FOOSH

I jump back as the creature burns to a crisp, thanks to my magic. I swallow the rest of the... creature, and turn back to Rarity. She seems really disturbed by something... it might be my nudity.

"Uh...."

"Miles... did you just eat those things?" She asks as she backs away from me.

"Well... it is made of food." I say timidly as I rub the back of my neck. I guess that was a little extreme. "Sorry."

"Its.... its fine. Lets just forget that it ever happened." She says as she turns away from me and goes to a blanket she had set up. I walk over and take the blanket as she picks up all of the utensils she brought. Why did she bring so much junk? I wrap the blanket around myself as I look around the office we're in. It seems to be a cell phone company, due to all of the phone advertisements.... I wonder if I could find another phone here...

"Hey Rarity, did you happen to scout here at all?" I ask as I check all of my gear.

"I did a little, but there wasn't anything of use.... though there was a sealed off area that I couldn't get into towards the top." She says as she finishes up and waits for me.

"Lets go check.... where is everybody else?" I ask as I look around. I don't see anybody else's gear, or even a sigh of their gear.

"Well... you see... I decided that I would be the one to stay behind to watch after you. So I used Storm's sword to blast them into the cave entrance..."

"Why would..."

"I had to do it! I was the only one who stood a chance of watching over you. We couldn't teleport you. We couldn't levitate you, and we couldn't just leave you in the cave. Heavens knows how much air is there..."

"Rarity, its alright." I say as I kneel in front of her. She started to get hysterical, so I put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her down. "You did what you felt was right, and succeeded at it. I may not agree with what you did exactly, but I greatly appreciate you sacrificing yourself for the group like that. Now lets get going before anymore of those things show..."

"Oh, they won't." Rarity says as she runs over to a window. I walk over and look out with her, seeing a goo covered street.There are a couple of the larger piles with the strands of yellow sticking out of them. "They only come out when something disturbs the area around their mounds. You can tell when they're about to come out when you see the yellow puffs sink back in."

"Hmm... they must go off by either wind or scent for detecting anything around themselves." I say as I look around a bit. "Have you tested this at all?"

"Well.... no. But when I was trying to find a hiding place for the two of us, I ran past a couple of them. I saw how they reacted and figured that if I could give them enough space that they wouldn't bother me.... and I was right."

"How far did you have to go?"

"About.... ten feet." Ten feet... math.... so a little over three meters.

"That makes things a little easier. That, and now that we know that they are susceptible to fire, fighting them will be easier. Now why don't you just show me where this locked door..."

"OH! Before I forget, your phone made a noise." She interrupts.

"A... noise."

"Yes, someone called Dare Libere left a message..."

"Dare!" I yell as I pull my phone out of my bag and take a look at it. One message. I look to Rarity before I sit down and play the message.

"Miles?" Dare's voice calls from my speaker. I take a deep breath as I rejoice in hearing his voice again. " Miles, are you there? Of course you aren't.... probably forgot to recharge your phone again. Look, if you're in Quartz Crest, get to the Vexillum Viventium apartments over in the southern distract. If you get this and.... look just get there and ask for me or my parents, OK.... I really hope you show up, I miss ya man... we all do.... just get there, OK." I take another breath as I put my phone back in my bag.

"He sounded... sad." Rarity comments as she sits before me.

"Yeah... lets get going, I'm three thousand years late for a meeting with my friend. Don't want to keep him waiting." I say as I stand back up and begin to head out.

"Uh... don't you want to check out the locked room?" Rarity asks as we walk down a hall, levitating a E.A.R. in front of her.

"Well... I guess, since we're here and all." I say as I let her take the lead. She takes me to the main stairwell where we go up a few flights before we find a locked door that reads 'Storage.' "Storage, this is either a janitors closet or where they keep all of the phones... I might be able to get a replacement phone..."

"Or a mop." Rarity says, making us both laugh. "So how are you going to open it? Are you going to use Dominus Cloud...Clad...Claviu...Cla..."

THUNK

While she was failing at Latin I had pulled out my trench knife and slammed it into door bolt, sending my magic into the it to burn its way in.

"Or that.... Miles, how do you feel right now?" She asks as I pull my blade back and open the rusty door.

"Actually, I feel really good right now..." I say as I kick open the next door to reveal a room filled with shelves. This room seems to be uninfected by all of the goop, being completely dry. It looks as if someone has already been through here, becuase it seems that all if the phones boxes have been opened up with all of their worthless contents thrown about. I take a quick look around the room before going through the first row of shelves, looking for anything that could be useful.

"And... is that good?" Rarity asks hesitantly as she looks through all of the lower shelves.

"Well.... its normal at least. That how it works; power change, start lower then last changes peak, grow to a higher point...."

"How.... how do you think it'll end?" I stop and look over to her. Did she really just ask that?

"Well..."

"I'm sorry. That was rude of me, if you don't want to say, you don't have to. Please forgive me for intruding." I sigh as I sit down and lean back against one of the shelves.

"Its going to be slow, painful.... and probably will depress everyone..."

"Miles..."

"I'll know when it's starting when I can no longer hold back my magic. My ports will always be flaring due to the high amount of energy pouring through me. In my last moments, the lines from my magic will start to burn until... well... then life goes on."

"That's just.... awful." Rarity says as she takes a seat beside me. "Isn't there anything that can be done to... lessen the pain?"

"Yeah, you could kill me." I say, getting a shocked look from her. "If you try to siphon the energy, or block it off, it would only prolong the misery. The easy way out is to have someone kill me..."

"But... what about the rings you wear? Couldn't you just make some more?"

"Heh, actually that is one of the few spells I never learned. Even if I did, I could only cover so much of my body before it would become pointless to live. How long do you think you could go on living as an ordainment?"

"Not long I suppose... are... are you scared?" I take a deep breath as I look back to her and contemplate my answer.

"Yeah... I am." She looks away from me as she wipes a tear away, so I wrap an arm around her. She wraps me up in a light hug, that I return immediately. There were no tears, only sad thoughts.

"Miles...."

"Yeah Rare?"

"I think I just found something." I let go of her and look behind me to find two unopened phone boxes. I laugh a little as I turn around and take the two boxes and open them up.

"YES!" I yell as I yank out a...

SHATTER

I stare in disbelief at the shattered remains of the phone. In my excitement I had yanked it out and slammed it against a shelf.

"Really Miles... OK, I'll open the next one." Rarity says as she takes the other box from me and begins to open it. Inside the other box is a phone that is exactly like mine, only not broken, and the wires that come with it. "Think It'll work?" Rarity asks as she levitates it over to me.

"Only one way to find out." I say as I place my thumb over the metal circle and power it up, getting the start up tune. "Why don't you go ahead and check the rest of the room while I get this set up."

"Can do." She says as she continues to go through the rest of the shelves. I set up the phone as an duplicate of my own phone, giving it all of the same apps, media, and contacts. The only difference being the numbers to the phones. The last thing i do is exchange contact information between the two phones, just by calling the the other one with mine. "Well, I've checked every nook and cranny, but I couldn't find a single useful thing here." Rarity says as she returns to me.

"Really? No wires, gems or..."

"The only things left in the room are old boxes and advertisement posters."

"Well... ok then. Lets get going."

We carefully navigate our way out of the building to the street. A few times we had to take longer routes just to get around a few mounds of goo. Once outside I stop and look around... then do a double take at something that... well.... what is that? About thirty stories up is a white wisp. It seems to be... humanoidish in form. It has two legs, two arms and a head. I rub my eyes and look back up, only to see that it's not there anymore. I rub my eyes again to try to see it again, but its not there anymore.... it must of been my imagination... yeah probably...

Ignoring my hallucinations, we head down the streets to the southern district. Again, we take longer routes to avoid having to fight anymore of the creatures. We try to keep as quite as possible as well, in the off chance that they also go by sound. I can't tell how the fight was here. All of the green goop is covering up most of whatever buildings are still remaining. Not to mention the lack of skeletons is making it harder to get a feel for the fighting. The few tall buildings left standing have been taken over by the goop, being coated in the stuff with random growths on them. I check my phone and see that its almost dark hours.

"Rarity, lets get somewhere safe and hold up a bit. Its going to be dark hours soon, and I want to see how these creatures act in the dark." She nods and we take a look around. The only area here with none of the goop is at the top of a ten story tall building, easy enough. After a few minutes of me magically propelling us up the building, we finally make it to the top. It's just a level top with a few radio antenna's and some sheets of metal. I set Rarity down and take a look around the city, should be any minute now.

"Oh, its starting." Rarity says as the lights start to go out. Actually... the lights were on. They still had power. Anyway, as the lights from above start to go out, a new light takes over. A soft yellow glow starts to rise from below as at the lights from above shut off. I look down ans see some of these yellow glowing spots start to move around. So... they produce their own lights and are active in the dark... why? Maybe their vision is better at night.

"AAOOORIIIWA." Rarity and I look to one another before turning around and seeing a massive creature crawl off the side of the P.C.H.

"Oh gross. It looks like a giant lizard with a fish head." Rarity says as she stares at it in disgust. Well... ok then. The creature walks on four legs with its back arching up. It drags along a long thick tail that ends in a mass of yellow orbs. It's head goes out to a point with yellow orbs spotted along the top. These orbs act as spot lights, shining brighter then the rest as they scan building to building.... building to.....

"Shit!" I whisper as I look around for cover.

"What is it?" Rarity asks as she follows me around.

"Those things are looking for something."

"And?"

"And, we're on top of a building with no cover!"

"Oh.... OH! What do we do? Where do we go?" Rarity asks in a panic. I look back to see a few more of the massive creatures appear and begin to search building after building. I look over to the sheets of metal and run over to them as one of the search lights starts to come toward us.

"Over here!" She runs over and lifts them up with her magic. They're really narrow, but long.... there are also only four.

"Squat down." She commands me as she sets them around us. It's painfully obvious that there is going to be enough room for one of us to stand in these. I squat down and...

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" I whisper yell as she straddles me, face forward, and holds the sheets of metal around us. To hold herself up she drapes her hooves around my shoulders, getting uncomfortably close to me.

"This is the only way were all going to hide from them! So just deal with it!"

"Can you at least scoot back?" I ask. She tries to do it.... but just ends up rocking back and forth...

"I can't, your legs are in the way. Why is it a problem?" I hint down a couple of times until she finally gets it.

"I don't like being touched like this." I say flatly as she turns red. She suddenly latches tighter onto me as a light passes over us. I try to calm myself down by taking slow, even breathes until she loosens up a bit.

"Yes...well... just find a way to deal with it until we can get moving." I take another deep breath and try to think of something else.... "MILES!"

"You told me to!"

"I told you to think of something of something else!"

"Well.... I did..."

"Something other then Luna please." She says flatly.

.................................................................................................................................................................................................

Once we had made it back to Moosden we were all suppose to take a rest, but after four naps and nothing to do, boredom got the best of me. I decided to take a stroll through the town, even though there was nothing here to look at, it beats laying in a stuffy room full of sleeping ponies.

"UHHG... I'm sooo bored. Why isn't there anything to do do here." I say aloud as I walk through the empty streets. There really isn't anything to do here. I would fly up and practice some tricks, but I've got to save my strength for when we go back to Quartz Crest, so that's out of the question.

"...don't care about your problems. Just pay up." A voice in the distance says, catching my attention. I creep around a few buildings until I see them. Two pegasis city guards and Bantler talking to each other in the entrance to the city.

"I already gave you the last of it, just go already." Bantler say to the one on the left, a mare with a white mane and a black coat. The other one is a stallion with a red mane and a white body. Both are wearing standard city armor and are carrying swords with them...

"What you gave us wasn't even half of what you need to pay. Taxes exist for a reason. You wouldn't want somepony to come through here and destroy this shitty shackle of a village, would you?" The mare says with an evil grin.

"No... I wouldn't. What do you want? I already gave you the last of my money, what else could you take?" Bantler begs, getting the two of them to smirk to one another.

"Na-da." The stallion say coolly.

"What?"

"You heard me. Another go at her..."

"NEVER!" Bantler yells. "Never again. She hasn't been the same since she let you filthy dogs do that to her. I'd rather die then let you lay a single hoof on her!" Bantler yells as he puffs his chest out a bit, though his legs are shaking slightly.

"That... can be arra..."

"HEY!" I yell as I march out to them. "Just what exactly do you think you're doing?" I ask the scum bags as I take my place beside Bantler.

"And you are?" The mare asks.

"I'm Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty." I say proudly, banking on my position to have some pull with them.

"Who?" The mare asks, unimpressed by my put burst.

"Wait a minute..." The stallion starts as he eyes me a bit. "I know you.... your that mare who tried out for the Wonderbolts and completely failed!" He say with a laugh. I can feel my confidence starting to slip as the two of them start to laugh to one another.

"Oh yeah, I remember you know. So, this is where you've been hiding all this time huh? It kind of fits you."The mare says as the stallion starts to circle around me.

"You know, for a failure, you're kind of hot. Maybe instead of Na-da you could pay off his debt..."

"I dunno Thunder, I don't think she can handle anything moving faster then a breeze." The mare giggles. As he continues to circle around me, eyeing my body, the two of them trade insults. I try to keep my head up, but insult after insult is just filling me with the shame of my past. I suddenly go wide eyed as I feel a hoof lift my chin up, making me face Thunder.

"Let go of her!" Bantler yells, but is stopped when the mare gets in the way and points her sword at him.

"I'm sure there's something you could do worth...." He begins but suddenly stops and goes wide eyed.

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you."

I heard some yelling earlier, so I decided to go out and check it out. I ended up finding Bantler and Rainbow speaking with two city guards. I had crept around their backs and waited for them to make a mistake. Once the stallion, Thunder presumably, had laid a hoof on Rainbow, I made my move.

"I'm sure there's something you could do worth...." He begins but stops when I put the tip of my blade right over his sack.

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you." I threaten as I stand directly behind him.

"You wouldn't dare." He says as he lowers his hoof.

"Really?" I say as I press forward a bit, making him take a deep breath as he scrunches up a bit. "This is how this is going to work. You two are going to leave and never come back. If I ever see or hear about you two here again, I will hunt you down and kill you myself."

"Are you stupid or something?" The mare says as she points her sword at me. "You're out numbered asshole, drop the sword or else." I glance over to her before looking back to Thunder.

"Your choice. Walk away, or get gelded." He looks around as he tries to think of what to do. Rainbow and Bantler just back away and watch from the side lines.

"Snow, lower you sword." Thunder says through gritted teeth. She looks between the two of us before backing away. I nod and follow suit, circling around to be in front of Rainbow and Bantler.

"Let your little guard friends know that Moosden is under the jurisdiction of the Spartan regiment. Don't ever come back here or I will teach what that means." I say as I sheath my sword and watch them. They look to each other before walking down the path together, whispering to one another.

"Oh my... thank you kindly there Storm. I thought I was a goner fer sure there." Bantler says as he walks beside me and watches them leave.

"Why didn't you tell us that the guards were abusing their powers?" I ask.

"Well... I... it would of been rude ya know. I can't just open up ta every traveler that my town is up for grabs. If its not them, then its somepony else."

"Get inside and go watch after your sister." I say as I step closer to the entrance.

"Believe me, ya don't have ta tell me twice, eh." He say before walking home. Rainbow walks up beside me, looking away and rubbing her leg a bit.

"Thank Storm...."

"Don't thank me yet."

"Why's that?"

"Becuase they're coming back... and probably with more guards."

Next Chapter: Chapter 114 Awkward Positions Estimated time remaining: 59 Hours, 55 Minutes