Well, it wasn't really the plan to go the next day immediately. More like two or three days, while I sorted things out. I had a small mountain of books to shelve, for one thing, and the search parties had actually managed to locate a few magical items in the ruins tucked away here and there. Odd bits of junk, but then again, that was how I'd gotten the alicorn amulet, wasn't it? A random bit of junk in a pawn shop. I wanted a little time to pick through them.

Some of the stuff was rather interesting. A crystal vial in a golden frame, half-filled with some shimmery liquid that my cursory examination indicated was liquified chaos magic. And by cursory examination I mean I spilled a drop of it on my bed and it turned the pillow into an eggplant. Another one was a chunk of floating rock that weighed negative four pounds, with a recipe for making more of it. There was a potion of cloudwalking, which piqued my interest.  

"And the books?" Luna's question came in a surprisingly soft voice.

Once again, the Sisters had switched off. I really had no idea what their game was. I was getting bloody tired of back tracking and repeating myself. This would make the third time they had made me start over... I think there was something shaking loose. Ever since Luna's little attempt at going Inception on me while I was asleep, I had picked up this sort of antsy vibe going on between them; Like something about me had put a wedge between them. I wasn't egotistical enough to think my little emotional tear-down had opened up any old wounds, but the glances they gave each other made me wonder.

Luna didn't make any further attempts to go swimming through my skull, at least. Well, as far as I knew. My sleep had been more or less undisturbed. Or... at least normal. Same as it had been since I arrived in this world; me waking up in starts and fits, tossing and turning... waking myself up screaming.

Shouting, I mean.

"What of 'em?" I said idly.

"The tomes you stole, and read," Luna said. "I find myself curious; Did they change your opinion of our race any?"

"Why should they?" I said. "What, was I supposed to gain some deep profound understanding of the Pony Condition from them, develop empathy for you all?" I snorted. "Princess, I was looking for spells. Tools, recipes, weapons. I wasn't trying to bone up for a post-modern literature test.

"And what I read didn't exactly melt my coal-black heart with the milk of human kindness. Books, newspapers and other litter my dogs found at the edge of the forest, a few magazines one of them had picked up in the Ponyville raid-- the books were the usual one-sided 'history by the victors.' And the more current stuff was just the usual drivel, once you dug down through all the marshmallow fluff about love and tolerance. Backstabbing gossip, corrupt politics, empty consumerism, Buy this, wear that, be thin in thirty days, you're worthless if you don't own brand X, yay us, boo them, worship this vapid celebrity and let us tell you all about how she got a horn extension..."

Luna rolled her eyes. "Oh, we art stung to the quick," she said. "The plunderer and foalnapper thinketh our popular culture to be trivial. How shalt we survive the shame of his scorn?" She gave me a contemptuous look. "You sulk and sneer down thy nose like a pubescent foal. Shall we fetch thee some black eyeliner and some E-mare albums to play?"

punch the b@#$ right in her mouth put her in her place

"I'm seventeen, and I'm trapped on another planet run by ponies with the tastes of a bunch of preschoolers who've thrown me in a dungeon. What's your excuse, Princess BroodyDark?" I shot back. "Hey, you wanted my opinion of your fluffy cloud world and you got it.

"You want some more specific criticism? How about this: you ponies are oblivious idiots. You let monsters roam around within spitting distance of your homes and schools; you've got some sort of natural disaster or rampant army of villains showing up on your doorstep every week; you've got who knows how many powerful, dangerous artifacts just lying around everywhere, waiting for someone to come along and push the big red button--- but you act like your world is some sort of big nursery school! You ignore the dangers all around you and only move your candy-colored butts into gear when things are just about to blow up in your faces... then, when you've finally dealt with the disaster of the week, you go right back to prancing along your primrose path as if nothing was wrong.

You..."

You irresponsible childish idiots deserve to be...

"...deserve to be conquered!"

She pulled her head back, wrinkling her lip.

"Hell, the only reason you captured me--" I shook my chains at her-- "Is because I was trying to be more responsible than you and your big sister!"

I sure as heck wasn't going to sleep well as long as that hill, with its castle and its secret cave with its magic Tree, was sitting there.  I told the dogs to be ready to move out in two days. We were going to go en masse to the castle ruins, strip it to the walls of anything useful, And then I was going to fortify that chamber out the wazoo. I figured first on tearing the castle down-- nothing said "mystic MacGuffin, Please Dig Here" quite like an ancient ruined magical castle--- planting a few trees where it used to stand, and then a few nice thick layers of traps, curses, magical guardians and fortifications was a sure way to keep anyone from casually stumbling across it and mucking about. The moment we got back to the lair I hit the books, doing research on cursed tombs, impassible walls, moats of fire, eternal golem guardians, that sort of thing.

There was a surprising amount of information on cursed tombs, actually. But pretty much zero information on how to go about building one. It seemed like sort of a blind spot in the curriculum. Though as for that what I probably wanted was less of a cursed temple and more of an impenetrable one. But I figured we'd take a month or two, do it up right, and I'd have nothing to worry about.

The time table sort of got accelerated though when one of my patrols brought in captives.

I was fit to be tied. There stood a couple of spear-dogs, looking dimly confused, standing guard over seven or eight terrified looking earth ponies with chains around their necks.  It seems "patrol the edge of our territory" had somehow translated into Diamond Dog for "hijack a trade caravan and bring the captives back here." "You were supposed to chase them off," I repeated. "Chase. Them. Off. What part of 'chase them off' sounded like 'bring them back to our lair' to you??"

beat them senseless, teach them to listen or suffer the consequences

"But... we take prisoners?" One of them said, giving me this confused 'Baroo?' look they all did.

"We just got RID of the last one!" I yelled. "What made you think I wanted MORE?"  This set off a round of fearful moans among the ponies. "Oh shut up. Well? Why would I want more?"

The second one wagged his tail, eager to please. "But.. they good strong ponies. Work long and hard in the mines for us!"

"Slaves? You want to make them slaves?"

The diamond dogs standing round nodded eagerly. One of the mares started sobbing.

I could feel an aneurysm coming on. "After all that time you spent as slaves in the mines for Big Boss, you want to turn right around and do the same thing yourselves?" I was gagging, except I wanted to strangle somebody else instead.

"Why not?" Skank asked, shrugging. "Better them than us."

I stopped in my reciting of events, aware that Princess Luna was looking at me like I'd sprouted a second head. "And this troubled you?" she asked in disbelief.

"Oh f@#$, I shoulda figured," I snapped. "Ponyland is just TOO treacly. Lemme guess, you have slaves yourselves--"

"Fah! Absolutely not!" Luna barked, offended. "We are no foul barbarians! What do you take us for?"

"Well what do you take ME for??" I retorted. "Slavery, that's... just..." I would have been waving my arms around if they hadn't been manacled over my head. "...just evil!" Jeez, that sounded lame even to me.

Apparently a third head had sprouted next to the second. "Thou'rt strangely particular about the issue," she said, huffing in sarcastic amusement. "Thou canst pillage, kidnap, assault and terrorize our little ponies out of sheer contempt for their existence, but keeping them in chains is too much for thy tender sensibilities?"

"Look, lady," I said. "Us humans got a lot of things screwed up. But that racist bulls@#^t is something we don't DO anymore." I foundered, trying to get across to her how wrong even thinking of slavery was. "It's just how it is."

"He was offended?" Celestia said, surprised.

"More like... revolted. His aversion to the idea of enslavement was almost visceral." Luna reclined in her throne, brooding over her discussion with the alien in the dungeon.

"How... bizarre," Celestia said, shifting about on her own throne. "Did he ever clarify why?"

"Methinks he doth not even truly understand, himself," Luna said. "In time I managed to winkle out some fine detail. It seems that, in centuries past, his people did practice slavery. In the case of his own kingdom, based upon what he called 'racism'--- meaning those whose skins were of darker hue than his own."

"An unusual distinction. Perhaps because they were easier to tell apart?"

"Whatever the reason, eventually the issue came to blows. A century and a half ago, a terrible war was fought that divided his country in twain-- those who practiced slavery against those who wished to end it. Many tens of thousands died. Slavery was ended, but at a terrible cost.... and it would seem from his reactions, an aversion to both slavery and racism has been ingrained, nay, verily pummeled into every generation that followed. So much so that even saying certain words associated with those things garners a negative reaction from him."

"Literally?"

"Quite so. The 'N' word, he called it. He could not bring himself to even say it aloud."

"And yet you say he doesn't even really understand why it was wrong, or explain it," Celestia said.

"Strewth. A tragic commentary on his upbringing... twould seem that, while his elders and his society did manage to hammer some few mores and ethics into him... they failed to impart to him a reason for them, or an understanding of them. They reduced him to the level of a dog trained to a dinner bell. He has some rough knowing of right and wrong... but he knows not why."

"And it is the Maker's own guess," Celestia surmised grimly, "where his 'gut reaction' will lead him next..." and perhaps has something to do with why the Amulet refuses to let him go, she pondered silently.

"But continue," Celestia said. "What else did he tell you?"

Note to the wise: it's inadvisable to engage in primordial screaming while wearing an enclosed helmet.

After my ears stopped ringing and the pounding in my head diminished, I noticed that a rather large area had cleared out around me. All the diamond dogs in the room had retreated to the walls and were trying to cower out of my line of sight. The 'dogs who had brought in the slaves were flat down on their faces. The ponies themselves were huddled together, staring at me wide-eyed. A foal huddled with his parents started to wail. "I wanna go ho-o-ome," he blubbered.

"Shuddup, kid, or I'll stamp on all your toys," I said wearily. "Skank, I swear, one of these days you're going to pick your nose and your head's gonna cave in. THINK, okay? Think about all the trouble we got into with just ONE pony prisoner. Now whadda you think is gonna happen when they find out we have SIX of them?"

Skank tapped his fingers together. "....Oh," he said.

"Yeah, 'Oh.' Genius. Look, I'll make it simple. No. More. Slaves. EVER. Got it?" Skank nodded. I spoke up. "The rest of you hear that? NO MORE SLAVES EVER." They growled and whined but said 'yes.' "GOOD. You fleabags cross me on this, I swear, I'll feed you to the hydra!"  The yessirs got a lot more enthusiastic.

A cringing Skank raised his paw. "But... what we do with these ones?" He waved at the prisoners.

I sighed. "Take them back to the edge of the Everfree--- SAFELY back-- and let them go," I said.

One of them heard me. "But our wagons..." she said.

I went a little Palpatine on her. "YOUR WAGONS ARE FORFEIT!" I said, letting a few lightning bolts crackle around me. "Be thankful your lives are not!" I stepped up closer to them. "When you get back to your kind, pass the word on; stay out of the Everfree, if you value... your lives..."

Something was wrong here; something about their reactions was off. If I'd had a spidey sense it would have been tingling. I stepped closer still. Most of them seemed normal enough, shaking in their hooves, genuinely terrified. The third mare however, something about her wasn't quite right, like she was putting on an act. She noticed I was paying extra attention to her and glowered at me. Her eyes were a purple hue, but for the briefest second they flashed green. And I thought I saw fangs.

"The hell is this?" I lunged forward and grabbed her by the neck.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn't expecting her to burst into flame. One second I'm hoisting a miniature pony off the ground by her neck, Vader style, the next I'm holding a writhing mass of green fire. The other ponies chained to her screamed; they must have figured I had set her ablaze. I did a little screeching myself, but for whatever reason I didn't lose my grip.

When the flames parted, I wasn't holding a pony anymore; I was holding a winged, horned, fanged, hissing thing.

That, my friends, was a serious WTF moment. the creature at the end of my arm looked like a pony had knocked up that creature from 'Alien.' It was pony shaped, with a gnarled horn and tattered, bug like wings that rattled on my armor like locust wings. Instead of hair or fur it was covered with leathery skin and thick leathery-looking plates, and it had huge, blank, rot-green eyes. It hissed at me, showing a mouthful of fangs, and kicked at me with swiss-cheese looking legs.

I screamed like a cheerleader and let it drop. Shut up, okay? Bug. Bug the size of a human child, okay?

It didn't even hit the floor before its horn started glowing. The slave collar around its neck shattered and it flew off, swerving around diamond dogs and disappearing down the nearest corridor. I got off a blackfire bolt, but missed. "After it!" I shouted. Nearly every dog in the room ran after it, baying. I wheeled on the remaining prisoners. "THE HELL WAS THAT?"

"A Changeling!" said one of the stallions, a tan-on-gold with a compass rose cutie mark. "Sh-she joined us when we were passing through Ponyville--" He looked sick. "All this time... she was the one who talked us all into taking the shortcut through the Everfree...."

"Talk fast," I snapped. "Who or what are the Changelings?"

"Parasites," one of the other stallions said. "Like vampires."

Whoa. Grimdark.

"They feed on the love of other ponies--"

Okay, not so Grimdark.

"They kidnap other ponies, replace them, their families never know..." one of the mares said fearfully. "Their queen nearly took over Canterlot a few years ago. Started putting everypony in cocoons..."

Okay, maybe not grimdark but creepy enough. "Their queen?" I pressed.

"Chrysalis," the stallion went on. "The Princesses and the Elements of Harmony defeated her, scattered her army to the winds with a magical forcefield powered by true love..."

Amazing. They took an invasion of soul-sucking face-stealers and turned it into glurge faster than Stephanie Meyer turned vampires gay.

The ponies rambled on, filling me in fast on this little epic saga in their recent history. I was really not liking what I was hearing. Apparently this Chrysalis and her army had infiltrated Canterlot in the middle of a huge royal wedding, by having Chrysalis pose as the blushing bride. She'd shut down their defenses from within, letting her swarm in to overrun the Canterlot army, and had actually bested Princess Celestia in a one-on-one fight. She'd only been defeated by the narrowest of margins, when Celestia's niece had activated some sort of "power of love" spell that had literally blasted the entire changeling army out of Canterlot and Equestria.

I listened impatiently. "So this Chrysalis is dead?" I said finally.

The ponies looked at each other. "Noone knows. They never found her--"

"So she's still at large." Great. "Let me see if I have this right. She's a soul-sucking shapeshifting vampire who was powerful enough to nearly take over Equestria, is probably looking for both revenge and for Round Two, and one of her spies, disguised as a pony, was brought right into my lair by my very own diamond dog guards just as I'm getting ready to execute a major operation." I glowered at the Diamond Dogs in question, who cringed down to the ground under my stare. "I suppose it's too much to hope you kept your mouths shut in front of the prisoners? They didn't HEAR anything, did they?"

"We didn't hear nuthin," the colt blurted out. "Specially not about no ruined castle or magic crystal tree." His parents facehoofed.

I just stood there and hung my head. Terrific. The diamond Dogs had blathered in front of the prisoners, and the changeling spy. Which meant a power-mad vampire pony queen was about to learn the location of the Crystal Tree, at which point she would surely march-- or swarm, or whatever-- straight to the castle to claim it and either become powerful enough to conquer Equestria or muck around with it and accidentally destroy the world, either way blowing my plans for the weekend straight to Sideways Hell.

"Mange, take the prisoners to the edge of the Everfree and let them go, like I said." I looked at them. "Presumably they're smart enough to go tell their Pretty Princesses the joyous news on their own."

I raised my voice and cranked up the volume on my mask. "Pass the word! To arms! Get your spears and shields, Diamond Dogs! We take the Castle of the Pony Sisters tonight!"