Death Valley

Fuligin was indeed a corpse. Or maybe just close enough to a corpse for Tempus Mortis to work. Amanita had never tested it on any living ponies, mainly because of the dearth of living ponies who’d died. (Even though she was living in one’s house, rent free…) And yet, here she was, examining the deaths of someone who was still up and moving.

For there were deaths.

Oh, there were deaths.

There were somewhere between twenty and thirty. Once every two to three years. All those times, his body was damaged enough that it should’ve killed him, even if his soul remained. What was happening to him? Rather than wonder, Amanita plunged into the very first death.

Sounds formed around her. The rustling of a forest. Panting breaths. Midwinter’s voice. Calm, cool, collected. “If I am who you say I am, you have no chance.”

Fuligin’s voice. Tight, breathless, enraged. “I… dinnae care. C’MERE!” The violent snapping of twigs, a body-on-body impact-

Midwinter was sinking her teeth into Fuligin’s neck. Fuligin was pulling her body close to him, pulling tightly. Amanita could already see her ribs splintering beneath her coat. Part of Fuligin’s fur jacket was on fire, more of it was scored by glancing hits from magic. They were somewhere in Midwich Forest, although nowhere Amanita recognized. The trees and snow around them were damaged by some sort of fight. A broken sledgehammer was lying discarded among a set of hoofprints.

Amanita examined the tableau from all angles. She had to assume it was sixty years ago, because both of them appeared to be the same age. It was impossible to know why Fuligin was attacking Midwinter from the information she had. Maybe there’d be clues nearby?

She looked at the sledgehammer. Thick. Strong. Bloody. It’d take a lot to smash that haft, yet smashed that was. She followed the trail of blood back from it. Thankfully, the area around it was still available for her to-

A body. A body with a crushed head, sprawled on the ground. She could make out a horn. Varnish? Maybe. Someone who Fuligin had “killed” before getting to Midwinter. Another piece of the puzzle, but one she couldn’t access from here.

…Or maybe… Why wouldn’t it work? The body was right there. It was worth a shot. A corpse was a corpse, right?

Of corpse it was. Fnah fnah.

Amanita didn’t have much of a body but she focused to the best of her ability on laying a hoof on the body and saying the incantation. She wove her spell-

-and fell into Varnish’s deaths, just like she would any others’. Technically, they weren’t death deaths, but the bodily trauma involved was so great that it would’ve been. She didn’t bother examining any of the others at all, just plunged into the latest one.

“My horn! Why’d you do that? We’re helping you!” Varnish. Very slightly hurt. Very angry.

“ ’Cause I felt what Lixivia was doin’. That ain’t right. An’ ye ken, aye?” Fuligin. Just as angry. Maybe more.

“Yes, I ‘ken’, you hick. And what’re you-”

A wet crunching and snapping. Maybe bone. Varnish started screaming.

“Ye’re monsters. Every single one o’ ye. An’ I’m puttin' y’all in the dirt.”

“No, NO! Please, we only meant the best-”

“LIAR!” CRUN-

Amanita had never seen somepony’s head explode before.

She’d certainly never seen that explosion frozen in time before.

Yet that was what she saw now. Fuligin bringing a sledgehammer down on Varnish’s head, crushing it like putty. The skewed vision of Tempus Mortis blurred out the worst of it, but Amanita knew what she was looking at. The first embers in Fuligin’s jacket were catching. He didn’t seem to notice. For the first time, she noticed that his hooves were bloody.

The environment was kind enough to provide the route that Fuligin had walked down while stained. Amanita followed the trail and the blood inside it to another body, twisted and crushed and lying next to the shattered remains of a mangled tree. Earth pony. Lixivia. Into her past Amanita dove.

“They’re followin’ ye.” Fuligin. Tight. Suspicious?

“What?” Lixivia. Unassuming. Clueless. As of yet.

“Ye’re sendin’ out magic intae the earth. An’ the wolves’re followin’ it.”

A laugh. Trying to sound derisive. Slightly nervous. “You’re delusional. They’re just-”

“They killed Balsam dead afteren he mouthed off tae you’un. Yer magic was full o’ hate.”

“Come on. Do you really think I’d be that petty?”

“I’ve seen ye talk. Aye.”

“…Wait, DON’T YOU-” CRUN-

Lixivia was almost flattened against the tree as Fuligin swung his hammer into her side, her ribs crumpling like rice paper. The entire ground was shaking with the force of the impact, rocks and flecks of snow motionless in the air. The tree was already shattering into wood chips from sheer blunt force as if it were made of chalk.

There weren’t any more bodies nearby, but Amanita could make a guess as to what happened. She fell out of Lixivia’s death, out of Varnish’s, out of Fuligin’s, into Fuligin’s second death.

Grunts, pounding, something falling down. Someone was groaning in the background. “-stay DOWN!” Carnelian. Practically frightened. In the middle of exertion.

“I ain’t stayin’ down, even when I’m dead!” Fuligin. Angry. Also exerting. Forced, like he could barely take in the air to talk. “You’uns’re all monsters, lyin’ tae-” CLN-

They were in the library Amanita had just left. The shelves were emptier when they weren’t knocked over and the furniture was in tatters. Carnelian was pressing Fuligin against the wall by his head, pressing until his skull shattered. He was clumsily trying to swing a hammer at her head. He’d already been at it for some time, given the awkward way a leg and a wing were hanging. Varnish was slouching on the ground behind them, just barely holding himself up on a crooked leg, mostly intact.

A unicorn was curled up on the floor behind them, face down. The body was too skinny to be Varnish, but it didn’t have the exoskeleton of present-day Arc. Amanita jumped in-

Sizzling, screaming. Amanita swore she could smell something. She couldn’t hear much in the way of words in the background, just the tones of curses and vague invectives before-

Arc — Amanita presumed it was Arc — was on the floor, clutching at his face, mouth half-open in a dying scream. Smoke was curling up from his head like a veil. Amanita took a closer look; his face was being eaten away by something splattered across it; acid, maybe?

Fuligin and Carnelian were frozen in combat, snarling at each other. Carnelian was flaring her wings to force herself under a wild hammer swing of Fuligin’s, but the head of the hammer was about to clip a wingtip. Loose papers were swirling through the air, their books smashed by other frenzied blows. There was no sign of Varnish.

But Amanita did see Midwinter’s body. And her head, a few feet away. A shelf was lying in pieces next to her. Amanita fell in-

Screams from Arc. Crashing, ripping paper. “You’re making a mistake!” Grunt. “We’re trying to help you!” Midwinter. Frantic, desperate, fast.

“After what ye did tae Spruce, it ain’t the manner o’ help I want!” Fuligin. Very, very peeved. There was a swishing of air-

Fuligin was swinging a shelf down on Midwinter’s neck like a guillotine, not so much cutting her head off as crushing it off. There were a few books scattered around, but only a few, and the furniture was intact. So was more of Arc’s face as he writhed on the ground. Pieces of a broken beaker were scattered on the ground around him. In the background, Carnelian was slouching against a wall and wrenching an iron bar from her neck as she growled at Fuligin.

There weren’t any more useful bodies around. Again, though, Amanita got the gist. Out and out and out, into Fuligin’s third death.

It continued.

“They’ll be missin’ me! Why cannae I head on out?”

On and on and on.

“Why dinnae I recomember nothin’?”

Every time.

“I dinnae want yer life! I want tae see my daughters!”

Fuligin refused to stay down.

Amanita never, ever got the full picture. But she always had enough: Fuligin realized that something didn’t add up and reacted. Violently. Sometimes, he was able to “kill” up to three of the vampires before they took him down. Then, presumably, they wiped his memory again. But the body knew.

She didn’t need to go halfway down the line. It was always the same. Fuligin nearly escaped. Nearly. Now, with a bit of assistance, maybe she could help him go further.

She’d been bounding around Fuligin’s deaths for what felt like hours, but she was still tumbling into him when she fell back into her body. He put up his hooves and shoved her away. “What in the nation,” he began, “are ye-”

“Midwinter’s the one who killed you,” Amanita said. “The first time, anyway.”

Dead silence fell. The stillness was so complete that Amanita swore she could feel the current of the ley line without even trying. Shock kept everyone frozen.

“After the attack, where your wife died,” Amanita said breathlessly. “They volunteered to help you search for her, didn’t they?”

“I-” Fuligin frowned, pawed at the ground. “Aye. How did-”

“You don’t remember much of the actual search, do you? Because while you were out there, you realized something was up. You killed Lixivia. You killed Varnish. And you and Midwinter killed each other. Or you would’ve killed them all if they hadn’t been vampires.”

She glanced to one side. Varnish was trying to furtively glance at Midwinter, which was tricky when his jaw was still agape. Midwinter was making little headshakes as she stared at Amanita and kept making a “keep calm” sort of gesture. Arc was somewhere between interested and horrified, biting his lip as he tapped at the ground. Carnelian’s wings were twitching, like she wanted to spring forward and attack Amanita.

“Fuligin, please,” snorted Midwinter. “The notion of this is… absurd.” She looked at Amanita; her expression was disinterested, but her eyes were just a shade away from shooting daggers at Amanita for any one of a number of reasons. “You’re exploiting his trauma in a cold reading. Your details are vague at best, and-”

“Oh, yeah?” asked Amanita. “What about the time he ripped your head off and threw it in a vat of acid?”

Midwinter had proven to be good at controlling her body language, but even she couldn’t keep her eyes from widening slightly.

“Or the time he beat you to death with your own leg? Or the time he impaled you on your husband’s horn? Or the time he bisected you and Lixivia with a sunblasted scythe at the same time?”

Midwinter tried to stay impassive, but her fetlocks started to curl.

“I saw them,” Amanita said, grinning. “More and more and more. Not even all of them. You can’t keep him down.” She turned to Fuligin. “I don’t know why they kept you around. Spite, maybe. Or maybe they needed a testbed for their spells. But you keep finding out and you keep killing them.”

Fuligin stared at her, his head bobbing. One of his legs was lightly tapping an irregular beat against the floor. The room seemed to thrum with each impact, sometimes twisting back as if it was answering. It was hard to register his expression; he seemed to be thinking of multiple things at once.

Wait. There was energy in the ground beneath her. And it was responding to him. Why-

Then Fuligin shook his head and Amanita’s heart sank. “I dinnae ken what ye seed, but- it cannae be true,” he said. “There- is- too much-”

One pause lasted infinitesimally longer than usual.

Fuligin tapped his hoof.

And the energy in the ground stirred back.

“-that it doesnae- answer.”

Amanita blinked. Was Fuligin… stalling?

She snuck a glance at the vampires. They seemed to be relieved with this change in course… except for Midwinter, who was looking at Fuligin very intently.

“I’m sorry that- ye-” Tap. “-cannae see that- I’m goin’ through-” Tap. “-a tough time an’ I’m-” Tap. “-mighty stressed. I-”

“So you still see the truth?” Midwinter cut in as she pinned Amanita’s tail to the ground.

“Aye.” Tap. “I see it.”

“Then can you please get back to overseeing the cages? Homunculi are not perfect and we do not want them damaging the prisoners.”

“Aye.” Fuligin stopped tapping, but the magic kept stirring as he took slow steps towards the doorway. Was it getting stronger? He stopped at the doorframe and looked back. “Dae ye want me tae take her as well?” he asked, pointing at Amanita and tapping. “She seems awful-”

“We have it under control,” said Midwinter. “We can handle one pony.”

“Sure an’ certain?” Tap. “If’n ye want, I can-”

“Fuligin. See to the prisoners.”

Fuligin gave Midwinter a long look and flicked an ear. He tapped the floor. The response was definitely getting strong, but Amanita still couldn’t tell what it was. “What you’un goin’ tae do tae her?”

“Ask her some questions,” said Midwinter. “See. To. The prisoners.”

“Aye.” Tap. “I’ll do that.” And, after a few hesitant steps, Fuligin was gone. Gone gone, or just for the moment? Amanita wanted to think-

Something blurred and suddenly Midwinter was pressing Amanita to the ground with a heavy hoof on her chest, breathing in her face. “I. Would quite like to know. What. You think. You’re doing,” Midwinter hissed. This close, her breath was rank with the stench of rot.

Somehow, Amanita managed to not flinch away from it. Pinned, hardly able to breathe, all she could do was hope that Fuligin knew what he was doing.

Arrastra had run out of despair about ten seconds after Fuligin left. Now she had rage. She was screaming obscenities and pounding against the door of her cage, harder and harder and harder, as if she could bend the metal with her bare hooves. Bitterroot wasn’t entirely sure she was wrong.

Across the way, Bitterroot saw Whippletree swallow. “Eh. Arrastra?”

Arrastra stopped screaming. She didn’t stop hitting. “Aye?” she growled.

“What’re ye… plannin’ on doin’?” Probably the best question to ask.

“Gettin’ out o’ here.”

“And then what?”

“I’ll figure that out once I’m out o’ here.”

The logic was distressingly simple. Whippletree shrugged helplessly at Bitterroot, who made a sympathetic face back.

Somehow, even in that cramped space she was able to throw her entire weight against the cage door; the entire assembly lurched, but she collapsed onto her haunches. “That- That was Pa,” she growled in between deep breaths.

Whippletree put a hoof on his cage bars. “D’ye… think ye could’ve been… mistook about him?” His voice sounded like he was walking on eggshells.

“Nay,” Arrastra panted. “I ken he’s me pa. He looks like him. He feels like him. ’Tis… I cannae explain.”

Bitterroot and Whippletree looked at each other again. Bitterroot knew the feeling of just recognizing a person, but how long of a shot was too long? She swallowed her anxiety. “Hey, uh, Tallbush? You’re a unicorn.” Easy to forget when he looked like that, though. “Can you… I dunno, get us something? Levitate it over and-”

“W-what?” asked Tallbush. He was shaking inside his cage and bordered on too scared to notice his surroundings. It didn’t look right, someone who bordered on angelic being scared. “Uh, n-nay. Tried. C-cannae reach apast the cage.”

Phooey. Bitterroot looked at the homunculi again. How smart were they? Maybe, if Arrastra could push her cage over-

Then Fuligin re-entered the room. And he immediately said, “I’m sorry, Arrastra.”

Arrastra’s wings flared open, just a little, as she jumped to her hooves like she’d been struck. “Pa…?” she asked, pulling herself against the door.

“Ye’re me daughter,” Fuligin said as he walked over, his voice getting shaky. “I- I cannae believe I didnae see it afore. Ye look- so, so much like yer nana. ’Cept yer eye. Y-ye’ve got yer m-ma’s eye.”

“Pa!” Arrastra awkwardly reached through the bars and they pulled each other into a hug. Arrastra sounded like she was on the verge of sobbing “Pa, Pa, I- I’ve missed ye-”

“Ye- Ye didnae hurt y-yer ma. Wi’ the cake. S-she reckoned ye’d say that, then eat it aryways.”

“I- nair thought o’ that. I was a right hollow-tailed filly, werenae I?”

“Um…” Bitterroot coughed and tapped her bars. “I hate to cut the reunion short, but-”

“Aye,” said Fuligin. He rolled his shoulders. “Step back.” Once the door was clear, he hooked a hoof around it and simply ripped it from its hinges.

All of the homunculi immediately turned to look at Arrastra in the open cage, but Fuligin raised a hoof. “I’m keepin’ watch o’er her. Stay at the door an’ keep her frae runnin’.” The homunculi nodded and obediently shuffled towards the exit, standing in a semicircle around it.

As Fuligin pulled Bitterroot’s door off, she nodded towards the homunculi. “Not very smart, are they?” She flexed her wings. They both ached, and the bad one still stung enough that she wouldn’t be able to fly once they were outside. Had she broken it? Maybe just sprained.

“They’ve the brains tae obey, an’ little more,” said Fuligin. “Ye must needs be presact when speakin’ tae them.”

Once Whippletree and Tallbush were also free (Tallbush needed some coaxing out), Arrastra said, “Pa, dae ye truly not recall the last sixty year?”

“Nay.” Fuligin shook his head. “Jes’ the last six moon. Yer unicorn friend-”

“Amanita,” prompted Bitterroot.

“-she said- She said I’d been- killin’ Midwinter an’ her family over an’ over, but I-” Fuligin rubbed a hoof through his mane. “I cannae remember-”

“Oh, hold up.” Bitterroot dug through her furs and pulled out a dose of foal’s breath. “Take this, it’ll bring your memories back.”

“Aye,” said Arrastra. “It clears the head right up.”

Fuligin looked apprehensive for maybe a quarter of an instant, then his eyes briefly darted to Arrastra. That seemed to steel him, and he grabbed the pill and swallowed it. For a second, nothing happened, and Bitterroot wondered if it would even work on a technical corpse.

Then Fuligin flinched as if struck and his pupils dilated.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “Oh, those lily-livered tick-ridden SWAYBACKS.”

“There’s a lot you remember now?”

“Aye,” he said in a hatefully level voice. “Enough fer me tae kill ’em. Again.”

Whippletree walked up to the group; Bitterroot hadn’t even noticed he was missing. “Door’s shut tight,” he said, nodding at the exit to the bunker. “Willnae budge.”

“I cannae open it, neither,” Fuligin said. “But, you-” He pointed at Bitterroot. “-yer friend’s in trouble. We need tae save her.”

Image flashed through Bitterroot’s head, hypotheticals she didn’t want to consider but had to. “From the clutches of vampires,” she said softly. “Heh. Great.”

Fuligin tilted his head. “What’s a vampire?”

“You consider my offer, my generous offer,” snarled Midwinter, “and then you spit in my face by trying to turn my servant against me. Why?”

“Does it matter?” Amanita coughed out. It was the most she could manage with Midwinter on her chest. “I did it. I don’t ask why you do what you do.” If Fuligin could stall, so could she.

“Oh, honey.” Arc stuck his head into Amanita’s field of view. “Science, obviously. We’re doing things that nopony’s done! Ha! And do you know how rare those are?”

“We are pushing the boundaries of magic,” snapped Midwinter. “Learning for learning’s sake. Every new thing done here is adding to archives of knowledge for-”

“Mother, just kill her already,” groaned Varnish. “Your reasons change nothing.”

Midwinter didn’t look away, her lifeless eyes boring as if she could reach Amanita’s soul. “Amanita here is a great mind, rare in these lands,” she said. “And if I’m going to destroy it, I would like to know why she’s forcing my hoof. Perhaps… Perhaps I can make her see reason.”

“You still think she has a great mind?” asked Carnelian. “I’ve already said that she doesn’t know why her first resurrection failed!”

“But she does.” Midwinter’s wings beat once, twice. “Oh, she does. Didn’t you hear her? She almost answered so when I asked her. Before we were interrupted.”

Amanita kept silent. Let them keep talking. The magic in the ground was growing stronger.

“So, please, Amanita.” Midwinter ran a hoof down the side of Amanita’s face and gave a deliberately fake grin. “Tell me. What do you mean by- by any of this?”

Silence. Her heart was pounding and lightning was stinging the insides of her veins, but Amanita kept herself quiet as she looked up.

“Answer me!” screamed Midwinter. She pulled Amanita up by her furs and slammed her against the ground. “Why would you throw everything you could ever want away?”

Amanita’s spine burned from the impact and it was all she could do to speak instead of groan. “Because I don’t want it,” she gasped.

The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted; somehow — she didn’t know how — Amanita felt less like a prisoner and more the center of attention. “Don’t want it?” Arc asked, leaning over her. “‘Don’t want it’, she says. Ha!”

“You. Don’t. Want it,” Midwinter said skeptically. “You do not want immortality?”

“Then kill her!” Varnish punctuated his word with a stomp. “She’ll die eventually anyway!”

“You are a necromancer. You were apprenticed to one who knew lichdom. Why do-”

“How do you think the Guard got Circe’s phylactery?”

Silence fell, the horrified silence that normally only happened when someone admitted to drowning puppies. Amanita let it linger. The longer it lasted, the more she could stall. The magic below was getting stronger.

“…You didn’t,” gasped Midwinter.

Amanita just smiled, fully aware that she was likely inviting Midwinter to bash her face in. As long as it kept her distracted.

“She- She was your master!” Midwinter screamed. “She taught you everything you know and-”

“Honey,” Arc said, laying a hoof on Midwinter’s shoulder.

“-you betrayed her to be destroyed and-”

“Honey, I’ve got an idea.”

“To deal with her?” Midwinter spat in Amanita’s face. “I would love to hear it.”

“You know that wonderful potion I just made that streamlines the soul separation? The one that needs another spell performed to complete the process?”

Midwinter raised her head. A slow grin crept across her face. “We always did wonder what the aftereffects would be,” she said. “Yes. Go get it, would you please?”

“Ha! Of course.” Arc gave Midwinter a quick peck on the cheek and sauntered back to the lab.

“You’re going to suffer.” Midwinter’s leer was wide and mirthless. “Your very nature will consume you from the inside as-”

Amanita tuned her out. Those threats were a bit a bundle coming from Circe. As she lay there, her eyes focused on the Binder. It was right there. If she was lucky, it could be her ticket-

What the hay. She had nothing to lose now. Might as well swing for the fences. Amanita seized the Binder in her magic and yanked with all her might to one side.

The chain had been enchanted with some form of strengthening magic and didn’t break.

So between the thinness of it and the strength of Amanita’s pull, it cut through the flesh of Midwinter’s neck like cheese wire.

Before it hit her backbone with a wet, muted clink.

Midwinter stared at Amanita. “Oh, you little-”

One of the walls exploded.

“A vampire is…” Bitterroot rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s a sort of undead- Y’know what, I’ll tell you later, let’s go save Amanita.”

“Aye,” said Fuligin. “I dinnae ken-”

“Hey, step aside, will ya?”

Arc came ambling into the lab, whistling, not really looking at anything in his automaticity. He headed to one corner of the room where he started rooting through a cabinet.

Everyone froze. Arrastra inched over to the table with her chainsaw on it, moving slowly and carefully. She delicately lifted it off, somehow making no scraping sounds. Fuligin was shaking his head at her, but she wasn’t looking at him to notice. Bit by bit, she crept up behind Arc, raising the chainsaw above his head-

The entire room lurched with something and Arc blinked. He pulled his head out of the cabinet to look to the side. But then he kept turning until he was looking at Arrastra.

She immediately brought the inactive chainsaw down, but he dropped to the floor and threw up a shield. The saw bounced off it like a superball, but Arrastra just took a step back and revved up the dynamo.

“Rude,” tsked Arc. The magic around his horn wavered-

-and every single speck of light in the lab died.

The room plunged into pitch darkness, the kind it was nearly impossible to create, and that darkness fell so hard so fast Bitterroot flinched while the others around her gasped in shock. She closed her eyes, opened them. She couldn’t tell the difference. She heard shuffling around her, ponies trying to move in the dark. And echolocation.

Chirp.

“You should’ve stayed in your cages, you little cuties!” Arc said cheerfully. His voice was layered with magic and it was coming from every direction at once. “It would’ve been simpler! Ha! But if you really want to play it this way…” His voice shifted, becoming something that pierced Bitterroot’s eardrums. “Find and kill them all, if you would.”

And from the sounds of the heavy hooffalls, the homunculi were moving.

Chirp.

“We’re goin’ tae die,” Tallbush whispered. He sounded close to hyperventilating. The prophet was saying that. “We’re goin’ tae-”

Bitterroot gave him a sharp nudge and pulled them both to the floor. “Stay quiet,” she whispered. Keeping one leg over his withers, she started crawling away from the footsteps. She tried to reassemble a picture of the lab from memory. How big was it? Where was everything?

Chirp.

Her mind was distressingly blank. Normally, she could case somewhere a few times before committing it to memory.

Loud, chuffing breaths. Sniffing. The homunculi? Maybe. Bitterroot kept crawling along. The floor was sticky. She didn’t want to think about what she was crawling through.

Chirp. Chirp.

Other footsteps, lighter, suddenly shuffled around her in odd ways, almost like they were coming from multiple ponies. The air rippled with the passage of someone she couldn’t see. And was she hearing breathing, or was that something else? Next to her, Tallbush whimpered wordlessly.

Chirp chirp.

“Mareco!” Bitterroot yelled, desperate for some sense of control.

Chirpchirpchirp.

“Polo,” a cold breath whispered in her ear.

And Arrastra’s chainsaw roared.

Meat and more was ripped and torn as the chainsaw ground. Bitterroot was splattered with things she didn’t want to consider, things small and dry and cold. She flattened herself as much as she could and covered her and Tallbush’s bodies with her wings. Tallbush squeaked and tried to huddle as close to her as he could.

Something fell to the ground next to her with a thud and a metallic clang. Even if she’d been able to see if, she wouldn’t have wanted to. She twitched at a sudden hoof on her shoulder, but it was just Arrastra. “Stay here,” Arrastra whispered.

Bitterroot nodded, then remembered and whispered back, “We, we will.”

Arrastra patted her shoulder and stepped away, chirping.

She didn’t see anything, but Bitterroot still felt exposed. The stench of the lab wormed its way into her nose and down her throat. She could practically taste it. She tried closing her eyes to ignore it. In the dark, it made no difference. Next to her, Tallbush had trouble simply keeping his breathing under control.

Chirp chirp.

There was something around her. She knew there was. There had to be. She was just sitting there, out in the open, an easy target. Why hadn’t they gotten her yet? She heard the footsteps getting closer-

Chirpchirpchip. MmrrrRRRRkhlkhlkhlkRrr. Thud. Chirp chirp.

Tentatively, with the unwanted fascination of watching a train crash, Bitterroot patted at the floor near where she’d heard Arrastra’s first attack. Nothing… Nothing… Metal rod. Arc. Exoskeleton. She kept patting …Leg. Intact.

Chirp chirp.

Twitching. Bitterroot yanked her hoof back. How long would Arc stay down? Circe hadn’t stayed down for that long when they’d fought years ago, but she’d been relatively intact except for the burning. She certainly hadn’t had… What had Arrastra done to Arc?

Chirpchirpchip. MrRkhlkRr. Thud. Chirp.

But that would require feeling his body, and the thought made Bitterroot shudder.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, curled up and holding her breath, before she heard Arrastra say, “Got ’em! Tallbush, can ye light the place up?”

It required a nudge to get his attention, but Bitterroot winced at the sudden flare from Tallbush’s horn. (Horns?) Once she was able to see without squinting, she glanced around the room. Her, the other prisoners, and Fuligin were the only ones still standing. Arrastra was looking very smug, standing with her chainsaw slung over her shoulder, stained with who knew what. She risked looking down and oh dear CELESTIA that was disgusting. The homunculi looked like, well, dead bodies someone had taken a chainsaw to. All… in pieces and scattered about and… ulgh. With one exception. “Why… Why aren’t they bleeding?” she asked. It was probably better than the alternative, though. Tallbush was barely suppressing a gag.

“Blood’s coagulated,” Fuligin said. “They’ve been dead fer a while.”

“C’mon,” Arrastra said, revving the chainsaw. “We’ve got a pony tae save.” She stalked out of the room.

Bitterroot found herself forced to look down to pick her way across a floor of disgusting stuff, disgusting in multiple ways. It took at least twice as long as it should’ve, as she tried to put her hooves where there was the least amount of disgusting stuff. As she reached the door, she stepped over the one that had been watching her. The one that had robbed their inn room. Good riddance. She stepped over it-

Wait. That one wasn’t- Was it? Was it weirdly intact or was that just her? Bitterroot poked and prodded it. No response. It seemed dead, at any rate. Dead enough? Good enough for now.

Amanita needed help. Bitterroot followed Arrastra out of the lab.

Wood debris, books, and stone peppered the room. Everything shook, chairs slipping, books falling off shelves. Pinned by Midwinter, all Amanita could do was clench her eyes shut and turn her head away. Bits of dirt and splinters pelted her.

“Hello.”

No.

Amanita turned her head back towards the wall and squinted through the dust. There, standing in a crater in the wall, breathing like a marathon runner, grinning like a maniac, was Code. She’d discarded her furs and was wearing nothing but runes. Bloody runes carved across her body, some still dripping, although it was hard to tell against her coat. On her cheek, right below her eye, was the Deormont’s sigil, glistening red against the dust coating her and shedding embers.

Midwinter snapped to Varnish. “You said-”

“-that I died?” Code said. “Heh. Rumors of my death were greatly-”

Midwinter placed a hoof on Amanita’s neck, almost enough to choke her. “Take another step forward and she dies. And she’s your one and only necromancer.”

Amanita and Code looked at each other. Even after all their time working together, they still weren’t sure if Code could pull off the resurrection ritual. It required a certain… nonchalance towards death that she couldn’t quite manage. Oh, the perils of being irreplaceable.

Absent any other option, Code just shrugged. “Alright. What do you want?”

“Varnish, care to explain yourself?” Midwinter asked icily.

“She- She should be dead-” stammered Varnish. “She-”

“She was caught in a cave-in,” said Carnelian. “I saw it. She could- She had no way of escape.”

Midwinter snorted. “You think Equestria’s High Ritualist has no tools at her disposal?”

“She had no paraphernalia!” Varnish yelled at Midwinter. “No tools! Nothing!”

Code smirked. “Except for the eighteen liters of blood I always carry inside me. And with the right magic circle, the Deormont could work with that. It was nice enough to help with the digging. I just needed to…” She swept a hoof over her body, gesturing at the runes. “…tell it how to listen.”

“The Deormont,” mumbled Midwinter. “You tried to attune with it?”

“What do you mean, tried? A bounty hunter with no experience with the otherworldly was able to do it. I’ve been eating its essence for the better part of a week after decades of experience. It was a piece of cake.” Code cracked her neck. “Did you find it hard?”

Amanita normally would’ve wondered why Code was spending her time talking, but she recognized that tone. Semi-mocking, meant to unsettle. A distraction. More stalling.

“Son, did you not think of this?” snapped Midwinter.

“I only learned that they knew of it less than two hours ago!” Varnish snapped back. “Would you have thought of-”

“Did you cause the cave-in?”

Silence.

“I know of your problems with Code. Did you cause the cave-in?”

More silence.

“Carnelian. Answer me, since your brother refuses.”

“Does that matter anymore?” Carnelian asked. “It’s not like she’s-”

Midwinter was looking away and all the vampires were distracted. Amanita looked at Code and jerked her head towards Midwinter, mouthing silent pew pew sounds. After a moment, Code nodded. Praying she and Code were thinking the same thing, Amanita pulled in all the magic she could muster at a moment’s notice and released it in Midwinter’s face, point-blank.

As Midwinter recoiled, Code moved. She grabbed a book from the floor and hurled it at Carnelian — hurled with earth pony strength. Amanita was sure she heard something crack when it hit Carnelian’s skull and the impact was enough to send her sprawling.

Code was still moving before the book hit. She pounced on Varnish, slamming him to the floor. He suddenly disintegrated into black smoke that swirled behind Code, but she seemed to have known it was coming and snapped her hoof backwards. Varnish reformed to get an earth-pony-powered backhoof right in the face.

Before Midwinter could recover, Amanita renewed her grip on the Binder. She yanked harder than she had before, far harder, and was able to pull Midwinter off enough to let herself roll away. She noticed Carnelian readying for a jump and gave her tail a quick telekinetic tug to set her off-balance.

With Varnish still recoiling, Code grabbed him around the neck and twisted. She threw Varnish to the floor in just the right way that his horn hit first — and, when she stomped on his neck, snapped. Before he could even react, Code scooped him into the air, twirled, and bucked him across the room. Books were rattled from their shelves with the impact.

Midwinter was on her hooves again. She swept her wings back and lunged at Amanita, fangs bared. Amanita yelped, flailed, fired off a haphazard spell. The bolt clipped one of Midwinter’s wings, twisting it just enough to throw her off-course. She landed next to Amanita, who was already on her hooves again, running for the lab door.

Where Arrastra stepped out, chainsaw at the ready.

Amanita yelped again and tossed herself to one side, sliding across the floor. Midwinter, already charging again, flared her wings to come to a stop. Arrastra leapt forward, swinging her chainsaw at Midwinter’s neck. Midwinter jinked to one side-

Amanita seized the Binder in her magic and pulled to the other side. Again, the chain cut into her flesh before catching on a vertebra. More importantly, though, it stopped Midwinter’s dodge.

And Arrastra’s chainsaw had no qualms with bone.

Midwinter’s body and head fell to the floor in two different places and Amanita was left holding the Binder, its chain swinging limply. She quickly tucked it into her furs.

Whippletree had followed through after Arrastra and gone for Varnish, swinging his spear. With Varnish still recovering from being kicked across the room, he was easy prey for stabbings from Whippletree, over and over and over, in all parts of his body. They were quick and precise, and it wasn’t long before Varnish collapsed again.

By now, Code had caved in Carnelian’s head with a chair. She looked up and noticed the crowd forming. “Hello,” she said, getting to her hooves. “Is Charcoal with you?”

“She’s dead,” Bitterroot said.

Amanita felt a pang in her heart; Code blinked twice and her ears twitched. “Ah. Then we-”

“I beg yer pardon fer- fer assaultin’ ye,” Fuligin said, stepping forward. “Midwinter was deceivin’ me like ye wouldnae believe, an’-”

Code held up a hoof and Fuligin stopped talking. She looked at Bitterroot, who said, “Long story, but he’s with us now.”

“Apologize later,” said Code. “For now-”

A bolt of light suddenly lanced into the room from the lab, narrowly missing all the ponies before it exploded against the opposite wall. Arc staggered into the room and slouched against the frame, a rictus grin affixed on his face. A large gash on his head was getting smaller by the second, closing up as ash fell from it. His horn was glowing.

And the vampires started to get back up.

“Go!” yelled Code, shoving Amanita towards the door. “Go!”

Tallbush had been the first pony through, quickly followed by Bitterroot. Amanita ran through after them, Code close behind. The corridor on the other side was grimy, narrow, and lined with doors, not unlike the one out of the lab. She didn’t stop to look at the doors, just ran.

Just ahead of her, right as Bitterroot passed it, one of the doors was blown off its hinges as a particularly malformed homunculus smashed its way out. It roared at her, something about its voice shaking unnaturally. She never knew how, but Amanita somehow managed to jump over it and keep running. She could hear its hooves behind her as it gave chase, but she had only one direction: forward. Bitterroot’s tail was flicking in front of her, giving her something to keep up with.

By luck, the hall didn’t branch. Soon, she found herself running up a staircase narrow enough that a pegasus couldn’t spread their wings. She didn’t know where she was going, but “up” was sufficient. The homunculus remained on her heels, unable to be shaken.

The staircase spat her out in a house. It took her a moment to recognize it as Midwinter’s. The door to outside was still swinging from Bitterroot’s departure. She ran for it-

The homunculus chomped down on her tail tightly and she was jarred to a halt mid-gallop. With her front hooves in the air, she hit her chin on the ground when she fell. Then the floor started moving beneath her as she was dragged backward.

She twisted until she was on her back. The homunculus was heading back for the stairs. She kicked it in the face, once, twice, thrice; no reaction. As they entered the stairwell and started bumping down, Amanita gathered her magic-

Code dove up the stairs from behind and wrapped her hooves around the homunculus’s hind legs. She shook it like a towel, dislodging its grip on Amanita’s tail. Then, still keeping a grip on its legs, she reared.

The homunculus swung upward like an inverted pendulum, blunt hooves scrabbling at nothing in the empty stairwell. It tried flaring its wings; not enough room. It seemed to be moving in slow motion as it reached the peak of its arc.

Then inertia carried it onwards, Code with it. The two of them smashed onto the downslope of the staircase, the ridges of the stairs, and sprawled awkwardly in the tight space. Code, groaning, rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball.

“Code!” Amanita yelled. She took a step back down-

Still curled up, Code raised a hoof and made a “keep going” gesture. Amanita stumbled another step down. She couldn’t just leave- But she had to. “I’ll come back for you!” she yelled. Then she turned around and charged back up. She banged out the door, out of the house, and-

-where from here?

She was in Midwich. Utterly isolated from anything. Where was she going to run? Up through the forest? It’d take several days before she was out of the valley. Or maybe-

A whistle blew and she thought she heard Bitterroot yell something. She looked downhill- The train was moving, pulling away from the coal breaker. Bitterroot was waving desperately at her from the last hopper, trying to get her attention.

Okay. Way out. Good enough. Amanita broke into a gallop.

Sometimes, Arrastra wondered if she was a bad chiropterus. Never seriously, never in any meaningful way, but she wondered. Because she hated being underground.

She hated it. Hated the feeling of not being able to reach the sky. Hated being closed in. Hated being funneled. But she’d been in caves a lot today. A different cave each time, too.

And when Arc entered the library after she knew she’d taken a chainsaw to his head, she knew she wanted to get out of the caves.

The Canterlouts and Tallbush ran, leaving the library behind. Arrastra ran after them, but before she could follow Code through, a shield went up in the doorway and she smashed into it. She reflexively banged her hoof against it, but it held firm.

Code heard the sound and turned around, but Arrastra waved her on. “Get!” Code nodded and took off down the corridor.

Arrastra spun around, her chainsaw up for whoever was casting. Pa had already crossed the distance to Arc, faster than any earth pony should’ve moved. He raised his hooves-

And Arc released a spell that punched a hoof-sized hole straight through him like an arrow through paper.

Pa brought his hooves down on Arc’s head with an almighty crunch.

When Pa kept moving without difficulty, when he walked up to her, something switched on in Arrastra’s head. It was hard to register him as undead. Immortal, perhaps, but not undead. Maybe-

Arc was down. Was the shield down? She turned back around- No, the shield was still up.

The vampires were still getting up, but they weren’t at fighting capacity just yet. “Whipple,” she hissed, “didnae Amanita say somethin’ about killin’ ’em wi’ wood?”

“A… wooden stake tae the heart, aye,” Whippletree replied immediately. He looked down at his spear and held it out, presenting the middle of the wooden haft to her. A few quick chainsaw slashes, and there she had it: three stakes, one of them with a spearhead on the end.

Unfortunately, by the time she’d dropped the chainsaw and picked up her stake, Midwinter was on her hooves and moving, the others close behind her. Arrastra took a mouthhold on the stake and flared her wings, ready to lunge in any direction.

But then something else lumbered from the lab. One of the homunculi. Even though she thought she’d gotten them all. And its horn was glowing. Arrastra glanced between the homunculus and the shield. Maybe, if-

One of Midwinter’s rear legs twitched. It wouldn’t have meant much to most ponies, but Arrastra recognized it as her getting a grip and quickly threw herself to one side. Midwinter seemingly moved between thought and action and passed close enough to snap at her neck. Working too fast to think, Arrastra jammed the stake into the closest thing on hoof: Midwinter’s head. Midwinter continued onwards with the stake sticking out.

Then a blood-chilling scream ripped through the room.

On a reflex, Arrastra looked over her shoulder. Carnelian was grappling with Whippletree and had broken one of his legs, leaving it hanging at a sickening angle. He was fighting back as best he could, but she had strength and leverage. Then, before Arrastra’s very eyes, she sank her teeth into his neck and ripped.

Arterial blood spraying like a fountain, Whippletree screamed even louder, the sound coming from the hole in his throat. All of the vampires, including Pa, snapped to look at him. Pa flinched and looked away, biting his lip and closing his eyes. Midwinter and Varnish fell on Whippletree like vultures.

Sensation was running through Arrastra, overwhelming her. She saw the blood, the thrashing body. She heard the screams, the tearing of flesh. And she smelled it, smelled all that blood like she’d smelled nothing before in her life. That smell alone almost made her vomit. Nothing had made her feel like prey before.

And then suddenly she was on top of Carnelian, the one who’d killed her son-in-law, battering her with her hooves, screaming bloody murder. She heard things, but what they were didn’t register. She could barely register what she herself was doing. All she knew was that, when she was pulled off, Carnelian wasn’t moving and had a spearpoint sticking out of her forehead.

Pa hadn’t been able to do much. Perhaps he was overcome with the scent of blood and trying to resist it. The homunculus had taken advantage of his tunnel vision to simply rip his head off. Arrastra found herself looking right into his eyes when Midwinter tossed her aside.

Something else to get them for. On the off chance she could manage it.

“Varnish, take this homunculus and any others and get the Binder back,” spat Midwinter. “I will not have my life’s work stolen by some- child.” Although he looked angry, Varnish nodded, clicked his tongue at the homunculus, and left with it in tow.

Leaving Arrastra and Midwinter alone in the library.

The two looked at each other as Arrastra somehow pulled herself into a sitting position. She knew she ought to feel something, sitting there at the mercy of a bloodstained necromancer, but she couldn’t. She was spent, not so much tired as simply out of emotions. What a week. What a day. Her well had run dry and even the barrel had been hacked up. For a moment, she just wanted to rest.

Midwinter sighed. “This all started with your sister, did it not?” she said. She wrenched the stake from her head and dropped it. It rolled to a stop at Arrastra’s hooves. “She glimpsed a homunculus and panicked. If she had simply honored our wishes and stayed away from our house when we asked her to stay away, perhaps she might still be alive.”

And the moment was gone.

Maybe Midwinter and her family weren’t directly responsible for Pyrita’s death. But if they had never come, Pyrita would still be alive. Her parents would have lived long, full lives. And that was just within her family. They’d caused more pain, across decades.

And the ringleader of all that sorrow was right in front of her.

She laid a hoof on the stake next to her.

“I could kill you right now,” Midwinter said. “You would be able to join her and you’re the only thing linking Fuligin here-” She kicked Pa’s body like a sandbag. “-to his old life. He shall be so malleable once-”

Arrastra lunged and drove the stake right into Midwinter’s chest.

Midwinter screamed, staggering back. She grabbed at the stake; wisps of smoke were already coming from the wound. Arrastra breathed levelly, waiting for the end, almost grinning in spite of herself.

Then the screams shifted.

To laughter.

As she failed to die, as the wisps of smoke remained mere wisps, Midwinter cackled more than if she’d heard the funniest joke in the world. Arrastra could only stare blankly as hope drained from her. Had she done something wrong? Was Amanita wrong? Was there nothing she could do?

Well, no use worrying about it now.

Midwinter’s laughter died. “Ah… no.”

She ripped the stake from her chest and drove it into Arrastra’s.

There was a mutedly painful tingle, almost like she’d just been bucked. As Arrastra looked down at the stake protruding from somepony’s chest — it couldn’t be hers, right? — she felt a sudden onset of an intense heat. She tried to breathe. Something ground against her ribs.

“I’ve taken precautions against this, just for me,” Midwinter said as Arrastra collapsed. “Well, Carnelian helped, but she doesn’t remember that anymore.” A light, glistening laugh. The hole in her chest was already disappearing. “I can’t have any enemies exploiting a convenient weakness, can I?”

Arrastra tried to say something. She coughed instead. Blood came up. She felt like she was burning and her vision swam.

“On the one hoof, you put up a valiant fight, and for that I must applaud you. But on the other, it was doomed from the start. I have more experience than you, more power, immortality. You never had the slightest chance.”

The floorboards twisted in front of Arrastra as her sight faded. She took a deep breath, wet and raspy and hot and painful. What little life she still had, she clung to with her strongest grip. A grip that was slowly falling apart.

“So, truly.” Midwinter smirked. “What have you to say to that?”

Somehow, Arrastra found it in herself to speak. If she couldn’t manage murder, spite would have to do. “With- With all yer power,” she wheezed, “you’un… got me… jes’ once. I got ye thrice.” With the last of her strength, she raised her head enough to grin straight at Midwinter. “Some power, cur.”

She slipped into darkness as Midwinter’s smugness vanished, passing with a bloody laugh coursing from her lips.