It didn’t take much driving for them to get to the side of town that Dex and the other Toyakas had been staying. It was a an old run down complex of apartments on the very edge of the neighboring towns. It seemed to be a place no one else really wanted to live.

“You’d think they’d choose a nicer place” Felix commented.

“You’d think, but considering the town you’re in, son I don’t think there’s a lot of options” Marina said. “Come on. You know how to break down a door?”

“I have my ways, yeah.” He said. “How often do the police come around here?” Felix looked around nervously. He was not opposed to giving the Toyakas a hard time for this but he couldn’t help be disturbed at how on board with this Marina was.

“Not often but we should be quick.” She said. “Come on..”

“Did you get any sleep?”

“No. I’ll survive.” Felix sighed. It was less her surviving and more him surviving he was worried about , should something go wrong. He followed her to up to one of the houses. “No cars out. No cars in the garage” The garage had been left wide open.

“That’s weird” Marina remarked.

“It is.” Felix said. “Do you still want to…”

“Definitely” It took a few tries from both of them to bust open the door, to get past all of the locks. Felix knew what they were doing was breaking and entering and could probably get them in trouble. But he also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Toyakas were responsible for the disappearance

He wanted his cousins back, and his cousins’ friends back, and if this was the way to do it, so be it. It’s not like he could turn back the clock and follow Skye and his friends. He wished he could turn back time when Skye was concerned about his younger brother the night before.

When Skye was panicking because the Finns had called to accuse Marina when Timmy didn't come home, Felix had assured him that it would be alright and Tim just needed some time to himself. The more he thought about it, the louder the voice in the back of his head that told him that he could have changed all this became.
When they burst into the house, they both went in opposite directions looking through the house for any trace. Papers, notes phone messages, anything it took.

Felix noticed that only half of the ridiculous amount of locks were done. Whenever Dex last left he was in a hurry. Noted.

He scanned the rest of the room and made his way to a desk with an answering machine. Of course.

Going through the messages, he didn’t find anything obviously incriminating, but after a few listens he picked up on a few things. Dex knew Timmy was visiting the old house, he was concerned about the Finns’ raising methods.

‘Why would he care?” Felix thought. It was technically his fault they were here. His hatred for Dex burned even harder. Filthy hypocrite. Then he got something interesting.

After the beep a rough voice came on. Dai, one of the craziest Toyakas in the ‘head family’.

“ Allright, we need to talk about some shit, Ponytail. Somethin’s up with our Head of Household, and you know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. Meet me outside town tomorrow night.”

Silence. Then the next one.

Either Dex didn’t show up to their meeting , or maybe he did and things ended badly. But after that Dai left a few messages demanding Dex’s attention . It seemed like Dex didn’t want to hear it. Then there was nothing else.

Felix sighed, thinking about what he had just heard. He didn’t think Dex was innocent by any stretch of the imagination, but he might not be the prime culprit here.

“Did you find anything” Marina asked. He gave an involuntary jump.

“...oh.. Yeah I think so.” He showed her the tapes.

“I’m guessing that meeting didn’t go well.” Marina said after it was done.

“But whatever it was, it might have something to do with what happened to them.” Felix nodded. “What did you find?”

Marina held up a file folder. “A lot of really disturbing stuff going on in this family. I’ll be holdin’ on to this.”

“Well the Toyakas have their reputation for a reason.” Felix felt a little guilty. As much as his family had indoctrinated the belief that the Toyakas had a “reputation” , the last year had showed him that his family wasn’t exactly slacking in skeletons in the closet either. They just hid it better.

They continued to look around for things, but nothing else really came up. They couldn’t open the rest of the file cabinet in Dex’s office because wherever Dex went he had the keys, and they couldn’t very well break it open. They had a moment to fix everything up before the door opened. Both Marina and Felix had perhaps a few moments to react before they heard who it was.

“What the hell? Someone’s broken in!”

“Sam…..what if they’re still here?”

It was a bit of a blur , what happened in those next few minutes. Marina got up and told him to follow her lead. They grabbed something lying around as a weapon, and went to the main room.

Isamu and Leo stood in the main room of the apartment looking around for things that had been damaged and checking for things that had been stolen.

“Well hello there boys” Marina smacked the handle of a swiffer broom in her palm. “Nice of you to join us.”

“You broke into our house?”

“Please don’t take anything.” Leo pleaded.

“We don’t want any of your toys” Felix said, rolling his eyes.

“This is a fuckin’ crime. I’m calling the police” Isamu made for the phone. Marina smiled and picked up , handing it to him.

“Go ahead,” She said cheerfully. “I’m sure they’d love to hear about what your family’s been doing. And where your cousins are?” Marina Finn was a scary woman sometimes. Isamu and Leo exchanged looks.

“What do you want?” Felix closed the door behind them. Not only because he didn’t want their voices to carry but because he wanted to rattle the two.

“Where are the kids? Where’s your leader? What’s going on here? Start talkin’ boys.” The looks in their eyes plainly showed that they knew they were cornered.

Now what did they have to say?

*************

There was nothing more awkward and uncomfortable than trying to explain to a group of peaceful ponies why your families hated each other for centuries. Especially when most of them didn’t know all of the story themselves. Skye explained what he knew and then looked over to Shiro and Ana. They’d been in the community for longer.

“So your families hate each other over something that happened hundreds of years ago?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You ever considered, I dunno getting over it?”

“We would but-”

“We tried” The two sides shot glares at each other. “There was a truce when two people from our family married each other. But it fell apart because someone didn’t treat their husband well and he left -“

“What are you looking at me for?” Shiro exclaimed angrily.

Ana pulled him back gently tugging gently at one wing and shot a look at Skye. He backed down. He knew he said he’d try to forget the business between their families but the more he thought about it, the more he got angry.

“Okay, your families don’t like each other” the orange pony said. “Now…..how did you end up here?”

Skye bit his lip and looked at the others. “Well….”

‘One of our cousins went rogue” Shiro said, “He was already crazy, but he decided that getting rid of our enemies and ...some of the more unclean in the family...I guess.. Something about pruning the family tree of it’s tainted branches. Why he decided I’m tainted I have no idea.”

“It’s because your mom was one of us” Skye said it before he could stop himself.

“What? You’re lying. My mum is an only child.”

“From what family?” Skye asked.

“....she never said” Shiro shifted uncomfortably. “But it doesn’t matter!”

Skye rolled his eyes. If Shiro wanted to delude himself that was his problem. “Anyway….he managed to kidnap all of us, one by one….and...well….last I remember he was doing some kind of ritual with….well….” This was the part he didn’t like to think about, he saw enough of it in his nightmares. “With our blood.”

That caused a reaction from the Princess and her friends. All of them had looks of shock and horror. Rainbow muttered “You’re kidding right?”’

“No.. I wish.” Skye said. “he had a bunch of stuff written in blood and a magic circle with a bunch of symbols on it-”

The Princess had been looking more and more pale and she made a mad dash out of the room.

*************

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash called. “..I urgh TWI!” She took off leaving Fluttershy to cry on the already shaken Applejack’s shoulder. Pinkie shook as she tried to shake Rarity awake. Rainbow searched in every room –often getting asked to leave until she found a path of purple feathers to follow. For whatever reason she hadn’t expected the most brilliant of them to be the one most affected. Why? She didn’t know, but she had expected to turn to Twilight for her answers.

Why did such a disgusting thing exist?

Who could do that?

Why would they?

She followed Twilight’s feathers into a room where she had her head in a trashcan, shoulders shaking.

“Twi?” Twilight slowly raised her head after wiping her mouth. Her face was slightly tear-streaked.

“I….I thought it was just a myth..th-that magic like that didn’t work” she said weakly. Rainbow came closer, shaking herself.

“You…know about this…?

“When I was younger…there were some books in the Royal Library that I desperately wanted to read. C-Celestia forbade them and hid them b-but I was so curious…” Rainbow Dash put a wing around her friend.

“You just wanted to know what they weren’t telling you, huh?” She said.

“Yes” Twilight’s voice was barely a whisper. “a-and I found them…it was h-horrible. So horrible. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Celestia understood and sh-she said not to worry that it was worthless magic and a waste of time. I….” Rainbow Dash nodded but didn’t say anything. It seemed like that little voice in the back of her head that was supposed to tell her when to stop talking decided to work. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry I just broke like that. I’m supposed to be a leader-“

“Hey…..everyone’s a li’l shaken up. We’re only ponies. Even you, Princess.” Rainbow Dash said.

“I-I think my stomach settled” Twilight said, “If anyone asks…let’s just say lunch didn’t agree with me” Rainbow chuckled.

“So…what are we going to do about them….?” Twilight looked down.

“I’ll think of something….”

*************

There was a long period of silence and a heavy sense of awkwardness in the air. Skye didn’t really know what to say and he felt awful for making the Princess so upset. Even if he was just telling the truth. Shiro threw him a dirty look.

“What would you have said?” He shot back.

“I-i -d-dunno…” Shiro faltered. “But...I would have said it better.”

Before any more words could be said, the orange pony got between them.

“Now that’s enough you two.” She said. “It weren’t yer fault Twilight got upset. You were just tellin’ the truth. Sometimes the truth ain’t easy to hear.”

Skye looked down sheepishly. “If I know Twi, she’ll be right as rain in a lil bit.”

“....is your friend there alright?” Shiro looked in the direction of the formerly tear-stained yellow pegasus.

“She’ll be fine, sugarcube.” In a few moments Rainbow and Twilight came back in.

“I’m sorry about that.” the Princess said. “I’m all right now. I believe the magic used on you is considered very dark magic.”

“It is where we came from as well “ Ana said. “Unfortunately D-our cousin has always been interested in the more unpleasant aspects of magic.”

Rainbow Dash held up a hoof. “Um excuse me, sorry to interrupt but...what do you guys have to do with all this?” He looked towards Rusty and Gem.

“We’re ...uh his friends….he grew up in our hometown.” Gem said, nodding at Skye.

“We haven’t got any powers , so I guess that’s why the nutcase thought we were damn near worthless.” Skye winced looking down again. He had gotten his friends into this. Now they would never see their family either.

“I….I’m so sorry” He said trying to hold back tears. It’s my fault you’re here.”

He felt a hoof on his shoulder. “Hey.” Rusty wrapped his foreleg around him, “It isn’t your fault. We’re your friends. We’ll get through this together.”

He felt two ponies hugging him, Gem and Rusty were on either side of him, trying to comfort him.

“....yeah” He said. He pushed back the horrible feeling rising up in him. He had his friends, and they still liked him, no matter what it might tell him.

“So...what do we do now?”

One of the Princess’s friends shut the door behind them while the others were gathered around them.

“Can we know your names now?” Rainbow asked.

“You know what, Rainbow , that’s a great idea. Why don’t we all introduce each other” The orange farm pony said. “I’m Applejack, and this here is Rainbow Dash.”

“My name is Pinkie Pie! Nice to meet ya!” the pink bouncy pony had gone from the other side of the room to in their faces in a matter of seconds. Applejack pulled her back.

The yellow pegasus walked closer hiding behind a curtain of hair. “M-my name’s ...um...my name’s Fluttershy.”

The white unicorn next to her, approached them with confidence and grace, “My name is Rarity. dear.” There was a silence and Skye and his friends looked at each other.

Shiro coughed.

“....well our names probably won’t make sense to you then.” Rusty said.

“That’s okay.” the Princess said, “We understand.”

Skye cleared his throat. Might as well get this over with. “My name is Skye.” He turned to his little brother who’d been sleeping through everything. “This is Timmy.” He wondered if his brother’s lethargy had more to do with the sudden loss of his newly developed electrokinetic power, or the grief and depression they had experienced as their parents’ death sunk in.

“I’m Rusty, and this is my twin sister-”

“Gem.” There was a moment of friction between the two, but it thankfully dissipated right away.

The six mares looked over to the other side of the room. “Oh….” Shiro shifted in the bed. “Shiro Toyaka.”

“Anamaria” Ana left her last name off, interesting.

“Thank you for your cooperation today. I know it wasn’t hard to talk about for any of us, but knowing the truth will go a long way in helping you. I need to send a report to Princess Celestia to see what we can do.”

Skye nodded. He honestly didn’t think there was much that could be done. “Thanks.”

*************

That night in the library Twilight was going through her books. Deep down she thought it was a waste of time, she wouldn’t find anything about dark magic here.

“Well….” Twilight shut her latest book while Applejack was pacing back and forth. “That’s just about all of the books that might tell me anything. I shouldn’t have expected something like this in the Ponyville Library” She sighed and tried to remember anything from the horrible books in Celestia’s library. But she couldn’t remember much just gruesome illustrations and descriptions that made her ill. She sighed, and then called for Owlicious, her nighttime assistant.

She was hesitant to expose Spike to the kind of creepy stuff that she had just learned about. She dictated a letter to her tied it up and called for Spike.

“Yeah…”

“Can you send this to Celestia?”

“Is this about the ponies you found in the snow?” Spike rubbed his eyes.

“Yes. They’re a little different.” Spike took the letter and sent it. It was two hours – two hours of pacing and awkward silence- until Spike burped up the letter from Celestia. Twilight caught it and the noticed Spike stood there watching.

“Well aren’t you going to read it out loud?” Twilight sighed. She really didn’t want to tell Spike about this just yet, but at the same time he did send the letter. It was unfair to keep him deliberately in the dark.

“Tell you what; I’ll talk to you about it later, okay?” The young dragon when up to his room grumbling darkly. Twilight felt her insides squirm; something pecking at her in the back of her mind telling her she was being unfair. She told herself she would talk to him later and shook it off.

Dear Twilight,

I thank you for bringing this to my attention. Unfortunately I have bad news for you. If the magic that brought these beings here did indeed use their blood then there is likely no way for them to return. This sounds like the work of a Banishment Curse which was intended to lock enemies out of their world. I can’t imagine why one would target mere fillies and colts for such a cruel spell but I assure you if they do show themselves here, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of our laws.

With Love and Great Regret,

Celestia

“Banished?”

“Forever?” All six of them exchanged looks of shock. It was hard to imagine but if even Celestia was saying there’s no way then it was hard to argue. Twilight took a deep breath.

“Well…this means that once we break the news, it’ll be up to us to help them adjust.” she said.

**********

Dai had been so focused on carrying out his plan that he hadn’t thought nearly enough how much time the aftermath would take. He was in a hurry trying to clean up the scene of the crime. He grabbed a few things he needed from the shack, then he burned down the old shack, and burned away the fingerprints, and whatever might be left. He left some evidence, just enough that people believed his captors dead as well as something that would lead people to believe he died as well.

Those gloves he got from his dear aunt really came in handy.

Once everything was taken care of, it was time to skip town. He had at least prepared to grab things and get ready to run. Taking out Dex made it a little easier.

He must have traveled for a good eight and a half hours, getting out of town as fast as he could with the time he’d bought himself. He was halfway through Kentucky before he allowed himself to stop.

He used the credit card he’d nabbed from Dex to get himself a nice place and some dinner. He had no clear idea of where he was headed after at the moment. That was probably something he should work out.

He pulled out a spare road map he’d gotten and started scanning it. The Toyakas did some business with the Americans, but Dai himself had little experience with the psi and magic communities of America. That was something he’d have to work on.

He recalled hearing somewhere that somewhere around the West Coast, there was a community of American Toyakas, filled with those who had left the noble household. Hmm...tempting. He would like to face some of these pathetic family abandoners one day. But perhaps not just yet. Maybe sometime after he had been long forgotten about.

Dai stuck pushpins in the map, planning possible places he could stay.

“Huh. Kentucky? Thought you’d want more of a change of scenery.” Dai looked up at the voice, which he recognized the moment he had heard it.

The one person he couldn’t run away from.

Ambrose Lasko, his aunt’s secret ‘business partner’ and confidante, leaned against the wall. Lasko seemed to be a sorcerer, but had something off about him.

“What are you doing here?” Dai asked. Lasko chuckled and walked over to his table.

“Because something weird has been happening. We haven’t gotten reports from Dex or Shiro or you in 24 hours and Kags is gettin’ pretty worried. Would you know anything about that, Dai?” Dai gulped. If Dex was hard to hide all this from, Lasko would be damn near impossible.

“.....” He fumbled for the right words. “I...I don’t know. Maybe…maybe…”

“Maybe you do know….” Lasko said. “Come on. I’m not in the mood to listen to you trying to cover your ass.” He slammed his hand on the table and leaned in close. “I’d just fess up if I were you. It’d make things a whole lot easier.”

Dai licked his lips, feeling his throat drying up.. The atmosphere somehow just got a lot colder. “I….I…..” He gulped again. “I-”

“You what, Dai?” Lasko’s voice sounded dangerously low.

“I “ Dai gulped and got his courage up, Lasko wasn’t that strong looking. “I took care of the folks that have been distractin’ Kagami. All right? I got them out of the way, so we could focus on taking down the enemy!”

Lasko grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him into a wall. “YOU KILLED THEM?”

“No I didn’t kill ‘em” Dai said. “I banished ‘em.” Lasko’s eyes were lit up with a furious blaze.

“AND THAT’S MUCH BETTER, YOU CRAZY ASSHOLE?” A good hard punch hit the wall right next to Dai’s head.

“It was for the good of the family” Dai shot back.

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Lasko asked. “How. How?”

“Getting ‘em out of the way. So we can take out and conquer the Strykes like we’re meant to.” He winced as Lasko gave a deep aggravated sigh. He spoke softly but that didn’t make it any less threatening.

“That’s what this is all about? Your little ego slapfight with the Strykes?” he asked. “You banished a bunch of people to a different world for the sake of beating a family you don’t like?”

“It’s for their own good too. Get rid of the ones with mixed loyalties, all the potential traitors. They can’t survive this fight either, if they’re not willing to take out the enemy. Or too weak in Shiro’s case.” Dai said. Lasko didn’t seem any happier with this, the air around him just got colder.

“Oh I’m sure. Because getting rid of Kagami’s biggest voice of sanity and half decent morality is a grand idea.” he spat. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t hand you into the authorities right now, Dai. One good reason.”

Dai was really starting to panic. None of his arguments were getting through to Lasko. He didn’t know if anything would convince him...except…..

“I know exactly what happened, and I know the magic I used to send them there.” He said. “What are you going to do to fix this without me?” Lasko opened his mouth to say something but closed it.

“Unfortunately you make a good point. The first good point you’ve made in this entire conversation, mind.” He said. “Still...do you have any fuckin idea how you’ve just fucked up everything? Do you know who Kagami’s other son is? A sadistic sociopath raised by a hired killer.”

“So long as he gets the job done.” Dai said. “Better than having someone sympathetic to Trykes-” he felt the sting of a slap against his face.

“Shut up. I don’t have time for that bullshit. Now, if I’m going to help you out here, you’re going to do exactly what I say. You got that?”

Dai groaned. He had no chance. “Fine.”

“Allright.” Lasko reached down and grabbed half the burger Dai hadn’t touched and bit into it.

“The ‘ell?” Dai glared up at him.

“That’s tax. Now if you don’t mind” Munch “I have to clean up your mess as best I can. I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere, because I will track you down.” Lasko walked out, still finishing off Dai’s sandwich.

“Maybe if you eat something with little ebola in it, you learn not to nick food off someone’s plate.” Dai muttered bitterly.

What he didn’t expect was to get a reply. “It’s not like I can get any dead-er!”

Well, that explained a bit.

Author's Note

Finally the new season gave my muse a flame of inspiration! I've come up with a lot of new ideas and revisions for this fic (revisions for what I had originally planned that is.)

For those wondering, Lasko is a lich, and he's sort of a soul dealer who's been doing business with Kagami Toyaka for a long time now. He's not the only lich in this story either. The story will go into more detail about how that works in time.