to her stomach. “I was so scared, and in pain… I was dying… and something was coming for me, to speed things along—”

“Something?” Blueblood asked. “A monster?”

Shaking her head violently, Amethyst closed her eyes, as if to fend off the unwanted imagery. “No! That’s the worst part!” Tears began to flow freely down her muzzle again. “It was a pony. Just a pony. I begged them to help me—I knew that they could, I thought that they would… but then I saw her eyes pass over me, regarding me like I was a thing—a lowest form of filth—and I knew. She meant to kill me.” Amethyst began to bawl again.

“Hush,” Blueblood said again, bringing Amethyst into a tight embrace. “Hush now. You’re here, you’re in one piece, and there is nopony here trying to kill you.”

“Thank you,” she managed between sobs, returning the hug. It was several moments before she pulled away, concern and embarrassment clear on her face. “You… you won’t tell anypony else about—”

“Not even Ditzy,” Blueblood said. “What happens in Prince Blueblood’s room, stays in Prince Blueblood’s room.” He winked, perhaps a bit too suggestively, earning him a flat look from Amethyst.

Standing up slowly, Blueblood looked down at Amethyst with a concerned expression. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure out what happened. But first, let’s sneak you to a bath and I’ll see about getting your robes washed.”

Week 5, Day 6, Afternoon

“So we’re it, eh?” Lyra’s statement earned eyerolls from Bon Bon and Shining.

“Indeed,” Blueblood replied, showing extreme resilience in the face of Lyra’s continued interruptions. “You four,” he said, indicating Shining, Amethyst, Lyra, and Bon Bon, “are the only ponies currently fit for field duty; Rainbow is still knee-deep in cider, trying to forget her most recent brush with death; Zecora, Snails, and the Apples are resting after their attempt to track down the necromancer a few days ago. While they didn’t find any clues to go off of, they at least they managed to clear out another section of the catacombs.”

Shifting in her seat, Amethyst—who was not wearing her armor, much to the surprise of all but Blueblood—tapped on the Everfree Forest map. “We’re deploying to search the ruins again.”

“What is the objective?” Bon Bon asked as she studied the maps and charts which blanketed the table.

“Your objectives are twofold,” Blueblood answered. “First: recovery of valuables and allegiance-heirlooms. The unexplored portions of the catacomb ruins should still be filled with chests and cabinets from which we can replenish our coffers, which are only slowly recovering after the Froggy Bottom Bog expedition. I only ask that you not loot the coffins themselves. We already have a necromancer loose down there; we don’t need the dead reanimating of their own accord as well just because somepony got greedy.

Sliding a piece of parchment across the table with a hoof, Blueblood showed the others a sketch of one of the crests they’d retrieved. “Recovery of these heirloom items is also important. Spending those we’d acquired already, I was able to extend our list of contacts and ensured both that more recruits will arrive, and that we’ll have basic necessities covered for those bunking here at the estate.”

Amethyst frowned as she gestured over the blank portions of the map. “Our second objective is to track down the necromancer responsible for all of the skeletal horrors in the catacombs, before they can start reanimating other, more dangerous, things.”

“Yes,” Blueblood said. “I’ve been looking through the new journals recovered last week and have found that she was aware of their presence down there. She makes several references to where she thought them to be hiding out underground, but without further mapping of the tunnel networks, the references are useless to us.”

“We’ll need to keep an eye out for landmarks, and other features to navigate by,” Amethyst said. “The sooner we are able to find and deal with this defiler of the dead, the better.”

“You’ll be heading out tomorrow morning,” Blueblood said. “Any questions?”

The party shook their heads.

“Good, we’ll adjourn then. I’ll see everypony bright and early tomorrow, when we load your gear.” Blueblood lit his horn, looked down, and began writing as the party rose to leave.

After the other ponies had filed out, Shining Armor still remained. “Sir?”

Blueblood looked up from the parchment. “How can I help you, Shining?”

Despite standing at attention, not moving a single muscle, it was quite clear that Shining Armor was extremely anxious. “I wanted to ask you a question, Sir.”

The quill dropped to the table and Blueblood’s horn-light extinguished. “Ask away.”

Shining actually shifted uncomfortably this time. “Have I… have I done something to offend you, Sir?”

Not quite sure if he’d heard the question correctly, Blueblood canted his head. “Pardon?”

“Have I offended you in some way, Sir?”

The question made less sense to him more than the first time Blueblood had heard it. “Why do you ask?”

Beginning to pace, Shining studied the floor intently. “Sir, you’ve always included me in the briefing setups. When I saw that Amethyst knew most of the briefing details already, I thought—”

“Shining—” Blueblood held up a hoof. “I didn’t exclude you from anything. There wasn’t a setup session. Amethyst knew about the briefing material because I was going over it when she approached me about… a personal matter.”

“Oh.” Shining Armor managed to look suitably embarrassed.

“Shining?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“The stress of this whole thing is getting to you, isn't it?”

“No! I mean… no, Sir, it isn’t.”

Closing his eyes, Blueblood massaged his temples with his forehooves and sighed. “You been out of sorts since after the first mission, Shining—”

“Sir, I—”

“Stop,” Blueblood said, holding up a hoof. “I know you’ve been through a lot: the fall from the stagecoach; the two ambushes; Rainbow’s breakdown and when she came back hurt from the bog; Snails almost shot you in the head; you watched that poor colt get eaten; a cart fell on you; this last fight with the bandits where Rainbow broke down again—” Blueblood shook his head. “Whatever you’ve been doing to relieve stress isn’t enough; it’s showing in your performance and your judgement—what recreational activities have you been taking part in since we arrived?”

Shining looked at the floor, like a foal who’d just been caught with their hoof in the cookie jar. “None.”

“None?! None?!” Blueblood slammed his hooves down onto the table, denting it. “Damnit, Shining! You’re my personal guard, I can’t have you losing your Celestia-damned mind to burnout!” He backhooved a pile of parchment, spreading it across the table and onto the floor.

“Sir, I—”

“Even Amethyst, the workaholic organizer, is taking time to meditate and pray up in the abbey!” Blueblood poked a hoof at Shining’s chest. “You are now the second pony I have to send on this mission who isn’t one hundred percent ready—Damnit!”

“Who’s the—Amethyst? What—”

“No! You don’t get to worry about that,” Blueblood fumed. “You are going to be out of commission for a while after this mission.”

“But, Sir—” Shining stopped talking when he saw a look approaching murder in Blueblood’s remaining eye. “Yes, Sir.”

“We’ll talk about this when you get back,” Blueblood said, shaking his head. “If I had any other ponies, I’d be keeping you here for this one.” He suddenly looked very tired. “I can’t afford to lose you, Shining. Please, from here on out, take better care of yourself.”

“—Yes, Sir.”

Foraging the Farmstead

Chapter 12: Foraging the Farmstead

Week 8, Day 7, Afternoon

Pain.

Pain was becoming far too familiar a companion upon Blueblood’s awakenings, he mused from his prone position.

Groaning from a general feeling of discomfort, heaviness and—perhaps—agony, Blueblood shifted his position slightly, the sounds of crunching glass and grating wood greeting his ears. His eye fluttered open to a hazy view of a small bit of sunlit debris—he was apparently pinned underneath something large and wooden, judging by the feel of it pressing into his back; he figured it was most likely a bookcase, if the books scattered in front of his field of vision were any indicator.

This… reminds me of the millennial anniversary of the Summer Sun Celebration.

“Auntie?!” Blueblood tried, and failed, to lift his head; the only result was a painful grinding of his forehead against some glass shards.

Do you remember how worried I was?

“Auntie, I… I think I’m hurt,” Blueblood groaned into the rubble. “I can’t… move. Where are you? Can… can you help me?”

I have helped you, so much, nephew. Did you know that Nightmare Moon was going to return that very day?

“Nightmare… Moon?” Blueblood replied, figuring that he didn’t really have too many options other than talk, seeing as how Celestia hadn’t actually physically appeared to him… yet. “The Mare… in the Moon?” Despite his struggles, he still couldn’t position himself well enough to stand.

Yes. Do you recall the prophecy; that on the thousandth year of the Summer Sun Celebration, the stars would aid in her escape?

“Yes—” Shifting again and wincing in pain, Blueblood felt a sudden warmth in his mouth as he slipped and accidentally bit through his lip. “—what… what does that have to do with anything?!”

Don't you see Nephew? Don’t you realize? The Celebration passed without incident; I defeated the prophecy, cheated fate itself.

A splitting headache overwhelmed Blueblood’s senses as he attempted to light his horn. “What… are you saying—”

I spent years reviewing Luna’s own research before I was able to fashion the correct relics, before I was able to properly conduct the rituals. But, through arduous expenditures of time and resources, I was able to ensure that the stars would be unable to fulfil their role. It is ironic that it was through her own hoofwork that I was able to ensure the path of one star; I summoned it here, to us, to ensure that it won’t ever be able to aid in her escape.

“You—” Finding a sudden renewed strength in his outrage, Blueblood forced himself upright within the pile of debris, wincing as he struggled to regain his hooves. “You did this?!” With a pained grunt of adrenaline-fueled exertion, he threw off the bookcase that had been pinning him to the floor.

Only after taking a few breaths to steady himself, did Blueblood take stock of himself and his surroundings. He stood in the Manor’s western hallway, which was strewn with various toppled pieces of furniture and a fine coating of shattered glass, which crunched underhoof with every movement. He felt like he’d been bucked a few dozen times, and bloodied glass trickled down his muzzle and to the floor. “You… crashed a comet… into Equestria?!”

I guaranteed that Nightmare Moon could never be able to bring eternal night to this land.

“You almost brought eternal night to this realm by not returning!” Blueblood yelled at the sun, clearly visible through the shattered shutters and wide windows in the hallway—

“Prince Blueblood!”

The powerful voice resounded through the door at the end of the hall, rattling the debris and sending the last few remaining shards of glass tumbling from their frames to the floor. The door—to the foyer if Blueblood recalled correctly—was forcibly ripped from its mountings and thrown behind Tempest as she stepped into the Hall through the now-vacant doorway. Apparently unharmed herself, she scrutinized him for a moment. “You appear to be… less than critically injured.”

“An accurate assessment,” Blueblood managed, wiping glass from his face and clothes as he stumbled to follow Tempest into the foyer. “How badly are we hurt?”

Week 8, Day 7, Evening

Not everypony in the company had returned to the drawing room; some had gone to help clean the manor, whilst others had gone into town to help the townsfolk. Blueblood was glad he could count on a few level heads at this point: Tempest, Zecora, Twilight, Starlight, Bon Bon, and—no; he didn’t count Lyra.

“Most of our company suffered mere cuts and bruises from the incident,” Tempest reported, standing at attention. “Everypony’s efforts to fortify the manor were adequate to prevent damage to the building’s core structural stability. Despite nopony being able to gain access to the observatory prior to impact, it is—” She spoke the next word almost maliciously. “—miraculously, undamaged.”

“What about Rainbow Dash?” Blueblood asked. “That dumbflank was outside when the pressure wave hit; I heard somepony say she was rushed over to the sanitarium?”

“That is true,” Tempest continued. “Apparently she suffered severe internal and external injuries… they don’t expect her to survive.” She looked to Blueblood with an expression that spoke of both harsh reprimand, but also begrudging acceptance. “Apparently the entire reconstituted Ponyville weather team was airborne at the time of the impact; none of them lived. Miss Dash is either extremely lucky, or extremely resilient—or both, to have evaded death.”

“The whole weather team?” Blueblood asked, facehoofing.

“Yes. Coupled with the original losses caused by those mosquito swarms, we are extremely short on local pegasi; that means we can expect more unpredictable weather for the foreseeable future.”

Lyra bounced up in her seat. “Where did it land?”

Tempest’s glare threatened to cook Lyra alive in her chair; the rickety wooden seat accommodated the added strain of Tempest’s gaze by collapsing unceremoniously underneath a swearing Lyra.

Bon Bon ignored her floundering “best friend.” “It obviously landed west outside of town, since everything’s been blown down from that direction, but do we know how far out? Is it close enough for us to easily travel to?”

Crossing his forehooves, Blueblood gave Bon Bon a sidelong glance. “We don’t know yet. But considering the damage to the town, it was likely within trotting distance. Are you proposing we set out for the impact site? Why the sudden interest?”

“Comets and meteors tend to contain rare ores. I imagine we might be able to sell some to the alchemists up in Canterlot for a pretty-bit; we could actually profit from this fiasco.”

“Fair enough,” Blueblood lit his horn and tried to get as much of the glass off of the drawing room table as possible. “I had Snails draw up a trajectory based off of what he saw—crazy colt watched it the whole way down, apparently—and he places the comet landing site right—” His hoof landed on the local map he had unfurled. “—here. Dead center of this apple farm—yes, Twilight?”

Lowering her hoof, Twilight looked from the map, to Blueblood, and back again. “Uhh, forgive me if I’m wrong about this—”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “Just spit it out, Twilight.”

Her face taking on a pained expression, Twilight looked up again. “That’s… Sweet Apple Acres; Aren’t Applejack and Big Mac from there?”

“Oh… horseapples,” Blueblood swore.

Week 9, Day 1, Dawn

“And you ain’t gonna stop us,” Applejack said as she crammed muffintack into her saddlebags.

“Eeynope,” confirmed Big Mac.

Winona barked.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Blueblood said, completely deadpan. “But you two are going to take Twilight and Snails with you. Snails has the best idea of where the comet landed, and Twilight has an impressive grasp of alchemy and the occult; she’ll be invaluable in case the comet—which I have some reason to believe is unnatural—has some kind of disrupting effect on the surroundings.”

Applejack scratched at her mane. “What about Starlight? Her and Twilight seem to be closer than peas ‘n a pod.”

Blueblood shrugged. “Starlight offered to help research on this end. Apparently she doesn’t appreciate… nature.”

“My family farm ain’t nature. It’s a farm,” Applejack drawled.

“Eeyup,” nodded Big Mac.

“I know that… look, don’t ask me; I just know I wanted one of those two staying back here, and she offered.” Watching the siblings continue their hurried packing, Blueblood put a hoof on Applejack’s withers, causing both her and Big Mac to tense. “We’ve lost too many ponies already,” he said in a low tone. “Be. Careful.”

Applejack nodded.

“Eeyup.”

Winona barked.

Week 9, Day 1, Morning

“This is fascinating!” Twilight exclaimed as they trotted along. “Were these glyphs always here?”

“Eeynope,” Big Mac replied as Twilight poked at one of the massive boulders that bordered the Apple Family property.

“These runes seem to have been carved within the last few years,” Twilight continued. “There isn’t any significant weathering or any other signs of aging on these markings, but—”

But the diagrams and charts depicted in the carvings cover a span of time far exceeding their apparent age. Starlight’s voice sounded from nowhere in particular.

“Well, I don’t ‘member any of this here,” Applejack drawled. “Last time I was here, it was just a wooden fence, long as the eye could see. How ‘bout you, big brother?”

“Eeyup.”

Snails eyed Big Mac. “Yup, the same, or yup, different, eh?”

“Uhhh,” Big Mac frowned.

Winona tilted her head and whined.

“It’s clear as a sunny day he meant ‘different,’” Applejack cut in, tapping at one of the massive stones. “I don’t see why Granny Smith went an’ replaced the old fence with all these rocks—”

According to Celestia’s records, Blueblood began, ... odd, there aren’t very many entries in here regarding Sweet Apple Acres, just references to requests… for financial assistance… hold on. Tempest, help Starlight keep an eye on the group, I trust your tactical acumen will keep them safe if something happens while I’m out— and then Blueblood went silent.

After a few minutes of Tempest not saying a single word, Applejack looked at Big Mac. “Granny never said nothin’ to you about the farm being in trouble or her needing money, did she, big brother?”

“Eeynope,” Big Mac shook his head, though his expression said that he may have suspected as much.

“Now, why didn’t ya tell me she was hav’n trouble? I’d’ve come home lickety-split!”

“Eeynope; she didn’t want to drag you back if you were still pursuing your dream, AJ.”

Holy SHIT, he can talk!

“Starlight!” Twilight whined. “What did we discuss?”

What? I didn’t call him out on an idiosyncrasy he didn’t have… Oh, c’mon, don’t give me that look! The whole family has speech problems! One doesn’t talk, and I can’t understand what the other one says!

Twilight facehoofed, and then gave Applejack and Big Mac an apologetic look. “Please ignore her. And I thought I was socially awkward.”

Hey! I am not! There was a brief pause. What? No, I’m talking to the group… I did not just insult the Apples! Well, where have you been? Starlight asked. Really? The town archive was open? No, I don’t care if you just took them. What's that? It looks like—

—Architectural blueprints, Blueblood said. Celestia undertook a massive construction project at Sweet Apple Acres a few years ago. Apparently, the farm had suffered from a few consecutive years of vampire fruit bat infestations and Granny Smith couldn’t afford to pay the farmhooves she had hired to run the farm in her heirs’ absence.

Both Applejack and Big Mac turned their heads down in something approaching regret or shame.

Granny Smith came to Celestia and requested assistance, Blueblood continued,and—sweet, holy Celestia… she delivered… There was a whistling sound.

“Well?” Applejack asked. “What?”

Blueblood’s voice was filled with disbelief. She spent millions of bits on this project: granite imports from Griffonstone; rare minerals and herbs from Saddle Arabia, Mount Aris, even Yakyakistan. The designs I liberated from public records state that this is all some elaborate anti-fruit bat measure.

Except that’s ridiculous, Starlight cut in. Even an amateur astronomer can see that these designs are all analogous to the travel of extant celestial bodies. Although… there are some parts in here which claim to exert forces over a long time to cause movement on a massive scale over tremendous distance; we’re talking literal astronomical levels of movement, here… wait, did… did Celestia—

Wait a minute everypony,Blueblood replied. We need to actually take a good look at these plans before making any assumptions. It looks like she might have constructed this in addition to the fruit bat repelling features to actually try and deflect incoming meteors and comets. If that’s the case, we’ll need to figure out why she was worried about such a thing. Who would even try to drop a comet on Sweet Apple Acres in the first place?

Applejack pressed a hoof to the closest of the intricately marked boulders. “Well, if we do find out whodunnit, they’re gonna have an awful lot to answer for. Bringing a comet down on lil ‘ole Granny Smith’s head; the thought just bakes my biscuits!”

Snails cocked his head again. “Is that a good thing, eh?”

“Consarnit, no!”

Week 9, Day 1, Morning

The viewing enchantment shrank to a pinprick.

“You lied to them,” Starlight said with all the subtlety of a class-IV tornado.

Tempest raised an eyebrow and looked at Blueblood.

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes I did.”

Starlight tapped the stack of plans with one hoof. “This array is pretty clearly designed to turn the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres into a… well, for lack of a better term, comet magnet. There’s nothing at all in the design to repel fruit bats.”

“I can see that,” Blueblood said. “But they—” He pointed at the closed viewing aperture. “—do not need to know that right now, possibly not ever.”

“Why,” Starlight asked, with no small amount of incredulity, “would you keep this from them?”

Blueblood pursed his lips.

“You must have no social skills,” Tempest said, not unkindly. “Allow me to explain; Applejack and Big Macintosh have at least one family member that is most certainly now dead on that farm. If we tell the Apples that the Princess was responsible for the death of their family member, or members, then they will likely seek vengeance upon the Princess, with probable intent to kill her. Blueblood has made it quite clear that one of our ultimate goals is to find and rescue Princess Celestia from this place. It would be detrimental to the company’s agenda to let this knowledge pass beyond this room.”

Nodding his head, Blueblood turned his eye from Tempest to Starlight “Well said, Tempest. We cannot afford to allow this particular bit of knowledge to spread.”

“These plans must have taken years to put together,” Starlight said, running a hoof over a piece of parchment that showed the area of the farm perimeter the party was walking along.

“And more years to have it all constructed,” Blueblood confirmed, looking momentarily up from the portion of the schematics he was examining. “Celestia never does things small.”

“No kidding,” Starlight said, turning back to the closed viewing window. “What are we going to tell them?”

Blueblood pondered for a moment. “We mix the truth in to make a more convincing lie. In its current state, the array attracts comets. But we say that it wasn’t designed that way; somepony must have tampered with it.”

“It doesn’t feel right to lie about this,” Starlight said, “especially to Twilight. She’s smart; she’ll know something is up if we don’t let her look at the diagrams, and if we do let her look at them, she’ll see right through your fabrication.”

“The Apples don’t seem to be the investigative type,” Blueblood said, “But, I can definitely see Twilight figuring this out.” He rubbed his forehooves against the sides of his head. “Okay… we’ll let her know when she returns. But she is the only one we tell.”

Week 9, Day 1, Noon

“You’re coming up on the entryway now; you should be seeing some kind of circular stone aperture.”

We see it, Twilight said. There’s a large granite disk blocking the entryway, though.

“You should be able to just push it out of the way,” Starlight said as she read the diagrams. “There might be some thaumaturgical discharge. Those stones will be loaded with arcane energy.”

“Tell them to make sure they check the sides as they enter,” Tempest thundered into Starlight’s ear. “They’ve been sloppy during the whole approach.”

“For what?” Starlight said, with no small amount of incredulity. “Farmhooves? If anything, this is a rescue mission.”

“I highly doubt that,” Tempest responded flatly. “I’ve read all of Blueblood’s after action reports; there is nowhere in this county that I would go unprepared for combat.” She looked over to where Blueblood was, now fully engrossed in one of Celestia’s journals, then leaned close to Starlight, somehow managing to speak in a passable whisper. “From certain signs I’ve seen here, I’m sure that there has been combat in these very halls; you should always be on your guard.”

“In… these… halls?” Starlight looked around the observatory as if it had somehow taken on a more sinister air.

“You see the gouges in the floor? The blood stains over there?” Tempest pointed a hoof. “Those are from when Blueblood was assaulted… in his own base of operations. And I’ve seen… other signs as well—“

It’s opening! came Twilight’s excited voice. As the aperture opened, a bizarre light crept in from the edges, along with arcs of what appeared to be electricity. You’re right, there’s a lot of—oh… oh my… what is—

The enchantment died.

It didn’t just power down and turn off, or shrivel to a pinprick: it released a scream of agony as its arcane matrix was corrupted and shredded; it howled as its energies were torn asunder; it pleaded with the three ponies who watched it; Please, no more. Please—

“That voice... It’s… Celestia,” Starlight whispered.

Blueblood dropped the journal to the floor and sprang to his hooves. He regarded the display—which, while shaded an unhealthy red, had definitely taken on the likeness of Celestia—with a mixture of fear and confusion. “Auntie?”

Please… no more, it wailed as the strange light disrupted its very being.

“Auntie—” Blueblood reached for the struggling enchantment.

Tempest’s hoof struck the table hard enough to split it in half. The distorted image of Celestia’s face ripped apart when it happened, the anguished cry of it rising in concert with Blueblood’s own. A cloud of crimson mist remained, but then flew into Blueblood’s gasping mouth.

“What have you done?!” He raised his forehooves to grasp at Tempest, but withdrew them and grasped at his own head, screaming in sudden apparent agony.

Starlight reached out a forehoof. “What the—”

“Stay back,” Tempest said, holding a foreleg between Starlight and Blueblood. “I just killed an unknown entity that seems to have been masquerading as his divination spell. The question you’ve asked is the correct one, however; we must know what foul magicks power this enchantment of his.”

As Blueblood rolled around on the floor, his eyepatch came loose and fell away from his face.

Both mares watched on as light poured forth from Blueblood’s eye socket, alternating between the dark crimson of venous blood, and an ethereal color which—while defying rational explanation—was reminiscent of both blue and green simultaneously.

“He’s giving off two different kinds of energy,” Starlight said, her horn lit. “One feels like what drew me and Twilight here. The other… it’s… difficult to explain; it’s similar, but also wholly different.”

Tempest’s gaze cooly regarded the thrashing form of Blueblood, occasionally switching between him and Starlight. “I despise contradictions, Miss Glimmer. Explain.”

“The observation enchantment… it was made of energy from here, from what is seeping out of the Castle of the Two Sisters. When his eye glows red, it is the same energy.”

“And the—” Tempest struggled for an appropriate word. “—other… color?”

Starlight stared at nothing for several moments. “The same as what I felt when the comet passed overhead… and from the enchantment as it was being disrupted… wait—what about the others? They’re still at the farm.”

“Irrelevant,” Tempest said, shaking her head. “They’ll either enter and brave the farm without support or they will turn back.” She gestures towards Blueblood. “Either way, we have our own problems; they’re on their own. Before we can even try to reestablish contact, we need to ensure the Prince’s health and safety have been stabilized. We’ll start with you dissecting the spell he’s been using; we need to know everything about it if we are going to reverse what is happening to him now, not to mention prevent it from happening again in the future.”

Sighing, Starlight started looking through the mess that had resulted from the table’s destruction. “It should be in here.” She looked back at Blueblood. “I sure hope I can reverse this.”

“If you can’t reverse this, one of us will need to dispatch him,” Tempest said coldly.

Starlight looked at Tempest with a shocked expression. “You’ll want to kill him?”

“If I were permanently stuck writhing in agony,” Tempest stated flatly, “I would expect you to do the same for me.”

Week ??, Day ??, ???

“What just happened Twilight?” Applejack’s voice echoed over itself as she spoke. The effect was peculiar, and even seemed to precede words that she hadn’t even spoken yet.

The group was only a few hoof lengths past the opening, but the haze that surrounded them prevented them from being able to see much farther than that. If they advanced into the orchard, they would not be able to see the way back.

Looking around warily, Twilight lit her horn and sent a cone shaped beam of light into the peculiar radiance that now surrounded them. “There are serious spatial and temporal distortions—”

“Don’t speak fancy with me Twilight,” Applejack cut in. “Use plain Equish so I can understand!”

Her expression appearing nonplussed for a moment, Twilight scrunched her muzzle before turning to Applejack. “Time and space are not normal here, they’re acting crazy.” She cast a worried glance in Applejack’s direction. “Maybe we should head back to Ponyville, get more instructions from—”

“No way, no how, Twilight,” Applejack said firmly. “We’re not going nowhere until we make sure that Granny Smith is a-ok.”

“Eeyup,” came Big Mac’s confirmation.

Snails shrugged. “Well, I don’t see why we should go before we find their grandma, eh?”

“Fine,” replied Twilight. “We’ll search for Granny Smith. But this place is wild with energy and—” She indicated one of the multitude of scorched apple trees. “—I don’t think that much survived in here. One thing those rocks surrounding the property seemed to have done was keep the heat of the impact from setting the surrounding countryside on fire.”

“Well, that’s just crazy, Twilight. I mean, look!” Applejack pointed a hoof at a silhouette in the haze. “That looks like my cousin Caramel over there!” She waved her hoof. “Hay! Caramel! Whatcha doin, standing out in the orchard like that! Come over and say hay!”

Hair bristling, Winona started to growl at the approaching figure.

“Applejack,” Twilight said. “I don’t know if that was a good idea.”

“Consarnit, Twilight. How’re we gonna find Granny if we don’t talk to nopony? And besides, Winona never liked Caramel much anyhow; he kept misplacing her food.” Applejack turned to face the figure as they approached. “Well, howdy, Caramel!” She blinked when she received no response. “Hay now, you forget how you greet your cousin, like how you forget everything else?”

The group recoiled as the mist parted to reveal that the pony approaching them was entirely devoid of coloration, as if they’d had the pigmentation sucked right out of them. Their empty eye sockets, mouth, and a massive rent in their barrel suddenly began to spill forth an unnamable color; it looked like what they had seen bleeding off of the comet.

“Caramel?” Applejack asked warily, still recognizing her cousin from his faded cutie mark.

Caramel lunged at her, but Winona caught him by the throat and dragged him—hissing like a snake—to the ground. There was a crunch as Winona bit down, but not the familiar sound of her teeth breaking bone; this sound was more like pulverizing rock. The Caramel-thing coughed, sending a cloud of crystal shards into the air.

“Don’t breathe it!” Twilight shouted.

Everypony backed up, quickly pulling out hoofkerchiefs or other pieces of clothing to cover their muzzles.

“Those crystals are pulsing with the same energy as this whole place,” Twilight explained. “We should all limit our exposure while here, unless we want to end up like—” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “—Caramel here.”

Caramel’s body suddenly erupted into a large crystalline growth. All of his familiar features were obliterated in mere moments, leaving only the faintly glowing smoothness of crystal.

“What the—” Twilight reached a hoof towards the crystalline aberration as it began to hum with a melodious resonance.

Snails fired a crossbow bolt, which impacted the crystal and shattered it, breaking Twilight from its hypnotic influence. He started to reload his arbalest. “Your eyes were going all swirly, so I figured I’d better do something.”

“Thank you, Snails,” Twilight managed as she shook her head. “I don’t know what was hap—”

A sudden shuffling sound became audible over in the distance. As the group looked out into the colors, more shapes began to appear.

“Who… who are they?” Twilight asked.

“If I were to guess,” Applejack said, her eyes widening as new figures approached, “Apple Fritter, Apple Bumpkin, Red Gala, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Caramel Apple, Apple Strudel, Apple Tart, Baked Apples, Apple Brioche, Apple Cinnamon Crisp, Apple Cider, Apple Cobbler, Apple Honey, Apple Munchies, Gala Appleby, Jonagold, Lavender Fritter, Peachy Sweet, aaaaand Perfect Pie.”

Lighting her horn and levitating her skull, Twilight looked askance at Applejack. “Why do you have so many ponies working on one farm?”

“It must be time for the Apple Family Reunion,” Applejack drawled with despondence. “You lost our invitations again, big brother?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said as he drew his flail.

“Whoever did this is gonna have lots of explaining to do for hurting so many of my kin,” Applejack said, teeth gritted as she drew her mace. “Put ‘em up, Winona!”

Week 9, Day 1, Afternoon

“Do it again.” Tempest stared at Blueblood.

“I’ve never done this before!” Starlight shouted. “If I do it again, it could kill him!”

Tempest eyed Blueblood’s still-thrashing form. “Yet the alternative you described to me is that, if you do nothing, the two conflicting energies will cause a repeat of what happened to that vestal, Amethyst?”

“I’m not completely sure,” Starlight said, shaking her head. “We don’t mix energies like this, it’s just… not done!”

“Well,” Tempest said. “You’re the only unicorn we have on hoof with any knowledge whatsoever about this. I’d attempt it, but my horn—” Tempest became quiet all of a sudden, her brief and unexpected display of vulnerability causing Starlight to stare in disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” Starlight offered. “I’ll try again. I just… don’t know if pumping him full of eldritch energy is the best thing.”

Blueblood screamed again, arching his back as cracks of various colored light started to seep across his face from his eye socket.

“I’ll have to time it just right,” Starlight said. “If I charge his body when he’s giving off the comet’s light, it should force the entirety of the comet energy from him…”

“Don’t tell me the technical bits,” Tempest replied. “I know the risks, so just do it.”

Starlight lit her horn and waited for the crimson glow to fade from Blueblood’s eye. When it did, she blasted his body with as much eldritch might as she could. She felt a strange feedback along her horn, which quickly morphed into a sharp feeling, as if somepony were dragging crystalline shards along her horn and into her brain. Holding a forehoof to her head, she cried out in pain, but continued to channel the energy.

Blueblood screamed in apparent agony as the oddly colored light poured out from his eye and into the room, forming a sort of free-floating mist. The cloud of color sat there, suspended near the ceiling, pausing as if to survey the room.

Grunting with effort, Starlight used her last ounce of strength to force the last of the color from Blueblood. She collapsed to the floor, completely exhausted.

Sitting up, Blueblood regarded both mares… with both of his eyes. “What… just—” He looked towards the ceiling and the roiling cloud. “Look out!” he cried, as the cloud suddenly swirled downwards.

Tempest body-tackled Blueblood away from the vertical vortex, crashing them both through the desk remains.

Looking up just in time to see the approaching cloud, Starlight screamed as the color flew into her eyes. The downward flow of color inexplicably exerted a force which lifted her into the air. It compressed into her face in the matter of a few mere seconds, before dropping her unceremoniously onto the observatory floor

When Starlight tried to rise shakily to her hooves, the others could see that tears of blood ran freely down her cheeks, while blackness had consumed what lay in her eye sockets. With the color vanished, she reached out blindly with one hoof. “Umm, did the lights blow out? Somepony light a candle or something.”

Blueblood looked at Starlight with a pained expression. “The lights… are on Starlight.” He waited a moment for the statement to sink in. “We can see you… just fine.”

“I…” Starlight’s voice trembled. “I can’t see?” She lit her horn, lightly at first, but then glaring to almost daylight levels. All while she swung her hooves around wildly. “No! NO!”

Shielding her eyes from the intensifying corona atop Starlight’s head, Tempest looked at Blueblood as Starlight began to wail.

“I can’t see! Oh, Celestia! I can’t see! I—”

Tempest brought her hoof down on the back of Starlight’s head, silencing her screaming and causing her hornglow to sputter out.

“How are you Sir?” Tempest asked as she hefted an unconscious Starlight across her back.

“Aside from witnessing that?” he said, perhaps a bit too abrasively. “I’m just fine and dandy, I—” He pulled up his left foresleeve, exposing the white fur underneath.

“Huh… weird,” he said. “I thought I felt—” and then something that ran the length of his entire left foreleg moved under his skin. He recoiled from the leg, straightening it and trying to hold it away from his body, but found there wasn’t really any way to properly distance himself from… himself.

Tempest cooly regarded the writhing flesh on Blueblood’s limb, then glanced over to Starlight.

Blueblood followed her gaze. “What in Tartarus did she do to me?!”

Week ??, Day ??, ??

Apple Fritter was dragged, hissing, into an extradimensional portal by a voluminous, vermillion-tipped tentacle. Apple Bumpkin received an arbalest bolt to the face, just before Winona tore one of her forelegs off. Big Mac smashed the crystalline spawn that tore Bumpkin to pieces.

“How many of them are there?!” Twilight yelled, spinning around and thrashing Golden Delicious and Red Delicious with a hail of tentacles.

“I reckon that there ain’t this many Apples in all of Equestria,” Applejack said as she bucked the head off of a pony who looked surprisingly like Caramel. “What the hay? This one here’s Caramel again!”

“So it’s copying them, eh?” Snails skewered an Apple Crisp and an Apple Strudel together, allowing Big Mac to crush the resultant sprouting crystals in one blow.

“If this place distorts space and time,” Twilight said, throwing another Apple Fritter to be bucked by Big Mac, “then we might just be repeatedly drifting back in time to right before we destroyed them, making it so we have to do it again.”

“Well, that’s fine and dandy,” Applejack drawled, smashing in Gala Appleby’s head with her mace. “But how’re we supposed to stop ‘em if they keep-a-comin’?”

Big Mac snapped the neck of yet another Caramel, and stomped out the crystal that grew out…

And there were no more ponies.

“Uhhh… I guess I spoke too soon,” Applejack said, wiping her own blood from her brow.

“Eeynope,” Big Mac said, pointing at a strange rock that floated slowly towards them.

“What is it, eh?”

“I think… perhaps a shard of the comet,” Twilight answered, lighting her horn to scan the object.

The strange color flashed from crevices in the rock—

And they vanished.

Arc 2 Chapter 9: Concluding Confluence

Chapter 9: Concluding Confluence

Week 23, Day 4, Mid Afternoon

Cursing, Blueblood climbed the rickety ladder which led to the top of the Abbey’s belltower. “You’d better have a good reason for hauling me up here,” he said to Double Diamond as he crested the trapdoor and pressed himself against one of the walls.

He peered through the horizontal slats of the storm shutters which covered the tower’s huge windows, and caught a glimpse of the sun through a smoky haze. Long shadows lanced throughout the town wherever the light was able to pierce the thick soot. They fell upon the team of a dozen or so mercenaries scurrying around at the base of the hill, futilely trying to drag and push the now-two-wheeled cannon towards the base of the abbey hillside.

Blueblood allowed himself a grim smile. “If there’s an upside to this situation, it’s that they aren’t getting that cannon up here anytime soon.”

Double, who’d taken cover behind a support strut, peered through the window slats. “While that’s indeed fortuitous, I actually called you up here because of our worries about the fires spreading. Look over there.”

Blueblood’s gaze followed Double’s hoof east past the various blazing sections of the town and towards the Everfree. “What am I looking at?”

“Storm’s coming in.”

Blueblood squinted his eyes. He could make out dark clouds over the Everfree. They were heading towards Ponyville, very quickly.

“It seems the weather team is going to have another big one to fend off.” Double shrugged. “But at least it’ll take care of the fires.”

“Wait a minute.” Blueblood surveyed the town again. “There are a lot less buildings ablaze than there should be.”

“Sir?”

“Look.” Blueblood pointed to a few buildings in town. “Not many have actually gone up.” He squinted again. “And the fires don’t really seem to be spreading. A town like this, with all the thatch? The whole place should be burning by now.”

Blueblood indicated a few structures which were belching out smoke like industrial stacks. “The few individual buildings that are on fire are pumping a lot more soot into the air than what I’d expect from a normal house conflagration. It’s like somepony piled them up with damp fuel and coal, or something.” He rested his elbows on the ledge and steepled his hooves. “But why?”

“To make it look worse than it is?” Double didn't sound entirely convinced. “Come to think of it, there weren’t as many dead bodies in the roads as I’d expected on our way across town.”

“Expected?” Blueblood shot Double a suspicious glance. “I thought you said you didn’t know this was coming.”

“I didn’t.” Double continued to scan the streets. “But I’ve been in a town that was sacked before. You never get a real feeling for how many ponies there are in a village… until you see them all laid out for the crows.”

“Your town was razed?”

Blueblood saw a single tear roll part-way down Double’s cheek, before it froze in place.

“Yes, Our Town.” Double brushed the thin line of ice away. “I met Starlight out in the frozen north, shortly before she decided to build the place. It’s where I met Sugar, Night, and Party. I won’t bore you with the politics or philosophies of the place, but suffice it to say that it was our home.” His gaze traveled down to the floor, and his brow furrowed. “But then they came.”

“Who?”

“We don’t know for sure. Their armor was grey, and marked with no livery, just shoulder and dorsal spikes. They wore peculiar masks with tiny red horns in front, and the eyes… all of their eyes glowed a sickly green.”

“And these were ponies?”

Double nodded. “They came at night, drove everypony from their homes, and butchered them in the streets. We would’ve met the same fate, but Starlight led a charge to the vault and opened it, giving us a fighting chance.”

“So you beat them?”

“No. There were too many. When it became clear that we’d lost the town, she held them off by herself; fought like she was possessed by a demon, and bought us time to escape.” Double shook his head. “We thought she died.”

Blueblood wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Then why are you even here?”

Double met Blueblood’s eyes. “Because she found us again, and asked what we’d give to snuff out evil far beyond what took Our Town. Starlight was blind, but… she could see so much more than any of us. She told us that what we would be part of, here, now, is more important than any of our plans to restore Our Town, or any of our plans for revenge. So we came.”

Something itched in the back of Blueblood’s mind. “And she trusts all of you implicitly?”

“I think she does. At least, she trusts us to do the right thing. And… that’s why she wasn’t truthful with us.”

“Come again?”

“Starlight knows that I will lay down my own life for her, and that the others would as well. But her foresight probably told her what would have happened if she told us about either the invasion or the fleshforms. She must have known—”

Blueblood let out a humorless laugh. “That you’d try to stop it.”

Double looked at him again and nodded. “The ponies of this town and your company didn’t swear their lives to Starlight; we did. It… it wouldn’t have been right to just let ponies be killed.”

“She really left nothing to chance.” Blueblood looked back out over the town, and then to the Everfree. “That storm really is coming in fast,” he observed. “Prolly be here within the next ten minutes; it is really tearing along.”

A loud rumble accentuated his statement.

“How appropriate,” Blueblood muttered.

A loud crash, much closer than the approaching storm, echoed up the abbey’s tower. Then came another, and another. There was also a subtle reverberation that came with each crash. Blueblood and Double both looked out the window, but were unable to see anything. The impacts fell into a regular rhythm. The sound of splintering wood led Blueblood to wonder if something was hammering against one of the abbey doors.

“Did you see them haul up a battering ram or anything?” Blueblood rushed over to the ladder and started to descend. After they’d made it about a quarter of the way down, he looked up and immediately regretted going first. Double was fast enough that he was right behind Blueblood, and his underside was a little too close for comfort.

“No. I didn’t see anypony extraordinary approaching any of the—woah!” There was a clattering of metal as Double lost and then quickly regained his hoofing. He’d only slipped down a single rung, but another would have resulted in a collision.

“Don’t fall,” Blueblood said sardonically. “I don’t need you riding me like a bobsled to the bottom.”

“Believe me, the last thing I want to do is ride you anywhere.”

“Is that a crack at my promiscuity?” Blueblood smirked as they continued their descent.

“Sorry Sir, but I don’t have a sense of humor that I’m aware of.”

That forced a bark of laughter from Blueblood, despite their current plight. He could hear the manure eating grin behind the words. “Tempest already used that one on me. Glad you can joke, even in these circumstances.” Now that he thought back on it though, Tempest may not have been joking.

“Inability to make light in a dark situation only leads to despair.”

“I’ve heard that before, too.” Blueblood reached the bottom and took a quick glance around the abbey’s sanctuary, seeing that most ponies had moved clear of the main doors. “You’re not quoting saints or some such, are you?”

“Solmare said it the other day.” Double placed his armored hooves back on terra firma. He unhooked his helmet from his saddlebags and donned it. “She always has a way of lightening the mood.”

“Had a way,” Blueblood replied. “Wow, that just killed any joviality I’d been feeling.”

Breath steamed and froze from Double’s helmet. “I admit that as a harbinger of winter and death, I do tend to accidentally bring the mood down.”

“Well then, I bet dealing with whatever’s trying to break in and kill us will play more to your strengths,” Blueblood said as they approached the source of all the racket.

One of the door hinges popped free from its moorings and dangled like a pony strung from the gallows. The creaking of distressed wood echoed throughout the building as the impromptu barricade was bent by mounting pressure.

Blueblood turned to the gathered ponies. “Civilians, get as far back as you can! Yona, Aloe, Applejack: come here.”

“Sir?” Double looked at Blueblood expectantly.

“Congratulations Double, and meet your new team. I need you, Yona, Aloe and Applejack to keep the civilians alive as long as you can.” Blueblood cringed as another hinge popped free from the wall “Stick together if you can; you’ll all do better if you group up.” He turned to the others. “Listen to his orders.”

As soon as the words had left Blueblood’s mouth, the door gave way with a splintering crash.

The twisted mockeries of Moondancer and her team burst through the entryway, sending the pile of pews and other assorted furniture flying in their wake. Despite appearing as they had in life, Blueblood couldn’t help but think that Moondancer, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Minuette all moved like bags full of snakes that were pretending to walk—and failing miserably.

“These… creatures are the same as Ametrine?” Double sounded less than convinced.

“I don’t understand why these ones never developed as completely as Ametrine. She was complete the same night I met her, but these ones... even with all the work I put in—”

“It’s because you didn’t want it as much.”

Blueblood’s blood boiled as he saw Starlight enter the Abbey with an emaciated unicorn stallion by her side. He didn’t recognize the newcomer directly, but felt that if he were to vomit in that instant, his stomach contents would be about the same hue as their fur. Yet as he studied the gaunt pony’s haughty expression and familiar jawline, he felt sure this could be none other than Sour Puss—offspring of Neighsay, and mastermind—scratch that, lead moron—of this invasion.

“You actually cared when you forced your will upon Ametrine,” Starlight said. “You even cared somewhat for Zecora, which is why she’s more complete. But these others, even your poor foalhood friend Moondancer, they were mere tools to you.”

“Starlight.” Blueblood spat the name through gritted teeth. “I knew you played with lives, but this is a new low, even for you.”

“I know.”

If Blueblood didn’t know better, he would have sworn that he heard sadness in Starlight‘s reply.

“Enough talk,” Sour said, stepping forward and swinging out a foreleg like an over-exuberant attorney making an objection. “Flesh things, kill them all! But save the Prince for me.”

“The Prince imprisoned us! He’s ours!” Moondancer hissed in a voice that could barely be described as equine.

Sour turned to Moondancer. “If you kill his friends, you’ll cause him even greater pain.”

The statement caused a wicked grin to spread across Moondancer’s face. She and the others slithered forward into the abbey’s main hall.

Double shouted orders to his team, first sending Yona charging into Lemon Hearts, crushing the masked creature into a stone wall. The sound of multiple cracking ribs did little to stop the simulacrum from laughing, spraying blood onto Yona with each chuckle. Then Lemon Hearts’ mouth tore open into a shark-tooth filled maw, which snapped viciously. Yona grunted, forcibly spun Lemon around, then used one of her massive chain-braids as a garrote and started choking the Tartarus out of the abomination.

Applejack shuffled as best she could to block Moondancer’s advance, planting her uninjured foreleg and letting fly with both of her hind legs. Moondancer quickly slid forward, deflecting Bucky McGillicuddy, dodging Kicks McGee and backhoofing Applejack into a group of villagers, knocking them all down like bowling pins. She advanced on the prone ponies, hissing and brandishing new limbs full of claws.

Aloe raised a hoof, wrapping Minuette in a burst of brambles. Then Aloe’s body glowed as Lotus possessed her and frantically swung her blade to deflect the plethora of retaliatory razor-limbs that Twinkleshine flailed in her direction. Were it not for the dead mare’s preternatural speed, she would have been quickly shredded.

Blueblood watched all of this unfold in an instant. But time slowed down as Zecora approached Blueblood and Double with menace in her rubbery steps and a murderous gleam in her eyes. Seeing her—or even a simulacrum of her—alive again raised a potent cocktail of emotions. The fact that she wasn’t wearing her hood only accentuated them.

“Do you have anything to say?” Zecora pushed ahead and lifted a foreleg, which ripped open into a razor-sharp crab claw that she pointed at Blueblood. “Hurry up, we don’t have all day!”

The claw opened and closed quickly as Zecora charged. Double dashed to intercept her, blocking her snips several times before she caught his sword and gripped it tightly. The two spun as they began a desperate tug-o-war for the blade.

Blueblood drew his sword as Sour approached him, apparently unarmed. He felt a brief pang of regret for killing Neighsay, though mostly for the sake of how many of his wretched spawn the act had led him to encounter… and subsequently kill. He briefly found himself trying to remember how many were left.

“Sour Puss, I presume,” Blueblood said as the two took measure of each other. “Facing me without a weapon? You must be anxious to join your brothers, eh?”

“Hardly.” Sour’s snide grin turned Blueblood’s stomach. “I’ve come to break you.”

“No offense,” Blueblood said as they faced off, “but unless you're better at swordplay or magic than your brothers were, then you’ll need a real ace up your sleeve to pull that one off.”

“Bring her.”

Glancing past Sour towards the entrance, Blueblood felt his eyes widen. He watched two of Sour’s mercenaries escort Ametrine into the Abbey, soon taking up a position beside Sour.

Blueblood’s eyes met hers.

Sour’s grin widened. “Still feeling confident, Prince?”

“Ametrine.” Blueblood immediately knew she’d come willingly. The memory was still fresh in his mind, of when she’d sprouted more blades and ferocity than was possessed by his entire company. There was no way that Sour and his mercenaries could have forced her here against her will. The fire that he’d felt—to fight back against Sour’s invasion, and against the rogue fleshforms—was snuffed out, like a candle thrust into a bucket of water.

“Fleshbeasts!” Sour held up a hoof. “Stop, and watch your captor break!”

Zecora and the other fleshforms temporarily ceased their brutal assault and turned.

“Go.” Sour turned his cruel grin on Ametrine. “Tell him. I want to see the look on his face.”

The two mercenaries stood aside, allowing Ametrine a clear path. It seemed as if everypony’s gaze was on her as she approached Blueblood. But all she seemed to be able to do was stare deeply into his eyes.

Blueblood saw the pain in her gaze. He felt it.

Ametrine’s words echoed in his ears. Everything you’ve done up to this point has, in one way or another, been about you.

“Do it.” Blueblood knew then, that Tempest was right; while he’d said Ametrine was his highest priority, that was not how he had treated her.

Think about it; everything you say and do revolves around you somehow.

“Kill me.” Snuffing out his horn glow, Blueblood allowed his sword to clatter to the floor. He looked to the group of cowering villagers, and the remaining members of his company. There was pain and fear etched across their faces. “Ametrine, please... spare the others; they’ve done nothing to earn your wrath. But for everything I’ve done to you, and everything I’ve failed to be for you, I deserve it.”

Ametrine reached out, her forelegs grasping Blueblood by the sides of his head. He knew how easy it would be for her to crush his skull in her grasp, or to end him in any number of other horrific ways. Instead, she pulled him close. “I know,” she whispered into his ear. “But deserve’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Kill him quickly, Ametrine!” Zecora said with a maniacal lilt in her voice. “For him to live, is obscene—” Her voice became a choked gurgle.

A deathly stillness overtook the interior of the abbey. Silence reigned. It was broken only by the sound of Zecora choking on a suffocating mass of calcification that blocked her airway.

Blueblood’s eyes widened as he saw the massive limb of bone that had erupted from Ametrine’s back, flashed through the air, and forcibly thrust itself into Zecora’s mouth and down her throat.

“I was never a fan of the rhyming.” Ametrine withdrew the appendage from Zecora, and Blueblood cringed at the sight of the limb’s sharp tip freely leaking a liquid whose color matched that of Sour’s fur. Wherever the fluid spattered on the ground, there was a caustic hissing as the stone floor was burned.

Zecora opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead shrieked and retched. Her forehooves flew to her muzzle in a reflexive attempt to stem the coming tide, and were instead drenched as bilious sludge poured forth from her gullet. Her jaw and forehooves rapidly dissolved into a putrid slurry as she screeched and flailed in a quickly expanding puddle of herself.

Blueblood’s gaze shot from Zecora to Ametrine. He stared deep into Ametrine’s sparkling violet eyes. “Why?”

“There are worse things,” Ametrine said, rubbing a hoof gently along his cheek, “than being the only thing in this world you care about besides yourself.”

“I… I love—”

“Shut up.” Ametrine put her hoof to Blueblood’s lips. “You’re ruining the moment.”

“What?!” Sour shouted. “She’s an abomination as well? What is this treachery?” He backed slowly towards the door.

His two accompanying mercenaries drew their weapons.

The other fleshforms hissed in a manner very similar to the bubbling material which was all that remained of Zecora’s body.

“You monsters are no siblings of mine.” Ametrine turned to face the slithering quartet. “Now, return from whence you came!” Her acid-stinger flailed menacingly. “Or you will share this one’s fate!”

The fleshforms routed like green military cadets, their horrible voices wailing in terror as they bolted past Sour and through the abbey’s entrance. Their exit was punctuated by the rumble of thunder from the dark clouds that had, at last, subsumed the town.

“You speak of betrayal.” Starlight faced Sour. “But it would seem that Ametrine has finally realized where her loyalties have lain all along.”

Sour dashed past Starlight, wild panic in his eyes.

The two mercenaries looked at Blueblood and his company, then at Ametrine. They shared a glance, and ran after Sour.

“Troops!” Sour shouted to nopony close at hoof, as he and his mercenaries bolted from the abbey with Blueblood and Ametrine close on their heels. “To me! Now!”

Lightning flashed down from the dark sky overhead.

Sour was struck by a sudden gale that whipped across the top of the hill and intensified by the second. He saw a half dozen or so of his soldiers galloping towards the abbey. The fleshforms, however, fled away to the east, towards the Everfree, and away from both the cannon and his reinforcements.

“Cowards!” Sour called after the retreating abominations. “Worthless… you there!” he shouted at the other group of mercenaries, who halted, albeit briefly. He and his two escorts galloped towards them, but stopped in their tracks when they saw the fear etched upon their faces.

“What is going on?!” Sour shrieked over the wind.

Two Bit stood atop the mountainous corpse of the shark-monster, posing for his companions. “Look at me!” he said, flexing his foreleg muscles. “I have slain the beast! I’m king of the world!”

Most of the others laughed.

“Good one, Bit,” said Dredger, laughing heartily and clapping his massively muscled forelegs together.

“Get off of it,” Dagger said. “You’re gonna catch some shark disease or something.” She frowned. “Besides, you didn’t do anything but soil yourself when this thing charged. The cannon did the killing.”

“Spoil-sport,” Bit said, hopping off the pelagic monstrosity. “I’m just trying to have some fun.”

“Yeah?” Dagger said. “Well let's keep everything at least semi-professional until we’re done burning this backwater town to the ground. Hey, wait… isn’t that Sour Puss running out of the—”

There was a flash of orange and blue, and Dagger’s head was suddenly pinned to the ground by a spear. The surprised expression on Dagger’s muzzle contorted as the Pegasus who held the weapon twisted it.

“Dagger?” Bit felt something smack into his right shoulder, knocking him back into the shark. He looked down in confusion and saw a crossbow quarrel sticking out of him. Redness began to spread from the protrusion, soaking through his armor and cloak.

Dredger jumped to his hooves but then yelped and fell onto his haunches, yelping again and rolling to his side. Several iron caltrops were imbedded in the soles of his hooves and in his rump.

A minty-green, bipedal monster ran out from the darkness of an alleyway and grabbed Dredger by his mane. The beast lifted his head into the air with one horrible talon, and punched him right in the throat with the other. The colossus dropped Dredger unceremoniously to the street and left him to thrash around and suffocate to death.

Two other ponies strode from the beshadowed alleyway: a thin orange unicorn with the most massive crossbow… thing… that Bit could possibly imagine being pony-portable, and a cream colored earth pony with a mean-looking axe.

“Quick!” Bit yelled at the two-dozen or so mercenaries who had frozen in shock. “Load the cannon! We can—”

The wall of leathery flesh that he had been leaning against twitched.

Bit turned his head to see one of the shark’s lifeless black eyes staring at him. The whiteness of a nictitating membrane covering that stygian orb made it appear as if the blackness had rolled over to white. He opened his mouth to scream, but his chest was bitten in half before he could manage it.

“Look out!” Lyra jumped back and pulled Flash out of the way as Sharktavia’s tail swung around in a violent arc. The massive appendage smashed one of the mercenaries against the cannon, pulverizing and pulping the pony. The impact lifted the massive iron contraption several hoof-lengths into the air. When it landed, the two remaining wheels which supported it burst into piles of splinters.

“Well,” Snails said. “Looks like they really can’t move it now, eh?”

Sharktavia tore through more of the mercenaries, spraying blood and gore around in all directions. Lyra and Flash backed far away from the macabre display, looks of concern on both of their faces. What remained of the mercenary force had completely routed, galloping full-tilt up the hill towards the abbey.

“Something’s wrong,” Bon Bon said. “I’ve never seen Octavia lose control like this in a fight. I—” She looked around “—where’s Vinyl?”

When Bon Bon said the name, Sharktavia turned to face her and Snails. The top half of a sobbing stallion hung from her jaws and looked at them with a pleading expression that sharply contrasted the dead blackness of the beast’s eyes.

“Oh… The bastards must have killed her.”

If Octavia recognized her allies, she gave no indication, only pausing to gulp down the stallion before advancing on them.

“We must flee.” Bon Bon swallowed a lump in her throat. “If she’s not in her right mind, she’ll end us all.”

As Bon Bon backed up, Snails instead advanced towards the finned, frenzied form of Sharktavia.

“No!” Bon Bon shouted. “No! Snails! She’ll kill you!” She could only watch in horror as Snails continued to walk closer to the massive maw, which was filled with bloody teeth and scraps of pony flesh.

Sharktavia’s dead eyes showed no emotion as she snarled at Snails, opening her mouth wide and leaning forward to devour him.

“I lost my best friend to this place.”

Sharktavia stopped.

“It happened before you and your best friend joined the company.”

The charnel house of jaws backed away and slowly closed.

“For a while—” Snails continued to lock eyes with the beast “—I didn’t know how I’d go on. I was sad… but I was angry too, eh?” He held out a hoof. “I got lost in it. But the place I was in… only had emptiness in it. And my friend wouldn’t have wanted me to stay there.”

Octavia took another staggering step backward.

‘Don’t let yourself get lost in it, too.”

The terrible teeth receded, and Octavia began to shrink. The transformation, though alarming, was somehow more resigned than before. And, at last in her pony form, she wept. Trying to blink away the torrent of tears which ran freely down her cheeks was like trying to plug a hole in a dam with chewing gum.

“I know it hurts.” Snails walked towards her.

Octavia wrapped her bloodied forelegs around Snails and broke down into choking sobs.

“You three need to chase down the rest of the invaders,” Snails said. “I’ll stay with her, eh?”

Bon Bon nodded, slowly, then motioned to Flash and Lyra. They all headed up the hill, following after the fleeing mercenaries.

Blueblood galloped down the hill toward Sour and his bodyguards, glad to have Ametrine by his side. Yet he kept his focus on the knot of ponies before him, and his mind fixed on how he’d turn their numerical advantage against them.

But in the midst of his contemplation, he heard Sour screaming over the gale into the blood-streaked face of the mercenary he’d gripped by the lapels: “What do you mean it wasn’t dead? Useless!” Sour threw the petrified mercenary to the side and pointed back at the pursuing Blueblood. “C’mon, you cowards! Your primary target is right there! Kill him! Kill him!”

But the mercenaries backed away slowly, pointing back at the abbey.

Blueblood risked a glance behind him.

Then he stopped dead in his tracks.

A black-clad figure slowly emerged from the structure’s shadows. He saw who it was, but then saw the look on her face. The hopeful expression that had looked both ways before trying to make its way across his muzzle was t-boned by a wince. He took a few wary steps back.

“What are you waiting for?!” Sour turned back to the abbey. “Just rush them and—” His jaw dropped.

“It took me a while to track down the soldiers you had scattered around the town,” Tempest said. “But they did not put up much of a fight.” She looked uncustomarily scuffed and bruised, and significantly more irritated than normal, if that were somehow possible. “Let us see how you fare.”

“Stay back—” Sour drew a concealed knife and swung it in panic as Tempest rushed him.

Tempest effortlessly batted the weapon aside, sparks of electricity forming at the point of impact. She wrapped one foreleg around Sour’s neck just below the jawline, reached across to grab his shoulders with the other and then, slowly but implacably, twisted them in opposite directions. The end result was Sour’s head being rotated one hundred and eighty degrees relative to his body, without allowing his neck to bend. The successive sounds of snapping vertebrae was singularly unpleasant.

“Pathetic.” Tempest dropped the paralyzed, yet still living, pony to the ground. “I had high expectations after the last one. I wanted a challenge.” She watched dispassionately as Sour shuddered for each breath. “May the suffering which marks your end be a lesson to others.”

“You missed the cannon,” Blueblood said flatly.

“No.” Tempest pointed back to the strewn bodies and wreckage at the base of the hill. “I’m not the only one here.”

“How many—”

Lyra, Bon Bon, and Flash crested the hill.

“A few.” Tempest replied. “Speaking of a few…” She turned to the remaining mercenaries Sour had commanded, and pointed a hoof at their dying employer. “I trust that you have learned a lesson from his mistakes.”

The mercenaries threw their weapons onto the ground and held their hooves in the air.

“Smart choice.” Tempest watched Sour’s choked gasps fade in intensity, until he finally let out a death rattle.

Lyra and Bon Bon began to tie up the prisoners. “Lyra and I will haul them down to the constabulary,” Bon Bon said. “If it isn’t burned down, we can toss them in the cells.”

“Good idea,” Blueblood said. “If it is burned down, throw them in anyway.”

The eyes of the mercenaries widened.

Blueblood looked up to the storm clouds, then over to Tempest. “I assume all of this is yours.” He gestured around as the deluge began in earnest.

Tempest looked into the abbey. “Later; I have business with the pony who dropped a ceiling on my head.”

“Starlight?” Blueblood knew he‘d hit the mark when Tempest’s eyes narrowed. “Damn her. This… all of this, it’s unforgivable.”

Tempest cracked her neck with a sound reminiscent of a shotgun blast. “I agree. She left me for dead in a pitch black tunnel, buried under tons of debris.”

“It doesn’t seem to have affected you as much as I’d have expected.” Blueblood walked with Tempest and Ametrine as they stepped back inside.

Starlight was waiting for them. Her horn was lit, and a wall of force held the others in the abbey at bay.

“While I was rendered unconscious, several of the larger stones fell in such a way that I was caught in a debris-free cavity underneath them. As for how I survived the initial impact... It might have something to do with some extra enchantments that were placed on my armor without my knowledge.” Tempest’s eyes narrowed even further as they locked onto Starlight. “It is as if she planned it so that I wouldn’t die there.”

Blueblood leveled his harshest gaze at the blind mare, even though she couldn’t see it… probably. “Solmare, Vinyl, Big Mac, Party Favor, Night Glider, and Sugar Belle.” He shook his head. “Dammit Starlight, I told you I’d have your head for just risking more lives with your games. This… catastrophe has cost the lives of seven of our friends, and who knows how many Ponyvillians. Even if their losses were an unintended consequence of your actions, I’d see you hang for all this death.”

The anger Blueblood felt made one of his eyes begin to twitch. “But you are so damned accurate with your predictions. I have to know—this invasion. When you set it up, did you know exactly what would happen? Did you know exactly who would die?”

Starlight let her hornglow fade, and the magical barrier vanished. “Yes, I knew. I set this entire chain of events in motion, and I knew exactly who would die because of it.”

Villagers and company members alike gasped at Starlight’s reply. Ditzy fainted. Blueblood tilted his head. He wasn’t even sure when Ditzy had arrived.

There was a sudden commotion as, springing out of the crowd, Applejack threw herself at Starlight. She was stopped a little over a mare length from smashing in Starlight’s face, being physically restrained by Yona. “You monster!” Applejack shouted. “You caused this?! Let go of me, you oversized yak! My brother’s dead! I’m gonna kill her!”

“I’m pretty sure that she’s responsible for my death,” Lotus said, with extreme hatred in her voice—until Aloe repossessed their body. “Especially since she was so quick to offer us this dual-nature solution.”

“All this death, all this destruction.” Blueblood shook his head. “You’ve really given me no choice, just like how you never gave anypony else a choice in this whole matter.” His gaze locked on Double for a moment. “Not even those who would have given their lives for you.” He lit his horn, magically lifted his sword into the air, and pointed it at Starlight. “Let’s… let’s get this over with—”

“No.”

Blueblood turned to Ametrine, and lowered his sword. “What?”

“I said: no.” Ametrine fixed him with an intense stare. “Blue,” she pleaded, “you can’t.”

Double stepped towards them, sparing a brief glance at Starlight. “No, Ametrine. It has to be this way.” He shook his head sadly. “She knew this would be the cost, and she did it anyway.”

“But,” Ametrine said. Pain tempered the iron resolution which filled her voice. Tears formed in her eyes. “I don’t care what she’s done. She helped me see. Blue… if she hadn’t, you’d be dead.”

“Ametrine.” Starlight’s voice sounded calm, but Blueblood heard hints of barely suppressed fear. “Don't cry for me, I’m already dead. I accepted that I would be sacrificing my own life when I decided who would live and who would die in order to produce this outcome.”

“You don’t deserve this.” Ametrine lowered her head.

“You said it yourself; deserve’s got nothing to do with this.” Starlight looked to Blueblood and nodded her head. “It’s time.”

Blueblood returned the nod. Looking first to his sword, then to Starlight, he found that he couldn’t lift the blade to strike. He sheathed the weapon. “Tempest... you'll have to do it.”

Tempest nodded and assumed a fighting stance. She tensed, waiting for Blueblood's signal.

He looked towards her and held up his hoof in the “hold” gesture. Preparing to lower his foreleg, Blueblood hesitated, and took a good, long look at Starlight. It seemed clear from her stance that she had accepted this fate long ago. And her left foreleg was wrapped in blood-stained bandages—self-inflicted, he concluded, as there was no way her foresight would have allowed her to accidentally mangle her entire limb. She must’ve been… punishing herself. His years of politicking allowed him to see the traces of very well concealed fear bleeding through her facade. Yes, she’d known this would be the outcome for a very long time—been expecting it even—and yet, it still scared her. She was putting on a brave face, for the sake of Ametrine, to spare her as much anguish as possible. It was all the mercy she could offer.

Unbidden, Starlight’s words returned to him: “You’re right. Nothing from Equestria will be able to spare me from your wrath.”

He looked to Ametrine, then to Tempest. “As quickly and painlessly as you can.”

Tempest scrutinized him for a moment, nodded, and adjusted her stance.

Blueblood’s hoof dropped.

Tempest moved like lightning. Her hoof struck Starlight directly where her left foreleg met her barrel. There was the sound of snapping bones, a crackle of electrical discharge, and Starlight fell backwards, clutching a hoof over her stopped heart.

Double rushed to Starlight’s side, knelt, and took one of her limp hooves in his. “Goodbye, old friend.” His breath frosted in the air as his eyes locked with hers. “Don’t worry, I know he didn’t have a choice; I’ll stick by the Prince until this place takes me.”

Starlight twitched a few times before becoming suddenly still. A surprisingly peaceful smile was etched on her features.

Opening his mouth, Blueblood paused, finding himself speechless.

“I shouldn’t forgive you for this,” Ametrine said from beside him. “But I shouldn’t have forgiven you before either.” She wrapped her forelegs around him.

“I’m sorry,” Blueblood said as he stared at Starlight’s unmoving form. “For this, and everything that came before.”

“Forgiven.” She hadn’t even hesitated.

Blueblood wrapped one foreleg around Ametrine, but found that he could not remove his gaze from Starlight. “She said that there was a purpose to every action that she took.” He shook his head. “I’ll be damned if I know why she forced this specific outcome, though.”

“Like a master chess player,” Tempest said, drawing the eyes of the others, “she planned many moves ahead of current events. Her actions likely have yet to finish playing out. If she truly had flawless foresight, then there is no way to tell how long the ripple effects of her machinations will continue.”

Blueblood furrowed his brow at the thought. Then he shook his head. “We need to find out where all of the company members are. Ametrine, where is Shining?”

“I don’t know, Starlight did something to sever all the viewer connections.”

“Well outside of town,” Tempest said. “Mister Armor is with his sister and a newcomer, watching over Miss Dash and Miss Rarity, both of whom are unconscious. The rest of us ran ahead, to aid in dealing with Starlight’s treachery.”

“Unconscious?” Blueblood furrowed his brow. “Well, explain later; we should get them to the sanitarium. If Dash and Rarity are hurt, being caught in the rain isn’t going to help them any….”

Blueblood glanced back to Starlight’s body. He watched it warily, almost as if he expected it to come back to life and—

“Oh,” Blueblood said as he realized the number of deaths caused in the town raid. “I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.”

“No.” Ametrine shook her head. You won’t. But probably not for the reason you think.”

“We should rest,” Tempest said. “We will be unable to do anything useful in this storm. If it has dissipated by tomorrow, we can survey the damage then. We can at least take small consolation that the rain will put out the fires.”

“Small consolation indeed,” Blueblood said, looking out into the downpour.

The five ponies had taken refuge just inside the Everfree Forest. Twilight stood watch at the very edge, using a single tree as cover. Shining and Cadance were a little further in, watching over Rainbow and Rarity as they slept.

“You must care a lot about her,” Cadance said, using her wings to shield Rainbow and Rarity from the downpour.

“Yes,” Shining said as he knelt beside Rainbow. Water dripped from his brow. “She may have her flaws,” he smiled and ran a hoof along her cheek. “But they’re all part of what I love about her.”

Cadance smiled. “It’s always nice to see when two ponies fit with each other so well.”

Shining looked up at Cadance and tilted his head slightly.

“Something the matter?” Cadance asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Shining said. “It’s just that when we were younger—”

“We were an item, I know.”

“Yeah, we were pretty wild together.” Shining’s smile morphed into a frown. “But then my sister ran away, and I never saw you again… I missed you.”

“Shining,” Cadance said. “I enjoyed the times we were together as well. But we’ve both moved on. I’m married to a stallion I love, and you’ve found yourself a wonderful mare to be with.”

“I know,” Shining said, looking up into the rain. “I’d never give up what I have with Rainbow.” He looked sidelong at Cadance. “But I’d always wondered what things would have been like if we’d stayed together.”

“I’ll be honest: I don’t think it would’ve worked out.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” Cadance said, “I’m not sure I’d approve of your treatment of foals.”

“What?” Shining pounded a hoof against his chest plate. “I’d be a great father! I’m a complete gentlecolt!”

“I remember this one time that I was babysitting Twilight, and you threw her like a javelin—”

Shining smashed his hoof into his forehead. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

Week 23, Day 4, Midnight

“Where are they?” Blueblood paced in his room, surprisingly awake, despite not having slept—barring last night’s grievous head trauma—for several days straight now. A flash of lightning and immediate boom of thunder made him jump slightly.

Turning, Blueblood looked over to where Tempest silently stood in a corner, her eyes as alert, if not more so, as his own. A sideways glance revealed Ametrine, who sat on his bed, her furrowed brow and crossed forelegs suggestive of exasperation.

The flames in the fireplace danced away. Blueblood wasn’t actually sure who’d lit it, but a small fire had been in the hearth when they’d entered his room. It had been easy enough to stoke the blaze to be large enough that any fleshforms that decided to visit could be quickly disposed of.

“I already told you a dozen times.” Ametrine glared at him. “They’re not coming.”

Huffing, Blueblood moved to the window and looked out into the dark downpour. “Why not?” He slammed a hoof against the wall. “They’ve always shown up before the grandfather clock hits the twelfth chime!”

“I’d have thought the answer would be obvious. Especially to you.”

“Well—” Blueblood spun to face Ametrine “—obviously it’s not as obvious as you thought.”

Ametrine pointed a hoof at Blueblood. “I suppose I’ll just have to show you then.”

“Show me wha—” Blueblood was stunned as something struck him in the face. It was a liquid of some kind.

Brushing a hoof against his face, Blueblood pulled it away to see red. The metallic odor made him realize that his hoof was wet with blood. Ametrine’s foreleg had opened and sprayed him in the face.

Blueblood saw Tempest tense and lock eyes onto him, but otherwise she did not move.

“Why did you—” Blueblood suddenly felt canine fangs in his mouth, and a desperate thirst. He looked at his own foreleg and struggled to resist the temptation to lick the delicious blood from it—why was his mind insistent that it would be delicious? “What… is this? What is happening to me?”

“You’re not going to get any more visitors,” Ametrine said, “Like I told you before, it sends things like me if it needs something from you, or if it wants to try to infect you with itself. One thing Starlight told me was that Zecora was the last fleshform The Heart would ever send to you. It wouldn’t send any more, because by then you’d have already passed the threshold.”

“What threshold?”

“Blue—” Ametrine’s voice was devoid of mirth “—welcome to the monster club.”

Blueblood’s tongue ran across his new teeth, stopping to feel the unfamiliarity of the pointed tips. He just wanted to bite them down into something warm and juicy… and living. “What did this to me?”

“Prolly has something to do with the blood you soaked up.” Ametrine made circles with a hoof in the air.

“Blood?” Blueblood eyed Ametrine warily. “What blood? And soaked up? When?”

“I’m talking about when I poured that blood and wine mixture on your arm.”

“You mixed blood into that wine?” The thought made Blueblood actually feel more thirsty, instead of the expected pressure of bile threatening to force its way up his throat.

“No.” Ametrine rolled her eyes. “That wine already had blood in it.”

“Blood from that mutant rat?” Blueblood held onto a small sliver of hope, though he suspected much worse.

“No. Pony blood.”

“Pony… blood.” Blueblood actually licked his lips, but then forced his tongue back into his mouth, and ground a hoof into his forehead. “How in Tartarus did pony blood get into the wine?”

“It is possible that somepony cut themselves when the crates were being shipped out.” Tempest’s tone of voice suggested how little she believed that statement.

“No.” Ametrine shook her head. “Zecora had almost finished analyzing the wine before she… perished. The blood was old, and corrupted, drawn from somepony who had been exposed to far more corruption than you are currently. But Zecora was having trouble pinning down the exact type of pony. Every time she tried to see if it belonged to an earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn, the tests all came back positive, for all types.”

Blueblood looked to the floor and put a hoof to his temple as he thought. “It was Celestia’s blood, then,” he concluded. “She was an alicorn. Alicorns have aspects of all the pony types; their blood should have all the markers and have strange and incredible properties. Zecora would have been excited about the alchemical implications.”

“Yes.” Ametrine said. “Zecora’s notes expressed enthusiasm over what the unexpected results could mean for her own research.”

Blueblood looked up from the floor as a question drop-kicked his brain. “Wait. Why were you going through Zecora’s notes?”

“One guess, and her name begins with Starlight.”

“Figured. But why did you flay the skin off my arm, and then douse the wound with wine that you knew was corrupted?”

Ametrine sighed. “Do I have to list all the reasons?” Holding up her hoof, she started counting off on it as she spoke. “You insisted on a solution. The corruption was already spreading uncontrolled. I hated your guts.” She smirked. “That monster arm of yours was not doing it for me in the sack.”

Blueblood gave Ametrine a flat look.

“Ok fine! And Starlight suggested it.” Ametrine glared at him. “Need any more explanations?”

“Her reasons are irrelevant,” Tempest said. “What is important right now, is that it stands to reason that all of the wine from the hidden room was tainted by this corrupted blood.”

Blueblood suddenly felt dizzy. He staggered to the bed and placed both hooves down on it for balance. “We sent all of that wine to Canterlot! Fancy said he’d gotten a letter from Coloratura saying they were going to serve it at the Grand Galloping Gala! We have to stop them, recall the wine… what day is it?!”

“The day of the Grand Galloping Gala.” Tempest managed to deliver the line without a hint of panic, or sarcastic irony.

Ametrine canted her head. “Blue… we may have a problem.”

One week earlier...

It was the fifth time that Coloratura had read Fancy’s latest letter. Again, a smile came to her muzzle. She reached down with her teeth and plucked a quill from several that were lined up nicely on her desk, just like a healthy set of pegasus primaries.

She dipped the quill and began to write her own response.

Dear Lord Fancy Pants,

I am indeed doing very well, thank you for asking.

I hope that my response also finds you in equally good health.

I must say, the wine you sent is absolutely delightful! It has a heady, aromatic bouquet and a thick, full-bodied taste, with some peculiar hints of flavor that will be sure to intrigue the guests at the Gala. It has actually made me feel quite invigorated. Why, I would dare to go so far as to say that just this one bottle has made a new mare out of me!

In response to your query, I absolutely agree that all hundred cases should be used for the festivities. Your worries of substandard quality are completely unfounded; it is simply to die for! Why, I can practically guarantee that the nobility will be killing each other over this vintage! We will have to commend Blueblood on his impeccable taste.

I also look forward to seeing you again in council.

Until then,

Countess Coloratura

“Swift Post!” Coloratura called out as she set the quill back into what she’d been using as an inkwell. “Do you think—” She stopped when she took in the sight of her pegasus messenger.

Swift lay across her desk. His tongue lolled out of his open mouth, with glazed eyes staring out at nothing, and an expression frozen in shock and horror. Where his neck had been was a crimson ruin, a blemish upon his otherwise pristine white coat. One of his primary feathers had been plucked and then shoved into his exposed jugular vein.

Tsking, Coloratura shook her head. “No,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to find somepony else to deliver this now.”

Seeing the mangled state of Swift’s neck made Coloratura smack her already bloodied lips in anticipation. With a horrid sound, similar to tearing canvas, her snout elongated until a hideously large proboscis erupted with a squelch from her flesh. She plunged the grotesque extension hungrily into Swift’s neck wound. Pushing deep into the chest cavity, she finally felt liquid being pulled up and into her mouth. Gulping greedily, she could not prevent excess liquid from spilling out from the sides of her lips and staining her light-aquamarine coat with ruddy shades of crimson. The feeling of feeding filled her with euphoric ecstasy.

When Coloratura finally dropped Swift to the floor, he made a hollow sound. He was completely drained.

“Oh,” she moaned, pressing her hooves to her red-stained lips. She smeared the blood all over her muzzle, her face, and up into her mane. “This Gala is going to be the best. Night. Ever.”