Canterlot Academy Trials

“...”

Pollux grasped the flute in her little hand, and brought it to her lips before playing a quick 12-note signature that caused Eastman’s mind to fluctuate and become a slave to its rythym. The badger man had become a mindless drone ready to follow her at a moment’s notice, though he couldn’t quite do that since he was still tied up, but the colored circles in his eyes indicated that the song had worked on him. It seemed to include mustelid beastmen as well…

Do-do-re-mi-so…

“I knew it!” Gloomtail snapped his fingers, “You can play it. So all this time you’ve been pocketing money from the slave traders in Klugetown so you could keep a bunch of slaves to yourself while writing letters back to them every so often. Isn’t that right?”

“...I…” the mouse woman huffed, “...I did it to survive. Klugetown was a cesspool of mess and slavery and I wanted to get out of it. So I did what I could with what little I had.”

“Holy shit!” Gloomtail cackled, “Now we’re pulling out that excuse, huh? Here’s an idea: If survival was so important to you, then why not use the power of the Piper against them and fight back? Or maybe just run away with the crew? Or how about coming clean and letting your buds know what’s wrong?!”

“...” Pollux didn’t have an answer for that, which only caused Gloomtail to sigh in defeat.

“Wow…just wow,” he shook his head dismissively, “I can’t believe you honestly. Like I said, I’m a conniving asshole myself, but I at least treat my own crew with enough respect to let them know how I’m feeling. You’re supposed to be the ones stopping us and you can’t even do that?” He grabbed the bridge of his face between his eyes, “Can you even call yourself a ‘hero’ with that mentality?”

“...fuck off ye bilge rat!” she screamed at the dragon, “Ye are the rascals who are running ye blood as illicit substances! It’s on us to bring ye in!”

Gloomtail rolled his eyes. The dragon obviously knew selling his own blood was illegal given that Smolder had outlawed it, hence why he operated on such a remote island with the griffon gangsters and a few other dragons acting as his muscle.

“...yeah. I know. But yikes, you’d think the bastards coming to arrest me would have some sense of morality and care about their own people. In reality, you’re pretty much no better than me. Hell you seem worse. Lying to your own people like that and not giving a damn about them…” He huffed, letting out a bit of icy steam from his nostrils, “People like you are why I do what I do. There aren’t any good people in this world. All of you pieces of shit that claim you want to help people are just doing it for yourselves. It makes me sick…” he turned and started to walk away out of disappointment.

“W-wait!” Pollux squealed as Gloomtail started to leave, “...please don’t tell anyone about this. If that gets out, then…”

“Seriously?” he grumbled out of annoyance, “Can you be anymore pathetic?”

“I’ll do whatever ye want!” she begged while on her hands and knees while sobbing. “Anything…just don’t tell anyone about me secret! Not ye crew or any of me own!”

Gloomtail walked up to her, and picked her up by the scruff of her neck. “...anything, huh?”

“Y-yes! Even…that,” she continued to plea with a helpless tone, fully accepting how pitiful her position was as Eastman watched her with a disgusted look on his face. By now, the Piper’s tune had wore off and he was completely lucid as to what happened.

SMACK!

Gloomtail smacked her again, sending her into the nearby wall. “...quit being a little cowardly bitch and grow a pair.”

But then, she quickly got up, and clung to his leg. “Please! I’m on me last legs here…this can’t go public or I’ll be ruined!”

“Oh my god you’re pathetic…”

Meanwhile, outside and above them within the jungle’s clearing…

A brawl had ensued. Team Epsilon and Marrow had engaged in battle against several griffons and dragons that had come out of the woodwork to protect their boss Gloomtail. Or rather…it was the costumed alter-egos of this team.

“Archsage, to your right!” Wyvern called out as he flung a fellow dragon over his shoulder and i into a nearby tree.

Archsage blew into his recorder and created a wall of musical notes that slowed down the griffon that was about to attack him. “What the--?!”

“You…” Archsage realized that it was Gaea--the griffon who had dealt him a disgusting ‘prank’ in the past. While she was slowed from the aura of the notes, Archsage would run forward and leap at her with a dropkick that sent her flying across the jungle’s wilderness!

With another toot of his recorder, he cast a buff spell that granted his allies armor.

This came in handy just as Mei--or rather, Trickster--quickly turned into a nirik, and brute-forced through an attack from a griffon’s axe, blocking it with her bare hoof before countering with a blast of multi-colored fire from her mouth, frying them to a crisp!

Priestess would cast several paralysis spells around herself, shocking any dragons that came near before extending magical puppetry threads from her wings into theirs. With a simple flex of her individual feathers, she forcefully controlled the two dragons that had tried to attack her and made them slam into each other, knocking them out immediately.

However, that wasn’t all.

As it turns out, the spell had extended to Marrow as well, giving him an alter-ego alongside the others. What was once a timid-looking mouse, had become a determined archer with a green soldier’s helmet, leather armor, and a green cloak that covered half of his body alongside a quiver that held his arrows.

With a shrill note from his harmonica, he diverted the attention of several griffons who glanced to their left, only to be picked off by explosive, musical arrows from their right! The arrows were empowered further by notes he played form his harmonica that enchanted them before they landed!

“Hoo-wee!” he squealed upon landing his shots, and ran out to join the rest of the team while firing off multiple arrows in quick succession, “I knew I was good at this…but not this good!”

“Welcome to the team, Barbarossa,” Archsage complimented the rat man’s skills as he headbutted a griffon into oblivion before sending them flying with a high-pitched note from his recorder that ruptured their eardrums with powerful soundwaves! “Shouldn’t be long before we make it to where your captain’s being held.”

Soon enough, the group had defeated all of the gangsters that were present in the area. With the current threat disabled, their costumes would disappear and Nebula would play a small tune on his recorder that would serve to heal his team as they traveled through towards the final shack in the swamp of the jungle.

“So you can do all of that with just a few notes?!” Marrow squealed with excitement. “That’s so cool! I wonder if I can learn more from you and start doin’ stuff like healin’...”

“Meh, I’m no expert so don’t sweat it,” Nebula replied amicably, “I’m just glad that our mission is almost done. Speaking of which,” he looked at Grimrose, “Rose. Mind detaining Gaea for me, please? I think she’s over there with her head stuck in one of those trees. Blue, you take point, and Mei, watch our backs.”

“Yes sir,” the pegasus mare flew off towards that very tree where she’d restrain her with magical threads used for her puppets.

“No one behind us,” Mei called out as she snickered at the sight of their latest battle, “Well, except for all the half-dead bodies.”

“On it!” Blue called out as he flew ahead and took a breaching position near the door to the shack. “Open up, fuckers!” he screamed before kicking it in.

Where he’d see Gloomtail standing there with a hopeless frown and a claw on his face, “Get me out of here now. Please..”