It felt like autumn came early this year.

A chilling wind was blowing, a few leaves were already orange, a swarm of zombies had swept over the entire town and pumpkins were out on sale. Dash breathed in the crisp air as she passed a food merchant swatting a few zombies away from her pumpkins. This was fall!

It was just chilly enough that Dash had to wear a scarf as she walked through town, the streets nearly empty, everypony already barricaded up in their houses for tonight.

She had three hours till sunset, then another three hours after that until the lunar eclipse started and things went from chill to inferno. Realistically, that meant Dash only had those three hours to recruit ponies and still have time to go on her mission.

Dash skipped over a house with sandbags piled in front of the door. Did they think the zombies were somehow going to cause a flood? She just waded through the mass of undead to the next house, bashing one that was in her way to the side with her bag.

Technically the streets weren’t empty if you counted all the zombies. They even had this little zombie parade going on, she noticed, nearly a hundred of them ‘chasing’ after Dash. Given their shambling nature, Dash was moving at Mach speed compared to them. Just casually walking was enough to leave them far behind, forming a long tail behind her that reached back several blocks.

Dash came up to the next door. This pony already had some Halloween decorations out. She knew what was up. Dash knocked repeatedly.

As she waited at the door a zombie crept up behind her, making that droning noise. Did they think you couldn’t hear that or something? Dash just sighed and when it got close, she bucked it with a hind leg, sending it tumbling into the bushes where it got stuck.

Dash knocked one more time and finally an annoyed mare opened the door.

“What do you want?” She asked.

“Hey! My name’s Rainbow Dash.” Dash pointed to herself. “I’m looking for ponies to go on an adventure with me! You gotta bring your own weapon and I can’t guarantee your safety but if we actually pull it off, we’ll have fame and fortune beyond your wildest dreams! Then everypony will love us and-”

“I don’t have time for whatever you’re selling,” the mare said. “I have to get ready for tonight.”

“Not if you come with me you don’t!” Dash stopped the other mare right before she closed the door. “Listen, we have a once in a billion-year opportunity here! Like literally, I’m pretty sure you’d have to wait a billion years for another chance at this. But we have to do it tonight when there’s a blood moon.”

“You’re going outside on a blood moon?” She asked. “Didn’t you hear the warnings all over the radio? Going outside tonight is certain death.”

“Tch! Nothing is certain death!” Dash rolled her eyes. “Especially not when you got Rainbow Dash around.”

“Who?”

“That’s me.” Dash gave the toothy smile she’d practiced. “Rainbow Dash. Anyway, it’s really more of a 95% chance of dying, not 100 so- “

And then the mare closed the door in Dash’s face.

Another miss. Dash was running out of ponies to beg for help. Was she seriously going to have to do this alone?

There was one last shot. The Wonder Slayers turned her down plenty of times before, but it wouldn’t hurt to try begging one last time. There’d be a ton of armed guards down there tonight, waiting for trouble. Surely at least one of them would be tempted by Dash’s plan.

She shoved another zombie out of her way and started towards HQ.

When Dash came up with this plan about a year ago, she had this vision in her mind of the elite four showing up and leading an entire army out into the woods. If they lived in a world that made sense that was what would happen.

Dash sent out letter after letter to the agency, to the government, to the elite four themselves, to every high-rank slayer but all she got back was those automated ‘thank you for your concern’ letters. She didn’t even think those ponies read her proposal! Then anytime she went somewhere in person everypony shot her idea down as ‘dumb’.

That’s what happened when you had no money, connections, or influence of any kind. Your great idea just gets kicked to the side.

Everypony else had just given up on defeating Twilight Sparkle a long time ago. Ponies tried for a hundred years to break the curse that was protecting her and after that it became common sense that breaking the curse was simply impossible.

No one was willing to question that anymore, it seemed. Even if Dash showed them that it was totally possible to be there on Friday the 13^th and Halloween at the same time, it was still just impossible in their minds. They all acted like Dash was on the eighth.

In the end, all Dash managed to get was enough money saved up to buy a musket, a camcorder, and some smoke bombs. She was hardly going to defeat Twilight Sparkle with just that, but it was better than nothing.

Dash would break the curse, get evidence that she saw Twilight, and get the heck out of there. They’d have to believe her once she had proof. Then everypony would have to eat their words and it’d be amazing!

HQ was bustling compared to the rest of the town in terms of both living and dead. Before the building even came in sight, she could see a wall of undead ponies circled her destination, climbing all over one another.

Dash splayed her wings, getting ready to fly over them all. During the day, pegasus zombies moved too slow to fly. The few that tried got a flap or two into the air before falling over.

But before Dash could take flight, she heard a familiar voice crying for help.

“Rainbow Dash!” Derpy called after her.

Derpy was surrounded by a group of particularly aggressive zombies who had her up against a wall. Derpy clutched a box as if her life depended on keeping it safe as the zombie horde pushed in against her.

“Rainbow Dash! Oh no!” Derpy called after her just before the group of zombies dog-piled onto her. “Help me!”

Dash sighed and trotted over to her former classmate. How could you be dumb enough to get cornered by zombies during the day?

She found Derpy lying on the floor, yelping as the zombies tried to get at the box. The undead pinned her to the ground and tried to pry her forelegs and wings open but made no attempt to harm Derpy directly.

“They’re after my muffins!” Derpy slammed the box shut. “No! Bad zombies! Go get your own snacks! You gotta hurry or they’ll all get squished or eaten!”

This was the reason why that old griffon empire collapsed but Equestria was fine when the whole ‘zombie apocalypse’ thing started.

Ponies didn’t eat meat. Pony zombies also didn’t eat meat.

The griffons got devoured by the undead and went extinct while the ponies just experienced a moderate famine from zombies eating crops. Today, zombies were more of a pest than anything else.

“Don’t worry.” Dash reached into her bag with no real hurry. “I got ya covered.”

Dash took out one of her jars of spider honey. She made sure to have a hundred of these for tonight. These days you could store them in jars that made it so the smell couldn’t get out. But the second you opened it-

The lid popped off and every zombie in Dash’s line of sight stopped and slowly turned their attention to Dash. All of them looked at her slack-jawed like they were drooling at the smell.

The ones around Derpy gave up on the muffins to go after the far more valuable snack in their rotted-out brains. Plenty from the crowd around HQ broke rank to shamble after Dash too.

With maybe fifty zombies in tow, Dash walked backward to a manhole leading down to the sewers and dropped the jar inside. When they finally got there, the zombies were more than happy to jump down into the sewers after it. They ended up clogging the hole as they all tried to throw themselves into the abyss.

“Thanks, Rainbow Dash!” Derpy tackled dash with a hug from the side.

“Dang it, Derpy!” Dash pushed her off. “You gotta go wash off after that. Now I gotta wash off too. Filthy freaking zombies.”

“Oops. Sorry.” Derpy looked to the side, another zombie already coming for her muffins. “Maybe we should go back inside.”

The two of them flew over the wall of zombies.

A wall just a little too high for a zombie to get over surrounded HQ, keeping them at bay. On the other side of the wall was a spiked pit then a line of jars filled with spider honey. That honey was why half the zombies in town were lured here.

Just after that was a group of about thirty armed guards getting ready for when the heat turned on. Every so often a pegasus zombie would flap her way up onto the wall only to get her head blown off by a musket. They had several much larger cannons standing by, waiting for a real threat to show up.

Even during the eclipse, when the zombies became dramatically more aggressive, closing your windows and doors would be enough to stop them almost every time. These guys were getting ready for the chance that much more dangerous undead woke up.

On the inside of HQ was another dozen or so ponies. These ones weren’t militia, but professional slayers hired by the agency, like Dash. As always, the walls were covered in wanted posters and mission listings. You could walk into this place and not even know what color the wall was the place was so covered in brown paper sheets tacked to it.

One thing that was never in short supply was monsters to go after, mysteries to uncover, and cursed objects to destroy. The agency had a reward listed for all of them. Going after these marks as a slayer wasn’t the safest job in the world but nothing paid better or gave you more prestige.

On the far side of the wall, behind the counter, hung the portraits of the elite four, the four ponies with the highest monster-slaying records. They were the richest, most powerful, and famous ponies in the world.

There wasn’t one pony on this planet who who couldn’t tell you the names of every pony who’d been part of the elite four during their lifetime. These were the ponies everypony aspired to be!

That was exactly who Dash wanted to be!

But sadly, those jerkwads were all too high and mighty to listen to a noob like Rainbow Dash, still stuck at Rank D.

Dash scanned the group of slayers and was surprised to see a pony she’d never met before with an A rank badge. She was another pegasus with dark grey fur and a dark blue mane. Right now, she was loading a series of muskets, no doubt her preferred weapon.

Rank A was pretty darn good! She flew right over to the other mare.

“Hey!” Dash flew up and landed next to her. “I have a once in a lifetime lead for you! You know about Twilight Sparkle, right?”

“Huh?” The mare turned to her, briefly stunned with confusion. “Uh- yeah?”

“Well the main problem with reaching her is that it has to be both Friday the 13th and Halloween, right? No doubt you think it’s impossible but that’s just cause you’re not the amazing Rainbow Dash. Oh. Rainbow Dash is me, by the way.”

The mare scratched her head as Derpy flew over to her counter.

“You’re still trying with this?” Derpy asked with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m actually a little curious where she’s going,” the A rank said.

“Great!” Dash took out two pieces of paper, two different calendars. “So see, on the solar calendar right now it’s Friday the 13th, but a lot of ponies forget that there’s an older, lunar calendar we don’t use anymore! Since lunar calendars are based on full moons, holidays aren’t always in the same season and Halloween floats around the year.”

Dash moved the two calendars on top of one another so that the squares for the dates of Friday the 13th and Halloween overlapped.

“And guess what?! This year, on the lunar calendar, Halloween is today! And it’s a blood moon!” Dash threw her papers to the side. “Is that brilliant or what?! The chances of this happening are like one in a hundred billion or something. I dunno, I’m too lazy to actually calculate it but it’s gotta be so crazy rare that we have to go test it out before we lose our chance forever!”

Dash’s enthusiasm dipped as she could see the mare still giving her a skeptical look, clearly not sold on this.

“I dunno.” She rubbed the back of her head. “This is kind of iffy. It’s a lot of chances stacked on top of one another and even if we did find Twilight what would we do? Die? I’m not going to go up against the craziest monster in history like that on so short notice. Sorry.”

Dash grumbled as her last real chance at an ally turned her back.

“Maybe you should try getting to rank C before doing anything too crazy,” Derpy suggested, putting on her own rank C pin.

Even though they both started the job at the same time, Derpy was already way ahead of Dash in the agency. Heck, Derpy was way ahead of Dash on everything. Derpy already had a house, a boyfriend, popularity, and a bank account that wasn’t a negative number. What the heck was Derpy doing right?

Back in high school Dash thought maybe Derpy was the one girl she could surpass because she was all derped and whatnot. But no, Derpy was simply better than Dash in every conceivable way.

Maybe Dash really was just a loser.

But all of that changed tonight! Tonight was the night Dash would finally prove herself! She just knew it!

Dash went to the wall on the left to take one last look at her target before meeting it in person. On this side of the wall was a list of all the S ranked targets- the most dangerous monsters and artifacts in the world with the highest bounties.

At the top of the S rank list was the tarrasque, the monster that destroyed most of Canterlot, with a bounty of ten million bits for its demise. There were slightly more doable tasks on the list like finding a book of shadows (half a million) or learning the unfinished business of the Crater Cemetery ghost (100,000).

But there was one target above all of that, literally placed higher on the wall. There was the one and only ‘rank X’ monster. There was the witch Twilight Sparkle with a five hundred million bit bounty on her head. Even the reward for information about her was potentially in the millions.

If Dash’s plan worked, if she found Twilight Sparkle and got a recording of her, she’d become a millionaire overnight, not to mention get promoted to near the top of the slayer list! Dash would be famous and everypony would love her!

Dash flew up to be eye level with the painting of Twilight Sparkle, the only authentic image of what the unicorn looked like. Twilight was just sitting there in her little witch hat like she didn’t know what she did.

“Just tell me this Derpy!” Dash landed in front of the counter. “How can you not be tempted by millions of bits?”

“I feel like I already got enough money.” Derpy shrugged, then got that dreamy look she got every time she thought of Soarin. “Sides, my cutie Soarin is already kind of rich! Money’s not worth risking my life for, you know.”

Dash knew it was wrong, but whenever she saw a pony that happy, she got a little irked. How the heck did Derpy bag Soarin? He was like, the stallion literally every mare in a hundred miles was after.

“Yeah, well I have negative ten bits cause of freaking bank fees.” Dash pointed to the mints on the counter. “I can’t even afford these free mints over here!”

“Well if you want to get payed you can try doing your job for once instead of spending all your time on these crazy plans,” Derpy suggested, gesturing to the group of armed guards. “You are technically supposed to be part of the emergency response task force thingy. It pays a lot better than marching into certain death.”

“You have to be willing to march into certain death if you ever want to make it anywhere in life,” said Dash.

“Really? Cause statistically speaking I think you gotta have rich parents to make it anywhere in life,” said Derpy.

“Well yeah, but baring that- “

“I mean, you’ve been doing these crazy plans ever since we were in high school and none of them ever seem to work out. Like when you bit on a live wire to try and awaken your psychic powers?”

“Thousands of ponies get psychic powers every year doing that!” Dash shot back. “If that jerk paramedic got there fifteen minutes later, I probably would have been near-death enough for it to work.”

“Or that time you vowed to become the Summoner Knight world champion?” Derpy reminded her.

“I am technically the world champion,” said Dash. “It’s just everypony else stopped playing so I gotta organize the world championships myself and nopony else ever shows up so I win by default. Still counts!”

“Or that time you blew up the septic tank trying to get Soarin’s attention?”

“I did technically get his attention!” Dash crossed her forelegs. “And hey! You know you two wouldn’t be engaged if it weren’t for that stunt so you’re welcome.”

“Huh?” Derpy blinked, thinking that one over. “Oh, hey! You’re right! I totally owe you a muffin!”

Derpy slid a muffin across the counter to Dash.

“Yeah!” Dash jealously snatched the muffin up. “You do!”

“I’m just saying maybe you should just accept being below average,” said Derpy. “The average pony is below average, you know.”

“All of my plans technically work!” Dash slammed her hoof on the counter. “And by Celestia, this one will technically work too!”

She wasn’t going to give up that easily!

“Come on!” Dash turned instead to the group of slayers that made up the emergency response task force. “How about instead of responding to emergencies like a bunch of nerds we go out and destroy the root of the emergencies in the first place?! Twilight’s the one responsible for the curse of undeath in the first place! Without her there’d be no zombies! I know at least one of you guys wants to get Twilight on a technicality!”

They did not look even remotely moved by her speech. They weren’t cool at all, were they?!

“Look, we’re stationed here and we’re staying here,” one of them told Dash flatly. “We’re not going out on your fool’s errand.”

“Fine! More fame and glory for me!” Dash marched towards the door.

“Wait!” Derpy stood up. “You’re not really going out there alone, are you?”

Dash hesitated with her hoof on the door. This was going to be insanely dangerous. But what other choice did she have? Remain a worthless loser forever?

She absolutely was going alone if that was what it took!

Without another word, Dash opened the door and left.

Two hours till midnight. The eclipse was imminent.

Dash stood on a lonely, poorly maintained road. She had no idea where it led but she was approximately a mile from Twilight Lake. At 10:05 on the dot, she’d bolt straight there.

She was all the way out here to keep away from the main zombie swell. Right now, there was only one zombie in sight far down the road. Dash had to be wary. Zombies could always come bubbling up out of the ground when something like a blood moon was empowering them. That number could change in an instant.

Really it was better to have at least one around so she could tell when the eclipse officially started. Dark clouds were rolling, threatening a rainstorm later. A crow landed near the road and cawed loudly a few times.

Bad luck.

Witches liked turning into crows. Crows were considered horrible luck. You never knew when a crow might secretly be a witch. You never knew how bad your luck was when you saw a crow, but it was always bad.

Thankfully, the worst-case scenario was averted when the crow went flying off to the east, down the road. Even with it gone, Dash felt a shiver.

Other than that noisy crow, the woods were dead silent, not even the crickets made a noise so she could hear it cawing even off in the distance. The animals all knew something bad was about to go down.

It’d be a lie if Dash said she wasn’t a little bit nervous, the harsh wind only half responsible for the chill in her bones. Thankfully nopony was around so she could admit to being nervous about this.

In the distance, the lone zombie looked straight up at the moon. Just as the first sliver of a shadow started to come over it the zombie twitched. It cocked its head back like its neck had just broken and screamed.

This was it! The eclipse officially began. Dash had a little under two hours to find Twilight’s house before it ended.

The zombie turned and charged at Dash screaming the whole way. For the next two hours, zombies were screaming maniacs that would claw you to peices. It’d be easy to fly away, but just then the ground began to crack and shift around her.

Several undead hooves tore up from the ground all around her, upturning the earth and even parts of the road as they clawed their way, screaming, to the surface.

Welp! That sounded about right for Dash’s luck. Maybe it was good to get the crow’s bad luck out of the way.

She threw a jar of spider honey on the ground and took to the air. The zombies pounced on it, ripping a few of their own numbers to pieces in the process of getting to it. They finished it off in seconds before turning back to Dash.

The ones that couldn’t fly ran along the ground, jumping in an attempt to reach her. It was only the pegasi zombies, of which Dash counted five, that she had to worry about. If she could lose them, she could make a beeline for the lake.

After a few seconds of flight, Dash knew which zombie was the fastest. She spun around and fired her musket when it got close, sending it to the ground. She threw another jar of spider honey to the ground, the other zombie pegasi diving after it.

That’d give her just enough time to reload. Only four left! This wouldn’t take long!

The wail of the town’s siren came from the distance, ringing out four times, followed by the sound of cannons heavy enough for Dash to hear from even down here. Four alarms meant something huge! They had to use the big cannon too if Dash could hear it all the way down here.

Sounded like they weren’t doing much better back there.

All the undead were freaking out right now. Ponies weren’t the only things that could be zombies and zombies weren’t the only type of undead. Maybe Dash should be thankful this was all she was up against.

Reloaded!

Dash got ready to fire another round, but the zombies suddenly lost interest in her. Instead, they ran further down the road, blood-lusting at something else just out of sight.

There was a whole lot of screaming zombies down that way. Dash saw the body of a zombie come flying off from that direction and slam against a tree, falling limp to the ground.

So something dangerous was to the east and the west. That sounded about right for a blood moon. This was the reason they told you to just hide for two hours.

Tempting as it was to see what the buck was going down Dash decided to just take the lucky break and run for it.

She checked the coast. Looked like one more pegasus zombie was coming this way.

Dash got her musket ready.

But as it got closer, Dash realized it wasn’t a zombie at all. It was that A-rank pony from town! She was covered in some thick goo. It was spider honey, Dash realized as she came even closer. She looked panicked.

The A-rank stopped suddenly near Dash.

“Wait.” The A-rank tried to catch her breath. “You’re- oh come on!”

“What? I was just leaving! Yeesh!”

“No! I was trying to lure it away from everypony else! I was hoping-!”

A disgusting, blood-curdling noise filled the sky from the direction the other pegasus just came from. It was a guttural roar, like a dragon choking to death on its own phlegm.

A second later, Dash realized that was all but exactly what it was.

Dash felt the wind from its beating wings just slightly before it rose high enough for her to see a massive silhouette. A zombie dragon was coming right for them!

The dragon was a pale white, with a few purple gashes where scales had fallen off. Its wings were already mostly bone, with just a thin membrane between the bones remaining. A huge hole where its heart should be was torn into its chest, a purple goo slowly dripping from the wound.

It was huge even by dragon standards! It could eat both ponies in one bite if it got much closer.

“Listen, we can’t possibly fight that thing! We have to- “

Her words were cut short by the dragon unleashing a torrent of purple gas in their direction. Dash narrowly flew out of the way, but the other pony, tired from flying, was less lucky. She got hit, the miasma killing her instantly and sending her down to the ground.

Even dodging it, Dash didn’t feel much better. She couldn’t tell which way was up or down, her head spun, and she too spiraled to the ground. She managed to keep just enough focus to tumble into a landing.

The dragon landed soon after, shaking the ground with its enormous weight.

Dash certainly agreed she couldn’t fight it! But she couldn’t run, either! All she managed to do was cough her lungs up.

“What in tarnation’s was that?!” An unfamiliar voice was near Dash. “Son of a-!”

Dash recovered just enough to see another pony emerge from where those zombies ran off before. She had a yellow mane and was wearing a silvery cloak, but that was all Dash could make out now.

She threw something big at the dragon, maybe a chunk of gravel from the road, which astoundingly managed to make it flinch! How strong was this pony?

The pony looked up at the dragon, then down at Dash, stepping back when she noticed the pegasus as if Dash were as much concern as the dragon.

“Applejack?” A much larger, red pony wearing a similar robe came out of the darkness next, stopping in his tracks when he saw the zombie dragon.

“We need the big gun for this fella,” said Applejack. “We need to lure it back!”

Applejack looked down at Dash as Dash got back onto her feet, coughing. Applejack frowned, stopping for a moment as if she was hesitating on whether to help Dash out.

“Hey! If you wanna live you need to follow us!” Applejack turned and ran.

The red one gave Dash a similarly suspicious look before following her.

The dragon let out another guttural roar and began running at Dash, mouth open ready to swallow her whole. The adrenalin kicked in and Dash rushed after the others.

It wasn’t long before she saw where they were going. Light shown through the woods just a little bit ahead. There was a caravan with its wagons circled up, surrounded by a wall of burning flares.

Dash quickly overtook the other two and jumped over the wall of fire, landing in the camp.

“Quick!” Applejack yelled as she got to the camp. “We got a big one! Fire bertha right now!”

Dash turned to see that this group did, in fact, have a large cannon. Two more ponies in the same silvery robes turned and aimed, waiting for the dragon to get closer before firing.

Dash covered her ears just in time to be deafened by the blast. The ground shook and the place lit up clear as day for a moment. The enchanted cannonball that shot out blazed with a white-hot light as it flew at the zombie dragon.

It was a direct hit!

The blazing shot tore straight through the dragon’s head and came out the other side. The force was so great that the dragon flipped over in midair, landing on its back with a thud that nearly knocked a few ponies down. The monster just narrowly missed crushing half the caravan.

All the ponies in the caravan cheered when it fell. Dash was more relieved, plopping down with a sigh.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy. That was a fire wrath cannon they shot it with. They had one of those back in town too. Why didn’t they shoot the dragon with that one?

Maybe they missed too many times? It looked dead now, so maybe she was just being paranoid.

“Well that sure was bad luck,” said Applejack. “Though I guess it is Friday the 13th.”

Right! So she got the bad luck of the crow and the bad luck of Friday the 13th out of the way. Dash should hopefully be good now.

Dash gave the caravan a more proper look. It was big, maybe twenty carriages in all. The entire thing was surrounded by a ring of flares that would keep any normal zombies that showed up out. Not that they’d need it.

It looked like they’d killed every zombie in a mile radius. Even larger undead monsters like bears and manticores had been totally pulverized, torn to bits, and thrown off into the woods. Trees were knocked down all over the place from the fight.

These guys must have some serious magic powers or something.

Just as Dash got up and brushed herself off, she found two guns pointed right at her. She looked left and right and there were more guns in every direction. Applejack stood between the two gunmares giving Dash a serious look.

“Seriously?” Dash groaned. “Three in a row?! How unlucky am I?!”

“What are you doing out here during the blood moon?” Applejack asked.

“Whoa! I ain’t looking for trouble!” Dash put her hooves up. “Or I guess I am, just not with you ponies. I got somepony else I’m after. But speaking of that- why are you all out here? This isn’t exactly a good time for a campout.”

“We’re nomads. We were trying to get to the next town over, the one you just came from, but uh, well we got stuck out here.”

“Stuck?” Dash raised her eyebrow, skeptical. Even if that happened a sane pony would have just left their junk out here for the night rather than risk their life for it.

The other ponies in the caravan were out now, circling Dash, giving her harsh looks like they just might be getting ready to pounce on her or something.

It was then she realized they all had the same silvery cloak, and she began to get just a little bit more unnerved. She may very well be surrounded by one of those cults, if not something worse. These ponies had slaughtered a whole mess of undead without a scratch and without guns. Dash just now remembered she hadn’t heard a single gunshot from this direction.

No, now was the time to play dumb. She did not have enough time to go after everything that showed up tonight.

“Oh, yeah cause of all the potholes on this road.” Dash nodded. “Yeah, that wheel over there looks like it’s in real good. I guess the more wagons you got, the higher your chances of one of them getting jammed gets, huh?”

“Right.” Applejack nodded. “The wheel got stuck in a pothole and we couldn’t get it out in time.”

It was clear from her stare that Applejack saw through Dash’s act, but at the same time, they made a silent agreement to just not talk about whatever was really going on here.

Though she got a nod from Applejack, a few of the others were less forgiving of the intruder.

“She’s got one of those badges.” AThe stallion came close, narrowing his eyes at it. “I think we should insist she stays the night.”

Okay! ‘Insist you stay the night’ was totally code for ‘murder’. Dash knew it!

Applejack didn’t accept that plan. She gave that stallion a shove.

“No. We can’t-“ Applejack rolled her eyes. “We don’t have enough room for her, alright?”

“Yeah.” Dash sidestepped away. “Love to but not enough room! Nothing you can do about not having enough room! Also, I think I hit my head and got a concussion- you know the kind that gives you amnesia when you wake up the next day? Hehe! Gonna go get that looked at.”

Dash turned to leave but got blocked but the stallion and two other ponies.

“I said no.” Applejack moved to Dash’s side. At least one pony here was on her side. Maybe.

For a moment, it looked like there was going to be another fight, Applejack staring the other strangers down.

“What are you all fighting over some green neck slayer for?” An ironically green old lady came out of one of the carts to scold the lot of them. “Can’t you see we got a much bigger problem none of you are dealing with?”

This was clearly the one the rest of the whatever these ponies were taking orders from. They stood down after that. Applejack ran over to her side.

“Granny!” Applejack ran after her as ‘Granny’ moved towards the dragon zombie. “What? You mean that dragon zombie? I think we got that one.”

“That thing ain’t dead!” Granny shook her head. “It ain’t no normal dragon zombie neither. Why I think I’ve seen this very dragon before! If I’m not mistaken that’s the legendary Skalinor!”

“Skalinor?” Dash asked. “That’s a stupid name.”

“All dragons have stupid names like that,” Granny explained. “No, that’s an ancient dragon. Ponies have been trying to destroy it for centuries! It ain’t gonna be nearly this easy to kill that thing. Why I say we got till about the end of this sentence before- “

The dragon got up, first whipping its head up to look at the ponies at an odd angle. That cannon left a clear mark, its left eye and the area around it were gone and a purple ooze was dripping from the wound.

“Ah, heck I’m loosin’ my touch.” Granny spat. “Ten years ago I woulda finished saying it in time.”

The ponies all fired their muskets at the dragon, barely causing it to flinch. The dragon took its time climbing back to its feet, mildly annoyed at them.

“If that cannon didn’t take it down then-“ Applejack glanced at Rainbow Dash and held out on saying. “Well, you think we got something that could?”

“Like heck we don’t! We ain’t got nothing that can stop it,” her granny noted. “Only way to really stop it would be to burn it all the way down to the bone.”

“But aren’t dragons nearly immune to fire?!” Dash asked.

“Yep.” Granny nodded. “Ain’t nopony ever managed to get close.”

“Then it’s invincible?!” Applejack asked.

“Far as we’re concerned, yes.” Granny nodded. “But a big undead like that? Can’t come out unless it’s a blood moon. Soon as this here eclipse is done it’ll seep back into the earth. Just gotta stall it out. I’ve seen this before. You put honey on its nose, and it’ll chase its tail around for hours.”

The dragon was back up. It flapped its wings and took to the sky, turning around in the air. It looked like it was looping back around to hit the camp with more of that miasma.

“But hey, if we do defeat it, we’ll be legendary heroes?” Dash asked.

“I don’t think it's quite that big a deal, kid. Only comes out every couple years and-“

“Alright!” Dash turned to leave. “Then you guys can take care of the dragon! I got someplace else I need to be!”

Granny did not look amused by Dash’s priorities. Though clearly, she didn’t know the magnitude of Dash’s real mission.

This time it was Applejack who blocked her when Dash tried to leave.

“Hey-!” Dash tried to complain.

“Listen! You’re the only pegasus here,” said Applejack.

“I am?” Dash looked around. Now that she mentioned it, the rest were all earth ponies.

“Just carry me up!” Applejack pointed at the dragon, now flying back towards them. “I can- I’m good at throwing things. I know I can hit its nose with one of these bottles. If you do this for us, I promise you we’ll let you leave unharmed.”

Dash really didn’t want a dragon or a group of whatever these weirdos were following her around tonight. If they could finish this relatively quick!

Dash nodded.

Dash grabbed Applejack and lifted her into the air, climbing up higher than the dragon as it began flying towards the caravan. Skalinor was getting close now, getting ready to use its breath!

“I’m pulling it!” Applejack called out.

Applejack broke one of her jars and covered her hair with it.

The dragon’s attention was drawn immediately, turning instead to fire at the two of them. Dash was more prepared for the attack this time and managed to get further away from the stream of purple miasma

She didn’t nearly pass out so that was something!

The dragon was beginning to chase after them, but that was probably a good thing. They’d need to take it far away or it might kill somepony even just by chasing its tail.

Even with Applejack, Dash was just a little faster than it. They got far out into the forest before Dash decided it was safe to make their stand. She looped around in the air and started flying towards the roaring zombie.

This time it looked like the dragon wanted to swallow them whole, opening its mouth wide to receive them.

Applejack threw the jar hard. Her aim really was good! It shattered on the dragon’s muzzle. It snapped its jaw hard, then swerved to one side, Dash managing to pull up just enough to avoid getting hit.

Just according to plan, the dragon spiraled around and around in a circle, taking to the air. Completely disinterested in anything beyond its own nose, the monster spiraled off in a northwards direction hopefully never to be seen again. At least it was far away from civilization now.

Dash dove to the ground, getting far away from the dragon. Applejack jumped out of her grip and took a few steps away before Dash landed.

Dash looked over at Applejack, but she turned away with her cloak drawn up around her high, turned away so Dash couldn’t see something.

“Man, that was awesome!” Dash pumped her hoof out at Applejack. “I can’t believe we actually got rid of that thing.”

“Sorry about before.” Applejack turned around, lowing her hood. “You’re free to go so long as you promise to keep your mouth shut.”

“I legit don’t even know what I’m keeping my mouth shut about,” Dash admitted. There were too many possibilities here. “Sides, I got bigger fish to fry.”

Dash checked her clock. Had all that seriously happened in twenty minutes?!

She needed to bolt but decided she could spare one more minute in this place. She might as well give her sales pitch one final go. Applejack was clearly way stronger than Dash.

“Hey! You seem pretty tough!” Dash ran up to Applejack. “I got a proposition for you! I have the most amazing idea in history that will make all of us rich and famous. Whatever you’re doing totally isn’t worth it compared to this! But we gotta go out to Twilight Lake now before the eclipse ends!”

“What?! You’re going running through the forest on a night like this? Are you on the eighth or something?” Applejack recoiled at the recklessness of that idea. “The blood moon is drawing out all kinds of nasty critters like that one! Did you not just see that zombie dragon? It’s still out there.”

“You think I’m scared of an ancient zombie dragon?” Dash rolled her eyes and laughed, pretending to be less scared than she actually was. “That thing’s gotta be like rank S at best, probably only A. Even if you killed a zombie dragon that’s not gonna propel you to legendary status. But you know what will?”

“Stuff you should have nothing to do with if you can help it,” said Applejack.

“No! Twilight Sparkle! The only rank X monster!”

Applejack was looking at Dash like she was politely wondering if Dash was mad.

“Just hear me out!” Dash stopped her. “Today is Friday the 13th, right?”

“Yeah? But- “

“But on the old lunar calendar, it’s also Halloween! Every condition for breaking the curse is met! We can find Twilight’s house and break the curse she’s hiding behind!”

“That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard.” Applejack shook her head and started back.

“Why does everypony say that?” Dash threw up her wings in exasperation. “This is brilliant! And it’ll be like a billion years before all of this stuff lines up again. This is our only chance to try it in our entire lives! We gotta go!”

“I don’t gotta nothing. I ain’t risking my life for a chance to- well what are you even gonna do if you did find her? You’d likely just stir up a whole heck of trouble nopony needs. If Twilight wants to hide under a rock, I say let her!”

“I know this is dangerous, but this is our big chance to be somepony! We can actually accomplish something in our lives. The reward for finding her is millions of bits!”

“I already feel like I’ve accomplished plenty thanks.” Applejack turned her back on Dash and started back to the caravan. “Some things are just more important to me than money or fame. Being there for my family is one of them.”

“What?” Dash stood there stunned as Applejack went back into her caravan.

“Just go back to town and stay safe,” Applejack said, then left Dash alone.

Dash stood alone in a dark forest now. The wind was picking up.

She just turned her back on Applejack in turn. She’d do this herself if she had to!

Maybe Dash just didn’t have as much to risk. In Dash’s mind, if there was a ninety percent chance of dying and a one percent chance of pulling it then it was worth it! It’d all be worth it! They’d see.

The storm cloud finally lived up to its potential and a gentle rain began to fall.

Without running into anything too crazy this time, Dash managed to get to Twilight Lake. The river that flowed south of this was a lazy river, the one Twilight’s house was said to be built alongside.

Ponies often said this was the slowest moving river in the world, but that wasn’t actually true. Still, you could walk faster than the water flowed and at some parts of the year it was difficult to tell if the water was even moving.

The river was too wide to jump across, but not too wide. It was narrow enough that Dash wondered if it wasn’t actually a stream or something. She had no idea what the actual definition of river or stream or whatever was.

Dash trotted alongside this nearly silent river but didn’t dare get too close on a night like tonight. There was no telling what might be in that dark water waiting to pull her inside.

Then again, there was no telling what was out in the woods to her side. Dash wasn’t too scared, maybe just a little, but it would have been nice to have had somepony with her to steady her nerves. Stupid Applejack. Also, that entire stupid town. Everyone was stupid!

“A-hick! I already dun gots me a sense of worth! I gots muh family and all muh durn zen ideals I do!” Dash said in mock of Applejack’s voice, then glowered. “Easy for you to bucking say. Privileged freaking-”

Dash heard something behind her, something between a sigh and a snore, and swung around as fast as she could. Nothing but absolute darkness was standing behind her as far as she could see. It could have just been the wind or the river.

After that, Dash walked faster, kept her wings slightly splayed and ready for takeoff. She had five miles of this to get through! Nopony knew exactly where along the river Twilight’s house was.

The rain was getting heavier now, enough to make Dash wish she’d found Twilight’s house just to get out of it.

She got through the first mile without seeing any signs of Twilight. She figured each mile only had a one in five chance of the house being there, but now the next mile would be one in four.

Dash’s math was interrupted by another disturbing noise, something like a gag coming from across the river. Dash slowly turned to her left and there she saw it, sitting on the other side of the river.

“Are you kidding me?!” Dash growled under her breath.

It was the same exact dragon as before! Skulinor or whatever! It even still had that wound in its face!

Right now, the dragon was chewing on something, but it was too far away to tell what. It stopped and turned to look at Dash before it swallowed whatever it caught.

Why did it land?

The rain slowed and Dash realized the answer. The rain had washed the honey off its muzzle! It would attack her again!

But right now, it wasn’t making a move, just carefully watching her. Dash ever so slowly crept forward, keeping her eyes on the monster. The dragon zombie kept its eyes on her but didn’t make any sudden moves. There was a couple hundred feet between the two. Maybe this would work if Dash just moved slowly enough.

She walked in front of it, then slightly past it, and kept walking till it was behind her. Nothing yet.

Then Dash heard that guttural, puking noise.

She turned around to see it spraying its miasma breath down at the river! Already fish and some tentacle thing were going belly up in the water. The cloud was moving towards Dash fast!

No choice anymore! Dash got up and flew into the woods!

The dragon didn’t like that. It flew after her, trampling down and snapping trees. Thankfully, because of the trees, it couldn’t move through the woods nearly as fast as Dash could. She could totally lose that stupid thing.

The dragon flew up higher, unable to muscle straight through the trees.

All Dash really needed to worry about was that breath weapon. For now, she darted into some bushes and looked up, hoping maybe it lost track of her. Hiding from it was really her only hope!

But as Dash darted into the bushes, she noticed something nearby, another light in the woods.

This one was coming from a window. A house? No, it was a window on a tree with light coming out of it. That tree looked like a small house had been carved into its side. The treehouse was surrounded by a clearing too, the grass broken only by a patch of pumpkins.

Dash saw another pony! She was standing down by the river!

The dragon landed on Dash’s side of the river, right next to this new pony! The pony was far too chill about this, casually turning her head to the dragon, making no attempt to run away at all.

Dash couldn’t just leave somepony to die like that! She got out of the bushes, ready to charge in there, grab that idiot and fly away as fast as she could.

The dragon roared at the mystery pony, inches away from her, but the mystery pony turned to the zombie dragon with no real concern. She gave the dragon a sharp whack on its muzzle with a hoof.

And the dragon exploded! It was consumed with fire as all its scales, flesh, and purple goo flew outwards. All of it burned too fast for it to leave even a little mess. All the fleshy parts of the zombie simply vaporized leaving nothing but smoke and bones behind.

A second later, the zombie dragon was now a skeleton dragon. The now silent beast clattered and tried to take a step forward but only managed to collapse in a heap.

The pony gently blew at the dragon. In a matter of seconds, the bones turned black and cracked, then they crumbled to dust and blew away.

Dash was so stunned by this incredible display of power that she stood in place simply staring. She couldn’t even move after seeing that!

That certainly solved one problem. But who the heck was this?! One of the elite four?!

Though it was dark, Dash could see they were wearing a witch’s hat with little bells hanging from strings around the edges that rang slightly as she walked back towards her house.

This had to be a witch!

But that didn’t explain thing. Even being top tier, a normal witch couldn’t just slaughter a legendary dragon that effortlessly unless-

Unless it was Twilight Sparkle herself!

Dash ducked back down under the brush, holding her breath. Thankfully she wasn’t spotted, and the witch turned back to leave as casually as though she’d blown a mosquito off her leg.

If only Dash had gotten this on camera! She needed proof! Some way of proving this was Twilight! But if Twilight could instantly destroy that dragon then Dash had no chance at all if it came down to a fight!

Dash needed to be even more careful now. A witch was more dangerous than a hundred zombie dragons and if this really was Twilight Sparkle, she was more dangerous than all the other witches combined.

She waited in the bushes quietly waiting for the witch to go back inside.

That was another thing! There weren’t supposed to be any houses along the lazy river. This was totally her! Probably.

Maybe-Twilight took one of the pumpkins from her patch and finally went into the house. That was when Dash got up.

That pumpkin patch was a tangle of vines growing all over several huge pumpkins. Dash flew on top of one that was easily twice her size then silently glided across the rest of the garden to a window.

Now she got a much better look at her witch, a lavender unicorn sitting in front of a cauldron in the center of the room.

Whatever was cooking in that cauldron was smokier than a dying dragon. A heavy plume of white fog bubbled up out of it and down to the floor so that the whole ground was covered in the stuff.

The wall behind her was filled with reagents, all of which screamed ‘witch’. There were jars filled with eyeballs, claws from various lizards, insects of every kind, and mysterious white powders.

But none of that proved this was a witch. There was one artifact, something every witch kept with them at all times, that Dash was looking for.

It wasn’t long before she took it out.

After thinking for a moment, the unicorn levitated to her side a black book with a large purple star, Twilight’s cutie mark, printed on the cover. It was a spellbook!

Just like a witch, she didn’t read it, merely held it to her side, and flipped the pages a few times before putting it away. That was exactly how witches used those books!

Dash had to record this!

Slowly, as though it were rigged to explode if shaken, Dash took out her camcorder and hit the record button, putting the lens up towards the window. If this was Twilight, she’d have the same cutie mark on her flank as was on that book. All Dash had to do was keep recording until this witch stood up. She had to stand up eventually, right?

Still, even a ‘normal’ witch was insanely dangerous. Dash needed an escape route before things went south.

Dash looked up at the sky. The storm clouds were gone now. Flying too high meant being easily spotted, which in turn meant being toast.

Instead, she’d dart into the trees behind her, then make a hard left before moving just below the branches as fast as she could. She scoped out a large tree that would be easy to hide behind at a moment’s notice.

She needed to get those smoke bombs ready too. Dash took out a few, then went back to looking through her camera.

The cauldron continued to bubble away, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen.

But where the heck did Maybelight go?!

Dash had a recording! But then again, that was no help as she was in the middle of the woods, a mile away from a VCR.

The front door creaked open ever so slowly.