Soeris and Time Turner struggled underneath the table, even the combined strength of the brown earth pony and the dark pegasus having trouble holding back the furious grey pegasus from launching herself at the three dark uniformed ponies menacing her daughter.

Scootaloo meanwhile had floated herself behind the open cupboard door and was hiding out of sight. The ghostly filly was aware how strange it was for her to be hiding when logic dictated that they shouldn’t be able to harm her but past experience with Kuleco had taught her not to doubt just how far these sadistic pegasi would go to make her suffer just for being a failure in their eyes.

“I’ll ask again little one.” Kuleco cooed in a falsely reassuring voice that sounded somehow more threatening than his tone of hatred. “Tell me where your failure of a mother is and a certain undead filly before I chop off those stubby legs of yours and see how well you deal with being chucked off a mountain.” He snarled at her but still Dinky remained quiet.

Scootaloo admired Dinky’s bravery but silently she hoped the purple filly would tell them something. They were bound to find them in here anyway and it wasn’t worth Dinky getting maimed just to hide them for a few seconds longer surely?

No sooner had she had that thought than the sound of smashing wood caught her attention.

“This is a waste of time Kuleco, just move- OOF!” The stallion, Scootaloo recognised him from the dossiers as Cloud Clipper, was sent flying back as Derpy’s hind legs collided with him, coming to stop against a pile of rocks with a sickening thud.

The brown mare, Dusty Wings if she remembered correctly, and Kuleco quickly wheeled around to face Derpy as one, Dinky taking the opportunity to put as much distance between herself and the psychotic pegasi as possible. Soeris drew level with them and also took a combat ready pose as Dusty drew out a garrote from within her uniform while Kuleco held his knife at the ready.

“Well well. Two breeds of failure, the flightless and the traitor.” Kuleco drawled as Cloud Clipper hauled himself to his hooves and stood beside Dusty in a mirror of her own pose.

“Don’t you ever lay one hoof on my daughter again.” Derpy hissed at them in a truly frightening tone of hatred as both her normally unfocused eyes stared right into Kuleco’s sadistic sapphire eyes. He actually seemed to hesitate before Dusty spoke up.

“Just give yourselves in now you two and we can put an end to this in a way that’s better for everyone.” She ordered as she stretched the garrote out between her hooves.

“Oh yes I’m sure you’ll slap us on the hoof and send us on our way.” Soeris piped up with his gaze on the two pegasi standing close while Derpy glared at Kuleco. “When did you three become all buddy buddy anyways? HoofSing and you aren’t exactly fond on each other Kuleco.” He addressed to the knife wielding pegasi. “Can’t see him being happy about you hanging around with his attack dogs.”

“You’d be surprised what desperate times and a common enemy can do to help old grudges be put aside.” Cloud Clipper spoke up, the darker green stallion seeming far more calm and collected than either of his partners.

“The kind that was between those two? Not a chance.” Soeris dismissed as he slowly began sidestepping, Kuleco mirroring his movements instinctively until the two stallions were circling each other like animals ready to pounce.

Inside from where she observed this Scootaloo could only watch in fear, a deep feeling of dread spreading through her non-existent body from the pit of the stomach she no longer had as Time Turner and Dinky barricaded the backdoor to the house.

Except the feeling didn’t vanish. In fact it was the first feeling besides pain Scootaloo had felt ever since she had found herself in her ghostly state, a strange feeling of faint headedness and almost dizziness.

“I’m going to pass out.” She was so surprised herself that she said it out loud, attracting Time Turner’s attention with a confused look. Confusion quickly turned to panic as he saw Scootaloo slowly but surely fading away into nothingness.

“Scootaloo! Scootaloo?!” He yelled as he ran in some futile attempt to shake or grab the filly. His shouts attracted Kuleco’s attention to the house for a split second, enough for Soeris to leap on the green pegasus and slam his hoof into his muzzle while only feet away Derpy threw herself at the two partners in black uniforms and threw wild kicks and swings at anywhere that was even remotely near the two factory workers, almost oblivious to all else except causing as much pain to these ponies as she possibly could.

The two partners immediately caught Derpy as she leaped at them, grabbing the mare’s hind legs before fling themselves down onto their backs, sending the grey mare’s muzzle right into the rocky ground behind them. Undeterred Derpy rose to her hooves quickly and aimed a mule kick at Cloud Clipper, who ducked out of the way to instead let Dusty take the blow to her side, the brown mare grunting from the pain and falling to her knees.

Soeris and Kuleco meanwhile had taken to the air, the two pegasi jousting back and forth as each attempted to knock the other out of the air, righteous fury in Soeris’ purple eyes meeting Kuleco’s livid sapphires as they each tried with all their might to cause whatever injuries they could manage to their opponent, meaningful contact finally made when Soeris clipped Kuleco’s wing and sent the green pegasus spiralling, forcing him to land to avoid slamming into the cliff at flight speeds.

Deciding to pick his battles for now Kuleco flapped his wings to shoot himself at Derpy, the grey mare grappling with Cloud Clipper. Kuleco slammed into her side on and sent both of them tumbling across the floor, hauling the grey mare up to her hooves long enough for him to catch her across the face with his own and send her sprawling back down, blood leaking from her nostrils from that blow.

Soeris dived on Kuleco from the air and tried to get him away from Derpy, sinking his teeth into the back of Kuleco’s neck producing a howl of rage and pain. The black pegasus tried to tear and rip into Kuleco’s flesh to try and put the monstrous pegasus down but was forced to let go when he felt his air passage closed off by the garrote that had been slipped over his neck by a recovered Dusty who seemed intent on pulling his head clean off.

Derpy lay on her back on the ground slightly dazed from the repeated blows to the head. Her vision cleared up as Cloud Clipper straddled her chest and began laying into her with a flurry of brutal blows, blood drips covering more and more of the floor as he pummelled the grey mare while behind them Soeris desperately tried to get out of the lock that Dusty had him in even while he could feel consciousness slipping away as his limbs weakened from the lack of oxygen until Kuleco was able to buck him off of his neck.

Dusty unfortunately stayed attached to Soeris even when both of them were tossed to the ground by Kuleco’s buck, holding her position until the black stallion gave one final, futile squirm before falling silent and still.

“Enough.” Dusty panted to Cloud Clipper as he continued pounding his hooves into Derpy’s face. “I said enough!” She snapped when he continued.

Cloud Clipper looked back at his partner and Kuleco, both slightly worse for wear from the scuffle, before giving one final vindictive blow to the unconscious grey mare and climbing off her. Derpy was a mess, blood covered her face and was in her mane and it was clear that by the next day her face would be a mess of swellings and bruises.

“Regrettably we need them alive,” Kuleco reminded them as he proceeding toward the house to apprehend Time Turner and Dinky. ~Check for a pulse on Soeris, I won’t shed tears if you killed him Dusty but I don’t know if ElCee will approve quite as much.”

Dusty nodded and checked over Soeris. She smiled when she felt Cloud Clipper testing her ribs.

“I’m fine Cloud.” She assured him as she pressed her hoof to Soeris neck, feeling a faint but definitely present pulse.

Cloud Clipper ignored her until he was sure she showed no signs of broken ribs or other nasty injuries then tended to himself. Kuleco lead Time Turner and Dinky over to them, both ponies hadn’t made it nearly far enough to escape their trained eyes and both now had their hooves bound so they could walk but not run.
“No sign of the ghost. According to this one she up and disappeared right in front of him.” Kuleco growled in annoyance with a dangerous look at Time Turner. “Now you tell me, how likely do we think that is to be true?”

“About as likely as a failure coming back from the dead in the first place?” Cloud Clipper deadpanned to the taller stallion. “Kuleco we leave the factory and then when we come back we find that you, Rainbow Dash and Atmosphere were up to who knows what while chasing down a ghost, I don’t think you’re one to talk about possible lies.”

Kuleco looked like he would very much like to make Cloud Clipper regret that he had opened his mouth but swallowed his anger for now. Standing off to the side he pulled a small jar containing what appeared to be pure, emerald green flames inside it.

“Ready then?” He asked as Dusty carelessly dropped the unconscious Derpy next to her child and Time Turner; Dinky instantly moved to nuzzle her mother to try and wake her up while Time Turner tried to shield them.

“P-Please… you don’t have to do this.” He begged, his eyes fixated on the jar of flames with a look of fear and desperation.

Kuleco took a moment to look back and forth between the jar and Time Turner, giving a cruel laugh as he realised what the stallion was thinking. “Not quite.” He told Time Turner before, with a gasp from Time Turner, he turned the jar over and bathed himself in the flames; within an instant Kuleco had finished in a flash of green fire, the jar falling to the ground where he had stood only a second ago.

Dusty didn’t waste any time and picked up the jar. “He could’ve at least taken one of the prisoners with him.” She grumbled before she grabbed Dinky, over Time Turner’s begging her to leave Dinky alone, and poured the flames over herself too vanishing along with the purple filly.

Time Turner didn’t know what was happening. Had these ponies completely taken leave of their senses?!
“Your turn mate.” Cloud Clipper said as he picked up the flames and, with a preemptive scream of pain from Time Turner, upended the jar over himself, Time Turner and Derpy, the three instantly vanishing.

The jar fell to the ground, empty now of the green flames and cracked from the repeated dropping. After a few moments of dead silence on that lonely mountain top, a hoof timidly poked at the jar, rolling it back and forth as if hoping it would work…

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the delay in this chapter, my personal life is a little unpredictable right now