The Poncho Chronicles I: The Beans

by BRyeMC

The Beginning of...

Rarity's crying continued for another few moments until Twilight forced her to stop. “There’s no point on grieving. We have to find a way out of here and fast.” Twilight got up and walked towards Cannon. “I guess you’re in charge here, Champion.”

Cannon gave a smirk, but then went back to nonchalant over the loss. “We have to have a plan, and the first objective has to be Xarlin. I won’t rest until he’s dead. He’s caused us more pain than Charles did.”

“Yeah, but Charles is still a threat,” said Rainbow Dash, “I say we should plan a two-pronged assault.”

“It won’t work because Xarlin is always near Charles.” Cannon looked at the others. “Unless...”

“Unless what?” said most of the others in unison. Rarity's only reply was a sniffle.

“You have to trust me on this. Pack your things it’s time for revenge.” He grabbed his golden dagger.

“But we don’t have our belongings anymore...” said Fluttershy softly.

“That’s perfect then. Let’s go.”

They quickly assembled a plan and quietly snuck out of the lobby. Since they were under the metaphorical cover of the night, most of the members were sleeping and the guards were on certain patrols that were easy to sneak by. Soon, they were in the main atrium and in front of the giant doors leading to the throne room.

“Alright,” whispered Cannon to the others, “we made it this far, so it should be a simple walk into the throne room.”

“You wish it was that easy,” said an ominous voice behind them. They all turned around to see Xarlin appear from the shadows in the room. “I had a feeling that tonight would be the Grand Escape. Good thing I decided to have my midnight snack earlier or I would have missed this.”

“Oh no!” said Cannon sarcastically, “I most certainly was not planning on finding you here!” He took out his dagger.

“Alright boy, I’ve had enough of your remarks, time to join your friend.” He too pulled out a dagger.

They both rushed at each other, stabbing and slashing away. In the midst of the combat, Poncho and the others sneaked to the giant doors. Xarlin noticed and began to run towards them. Cannon tripped him and quickly stabbed at him on the ground. Xarlin rolled away and kicked Cannon in the stomach, knocking him down. Xarlin, being cocky, walked over to him.

“Looks like the Champion will die by a servant tonight.” He thrusted his dagger into Cannon’s chest. As Cannon coughed up blood, he smiled then grabbed the hilt of the dagger and Xarlin’s arm. Within a split second, Cannon too, stabbed Xarlin with his dagger. Realization struck Xarlin, “I fell for the trap! Damn you...”

Outbursts of pain erupted from Xarlin and Cannon as they remained in a deadlock. Cannon spoke through his clenched teeth. “My plan all along was to get him to stab me so I can hold him in place while you guys go after Charles. Now, if either of us move, the dagger will go in deeper...We are both going to, slowly, bleed to death.”

The others were about to say something but Cannon and Xarlin’s grunts of pain grew louder and more constant. “Don’t worry about me anyway. You have a number advantage over him. My goal was to avenge my friend and I will. Make sure you kill him for me...twice.”

The others noticed the motive of the quote and nodded. “Don’t worry Cannon, we got this. We’ll inherit Clyde and your own goal.” Poncho felt a sense of pride come to him.

“You bastards, you’ll never escape-!” Xarlin was silenced to the pain of the Cannon’s dagger.

“Shut up you prick,” said Cannon as he thrust the dagger deeper into Xarlin. “Guys, go!”

The others looked back at the deadlock and went into the throne room. Cannon and Xarlin stared at each other. Both were about to pass out due to the massive loss of blood, that now was a puddle on the floor under them. They continued pushing the daggers farther and farther into one another for a few more moments until they both collapsed on the floor. They both looked at the huge stained-glass symbol of Phaselus Civilis on the ceiling above them.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the afterlife...” said Xarlin slowly as he closed his eyes.

Cannon chuckled and grinned. “Bitch please, I’ll see you in Hell....” He soon, too, closed his eyes for the final time.

“He’s not in here!” yelled Poncho as they entered the throne room. The throne room was the same as their last visit here, except the throne was missing its King.

“He’s probably behind that strange glowing door behind the throne...” said Fluttershy. The others looked behind the throne, and sure enough the outline of the door was glowing. It was not the door Janice first came out of, but rather a smaller, almost hidden door, to the left of it.

“Maybe he’s making magical drugs?” said Spike in a tone of happiness.

“Ooh! Maybe he’s throwing a party!” Pinkie hopped in excitement.

“Or he’s doing some sort of ritual?” said Twilight in response.

“Whatever he’s doing, we need to deal with him.” Rainbow Dash quickly ran towards the door. “As Cannon said, we outnumber him by plenty.”

They all agreed and decided to, safely, open the door. When the door opened they saw Charles across the room. He was using a magic beam to charge the orb on a staff, the one he carried, in the middle of the room. A strange magical circle surrounded the staff. The magical beam dispersed and Charles looked up.

“Salutations, my friends!” He slowly walked towards the staff. “You just caught me doing my forbidden ritual preparations. But now that you all are here, looks like I have to confess on what exactly I am doing. You see-”

“Wait,” said Twilight interrupting him and looking at the detail of the staff, “I know what that staff is and the purpose of it. It’s the-”

“My dear, please don’t talk when I am talking. That is extremely rude.” Twilight frowned and remained silent. “As I was saying, this staff is known as the Staff of Renascentia. With it, and the drainage of ALL my magical power, I can simply resurrect any being I want. With enough ponies, I can resurrect the same amount of dead beings as ritual participants. I should also mention that the being that gets resurrected will retain all memories, that is if the pony responsible of reviving that specific being remembers their last moment, words, or thoughts. They will have either a scar or pain in the area that killed them, but other than that effect, it’s basically a free resurrection.”

Horror struck the group. “That means-!” began Fluttershy.

“Yes!” Charles smiled. “That means Janice will come back. I told your friends before, Janice is immortal. Janice doesn’t die that often, but life would be much more sad without my son” He laughed

Twilight challenged his statement. “But you just said you need to drain your magical abilities to be able to use it. How is that even possible that you can use it multiple times?”

“Ah. A very keen detail you noticed. I also forgot to mention another detail about this staff. When the ritual is complete, the participant, chooses the exact place and time to go back to before the being’s death. Basically, you go back in time and before you talk about paradoxes, only the participant will remember what happened. For example, if the ritual would take place now, only you all and myself would remember and all other beings that died, such as my good friend Xarlin, will remain dead. Now are there anymore questions? I must get this done with as I am really tired.”

Before any questions or responses could occur, a loud gunshot ringed through the room. Charles was on the ground with blood flowing out of his chest. They all looked around and saw that Tyrone had a pistol.

“How did you get that...” said Charles gasping of breath. “Only my elite guards during arena matches have pistols....”

Tyrone looked at him, “I’m good at stealin’ valuables. No one messes wit my fam’.”

Charles looked back at the ceiling in distraught. “Well, my son, I guess I’ll see you soon. Long live the Beans...”

“D-Did we just kill him?” asked Applejack in shock.

“No, I did. Now quick, let’s get outta here before the hooded fuzz show up.” Tyrone made a dash to the door. The others began to turn with him.

“Tyrone, everyone, wait!” Poncho yelled. They all turned around.

“What?”

Poncho slowly walked towards the staff. He looked back at the others. “I can only revive one, who should I pick?”
The others and Tyrone were left speechless. “You honestly can’t think that works.” said Twilight in disbelief.

Poncho shrugged, “Well...it’s worth a shot, besides, it’s an easy way out of here.”

“I can’t believe-” Twilight stopped as Rarity walked up to the staff.

“I’m with Poncho, we can at least try. I want to talk to a certain someone again...” She became sad at the mention of “someone”. Soon the other’s quickly joined in on Poncho’s idea. The only one at that point that rejected his idea was Twilight. She looked at the others and saw determination in their eyes. She sighed and went to the others. They all planned out who they wanted to revive and at what time to go back to. They all put their hooves, and claw, together above the orb of the staff.

“Yeah, the power of Friendship!” said Poncho and they all touched the orb simultaneously. The world began to blur around them, and then a bright flashing light devoured them.