inFAMOUS Displaced
Chapter 2
Gather Intel

“I say we gather intel,” I state in a whisper, “If we can get the idea of what they’re planning, we can end this war sooner and the innocent will be spared.”

“What about us!” the cowardly pony whisper-shouted, “We’re not soldiers. We’ll be slaughtered and served to their King on a spit.”

“That’s the value of sacrifice. A few dying to allow many more to live,” I countered, “We also hold an advantage over these buzzards. They have armor, meaning that they will be a bit clumsy. We don’t need to defeat every buzzard here, we just need to keep them busy so that the professionals can nab the intel the Royal Guard need.”

“If I’m going to be getting the Intel, I need two volunteers who are good at sneaking around,” Smoke said, “Also, if we link up through a telepathic line, we can call for help more readily and easily.”

“The rest of us need to cause a ruckus, burn supplies, and comb the camp for Blast Shards,” I state, “The stronger I am, the more of a ruckus I can cause. It should get them to come after me instead of you.”

“That makes sense,” said the cowardly pony, “I guess there’s no way for me to be talked out of the idea.”

“That’s what I want to hear. Now, get ready.” I stood up and started absorbing the Blast Shard. The Blue aura moved from the Shard to my hand and before we all knew it, the physical remains of the shard crumbled into pebbles.

I looked at my hand and saw the blue aura fade away into smoke. I kept the smoke on my hand to try and get a feel for what smoke is like. I’ve watched walkthroughs of inFAMOUS: Second Son and I didn’t know how conduits were able to have control over their element. I did, however, have a hypothesis. In order to control their element, they had to be their element.

Feeling the smoke in my hands, I felt the warmth that it held. It also had a form of mystery to it...you know…’what’s behind the smoke and mirrors’ kind of a thing. It felt immaterial as well. With those thoughts in mind, I charged towards the cage side, aiming for the lone griffin guard. Just before I made any contact with the side of the cage, I suddenly became a cloud of smoke and passed through the cage bars. I then reformed back into physical form...right on top of the Guard. He was taken by surprise and before he could do anything, I smashed my fist into his helmet, knocking him out instantly. I then restrained him with smoke, should he come to.

I searched the guard for the keys, but I couldn’t find anything. I didn’t want to risk being found and having the prisoners either tortured or killed for nothing. I turned back to the cage and did the only thing I could think of. I tore the door to the cage off of it’s hinges. That was followed by avian squawking. We’ve been discovered.

“Alright, Out! Now!” I shouted to the cage occupants. All of the ponies in the cage, with the exception of Smoke Shot, the cowardly pony, and a pegasus, left the cage and began to brawl with griffins that heard the cage being broken. Smoke Shot and the other two ponies began to run the opposite direction. Before they got very far, I managed to call them back. “Smoke! The Telepathy spell!”

She cast the spell and I heard a voice in my head.

‘Okay, can you hear me?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Now, go help the others. If we find anything of interest, or we need help we’ll give a shout out.’
‘Got it.’

After that experimental conversation, I went to where the majority of the prisoners went to distract the guards. Every so often as I ran, I heard a few yell of pain and squawks. I approached the scene of a brawl between a pegasus and a griffin and gave the griffin a piece of my mind in the form of a well placed punch in the beak. It hurt like heck but I didn’t have time to check my hand’s condition.

I kept running around to various parts of the battle and giving the griffins broken beaks or ribs. Now while that made it seem that the battle was going our way, it wasn’t. For every beak or set of ribs I break, there was a pony that was either injured or dead. There was the occasional pony that had a lucky break and had managed to avoid injury. Those that could told me as to where any blast shards were.

Roughly part way through the fifth blast shard, I received a message from Smoke Shot, but it sounded like there was static-like interference

‘Hey!...We’ve...Problem!’
‘What’s wrong?!’
‘Our magic...disabled, but...find the blast...stopping it.’

‘On my way! Where are you?’
‘North...Camp...Leader...Help!’
I began to worry. I ran around the camp, rallying the remaining prisoners to try and save the intel operation. We ran as fast as we could to get to the northern portion of the camp, searching for the intel group and the blast shard that they were having problems with. When we arrived at a clearing in front of a tent that was bigger than the others we’ve trampled, we saw a horrendous site.

The Alpha Griffin that lead the group that captured me, was strangling the life out of the pegasus that went in the Intel group. The cowardly pony was already dead, lying in front of the Alpha. Smoke Shot was lying some distance away from the scene. This may have looked bad, but it got worse. Once the Alpha finished strangling the pegasus, he pulled out a chain...my chain...and began to advance on Smoke Shot.

I looked at the prisoners I had gathered and I could see that, magic or no magic, they would be slaughtered. Just as the Alpha was about to reach Smoke shot, I moved forward towards the griffin. My movement caught his attention and he turned towards me with my chain ready.

“Hmm, you ponies seem to not get it,” he sneered, “We griffins are meant to rule over all creatures. You all are low life herbivores.”

“Last I checked, I’m not a pony and I’m omnivorous,” I countered, “And leave them out of this. This is between you and me.”

“How is this between us two?” He asked in ridicule, “Our war is with the ponies, not you or your kind.”

“You got me involved by capturing me,” I said, “Something about slave trade.” I saw that he understood what I said. He quickly shook off his surprise and readied the chain to strike at me.

“A mistake that I will remedy easily, thanks to the Anti-crystal I have on me.” Anti-crystal? Is that a blast shard? Before I could contemplate more of what he said, he came at me with the chain. I was able to avoid the various strikes and swings until I caught the chain. A grin suddenly formed on his face and I saw his muscle tense to pull me towards him.

Unlike when I first met the griffins, I was ready when he pulled. I fell backwards and his pull pulled me towards him. As I slid towards him, I adjusted my hand that had the chain end. As he was ready to bury his claws into my gut, I punched him with my chain hand. I slid under him as he was rubbing his beak. After I was past him, I got up and pulled hard on the chain. He was then flipped onto his back.

As he was about to get up, I kicked him hard, causing his armor to shift and a blast shard flew out of it. I walked to the shard and picked it up and turned to the downed griffin. “Is this an Anti-crystal?” I asked the griffin. He nodded. I absorbed the power and crumbled the remains in my hand, much to the griffin’s shock. I then said, smugly, “Next time you go toe to toe with a conduit, don’t carry a blast shard with you.”

I then walked up to the scared griffin and restrained him with swirling smoke. I then turned to the gathered ponies and called out, “Search the camp for any more prisoners, intact supplies and tools, and more blast shards!” They ran off in different directions as I went over to where Smoke was. I didn’t know much about pony anatomy, but he could tell that her back legs were bent in a direction that the weren’t supposed to point.

I carefully picked her up and brought her to a wagon that had became designated for the wounded. I set her in the wagon and searched for the dead. After they were gathered, we gave them a proper burial, each one given a grave. For each grave site, I placed a board where their head was and I used the spray paint to paint their flank mark on it as best as I could. Apparently, the spray paint I used was magical in some way, because when I sprayed on the board, it seemed to read my mind and sprayed the mark on perfectly and without blemish or color deviation.

After the burial of the dead, and the inspection of supplies, we began to head out. The wagon that had Smoke in it was in the lead with myself following to relay her directions to the Royal Guard Outpost to those pulling the sick wagon. The wagons carrying the supplies and tools were following, with the blast shard wagon bringing up the rear.

We had traveled for several hours before the sun started to set. When the sun was halfway set, I called for the camp to halt. We set the wagons around in a half circle and had the blast shard wagon away from camp. With mine and Smoke’s help, we had a fire going and we brought the wounded out and began to tend to them. It took me a moment to figure out, but I began to heal the wounded as best I could with my smoke. Their wounds and broken bones just mended almost instantly. But even with the Insta-heal or whatever, they needed to rest and recover from the shock of being wounded.

After healing the last pony, I sat by the fire next to Smoke. I absorbed some of the smoke to recover from the healing session and began to relax. Smoke looked up at me. I noticed in my peripheral vision that her look seemed to be a look of wonder. I decided to break the ice (no pun intended on the weather).

“You seem to be amazed.” I noticed her shocked face.

‘I am. You were amazing. You had taken down every brute of a turkey with ease.’
‘Yeah. I’m amazed as well. I was just an average joe with the average job. Next thing I know, I have powers and I helped a bunch of prismatic ponies escape from a detachment of a griffin military.’
‘And yet, you aren’t freaking out?’
‘I’ve seen and experienced worse. My dad had a tendency to act more like a teenager than an adult.’
‘That doesn’t sound too bad.’
‘If bad doesn’t include strapping himself to a flagpole, hoping to be struck by lightning.’
‘Never mind.’
I chuckled a bit at her sudden change of heart. ‘I really need to figure out how telepathy works. I want to be able to talk mentally without another to ready the line, so to speak.’
‘You said that what you did wasn’t magic and therefore, you couldn't do magic.’
‘I know, but there are other ways to talk telepathically...I think.’
‘How?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I looked at the blast shard wagon in the distance and I decided to go count how many blast shards there were. ‘I’ll be right back, I’m going to do some counting.’

I walked out of the camp to the blast shard wagon. Once I got there, I tipped the wagon over so I could count as I refilled the wagon. When I did, I started hearing a strange humming sound. It seemed to come from the pile I had made. I dug through the shards until I got to the source of the humming...A Blast Core.

I got excited and ran back to the camp. I got to where Smoke Shot was and as soon as she saw the blast core in my hands, her eyes got big. “What are you doing with that blast shard!”

“This isn’t a blast shard,” I said, “It’s a blast core.”

“Blast core?”

“Yeah. This is much like a blast shard, except instead of making me stronger, it gives me new abilities.”

“Well, then, absorb it and get the power.”

I did however have another idea. “Hold on,” I interject, “I want to try something.”

“What?”

“A conduit can absorb it and get more abilities by channeling their element through it. I wanted to know if you channeled a spell through it while I held it, would I be able to use that spell?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she responded, “I may be worth the try. What kind of spell do you want to learn?”

Hmm. This is tough. I could learn a combat spell, but I don’t want to be overly aggressive or violent. There may be the availability for a more useful, non-violent spell, but I may be unprepared for a fight in the future.

So what kind of a spell should work? Combat Spell or Non-violent Spell?

Combat Spell

“Do you think a combat spell would work?” I asked.

“Do you have any type in preference?”

“Something explosive.”

“Okay,” she said, then had a look of confusion, “How will we do it?”

“Fire the spell at the blast core as I hold it,” I instructed. I held it in my hands, making it an easy target for Smoke to shoot. She charged her horn with an orange aura. “Ready?” She nodded. “One, Two, Three!”

She fired her spell at the blast core and scored a direct hit. Unfortunately, due to the explosive nature of the spell, I was knocked back. My head hit a wagon and I blacked out instantly.

Non-violent Spell

“Let’s play it safe, I want to learn telepathy,” I stated.

“Okay,” she said, then had a look of confusion, “How will we do it?”

“Weave the spell into the blast core as I hold it,” I instructed. I held it tightly in my hands as Smoke charged her horn with an orange aura. “Ready?” She nodded. “One, Two, Three!”

She enveloped the blast core in the orange aura. At first, nothing seemed to happen. But then, I started to feel pain. And this is not pain as in “I stubbed my toe,” or “I banged my head on the doorframe.” This was pain as in “AARRGG! My insides are being ripped out without painkillers!”

I began to yell in pain, but as I yelled, I looked at Smoke and saw that she was yelling as well. She seemed to be in pain as well. After who knows how long of pain and yelling, we both collapsed. After a few seconds, my vision went dark.

Author's Notes:

Points: +1 Rank: Protector