Iron, burnt flesh, excrement, and pee. Those were the smells that came from prey that knew it was going to die. Injured by both blade and fire, the smells were easy to track down. Ponies never seemed to look up, either out of carelessness or unexpecting of an attack from that direction it seemed. As prey scurried about trying to escape like a mouse left in a house full of cats. He scurried and scurried, looking left and right for an escape. haggard breathe filled with the scent of alcohol mixed with blood. Prey had been caught drinking, with his guard down. Pungent smell of rotting grapes and apples quelled to a minimum in comparison to the fresher wounds.

He had thrown a molotov in an attempt to kill its hunter. The hunter had been unamused, and while still flaming, took a chunk out of the raiders side. The raider had been terrified out of his wits since. Machines creaked as the extension of himself, the metal tentacles, swung him into the air. Prey looked side to side, and behind him. I descended from above.

The impact brought the smell of ancient dust, blood, and gore readily into the mouth. Tearing and ripping, silencing the screaming. Behind me, the smell of a dozen other raiders were being wafted down by the wind. The fate of the rest of the raider scum who had tried to take technology for evil-doing.

The crunch of impact had driven the machine he carried into the stallions spine, as the corpse shit itself. I didn't care, living underneath the labs of He-who-shalt-not-be-remembered had been far worse. This was merely a gnat in comparison.

Flesh tore, blood spilled, the machine under hoof snapped, breaking inside the stallions back. Tentacles took the broken prey, and hurled him back into the flaming wreck of the fortress the raiders had sent off before. A broken minigun, several discarded combat shotguns, and a bent in half sniper rifle was the remains of the camps armory. They had been well armed for raiders. Slavers too, as the empty cages and loads of bottlecaps in the leaders pocket had made evident. Where caps and slavers went, more slavers could be found. A one stallion army following the scent to the slavers responsible.

If one were to follow that scent back the way it came from, one would find several former slaves cleaning wreckage and setting up a proper settlement in the remains of the old one. That was not the direction of Prey, and the new direction had been left by the leader, as the scent trail grew to another faded one. It smelled of lingering scent of sex, beer, and blood. More raiders went down this path on a near constant basis. Where did it go? The scent and the Slavers path said the answer and the path to follow. Move, fight, kill, smell.

Repeat.

It was a simple answer to spend ones life doing. Occasionally I would come across a new friend, or an old one. All doing various not-caring things. Motivations too complex, schemes too long to understand how they could expect nothing to go wrong. I, no Maul, didn't care. Beasts must be fed, and thrill of the hunt was the driving force. Some prey would try to label me as they died.

"Monster!" a Mare yelled, oblivious to the dozens of dead heads she collected.

"Is that a member of the Steel Rangers?!" Another gangster had asked, "What's he doing here?"

"What sort of madness is this?!" A scientist asked to no one in particular.

"Its the Boogeystallion! I told you he was coming for you!" One younger slave said to their slaver with glee. The result of a campfire tale gone dramatically wrong in the slavers fortune.

Dozens of different names, each already heard before. Some raiders couldn't leave so much as a scratch, magically reinforced power armor does that. Others just made themselves a slow and hard hitting target. Those were the best for a thrill. Dodging rockets, grabbing them by the side inches from the face and hurling them back, or even on the one occasion where someone used a smart rocket, that could maneuver itself to follow a changing target, hurling the raider that fired it into its own path.

Some prey had traps, others had sheer numbers to show dominance. Others traveled alone, more often with groups. One creature that day had come next without being prey. The smell of balefire, death, water, old gore, and... forest. The smell had belonged to the friendly-wolf. A companion of she-who-redeemed. The anger of Maul faded into the curiosity of the other side. Aria's friend had the pet Scrapyard. If I recalled, the one with the weird smelling sword was this ones owner. But he smelt of those three new smells. Snow, balefire, and death.

The wolf was understandable, its pride made it an alpha type in the past, and its scent often reflected that. But now it was a new smell, a smell of distress, need, and desperation. "Lead the way." Maul said, and those smells changed. Authority and relief replaced distress and need, desperation and the faint scent of sorrow was still there.

Small talk was not the strong suit, and as the wolf ran, the creature side of Maul followed, in an art that looked like a hunter following his sheep dog to a fresh prey, but in reality was a lumbering flesh and blood timber wolf in its prime, armored with barb wired tail and well maintained fangs, with a four tentacled power armor stallion from a distance that was actually one of the most deadly mutations of a pony one couldn't of even guessed. It was short order before they came across the mines. Balefire still burned, even days after the explosion. Metal and stone being warped into a dissgusting crater of what it once was as a mining plant. Scrapyard lead, and Maul followed as they passed by the drooping dead of now unusable power armored remains, and broken laser weaponry.

He only paused when Scrapyard passed by a group of dead changelings, new unknown scents. Gunpowder, explosives, expired poison. Never before had either side of me seen so many changelings in one place. Which wasn't saying much since Maul had only seen Aria, or at least as far as he knew he had only seen her before. This one was weird but was not the cause of Scrapyards distress. Racing by they came to a cave, and Scrapyard had stopped to regain the scent, taking them up to the hill where the grave was.

Smell of an old hunter, steel, gunpowder, booze, and smoke. Poison also scented the air with faded blood. Someone had died in the cave, and was buried by Aria it seemed, as her trail was faint. Tears, salty and several days faded were near the rocks and in the cave. He read the grave marker and understood, this had been Aria's mentor and father figure. Scrapyard's pace redoubled, as he went in the direction that wasn't expected.

Snow, boundless snow, smell of water and balefire coated these lands. No fire was present, at least not visibly, but the smell reeked into the snow as they moved. He suspected as long as no one drank the water made from it they'd be fine, but it was befuddling. Scrapyard continued to follow the trail, leading to a village filled with the dead, the smell of explosives so thick that they skirted around it. Eventually they lost the trail, and were derailed westwards, as smell that had descended from a far up flight was hard to track. Eventually they began finding the campsites, passing by exposed roof tops of houses, as they moved and moved. Only stopping to hunt a blue feral ghoul, or what minor game came out here. It became an art to hunt the few flying birds that sought to scavenge this far out of civilization. But with birds, indicated something new.

They had traveled far in a few short days what had taken Aria and Pumpkin weeks of following a directional beacon. The rest of the story itself became evident as they had already seen the trial of destruction through the city as Maul followed Aria's pipbuck, its signal finally within reach of Mauls own.

Listening to a story from Maul had been different and oddly captivating. It didn't say much but Maul was never about saying much to begin with. His focus on scent was intriguing to say the least, how he described those details instead of who he was hunting or going in depth about the combat he partook in. His viewpoint was a mix between a simple one and being aloof, uncaring to motivations behind doing something wrong but punishing it with the power granted by his past. The hunt was his driving factor, the ploy of a trade that was best used against the evils of the wasteland. Even Sombras attention had been redirected towards the former experiment of Red Delicious while the stallion had told his tale.

Mauls voice was neutral as he spoke aloud, "Though now I see my services are no longer required." as the jaw drooped past the helmet and moved towards Sombra before withdrawing, "I will stay here, and then resume my hunts in the morning The more dangerous creatures of this land I will find and hunt before eventually moving on."

None of us had an argument against that. If Maul wanted us dead, he could of easily of slaughtered all but Sombra, and the stallion wasn't either particularly friendly nor hostile towards us. I actually felt a bit sorry for whatever he made his target. But seeing as the story had only lasted a few minutes, and that there was still plenty of night left to burn to, I gave Maul my thanks, and went to bed to use the next memory orb. Briefly I caught a snippet of conversation between Pumpkin and the monster-stallion before I faded into the orb.

"You're not planning on hunting me are you?" Pumpkin asked, a bit unnerved.

Mauls expressionless helmet swiveled towards her, "You are hunter. Not prey. Our fight in the past was a better hunt, and perhaps one day I will try hunting you again, but not while you're friends with she-who-freed. Aria."

Seeing as I was using a memory orb, he also tacked in as magic wrapped around the orb and drew me in voices fading rapidly, as my vision faded, "Besides, I find it ador-"

The words cut off as blackness overwhelmed the senses before bringing forth a new scene. It was a military camp of some sort, ponies trained with weapons that resembled those that raiders used on occasion for melee, only more refined. Lances were strapped to each knights saddle as they wore heavy armor, each unicorn was instead equipped with three rapiers each made of some sort of crystal. There was no pegasus ponies in sight and rows upon rows of military ponies were stood at attention in my hosts view as he himself wore one of such armor facing them. Sombra wore seven pieces of sharp metal at his side, hilt-less swords, since magic didn't require it. The stallion was also in a higher ranking military garment. this made clear as he gave drill orders to his men. Sombras perspective was that of a cheerful new recruit who had done well. Masterfully so, in fact. As several of the stallions were older than he was, and struggling with what my host
as well as I considered 'basic military combat drills'.

His attention didn't linger on the combat drills though, as with Memory Orbs, he did have something more important to be doing than watching a bunch of stallions train while barking orders. "Drill Sergeant Somber!" A voice cut in, "Your presence has been requested by the captain of the royal guard! Report immediately, Drill Sergeant Cauliflower will take active command while you're gone."

"Drive them hard Cauliflower." My host had replied to another snow white mare, whose mane was barely contained inside her helmet, as my host followed the commanding voice, another stallion in regal armor.

Into the castle beyond within twisting winding corridors. When they entered a mostly darkened corridor, the door behind them shut and the room lit up with unicorn horns, two above, the rest in a circle around Sombra. The ones above, were clearly both the Princess Platinum, now about a decade older, and in similar status, Clover the Clever, who was busy at work writing down what I could only guess from the rapid movement of her quill was magical formulas for spells. Those in the circle were adorned in fancy almost useless decorative armor with each carrying a dozen or so of the sharpened sticks of metal. One step forward, from directly under the princess's throne, declaring loudly, "Sombra of The Library, you have been chosen for the honor of Royal Guard by her majesty Princess Platinum of the Crystal Heart. Do you accept all the duties and responsibilities therein?"

Sombra, grinned in wonder, "Yes." he replied near immediately.

"To serve the kingdom till death do you part?" The stallion to the right of the first asked.

"Yes."

The next one spoke, "To serve, without identity, only known as a member of the guard, be at the cost of memory?"

"Yes." Sombra repeated again, this time I was wary at what they had meant by the cost of memory.

More members asked their questions, and over and over Sombra had to say yes until it had come full circle, but instead of the head guard asking the next question, the princess did instead, "And do you swear unconditional loyalty to the crown?"

"For the Crystal kingdom, I swear loyalty." That caught not just mine, but Clover the clevers attention, at the wording. The Princess herself, however didn't either mind it or cared.

"Then Sombra of the Library, you are now to be indoctrinated into the Royal Guard and serve as my escort for the remainder of your service. Your new name will come in your service, and your title is now 'Of the Royal Guard'." She waved a hoof absently as the surrounding unicorn horns grew brighter, "You know what to do boys."

The memory faded as Sombras view went from black to white, before the darkness of leaving the memory orb faded away to the normal scenery. Sombra, in his normal form that we had traveled with, was inches from my face. Seeing my unsaid question he replied, "That memory, it was when I had joined the previous Princess's Royal guard, as part of the ceremony to deter infiltrators and other distractions from the absolute loyalty commanded of us, each member gets their brain wiped of all information regarding to their former life, and a strict retraining regimen into serving the Crystal Empire."

He snorted, "The one thing they don't remove is the ceremony and core skills, as a completely blank mind is as useless as a newborn foal."

"That would explain some things, but why show it to me?"

Sombra sighed, a sound of discontent, "It is to show you that during my service I did not have anything to sympathize myself with the people until I had later grasped the full folly of the Platinum Princess's mistakes. How her gluttonous greed for the shiniest capital in the world resulted in a near death for the city. I had tried to alleviate that problem, no more ruler, a kingdom would shrug off all debts. It wasn't that simple. Someone had to fill in for her, and the debts resumed. While I didn't increase them further, I had to become a tyrant in order to become dethroned by the Equestrian government proper."

He looked me in the eyes, unflinching and unblinking, "When Equestria reclaimed the Empire, it would be against their morals to throw the debt of a mad tyrant onto its people, or so I and Clover hoped, what happened instead was something much worse. An after effect of their tantrum towards me, sent the entire city a thousand years into the future, of which I learned they had blamed me as if I had 'cursed' it that way.I deal in dark magic and smoke, not massive curses like that. At the time I could hardly send an Ant into the future a few milliseconds, let alone an entire city that far. I blamed Luna and Celestia's disagreement of what to do with me."

"Woah woah woah." Pumpkin interjected, "You're telling me the goddesses of the sun and moon, sisters, argued with each other?"

"They are still siblings." Sombra returned disgruntled, " Luna was for killing me, and Celestia for having me rot behind bars after a trial. I had also left them the difficult decision to either saddle the debt with Equestria proper, Platinums greed having exiled her to never becoming princess again, and thus the power vacuum forcing them into control, or to do the thing that would cause an uprising of at least two of the three pony tribes against them."

"What was this debt anyway?" Maul asked, he wasn't in the know, nor were most of us.

Sombra deadpan, "Did you notice on the way in that towards the center of the city, the majority of it is made of gemstones and jewels?"

we all nodded.

" Back then, most unicorns were obsessed with them, they were also rarer as the mines of Equestrias new soils hadn't truly discovered how staggeringly many were in the ground at the time. Thus, her projects to make an entire city..." he spat the words, "Out of it, and to magically reinforce the tower to support its absurd design to carry all its weight upon a measly few pillars to showcase the heart, drove the Empire into massive debt."

"Stupidity at its finest." Maul intoned.

"For once I agree." Pumpkin added in after him.

Sombra for his part, maintained the deadpan expression, "Now you know how most of the earth ponies and Pegasai saw that situation. The nobility upper crust wasting resources that could of been used for other profits on such a silly endeavor. Those who didn't agree with the Princess had their estates and funds seized, and those who did ran themselves into commoners with bankruptcy to support her goals. No less than two years passed before she was the only noble left in the Empire, all the rest had been reduced to Indentured servants, with crimes being punished with either fessing up more crystals and gemstones or working until you could cough up enough to keep a flock of dragons well fed for years."

I gradually began to tune them out as the three of them discussed the political situation of an Empire that had been over a thousand and two hundred years ago, and dozed off to sleep. It was time to rest proper. Another heart piece was due to be grabbed soon, and soon the heart would be complete, and I could then rescue my people from the crazed scientists of Stable 103.

Xp Footnote: 55% Until level up.

Next Chapter: 56: Snowday Estimated time remaining: 47 Minutes