Velvet Underground

by MagnetBolt

First published 1st of November, 2018

Twilight Velvet is a mare leading a charmed life, and when she gets caught up in danger that spans centuries and continents she's going to need to rely on other ponies if she wants to survive this bizarre adventure!

Twilight Velvet is a mare leading a charmed life. She's always relied on her ability to see a few moments into the future to keep her out of trouble, but when she gets caught up in danger that spans centuries and continents she's going to need to rely on other ponies if she wants to survive this bizarre adventure!

Two decades before the return of the Nightmare, an ancient evil is unearthed by ponies who aren't equipped to recognize it. The fate of the world is at stake in a game of cat-and-mouse between Twilight Velvet and four spirits of chaos!

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Written for National Novel Writing Month. I'm going to attempt to publish a chapter every day as I write it, so there will probably be even more editing mistakes than my usual work (if that's even possible).

0 - Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom

If a pony imagined a desert, they’d picture an expanse of yellow sand and blazing sun with the air dancing in the heat. That was a nice, scenic desert, the kind of place where you might find belly dancers and camels and an oasis or two. It was a nicer, much more pleasant desert than the reality of the Badlands.

Soft sand would have been far easier to dig in than the ancient dust and dry mud. The Badlands were like a salt flat and a boulder field had a baby with Tartarus and you arrived just as they put it in the kiln. The heat was deadly, the nearest river was a streak of silt that only flowed a few months out of the year, and the wildlife was venomous, poisonous, or most often both.

“Red and yellow stripes... “ Daring Do muttered, staring at the hissing danger rope that had found its way into her tent. “Hey, does anypony know if this snake is deadly? You know, like the last seven were?”

Somepony cleared their throat. Daring Do looked back at the donkey trying to get her attention. She’d hired him in town, and he’d saved her life a dozen times already on this trip. She was aware of precisely zero times her life had been in danger because unlike his employer the donkey wasn’t the type to boast.

“We’re gettin’ ready to move the slab,” the burro said. “When you’re done playing with yer little friend, you can come and watch.”

“You got it dug out?” Daring asked, forgetting entirely about the snake and flying over the broken ground to look, rushing through the small tent city that had been built around what was generously an excavation site but given a grad student’s budget, was little more than a hole in the ground. “Did you remember to brace the tunnel properly this time?”

“Properly?” The burro frowned. “That was a false entrance and designed to collapse. I was almost a donkey sandwich!”

“Yeah but that’s good!” Daring Do smiled and punched his shoulder playfully. “Traps like that can only be set off once. And you know what that means?”

“It had better not mean you want us moving a hundred tons of rock.”

“It means we’re the first ones to come here since it was sealed,” Daring Do said. “Most tombs end up wrecked by graverobbers. An undisturbed find like this is the most important discovery in the last century! They’ll be writing books about this!”

“If any of this junk ends up in a book I’ll eat my hat,” the burro muttered.

“Let’s go take a look at the slab,” Daring said. “You coming?”

“You first. I don’t feel like being flattened.”

Daring chuckled and touched down, carefully walking through the dark.

“A lot of sand still in here,” she noted. It was deep enough she could feel her hooves sinking in before hitting bottom.

“In a place like this you can’t really stop it,” the donkey replied. “Look.” He pointed to the wall. Sand trickled in a slow stream to the floor, the thin silt leaking in like it was water.

“I wonder if that’s intentional? Maybe the entrance seals itself, and that’s how it stayed hidden for so long.”

“I don’t like it. If a donkey made this, it’d be solid. Earth ponies would have put the stone together better. This kind of complicated junk is unicorn work, and you know what that means.”

“It probably cost too much and went over budget?” Daring joked.

“It means magic!”

“Oh, next you’ll go on about curses and nonsense like that,” Daring scoffed. “Archaeology is about detailed and careful work. And disarming traps. Curses are only an issue in ten or twenty percent of all digs.”

Before the donkey could comment on just how high that percentage really was, they’d arrived at the end of the tunnel, where a huge slab of granite, distinctly different from the sandstone walls, was being worked on by a half-dozen goats, torches flickering and casting wavering light over the crowded corridor.

“I can’t wait to see what’s on the other side,” Daring grinned. She grabbed one of the ropes. “Pull!”

The goats strained, Daring Do offering what strength she had. With a glacial pace and infinite, geological time, the door creaked and scraped, hot air escaping from the crack between it and the wall.

“That’s it!” Daring Do called out. “Just a little more!”

A chorus of strained gasps and groans echoed, and the team managed to pull it far enough for pry bars to do the rest of the work. The slab was moved to the side, revealing a corridor gently sloping down, not a trace of sand or dust inside, like it had been made yesterday instead of hundreds of years ago.

“It’s too hot,” the donkey said. “It’s even hotter in there than it is here.”

“If I’m right, that’s exactly what we should expect,” Daring Do said, rubbing her hooves together. “I’m going to go first. Stay behind me and don’t touch anything.”

She stepped lightly, her wings spread out for balance, scanning the floor and walls. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for.

“This part of the floor is designed to collapse,” she announced. She ushered everyone back, then took one of the crowbars they’d used to move the slab and thew it. It landed on stone tile that looked the same as the rest of the corridor to a casual observer.

The floor fell like it had been supported only by cobwebs and tissue paper, going dozens of feet down to steel spikes like the teeth in a dragon’s hungry maw.

“Spared no expenses,” Daring Do noted.

“It’s a big sun,” the donkey said, looking at the granite and copper door.

“It’s not just any sun,” Daring Do said. “That’s Celestia’s cutie mark.” She touched it gently. “I don’t see any tool marks. This had to be carved purely using magic.”

“That or they used sandpaper to clean up the work. Is this a pony tomb?” the donkey asked.

“Not a tomb, more like a vault.” Daring Do said. “I think it was deliberately hidden, like a pirate’s buried treasure.”

“I like the sound of treasure. Means we might get paid.”

“I’m paying you!” Daring huffed.

“Barely,” the donkey grumbled. “Last time I work for a grad student with a budget as thin as my starving children.”

“You don’t have children.”

“Good thing too, or they’d go hungry with pay like this.”

“We’ll have to find a way to get this door back,” Daring muttered. “We’ll remove the hinges to avoid damaging it.”

“Did you forget the pit full of spikes?”

“The goats are filling it with sand and rubble. In a few hours we can walk right over it. Until then, care to take a look inside with me? I’ll even make sure you get mentioned when I write papers on this discovery!”

“Fine,” the donkey said. “Just make sure you get my name right.”

When they pulled the door open, the hinges were smooth and silent, taking the weight of the stone door and swinging gracefully like it was no more than a feather. Light poured from the other side, blinding after the gloom.

“What in the--” the donkey, whose name Daring Do never did remember to write down, stepped back in shock.

“The legends were true!” Daring Do whispered, once her eyes adjusted.

Beyond the door was a circular room with a dome high overhead, thin trails of gold forming a framework like a spiderweb supporting a gem the size of a chicken’s egg and glowing too bright to look directly at. The light was steady, but looking at it gave an impression of pulsing life like the sun itself.

“The Temple of the Sun’s Heart,” Daring Do said. “And that’s the Sun’s Heart itself.”

“Fancy rock,” the donkey said. “What about the statues?”

“Hm?” Daring looked away from the light. Arranged around it like they were cowering from the Sun’s Heart, four horrible creatures had been carved out of stone. They looked almost like ponies, but stretched out and smooth-skinned like androgynous combinations of pony, giraffe, and salamander, with all the worst aspects of each. All four were uniquely repellent in their own way. She stepped closer to look. “Interesting. I’m not sure what these are made of. Not quite marble, but some sort of metamorphic rock…”

“Worth anything?”

“Ah, here we are,” Daring Do said, trotting over to a wall. “Look at these pictograms.”

The donkey sighed and followed. “Are you even listening or am I just an audience while you talk?”

“They’re not in any language at all. They’re just sort of universal and general symbols. This is what you would want to use if you needed a message to be understood over extremely long periods of time when languages might be forgotten.”

“That’s what I thought,” the donkey muttered.

“I believe this is an abbreviated form of an ancient legend about chaos spirits called Pookas,” Daring Do said. “They were supposedly a race of quasi-elemental creatures of chaos that survived the Discordant era, similar to, say, windigos or the Smooze.”

The donkey took out a flask and took a long drag.

“I suppose this lends at least some credence to the idea that the creatures existed,” Daring Do continued. “I believe that this details Princess Celestia defeating them with the power of the sun and putting some sort of curse on them to keep them from ever tormenting ponies again.”

“And?”

“And this temple was built to commemorate her victory!” Daring Do smiled. “It’s from an era where Celestia was still establishing her rule, so they told all sorts of stories about her to sort of advertise her as a winner. The Sun’s Heart is a diamond containing pure solar magic. It’s a beautiful artifact.”

“Did you say diamond?” The donkey stood up, very interested now. “I like the sound of that! A diamond that size could be worth a lot of bits.”

“The Veneighs Museum is going to be getting that gem for its collection,” Daring Do said. “It’s not going to be sold. Something like that is part of the world’s cultural heritage! It needs to be somewhere ponies can come to admire it and learn about the past.”

“What you really mean is, we’re grave robbing and we don’t even get a cut of it.”

“Isn’t the excitement of discovery enough?”

“I dig holes for money.”

“And this is a much more exciting hole than your usual ditches!” Daring assured him. “I might be willing to give everypony a bonus for our good fortune. I expect Veneighs will be generous with grants. There are a few items in Canterlot they’re rather sore about not having in their collection, and this will even the score quite nicely.”

“I just don’t like the looks of them statues. Got a bad feeling about this whole thing.”

“They’re rather ugly, aren’t they?” Daring agreed. “The technique is amazing. Almost as good as the door, practically life-like. It was the style of the time that mythical creatures representing chaos and disharmony should be as ugly as the concepts they embodied.”

“Did you ever notice how many pony legends are about some kind of horrible monster?”

“Eh, most of them are just made up to scare foals,” Daring Do said. “My father used to tell me if I wasn’t home before dark, Nightmare Moon would gobble me up.”

“There some pithy pony moral with these things?”

Daring Do hovered in place, thinking. “Nah. Pretty sure they’re just ugly monsters. Let’s get some rubbings of the pictograms before anything is moved and risks damaging them.”

Busy directing the donkey with how to properly hold soft paper against the engravings and the art of rubbing charcoal just so to bring out the details, she quickly forgot about the statues as more than an item on a list of finds.

Not paying any mind to them, Daring Do didn’t notice the way their eyes gleamed in the dark, and dismissed the concerns of her workers as superstition.

Author's Notes:

For today's musical reference: A Horse With No Name

1 - Innervision

“Maybe that one? No, no, that won’t do…” Twilight Velvet was sweating, and not entirely because of the hot summer day. She was trying to make one of the most important decisions of her life, and there was incredible pressure on her to make it perfect.

“Lady, just pick something,” the pony on the other side of the cart sighed. “There’s a line!”

“I know there’s a line!” Velvet looked up to glare at him.

“Do you want a suggestion?” He offered her a smile. She hadn’t been happy with anything else, so it wasn’t a surprise that this didn’t work either.

“Listen here,” Velvet said. “I need to pick the right flavor or else the rest of my day will be thrown off! What if I get vanilla but what I really needed was pistachio?”

“You could buy two,” the vendor suggested. “They’re only five bits each! Or you could let somepony else go ahead of you while you decide.”

Velvet closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Mmph. Fine, get me chocolate.”

The tension was released and the ice cream vendor started scooping.

“No, wait! Not chocolate! Make it rocky road!”

“Fine. Rocky road.” He started scooping again.

“Wait!” Velvet gasped. “Maybe it should be chocolate peanut butter instead!”

“Lady, I ain’t even got that!”

“You don’t?” Velvet paused, as if going over a mental checklist. Before she could say anything else, he quickly scooped it up into a cone and thrust it into her hooves.

“Here! Five bits!”

Velvet huffed and tossed the bits onto the cart, taking the cone and stomping away.

“Mares,” the ice-cream vendor said. He shook his head and looked down to grab the bits, pausing in surprise. All of them had landed heads-up. “Huh. What are the odds of that?”

It was good ice cream. Not great, very little sold out of a cart like that would ever be great, not even in Canterlot where the price was a few bits higher than anywhere else. It was good enough, though, to satisfy the urge for something made of chocolate to smooth over a headache that’d been plaguing Velvet since she woke up.

Her grip on the ice cream was tenuous, her telekinetic field wobbling with the same pulse as her heart and the migraine she’d been nursing for the last few days. It would have been easy to blame her dad for the headache, but he’d at least made an effort to make her comfortable in the short time each day he wasn’t at the Canterlot History Museum.

She walked out into the street without looking. Her first few steps took her through a crowd, slipping between ponies without breaking stride. She licked at dark chocolate and marshmallow and tried to find walnuts in the melting treat, too focused to even notice as one cart rushed by inches from her face and another nearly brushed her tail as she stepped into and past a line of rushing cargo carriages.

A pony bumped into her, and the ice cream cone tumbled out of her weakened grip. This was exactly what she’d feared, the terrible fate she’d tried to avoid!

She grabbed the rocky road barely a hoof-width from the real road, breathing a sigh of relief.

“That was close.” Velvet sighed in relief and stood up. “Now listen here, how dare you run right into a delicate mare like me!”

“Sorry!” The thin grey stallion backed up, looking intimidated. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. You’re not hurt, are you?” He helped Velvet up, brushing dirt off her shoulders. “I’m just so clumsy sometimes. Really didn’t mean any harm.”

“Uh-huh.” Velvet frowned.

“Anyway, I’ve got to get going, hopefully we won’t run into each other again! Haha, that’s a little joke I like to tell when I’m clumsy.”

He started backing away before turning and almost running, pushing through the crowd. Velvet took a step, and felt a yawning emptiness where the reassuring weight of her bits had been.

“That little…” she growled. He turned like he could feel her gaze boring into the back of his head. “You’re not getting away!”

He bolted. Velvet’s horn lit up, and the world dropped away.

Precognition was more of an art than a science. Every choice a pony could make branched out, some of them dark, leading to disaster, most of them flat grey, just going from one place to another. A very few shone with possibility. Seeing the future was about spotting the light at the end of the tunnel before it passed you by.

Twilight Velvet kicked a loose cobblestone free and threw it in a high arc, sailing past the thief. He laughed, and she could see on his face that he thought she’d meant to hit him and missed.

The rock hit the ground in front of him, and his hoof came down on it, the old, loose stone worn smooth and slippery. He cried out in alarm, tumbling into the street, crashing through the ponies around him.

Somepony shouted a warning, but it was far too late. He fell into the lane of oncoming carriages just as a cart rounded the corner, too late for the pony pulling it to come to a stop.

Velvet licked her ice cream cone and smiled as wood crunched and cabbages sailed into the sky in an explosion of green and purple leaves.

“Hm. Definitely the right flavor,” she decided, giving her cone a few more licks, the marshmallow swirl finally releasing a crunchy walnut. She started pushing her way through the crowd that had stopped to watch the spectacle.

The thief was half-buried under what had to be hundreds of cabbages, and an earth pony had him by the ear and was well on his way to helping him go deaf by shouting right into it.

“My whole harvest is ruined! Do you know how hard it is to grow cabbage and cart it up a mountain?! They don’t grow on trees!”

“No,” Velvet agreed, stepping through the crowd. “I think they grow on the ground. Sorry, I’ll just be a second.”

She tugged her pouch of bits free from where the thief had stashed it.

“Let this be a lesson to you about trying to steal from a young lady,” Twilight Velvet said. “Especially one who can fight back.”

“You’re no lady,” the crook muttered. Unfortunately for him, Velvet had seen that coming, too. Her hoof cracked across his cheek with a report like thunder.

“Say that to my face!” she demanded. “Do you know who I am?”

“No!” the crook said.

“Unfortunately, yes,” came a voice from above. One that Velvet recognized instantly.

“Great,” she muttered. “Of all the things to miss…”

She forced a smile to her face and turned to the Royal Guard that was flying over the crowd, the big white pegasus meeting the small grin with a grimace.

“It’s been so long, Sergeant Sky,” Velvet said. “So nice to see you.”

“Twilight Velvet, your mother would be ashamed,” the gold-armored guard said as he touched down. “What kind of mess have you made this time?”

“There’s no mess,” she said.

Sergeant Sky looked past her to the overturned cart, the ruined pile of produce, and the pony buried under it all.

“No mess. So what do you call that?”

“Well, you see, this gentleman - and I’m using that term very generously only because nopony has gotten angry enough at him to turn him into a gelding--”

The guard coughed, interrupting her. “Just the facts, please. I’m being generous enough letting you try to explain this.”

“He stole my bits!”

“He stole your bits,” the pegasus nodded. “Okay. So you attacked him?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Velvet protested. “Why, you there-” she pointed at the cabbage merchant. “-you saw everything. You tell him!”

“Well, uh,” the farmer swallowed. “I was just following the line to market like usual and this feller jumped out in front of me. He didn’t look like he were pushed or nothin, just like he was runnin’ too fast and slipped. Probably needs better shoes. You Canterlot types all wear them slippery thin ones that wear out too fast.”

“I wasn’t even there,” Velvet said. “I was down the street shouting for the guards. Of course, you only decided to show up now and accuse me, the victim!” She pretended to swoon, letting the farmer catch her. She tried to ignore just what a diet of nothing but cabbage made a pony smell like.

“I don’t remember hearin’ anypony callin’ for the guards…” the farmer said, slowly.

“Well of course not. I was all the way over there.” Velvet motioned vaguely. “You were still coming down the street while I was yelling.”

A few more guards had started pushing the crowd back, the herd of ponies slowly getting back into motion as they were gently convinced to go about their business. The excitement seemed to be over anyway.

“We need to get this street clear so we stop causing a traffic jam,” Sergeant Sky said, after a few silent moments watching Velvet’s playacting. “Sir, if it’s alright, I’ll assign two privates to help you dig this gentleman out of your produce. We’ll move the cart to the side and assess the damage.”

“That’d be a big help,” the farmer agreed.

“As for you,” Sky turned to Velvet. “A word, please?”

“Just one?” Velvet asked. “I do have places to be.”

“The more you sass, the more words there are going to be,” Sergeant Sky said. “Rack up enough and you’ll end up making statements at the Guard post until your father comes to get you.”

“That could be a week,” Velvet muttered.

Sky took her over to the side, a quiet space between two storefronts, the kind of place that would have been an alleyway if Canterlot had been allowed to have such a crass locale. Instead, it was a scenic walking path lined with wastebins.

“You can’t keep getting into trouble,” Sergeant Sky said. “And before you tell me you absolutely can, I am well aware you are physically capable of getting into trouble. You’ve proven that time and time again.”

“None of it is real trouble,” Velvet retorted. “That stallion is a cutpurse!”

“And that’s why he’s going to be paying for the greenery instead of you. But if he decides to press charges, and you have to stand in a Circle of Truth, are you going to be able to look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t do anything to make him land in those cabbages?”

“...no,” Velvet admitted, her ears folding down. She couldn’t even look him in the eyes now when she was telling the truth. It was too much like the look somepony else had given her.

“Your mom was a great Guard. I know things have been rough, but you need to work through them. We all did.”

“You just got over it in a day and went back to work!” Velvet snapped.

“That’s part of the job. What happened was tragic but she made her choice and I respect her for it. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“I doubt that.”

“Some days, I doubt it too, but she was a good mare and there’s a lot of her in you. Once you get this chip off your shoulder you might even decide to join the Royal Guard yourself. We’re always recruiting.”

“Hah! Yeah right.” Velvet’s horn pulsed for a moment, and she smiled. “I don’t think I can ever see myself in armor like that.”

She tapped his breastplate with her ice cream cone for emphasis. Since it was almost entirely melted at this point, it left a few sticky drips of chocolate.

Sergeant Sky looked down and frowned.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess there’s no point eating this.”

She started to toss it, and Sergeant Sky cleared his throat.

“No littering,” he reminded her.

Velvet rolled her eyes, then opened a bin and put the cone in it with deliberate care before closing the lid.

“I’m going to let you go this time,” Sky said. “Just at least try to keep out of trouble, will you? Eventually you’ll do something we can’t ignore or call self-defense.”

He rubbed the streaks of chocolate off his armor, buffing hard with his hoof. He didn’t notice a tiny metallic ting as something fell to the cobblestones.

“I’ll be good,” Velvet promised, waving and starting to walk away, counting down in her head.

Sergeant Sky nodded and spread his wings, taking to the air. A strap popped under the strain of his flexing muscles, the rivet having come loose and fallen a few moments ago. The breastplate swung to the side, suddenly free. Sky made a sound like a confused chicken as his wings tangled and he slammed back to the earth, overturning a bin full of trash.

An ice cream cone landed squarely on his forehead, sticking there like a unicorn’s horn.

“Velvet!” he yelled.

Author's Notes:

Today's Music Ref: Innervision

2 - Clair de Lune

The Canterlot History Museum had a long and storied history, as long as you didn’t look into it too closely. A careful eye revealed that the museum’s founder, Plastic Beach, inherited more money than sense and stuffed his manor full of treasures - most of which had been collecting dust in attics and basements around Canterlot and sold for many times their real value to the young Beach. He obsessively studied and wrote about the oddities that came into his hooves with total fixation until he found his fortune had stopped being liquid and had rather solidified around him, trapping him like a fly in amber.

As his wine and cheese cellar ran dry, and he found himself looking at a fish preserved in ether and wondering if it was still edible, he realized he needed to find a way to bring money in if he wanted to keep his treasure from deteriorating. Also, he preferred not to starve to death. He opened his house to the scholars and curiosity-seekers who had been asking to see the more interesting and unique specimens in his collection and charged them a modest fee for the experience.

Things had refined slowly over time since then. The dusty and crowded rooms had been cleaned, displays set up, plaques placed next to the items so he didn’t have to explain the historical significance of the pottery fragments on his table for the fiftieth time, and the modern museum was invented.

The current museum wasn’t Plastic Beach’s original home, of course - that was old enough now that it was an exhibit itself with guided tours of Beach’s original notes and displays.

The new Museum building was a granite fortress nearly the size of Princess Celestia’s castle and twice as well guarded. Even now, in the middle of the day when most ponies were at work or school, Twilight Velvet had to walk through a small crowd to get to the reception desk.

“Excuse me?” She pushed her way to the front of the line and leaned against the desk. Her patience lasted almost ten whole seconds before she started ringing the bell. “Hello? Anypony there?”

The pony working the desk, only a few feet away and clearly trying to do paperwork, did her best to ignore the bell. “I’m helping somepony else, ma’am. It’ll be just a moment.”

Velvet frowned. “This is important.”

“Please get in line, Ma’am. I assure you I’ll be happy to help as soon as it’s your turn.”

Velvet considered that option and looked at the line of unhappy ponies, then behind the counter. Her horn pulsed for a heartbeat’s time.

“I think I’ll wait here,” she decided.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you--”

The door to the back office opened, a pale pink pony stepping out and looking at Twilight in surprise. “Velvet, what are you doing here?”

“Good morning, Miss Rose. My father forgot his lunch again,” she sighed. “He didn’t come home last night either, so if I don’t bring it to him, he’ll probably end up working himself into the hospital again.”

Amber Rose rolled her eyes. “I thought he looked like he hadn’t slept. Why don’t you come in, Velvet? It might be good to remind him there’s a world outside the museum.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Velvet said, glancing to the sour pony working the counter. “Somepony here thinks I need to wait in line.”

“Oh come now, you’re practically part of the staff with how often you’re here.” Amber Rose opened a door in the counter to let Velvet in. Velvet smiled a little more as the sour pony slammed a stamp down on the paper with more force than needed.

“Let me guess, my father’s been busy with the new exhibit,” Velvet said.

“So you saw the banners?” Amber Rose asked.

Velvet tilted her head, looking up at the huge, brightly-colored displays hanging on every wall. “Coming soon, relics from the Temple of the Sun’s Heart,” she read. “And in much smaller letters it mentions Veneighs, but I think anypony without perfect eyesight is going to miss that part.”

“Well, the Director is a bit miffed that they found the Temple,” Amber said, leading Velvet away from the public corridors to the quieter staff area. “Apparently some grad student found it all by herself. The worst part is, she came to us for a grant first, and we turned her down. We’ll be eating crow about that for a bit.”

“Maybe I’ll remind my father about that the next time I ask for an advance on my allowance.”

Amber Rose laughed. “It might just work. While you’re here, you should take a look at what he’s been working on.” She opened a door, and they walked into an atrium large enough for a hoofball pitch.

Glass cases had been set up along the walls, lights already positioned for most of them.

“Charcoal rubbings?” Velvet asked, looking at the pictograms. “I didn’t think the Museum displayed children’s art.”

“We’ve got a team working on clay replicas based on the rubbings, but we were lucky to even get these,” Amber said. “It’s a complete set, at least. From what Mr. Moonlight has said, he’s planning on making the room as close to a reproduction of the original as possible.”

“Dad always did like details. What’s this in the middle?” At the center of the room, a huge shape was shrouded by a dusty tarpaulin.

“That’s our prize exhibit,” Amber said. “Here, let me.”

Amber’s magic aura shone around the tarp, and when she pulled it free, Velvet immediately wished she hadn’t asked about it.

“That’s hideous!” Velvet gasped, taking a step back. The statue was twice the size of a normal pony, stretched out and almost skeletally thin, but somehow boneless at the same time, the stone so smooth it almost looked wet and segmented like the skin of an annelid. The face was the worst part, a ridged face like a seahorse surrounded by rudimentary gills and a mane like a filthy and matted mass of seaweed.

“It is rather unpleasant,” Amber agreed. “You can see why they usually leave the tarp on it while they’re working.”

“It sends chills down my spine just looking at it.”

“But there’s something effective about that, isn’t there?” Amber asked. “You have to admit that it’s a powerful work of art, to have inspired that kind of emotion.”

“The artist was a genius,” Velvet agreed. “Though he probably should have gotten professional help if this was lurking in his imagination.”

“Your father has been working hard getting everything ready,” Amber explained. “We want to have it ready for when the Princess comes back from her negotiations in Saddle Arabia. She’ll be the first to get a look at this.”

“So I get to sneak a peek even before Princess Celestia?” Velvet smiled.

“Mr. Moonlight always did say you were his little princess, so I’m sure he won’t mind,” Amber said. “And I think I see him now!”

Past a few hanging curtains sectioning things off, Velvet spotted her father, the older stallion wearing the same tweed jacket he always seemed to have on. She rushed over, her pace slowing to a trot as she neared. He wasn’t alone.

“...you’ll regret it if you don’t follow our advice,” the dark blue pony he was speaking to said in hushed tones. He didn’t look particularly frightening but the shirt he was wearing, black and white checkerboard, implied he at least had a deadly fashion sense. He couldn’t have been much older than Velvet was, and she didn’t remember seeing him around the museum.

“And thank you for your concern but we are not going to close down the exhibit because of threats,” Velvet’s father said, adjusting his glasses and looking annoyed.

“It’s dangerous,” the blue pony hissed. “If you don’t shut this all down--”

Velvet cleared her throat and the blue pony shut up so quickly he nearly swallowed his throat. She gave him a stern look.

“Dad, I didn’t know you were hiring any new assistants,” she said. “We haven’t been introduced.”

“I’m--” the stallion started.

“Just. Leaving.” Velvet’s father said, firmly. “He’s just a, ah, a concerned friend. He had some safety concerns about the exhibit and I’ve been reassuring him that nothing will go wrong.”

The blue stallion looked like he wanted to argue until he looked at Velvet. He nodded after seeing the look on her face.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said. As he walked past Velvet, her eyes fell to a silver pin shining on his lapel, a tiny crescent moon with wings.

She tried to remember where she’d seen it before as the stallion left.

“It’s good to see you, Velvet,” her father said, sweeping her up in a hug and derailing her train of thought. “What are you doing here, pumpkin? You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”

“Dad, you know I don’t get into trouble,” she said, lamely.

“When you say it like that it makes me really worry,” he joked.

“I came here because you didn’t have lunch,” Velvet said. She pulled a wrapped bundle out of her saddlebags. “Here. It’s just leftover pizza, so don’t get too excited. If you want a hot meal you have to cook it. I had to order out last night.”

“Your mother made me do all the cooking too,” he sighed.

“It takes too long for me to tell in advance if I’m doing it right,” Velvet complained. “By the time I know the food is going to burn, it’s already too late.”

“Velvet, you don’t need to see the future to make dinner.”

“I’m not going to cook just for myself,” she countered.

Her father snorted. “I know that tone. When your mother used it, it meant she’d already decided she’d won the argument. I promise I’ll be home tonight, and we’ll find something you can cook without burning the house down, hm?”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said, hugging him.

“And then you can tell me what kind of trouble you got into.”

“...and he slipped and fell,” Velvet said. “It was really embarrassing for Sergeant Sky. He should take better care of his armor.”

“It sounds like you’ll have to write him an apology letter,” her father said, while he cut a carrot into thin matchsticks. Their kitchen was large enough that she could sit and watch him cook without getting in the way, which both of them agreed was the safest thing for her to do.

“I didn’t do anything to him,” she said.

“Both of us know that even if that was true, you still should have warned him about what was going to happen.” He moved the carrot to the side and sliced a few cloves of garlic. “Don’t forget to stir that pot, honey.”

“Sorry,” Velvet said, quickly spinning a spoon around in a pot of crushed tomatoes. “I don’t see why it matters. He’s a jerk.”

“He was your mother’s superior officer. He’s practically family.”

“If he was such a good officer, she’d still be…” Velvet huffed, dropping the spoon. Her father pulled her into a hug.

“I miss her too.”

He held her for a long moment, then let go and ruffled her mane.

“Now, let’s get dinner going so you don’t have to yell at me for not having a hot meal!”

“What’s next?” Velvet asked.

“Next you’re going to do some of the work. I got everything cut up, and the rest is going to be easy. Don’t give me that look, you can do it.”

“Fine,” Velvet sighed.

“First, get a pan and put it over a high heat, then put some olive oil and butter in there,” he directed. “We’re going to get the celery and onion fried up and soft.”

Velvet followed his directions and kept the tough vegetables moving while they cooked. Once they’d turned transparent and soft, she added mushrooms, carrots, and garlic to the mix.

“We add the garlic just before the liquid so we won’t end up burning it,” her father explained. “Your mother always threw it all in at the start and the garlic would be little, burned bits by the time the celery was done.”

He picked up the small pot of tomatoes stewing. “Hmm… were you scraping the bottom of this while you were stirring?”

“Uh…” Velvet hesitated.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” he sighed.

“I can get it now!” She grabbed the wooden spoon.

“No, that’s burned on there now. If you scrape it, you just get that burned flavor in everything. When you’re in a situation like this, the best thing to do is to be careful not to touch the bottom and try to save the rest.”

He ladled the tomatoes out and into the pan with the rest of the vegetables, exposing a layer of burned paste at the bottom of the pot.

“Sorry,” Velvet muttered. “I told you I wasn’t good at this.”

“Everypony has to start somewhere. The most important part of cooking is learning how to fix mistakes. Anypony can try to avoid them, but a great cook can salvage a bad situation. We’ll just add a little extra broth before we put the beans and pasta in.”

“I’ll clean the pot,” Velvet offered, taking it over to the sink.

“There’s a trick to cleaning burned-on messes like that,” her father said, after turning down the heat so he could step away safely, pulling a few things out of the cupboard.

“Vinegar and baking soda?” Velvet asked.

“That’s right. First, we scrub with the baking soda. It’s abrasive and helps dislodge things.” He poured a little in, scrubbing in small circles. “You don’t have to worry about using too much elbow grease, just make sure it’s rubbed into the mess. Once you’ve done that, you pour in the vinegar and…”

The vinegar foamed up as soon as it hit the baking soda paste, the little bit he’d put in almost overflowing the pot entirely. He swirled it around a few times, then poured it out.

“The reaction neutralizes the baking soda and vinegar and you end up with just water and some salts, but all the foam and energy in it breaks up the clumps so now…”

He revealed the bottom of the pot. There was only a little bit of black stubbornly clinging to the metal.

“You’ll have an easier time scrubbing the rest.”

“Can you show me how to do that, too?” Velvet asked.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I’m not going to do all the work for you!”

“It was worth a shot,” she sighed.

Author's Notes:

Mr. Moonlight

3 - Amber Rose

Amber Rose hummed a tune to herself as she polished the fittings on the door they’d been given by the Veneighs museum. It was the one thing the Director had been willing to bow and scrape and beg to get for the Canterlot museum, owing to the perfect replica of Celestia’s cutie mark in the stone.

“It really is beautiful,” Amber sighed, as she finished what she’d been doing and stepped back to admire it. The door had been placed near the entrance in its own place of honor, ponies having to walk around it and finding displays of steel spikes on one side and poison darts on the other, like they were confronting the traps themselves.

The clock chimed the late hour, and she sighed. There was so much more to do and so little time. Unlike Mr. Moonlight, she wasn’t planning on spending the rest of the night there, but there was still time for one last thing before she clocked off and headed home to get a few hours of sleep in her own bed.

The hideous statue made for a striking centerpiece to the exhibition, but even the finest art would look terrible in the wrong context. She flipped on the overhead lights and started adjusting them, her magic just barely reaching them on the vaulted ceiling of the museum hall.

Spotlight shifted, shadows crawled across the seamless stone, and something glittered as the angle changed.

“What was that?” Amber blinked, rubbing her blurry, tired eyes.

The glimmer came from the dark again. Amber couldn’t ignore it this time, moving closer to look. Embedded in the smooth stone was something brighter, a pale nodule somewhere between a pearl and an opal, set into the stone seamlessly. Something about the color and shape gave an impression less like a jewel and more like a boil, like the stone itself had an impossible blemish.

“I hope that’s not some kind of damage from transporting it,” Amber whispered, trying to decide if she should hide it in shadow or position one of the lights to catch that bubble of unlikely color.

She moved one of the smaller lamps to shine directly on it, and something in the swirling colors seemed to call out to her. Amber reached out to touch it, and that was the last mistake she ever made.

Velvet stared at the newspaper. She’d been staring since it came in that morning, and the headline hadn’t gotten any better.

“Murder at Canterlot History Museum,” she read aloud. The whole thing felt like a dream. Just yesterday Amber Rose had been alive. One of the few mares she considered a friend, if a little distant. And just like that, she was gone.

“I have to go in and… arrange things,” her father said, quietly. “The Guards came around this morning already to talk to me.”

“Did they say what happened?” Velvet whispered.

“They’re not sure yet. It was… they wouldn’t tell me the details, but from what I understand, what happened wasn’t… it wasn’t pleasant,” her father said. “I’m going to see if there’s damage to the exhibition and clean out her desk.”

“If you’d been there late last night…”

“It’s best not to think about it,” he advised. “I’m not going to be there long. I’m going to be back tonight, alright honey?”

Velvet nodded, and her father kissed her forehead.

“Be safe, honey,” he whispered. “I’ve got a bad feeling about all this. The last thing I need is for you to get hurt on top of everything else.”

Hours went by, and Velvet’s anxiety turned to boredom and nervous energy. She started pacing, her hooves taking her from one room to another until she found herself staring at the bookcase in her father’s study.

It was the kind of bookcase that held tomes instead of paperbacks, first editions, rare works, and books measured using inches and centuries. Velvet rarely had cause to even glance at them, but something had drawn her here.

“Alright, what is it I need to see?” Velvet whispered. She closed her eyes and let magic flow gently towards the future. She could feel the frustration of a thousand possible selves as they picked books off the shelf at random, most of them finding nothing as they flipped through dusty pages.

In one future, she picked the right book.

Velvet opened her eyes and grabbed it from the shelf. She wasn’t sure what she’d find but whatever it was had excited that version of her enough to pick it out from all the background noise like one bright note in a symphony of sour ones.

“Let’s see what we have here..”

The pages were yellowed with age, the kind of thick stock that wasn’t used for books anymore. Something almost immediately caught her eye. A crescent moon, framed by wings, just like the pin she’d seen the strange pony at the museum wearing.

“The Children of the Night…” she read, skimming the page. “They’re some kind of Nightmare cult. I thought those cults were just made up to scare ponies away from rock music and children’s card games!”

She flipped through the pages, stopping at a woodcut picture showing dozens of ponies bowing down before a terrifying, black pony.

“It can’t be a coincidence that my dad has an argument with a freaking cult member and then his assistant winds up dead,” Velvet decided. “I bet the cult wants something from the museum. And it’s got to be with the new exhibit.”

She started pacing and grabbed a bit from the desk.

“Dad always said, if you don’t know what you want to do, flip a coin. It doesn’t matter what the result is, because once the choice is out of your hooves you’ll know what you were hoping for in the first place. So, heads I go after him, tails I stay here.”

She flipped the coin, and was running out the door before it even hit the floor.

Ponies tend to be very law-abiding creatures. There were crimes, certainly, but murder was rare enough that even in Canterlot, law enforcement wasn’t truly prepared to handle it. The museum had been closed but unlike in a society more accustomed to such terrible tragedy, the lingering Guard presence was there to reassure ponies that things would return to normal rather than truly establish a perimeter or keep determined ponies away from the museum.

Consequently, Velvet found it rather easy to slip inside.

Empty of ponies, the Canterlot History Museum had the same echoing gravitas that all sacred ground held. Velvet felt like she didn’t belong, and crept along the wall, feeling too exposed in the middle of the wide corridors and vast rooms. Even if she didn’t remember where the new exhibition was, the museum had signs helpfully showing the way. And pointing out the nearest bathroom, if the tension really started to get to her.

A pony walked out into the hallway ahead of her, and she froze.

It was the blue pony she’d seen before. The one that had been arguing with her father. He was sneaking along, careful to make as little noise as possible. It was only luck that she’d spotted him first.

Velvet surrounded herself in her own aura, nearly able to support her own weight with telekinesis. It wouldn’t get her into the air, but it was enough to make her steps feather-light, gaining on him with quick bounds.

He turned, hearing her hoot tap against the floor, just before she barreled into him, knocking him head over hooves into the wall.

“Hah! I got you now!” Velvet said.

“What are you doing?!” He got up, shaking his head, dazed. “What are you doing here?”

“That should be obvious. I’m here to make sure you don’t attack my dad, cultist.”

“Cultist?” He looked confused, which either meant he had a concussion or he was a great actor.

“I know you’re part of a Nightmare cult.” She pointed to the pin on his lapel. “So don’t pretend you came here because you were just aching to get a look at the exhibits while there wasn’t a crowd.”

“I think there’s some kind of misunderstanding,” the stallion said. “My name’s Night Light. I’m a friend of your father’s. I came here to check up on him because I was worried!”

“That’s a likely story. You came here to get rid of him!”

Night Light backed up a step. “What?! I’d never hurt another pony!”

“Then you better have a better explanation than ‘you were worried.’”

“I’ve done research on the Temple of the Sun’s Heart,” Night Light said. “I have reason to believe that it’s extremely dangerous to have those artifacts here. It shouldn’t have been disturbed!”

“See, that sounds like crazy cultist talk to me,” Velvet said. “And since I already know you’re a cultist you’re not making a great case.”

“I just want to check on your dad, then I’ll leave,” Night Light said. “If it makes you feel better, we can go and get one of the Guards to come with us, and I’ll turn myself in for trespassing.”

“I, um…” Technically speaking Velvet was also trespassing. And by technically speaking it was actually more like she’d evaded the authorities to prowl around an active crime scene. She had a sneaking suspicion that was frowned upon even if the pony in question had the best of intentions.

“...You’re not supposed to be here either,” Night Light said.

“That’s besides the point!” Velvet blushed and looked away. She couldn’t believe a cultist could see right through her poker face! “Fine, we’ll go see my father, and he can decide what to do with you.”

Night Light nodded. Velvet pushed him ahead of her, not wanting to take her eyes off the stallion, and not because he had a nice butt.

“I really didn’t have anything to do with what happened,” Night Light said, quietly, as they walked past the police tape and museum rope blocking off the exhibition hall. “I was trying to stop it.”

“Then you should have gone to the Royal Guard if you knew something,” Velvet retorted.

“They wouldn’t have believed me,” Night Light muttered.

“Dad?” Velvet called out, her voice echoing on the stone. “Are you in here?” She couldn’t see him among the charcoal rubbings, the empty plinth in the center of the exhibit leaving nowhere to hide.

There was a struggling sound, and her father pushed through the curtains at the side of the hall. “Honey?” He asked, confused, looking like he’d just gotten out of bed, that same half-sleeping slowness to his expression.

“Thank Celestia,” Velvet whispered. She’d almost expected to find something terrible had happened to him. “I was worried about you, Dad.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “Everything’s fine honey. Just fine.”

“Mr. Moonlight, we need to talk,” Night Light said, stepping between him and Velvet. “You have to see that the artifacts are dangerous now. We need to turn them over to the Night Guard along with my research.”

“The Night Guard?” Velvet asked.

“My research suggests all this is too dangerous to have out in public,” Night Light explained. “I was trying to tell your father yesterday but he didn’t listen. I think the… the…”

“Murder,” Velvet’s father supplied, his voice oddly low.

“I think it was because of the exhibition,” Night Light said.

“But nothing here is dangerous,” Velvet said. “Well, I guess the poison darts and stuff are dangerous, but they’re in locked cases. The only other things here are the door and the statue.” She motioned to the empty plinth.

It took her a moment to realize why the empty plinth was significant.

“Dad, where’s the statue?” she asked.

“Everything’s just fine,” Mr. Moonlight said. The skin on one side of his face slumped like it was disconnected from the rest of his body. There was a huge sense of motion from the curtains around him.

Velvet’s horn lit up. Almost every path towards the future led to an abrupt dead end, with an emphasis on dead. She seized on the slim chance she saw through the dark, shining like a sunbeam through a stormcloud.

She grabbed Night Light and pulled him behind the empty plinth where the statue had been just as tendrils launched from the curtains like harpoons, slapping down on the stone floor and leaving hissing, smoking trails as they retracted.

“Good instinct,” her father said, his voice burbling. He sounded like his lungs were full of liquid. “You always were a smart pony, Velvet.”

“What’s going on?” Velvet demanded. “What was that?”

“Unfortunately, I think it’s proof I was right,” Night Light said, his voice on the edge of breaking.

The curtains turned black as they started to burn and melt, falling to the floor in a heap as something stepped out of the cover they’d offered.

“You two look delicious,” the pooka said, the statue come to life and even more unpleasant in motion. “Just the kind of snack I need after a long nap.”

Author's Notes:

Amber Rose

4 - Liquid Swords

“What did you do to my father?” Velvet demanded, peeking out of the cover she was sharing with Night Light to look at the pooka. The marble floor was hissing and bubbling, discolored from the slime spread over it.

“He served my hunger,” the monster said. Every word seemed to bubble up its throat and through its browned teeth. “You ponies haven’t changed at all in a thousand years.”

“It’s a pooka,” Night Light whispered. “It’s a kind of chaos spirit. It’s what I was trying to warn your father about!”

“Maybe you should have mentioned there’d be a monster!” Velvet hissed.

“Would you have believed me if you hadn’t seen it yourself?”

“We have to get it away from my father,” Velvet said, dodging the question. “You’re the monster expert. What do we do?”

“Monster expert? Me?”

“You’re the only one who knows anything, that makes you the expert!” Velvet shot him a smile.

Night Light blushed and coughed. “Well, ah, okay, it’s a chaos spirit. It was trapped in stone by Princess Celestia. I think the Temple of the Sun’s Heart was a kind of prison for them. According to the legend, the spell Celestia used turned them to stone as long as Her sun shone down on them, and the Sun’s Heart was forged to keep them in constant sunlight.”

“That must be why it hasn’t left the museum,” Velvet said. “It’s the middle of the day!”

“What we’ll do is, I’ll distract it, you grab your father, and we’ll run outside,” Night Light said. “On three. One, two--”

Velvet had a sudden moment of insight, but before she could even start to warn Night Light, he fired a bolt of magic at the monster. The streak of silver light hit the creature dead on, a perfect shot that was worse than useless.

The pooka’s skin crawled, the magic simply sinking in like a stone landing in quicksand, and started sucking Night Light’s magic in, his aura flickering as the pooka pulled at the connection he’d inadvertently made.

“I can’t stop it!” Night Light yelled.

Twilight Velvet swore under her breath and pushed her head next to Night Light’s so the tips of their horns just barely touched, crossing her magic stream with his. The connection between him and the pooka snapped, and the blue stallion fell onto his haunches, looking drained.

“What was that?” the pooka asked. It curled its lips, disgusted. “It almost tasted like the Sun Pony’s magic.”

Velvet had no idea what it was talking about, but she knew she needed to get Night Light on his hooves and chatting would buy her time.

“I know a few tricks,” she said. “If you let my father go, we can walk away. You go your way, I go mine.”

“Amusing. If you had any real way to defeat me, you’d have done it already.”

“I don’t even know who you are,” she pointed out. “I don’t like to fight somepony before I’ve even been properly introduced.”

“Oh, is that so? How polite. I am Mudhoney, spirit of Ooze. And you’re one of the Sun Pony’s little servants. Don’t bother telling me your name, unlike you I don’t particularly care.” It smiled a crooked smile, the edges of its lips dripping, its whole body looking like it was barely even staying solid.

“If we don’t stop it, it’s going to eat everypony in Canterlot,” Night Light hissed.

“Just your magic,” Mudhoney corrected. “There’s nothing quite like melting down that little heart of magic you ponies have inside you. All I needed was two hapless little pastel horses to break that curse the Sun Pony put on me.”

“You killed Amber Rose,” Velvet said. It wasn’t a question.

“You ponies don’t last long with my magic replacing yours,” Mudhoney said. “It’s that beautiful conversion from harmony to chaos that sustains me, but it tends to, well, just look at this.” The monster nudged Velvet’s father. The older stallion’s skin was breaking out in boils, his hair falling out in clumps.

Velvet felt her heart seize. He looked half dead already.

“You’ll see what I mean soon enough,” Mudhoney promised. Its skin started to ripple, and Velvet was ready this time, her premonition already up and running. Night Light ducked behind the empty plinth, and she took his hoof, running for the entrance to the hall. A wave of sickly green hit the stone they’d been using as cover and went around it, splashing in a wide arc that was burning through the marble.

“What do we do?” Night Light asked.

“So much for my monster expert,” Velvet muttered. “That thing can dissolve stone! We can’t even hide from it!”

“Wait, I’ve got an idea!” Night Light pointed at a security box. “We’ll call the Guard!”

“No, that’s just going to--” Velvet wasn’t able to stop him in time.

He grabbed the lever and pulled it. Sirens blared, and less than fifty feet away, right between them and freedom, a steel security grate dropped into place.

“--trigger a lockdown,” she finished, through clenched teeth. “What’s the point of seeing disaster if other ponies don’t bloody listen?!”

“Sorry,” Night Light said, weakly.

“We can’t use magic,” Velvet said. Her eyes fixed on the steel spikes and poison darts tastefully arranged in glass cases. “You grab the spikes!”

Night Light nodded, and they bucked cases open, glass spilling around their hooves.

“This is almost amusing,” Mudhoney called out, a laugh bubbling from its lips. “I’d tell you it would be less painful to surrender, but it would be a lie.”

Night Light took aim and threw a spike, the sharp point going right through the pooka’s neck. It had about as much effect as if he’d blown a kiss at the monster, the steel hissing and slumping, discoloring as it turned into a slurry.

“It can dissolve metal, too!” Night Light said. “I don’t think the darts are going to work.”

“We can’t just give up,” Velvet retorted, throwing them anyway. Her magic pulsed painfully, her headache starting to return. The pooka tossed its head, catching one of the darts while her aura was still wrapped around it.

“Careless,” it chided. The monster pulled at her magic, and she could feel it creeping back inside her like a burning stain, until another pulse surged through her, and the pooka recoiled, losing its grip on her magic.

“Ow!” Velvet hissed, rubbing her temples.

“Annoying,” the pooka growled. “I’m not going to bother eating your magic. You taste too much like the Sun Pony.”

It reared up, and Velvet saw in her mind’s eye a rush of acid strong enough to dissolve metal. Night Light started to bolt, and she grabbed his hoof.

“Wait,” she hissed, her head still pounding.

“Wait? But--”

Velvet shook her head, holding him. “Trust me.”

Night Light held his ground. A deadly wave rushed towards them.

“Now!” A pink aura surrounded him, Velvet’s aura helping pull him to safety at the last moment, the acid surging past them and into the steel security grate, hitting the panels and hissing, noxious gas bubbling as the barrier dissolved.

“A way out!”

“It was the only way we were getting out of here,” Velvet explained. “Don’t touch the edges!”

The two ran out ahead of the monster and into the hallway, the alarms still going off.

“We can get to the guards!” Night Light yelled. “Even if we just get outside we’ll be safe!”

“We won’t make it out. There are more security doors over all the entrances!” Velvet skidded to a halt, looking at the entrance to the bathrooms.

Night Light groaned. “I’m about to make a mess too, but no matter how scared you are this is a bad time to use the little filly’s room!”

“Shut up! I’ve got an idea.” She ran inside.

“What am I supposed to do?” Night Light asked, hesitating at the doorway.

“You’ll figure something out!” Velvet said.

Night Light groaned. “Figure something out,” he repeated, looking around. A bright red box caught his eye, and he pulled it open, revealing a firehose. “It’s not going to be able to melt water!”

Mudhoney lurched through the molten grate, the floor hissing and cracking with the snail trail it left in the wake of its cloven hooves. Night Light grabbed the nozzle and twisted the valve, struggling with the hose, the pressure making it writhe in his grasp like a huge burlap snake. His trembling, weak limbs could barely hold it, still feeling like something had been scooped out of his heart.

“What do you think you’re--” Mudhoney started, just as Night Light wrestled the spray into its face. The chaos spirit sputtered and stepped back, splatters of filthy gel falling to the floor around it like it was being washed away.

“It’s working!” Night Light stepped forward, trying to press the monster back.

Mudhoney roared like a geyser’s rumble, a spray of acid missing the stallion.

“That’s not going to work,” Night Light said. “You can’t do anything about water!”

The stream sputtered and trailed off. Night Light frowned and shook the hose. He yanked at it in frustration, and it tore apart in his hooves, the edges hissing and burning from where Mudhoney’s acid spray had eaten through the canvas.

“Oh. I guess there was something you could do,” Night Light whispered.

“Do you know how much it hurts to be dissolved?” Mudhoney growled.

“Why don’t you tell us?!” Velvet yelled. A blue plastic jug smacked into the pooka, splashing something amber-colored and as thick as syrup over the monster. It started reacting almost instantly, foaming and hissing and letting off grey vapors.

“What is that stuff?” Night Light asked. The pooka screamed in pain, layers of slime peeling away like the thick skin on a pudding sloughing off.

“Drain cleaner,” Velvet said. She held up two more jugs. “I knew they had to have some in the cleaning closet. It’s a really strong base, and since the pooka is acid, they react and neutralize each other, like vinegar and baking soda.”

“I’m going to tear you apart!” Mudhoney roared. Half its body was discolored, pale white and pulsing with bright green veins.

“I just don’t see that happening,” Velvet retorted. She threw another of the jugs.

This time, the pooka was aware of the danger, smacking it away with a long, lizard-like tail instead of dissolving the container. It splattered against the wall, the pooka keeping its distance.

“The same trick won’t work twice,” it said, voice distorted, only able to speak out of half its face.

“I know,” Velvet agreed, throwing something else.

The pooka’s tail lashed out again on instinct. It saw its mistake at the same time Night Light did. Velvet hadn’t thrown one of the plastic jugs of drain cleaner. Instead, she’d tossed a bright red fire extinguisher, and when the tail hit it, it exploded in a plume of fire retardant and shrapnel.

“You insolent little--” the pooka thrashed, trying to clear its eyes, the cold slowing it as it thickened like molasses in winter.

Before it could finish its threat, Velvet upended the jug of drain cleaner on it.

At the same time, the security door popped open. Gold-armored guards poured in. Naturally, Sergeant Sky was leading them.

“What in Celestia’s name is going on?” he demanded.

Mudhoney stumbled toward them, a skeletal horror nearly as tall as Princess Celestia, the flesh melting away as it crumbled.

“What is that?!” Sergeant Sky demanded

“Stay back!” Velvet warned. “Don’t use magic or let it touch you!”

The guards kept their distance, watching in horror as the monster thrashed and fell in a heap, what little was left of it turning into stone, like its bones had fossilized while it was alive.

“Miss Velvet, you’d better have an explanation for all this,” Sky said.

“Talk to this guy, he’s the monster expert,” she said, pushing Night Light towards the Royal Guards. “I need to check on my father!”

She ran, Night Light stuttering out an explanation as she picked her way through the ruin and back into the Temple exhibition. Her father was curled up in a heap on the floor, and she slowed as she neared him, unsure what to do until he started coughing, hacking up a huge spurt of mucous.

“Dad!” She ran the rest of the way to his side, kneeling down and cradling him. “Don’t try to move. The Guard is here. We took care of the monster.”

“I’m so proud of you, honey,” he whispered. His skin was blistered and discolored, entirely bald in some places. “You remind me so much of your mother…”

“You just hang on,” she said, squeezing his cracked hoof. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“Just promise me… promise me you won’t let this happen to anypony else,” he said. “I should have listened to Night Light when he came the first time…”

“I promise,” Velvet whispered.

Her father nodded and smiled. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather like to go to the hospital. I know I look on top of things, but I feel terrible.”

Velvet laughed and hugged him.

Author's Notes:

Today's Musical Ref: Mudhoney

5 - Definitely Maybe

“I demand to see my father!” Velvet yelled, pounding a hoof against the table. She couldn’t have dented it if she tried. It had been designed to hold up to angry earth ponies. “I haven’t done anything wrong! You have no right to treat me like a criminal!”

“Calm down,” Sergeant Sky sighed. “You’re not being charged with anything. At least not yet.”

“Then why aren’t you letting me leave?” Velvet asked. “And why do I have this bloody ring on my horn? You’re acting like I’m some kind of, of dangerous monster!”

“The restraining ring is on your horn because you’re a flight risk,” the pegasus said. “Right now you wouldn’t be allowed to see your father. He’s in intensive care. If you calm down and ask nicely I’ll get you some coffee or something to eat.”

“I just…” Velvet deflated. “I’m worried about him.”

“I know,” Sky said. “If there’s any news, you’ll be the first to know, okay? We’re waiting for somepony.”

“Who?” Velvet frowned. “Wait, is it the Princess?”

“I wish,” Sky sighed. “We’re having problems getting word to her. No, we sent for an expert monster hunter. Unfortunately, she was apparently still sleeping when the call went out.”

“But it’s the middle of the day,” Velvet said, confused. “Why would they be asleep?”

The door burst open and a grey batpony in dark armor and sunglasses stormed in. “Because she’s nocturnal!” She yelled. “And was listening at the door. I don’t like walking in on anything blind.” She tapped the sunglasses with a hoof. “Figuratively, I mean.”

“Nocturnal?” Velvet asked, confused.

“If you hunt monsters, it’s a good trait to have,” she said. “Agent Clearwater, Night Guard, division six.”

The batpony offered a hoof, and Velvet shook it, confused. “Division six?”

“You like repeating what people say as a question, huh? I stopped by the museum before I came here,” Agent Clearwater said. “Looks like pretty nasty work. I had the monster’s remains put in secure storage. Things like that have a habit of not staying dead when they should.”

“What do you need from me?” Velvet asked. “It sounds like you already know everything.”

“If I knew everything my job would be a lot easier,” the batpony said. “Sergeant Sky, can you get me a cup of coffee? With, uh, seven or eight lumps of sugar. No milk.”

The pegasus sighed and left the room. Agent Tears waited for him to leave before she started talking again.

“I emptied the coffeepot once already when I came in,” Clearwater said. “It’s been a really long morning. We’ve probably got two or three minutes before he comes back. I wanted to apologize to you - we should have been more on alert, especially after Miss Rose was killed. You did really well for a civilian, though.”

“Thanks,” Velvet shrugged.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know. Your father’s medical bills are going to be covered by the crown, and he’s getting the best treatment possible.”

“You could get this ring off my horn,” Velvet said. “It’s making my headache worse.”

“Promise not to run away on me?” Clearwater asked. Velvet nodded, and the batpony motioned for her to come closer before pulling it off with a wing and a few careful tugs.

“So what happens next?”

“We’ll do a few tests, make sure that monster didn’t leave any nasty surprises, and then you go home,” Agent Clearwater said. Her tufted ear twitched. “But unless I’m mistaken, Sergeant Sky is here with our coffee.”

The door popped open, and Sky put two mugs on the table.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Agent Clearwater said, taking her mug and sipping, grimacing at the taste. “I should have asked for nine lumps.”

Velvet sipped on her own mug without complaint, the pounding at her temples and under her horn getting worse.

“It’s already more sugar than coffee,” Sky said.

“I hate to see what you feed your prisoners if this is what the staff gets,” the batpony muttered. “Miss Velvet? Are you feeling alright?”

The next thing Twilight Velvet knew, she was lying on the ground and the two Guards were kneeling next to her.

“...some kind of side effect from the monster attack?” Sergeant Sky asked.

“No, that was her own magic,” Agent Clearwater said. “Might have been brought on by exhaustion. She’s been through a lot.”

“What happened?” Velvet muttered, the headache finally starting to fade.

“I was hoping you could tell us.” Agent Clearwater offered a hoof, pulling Velvet to her hooves. “You had a magical surge and used your coffee rather artistically.”

“Not again,” Velvet groaned. The eggshell white wall of the room had been turned into an impromptu canvas. There were brown stains on the paint, half splashed and half drawn by hoof. It would have been unremarkable if it didn’t form a picture.

“This has happened before?” Clearwater asked.

Velvet looked up at the menacing figures depicted in brown silhouette. Three sets of eyes in vague outlines, the edges dripping where the coffee ran down the paint.

“It’s… it’s a kind of automatic writing,” Velvet admitted, looking away. “Sorry.”

“Tell me what you see, Sergeant Sky,” Clearwater said.

“Why me?” Sky asked.

“Humor me.”

“Well, ah,” the pegasus cleared his throat. “It looks like three figures, and the writing underneath it says ‘light and love fall without moon and stars.’”

“Interesting,” Clearwater nodded. “Automatic writing. I’ve come across that a few times. I heard Clover the Clever had the gift. Most scholars consider it a form of prophecy.”

“I can’t do it on purpose. it happens when I have a magic surge. My grandmother had the same problem - she got the same headaches and weird magic I do. I mean, there was the rumor she used it to win a few bets but I can’t focus it or anything or I’d have the winning lottery numbers instead of… instead of whatever this is.” She motioned at the wall.

Clearwater nodded. “I think I’ve heard enough. Sergeant Sky, I want you to release Miss Velvet and Mister Night Light into my custody.”

“I don’t have a problem releasing Miss Velvet, but the stallion--”

“I’ll vouch for him on my personal authority,” Clearwater said. “I think what’s important is that we get to Veneighs, not about proper procedure. Not when we can’t even get a message through to Her Highness.”

“What do you mean, Veneighs?” Velvet demanded.

“That’s where the rest of the artifacts are,” Clearwater explained. “Normally, I’d just pass this up the chain, but most of the chain of command is in Saddle Arabia waving the flag. There are important assets that might be at risk if we wait.”

“Important assets?” Sergeant Sky frowned. “I have duties here. I can’t simply leave!”

“Hm? Oh, when I said ‘we’, I didn’t mean you.” The batpony motioned to Velvet. “I’m going to travel with Miss Velvet and Night Light.”

“They’re civilians!”

“I’ll go,” Velvet said, before Sky could keep interrupting. “I promised my Dad I’d make sure these monsters didn’t hurt anypony else.”

“Are you sure?” Sky asked.

“Light and love fall without moon and stars,” Velvet said. “I’ve got stars on my flank, and I’m already in this mess. Night Light had a moon. There’s a good chance we’re involved no matter what.”

“That’s the spirit,” Clearwater crowed, patting her on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a great ship in mind to get us to Veneighs safely.”

“You can’t be serious,” Velvet said. She’d packed light. For her, that meant saddlebags with a few necessities tossed in. Apparently, for Night Light, it meant two suitcases that felt like they were full of bricks but ended up just being most of his personal library.

The airship docks were packed with ponies moving cargo and passengers, and Night Light had been easy to spot as a dam in the flow as he dragged the bags behind him.

“We might need these,” he said. “I brought my research and all my primary sources and some of the reading those sources suggested.”

“We definitely don’t need all that,” Velvet retorted.

“Well, use your future vision and figure out which books we need.” He stepped back to let her see.

“...We won’t need any in the next minute or two,” she said, lamely. “Look, my precognition is only really accurate for a few seconds! I don’t know what’s going to be needed two weeks from now!”

“And that’s why I need to bring all of it,” Night Light said. “We’ll probably need to make our case in front of scholars. It’s going to be worse than my dissertation!”

“You kids realize we’re going somewhere with a library, right?” Clearwater asked, as she touched down on the dock. She’d left the Night Guard armor behind and was wearing a wide scarf fastened with a familiar looking pin.

“Wait a minute,” Velvet narrowed her eyes. “You’re part of the cult!”

“It’s more like a gentlemare’s club,” Clearwater said, her expression hard to read behind the dark sunglasses she wore. “Anyway, take like, half of that at most. Only what you can carry on your own.”

“Any suggestions?” Velvet asked.

“Eh, books don’t do much for me,” Clearwater shrugged. “Come on. We’re meeting the Limozeen on dock eight.”

“Just give me one minute…” Night Light shuffled books between the two bags, every choice obviously a painful one.

“So is the Limozeen a Royal Guard airship?” Velvet asked.

“Funny you should ask that,” Clearwater said.

“This is a smuggler's ship,” Velvet said.

“And that’s why it’s funny that you asked if it was a Guard ship!” Clearwater explained, grinning.

“It’s a wreck,” Velvet said, looking at the airship. It hadn’t seen a coat of paint in so long that there was more bare wood and patchwork showing than color. The gasbag had been repaired so many times it was more like a quilt. She shared a worried look with Night Light.

“The Limozeen is the fastest ship in Canterlot,” called out a pony on deck, a brown-coated stallion a few years Velvet’s senior. “More importantly, it’s a ship for hire and willing to go off the usual shipping routes to avoid any, ah, entanglements.”

“Velvet, meet Mister Caballeron,” Clearwater said.

“Doctor, actually,” Caballeron corrected. "Correspondence courses, you see."

“Doctor,” Clearwater conceded. “You look good.”

“Oh, that means a lot, coming from you,” Caballeron laughed. “This is a rather special run, isn’t it? You three are my only cargo.”

“Wait, so I could have brought all my books?” Night Light asked. “Maybe I can still find that courier we asked to take the other suitcase back--”

“Kid, I’m saving you a headache later,” Clearwater said. “We’re not going camping in the middle of nowhere. It’s one of the oldest cities in the world.”

She started pushing Night Light up the gangplank.

“We’ll set off once you’re settled in,” Caballeron said, strutting off to check the rigging.

“Are you sure about him?” Velvet whispered.

“I’m sure it’s our best option,” Clearwater said. “For the last few days, we’ve been trying to get in touch with Celestia and failing. That already has the Royal Guard worried, and a few ships on the regular routes are late reporting in. Nothing big like a passenger liner, but a cargo ship here, a yacht there… it’s a definite pattern.”

“You think a smuggler can avoid that?”

“He’s not going to file a flight plan, and we’ll be outside all the usual traffic lanes. If something finds us, then we couldn’t have avoided it no matter what we do, so get comfortable. Or as comfortable as you can, anyway. This isn’t a luxury cruise ship.”

Night Light had a half-dozen books spread out in what was generously called a table in what was even more generously called a stateroom.

“It says here that the pookas are a kind of primordial chaos spirit,” Night Light said. “They were created when the four Harmonious Elements - earth, air, fire, and water - clashed. Over time, the energy born of that natural conflict gave birth to them and they resided in the most unformed, chaotic places in the world.”

“Mudhoney said he was a spirit of ooze,” Velvet said, looking over the crabbed hoofwriting on the pages, most of the books predating the printing press.

“Right,” Night Light said. “That’s a mix of earth and water, the water trying to dissolve the earth and the earth trying to turn the water solid. I think based on what we saw, they feed by converting harmonious magic into their own, like how a fire turns wood and air into ashes and releases a lot of light and heat in the process.”

“Sounds like a terrible creature,” Caballeron offered. “Where did it come from? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Some grad student named Daring Do dug them out of a ruined temple in the Badlands,” Clearwater said. “I don’t think she knew what she was unleashing.”

“I’ll remember the name,” the older stallion joked. “I’ll make sure not to carry any cargo for her in case she digs up more monsters. So you think there are some waiting for you in Veneighs?”

“With any luck, they’re still sealed in stone,” Night Light said. “Princess Celestia petrified them, and from what I can tell, sunlight keeps the spell in place. They were buried with a gem that constantly shone light on them to keep them imprisoned.”

“And one got away, eh?” Caballeron shook his head. “I’ll make sure you get to the city. Monsters are bad for profit, and there are so many collectors and antiquarians in Veneighs who are good customers of mine. I can’t afford to lose them.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” Clearwater said, snorting. Her ears perked up. “Something’s going on outside.”

Caballeron opened a shuttered port, and the sound changed from a light tapping that only the bat noticed to a rattling riot like pebbles hitting a roof.

“Hail,” he said. “Not the usual kind of weather for this latitude.”

“Do you sense anything?” Clearwater asked, turning to Velvet.

“I’m not a monster detector!” She huffed. “But no, I don’t see anything bad happening to us in the next few minutes.”

“Then what’s that light?!” Night Light demanded, pointing. A dim, flickering violet light danced along the rigging and spars of the airship.

“Saint Anger’s Fire,” Caballeron said. “A bad omen, but nothing truly dangerous on its own.” He closed the shutter. “There’s an old tradition to be done in poor weather with a bad sign. Would you all care to join me in it?”

He opened a small chest and pulled out a glass bottle and glasses.

“I’m up for that,” Clearwater said. “Rum?”

“No, no, rum is for pirates,” Caballeron said. “I am a stallion of taste. This is limoncello, made by hoof. It keeps the scurvy away and lifts the spirits.”

He poured the glasses, careful not to spill anything on Night Light’s books, more out of concern of the drink than the text.

“Salud, dinero, amor,” Caballeron said, before downing his drink. “To health, money, and love, may we find at least one of the three when we arrive.”

Author's Notes:

Today's Music Selection: Creedence Clearwater Revival: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

6 - Deja Vu

Veneighs, the city on the water. One of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world, and a stunning example of determination in the face of adversity. That’s what the tourist board said, anyway. It certainly was beautiful, but it was also incredibly expensive to maintain and existed mostly because Old Unicornia had been unwilling to admit anything was wrong even when boats replaced carts in the streets and everypony had to build an extra story or two on their homes to keep their hooves from getting wet.

The buildings were all in that classic decaying empire style, brick fronted with stucco and marble pillars added purely for decoration, amazing artwork framed by crumbling ruin barely held at bay. The tourist trade had made a larger mark on the city than any art movement, though. Safety railings were bolted to buildings hundreds of years older than the laws requiring them, small shops offered the latest editions of the Canterlot Times, and down the street Velvet could just make out a sign for a very ambitious expansion of Hayburger Princess.

“Are you sure we can’t just go there?” Velvet asked, looking forlornly at the sign.

“What, are you predicting we’ll get food poisoning?” Clearwater asked.

“It’s comfort food,” Velvet muttered.

“If we manage to stop the evil chaos spirits, I’ll buy you a Princess Meal myself,” Clearwater promised. “For right now we’re going to eat in this wonderful local cafe.”

Velvet looked around the ‘wonderful local cafe’. Ponies often talked about taking in the local color. In this case, the local color was black, in a dozen different shades. She was very quickly learning the difference between newsprint black, rich black, ebony, nightshade, and the very dark shades of navy that could easily be mistaken as black at a distance.

“I can’t help but notice this place is kind of themed,” Velvet said. “In fact, when we were walking in, everypony on the serving staff was wearing a rather odd pin.”

“Here we go again,” Night Light sighed.

“Look, before you go off and offend everypony here, we’ve got bigger things to worry about,” Clearwater said.

“The pookas,” Velvet said.

“I was talking about my expense report,” Clearwater corrected. “Members can eat free and then I bring the receipts back to Canterlot and it’s like I’m getting paid to eat! It might not sound like much but it adds up when you travel a lot.”

“You’re joking.”

“A little, but we can’t do anything yet. We’ve got a combat magic expert coming to meet us before we go out to the museum. Unless you really want to try taking them on without support?”

Velvet sighed. “We’ll wait”

“At least you’re not reading at the table,” Clearwater said.

“I’m just looking at a map of the city,” Night Light said. “I’ve never been here before. It seemed like a good idea to pick up a book at the port and… I kind of always bring home books as souvenirs.”

“Put it away. We’re not here to do the touristy thing and I think I hear our food coming.”

Plates were placed in front of each of them, and Velvet recoiled the moment she got a look at what was in the bowl.

“You can’t be serious,” she whispered.

The shallow sky-blue bowl contained something that very nearly resembled food and then veered sharply into realms Velvet didn’t want her palette to go. Pasta formed the base of the dish, black and slick and tossed with a purple sauce flecked with white specks. Star-shaped slices of fruit decorated one side of the plate as a garnish.

“It’s a local specialty,” Clearwater said. “You’ll like it.”

Night Light flipped through the slim book he was still reading. “According to this, the pasta is colored with squid ink, and the spicy sauce is made with purple tomatillo, red wine, and star anise.”

Velvet frowned and waited for Clearwater to start before she gingerly picked a noodle off the plate with her magic and ate it as if afraid it was going to poison her.

“That’s not bad,” she said, surprised. “It looks like the kind of mess I make in the kitchen when I try to cook, but it actually tastes good!”

“I think the appearance is half the experience,” Night Light said. “Otherwise it’s not that different from any other pasta dish.”

“So the pony we’re meeting, what are they like?” Velvet asked. She started eating with gusto after deciding it wasn't poisoned or disgusting.

“I haven’t met them face-to-face but…” Clearwater hesitated, taking a sip of the dark berry wine she’d ordered to buy herself time. “Look, all I know for sure is that everypony who’s had to work with her hasn’t enjoyed it. She’s not pleasant or nice, but she can get the job done and if we need something blasted to Tartarus there’s nopony better.”

“I really don’t like the sound of that…” Velvet muttered. “Is she another member of your little cult?”

“It’s just a club, and no, not really. If it makes you feel better, Princess Celestia trusts her and has her here instead of Canterlot training a VIP. The details are kinda hush-hush.”

“So secret you can’t even tell us?” Velvet asked.

“It’s a need-to-know thing. Even I shouldn’t really know. It’s the kind of secret that puts lives at risk. The important thing is, she’s dropping everything to come here, so we’re gonna wait.” Clearwater paused and swirled her now-empty glass. “And I’m gonna get more wine. You kids stay here.”

She got up and left to bother the bartender, leaving Night Light and Velvet to their plates of black pasta.

“A combat magic expert,” Velvet muttered. “I wonder what she’ll be like?”

“If she’s an expert, she’s probably an older mare,” Night Light said. “Maybe even one of the teachers at the School for Gifted Unicorns.”

“Nah, they’d never let somepony like that near foals. She probably walks around in armor all the time, with a big dark cloak.”

“Why would she need a cloak?”

Velvet rolled her eyes. “Everypony knows that mares with tragic backstories have black cloaks so they can hide the scars.”

“I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen in real life.”

“And if she fights monsters she’s probably got like, an eyepatch and a hook hoof!” Velvet continued. “And then she sweeps ponies off their hooves…”

“Now you’re turning it into some kind of weird romantic thing,” Night Light said.

“Hey, you never know!” Velvet huffed. She started on her food again. “Aw. It went cold already?”

“This place is really drafty. Old buildings usually are, but this is crazy!” Night Light shivered. “I should have brought a sweater…”

Velvet nodded, shivering. “Maybe Clearwater will get us something from the bar to help us warm up if we ask nicely.”

“The weird thing is that Veneighs is supposed to have a moderate climate all year long,” Night Light said. “See? It says the last time the temperature here went below freezing was during a raid by Pegasopilus.”

He turned the book so Velvet could see the tiny woodcut reproduction of pegasus raiders attacking Veneighs under cover of a winter storm.

Outside, hail started pelting the narrow windows.

“I think that book is going to need an update,” Velvet said.

“Hey, you two!” Clearwater yelled from the bar. “I got a bad feeling. Get yourselves ready to get going in a hurry.”

The front door burst open, hail and cold wind swirling inside, the banners and drapes around the room rippling.

A pegasus in golden armor stumbled inside, falling just as he got through the door.

Velvet rushed over, kneeling down next to him.

“He’s got frostbite,” she said. “This is really bad. Um… I think for frostbite we need room-temperature water and blankets.”

“I can get the water,” Night Light said, after slamming the door shut to hold back the cold.

“Wait!” The pegasus gasped. “You have to listen!”

“Stand down, soldier,” Clearwater whispered. “You can tell us after we’ve got you warmed up.”

“No time,” the pegasus said, shivering. “I was at the museum. S-she ordered us to go take a look. We didn’t- we didn’t even get through the front door!”

“You’re okay now,” Velvet assured him. She couldn’t look him in the eye or he’d see the lie. How was she supposed to tell a pony that the glimpse she’d taken into his future ended very abruptly no matter what they said or did?

“It’s not okay. I barely got away. I shouldn’t have- I shouldn’t have left!” He shivered. “They must have let me go so they could follow me!”

Clearwater motioned for Night Light to go to the window.

“Keep your eyes open,” she whispered.

“There are three of them,” the pegasus said. “You need to get word to the Princess! She’s the only one who can possibly stop them!” He clutched Velvet’s hoof with an incredibly tight grip until she nodded in silent agreement.

The pegasus took one last breath and slumped, going totally limp.

“He’s gone,” Clearwater whispered. “We need to move. If he’s right about being followed they could already be on their way here.”

“Ma’am, I think we have a problem.”

Velvet put the pegasus down gently and stood up to look.

Outside, the canals were freezing solid.

“They’re here,” Velvet whispered.

7 - Coldplay

The wind howled around the cafe. The building was two hundred years old and had never been intended for anything colder than the light winters they got here, where the closest snow was in the mountains just visible on the horizon. Now, though, hail was coming down on the building like a million tiny fists, the canals outside frozen unevenly, waves frozen in place like time had stopped.

“This is amazing,” Night Light said, peering carefully through a cracked window. “How many pegasi would it take to make a weather system like this?”

“That’s wild weather,” Clearwater said. “Nopony is controlling it.”

“I don’t think it extends very far,” Night Light said, stretching his neck to look. “It only goes a block or two, then the ice just stops!”

“Be careful!” Velvet warned. “We don’t know where it is!”

“I don’t see it anywmmmph!” Night Light stumbled back from the window.

“What’s wrong?” Velvet asked, running over.

“He’s not breathing,” Clearwater said, from across the room.

Velvet knelt down next to the struggling stallion. Ice had formed across his snout and sealed his mouth shut. He looked at her, panicking and turning blue. Bluer, anyway.

“Get the, um--” Velvet closed her eyes for a heartbeat, thinking. “Coffeepot!”

Clearwater grabbed the tin pot, still bubbling behind the bar, and ran over with it. Velvet grabbed it with her magic and tried to carefully pour the steaming coffee on Night Light’s face.

The ice melted away, and Night Light gasped as his jaw was suddenly freed.

“The moisture in my breath froze!” Night Light said, between big breaths. “I didn’t think that was possible!”

“If it’s freezing right on your face it means the temperature must be negative seventy or eighty!” Velvet said. “That could kill a pony in minutes!”

“Even a pegasus,” Clearwater said, motioning to the pony that had died on their doorstep. “If the hail is focused around us, then he was right about being followed. We need to figure out how to get out of here without being seen.”

“If it wasn’t a death sentence I’d say we figure out some way to swim to safety,” Night Light said. “From what I read, a lot of the foundations are connected here and we could get to another building.”

“If we could swim through underground water-filled tunnels,” Velvet muttered. “Even if it wasn’t this cold that would be a bad idea. If we get caught exposed and dripping wet in this weather we’ll be dead before we can realize how stupid the idea was to begin with.”

“Velvet, try doing your trick and figure out how to get out of this,” Clearwater said. “If you can’t figure anything out at least tell me what definitely won’t work and we’ll go from there.”

Velvet nodded and closed her eyes, trying to focus.

Almost immediately she gasped and stumbled back, looking horrified.

“Somepony’s going to die,” she said. “I don’t know who, but--”

“Keep that kind of good news to yourself,” Night Light said. “It’s me, isn’t it?”

“I just said I wasn’t sure who!”

“You and Miss Clearwater are more important. I’m just here because I got excited about being able to show off my research and ponies respecting me… I can’t fight monsters!”

Clearwater slapped him with her wing.

“Knock it off! You can’t lose it now! We need to get everypony here to safety, and if you weren’t so self-centered you’d remember we aren’t the only ones in here. The staff here are just ponies doing their jobs. We have a responsibility to get either help them escape or lure the monster away.”

“She’s right,” Velvet said.

“Don’t worry about us,” one of the waiters said. “You were right about the basements, but ours is sealed. We use it for storage. We can shelter down there until this is over.”

He pulled open a door, revealing steps down.

“As you can see, we’ll be quite comfortable while…” he looked down and gasped. “The basement!”

Water filled the dark space, lights flickering where they hadn’t already gone out. Boxes of food and produce floated in the murky slush, the whole room already colder than a commercial freezer.

“What happened?” Velvet asked.

Night Light looked past the distraught stallion moaning about the loss of thousands of bits worth of food. “Look! You can see cracks in the stone of the foundation! That’s how the water must have gotten in!”

“Cracks in the stone?” Velvet frowned. “But we would have heard if there was something hitting the building that hard.”

“It’s ice erosion. Water seeps into tight spaces, then freezes to ice and forces cracks open. More water gets in, and then when that freezes the stone gets pushed open wider and wider. It should take hundreds of cycles to get this bad! This is impossible!”

The building trembled like it was shivering in the cold.

“What was that?” Velvet asked.

“Something’s happening below us!” Clearwater said, “Be careful!”

There was a crack as loud as thunder but with the wet sound of branches snapping. The building lurched to one side, and the waiter at the top of the steps fell, landing hard on the steps before sliding into the slush pouring into the building.

“No!” Night Light grabbed for him and missed, and the pony vanished under the frigid water.

“The cracks in the foundation are making the whole building unstable,” Velvet said. “We can’t wait any longer or we’ll just end up at the bottom of the canal trapped in rubble!”

Clearwater tapped a hoof, thinking. “There has to be a way out of this,” she mumbled.

Almost in time with her tapping, there were three hard knocks on the door.

Velvet took a step towards it.

“Don’t,” Clearwater said. “I’ll get it.”

The batpony walked to the front door and pulled it open in one motion. Frost flowed in just ahead of the tall, pale creature that stepped inside. It was as tall as Princess Celestia, colored like an ice sculpture covered in a dusting of snow, icicles dripping from its lizard-like chin, the creature looking more like a deer than a pony, the air distorting around it like a mirage.

It looked around the room, cold eyes fixing on each of the ponies there in turn.

“I thought there would be more of you,” it said, eventually. “Such a grand city, yet you can’t raise an army against me?”

“I apologize. If you’d like, we can go get an army and come back,” Clearwater offered.

The pooka chuckled. “At least you have a sense of humor in the face of death.”

Clearwater’s wing twitched, and a steel star appeared in the pooka’s neck. It reacted slowly, tilting its head and letting it pop free.

“Was that supposed to hurt?” it asked.

“I was hoping,” Clearwater admitted.

“You need to try harder. Like this.”

The air shimmered around the pooka, the distortion whirling around six points like rocks in a stream, ice forming around tiny nuclei of dust and turning into crystalline spears in the blink of an eye as the water in the air froze.

Clearwater threw herself to the side, beating her wings hard, creating enough wind to deflect the icicles before they could connect, sending them slamming down into the floorboards. They smashed through the wood like they were made of iron, the ice barely even getting scratched by the ancient oak.

“Not bad,” the pooka said. “But how will you handle this?”

The air shimmered around the pooka, and Clearwater’s ears twitched. She threw herself to one side, then the other, hitting the wall and running halfway up it before backflipping away. Along her trail, the floorboards shuddered.

“What’s going on?” Velvet asked.

Clearwater recoiled and rolled, then got to her hooves with a slim cut along her cheek, blood dripping free.

A drop fell and hit something invisible in midair, revealing a razor-thin sheet of ice that had sliced into the floorboards.

“I’ve never seen a pony avoid that attack,” the pooka said. It waved a cloven hoof, and frost caught on the edges of a hidden field of razors that Clearwater had managed to avoid. “I admit I’m impressed with your fighting spirit, pony. Tell me your name. I want to remember it after you’re cold.”

“Agent Clearwater, of the Night Guard, division six. I’m a professional monster hunter. Since you’re a monster, that means you’re my responsibility.”

“My name is Coldplay. It was a pleasure to meet you before you died. Tell me, though - how did you dodge that? I’ve never met a pony who could see through that attack.”

Clearwater raised her sunglasses, revealing that her eyes were milky-white. “I didn’t need to see it at all. I used sonar.”

“Very good!” Coldplay laughed. “It’s really too bad. I haven’t had a good fight in hundreds of years. I hope there will be more ponies like you.”

“One is more than enough,” Clearwater said. She tugged at the scarf around her neck, pulling a long silver chain free, the end capped with a mace-like weight. She wrapped one end of the long chain around a hoof and jumped into the air, swinging the weight around in a circle before letting it go, swinging it in a wide arc.

Coldplay stepped away from the seemingly clumsy attack, and Clearwater grabbed the chain in her teeth, abruptly changing the sweep. The pooka cried out in surprise as the chain-whip slammed into its shoulder, cracking its hide like it was made of glass.

Clearwater yanked the chain back, twirling it overhead again.

“Pure lunar titanium,” she explained. “Almost unbreakable.”

“That hurt,” the pooka hissed.

“This is going to hurt a lot more!” Clearwater yelled, before swinging the chain whip again, taking to the air to strike from above.

Coldplay tossed its head, long spines of moving ice catching the chain and tangling up with it. Clearwater saw the danger too late, frost creeping along the chain faster than she could react, the metal biting into her skin and instantly freezing. She cried out in pain, falling to the floor and shattering a few of the sharp-edged ice sheets still lodged into the floor, opening up cuts along her back that didn’t bleed, the blood already frozen inside the wound.

“Oh no!” Velvet gasped.

Clearwater looked back at them, glaring. “Why are you two still here?! Run!”

“We can’t leave you!” Night Light protested.

Velvet grabbed him, dragging him toward a window.

“She’s doing this to buy us time,” Velvet said. “We have to go now!”

“But--”

“It’s the only way,” Velvet whispered. “If we stay here we’re going to die. She knows it too.”

“You kids stay safe,” Clearwater said. “Try and get some adult supervision, or, well, you’ll find out when you meet her.”

Velvet nodded, then grabbed a chair and broke the frost-covered window, pulling Night Light out with her.

“Right,” Clearwater said, smiling at the pooka. “Now let’s get serious.”

“I can’t believe we left her,” Night Light said, his breath clouding the air. Along the edges of the canal, ponies had come out of the businesses and homes to look at the spectacle.

“We didn’t have a choice!” Velvet pulled him along the walkway, running through the crowd and managing not to actually run into anypony thanks to her gift. “I don’t know how much time she actually bought us, either.”

“You think it’s still going to come after us?”

“Of course it will! Because she had to tell us to leave, it knows we’re important! If we’d been smart enough to just sneak out…” Velvet shook her head.

The street rumbled under their hooves. Behind them, the cafe crumbled into the canal, the ice cracking and sending a surge through the flooded streets.

“I’ve got an idea!” Velvet said. “Come on!”

She jumped over the edge of the walkway, landing in one of the stranded gondolas locked in the ice.

“Are you sure--”

“Just jump!” Velvet yelled.

Night Light swallowed and jumped next to her. The shock from their impacts cracked the ice around the small boat.

“So now what?” Night Light asked.

“Hang on,” Velvet said, as the wave hit them, picking the gondola up and sending it skittering across the surface of the ice-covered canal like a bobsled.

Behind them, Coldplay pulled itself out of the rubble and spotted them, smirking.

“Run as fast as you can, little ones,” It said. “I enjoy a good chase.”

8 - Napalm Sticks to Foals

A gondola is a flat-bottomed boat, well-suited to the calm warm waters they’re usually found in. They offer a slow and scenic way to view Veneighs for the tourists that travel there and were never intended for something like, as a random yet poignant example, sliding across ice at high speed.

“He’s gaining on us!” Night Light yelled, looking back. The pooka’s cloven, clawed hooves beat against the ice, kicking up spikes of frost with every heavy stride, as steady on the slippery surface as a pony striding across a well-trodden road.

“Thanks, I didn’t notice that myself!” Velvet snapped, grabbing the oar and trying to adjust their path, narrowly avoiding another gondola frozen in place with three ponies working to free it with hammers and chisels.

Coldplay ran past them, and the ponies froze in place, streams of energy streaming from their mouths and snouts like a final puff of frosty breath before the ice claimed them, the magic swirling around the pooka.

“We need to lead it away from ponies!” Velvet shouted.

Night Light looked around them at the walkways still lined with ponies, most of them thankfully outside of the pooka’s aura of killing cold but none of them really aware of the danger they were in. Most of them were watching the spectacle with interest. Horrifyingly, there were dozens of foals even just along this one canal. “How are we supposed to do that? We’re in the middle of the city!”

“You’re just going to have to trust me,” Velvet said. “Do exactly what I say, okay?”

Night Light nodded.

“Good. Lean right, hard!” Velvet threw herself to the side and Night Light followed without question. The gondola jumped, sliding to the side, skipping over the waves frozen into the canal’s surface. A spire of ice larger than Night Light’s entire body slammed into the space where they’d been, spraying them with sleet.

They shot under a bridge, the pooka jumping over it, ponies fleeing away from the creature.

“Velvet, I don’t like to be negative, but--” Night Light pointed. Ahead of them, the canal crossed with another waterway and then abruptly ended in a complex of docks and stranded boats.

“I see it,” Velvet said. “We’ve got to, um…” She paused. “Just hang on!”

The air around the pooka swirled, and Coldplay launched another spike.

Velvet braced the oar against one of the benches in the boat, holding it in place with the whole weight of her body, the blade sticking out from the narrow boat like an arm and catching the giant icicle as it hit the ice next to the boat. Like a lever, it swung the whole boat around before snapping in two, the gondola skidding sideways into the crossway before momentum straightened it out again.

“You turned us! I can’t believe that worked!” Night Light grinned at Velvet, who looked at the broken end of the oar and tossed it out of the boat.

“We can’t do that twice, so we better hope we can figure something else out,” Velvet said.

“I can see open water that way,” Night Light pointed. There was a wide beam of sunlight ahead of them, a break in the clouds above. “If we get to the sun it can’t follow us, right?”

“I don’t think we’re going to get that far,” Velvet said. She swallowed nervously. “Even if we do, once we hit the water we’re going to lose all our momentum. We’ll be sitting ducks and it’ll be able to pick us off by throwing ice at us.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

Velvet hesitated. “One. It’s not a good chance but it’s the best we’ve got.”

“How bad is it?”

“If it works we’ll go to Las Pegasus when this is all over, because we’ll be experts at beating the odds.”

“At least I’ve got great buffets in my future,” Night Light joked.

Behind them, Coldplay jumped up out of the canal, freezing footholds into the buildings along the waterway and running ahead of them.

Night Light watched in horror as the monster overtook them. “He’s going to cut us off!”

“When I say, hold onto me, okay?” Velvet looked back at the stallion. “It’s going to be easier keeping both of us safe if we stay close.”

The pooka stopped, clinging to the side of a building, and the air wavered around it like a heat haze, the building cracking as ice cracked the foundations from below.

“Now!” Velvet yelled. Night Light grabbed her around the barrel and she jumped free, using her magic to make herself as light as possible.

The ruined building crashed down into the canal, forming a wall of rubble. The gondola sailed into it at speed, crashing against the stone and exploding into splinters and broken spars.

Velvet helped Night Light to his hooves.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” Night Light said. “I’m so cold I can’t feel my hooves.”

“Don’t speak so quickly,” Coldplay said, as it picked its way down the rubble wall with the sure steps of a goat. “Neither of you are going to be ‘okay’.”

“What do we do next?” Night Light whispered.

“It’s rude to speak in front of your betters without including them!” Coldplay launched itself between them, knocking Velvet aside with its lizard-like tail and grabbing Night Light with a clawed hoof, pulling him up to look him in the eyes.

Night Light squeaked in fear, unable to make any noise more coherent or threatening than the kind of small toy one might buy for a puppy. His magic started to tear out of him like a frosty breath, but the moment Coldplay tasted it, the pooka recoiled and threw Night Light away, coughing and gasping.

“You taste like Mudhoney!” It spat out what it had been chewing on, the magic drifting back to Night Light. “That’s disgusting! Don’t tell me he’s been nibbling on you!”

“He had a big bite,” Night Light groaned. “It really wasn’t a fun time.”

“Nothing my sibling does is pleasant,” Coldplay agreed. “He’s a mess. No hygiene at all. That’s why I’m superior. Cold has a purity to it. Ponies struggling against the chill, justifying doing awful things to each other because of a late harvest. Quiet, soft deaths for those who succumb.”

“Your brother is dead,” Velvet said.

Coldplay spun to face her, whirling around like an ice skater.

“They sent him to a different museum before you woke up,” Velvet explained. “He escaped and I had to kill him.”

“Is that so?” Coldplay asked. “You know, I never did like him.”

Night Light’s ears perked up. “Does that mean you’ll let us go for doing you a favor?”

“No, of course not. As much as I hated him, he was family.” Coldplay smiled, showing crystalline teeth. “I’m sure you understand. Ponies do care so much for family, don’t they?”

“Come and get me, then,” Velvet said. “I took one of you down. Do you think I can’t handle it again?”

“I think if you could, you wouldn’t have been running,” Coldplay replied. The air whirled around it.

Velvet edged an inch to the left, in front of an otherwise nondescript wall.

The pooka launched a half-dozen spears of ice at her, and she moved, following her magic’s guidance and twisting into a pose that nearly threw out her back. The spears moved around her, sliding around her in a perfect outline.

“What?” Coldplay asked, shocked. “Don’t tell me, you’re just like your batpony friend?”

“No, I can just read you like a book,” Velvet panted. “And you did exactly what I wanted. I saw this coming.”

“You dodged one attack. That doesn’t matter much in the long run.”

“And you’re going to lose because you think that.” Velvet raised her chin. “Ponies have advanced a lot in the last few hundred years. Back when you were frozen in stone we didn’t have nice things like the printing press, indoor plumbing, or…”

“Or what?” Coldplay asked, sounding bored.

“Oil heating,” Velvet said, throwing herself to the side.

Behind her, the wall collapsed as the massive oil tank Coldplay had punctured with his spears failed, a flood of heating oil washing over the pooka and the icy surface of the canal, Velvet running just ahead of it.

“This smells uncomfortably like my late brother,” Coldplay said. “Wonderful. You ponies have managed to find a way to make disgusting ooze all on your own. I don’t see the point of it, unless you thought it would sicken me.”

As Coldplay spoke, the oil thickened on its hide to a waxy consistency, not quite solid but too thick to flow.

“Maybe you’ll understand when you see this!” Velvet yelled. She shot a spark from her horn, and it died in the cold and wind.

Coldplay raised an eyebrow.

Velvet tried again, and the fire spell failed almost before it began, her magic too weak to create heat in the overwhelming aura of cold the pooka was putting out.

“I’m not impressed,” Coldplay said. “It’s time to bring this little farce to an end. I apologize for not learning your name, but you simply aren’t that interesting.”

Coldplay started charging up an attack and Velvet looked into the future. No matter how hard she looked, there didn’t seem to be a place to dodge. She needed a miracle, because no action she took was going to change anything.

A bolt of red fire slammed into the pooka from above. The attack it had been preparing shattered, ice falling at its hooves as the gelled oil ignited, flames spreading over the chaos spirit.

“What?!” it gasped and stumbled back, burning drops igniting the oil around it, creating a sea of flames with Coldplay at its center.

Velvet looked up. On the roof of the building above them, a pony in a black cloak launched another fireball at the monster, slamming it into the ground with concussive force.

“What is this?!” Coldplay demanded. “What have you done?!”

“The combat magic expert,” Velvet breathed. “She found us.”

“Well of course I found you!” The expert sorceress had a much higher, squeaker voice than Velvet had expected. She tossed her hood back, revealing a wavy red and yellow mane, bright cyan eyes, and a pony a decade Velvet’s junior. “Do you know how much of a mess you imbeciles made?!”

“A filly?” Velvet asked, blinking.

“You were supposed to wait at the cafe and when I got there, the whole building was missing!” She vanished in a flash of teleportation and appeared next to Twilight Velvet, a full head shorter than the young mare, though her ego and force of will more than made up for it.

“Sorry?” Velvet offered, stunned. “Who are you?”

The filly snorted, rolling her eyes. “I’m the pony that’s getting you out of this mess, duh! You can kiss my hooves after I finish dealing with this stupid monster.”

Coldplay roared, jumping over the wall of rubble.

“I’ll be back!” It yelled. “You tricked me!”

“Say that to my face!” The filly yelled. “Do you know who I am?!”

Coldplay jumped, splashing into the water on the other side of the barrier, burning oil leaving a long trail as it swam away to lick its wounds.

“Is it gone?” Night Light asked. “Am I dead? I don’t feel dead but I keep coming close and I don’t want to miss it when it happens.”

“Hmph. It’s gone,” the filly said, annoyed. “I hate it when monsters run. I take time out of my busy schedule teaching that total bumpkin imbecile how to use her horn and I don’t even get to finish the fight cleanly.”

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” Velvet said. “Are you really the pony Clearwater wanted us to meet?”

“You’re talking to the greatest combat sorceress in Equestria,” the filly boasted. “I’m Princess Celestia’s personal student, Sunset Shimmer, and now I’m the one in charge!”

Author's Notes:

Remember, everyone: Napalm Sticks to Kids

9 - Attitude City

Velvet looked down at the filly. A pony who knew how to handle foals might have tried treating her as an adult (if a tiny one). An even wiser pony who’d seen the filly throw massive pyrokinetic spells around would do whatever they needed to do to keep her happy and calm.

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Velvet said, demonstrating that despite her precognition she was flexible enough to insert her hoof firmly into her mouth.

Sunset’s cheeks puffed up and she made a noise like steam escaping from a kettle, stomping her hooves.

“I don’t need parents! I’m Princess Celestia’s personal student!” Sunset was trying her best to look intimidating. “I saved your lives! You should be thanking me!”

“I’ll thank you if you help me up,” Night Light called out, from the canal. “I can’t reach the walkway, and the ice is starting to melt, and I could really use a boost!”

Sunset rolled her eyes and yanked him up with telekinesis, dropping him on his head.

“Thanks,” Night Light mumbled, true to his word.

“I was doing something actually important and I drop it just to come out here to fight monsters for you imbeciles, you know,” Sunset huffed. “You’re clearly in over your heads.”

“Sorry,” Velvet said. “I just find it hard to believe that Agent Clearwater would have sent for, well…”

“The most powerful sorceress you’ll ever meet?” Sunset asked, glaring at her. “Yeah, I’m surprised she was smart enough to do that, too! Now where is she? I should be dealing with the pony in charge, not her…” Sunset sniffled and motioned with her hoof imperiously. “Underlings.”

“She’s dead,” Velvet said. “That pile of rubble that used to be the cafe? She stayed behind so we could escape.”

Sunset opened her mouth, as if about to make a cutting remark, then turned without saying whatever she was thinking.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know if you two were close, or…”

“Don’t be stupid. I barely knew her. I just helped her hunt monsters once in a while.” Sunset rubbed at her eyes, still facing away from Velvet, not letting her see her expression. “Come on. We’re going to the museum.”

Velvet panted, already out of breath. The crowd closed ranks until there was no clear path through. Night Light caught up as she came to a stop.

“Where’s the filly?” Night Light asked.

“I don’t know, I lost track of her,” Velvet said. “She keeps teleporting ahead when she gets slowed down.”

They could see plumes of smoke over the heads of the ponies around them, the tourists excited and trying to figure out what was going on and the locals speaking in hushed tones, worry evident on their faces.

“I think I see her,” Night Light said, pointing. Sunset was arguing with a pony in uniform.

Velvet pushed through the crowd, making apologies along the way.

“There you are,” Sunset said, once they got up to her. “Explain to this... this peon that we’re on official business.”

“Is this your child, Ma’am?” the uniformed pony asked. “You’ll need to explain to her that the museum is closed at this time. There’s been a fire.”

“And like I tried to explain, it isn’t a fire, it’s a monster attack!” Sunset snapped. “Show them your Night Guard badges.”

“Uh…” Night Light looked at Velvet.

“Badges?” Velvet asked.

“You don’t…” Sunset turned on them. “You have to have papers or something!”

“We’re not actually members of the Night Guard. We’re sort of… deputies? Contractors?” Night Light looked at Velvet for help.

“Technically I don’t think we’re anything except concerned citizens,” Velvet said, after thinking for a moment.

“You’re both so useless!” Sunset snapped.

“That’s no way to speak to your parents,” the uniformed pony said.

“They’re not my parents!”

“Now honey, that’s rude,” Velvet said.

Sunset looked up at her, shocked.

“Just play along so we don’t get arrested,” Velvet whispered.

“But- whatever.” Sunset huffed and looked away.

“I’m so sorry, officer,” Night Light said. “All the confusion just has her in a bad mood. We were really looking forward to going to the museum today. Do you know what happened?”

The uniformed pony immediately looked happier to be dealing with adults. “Well, sir, like I was telling your daughter, there was a major fire. I don’t have more information than that right now but we’re keeping ponies away right now while we assess the damage to the building. There’s some concern that it might collapse, so we’re maintaining a perimeter.”

“That’s really too bad,” Night Light said. “Will we still be able to see the Gallerie del’Solarium?”

“Oh, of course, sir.” The guard smiled and stepped aside, pointing down the path he’d been guarding. “I’ll let you through, but make sure to follow the correct signs. There’s a walking tour that’ll take you over some of the more important bridges.”

“Like the Bridge of Whinnies?” Night Light asked.

“A wonderful structure,” the guard agreed. “I’m sorry about the museum, but I hope you enjoy your time in our beautiful city.”

“Thank you for your help,” Night Light said. “Let’s go, girls.” He ushered them down the way the guard had pointed and around a corner.

“What was that all about?” Velvet asked. “How did you even know about those places?”

“I read a guidebook, remember?” Night Light said.

“Good work getting us past the perimeter,” Sunset said. “You’re not as useless as I thought.”

“Thank--” Before Night Light could finish, Sunset pulled him down to her eye level with her magic.

“Don’t ever call me your daughter again. I don’t have parents.”

“Understood,” Night Light squeaked. Sunset let him go.

“You could help instead of yelling,” Velvet snapped. “Why don’t you just teleport us to the museum?”

“...I’m not allowed to teleport other ponies,” Sunset admitted. “I haven’t got it perfect yet. I can teleport myself okay but anything I bring with me, um…” She looked guilty. “It sort of breaks. But I’ll get it right once Princess Celestia gets back to teaching me instead of having me on this stupid assignment in the middle of nowhere!”

“Veneighs isn’t the middle of nowhere,” Night Light said. “It’s the third largest city in Old Unicornia.”

“And if I was on assignment here, I wouldn’t complain!” Sunset snapped. “I’m- you know what? I’m not going to tell you.” She smirked. “You aren’t part of the Guard. You don’t get to know all the top secret stuff I do.”

Velvet rolled her eyes. “Which way is the museum?”

“That way,” Night Light pointed. “Towards the um, the ominous plume of black smoke.”

Sunset tugged on the stubborn door, the frame warped by temperature extremes. It rattled, either locked or stuck.

“Hold on,” Velvet said, pointing to a door a few paces away. “I think we can--”

Sunset tore the door off its hinges, tossing it aside.

Velvet opened the second door easily, the smooth hinges not even making a sound. “I was saying we could go this way.”

“My way is faster,” Sunset said, holding her head high as she walked inside.

Velvet sighed and closed the door, Night Light shrugging at her expression, both of them following the filly inside the staff entrance.

“This is starting to bring back memories,” Night Light said, looking around the ruined hallway. The ceiling was black with soot, tiles warped and cracked under their hooves. “You don’t think they’re still here, do you?”

“If they are, we’re going to come up with a plan,” Velvet replied. “I don’t think drain cleaner is going to work this time.”

“You don’t need a plan when you’re strong,” Sunset said. She stopped at a junction, looking both ways and frowning.

“That way,” Velvet said, pointing.

“Why that way?” Sunset asked.

“My father works in a museum, so I’ve spent a lot of time in service corridors like this,” Velvet explained. “Since they have to go behind exhibits, they’re kind of like a backbone for the whole building. The wider hallway means they probably use it for moving exhibits.”

“I’ll go first,” Night Light said. “I can read the signs.”

“You can?” Sunset asked, looking at the Neightalian plaques.

“On the trip over I memorized a few phrasebooks,” he explained.

Sunset made a pleased sound. “You two aren’t as useless as I thought. Just get behind me if there’s trouble, okay?”

Night Light nodded and walked ahead, reading out the signs.

“Ancient Roam, um… this one is Pegasopilan art… Oh! The Ponieta! I always wanted to see that!” He reached for the door until Sunset cleared her throat. Backing away and blushing. “Sorry. Um… I think it’s this one. It’s labeled as the Temporary Exhibition Hall.”

Sunset yanked the door open, and a plume of black smoke escaped, sending all of them into coughing fits.

The damage in the staff hallway was nothing compared to what they found outside it. Black, steaming rock covered part of the floor, still radiating heat despite the chill from the glacier of ice cutting off half the room. Inside the ice, Velvet could just barely make out dim shapes that looked like ponies.

“They must have woken up while there were tourists in here,” Night Light whispered. He looked like he was going to be sick.

“This is volcanic rock,” Sunset said, tapping a hoof against the black stone. “The ice thing didn’t like fire. No way it was able to make magma.”

“Lava, actually, since it’s on the surface,” Night Light said. Sunset shot him a look. “Sorry.”

“I don’t think they’re here,” Velvet said, after a long look around the room. Nothing was trying to kill them, which made for a nice change of pace. “Why didn’t we hear about all this when we were at the cafe?”

“They wouldn’t want to send up an alarm and frighten the tourists off,” Sunset scoffed. “Idiots.”

“I don’t understand, though,” Night Light said. “This museum had the Sun’s Heart. It should have been able to keep the pookas locked in stone, right?”

“It’s supposed to be a big gem shining like the sun. Do you see it in here?” Velvet asked.

“No,” Night Light admitted.

Sunset’s horn lit up, and a wave swept across the room.

“There’s a bunch of weird chaos magic in here,” she said. “But I think I feel something familiar over here…”

She walked across the room, picking a path between the cooling lava and the floes of ice. Sunset yanked a door open, and light flooded in from the next room.

“Don’t hurt us!” somepony yelled.

Velvet and Night Light ran over. The next room was full of light, no trace of the lava and ice inside, even the air seeming clear of the lingering smoke. A dozen foals cowered behind a single adult pony, the older pony wearing a sweater and thick glasses that screamed ‘teacher’.

Above them, casting the light, a gem shone like the Sun.

“That must be the Sun’s Heart,” Night Light said.

“Don’t worry, the monsters are gone,” Velvet said. “We’re here to help.”

Night Light looked around the untouched gallery. “The pookas must have avoided this room because of the gem. They got really lucky.”

“Yeah,” Sunset agreed, before ripping the Sun’s Heart free of its housing.

“Sunset! That belongs to the museum!” Velvet admonished.

“It belongs to me now. We need it more than they do.” She looked at the scared foals. “What? You’re safe! Get out of here and go home!”

“I can see why Princess Celestia decided to make you her student,” Velvet said. “Yelling at scared foals. You’ve really got a way with ponies.”

“Shut up,” Sunset said, her cheeks red. “I don’t get along well with ponies my own age. We need the Sun’s Heart if we’re going to stop those monsters, right? Letting it sit in a museum is dumb, and those ponies were dumb for not trying to escape.”

She patted her saddlebags, the gem wrapped up tight in the cloak she’d been wearing.

“With this, I can definitely beat them,” Sunset said.

“We should send a message to Princess Celestia to tell her what happened,” Night Light suggested.

“No!” Sunset snapped. “What are you, stupid?”

“We need her help,” Velvet said, gently. “There’s nothing wrong with asking for help.”

“That’s not the point!” Sunset sat down and rubbed her temples. “We don’t have a good way to contact the Princess. Even if the message isn’t intercepted, it’ll take days to get it there and back and I don’t want monsters running around for that long.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Velvet asked.

“We could try and figure out what they want,” Night Light suggested.

Sunset nodded quickly. “Yeah! Good idea. Easy to tell you’re the smart one. We’ve got a trump card to beat them, so we just need to figure out where they’ll go and ambush them!”

“Well… they eat pony magic,” Velvet said. “But they didn’t stay in town to eat everypony here.”

“Maybe they’re worried about attracting too much attention,” Night Light suggested. “If they’re weak from being imprisoned they might want to find somewhere safe. Like cockroaches running away when you turn on the light.”

“That would make sense,” Velvet agreed. “They don’t know where Celestia is. For all they know, she could be in the city. That might be why we only saw one of them. They scattered in all directions.”

“I wonder how many ponies they’d need,” Night Light muttered.

“How many ponies they’d need for what?” Velvet asked.

“To match Celestia’s power,” he said. “To break the curse, they’d probably need as much magic as Princess Celestia. They won’t go after her directly, so they’ll have to eat magic from other ponies.”

“...An alicorn’s magic,” Sunset whispered. “Oh no.”

Velvet blinked. “Oh no?”

“We need to go, now,” Sunset said. “If they don’t know yet they might find out soon. The only advantage we have is that she’s been kept secret!”

“Who’s been kept secret?” Night Light asked.

Sunset took a deep breath, looking pained. “There’s another alicorn. And I abandoned her to come here.”

Author's Notes:

Welcome to Attitude City, Sunset Shimmer's home town.

10 - Led Zeppelin

Night Light groaned and looked at his bit bag. Just an hour ago it had been full of bits, each one representing a not insignificant amount of his savings. Now it was all but empty, a single golden coin at the bottom only serving to stare up at him with an accusing golden glare, demanding to know where its siblings had gone, what vitally important errand had been worth spending them.

“You know, this airship is a lot nicer than the one we came here in,” Velvet offered, gamely trying to improve his mood. Under their hooves, the deck gleamed, flakes of gold worked into the lacquer over heartwood in such a warm shade it almost seemed to glow. Silk flags and banners decorated almost every surface in white and teal stripes, so impossibly clean they had to be enchanted. The gasbags overhead were large enough that it almost felt like the ship hung down from the sky itself instead of merely balloons.

“Of course it is,” Sunset scoffed. “This is the Merriweather Post Pavilion. It’s one of the finest luxury airships in the world.”

“One of the most expensive, too,” Night Light muttered.

“Don’t complain, I let you call me your foal again so you could save money on my ticket,” Sunset said. “You can’t imagine how embarrassing that is for me.”

“Couldn’t we have gone on a smaller ship?” Velvet asked. “There were other airships going this direction. Most of them were faster, too.”

“I’m Princess Celestia’s personal student,” Sunset said, her high-pitched voice carrying an edge. “I am not going to travel on anything less than the very best ship available.”

“Does Princess Celestia’s personal student get an allowance they could use to pay me back?” Night Light asked.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Once we save Equestria I’m sure you’ll get a reward or something.”

“Save your receipts,” Velvet joked.

“It’s just that we could have chartered a ship for how much the tickets cost,” Night Light said. “We could have gone directly where we need to go. Wherever that is.”

He looked sideways at Sunset. She sighed, deflating slightly.

“I can’t tell you,” she said. “I’m not supposed to tell anypony, and if the monsters show up they might be able to force you to tell them everything you know. Besides, I’m worried we might be being followed. If we hire our own ship, they’ll know exactly where we are. A big ship like this we can hide in the crowd. They might not know which airship we’re on.”

“You know what’ll make you feel better?” Velvet asked. “A hot meal after almost freezing to death. We never actually managed to finish lunch.”

Night Light’s stomach growled.

“At least the tickets included meals,” Night Light said, his mood already starting to improve, in no small part thanks to the wine they’d brought to the table. Nopony had bothered asking if he and Velvet should actually be drinking, and consequently, they were on their second bottle in less than an hour.

“You’d have known that already if you bothered treating yourself once in a while,” Sunset said. “Whenever Princess Celestia travels, she gets the best everything. This would just barely be acceptable.”

“I don’t know, I think it’s more than acceptable,” Velvet said. She took another sip of wine before cutting into her food, artichoke hearts battered and deep fried and served over wild rice with a lemon-butter sauce. Slices of toasted baguette topped with gruyere rounded out the dish, giving her something to sop up the sauce with.

“It would be better with mushrooms instead of artichokes,” Sunset said.

Velvet shared a look with Night Light and they drank at the same time to avoid commenting on the way the filly’s special talent was obviously finding something to complain about no matter the situation.

“So what do you two actually do, since you’re not part of the Night Guard?” Sunset asked. She reached for the wine, and Velvet slid the bottle away to keep her from getting it.

“My father is one of the directors for the Canterlot History Museum,” Twilight Velvet said.

“That’s what your dad does. What do you do?”

Velvet sighed. “I guess I sort of… don’t do much. I help out at the museum and I’ve been trying to break into the writing market but it’s hard getting published.”

“What’ve you been working on?” Night Light asked.

“I was writing a historical romance but after all this maybe I’ll write about monster hunters.”

“Good,” Sunset nodded with approval. “Romance is dumb. Ponies go on about the power of love like it’s actually important, but it’s not! What’s important is power and making ponies respect you!”

“Well, romance is important too,” Night Light said. “I’d love to read your story, Miss Velvet. If you do write about all this, maybe you could make me taller and a little more, um…”

“In shape?” Velvet asked, smiling.

“I’ll have you know I’m one of the fittest ponies in the observatory,” Night Light said, with mock offense. “When they need a junior researcher to move piles of books they call me because they know I can easily lift dozens at a time.”

Velvet giggled. “Very impressive!”

“I’ve been working on my thesis project for my doctorate,” he said. “You know that the stars slowly drift over time, right?”

Velvet nodded. “It’s not really visible to the naked eye but they touched on it in school.”

“Well ancient star charts show them fixed in place for entire centuries. Every record is identical until about a thousand years ago. The common reasoning is that ponies didn’t really record the movement of the stars carefully until then, and once astronomy was invented they began measuring stellar drift.”

“I take it you disagree?” Velvet asked.

Night Light leaned forward as if sharing a dire secret. “I think they’ve got cause and effect reversed. The records are extremely fragmentary, almost like they were tampered with, but I’ve found many passages suggesting that astronomy was invented because the stars started moving and ponies needed to start keeping track of them.”

“How would you prove it?”

Night Light leaned back and sighed, pulling the wine bottle away from Sunset before the filly could pour herself a drink. “I’ve been estimating the positions of the stars at the time ancient star charts were made. There are definite discrepancies between where backtracking along their path shows they should be and where the charts show they actually were.”

“You could just ask the Princess,” Sunset said. “She was there a thousand years ago.”

“I wrote her a letter. All I got back was a form letter from the Palace that basically said it was cheating to ask her instead of doing the research myself, but, you know, phrased very politely. I have it framed in my apartment.”

Sunset snorted. “That definitely sounds like Princess Celestia. She hates giving ponies a real answer to anything. She likes making them figure everything out for themselves.”

“Is that so?” Velvet asked. “What did she have you doing?”

“I already told you it’s a secret! But I guess I can tell you a little, so you understand why it’s important.” Sunset wiggled in her seat with the excitement only a foal with a secret could manage. “I already told you there’s another alicorn. She’s a total idiot and barely even knows how to use magic. Princess Celestia sent me to teach her the basics because I’m a genius and it’s gonna take a genius to get through her stupid pink skull.”

“So you’re sort of a royal tutor?” Velvet asked.

“She’s not really royalty. She hasn’t even been elected or… crowned, or whatever the word is.”

“Coronated?” Night Light offered.

“Yeah, that. She doesn’t even do anything important but…” Sunset looked to the side. “She’s an alicorn, and even if she can’t use her magic right she’s got a lot of it. Princess Celestia thinks she’s special but I don’t think she’s nearly as great as everypony says. It’ll be better once things are normal and Princess Celestia gets back to teaching me.”

Velvet smiled a little. “I’m sure everypony will be happy when things get back to normal.”

“Yeah,” Sunset muttered. “Hey! I know what we should do!”

“Get another bottle of wine?” Night Light asked.

“No. I’m basically a royal tutor like she said. You two are useless right now. But I bet I can teach you to be less useless.”

The cabin was bigger than Night Light’s apartment back home. There were only two beds, and Sunset had claimed one of them as hers. Night Light hadn’t asked yet if he’d be sleeping on the floor, because he wanted to pretend otherwise for a few more hours.

Sleep wasn’t going to happen for a while, though. Sunset Shimmer probably wasn’t going to let them rest until they passed out.

“Usually if I was trying to teach a pony combat magic I’d start with fireball spells but we probably can’t actually teach those here,” Sunset said. “Fire is really good for fighting monsters because evil stuff burns really well.”

“Trust me, using magic on them isn’t a great idea anyway,” Night Light said. “When we fought the ooze monster in Canterlot, it started eating my magic.” He shuddered. “It was really, really awful. Like swimming in sewage while it melts you.”

“It couldn’t eat my magic, though,” Velvet said. “What was up with that?”

Sunset narrowed her eyes and looked closely at Velvet. “Hm…”

“Is there something on my face?”

Sunset effortlessly lifted Velvet up, rotating her slowly in the air and passing a beam of magic over her body.

“The pookas are creatures of chaos, right?” Sunset asked.

“Put me down!” Velvet said. Sunset apparently heard this as a positive response to her question, because she acted like the mare had said ‘yes and I am very excited to be levitated against my will.’

“Some ponies have a faint connection to harmonious magic,” Sunset explained. “I do, obviously, and Princess Celestia’s is the strongest of anypony, but maybe one in ten thousand ponies has the potential. You can usually spot them when they start singing. Everypony ends up singing along with them.”

“I thought that was just a normal thing,” Night Light said.

“If it was normal, everypony singing in the shower would turn into a parade in the streets. You probably get magical surges, right?”

Velvet nodded.

“That’s pretty normal. Harmony magic leaves a kind of… of beat or pulse in your magic aura. It can kind of echo and build up like, um… like how notes can turn into chords. If you’re not expecting it, you get a resonance effect and bam! Magic surge!”

Sunset dropped Velvet without warning. Night Light tried to catch her and ended up merely being a softer landing zone than the floor.

“They probably can’t handle the harmony magic. That’s good. At least I don’t have to worry about you making them any stronger.”

“I can see why Princess Celestia sent you out as a tutor,” Velvet said. “You’re really a great teacher.”

“Even the best teacher can only do so much with the raw material she’s given,” Sunset retorted. “I’ll try and go more slowly so you can keep up.”

A bit over an hour later, as night fell, Night Light was trying to keep a magical shield up while Sunset bounced a ball against it over and over again, and Twilight Velvet was unsteadily keeping herself in the air under her own power, the aura around her body wavering and pulsing and threatening to fail at any moment.

“See? That’s getting better already,” Sunset said, putting the ball down. “I mean, they’ll just eat your magic and then you, but if you can convince them to have a pillow fight maybe you’ll survive long enough to scream for help.”

“Should I stay behind?” Night Light asked, lowering his shield. “I don’t want to end up making things worse by being there. That whole last fight, Velvet had to protect me the whole time.”

“There is one thing I can try,” Sunset said. “It’s possible to sort of force a connection to harmony magic for a while.”

“Really?” Velvet lost her concentration and fell onto the bed, having learned her lesson about fall safety.

“It’s um…” Sunset bit her lip thinking. “Like a tuning fork! Yeah! If I set up the resonance inside your magic, it’ll stick around for a couple hours before it fades away. If we do it before a fight, you’ll be safe from being eaten.”

“That… actually sounds like a good plan,” Night Light said. “How does it work?”

“Stand still. I’ve only sort of invented this now,” Sunset said.

“I’m sorry, you only what?”

Sunset, instead of answering Night Light’s excellent question, fired a blast of magic into his horn. His whole body vibrated like a bell and he fell to the floor in a shaking heap, shivering uncontrollably.

“Maybe a little less force next time,” Sunset noted, watching the stallion twitch. “It probably still worked.”

“I smell burning toast,” Night Light said, from the floor. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No, I smell something burning too,” Velvet said.

“It’s not my fault!” Sunset said. “I don’t care what anypony told you, I don’t always set everything on fire!”

“I don’t think it’s you,” Velvet said, pointing to the cabin door. “Look!”

Black smoke trickled through the gap. As if on cue, fire bells starting ringing all over the ship.

Author's Notes:

Today's Selection: Merriweather Post Pavilion

11 - Breathless

The smoke creeping in around the door was pitch black, thick enough to look more like the tendrils of some living thing than wisps of gas. Velvet backed away from the door on instinct, the fire bells outside slowly being joined by muffled cries of alarm and terrified screaming from other cabins.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had to deal with a lot of fires,” Sunset said. “I’m basically an expert.”

She trotted over to the door and gingerly touched the handle.

“It doesn’t feel hot,” Sunset reported. “That means the corridor outside isn’t hot. The fire might be nearby, though, because we saw the smoke before the alarms went off. When I open the door we’ll go to the deck. We can figure out what to do next once we get there.”

“Wait,” Velvet said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea! We should seal the door so the smoke stops coming in and--”

“You can’t hide from a fire!” Sunset snapped. “It’s not like the fire department is gonna come for us when we’re a mile above the ocean! If you’re on a ship and it’s in trouble, you need to get to the deck. It’s common knowledge and I shouldn’t have to explain this to adult ponies!”

“That’s not what I--”

Sunset yanked the door open, and a wall of black smoke rolled in like a pitch-black fog, the smoke as noxious as the plume from an old tire thrown on a pile of burning garbage. Sunset was forced back by the opaque smog, coughing, her eyes already red and burning.

“Stay low!” Night Light yelled. “Smoke rises so all the fresh air is near the floor!”

He dropped to the floor, and immediately went into a wheezing fit of his own as a carpet of smoke rolled over his face.

“Never mind,” Night Light gasped, trying to get up. “The smoke isn’t rising. I was wrong. I’m going to write a very stern letter to the author of the fire safety book I read as a foal if we survive this.”

“It’s not much better up here!” Velvet grabbed the blanket from the bed, trying to breathe through it. It didn’t help as much as she’d have liked, her eyes still burning like she’d been cutting up onions, but her throat felt less raw.

“We can probably make it to the deck if we go really fast,” Sunset said. “But also we can’t get lost, so we’ll have to go fast and accurately and not get lost or else you’ll end up in a dead end and you’ll die.”

“Of course that will only work if the smoke isn’t fighting you,” somepony pointed out.

“Who said that?” Sunset demanded.

“Tight spaces like this are just so dangerous,” the voice continued. “Not a lot of ventilation, no easy way out. Did you know ponies used to use smoke to drive rodents out of their dens? It’s, hm, its what one does with vermin. There’s nothing personal in it.”

“Get out here!” Sunset yelled, her voice rough. She fired a bolt into the black wall of smoke, hitting nothing.

“Weren’t you all planning on leaving?” The voice asked, amused. “Running and panting in these corridors like the animals you are, reduced to your base instincts and blindly trying to find a way out.”

“It’s one of the pooka,” Velvet warned, her voice muffled by the blanket. She tore a strip free and tied it around her snout like a mask before doing the same for Night Light. “How did it find us?”

“I followed you from the museum,” the creature said, stepping out of the smoke. The motion was less like it had been hiding in the cloud and more like it was part of the cloud detaching itself and becoming better defined, the line between transformation and camouflage blurred.

It was as unique as the others, somehow feminine compared to Mudhoney and Coldplay, with a long coal-black coat that waved in the air like she was floating underwater, long fetlocks obscuring her hooves and fading into invisibility at the edges, her legs not quite touching the floor. Her face was obscured by the veil of smoky hair, the only clear feature her eyes, burning like coals through the thin strands.

“I decided to… linger around in the destruction,” Smoke said. “My brother and sister went their own ways. Coldplay chased a pony he allowed to escape and my sister, well, who can predict a sibling like that?”

The pooka shrugged, its whole body wavering like it was just a projected image.

“In the name of Princess Celestia, I order you to surrender,” Sunset coughed, pushing Velvet away when the older mare tried to help. “If you give up, maybe I’ll put in a good word for you before you go to Tartarus.”

“That’s a very tempting offer, but I’ll have to pass,” the pooka said, slowly scanning the room, eyes fixing on Velvet and Night Light. “You’re the ones who killed Mudhoney. I overheard. I wanted to thank you for that.”

“To thank us?” Night Light asked. He wobbled, light-headed, when he stood. “Why would you want to thank us?”

“It would take too long to explain,” the pooka said, sounding a little sad. “I’m sorry. Unlike my siblings, I don’t like… big displays of power. While we’ve been talking, I’ve been removing the oxygen from this room. I could have waited until you were asleep but I wanted to make sure I had the right ponies. There’s no need to waste the rest of the lives on this ship.”

Velvet’s vision started to go black around the edges. The burning in her lungs was getting worse, even standing was difficult, her body aching like she’d been sprinting.

Sunset fired another blast of force, the pooka ducking around the clumsy attack, body distorting impossibly far.

“Sunset!” Velvet gasped. “Over here!”

The filly turned to look. Velvet pointed to the outside wall.

“Blast it right here!”

Sunset threw a bolt without questioning it. Her magic hit the bulkhead and broke through, tearing a hole in the hull. Air started rushing through the cabin, the fresh air from outside washing away the suffocating smoke.

“That’s a little better,” Velvet gasped.

The pooka’s body dimmed, the wind rippling through its body, veil over its face parting for a moment to reveal a skull-like grimace of mummified flesh.

“Clever,” it grumbled.

“Of course it’s clever,” Sunset said.

She immediately paused her dramatic speech to hack up black phlegm.

“I planned all of this,” Sunset continued, once she could speak. “This is an airship route over the ocean. There’s nowhere to hide if you want to follow us. You’d have to get onboard to attack us. I’ll be honest, I thought you’d have attacked sooner.”

“During the day?” the pooka shook her head. “No. It was hard enough getting on board. There was no need to risk that kind of confrontation.”

“Well you’re risking a confrontation anyway,” Sunset said. “You’ve got nowhere to run or hide now. The ice monster got away because I couldn’t track him, but you aren’t so lucky.”

“The same could be said for you,” the pooka said. “You’re cornered in your room. You might have, hm, cleared the air a little, but perhaps you’d allow me to do the same?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Velvet asked.

“I don’t have any real interest in you personally. I don’t particularly… care. You’ve done nothing to truly hurt me. We can… make a deal. Ponies like deals. Before the Sun Pony imprisoned us, your ancestors would… wish for things. Sometimes I would grant them, in return for service.”

“We’re not interested in being your slaves,” Velvet said.

The pooka nodded. “I was considering a more simple… trade. You tell me where the alicorn is, and I will leave.”

“Princess Celestia is in Saddle Arabia,” Night Light said. “It’s in all the papers. I’ll give you a bit for the Canterlot Times.”

“The new alicorn,” the pooka sighed. “I can feel her magic in the world like a… like a faint scent in the air. Too faint to find the direction. If you tell me where she is, I will leave. And I will leave without killing every pony onboard this clever little flying ship.”

“If you do that, you’ll never find her,” Sunset said.

“I disagree. At worst, it’s a delay, and I’m rather impatient after centuries spent waiting for my chance. You can either tell me where she is, or die. You simply aren’t as important as the alicorn.”

Sunset’s eye twitched.

“Not as important?!” She yelled, voice cracking. “Do you know who I am?! I’m ten times the pony she is! I worked my tail off every day and she just got everything on a silver platter!”

The pooka tilted her head. “This sounds rather like family drama. How amusing.”

Sunset ripped one of the beds free of the bolts holding it to the deck and threw it, the pooka’s body dissipating into smoke as it smashed through her, reforming in the same place a moment later, apparently undisturbed.

“You can’t punch smoke,” the pooka sighed, sounding more resigned than anything else, as if dealing with nothing more serious than the temper tantrum of a spoiled foal.

“I can punch anything I want!” Sunset yelled.

The pooka shook her head and took a deep breath. When it exhaled, a plume of yellow gas erupted from its nostrils. Where it touched the wood, the veneer clouded and started flaking almost instantly.

Sunset took a step back, surprised, and fell on her rump as another coughing fit took her, breaking her concentration.

The vapors rushed toward her, and stopped short, hitting a faint, flickering wall in the air. Sunset looked back. Night Light strained, trying to push more into the shield he was projecting.

“This is a lot easier than the bouncy balls you were throwing at me,” Night Light said, trying to sound like it was no big deal. “That’s some seriously bad breath. Didn’t they have toothbrushes a thousand years ago?”

Velvet pulled Sunset back closer to them to reduce the strain on Night Light creating such a large shield. The mustard-colored vapors eroded everything they touched as the three ponies sheltered behind the shield.

“I can’t eat your magic,” the pooka said. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, no free in-flight snack,” Night Light quipped, sweat running down his brow. The tiny fraction of the gas getting through the shield was enough to burn with every breath. Velvet pulled Sunset closer and wrapped cloth around her snout, patting her back as the filly descended into another coughing fit.

“I meant too bad for you.” It sighed. “I suppose since we’re making a production of this I should tell you my name. I don’t usually bother. I meet so many ponies and most of them end up dead before we even get a chance to talk.”

“Dead because you kill them?” Velvet asked.

“Well…” the pooka shrugged. “You wouldn’t bother introducing yourself to your food before every meal. But… maybe for a treat you were saving for later. Something you didn’t want to eat all at once.” It bowed slightly, mostly just a nod of the veiled head. “Breathless. It isn’t a pleasure to meet you but it is… at least interesting.”

“That’s super flattering,” Velvet said. “We’re--”

“Twilight Velvet, Night Light, and Sunset Shimmer,” the pooka said, with an exhausted tone. “I told you, I’ve been following you and listening in. I’ve had more than enough time to learn your names.”

“Good,” Sunset said. “Then you know the name of the pony that’s going to destroy you.”

Breathless shook her head. “I doubt that very much.”

“Then prepare to be surprised, because you’ve walked right into my trap.”

Author's Notes:

Today's Reference: Breathless