A Broken Peace

by 7-4

First published 20th of June, 2012

Another story in the chess game of the gods verse.

Chess game of the gods verse.
I used to be a human, a bit of a bad one at that. I took things for granted that I probably shouldn't have and paid the consequences for it.

And then woke up in Equestria. Or... you know.. at least the planet it is on. As a slave. As a Zebra.

Not all pieces are winners, and not all players want their pieces to win. Not everyone finds it easy to find their place in a new world. Despite all of this...
There is only one goal in my mind.

I will take Rej.
Getting rid of the spider in my head is only a sub goal.

Looking for beta, or at least some guy who will point at my chapters and beat them with a stick until they are better.

This is now canon with the rest of the chess verse. 7-4. If you forget this I will come after you.

Cover art from here: http://xxpsychoskitzoxx.deviantart.com/art/A-broken-peace-cover-stylized-320835352

Rewrite in Progress

12/19/13

The death of Gareth (1)

It’s odd when you think about it. I’ve always hated dogs. Always absolutely hated them. Always barking and being a general nuisance. And I also hated the kind of people who kept dogs. They just seemed naturally dumber than the right minded people that hated dogs. And hey, the kind of people who like dogs are the kind of people I avoid. It all worked out. Sort of.

At any rate, the only reason I mention this is because on the last day that I could remember before I was taken... hostage? Into Slavery?

I’m kind of a huge nerd, you see. But I was also a smart one. Ha. Bullies. They make me laugh. It’s so easy to manipulate idiots. Just say just the right thing and they are looking the wrong way when you need them to. It was just so easy to lightly imply that their girlfriends were sleeping around, or that I had access to secret answers to tests they needed or that if they went to x location at y time, z good thing would happen.

Making friends was a bit harder. They just seemed... pointless. And foolish. Trusting me? Didn’t they realized that it was a dog eat dog world? As much as I hate to use a dog related saying, that described my attitude.

Playing Dungeons and dragons by yourself is a hard task so I never really got to play it. I had all the books and all of the supplies I needed to play, but nobody wanted to.

I had one friend, if you can call him that. He was obsessed with this show, maybe you heard of it, called my little pony. It was girly and sugary sweet and it made my teeth ache. I mostly ignored his odd fixation and let him talk about it while I was thinking.

Pardon my tangents. if you will. The point of the matter is that I was not, and maybe am not the nicest person.

So when I was cornered by more than a few people I had stepped on or otherwise slandered or inconvenienced, I knew that they were not going to go as easy on me as I would’ve liked. There were eight of them and two of them had knives.

“Stand still, Ivan, me and these guys just wanna carve our names into your hide.” And I was ambushed on a day just like any other day on a nice walk to the store. It was only a mile or so and I needed the exercise.

That was a lie, my mom forced me out of the house and told me to get milk.

I looked at all of them and kept my cool. “And why would you want to do that?” I asked calmly, an uneasy smile on my face. I assessed my courses of action while I waited for their reply. They were dog people.

The lead one, and I recognized him as being Gareth, an old friend, turned red. “My sister killed herself after you broke her and her boy friend up.” I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to talk them down. While the slight pang of guilt filled my head, I threw the gallon of milk out of hands into them and took off running as fast as I could.

Admittedly, I was good at running. But hey, the one who was after me for the death of his sister was the track star. After recovering from the milk gallon being thrown at his face, he dashed after me.

“I’m gonna kill you!” He screamed. At this point I should mention that my name is Ivan.

I was barely ahead of him and he had a knife. A nice busy intersection was ahead of me and I managed to not think through my actions. I dashed through traffic, the three lanes disappearing by me in a flash. I heard cars try to throw out their brakes and I turned around.

It almost happened in slow motion: An old beat up pickup truck slammed on its brakes. Gareth ran in front of it. I could only watch as Gareth was hit head on by the truck at around fifty miles per hour. He was lifted off of his feet and thrown through the air. His body hit a van in front of it and his head went through the back window. Glass shards stuck out of him as I watched with horror.

Almost instantly, traffic stopped. The occupants of the van got out. A mother and her small child, covered in glass and spatters of Gareth’s blood. The truck driver himself, recovered from his air bag deploying walked out of his truck. Across the street, the group of guys watched as well. I stared at Gareth, his head at an odd angle and his body maimed.

The police arrived quickly within a few minutes at the most. I was escorted into a police cruiser, mostly oblivious to the world. It wasn’t until the handcuffs were put on me and I was placed in the back seat did I come to.

The police officer in the front passenger seat turned around to face me. “You are in a lot of trouble, young man.” He said.

I looked at him. “Y-yes...” I stuttered slightly, my tongue catching. It was slowly dawning on me that someone was dead that was directly my fault.

He smirked at me. “I could take you to the police station, but I think you need a second chance.”

My breath caught. “I’ll take it.”

He laughed. “I wasn’t finished, but fine. I was going to ask you if you liked dogs.”

My eye twitched. “I hate dogs, but what does that have to do with anything?”

He nodded. “Good. I’d hate to ruin you.”

At that moment I realized that the driver hadn’t moved an inch since I had gotten in the car. It unnerved me and I looked at him.

And that’s why I didn’t see the guy punch me until his fist connected with my face. My vision swam and I saw stars before my vision blacked out.

--------------

I kind of wish that had killed me. To be honest, I did deserve to die, I guess. I mean, Gareth is dead because of me, his sister died as a direct result of something I did and I guess I was and maybe still am an overall dick.

I almost want to stop this tale right here because what happened after I woke up is quite a few things I am not proud of and I will not go on to support my actions.

This is what I woke up to, I guess.

“Hey boss, I think da Zebra’s wakin’ up. Can w’ eat ‘im now?” Followed by a fleshy smack.

The voices were gravelly and they continued speaking. “You idiot. We aren’t going to eat him. He already looks half dead and the last time we ate something half dead you threw up everywhere and then we had to clean it up.” There was another slap.

“Silence!” The voice was a bit higher pitched than the other two and I placed it as being female. “I did not give either of you permission to speak! I cracked my eyes open and my vision slowly went into focus. I was staring at the stone wall of a cave. My arms and legs were tied tightly to my side.

The female voice continued. “Any creature capable of magic will be sent to the mines. That’s our orders and we are sticking to them.” I blinked. Was my nose bigger?

“But ‘m hungry!” The first voice I heard complained. There was another smack.

“So am I, Scraps, and we’ll get something to eat when we turn in our captive.” My back was prodded. Scraps must be the first voice, I was guessing. I tried to open my mouth, but it felt glued shut.

“”Boss, he’s a zebra! What if while we are talking he decides to use his magic and kill us all?” Zebra. My nose was most definitely longer than it was supposed to be... it suddenly occurred to me that something was horribly wrong. I was picked up from behind and then thrown through the air. I hit the ground with a hard thud and got a chance to see my captors.

Dogs. I hate dogs.

“You idiot. He’s bound and he has no components. He couldn’t use magic if he tried.” The dog with the higher pitched voice was an odd brown color. Anthropomorphic dogs. What was I at, a furry convention?

The female slapped a dog with torn ears. “‘m sorry boss...” Scraps whined. I gulped. A costume doesn’t make that noise... My back hurt.

It was around this time that my sense of smell kicked in. It smelled very strongly of ammonia and my eyes watered.

“Now help me carry our meal ticket.” The female walked over to me and picked me up easily by herself. I let out a shiver of disgust. Dogs. Why must they be dogs? Why couldn’t giant cat things be taking me to some place I probably don’t want to go to?

And then at this point I thought back to just how I got here and froze. Gareth’s body hit the van and blood went everywhere. I heard the brakes of the truck and the wet thump.

The scene I had witnessed before seemed to repeat itself over and over again and my eyes teared up. Gareth was dead and I’m hallucinating.

It hit me that that was the explanation. I had passed out or something after seeing Gareth die and I was just hallucinating the dogs around me and my new long nose. Or the new positioning of my eyes. None of this was real. I made a choked off laughing noise and the lead dog dropped me hard on the cave floor.

“What’s so funny?” She snarled, and buried her foot in my side. Instantly intense pain overwhelmed me my mind and I tried in vain to come up with a reasonable explanation that would place me elsewhere. It didn’t work.

This was actually happening. Damn it.

My eyes began to release their tears in a flood down my face.

“Aw... what’s the matter, baby? Upset that we caught you? That’s ok... You’ll get used to being in pain in the mines.” She kicked me again. I swore that right then and there that if I survived I would personally be in charge of killing her.

Scraps leaned down and his face filled my vision. “‘re you sure ‘e can’t ‘ave a nibble?” He slurred.

His face was torn away from mine in a heartbeat, the lead dog throwing him against the wall. His stomach growled loudly as he stood up.

I was a bit too busy to care at the time. Gareth’s death was filling my thoughts.

“Scraps. As a diamond dog you should be able to understand that we will get more food from turning him in than we will from eating him.” The boss said, finally figuring that violence was not the answer.

Diamond dog. Oh. I’ve only heard of that name in two places and only one of those places is applicable. I’m hallucinating I’m in Equestria. I decided that going back to the hallucinating explanation was better than whatever else I could come up with.

I brightened up. Logically I should be rescued before anything too horrible happened. This is Equestria! Nothing bad happens. I had a stupid smile on my face as I managed to convince myself yet again that nothing bad would come to me.

The lead dog picked me up again and pressed a paw to my face. My vision faded and I knew no more.

Slave Cave (2)

I cracked my eyes open perhaps an hour or so later. Scraps looked even more abused and the third dog remained trying to not get punched. They had stopped, and my limbs were slowly returning to me.

Not that it really mattered. I was tied up. Helpless.

"Hey boss, I think he's awake again." The unnamed underling pointed to me with a paw.

The leader growled. "Will you stop telling me that? It doesn't matter. In a few minutes, we ditch him and he goes to the mines. And then we get paid." She muttered under her breath. "Maybe I can afford to get some better help."

"I 'eard 'at." Scraps slurred. I rolled my eyes. I almost felt bad for the lead dog. I was still going to kill her later if I could, but her death would not be unpleasant.

"You were meant to." She said simply.

After quite a bit more of such entertaining, and yes I do mean that sarcastically, conversation, I was left by a large wooden door. Still bound. And left to my thoughts.

My thoughts were mostly filled with screaming at me for whatever they could try to find to blame me for as I tried not to go into full on panic. At least until the door opened and a large burly griffon picked me up. And when I say large, I mean that he picked me up under on arm and had to stoop to get through the door way that I was two thirds of the height of.

He unbound me with a slash of his front talons and for a brief second I thought about making a run for it. The moment passed after thinking about how easily those talons could slash me open. He pushed me ahead of him. "Get walking."

And around that point was the point that I realized that not only was I on all fours, I had no toes and balancing without toes was hard. I fell flat on my face trying to get in front of him. He sighed. "They over drugged you. Great... Such a shame. I was hoping those three were finally going to be profitable." He pushed me back to my hooves.

I was still trying not to panic over the fact that I had hooves. Or a snout. On the bright side, the dogs were gone. I took a shaky step forward and just barely managed to stay on my new wobbling hooves.

He nodded. "What is your name?" He pushed me forward.

"Ivan." I paused for a minute and tried to ignore how outclassed I felt. "Sir." I added after an awkward pause.

"Now Ivan. You seem like a bright zebra. What do you think has happened to the last couple of thousand of slaves who thought they could escape?" He spoke in an assuring voice.

At the word slave I tensed. "I imagine they died." Another pause. "Sir." Number one rule of life that I've found is to bow to authority until you can circumvent it. Then abuse it to the max.

He nodded. "Yes. Now, are you attached to the name Ivan?"

What kind of a question was that? "Yes sir."

"That's too bad. Do you know why?"

I had a bad feeling. "No sir."

"It's the same reason why I'm being so polite to you. Your new name is now Canary. You will respond to the name Canary and not Ivan. If any being asks for your name, you will give it as Canary. If you are to refer to why you are named Canary, you are to say it is your name and job title. My name is Terror. Your name is Canary. Do you know what your job is?" Terror. What kind of a name is Terror?

I continued walking, almost proud that I was slowly getting better at it. "No sir."

"Your job is to cast a simple spell that will determine whether a shaft has valuables in it. If there is toxic gas, we expect you to accomplish your goal anyway. If there are bats, accomplish your goal. After you scan for a period of a minute, you are to advance 100 feet into the shaft and repeat the spell. Then you are to report to whoever is in charge of the slaves there." He talked and I listened.

Still trying to worm my way into a good place with authority, I remained polite. "What sort of valuables? Sir."

"There is no need to be so polite. If we ever meet again after this it will be because I am killing you. You are searching for metal ores, coal, and gems. The spell will tell you which is which. Now tell me. How much magic do you know?" He continued pushing me forward.

I realized that he was distracting me even further so I couldn't find my way out as easily. "I know none. Sir." Hold back your panic.

"None? Truly? What do you remember before you came here?" 'Terror' stopped before yet another massive door.

I stopped as well. "I remember nothing. Only my name."

"Tell the first being who speaks to you that you require your garments and a ruby. And what is your name?"

"Ivan, sir." I turned when there was no reply.

He was giving me a massive death glare, the kind that read that he would strip the flesh from my body and use my bones to clean the blood from under his talons. "Your name is Canary. If you refer to yourself as something else I will personally kill you. Welcome to the Rej mines." The door opened and he pushed me inside.

The door slammed shut behind me. I was in what could best be described as an old fashioned military compound. There were 'barracks' on either side of me poorly lit by torches. Far off in the distance to the point I had to squint to bring it into focus, there were what I imagined to be arrow slits above a large cave opening. Torches had them well lit up. I walked forward slowly.

"A new arrival, eh? You're never getting out." The first being that I met was a shriveled up husk of a zebra who was clad only in a thin leather belt that had a small pounch dangling off of it. His eyes seemed dull and uninspiring. His hair looked like it was going to fall out. "I suppose your my replacement?"

I was really not liking where this was going. "My name is Canary."

He nodded. "Ay. So is mine." He handed me a notched red gem and I lifted it, balancing it on my left front hoof. I was shaky just from trying to do that. I looked at it and as far as I could tell, the marked gem was a ruby. He stared at me in an unnerving manner, close to adoration.

"What are the notches?" I asked curiously.

"Bite marks. Occasionally a Canary doesn't make it out of the shafts. Usually the gas will get them. It makes their muscles spasm and then you end up with bite marks." He gave me a hug. "You have saved me from that fate..."

I pushed him off of me. "What the hell! Get off of me you wrinkled freak!" I backed away from him.

"You don't understand! The things you see down there will change you! I remember things I never did. I don't even know what's real..." He seemed about to break down into tears.

I tried to well up pity for him. I really did. "Teach me the spell and give me the garments." I was a little giddy. Magic. Actual magic.

He looked down. "Fine. Take the ruby in your mouth." He was starting to remind me of a hurt puppy. I resisted the urge to kick him. I looked at the gem and swallowed back my displeasure at the thought of how many mouths it had been in. I placed it in my mouth.

"What now?" I said around the gem.

"Don't swallow it or they'll dig it out of your intestines." That really didn't make me feel any better about having it in my mouth. "Now... Close your eyes."

I really didn't want to take my eyes off of him. I shut them regardless and something was placed on my back. There was a click. "Tell me what's in the pouch."

"How am I supposed to know that without looking?"

"Just focus. Search it with your mind, not your body." This was stupid...

I must've sat there for a few minutes before I zoned out.

The best way to describe the spell is that the world crystallized and that trying to keep the world made of crystal was like trying to fill a bottle with your spit.

"One ounce of iron half an ounce of topaz and a about a quarter of an ounce of sulfur." My eyes shot open and I swayed quite a bit. "Wha..."

He went to my side and kept me on my feet. Canary was still helping me for some reason. The world was still made of crystal; I could see into the odd compounds. Unicorns with broken horns and griffons with clipped wings and dogs with large collars and bulky figures and bats and bats and...

I'm not sure when I passed out but I woke up and felt like my head exploded. Something dry and sticky was on my face and it tore slightly when I shifted. I cracked open my eyes and the world was blurry.

Canary was next to me and I stifled a scream. "Looks like you over did it. You've been out for an hour and it's almost time for my shift." He frowned and ran a hoof cloaked in slightly wet cloth over my face. My eyes slowly focused.

I nudged it away. "Why did I pass out?" I finally asked while trying to figure out how to stand up easily.

He nodded slightly. "You took in too much information. Canary, you almost died. A few blood vessels in your nose ruptured and you bled quite a bit. You'll be up and running shortly." He nodded again. I distinctly remember calling him a wrinkled freak and felt bad. He might not help me after this. He lifted a hand mirror in his mouth and walked over to me. It was the first look I got at myself. I was a freaking Zebra. Expletives cannot describe how much that hurt me but they can come pretty damn close. I had the same blue eyes I had back on earth but besides that I was unrecognizable. I tried to convince myself that that was my actual reflection and failed.

The reflection was of a standard Zebra from what I could assume. The eyes were bright and colorful, the face was striped. My new nose was black and my fur was a pale white though with the dust in the air I could only imagine that wouldn't last for long I had a poof of hair that slowly settled against my head. It was going to get in my eyes soon.

"I'm sorry for earlier. I was upset. I shouldn't have reacted that badly." I finally got back to my hooves. Clearly, I wasn't getting rescued from here any time soon.

He smiled faintly. "It's ok. I reacted much the same when I got here. But from one Canary to another Canary, keep your head down and maybe you'll live as a Canary as long as I have. I'm only 20, you know."

I looked at his wrinkled skin and made a face. "How long have you been a Canary?"

He smiled sheepishly. "I was brought here when I was 18. I am the longest lived Canary currently in the Rej."

"Where is the Rej?" I asked. Where the hell am I was more what I was thinking.

"We are in the Zebra isles, friend. All sorts of species are brought here for all sorts of purposes. Some, like us, are slaves who are blessed with a short time in the mines. Some are those that own the mines." I stared at him. It distantly occurred to me that he should be rhyming. And that I should be rhyming. And that something was wrong.

"Shouldn't we be rhyming?" I asked after a long moment.

He shook his head. "We are speaking the Zebra tongue. It is only when we speak another tongue that we are forced to rhyme. And why are you asking such silly questions?"

I opened my mouth to respond when a large earth pony walked in. "Time for your shift, Canary." Canary stood up and somehow knew it was he that was being addressed. The other Canary walked over to a dresser where quite a few satchels were and more than a few rubies. He gently tugged the leather satchel over his shoulder and then grabbed a ruby in his mouth and walked out. The earth pony turned to me. "Your next. In a few hours, it'll be your turn. Good luck Canary, and try not to die."

I shut my eyes again and tried not to think about anything. In a few minutes, I was back asleep.

Mine Time (3)

My brief rest was interrupted entirely too soon for my tastes. I was forced to grab a well chewed ruby and not think about where it had been and then basically dragged over to a mining site. I was really getting tired of the whole dragging thing. I could walk.

I was pushed in front of a unicorn. "Right. You must be the new Canary. You know your job, right? Go in there and tell me if it's worth mining." The unicorn jabbered in another language.

"What?" I eloquently replied.

The unicorn gestured to a hole in the wall that had been freshly dug into. He growled and rolled his eyes, his horn glowing.

"Do you job and get in the hole. I'll tie some rope around you." He must be speaking another language.

"This must be a joke, why is there rope?" I tried to ask about the rope, but to my dismay it didn't come out correctly. I paled unnoticeably. "I didn't mean to er, I am sorry sir?" I tried to apologize. My eyes went wide. I'm rhyming. SONOFA-

"Just don't talk. I cast a minor translation spell on you. The rope is just in case this leads to a vertical shaft and you start dropping. We will drag your corpse out of there if you aren't back in an hour." He nodded and pointed at the hole.

I sighed inwardly.

I've got to get out here. It's going to get worse, I fear. Crap. I'm rhyming in my mind. I am in such a bind.

I pulled the ruby out of the satchel and placed it in my mouth while trying to ignore my inner monologue. I made sure the rope that the unicorn tied to me was secure and then slowly crawled into the hole.

After a few seconds of crawling into it I took a deep breath and wished I hadn't. The air was rank and fetid with some sort of decay. It overwhelmed my sense of smell. My eyes stung from it. I wished my mouth wasn't open. After a few seconds my vision adjusted to the soft glow the ruby was emanating. Bats. I stood up and looked around. This chamber was full of bats.

One opened it's eyes and let out a shriek. I gulped as the entire flock woke up. I crouched down and covered my head and thought about my instructions. I closed my eyes and focused. The world crystallized.

The contents of my pouch had sulfur. The room had guano.

Those two things seemed almost as important, for a reason I couldn't fathom, as the many deposits of iron and titanium ores. Tin speckled the place in little ribbons of silver thread. A topaz was buried underneath or where I was standing. A vein of coal stretched high into the ceiling.

I barely managed to shut off the spell before I passed out. As it was, I felt half dead. And the bats were waking up. Their shrieks were not helping the new headache I was developing.

One dove at me and I kicked it in defense. It's frail form his the ground and shook as it tried to regain flight. I kicked it again and heard an odd noise a few seconds later. It was a wet plop. The bat had been kicked out of my view and had fallen into something wet.

One of the ponies tugged at my rope and I tugged back to let them know I was alive. I walked on ahead to the prescribed distance and slipped into the spell.

I was on a massive outcropping of rock over the biggest deepest pit I had ever seen. The bottom of it was filled with a fluid that wasn't quite water. It was far less viscous. And it bubbled and stank. There were no more ores in the cavern and I beat a hasty retreat back to the entrance. I dropped the ruby back into the satchel

The unicorn nodded at me. I told him of the things I saw.

I looked around the cave that he was in. Dead bats, their bodies littered with arrows were spread everywhere. "Hm. The slaves will eat good tonight." The unicorn muttered. He looked around and I felt something shift.

"Gather up the corpses and bring them to the stew pot." He spoke in jabber. There was a flurry of movement as a group of ponies and griffons obeyed his order. "Continue digging this shaft." He pointed at yet another group, this one having pickaxes and chains tied around them. He turned to me. "Goo' jo' Canary." He spoke with an odd accent.

I nodded. "Thank you sir." Continue to live.

He pointed at another hole. "Ge' t' i'." He slurred, his pronunciation wrong.

I tried not to sigh and brought the ruby back to my mouth.

This was going to get repetitive.

Bury the Canary (4)

Canary never came back from his work. After a few days, I was selected as the new primary Canary of the compound and I learned on the existence of several other compounds. Mine was compound 23. If I was to be referred to in a way that distinguished me from other Canaries, I would be discussed as the Canary from 23, or just Canary 23.

I feared that at this point I was starting to lose my individualism. I was slowly starting to lose track of the days after the first week. There were no windows. I could not see the sun. There were no calenders. There was only the next cave for me to crawl into and the sopping mess that they called stew.

And after a while I realized the reason that the carnivores and I were being served the stew instead of the mash the ponies were getting. The stew was drugged with something that kept us docile and it made it harder to think about the self.

A few days after the realization and at least 20 more caves crawled, I discovered a break through.

"Fml." I had taken to using Text speak as a way to distinguish myself from the others. I heard them whispering that I was going mad. It was rather entertaining. "Stfu." I would only reply. I never talked to any one who had more authority than me that way.

More days passed by.

My bed had a long crack in it.

After a long time of sleeping in that bed the crack grew wider and it collapsed. I inspected the wreckage and stared dully at it for a long time before finally noticing a small piece of paper in the midst of it. Rather, I didn't recognize it as paper at first.

They didn't let anyone have paper. Or anything to write with. There wasn't any trees to burn to make charcoal tools and the torches were cleaned by literally the scariest abomination I had ever laid eyes on. It took just one gaze from it to send me scurrying away. It was the predator.

I guess the right term is minotaur. It was big. That's what I remember.

At any rate, the piece of paper was glossy and had a bit of a shine to it. It was vaguely familiar and after I searched my memory I recognized it as laminated.

I had gotten better at using magic. I was popular amongst the beings in charge of the digging. for being able to accurately tell how big a cavern was.

I placed the ruby in my mouth and looked at the paper. After a few seconds of staring at it, the paper went blank. I snapped out of the spell and looked at the paper.

It had changed. It was a simple equation.

Fireball = Bat and Sulfur.

I blinked and the paper went blank. The high gloss that I now realized I had imagined disappeared and I felt incredibly dumb.

My name was Canary. It's hard to think.

There was something in the food. I learned a new spell. I reached into my satchel and pulled out a piece of coal I had found and very gently wrote a word down. "Ivan." I said out loud. I almost mechanically placed the lump of coal and the paper into my satchel.

I didn't understand the meaning of the word. I had a distant memory of something before the caves but it hurt to think about it.

I didn't like pain.

There was no funeral for Canary. If they died they were knocked into a pit. It was believed that eating them would be bad because of how much gas they had taken in before they died.

It was time for me to explore another shaft. I was going to the first compound today. They needed a Canary and there was no Canary duty scheduled for compound 23.

I walked over to the compound leader. He was a Zebra just like me. I was proud that my compound leader had told me to go to another compound. That meant he liked me.

"Hello Canary. You are going to compound one." I was happy.

"Yes sir." I said. I distantly remembered something about trying to subvert authority but that would be silly.

"Do you know the way?" He looked almost sad that I was happy. Why should he be sad? I'm happy. He should be happy.

"No Sir." I said again. Walking was getting easier and easier. Though why would that be? I've been a Zebra as long as I can remember. Why would walking get easier?

He nodded. "I will escort you there." I was happy. I got to spend more time with him. That meant he liked me. He stood up and walked out the door. I followed behind him because that's what he wanted me to do and why shouldn't I do that?

We walked by all of the happy workers as they dug their mine tunnels. I tried to think of why it seemed wrong for them to be happy. We were doing our jobs and happy work is happy work.

He turned to me. "Do you remember your name, Canary?" I smiled at him.

"My name is Canary." I held back my laugh. They didn't like it when you laughed.

"Your name before you got here, I mean." He looked worried.

I shook my head. "I've always been Canary." There was dried guano in my satchel.

He sighed. "I hear you are an excellent Canary. Do you sing?"

I looked at him blankly. "No sir. Why do you ask?"

"It's called a joke, Canary." There was sulfur in my satchel.

I nodded at him. "Oh. Heh..." I giggled.

"You seem a little flighty." That was a bad pun.

"Are you trying to be funny, sir?" I asked, curious.

"I wish our brainwashing methods weren't half so effective." He muttered, then turn to me. "This compound is the closet to the surface. Several times a Canary has discovered bits of building in his tunnel."

I listened, my eyes vacant. "Sir?"

"Are you following me?" Submit to authority.

"No sir."

He nodded. "Good. Compound 1 is the main coal mining operation. It is likely that this tunnel you will be working on will have coal."

I continued listening, excited about going into the tunnel. I was always excited about work.

"And nine tenths of all supplies from the surface come the entrance to Compound 1. If something bad were to happen, say, the cave collapsed or some other horrendous event, most of the other compounds would be starved off."

I had an odd feeling that I was forgetting something. "I will do my job sir."

He nodded. "Good. I would hate to see you do anything else."

The cave we were in looked pretty. The tunnels were all smooth and it made it easy to transport stuff.

After a long time of walking I was led into a room that was smallish. There was a door behind me that had opened to let me and my compound leader in and then there was another door that opened and we walked through.

It was another compound like my other one except there were more guards there and it looked cleaner. I was led through and then there was another tunnel and there was a hole in the wall. Rope was placed around me like I knew it was going to and then I did my job and walked into the hole in the wall.

I reached into my pouch and pulled out my ruby and put it in my mouth and looked around. It was all coal. Every bit of the walls were coal. If I looked up further there were ruins and stuff but I thought I saw ponies and griffons in the buildings but they were ruins because that's what I was told they were.

I was seeing things and if I told them I was seeing things maybe they wouldn't let me do my job.

I liked doing my job.

I tugged on the rope to let them know I was there. Something was wrong. There was no resistance when I tugged it. The rope came towards me a few feet and I could just barely make out that the rope had split from long use.

There was a long moment where my brain cycled over what to do. I had no instructions. I wasn't being controlled.

"What do I do?" My voice echoed through the chamber.

"Fuck yes." I muttered, intelligence streaming back to me. I closed my eyes and forced the magic to stop. I was free.

I noted that there was a building very near to me that was empty. From what I could tell, it was mostly intact but deserted. The bottom part of the basement had collapsed due to water damage and there was a nice hole in the stone that had been hollowed out by means unknown to me. It was behind about 5 inches of coal.

Coal burns.

I froze before reaching my muzzle to my satchel. The compound leader...

If I escaped by catching the coal on fire, I was dooming him and all of compound one. And by proxy, most of the other compounds.

My head was rapidly clearing up. Sweet freedom of thought began to leak through. "I'm going to kill them all." I tried to care that thousands would die. I really did. The rocky platform I was on was less secure in its rigidity than I was in the idea that death would be more merciful than living like cows.

I reached into my pouch and gently worked the sulfur and the guano together. I ignored the fact that I had probably just got a horrible disease from it.

Memory surged through me. "It's..." It was so clear. Everything made sense. "FIREBALL!" A bare of fire appeared before me, and like the other spell, I felt a draining sensation. This one was a far greater drain. I summoned up strength I didn't know I had and aimed it at where I knew the collapsed structure to be.

It exploded in a ball of fire.

Within seconds the coal caught on fire. Smoke billowed out from it and suddenly the chamber was fully lit. It was coal. All of it was the flammable rock. It was beautiful; the pyre jumped from the single spot that I had hit to every surface. I could feel the heat on my back as the chamber was engulfed in the cleansing flames. Parts of the ground were on fire.

It made me fell alive. Coal began to crumble off the walls as its centuries old grip was burnt away. I steeled my nerve. and waited it out, dodging bits of falling rock.

I was going to see the sun again. There was a massive smashing noise noise and suddenly all around me, as far as I could see, there were cracks. And then they fell.

There was liquid below and it slowly bubbled. I saw it in the flame.

Tar. It was tar. It was a lake of tar. The building I was trying to get into was exposed and I threw myself at it in a desperate attempt to get free.

The tar lake caught a lit. The building I was in was starting to smolder. The building floor was quite a bit different from the cave floor. It felt good.

I raced through the building while it started to turn to ask around me. I was in the basement and I could ust barely see a set of stairs going up.

The first few stairs caught a lit and I jumped through the fire. It was so dim in the caves... and the fire was so bright.

My eyes were burning.

Everything was burning.

Everything was carpeted in an orange light from the fire. The door to the upstairs was made of wood and I kicked it open and threw myself up yet another flight of stairs.

It was a dead end.

But that didn't make sense. Why would there be stairs leading to a dead end below the surface?

A beam of light shone through a hole in the wall. The wall had been boarded up and painted over. I looked down for the first time in a long time and found a skeleton of the idiot behind it. There was a paintbrush beside the bones.

I bucked the wall. It collapsed and I spilled out. As far as I could see there were Zebras in a mass attacking everything I could see. The guards were going down, torn to bits beneath them.

Canary was there. He was on a podium above all of it shouting orders. A large bubble shield surrounded him and arrows bounced off of it.

They were all Canaries. Every single one of them. There was at least a hundred of them. And things were on fire and it was all chaos and disarray.

And then the building erupted in a massive fire cloud behind me and I knew no more.

The Name Game (5)

I don't really like waking up from being unconscious. If I'm unconscious it means that something bad has happened to me. It's not quite as easy as waking up from a dream. As you can imagine, the first thing I did upon waking up was open my eyes. Everything was blurry. "Ugh... what happened?" Why is everything always blurry when I wake up?

Canary was standing over me, his wrinkled body and his dull eyes looking more youthful. He had a satchel on and I could see a ruby poking out of it. "Good. You woke up. The Flock was getting tired of waiting on you."

"The Flock?" I asked, standing up. I looked at him cautiously. "A better question is how you are alive."

It was dawning on me that I didn't need to bow to authority anymore.

He nodded. "Direct to the point, are you friend? The Flock is a group of Canaries that successfully went rogue and lived in the unexplored caves. They were kept alive by a few traitor compound leaders. Compound 23 had one such leader. On the day that I you arrived I was cut off from the entrance to my tunnel by a rock slide. I waited hours for help to arrive and it never did. I blacked out and woke up in another tunnel filled the Flock."

That would explain quite a bit. "Hm. So... Can I join this flock?" I asked. How big of a group are they?

He nodded. "And for your unanswered question, we are currently 17 strong."

I blinked. I was hoping for more. "Only 17?"

"We lost quite a few Canaries in the attack on the capitol building. At least twenty. The ones who are left are the ones who rallied the other escaping Canaries who were not of the Flock."

I smiled. They had to have gotten quite a few of them into the Flock that he wasn't talking about. "And what happened to them?"

"They split up into groups. One group when they heard there were still thousands of slaves buried underground took upon the name of Compounders and have been focusing on putting out the fires on compound 1. They've made a significant amount of progress, but when the slavers come back and the first compound is clear, it will be easy for them to retake control of the slaves." He looked down. "Honestly, most of the Flock wants to use the tunnels we have to escort as many slaves as they can through the tunnels. I had to stop them."

I raised an eyebrow, not that concerned about the other slaves. What mattered was that I was out. I was free.

"Another group is the Guard. They are the remnants of the islands government that escaped our initial strike and the rest of the slavers. They have most of the weapons on the island. Their main base is located near a tunnel though and I think if something explosive enough was placed under there it would collapse their headquarters. However... we would lose the weapons and the armor. They have control over one of the few functioning forges on the island."

I nodded along, intrigued. "Has the Guard done anything aggressive?"

He shook his head. "They haven't done anything after declaring their group and their apparent right over the island. They are defensive. I think they are stockpiling their weapons."

I made a note to make sure to get at that stockpile. "Continue on."

"The last group we really have to worry about is the Magickers. They managed to break into the library and overcome the defenses surrounding the magic section. They are the most aggressive right now, striking against other slave groups. Or brother organization, the Tunnel Snakes have already fallen to them."

"Why do we have to fight?" I really wanted to hitch a ride to the nearest free island and forget about all of this.

"Because every slave on this island has been marked. The slave ship are going to come back in around a month with massive reinforcements. If we aren't united against them, or well armed, they will sweep us and take no prisoners. This entire island will go back to being a slave outpost for mining metals." He looked down. "And well, we'll be dead."

That's a good reason to fight them off.

"So... clearly, the Guard is not our biggest priority." I said, a plan forming. "The Magickers or the Compounders. The Compounders will have access to the biggest cache of raw materials once this is over. If we can negotiate them to fight with us with the conditions that after they fight for us we will help to release compound 1, will that take care of them?"

He nodded, his eyes slowly brightening with an emotion which only made me sick. There was no room for hope for this. If you had hope, that meant that you believed in luck and you wouldn't try as hard.

"Yes. That should take care of them. We have a large problem though. You caught a few tar lakes on fire down in the caves." He winced.

I groaned. "Let me guess. The slave down there don't have much longer to live?"

"That's the gist of it. Come out onto the balcony with me. I need to show you something." He walked away from me.

I sat up and rolled out of bed. I landed hard on my hooves and let out an grunt of pain. I was bandaged heavily and the fact I couldn't feel them I took to be a bad sign.

You know. I really should have been panicking.

I walked out on the balcony. The sun was slowly starting to set and it's warm rays cast down over us. I guess it would've been oddly romantic if I still wasn't freaked out by Canary's odd fixation on me.

"Isn't it beautiful?" He nudged me.

Oh god. Was he trying to come on to me? I got out of range of his legs. "Yeah. I guess." Keep calm.

"I haven't seen the sunset in two years. I think that all of that time just made my heart grow fonder for it." He said, still creeping me out.

"Uh... sure. Let's go with that."

"This is what we fight for. We all should have the right to fight under the sun for our lives. Being trapped under the stone is just barely living."

Ok. He was slowly stopping with the creepy. "Yeah."

"Which is why I will fight for you. You seem like you have more of a plan with what to do with this island than anybody else. I know that you have plans and I want to be a part of them." He turned to me with a non romantic smile.

"Ok. You will fight for me?" Did I... get a minion?

He nodded. "I will fight for you as long as the sun sets somewhere on this world. You set us all free and I will fight along side you to keep us free."

I smiled. Things were going well. "Say Canary, what is your name?"

"As much as I wished I remembered my old name, I don't. You can call me Canary. The others are getting their own names. What is your name, Canary?" He asked me.

It took a long while before I remembered my own name."You can call me Ivan." I continued looking around the island, or at least what I could see. Rubble was all that remained of quite a few buildings that I assumed were of the government. A large cloud of smoke continued to rise from nearby and it blocked a great deal of my vision. I turned my head and looked to the right. I could see sparkling shores maybe a mile away.

From the remnants of my old life I was going to forge a new one. I thought this island could be the same. "What is this island's name?

He cleared his throat. "This is the island of Rej. A long time ago, years before all of the ore and gems were discovered here, Zebras were free. They were all part of a single nation. And the neighboring islands were friendly and Rej traded with them. But... Rej was too close to the main land. Slavers came and took over Rej, blasting everything with magic and science and whatever else. The other islands held off the outsiders for a time but they too fell to them."

An idea was forming in my head. I could take Rej for myself. It was almost a perfect island paradise. I would rule over Rej... and then 'Liberate' the other islands. They would be all too happy to serve their savior. I could to whatever I wanted after that.

And all I had to do was take over Rej in a month.

Around the Compound (6)

I cracked my eyes open and breathed a sigh of relief. Canary was not there. I was rather stifling in the room though. I sat up and once again ignored the bandages. It was a simple room that I was in; Two beds, the one that I had not been sleeping in covered in half used rolled of bandages and smelling of bitter alcohol.

I walked over to the single wooden door opposite of the balcony. It was slightly cracked and the hinges creaked when I pushed it open. I bit back a swear. Fifteen pairs of eyes immediately locked on my form when I swung the door open.

"Ivan." Canary trotted over to me.

I held back my urge to scream in frustration. He was starting to get annoying, despite being my new minion.

In a way, I missed Earth. In the same way that I missed having hands, or walking on two legs.

I looked at Canary. "Yes?

He smiled. "In honor of you choosing a simple name, all of the Flock have chosen their own names."

I nodded, only half listening. I was going to have to convince the Compounders today.

He led me over to each zebra. "This is Mark, this is Ken, this is Floyd..." The list went on.

Problem with zebras. They all look the same after a while.

He nudged me with a hoof. "Did you get all of those?"

I nodded and lied. "Yes I did... but perhaps we should get something more individual?" Something that made them not look the same, perhaps?

One of the few zebras who's name I actually remembered, Floyd stepped forward. "Such as what?"

"Hats. Every warrior needs a hat. Some warriors even wear hats on top of hats." Hey, I wanted to have a little fun. Besides, it might help me distinguish between them!

Floyd nodded. "Hats are a good idea, sir. What shall we make them out of?"

"The hides of our enemies?" I threw out a dark joke.

He smiled. "That's a great idea! Long live IVAN!" And then the rest of the Flock started cheering for me.

I could only blink and stare dumbfounded into the mass. I closed my eyes and tried to stay calm in the face of such ridiculousness. I opened them and started counting zebras. "Why are there only fifteen?" I asked calmly.

Canary nodded. "A few fools slipped away to aid the compounders in their mission. We will deal with them in whatever way you want us to."

It was odd just how willing the Flock was to listen to me. It was almost as if they hadn't recovered from whatever chemical soup they had been forced to down and were just empty husks with tiny flickers of personality embedded somewhere in them.

If that was the case, it would be almost criminal to not take advantage of them. "Canary, are you ready to meet with the compounders?"

He nodded at me with that odd smile I hated so much. It was almost like he was a dog in zebra clothes.

I looked to the rest of my new group. "Half of you will stay here and guard this building." I pointed to six other zebras. "You, you, you, you, you and you. All of you will come with me. Canary, teach me that barrier spell that you were using during the riot."

I had a plan. If it worked, Rej would be mine. If it didn't I'd do my damned best effort to make sure nobody else would take it.

The barrier spell was a simple affair. It was twice as draining as the fireball was and the focus for it, which of course I had to keep in my mouth, was a topaz.

I could barely hold the barrier up for more than a few seconds and it was only useful against projectiles. Canary hinted that the gems were not the best foci for the spells; they were merely the most plentiful on the island.

"But what is the best general focus?" I had to ask.

He laughed. " It should be obvious!"

I really don't like being played for the fool. "What is it?"

"Its organic and there are very few on the island that are still attached. Unicorn horns." He smiled shortly after.

I was not a fan of him dancing around the point. "So if I find a unicorn I should steal its horn?"

"And then kill it. Make sure to put it out of its misery, without magic they just rot away. Once you get the horn you need to make a small hole in it then wear it around your neck."

I had a morbid picture of myself standing around a group of unicorns and snapping off their horns, giggling the while. My day dream had more blood than was realistic and all of the unicorns were the same color. After thinking it through, I looked at Canary.

"Enchanted armor and weapons. Do you know how to make them?" I had another idea tucked in my satchel.

We all still carried satchels. We felt uneasy without them.

He shook his head. "I imagine that the magickers might have access to that."

I frowned. My brain was thinking through several things at once. "Is it hard to enchant pre existing weapons or armor?"

He shrugged.

Watching quadrupeds shrug is weird.

"I imagine it would be more difficult." He looked at me. "Why do you ask?"

I was more of an over thinker of things. "It doesn't matter. Let's go." I wasn't going to warn him of the probable ambush.

We walked through the ash coated building. The walls were made of wood and smoke damage was everywhere. Fire damage had eaten at parts of the bottom floor; the boards were charred and I could tell they barely supported my weight. I was struck with vertigo and I stopped after we past the boards to maintain my balance.

He looked over at me and smiled. "Your injuries giving you trouble?"

I found it odd how clear spoken he was. The zebras behind me were almost brainless and continued to follow us across the room. I shook my head.

He laughed. "All you lost was quite a bit of your fur. The bandages are just to hide the bald patches." He leaned in close to me. "I figured that they would make you our leader quite a bit faster if you looked like a warrior healing from a battle." He whispered.

He was quite a bit more intelligent than I had given him credit for. And that intelligence, of all the things I had faced in the few months or however long I had spent on the island, scared me more than anything else.

I looked at him, speechless. He was using me. It was the only explanation I could think of. He wanted power for himse- No. He already had it. He had given me all of the information I knew about the island. He could have my plans already compromised.

For my sake at least, something had to be done about him. And I only knew one way to silence someone reliably. "That was a good idea." He had put me up as a leader because he knew I trusted him. He had probably painted a target on my head by doing so.

He smiled at me. "I'd like to think I have a few good ideas from time to time."

The last of the Flock that was with me passed over to our side of the room and we stepped out. The sun was almost blinding me; I was still unused to seeing the sun. I could faintly feel the rocky pavement of the street; it was slight warm. I tried not to think about how likely it was for a sinkhole to form and swallow my group.

I had to remain the charismatic figurehead that Canary wanted me to be until I had the methods to assert my dominance over the island and Canary dead. Any being that complained about Canary's death was going to be placed under scrutiny.

"I like to think that as well, Canary." I finally responded. The entire street we were walking through looked more like it was struck by an earthquake than a mob. The only indication that it hadn't been the earth itself revolting to bring me back to the surface was the uncracked streets and the targeted destruction of this street. "What is this street called?" I called to my Flock.

"Government street, sir." Floyd replied. I liked Floyd.

"Fitting. How far are we from Compound one?" It felt good to be in charge of these mindless fools. None of them had even asked what I intended to do with the island once I had it united.

Canary answered. "Just another mile. We're getting closer as we speak."

Occasionally I would find fresh graffiti on the walls. Most of it looked familiar.

I shook my head and ran to keep up with my group.

The entrance to compound one was an ornate building which for reasons I failed to comprehend was done in a roman style. There was a large crest on the front of the building.

As we walked closer to it a slight breeze slung a bit of ash into the building. Or rather, the ash flew towards the building and instantly a large magic bubble appeared and the dust slid down it.

"Halt." I called out. The group halted. We stared into the field. As we watched, boulders were being pushed into place by the front entrance to keep it up. The barrier fell and a loud cracking noise began to echo out from the top of the building. A divide appeared above one of the pillars and a few seconds later the entire crest fell to the ground and shattered into bits of rock.

Zebras and griffons and ponies and a few dogs ran out from within the building and began clearing the debris. They worked at it and within a few minutes the worst of it was cleaned up. And then the leader of the operation walked out and I knew that I could not negotiate with them.

It was a dog. Not just any dog, but the lead dog that threw me into slavery.

I closed my eyes and calmed myself. I had to do this. But why did she have to be a fucking dog?

"Hello, Zebra." She addressed me specifically, the other zebras in my party looking to me for advice. It felt good to be the leader.

I stepped forward and walked over to her. "Greetings, Dog." I couldn't keep the disgust out of my voice. Judging by her reaction, she heard it.

"Is something wrong?" She asked walking over to me and circling me in an effort, I'm sure, to intimidate me. Her pelt was singed and no longer the correct color. She had a slight limp and the cause was from a rather large injury on her back right leg.

"I'm curious. What is your name?" I looked away from her body.

"Why do you look away?" She jumped in front of me, her face inches from mine. "Do I scare you?" Her eyes were yellow.

I shook my head and looked straight into her eyes. I imagine that my blue eyes burned with hatred.

I'm happy to say that she blinked first. She backed away from me. "It's you. What do you want?"

I sighed, and showed my exasperation. It was almost like we were fighting for dominance in the conversation. Figures. Dogs.

"You recognize me? I want to know your name." I tapped my hoof against the ground and maintained eye contact. The very sight of her face was disgusting me but I held my ground. I would carve a kingdom.

"Of course I fucking recognize you. You are the last slave I brought in before I was forced into slavery. I was deemed 'incompetent' after YOU failed to walk. How was I supposed to know I nabbed a retarded zebra?"

She really wasn't helping my hatred. All work on the rubble had stopped and every being around us was watching us. I smirked. "What is your name?" I was dominating. It felt so good to be in charge.

She growled at me. "My name is Boss. And I am the acting leader of the Compounders. What. Do. You. Want?"

It was very hard to keep a straight face at her name. From what I could tell, though, it was her actual name.

I smiled wider. "My name is Ivan. I wish to use your forces to fend off the slavers when they come." There was a slight mumble amongst her peoples.

She nodded at me. "It's a fair plan. Shall we discuss it inside?"

I had won. "Of course." I HAD won. And then I made my mistake.

"Flock, with me." My group of zebras followed me inside.

After we passed the columns the barrier rose back up. The building was safe from entry. The first room was like a museum; the floors were marble, though cracked in places. There were bits that were mostly clean and still held an almost mirror shine. A few slightly cracked display cases held exquisite specimens of ore and gems.

One ore sample caught my attention. It was simply labeled Yellow Glaze.

I popped a ruby into my mouth and slipped into a spell. Uranite. The ore was Uranite. Uranium ore. My breath caught and I tried not to cry. I would never have to worry about being attacked again if I could get more of that. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen since arriving on the island. Whoever controlled these mines controlled the fate of the world.

A few more seconds passed as I thought it over.

I was thinking about this wrong.

Actually making a weapon from it would be stupid, but using it as a bartering chip might be worth it. I could start making glazes with the stuff.

Wait. Fuck.

I had made an error. No beings would appreciate the destructive potential of it without witnessing it...

And really, I do not want what ever beings who run this world after me just yet just because I wanted to test it.

But still. I needed a place to dispose of the stuff later. It would probably be more trouble than I wanted.

I had just lost the biggest bartering chip in history because nobody had been stupid enough to build a bomb before me.

The rest of the my group was following Boss. I cleared my throat and they ran over to my side in a rush. I walked past it and made a note to ask if I could have it on the way out. Canary walked next to me. "Are you sure it was ideal for you to come into her lair?"

I almost flinched as I realized exactly what he meant. "It wasn't a good idea, but, I will follow through with it." I whispered while contemplating my folly. I had given up all of my avenues of escape except for the way I entered. "If I try to back down I will look weak to her forces."

I was out numbered heavily. If something went wrong in here the odds of getting out were far less than stellar.

Canary nodded. "It makes sense. I will follow as you go."

I smiled. It was great to have a minion. I was still going to kill him.

Boss growled. "What are you waiting for? Let's go negotiate."

I took my time walking over to her. I shivered. A single misstep and it would all be over. I closed my eyes and calmed my mind. "I was admiring your front room." I wasn't lying for once.

She nodded. "It is a nice place. My office isn't far."

That was a lie. It was fifteen minutes inside a virtual maze of winding corridors and tunnels. And she had played me into her paws. I was at her mercy. I wasn't in control.

We stopped at a small door in the wall. Boss had to stoop to walk in. I paused at the door frame.

I had a realization back when I first got free. I liked being in control. I hated not being in control. It scared me.

I was nervous. Her office was an unknown.

I steeled myself yet again and walked into her office.

Mage Rage (7)

The inside of Boss's office was filled with book shelves. My heart beat faster at the sight of those shelves.

Knowledge is power and books were an uncorrupted media. Canary was standing behind me. I could almost feel his filthy dog zebra eyes on the back of my head. He was probably waiting for just the right moment to have his beloved leader slain so he could take my place. I wasn't going to let that happen.

There was a single desk complete with two modified chairs to make it easier for quadrupeds to sit in. One chair was behind the desk and one was in front of it. Boss sat in the chair behind the desk and stared at me. "Sit." She motioned at the other chair.

Chairs suck. When I built my house, it was going to have benches, and lots of them. Heck, I'd get the best throw pillow in existence before I sat in a chair like the one I was sitting in again. It pressed against my form in all the wrong places. "I have."

She nodded. "So I can see. Now, let's agree on terms." She pulled out several sheets of paper.

I tried not to get excited. I hadn't seen paper since I had arrived in this world. Well, except for the scrap which had my name on it. I smiled when I thought about Fireball. "Right. I would like to request a great portion of your forces to help fight off the slaves in a month's time. I think it sounds reasonable." I smiled wider.

She shook her head. "Denied." She didn't give a reason.

"Why?" Figures. Dogs.

"In the time it took to clear out the rubble from the latest damage to the building, the fires in the coal veins increased by Twenty degrees centigrade from the lack of constant attention on it. If we are to save the trapped slaves we must not leave the fires without being to cool them or else the entire network of tunnels could collapse."

Shit. That's an actual reason. Why can't I be dealing with irrational reasons so I could just get away with sabotaging everything without looking like the bad guy?

Honestly, my goals were not noble but they required the support of the people at first. Without that, I couldn't start my island empire.

Which mean I had to take the honest route. "How many of your people could you spare for a raid on the Magickers? Surely a better spell for cooling things is in their t-" Pop. A book fell off of the shelf.

I stopped and stared at her book shelves. The books were shaking off. As I watched, another one fell. My eyes widened. "I have to get out of here!" I stood up to leave and then the shaking stopped.

I was at the door and was about to peek my head out when it slammed open and the room was bathed in a mass of magic beams and spells. Only three of my Flock got their spells up in time. Boss, the stupid bitch, had sadly gotten under her desk when the spells hit her walls. She was perfectly fine.\

I was fortunately enough, thrown behind the door. My form was small enough that I could fit there without too much trouble.

Oh right. I forgot to mention that Canary made it out alive. That's to threats that I wanted neutralized that hadn't happened yet. And that's not even counting the spell slingers that had broken in.

There were three of them; two unicorns and one zebra. The unicorns had large scar tissue surrounding where their cutie marks had been and I distantly remembered acid baths being a suitable punishment for ponies. I had to stifle a wince. I still didn't understand the system behind the marks on Zebras, but as far as I could tell it was a highly complex tattoo. Pony cutie marks? That was magic showing talent. If that was removed how would you look at yourself?

Would it be considered a desecration of the mind as well as the body? Were cutie marks an expression of permanency of their talent in the craft or did removing the magic mark remove the knack?

More importantly, did that make it easier to brainwash ponies?

I filed it into the back of my mind to look into. It might be a suitable punishment for criminals.

I snapped back to reality, the magic users were gone. I opened the door. Little piles of ash littered the ground. The remnants of fallen members of my Flock. "You won't be forgotten." I said loudly, pretending to charismatically declare my intent for revenge. The truth was that I didn't even know their names.

Luckily, Floyd was alive. He smiled at me. "It's good to have a caring leader." I guess I was doing something right. I walked over to the ash piled and looked through their satchels. I pulled out a better ruby than the one I had and an emerald.

Boss crawled out from under her desk. "What the Hell was that?"

I had never agreed more with a dog. "I have no idea. I thought is was an assassination attempt but why didn't they try to finish the job?"

She stood straight up and flipped the desk. I narrowly dodged the flying desk. Taped to the bottom of the desk were two straight swords of more than usable condition. They were maybe two feet in length each.

Of course, if I were lying to you I would tell you that I instantly knew how to use the sword and that I went and kicked some magic tail and then everything was happy smiley.

Truth is, I haven't been in a fight in my life. Back on Earth, I made fights between other people and dodged fights by simply not being there.

So when Boss ripped both of the swords free of the tape and brandished them to dual wield, I let her do so without a word. She appeared to be proficient enough with them and I figured she wasn't going to kill me quite yet.

She growled and looked at us all. "They are trying to stop the fires!"

I blinked at her. "Isn't that what you were trying to do?"

She rolled her eyes. "Do you really want those magic bastards to get a hold of all those slaves?"

I shook my head and stood up. "I'll help as best I can. FLOCK. Prepare for battle." My group took up defensive positions at my side and we walked out with the swordsdog in tow.

We raced down the tunnels and passed by many a blood stain and ash pile. We caught sight of the zebra that had attacked us lying against the wall and bleeding out. He had been stabbed and then clearly left to die.

"Help me." He rasped. I looked at him and grabbed his neck between my two front hooves.

"Anybody have any idea why I shouldn't kill him?"

Boss moved to speak up and I snapped his neck. He fell to the ground. I kicked his body over. "Why did you...?" She muttered.

"I'll feel guilty for it later. We have another two unicorns to kill." I said. It was true that I would feel guilty. In hind sight, I should've drained him of information and then killed him. I would've been more prepared for later.

Canary nodded at me.

Floyd caught the nod and smiled. "As long as you regret it."

Boss shook her head. "You are going to be the death of me." She glared over at me.

It was more than a subtle hint that she understood how little I valued her life than a simple joke. It was hint that she understood I would not hesitate to put her down when it benefited me.

It was another example of me underestimating the intelligence of other beings. That sort of mistake would kill me in the long run.

No. That sort of mistake would leave me with my guts spilled out and Canary ruling my islands.

I merely shrugged in response to her and like I've said before, quadrupedal shrugging is weird. "Maybe so."

She bounded down the tunnel and I was close behind her, my flock following. I already had a topaz in my mouth to prepare the barrier.

The rest of the way passed in a blur of smooth rock and occasional side passage ways. The rest of the trip to the fire was only a few minutes and the rock around us was gradually getting hotter. By the time we were within sight distance of a collapsed portion of the ceiling with a large coal vein visibly on fire through more cracks, it was almost a sauna.

The two unicorns had more than a hundred lumbering bodies around them and both of their horns were glowing a pale blue color. And as I watched the two savages the temperature of the room dropped and I realized the horrid truth.

They had killed most of the workers and had brought their bodies back to life.

There was a virtual legion of undead ponies between us and the unicorns.

"FOR FREEDOM!" And of course the stupid dog dove in the midst of them and began slashing and generally hacking the undead to pieces. Bits of bone and gore erupted every which way. Turns out my future adversary was a good swordsdog.

I was not a dog nor was I good at the sword. In fact, I had no method of attack that all but guaranteed my safety.

And then the unicorns turned to us and everything went to hell.

The Flock scattered and ran up the tunnel like cowards. The zombies slowly started to reform, albeit at a slower rate and looking far more decayed.

And finally the fire in that particular coal vein winked out of existence.

So there I was, the only being on my side was a damn dog and I was facing the undead hordes plus two apparent super unicorns. What did I do? I stood my ground.

Ok. I was more paralyzed by fear. The point of the matter was that I hadn't fled.

And then the unicorns looked at me and if I hadn't already used to bathroom earlier I would have wet myself. Their eyes were filled with fire and their glares were filled with poison. And then their horns glowed red and I barely had the sense of mind to bring up the barrier. And then the air was shattered by an immense ringing noise.

The cavern shook slightly and I was forced to drop the spell. A few tiny rocks fell down from the tunnel ceiling and bounced off of my head. It would have been comedic if I wasn't about to die.

I was already mostly drained from the few seconds of maintaining that spell. I took in slow breathed, my heart pounding.

The dog that I had sworn vengeance continued to keep killing the undead, the blades slowly dulling further and further until they were of as little use as kitchen knives.

And then another spell was cast at me and I reflected it straight up as well. And the bell chime hit me again and my ears ached and every pore felt like it was fire and my breath got shallower. It took all I had not to run for it and leave Boss to her death. And my knees locked in place.

And that was when I decided that I did not like combat.

Another spell went through the air at me and I reflected it again and while the bell chime echoed through the tunnel I collapsed on the ground..

My dreams of my empire collapsed from my mind.

Who was I kidding? I was just some guy from another universe/planet who just happened to get sent here. I couldn't rule this fight, let alone this island. What was the point in trying to fight? My mind was willing but my body was weak.

I was weak. Helpless. Pathetic.

They cast one more spell at me and I summoned what little remained of my will power up to deflect it. It shot straight up and the tunnel rumbled ominously. And the bell toll didn't stop. It sounded like church bells ringing for someone. Did the bells toll for me?

And then there was a scream and then the rocks started falling and they were falling on me and then something hit me and then there was nothing but darkness.

Darkness and breathing.

Debts and Regrets (8)

And all I could think of at first while waiting for the cave to stop shaking and for my own death was how I was going to die a nobody. How my plans of ruling the island were a failure and how the slavers were going to come in and destroy the island's people and force them into slavery again.

I was thinking more about the former than the latter.

And the cave stopped shaking and then there was silence.

But in that silence there was breathing.

"Looks like we made it, Ivan." Boss said.

I almost felt like crying. She was still alive. SHE WAS STILL ALIVE. WHY THE FUCK COULDN'T SHE HAD DIED? "Y-yeah." I said, almost dizzy in despair.

I could almost see the smirk grace her lips. "I think you owe me. I did just save your life."

I owed a dog my life. I really wished I had a knife or something. And hands. Slitting your wrists with a knife in your mouth sounded really hard. But... why the hell did she save me? I closed my eyes. Not that it made a difference. It was the same level of darkness. "What do you want?" I fished into my satchel with my muzzle and thanked who ever the hell I was supposed to thank that I still had it. I placed the the ruby in my mouth.

It's interesting how I knew it was a ruby. It was like the stone itself whispered it's name into my ear.

Boss laughed. It was a bitter laugh with the faintest hints of happiness. "I'm not dumb. I know you planned to kill me the second you saw me. I have a good feeling I know what you are planning to do with the island. And... I would like to offer you my services in exchange for promising to not kill me directly or indirectly. And I want an island."

I channeled a bit of my magic into the gem and the faint red glow allowed me to see. We were only a few feet apart from each other. There was a cave in on both sides of the tunnel and the walls of the tunnel were slowly getting hotter. It must've been unbearable to the ones still trapped in the caves below.

I shut my eyes tightly again and thought over her offer.

I couldn't fight. She could. She had saved my life and could've easily kill me at that very moment.

After that thought I realized that there was no choice at the present. And... an irrational hatred of dogs was one of the things that a particularly savvy enemy could find a way to use to his advantage.

I guess I needed to get over that. "Ok. I accept your terms. You are now in my employ. We'll get a contract drawn up after we get out of this damned cave." I kept my eyes off of her and tried to picture her as something other than a dog.

Ok. Idea. First thing I do after I take over this island and make sure it's mine is to get cured of this dog thing.

Right. Add the expenses of a psychologist, or at least some form of therapist, to my list.

The rock was getting hotter. "Yeah. We need to get out of here soon." I stopped. I had a question. "Wait. If all you want are the gems and the ore, why do you need slaves to dig it out? Why don't Diamond dogs just dig them out themselves."

She growled and furrowed her brow. She laughed harshly. "Do you see how orderly these tunnels are designed? Nice and orderly very low slopes? Try getting a bunch of slathering mutts to dig orderly lines in the earth instead of gulping down every gem. Freaking idiots." She grabbed a rock and started to shift them.

I sighed. Dogs. "Any why aren't you stupid?"

She paused from moving the increasingly warm rocks. "Occasionally, by some fluke of breeding or magic or whatever, there's a diamond dog born that is a bit smarter than the others. Of course, if she isn't alpha, she is either forced to live with the shadow of the alpha breathing down her or leave and try to seek her fortune. I bet you can't guess which one I am?" She went back to shuffling them aside.

"You left." I said the statement she left unsaid.

She looked down and nodded. "Yep. Left them all there to rot. I could care less what happened to them."

I shrugged. "Why didn't you kill me just now? I was helpless."

"I took a moment to think about it. Odds are I can't fight off the slavers. With you sweet talking everybody on the island to your side it made sense to let you lead."

I walked over to her and nudged her with my eyes shut. "Which way is the way out?"

She stopped moving and I opened my eyes. "Well. We found where those magic slingers went." I said out loud.

And then my mind slipped into exactly what I had done before walking into the undead hordes.

I had killed.

I mean, at the time it seemed perfectly reasonable! I was making a point; that we shouldn't show mercy to those who would have us dead.

But I had killed him with my own hooves. That was probably going to haunt my dreams.

More to the point, my first real kill was on a defenseless zebra.

And then it struck home a horribly uncomfortable truth; I might go insane if I didn't have company in my empire.

Back to the cave, I was staring at the brutalized remains of the two unicorns. One of the two's horn had shattered into more pieces than I cared to count for and the other...

Was perfectly preserved and almost a foot long. And sharp.

If canary was right and the horn of a unicorn is one of the best foci for magic.

I smiled widely. I had a better foci.

I snapped back to reality. I needed to stop day dreaming and actually accomplish things. "Can I borrow one of your swords for a second?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "No. What do you need one of them for?"

I rolled my eyes. D- I almost thought the reason for her negative response was because she was a dog. She probably had an actual reason. "I need this horn off of this unicorn and as intact as you can get it."

She nodded. "Any particular reason why? And you can help with the cave in on the other side, that's the way out." She shoved me to the side.

I barely managed to not growl at her.

I began shoveling the rocks out of the way as I could while ignoring the horribly unfamiliar sound of someone sawing on something that was not supposed to come off. And I almost jumped when I heard the thing finally come off and tried to ignore the urge to look over at her. From what I could imagine, the horn was attached directly to the skull.

And I really didn't want to see the brain of the unicorn that just died.

Boss chuckled. "Stupid thing put up a bit of a fight. I got it off in the end though." She gently handed it to me. The end was red with blood and soaked in brain juice.

"Oh god. Don't tell me I have to put this in my mouth." I gently took the very tip of the thing into my mouth and tried to ignore just how dirty that sounded. I placed it into my satchel.

She looked at me oddly. "I think you should get it washed off first before you give it that sort of treatment." That sounded so wrong!

And then abruptly, the rock around us grew hotter. We both stopped talking and worked on shoveling our way out of the cave.

We broke out shortly after. We squirmed through the narrow tunnel we dug and sat there panting for a few minutes before I spoke up.

I sighed and looked down. "I think... we should leave the Magickers alone for a bit. You know, just until we have a method to counter their magic."

She turned to me and growled loudly. "But what about the slaves?"

I looked at her blankly. "You mean the slaves that you put down there?"

She looked away. "I guess I did put a few down there."

I nodded. "Look, we can't take another attack from them unless we have weapons. And your swords look like they could use a little sharpening."

She sighed. "I hate it when you are right. But I still need better weapons than these to take on anything.

I sighed and looked down. "I don't know... I can't get you a sword. Can't you just use your paws?"

She looked down at her paws. Honestly, I was more than a little jealous of her killing devices. "I guess. I really do prefer having something between me and the enemy."

I guess... we were allies. Kinda. If she pulled a knife on me though, I was going to jab this new unicorn horn so far up her... Right, let's not think about that.

But what should I think about? Oh yeah. What happened in the tunnel.

I grit my teeth. It was odd, those two unicorns. They had done the stupidest thing, just sitting there and shooting spells at me. They only teleported at the last minute and that was under the rock slide. And all of those zombies kept coming back seemingly without the unicorns controlling them...

To my mind, it read bad news. Something was happening that I didn't understand and it was confusing me.

"Hey..." A very familiar voice said. "Looks like you two made it out. I couldn't help but over hear your plan..." It was Canary.

I almost groaned. "Tell me you brought the flock and, in a way that isn't a terrible plot device, have two swords on you?" I think the stress was scrambling my head.

Canary shook his head. "I brought Skinner... but I don't have any weapons."

I shut my eyes and calmed down. "Right. Boss. Change of plans. We are taking out the Guards first."

Boss frowned, then nodded at me. "I can agree with this, Ivan."

Skinner's cap squelched slightly as he bobbed his head. I tried not to look at him.

Canary smiled. "How can I assist you in taking out the Guards?"

I smiled at all of them. "Right. Here's the plan."

Splintered Souls and furthered Goals (9)

The plan was incredibly simple; wait until a Guard patrol emerged from their base and then wait a minute before attacking in an ambush.

It really wasn't my best plan but I was pretty sure it was going to work.

I looked around our ambush point that Canary had suggested. We were standing in an alleyway that was not quite collapsed around Government street and every single one of the flock that could was armed with rocks.

Yes. Rocks. I was indeed commanding rock wielding savages.

This was a last resort, mind you. I had expected to either die or emerge triumphant with the Compounders but instead I had emerged with almost half my flock dead and the Compounders regrouping back at their base.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

And that's why I was going so low tech. I to, had a rock balanced on a hoof.

Honestly, trying to describe the process under which I could hold the rock was something that made my head pound. In my case, it was magic and that was about how far I was willing to go into the issue. I was just happy I had some method of throwing something that didn't involve my mouth.

Floyd shifted slightly. I had promoted him to being just under Canary. Skinner was just below Floyd.

Faintly, I could hear what we were waiting for. The nice swish of light armor on fur and the light clanking of ill-fitting heavy armor.

Floyd smiled widely and got ready to throw. I turned to him and glared. "Not yet." I mouthed.

I motioned to my group and we pressed ourselves against the wall of the alleyway. The wall itself was heavily cracked and I was surprised it haven't given way yet. I stared at the patrol as they passed.

They were all Diamond dogs. One carried a nasty looking knife while the rest carried shortish swords. The one that lead the other four had on plate armor that almost seemed like it had been fitted. I assumed he was the leader.

I waited for a few seconds until the Guard patrol had passed by our hiding spot and motioned at them. "Aim for their heads."

I stepped out of cover and hurled my rock against the back of the very back guard. He went down without a sound besides his body thumping against the ground.

I felt like a bad ass.

The rest of my group commenced stoning the patrol; fifteen stones later the only one still standing was the heavier armored dog.

"Boss, your go. We can't take him out easily." Giving orders in battle was a bit easier than I thought.

Our dog stood up from the shadows. She was about a head shorted than the other dog and I wasn't as confident in her as I wanted to be.

And if you were following, you'd realized I had made a mistake.

She tackled the other dog instantly and knocked his blade out of his sloppy grip.

She howled in his face and forced him back a step from her tackle. I could tell that the impact had hurt her though; she was panting and her eyes were unfocused.

I shook my head and ran over to help her. I had a few spells prepared ahead of time.

"HEY! Have some of this! FIREBALL!" The large ball of fire bounced off the back of his armor and ricocheted directly at my face. "Shit."

I barely dodged out of the way of the explosion. As it was, it hurled me away from the fight and I landed on my side on a pile of sharp shrapnel. I stood up and began to gently nudge the bits of rock out of my side.

"Ha. Puny Zebras spell are no match for armor!" He laughed and then slugged Boss across the face.

She really wasn't the best brawler.

I let out a little whimper of pain and ran back towards the fight. I jumped on the back of the fighting armored dog and bashed my hooves against his face.

In hind sight I should've called the flock to take care of him.

He paused from slugging Boss to throw me off of his back. Which left him wide open; Boss took full advantage of this and scraped across his face with her claws. Blood sprayed off of his face.

"Oh? The little bitch is going to use claws?" He howled loudly. I tried to discern the reason for his howl from my position on the ground. I really didn't want to get back up but Boss was our only hope of dealing with anyone remotely strong. I fought my body and stood up again.

Boss took the opportunity to score his face again. He turned red and pulled his secondary sword. "This no longer duel. This be fight."

I groaned. Was he going easy before that?

Boss sprinted away from him and grabbed the dog's previous sword. "You're right, this is a battle." She brandished it threateningly in front of him.

What followed next was almost a blur of combat. About the only thing I could really make out was that Boss was hacking and that the other dog was parrying and countering just as easily.

And then with his superior strength, the other dog forced her back further and further.

And then he laughed and I saw my opening. "FIREBALL!"

I'm really not sure why I shouted that. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

My spell impacted against his face and he was set on fire.

Boss easily defeated him in his panic and sliced off of his head.

And then razor pain seared through my back and everything slowed down.

The jerk that my head gave to look behind me seemed to take minutes rather than an instant.

The downed dogs snarl as it plunged it's wicked knife into my spine seemed to go on forever as I watched him.

The world seemed to lose color and all I could focus on was the intense pain.

The intense pain and the knowledge of my failure.

I looked back to the battle. The Flock was cheering at our apparent victory and I saw just barely how Boss looked in my direction and saw the dog.

In our fixation on watching Boss's battle, we had forgotten to kill the downed dogs.

And now there was a knife in my spine.

Boss slowly bounded over to me.

Figures. She probably saw the dog while fighting and let it kill me.

My eyes shut before she was halfway.

And then they reopened.

And the world was still.

I had almost perfect vision of the world around me.

And then something whispered in the air.

It was poetic.

I took out a bit of your soul

and placed it in this blade

Because you have survived so far

And this game shall be played.

It will cut through most metals

And stick to you like glue

But if your will should suffer,

I would rather not be you.

Take over this island, Ivan

And you I shall reward,

For you are my gamepiece

You are my iron sword.

That was it.

And it came from all around me at once.

The verses burned into my mind.

And my back erupted into literal fire and my wounds stitched stitched themselves together and scarred in the manner of burn marks. It was a nifty pattern that was almost reminiscent of a river of pain winding it's way through my back.

And the dog's knife fell out and hit the ground and glowed faintly.

And then time restarted and the dog behind me looked around for where his knife went and found the newly enchanted knife only seconds before Boss tore his head off of his shoulders.

"Damn it Ivan. I need you alive!"

Oh. How cute. She needs me alive so she can kill me later.

Canary ran over to my side. "He's ok. I think... he just almost blew himself up with magic.

It was curious. I had the oddest feeling of not having something. Like there was something that had always been there that was not quite whole. And then I reached down and nudged the blade and there was a sensation of being whole again that was almost impossible to fathom.

It was a good feeling. I never wanted to let go of that knife. Said knife was faintly glowing at my contact with it and I tried not to sigh at relief. Nine inches of pure awesome.

Dear god that sounded so wrong.

I didn't want to part with it.

And oddly enough, I could sense that it wanted the same. It was a knife that ached sickeningly of myself.

I fell over on my side and closed my eyes and tried to ignore an odd searching sensation that enveloped my being shortly after I realized it was somewhat sentient.

It was like someone was searching my body for just the right spot to stick a pin into and was prodding every square inch of my flesh to make sure that he or she was prodding just the right spot.

And then the knife fell from my hoof, whatever mysterious process that had bound it there failing.

And I felt empty. And lonely. And cold.

"Hey. Ivan. Are you going to make it?" Canary prodded my side and my eyes shot open. The world didn't seem as warm and all of the colors seemed muted.

"Yeah... what... happened?" My tongue seemed slightly numb.

Boss shrugged out of the corner of my eyes while Canary opened his mouth. "I think you had an extreme adrenaline reaction and triggered off a burst of magic that cauterized your wound. I've seen it before in the mines. A Canary would hit a pocket of poisonous gas and just explode with magic as he or she tried to get out of there." Canary lifted me onto his back. He laughed a little. "You could stand to lose a few pounds. Are you sure you were in the mines with all of us?"

Boss chuckled. "You scared me there for a minute. I thought you were a goner for sure."

I squirmed off of his back. "Canary, drop me. We have to take out the Guard now. If we don't before they realize that their patrol is dead they will be expecting us." I hurriedly ran over to where the knife was and grabbed it and instantly my head felt better.

Canary sighed. "Are you sure we shouldn't do this another time? You did just get stabbed in the back, after all."

I glared at him. "No. FLOCK." I shouted.

Canary assembled with the rest of my zebra troops. Boss stood over to the side. "Now I made a big mistake today." I walked over to the nearest Diamond dog and slit it's throat with the knife. I ignored the sensation of the blood of my arm and tried to ignore the faint feeling I was getting from the knife of slicing open something.

"I left these dogs alive so I could watch a one on one battle." I nodded and walked to another dog.

"But that's not the only flaw in my plan. We sat and watched Boss get the shit kicked out of her instead of helping. We are all part of the same flock and we will team up on enemies. There will be none of this one on one foolishness." I slit another throat and tried to ignore the skin crawling sensation.

Boss nodded her head in agreement. Canary smiled at me.

"From now on if I find anybody who is stupid enough to want to fight something without help, I will punish them severely." The last dog was for sure dead at this point.

"As it is, the spoils of this battle go to the people who helped the most. Boss, you get first pick. Canary, you get second. Floyd, you get third." I nodded and wiped off my new knife on the dead body of a dog.

"The rest of you? I'm sorry. We are about to go into an enemy base that is most likely not friendly in the slightest with the bare minimum on equipment. If anybody has an issue with that, please leave now."

Not a soul moved on that ruined street. I smiled. "Good. I'm proud of all of you. Now. FLOCK!"

The mostly mindless zebras straightened to attention. "Right. Do all of you know how to make a barrier?"

"YES SIR!" I smiled. It felt really good to be in charge.

"How many charges do you have of fireball prepared?"

"TWO SIR!" Most of them shouted, though Canary shouted three.

"Boss! Take your pick of the spoils."

She bowed to me and walked over to the corpses and looked thoughtfully. She tugged off a leather piece from one of the lesser dogs and put it on. It fit rather well. She stole the lead dog's sword so she could have a matching set.

"Canary! Take your pick."

Canary walked away with a sling and a large feather that had been tucked into one of the dead dog's armor. I tried not to wonder what it was for.

Floyd took his pick and ended up in the lead dog's plate armor.

And then I walked forward and stood in the center of the carnage. "Flock. You may take your hats."

I looked away from the disgusting squelching noises as Skinner did his job. I idly wonder whether he could skin an entire zebra and wear it like a costume but almost vomited at the thought.

Skinner looked around. "Who wants hats!"

I had my eyes shut so I didn't see it coming when he placed the scalp of a diamond dog on my head. It was still faintly warm and gooey and clung to my head like some incredibly nasty animal had decided to try to snack on my head.

I looked around and saw that every other member of my flock with the exception of Canary and Boss had put one on. I smiled and nodded.

"Skinner, thanks for the hat."

I figured I had to wear it to keep morale up.

I turned to Boss. "Go get your group together. We will be attacking in ten minutes."

She nodded and looked vaguely impressed. "Nice speech." It was almost sarcastic, but not quite. She took off in a sprint down the street.

Canary watched her go and gave me the feather. "Levitation." He confessed.

I took it from him and channeled a bit of magic into it. It was a new spell, as simple as that. I could lift a few pebbles just a few inches off of the ground. "I see." My disappointment was written across my face. My dreams of lifting boulders were quite a bit further than I was hoping.

He smiled. "Relax. You'll get stronger eventually."

I looked down at my hooves and wished I had hands. And then did a double take. The knife was literally stuck to the front of my leg.

"What?" I asked out loud and lifted my leg and shook it fiercely. The only change to the blade was that it was now affixed to my left hoof.

Canary was watching. "Looks like that knife is soul bound. You aren't getting rid of that anytime soon."

"You're kidding, right?"

He shook his head. "The ladies are going to love your scar."

I hoof palmed and immediately regretted it. Solid hoof hitting you in the face hurts. "Soul bound. What is this, WOW?"

He didn't get the reference and I supposed that I shouldn't be dropping too many of them.

I sighed. "So... it's stuck to my leg?"

He shook his head. "As long as you keep it near to you or in whatever you are carrying it should be alright. You just have to let it know that you are moving it."

That sounded incredibly stupid. I reached my leg up near my face and whispered to the knife. "I'm putting you in my satchel now, you knife... thing." It made an odd shiver that made me think it disapproved. And trust me, of all the weird things I had seen, a disapproving knife is way up on the top of my list.

He sighed. "You have to treat your weapons with respect. All of them, from your biggest blade to your dullest knife. You might as well name it while you are at it."

I grit my teeth at how cliche that was. "Really? Name my blade, huh? Fine. This knife shall now be known as Disconsolate.

For whoever gets in the way of its blade is not worth consoling." The blade seemed happy at that and let me brush it off into my satchel.

I thought about how I got the knife and shook my head. There was no time to think about it.

I looked around at my troops and smiled.

Ten minutes until we battle.

Charge the Guards (10)

There was a minute left until the battle and Boss still hadn't shown up yet. I debated whether to wait for her or not with Canary.

"We need Boss for this attack, Canary."

Canary shut his eyes and then opened them. "No we don't. The Flock needs to be able to know that their leader isn't going to change plans at the last minute."

He was right, of course. "Why do you always have to be right?" I asked, looking over at the Guard base.

The base itself was a simple building, quite unlike Compound one. Its walls looked to be made of rough hewed stone and it was possibly the most foreboding spot on the island for us at the time. There was a constant patrol of griffins flying around it. They'd fly for a few minutes and then switch out with another griffin.

I smiled like I had a carefully crafted plan that would get us in there and fighting. The truth was I had the barest semblance of plan and that plan involved a bit of running and screaming and more than a few barrier spells.

"Flock." It was time to fight. "Here's what we have to do. I need all of you to keep up your barriers spells and long as you can so that we are not obliterated by arrows. Canary, I need you to cast fireball and draw the griffons from the sky down to the ground so we can fight them."

Canary nodded at me and reached into his pouch for the prepared spell.

I turned to Floyd who looked like some kind of odd turtle with hooves. His chosen armor swallowed up most of his body and he could just slowly move around in it.

"Floyd, with your heavy plate armor, your job is to sit there and draw any spells that they try to cast. If I'm right, most will just bounce off." I turned to face Skinner, his grisly cap still on his head.

I had managed to ignore the fact that a similar one rested on my hand. "Skinner, I need your assistance. Once the griffins are taken care of, if we haven't lost that many of the Flock, you and I will try to infiltrate their base and back stab or otherwise disable as much of them as we can before we are caught." I turned back to the rest of the troops while Skinner nodded.

"The rest of you; whenever we get to the top, and I do say WHEN not if, that will be your cue to rush the fortress with your barriers out. If fate smiles down on us, than that will be just enough time for Boss to arrive with reinforcements. If not... I expect every single one of you to fight your very best. Good luck and get hats." I nodded at them.

Each one of their faces grew serious. "Yes sir."

Canary had a grim smile on his face. "Shall I start the ceremony?"

His wording left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. "Go for it."

He closed his eyes and his body seemed to tense up in concentration. "Fireball." He whispered. The small ball of fire clipped one of the griffins in the wing and it tumbled down like an airplane in a death spiral. It would've been comedic if it didn't look so painful. The griffin's face looked like it was torn into a scream and soon he did start screaming.

It was gut wrenching. And then eight griffins flew over from the roof top of the building with their eyes a lit with the fire of revenge.

I had miscounted. I had expected four griffins.

The plan had barely been in action for five seconds and it was already falling apart. "FLOCK! Prepare for attack!"

The griffins were lightly armed with spears and one carried a knife in it's talons. A few of them had chain mail.

After a few moments of thinking, during which the griffins were flying towards us, I realized why; They were not worried about an air strike. All of their ground troops were probably heavily armored goliaths.

The enemy was greeted by a single stone thrown at them that didn't even fly far enough in the air to hit them. It hit the ground and pretty much summarized our chances.

"Flock. FIREBALL!" The griffons were greeted by fifteen fireballs to the face. To be honest, that part of the plan went a whole lot smoother than I expected it to.

They fell down from the sky like shot birds with their feathers aflame. The Flock pounced on top of the griffons and began killing them.

I ran forward and carefully slit their necks. It occurred to me that I was probably going to have a bit of a nervous breakdown once I had the island in control. Everytime my knife passed through there body it felt I was dragging a particularly sharp piece of myself through there. It was a pretty disgusting bit of feedback. Especially since I was holding the knife in my mouth and the griffon blood got everywhere and UGhh.

I nodded at Skinner. "It's our move now. Canary, hold the ground out here and try to be as distracting as possible."

He smiled and nodded. "Yes sir."

I must've had half of my face covered in blood. That's what it felt like at least. I spat the blade out onto my leg so I could use my mouth to channel other spells.

I nudged skinner and pointed at the fort. There was quite a bit of rubble; we had chosen a very strategic spot by attacking from behind the remains of a broken building.

I ducked into the mess of the collapsed concrete and began, to the best of my ability, to sneak around to the side of the fort without being seen. I really wished I didn't have stripes.

It made me paranoid to have striped. My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest and every few seconds that I thought they were looking for anything I pressed myself against the rock and did my best to blend in.

I didn't think it was effective. After a long while of trudging through ruined buildings we were out of cover. I looked around desperately and found nothing we could use. There was only a straight shot from our position to the back door.

I looked at Skinner and nodded. "Run for it."

And then from the front of the fort there was a muffle explosion and a fireball flew over head. I figured that was the best cue I was ever going to get.

I ran up to the door with Skinner close behind me and, without thinking, drew my new knife into my mouth and slashed down the crack of the door.

I heard the distinctive sound of metal cutting metal. I pushed the door open and realized I had successfully cut though the dead bolt.

And then the stealth part of our mission began.

I had to think for a minute just how to stealthily kill someone. Backstabbing sounded like a good idea, but so did throat slitting. I finally decided on a mixture of both.

There was literally not a soul around the back part of the building and I took the time to remember a few details of the innards of the place.

There were more marble floors. Which is bad because I have hooves.

And there went my plan...

I turned to Skinner, and saw, to my horror, that he was taking his skin 'hats' and placing them on his hooves. It was a ludicrous idea but I didn't have any others. "Skinner, give me some of those hats so I can do that."

And trust me, the sensation of slipping your hoof into a sack of flesh so that you didn't make as much noise was just as disgusting as you think it was.

But hey. I was stealthyish.

I mean, I squelched with every step instead of making a clopping noise.

It was an ok trade off. I guess.

The walls had a few paintings on them and I tried not to look too closely at them. It seemed like a very good way to get distracted.

It was very depressing, really. I was taking down what remained of an entire island's government system just so I could rule over it and assert my dominance over everything I could. Because really, I don't think anybody could've at that point.

There was a long corridor to our right and a single metal door to our left. I looked at Skinner. "Which should we go?"

He blinked at me. "You're the leader, you decide!"

I resisted the urge to facehoof. I really needed to get decent henchmen after this.

I walked over to the metal door and tried the door knob. And then blinked. How the hell did I just try the door knob with a hoof? I shook my head. "Worry about it later."

It was locked, regardless. I smiled at my knife and grabbed it back into my mouth from my chest. I carefully cut the dead bolt from the door and pushed it open. It was an armory. Armor and amulets and swords and maces and all sorts of things were still on the walls.

I smiled. I knew exactly where I was going to go when I took this place. And it was a when, not an if. I had to take this place. I was going to take this place.

There was no half way point. I had an entire island depending on me.

I looked at Skinner. "Hey. It's the other way and we need to be stealthy." I squelched my way over to the long corridor and looked up. The corridor looked to be two stories high and on the inward facing side there were stain glass windows.

We made our way across the building in total silence.

And that's when we encountered our first guard. He was slowly patrolling the next corridor in a pattern that I noted to be highly inefficient.

In a flash I was behind him and my knife was buried into his back. He fell on top of me and made very little noise. I dragged his body to the armory far out of the way of the door and journeyed back. I sighed and frowned at the sizable blood trail that led back to the armory. "Well. I didn't think that through."

Skinner chuckled. "Neither did I, sir."

I turned my head so fast my neck cracked. "Did you just show personality?" My eyes were wide.

He shook his head. "No sir. Or at least, I don't think I did."

I clenched my teeth. I had to deal with the varying intelligence of my lessers after this.

I sighed and kept walking forward while trying to ignore the fact that my entire back was covered in his blood from where the guard had fallen against me.

I had my knife at chest level so I could easily reach down to grab it in my mouth when the time came.

The second guard was far more of an issue. Skinner took care of him with his own sharp skinning knife and the stupid guard let out a squeal before Skinner put him down.

I had to note that Skinner had quite the potential for stealth operations.

As it was, his squeal forced us to cower against the walls and wait to see if we were to be overrun. And I was forced to face the reality of my plans. I had to clear out two more dens of things which would not find it any disservice to themselves to kill me and maim my body into a few million pieces.

I closed my eyes and tried to remain calm. I was not meant to be a fighter.

My heart thudded hard against my ribcage like it was a caged demon trying to break free from my cursed flesh.

I blinked. I was getting poetic in my stress.

That wasn't a good sign.

Skinner nudged me. "Are you ok, sir?"

I nodded. "I'm fine. Just... thinking."

He pointed down the hall. "We'll have time to think when we take this place. We need to keep moving, sir." I smiled at him.

"That's right." I unpressed myself from the wall and shook my head to try to clear it. I had too many thoughts cluttering it. I nodded and continued down the hall.

I was gasping for breath when we made our third kill. It had been a close one and the zebra had almost made it away from us before we could fully put it down. My front was spattered with blood from throwing myself into him and slicing open his stomach.

Skinner slit his throat and put him out of his misery.

I smiled. "You are good at this."

"Thank you sir." He seemed like he had more of a personality than I did half the time.

I felt like smashing my head into the stone walls when we killed the fourth one. I pulled out my ruby and slipped into the spell.

There were forty heavily armed troops waiting for the front gates to open to swarm the fifteen or so troops I had. I continued looking in the spell. There was a massive Dog, the likes of which I had never seen on the roof along with

I sighed. "Skinner. We have to split up." I shook my head. There was no way he was going to come back from my mission.

He looked at me sharply. "Sir?"

I pointed up. "The leader is up there. I'm going to distract him." I pointed down. "I need you to distract the group of dogs downstairs."

He looked down. "But sir..."

I nodded. "I know. Both of our tasks are suicidal. Just..." I sighed. This was depressing. I really didn't want to die and odds were that Skinner was the closest thing to companionship I was going to get for a long time. I closed my eyes for a minute. When I opened them, I realized he was crying.

"Nobody told you. There's an Alpha up there. He's going to tear you limb from limb." He shook his head and a few more tears fell.

I turned and looked at him. "An Alpha is the big dog, right?"

He nodded and kept crying. "You are our best hope... most of the others can't think well and I can barely think... When you said you were going to take on the Guard first... we only followed because we knew we'd die honorably. All the enthusiasm... It's real." He looked down.

I looked at him. "What?" I didn't understand.

"They did something to us in the mines. They messed with our heads; made it almost impossible not to take orders. Canary told us that if you took the island you'd figure out a way to fix us..."

I looked down. I felt horrible in a way. Something shifted around my heart. "But I will."

He looked back at me, his eyes watery. "What will you do?" His blood spattered face had clear trails from the tears.

"I'm going to kill that dog. By hell or high water that thing is dead." It was odd. It felt like liquid courage was flowing through my veins. I felt like I could literally do anything. My senses felt supercharged and the air tasted of crimson.

Skinner looked at me for a long moment. "It feels like you could actually pull it off. And if there were ever an Alpha to do it, it's this one. He believes in honor."

I was almost speechless at how much my fellow zebra was talking. "And how should I use that to my advantage?"

He smiled lightly. He had hope in his eyes. "Challenge him to a duel."

I blinked. "A duel?"

The light quickly faded. "I was a Canary in Compound One. Grim, the Alpha, was the head of the place. He was a very active head of the place and took it pretty personal if someone didn't bow to the system quick enough. He'd present them with an ultimatum."

I nodded. "An ultimatum?"

"He'd draw a circle on the ground and grab the slave and place him in the slave in it. Then he'd say that if he took a step outside of the circle before the slave did, that he would give them their freedom. He called all of the slaves into the main room at once to let them watch."

I looked at him oddly. "Sounds... rather lax in security."

"He only did it twice while I was there. Most of the time it was over in less than ten seconds. He would grab their legs and their head and then pull..."

I winced, the mental image rather disturbing. "And then they died."

He nodded. "They just burst open like balloons. I heard a rumor though."

I sighed. "What?"

"He apparently lost once to some guy. He let them go."

"So... I've just got to challenge him and then get him to step outside of the circle?"

"Yeah. You just have to last long enough for him to slip up and then you'll win. I hope."

I nodded. It was probably my only hope.

I paused for a moment.

I was being stupid about the entire thing.

Whoever said I had to play fair?

My eyes lit up and I smirked. "Instead of distracting the enemy downstairs, accompany me back to the armory." I had an idea. A delightfully evil idea.

The Addled Boss Battle (11)

The zebra wore light leather armor over most of his body. Chain mail covered the leather. A leather mask covered most of his face. From the way he walked, it was clear he meant business.

The diamond dog was faced away from him but turned his chair around to look at him. It was definitely a weird office arrangement; it was open to the air. "I hear you responsible for setting my mines on fire. Do you have anything to say before I kill you?"

He blinked. "Wow. I was expecting you to ask for my name first. I challenge you to an honor duel. Whoever wins gets control of the island. Whoever loses dies horribly." He smiled widely and showed a little teeth.

'Note to self, get fangs. They will look awesome.' He thought to himself.

Without fangs his smile wasn't threatening.

The large dog smiled at me from across the desk. His face was scarred up and a nasty badass scar stretched across his right eye. "It's pretty clear that the zebra with balls big enough to walk into my fort and slaughter a few guards would be the one who set mines on fire. I expect you want one on one?"

The zebra nodded lightly. "Shall we mark out the boundaries? And can I ask your name? You already know mine."

He smiled. "You call me Grim."

The zebra smiled. "Right. First to step outside of the circle loses. If Ivan wins, Ivan gets the island. Can you say that out loud before we start?"

The dog nodded. "Right." He paused. "If Ivan wins, Ivan gets Rej island. But first, tell me zebra, why do you seek your death by my paws? There are far less painful means to kill yourself."

The zebra smiled faintly. "I wish to die with honor. I have no illusions about ruling this island."

The dog smiled. "I respect that. I bury your corpse outside mines. If I win, I kill you."

The zebra continued to read out the rules. "If Grim steps out of the circle, he loses. If Ivan steps out of the circle, he loses. Do you swear on your honor by these rules?"

Grim nodded and pushed his desk against the wall. "I swear on my honor that if I step out before you-"

The zebra shook his head. "You could refer to many different zebras. Say Ivan."

"I swear on my honor that if I step out of this circle before Ivan does I will give him this island and let him kill me. I can just pick up puny zebra and throw you out of the ring easily enough." He grabbed a piece of chalk and marked out a rather large circle with a radius of about five feet. Grim was almost double the height of the zebra across from him. He cracked his huge knuckles and assumed a lazy position.

"Right. Are you ready?"

"Are you ready to die, zebra?"

"GO!" The zebra shouted, then immediately stepped out of the circle. "Have fun with that fight!" He walked well out of range to the other side of the roof.

Grim blinked and walked out of the circle and slowly towards the zebra. "You just... forfeited."

And then I threw open the door. "No. You did. Your life is mine, bitch."

Skinner pulled off his armor. "Sorry. My names not Ivan. You stepped out of the circle before he did."

The stupid dog growled. "W-what...? I was... I..."

"You lost." I said, laughing.

He looked lost and confused. "I... I... You..."

Skinner smiled. "That's right, You stepped out before Ivan did."

I walked behind him and patted him on the shoulder. "There there. We all die eventually. Now go downstairs and tell those nasty guards that I am now the rightful ruler of this island..."

The Alpha turned to Skinner. "But what about wanting honorable death?"

Skinner shrugged. "I guess I'll get mine later."

The dog's sobs racked his frame. "But... I was cheated..."

I shook my head. "You stepped out of the circle before me. Whether I was in the circle or not doesn't matter. I mean, the rules never said I had to be in the circle."

The dog had large salty tears coming from his eyes. I almost felt sorry for the dumb animal. He took in a deep breath and stopped sniffling. "I am nothing if not honorable. Do with me as you wish."

He walked down the stairs slowly and we both followed close behind. I had my knife pressed to his back. His body was slightly sweating. I felt like laughing.

And then I tapped Skinner on the shoulder and slit his throat. Blood sprayed out and then he died, his lifeless corpse resting against my side. I shut my eyes to stop from getting blood in them and then turned to Grim. "I expect you to tell the truth; that I beat you at your own game."

He turned to face me and his eyes widened. "Why is other zebra dead?"

I smiled slightly. "Don't you remember? You killed him while I stepped out from cover to soundly defeat him. His sacrifice will be remembered."

He gulped. "Ivan is scaring Grim."

I smiled wider. I supposed that my entire face was slick with freshly spilled blood. "Good. I will let your death be as honorable as possible."

He continued walking downstairs, and after several fearful glances, opened the door to the main room. "Boys. It's over. We've lost."

Forty five pairs of eyes shot over to stare at us. "What?"

"I introduce new leader. Ivan now is rightful ruler of island."

"Hell yeah, that's right. I beat him in the circle."

His troops looked confused. "Grim... what are you saying?" A pegasus walked forward. His armor had a shield welded to the front of it that extended down until it almost hit the floor.

The soon to be dead Alpha bowed his head. "Iron guard... You serve Ivan."

Iron Guard jerked his head around to glare at me. Grim shook his head. "He defeated me, you don't stand a chance."

Iron guard sighed. "You are right."

I stepped out from behind the dog. "And my first order is for all of you to meet me up top. I have a dramatic scene we need to act out for my troops."

I stepped out of top of the roof and waved at my zebra allies, totally unaware of the massive hulk of a diamond dog behind me. He smashed into my side and threw me against a wall while his troops sat there and laughed.

"That's right puny Canaries! I have defeated your valiant ruler! I own you no- ERk." His body collapsed and almost killed me by crushing me. I narrowly jumped out of the way and grabbed my knife from his back. He had luckily fallen on his side. I clutched it into my teeth and stabbed it into his throat, making blood gurgle out of the powerful predator's body. It sprayed in a warm shower over me, turning my coat more of a red and black instead of a white and black.

Even as the light faded from his eyes, I kept dragging the knife back and forth, eventually overcoming his body's natural regeneration. After a long moment of checking for a puled, I began sawing at his neck.

The crowd gathered at the foot of the castle was almost speechless apart from a few whispers. "Is Ivan dead?"

After a long moment I had Grim's head in my hooves. I waited a moment for dramatic tension to build and then lifted it far into the air. "FLOCK! YOUR OPPRESSOR IS DEAD! I have defeated him in his rightful combat!" I turned back to face the forty five soldiers that were still around me.

"ALL HAIL IVAN! FREER OF SLAVES AND KILLER OF ALPHAS!" They chorused and bowed as one.

I walked over to the edge of the roof and smiled at them. "FLOCK! ARE YOU READY TO TAKE ON THE REST OF THE ISLAND?"

My zebra troop fed on my enthusiasm. "YES SIR!"

"ARE YOU READY TO AVENGE SKINNER? I WAS WITH HIM IN HIS LAST MOMENTS!"

There was a silence on the battlefield.

"Do you want to hear his last words to me?"

"Yes sir." There was a distinct lack of happiness.

"He said that he had a dream. He dreamed of an island where EVERY Species was united under one ruler! A place where anybody could be free to live under FAIR rules."

The crowd seemed to slowly perk up as I bsed my speech.

"And do you know who he said should lead it? With tears in his eyes and blood pouring from his body? His life's blood?"

There was more silence.

"He said that I should be the one to lead Rej to Utopia! This island is broken and I will reforge it with the flames from the burning bodies of our enemies! We should carve aqueducts dedicated to watering our fields with their blood!"

And then, like magic, the crowd began to perk up to the point that they started stomping their hooves against the ground. "IVAN!"

"Under my guidance we will hold this island against all invaders!" There was a loud thud behind me and I ignored it to the best of my abilities. "In the next week, we shall gather our forces and take on the last of our enemies. The Magickers shall fall!"

"Hmph. Looks like the Canary got out after all. Such a shame that he did." The voice was familiar, and while I couldn't place it with a name and a face, it sent shivers down my spine. I turned away from my army.

Facing me was the largest griffon I had ever seen. A slice of blood slashed across his face like he had just sunk his talons into something he hated. And he was giving me a stare that told me he hated me. His wing span could easily cover most of the roof top.

And after a few long seconds where I thought he was going to slice me into a thousand pieces with just his eyes, I noticed that Boss was slung across his back. She looked rather bad off and her fur was matted.

"Yeah. I've got your little bitch right here. She saved my life. Which is just about the only reason I'm not killing you and taking over this island. It'd be simple... except..." He stopped glaring at me and tapped his talons against the stone roof top.

I noted he was missing two talons. "What happened? And who are you?"

His beak was clenched tightly and a few tendons on his neck bulged out. "I'm Terror. And I tangled with something tougher than I was."

I gulped inaudibly. He looked like he could've easily taken out Grim. It made me wonder why he didn't. And something was tougher than him? "What happened?"

He smashed his right front leg into the roof top. "I. Don't. KNOW. I was stranded in Compound five when the cave ins started." He looked up into the sky. "And then there was no response from compound six. Or seven. I went to investigate..." He looked away.

I tapped my hoof impatiently. "What was wrong?"

"There was a thing there. And it killed them all." His brow was furrowed in concentration.

"What?"

He glared at me. "All I can say is that it chanted constantly and that it had tentacles. It might've been purple." His feathers seemed ruffled.

I blinked. "That's the best description?"

He shut his eyes. "It's... hard to describe. It was the scariest thing I have ever seen. I had so many eyes..."

And then, to my horror, he shivered.

He shook his head to clear it. "Look. If you can take out that thing, you can have my services. Otherwise... I'll go where the wind takes me. Preferably away from that fucking thing." He placed Boss down on the roof top and pressed his wings to his side.

I grimaced and turned back to my forces. "Right..." I sighed, the urge to make a speech gone. I turned back to Terror. "Yeah. If you'll help me take out the Magickers... I'll figure out how to deal with that thing."

He frowned. "Yeah." He looked around. "The fires are out in the mines. After Boss... saved my ass in the mines they all went out."

I clutched my head. I looked at Grim's forces. "This will be my new base. You will all see action soon."

"It was a horror." Terror repeated. "A horror that was indescribable."

Bane of the Sane (12)

I had to take stock of exactly what I had to my name at this point. My mind was abuzz with possibility and it was almost making me manic with ideas.'

The plan had worked. My stupid, made up on the spot plan had worked. It was insane.

I had around sixty troops with varying degrees of training and all of them were clad in well fitting armor. Weapons were of course provided to them.

I had one Alpha head full of teeth that I was probably going to use later as a decorative centerpiece.

I had one soul bound dagger which was sticking to me whether I liked it or not.

I had one island in name only.

I had one guard base full of art and not too many practical things.

I had one satchel filled with several gems and a unicorn horn.

And those were all of the things that I had that could easily be explained in even more detail. What really had me worried were some of the more powerful beings in my employ:

Canary. I thought him to be a plotting and powerful individual who for some reason was helping me take over the island. He was my chief adviser. I had a feeling that he had lied to me several times already and I just didn't know enough to see through his false words.

Boss. The Diamond dog who had thrown me into slavery in the first place. Half of me wanted to kill her and half of me wanted to keep her alive so that she could help clear the island of dissidents. She wanted an island.

Terror. The massive griffon who guided me into slavery and quite frankly almost made me wet myself. He was an outlier. He promised to fight on my side as long as I deal with his problem.

And there was his problem. Some tentacled thing was munching on the slaves I hadn't freed yet.

But the fires were out. Which was very good. If I could get some sort of quick system of transport between the compounds I could start mining again.

Talon looked oddly at me. I must've zoned off again. "Right. Do you know where the library is on this island?" I asked him.

We were standing in front of the Guard base waiting for Boss to wake up. Canary was standing over from the side watching us both.

I sighed a bit. This conversation really wasn't going any where. "Right. How much do you want to bet that the Magickers are behind that tentacled thing?"

Canary shrugged. "I haven't heard of any new activity from them. It has only been a day, though."

I glared at him. There were too many variables in my equation. I'd have to start eliminating them shortly. "Go to my room and wait for me."

I had to be almost clinical at this point. I had so few troops that the loss of any of them, even the ones that I thought were suspicious, could potentially issue forth an insurmountable obstacle.

I had a wave, maybe more than one wave, of slavers that were going to try and retake the island. And the thought of that scared me more than I realized.

"One step at a time." I mumbled. I looked around and spotted Canary walking away and Terror looking at me expectantly. I could only assume I had nodded and mumbled my way through his talk.

I watched him and it almost looked like he was swimming in the air. I shook my head to try and clear it and odd colors swam in the corners of my eyes.

And suddenly I could smell. And there was smoke in the air and the air was rank and slightly foul. And it almost tingled with electricity. Like waves of power were buffeting through the air. All I could smell was copper and the air tasted like static. My legs felt like gelatin.

Wait a second... gelatin is made fr-

Ok. Wrong simile to use there.

My mind felt like it was running a rat race just to process exactly what was in front of me. The massive griffon in front of me almost looked demonic with the flashes of color floating in front of him and cloaking him in a miasma of corrupted vision.

Terror opened his beak. "Yes. We should take this plan a step at a time. Are you sure you are ok?" I shut my eyes tightly and fought off the sudden waves of nausea.

I shook my head. "Not... really." I barely slurred it out of my mouth. Something was wrong... I couldn't... everything was coming in through a fog. "But... I'll be fine. L-let's just take out the stupid library."

I gripped Disconsolate tightly in my mouth to try and take the edge off of it. It barely worked.

"The second you take care of what's in the mine I will kill you." It was Terror's voice.

I opened my eyes and stared at him. "What?" I slowly backed away.

"I said that we should take the library soon."

I stared into his eyes and tried not to let on how off his voice was sounding. I shut my eyes again. "Yeah. Good idea. Let's do that." When I opened them, the world was back to crystal clear.

He looked at me oddly and I caught the faintest whiff of confusion through the air. Which was odd, as I had never smelled confusion before. It smelled vaguely like cinnamon mashed into apple banana jelly. Not the best smell in the world but far from the worst I had ever smelled.

The point of the matter was that I couldn't smell normally since I had been in the mines. None of the Canaries could smell normally. It was assumed that the toxic gasses literally seared the portion of the exposed nerves responsible for smelling in a way that prevented the extreme 'OH SHIT THIS IS TOXIC' reaction that you would expect from being exposed to several highly toxic gasses several times in a day.

And since when could I smell confusion? That was just weird.

I shook my head again. All of that quiet contemplation was doing nothing to abate Terror's query.

"Right... After this, I'm going to request that you take a nice long nap." I could almost hear his feathers catch against the wind. "Die you freak."

It was almost like someone was slowly unstopping my senses one by one. And then added some paranoia motivated broadcast thing for thoughts.

Honestly, the entire thing was making me paranoid. Much like most things on the island.

I smiled lightly. "I'll have to accept that. Now, I'm going to rally the troops and then we are going to take out the library." I had to keep calm and show no weakness. They were all predators circling me, watching for any signs of weakness so that they could pounce upon it.

In my new position of power, I felt more like prey than I had ever felt before. It was like I was in the scopes of a sniper and he was waiting for the perfect shot to scatter my brains everywhere in a cloud of lost ideas and shattered dreams. I could almost feel the prickle of someone's talons raking across my throat or the agony of being stabbed... again.

I bit down on the knife until my teeth started to ache before smiling at Talon. "Any other questions?" A coppery taste was slowly filling my mouth, but the smell was driving my senses into a wild frenzy like I had thrown them for a loop and they were still returning to me.

He was looking at me like I had grown another head. "You do realize that you just cut your cheek, right?" "Freak."

That must be where the coppery taste was coming from. I nodded dumbly. "It was my intention." Show no weakness.

"Your intention was to cut your cheek?" He rolled his eyes and turned away. "Just remember our deal." His voice was cold steel and cut straight through me.

I shivered despite the sun. There was almost a nip in the air that necessitated some kind of covering on the islanders. Almost.

I had to wonder where the heck Rej was in the scheme of things. I was in the same world as Equestria, why else would there be griffons and Diamond dogs and magic and crap?

I turned back to my new base and walked inside while wondering about all of it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Canary was waiting in my room. "Ivan?" "He smells nice."

I stared wordlessly and pointed out of my room. "Get out."

"But Ivan, I have to tell you something." He sighed after speaking.

"GET. OUT." I grit my teeth together.

He looked at me. "I'm already leaving." He kicked a package on the floor that was wrapped in paper.

I watched him leave and tapped my front right hoof against the ground. "Give me a moment." I mumbled to him.

"What?" He seemed confused about my order.

"Where are we?"

"In your room, Ivan. I was ordered here BY you before you left to talk with Terror. The writing supplies arrived as you ordered."

"Where is the island of Rej located at?" I sat down on the bed.

"It is located just off the coast of the Volcanic Wastes. Occasionally the slavers would hire guards from there. Or so I was told at least. It's quite a bit too far to swim just it's a pretty easy journey if you take a ship. That's how they got us over here."

He nodded like he had said something mildly intelligent for once in his life.

I touched the blade of my knife. It was rather soothing, like menthol spreading through my body. The red tinges to my vision were back. "Tell our troops to prepare to rest. We attack on the morn. Lock my door, I really don't want any idiot waking me up before then."

He stood up and shut the door and carefully locked it with a hint of magic from his feather.

I was left alone in silence with only the sounds of my mental cogs working and the always present breathing.

And then I collapsed into sleep.

You know that chapter you want to stab yourself over? That's this chapter. But screw this chapter.

Cook the books (13)

Twenty days remained until the next shipment of slaves. I had twenty days to come up with a decent plan that wouldn't involve praying from mercy from the slavers or killing ourselves. I had twenty days to keep morale up to the point that I didn't have to worry about the forty five new troops killing me and seizing my island. It was my island.

I had a weird feeling almost constantly. Someone was calling my name to the wind faintly, seeking to draw me to somewhere away from my troops.

I couldn't let that happen.

----------------------

"Ivan." I was resting in my room when I heard another voice add to it. I jerked awake and looked around. Cold stone walls and a faintly burning torch decorated it. A simple map of the island sat beside my bed.

I shot out of my bed and walked over to the door. I opened it.

"Ivan. Boss is awake." It was Floyd, and a Floyd who looked unusually somber.

I shut my eyes and waited a few seconds before opening them again. Floyd wasn't there anymore. I must have imagined him. I shut the door.

"Are you coming? She wants to see you." And Floyd was back at my door.

I opened it and rubbed my eyes. He was there again. In the flesh. "Uh.. sure. I'll be there with you."

Floyd looked at me, worry in his eyes. "Are you alright sir?"

I nodded. "As fine as I can be."

He looked unsure. "I understand that seeing Skinner die like that was hard..." "He looks sick."

I tensed up. I killed him myself. "I might as well have killed him myself."

He looked down. "Sorry for bringing it up. Do you know the way to the infirmary?"

Calling the dusty cellar an infirmary was a joke. Referring to it as the place we put the diamond dog most of us thought would never wake up and where we threw what few bandage rolls we could find would be better.

I tried not to point out how wrong he was. "Yes."

He walked away from me and I silently fumed. They thought I was useless! They thought I was helpless and feeble!

----------------------------------------------

The medical cellar was about as dusty as I remembered it being; clouds of it wafted up when I stepped in. I carefully shut the door behind me and held my breath until the dust precipitated back down to the ground.

And then something hit me over the head and I collapsed to the ground in a heap.

And then... I was elsewhere.

-----------------------------------------------

I was flat on my back and half way submerged in an odd fluid. I cracked open my eyes and then promptly shut them again after a few seconds. My senses felt like they were overloading.

"Ohhhhhh? IVAN! It's been ever so LOOOOOOOOONG since we've seen each other." I knew that voice.

I shivered and opened my eyes again. I slowly got up from the liquid and realized that it was blood. I was soaked in blood.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the dim room and I noted that the walls seemed to slowly breath and vibrate with every beat of the drum I could faintly hear in the background.

It was an eerie effect, especially when I discovered that it was mimicking the pounding of my heart.

"Who's there?" I took a step away from where I heard the voice. The walls vibrated again and sped up. And in the distance there was the whine of high powered machinery, the hiss of steam and the clank of metal hitting metal.

"You KNOW ME." The voice came from directly behind me and I took off away from . My hooves kicked up splashed of blood from the almost river that flooded the bottom part of the tunnels.

The red splash was everywhere and I slid to a stop at the end of the tunnel.

"What's the matter, Ivan? SCAAAAAAAAARED?"

That was exactly what was wrong, but I had nowhere to go. "No. Why would I be scared?" I scuffed the wall behind me with a hoof when unexpectedly the entire wall caved in and let me through.

"It's useless to try and run." The whisper came from next to my ears.

The new tunnel I was in was ringed with spider webs and little bits of rotten gore that make my eyes water and my nose run. My head felt funny almost as if someone was in it. "I will get away." I mumbled, more for myself than as an example of my resistance to the being.

"No. YOU haven't moved a single step since you've gotten here." It spoke in a sibilant whisper. I sank into the ground up to my head. The gore clung to me like a tight straight jacket and let me see straight ahead.

And then abruptly, I knew where I had heard the voice before.

It was the police officer.

"Not just any officer." The voice spoke into my ear. "I am known as He-who-walks-in-malice." There was a foot step to my side that I couldn't see and the tell tale splash of the gore.

"Rolls off the tongue." I admitted to him. And then it felt like a minor atomic bomb went off in my head and everything tingled faintly, like I was about to be struck with lightning.

My body spasmed as it seemed that that was the case, and a loud roar enveloped my form.

And then my vision faded back to normal, my mind scrambled and fearful.

"But please, call me MALICE." I had the oddest mental picture of a spider in dress shoes tapping against stone. Only, the spider looked like a man and had a cane and a top hat. A rather... stylish top hat.

I preferred fedoras.

"Nobody likes the top hat. Should I at least stick with the monocle?"

"Yes. You look like a british spider mass murderer."

"Great! Just what I was going for. The point of the matter is that you haven't DIED yet. And I want you to die." The mental spider clicked to of his legs together and my vision went black until he appeared in front of me.

"What?"

"Here we are, deeper into your mind. It's been so much fun messing with your mind, Ivan." He buried the tip of the cane into the walls of the stone room we were in.

"We are in m-my head?" I stuttered slightly, suddenly aware of the fact that imagining spiders with tophats holding you hostage in your head was a very very very BAD sign.

He held up a red stop sign. "But, let's STOP this tangent. The point of the matter is that I picked up the wrong person as my little piece on the game board."

I, for some reason, felt highly insulted. "Game?"

"Oh. You are SOOOO clueless, Ivan. It's all one big game, you see."

"I don't see. I also have no idea who you are." I shrugged and the cave stopped eating me and released me on level with Malice.

"I'm an old zebra god. Of revenge. It was said that those who walked my path had SPECIAL powers and were... blessed. They were. Sorta. If I liked them, I took their souls and sucked most of it out and put a bit of my essence into them to guide them along their path. I did that to you."

I WAS SOULESS? "Wait. What?"

"Except I had to leave the most of your soul intact. I really wanted someone with more cunning and killing instinct. Why else do you think I was impersonating a police officer? I wanted a criminal, not some kid who managed to kill some other kid by a bad throw of the dice."

I felt like I had just critically fumbled. "So... where does this leave us?"

He chuckled insanely. "With me inside of your head and with the ability to drive you insane whenever the hell I feel like it."

That was pretty bad. "What... That is a pretty big bargaining chip. What do you want me to do?"

"Oh Ivan. After the last great war between the celestial sisters, I found myself with an interesting problem. The zebras themselves SWOOOOOOOOOORE off vengeance and revenge and BLAMED me for their punishment and failure in the war. I was blotted off of their worshipping! I retreated here and barely kept myself alive."

"Until...?"

"About Twenty years or so ago, the zebra population here got enslaved by those nasty little mongrels. Such a shame, but the captured zebras hearts and souls literally burned with rage and revenge! I couldn't help but suck up some of their excess soul... age." He looked around, the whipped out a vanilla milkshake and set it beside me. A massive straw extended from the drink and placed the drinking utensil at my lips.

I looked at him and blinked. "What. The. Fuck."

"Go on, drink it! It's delicious! You might say that spending a few centuries without worshippers, or even a being that acknowledged your existence could drive anybody, even A GOD completely nuts. Now, what I want from you..." He trailed off. "Drink it already!"

I hesitantly sucked on the straw and to my shock, the stuff in the glass was actually a vanilla milkshake. I smiled lightly and began to suck it down as fast as I could.

"That's sort of what a good soul tastes like. Except, you know, where there's icecream in that glass I'm basically destroying freewill and turning the person into an almost incarnation of vengeance. Both are tasty though." He licked his spidery lips with a long tongue.

"Oh. So what do you want me to do?" I was a bit distracted by the milkshake.

"I want you to find a group of idiots nobody would miss and then kill them, bathe in their blood and rip their souls free so that I may marinate them in suffering and then deep fry them."

"And... how do you expect me to do this?" I wondered, the milkshake finished.

"I expect you to be a shadow of MALICE! Except I won't be controlling you and your only real power is that you'll get to react faster and go a bit faster. It's kinda like a drug, but with more side effects."

"And if I say no?" I was tempted to.

"I suck out your soul like an oyster and then control you manually until the day you die! Doesn't that sound awesome?"

I shook my head. "I'll accept?" I cringed, hoping I made the right choice.

"Of course you made the right choice, silly! Otherwise I was going to suck out your soul and use you as a meat puppet."

I tried to ignore the thought that I was tripping on drugs. "Side effects..."

"Well, you won't be able to hear my voice that well once you wake up. And killing you? That's going to be a bit harder as well. There's also a teeny tiny chance that you'll GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO insane anyway." He snickered at something.

"What's so funny?"

"Spider 'van, Spider 'van, steals souls and fails again."

I clutched my hooves against my ears. "Shut up please?"

"It's shut up, PLZ!" He corrected cheerily. "Now wake up! You have an entire life ahead of you!"

And then he stabbed through my body with one of his ridiculously animated arms.

Comment please.

And one more thing! (14)

"Ivan?" Someone was shaking me hard. I would almost assume the person was desperate for whatever reason. "Are you ok?"

"Ehhhhh.?" I grumbled out, still confused. I cracked open my eyes. "Boss?" A pair of expressive eyes rested on mine.

Her face was inches from mine. I turned an odd shade of red. "Ivan?"

"She's your dog, right? Does she come when you call?"

Malice's voice echoed through my head and I could almost see the smirk on his face. I tried not to gag at the implication.

She shook me again, her eyes narrowing. "Good. You're awake. I was getting worried for a second."

"She totally likes you. Dude. You gonna tap that?"

I closed my eyes. "Uh... what happened?" I scuffed the ground with a hoof.

Malice continued to be obnoxious. "You are in a dungeon. There are chains on the wall. Anybody else thinking bondage?"

"You opened the door and a piece of the ceiling fell off and knocked you out cold. Oh, and don't worry. I heard you moaning in your sleep and I won't tell anyone about your little crush." She was smirking when I reopened my eyes to look at her.

She dropped me against the ground and I gagged in the dust cloud it kicked up into the air. "Crush?" I winced a hair.

"Oh, and about being faster and harder to kill? I lied. I do now own your soul though. It tastes kinda... appley. Like, you ever had a really good apple that just stuck in your mouth for a LONG time? It's like an apple lollipop. Except, made of souls. A soulipop."

"-eard my name." She looked at me. "Are you even listening?"

"Sorry, what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Never mind. Just. Never mind. It doesn't matter anymore."

I blinked. "Ok then."

-----------

"Ivan! You won't believe what the Flock found!" Canary looked far too excited for it to be anything but a bad idea.

"What?" I half asked, half hid.

"We found booze! It would do you no harm to get drunk and let loose for awhile. Might help with those wrinkles on your brow."

I instinctively felt my forehead for wrinkles. "How much booze?"

"Enough to make up for the fact that the Magickers are dead and we attacked them while you were sleeping and didn't tell you?" He said in a single breath, his smile wavering.

"W-what?" I half slurred, biting my tongue in surprise. "You... defeated them?"

"AND FOUND BOOZE! And we only kinda defeated 'em. They were already dead when w' got there." He cheered.

"Are you drunk?"

"Just a hair. Come on! We've got to celebrate. Most of the Flock is waiting on you and they are getting antsy and I think there was a bar fight..." He looked a little nervous.

"Fine..."

The magickers were dead. And my men were all drunk. This seems like a good idea! Sarcasm.

----

Which is how I found myself forced to drink beer so that the rest of my troops didn't riot and force me to step down from my post an owner of the island. The room I stepped into looked like some odd entertainment stage, tables scattered about and drinks on all of them. A rickety wooden stage sat at the back of the room.

"Ish good Boosh. Try it!" Canary forced a cup next to me.

I detested the smell and taste of alcohol. It smells like paint thinner and honestly I thought that most alcohol tasted the same.

Canary smashed his face into his glass on the wooden table they had presented me with and started lapping up his poison of choice.

I cautiously lapped at the drink in front of me and tried not to let on how my eyes were watering from it. And then my eyes shot open as a sensation far surpassing any previous experience swept across my mind like a mint explosion. I shoved my muzzle down into it and drank the rest as quick as I could.

Canary looked at me expectantly and I smiled at him. "It's good."

He slammed another glass towards me. "Come on! Looshen up!"

I lifted up with a bit of magic and chugged it down. "Yeah! Let there be fun!" I shouted.

Suddenly, the room erupted into cheers as the rest of my troops poured into the room and almost began dancing. And they were dancing! The room was swaying and stuff and it all felt really good.

Canary put a hoof on my shoulder. "Ivan! Thish ish the besht idea eversh."

Boss was next to me, her light tan fur swirling around my eyes in a whirlwind of color. "You guys are Canaries, right? Go sing!"

Canary pushed and tugged me on what little of a stage there was in the odd club setting we were in.

"OOOHHH! I HAVE AN IDEA."

And then the room filled with the sound of trumpets and smooth swing jazz and an unexpected clarity swept through my addled mind.

Canary tapped his hoof against the ground. His eyes widened, and he nodded. "Nice beat. Time to swing?"

"Yeah. Can'."

And the song started. "Like the wall paper sticks to the wall!" Canary called out. Someone tossed a gem on the stage and it glowed and amplified his voice.

"Like the sea shore clings to the sea!" The air rang like a bell tolling out it's destined tune.

"Like you'll never get a rid of your shadow..." He paused for only a second. "Ivan you'll never get rid of me!

The crowd was piqued in their curiosity, though really they were far too drunk to care.

"Let all the others, fight and fuss. Whatever happens..." I followed, my lips moving without command.

"We've got us!" We both chorused.

"Me..." I started, the atmosphere happy and cheery and bright.

"We're closer than pages that stick in a book." Canary was lying, but it didn't matter.

"And my shadoooooooooowwwww..." I made the last note last long after it was due.

"We're closer than ripples that play in a brook." He twirled around and my eyes followed him in reflex.

"Strolling down the avenue." There was another long pause. "Wherever you find him, you'll find me, just look."

"Closer than a cave in or the dead is to ravens. Me..." Canary took his turn with the lead line.

"We're closer than dogs when it comes to their gems." I had to ad lib like mad. The words flowed smoothly, their liquid gold feel still intruding upon my mind.

"And my shadow..." The crowd looked like they were enjoying it, the few that weren't passed out.

"We're closer than Skinner was, to his brims." I threw out a reference to him just to make sure that I wasn't coming off as an insensitive bastard.

"Not a soul can bust this team in two. We stick together like glue" A nice unison part only accentuated when Canary broke down into a bit of coughing at the end.

"And when it's sleeping time." I tapped my left front hoof against the stage. My eyes slid over the disorderly rabble that was an insult to anything resembling hardened warriors.

"That's when we rise..." Canary's voice was starting to waver a bit. It unnerved me.

"We start to swing!" Floyd looked to have a small group following him as he heavily exaggerated some tale from the mines.

"Swing to the skies..." I couldn't find Terror anywhere in the crowd.

"Our clocks don't chime..." I couldn't stop singing.

"What a surprise..." Canary rasped.

"They ring-a-ding-ding! Happy New Year!" And then previously unseen fire crackers detonated at the foot of the stage, obscuring my view of the crowd in a smoke cloud.

"Me..." We both had a massive smile on our faces and I was the most relaxed I had been since I had been on the island.

"And now to repeat what I said at the start." Canary swayed on his hooves. I walked over to him and propped him up against me. The smoke cleared.

"And my shadoooow." The crowd was in a drunken state of happiness. The trumpets blared louder still, echoing across the stage like some far away memory of golden times ages past.

"They'll need a large crowbar to break us apart!" Disconsolate was happy and he was echoing us with a metallic hum.

"We're alone but far from blue." Our voices almost sounded as one.

"Before we get finished, we'll make the world roar." I accentuated it by throwing my head back.

"We'll kill all the slavers, and then a few more." He was visibly wheezing.

"We'll wind up right back here once we even the score."

"Life is gonna be we-wow-whee!"

"For my shadow and me!"

The last notes trickled off stage and we stood there for an awkward moment until Canary slumped against me in a faint. I let him hit the ground beside me as there was not a soul in the crowd that wasn't completely wasted.

I followed Canary's idea and slumped to the floor, all of my clarity leaving me in a single whoosh of alcohol induced silliness.

"Messing with you is such fun."

Prepare for wtf moments.

Rej on the ledge (15)

"Hey Ivan... You might want to wake up..."

I shook my head and kept my eyes shut. It helped me deal with the pounding migraine I had developed. And the migraine was horrible, like some tap dancing six legged freak of nature had taken up residence above pure pain and was shoveling it up with a stylized cereal spoon.

"Ignore the pain. Seriously, you need to wake up."

I cracked my eyes open, then shut them just as quickly as I had opened them. Sure, I was being redundant in my narrative and description bu- where the heck did that come from?

"What the hell...?"

I forced my eyes open and tried to take in my surroundings from beyond the multi colored phantasmic blurs and the intense agony eating my face.

The air tasted faintly of cherry soup and everything was on fire. I could see the sun clearly.

"Ivan?" I distantly heard a voice calling. It was echoed and warped like passing through a medium different from air. I turned my head to see Boss.

Except, Boss was supposed to have all four of her limbs intact. This Boss was certainly missing her left front paw and quite a bit of the arm connected to it.

"Boss?" I croaked. My throat felt like liquid glass coated the inside of it.

She looked down at me sadly. "We've lost. Do you remember anything? What's the last thing you remember?"

"We were singing..." I mumbled, pulling myself up to my hooves. Her left paw looked to have been cauterized shut as it wasn't bleeding and there was the distinctly unappetizing smell of burning flesh and fur in the air.

She shut her eyes like she was forcing something back. "Terror betrayed us. While we were having... 'Fun' with alcohol. He contacted the nearest slaver port. He slipped poison in the booze." Her speech was disjointed.

I looked around. I was in the rubble of the guard building, flaming wreckage strew all about. Slowly, my senses returned to normal. The air stank like burning tar and pitch.

And I could distantly hear a roar on the horizon. And an eerie hissing noise.

"What did he do?" I swayed on my feet. I was hurt somewhere, but the pain was in a place that was far and away from me.

"They called down a favor from a dragon. A red dragon attacked while we were sleeping."

I couldn't see the sky for the smoke. I looked down at what remained of the floor. Bits and pieces of gore were strewn about and I tried not to vomit. "And?"

"The dragon got about half of us, we didn't take you with us, we thought you had died when the roof fell in." She was missing one of her swords.

"Where did you go?" I choked back a sob. I couldn't see an intact building.

"We went into the mines." She shook her head.

"How many are left?" I cut straight to the point.

"Counting you and I, we have three left." Canary trudged over from out of my vision.

"The dragon is engaging... that Thing." He looked even shakier than I felt.

I could hear the capital letter in that word.

"That Thing?" The entire island shook with a distant explosion.

Boss looked at me. "The Thing that Terror wanted you to deal with? Yeah. He took matters in his own talons."

"What is... the Thing?" I asked, more than a little confused.

"It's big. It eats things. And it has eyes." Canary said, leaning against rubble.

It suddenly hit me: We had lost. There was no point in fighting. "When do the slavers attack?"

Boss bowed her head. "They are waiting for the dragon to finish off the thing from the mines."

I straightened my back. "I prefer death over slavery." I drew Disconsolate out from my satchel. "Anybody else have the same thought?

Boss smirked. "I'm thinking we go try and take down a dragon." There was a brief gleam in her eyes that signified determination.

Canary shook his head. "We are all going to die... but it's better than being a drooling vegetable." Canary looked younger still. It was no longer seemingly impossible for him to be only twenty years old. He nodded at me.

"And we avoid that Thing at all costs." Boss finished, shivering.

The building shook, and what little remained of the walls collapsed.

"For Rej?" I started, taking a few testing steps. My balance was off, not that it would do me much good against a dragon.

Boss nodded. "Let's go die in glory!" She looked almost excited, a sword in her one working paw.

Canary had a short sword in his mouth. "Let's go."

-----

On the tattered battlefield that the west side of Rej had become, not a single soul moved apart from the ever present mass of flesh that spread out over the better part of several buildings. Parts of it were scorched, but as time went on the burnt bits were slowly sucked in through the mass and replaced with fresh skin. The skin, was less like skin, but more like tar, very much similar to the river of tar and ooze that had been set aflame previously.

And above it floated a massive dragon which was about the same size as it. If you didn't count the wings and tail, that is. It had three legs and the remnants of a fourth leg were sizzling down below in the ooze. It maintained it's position above the much with a flap of it's wings. As the dragon waited for more of it's fire to return to it, the leg vanished into the blob.

A single seemingly sightless eye floated up to observe the outside world from the blob. It blinked once, and then erupted upward in a blur of rapidly forming muscle tissue and sinew. The entire mass drew up into the appendage which resembled nothing more than an organic blade.

The dragon swiped its almost diamond sharp claws through the pseudoblade and severed it from the main portion. Tar like blood spewed out from the severed portion and the Thing's blade went the rest of the trajectory of its ark into nearby rubble. With a sound that echoed like nails on a chalkboard, it hissed and faded into ashen waste.

The mass and the behavior of the blob remained unchanged: Despite its wounds and burns, it still spawned an eye at irregular periods and it still remained a seemingly out of place thing on the ruined isle.

The red dragon roared out his defiance to the creature and blasted it with a corona of heat and visible flame. It might as well have been the very incarnation of wrath at that moment; if it had been a god it probably would have done the same to the thing. Its red scales shimmered dimly in the bright light of the setting sun.

For a long moment, the other monster in the ruins did nothing but smolder in a sea of embers and ashes. And then the skin swelled around the wound and drew it into itself, leaving only a few half formed eyes to stare up blankly at the scaled behemoth.

Sadly, my gaze was not fixed on this titanic clash of gargantuan proportions, Instead, I was struck almost dumb by the large battle zeppelin craft that was flying above the dragon.

"Air... ship..." I mumbled, struck dumb.

If I took an air ship under my command... I could do anything I wanted...

I was torn from my contemplation by Canary nudging my side. He smiled, and dropped an amethyst on the ground. A tiny purple spark jumped from corner to corner of the gem. "You know more songs than I do."

The Air ship fired its cannons off and the floating red flame serpent shook with unveiled pain. It flew out of the way as the explosive charges in the balls detonated. And as it detonated, the dragon shook again as the shock wave hit it.

Spouts of organic tar goo splattered the area and faded to ash. The eye strewn paste slowly reformed again. The name hit me for it. Shoggoth.

Seeing the dragon shake gave me a desperate idiotic delusion that I dared to cling to and insult the rational mind by calling it an idea.

I burst into a half manic grin. "We haven't lost quite yet. Do you have any stones that amplify sounds?"

Canary forced his ears against his head. "I don't like the way you are looking..." He handed me a simple corundum stone, clear and colorless.

I took both in my mouth and then concentrated on a song. I ran crazily ahead over to the clashing foes.

"Hey dragon, I fucked your mom and had you!" I shouted through the amplification spell. "That's right, call me your daddy."

The dragon jerked like he had been struck and looked over at me. I could almost feel his death glare lasers melt the fur and skin off of my form.

One thing I had liked about the so called friend I had. He exposed me to all of his songs...

And I was now risking my life based off the fleeting hints of a few seconds ago.

And then I thought of the music I wanted to play through the tiny engraved gem and the opening them from September burst out.

And the bomb fell and I cranked more magic than I had ever channeled through anything into the rock.

I channeled my outrage against the world into it.

I channeled my ambitions into it.

I channeled my hopes into it.

I CHANNELED MY BLOODY SOUL INTO IT.

And the bomb dropped and the world erupted into a physical display of the ALMIGHTY POWER OF MAGIC BASS. A massive spectrum of every single fucking color in the universe erupted out in one massive display of how I hated the word.

A shockwave of my soul flew through the air faster than I could see and passed through the dragon.

And then...

it stopped flying. Its face screwed up in an exquisite expression of what could only be described as the most satisfying expression I could imagine on it.

I hurt it.

Distantly, the song kicked in. I ignored it, but the lyrics shot through my mind.

"I can't remember..."

I turned to look back at the two beings left on my side. Boss was down on her back and clawing at her ears. Canary was racing towards me at a breakneck pace.

"What happened in September..."

The almost hidden bass line continued blasting forward. I smiled at Canary. "We got this."

Canary pushed me forward. He opened his mouth and not a single sound was heard. The song swallowed everything.

"When everything is gone..."

Everything was slow and fading out. My blood felt like it was surging with pure power and my soul blade pulsed beside me. The feeling of magic exhaustion filled my brain.

"And it's dark and I'm alone..."

I pushed forward with a fore hoof, and then another forehoof.

"It's been forever..."

And then I was racing towards the downed dragon, wind rushing by my body.

"Since I could've remembered..."

And the otherworldly blob rose up to consume the dragon and I blasted it with a magic shockwave to give it pause. It slowly crawled away in search of easier prey.

"Where the hell is everypony?"

And I was in front of the dragon when the air ship let off another explosive cannon bombardment. The shells landed around me and I jumped through a cloud of explosion shrapnel and debris. The death and carnage was distant.

"I just want to know the story..."

And the dragon had landed on its side, a large wing mangled from how hard it had landed. Broken bones and hatred poured out of its body like malignant waves. And I was in front of the face of the beast. I drew Disconsolate

"Of what happened right before..."

It begged me with its eyes to kill it. I stared back at it and saw a myriad of different things reflected back at me.

A picture of what I was back on Earth, happy, and with my family.

A picture of the head of a massive army completely covered in who knows what.

"I became so alone." I drove the blade into its golden eye and kept pushing.

The lyrics faded into the distance and the synth picked up. I could hear the shouts of horror from the air ship. I withdrew my blade from the horrible eye and jumped across to its neck. I slashed it and it let out a whimper of pain. Blood sprayed out of its neck like a high pressure hose.

And I screamed in the grips of whatever magic I had conjured to fell it. I could feel the dragon as it was blinded. I could hear its agony at the world.

Its agony towards me.

Its agony towards the ship.

Something we both had in common.

I shut my eyes and tried to focus on the sensations. I felt myself push against something inside of the drake. It was hard... and scaly and brittle.

I pushed further against it by reflex and it shattered.

And suddenly the dragon was I.

And memories poured over me that I didn't have. Memories of hordes untouched, of dogs thrown into slavery, of roasted meat and flesh and zebras untold all put to work to please its undying greed.

Scorch.

His name was Scorch. And I owned him.

And my magic exploded out into the visible spectrum and I could feel it stream out of every pore.

I was on fire.

I was fire.

I was Scorch.

And in my mind's eye Scorch turned towards the ship. "Destroy?" His gravelly voice spoke of age and of coal and deep metals.

And my magic streamed into Scorch like we were both arcing lightning back and forth from each other. His throat knit and I felt the briefest amount of resistance from his mind. "Capture." He managed to stand up straight as his eyes healed and his wings straightened out. With a snap of bone and sinew and muscle, it healed.

And then his eyes snapped open and we could see the world as the dragon did.

And then he took off towards the ship.

And the blackberry dragon blood stained my coat and I smiled.

I focused harder and then I was in the dragon, in its mind and controlling.

Always controlling.

A dog crawled out from the sip like fleas out of hair. "A-are they gone?" We wanted to eat him. He looked so delicious.

"Land." We spoke in the dragon tongue.

And on command, the ship descended.

The music got softer as I released my hold on the amplifying spell. "Still can't remember..."

And the ship landed. The dogs looked around as the balloon deflated.

"What happened in September."

We watched the dogs watch us. "Get out of the ship." We both growled.

"Back when everypony died."

And they rushed out. They knew we could kill them.

"Trails of blood during my stride..."

And we killed them mercilessly with our claws. Their flesh rended pleasantly, quite unlike the texture of the blob we had been fighting.

"I just discovered..."

And ate them, the dogs and griffons grinding and mashed down our throat to sate our hunger.

"The ponies were defeated by..."

A few struggled to beat us but they were no match. They died and disappeared down our throat.

"Something very strong..."

And the blob hissed from a far and we killed the last of the ants and stared at it, reflexes going on overload.

"It seemed very weird and wrong..."

And then a massive gout of flame erupted out of us and struck down the shoggoth on the spot.

"It just doesn't belong..."

And it didn't work. The shoggoth simply regenerated. The eyes stared at us.

We barely caught a blur out of the corner of our eyes.

"Like it came out of this world..."

And then we were no more.

There was only I and him and Scorch and Ivan both burned for that moment when they were one and everything was clear and everything was perfect.

I dropped the last of the gems from my mouth. The song stopped.

Canary and Boss were both at my side. I could only look at them and watch their mouths move. There was no sound... There was no feeling anywhere.

"It's so cold..." I mumbled, then sank lower and lower.

And then... there was nothing.

Parts and hearts (16)

There were gears and cogs and sprockets and chimes and rhymes and soft music all pouring around and washing apart my color but I wanted my color because it was my color.

And then there was a spider and it crossed over the cogs and my color stayed with me and the spider wove a web and every thing was better and there was webbing and everything was so bright.

"Tsk Tsk. Stupid Ivan." The spider spoke. He continued to slowly weave away the marvelous gears and cogs. I missed them they were so pretty.

The spider sighed. "I would really rather that you weren't so brittle. And you really must try to keep more of your soul in you. Where did you plan on keeping that soul bound dragon? You are lucky I was hungry or you really would have been in trouble."

I did not know where I was and everything was silent.

The spider got in my face and its eyes all stared at me with chitinous gleaming and there were eyes. "Your soul is sort of like a nice bit of webbing. You can snare stuff in it if you want to, but the more stuff in it the more likely that you are to break. Of course... I am the spider. And I eat the itty bits you snare with your soul. But only if you don't want to, you know. Use me?"

He stared at me and I stared back.

----

"If this zebra passes out one more time I swear I am going to make him get me two islands." Boss muttered, kicking his body. Her ears still rang from what ever the hell that idiot had done. If that had been aimed at her she probably would've had her ear drums pop.

The other zebra, this one not half as important, trotted up to her side. "Is he going to be ok?"

The steel and wooden airship was probably the safest place on the whole island. The tar blob monster thing had returned with a vengeance and it was only through the near constant flame of the now friendly dragon that they hadn't been swallowed up by it. She waved her stump on the air and growled at it. "I hate this fucking ship." She declared, walking on her back two legs for the time being.

Canary frowned. "You know, it is pretty uncanny."

She raised an eyebrow. He was actually going to say something useful? "What?" She almost snarled.

"Why do we follow him? He is just one zebra that has an annoying ability to not die. With your intelligence you could probably start your own pack." he scuffed a metal plate with his hoof.

She looked at Ivan's body. "I just get this feeling that if I stick around with him I'll get to be on the history books, you know? Like he is going places whether he knows where or not. Did you see what happened when he saw this air ship?"

Canary looked at her oddly. She barely resisted the urge to bury her remaining fist in his face. "That bass thing? Yeah. Kinda hard to miss that."

She turned away from him. "Here's the real problem. Do you have any idea how to fly an air ship?"

He winced. "Not really..."

A burble of dread came from her stomach. "Please don't let me trapped with an unconscious body with alien goo taking over the island?"

Canary opened his mouth. "Maybe we can try and convince the dragon to push us to the mainland?"

If she had been drinking anything she would have spat it into his face. Actually, next time she got a good drink she was going to spit it all over his face. "That is the stupidest idea I HAVE EVER HEARD."

And if she believed in gods of fate she would've sworn that they had intervened to get Ivan to wake up at that very moment. "Ughhh..." He was awake. Grand. Fantastic.

Canary rushed over like a particularly maternal kitten to coo over his figurative little kitten. She really didn't like cats.

She slowly padded over to him. "What's the plan, dragon tamer?"

Ivan looked around. "The air ship?" There was a strange gleam in his eye.

Canary nodded in his face and She pushed the over zealous zebra away with a light kick of my right leg. "So. Any idea how to pilot this thing?"

He craned his head to the side and stood up. "Do we have any blue paint? Or rocket engines?"

Her eye twitched. "What the hell. Just. What?"

He had a massive smile on his face. "This is now The Scourge. Also, I might have a tiny bit of brain damage or a concussion or something not threatening like that." He walked over to the side of the ship and whistled.

Her left eye twitched again. "This rusty termite riddled glorified balloon is now called The Scourge." Admittedly, it was fitting in an odd way.

Canary smiled brightly. "I bet he wants to paint it blue."

She resisted the urge to hurl herself off the boat. "There are two of you?"

And then the dragon flew over to the side of the boat and hovered there. Ivan walked over to a large valve near the center of the ship and unleashed it to full. The craft rocked and she barely kept her footing as they shot into the air. Ivan opened his mouth. "Scorch, buddy. Could you push us to the mainland?"

She slammed her face against the nearest solid surface.

The red dragon nodded subserviently and went to the aft of the boat and turned it to face a specific direction. Ivan nodded. "Good dragon. I'll be sure to get you plenty of gems when we return."

She whirled around and forced the nearest door open. "I'm going to see if the rest of the sense in the world is below deck. I'll be there if you need me."

---------

I laughed loudly as she went below deck. I would've kept walking for a longer time but canary walked over with an odd look on his face.

"Ok. Where did you learn to tame dragons?" He looked serious.

Oh god, he was going to love this. "I blew up his mind and pretty much made him into a mind slave on accident." I burst into howls of laughter.

Canary grimaced. "Uh... What?"

I merely shrugged in response. "I don't know what I'm doing half the time. Care to help me figure out where they keep the weapons on the hunk of metal?" The quiet roar of the fire filled the balloon and did a good job patching holes in the silence on board.

Canary gave an uneasy smile. "Sure?"

I practically pranced over to the door that Boss had ventured down.

----

Long story short, there was almost a hundred gems of varying sizes and shapes and there was a single crossbow well stocked with bolts. Along with some chain mail clearly meant with griffons in mind and a few leather pieces designed for dogs. Also, ingots of an unknown metal.

Wished I had a sock. I'd be able to use the metal for something.

I was scattered brained but I thought it was understandable. I took out a dragon and made it my slave. THAT IS WHAT WE CALL AN EGO BOOST.

And I was going to walk into a place with a dragon pushing my ship.

Wait, where were we going again?

-----

Boss growled under her breath. Idiots. "All of you are idiots. We are going to a rogue's port with a dragon pushing us. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT IMPLIES?" She yelled at Ivan.

He blinked. "That we will come off as awesome?"

She slammed her good forepaw against the wall. "No. They will think we will have something worth guarding. Like massive amounts of gems?"

Ivan smirked at her in a manner that made her want to crawl under a rock and die and kill him and cook his flesh over a fire. She wasn't going to do it, but it would be so easy to just...

She shook her head rapidly to clear the thoughts of murder.

"I just mind raped a dragon into pushing us to another continent. I think we can handle a few convicts."

She snarled loudly. "If you weren't the one guiding the ship I'd throw you overboard. And why are we leaving Rej?" Only the last bit wasn't sarcastic.

Ivan opened his mouth to reply but shut it quickly. "Do you want to try to deal with the tar monster without more people?"

She gashed her teeth together. "Can we at least have a better plan than hiring random people? And can you please act serious?"

He nodded. "Ok. We have an Eldritch horror taking up residence on my island. My island is nothing but rubble and destroyed buildings. We are in a stolen vessel with no crew to pilot it and I have a half way soulless dragon pushing our boat." His brow became furrowed and a feeling of doom and gloom settled into the room.

She sighed. "On second thought I prefer you being stupid."

He growled in a manner that would have been threatening if he had claws. Or if he was a few octaves lower. "Right. We need a decent plan for how to get something to get rid of the Shoggoth. And then we need to pray to some non zebra gods that there isn't anything else like it anywhere near Rej."

She smirked. "That's more like it, zebra." It was annoying how he refused to look at her when they spoke.

There was a long moment where Ivan stared at a wall. "Say... How many bits do you think we can get for those gems?"

"A few hundred at the least. They aren't the high quality gems."

He drew out a rather large diamond out from his satchel and gently placed it on the table in front of him. She watched with her curiosity piqued. He drew his knife and slammed it into it.

A flash of lightning seemed explode out from the gem and shatter out across the room. After blinking her eyes clear from the spots that danced across them, she found Ivan smirking at a floating diamond.

Floating as in that it was a foot off the desk with no strings attached.

He laughed brightly. "That's what I thought."

She growled. "Warn me idiot."

He looked up and the gem whizzed through the around his head. It jammed itself into his satchel. "That is so cool." He has a goofy grin.

She didn't ask.

"I have partial control over the dragon, right? Turns out that dragons have this massive pool of magic to draw from. It's like I'm draining a battery." He shook his head. "Regardless, I have a plan."

----

The primordial tar ooze hissed as it slowly spread through the tunnels. Half formed eyes and ear holes collapsed and formed as it seemed to sit idle.

It wasn't. As it sat there, a few waves shook up its form and slowly the spread out mass of the Shoggoth went back to a central point. Where nerves and half muscles formed and dissolved and dragged the rest of the beast to the center, the center thickened. Like an ancient diagram of a brain, neurons slowly formed at the center of the slime.

The Shoggoth didn't have a sensory network persay, it was more like it knew what every eye saw and every muscle felt and attacked and devoured.

The tar like neurons streamed thoughts and ideas. After a long few minutes of half thought it came to a conclusion. It was hungry. And there was nothing left on the island for it to feed on.

The mass surges back together to a large ball like mass and slowly rolled itself to the beach. Its simplistic thought processes decided that the dragon was the closest thing that was devourable. In some odd reaction a large portion of the mass slowly inflated up and up.

The organic balloon slowly sank into the mass that made up the creature and expanded it. The creature formed defensive plates around its outside to protect the balloon. It slowly grew bigger and bigger, letting off a sound like someone was filling a balloon made of someone's intestines.

After a long time the Eldritch horror was in the air.

And with a puff of wind it slowly drifted after the boat.

Oblivion (17)

The Scourge was, in of itself, a rather pathetic flying piece of scrap. It's mottled pink balloon looked almost sullen when inflated, and I describe the balloon as mottled, I mean mottled from a series of patches seen into the massive air catcher. The hull of it was no better, the wood portions creaked and the metal bits would probably give you tetanus, if not some otherworldly equivalent.

She tried to ignore the fact that it smelled worse than her brain could process below deck.

She sighed and walked on the rust, her feet leaving dull echoing clanks. She smiled widely. It felt good to be in charge, even if it was a sham.

Her old sword, the one she had kept had a fancy new ruby hilt to it, Ivan having discovered a minor crack and overall shoddy design. He then proceeded to heat his own dagger red hot with the rotten boat's fire for the balloon and etched, rather carefully, a few unfamiliar symbols that the zebra would only say were alpha beta and omega. She still wasn't sure what they were, but half the time she talked to Ivan she was convinced that he had taken trauma as a canary.

His plan, Ivan's, that is, depended on the fact that it would look odd of a zebra were leading a diamond dog around at a port where quite a few slavers made their stop to refuel their primitive decrepit ships. So, she was to act like she was in charge of Ivan and Canary.

Which was great because she got to rub it in Ivan's face that he had practically thrown himself into slavery again. "Hey idiot, I mean, Ivan. What are you doing?"

The ship was lazily drifting on the currents of air that forced the waves of water towards the port town. Scorch, as Ivan demanded he be called, had been directed to go back to Rej once they were within a certain distance. The zebra of her disdain was mouthing words in a language she couldn't understand. And then it hit her. "I'm the only one that can speak common." Her face blossomed into horror.

Ivan nodded. "Yeah." He said in Zebrican. He continued mumbling under his breath.

Her right eye twitched. "Damn it. Damn all of you. I don't want to translate..." She made sure her sword was within easy reach and stood on the prow of her ship.

She felt a little stupid. "Why am I doing this?" She wondered out loud.

Ivan yelled from the ship. "Because you'll look cool. Just wait until there's a random gust of cliche wind coming towards the ocean!"

Slowly, she turned her head towards the port city. The faint chatter from the markets drifted into her hearing and she felt a tinge of nostalgia, and quite a bit more disgust. Half rotten fish smells like low tide.

Her keen eyes caught the landing zone for ships of similar make to The Scourge; almost literally a bulls eye located just off shore.

She could already catch the whiffs from the pleasure houses lining the dock. Hormones and perfume drifted over in what might've been an enticing manner if she had been in her heat.

Or if she were male. She turned back to look at the other two crew members. Neither were having a visible reaction, though Ivan let out a tiny cheer as a burst of wind almost knocked her off the prow.

She held on tight with her feet and all it did was ruffle her fur and knock her new leather hat back an inch.

Ivan burst into cheer. "Heck yes!"

Canary nudged him from just within the corner of her eyes. "Uh... would you stop that?"

He shrugged.

If she had still had a left forepaw she would've cradled her head. But she couldn't, and crying about it wasn't going to give her paw back.

A tan blur blazed on the deck and landed next to the prow. It was a griffon, and though Ivan tensed up in shock, it was not Terror.

Honestly, she probably would've ran for it if it had been Terror. Or stabbed him in the face. It was a toss up between how much she valued her life. The griffon has a beak that looked like it was almost made of brass, a tarnished yellow. Her feathers were a light grey and her hind quarters were about the shade of every other griffon in existence, a mellowish brown.

"Right. Right." The griffon chirped. She was female. "Here's the deal; you slip me a few gems and you don't have your ship stolen from you." Her face wrinkled. "Though honestly, I don't know who would want this ship. Did you at least kill the previous owners first?"

Ivan blinked and she realized that he probably wasn't used to how convicts treated property. She nodded to the griffon. "Slit his throat myself and took my pick of the crew." She motioned at the other two zebras. "These two are the only two that didn't wet themselves when I tossed his body over board."

The griffon nodded and Boss caught the barest hint of approval flash in her emerald eyes. "Good. Just remember, if you wind up with your throat slit in an alley then your property will be stolen." She drug her talons across her own throat. "And don't tick off the locals." She nodded. "There's a spot open to the left. Land this thing there and make sure to tip the guy in front of it." She braced to lift off.

Boss raised her stump. "Can you tell me what this place is?"

"Welcome to Oblivion Port. Last port on the map that the bloody equines will release." She smirked. "If you head south, down the coast from here you'll have to get another map."

That wasn't really a problem, they didn't have a map in the first place.

Ivan walked up to Boss, an odd swagger in his step. "Can you fly an airship?"

The griffon gave a blank stare.

Boss sighed and began translating. "We had to throw our pilot over board shortly before this port came in sight."

The griffon stopped what she was about to do. "And?"

Boss leveled her gaze at her. "We don't know how to land properly."

The griffon nodded. "That'll be extra."

She growled slightly under her breath. "Right. Shall I accompany you below deck?"

Ivan was still staring at the griffon. The griffon seemed to puff up slightly until she gave what could quite possibly be the best death glare Boss had ever seen to the zebra.

The zebra instantly deflated. "And could you tell your friend over there to stop staring at me like that? It's bloody creepy and I'd rather not have to deal with him."

Ivan gulped. "Snip snip?" Boss asked.

"Only if he doesn't stop staring."

Canary cringed and Boss had to swallow back her laughter. "I haven't seen him this cowed in ages." She pointed back at the controls that looked haphazardly mounted on a slap of metal plates.

The griffon smirked and then laughed. "You should've seen what happened to the last idiot who thought they could take advantage of me. I heard he's singing soprano in the opera now. This will cost you quite a few gems." She said in an odd tone.

Boss rolled her eyes. "Yeah. We need a good cleaning team." She said, cringing at the smell.

She shook her head and sighed. "Not what I meant." In a flash of movement the ship jerked as she took the wheel. She smoothly operated the bizarre array of confusing pedals and switches in a manner that conveyed that she was highly experienced at this.

Boss took this moment to crack her neck audibly, barely keeping back a sigh of relief. "What do you mean?"

"You came here for the race, right?" She slowly floated into the mess of the port, then slowly turned down the fire from the control panel. "I mean, I can't imagine why you would ever take over a piece of scrap like this if you weren't. Rustic division?"

Boss scratched the back of her head. "Race."

"Yeah, the prize is massive. And I really don't have anything better to do..." The griffon looked nervous.

Boss sighed. "You want to try and fly this thing in the race?" She didn't even know the griffon's name.

She nodded. "They call me Catastrophe for a reason. I've survived at least 6 full on airship crashes!" She puffed out her chest proudly.

She looked at Catastrophe oddly and sighed. "How big a prize are we talking?"

The awkwardly named griffon seemed to get more excited. "Every so often some bloody idiot rich goody two shoes decides to try and make a 'difference' on the 'oppressed' convicts around here. After he's been dealt with and ransomed off, we usually have a nice airship and most of the loot that we get from him up for grabs."

"Interesting..."

"In this case, around 20000 bits. And a VERY nice airship. With most of the airships that the rabble around here brings in being old junks and sailing ship with a balloon attached to them, the one in charge of the ship usually decides to keep a few bits and give the ship to whatever idiot is willing to race their modified scrap heap for his pleasure." Catastrophe nodded. It occurred to Boss that almost every single being she had met in the past month was using the convict naming system.

Boss herself was not actually named Boss. She took a new name when she fled her pack.

The system was put in place centuries ago when ponies came up with a VERY good way to deal with their serious convicts. Using acid to erase the cutie marks of the offenders was a way to keep the public in line, though it was normally only done with the truly serious offenders.

And they thought the rest of the world was the savages.

Destruction of the cutie mark was normally traumatic enough to force the convict into an existential crisis and wipe quite a bit of their memory. It also almost completely destroyed their desire to do what they were best at.

Most ponies in the mines had been treated that way.

Most beings that ended up in the wastes took on new names to distance themselves to what they were before hand.

Boss nodded. "Right. We'll do it. And can we hire you on as the driver?" She was half distracted.

She looked positively amorous with the prospect. "Of course! I just want about half of the prize winnings if we win."

She nodded. "Right. Makes sense." She looked at her stump and sighed. "Welcome to the crew."

The griffon gave an almost manic smile.

"And if you even try to kill anyone on board that isn't threatening you." She walked forward and bared her teeth. "I'll make sure this is the last ship you crash."

-----------------

I sat down on board and tried desperately to clear my head. My hormones were buzzing around like energetic bees, stinging away my resolve and my thoughts.

That griffon was hot.

In a primal way, her every move seemed to be designed to draw my eye to her like a magnet. And, like a magnet, the hard drive in my head felt like it was glitching up and coughing up garbles of memory and opening random programs.

And she had the nerve to stand up to my eyes. I mean, I wasn't trying to stare at her but I couldn't look away from her. She looked like she could flay my skin from my bones and have a hell of a time doing it. Which, disturbingly enough, was attractive.

And then there was a deeper horror. I had never been attracted to anything outside of my species before. And now I was. Something was messing with my head.

"I was going to make you a griffon, but someone already did it. I might've messed with your wiring a teeny tiny bit. I was also going to make you into a giant spider, as well, but I figured that wouldn't go over."

Oh. Yeah. I have some sort of snazzy spider god thingy in my head. That would explain a lot.

Wait a second... "Someone? THERE ARE OTHERS?"

"I never said that. And that's all of the information you are getting from me, buster." I had a mental image of a cane appearing in the spider's grip and getting twirled around before he bowed and popped away. His hat fell to the ground before giving me a metaphorical middle figure and disappearing away.

"I hate my life."

Canary looked at me oddly.

----

The Shoggoth, now better described as being a floating spiky ball of death covered in tar, continued its quest inland. A few eyes stared out dully over the deep blue sea before sunburn took out the optical organs and they were replaced by new growths.

It hungered.

It floated and hungered and its very presence in the sky was enough to divert the natural migration of a flock of semi large birds.

Anything stupid enough to come close was devoured by the floating mass separated into an abomination of a mouth and a long sharp tongue lunging out and spearing through it. The tongue fell from the sky and trailed over the water as the internal bio mechanisms reeled it into the thing.

It continued its slow flight after the ship.

System Failure (18)

Catastrophe looked quite a bit like most griffons Boss had seen. Beaten, self assured, abrasive, arrogant and lacking with most social niceties.

Actually, that description fit most of the convicts she had met. The only real oddity to her was that she didn't have a single noticeable scar on her. It went without saying that someone who crashed airships for a living should have a few scars on her.

Not that it mattered. She had landed the rickety rust bucket and she was possible the only way they were going to get back to Rej.

Boss nodded at the disaster griffon and looked back at her other two companions. Canary appeared to be in intense laughter.

--------

I groaned loudly. "Damn. I want wings." My gaze was fixed to a few flying blurs over the town whose name I didn't catch. "Stupid other languages. Why can't everybody speak English?" I muttered.

"Zebrican." Canary corrected. "We are speaking Zebrican." He rolled his eyes. "And why do you want wings?"

I scuffed the metal plate and winced at the squeal the rust made. "Wings are awesome."

Canary made a noise between a snort and a laugh. "Are you one of those feather freaks?"

I looked at him oddly. "Feather... freaks?"

He nodded. "They like wings... in a less than natural manner. You know? Wing fetish?"

I winced. "Uh..." The only fetish that I had that I was aware of was something with being dominant. And something about blood. But that's a fetish that I don't want to talk about.

He burst out into laughter. "Oh god. That is the best thing I've heard in ages."

I glared at him and growled. "Yeah? Just wait til I get wings. I'll show you."

His laughter didn't stop. "Oh yeah? And what, are you going to go steal horns from unicorns and grow your own?"

I stopped what I was about to say and looked at him. "Can you do that? Can you grow a unicorn horn?"

He blinked. "I have no idea."

I laughed, but kept the idea in the back of my head. "Hm... I could be a ZEBRALICORN!" I pointed dramatically into the sky. As the sound echoed on I suddenly realized I was having mood swings. Which was bad. But still. I was going to get some freaking wings.

Canary patted my shoulder. "It's ok. We'll get you help eventually."

I stared blankly at him at the sudden conversation switch. "What?"

He rolled his eyes. "You've split your soul into how many pieces in the last few days? Four? Most soul zebras split it maybe once, and even then there's a chance they'll go insane."

I narrowed my eyes at him and huffed. "Where do you get all of this information?"

He grunted. "I came from another island that was steeped with traditions. There was a soul zebra on the island... and books... and my family." He looked down. "I don't want to talk about it, ok? The slavers came and carted off the entire village."

I winced. Not because I cared, but more that I had successfully cracked the only member in the group I was hoping was going to remain stable.

He let a tear slip then shook his head. "Right, the point is that we should probably have your head checked out soon. The soul zebras occasionally thought they were common garden implements, it's hard to think of anything weirder than a zebra demanding to be used as a shovel."

Gee. You think?

"Wait. So... you think I'm experiencing an existential shift to another being?"

He sighed and nodded. "Yeah..."

I burst out laughing. "That sounds like the plot to a bad fanfic!"

He looked at me oddly. "Right... What's a fanfic?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. Nothing at all." I rolled my eyes. Dropping references nobody got was actually entertaining. In an oddly satisfying way.

He sighed. "The whole mentioning of cliches is really not helping with my thinking you are insane."

Maybe he was right. But... Hey, I had gotten over the most of my distaste for dogs, though something odd had occurred to me. My thoughts weren't... as fluid...

"I'll deal with that later."

Boss finally decided to intervene. "Right, boys. We are participating in an air race and miss Catastrophe will be our pilot."

The griffon of my delight looked incredibly smug up at the control deck of the our primitive craft. The sun scattered off of her wings as she spread them and she seemed to soak up the sun and grow even better, like some sort of solar celled succubus.

Wow. I did have issues.

I looked over myself to make sure I wasn't missing anything major that I had failed to notice in my ineptness.

I blinked and it finally occurred to me that Boss had said something of more than minor importance. "Wait, what?"

The dog nodded. "Yes. We are racing. Prize money, new ship?"

I shook my head and started focusing. "There's a race...?" I looked at the less than appealing boat.

Catastrophe smirked and slapped the ship with her tail, making it echo with a loud clank. "Yep, I'm piloting this rust bucket." She paused from what she was about to say upon seeing our stares at the source of the clank.

"How...?" I muttered, staring at her.

She nodded. "Prosthetic. There's a guy in town that is willing to maybe make you one. I spent all of my winning from the last contest on getting a metal tail. Lost mine in an engine."

She could suffer through pain and still come out of it. WE HAD SO MUCH IN COMMON!

IT WAS DESTINY THAT WE BE TOGETHER!

Wait... Wait a second... Wait... that doesn't sound right...

Activating process, reason.exe...

loading...

loading...

loading...

loading...

File processes corrupted.

Source code for file is reduced to burning slag, save files?

loading...

Good job, you lost everything.

loading...

Diagnosing problem...

Your C-drive may or may not be possessed by a horrible god spider, contact tech support immediately or seek self termination by sledgehammer.

My system went into a proverbial blue screen of death as my logic attempted to reboot and purge my systems.

----

She stared at Ivan who appeared to be trying to say something, or rather, would've tried to be saying something if he wasn't clenching his jaws tight enough together to make his teeth creak.

Catastrophe walked over to her, clicks following her talons hitting the ground. She stared at the still zebra. "Do you think I broke him?"

Boss shrugged. "I think he broke himself."

Canary sighed. "If he starts asking me to use him to cut people, I am out." His statement was received with a few weird looks.

She really wasn't sure what to think about that. "So... prosthetics."

The griffon nodded. "As you can probably imagine, more than a few renegades or prisoners show up here missing a limb or two. Some wise guy city boy from around Canterlot, or so he says, thought it would be a great idea to settle here." She bumped her head along.

"And?" Boss had to admit, it did sound like almost a good idea.

"Well, He killed the first five people who tried to loot the store and the big Boss declared it a neutral zone; that is, if you fought there he would personally send his guard to kill you." Catastrophe performed a master conversation switch. "So how did all of you meet? I'm not buying that piece of shit story you tried to throw at me about those two being part of the ship's crew."

Boss growled. "Will you pilot if I don't tell you?" The ship was in the landing space.

"What do you think?" She snarled.

"Ivan..." She pointed at the still zebra. "Owns the island of Rej. I agreed to help him retake it if he let me have an island or two." She pointed at Canary. "This idiot is just tagging along for the ride."

The griffon nodded. "You are the best behaved bitch I've met." She said, somewhat off topic.

She didn't mean it as an insult, but Boss had to visibly struggle to stop her self from striking her. "Yeah. Being sterilized does that to you. And when you aren't focused on humping everything you develop a bit of a talent for reasoning." She hissed.

The griffon recoiled like Boss had struck her. "Right right... sorry for hitting a sore spot."

Catastrophe blinked and looked back at Ivan. "He... owns Rej?" She asked, more than a little confused.

Boss nodded. "Don't ask me how he got the head of the alpha of the island without getting torn to shreds."

The griffon whistled in an impressed pitch. "That little perverted bit of flesh took out the alpha?" She looked over his body. "He does have a few scars..."

Boss tried to hide her revulsion. "Don't tell him you are impressed, you'll just give him a swelled head."

Catastrophe leaned back against the control station. "Got it." She looked around. "Harbor patrol should be coming around soon to be bribed..." She shook her head. "Right. So what happened to the previous pilot?"

"We didn't have one. Mr. Brain dead over there somehow, and this is in his words, and not mine, 'Mind raped' a dragon. Said something about splitting his soul and using it to control him." She shrugged.

"Ok. Stop talking or you'll give me a headache." Catastrophe said, shaking her head. "I don't really care what's loose in your head, but I'll drive the ship as long as you don't try to back out of our deal."

-----

I snapped out of my trance a few minutes after their discussion took place, my mind feeling clearer than it had in ages. I walked over to Boss and patter her shoulder. "We are racing for a prize." I repeated, just to be sure.

She nodded. "Good to have you back."

I looked over at the griffon, who, while highly attractive to my eyes was no longer the paragon of perfection I had viewed earlier. "And you are driving." Most of my confidence had returned to me, thankfully.

She flashed a smirk at me and flared her wings. "And I hear you killed an Alpha."

I nodded. "Yep. That's me." Hopefully, the mood swings were gone.

I still wanted wings, and I was having the oddest craving for meat.

Of all the things I really missed about being human, being able to sink my teeth into a nice steak, blood still through the center and with a pinch was the thing that I missed the most.

I was a dedicated meat eater back home... but now I was craving the perfect steak...

Great. Add that to the list of things I want to change about myself.

-------------------------------------------------

Scorch the dragon mindlessly flew back to the isle of Rej, his mind practically blank besides a desire to serve the zebra.

Sadly for Ivan and the group, a certain floating death tar sphere thing was there. With a single lunge of its massive tongue, the Shoggoth punctured through the full grown dragon's scales and hit the scaled behemoth's heart. It exploded into a mass of gore and the dragon instantly died, falling out of the air.

For an hour after the dragon's dead body hit the water the Shoggoth reeled in its prey, straining against gravity with it's biological fishing rod.

After the carcass reached the far too large and far too toothed mouth, it was swallowed and the thing reformed into a perfect sphere.

The only obvious evidence that it had taken out a dragon was the slight red tinge where blood had soaked the tar beast.

It let out a bit of red gore of its shell and continued floating towards Oblivion.

Drama in C minor (19)

Of all the places that we had to stop at, the lawless port was actually not that bad. You see, when I say it was lawless, I mean that there were no laws explicitly stating that you could not or could do anything. It was sort of like what Fallout New vegas portrayed a post apocalyptic society as; The strong made the rules and the rules were followed unless someone challenged their authority. Therefore, if you pissed the wrong person off and he decided to off you it was only your fault and if anybody interfered they were would be dealt with accordingly.

If I decided to say, steal an apple, the purveyor of the apples had every right to beat an apple's worth out of my hide and then leave me to die on the side of the road.

It was a pretty nice system, and surprisingly enough, there were less crimes committed in Oblivion than in many cities in Equestria.

Of course, that's because of the definition of crime. In Equestria, just littering the streets with litter, even if it was from someone who was trying to kill you, was a crime that could sentence you to prison for a good time.

In Oblivion, litter lay about the old cracked streets. Ancient blood stains and quite a few bodily fluids were easily noticeable the second we stepped off of our boat after bribing the local 'authorities'. The local authorities were really just gang members from the gang currently in power, the Big Boys. They were lead by the Big Boss.

How creative.

At any rate, the bleached white stone surface at the harbor entrance to the port was covered in blood and signs of previous gore, some of which had probably happened not that long ago. Bird dropping littered the entrance and thankfully my nose was still mostly burned out from the fact that none of us had had baths in a great many days. (I was pretty sure that I hadn't had an actual bath in a month or two. I still had blood stains, both dragon and diamond dog and whatever else I had killed sticking down my fur.)

I must've stank pretty badly.

Boss probably could still smell everything. She was a dog and she had the nose of one. "So. Where can we find a place to clean off?" I asked the group.

Boss quickly relayed my request to Catastrophe who gave me an odd look. <"Didn't place him as one to care about hygiene."> She muttered something unintelligible and pointed ahead. <"There is a hotel ahead."> She wordlessly conveyed that she didn't trust it with a single eye roll. <"The race is tomorrow. I'll go take care of registration once you get a room.">

Boss followed her gaze and nodded. "There is a hotel ahead, if you don't mind keeping your valuables on board the ship." She stopped for a second. "Not that we have valuables."

Catastrophe looked confused.

Boss clutched her head with her one working paw. "Right. I'm going to have to keep switching." <"Just telling them what you told me.">

She nodded.

I grit my teeth. "I should probably try to learn Equestrian." I muttered, throwing the world around me a dirty look as if it were its fault that I couldn't understand what the pretty griffon was saying. It's like trying to talk to swedish supermodels.

And she basically was. Aside from threatening to make me less than a male, she was perfect in every way. HEr wings attached to her back in a smooth manner and her walk attracted my eye like nothing else could. Her beak, perfect for piercing and flaying and devouring her prey seemed to call to me.

I had never dealt with a crush before, or had issues with interspecial domination preferences. That's just one of those things that never really popped up back on earth, if you know what I mean.

But the very concept of trying to date something that could eat me was alluring and interesting. To use an analogy, she was the spider and I was the fly.

Wow. I really do need help.

At any rate, the dirt encrusted pavement looked like it fit our weary stained bodies a whole lot more than the clean griffon that had just joined our party.

And then something odd happened which I instantly suspected was from the spider burrowing into my brain.

Ivan gained a new title!

Interspecial Flirt.

It's ok to flirt with disaster. I just wish you wouldn't literally do it.

I let out a little bit of a yelp at Malice's voice that drew everyone's gaze to me.

"Digging through your brain is such sweet fun. Though what the heck all that porn is doing is something I don't want to even touch."

I blushed slightly and shook my head. "Nothing. Just thought of something I could do."

The griffon let out a snort. <"Stare at my ass a little more?">

The diamond dog stifled a chuckle at my expense. <"As if, he hasn't even looked at that part of you yet.">

I blinked and assumed that I had just been insulted. I kept my head low to hide my embarrassment. "This is just like high school..." I muttered.

Canary and Boss both looked at me oddly before rolling their eyes. Canary sighed. "Right. Do you think we will have enough to have his head checked out if we win this race?" His slightly gruff voice rang out over the street and drew the attention of yet another group, this one composed a pegasus with their cutie mark burned out and a few griffons.

I'll say this now, the pegasus looked like a slut. And from what I imagine she was saying, she was a slut for hire.

The griffons, who were all male I might add, seemed almost enraged at the very thought of what he had said. Which was odd because he had not said it in Equestrian.

<"Hey Bitch? Are those your slaves dirtying our ears?"> One of them said.

I suddenly felt like having a grudge against Equestrian. Every time someone spoke it I felt like I was being insulted.

Boss opened her mouth and replied in the asshole tongue. <"Yes, and I'm not sure how your ears could be dirtier."> She sniffed the air. <"You smell like cheap sex and cheaper plumbing.">

Catastrophe looked mildly impressed by her retort, so I had a feeling she had said something witty.

The other griffon, the one that spoke, seemed to puff up with anger, his wings spreading in a primal instinct to make himself look bigger.

It made him look like a scared parakeet. For whatever reason, he had dyed the bottoms of his wings a bright green.

"He looks like a scared parakeet." I noted out of my thoughts, making Canary go into gales of laughter and for Boss to smile widely.

<"What did he say?"> The griffon snarled. <"What the fuck did he say?"> He friends seem to egg him on, probably in the Equestrian equivalent of make him pay or something.

I probably would've taken him more seriously if I could understand it. As it was, his gibbering made me think he was some punk trying to look brave to impress his friends or his mare.

Or both.

Catastrophe, the angel on the streets, look mildly amused at the conversation. I took that as a good sign.

<"He said your mother was cleaner when he slept with her."> Boss called out loudly.

A feeling of impending doom fell down upon me as the griffon turned to face me. His lackeys remained next to the slutty feathered equine, leering at her.

He took a few steps closer. <"He said that?"> His statement ended in a questioning tone, but his voice was a cold steel in consistency.

I noticed, out of the corner of my eyes, that the rest of the griffons had reds and blues under their wings. Must've been some sort of urban street ware or something. Boss nodded. <"Do you have a problem with that?"> She bared her fangs at the griffon.

The green abomination of fashion, I mean seriously, the green was fugly as hell, opened his mouth. I think he might've been scared if Boss wasn't missing an arm. He stopped and smirked, his beak looking not half as awesome as it should. <"I can see your slave mark, bitch. I wonder how much money I can get out of your body?">

Boss recoiled like she had gotten sucker punched. She covered a mark on her chest with her remaining paw.

I could tell that something dramatic was happening, but trying to understand it was like playing a game of JoJo's bizarre adventure. I don't speak Japanese and there was punching people and something about a demon mask. That was about it.

Oh yeah. And Dio is a dick.

I nodded, though snapped back to attention when the shouting started. Some odd unicorn who was striped white and black stepped in. I really don't think he was a zebra, the stripes were perfectly straight like someone had tried to draw him on MS Paint and gave up after striping him. He also had a waving flag for a cutie mark.

"Uh... what happened?" I mumbled, seeing the group retreat from me and the griffon stand across from me.

Boss growled. "He challenged you to a fight. Kill the idiot and loot his corpse!" She repeated it in a whisper so Catastrophe could understand her.

I nodded. "Sounds like a plan." I shouted back. The mere use of my tongue to taint the language of my choice seemed to spur the griffon to action.

He was just a griffon, and I had tamed a dragon. It seemed like a simple equation to my eyes on who would win.

And then he revealed what all of his bad tempered stomping and squawking had hidden from my eyes: He drew what looked like one of those swords you see in an anime, you know, the ones that can like do special things like destroy your soul and place it in a place of eternal pain and suffering while you are whipped by hot dogs?

Ok, scratch the hot dogs.

The referee nodded at both of us and spoke in Equestrian like an annoying idiot. Ok, maybe I shouldn't insult them for speaking another language.

"Freaking mexicans." I swore.

<"Right, now I want a nice fight boys. Anything goes except for love and audience intervention. Seriously, if one audience member intervenes I will throw you in the harbor."> He jabbered on and on.

"Can we please just fight?"

<"Start!"> The unicorn ref made a sound suspiciously like a gun and I drew disconsolate as a reflex action, not wasting a round of my time.

Unluckily for me, my opponent had already drawn his sword so I couldn't count on him wasting a round drawing the cumbersome looking blade.

As yet another reflex action, I held back from letting loose the contents of my bowls on the streets. The instincts of my current form kicked in and threw me into a terrified panic, like my mind was screaming that I was going to die.

Every inch of my body filled with nervous energy as my flight reflex kicked into full gear.

And of course, at that very moment, the ref pulled up a magical bubble shield to box us in.

The only thing that I was really thinking was what the hell.

Terrible Terrible Damage (20)

"Why are we fighting?" Was about the first thing I asked the incredibly scary looking griffon.

He just seemed to get angrier. <"Stop talking in your slave babble!">

"WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING?" I brandished Disconsolate threateningly, but the knife itself felt woefully inadequate versus the griffon's clearly compensating for something blade.

The referee groaned. <"For crying out loud..."> His horn glowed and suddenly I understood.

The bubble around us, sure it was magic.

The consequences of this fight were to be tragic.

One of us was sure to die.

No healer or bandage to apply.

"Let us begin," I started to say.

But my mind, the spell did sway.

Instead of my statement, free from chance,

I started to rhyme as if in a trance.

The griffon before me with painted wings,

Took his sword and began to swing.

I dodged quite nimbly with my saving throw,

Though how I did I do not know.

It cut through the air like a blade through butter

But surely it was I who began to mutter.

"An epic poem sure this isn't."

The blade hit the ground and I didn't miss it.

This urge to rhyme, me it annoyed

But at the least, I still could avoid;

For the form of the griffon did not remain inert,

He easily unburied his blade from the earth.

The runes on it's length they did of course glow.

"Can I change rhyme scheme?" I did not know.

"I'd much rather this fight happen in free form."

The crowd looked like this style was the norm.

And of course, the bets did fly.

Some bet for my nose, others my eye,

Of which one the griffon would pluck,

Sadly for them they would be out of luck.

"Hear that noise?" The griffon inquired.

I wished I didn't, that I desired.

He gave me a smirk and hefted his blade.

And I asked how this game would be played.

"Your head is what I will split!"

The narrative seemed to be intermittent.

I took my knife and tried to think

If I didn't do something, my blood would be ink!

For him to paint the circle red,

Hell, I would surely be dead!

And not fulfill any of my dreams!

Of fame and fortune, and all that that brings.

"ORANGE! ORANGE ORANGE!" I cried!

And suddenly, my heart, it felt like it died!

Thankfully, the spell began to crumble.

And I recovered from the unicorn's fumble.

With the narrative returned to normal, I could finally plan out the fight. His blade looked cumbersome and methods of attack were sure to be limited by it.

Though the fact that the runes on his weapon looked remarkably similar to kanji made me a little nervous that this might be a sword EXACTLY like an anime sword.

"Right. At least I won't die rhyming." I said out loud, not at all confident.

The griffon glowered. <"Ready to die, ass?">

I could understand him at least.

A donkey in the crowd rolled his eyes. <"Can we please go through a fight scene without using my race as an insult?"> He stomped his hoof. His complaint and request disappeared into the crowd. He sighed.

I nodded at him. "Yeah yeah, you and your mother." I would've exchanged meaningless witty banter with him but I only understood him. Still couldn't speak it.

The fear was slowly draining from me thanks to breaking the rhyming hell and my mind came across a single idea rather carefully.

Using my mind carefully, I decided to win this with style. I funneled my magic into a threadish construct and reached through the thin leather satchel for my topaz. I kept my knife firmly in my mouth and took on a sturdyish stance and swore to learn how to actually fight soon.

The griffon lunged at me, having probably gotten tiring of posturing and trying to look tougher than he was. His blade wooshed towards me and I stood my ground and waited until it went into range.

"GUARDIAN!" I shouted, forming a large yellow barrier around me. The blade jerked as it hit the barrier and bounced off. The street crowd roared its approval at my showing off. I flashed them a smile.

<"The zebra has deflected the griffon's attack with a single spell! What a surprise, I didn't think he had it in him!"> A sleazy looking earth pony spoke into a rod that amplified his voice.

The griffon snarled and seemed to almost spit venom at me. Or at least at the dirty pavement. He glared at me and I felt like the world flipped on its side.

Suddenly, there was no barrier around us, there was only a primal feeling and echo of being hunted down and ripped apart. His claws rending my flesh and devouring me and then there was a feeling of something happening in the air.

I barely snapped out of the trance in time to duck back from the blade. As it was, I felt it bite into my muzzle and sharp bolts of pain spread through my body as blood began pouring out. It was like a spray, like the very presence of the blade was forcing more blood out.

I woozily shook my head around to clear the feeling out of my head. Seriously, getting a bit of your nose sliced into is pretty damn painful.

<"And the zebra has taken a hit!"> The Earth pony, who I just noticed was a sickly shade of green, continued to take in bits as a form of betting money. <"It's Terrible Terrible Damage on his form, let me tell you.">

And that line snapped me out of my pain and forced me to let out a groan. "They have one of those guys over here, too?"

Luckily, the knife hadn't been snatched out of my mouth by the blow.

Unluckily, the griffon was going for another.

I snapped out my magic to the gem by reflex and barely managed to stop him. "GUARDIAN!" The barrier saved my life again.

And the griffon staggered back from having his sword almost flung from his grip and I took the opportunity to press my advantage

I shoved my magic through the satchel yet again and wrapped the small threads of my will and whatever else magic is made of around a ball of guano and sulfur.

Trust me, it was about as disgusting as you would think it would be. I shoved it out of the satchel through use of the several component in my bag and cast on of my favorite spells. "FIREBALL!" I almost cheered, the foot in diameter sphere of explosive fun hurling through the air.

<"Hold on folks, it looks like the zebra has finally whipped out a bit of his magic for us. But how will the griffon react?">

The griffon nimbly brought his blade in front of him and sliced through the admittedly slowly moving projectile. It split and parted on either side of him, not only violating the very nature of the spell, but looking pretty badass. The rest of the spell dispersed on the barrier behind him with a flash of sparks and the faintest hint of ozone in the air.

<"The sparks are flying in this battle arena.">

"The rules regarding magic can be bypassed if the effects are considered cool enough..." I muttered, glaring at him.

He smirked and then spat out on the pavement. <"What's the matter, your little magic can't deal with my sword?"

I hate people who spit. It's just a pet peeve.

I held my hoof in the air in an effort to flip him off. I was left awkwardly balancing on three legs with a bleeding nose. And looking ridiculous, I might add.

He snickered at me and started back to his previous decision of rushing in and swinging. <"You're little shield will pop eventually!">

It was true, the spell was draining when I wasn't trying to do it wrong. I could only do it the normal way ten or so times and the way I was going I might as well have been trying to filter boulders through a coffee filter to get more magic.

That's actually an accurate comparison. Using magic was sort of like trying to force something through a filter. A filter made of headaches and pain. And when you got tired, the filter got smaller and the object got bigger.

"Like driving a cart through a web."

Oh great. God spider thing is back.

I let out a wine at the whisper through my head and it was just enough to force my barrier to shatter as a sword passed through it.

I bowed my head back and let it clatter against the pavement, and indeed cutting through some of it.

<"Oh? What's this? Something seems to be bothering our zebra! Will this prove to be the end of this match?">

I rolled my eyes and dove towards him while he struggled to pull it from the pavement. My blade flashed at his talons gripping it.

Now, considering what this knife had done already to everything else that I had tried to kill with it you would assume that the griffon would've been missing a few talons.

The tip barely sank into the talons holding the sword and the griffon calmly balled his other taloned appendage into a ball and launched me across the arena in a sucker punch.

I splatted against the wall, feeling much like a fly hitting a bug zapper.

<"AND THE ZEBRA TAKES SOME TERRIBLE TERRIBLE DAMAGE!">

I can't really describe how it felt; my nerves shut down for a second and I blacked out for a second longer than my nerves did.

I came back to reality a second before the griffon split my skull open. Or rather, would've split my soul open if I hadn't jerked my head to the side. I looked at the griffon that loomed over me, his grin almost splitting his face.

I blinked. "Geez. Rape?" I bucked my hooves up into chest and knocked him off of me before smashing the sword welding arm into the ground. As a reflex, his arm came open and his sword tumbled out of his reach.

I growled at him, it being high pitched because of lack of bass. Not threateningly in the slightest, but still enough to convey my point.

He gulped. Freaking coward.

I took great pride in smashing my hoof against his face and feeling the blood spill out. His eyes fluttered shut.

<"KNOCK OUT! AUDIENCE! PLEASE COME TAKE YOUR WINNINGS."> The griffon slumped in defeat and I got off of him. There was no need to kill him yet; I feared the repercussions from his posse and their slut.

The barrier faded and I licked my lips and carefully pulled out a few of the griffon's painted green feathers before walking out.

And then I paused, picked up my dagger and placed it in my satchel and then picked up the griffon's sword. It hissed against my life for a bit until my nose sopped a bit of blood on it and the pain slowly faded.

I slowly walked away from my fallen opponent, feeling awesome.

"Back in my day, my disciples shot their at their enemies and gave it to me as presents. Mmmm... Souls..."

Annoying god spider immediately made me question my satisfaction at the fight and made me think of earth.

I wonder if annoying God Spider would've gotten more than a thousand views on YouTube.

Echoes from a cold future (21)

For a long time all I could hear and think and remember was an incessant hammering. And heat. Lots of heat.

-----

Boss shook her head at the grizzled smith. "If you fuck this one up I'll kill you and use your body to fix him." She warned. She looked at the small gem set in the middle of the plate of soul steel and shook her head.

When Ivan had died, Catastrophe had been heart broken. Absolutely destroyed to the core. The griffon beauty had taken to not wearing the faux skin to cover her fake limbs and walking around the castle with tears running off of her beak. They had made a lovely duo; they were always together, laughing and joking.

Heck, when he decided to confess that he was secretly an interstellar alien ape, it didn't phase her in the least.

The dog touched the two swords cross on her back and drew them, letting the twin blades sparkle faintly with the solar powered magic cells. She swung the one meant for her right paw and as always felt it clumsy.

----

And the shriek of things buried in the earth far longer than I had been burning and churning up heat.

----

Catastrophe looked over the casket and let a few more tears slip out. "Hey... it's my birthday. Not that we ever really celebrated birthdays..." Her claws crushed through the bouquet of flowers as they twitched involuntarily. She shook her head. "The others say that I shouldn't mourn you. That you were a monster..."

She sat down beside the open tomb and opened up the body bearer. She grabbed a lifeless hoof. "I learned so much from you guys..."

One of her tears spattered into his fur and she carefully tucked the limb back into the box. "Remember when the shades first attacked and you burnt out all of your soul to save us?" A pair of soulless eyes stared back at her from the casket, dull, the ocular orbs looking almost burnt out from a few years of not caring for what the magic did to him.

She sniffled a bit. "We were lucky that we had a prisoner... it almost didn't work, but you took the soul and made it your own." She shut her eyes tightly to not shed any more tears.

"Rej is better now. We don't have to worry about slavers anymore. The dragons have stopped coming, just like you thought they would. Marty was here... He gave me his best regards." The satchel was open and she gently lifted out the contents with her talons.

Her eyes opened wide. There was a single gem missing.

----

And the feeling that I was supposed to be sleeping and that I was being awakened. Like I had been drug back from paradise.

----

Canary carefully guided the feather into his earring, pinning it into his skin. He licked his lips and carefully lifted another piece of wood into a bottle. Trying to find a way to cope with the certainty that his best friend was a soul sucking nightmare beast was pretty hard.

The sails on the ship were completed and he smiled lightly before turning to his shelf. He sighed.

His shelf was full of bottles and ships of all sorts. "Damn." He nodded and smashed the bottle against the wall. "I can't believe you really were insane the entire time." He muttered.

"That village. It didn't do anything to you. Why did you kill them?" He asked, looking over at a picture of the group. A few glass shards were embedded into it and he sighed, gripping it with his magic and gently bringing the shards out of it. The painting glowed green at the same time Canary's eyes did and the holes in it disappeared.

"Catastrophe blames me. I should've seen the signs." He shook his head.

"I was so blind. I was the healer, I should've known that you were suffering. All those souls... all of that knowledge of other people. Convicts. Rapists. Killers." He lifted the picture back to the wall and lifted up the tiny ship fragments scattered about.

"It's amazing that you held on to who you were for so long." He lifted a yew staff from the corner of the room, and the large ruby at the tip twinkled lightly.

"I miss you..."

----

I wanted to sleep. I was free from the game at last, free from the paranoia and the fear.

----

The island of Rej looked like a utopia half destroyed by disaster. Shades of all sorts crawled over the barren landscape and lapped at the pristine buildings. A peal of thunder quickly answered the bolt of the storm's wrath that seemed to doom the large castle. A single large spire of metal diverted the course of it and light dashed out from it in a shock wave, blasting out the first few notes of a a song.

The rest of it was drowned out in the torrential down pour. It seemed stifled, like the life in the island was snuffed out.

Light shout out from rune inscribed surfaces on the stone work on the large castle that took up most of the island.

The screams of the shades were also drowned out.

A single flag bearing a brown hoof mark on a red background remained waving high in the air in defiance of everything.

----

I couldn't hear Malice. He was gone, dead. Smashed. Like me. Soulless...

----

The last of the rivets were smashed into place and Boss looked over the armor. It was the shape of a strong predator; sinewy and wiry strong mixed with the most graceful of birds.

She knocked on the armor and was glad when she could hear the noise. The room around her seemed to lighten up as she gently lifted up a large diamond, lightning crackling through it and the faintest hint of darkness clouding it, and placed it into a single hollow point of the armor.

Runes exploded on the surface of the armor and a pair of blazing blue eyes slowly formed in the sockets of the metal face.

She laughed and knocked on the head.

----

And then I could see again, just like I was supposed to. The memories of paradise flew from me as I took in the world.

And then I could just faintly smell the blood in the air. Boss had a fine coating of it on her body. "Boss...?" My voice seemed like it had an echo. I was alive.

She hugged me tightly and I could just barely feel her arms.

I flapped my wings slightly to avoid falling over.

It took me a minute to realize what was wrong. "Wings?"

What happened before and after (22)

Her eyes lit up at the thought of a good fight and she felt her blood quicken. She stared into the barrier. "Good old Oblivion." Her sharp eyes took in the battlefield.

Her employer looked at her. "Does this happen a lot?" Catastrophe didn't much care for dogs.

She nodded, her eyes taking in and scoping out what was going to happen. "It happens when someone has a ridiculous idea, like someone talking in another language is made for the purpose of pissing them off." She licked the tip of her beak. "I love a good fight." She broke eye contact with bth of the captive fighters and pushed her way through the crowd.

She paused at the betting stand. "What are the odds, Illicit?" She motioned at the announcer, who pointed his glowing amplifier away from them both.

"Five to One for the zebra. One and a half to One on the griffon. But you know how these fights work." He smiled.

She did. She usually watched.

She clicked her beak once, narrowly avoiding her own tongue. She pulled a few bits from a small bag clamped under her wing and placed them on the table. "Two hundred on the Zebra."

The atmosphere grew tenser and she shivered in the anticipation. Oblivion. Nothing quite like watching two fighters tear each other apart.

And the first blow was struck and she practically shivered with bliss at the animalistic display.

Fighter on fighter.

She licked her lips as the zebra's face exploded into blood from a lucky swing of the sword.

And then the zebra did the unexpected and turned the fight around.

She almost imagined that he had turned to look at her when he knocked the griffon out and stole his sword. His vivid blue eyes blurred with the haze of combat and fury...

Covered in fresh blood... the zebra looked... good... Her beak lightly nicked her tongue and she sipped on her on blood for a long second while trying not to shiver at the exquisite delight.

An electric tingle forced itself down her spine as she pictured having a part in spilling his blood. It aroused her interest in him and she once against licked the tip of her beak, a spot of blood smearing itself on it.

She felt... predatory, as if the chains of society collapsed off of her and she as at one with the beast inside of her.

She collected her bits from the announcer and made her way back to her new employer without counting them.

Catastrophe scoffed at Boss's eye roll at her movements. She tried not to think of just how good Boss would taste and shut her eyes to stop pondering it. She opened them again after a moment.

Boss blinked. "Are you... high?"

She gave her a devilish smirk, the world crisp with her instincts acting. "No. I just made me quite a few bits."

Boss nodded at her in a friendly way. "Right." She looked about to say more, but Ivan walked over to them with blood still seeping from his nose.

The faintest whiff of blood drifted through the air and settled into her nose almost forcing her to arch her back. As it was, she softly purred. Ivan smelled delicious. "Hello Ivan." She struggled to keep her voice from sounding forced.

Ivan stopped and turned a glare designed to kill on all three of them.

Canary, the wimp, looked at him and surprisingly enough, spoke up. "What's with the look?"

Ivan positively snarled at them. <"I almost died."> A few drops of blood spiraled off and hit the pavement, painting it with organic fluids.

It as an art show that she approved of. If she had it her way he was going to be bleeding even more.

He spat out the sword he was carrying on the ground and let it bounce and clatter off of the pavement.

It sparkled with fine craftsmanship and Boss nodded at it and picked it up with her remaining hand. "I'll be taking this."

She felt like laughing at the dog when she recoiled after touching the blade.

She shook her head. "I'll take this." She repeated.

Ivan literally seemed to swallow back a response. <"Ok. I..."> He shook his head.

Ignoring that he seemed to be abruptly switching personalities, he seemed to be mostly ok other than his bleeding nose.

Which was the only part of him she care about. Personality could wait, looks were first.

<"I need a little rest."> He muttered. <"Where is the hotel room?">

"We haven't gotten the room yet." Boss said simply, watching his mood deflate.

Canary nodded at Ivan. <"We'll have one for you."> Ivan slumped visibly.

Catastrophe smirked. "Shouldn't we take care of his wound first?" She licked her beak. "I could bandage it."

Boss stared at her and Catastrophe shrugged.

Canary nodded at the collapsed zebra and nudged him up. "Come on. I know a healing spell or two." Ivan collapsed further on the ground.

Canary nudged him with a hoof. "Uh... Ivan?" He got a muffled growl in response.

<"Don't use a spell..."> She could just barely hear. <"Let her bandage me."> Not that she could really understand what he was saying.

Canary nodded. <"Use bandages.">

Boss looked at her. "He says you should bandage him."

She snickered lightly and stepped forward. Bandaging him would also put him in a position where he couldn't cry out. She lifted him up lightly onto her back and started out for the hotel.

She could faintly hear his companions behind her vocalizing their complaints.

----------------

I think the hotel room was 20 bits a night. I don't remember. We two rooms, one for Canary and Boss, and one for my nurse and me. My mouth was wrapped in bandages, which was probably for the best.

I had the oddest dream that night. About Catastrophe cleaning my bandages... and my wound. With her tongue.

I really think there might be something wrong with me.

I swear I could feel her tongue.

-------------

She smirked at her unwitting prey and made a quick check to make sure she had cleaned herself adequately. Wouldn't want to freak him out or something. Her breath still smelt of what she had done.

She nudged him awake after making sure the bandages were still tight around his muzzle. "Wake up! We have some bastards to absolutely destroy in a race.

-------------

By some odd twist of fate, the balloon of death was floating into port at that very moment. Driven on by it's infernal and immoral desires for flesh, it dwelled over the cracked streets.

For a long moment nobody noticed it.

And then it's tongue shot out and stabbed through a body, eating it.

And then the screams started.

----------------

There was cold and hot and everything in between echoing numbly through my skull, like someone had cruelly decapitated me and deep fried what remained in hot sauce and stuffed me in a washing machine made of ice. And then there were eyes in the ice staring deep into what little fragments remained of me and staring and I couldn't esca-

The mind is a funny thing.

Sometimes, when something traumatic happens, like say, a friend or a person you know well dies in front of you, you'll... blank out.

Like how witnesses to violent crimes and can lie through detectors and fool the unfoolable? That's because their mind itself has decided to lie to them to try and protect them from what happened.

Some people in the world are tough. Tough to the point that they can spit in the face of death and play russian roulette with Lady Luck. Some people can go into a crowd of demons with only a wing (Or two) and the barest whisperings of a plan and come out unscathed in mind body and spirit.

But... some people aren't made for that. Some people crumple under pressure, like cheap tin cans. And like tin cans, they only resist after they have tasted defeat, slowly resisting the crushing force. But... even when they succeed in not getting crushed any further, when their mind is prickly and full of sharp cutting edges, they can never go back. Like a pane of glass, the cracks will remain forever.

I... was the latter.

I don't remember what happened after I woke up besides a few vague blurs of eyes and souls all staring into me and the screams of the devoured.

I remember trying to fight it off and running for my life as the beast pursued me... and only me through the streets.

There was cannon fire and the sounds of cannons breaking and the sounds of ships breaking.

And a few bodies breaking.

In my case, my mind broke.

There are things in the world that are so terrifying that just describing them will make you paranoid, will make some distant part of you, the one that governs the primal parts, will strike you cold with the feeling of something greater than it watching it and pulling the threads of fate and the webs of the world.

The knowledge of what red smelled like, what thirty seven tasted like what it felt to see love in the air and hear hatred echoing about and wrecking the weave. The taste of electricity and the smell of pain.

Minds... aren't made to handle these things unless they are made wrong.

For a long time I could taste words. Love had a calming taste to it, like warm honey. I liked to think that someone loved me and that the universe wasn't out to get me.

I remember being shaken and something painting my side dark red.

The broken skyline of the port and the crystalline non euclidean forms haunting me and burrowing through my thoughts to implant into my eyes and my body.

I could feel it all in my form.

And it was the norm.

A horrible sensation.

A reciprocation...

My mind winked in and out of zebrican and I could taste and feel the souls of those around me.

The souls were flies and I was the web and I had just caught an eagle.

And the web tore. And the spider went to work on it.

-----

"How is he?" Boss barked, pacing back and forth across the room. She had a slight desperate note in her voice, like she was chasing after the last good thing in the world.

The doctor, his coat a shade of red that was just barely masculine, spoke up. "The good news is he isn't brain dead. That, and we removed most of the metal from his body."

Canary poked his head up from an easy translation book. "Bad news now?" He spoke brokenly.

"We don't know why he isn't waking up. He, for all intents and purposes is awake. But he doesn't respond." He frowned and shook his head. "Just... stares." He looked like he had more to say, she thought.

"And if he ever snaps out of it, does he have long to live?" She finally spoke up.

The doctor shrugged awkwardly. "That... thing... It ate things... completely. As far as we can tell... It shot him full of whatever it was eating. Souls... Blood... bones... He's the only one that isn't brain dead that was involved in the explosion. If he, as you said, snaps out of it, he may live a day and he may live a century. By all accounts he appears to be healthy."

She clicked her beak tighter together and looked down. He had saved her... "He'll live." She muttered.

Boss looked at her sharply. "He will?"

She nodded, and she felt her inner strength flame up. "If he is safe for transport, we'll take him." She pointed at the doctor.

"Miss?" He muttered. "Oh god... why do they always have to be dramatic."

The hybrid growled at him and cleared her throat. "Did I fucking stutter? Is there anything keeping him here?"

"Well... not really, he eats and he drinks, he just seems empty inside." The doctor slowly backed away.

She turned to Boss. "Ready to leave?" She motioned at the bitch's new prosthetic. "Is that taken care of?"

"I placed a down payment on it, bu-"

Canary stepped up from his position, levitating the book behind him by use of a feather. "Leave we now." He spoke up.

She licked her beak. "You heard him. We place Ivan in the ship and we leave and go finish what he was planning on."

Boss looked at her blankly. "We can't pay you yet..."

She nodded. "Then when he wakes up and gets more money, we can discuss payment options." Shoving the doctor aside, she plucked the zebra off of the bed and placed him on her back.

Boss looked at her, her mouth opening and closing. "What the hell, Cata? I thought you hated his guts?"

She shook her head at the dog, a few whisps of confusion lancing through her body. "Not now. Later." She clicked her beak, searching for a way to make it clear.

Canary nodded. "They not fix him here." He said.

Catastrophe appreciated his effort, she really did. She smiled at him and nodded. "Right, Boss. Ready to leave?"

The dog nodded, hesitantly at first, but bolstered by a hint of approval.

They slowly walked out of the hospital carrying their less than awake leader.

The path to the airship was not blocked for once.

Airship Ride (23)

"Oi! Wake up you idiot." The sibilant hiss echoed around the shattered dystopic landscape of the world. Bits of crystal shimmering in every spectrum of the rainbow all glittering on and on and forming nonsense arrangements of lights and sounds.

There were a few diminished fifths playing in the back ground almost deliberately, like someone was faintly plucking a harp out of tune to play a back drop for the soul.

"Damn it. Wake up. You mortals are pathetic. Back in my day, my disciples could kill hundreds of star spawn and get out without a fucking scratch. But NOOO... You had to be useless."

The gem like forms slowly cracked and shattered into thick white pieces, like a massive primordial egg shell.

Like some odd angel, there I sat, looking at him with impassioned eyes. "I need to forget before I can go out there."

The spider facepalmed, or facelegged I guess, driving three legs across his face. "You freaking wimp."

I blinked. Well, it was more of a metaphysical concept. "There are things I don't need to know about the nature of everything."

"Great. Damn you. I was going to make you into a fucking ass kicking machine!" He floated towards me, indeed, lazily swimming through the thought streams.

"What are y-?" I asked before he smacked me.

"Go eat a soul you crybaby. You'll feel better."

The world faded around me, the shattered nigh unrelenting harsh angles of the crystal fractures venturing away from me amidst the streams of my mind. Slowly, but surely, the real world came back to me. Though... jarbled, and with hundreds of memories buzzing through my head like false flies frantically flailing to try and sip the moisture from my body a bounce at a time.

I cracked my eyes open and listened. My body was clean and calm for the first time in a long time. I felt relaxed. I distantly heard the voice of my group... of dare I call them friends? They were the closest thing I had had to them in years...

"So... any particular reason why you decided to have a change of heart about Ivan?" That was Boss. She sounded angry and confused at the same time.

"Do I need a reason besides wanting to stick with someone who could kill something like that?" I could just faintly hear the whiz of the gauges and the levers being pulled. "Did you see that explosion? That leveled all those fucking ships?"

They really needed to relax. Some people were trying to sleep. "Yeah. We got lucky. They gave us enough of the prize money to cover what we had damaged." I could imagine her pausing to shake her head. "Still, you strike me as the type to be driven by monetary concerns."

The voice of the griffon dropped down the point I could barely hear it. "Look. He saved my life. Odds are that if I stick around with him, he'll do it again. And again." There was a long pause. "And I'm not going to leave until I save him from something. It would be ungrateful if I didn't..."

I thought they had stopped talking, or moved out of range, and I relaxed further, almost sinking into the sweet embrace of the bed I was on. "Fine. Stay with us...." Boss sighed loudly from nearby.

The door opened and a cutting sunbeam of light passed through the dark room I was, gracing me with a better look at where I was. I was in my ship, which is what I had figured, but in a room that was far tidier than normal. Heck, I could see the fresh paint.

Boss stood in the light, blocking out from hitting me. "Hey Boss?" I asked, feeling more sane than I had in a long while.

She stopped and stared. "You... are awake?"

I nodded and tried to stretch.

She shook her head. "Don't." She paused. "So... how do you feel?"

To my eyes, she seemed to be dancing around something. "Pretty good..." And then I froze, a still image in my head of exactly why you could make diamonds from solid steel. Or rather, why you can't and why you can.

A long while later I snapped out of it to see Canary napping soundly by my bedside. The gentle rise and fall put me in slight ease.

"Canary." I spoke. It was odd. I could feel him like he was touching my leg, but he wasn't near enough for that.

He jerked to attention. "Ivan?"

"Where are we going?" I smiled lightly. I felt clean.

He merely shrugged. "I think we are going to town or something to try and recruit for the island." He looked at me. "Nice Equestrian."

I blinked blankly at him. "What?" A few faint memories of learning Equestrian via several different places in what I could only assume were various education systems filtered through my mind.

And then, all at once I say a different nose in front of my eyes. Well, several different noses. Beaks, muzzles and who knows what else. Magic...

I could feel the air around me slightly shudder and felt it gently caress everything around me. "Yeah. I was working on it while you guys weren't watching." I lied.

Knowledge. I had knowledge of who those people were before the shoggoth got them. They tickled my mind like swimming fish, each desperately trying to be separate from each other.

I must've blanked out for a minute while trying to literally gather the thoughts together. I was being shaken rather hard when I snapped out of it again.

"Ivan?" Canary asked, dropping me against the bed.

My head cracked against the post. "Ow." I muttered. In that large moment of intense pain I managed to snag a wandering memory.

----

The thrill of the hunt overpowered any qualms I had about hunting that day. The tingle of being stronger, of asserting dominance over those weaker made me glad I was a griffon. The wind swept over my wings and I had never felt so alive.

My prey, the stupid cow, had no idea I was behind her. A single fluid move with my talons cutting into her and she never knew I was there.

I calmly licked my sharp little knives free from the blood, making sure that none of it would stain.

The dull idiot beast's eyes were open and staring and I carefully shut them.

The cow was sweet and tender...

I was a griffon, strong in body and assured in mind.

----

"-en he just collapsed!" Canary squealed.

"Yeah? Tell it to someone who fucking cares. Now what did you do to him?" Catastrophe's voice echoed across the room.

I groaned awake, my head buzzing with everything. I opened my eyes to find that Catastrophe had a large bird, a duck, in her talons, its neck snapped and skewed to the side.

I felt a surge of being connected to her, like I suddenly understood what it was like to be a predator surrounded by prey that I couldn't kill.I could see how powerful she was...

I shook my head. "I'm awake. He didn't do anything." I struggled to tear my gaze off of the bird that lay in the huntress's claws.

Canary nodded frantically from beside me.

"Besides dropping me on the bed frame." I muttered. I shot him a dirty glare.

He responded in kind.

Catastrophe let out a sigh. "I'm going to eat this. Anybody want a bite or two?" She joked.

I nodded. "Can you cook it a little?"

Canary gaped openly at me. "Are you nuts? That's meat!"

I rose out of the bed and tried not to cry at the soreness that invaded me. I carefully kicked the covers off and smiled at Canary. "I've eaten worse." I walked over to the griffon's side and smiled lightly at her.

I felt free. The chains seemed to have lifted off of me. I didn't feel as scared as I used to.

The she-griffon laughed. "Are you sure?" She began walking out.

"Yeah, while you cook it you can tell me where we are going." Equestrian was actually pretty easy. Now that I had two languages to my disposal, Equestrian really was more like English.

----

The cooking system for the entire ship revolved around using the main fire spout at the center to indirectly heat up a few pans.

I made it up on the spot so I wouldn't eat anything too raw.

The texture of meat is fascinating to an equine. It's like... a sensation of wrongness combined with the smooth feeling of blood. The taste was heavily distorted through my taste buds, like throwing the concept of Rare meat into a blender for a long time.

I pushed on through it and focused on the one beside me. "So... where are we going?"

"Little place just shy of being in Equestria. They call it Mustang. Nice ponies. They don't mind a carnivore or two, and it really is probably our best bet to get some builders." She carefully snipped out a portion of the slightly burnt bird out for me.

I nodded like I cared. "Right." I took a bite out of the meat and tried to ignore the semi hysterical laughter coming from somewhere around the spidery portion of my head. "What is it like to fly?" I looked up and away from the ship.

My thoughts were swimming like bacteria under a microscope. A few of the scattered remnants of other minds screamed with memories of soaring through the graceful skies and catching prey; while still others showed of impressive aerial maneuvers.

"It's like... freedom. Pure freedom. When you are in the air, it's hard to care about what the fuck happens to the ground." She stretched her wings out. "I hear out in Equestria that some pegasi never leave the skies. They don't have to worry about hunting food."

Something about the way she said that made me suddenly burst into anger at the mention of Equestria. Where had Equestria been when I was a slave? That perfect land of paradise... Why? Why couldn't I have been there?

She began to slowly lick her claws free from the bird and I barely managed to not watch her.

I was jealous of her. The moon was high over head of us.

And there, on the deck of a rust covered air ship, next to a griffon who probably hated me, dreaming of the sky and trying to make sense of everything that had happened to me, I realized that I felt happy.

I was at peace with the world.

And Catastrophe smirked at me. "You know, equines can't hold their meat that well. Try to puke over the edge?"

I laughed, though I could already tell what she meant. Another thing I needed to fix with this body.

That night, after my stomach rebelled against me and I coughed up all I had eaten that day, I dreamed that I would one day learn what it was like to fly.

I dreamed of a home in Rej.

Of Snakes and Psychos Part one (24)

Mustang, in all it's Equestrian glory, looked like Oblivion, minus a few hundred years of dirt and grime and an added dirt road instead of cracked cobble.

It looked like an idyllic place, peace and kindness sort of radiating out from it as if in a fine mist. The very air seemed better to breath.

And even while I was breathing this in I was coming to terms with the simple fact that I had indeed somehow eaten, or otherwise stolen, souls that were going to be digested by that thing when I blew it up.

Though... trying to figure out what happened was far more difficult a task than I had thought. Half the time I just got a picture of diamonds slowly turning to water and a foreign tongue chanting out words.

Seriously, the spider's laugh was getting to me. It was like someone hitting the same note on a piano over and over again, just out of range of being able to pinpoint it. Maybe an E flat?

At any rate, there was no such thing as a covert landing when I had the only airship in the town. Also, only two zebras in town. Apparently there was another one with a bit of a reputation in some town called Ponyville, and that name in of itself triggered a faint recollection of something I should probably be remembering. I decided to invest in some sort of memory aid. In the future, of course.

Failing to see the large fallacy in that last bit of logic, I looked out over the deck of the ship for a nice place to land, beckoning for Catastrophe to touch down. Mustang looked just seedy enough to have a few less than legals to try and recruit for some manual labor.

I had the tiniest flash of committing a few murders before I shut off the swimming thought. I pushed it away from me. Most of the people in the wastes deserved to be there.

But the memories... I understood so much about magic. There was a single unicorn in the mix and through just what the unicorn had felt I could sense magic everywhere. Like... air currents, the gentle push and pull of the magic of the sun and the moon painted almost iridescent lights on everything.

The very ground in Equestria was slightly glowing from the ambient white magic.

The ship descended slowly from my griffon companions tinkering. With my eyes closed I could hear her talons clink on gauges and the slight steam hiss from the controls. Boss shuffled around and crunched on a cheap gem. Maybe amethyst. A bit of quartz, perhaps? Canary continued his learning of Equestrian, spouting off the syllables to keep them in check.

The ship stopped descending and I opened my eyes.

"Careful. Something nasty is nearby. Like... seriously bad. Banana bads." The spider jittered, throwing me off balance and almost sending me over the edge of the ship.

Catastrophe tapped on my shoulder as I tried to frantically regain my sense of balance and calm and kicked over the simple rope ladder. It unfurled slowly to the ground and I gulped, looking down it.

"Do-" I cut myself off after a second and carefully brought a feather out of my satchel. Channeling my magic through it, and being careful not to overload the spell, I carefully brought each rung of the ladder up to each hoof and really really tried not to think about how the fuck I was holding things.

The thirty feet or so until I touched the ground were some of the worst ever. Mainly because a particularly annoying memory of being a pegasus who didn't pull up fast enough during a dive kept popping up, and the phantom feeling of falling kept wrapping around me.

Touching down on the ground made me sigh in relief, and enviously look at Catastrophe who leisurely glided down next to me. Canary didn’t take half as long as I did to descend and Boss might as well have jumped off of it for all the time she took on the ladder.

Confidence in myself... dropping...

And we were almost immediately met by the welcoming party; a few guards and a pegasus. The guards had slightly tarnished armor and I caught the faintest hint of rust on one of their spears. Not the best amount of scariness I had ever faced, but at they were giving as effort.

“HALT!” One of them called.

“Criminal scum...” I muttered, looking around. This seemed really cliche. If I named this place, I would’ve called it Clicheville.

“Who goes there!” Another shouted.

“What is your business?” The third said far more politely, his look chastising the other two.

I took my stand at the front of the group. “My name is Ivan. We are travellers seeking to replenish our fuel and find an actual bed to sleep in.” It was a fair enough lie, all things considered.

The head guard nodded in a friendly way at us. “Very well. Know you will be watched.” The other guards stopped pointing their spears at us.

I smiled lightly, though I’m pretty sure it didn’t reach my eyes. “I understand. Having trouble with criminals?” I could just barely feel their essences twitch at the mention of criminals.

I could feel their essences twitch.

An enormous hunger consumed me and I closed my eyes for a long time to try and figure it out.

I could taste what they were.

Catastrophe took over for me after an awkward pause. “Is that all?” She said in a far more polite tone than I had ever heard her speak in.

I opened my eyes and the guards slowly walked away.

And I realized something.

I was feeding off of the natural releases of energy from my group. That’s how I knew what they were doing.

Wait... when did I know what they were doing?

Back on the ship. Right...

"Yeah. That’s why I haven’t been demanding that you feed me souls. I am quite satisfied with the energy they are all giving off.”

I tried not to recoil at his hiss. I smiled. I would be able to survive...

Catastrophe tapped my shoulder again. “Come on. Let’s get a hotel room and recruit a few beings.”

I nodded slightly. “Yeah.”

Canary nudged me. “Just take it easy, ok?”

Boss smiled lightly. “Nice talking, Ivan.”

I could taste their approval.

Oh god. I’m a freaking Empath.

I shut my eyes and tried to blot out the feelings. “Thanks.” I mumbled. I scuffed the ground to make sure it was really there.

I stepped forward, and with the support of my happy group, walked into the town of Mustang.

----

And then almost immediately into the nearest pub/hotel I could find. My stomach was growling, and after yesterday’s disastrous dinner experiment, I couldn’t say I had had much to eat.

So that’s how I found myself without a sandwich and an empty plate, staring hungrily at Catastrophe’s slice of meat on her plate while Canary and Boss chatted with each other.

Oh, and of course, there were a few idiot shadowy types who were trying to convince us that we should pay them more than we had agreed to for their substandard services.

As it turns out, trying to hire thieves and other suck not so nice guys to do semi complex manual labor was a bit harder than I had thought.

“Hey Canary.” I mumbled, shooing off more idiot mercs. “How much do you want to bet that someone in this bar is trying to overhear gossip?” I tapped his shoulder after a minute.

“I don’t bet when it comes to you, Ivan.” He turned back to Boss.

We were being watched, rather intently even, by someone far more powerful than all of us combined.

I could feel his power twisting through the air like a faint hiss, could hear him listen. I felt like an ant under a magnifying glass and I could only hope that he wasn’t going to focus his power and catch me ablaze. I ignored it for a long while and looked at Catastrophe. “None of these mercs are worth a damn.” She growled.

There was the curious sound of the bar floor slipping against a long long tail and then someone pulled up a chair next to us.

I turned my gaze to the newcomer and felt my hackles raise up. Curiously, the only other thing I thought when I saw his snake man body was on why the hell did a snake need a chair. He’s a freaking snake, why did he pull up a chair to sit at our table?

And then he spoke, his cold body lending me memories of life on earth and of long hours of doing nothing but reading Dnd books. Yuan-ti. Snakemen. Magic wielders and who knows what else. And there was the faintest hint of a strange magic to him, like he was disturbing the very presence of the fabric of the spac- Wait... I read a book like that. “So I hear you’re hiring mercenaries. Care to let me in on what you need a merc for? Depending on the pay and the work, I might sign up.”

He spoke with quite a bit less of a hiss than I was expecting, but I probably shouldn't have been expecting a hiss in the first place. I looked him over for a long moment, the feeling of being observed not leaving me. I nodded. "Right. Rebuilding a town and fighting slavers. The pay is really poor and I don't feel like lying to you about it." I nodded again because it seemed like the thing to do.

Canary beside me tensed almost unnoticeably.

Catastrophe remained self assured. "He claims he owns an island. I think he's insane." But even in her words she was projecting that she really wasn't close to me.

Boss nodded. "He owns the island." She shot the barest hint of a glare at the griffon.

Canary stiffened and slipped into Zebrican. <"I hate Snakes." As it was in Zebrican, it went on for a bit longer than necessary.

And then the snake surprised me. <"Sorry am I. Looks not to looking to my like."> He replied in garbled Zebrican.

Canary and I both exchanged quick glances.

Catastrophe looked blank. "Yeah... I don't speak that." She shrugged.

"Of course you speak Zebrican. It fits perfectly." I rolled my eyes. I looked at Canary, taking my gaze off of the snake and hoping he wouldn't snap my neck. I had to make it clear that I was still in control. "Told you I would find some nut in a bar looking for information in a bar. This place crawls on cliches." I shook my head.

Canary groaned, though I caught the slightest hint of something resembling acceptance and complete confusion. "I think you are insane."

The snake man thing switched back to Equestrian. “He may very well be, but he’s crazy like a fox. This reality does exist upon the rules of theater. But that is neither here nor there.” The snake man cleared his throat and then made the air shimmer for less than a second and distorted reality from the inside of the fabric, causing everything to change at once. I tried not to react to it. “I represent a group that may or may not have goals parallel to yours. Slavers have been particularly aggressive over the last few years, and the numbers of missing has increased dramatically.” He looked directly at me and I felt that he could see my soul.

"This guy just weaved reality. THAT. IS. NOT. FAIR. Malice whined. "That's my Schtick."

I clenched my jaw to stop from crying out. "What. Did. You. Just. Do." I grunted out. I shut my eyes and thought about the offer, thinking maybe it would be better to not piss him off. "Who is in charge, and how would it benefit me?" I blinked, my eyes watering slightly. "Also, I rolled a 17 for my interrogation check. What was the Dc?" If he was somehow human...

“I made sure that we would not be overheard. Very few species can sense that, and only magically inclined ones that know what to feel for can detect anything. I am impressed that you even noticed.” And then reality folded again on itself and I felt a distinct amount of fear start to color my thinking. “The DC is a percentage roll, either a one or a one-hundred. But I will tell you this. My boss is only interested in stopping the slave trade, as am I.” There was a long pause during which I considered how likely I would be to get out of the room before he killed me. “This would benefit you in that you would get my services in wiping out the slavers. Assuming that your island isn’t populated by the equivalent of Manehatten in hostiles, I should be more than enough.”

And I believed him when he said he would be enough. And... his response to the Dnd question... He might be... "Better listen to him, he has you in a nice little web. Made of death. Death web. Stay away.”

I rolled my eyes at the spider. I already knew I was over my head. I made sure to keep my interest plain in my eyes. “So tell me... what does the word Uranium mean to you?”

Canary groaned beside me and took away some of the tension in the air. “You two are cut from the same insane cloth.

The snake opened his mouth. “Uranium, an actinide on the periodic table. Atomic number of 92, or 92 protons. Has a fairly stable isotope of Uranium 238, which means the element is radioactive. Has multifarious uses, both destructive and constructive. Which begs the question, what does it mean to you?” It might as well have been an angelic chorus. I wasn't insane.

Earth did exist.

I was in the presence of someone else from Earth.

This is a cross over with this fic. Thank you Keairan.

Of Snakes and Psychos part Two (25)

I felt my eyes water up and every ounce of emotion that I had been ignoring for the past month or so to trickle out of me, slowly but surely. After maybe a minute of trying not to cry I forced myself back to being serious. "Since ancient times, Uranite has been used as a glaze on pots and pottery. There might be a substantial amount left in the mines on my island. I wouldn't want anything bad to be done with it." I looked around nervously. My group was listening far closer than I wanted them to be. "Can you make it so the rest of my group can't hear?"

The world let out a scream and a tear as the snake twisted it again. I looked around for a bit and hoped against hope that this wasn’t a trap of some sort. The very situation was calming and simultaneously driving me near up the wall. “Go ahead. They won’t be able to hear or read our lips.” He said, probably after noting my silence

I licked my lips, feeling they were dry and hopefully not helping a new nervous habit from starting up. “Right. What do the words humans earth nations warfare Dungeons and dragon and wheel of time mean to you?” My pulse pounded and my head swam slightly. I had to know... just to be certain that I wasn’t alone in the world. I felt a few beads of sweat disappear into my fur. Wheel of Time had leapt from my mouth as an afterthought, what little I had read in the series seeming to fit his bewildering powers.

“Human’s are mortal primates, earth is what we’re standing on, warfare is when a lot of people die over the misunderstandings of a few individuals, Dungeons and Dragons is a gaming system, and Wheel of Time is a genesis, My genesis.” The snake sighed. “Let me guess, you’re a human.”

I felt tears gather into my eyes. He was... a … My mind scrambled to try and alter what I had been thinking for the entirety of my stay. If he was a human... there were bound to be others. What if all the humans were as god awfully powerful as he was? Instead of running into the night like I was half tempted to, I instead spoke in a mostly calm voice. “If I wasn’t a guy, I would hug you, kiss you and probably try to sleep with you. And then ask for a lobotomy.” I did my best to relax. I was in a private conference with someone who could, and probably would given enough reason, kill me in a heartbeat.

Something horrible occurred to me afterward. What if it was all a joke? “I haven’t told the others about how I am secretly a bipedal creature that likes to eat meat and stuff.” I babbled slightly, unable but all too willing to believe that he was a human. “So. Let me guess, you are a human, right? This isn’t some joke where you are secretly the god spider’s brother or something sent to send me further into insanity?” The world was spinning slightly and I tried to ignore the push and pull of the swimming thoughts.

“I’ve done weirder things than all four of those, but I think we should be able to skip the lobotomy and the awkward kiss and sex. If you want, I’ll definitely hug you.” He... he was... uh... My thoughts fragmented. “I was originally human, yes. But I think somewhere along my long life I’ve moved somewhat beyond humanity. I mean, what kind of human dies over and over again, and makes similar relationships with creatures he’s met in the past? So am I human? I really don’t know anymore. I hope I still am.” Ground hog day. He is describing a time loop. A human in a time loop.

I nodded. “Right. You sounds like you are stuck in a ground hog day effect thing. The only thing that is really important is whether you have a spider inside of your head. I mean, I can’t be the only one, right?” I felt my right eyelid twitch slightly. My eyes were watering; when was the last time I blinked? I blinked them rapidly.

“Twitch! Flee before me! Run from the weaver!”

“No, I can’t say I have a spider in my head. Well, at least this head. I’m sure one of my skulls I’ve left decorating the multiverse has a spider in it. Bad tendency to attract violent deaths. On a related note, that movie hasn’t been funny to me for a long time.” He wasn’t... was he?

I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. It was... he... uh...“ So... you don’t have a god in your head? And I can totally see where you are coming from, though the real question hasn’t been answered.” He had been... through the multiverse. I began to lose focus, my thoughts swarming like thousands of snakes, memories, none of them mine straining to be heard, to be seen, to be glimpsed. I fell against the table and barely transitioned into a lean across it.

“Did you ever sleep with Captain Kirk or Picard?” Kinda sad that that was the first thing to pop into my head. But... I needed to bring up things that the thoughts wouldn’t try to attack.

I could taste his amusement like fine cheese on my palette. “No, I can’t say I have. I did sleep with Mary Sue once, though.” I felt like laughing at him.

“Say... is your name something horribly cliche? I realize we haven’t exchanged names.” I was right, we hadn’t even mentioned who we were to each other.

The snake smiled a soft smile. “The title I go by may seem cliche to you. I call myself Marty Stu.” I burst into laughter, the end of it dying down into almost sobs. Why. “And what do you call yourself?”

I pointed at him with a hoof after a long moment. “I’ll call you Gary.” I nodded. “And I call myself Ivan. Ivan the zebra.” I introduced the dog beside me. “And this is Boss. I promised her an island.” I introduced Canary and Catastrophe in sequence.

I paused. “And my current title is Interspecial flirt according to Malice.” Wait. He doesn’t know who Malice is. Stop being silly... “What are your claims to fame in this timeline?”

“You do know that you’re going to have to introduce us a second time. They still can’t hear us. As for my achievements, I’ve slaughtered a score of diamond dog slavers, healed a mare’s physical wounds, set free thirty slaves, made a filly laugh, and have become a village blacksmith. Oh, and have become an agent for an anti-slavery group.” I enviously stared at his fingers and wondered just how I could get a few of those.

I nodded, determined to somehow impress him. “I feel a little put out, I don’t have quite the list. I took out a Shoggoth with a chunk of my soul and almost blew up a dragon with an epic bass drop.” The spider had stopped laughing and I could almost imagine him balled up in his top hat. “Oh yeah, and the spider thinks you are incredibly dangerous and has decided to shut up. Finally.” I looked at the other three at the table.“Say... what does it look like we are doing right now?”

“You killed a Lovecraftian monster, a creature that eats souls, with a piece of yours?! That’s impressive. And taking out any dragon is fairly impressive.” Gary took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “That spider is probably one of the wisest creatures I’ve come across in some time. My title is not just for show.”

I shrugged, still holding back my fear. The world itself seemed to hum with the sound of thousands of gears. “I had this nifty little knife, right? It had a chunk of my soul in it, and apparently the shoggoth choked to death on it. Yeah... Trust me. “Wait, you probably know what it feels like to get eaten by a tar blob thing. Never mind.” I shook my head and described as best I could what the Shoggoth had felt like. “At any rate, I felt like I was simultaneously getting disintegrated and living at the same time. Fairly odd experience. Oh, and your services? I really don’t want you to swoop in and kill everyone, sorry. I just have this feeling that doing that might cause them to call down a few dragons to try and tac nuke my island. But... this group you speak of sounds interesting.” I tried to look interesting, but I really didn’t want to stay near him for fear of him wiping me from history itself.

“I’ve never had that experience, fortunately. I always committed suicide before something like that could happen. Lot less mess and got me out of there.” He paused for a moment, his brow furrowing in all the wrong ways as he tried to regain some semblance of a regular conversation. Or at least, that’s what I assumed he was doing. “That’s fine by me. I don’t need to kill every slaver ever. Just the ones I find. Plus, I can’t be everywhere at once. I don’t think Violet would like for me to be gone that long anyways. Poor girl.” He stopped, during which I tried to relax. “Oh, and everyone around us is seeing us do muppet speak. It’s why we have a few people who are looking at us with a what the fuck type expression.”

“Who is this Violet character?” I reached into my satchel for an emerald, theorizing that charging it with my magic would make a quick getaway if all went to hell. I covered myself. “And will this appear as a rubber hammer?”

“One of the ponies I freed from the slavers. Lot of unpleasant stuff... As for the hammer, go ahead and bring it out.” Marty weaves an illusion over the hammer. Marty finally ties off the ward weaves, but keeps up the illusions.

I smiled widely because he hadn’t figured it out.“I haven’t been able to talk about anything in so long! “ And the illusion wards... if I got rid of those... “Wait, this is a strain on you, right? Sorry about that. And please, I was a slave for a month or two. I know what they did with the ponies that weren’t the right kind for mining.” I shuddered slightly for dramatic effect.“Trust me, the soup was made of exactly what you think it was.”

“It’s not a bad strain. Holding three illusion weaves isn’t too bad. Finally decided to tie off the eavesdropping wards. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to do this for hours on end, but I can. I’d just have a headache and feel like I ran for a half-marathon.”

I moved to toast him with my glass and frowned when I realized I had hooves.“Well. That sucks.” I muttered, plans spinning off and dying even as I was thinking them. “I don’t even get to do the dramatic toast thing?” I shook my head. “Right, when I retake Rej, you are always welcome. Heck, if you are willing put up with a minor case of interdimensional Tetanus, you could hitch a ride on my ship.” I felt like screaming at myself. WHY HAD I TOLD HIM WHERE I WAS GOING? “Say, what sort of drunk are you?”

“The kind that can’t remember shit. Also, the type that gets pregnant.” He smiled mysteriously at this statement.

Earth humor. Think Earth humor.“Geez, where are you from, Kentucky? When I get Drunk I start musical numbers. I think. That might’ve just been Canary.” I nudged the zebra I mentioned, making him jump.

A taste of his amusement flashed through the air.“Tennessee, actually. And I was a woman at the time.”

Distract him more.. “So... what is a period actually like?” I tried to smile disarmingly.

“Depends on the period. Mild to heavy pain in the groin, a constant feeling of wetness, like you haven’t wiped and had some really thick pea. Also, random bits of pain other places in your body. My marefriend nuzzled against my breast while I was menstruating once and I about screamed it hurt so bad. And this from the guy who’s died almost every way possible.” I tried to remain interested. “And childbirth, oh god, childbirth. It was like a kidney stone the size of a boulder that lasted for seemingly years... Though that might’ve been because I had a centaur kid.”

The universe felt like it was singing for me to get out of there, but I was torn between talking with someone from earth and my own life. “Wow. I have so many really awkward question that would probably be grounds for you to kill me just for asking. So... I’m not going to ask them.” I smiled. “It is so great to actually talk to someone who understands. Say, are there any other humans?” I froze at that question, my own forwardness surprising me.

“And you’ve just made me intensely curious as to what your questions would be, but oh well. I have my suspicions about one person I’ve met, but no confirmation yet. They’re also a ta’veren.”

“I might as well open my island to all humans and force their toll to be adequate conversation.” I blinked and then blinked again. Ta’veren were... those things with the weave...“Also, I plan on making bass cannons. Literally, cannons that play bass at an intolerable frequency for dogs and the like. Would that work on you?” I focused on him. “Wait... Ta’veren? I’m a...?”

“Yes you are. Considering how dim you’re glowing, though, not a particularly powerful one. Don’t feel bad, I don’t come across powerful ta’veren all that often... Well, except for the Equestrias I’ve been in. The Elements of Harmony have almost blinded me before they’re so bright. Still doesn’t save them.” =The last he said in almost a whisper and I felt my stomach drop out from me.

Keep up the conversation and let your mind think of a way out of this. “Oh. Uh... I’m ok with not being that powerful, that will let me rob a few casinos, right?” I smiled. “Dude. I got a weaving spider in my head and I am a corrector for the threads of fate. I think I just acquired confidence.” I ignored his darker memory in an attempt to placate him and hopefully not... Damn it. I’m being paranoid.

“Well, you might get lucky, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m also a minor ta’veren. And I die a lot. I think I get dragged along to interesting events by it mostly. Also, a few lucky breaks, but those aren’t particularly often. It’s not a license that means you can get away with anything, it just means you might have a few more things go right for you... and a few more things go horribly wrong.”

“That would explain how my life here has gone so far. Get thrown into slavery, acquire island. Take over a dragon’s mind by accidently it, have dragon get eaten by a shoggoth.” Oh that’s what happened to the dragon. Wow. Did I really not know that until I said it? “Oh. Oh holy hell.” Right... disarm him with randomness. “If you keep looping infinitely you are going to end up sleeping with everything.” I closed my eyes. “Geez, where did that thought come from?”

“Probably the random side that all of us creatures with free will have. I doubt I’ll end up sleeping with everything, though. I’m not attracted to males at all, and that’s stayed true for thirty-two plus thousand years, and I doubt it will change anytime soon. And if you’re wondering how I had a kid, it was from a spell cast by my marefriend.”

My mind swam and I kept up the conversation. “Good. Very good. When I heard your name I thought of fanfiction and then yaoi and then horrible things happened and working with you when I had that idea would be horrible and why am I still talking.” I babbled.

“You’ve probably been under a lot of stress, and you’ve been holding a lot back from your compatriots. Now that you’re with someone who isn’t likely to call you insane, and has probably been where you are, you’re just letting the brain to mouth filter de-stress.” The snake smiled. “This is all the musings of my amateur psychotherapy talking. I don’t think I’m a horrible therapist, but I’m way too likely to become emotionally involved with those I’m helping in one way or another.”

I scratched the back of my head with a hoof and tried to ignore the slight amount of sweat I could feel. “Right. I actually dabbled a bit in the social theories myself back home, but I’ve forgotten most of them. I’ll go see someone more qualified eventually. So... this organization thing helps to stop the slave trade?”

“Yes. Myself and others collect information on different slave groups. We send it back to our analysts, they interpret the data, and then I go and smash and slaughter the group to an individual, then rescue the slaves. I’d go after the diamond dog tribes, but I’d rather not commit complete genocide.”

I frowned. “Sounds... inefficient. The killing part I mean. Why don’t you just slap some sort of inhibitor over the place and disable all of the dogs? Use them for experimentation or something? If you are going to kill them, at least use them a bit before you waste them.”I must’ve looked excited, I could see disapproval flare into his eyes. “I have this idea, see. Dogs cannot stand certain pitches, heck, most of the predators cannot stand certain pitches. If we were to drop a mass of magic configured to create massive bass, we could just disable them en masse.” I nodded, still half focused on the emerald.

“That could certainly work, and I’ll bring it up to my boss if we decide to go after some of the slaver tribes. As for using them for something, if we’re going to kill them, we kill them. Unless someone harms someone I care about, I always give them as quick and painless a death as possible. Let’s just say those I’ve killed for hurting those I care about, they lived for a long time screaming. I’m not quite Semirhage, but I’m good at it.”

I was suddenly extremely glad I hadn’t brought up the concept of soul extraction. Those meories were still swimming around like fish in some sort of super fluid. “Fine... Yeah, Bass bombs. So how many times has someone you cared about been hurt?

“When it was on purpose, and true harm? One-hundred and twelve times. My record for keeping them alive while making sure they spent every waking moment screaming? Three years and twenty-eight days. I don’t punish accidents, though.” He looked rather serious.

I winced, letting out a bit of my inner mood. “Remind me to never piss you off. Anything I need to watch out for so you don’t end up burying anything I don’t like in me?”

“Don’t become a slaver, rapist, or child abuser. I’m generally pretty forgiving of murder, considering it would be beyond hypocritical of me to judge someone for murder outside of me becoming some sort of justice dispensing official of some sort.”

“I’ll assume inhumane experimentation falls under things you disapprove of and humbly offer to do something in exchange for your word that in the event that you flip out and start killing everyone that you give me a warning and a hug.”

“Well, my flipping out generally comes with a few warning signs. My voice becomes as cold as the depths of space, and I ask questions that should set off a few warning bells in someone intelligent.” With that, he sighed. “And yes, I don’t like inhumane experimentation. It tends to create abominations that I end up having to kill.” He looked at me levelly. “Believe it or not, I don’t like killing. I count the lifetimes where I’ve not had to kill anything as my happiest. Seven to eight-hundred years of comparative peace. Those are wonderful, and have only happened to me three times.”

“So if I come across another starspawned horror, can I point it your way? I already had part of my soul eaten this month, I’d rather not have to deal with another part. Also, any attempts on how to deal with a semi insane thing in your head that likes to rift through your memories to use them against you?” I giggled. “I’ve been nodding entirely too much. Does anything throw you for a loop?”

When I mentioned the shoggoth, he shivered slightly. “I can deal with it, but I’d rather not have it happen in the first place. Extra-dimensional beings have been known to mess with my weaves, and I almost broke a reality just using a small thread of balefire on one of the elder gods. I couldn’t channel for a month the balescream was so bad.” He answered the rest of it after a long moment. “Most of the time creatures trying to invade your mind come in through your dreams, and since I always ward mine, I don’t have that problem. However, I might have a way to help.” I brought up his hands again and counted down a few numbers. “One, meditation. Meditation helps you focus, and focus can help you set up mental barriers at the very least. Two, challenge it. Are you aware of the graphic novel ‘The Sandman’?”

I shook my head. “Not at all. I never really read any comic besides spiderman.” I held up a hoof, realizing the irony. “Sure, laugh at the irony. Never really touched other series. And... how do you propose I meditate? Stare at Catastrophe until she decides that it is harassment and brains me? “ It was a joke because she would probably do that.

“That’s not so much meditation as it is ogling. No, meditation is a process of blocking out every extraneous thing, till you come to the object or problem you need to focus on. You ignore the room around you, your ignore what is on or near your body, and then you ignore your body, coming totally to your mind. Then you cut away at each extraneous thought, until you reach a point of perfect focus. And no, you can’t do all of this on the first try. Meditation is as much a learned skill as anything else. That point of perfect focus, you can use it to defend a point in your mind, and potentially the entirety of it. It’s not a perfect defense, and a creature with strong enough willpower can break through just the point, which brings us to challenge. If you know your brain is being invaded, you might be able to convince them to play a mental game for control of your mind.

“The game is known as ‘I assert reality’ and you make an attack and defense along certain lines. The classic Sandman gambit starts off with the attacker beginning as a wolf, cunning and strong. The counter was a lancer riding a horse, killing the wolf from a distance. The riposte was a horsefly to throw the rider, and so on and so forth. And that’s just one of the mental games you can play. Mental combat can be just that, combat, where imagination and willpower are what determines the winner.” The snake man finally finished.

Everything was perfectly in place for me to make a break for it if the rest of the conversation soured. “How much do you think it would hurt if I ordered a steak right now?” I was craving meat again... “Ok, you can drop the whole illusion thing.”

“Probably wouldn’t hurt. And I’ll be glad to finally drop the illusion, drop all the eavesdropping wards too?”He asked quickly.

I smiled widely. “Yes. I have a job offer for you.”

Snakes and Psychos part Three (26)

The world untwisted before the snake man and I let out a sigh of relief, as did he.“And what is that, pray tell?” He asked, his tongue almost hissing.

I looked at the snake to make sure he wouldn’t try to kill me or something. “I have to inform my companions first.” I looked at my friends. “Hey.”

Boss groaned. “Have you finally stopped talking stupid? I think we’ve been here waiting an hour for you to finally hire this guy.” She... thought I was actually going to hire him?

Canary spoke up next. “And where did the hammer come from? It’s... felt...” His voice dropped to nearly be inaudible. “I’m catching your insanity, aren’t I?” Wait... they trying to tell me to cut this short. Probably.

Catastrophe tapped out a rhythm on the table with her talons. Though... looking at her, her leonine side seemed a little darker, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a few black hairs were interspersed in her fur. “Just. I... Tell me you are still planning on paying me, right?:

I looked back at the snake. “Gary, I would like to hire you to write to me when you discover other humans or something like that. In exchange, I will grant you the ability to use my island as a refuge place.” Like hell I would actually let him on the island without a good reason, but I figured that offering it would be a good idea.

“I think that can be arranged, but you should probably introduce me to your compatriots before we finalize the deal.” He smiled as if he wasn’t an incredibly powerful thing that could probably kill with his smile.

I nodded. “Oh yeah. Right, guys. This is Gary, though his proper name is Marty. I am going to call him Gary because Marty reminds me of hoverboards. He is... a cool guy and he will be writing us about things of interest.”

My zebra friend kept staring at Gary. “Still a snake. Can’t trust snakes.”

Boss glared at the zebra. “Why do all of you have such ridiculous hatred for something?”

Catastrophe blinked, pausing from eating her steak. “What do I hate?”

Boss pointed at me. “Ivan. You hate Ivan, remember?”

The griffon shrugged. “Right. I kinda forgot about that when he showed me all of those gems. And gave me full permission to pilot the ship.”

I cleared my throat. “Say hello to Gary?”

They looked at Marty for a moment. “Ok. He still looks more trustworthy than you do, so he can’t be that bad.” Canary mumbled. I shot him a glare.

Meaningful conversation all but died after that point.

I had survived contact with another human.

Just the thought of there being more overpowered snake things capable on contorting reality almost turned my stomach inside out. The sheer power he had thrown around like paper was still ringing through my ears and I was somewhat surprised that they didn't bleed once I got out of sight of him.

I was going to be sent, or rather, he was going to send something describing me to his boss. Maybe request an audience.

It terrified me. I wasn't in control of it. I needed to be in control.

We took up two rooms in the hotel, once more. Catastrophe and I in one room, Boss and Canary in the other. The arrangement made perfect sense at the time, as I had the tendency to talk in my sleep. Or so claimed Canary. I also apparently crept him out.

"You talk about... things..." Canary muttered, looking away. "You keep talking about things falling into place, things made of metal. Cars. Whatever cars are." He honestly looked more unnerved than I had ever seen him before.

So the semi permanent arrangements, as the griffon was unlikely to be able to understand whatever I mumbled, involved me sleeping in the same room as her. Language barriers were awesome like that.

I was on the floor, Catastrophe taking up the bed. She passed from the world of the awake rather quickly...

I... couldn't sleep. I could feel people. I was scared.

I could hear a conversation in the room across from us, barely muffled. Boss and Canary. Their voices raised to a fever pitch, the contents only coming as gibberish though I could hear every syllable. And the world was changing around me.

I felt myself seem to slip... slowly... out...

And suddenly. I was her.

Or rather, she was me.

She wasn't a dragon, wanting only the sweet taste of death upon her. She wasn't dying, or even wishing to be healed. She had her entire life ahead of her. She was her own person, not wanting for anything to change.

Somehow... what happened with the dragon happened in reverse. I felt an odd sensation of acute sadness and agony and then everything snapped back into perspective.

She was stronger than me. Far stronger than me. My aborted attempt to control her backfired horribly. So... horribly.

I felt a prick at a memory of back home.

And another.

Like needles in my head.

I felt like screaming.

My hooves moved without me willing to and I could hear her voice in my head, musing over what a strange dream she was having.

She whispered in my head.

I had never felt so violated. My entire body rang like a bell, and the cold certainty that she had seen inside of me and KNEW who I was pervaded my being. Despite it being rather warm in the room, I shivered like it was thirty below. I had failed.

Failure.

The air seemed to hum with the quiet feeling of my failure. The purity of everything seeped out like my soul was, feeling every nook and cranny and fault and detriment and slowly widening them.

I let it happen.

My mind felt dead. My soul might as well have been dead. The swimming spirits of those who had been forcibly inserted into my thoughts were silent and unmoving.

She knew. There was no way she couldn't know. I had felt her eyes upon my inner most sanctums of thought, felt her gaze burn hot upon my mind. Oh gods... She knew. She saw who I was.

She knew that I was nothing but a miserable little bully trapped in a zebra's body, leading a band of fools on a merry quest to try and keep them distracted. Oh god. I could feel her rummage about my mind.

I felt tears slip out of my eyes. I remember that quite clearly as I cried myself asleep, fully prepared to be killed the next day. I had deceived them.

Her eyes roved over my being, appraising comments...

"Hm... cute..." She cooed lightly over a memory of turning a few taunts against some idiots.

"Hm..." I could almost feel her lick her beak at the memory of hearing about Gareth's sister dying. I had had little response at the time. "Interesting..."

I was dead. Once she woke up...

Game over.

What was the point in trying to escape?

I, after a long time of trying not to think at all, collapsed into a teary sleep.

Interviewed by a cow (27)

I was off the floor and out the door of the hotel LONG before the griffon woke up. Despite my misgivings about her probably knowing everything I still did not want to have her talons buried in my intestines.

Actually, in my paranoia, that had probably raised her interest in her dreams. I mean, she had been sleeping right? She had been dreaming through my memories.

I probably had nothing to worry about.

But what if she linked the human memories to me? I was screwed...

But what if she didn't? What if she passed it all on as one of those weird dreams?

But what if I needed to tell them I was secretly an alien? Ok. Calm yourself, you should NEVER need to tell them that.

Just... push on. Try to ignore the fact that a griffon could be killing you by the end of the day. Try to keep it out of your mind that your life hangs by a thread.

I was at the bar within seconds, looking around nervously.

And then the snake was next to my side and I plastered the biggest fake smile I could across my face.

"You're in luck. I got you a meeting with my boss." He said and I instantly went alert.

"When...?" I dared to ask, not wanting to look at him in case he decided to turn into a basilisk or something. My mind was swimming, churning out streams of ideas on how I should handle this, screaming out with a thousand voices that I should flee into the world.

I ignored them.

He gave a look that might've been a smile. "Today." He pointed out with one of his hands outside.

Fucking hands. I want hands.

And I stared outside and waited. Slowly... I could see a massive airship, easily the best looking inorganic thing I has seen since I had gotten here. Her sides were smooth and fitting, the paint on her was brilliant. She probably had enough firepower to absolutely level the entire town.

"Coward." Of course Malice was going to but his two cents into the mix. Damn it.

The rest of my group slowly crawled out of the rooms we had had booked and took their places at my side.

I was really hoping I was imagining that Catastrophe was staring at me. I could imagine that she was testing to see just how hard it would be, from her standing position, to bury her claws into my throat and end my struggle right there.

And then... of all the things I would've expected to be able to order Marty around...

A cow.

Walked over.

A cow. Walked over. In the lead. Of two kinda scary looking ponies. One was a reddish pegasus and the other was clearly some sort of guard. I could read it in his eyes. Kinda.

I was absolutely dumbfounded. I had been expecting something like a fire breathing world snake or something. I blankly stared at her for a long time before my brain rebooted.

Marty slithered beside me and nodded at the cow.

And then the cow started speaking. “Hello, there. I am called Missy, and I am an Inspector. This is Safe Guard, a member of the Royal Guard, and this is Red Hot Chili Pepper, my assistant.” With each name she waved at the one it belonged to.

I had to blink at the names. So cliche, yet so fitting. Much like everything else.

While I tried to formulate my response, I stared at the cow's odd suit and caught sight of a strange bulge on the chest. A tube... I tried not to think about what it was...

It was a set up, clearly.

“Is that a gun? What did I do to deserve a gun?” I did my best to try and come up with a serious excuse for getting the hell away from the cow. “And geez, who designed the suit?” I backed away slowly. “I uh... have to go get Boss and the others...” I tried not to point out that they were next to me, and I heard Canary groan.

The Cow literally exuded calm into the air and I drank it like fine wine. “As I have no relevant warrant, this is an entirely voluntary meeting. If you would prefer other people to be present, that is entirely acceptable.” She lifted her hoof in the air in a manner that reminded me of an open palm and raised my ire at the instinctual connection. What was I to her, a savage beast? “The suit is an original by Rarity Designs. As for my self-defense tools, I am not a unicorn, and their magic is much more versatile than my mere gadgetry.” The name Rarity tugged at my thoughts.

I looked back at my party and smiled lightly. “Right... What do you want?”

She replied. “In general, to keep Equestria’s people safe and prosperous. At the moment, I’m investigating reports of unusual slavery and anti-slavery activity, and I recently received a report that you might be strongly on the anti-slavery side of things.”

I looked around some more. The cow did not seem to possess the sheer power that Marty did, but maybe she had people hiding, waiting to do me in? “Yeah. If you are talking about Rej, than yeah. Against slavery.”

She nodded. “Good. In that case, feel free to tell me what you have on your mind, and what I can do for you.”

I said the first few things that came to mind, regardless of whether they were true or not. “Building supplies and someone with some sort of knowledge of how to build. Also, Bug repellent.”

She looked slightly curious.“That seems tame enough... dare I ask what sort of Bugs you need repelling?”

“The kind that stops fleas from getting on dogs. I think Boss is getting fleas and I really don’t want to add another problem to The Scourge.”

“Ah, small Bugs. I think I can dig up something for that. But dare I ask about ‘The Scourge’?”

I blinked at her a few times. Was she blind? “It’s my airship. Did you not spot the really bad looking balloon?”

The conversation was rather simple, and my mind slowed down to let me process everything. “I did - I was just worried that you were talking about some other ‘scourge’ you were fighting against.”

“At lot has been happening at my island, but I’m starting to fix it up. Before long, I’ll even be able to offer a safe refuge for others on it.” I hoped I wasn't coming off badly.

“For how many ponies, for what length of time? What would be required to upgrade the existing facilities to the new Bronze-level emergency-shelter standard, or even Silver or Gold?" The questions were coming in rapid fire.

“What is your definition of Bronze level emergency shelter?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

“A Bronze-level shelter contains the food, water, medical supplies, and other necessities to allow a specified number of ponies - or other people - to survive for twenty-four hours. Silver is for a week, and Gold a fortnight.” A rating system... that didn't really make sense. Whatever.

I responded as truthfully as I dared.“I could probably get it to silver once it is fully rebuilt. Gold wouldn’t be that hard, I think.”

Pure logic. There wasn't much emotion in the questions, though each one was pointed and made to allow me to give up more information than I intended. “Who else knows about this island? What’s the distance and travel-time? What are the potential obstacles to completion, and what are your estimates of the probabilities of those obstacles coming to pass?”

“And a bunch of slavers that I plan on taking care of shortly. I have to rebuild the island from the ground, an eldritch horror thing decided to rise up and destroy the buildings. In my floating rust balloon it is a few hours, between three and four, off the coasts of the volcanic wastes.”

And that was the first thing to give her pause. “‘Eldritch horror thing’? Is that going to be a common occurrence in the area?” Actually... she didn't ask what an Eldritch horror was. Human. Totally calling it.

“If it was, would I be trying to retake the island? I’m not insane. I think. I just occasionally have delusions a spider is in my head talking to me.” I half joked, half begged.

Missy raised an eye brow in an odd manner that instantly brought me back to my days of watching Star trek. Spock.

“Uh... No, I actually have a God spider thing in my head messing with my thoughts. He has

a top hat and a monocle and he is really creepy. Any ideas?” She might actually know something. Oh, who was I kidding.

“I’m afraid that I’m not very familiar with such matters. I do have some contacts in the psychological profession, and if you’d like, can put you in touch with a local professional who can provide the best help ponies can offer.” She missed the point that it was a god.

“Right. Sorry I brought it up. So... any gods contacted you slash dwell in your head? I’m just asking because I don’t want to be the only one.” I scuffed the ground below me slightly. I didn't need to run from this one.

“While I do have certain psychological issues of my own, as far as I can tell, the only people inside my mind are all me.” Damned. I might as well have been.

I changed the subject. “Right. Great. So, how did a cow get in charge of all of this? Like, Gary, is all powerful and how did you convince him to help you out?” I was VERY curious about that.

Missy blinksed “Gary? And I’m hardly in charge of all this, I’m just doing my part, the best I can, under the Princesses.” I had the honest feeling that she was mostly kidding. She seemed like the type to be in charge.

I blinked and let what she said wash through my head. Wait a sec... “There’s more than one princess?” I swore under my breath. “Dang it...” I looked back at her and felt quite childish, like she was secretly a teacher and I was her student. “I uh... I said that out loud, didn’t I.”

She rolled her eyes, or at least, that was my imagined reaction. I don't really remember. “You did. Officially, Equestria is a diarchy - a monarchy with two co-equal monarchs. One was absent for quite some time, and so generally acts as the junior partner, but that’s more along the lines of an unwritten constitution than a definitive feature.” She knew of other governments. She was a cow for crying out loud! I remembered stalking and brutally killing one of them because they were stupid!

Oh wait. That was a griffon. Nevermind.

I looked at her oddly, as if I could get her to fess up to her imagined mistake. “Right. So. How about them totalitarianistic bodies?”

“I’m not sure what you mean - most places outside Equestria’s borders tend to be rule-by-the-strongest, which is fairly totalitarian, if on a small scale.” Suspicious.

I nodded. “Right. So... Would you happen to know what the Difficulty check of getting any useful information out of you is?”

“Er... I suppose very hard, if there’s a chance that information can put other members of the network at risk - otherwise, as easy as I can make it.” But what if she wasn't a human? What if she was just some cow that somehow managed to snare a gun and win the trust of the higher government?

I was a zebra from a place she hardly knew. Kinda. “So... Purple Flurp is the one that likes parties, right?” I couldn't remember much from the single episode I watched, but the rhythm in the name sounded right.

She eyed me oddly for a long second, scrutinizing me. “I’m not entirely sure of who you’re talking about - do you mean the Bearer of Laughter, Pinkie Pie?”

I groaned inwardly. “Right. And you wouldn’t know what a computer is, would you?” I scuffed the ground yet again. Might as well go for broke in determining what she was.

She pulled out an abacus and I could've swore she looked smug. “I’m reasonably skilled at computation myself. Is there a particular problem you’d like solved, or are we now playing the non-sequitur game?” HA. LATIN. She was probably human. Maybe even another piece...

“Non-sequitur game. Do you happen to know that the snake hasn’t already been a snake and where his name comes from?” I asked, trying my best to not look desperate at the chances of me being wrong.

“According to the information we’ve gathered, he hasn’t actually given his name, only a title that sounds like one - so I’m afraid I can’t really tell you anything about his name.”

I looked at the Snake man and noted he hadn't said anything in quite some time.

After a long time of me probably just barely passing as not crazy for her and her still pestering me with questions, we turned on to the purpose of the meeting.

“After listening to all of this... I’d like to extend to you an invitation to join the same network that Marty and I are members of. You could become a stringer, receiving news relevant to your interests, in exchange for passing along anything you know that’s relevant to our general mission.” She was offering me a job.

I remembered what my mom had taught me about jobs. Never go for the first offer if you don't need it. “Sounds... interesting?”

“There is another option available to you which may be of some interest to you. While the network has been building up our stringers and communication infrastructure, there is something of a shortage of active agents who are able to actually go out and investigate the various reports collected - and even fewer who have the ability to do anything about what they discover. I know you have your island to consider - but if you are willing to spend some of your time away from it, traveling in your airship through Equestria and the neighbouring lands, you could do some valuable work - anything from confirming a report to, if you’ve a mind, directly dealing with those slavers we’re able to locate.” That was a bit of a mouthful for the cow.

My thoughts swam into each other at the mention of slavers. My recollection of Boss clutching her ears to her head at the low pitches mixed in with what I was going to say. I babbled. “What sort of neighboring lands? Also, would you happen to know how to reproduce gem effects? I have this idea involving frequencies around 40 hertz I want to test out. I know that it can disable a diamond dog, practically. I don’t know of its effects on cows or most creatures, but I do know that it reeks absolute havoc with dragons and dogs. Maybe griffons as well. I was thinking we could... like... hook up a pipe that could blast out the frequencies and aim it at things? Maybe find a way to throw it as a bomb or something?” I stopped talking for a sec while my thoughts screamed at me and hissed. “You are trying to find all of the humans, aren’t you!” I slammed my mouth shut, narrowly avoiding snipping out part of my tongue.

“Good job idiot. I didn’t even have to get you to mess up. Also, your blatant stupidity has offended me and I won’t tell you whether or not she is a human.” Freaking annoying spider.

She had the audacity to act like she didn't know what I was talking about. “I’m afraid that I’m not familiar any research into gems or frequencies that the relevant part of the network might be researching, I can easily provide you with a map and atlas, and I am quite curious what brought you to ask me if I’m looking for ‘hyumins’. May I ask what you know about them?”

I growled, words and concepts leaving my mouth like a spitting cobra. “Uh... I really couldn’t think of a reason why you would form a completely separate guard system like what you are working with instead of just reforming the present system. Clearly, there would be a reason why you would need to be separate from the regular guard. Considering...” I pointed at her chest, well aware that she probably had a method of my destruction hidden away. “I’ll assume you have access to some sort of advanced technology. You wouldn’t want that advanced technology roaming free, eh?” I blinked for a second. “And well, why else would a cow come after me?”

I knew I had shaken her, I knew it just by the way she looked at me. “Do you have something against cows?”

I didn't, I just remembered how delicious they were. “Not really. I’m just curious on why and how you got advanced tech unless you have access to advanced tech, from say, another world or something. Unless you had someone who knew how to make it with you.” I distracted myself with more talking. “The point is, if you are going to be spreading the advanced tech, I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m afraid that anything that you are referring to as ‘advanced tech’ is, at best, proprietary information from the network, for internal use only, short of an imminent civilization-threatening catastrophe.” That was completely a shut up and don't ask from her. She was either a human or knew a human.

I went in for the kill. “Right. Then you wouldn’t want to know that they use the old recipe for yellow glaze, right?” I felt like smirking, but kept my face straight.

She remained passionless, her face unmoving. "They who?"

She wasn't going to rise to the bait. "People who use glaze. You know what yellow glaze is made of, right?”

She had to be the lying type. “I’m afraid that pottery isn’t my field - and whatever the differences between our cultures may be, I do have other tasks which take up a lot of my time, so perhaps we can focus more on the topic at hoof...” Nice. Of course she would use hoof.

“Right. My island certainly doesn’t have a mine that exported that and that is certainly why I’m not worried about it.” I groaned inwardly. This was going nowhere. “So what were we talking about?”

“Um...” Ha. I scored a point. I watched her try to rewind the conversation. “Arranging for you to run some seek-and-destroy missions on slavers, if you’re interested, I believe.”

I blinked, my knowledge of cliches coming in. “Say... you wouldn’t happen to be a guy, would you? It goes against the cliche that I would find a boss that would offer me something great that is of the same gender that dominates the land. I mean...” I snapped back to the topic, my thoughts beaten into submission. “Right. Where would it be?”

Missy twisted her head to look over herself, as if checking her gender. Satisfied, she turns back to Ivan. “You mean, where are the slavers you’d be hunting? I’m afraid I didn’t bring the big status map with me - but it’s mainly along Equestria’s borders, though there’s an increasing amount of incursions in the interior. It might be worthwhile to send your airship on something like a circuit around Equestria, and have the local members of the network send up updates for their regions as you approach, to allow you to set your specific targets based on the most up-to-date local data.”

I thought it over for a moment. “Problem. I have four people, counting myself. Operating an air ship is hard with four people, and taking out slavers is hard with four people. I’m going to need something to convince me it is worth it to send myself after these mutts.” It made sense.

“Not all are canine - but that’s quite understandable. I’d rather ensure you had the maximum chances of succeeding, as well. Provisions and materiel, access to an airship repair dock, bits to cover expenses met along the way, including reasonable wages - I can probably arrange to put you in contact with some freelancers who enjoy risking their lives. Is that a good start?” I hated not making sense.

I smiled, though not at her. “Yes. That would help.”

She left not soon after and I could breath again.

And that Catastrophe cleared her throat. "Hey Ivan. We need to talk about something."

I had almost forgotten about being mind violated.

This is a cross with This story

Confrontation (28)

There are very few choices I feel that I chose the best course of action for. What I did when Catastrophe asked me that was probably the best possible thing.

I smiled at her and nodded. "Of course." I waved at the other two of my friends, who both blinked and looked at each other with near identical expressions.

The griffon smirked, probably thinking she had caught me perfectly off guard. Or maybe she just liked smirking. I'm a little paranoid, I guess. Maybe she just wanted to talk?

She pointed behind the pub. "We need to talk over there." Her self assured attitude did not help my disorganized bundle of nerves that I sometimes jokingly called a brain. I stood up tall and as straight as I could, my pride suddenly returning to me. I smirked back at her, as if saying to the world that everything was ok, and that I was most certainly not walking to my doom.

I calmly walked out of sight of the other two, in a blind display of faith turning my back to Catastrophe.

Distantly, I heard her talons drag against the earth, like she was using a grinder to sharpen them up.

And then I was behind the pub and I just happened to notice that there were no rear facing windows. No witnesses. I turned around to look at the now obviously irate griffon. "Now..." she hissed. "Who and what the fuck are you?"

There was maybe a foot that separated us. "I haven't the faintest what you are talking about." It was a smooth lie, like the bore of a gun.

She cleared the gap in an instant faster than I could even properly render and I found myself pinned, and on my back with the griffon pressing her sharp talons into my neck. Her beak was inches from my face and with every breath I could smell her.

Taken out of context this would almost certainly be the start of a sex scene. I tried to ignore the fact that she was uncomfortably close to that part if me and instead focused on the talons on my neck. A good choice, in my opinion.

Though it hit me that my paranoia was justified, I couldn't help but feel the anguish which comes from having a friend and getting back stabbed.

"Do I need to prove my fucking point? Those memories..." She shut her eyes, her beautiful orbs briefly overcome with a pained look.

I felt a sharp prick at my throat as she gently prodded it. I tried not to swallow or make any other sudden moves. "What are you talking about?" We both knew I was lying.

"Who are you." She stated again.

She needn't have bothered. She was in control, clearly in control. She could tear out my throat in a heart beat. I could feel my own heart pound just a bit faster as my irrational crush slowly faded. "I am Ivan. I am a zebra." A half dozen voices called out other names. I ignored all of them and felt them fade away.

She snarled at me. "Who were you before?" She placed her other talons limb on my chest, her claws gladly sinking into it.

I broke. My mind shattered as hundreds of memories I had pushed away swam to the fore front of my mind. "I am Ivan Marks. I am 17 years old. I was a pathetic human being and probably a worse zebra." My heart seemed to be pounding against her body as if trying to save me from the angry warrior on top of me.

She cocked her head to one side. "Was that so hard?"

I smirked, the memories of when I had forced those stronger than me to bend to my will. I almost felt like laughing when I remembered hearing about that idiot Gareth's sister. What a stupid bitch. "You have no idea." I said finally.

I felt a few drops of blood slide down my chest. It almost tickled and I idly wondered why I couldn't feel the pain. She chuckled darkly. "Good. We can talk."

If I wasn't beneath her and if she didn't have the opportunity to kill me, I say that she was as seductive as she was manipulative. I guess I always did have a penchant for flirting with disaster. "Talk about what?"

I would have to say her smile would've been fitting on the cat that got the canary. I smiled a little at the irony. "I saw things. In your head. Fast things that flew through the air without balloons. Things that killed things."

I felt like laughing. "Guns and airplanes, eh? And let me guess, you want me to build things like those."

She nodded. "Glad you are quick on the uptake. Be a fucking shame to waste those ideas."

I closed my eyes and thought it over. Somewhere deep inside me a voice cried out in cowardice. "I agree. It would be a shame to kill me off in the beginning of the story. Someone needs to play the other side of the board." I was strong and confident. Even bleeding and seconds from death I felt in control of the situation.

She practically purred. "Make those weapons work and I'll follow you to the ends of the planet."

She had seduced others before. It was the only logical conclusion for her actions. "I thought griffons mates for life." I quipped.

She laughed. "That's actual love. I can mate with other species as much as I want as long as I don't fall in love." In a deadly warrior sort of way she was attractive.

And she knew she was attractive. Her prosthetics told me she was good enough at surviving for my tastes.

"Oh? A heartbreaker?" I was calm. For the first time in a really long time, I knew exactly what was going on.

She nodded and stepped off of my throat. "You and I are far too alike to waste our time fighting with each other." She mused, hauling herself to a standing position.

If every human in Equestria was as powerful as Marty, then I had better step up my game. Hell, no need to bring morals into this. "I agree. Let's get out of this dreary town?" I needed to figure out the extent of my powers. That, and prioritize keeping my companions loyal and healthy.

Distantly, I heard the spider laugh. "That is what I'm talking about! Go show them how it's done!"

I smiled widely. Of course the spider might start helping.

I rolled to my stomach and hefted myself up, sighing slightly. Catastrophe had snapped me from whatever had come over me, but odds were it would return.

I stared at Catastrophe for a moment as if I was appraising her relative worth. I needed to keep her alive. "If I ever start acting like that again, I give you full permission to do whatever the hell you need to do to snap me out of it." I nodded at her and watched with great interest as she cleaned her talons free from my blood.

"Agreed."

I turned to walk to the front of the pub before I stopped. "Why didn't you react that much to me being a human?" it itched into my hooves, the desire to keep close to her.

"All of us have something that we don't like to remember." She carefully turned and plucked out a single black hair from herself. "Where I came from it was a bad sign to have black fur. Bad luck. They say that ships with a black griffon won't make it to their destination. I dye my fur..." It was fading slowly.

"Clearly, they were a bunch of supersticious nut jobs. We've made our destination." I laughed lightly and turned to the front of the pub. The farther I got from her the more nervous I became. I stopped and walked towards her. Instantly, my confidence returned.

What an unfortunate predicament.

"Right. We will tell the others that we are now together, correct?" I asked, standing next to her.

She glared at me and growled. "What the fuck was that? I felt weak all of a sudden." She snipped her beak.

"If I could say it was one thing, I'd say that we somehow lodged bits of our soul in one another. Leaving the immediate area of each other will likely weaken is both." I explained, using a mixture of what little I knew and my observations to make it seem rational.

She huffed. "Yes. It is best we come up with a fucking reason why we can' t be apart." I felt a large bit of anger and a tiny portion of understanding from her. It was pain mixed with a soothing hint.

The spider laughed again. "She's caught in your web.

But was I caught on hers? Distantly I could hear my cowardly side start to freak out. The souls of those weaker than me plead and tormented him, desperate to be acknowledged. I made a slight note to remove them from my head. Maybe keep the griffon one. There were a few memories I wanted to see still.

I smiled back at her. "Could be far worse. You could've killed me a few minutes ago and lost your chance."

She laughed. "As if. I bet I could've found someone else."

We both knew we were kidding ourselves. Two heart in two bodies beating as one by an unnatural effect of magic. Driven by a shared purpose, we both knew that the other would fit their needs.

In an odd way I felt like I knew her far better than she knew me. We were worth more together than we were apart.

Segue (29)

We purchased the necessary supplies with the surprisingly scant remnants of our money and took off later that day. Not a word to Marty, of course, we didn't want him to find us quite that easily. With his powers he could probably detect the change in my mindset quite easily.

And I do say we for a reason. My thought at the time were just under the surface of the odd connection that we had established. We being Catastrophe and I. Certain things just seemed to be universal through the link, which was basically a bridge between our minds. And souls for that matter.

Like a literal bridge of thoughts, things that we both shared in ideas seemed to click, to synergize with the other person.

Our mutual dislike for the bond was a constantly reinforced thing.

Our desire to not be threatened, to feel somewhat safe was another.

My desire for her was barely shared, and her desire for attention and someone strong.

Actual, that latter I sort of shared, but not in the sexual way that she wanted it.

Trust me, having your mind invaded by a being that is the opposite gender of you that you also kinda sorta have an irrational crush driven by a god spider dick person is not fun at all.

"You were being serious about the fucking spider." She rolled her eyes, though she needn't have. We both could feel her annoyance at the presence of the infernal arachnid.

I wished that I wasn't as strong as she was with my mind not scattered. But no. We were about the same strength, both of us vying over control of the other's mind and soul and body while all the while not actually trying to take over the other's mind.

I won't bore you with details, but going to the bathroom was awkward as hell.

We both stepped on the ship at around the same time, which was pretty hard to do, considering I had to climb the ladder up while Catastrophe flew steady circles around me to keep me in focus.

Every flap of her wings made my heart long for a pair of my own, a pair of extra appendages to count on to break my fall...

As we climbed on board, I had the sneaking suspicion that I had forgotten something important.

-----

He landed on the beach and waited, looking over the still wreckage around him. He smoothly flipped a skull in the air with his right wing and kept himself slightly amused by bouncing it back and forth between his wings. It soothed him more than anything else, almost taking his mind off of what a spectacular failure the island of Rej had been.

Before it's destruction it had only been working at 47% efficiency, which really was a shame considering the ley line that crossed over it. He closed his eyes and took in the gently smell of all of it.

Rej was a very nice source of misery to draw on in those troubling times when a changeling was on board. A bit of bottled misery here really spiced things up for the troublesome little bugs. Or just putting a little in the food kept the peons in line with his plans.

Stepping on the down trodden always put a spring in his step and he easily side stepped the warning shot, letting tiny bits of shrapnel bounce off of his body. He turned to look at the slave ship and practically started laughing.

"A perfect way to start an empire." He mused, taking off in a blur and landing on the deck. In another blur of motion he was at the controls of the ship, his talons smoothly ripping through the neck of the dog at the wheel spraying his blood out in a shower. In another move he slammed his talons through the dog's chest and out the other side, destroying his heart and ending his suffering. "Such a shame I can't eat all of you."

He moved on to the next dog who hadn't seen his companion died. His head snapped to the side audibly as the griffon killed him. "Anyone willing to fight?"

It had just occurred to the rest of the ship that they were under attack and as the griffon smirked they slowly streamed out, armed with a myriad of weapons, all of them crudely made for that matter, to try and kill him.

He chuckled and tore a spear from one of the dogs, piercing through his chest and throwing the corpse into the crowd of dogs. "I own you."

As arrow twanged and hit his wing, bouncing off of it and burying into the floor of the ship deck. The griffon turned his gaze to the offending dog and without remorse threw him off the ship.

The crack silenced quite a bit of the hostile activity. He hissed, and then closed his eyes.

Instantly, the dogs sought to overcome him, seeing his hesitation.

The griffon struck once, lightly tapping a dog on the shoulder. The dog fell over lifelessly, his heart soon stopping.

"My name is Terror, and the next dog to try and kill me gets to suffer a fate worse than death." The griffon said in a quiet voice before his now captive audience. Captive only in their unwillingness to try and fight him, cowed by the griffon's seeming invincibility.

He lightly tapped another dog on the shoulder and killed the dog in the same way. "Now, how many slaves did you bring with you?" He surveyed the crowd of dogs and waited.

"Come now, I won't punish you for volunteering information."

A particularly grizzled dog stepped up. "As captain I will inform you that we are carrying approximately 50 on board." He nodded, though his legs slightly quivered.

The griffon punched through the dog's face. "Perfect. They will fall in line." He shook his talons clean, drying them off in the dog's fur. "Now, who knows how to pilot this ship?"

Nobody moved. "Come now, I only killed him because he was the captain. As the hostile party I was obligated to do so."

Still nothing moved. Terror rolled his eyes and plucked a dog into the air and threw him overboard. "How about now?"

A single dog raised his paw into the air. "I can pilot the ship, sir."

In a smooth blur every other dog was throw off or in some way mutilated. The griffon, massive and towering over the last dog, the one who had just confirmed he knew how to fly the ship. "Now this is how this is going to work." The blood coated griffon spoke slowly, licking his beak clear of blood.

"You are going to land this ship, empty out the slaves and then go straight back to your boss." He laughed darkly.

The dog bowed his head submissively. "What will I tell him?" He spoke without a hint of resistance, or even hope.

"Tell him to keep sending slaves. Good slaves, ones that aren't quite broken." He flew around the ship, looking it over.

"Tell him that Rej belongs to Terror, and Terror alone. IF they have any qualms about it..." He landed back on the craft kicking the body of the captain off the blood stained ship. "Tell them that they can try to deal with me themselves."

The dog could only nod.

"And set a bounty on a zebra by the name of Ivan. He is traveling with my sister, a dog, and another zebra. Take him alive, it shouldn't be hard. Take all of them alive." Terror towered over the dog. "Got all that memorized, puppy?"

The dog shook his head faster than seemed possible. "Yes sir."

"Now go land the ship."

The island of Rej was once again in the talons of a capable griffon.

The reign of Terror had begun.

Advancing (30)

I stared awkwardly at the griffon and tried to ignore the air of revulsion that slipped through my head from her side of the link.

"Oh... that's better." The bastard spider said, and to my shock I felt the bond with the griffon slip slowly from my understanding. "I'll stop trying to throw you two together..."

Catastrophe looked at me, her right eye twitching spasmodically. "What the fucking hell?" She snarled, stalking over to me. I ducked around her, my hooves clanking against a rusty plate on the floor.

It echoed on and on...

"So... Lover's spat?" Boss asked, walking between us. Her new prosthetic rested on her new sword in almost a warning gesture.

"Probably." Canary finished, standing far to the side near the controls to the ship.

I blinked at both of them and felt my face darken slightly. "Yeah?" I shoved my shock at my embarrassment to a dark corner of my mind to mildew.

"Well, you see, I was trying to get you to pull on a bit of my power and go absolutely insane. But... eh. Things change, someone decided to tie his thread of vengeance to your zebra hide, that kinda thing? I must say, for one who is so... not zebra, he has some wicked ideas on pain!"

I blinked and looked off to the side, almost able to see the tophat wearing spider. "What...?" I mumbled.

Catastrophe growled angrily. "Ivan..." She hissed.

I could practically hear what she didn't say. Why does everything you plan get fucked up?

"Threads of vengeace?" I muttered.

"Oh yes! I got invoked! It was wonderous... Well, you see, I eat souls, right? My job, way back when, was whenever a zebra wanted to kill someone, I'd mark them so that they would be destined to meet and engage in epic combat. Or, at least meet. And then I get to eat the soul of the loser and after the winner died, eat his soul!" He ended with a giggle, making my head pound.

Canary clopped over to Catastrophe and shook his head. "Will you relax? Geez." He paused. "I've been hanging around Ivan too much." He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"The point is that I wanted to weave your little group closer together with a few threads from your soul. You know, speed up the natural process? Yeah, that is what I meant. Also, we need to dapper you up. You've been walkin' around covered in blood and other things and how are you supposed to attract the chicks?" I hate my life.

Boss shook her head and got between me and Catastrophe. "He's just being weird again. Ignore it and let it pass."

I closed my eyes and shoved the pain away from me, feeling distant. "Right. Right. Change of plans. We need money." I turned away from the edge of the ship and closer to the ambient heat source that kept our ship in the air. My senses momentarily lit up, revealing the slightly charred smell of the ship, though most of it was swallowed in the metallic miasma.

Catastrophe clutched her head in between her talons. "Just..." She scowled and walked over to the control deck, taking us away from Mustang.

Boss nodded. "Yes. We need money. I figure we can go raid a few diamond dog ships or something."

My head shot up and I gave her a level glance. "You do realize that we are only four creatures?" I shook my head slightly.

Boss drew her blade and admired it, a self satisfied smile on her face. "I think we can handle this. Who knows, I might even give them a sporting chance..." Her prosthetic fired off randomly, twitching slightly around the hilt of the blade.

I shook my head again. "Look, last thing we need is to get confident." The world would just summon another dragon or the universe would just call down another fuck you. "At the very least, we need to try and salvage things from Rej eventually."

Catastrophe shook her head. "We could take up bounty hunting. Might pay for the gas the ship uses."

I blinked. I hadn't even thought of that.

A diminishing resource survival game where I would have to weigh risks against returns.

I was always bad at those.

I thought over what we should do for a long time.

The solution occurred to me after a few minutes, perhaps as many as five.

Well, might as well get a stock of just what we had left. "Well, what do we have on board?"

Canary replied for me, his Equestrian having improved substantially. "Enough food and water for all of us and a little more." He stopped and I looked at him.

"That's all?"

"That's about it." He blinked.

"How much fuel do we have left?" I looked over the edge of the ship. I couldn't see the town.

Boss audibly smacked her real paw into her face. "So... any chance we have enough fuel to make it back to town?"

At that very moment in time I realized that the flame was slowly starting to diminish. "Of course not." I grit my teeth. "Because I'm pretty sure someone delights in making us miserable." I pointedly looked away from all of them and flipped the air the proverbial middle finger.

If the world was a cartoon, and indeed that was what it looked like, I hope some guy saw it and turned it into a meme.

Angry zebra don't give a fuck

... about his lack of fingers

might be the caption.

The ship began to lose altitude.

Catastrophe audibly sighed. "Let me guess. You haven't refueled this ship since you've gotten it." She continued steering. "Prepare for a landing."

I shut my eyes and tried not to start freaking out. "Right. Great." I could hear the ship take on a higher velocity as it sped towards the ground. "Do you think if we jump right before we land we won't get hurt?"

Canary shrugged. "Might be worth trying."

Boss looked off the side. "I'd say no."

The pilot nodded. "In short, FUCK YOU IDIOTS." She ditched the controls and took to the skies.

"FUCK YOU!" I screamed, the slow whistle of the boat suddenly audible.

My heart pounded into my ears as yet another ridiculous over the top thing that should've killed me happened, instead of the ship crashing into a few million pieces with us on it and in the process skewering us, we touched down into a lake, literally skipping once against the surface and then drifting across it lazily until it beached itself and broke the entire front half of the ship.

Half of my ship began to crumble to the ground and my body seemed to catch alight with anger. The Scourge.

I calmed down shortly after I heard the rest of the ship start to crack. I looked at the other two on board. "Right. Let's see if we can jump?" I dove off the side of the ship and painfully hit the surface, rolling my eyes and the deck buckled and the rest of the inertia dispersed. My two non flying companions followed after me.

Boss swam easily to the side of the lake within seconds, dragging Canary with her.

"Fuck me." I said, trying to follow after them and finding that I couldn't swim with hooves.

Catastrophe whistled down from over head and dragged me out of the water. "I'd rather not, I prefer my lovers to be a bit smarter."

I didn't respond, instead looking over the ruins of my ship. "I'm just going to go scream." I slowly walked away from them.

Fate...

The laws of comedy were trying to screw with me.

It...

I stopped in the middle of a small group of trees, fed up with myself and everything. My emotions surged out in a display of pure frustration, magic twisting out to manipulate the visible spectrum around me. My vision took on a new clarity as magic pushed out through the optical nerves and transformed them temporarily into direct looks into how things actually were.

Fate. It was fated that I ditch The Scourge.

If this world followed common book plot lines, I'd encounter something that would aid me, or knowing my journey so far, inconvenience me.

I smiled, looking at the trees and laughing.

The threads of fate crystallized, and I saw the true path through a strain of magic empowered reasoning.

And then I collapsed, the encounter with the pure magic leaving me drained and weakened.

And the souls bubbled around me like frantic fish, nibbling at my concentration, all screaming to be known.

I was a puppet for the gods... a sick little play toy.

How the hell else would all the shit in the world happen to me?

I wasn't going to leave my ship.

The souls over took mine and I blanked out, spent on magic and patience.

Memories (31)

I stared down at the basic blueprint of the building, smiling lightly to myself like I had heard a joke nobody else had. I spun it around with a lazy twist of magic through my horn, adding minor details and design notes to the structure as needed.

I looked up from the sketch to spy at the clock next to me, sneaking a glance when the rest of the students weren't looking. I stared over at a unicorn mare across the class, warm feelings erupting out and enveloping my attention.

Ten minutes passed and time was running out. I looked down at my half finished design and planted a few half assed corrections to it and frowned.

"Not good enough." I mumbled, or felt myself mumble. My horn flared up and I felt a surge of memory from past experiences. The magic took over and planted a few design corrections to the design, assuring that it would take an earth quake to take out the integrity.

The clock seemed to be spinning as I layered last minute corrections. It needed to not catch the wind so much or the building's life span would be inversely affected...

The last minute addition pleased the teacher in charge of the class and he proudly showed my design off. "Bricklayer's design is perfect! You should all try to be more like him..."

At the mention of the name I began to fall out of the dream.

Memories of being a unicorn among an earth pony family swarmed about, memories of marrying the mare that had held my eye swarmed.

Memories of getting revenge on the one who took the mare from me pushed to the forefront.

Hunting him down and burying my horn in his eyes and taking pleasure in taking the life who took her from me. It was glorious...

Memories of being suspicious of the seemingly cold system that called ME a criminal after I buried his body under a building.

Memories of leaving all that I knew to land in Oblivion.

Memories of my last day.

----

"Gems can be fixed to give off light or heat. A diamond is multi purpose in that regard." This was so lame...

My wings itched and I stared outside the classroom's window. The white clouds seemed so close and far away at the same time. The feel of the wind against my wings... I half listened to the professor drone on.

"As ponies interested in the weather factory-" His voice was next to my desk. "I expect that you-" He slammed down a ruler on the desk, fracturing it into a few pieces, on striking my cheek. "-Can pay attention.

It got my attention, I'll give him that.

I turned to look at the chocolate brown pegasus, a few tears springing to my eyes almost instantly. Crocodile in nature, of course, but I think they were rather convincing. The proff was actually rather handsome, once you got past the fact that he was constantly getting pissy at me. What a drag. "Oh... I'm sorry... it's just... my wing..." I let a tear fall as I twitched my broken wing.

The pale green walls of the classroom did little to hold my attention. I barely held back a smirk as I heard a few guys talk about me near the back of the class. It was always flattering to know that they thought me a cute mare.

Teach sighed, and rolled his eyes. "Be that as it may, you need to pay attention. You expressed an interest in working in the weather factory, and you need to know about the processes used to keep it running."

I nodded like I cared. "I understand."

"Silver Lining. Just..." He shook his head. "Just pay attention, ok?"

Memories flew past me as I fell out of the dream.

I would later become a thief of industrial secrets to try and afford to pay for my mother's medicine. She was very sick and all I wanted was for her to feel better.

And she died despite me wasting everything I had to my name.

I went to the wastes to try and start anew.

I remembered my last day.

----

Everything was a blur of pain and defeat. My sword... that fucking zebra bastard stole my fucking sword. Couldn't he have just put me out of my misery?

I forced my eyes open and watched the asshole walk away, dragging his bleeding body down the streets with barely a blood trail on the pavement.

Every single fucking breath I took was pained and labored. All the training I had put into commanding... I felt like the zebra had twisted a knife into my heart. Twisted it and set it on fire, removing my will to live.

I was sweat soaked and most of it wasn't anything I could even justify from fighting. Just... it was going to take forever to get the blood out of my feathers. Probably longer to try and wash away the idiots who doubted my fighting skills. Fucking zebras.

He had beaten me... because I had let him win. I had every single fucking opportunity to end his freaky life and I didn't take any of them.

I sighed and forced my gaze off of his despicable hide. I clicked my beak and slowly stood up, feeling my head ache and pound from his attempts to knock me out. I looked back at the group I had assembled to race airships with. They... didn't care.

I slumped back to the ground, feeling it almost cold.

In a whisper of wind, through the cacophony of the crowd, through the din of dumbasses, I heard his name through the beak of a familiar griffon. "Ivan..." I hissed.

And of course it was Catastrophe. It was always her. That smug smirk always seemed to haunt me...

Catastrophe had wronged me. Ivan had wronged me. I would make them pay.

I waited until his group was gone and sulked away to lick my wounds.

The next day was my last...

Though...

I can still feel...

I can hear...

Ivan...

I will end you...

I

Refuse

To

Be

Forgotten

Full... Steam Ahead? (32)

A gentle and steady clicking clicking noise echoed through the ship, putting me at ease. The smell of grease and the melody of clicks and whines from various parts played a happy lullaby for my tired body.

Actually, the real reason I had been woken up was because I had to use the bathroom really badly and I had apparently drooled the entire night.

Waking up in a puddle of drool is not the worst way I've woken up. I mean, there was the time I woke up in slavery, or all those times I woke up and was still a slave, or that time I woke up and a dragon had decimated my island, or that time I woke up and a shoggoth had decided to snack on everyone...

Actually, maybe I should find a way to avoid sleep? I'm sensing a pattern in just when the universe decides to fuck my life over.

Hm...

At any rate, I hauled myself off of the floor and looked around. "The ship...?" I blinked the tired out of my eyes and shook my head to clear it. I was in the underside of the ship and it seemed rather steamy. "What...?"

It was a room that I recalled getting smashed to pieces on the shoreline.

I looked back at where I had been laying. A wrench and a screw driver lay next to the spot. I sniffed the air.

My fur was singed.

"What the actual fuck?" I muttered, looking through the previously destroyed corridor. My hooves clanked against the metal floor as I tried my best to remain calm. "Fuck my life..." I mumbled, looking around.

"I didn't sign up for this..." I muttered, rolling my eyes at the clicking. "And what the hell is that?" I grit my teeth and went topside on the ship.

"Guys?" The nozzle below where the balloon should be had been radically altered to the point I hardly recognized it. It was familiar all the same. A single, tightly drilled hole rested in the top which altered pressure from what it had been before.

There was one less metal plate on the ship and I could guess where it had gone.

I pulled out a gem from my satchel and found that the large diamond I had been messing with was gone.

"Fuck my life..." Fuck fate.

"Malice?" I tried, looking around the world outside the ship. I could see where a campfire had been, but not much of where my companions might've been.

For once, the spider who was the bane of my life didn't respond. In fact, none of the spirits that I had decided dwelled in my head were doing much either...

I pulled out one of the prepared fire balls and looked around. I couldn't hear any animals. I couldn't hear anything except for the steady ticking.

I drew upon my magic and found my reserves shockingly drained beyond anything I could imagine. I barely launched the ball of fire in the air and it barely cleared the ship before it detonated, enveloping the sky with a massive firework explosion that did nothing but make me feel drained.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

After a long while I gave up on hearing an echo, figuring that the trees must have dispersed it or something.

And then it hit me.

I was dreaming.

I heard a sigh of failure before the world faded around me.

-----

"I think... he's waking up..." A familiar zebra said.

"Take it easy on him, none of us have any idea what he actually did, and if this follows every other time this has happened he won't either." Boss's no nonsense tone was bored and tired.

"Take it easy? Fuck that idea. He converted the ship to fucking steam and repaired it. AT THE SAME TIME." Catastrophe called from a bit further away from the others, but loud enough to make up for the difference. "If he can do that on command, then fuck letting him take it easy."

I cracked my eyes open to find Canary staring directly into mine. "Get out of my face." I grumbled, shooting a dirty look around at everything. It wasn't quiet. I could hear myself think and I could hear the others talk and move, could faintly hear the ship creak on top of the water.

Canary smiled at me and obliged my command. "Yes sir."

Boss walked away. "Can you try to tell us when you decide to freak out and start hurling sheets of metal everywhere?" She grumbled out loud in a probably rhetoric manner.

"Not a clue what you are talking about." I replied cheerily, hurling myself off of the ground and practically bouncing around. It was great to have people near me. Even if they were comprised of a dog, a sadistically sexy griffon and a zebra that seemed to keep mysteriously learning magic when I wasn't looking at him.

Seriously, when the hell did he learn a healing spell? I mean, I was with him almost constantly since we left the island and after I got into a fight he suddenly knew magic?

I felt like I was in a story written by a bad writer, like some other person was controlling the spider through the threads of fate and he, in turn, was trying to control me. Some crack pot writer was trying to make a psychological thriller action story while also trying to pull off deep characterization.

That's crazy talk.

But... it wouldn't do to try and follow whatever person was controlling the story.

If there was.

SHUT UP WITH THE THINKING.

"Steam... I think we might have enough water in the tanks to make it around..." I faintly heard the griffon muse. I walked over to her and stared at the complicated mechanisms responsible for controlling the ship.

"So... what the hell happened while I was out."

The griffon looked at me with a bemused smirk. "You started glowing and shit and repaired the ship." She looked over the controls. "Converted it to steam."

I nodded like I really cared. "Right. Sounds interesting." I smiled at the bright happy skies.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

GODDAMNIT.

My right eye lid twitched as I pushed the noise away. "Onward to new adventure?"

Catastrophe rolled her eyes. "Where should we go, oh mighty one?" She snarked.

I blinked and thought about it for a long time.

There was a wondrous hiss of steam as the balloon inflated from vapor pouring into it. The Scourge was in the sky again.

"Rej. We should go see what we can salvage from my island."

I walked away without a word. I was thirsty and needed something to drink.

I rummaged through some supplies below the deck of the ship and ulled out a canteen, stopping only when a flash of blue hit my eyes. Specifically, my own blue eyes caught mine.

And I stared into my reflection on the shiny canteen and couldn't keep my eyes off of it. It was the ultimate injustice; I was fucking adorable.

Thick lines surrounded my face in the cartoonish style that I had grown accustomed to. A single black stripe sliced over one of my eyes like a failed attempt to make me look vaguely menacing, like someone had done their best to make it look like I had one of those bad ass scars.

My eyes were the same as they had always been, blue as could be and seemingly endless in their depth. I had a long muzzle that seemed to scream of innocence and weakness.

Damn. Can fate be much more of a dick?

I was like someone had taken an angsty anime character and smashed it into a little girl's show gone horribly wrong. In a way, it put it into perspective precisely what I had gone through that I was only just now really noticing my appearance.

I had what looked like a cross between a spiked wheel and a spider on my flank in what I could only assume was a tribal tattoo. In other words, something that would probably haunt me later on but I would ignore until then because why the fuck not.

And I had a scar across my back. Looked pretty cool, all things considered.

I was rambling in my internal monologue and I was still thirsty so I drank the water and tried to forget how cutsy wootsy I looked.

And for good measure, threw the canteen away from me.

----

Honestly, if she was truly being honest with herself, Ivan was her new alpha. It bothered her, and unnerved her to think that she didn't know when the transition had been between being partners to her obeying, even caring about his well being. She was the stronger animal, she was the predator.

And yet... She was following a prey animal which occasionally did something unexpected. Taming a dragon...

It didn't add up. At all.

She had taken him in when he showed up at the edge of her camp site, back when she had two idiot lackeys and not a hope of getting anywhere in life with them.

Like a golden opportunity, she snatched him up and boarded a slave ship, selling him without a second thought. The few gems he had gotten her had been tasty...

And then she had been deemed to be useless and unceremoniously thrown into slavery. Forced to work beside the slaves that she had been responsible for capturing. Ivan had saved her...

He killed an Alpha. The weak pathetic zebra had killed an Alpha. She needed answers...

"Canary." She stated. The zebra she mentioned poked his head out of a book.

"Yes?"

"Explain to me what the hell Ivan is." He nodded at her and put the book down.

Ivan was her Alpha and she needed to know what she could to help him.

----

I think I figured it out. There were two less souls swimming around my head begging to be remembered. I had somehow used them as a battery.

I had converted the souls to make me fix the ship somehow.

A massive energy surge associated with the destruction of souls. I idly wondered exactly what the conversion ratio might be while staring at the gem arrangement that heated the balloon. My diamond was in there along with a topaz and a ruby. It was pretty hypnotizing and it took my mind off the fact that I could still hear the ticking noises.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

I had literally destroyed what little remained of two souls just so I could fix a ship.

I felt horrible about it, but I didn't feel guilty. Actually, I felt satisfied, like some sort of pressure had been released in my mind. It was sickening... and it felt great...

God. I needed help.

Also, if the tiny chance that this is actually a book that I am somehow the protagonist in, I have one thing to say.

Fuck all of you and I hope you burn.

Feels (33)

I listlessly stared off the side of the ship and watched the grass land fly past on our voyage back into the wastes. My life sucked, that was for sure.

I shook my head and counted what few blessings I had. Maybe...

What if I was going about this the wrong way? What if I was SUPPOSED to act without any real regard for my safety in the interest of having fun?

Fun.

That was what I was missing.

This land ran on friendship and companionship and I had gone the most of it without a single bit of laughter. It was the missing variable in the equation and it was one I could easily account for. I wasn't having fun. I wasn't happy here.

A few small trees went by down below us and I smiled. The smile then slipped from my face when I saw a sad troop of ponies being led towards the wastes by a group of dogs.

And then it hit me.

"Catastrophe. Stop the ship." I said loudly, though not shouting. "Lower the ship to ground level." The griffon obliged me without a word, probably thinking of something besides her job. Couldn't really fault her, it seemed like a boring job after a while. "Boss!" The dog shook from a conversation with Canary and looked at me. "You still up for killing a few slavers?"

I felt a smile blossom on my face. Doing good deeds was supposed to make you feel good, right?

"Of course." She chuckled. "Thought I was going to go insane from idle." She drew her sword.

"Not quite yet." I scolded good naturedly, a plan forming. I walked over to a large chest on the deck of the ship and slammed it open, pulling out a slaver flag. I unfurled it and walked to the edge.

We were only fifty or so feet above the ground and the slavers had stopped to look at us. A lead dog, looking to have the better armor out of all of them, pointed up at us and spoke something, though we were too far away to understand.

I waved the slaver flag in the air and kicked off the ladder. "Descend further so that they may board." I yelled to my pilot.

She looked at me curiously but did it without a word.

I nodded at Boss. "Get ready." She smirked.

"Greetings." I yelled out to the dogs. "We have much to discuss."

One of the dogs nudged another and one started for the ladder. I nodded at him and waited til he was on board before getting a close look at him. He had a net on his back along with a few vials of odd potions. I tried not to let my evil smile grace my face. I was feeling better already!

"What do zebra want?" He asked me, his breath rancid. I was suddenly reminded of exactly why I hated dogs.

"I think that if we both traveled together we could get to our destination all the faster. In fact, get your crew up here." I scuffed the ground with a hoof while being as aggressive as possible with my tone. The aggressive tone hopefully got rid of the babyish tone I might've been half hallucinating. Sometimes therapy does pay off, I guess.

He paused and looked down at the rest of his group thoughtfully. "Sounds like good plan, but me no think I should make decision."

I laughed lightly. "Well, you see this is a ship. Inside, I have a capable crew who also happens to have a few cannon balls loaded in their appropriate weapons, all of them trained on the rabble below. I would most certainly hate for them to get a misunderstanding about just how hostile you were, if you are following." I motioned lightly at Boss who took the non verbal cue to approach him from the side.

"Uh... I wouldn't like to be misunderstood." He smiled, showing me his rotting teeth. I barely resisted the urge to retch.

"Good. Now go back down and lead your merry band of mongrels up here so we can have a better discussion." It felt so good to be in charge of something at last, even if it was because I was bluffing.

Actually, I had done things like this. It had been back on Earth, where the stakes had been a bit lo- Wait. Not really. Back on Earth I had thought the stakes had been lower, but with that girl's suicide and the circumstances on how I had got to Equestria, maybe I really was dealing with the exact same situation.

The dog looked pained to do so, but climbed down the rope ladder to the rest of his group. There was some sort of chatter between them and the prisoners were shackled to some sort of mechanism to keep them in place. The rest of the dogs slowly climbed into the ship.

The lead dog stood before and also towered over me, reminding me of just how short I was. I didn't let my unease at the difference in height showed and nodded. "Right... so you are slavers?"

The lead dog nodded. "Yes. So are you, or you wouldn't have flashed colors." I saw his reasoning and I felt like laughing. Were all dogs really this stupid?

I extended a tendril of magic to my pouch and let a certain fire spell take hold. "Would you like to do a slave exchange?" I asked politely, turning my head slightly to look at the door to below decks.

He nodded slowly. "Course."

I walked away from the rest of the dogs and carefully looked around for where my group was. Boss was still looking lax, though her non prosthetic graced the hilt of her sword. Catastrophe was nowhere in sight, which was a better sign than I had thought.

I led him away from the better lit portions of the ship to a small room. "In here, I'm afraid that we only kept a few on our last run."

If he was suspicious, he didn't show it. I calmly opened the door and waited.

"Isn't zebra going in first?" He asked, his eyes alert.

"We are friends, and the gentlezebra lets the guest in first, does he not?" I asked lightly, showing only a faint smile as if the presence of the imagined slaves delighted me. I would probably need a bath after this.

He shook his head and shrugged. "If zebra think stupid enough to fall in trap..." He threatened, and walked inside.

I nodded. "Why would I-" I shot him in the back with a fire ball, burning through his leather ill fitting armor and melting a great portion of his back at the same time. I sniffed the air and took in a deep breath of the sizzling flesh, taking in the smell of my victory. "-Ever do that?" I finished. I walked over to his still body and turned him around to see his eyes still glaring hatefully at me. I smashed into his throat with my right hoof, and then grabbed the top of his head with the other, snapping his neck.

The crack it made filled me with delight. It felt good when a plan worked. I grabbed a few vials off of his body and put them in my satchel with a bit of levitation, using one of Cata's feathers for a focus.

I walked outside to the deck and nodded at the dogs. "He'll be a minute. He wanted to take care of one of them personally." Lying was fun.

"Say... isn't he zebra that look like bounty?" One said in broken Equestrian. Understanding them is like trying to understand a five year old, if I had to make a comparison to my understanding.

Another dog nodded and broke free. "We should."

Another broke free from the ranks.

I flung the vials out of my satchel and let them smash against the ground the contents vaporized in a visible cloud and forced the dogs into sleep. I smiled wider. "That could be useful..."

I motioned at Boss. "Deal with them." She descended upon them in a flash, her blade lashing out and carving them up like cows on a rack. She took a certain satisfaction in it, like every cut was a blow against whatever inner demon was bugging her. Catastrophe descended on the ship and carried with her the head of a dog, blood still slowly dripping from it.

"I missed the party?" She asked, disappointed. I ran around her and stopped in front of the last dog before Boss could have her fun.

"Let's try and get more information out of this one. I'm sure Catastrophe can handle that." I closed my eyes and tried not to stare at the griffon. Her disappointed face made me feel like I had taken a punch to my stomach. Whether it was a normal crush or a god spider making it happen, I didn't feel like disappointing her.

Something warm wrapped around me for a brief second, like feathers against my body. I opened my eyes to see that Catastrophe had literally hugged me, her warm body momentarily gifting me with a feeling of being secure. I savored it for a long time and tried to ignore everything to get lost in a moment. Sadly, I found myself all too soon.

She stopped hugging me, her sadistic grin in place. "Perfect!" She stopped and clicked her beak together before snickering. "When you stop blushing do you want to watch me work?"

My face was a deep red and I was a bit too busy reeling from how good she had felt, how good contact with her had been to really pay attention.

I nodded. "Y-yeah..." Oh fuck I just stuttered.

Canary padded out from where he had been hiding, looking around with a frown. "Right... I'm out of fireballs. And shouldn't we do something about the slaves?"

I blinked and looked from him and the griffon, switching back and forth. The feeling of security faded and I nodded. "I'll give them the offer I had planned."

Catastrophe frowned. "Keep the dog tied up." She ordered without much command to Boss. "I'm going with you."

I smiled at her. "Thank you." Instead of wasting time on exchanging friendly chat, I walked over to the side of the ship and began to descend the ladder.

I approached the chained slaves and smiled sincerely at them. "Hey."

They all seemed to turn as one to look at me, though a foal began to cry loudly. I frowned. "HEY."

"What the hell do you want?" A scraggly older looking pony said, looking down. "Just kill us already."

I rolled my eyes and looked at Catastrophe and began to walk away. "Right. Then I won't free you and I'll leave you here without letting you hear my offer."

The griffon nodded. "Such a shame."

The ponies stopped moving. "Free? Why didn't you say so?" The elder pony, the apparent elected leader of the would be slave group, or maybe the only one ballsy enough to express anything, kept talking.

I looked back at him. "I took care of the slavers and have an offer." I cleared my throat and watched the slaves get to attention. "Now, I have just enough food to get us where we need to go. If any of you want to hitch a ride on my ship I completely expect you to hold your own and help out on the ship. In exchange, I'll drop those of you who want to leave the ship off at the next town we stop in." I wanted to go to Oblivion next, but telling them that would be against the point of the matter. God. I felt great to play the badass for once.

Catastrophe merely nodded and I felt a faint blush hit my cheeks as I imagined her body against me.

"And what of those who don't want to work?" The leader said, looking over the group.

"Then they get to hike their way home without our protection." Bluffing was easy.

I looked at the griffon. "Free them." She drew a rather overly ornate key from beneath her wing and began freeing the slaves.

In the end, I got three recruits. A pegasus, another pegasus and a stubborn looking earth pony. I didn't really learn their names at the time, I had quite another thing in mind.

We waved good bye to the rest of the now freed ponies and took off in our air ship with me in a better mood than I had been in ages.

When Cata descended upon the dog with her claws she seemed to take on an entirely more... sensual tone. Watching her made me feel like I was in the presence of a predator and her supple frame looked all the better while she made the dog cry and scream.

She made him bleed out while I got a nice picture of exactly what the dog had been doing. I did more watching of her than I did listening, but who could really blame me?

I really would go into more detail but really, all that happened was that we both enjoyed ourselves and a dog was mutilated for the greater good. There was also purring involved.

Hm. Could that be considered a date? I really wasn't that clear on the whole baseball metaphor thing. Was I heading for first?

Gathering slaves for Rej, hmm..?

I had a dozen or so beakers that all seemed to contain sleeping gas or some other vile vials. I had an idea. I was confident.

I found the secret to Equestria.

Fun ruled over fear.

And I would smile my way through all the battles to come.

Tastes (34)

I managed to almost get asleep with the memory of the interrogation wrapped around me like a protective cocoon before I broke.

"That shouldn't have worked." I threw a thread bare blanket over myself.

"That was probably the best day of my life." In Equestria, but I wasn't going to say that out loud.

I felt my face burn with red when I thought about what had happened. "Never thought I would enjoy it so much..." It was addictive, two people going at each other with each one trying to dominate the other in a twisted game of primal intent. Trying to wrestle free what they were holding back, forcing them to give up what they thought I wouldn't.

I never thought an interrogation would be so... fun is a bad word to describe it, but it still fit.

The harsh scent of fear in the air, the copper of blood, the acting and my partner, both taking turns having as much fun as possible. Listening to the screams and only wondering distantly what every one on board thought we were doing... The endorphin rush...

Wow. I made that sound really dirty.

And I got to spend time with my crush. Though, just thinking the word crush made me feel childish. My face burned darker when I remembered what she smelt like and recalled what she had felt like.

Damn. I sound really creepy.

I blame Malice.

Which would've been the last thing I thought before sleeping if I hadn't realized what I had thought.

I hadn't heard from Malice the entire day. The spidery bane of my mental existence hadn't once spoken up.

Which really worried me.

But maybe it shouldn't. Maybe I should be happy that I can't hear him or he got tired of fucking with my head.

It really hit me right there that I was living the absolute weirdest thing I could easily imagine. A zebra from another world who is crushing on a griffon and somehow has souls or something living is his head along with a tophat wearing spider.

What the actual fuck is wrong with my life?

I ignored what little bit of rationality I was stubbornly trying to cling to and pushed my concerns about the spider away from me.

This world favored the bold.

With nothing really resolved, and a bit of doubt in my mind on what had happened that day, I went to sleep with memories of feathers gently floating through my head.

Needless to say, I slept well.

You might say I slept very well.

----

I wandered into the cargo hold the next day to help search through the various loot we had obtained off of the ludicrously easy to kill dogs.

Which worried me. If slavers were that easy to take out what was to stop a sufficiently motivated human from coming into Equestria and literally taking it all over? I mean, he or she would have to assemble a semi massive army and arm them with basic tech, but if it was that easy why hadn't it already happened?

Or... maybe it was happening. A human warlord, getting technology to ransack the country side.

It wouldn't even be that hard...

I shook my head. I needed to worry about me, not daydream about some other human with a cooler airship going around beating things up.

Hm. Wonder how big of a nerd the hypothetical human would be.

My eyes shot wide as a set of talons pricked my back, making me fall out of my thoughts. "Eh?" I asked, looking at Cata.

"Do your part. Get a weapon." She muttered, her eyes looking back down at the pile.

Swords, chipped and scratched, an axe, dull and almost useless. A bow, string probably needing replaced. A few sets of tattered stained and rotting armor, fit to be burned.

I looked over the three new arrivals to the ship. They were quiet, keeping to themselves. I was expecting them to be more... vibrant, less of a background character and more of perky happy ponies wanting to get a taste of adventure. You know, the comic relief of the omniverse? They were supposed to provide a bit of humor as we laughed at their attempt to make something of themselves until they proved themselves in a dramatic combat scene or slowly...

I was getting off topic and I was liable to bleed if the looks Catastrophe was sending me were anything to go by. "Yeah yeah."

Nothing of any real value and I managed to keep my cliche ridden thoughts from overcoming my concentration for a long time.

I turned to the griffon to see if she had seen any intrinsic value in the slavers remains that I hadn't. "Any luck?"

She smiled lightly. "All I found was a knife." She hefted a thin blade, very thin.

I nodded. "Let me see that."

She shrugged and gave it to me. "Say... what do you plan to do about your island? By what that dog was screaming I would say that something fucking scary is on it." I realized, just shortly after I met her, that her swearing was barely conscious. It was more of a speech quirk than any real expression.

The knife was an old knife. Really old. The blade itself was barely half as inch wide and looked mismatched to the stocky grip on it. It looked well polished, and sharp. It seemed like it had once been bigger than it was now, like the loving hands of dozens had carefully sharpened it, each use of the grindstone shearing off another bit of it.

In a way, it was like me. The hands of fate that guided my path had slowly been shearing off parts of me as well, leaving me feeling sharp and jagged.

Woah. Getting philosophical.

I finally spoke after she cleared her throat. "I plan to survey it. See what is occupying it." I looked back at her and smiled. It was such a stupid plan. There was no way it could go...

The only warning I had was a tingling sensation in my legs before I collapsed on the ground, my body losing the ability to respond to my thoughts. I fell against the pile of weapons and felt my mouth move to grip the knife tightly.

I stared into her eyes, my mind alight with the fire of passion. She smiled lightly and we both knew that we should share in the moment, nothing more, nothing less. "You're hot." There was a light purring and it filled my ears with the pleasant rumblings.

I mumbled, my green wings just barely visible from the corner of my eyes. Catastrophe sat next to me, her beak lightly nipping at my neck...

Sharp.

Pain.

My leg.

It hurts.

It's wet.

I can taste the knife.

My blood.

It's in my mouth.

It tastes like copper.

I can...

Taste the pain...

"-Hold him down!"

"What did you DO?"

"I don't... we were talking..."

"-ary! Hurry up! Do something!"

"-Trying to."

"It's everywhere. It's everywhe-"

"-et the knife out of his mou-"

"I'm trying!"

It hurts.

Help

me

I feel so cold.

I'm still here.

Noncanon. Arachnids Anon

Arachnids Anonymous

Somewhere, deep inside of a certain zebra's mind, there dwells a hole in space time itself, held open by silk weaved from the purest of arachnids.

Of course, this hole in the continuum was decided of an abstract source, like a meeting in different dimensions. At any rate, this extra or inter dimensional hole led to somewhere decidedly under the rainbow.

At least, if you were a certain changeling. Or griffon. Or timberwolf.

Or... Well, quite a few of the pieces.

And Hell, More than a few Players.

"Look, I'm just saying, Let's Play Chess Game Of The Gods is a HORRIBLE idea." The former massive titan spider who guarded the amulet shouted. "We'd have to port it over from the Atari. And that would take AGES!" His cracked and charred exoskeleton made him look a little like a dead xenomorph.

Malice nodded and popped his top hat onto the table, revealing it to secretly be a holographic projector. It shot up into the air. "Gentle arachnids. I have a preposition. Who here is tired of being smashed and burned?” He rose five of his eight limbs in the air.

The somehow there Titan spider raised three of his five remaining legs in the air. They clicked slightly in the air. “I sure am.”

A slightly smashed Tundra spider waved its legs. “Same here. That Twig character keeps smashing through us like we are generic enemies.” He blinked a few of his eyes awkwardly. “Oh yeah. We kinda are.”

Malice, looking snazzy with a monocle, looked over his defeated brethren. “As all of you know, we were chosen for a reason to be the thing that gets stomped on.”

Which cued a few chirps and whatever other noises spiders make to erupt from a box marked ‘Tiny spiders’ “We were? I thought we were focusing on licensing!”

Malice groaned and cradled his head between two pairs of legs. “My word. Can we get off of licensing? That’s another blood sucking parasite, one more hated than us.”

The unspoken answer passed around the table.

“Lawyers.” Said Trademarked Censored Tarantula. “Always getting in my way. If I could just.”

Nobody understood the next phrase as it was censored out of reality.

Malice bobbed his head. “Of course. Of course. I wish I could do that.” He slammed a leg down on the table. “We need to be organized! We need to present an orderly list of our demands.”

“YEAH!” The Titan arachnid shouted. “Wait. How are we going to write it down?”

Malice ignored him. “First order of business is that we shall arrange for the one they call Griffin to be... less good at everything. Yes. This seems reasonable.” The words appeared on a large scrollish like object.

Yet another squished or otherwise mutilated spider raised a leg. “Where did that scroll come from?”

He ignored the question. “And the one called Knightmare will not be allowed to act like Spiderman, Spiderhorse, or any other hero named after Spiders. Once was far more than enough and I really don’t know who was stupid enough to almost let him in here.” He tapped on the table for a long moment, beating out a drum beat.

The scroll wrote in the next demand.

“That we should be uberbuffed in the next Skyrim expansion!” A particularly large, and for once completely intact, frost spider spoke up, clicking its mandibles together. “We need to be taken seriously!”

Malice sighed. “Right right. Sorry, but I don’t think Bethesda would approve too much of that. We are chained to another dimension, remember?”

The tundra spider let out a disappointed noise and clacked its legs together in an almost golf clappish manner.

The devilfishly handsome spider known to the world as Malice rose up the table. “As the running leader of the Arachnids Anonymous association, I hereby declare that we really need a freaking buff. Cthonoid!” He pointed at a hideous, semi indescribable thing that was almost a spider.

“Yes Malice sire?” He bowed, his corrosive flesh eating into the table.

Malice stifled his groan at the incompetence. “How goes contacting our allies in the void?”

“Pretty well sir, but they are demanding virgins and free high speed internet.” He tried to smile at him to apologize for the table, but as he was a spider, it just looked like he was trying to eat something.

“Good god. That sounds absolutely terrifying.” He shook his head. “Right. So our chances of being the villains next game are how slim? I really don’t know a place that has ease of access to high speed internet besides...” His eyes shone, which was pretty disturbing.

“Earth.” Another spider finished, marveling in his own intelligence before a large book thrown by Malice finished him.

“EARTH!” He cackled. “This is the best idea ever! We can get the space spiders on our side!”

A particularly daring black widow spoke up. “I say we use guerilla tactics in the meantime! Show up in those assholes cup of coffee and see how they like it!” She shadow boxed the air.

Malice nodded. “Oh? And what makes you think you can do it any better than all of the other dead spiders?” He pointed with his entire left arm set to a jar filled with the remains of misc dead spiders.

“Oh right.” The widow calmed down.

The titan spider tried to smile at her. “I understand it’s been rough since your brown recluse died.”

The black widow burst into tears. “I’ve had to raise 1500 little babies from just a few flies at a time. It just doesn’t pay to be a spider nowadays.” She skittered off.

Malice rolled his many eyes. “What a drama queen.”

A few more avaricious arachnids mumbled about how their fly farms weren’t working out or how their roles in video games involved too much fire.

Malice grabbed the Titan spider. “This is our big chance! We have control over one of the end games! This is now CANON!” He shouted to the heavens.

The titan spider shook his head but didn’t want to die by dictionary.

Another Titan spider looked at him. “So... what’s the projector about?” He pointed at the non textured sphere floating in the air.

“It’s where our budget went this quarter. That, and all evil villains need a projector.”

An odd spider that looked like he had been on the wrong side of the sun, or at least deep fried with seven secret spices, looked at the odd sphere. “But... the pieces do take us seriously! We are prioritized!”

“Yeah. By the ones that have the big swords and bigger psychosis.” Malice mumbled, and then just for good measure there a dictionary at the new speaker. “But he did bring a good point. I guess... Maybe we should find a way to incapacitate stabby dragon lion bird?” He looked into the sky like the message was written there.

“Black widow! Go sneak into Griffin’s coffee.”

The drama spider went into dramatic action, screaming her battle cry; “WRYYYYYYY” The tiny spider screamed, running and jumping through a portal.

Malice stifles his maniacal spidery laughter. “That’s two birds with one stone. And the last thing on our list. Control of a game.”

The scroll updated.

He licked his spidery jaws. “Right. Time to send it off to the mods and then we’ll see if it gets through.”

Sights (35)

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The clock on the wall marked out the time in steady rhythm, each second passing with a loud articulation of time moving forward at a steady rate. Good thing too, as it was the only thing that was moving in my room. For a long time my eyes sat on the clock, taking relief in that the world didn't stop for me. I could faintly hear Boss shouting orders on the topside, her authoritative voice far better suited for command.

I tried to remember what I had done to deserve being the main character in a tragedy piece. Thought really hard on it for a few minutes, in fact. Nothing really stood out in my mind besides not really trying to make friends back home.

I referred to it as home. Not Earth, home.

I was bandaged on one limb and bound to the bed by what looked several layers of curtains wrapped around me and the mattress like plastic wrap.

I was insane. This world was insane. What motivated the world? What motivated me?

I had been injured by something I couldn't remember. Yet another pattern, like some lazy baker had taken a cookie cutter to the narrative and baked sugar cookies out of the more exciting bits.

If I ever got laid, would I remember that?

Memories from yesterday came to be as if roused by my skepticism. I had been talking to Catastrophe.

And then...

I felt a warm blush rush across my face. That was a Good memory... I smiled lightly. And then frowned

I remembered the knife...

God. I stabbed myself.

Don't think about it. Just push through whatever the hell the world threw at me. In a way, I was winning the game by surviving every cliche or acid trip the fates placed in my path. Winning felt good.

A dark flash of satisfaction flared through my mind when my leg let out a few bolts of pain. That is right, I hurt myself more than you did, world.

As was almost becoming routine, Canary walked in through the door to check on me.

Screw being subtle. "Canary, where are you keeping your books?"

He flinched as if I had struck him across his muzzle. "How?"

I laughed. "I woke up and you keep learning new spells. Only made sense that you had books." I had to think before reality reacted. I had to be logical and crazier than a crack addict going through withdrawal.

"I only have a few books." He looked down, the confession evidently hurting him.

"A spell book, the Equestrian translation book, what else?" I tried to be reassuring as well as commanding. I abruptly regretted that I had not been older when I entered equestria and in the same instant stomped on the irrational regret like a roach.

"A book I can't read." He sighed. "Ivan. Why am I here? What are you trying to prove?" His eyes filled with doubt. He doubted me.

"What?" I didn't keep the pain out of my eyes.

He flinched again. "Ivan... I can't decide how to say this... Every time you do anything you end up hurt."

I grit my teeth and shut out his voice. "Shut up."

"You need to stop trying to change the world. It isn't working for you." His words cut through me.

"Shut up." I felt like crying.

"What are we even doing?" He stared at me. "Damn it."

I snapped. "Canary. Shut up. I can win. I will win." He was doubting me. "As soon as I get out of this bed I will start winning. If I ever stop it is then, AND ONLY THEN THAT YOU CAN QUESTION ME." I felt like I spat venom at him.

He jerked like I spat venom at him. "Yes sir."

"Now get me your books to read while I think about what we are doing." I smiled at him lightly, as if I were trying to apologize. I wasn't, he had really hurt me, but whatever.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

A few minutes passed before he returned with a few books on his back.

I nodded at him. "Where are we?"

"We are waiting outside of Oblivion for you to recover." He looked away. "I'm sorry."

I could hear the words he didn't say. "For doubting me? When have I given you reason not to?" I shook my head.

"Yes." He shook his head as well and sat the books on the bed next to me. He also placed a feather beside me, for the levitation spell. He tried to smile at me when he walked out of the room but it didn't reach his eyes.

There was a long moment where I tried to smile back at him but could only feel a cold feeling of betrayal and remorse. I shook my head and looked down at the books, settling on the spell book.

It was mostly a dud, theorized magic and the compounds that were to be kept from slaves at all costs. It also just might've been my depressingly slow reading speed, but the Equestruan written spell book that documented rumors on zebra magic might not have been the best method to learn zebra magic.

Maybe.

At any rate, all I really gleaned from the book was that apples were good for healing, though not as good as lemons. Which almost made sense if you ignored all hints of logic and stuck a hoof in a blender.

The other book however...

The cover was bound on a locked case tightly, letters of the ENGLISH alphabet wrapped around the fringes of the front cover, followed by a complex stream of numbers.

The book was tightly bound by an internal spell relating to the cover, at least that us what I could guess at. Where I assumed the title would be was literally blank, even of magic.

The entire book actually drained magic from the air around it slowly. It was rather fascinating in the same way that burning ants with a magnifying glass was.

After a few minutes of feeding tiny bits of magic into it I has a wonderful idea. I shoved a fireball's worth of magic into it and grinned when several spots erupted from the cover in a dazzling display of light. And the dots blurred to form symbols, all resembling nothing more than various placements of crosses.

Religious symbolism and thoughts on what it all coukd mean flooded through me at the crosses that covered it. It was another language, the symbols slowly flickering out. I felt my hope start to die out.

I glared at the English letters on the cover and the numbers relating to the letters when it occurred to me that the symbols and the letters and the numbers were all related.

The symbols meant numbers meant letters.

And then I thought back to being human, of what those symbols could relate to.

Call me crazy, and I will probably agree with you, but those symbols almost looked like fingers. I mean, if you have fingers, lay one out across something. In my mind's eye, I could imagine that each line on the various crosses matched lines running through the joints of each finger.

I mean, it didn't really fit the third line for the cross that was nearer to the bottom, but I figured that would be where the finger attached to the hand.

It was Trinary.

Base three. The numbers were written in base three.

I could barely read base three. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that you came across in every day life, understand? But the series of symbols had been attached to numbers and letters... And then maybe this book, with English on the cover, would open and explain away exactly why my life was hell.

Would be nice, I guess.

Probably wouldn't, but all I could really do was hope.

I began my slow translation attempt, pumping magic thread after magic thread into the book while trying to read it.

By the end of the hour I had two letters translated. A G.

That's it for most of an hour. That and a bit of a headache from switching languages.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

I had a brief flash of memory that implicated me as being responsible for its creation. I heard the melody of the ship and rolled my eyes at my delusions, instead focusing back on the book.

The door opened again and I knew it was the griffon by her talons clicking against the wood. "Heard you were awake and I thought I should visit." I heard a waver in her voice and decided to not comment on it.

"Really?" I asked while trying not to sound disinterested. A G U. Three letters.

"Yeah... So I was thinking."

I looked at her and memories flooded back to the front of my mind, coloring my thoughts with the added strain of hormones and my face burned red through my fur.

However that worked.

"Oh? Can't even look at me without blushing?" She teased, raising her wings slightly.

"Yeah." I responded, tearing my gaze away from her and trying to forget what my mind told me she tasted like. "What were you thinking?"

She pulled out a small paper bound bundle from the pounce under her wing. An apple soon followed and she tossed both on the bed. "Here. I think we might be able to get you to eat meat."

I blinked. "What?"

"Jerky. I think if we give you a little meat at a time you'll be able to eat more if it eventually." I noted her distinct lack of swear words.

I peeled apart the package and found a small sliver of meat of in deterministic origin. "Dog?"

She nodded and looked at the apple. "Eat the apple after you try the jerky."

I looked back at her and my face didn't darken, though that might've been because my face was already as red as possible. I channeled my magic through the feather next to me and levitated the dog meat into my mouth. I chewed it and wished for canines. I swallowed and started on the apple.

"If we ever end up stranded somewhere with something that you can't fix, having more variety in the menu will help." She ran her tongue over her beak and I caught the faintest hint of blood in the air. "That, and I want to see how it affects you."

She said the last part in the perfect tone to build my interest in quite a few things, many of which would only happen in a certain other kind of story than the one I seemed to be in.

I gulped back my first few responses and nodded. "Thanks."

She shrugged and turned away, swaying her back half in the perfect way. She quietly snickered as she left the room, letting me know exactly why she did that.

She was a bitch.

Pathetic. I felt pretty pathetic.

I threw myself back into reading to put my mind off of her teasings.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Five letters. A G U I D. Words... In English of course.

Just... Everything in English seemed to pop out from everything as if the text itself was in another color. And sure it was merely an alphabet, but puzzling it out kept me from thinking too hard or descending into a chorus of woe is me or something.

A guide.

I blinked and hurriedly retraced the thought. "A guide." I felt something touch my mind and with a groan I felt it come from the book.

"Can I go one day without something messing with my head? One day?" Shut up.

I looked at the book again and stopped. The two words, a guide. appeared on the cover.

I smiled. Progress.

As if designed by clock work, Boss opened the door right as i got a few more letters decoded.

"Ivan." Her voice was far more serious and it stung like blades of ice cloaked in bits of salt. Or, I overreacted to her body language and my mind got carried away with the figurative language, one or the other.

"Boss." I replied in kind, bound to the bed.

"Do you know why you hurt yourself?" She leaned against the door and stared at me, probably calculating things.

I nodded. "Something possessed me, you know, bad thing of the day." The world trying to screw me over was entirely too routine a thing.

She sighed. "Most creatures don't have the ability, or even the thought to let a spirit take control. You do know why I am here, correct?"

I had an idea but I shook my head. "Not really."

"You are weak in mental strength." She stated simply.

"On the contrary, I think I am quite strong in that department." I replied almost instantly.

"You have strength, but not near enough to stop whatever is attacking you."

I bit back what little sarcasm I wanted put into my next phrase when I realized she wasn't doubting me or even being negative. "Then...?"

"You need to get stronger. We all need to get stronger." She drew her sword. "Once you recover well enough, we, and that means everyone on board, will practice fighting." She advised, though it was far more of an order.

I nodded limply at her and sighed. "So...? When do you think I will be better enough?"

"A few days. Better enjoy your rest, because I am not giving you another unless you break bones." She sheathed her sword and tapped her metal paw on the wall.

I sighed. Three companions, each oh so different. All trying to help me live to seem vision of a brighter future, or at least live to see another day.

It was great to have friends!

I heard a certain spider snicker quietly.

Thoughts (36)

A guide to bas

Eleven letters, all I had translated. That's all.

It had been a few days since I had given Canary my ultimatum.

-----

Boss stood in front of my group, which sadly included me. "Right. Combat training." She stated, her magic sword which we still hadn't figured out what actually did as a result of it being magic cast aside to be replaced with a dull sword.

I looked over at Canary. "You do have a few healing spells, right?" I had a really bad feeling about this.

The Scourge, like many other things about the world I have since lived in, confused me greatly. It looked like someone had lifted a chinese junk ship straight out of Earth and put it into this world and gave it a bad case of rust and overmetalplatitus. And then, after I had apparently gone psycho and ate souls, the front half had been converted into iron instead of wood. It was mostly black as well, with a hastily scratched out name in the side. Catastrophe had been all too happy to maim the ship to scrawl out The Scourge.

Oh yeah, and then someone attached a balloon to it. There were three cannon hole things, you know, where the cannons poke out? I'm not a ship builder, don't ask me. We had cannons for those holes, though the existence of cannons confused me as it would imply that there was gunpowder, but there were no guns...

Right...

Well, besides the one on that cow. Why were there cannons without guns?

"IVAN! Stop getting introspective." Boss growled, cross the gap and hitting me with the broad side of the sword. The impact, as you can imagine tore me from the thoughts of other weapons beside the one in her paws.

I stared at her and nodded. "Fine."

"Canary! Ivan. You both are not front line fighters." Which kinda stung, I mean, what guy hasn't dreamed of being in the thick of combat waving some sort of massive sword through the air and through other people while his companions showered beneficial spells and arrow rains behind him?

Canary nodded beside me. "And what are we?"

"You are both to hang back and let us do the real fighting while you take care of anybody that may be trying to sneak up on us." Boss looked at me and kicked the thin knife I had almost killed myself with earlier across the flat deck of the boat. The hilt caught on a ragged plank and spun into the air and I caught it smoothly.

Wait a second... I'm not that coordinated... What... Oh yeah. I'm in an adventure world novel. Characters learn fighting quickly.

Boss walked over to the pile of weapons and grabbed another sword, doubling her effective swordliness. Seriously, I'm not a fighter, don't ask me what you call it.

"Can anyone tell me why most beings would laugh at someone who uses two swords?"

Catastrophe smiled smugly. "You have no defense." I didn't look at her, knowing that I wouldn't be able to look away easily. I held the knife in my mouth as secure as I could manage, looking at Boss.

The dog nodded in a satisfied manner, her tan fur almost shining in the sun. Her prosthetic twitched around one of the blades, making me think that it was not quite as secure. Which reminded me, I needed a bath. Where did she get her sparkling fur from? "Exactly. I have two swords, neither of which can be used to block unless I use both at once. How does someone with a shield compare with someone with a blade?"

I answered, though I had to speak around a blade. "Someone with a shield can block and strike?" It made an odd sort of sense.

She frowned. "It's like that, but not really. A shield is primarily used for defense."

Obvious statement is obvious, I guess. I've never really tried to cut someone with a shield before...

"And it weighs you down. A good shield weighs quite a bit more than a good sword." She hit the blades together and made them ring out. Catastrophe visibly winced at the sound. "These are not good blades."

"Weapons of choice?" Boss called out again after the griffon had stopped glaring.

"Knife." I stated lightly, then narrowed my eyes at the weapon in my mouth. Seriously, I wanted hands or talons. Holding something you wanted to fight with in your mouth was a horrible idea.

"Staff." Canary stated and I just realized he didn't actually have a weapon. Dang.

A few words from the book I had read on zebra magic floated through my head. General foci can come in a variety of forms... staffs of wood may make for good healing...

Foci.

I nodded as something seemed to click in my head. Like, audibly. I'm pretty sure that the world was trying to fuck with me but I didn't care.

I closed my eyes and felt for the magic around me. It's one of those things that is infinitely easier to do than it is to explain, you understand. I felt like I was projecting pieces of myself outside of me and then waiting for the response. I suppose it was a bit like a ping system. I simply pinged the air and waited for a response.

I felt through my pouch with my eyes closed and my mouth well away from it. I pinged my pouch with magic, and felt one of the little balls of prepared fireball react.

I smiled lightly with my eyes still closed and set the fireball off. I shot it off the ship and then tried to see exactly what happened.

I replayed it in my head until it became blurry, trying to understand exactly what caused it to happen.

"Oh great, he's doing one of those things again." Boss's voice echoed from afar.

The world twisted with the magic... like a weave...

The energies of the world twisted to form a pattern and the world reacted to the deliberate manipulations of the energy to change the nature of reality to force something to happen.

Magic was energy designed to alter the world.

And...

Something hit me aside the head again, sending the blade in my mouth tumbling out and myself landing on my side. I shot my eyes open to find myself face to face with Boss. "Look. Pay attention in a fight." She rolled her eyes.

I forced myself to my feet, my borderline break through slipping away from me with a frustrated grunt. "Yes." I lifted the knife with magic over to me, and bit down on the hilt. I held my eye contact with the dog.

"So, someone is coming towards you. What is your job?"

I hadn't been paying attention. "I don't know."

Her right blade smacked against the side of my face and I felt a welt start to raise up. I glared at her.

"You dodge." She said simply and I jumped back from her left sword flashing out. "You keep dodging until you get an opportunity to stop me."

She lunged at me and I realized with a bit of a shiver that the blades were definitely still sharp enough to cut through my skin.

Which, admittedly, would explain why I had a non dulled knife.

I ducked away from her sword swings and tried to get my mind to help me out. Her sword flashed to the right and my magic swarmed out of me in a wave.

"Guardian." Saying it was almost involuntary.

The yellow bubble did what it had so many times before and deflected her strike for the few seconds I pumped magic into the spell.

And then when it faded she was back to trying to kill me. "Come on Ivan. All you have to do it keep me away long enough for someone to save you, right?" I could barely see, from the corners of my eyes because I was not going to look away from Boss, the rest of the creatures aboard the ship watching us.

And then her swords flashed out and I didn't parry, jumping back from her. And then it occurred to me that I was on a bloody airship and maybe jumping backwards was not a good idea.

"Got it." I mumbled around the blade, dashing away from her on a reflex. Not that I really had combat reflexes, but whatever. The point was that I would be safer away from her.

And then she dove across the half of the ship I had just put between us and swiped at me with her sword.

My body felt unexpectedly lighter and I suddenly felt bare. I leaped away from her and tried to ignore the smile on her face.

And then she rushed at me again and I fumbled, dropping the blade from my mouth as one of my legs smashed into the chest I had kept the slaver flag in.

"Shit!" I swore.

Boss kept right at it, and I fell on my back. The rough rust scraped against me in an unpleasant way.

"Guardian!" I shouted and the barrier popped up just like I had expected.

And then Boss stopped dead cold and looked at me. "I just... cut off your satchel..."

I was still pumping magic into the spell and it was far more draining than normal, slowly sucking what energy I have. I dropped it and looked to my side. "What." My satchel was gone from my side, sure enough.

We both stared at each other for a long time, not sure what had just happened. She spoke first. "Do that again."

I forced my magic out into the spell. Surprisingly, I felt the spell catch without the topaz it required. "Uh..." I blinked at it and dropped it.

Canary slowly walked over to my side. "I think Ivan might need to focus on magic. If he can cast spells without foci..." He flashed me a light smile and I tried to smile back. All I could really think of was how he had doubted me.

Boss looked at him. "So... I get to have you two practice magic while the griffon and I spar?" She shrugged. "Fine. Might actually make him worth something in a fight."

The insult stung cold at me and I brushed it off without a word, knowing it to be essentially true. I needed to get stronger. I walked over to my dropped knife and my cut pouch and frowned at the pouch, pulling out a feather and slowly tying the leather straps back together with a simple knot.

The knife slid into the pouch just barely. I smiled and then frowned sadly, missing Disconsolate for the first time in a long while. Having a knife that stuck to you was pretty ok.

I shook my head and put the satchel on, looking around.

Boss sighed. "Hey. It's time we went back to Oblivion." My body sang out a solo of pain and bruises from where Boss had smacked me and when I had been stupid enough to stub my leg.

"Aye Captain." I mumbled. I had pretty much given up being the authority on the ship, Boss, towering over both me and Canary seemed to cut a far more confident form.

That, and she really looked like she could beat you to a pulp without feeling bad about it.

I still looked pretty adorable.

----

A guide to basic met

"If this turns out to just be a guide book I will start screaming." The magic code on the book had changed again to a complex formula involving exponents and a simple cipher.

"Damn it." At least there weren't any proofs involved.

I looked around the room and tried to put my mind off of what we might find back in Oblivion.

----

Catastrophe's back half was far darker in color. Her dye was fading out and to be honest, black was totally her color. That previous Tawny brown, while accentuating the muscles when they contorted and spasmed didn't do quite as much as the mystery that the darker color seemed to invite.

I really should stop staring at her, I'm going to end up getting meta on her description. The point was that I realized quite well that she didn't actually like me in the manner that I wanted her to and that she was only teasing me because she didn't really want to crush my heart in her talons just quite yet.

Or maybe I was overthinking things again.

All magic training really consisted of was me forming a barrier and having someone whack at it until I either collapsed or they got ten good swings on it. And if I collapsed I got whacked with a stick until I woke up, so I was pretty banged up.

"What's black and white and blue all over?" I giggled to myself, loopy from the pain. "Me!" I snapped out of it when Canary hit me in the face with a ball of water. Which was an issue.

The real reason we were going back to Oblivion was to undo whatever the hell I had done to the airship. The balloon we had wasn't made for steam and it was showing with a slight leak every so often that Catastrophe was ever so unhappy to repair.

I don't blame her, getting hit in the face with jets of hot steam doesn't really sound that pleasant.

Actually, it does. Taking a bath on the ship was a bit harder than you would imagine, as most of the water went to the massive boiler in the heart of the ship that I had apparently constructed while I was sleeping.

Cold baths it was, just in case you were wondering.

I hate cold baths.

----

Oblivion appeared before us after barely an hour of being in the sky, The Scourge causing several to cheer wildly and more than a few to complain and exchange money with a few others.

One more thing about Oblivion that I should make clear.

In the port of Oblivion there is a very simple rule that most follow.

Don't attack the doctors.

It seems like a simple thing until you really think about it. Being a doctor in almost any place is a fairly high paying job. Add to it the amount of rumbles and brawls and random injuries that the scum in the wastes got into, and you get a very reliable well paying job.

A pretty perfect target for an opportunistic criminal. All a being would have to do in walk inside and hold him up at knife point until they game the criminal what he wanted.

Until the doctor didn't have enough and the doctor dies.

Which is bad, because suddenly you have quite a few injuries that need medical attention and guess what? There isn't a doctor.

Of course, the criminal is crucified for being stupid enough to kill of inconvenience the doctor, in some cases quite literally, and then there is a void that another doctor fills.

Of course, the doctor's would soon be pulled into the criminal underworld for yet another layer of protection. Just a few bits or whatever currency the doctor felt like paying and a few burly, well trained guards would be placed around his building.

Oh, and if you upset a doctor?

That's bad.

Yeah...

The ship swung around the port with Catastrophe driving, because obviously nobody else could really drive it and learning would require a bit more effort than most of us felt like putting our bodies through, especially after something as agonizing as magic or fighting practice.

We climbed down ladder to the docking station, the rugged ships and the rugged buildings looking pretty well considering that a giant monster blob tar thing had attacked. I mean, you could barely tell that there were any buildings smashed and we had only really been gone a week or so! Geez, did they have anime building teams or something?

Suddenly, my thoughts tasted like lemons and I hastily shoved the memory of the attack out of my mind.

I didn't need to deal with my mind breaking any further.

Catastrophe winced at the sight of the town, probably suffering from the same thing I was. Of course, her thoughts probably tasted of limes and I still didn't really know why she was ok with me secretly being from another dimension/universe or something, but for the sake of the narrative I decided to keep my suspension of belief up.

I followed back that last train of thought and felt like vomiting at the illogic applied.

Besides, I didn't want to upset the one thing that really convinced me that the universe didn't completely hate me. Seriously, just trying to think about what sh-

Shut up...

Getting back to the situation at hand, er... hoof? Hoof. We were greeted by a few beings from the town's mixed population greeting us warmly.

"If you g' ta' my bar, free drinks for th' lot o' you." I had never heard his accent and let me tell you it was only by the reactions of the rest of my group that I knew what he said.

Oh, and the three background ponies that I took on my ship for a while stepped off and we never really heard from them again while we were in the city. I just hoped that they got where they were going, I guess.

"Free drinks?" Catastrophe smirked and nodded at him. "I'll take you up on that offer." Distantly, I heard a few whispers.

"No way, she didn't crash the ship?"

"Look at the front of the ship, she totally crashed it." A few bits changed paws/hooves between both of them.

The rest of my group followed after the griffon without a word, all seeming to have bad memories of what had happened here. Probably not lemon tasting memories, but still, they were caustic in their nature.

I did remember that the hotel we stayed at was that place where I had that one dream with Catastrophe and-

Woah.

My face blushed lightly and I tried t ignore the questioning looks of the small crowd we were attracting while also trying to avoid looking at Cata's hind quarters.

My mind screamed that it was wrong, every time I thought of her, but the rest of me screamed that it was so very very very right.

Offering free drinks to the returning heroes seemed like a bad idea until you considered that the heroes attracted plenty of people who wanted to hear heroic tales of their heroics.

I didn't really have any heroics to share.

My group and I followed the griffon, who was in turn following a bar tender to the bar. The location was actually pretty intelligently made, what with the traffic coming seaside would almost certainly see it once they departed the ship. A bit of fresh wood on the side that had not quite been painted the same shade as the rest was the only real indicator that the shoggoth had even touched the building.

Still, the sign above the door way read off the name; Shoggoth's end. It was funny, because my citrus flavored memories told me I had actually taken it out a block away, but whatever.

The walls were a friendly sort of brown with red accents. It actually looked like a nice place if you didn't hear the drunken singing.

"There once was a zebra from the islands!

A griffon challenged him and dueled!

And this zebra was named Ivan!

He made him look the fool!"

I blinked and bowed my head, a sudden blush hitting me. A drunken chorus... that didn't even get much right. I was embarrassed and I didn't know why. I walked calmly over to a bar stool and looked at the unicorn bartender who hurriedly got back to his post. His semi attractive daughter, though not of the sort that I really liked helped him get back to his place.

"And then rested he with his griffon wench.

Though he knew not of what waited!

It was just after dawn, but only a pinch!

The monster's hunger was sated!"

I felt like bashing my head at the griffon comment. Catastrophe elbowed me. "I'm your wench now, hmmm?" She purred the last part and I only knew my face took on a redder hue.

"Now we all thought we were dead and gone!

Until this zebra drew his blade!

This town twas clear that he was fond!

For he stopped from getting laid!"

I groaned and I heard Boss let out a sigh of disgust. I was the hero in a lewd bar song. Woot.

"And heard we of a bounty!

Of Ivan and his crew!

Wanted alive, money counting.

We gladly paid our dues."

I looked around and tried to blot out their singing, spying a wanted posted on a wall that the bounty had been scratched out on to leave only my face.

"We sing of the great Ivan!

Who saved us with his dagger.

And we shall now hide him!

And praise him with our swagger."

The bartender rolled his eyes and his horn glowed sending out a loud booming sound. The drunks stopped from the next verse and the bartender cleared his throat. "Ivan's right here." He pointed at me.

My head hit the table with an audible thud. "Damn it..." And then the crowd rushed around me and at some point in the exchange I drank enough alcohol to get drunk.

"There I was, staring down the Alpha." I said, standing on a bar table. "Scariest fucking thing I had seen in ages. Seriously, this guy had teeth that would put a dragon to shame, right?" I paused and floated a glass of beer to my lips, chugging it audibly.

Canary sat to the side and engaged Boss in light conversation of the sort that you don't really remember when kinda drunk.

Catastrophe was beside me, being the one that was supplying me with alcohol. She also had a sexy evil smirk on her face.

"And then I... You know what!" The world kinda swirled. "It's time for a Song!"

Unexpectedly, or rather, I had expected it though it seemed unlikely, someone pulled out a guitar and others pulled out several instruments.

And then the song started. All the light in the bar, though the sun was still out and sunlight was streaming in through a window, dimmed down low.

Spread your wings Neon Pegasus

And go flying through the night

They can take your glitter

But they can't take away your sparkle

A drunken dog grabbed his friend and hugged him close, tears coming out of his eyes. "They can't take away her sparkle..." He sobbed while his friend stared blankly at him.

"I hate being the designated driver."

And the thousand arm robot octopus

Will try to grab your golden reins

But your wings are strong from the battle

Over Cupcake Mountain

"Fucking Cupcake Mountain! HELL YEAH!" Came the cry to the bar.

Never again to be lonely

Never again to be without a home

Never to bow to the gummy king's throne

Never again, never again!

The bar shouted out the chorus in a state of drunken exuberance. "NEVER AGAIN!"

Never again to be put down

By the Marzipan Girl at the silver lake lounge

Soaring over it all, high up in the clouds

Never again, never again!

Un-break your heart, Neon Pegasus

And go climbing through the stars

Out there with your dreams

Your sparkly dreams

"She... unbroke it... FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS!" I heard it shouted out.

And the genetically modified salamander

With a face just like George Clooney

Can't track you down with the

Rockabilly Worm from Space Land

The bar owner's daughter stepped up and sang the rest of the song with me, her clear voice cutting through the ragged drunkeness of my own. It was like a bell ringing through the bar.

Never again to be lonely

Never again to be without a home

Never to bow to the Gummy King's throne

Never again, never again!

There was hardly a dry eye in the bar as the song touched them deeply.

Catastrophe was laughing evilly.

Never again to be put down

By the Marzipan Girl at the Silver Lake Lounge

Soaring over it all, high up in the clouds

Never again, never again

(No matter how insane or ridiculous,

You must follow your dreams!)

The ending chords stopped ringing through and I was suddenly aware of what the fuck had just happened.

And then I passed out.

The griffon looked at the drunken bar and leaned her mouth next to my right ear. "Sweet dreams, Neon pegasus."

Ideas (37)

Something warm pressed against my back and was lightly vibrating with every breath. My heart was beating wildly, my blood rucking through my veins.

That was the very first thing that I was aware of when I woke up.

The second thing I was aware of was my horrible headache. Or, hangover, as the rest of the world probably guessed by what happened yesterday.

Honestly, I didn't remember much besides something about marzipan and beer.

I didn't even know what marzipan was.

Still don't really. I think it might be a food?

Something sharped pricked into my back and I let out a muffled whimper as my headache swarmed up and began to eat at my ears.

Without turning around I knew who was in the bed with me. The room was dark and I couldn't actually see anything. The griffon was warm and her loud purring muffled out my breathing.

Catastrophe. My face burned a little as I tried to figure out what happened. Had we been together last night?

Something bit into my ear.

"Ow." I grunted then blinked, suddenly realize exactly why she was so loud.

A few crimson drops of my own blood trickled down my head and between my eyes. I whimpered lightly. A horrible horrible place to be when I couldn't remember what happened yesterday. Why did I just whimper?

My eyes had still not adjusted to whatever light is in the room.

And then I realized it; There was a wing across my face. One with feathers and wings and...

I felt myself blush darker as my thoughts settled on an explanation that made me want to laugh. There were very few logical explanations for this. Well...

The griffin stirred after a few minutes of me enjoying the embrace and being in slight pain from my now split ear. Ow. "You were great last night." She rumbled, the purring stopping.

I blinked and stopped dead cold. "Oh."

She pulled the wing out of my eyes and let the harsh sunlight directly into my unadjusted eyes. This morning seemed to be about causing me pain.

The bed was soft at least. I'd give the hotel that. I turned to look at Cata, turning away from the sun.

She stretched out and then bent her spine low, cracking it several times and then did about the same with her wings, almost swaying them teasingly at me. I had to shut my eyes. Damn my hormones to hell and back.

She crooned lightly at something and I opened my eyes to see her beak, still drenched slightly in my blood, smiling slightly at me.

"Uh." I vocalized my confusion in the most concise manner I could at the time.

"Relax, I'm sure the bar was ok with how you kept them all awake." She smirked again.

Damn it. I lost my virginity and I couldn't remember anything. This sucked.

I smiled awkwardly at her. "How drunk was I?"

"Not too badly, Neon Pegasus." I flinched. That was one of the things I remembered.

She turned to leave and shot me a smirk. "Relax. We didn't actually do anything together." Her tongue shot out and licked the blood off of her beak and she sauntered off in a sultry manner.

"Damn you sexy bitch." I mumbled, me eyes following her as she left and my embarrassment almost quantifiable as a taste in the air. I stood up awkwardly from the bed and jumped off, dreams of feathers and of other things ghosting through my head as against my will I plotted out exactly what she had tried to make me think we did.

Oh yeah, and my head was still pounding. Did I forget to mention that?

I decided to ignore most of the world and stepped into the bathroom to look over what I looked like. My left ear was split. A little furrow at the tip of it, but still, it was split. I felt marked by her.

Oh yeah, and there was a little blood on my face and head. A short little shower took care of that, not that I had any soap. Or really cared for my appearance.

The ear was just a manner of pride damn it.

----

I walked down stairs after toweling myself dry, naturally leaving the soggy mess of a towel in the room for whatever passed for a maid to pick up. I had sealed my ear up with a puff of fire magic, though since I was trying it without a focus I had just barely managed to not blow off my ear. Instead, my ears were still ringing and my head was still pounding.

"Ivan!" There was a cheer for me as I entered the main room of the bar that made me stop cold and check to make sure that I hadn't actually blown off my ears.

I focused my gaze on Canary who looked at me oddly. "You really can't hold your alcohol, can you." He muttered, shaking his head. There was a faint glow from his pouch and then my thoughts were apples for a few amazing seconds, sweet, tangy fruits of love.

And then it stopped and so did my headache.

I smiled brightly at him. "You are the best friend ever!" I felt like shouting it until my mind caught up with me and said that telling the world that I had a hangover cure while I was in a bar was not the best idea in the world.

I calmly walked over to him, my hooves letting out semi soft clopping noises on the wood floor and gave him a brief hug before turning to face Boss. Her prosthetic twitched. "Hey. While we are in town, we might as well try to get that looked at."

She looked at me pointedly. "We spent the last of our bits getting the ship fixed up."

In hindsight we bought a better balloon that could withstand steam instead of getting the entire ship fixed up. But, even selling most of the crap weapons we got off of the slavers had just barely been enough.

Catastrophe smirked at me and I rolled my eyes at my own blush that sprouted up. The griffon turned to Boss. "Hey... did you finish paying the doctor?"

Boss shook her head.

Catastrophe rolled her eyes. "Are you fucking kidding me?" She said lightly, though her voice was coarse. She held up a taloned limb and counted off the joints.

I blinked at her and waited for a second. "What are yo-?" I got cut off by someone walking the bar through the door.

"Boss? You and your party better come with us." Once again, another strike at me not being the leader of the group. I let my gaze wander around the bar and found that there were indeed bits of shoggoth related memorabilia, and a glass case that apparently had a few shards of the magic knife that the great and mighty hero Ivan used to defeat the demon blob.

Kinda flattering that someone would fake that. On the level of instinct, the sort of instinct that let you know when fate was about to dump a load of hell on you, I knew that only a single shard of the metal in the display case used to hold part of my soul.

I followed after Boss, Catastrophe behind me thankfully so I didn't have to worry about keeping my mind off of her, and Canary beside me.

You know, it occurred to me that I never really thought about Canary. I mean, I knew he was there and all, but I never really went out of my way to talk to him. Considering how there were four people in my group and I never talked to one of them I realized that group dynamics we-

Ow. Why yes I walked into a pole. "Ow." I said, stepping around it and trying not to thank why there was a random pole in the street.

Boss looked at me oddly. "You are the least observant person ever." I got a nice look at her sharp canines and felt a flash of jealousy for a second before I stomped it out. The blackened street met my gaze as I looked back down at it like an old friend, marveling at it for a long second.

Catastrophe cleared her throat and I decided to try walking without thinking. A bit of wind stung at my ear, still slightly pained from where I had burnt it. I closed my eyes for a second and took in the scenery of Oblivion.

Stalls after stall held all sorts of things. Drugs. Anti fertility pills. Fertility charms. Cigars. Something called rock candy. Of course, most of these were tucked into alley ways and the like in case they offended some of the more powerful beings in the port.

"So... what do we do when we tell the doctors we don't have the money?" I wondered out loud.

Catastrophe growled. "We do their dirty work and kiss enough ass that they don't dissect us and use us in their twisted fucking psycho experiments." For once, I thought she meant fucking.

I suddenly didn't want to see the doctor.

Sadly, the rest of the trip was rather quick and lasted only a few minutes before we were escorted into a lavishly furnished building that wouldn't have looked out of place in a fancy mansion. Books lined the walls with exotic titles like Physiology and How to use it to Manipulate the body, and others such as Pain, how to Cause it.

Not a friendly place, though the light wood on the shelves off set a little of the creepy mansion feel. So it was like a regular waiting room filled with outdated material and with no real comfy seats to sit in.

"Wait here for the doctor to see you." And just like that, we chose our seats in the waiting room and did waiting room things. There wasn't a coloring book handy, and I hadn't thought to bring my code book, so I just went to the old stand by of thinking a lot. Well, I would've if I wasn't busy trying to think of reasons why I didn't mind Catastrophe biting of parts of my ear and eating it.

Couldn't really think of a reason that didn't paint my mind state in a bad light.

I shrugged it off and smiled. If having a griffon maim me in my sleep was what made me happy, who was I to judge?

Wait a second. What did I just think?

Whatever.

The door opened again and a pony beckoned us through. Naturally I stood up first to try and distract myself from myself.

Wow. This narrative style is really not painting me in the best light, is it.

I shook my head of the thoughts and looked at the rest of my companions. Catastrophe stood up and on reflex I looked away from her, knowing my mind would betray me if I kept my gaze on her form. I looked at Canary instead who had actually been reading a book from the shelves with quite a bit of interest. Boss had been filing her claws with a piece of pavement stone, leaving bits of dusted rock and dusted claw on the chair she had been sitting in. Which was red fabric. I mentioned that, right? It was like every other waiting room, filled with seats covered in red fabric.

I walked in through the hallways and didn't look at the odd painting on the wall that wouldn't have looked out of place in front of the room that a boss lurked in a video game.

"Where is the payment." A griffon said, looking decidedly bored. He sat next to a table that was covered in gore and had a few rusty tools in some sort of bath, probably cleansing. The room also looked like a doctor's office besides a few suspicious looking filing cabinets. White walls. A single lamp.

Boss stood at the front of the party. "We don't have it."

He turned and looked at us like a lion looks at a mouse. Far below him and hardly worth his time. "Very well. I assume you know the consequences."

"My name is Doctor Legs." He stated lightly, looking at me directly. "I have heard tale that a certain zebra stopped the destruction of my home. Therefore, I will be lenient. Deliver a few packages for me and all will be well."

It seemed like a simple enough job. "To where?" The words slipped from my mouth.

"So you accept?" He smiled lightly and I looked away from him and his creepy medical tools.

I nodded. "What are we delivering?"

"I need you to dispense my... medicine. To a few people. Don't be shy about it, they won't mob you. I just need you to get this medicine to them." His smirk, which I caught from the corner of eyes, was unnerving.

Drug dealing. Normally, now that I thought about it, I would have trouble with that. But considering all the other bad things I had done, like killing in cold blood to advance myself, or killing Skinner, or accidentally mind violating Catastrophe...

Drug dealing wasn't that bad. "So... We just show up and give them the goods?" I asked again.

Catastrophe seemed to look approvingly at me and I felt a corona of heat gather in my brain around where I was thinking. I ignored it. "And then you give me the bits they give you and I don't have a reason to kill you anymore." Dr. Legs said, not moving.

I nodded. "Great doing business with out."

The doctor nodded in kind. "The packages are on the way out."

I turned to leave and so did the rest of my group.

----

Catastrophe stopped, waiting for the group to go out of sight. It was amazing just how loose headed Ivan was. She sighed and shook her head, feeling sorry for him. She walked back to the doctor and nodded. "I'm calling in that favor, doc."

He blinked at her and turned away from cleaning his tools. "What favor?" He asked innocently.

It didn't fool her for a second. She cleared her throat. "The one where I tested the prosthetic for you?"

He nodded vigorously. "Right. That one. What do you want?" He looked around nervously.

"I swore to help him out after he saved my life. It's time I held up my promises." She nodded, knowing her eyes grew into two brassy orbs when conveying her seriousness. She whipped her tail slightly.

"I didn't realize you were inter-"

She shook her head. "I'm not interested in him like that. I need something to help him. His mind is revolting against itself." She spoke smoothly and slightly out of character to how she spoke with the group.

He nodded, his eyes wide. "Right, so you want some medicine?" He walked away from her for only a few moments before finding a vanilla folder and opening it. He sighed before snagging a piece of paper from it and rummaging through a filing cabinet.

He pulled out a small pill bottle and rattled it to make sure there was something in it. He tossed it to her without looking. "Put it in his food. Once a day. Don't let him stop taking it until the bottle runs out. I recall there being bad consequences."

She caught it easily and looked at it. "You are a prosthetics doc. Why do you carry around anti psychotics?" She nodded. They seemed like the right kind...

"They are what I use. Trust me, when you work with people who have their limbs torn off, it gets to you after awhile." He smiled lightly at the wall. "Catastrophe, I would be glad if I never saw you after this."

It really was her fault that he felt like that. Last time she had been here a bomb had gone off and ruined an operation of one of the rulers of the city. Turns out bombs weren't as stable as she had thought they were.

She smiled lightly. "If these are the wrong pills you are going to need one of your own arms." It was a light threat and one that she could afford to make. After all, she had been responsible for ripping off quite a few of the things that he replaced.

She slipped the bottle into her wing pouch and walked out of the building.

----

Boss pawed the hilt of her sword idly, looking at the list that came with the packages. "There are 8 locations listed." She noted aloud, trying to ignore how spacy Ivan was. "Ivan, you did good."

He blinked at her slowly before smiling slightly, though not in a goofy way. She shook her head and felt sorry for him. He was intelligent, but he was missing something. He felt... purposeless was a good way to describe him. Like he was floating free in a sea of thought, only latching on to the few things that caught his fancy.

She sighed lightly and watched the griffon walk out with a new rattle to her step. To be honest, she didn't really like the griffon that much. She understood why she was doing what she was doing to Ivan, but still it unnerved her.

In the wastes, sometimes you just did what you had to. Other times you accepted that someone else could do it better.

Boss drew her magic sword and inspected it for a sign of what it did. No clues.

They needed a goal, one that was better defined than Rej. She had felt herself be shifted to the leader role and accepted it.

----

To be honest, all of the drug sales went far better than she thought they would've. Maybe thinking that something would go wrong was just from being around Ivan for too long, though even then that was unlikely.

They were done within a day, easily making it back in time for her to slip a pill into Ivan's apple that she brought with her.

In fact, sleeping in the same room as him as she was, she knew that she could easily keep him medicated. She wasn't going to let her hero go insane.

It would've been even better if a bomb hadn't gone off the next day.

Ivan must Die (38)

I dreamed of the sky. Of being high way up over everything else, of blue endless reaches and of peace and harmony. The melody of the endless reaches, of wind and the sound of wings passing through the air.

I could hear her calling me. I knew the voice and I wanted it. I wanted to know what she was saying. I wanted to know why I was there, in the sky, why I was in Equestria.

I flew on and on and I heard another pair of wings near me, cutting through the air as smoothly as could be. A few puffy clouds obscured the ground below, though I knew I wouldn't recognize it regardless. An alien world, free for me to explore endlessly. Peace as far as the eye could see.

I hated it.

And I knew the one behind me was of a similar mindset. She knew me as I knew her, without knowledge necessary. We knew every nook and cranny of each other.

I was happy. The wings on my back kept my course true, like an arrow at a target.

I felt like an angel, tasting the breath of the sky.

And I knew her.

I didn't know her name. She was so familiar, but her name slipped from my head before I could say it.

-----

I stared up at the ceiling for a long time after waking up, feeling my thoughts sharper, and slower. It felt good, like an itch was being scratched at the end of my muzzle, to finally think clearly.

The world itself could be improved.

I could improve it. Blurs of gears and blurs of magic seemed to form in my vision before I shoved it away from me, instead turning to look at the other bed in the room. The short rise and fall of her chest brought me a feeling of comfort the likes of which i had never thought to be possible. I felt...

Safe.

In that exact moment that I quantified how I felt my mind went into a whir. Magic. My mind was dancing on the feeling of being safe to fill my thoughts with ideas...

It seemed to me, right then and there, that perhaps the only reason why the world itself hadn't been revolutionized with a fusion of machinery and magic was that no magic user in their right mind would ever to something so mundane as research gears. And whoever researched gears couldn't properly put magic to it. Heck, as far as I was concerned, maybe most of the humans on Equestria didn't have innate magic at their disposale. Of course... I was different. I had magic. It was almost a responsibillity, no my fate! I was to usher in magic and technology together. Together with the help of whatever I could manage. The world was my oyster and I was going to build a way to shuck it.

It was my duty to show the world what magic was truly capable of...

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

My right eye lid twitched and I looked around, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from.

And then something exploded and a massive cloud of yellow gas erupted from underneath my bed, licking at the air and turning it an unsightly shade of yellow

"What the fuck?" I yelled, rousing Cata. She shook her head and yawned before realizing that something was wrong.

"Hold your breath you idiot!" She snarled, and did her own advice.

I followed after her and raced off of the bed, which on the fortunate side got me away from the cloud. On the unfortunate side, I rammed into the locked door.

"Ow." I mumbled. The griffon glared at me.

"Pick the lock."

"I can-" Her form blurred and suddenly I was launched out of the window with her in tow, her talons wrapped around me. I didn't even have time to blush before we were outside of the hotel. I did get treated to watching my other two companions running out of the room.

"You know, if I didn't know better I'd say that was a Catastrophe." Canary punned, making me want to groan. The griffon set me down easily and I smiled at her.

"Thank you." There was no need to say it, but I said it anyway. I looked into her eyes for a long moment...

A cross bow bolt twanged off the ground in front of us and ruined it with the shock of impending danger.

"Right. Panic time." I muttered, looking around. My danger keen eyes, trained from ages of having everything that could possibly go wrong go worse, picked out several avenues of attack within seconds.

There were at least 11 spots where we couldn't easily hit. "Well, I say we go back to the ship and pray." I rolled my eyes as I heard another twang.

"Guardian." I said without much emotion, watching the bolt bounce off. "Let's go."

Canary sighed. "Can't we at least try to reason with them?" He fished into his pouch and pulled out a topaz.

I looked at him and sighed. "It's clear they are being hostile for no real reason. Or if it is a reason I don't really care." I needed metal, lots of metal. It was an itch...

I dropped the barrier for a second, content with Canary's job. He maintained the barrier, and the conversation while they continued taking shits at us.

"Still, you think we would have allies if we tried negotiation?" He continued.

Cata and Boss looked at each other. The griffon shrugged. "I'm so fucking glad that we live the most logical lives ever."

Boss looked at her for a long moment, still walking inside of Canary's forcefield. "Says the griffon who molests Ivan nightly."

She shrugged. "Hey now, don't judge."

I felt my cheeks lightly grow red. "Damn hormones." I hissed.

Canary dropped the force field, a cross bow bolt embedding in the pavement beside one of my legs. A storm of firey projectile hurtled from the buildings next to us and I easily shielded us.

"Guardian." I walked calmly away from them. "Don't you know that badass beats skill? Amateurs..." I clicked my tongue at them and kept on walking, ignoring the tiny part of me that advised logic.

"Come on, let's go take back the ship."

Bolts from shooters on the crumbled roof tops greeted my shields, each one eating into my magic stores. Not that it really in any way shape or form.

There was a tight ball of burning anger in me.

"Oh yeah world? You wanna fuck with me?" I muttered, looking around hatefully. "You want to kill off my friends? Kill me?" I dropped the shields for a second and caught an arrow out of the air with a puff of telekinesis, just because I felt like it.

An annoying ball of pain wracked part of my head, like I was doing something incredibly stupid that I really shouldn't be doing.

I brought the shield back up, my ship in sight. The Scourge looked almost proud on the port, with it's many hitchhikers pointing their ranged weapons at me.

"You know what, fuck you." Twisting my magic in a new and interesting way I forced one of their heads' to explode from the inside out with a force field in the brain. "Fuck you. You hear me?" I said louder.

Gore pelted the troops on my ship of an indeterminate origin. I felt like laughing.

"Anyone else want to try and be the idiot?" I blew up another pony's head, a faint chuckle spewing form me.

"Anyone else want to tempt the pissed off zebra? ANYONE?" A faint trickle of gore from the ship I was still walking toward splattered across my face, blood stinging into my eyes. I didn't blink, my smile never dropping.

"Drop your fucking weapons and if I have to say anything else again I'll start blowing shit up." The magic crackled around me sinisterly, like it wasn't really under my control and I was only the guidance system. I was okay with that.

As you can imagine, the hostiles on my ship abandoned ship shortly after, with murmurs of "Get me away from that fucking demon." and other such satisfactory remarks.

I watched them go with a wide smile and barely held back the urge to kill them anyway, just to be contrary.

I turned to Canary. "How good are you at your shield spell?" It wasn't a random question, I wanted to know.

He shrugged. "About as good as you are. Nice touch with the exploding heads." I knew he was doubting his doubt in me.

Oh... It felt so good to be alive.

I dispersed the magic and walked on board. "Come on." I stated, though it was more a command.

I felt every hair on my body alight with the power of feeling what I was doing. I was Ivan Marks.

I hated the world. "Canary. Boss." I snarled out, looking around the ship. "Stay here."

I turned to the griffon of my delight. "Catastrophe. Do you think you can support me? We have some assholes to kill."

She licked her beak. "Pretty easily. You haven't been eating near enough." It was a criticism, but a fair one.

On expected reflex I deflected an arrow before it struck my head and returned a fireball through the expected parabola of the shot, getting rewarded with the sizzle of an idiot dying.

"Yeah yeah. Find a way so that I can eat a steak and that will change." I walked over to her and rolled my eyes.

From what I could tell from my magic stores I was about at a half tank. Maybe more.

Catastrophe looked at me. "If you touch my wings I will drop you. Got it?" Her finicky feathered appendages held my attention for a time hardly worth mentioning. She growled lightly.

I tried to figure out how to get on her without it sounded perverted in text. After a few seconds of thought I just hopped on her back and decided to keep myself there with a bit of levitation.

Canary sighed. "Our jobs, Ivan?"

I turned sharply to him. "Make sure that this ship remains intact. Yes, that means you can kill them. Have fun you two." I barked at both of them.

Boss rolled her eyes. "Suicidal death flights are in style this season, I guess."

I flipped her a thumbs up, though lacking the required digits made it not come over right. I snarled at the world around me. "Had to be a fucking zebra."

Boss blinked. "Wait what?"

"I'll explain after I kill a few people."

Catastrophe sighed. "Let's just do this, heroic banter is for people who are heroic."

I paused and made sure my grip was secure. "Guardian." I muttered, the barrier forming around both of us.

"Let's go."

-----

"So..." Canary mused, looking at Boss. "I can't really tell if this Ivan is better than the others. What do you think?" He watched the golden sphere that made up the dangerous duo speed off back into the town.

Boss shrugged. "At least he can fight. Kinda. The better question is how we are going to get the stains off of this ship." The remnants of the exploded heads, gore bones and brain, covered most of the surfaces on the craft.

"We should worry about cleaning later." Canary stated simply, though worry glistened in his eyes.

Boss looked at him. "What is it?"

Canary rolled his eyes. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

She merely shrugged and smiled at him. "Does it matter? Would you rather be a slave?"

He gritted his teeth. "That's not the point. Why the hell is everything happening?"

She shrugged again. "Live in the moment. It is best that we don't try to see the future."

"My life expectancy has been shortened and I'll die by 45." He sighed.

"But when you are with this group you know you feel alive." Boss smiled.

"I doubt that I'll live that long, even if I hide." He reasoned.

"But you know the rewards are worth it. The pain that you abide..." She looked around.

"I feel as if this world isn't fair..." He shook the worry from him.

"But hell. The devil may care." She finished, readying herself for a fight.

"Before I die."

----

Soaring through the air was an experience the likes of which are hard to precisely explain. It was made even harder by the fact that I was not the one doing the soaring, but the one keeping the griffon in the air from the fire of the diamond dogs.

It was pretty ridiculous. Almost every single building had at least one dog on it, and each dog had some sort of ranged projectile designed to kill us

I could feel her exhilaration at the flight, could feel her anticipation as she sped up. "Ready?"

The wind blasted into my face and brought my eyes to water, tears streaming out. I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt right. "Hell yeah."

And then we were over the first of the buildings and I felt my eyes burn with pure power, my rage lending itself to guide fireballs and rain death down on them. I could feel ounces of myself disappear into the magic, feel the burning of the fireball, the demand to exhaust the stored power that the manipulations of the magic in the air demanded.

I could feel the urge to be resistant, to never falter in it's purpose from the barriers, decimating through the dogs.

It felt good.

I felt myself explode into a group of them, felt my fires lick over their skin and burn out their bodies. I felt the desire to remain burning, and I felt the cold pain of loneliness when I snuffed out the blaze from spreading.

A dog exploded while I tweaked a thread of my essence and tore him apart.

the barrier surrounding us was nothing more than an absolute projection of myself

it felt good to be used

the griffon below me felt like she knew where to go.

I snapped out of a half trance, the barrier flicking back to life as I stopped hurling spells around. I felt exhausted.

My shoulders slumped. I should've known better than to think that I had enough magic to manage this.

My thoughts... my anger was leaving me.

"Ivan." She said, her voice dim. "Ivan."

"Catastrophe." I replied. "Catastrophe." I repeated.

I could literally hear her body cut off something sarcastic. "Stay awake."

I kept the barrier up, though I felt apathy start to rush in. It licked at my thoughts as sure as any fire would, burning away my resolve. A chorus of thoughts, not at all mine in any way swarmed up, demanding to be heard.

They wanted to be remembered. They pushed against me like I was a simple peg, one that stood between them and eternity.

"Ivan." I heard her voice faintly as my vision faded. Black licked the edge of everything, wildly distorting it all. And I smelled blood, pouring out of my mouth and my nose, smearing over my front...

But I stayed awake. Blood whipped off of my body and was thrown behind me by her flying. The dogs were in full retreat. They were leaving the roof tops.

----

Canary rummaged through the food supplies they had with them, pulling a few apples out and then quickly charging it with his magic, mending a particularly nasty looking cut made by an opportunistic Diamond dog.

"It really doesn't make sense." He noted, hiding above a door way and knocking out a dog that rushed in to see the voice with a particularly full water jug. Levitation was a good idea.

Boss shrugged, and nodded. "Thanks for the heal, Doc." She joked, picking up one of her swords. The other sword was quickly used to end the life of the downed dog. "And what doesn't make sense?"

"Why all these dogs are here." They had been overwhelmed by the dogs almost immediately. Turns out that one of the dogs figured out they could climb up the side of the ship and without anything ranged to hit them with they had taken the battle to the ship's underside. So far, it had been going well with his healing keeping the friendly canine alive.

"We've been with Ivan for how long?" They both looked at each other for a long second.

"A few weeks." He answered after thinking it through for almost a minute.

"And how many times have things happened that don't actually make any sense at the time and get explained later on?" She kept her gaze on him, jabbing the hilt of her sword into the nose of another dog.

"A few." He muttered, seeing her point.

She reversed her grip and brought her sword through the enemies throat, tsking at the blood on the floor. "Exactly. There's probably a good reason behind this."

Canary shrugged. "Until then, we keep taking out the grunts?" It was remarkable how calm he was. But pondering on that could wait for another time.

She smiled lightly. "Of course." She stepped out of the store room and went back into the fray. Canary followed closely, flaring his magic out to deflect a few arrows.

----

Catastrophe sighed and then felt her heart thump faster in her chest. Something warm and wet had dripped on her back. Her suspicions on what it could be were only made worse by his head thumping between her wings. She felt more than saw the barrier protecting her collapsed, though the visual component was a pretty telling factor in it all. It was awfully hard to miss the shield shattering.

But the archers weren't shooting. They were running scared. She felt a bit of a smile for just long enough for it to sink in that the one responsible for making them run was on her back and bleeding out. A brief stab of concern floated through her before she landed on top of a building. The building belonged to another doctor in the city, one she knew quite well. A tiny ache remained in her mind.

She gently pushed him against the top of the building and looked him over. "Damn it." There wasn't a visible wound.

Not under all the blood at least. His face was a red stained mess, blood seeping from under his eye lids and nose. Tear trails of bloody liquids marking the path that whatever had happened to him had taken. There was quite a bit of blood and it was only the very real chance of his demise that kept her attention on the fact he was bleeding, not that he was 'bleeding'.

She gently wiped the blood from his face with her wing and tried to remember anything she knew about first aid. It came slowly, a rise of panic starting to bath her thoughts. She bit down on her tongue and felt the pain sharpen her mind. She bit down on her tongue again, cutting it with her beak. She needed to focus.

Heart beat. She felt like hitting herself. She brought her head and gently placed it to his chest. In a few seconds she heard his heart clearly, thumping evenly.

It hit her that she shouldn't be worried and in that same hit she realized that she owed him her life and it was right around goddamn fucking time she did something besides flirt with him to repay him. She tore off one of her loose fester and gently used to the flip open his right eye lid.

The eye moved about erratically before fixing itself on her, unnerving the griffon. In an odd way, a secondary train of thought followed while she tried to think of something to do, he looked cute. In the same way a broken puppy did, one that had been kicked too often and fed on every scrap of attention it could get.

By the same token, she felt bad. In a deep way, she felt like a truly bad griffon for the first time in years, feeling disappointed in herself. She wanted to use this broken zebra to advance herself instead of helping him.

"Great. Now I'm going nuts." She muttered looking away from him. She didn't doubt herself anymore than the wind did. She was Catastrophe, the pilot of airships and breaker of airships. She was also called a breaker of hearts, if the whispers were anything to go by. She never felt guilty for messing with hormone ridden idiots.

But maybe she felt bad because he had saved her. Willingly pushed her out of the way of the shoggoth. She would be dead, or swimming around in his head.

She gently tugged free another feather and looked around. It looked like the Alpha had come to town, and he wanted Ivan.

She shook her head. Her memory drifted back to the wanted poster. They wanted them dead. Someone dangerous wanted them alive, so the dogs wanted them dead.

It seemed the worst of places to be. They benefited someone by being alive. They benefited someone by being dead. Either way, they weren't half as hidden.

She thought all this while thinking of a way to help him. He stopped bleeding, though he kept staring at her.

There was an Alpha somewhere in this mess...

Cata and the Canine Beta (39)

Boss looked at Canary. "Right..." She said, flicking her gaze around lightly. "Nobody has attacked us in a few minutes. Something is wrong." A pile of dead bodies was behind them whilst they crawled slowly towards the exit.

"That last sentence was wrong, but you may have a decent point." He admitted, also looking around. "Think they gave up?"

They were near the deck of the ship, each of them silently daring the other to be the one to poke their head up first to see what was going on. The smell of fresh spilled blood mingled with the sea salt and other sea odors, and they could hear the distant foot falls of dogs running really really fast. Away from them.

Another thing they heard, just as they looked up was the distant thunder of cannons expending their payload.

"Shit." Boss said eloquently, throwing Canary forward. "Block it."

He was already on top of it, the topaz in his mouth and a large circular barrier deflected the cannon ball. And then he landed on the deck. "Maybe we sh-"

The cannon ball exploded in mid air, rocking the ship, puncturing the balloon on top. Tiny bits of fragmented metal passed through parts of the ship, miraculously leaving the deck mostly intact by virtue of the barrier in the sky blocking it out.

"-ould get off the ship?" He finished, and if his face wasn't already partially white it would've gone whiter. "Damn it." A loud creaking noise came from the underside of the ship.

"Ivan is going to get pissier." She sighed, grabbing Canary and jumping off the side of the ship, hitting the ground rolling. She kept running as the ship fell on its side, once again doing something miraculous as it didn't shatter. It did however grate after them a distant ways making one of the most horrendous grinding noises that Boss had ever known.

Canary winced. "I think we should be more concerned about the ship blasting us."

She dropped him on his hooves and looked around again.

The enemy ship, well within range, started to turn towards port, a propeller slowly spinning to force it closer.

"Of course." She sighed, turning away from it. "I wonder if any other dogs that have islands promised to them have to deal with this sort of thing."

He shrugged again. "I'm sure that you'll get paid."

----

Catastrophe sighed and tapped out a hint of a beat with her right taloned foot, looking worriedly at Ivan. "There's a tiny chance of severe fucking brain damage." She muttered, training her keen eyes on everywhere else, her peripherals dedicated to watching her patient.

He let out a groggy moan, and started coughing, bits of half congealed blood crackling out of his mouth. She sighed.

"Are you ok?" She said, making sure her general roughness slid through on her tone.

He shook his head. "Feel like Ish explosh."

Something hadn't tried to kill her in the last minute. Her combat senses were tingling. Something was wrong.

The door that led to the building below flew off of it's hinges, narrowly missing the two of them. "Figures." She muttered.

"You die now. Alpha reward me good." A beta, and a hulking brute of one stood in the door way, a smear of blood across one ugly scratched up cheek and a giant looking sword that he drug across the ground with a grating noise.

Catastrophe tore open Ivan's satchel and drew his knife.

The dog merely laughed.

----

"Hey. Ivan." There was a voice I hadn't heard in a few days. To be honest, hearing it didn't set me off into a blind uncharacteristic rage like I thought it would. If anything, the rasping arachnid voice put me at a decent bit of ease.

A few drips of off sounding liquid took my mind off of whatever it had been doing. The world was hazy and indistinct like a television with horrible reception and a cracked screen.

"Great." I said without much inflection. "It's you."

A hard to make out blur walked forward beside me, looking a bit like a fancy spider. "I have to say, I was not expecting that much brutalizing out of you. He sounded impressed. An odd bit of pride echoed through my head.

"Yeah?" I said, my eyes starting to hurt. The world was so blurry.

"I'm going to have to ask you to stop using magic for a while." He sounded apologetic, like he actually meant it. "No exploding heads or the like. Or shooting fireballs." He shrugged. "Unless it is absolutely necessary."

I blinked at him, though the difference between the world with my eyes closed and my eyes opened was a matter of logistics. "Why?"

"Since you decided to use your soul as a casting medium, you burnt through quite a bit of it. Burnt soul kinda tastes like avocado dipped in battery acid, if you must know."

"What." I said, realizing I was flat on my back. "How long."

"I'll do my part from keeping a homicidal griffon from influencing you too much, but really, if you end up almost dead like this again I'll give him your body." He didn't seem that sorry at that point. "You'll be without a great deal of your magic for the next month or so. You won't be able to do what you just did for another two to three years." He was back to sounding sorry.

"I hate you." I stated truthfully.

"Same here, but you are starting to amuse me. Here..." He flourished a few arms around and paused. "Here w-"

"What." I said again, looking at his mouth, which hung agape.

"Oops?"

"Ivan." Pain exploded through me, my head feeling like it had literally exploded. The world faded back to the real one in a confusing rush.

"Are you ok?" She sounded worried. Catastrophe was near me.

"Feel like ish explosh." I coughed, my breathing shallow. I was on a roof top and my thoughts felt like jelly.

----

The dagger glowed faintly in the light as if the sun itself decided to vouch for Catastrophe in this fight. In fact, the blade seemed warmer to her clutch as she stared at the dog, who was doing a far better job of staring her down than vice versa.

She put herself between Ivan and the dog. Admittedly, the thought of leaving him to die seemed like a good option but something else was screaming at her that that was a horrible horrible idea. And for once, she listened to it.

She felt her blood start rushing through her veins as a virtual armada of various combat hormones and fear hormones and general speed the fuck up hormones were pumped into her by her body. Her brain slipped into overdrive and something predatory crept into her thoughts, like and errant soul telling her what to do based on aeons of development and history.

Her stance shifted and her wings felt the wind against them as pure freedom. The dog lunged and Catastrophe took off in a whirlwind, easily jumping over the dog and clearing him with a flap of her wings, ending on the other side of him.

In a deliberately infuriating manner her tail whipped in the dogs face. "What's the matter doggy?" She cooed, knowing that certain things drove dogs insane. The dog instantly spun around, a look of pure anger on its face.

"I smash now." It snarled, baring its teeth.

"You need to see a dentist." She calmly replied, adrenaline touching her mind a bit. She had a dagger that she could use pretty well, and he had a sword that looked pretty unwieldy.

However, she was pretty sure that her dagger wasn't going to kill him in one shot. His sword, probably a bit better at a single strike.

She carefully rocked back on her legs, exposing her stomach in a taunt. She beckoned him with a few talons. "Come on."

He charged her again and she jumped to the side easily. It really was amazing what a little training did to help in a fight. The dog gripped his sword and swung it at her and she once again jumped to the side, using her wings to keep her stable.

The sword cut into the tiles, shattering bits off in a rain of porcelain and whatever the else they made building roofs out of. The dog pulled it out of the roof just as easily, dislodging more tiles.

"Bad breath." She weaved just a hair too close and spun in the air, her tail hitting his face again.

She was awarded by a faint pinching feeling as the dog sank his teeth into her prosthetic tail. "Psh." She said, ducking back around herself to slash at his side. In the same motion she whipped the blade into the metal release plate, precisely disengaging the whip like appendage. Her blade barely nicked him, a few tiny drops of blood seeping from the cut.

Actually, it was basically a whip. The dog dropped it in confusion and she snatched her tail off the ground.

"Tail...?" He asked, before she smirked.

"That's right, keep focused on me." Once again, flying away would've been a far better choice. Her balance was pretty much torn to shreds and a jagged chunk of the faux skin was missing, revealing the inner metal and gemstone components that gave it the illusion of flesh. She kept a tight grip at the base of it and puffed out her wings to compensate for her balance a little. She sighed.

"There's one prosthetic I need replaced." She made sure that she was blocking the dog's view of the zebra, carefully making sure to keep herself the most interesting thing around.

She lunged out of the way of the dog as it charged yet again. "Can't you do something else?"

It surprised her at that moment, the dog did. He turned and lunged at the one she was trying to protect.

Her arm moved without thinking and the cord of her tail shattered against the back of the beta, shards of metal and gems exploding out in a spray. She growled and cleared the rest of the distance between the dog and her.

By reflex she jumped back from the blade as it cut through the air in a cleaving ark and her eyes shot wide as one of the worst sounds she could've heard following that.

Snikt.

In a single move she buried her dagger into the dogs neck, knowing full well that she had just failed. She cut through it's internals and severed its spinal cord. The floor was painted red, as was her face and most of her body.

The dog's sword bounced on the ground once before clattering to a stop farther away than Catastrophe was focusing.

The dog's head hit the ground with a wet smack, a bit of blood mixing with the growing pool of a certain someone's.

The beast's body was kicked away to fall off the building, splatting against the ground with spray of blood from his neck.

The knife slipped from her grasp, hitting the building.

She didn't want to look at him, but she looked anyway.

There are some wounds that people shouldn't recover from, her mind mused somewhere above her growing waves of panic.

The one that Ivan had was most certainly of the kind.

There was so much blood.

-----

Canary perked his ears up and looked around. "You hear that?"

Boss looked at him. "Are you talking about the ship firing at us, the tiny voice inside me screaming that I should be panicking or what?"

"I thought I heard the sound of someone screaming."

Boss shrugged. "Might need to get your ears checked later."

-----

Her wing was pressed against his stomach. Her wing was wet with blood. More adrenaline was pumping through than she realized, more than should be. Her heart thumped strong, her face was red from blood.

"Stop... the bleeding." She noted aloud, realizing what she was doing. There was a haze around her vision. Her thoughts tasted vaguely of limes.

Her memories streamed around her in perfect harmony, showing exactly what she had done to the zebra. Days of flirting with him, messing with him, teasing him. It all streamed through at once.

She saw how it helped him and saw how she hurt him.

"If you..." She panted, her strength leaving her.

"Goddamnit Ivan. This is all your fault somehow." She spat, the air thick with atmosphere.

"If you die before I get to sav-" She could feel her faint pricks of honor warming up, like little thorns.

"I will fucking kill you if you die before I save your life." Her vision swam and suddenly she felt the pain that he was in, felt the tearing wound in her stomach felt his stomach be hers.

She pulled back in a terrified burst of panic, the sensation all too familiar and at once alien.

She kept her wing pressed to his side, feeling her strength drain from her as dread set in. Desperate to find something to blame other than herself, she dove into his pouch and pulled out a few gems.

She glared at them and pressed them to his side. "Fucking gems. HEAL HIM." She said frustratedly, her patience fading. The gems, as she had known they wouldn't, didn't do anything. She realized she was crying. A few tears were hitting his fur.

She let them slip, wet with his blood. "D-damn it..." They clattered uselessly against the tiles.

"I failed." She muttered, feeling his heart begin to slow. Hie eyes remained as blue as ever, haunting her, mocking her.

As if to mock her she felt her will seem to slip.

"Damn it Ivan."

"I failed." Her eyes shut and the depth of the sensations she was afflicted with shut her mind down as well.

The coppery tang of blood mixed with the salt from the sea to pollute the smells of the world. For once, she didn't think it was a good thing.

A single tear hit a puddle of blood.

Split (40+season two opener.)

Yeah, this is where you would expect the almost cliche part about waking up, right? No. Screw that.

I never stopped watching her, even as I felt my eyes dim and my vision dim and my mind dim.

Intellectually, which was a level of thought I hadn't really been using the best of my abilities, I knew that I was dying. I knew that my blood was pouring from me.

And then, abruptly, almost uncharacteristically, her cold always steely eyes softened. Broke into tears. Looking at me with not pity, but desperation.

She cared for me. I knew that in a single brief moment of watching her body shake, of feeling her warm wing become wet with my blood.

My thought process shredded, torn into thousands of parts as waves of pain lanced through my body. She cared about me.

In another second, it hit. She was my principle love interest.

My mind wanted to tear the thought to bits, but my rationalization of the story fit. Somehow, the threads of fate wanted to throw us together.

The smooth curve of her face was haunted by spatters of blood. It wasn't too hard to picture it being her blood.

Another train of thought rammed my appreciation of her face into the back ground. This one was of the line that I shouldn't be thinking about this, that I should enjoy the moment.

If I stayed with her, developed out this obvious interest into a fulfilling relationship it would only last long enough for the time it would take Fate to tear us apart, probably killing her before my eyes.

A flash of her body, her own blood coating it, still and unmoving haunted my eyes. I felt paralyzed. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything but think. Think and look at the griffon trying to save me, feel her desperate attempts. Feel a few tears splash against me.

My heart ached. It ached so much at what I decided.

Fate would not take her from me.

----

Canary sighed. "So... how much do you want to bet that they are having a romantic moment?" He kicked a piece of pavement and watched it skip across the street before colliding with a wall, breaking into a few pieces.

His diamond dog companion blinked. "...Stop trying to be genre savvy." She kept walking ahead.

He clopped up beside her. "I feel unimportant."

She stopped and shot him a dark glare. "You are the healer. Don't forget that."

He shrugged. "I still feel like an after thought in this party."

Boss looked around. "Look, it's always great to have another rational mind in the group." She drew her sword. "Where is everyone?"

----

I kept staring back at her, my heart pounding. It slowed to a crawl as I calmed down, faintly bumping along.

And I remained staring long after she collapsed, her face hitting my chest, her body still pressed against my wound. I could faintly smell her over the blood. She smelled like the sea and like the sky, like free things. I felt confined.

I felt like I cared for her.

Love?

I understood what it meant, empirically. A strong emotion of personal attachment and strong affection.

But how did you know if you loved someone? Was it a sign from the heavens or did physical evidence only exist in the land of figurative speech, only made clear by flowing flowery language? Was it a sharp lance from the heavens, like some lightning bolt made by fate to fuck with me?

Wasn't love when you felt like you felt better being near someone? Was love that feeling of completion? Was love safety?

I cared for her.

I knew that.

Once again, I stared at her, remembering what she looked like while my brain revolted against everything.

And once again, I made my choice.

----

I was still awake when Boss and Canary caught up to us, still awake when they thought I was dead.

I was still awake when I got to a doctor. I was still awake as Catastrophe stared over me, watching me stare at her.

Have you ever done something horrible? Something so honest to god bad that you felt like your body was catching alight with every blasphemous whisper you spewed forth from it? How about having the knowledge that saying it was for the better, no matter how bad it made you feel?

There was a week in the hospital bed.

A familiar week, where my vitals were checked countless times and I only really got to hear the sound of my own thoughts.

And the thoughts of a few others.

All through out, all the time I was in the room, my friends were at my side, all looking over me, all telling me that I was going to be ok, that I should take it easy.

It was a blur for a long time.

I held on to my choice.

----

And now for something completely different.

Song

Like an angel who has forsaken sympathy

Rise up, young boy, and make yourself a legend!

A blue unblinking eye stares at you for a long time as the opening phrase kicks in, doing nothing but staring. The camera slowly pans out to reveal a single large glistening tear come out of the eye. The eye that completes the pair was trapped in the grips of mania and insanity, a pained look in it that cuts straight through any real explanation.

The camera zooms out further, revealing Ivan looking up at the sky thoughtfully, his face seeming to be at serene peace.

Blue skies and beckoning winds

The camera zooms out further, revealing Catastrophe, her hind quarters a dark shade of grey, flying through the air and landing next to him. She smiles at him.

Are trying to open the door of your heart

Canary and Boss come running up the hill, the zebra floating a book and Boss unceremoniously hits Canary over the head with the hilt of her sword, a look of irritation flashing over her face. The both stop beside Ivan and look up with him before looking at Catastrophe and shrugging.

But you're gazing at me as if you cannot see

His gaze remains unchanging and another tear strikes the earth in a glistening wave, soaking the dirt. He shakes his head after another second and smiles cheerfully at the rest of the cast, though his smile seems forced.

You just stand there smiling vacantly

His eyes flash a light blue with magic and his smile becomes real.

Your eyes hold such innocence

His eyes flash again and suddenly he is standing over a group of ponies and zebras, all marching into a ship. One stumbles and he leaps down from his platform and seems to scream, forcing the red pony to straighten up and stream onto the ship. In the background, Canary shakes his head.

You're blind to the fate that will soon come to pass

A dark storm fills the skies, bits of electricity sparking off into the air with a distant rumble. Ivan screams at the rest of the group when they stumble on to The Scourge. A massive lightning bolt descends down from above and he throws himself into front of one of the group, a barrier forming from two points to divert it. It strikes far away from them and the ship fills much faster.

But it's summoning you with a touch like a sigh

He hurries on board, soaked through, his fur a mess. He smiles at the rest of the group and takes a bite out of an apple. Again, his gaze turns towards the sky.

You seek it without knowing why

A single piece of paper descends from the clawed grasp of Catastrophe and all of them looked shocked. Ivan is nowhere to be found in the scene. Catastrophe turns and begins to scream at a shadowy figure, no features easily seen.

But someday I know that you will be awakened

Ivan is standing out on the prow of his airship, pointing decidedly at a large structure. The wind blows by and the ship speeds up a fast pace, sending Ivan falling back on to the ship.

And your eyes will finally see

A flash of Catastrophe without her prosthetics crying out for help, her tail and her right back leg gone. It is raining hard and her body covering are plastered to her side.

These wings on your back are just waiting to guide you--

A brief blue of motion revealing Boss and Canary coming to her rescue, Ivan running from the opposite direction. Boss is scene to roll her eyes, though her smile isn't faked as she forces Ivan to turn and face the direction he was running from.

The future will soon set you free!

There is a flash of light that seems to burn into the soul and a horrendous scream. Once again, the camera is focused on a pair of eyes, this time on Catastrophe's a few tears trickling from them. The camera pans out to see that the rest of her face is contorted into rage.

This cruel thesis, a spiteful angel's litany,

A wound covered Canary fights over the felled body of boss, hurling magic and parrying blades just as easily. He is wearing some sort of light chain mail and his enemy appears to be a collection of mechanical monsters.

Will soon soar from the window of your destiny

There is a seen of what looks to be the saddest victory party imaginable, bits of monsters being sorted through while a collection of weapons is stacked up.

White hot pathos, a desecrated symphony

The weapons are melted down, each drop of liquid metal following a scream of torment and a flash of blood, the molten mix hungrily eating the crimson fluid. Faintly, the smirk of two zebras and a griffon is seen. A paw is seen grasping a hammer and beating out a piece of steel.

The dirt covered floor still has glowing splashes of metal speckling it.

Stay true to this and don't betray your memory!

A flash of canines, hundreds of them, all of them twisting in extreme pain as Ivan watches, seeming to also be in pain. A spider next to him is zoomed in on for a split second.

Come now, reach out—you must embrace reality

A blast of magic, lightning magic streaks down from the heavens as something dark and obscured rises from below the land.

Rise up, young boy, and make yourself a legend!

Ivan, lying in a coffin, unmoving, while several figures pay their final respects.

Far in the night sky over head, the form of a massive griffon blots out everything else, his eyes glistening with sincerity and torn with regret. Boss and Canary stand to the side, turned away.

Catastrophe looks down, her face not visible. Her body shakes.

The final respects are paid and the coffin lid slowly closes.

You've slept for ever so long

A flash of steel on steel fills the visible area, scattering about fragments of sword. Another sword switches into the hand of Boss, replacing her shattered one and ending the life of a particularly angry looking griffon. Using her sword as a pivot, she hurled him at another enemy allowing Ivan to slit his throat with a knife.

Embraced in affection and cradled with care

A flash of cars and various human thing goes by, reflected in a pair of blue eyes. A massive explosion shakes through it all and the vision shatters, fading to blue prints of a car, a jet, and a boat.

But with morning's approach comes an echoing cry

Prisoners, hanging on a wall, blood draining out of them into a few funnels which feed into bottle. A mechanical arm swoops them up and takes them away while a whip strikes them.

Canary watches over it without emotion. His cold eyes take in every twitch and plea the prisoners give and slowly a smile inches over his face. He looks satisfied.

It tells you to wave your dreams goodbye

A blur of something massive in the sky, a blur of blue eyes opening in steel.

And the moon is shining above

A flash of a starry night, Ivan looking at it with longing while Catastrophe sits beside him. Neither says a word. The stars cleared to show a massive web of thread and spiderwebs.

It wishes to show just how fragile you are

Ivan, covered in nicks and scratches hurling himself in front of a magic bolt, letting out a cough of blood while he guards over a young filly.

You're so frail and slight in its silvery light;

He falls to the ground almost lifeless until the attacker come closer and Ivan buries a fireball into his stomach.

Our fate is not one we can fight

A flash of the island of Rej, torn to shreds from past conflicts, the rock and cobble stone streets shaking free at a distant explosion. The airship Scourge floats over, bits of green dust floating off of it like a bastardization of pollen.

But someday I hope that we'll be reunited

A fragment of Ivan talking to a massive griffon, familiar to him. Boss leans against a wall and watches, Canary is reading.

If that is what's destined to be

A flash of an armada of airships, dragons in tow, barreling down towards a castle. One shoots off a burst of flame.

Perhaps we'll discover that elusive bible

Ivan and his party are surrounded by shadowy figures, the figures are obscured and featureless.

And then we will finally be free!

Something explodes, The Scourge falling down to land with an explosion, scattering parts every which way.

This cruel thesis, a spiteful angel's mockery,

The sky, blue and free. Flying through it without any hesitation.

Will bring with it the sorrow of futility

A few tears trickling off a family as something large blitzes through a house. Ivan walking over and comforting them while he keeps a barrier up.

Hold on tightly and do not lose vitality

Shades, hundreds of them, descending from above. Something exploding, sending a blue shockwave through them, dispelling them.

You must wake up, for now the dream is history!

Ivan, choking a child with a smile until the foal collapses, his laughter echoing through the air.

Come now, reach out—you must embrace humanity

A flash of steel and a flicker of blue eyes in a mask of metal.

Rise up, young boy, and make yourself a legend!

The Scourge flying through the air amongst hundreds of griffons, Ivan with a massive smile on his face while Catastrophe shoots glares at him. Canary shakes his head and goes back to reading, a staff beside him. Boss goes back to shadow boxing with her swords.

Love is the thread of the story that's woven

A group picture of all four of them, all looking happy. Ivan looks untouched by anything, his mind free.

Of future and present and past

A flash of Ivan when he was a human. A flash of Ivan as a zebra. A flash of darkness.

I may not ever ascend to the heavens

Catastrophe trying to grasp at Canary falling, while Ivan keeps her steady. Boss is over to the side, one of her legs clearly broken. Bits of debris and shrapnel falls from the ceiling, a large beam of sunlight trickling through.

But I know my love will still last

A single picture of Catastrophe and Ivan, the middle slowly tearing as the scene goes on. The picture falls to the ground, where Ivan collapses on top of it, his face wrenched with anguish.

This cruel thesis, a spiteful angel's litany,

Will soon soar from the window of your destiny

White hot pathos, a desecrated symphony

Stay true to this and don't betray your memory!

Come now, reach out—you must embrace reality

Rise up, young boy, and make yourself a legend!

Welcome to season two.

Explanations. (41)

You'll have to imagine the music playing.

"So, why were the dogs here?" Canary asked after making sure that Ivan was sleeping. Also, making sure that Ivan didn't twitch or open up the massive cut in his side was a pretty big priority as well. Honestly, Canary was getting a little tired of everything being Ivan centric. He may have been the main chara- Canary quickly made a vow to not finish that thought.

The zebra of his consideration was taped down with plastic tubes coming from all over his body, supplying blood, medicine and who knows what else. Nonmagical medicine really was of the more disturbing things to think about.

Catastrophe reached into her pouch and ate something quickly in a way that he couldn't even see what she was putting in her mouth. Her new prosthetic tail faintly whined with gears and a tiny hum of magic discharging and recharging.

It was slowly getting on his nerves as everytime she moved her tail it would eventually click against the ground. His eyes couldn't spot a difference between her new tail and her old tail, but the audible difference was really quite bothersome.

Boss and her replacement paw weren't half as bad. It only hummed or made any sort of noise when she grasped something too tightly. It didn't get in the way of her fighting, though considering they had all spent the better part of the day staring at their downed 'leader' fighting wasn't on the battle plan. Today was when he was supposed to wake up.

"A wandering pack of dogs tried to capture or kill Ivan." Catastrophe responded. Her tail flicked out again. "They also tried to take out the rest of us but weren't as fucking close." She almost snarled the last few words.

It was sad how bad they had it for each other.

Boss nodded. "Repairs on The Scourge are coming along rather well. They should be done in another week." She mused.

"So, for clarity, why did the dogs leave?"

The griffon took over, turning her gaze to Canary. "Well aren't you expositional today. Same reason I have a new tail. They had a pact that the town would not interfere with the dogs as long as they did not hurt any of the creatures around here. They sliced up one of the doctors and the rest of the docs didn't take it well." She winced. "So, yeah."

He watched her carefully as she pulled something out of the pouch again and slowly ate them. He shook his head, deciding he didn't want to know as he noted her pupils dilate.

Boss looked around uneasily and the placed a bag that had been lumped over her shoulder on the ground. As the contents settled it rang out with the sound of metal slipping against each other and of gems faintly tinkling. "These are the donations the town gave us." She nodded at Ivan.

He hadn't stirred.

"They are giving us free medical care to try and say they are sorry for almost having us killed, and most of the weapons around here and pretty shoddy."

He looked at both of them, unsure where this was going or whether he should be concerned. "And?"

"Where should we spend it?" The swords dog asked.

Cata smirked and Canary knew he was supposed to have a bad feeling.

"Easy, I say we hit up a casino or four and have a great fucking time." She smiled.

"Yeah, that's what you'll be doing with Ivan." He quipped, his mouth working faster than his mind. A feeling of pain graced him long before the griffoness backhanded him.

He was practically thrown against a wall, but it was worth it to see the light blush on her face. "Shut up, idiot." she spat, glaring.

"Why? Afraid to wake your crush?" He muttered under his breath. Ignoring the pain, it felt good to see her off guard for once.

Another swat, less painful but stinging all the same. "Fuck you." She hissed.

"No thanks, but ask Ivan, I'm sure he'll help you with that." He braced for the next hit.

Boss walked in between both of them. "Cut it out." She glared at him. "We are all short of patience. Canary, she will kill you." He shrugged. Boss turned to the red faced griffon. "We are in a hospital. Don't put another patient in here."

He smiled victoriously at the griffon. He couldn't really believed that worked... Unless this was a com- he didn't finish that thought. "So where are we going?"

"A nice little place by the name of Las Pegasus. Nice place, nice whores, nice casinos." She smirked. "It's in Equestria, and hopefully we'll be a fair bit safer there than we have been."

Canary blinked at her for a long moment and counted the seconds before her face went back to its normal shade.

17 seconds.

----

The sky was blue.

I could see for miles and miles around me without turning my head.

The wind tore against me in just the right way and I felt welcomed in a hug by its wisps. I felt, for lack of better words, safe.

The sky felt safe.

----

I opened my eyes, a disquieting calm hitting me.

"I'm awake." My statement was paralleled.

"He's awake." Boss spoke. I felt a slight twinge of irritation from her but was far more worried at the fact that I was without magic.

It was quiet. Using magic brought to mind having a fan turned on in a room. A constant dull noise that you slowly tuned on until the day that you turned off the fan.

And then it was quiet and you missed it.

I missed the whisper of magic, the little taunts and teases that it would give me constantly in a not quite audible manner.

"It's quiet." I said in a simple tone while trying not to let on just how much it bothered me. No weakness. No hint at what I was doing. It was better this way.

"Let me fix that." Canary said with a warm smile.

"Las Pegasus." Catastrophe said offhandedly, confusing me.

"What?"

"We are going to Las pegasus to have fun." Catastrophe stated in a tone that would not let me argue. Not that I really wanted to, it sounded like a good idea.

----

She felt like wincing

He looked broken. Like someone had smashed a mirror that was his eyes and tried to put it back together. She carefully pulled out a few seeds from her pouch and let them sit in her mouth.

Poppy seeds.

It was a bad habit, she guessed, but honestly, with her new prosthetic messing with all of the others it was a far more preferable alternative to dealing with the sensation of her limbs being on fire.

His wounds were mostly treated. It had been a week since he had gotten hurt.

Thinking about it made her hurt a little.

She had spent the week getting into shape with Boss, sparring with her near constantly. Boss had given her a few daggers, razor sharp to use and she used them well, her speed aiding her in learning.

She kept her gaze off of his face and vowed to be there next time.

It almost made her feel better.

A month in passing

The Scourge was rebuilt at the cost of only one life, that life belonging to a particularly stupid pony who thought that he might be able to get away with stealing a few of the gems that his friends had donated. He learned his lesson at the tip of a sword and his body was buried along with the dogs who had died. As was tradition in the wastes, nobody really cared.

Nobody paid his body any respect.

Not that they should've, Boss had been the one to catch him stealing and the town still owed all them.

----

A guide to basic metamagical theorems.

I blinked at it for a long time, trying to get my eyes to see through what I was clearly hallucinating. I had spent the past day decoding the cover of the book.

"A guide to metamagical theorems." I sad aloud, and just as I had suspected, it opened for me.

The first few words took me by surprised.

For experienced unicorns only.

I silently made a gesture that would've been flipping the bird if I had finger and hurled the book at the wall. A pleasant looking painting of a meadow that a few of the convicts had been rather insistent on donating fell from the wall and hit the floor, the glass covering shattering across the floor.

For once, I was glad I had hooves.

As a force of habit I tried to channel magic through my pouch to the feather to convert it into the proper spell.

Well, I didn't have magic and the act of trying to use magic while I was out sent a large stab of pain into my head like someone had pushed me into a wood chipper.

It's hard to do justice what it felt like in words really. What would've been as simple as lifting the glass shards into a cup or something was soon a long and arduous task. Hooves are one of those things that really don't work well with brooms. Or dust pans.

Bandages, like the ones wrapped around my side and stomach were also hard to manage with hooves.

Pain was really one of those things hard to deal with regardless of your shape or form. It was kinda the universal fuck you.

Still, despite my anger at apparently wasting my time with the book, I decided to read it a little.

----

Boss looked at the top of the ship and then waved at Catastrophe.

Cata flew over, yawning. It hadn't been too terribly long since they had woken up and they were still checking over the ship for any places that needed a bit more repairing. She landed a few feet from her.

Or, milking Oblivion for all the free improvements they could get. One or the other, either way, Boss wasn't going to be picky.

"Yeah?" The griffon said, looking sleepy. She paused from walking over to stretch out. She frowned. "Gonna need to preen soon." Her feathers looked ruffled.

The dog shrugged. "Have fun with that, I guess." She shook her head. Sometimes, being overly callous to the griffon was all too tempting. "Have you seen the fuel room?"

Canary poked his head up and shook it, walking over. "I haven't. Anything special?" He asked, concerned and slightly amused.

"Hey, what do you make of this?" Boss led her through the ship, ignoring the faint blood stains and the faint reek of copper and salt. She smiled lightly. Things... were going well.

Set in a room that they hadn't been using, the fuel room, across from the boiler room, there was a new depression in the floor. A large bit of hose fed off from the boiler, looking all the bit like...

Canary blinked. "Is that...?"

"A hot tub." Catastrophe finished, her eyes filled with glee.

Canary flinched away at the look but stood his ground. "A hot tub."

Boss nodded. "A hot tub."

"We have a hot tub." The zebra blinked.

"Hot tub."

"Why do we have a hot tub?" Boss finally asked, looking it over. It was big enough to fit all of them and the unexpected nature of it was throwing her off.

"Who cares? We have a fucking hot tub." Catastrophe said, cautiously walking over to it. Some sort of bath salts, three different colors, red, yellow, and blue, were set on a recessed shelf.

By reflex the griffon shot Canary a dirty glare. "I heard that."

He had let the words die on his tongue before he spoke. "I didn't say anything!"

"Shut up."

----

According to the book, magic was merely sculpted energy that affects reality. Quite simply, I guess, magic was applied thought energy magic miasma matrix...

You know what, it's magic, I barely have to explain everything.

Magic, at its core was simply conveying information to the world through energy. It was theorized that magic was linked to specific things, specific words, specific phrases. Specific gems. Specific species.

"Unicorns are the superior species for magic as Celestia has granted them the right to bear the best foci from their heads. In my very esteemed opinion, Unicorns are simply superior." I read it aloud for a second, thinking it over. The text was in English, which once again implied many different things.

Oh and I was speaking English. That too.

Unicorn supremacy propaganda or not, reading about magic was not quite as good as using magic.

----

Of course, jumping back from Boss's blades and parrying them just barely with my knife, without magic I was sorta kinda really useless. Which is why I was working on agility.

Something buried itself in my side and I fell over to dodge another sword, the edge covered in leather.

"Dead." Catastrophe laughed, walking over to my side and pulling out a dart from it. I glared at her and waiting for Canary.

"Ivan, I'll run out of fruit at this rate. Learn how to dodge." His eyes flashed and the pear in his hands shriveled a bit. "First aid." He sighed.

The hole in my side filled in and stopped bleeding. I stood right back up in time to block Boss's sword with my own wooden blade, practicing the technique and my reaction time.

I didn't jump away from her other sword and took it to the side of the face, a stinging welt sure to follow.

"Dead." Boss said simply.

I glared at her and then kicked out with my right hoof, hitting her prosthetic in just the right way to make it spazz out and drop the blade. "In my dying thrashing throes I kick out my hoof and disarm you."

A dart buries itself in Boss's back.

"Dead." I finished.

I smiled at the griffon and looked at the other Zebra. "So, Can-can." I started.

"Neon Pegasus."

"I TOLD YOU TO FORGET ABOUT THAT." I half shouted, half groaned.

"Don't call me Can-Can."

"Fine."

"Canary. How much magic do you have left?" I asked politely.

"More than you." He was being a bit of a dick today.

"Right."

Boss reached behind herself and pulled out the dart, letting it hit the ground. The griffon landed on the ship.

----

"You are in a dark hall way. Behind you, a horde of dogs that you would have to be ridiculously stupid to try and attack are haunting you. In front of you lies the unknown. What do you do?" I asked, looking over the group.

Canary replied first. "I would, after a bit of careful consideration, levitate whatever I could find through the unknown."

"Dead. The dogs catch up to you."

The griffon answered next. "Fly back behind me and outside of the hallway to freedom."

"Correct, but you die from a lucky arrow."

"I would collapse the tunnel and signal for help from the rest of you."

"Dead, the tunnel kills you."

The griffon nodded. "So why the fuck do you keep giving us this impossible scenarios?"

I shrugged. "You'll figure it out eventually."

---

I dove out of the way of a spray of darts, Catastrophe throwing them at me without even really trying. "Come on Ivan, I could've killed you five times over by now."

I stared at her and took in her appearance, watching her muscles twinge, hearing her voice.

I was out of my mind, clearly. But I didn't care. I needed to be free.

"And?" I asked calmly, not letting the nervousness show in my voice.

A dart dove into my leg and I let out a yelp of pain. "Exactly. Start dodging better."

I hadn't really improved all that much so far, but I had impressed Boss a little.

I reached down and pulled it out with my teeth. "Yes, Cata." I felt like she was my teacher or something. My really kinda hot teacher.

"Maybe if you stopped staring at me you'd actually dodge a few!" She accused.

"Not my fault you are easy on the eyes." I replied with a smile.

"Shut up and get back to dodging." I did as she asked, my striped hide getting out of the way of the worst of the darts. The ones that missed clanked against metal or stuck in the wood around me.

---

The night sky started to cast its deep shade of lavender over the day, the insatiable land below us greedily holding on to what little bit of the sun still hung in the air. They warred with each other, it seemed, for a long time until the sun gave way, yielding before the moon which slowly rose to the sky.

I was the only one on the deck of the ship besides the pilot.

The sky, for a few brief moments, was almost close enough for me to touch.

I had kept up with the new ritual of eating a bit of jerky and whatever fruit Catastrophe presented me, as it seemed like a good idea to find a way to improve my diet.

I kept my gaze to the sky, a feeling of intense longing flooding through me like a storm.

"Catastrophe, what does it feel like to fly?" I hiked up the few steps to lean against the controls of the ship, delighting in watching the stars come out.

"Haven't we had this conversation before?"

"Humor me."

She smiled lightly and her eyes seemed wistful.

"Flying is like swimming through the air."

I listened with an intensity I didn't even know I had.

"Flying is knowing that when things get rough, you'll always have somewhere to go."

"Flying is safety." I finished.

"You could say that."

"Hmph. Been a while since I had any screen time." There was an awkward pause. "Ivan. You've got me doing it! There isn't a fourth wall to break and-" There was a sinister laugh. "I support your plan."

There were stars looking down at me from above and I felt safe while I was next to the griffon who looked rather attractive and fitting with the black backdrop seeming to mirror her coating and I felt safe on the deck of the ship and I tried to ignore the pain and the screaming and something touched me.

I fell on my side and she stood over me with sadness in her eyes and then she shook her head and carried me to my room and nothing really made sense because why would she be sad?

She must've been sad because she knew what I was going to do except that didn't make sense because I hadn't told anyone what I wanted to do not even when there wasn't anyone around because someone was always listening and my thoughts were running from me and I tried to gather them and they slipped like water.

----

Another day, another set of angry red welts from a practice sword. Another couple of darts in my side and a few more snide remarks on my state of living.

"Hey, Ivan. Go try out the hot tub. It feels great." Catastrophe said slyly, looking around the ship.

I blinked and ignored her weird behavior. "We have a hot tub?"

"Yes. We have a hot tub."

And indeed we did. Complete with bath salts and all sorts of things I really did not expect to find on my ship.

I sank into the hot pool of water and let out a sigh of relief as the warm water trickled over my body.

I let the steam take me away from where I was, drifting off to sleep slowly.

I dreamed of flying through fields, my hooves knowing where to take me.

I dreamed of safety.

I dreamed of the sky, of a voice I knew all too well behind me and wings guiding me forward.

I dreamed of another place at another time.

----

The days flew by in a whirl of studying, training, bathing and doing who knows what else. All in all, probably some of the better days of my life were right there with my friends.

For once, I doubted my choice.

I kept it decided all the while.

----

On the thirtieth day, a few weeks of dodging and trying to parry a superior attacker, my magic came back to me in a rush. The whispers were back again.

And I wrote a letter.

And then we were over our destination, Las Pegasus. It's myriads of colorful lights and sounds and casinos said it was a happy place, and surprisingly I felt safer.

----

"Ivan?" Boss asked, knocking on his door. She looked around, a bad feeling in the air. It was the sort of bad feeling that made her paws ache.

"Ivan." She drew her sword and slashed through the hinges of the door, letting it fall open.

"The ladder is down." She mumbled, looking over the room. "And Ivan is gone."

A single letter fluttered down from the ceiling. Boss picked it up before it fell. The room felt quite a bit like a morgue.

Dear friends,

I regret to inform you that I cannot stay in your company. You must understand that I do this for you, and not for myself, though it is my selfish desires that has nearly doomed all of you so many times.

You must understand this, for I have no intention of coming back to this ship under my own will.

It is best that you move on without me, perhaps find a way to use what few things we have acquired to start your own lives.

Canary, I'll miss your bits of rationality. I'll miss your ability to talk me back up when I've fallen.

Boss, I'll miss your silent promise of protection, I'll miss your presence.

Catastrophe, I'll miss you. I cannot describe in words just how much I miss you already as I write this note.

This is a goodbye, and one I do not like making. I must protect those that I cherish, and I must protect them by not letting the claws of fate take them from me. I will make the decision on my own.

I intend to do away with myself far away from any of you so that you may live long lives without the hands of fate intervening.

~Ivan

Boss let the letter fall from her grasp. She felt solemn.

"Catastrophe. Canary. No time for fun, Ivan's gone over the edge."

Little Ivan Lost

She surveyed the land outside of the ship with a pair of stress weathered eyes. There was no sign. None at all. Her head pounded slightly and she paused just long enough to go through another few poppy seeds. Waking up to having Boss screaming at her was not the best way to get her out of sleep. Her head sent another shriek of pain through her thoughts. Of course, waking up to find that they were missing one particularly important zebra was also a bad thing.

She shut her eyes and tried to focus. There were too many things going on and the numbing from her habit hadn't quite kicked in to remove her pain. Ivan was gone.

That thought, of Ivan being gone, sent more pain through her headache.

She opened her eyes and read through the letter again. No matter how she tried to twist it, the letter kept sending a tone of finality through all of her. It made her want to shake.

They were over Las Pegasus. The bright lights and the other airships crowding the skies, their various noises, the fumes from their fuels, all of it made for a slightly nauseating combination of information.

It felt like a nice place. Her kind of town. Whores, seedy little places where you could get what you needed, that sort of thing.

"So... what now?" The other zebra, one who was far more annoying and had just disrupted her train of thought, asked.

She pushed him away from her with a wing. "Go bother someone who cares." She went back to training her gaze on the ground below, searching for a sign.

Canary trotted away, perhaps sensing her mood. She didn't really care.

There was no sign of him, and her heart was slowly beating faster. Her headache was mostly gone and the slowly breeze made her crave a decent flight to get her thoughts in order. As if on cue, Boss, back from searching, walked below the ship. She kicked off the ladder, struggling to keep her feelings straight. “I’ll take it you haven’t found anything?” She filed down one of her talons against a rusty metal sheet while she tried to calm herself, thinking rationally. The scraping noise kept her mind off of things she'd rather not think about.

Besides, he was Ivan. He'd been stabbed quite a few times and otherwise almost killed and he sprung back up... shortly.

Actually, now that she thought about it, he'd been on his feet after his near fatal stabbing pretty quickly. Maybe Canary wasn't completely useless after all? He had been getting rather good at that healing spell.

Boss shook her head. “Not a trace of him." She said, her eyes filled with a hint of sadness.

Canary poked his head out. “He took a book with him.” He tried.

She turned her glare on him, willing him to explode spectacularly into a collection of body parts. She clicked her beak as the only sign of her building irritation. “And... that helps us how?"

He shrugged. “Still, just saying.” She shot him another glare.

"It's your turn to go search." Boss gently reminded.

Cata closed her eyes for a second. “Mind the ship.” She stated, glaring at Boss and calmly launching herself off the side. Her wings caught the air and she gracefully flew down to the town below.

Canary looked at Boss. “You ever get the fee-”

“If you finish that sentence I will hurt you.” She promised, her flesh paw resting on her sword.

She ignored the stupid discussion of her ship mates and remained hovering over the ground, her thoughts definitely angry.

“Hello up there, anybody home?”

Cata blinked, turning around. Was that? She walked over to the familiar looking snake... thing. His form brought the red hot pang of anger to her head and her headache slowly returned. Damn it. “You.” She stated gruffly.

“Me?” Marty said, and to her glee he seemed a little upset by her tone. A minor victory, but she took what she could get.

“Yes you.” She glared. Was there anybody else that would be stupid enough to talk to her when she was this angry? "What do you want now?” She trailed her eyes across him, taking in every single place he could have a weapon, besides his sword.

“Universal peace, a friendly face, and some money in my pocket.” Marty smiled rakishly “Failing that, maybe some information.”

She closed her eyes for a second, the sight of the cheery snake far more than she was willing to deal with. “And what would such a fucking nice guy like yourself possibly want with me?” She half snarled, half said politely.

“If I wanted to rhyme, I’d say coffee or tea. But that’s just being silly. No, I thought I might come here and get a little help looking into an investigation of mine, and in return help you and your seeming leader.” Marty said evenly. It was almost like he wasn't trying to piss her off.

Couldn't be. He wouldn't have talked to her.

She looked around him and tried not to think about how much more searching she could be doing. It didn't work.

She felt her temper start to boil over, her nerves frayed and more than a little shot. “You can take your investigation and whatever help you were planning and get the fuck away from me. YOU-” She paused, Ivan had seemed a little more restrained with dealing with him in the past, from what she could remember. “You. Scram.” She looked away, not wanting to ruin her ploy with her eyes which she knew were brimming over with frustration.

“Ooookay. I obviously caught you at a bad time. Can I talk to anyone else in your group, Ivan perhaps?” The snake said, apparently missing the hint to get the fuck away from her.

“Sick. All of them. Sick.” She lied smoothly. “I’m immune because different species and Boss is having fun elsewhere.” She bit her tongue, literally, remembering that Boss was in fact sterile. The pain helped her think and she let herself suck lightly at her own blood to provide a bit of background noise for the conversation. It helped her think. “Gambling, I would say.”

“I’m fairly good at healing, and if the stress of taking care of two zebras is getting to you that badly, maybe I should take over.” Marty offered politely. “I know taking care of others is hardly fun, especially when they’re sick.” She wished he would stop being polite. It was annoying. He needed to leave so she could get to looking.

She lets out a low growl, something about the snake setting off something instinctual. “You...” She stopped. “I don’t need your help. I don’t want your help. LEAVE.” She snarled the last word, and sent her worst death glare at him. “Got it? None of need your help. And if you see Ivan, tell him that I don’t fucking care if he decides to be a fucking hero. GOT IT?” She winced internally, cursing her tongue. She spread her wings to get away from him before she blew anything else.

Very quietly, the snake began to talk. She listened closely, just in case. “So you’re telling me that Ivan decided to go off and be a hero? Oi.” He massaged his forehead with a hand. “Doesn’t he know that’s a good way to end up dead?” He looked up at her and she felt like cringing away in disgust. His gaze felt a bit like something dirty. “Thank you Catastrophe. I’ll be on my way. Good seeing you again.” Thankfully, with that last sentence he started to slither off.

She glares at him for a long minute before closing her eyes. Going against her better judgement, she flew after him slowly, making sure to keep him in easy viewing distance. She might need his help after all. Ivan? Dying. Psh. Like that’s the issue. She ignored the phantasmal pictures that the concept of Ivan's death kicked up.

Cata winced as her mechanical bits decided to let out a few clinks and clanks. She'd probably need to find someone to look at that wing joint, as that was a source of pain, a tearing sensation flaring from the base of it. She had a brief recollection of the crash that ripped off that part of her and then shoved it away

She slowly followed after, knowing full well that the snake man probably could figure out that Ivan needed saving, and considering he felt like the type to have a goody goody streak a few miles long, it was best that she be there in case the snake decided to 'help' in a way she didn't like. She closed her eyes and sped up, landing next to him.

She spat out a bit of congealed blood, the taste not one she wanted anymore she had a craving for a few more seeds but ignored it, not wanting to show any weakness. “On second thought... Can we make a deal?” She really didn’t want to do this, but it seemed a safe bet that he would be able to find him eventually.

Smiling, and the sight of his smile almost turned her stomach, he turned around. “Oh, and what type of deal would that be, Miss Catastrophe?”

“If you call me mishap I will punch you in the face, weird ass powers bedamned.” She snarled, then forced herself calm. She did not need to remember that right now. “The kind where we both benefit in some way.”

“I will keep that in mind. Anyways, go on, I’m listening.”

“If you help me find Ivan, maybe beat a little sense in his screwy little head, maybe I’ll help you with your little ‘quest’ or investigation or whatever.” She stopped her eyes widening and her head pounding again. “... He’s got me doing it.” This is so cliche, she thought.

“I don’t know about beating some sense into his head, but I’ll help you find him. And as for the help investigating, any help at all would be much appreciated.” Marty, as was his name, raised one of his dermal ridges.

She shrugged off his questioning gaze and walked around him, a bit of pain she knew evident in her walk but she made sure to quickly force it to disappear. “He had a bit of a breakdown, I think.” She added, looking around. She might as well give him some information if it helped him.

“Considering what he said during our private conversation, I’m only surprised that this seems to be the first time he’s done this.” Of course Ivan had told him things that she didn't know. Nothing could ever come easily. “I should know, I’ve done it before, myself.”

“He said, and I quote. I intend to do away with myself far away from any of you so that you may live long lives without the hands of fate intervening.” She shook one of her wings to get a little blood flowing by the artificial bit, a rustling sound emanating. “I’m not worried about him trying to off himself.” It occurred to her that the snake might be one of those people who could divine the truth. The edge of paranoia had caught up with her and she decided to ride the nervous energy as long as she could. “That much.” It surprised her just how much is hurt for her to admit that she did worry about it. She resumed her normal tone. “He didn’t take his meds.”

“That’s... problematic.” Marty said, in the understatement of the day. “What type of medication was he on?”

She flipped up her wing and dug through the pouch. She grabbed on to a small pill bottle and read a few lines of worthless medical babble. “No idea. Antipsychotics. I swiped a few spare bottles from a guy I know.” She smiled lightly. He was planning on helping her, probably. “So... you can fix ‘im, right?” If he said yes...

“Maybe, but when it comes to ‘healing’ someone’s mind, they have to be willing for it to work even slightly, and it’s extremely difficult even when they are willing.” It hit her like a sword, cutting through her hope and letting it the ground like wheat to the scythe.

She tried to keep the look of extreme disappointment from her face and knew she failed. “And the god spider doesn’t help. Or whatever else is in there.” She rolled her eyes and her own naivete. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, it sounds like at best I would be able to seal off his mind from outside influence, and I’d have to literally sleep next to him forever after to keep that up. There’s no guarantee that even that would work.”

In a knee jerk reaction she blurts out what she was thinking. “No way in hell are You sleeping next to him.” She hisses for a brief second before remembering herself. “Damn it. Fuck it.” She closes her eyes. “You are like a wall. And a teacher. AT THE SAME TIME.” She knew a bit of a blush was on her face from her outburst and she ignored it all the same.

“Funny that, I actually have my teaching degree. Physics and math.” Marty smiled wickedly. “And I can create an invisible wall if I so desire.” She felt her right taloned leg twitch as if it were begging her to sink it into his throat. She ignored it.

“If I wasn’t sure that you were secretly some kinda demon thing designed to make me angry, I would seriously kill you and drag your body into an alley, maybe make you into little strips of jerky.” She muttered. “So... any ideas how to track him?”

“Sorry about that, my inherent ability to be an asshole decided to act up.” Marty blinks, then finishes his thought. “Okay, this is going to sound extremely stupid to you, but I have a random hunch that he’s to the northwest of us. That silly spin you saw back there?" It did sound stupid, and she had ignored the spin. "The first time I did that it sent me to you, and now it’s sending me northwest.”

She sighed, digging through her pouch and placing another seed in her mouth. “Honestly, if I have to deal with you, maybe it isn’t worth it...” She whispered under her breath. “Not like I really care what happens to him, no.” She straightened up, taking a more rigid stance in her movements. “SO. Go on, magic snake thing. Show me whatever fuckery you have to so I can find him and lock him in his room until he calms down.” She looked to the sky as if it held the answer to her questions.

It didn't of course.

“Let’s get out of town first, I don’t want to rile up the local yokels too much.” Marty slithered on once more, heading to the northwest portion of the town. She followed easily, not letting her wince of pain when her false leg hit the ground. It was being over sensitive.

“And now you’ll get to see how I got here.” He began to survey the area right around him, to her, it seemed like he was doing absolutely nothing but looking around.

Idly, she thought about what she might do after this. She wondered what he was doing, certainly, but he was growing on her nerves like a fungus, rotting through them. “I suppose a flying castle or something or a demon or a -” She gnashed her beak together, and listened to the light grinding noise that echoed from it. “JUST GET ON WITH IT.”

“And now, the magic.” The emotion dropped completely out of his voice, startling her just a tad. A vertical slice appeared in the air, then widened out significantly into a glowing rectangular hole in space. Two large, solid wings appeared on his shoulders. “Fly through the gateway, I’ll follow.”

She looked at the hole and blinked a few times. He had to be kidding her.

She didn't even try to explain where the wings had come from, her sense of what was going on too far gone

“Where does it go, does it steal my soul, how long does it take, does this cause permanent damage in anyway to me or beings I know?” She said not commenting on the fact that he has wings, or can apparently tear holes in reality.

“Look up, it makes an artificial cliff. It doesn’t steal souls, and it’s instantaneous. The only way it will cause permanent damage is if you fall, now fly through, please.” Marty coldly emphasized the last four words, drawing her ire to the fore front of her mind just as if he had personally insulted her.

She turned away. “Fuck you. I’ll search for him myself. This REEKS of a fucking trap and I’m not going to fall for it.” She turned back to look at Marty, her eyes wide, her paranoia hitting her right then and there with a better explanation. “In fact. How the hell do I know that you didn’t take him?” She backed away slowly, counting the steps. “It fits. You were in town at the time. Came RIGHT to the airship. Lured away the only person guarding it, probably took an opportunity to signal your little friends to take over.” She continued to count her steps.

“Child. If I wanted to cause you harm, I would have done so already. This dustbowl of a town only still exists because I have no desire to hurt them at all. But if you are so distrustful of me, I will go on by myself. I will not tell your companion of your apparent lack of bravery. Do not try and follow me through the gateway, as I will close it immediately after I fly through. It will cut you in half.” With that, Marty slithered away as fast as it seemed like he could past the gateway, forming and reforming his wings as he went. She felt as if she had been chided by someone stronger than her and it hurt.

“Stop.” She sighed. What was the point in fighting it? Her head was pounding and he seemed like her best lead. “I’ll go.” She lightly shook. “I hate you so much. But... take me with you.” She flapped her wings and took off from the ground easily, ignoring the urge to fly as far away from him as possible. “Just fly through?”

“Do it quickly, I have to be close to keep it open. It’s hard to control your position while hang gliding.” He yelled back through.

She dodged past her apprehensions and every voice that screamed that it was a trap and dove through the mess of the gateway, her eyes closed. “I hate you.”

The gate way hole in space portal thing closed right after she passed it, leaving her disoriented. “Be that as it may, it’s the only way for me to get off the ground, and it saves you energy in getting altitude. Now follow me and watch. Your eyes are most likely better than mine.”

She suddenly had a really bad feeling. The kinda feeling that told her that this was only going to get worse as time went on.

"Oh hey. Fate says fuck you." She looked down. She felt herself shake in barely contained anger as she forced herself to maintain altitude. They were only above the city. They hadn't gone anywhere but up. “Yeah. Probably better vision, along with a sense of humor and general looks." She snarked, wanting the last word.

She had a feeling that she wasn't going to be getting many of those.

Little Ivan still lost

She had risked her life and trusted the snake to take her where she wanted, and they were only a few hundred feet above the city. She felt cheated, and deeply wronged.

In answer to her unasked question regarding why the hell they hadn't actually gone any where important, his emotional tone dropped back in."I only made the gateway to go up. If I had been trying to make one to go anywhere else, we would’ve been waiting for forty minutes or more instead of two.” She still wanted to cut him.

“What now? We wait until we hear the screams, or we wait until the giant monster shows up, or what?” She sighed, tucking her wings in to dive a bit before rising back up to Marty’s level. “You know, he could’ve gotten his fur dyed. I never thought of that.” A few possibilities burbled out and trickled by her concentration.

“Anything can go wrong, but we search. As for a giant monster, well, you’ll learn why I call myself Marty Stu if we need to deal with one.” He looked at the ground in one of the least helpful ways she could imagine.

She looks along the ground, her eyes zooming in below, almost in an effort to out do his pathetic attempts. “This is kinda pointless.” She noted. “How does this help me anymore than if I did this without you? In fact, I would’ve made more progress if I HADN’T MET YOU.” She knew she shouldn’t take it out on the guy who could tear holes in space, but it was just too good of an opportunity high in the sky.

“Perhaps, but at least this way you have a direction, a companion, and a quick means of escape.” He closed his mouth, thankfully, but seemed to relax.

Her mind pricked with more of a headache and she felt her stomach rebel lightly. She was flying, separate from her pain killers. Her wing felt like it was slowly tearing off and her heart beat faster everytime she thought about her actual goal.

She growled quietly. “Can you please get angry or something? Give me something to do BESIDES BROOD IN MY FAILURE?” She screeched loudly, closing her eyes. “I wanted you to find him, not be there when I did.” She stopped and forced her beak shut, tightening down in an excellent imitation of a nut cracker.

“Your failure? What failure? I’m fairly certain you’re the one who didn’t leave their friends behind.. without.. telling... them.” He had the nerve to facepalm at her, like she had done something wrong or stupid. “I don’t think you left a message as to where you went, did you?”

“Yeah? Fuck them. They can look up if they want to see me.” She rolled her eyes. Gee, you think it would occur that she had thought about that? “Look, I...” She shook her head again, fairly certain that she was going to make herself dizzy. “I owe him my life. AGAIN. I’m not the sort that takes that lightly.” She rationalizes, throwing her gaze back to the ground.

“Life debts are fun in that sort of way. I don’t take mine lightly either. I owe six mares my life and my sanity, and I still watch out for them when I can.” He cracked his neck, making her cringe as it reminded her of her desire to snap his. “But that’s neither here nor there.”

“You sound like an old bastard, about to moan about how unsatisfying life is and how I should enjoy it while I’m young.” She groaned. “Can you add something that would actually help me to the conversation?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t sound trite. And I think both of us have heard enough hollow platitudes.” He seemed to chuckled internally.

She sighed. Might as well try and get some information. Something clicked from throwing together words in her head. “So... Soul bonds. What do you know about that sort of thing?” Her voice felt softer, less harsh, more polite.

“Depends on what you mean by a soul bond. My equipment has small pieces of my soul in it, and it’s bound to me that way, but I get the feeling that’s not what you mean.”

“Apparent-” She paused, a flash of black and white below her. She felt her face brighten up. She swooped down at a nightmarish speed, ignoring her body screaming at her that she was going too fast for her wings.

"What are you doing?” Ha. He looked a little unnerved. It almost made up for the fact that she had been mistaken.

She rose back up quickly, her face torn in anger. “Fucking zebras.” She snarled, knowing she looked half rabid and delighting in it. “Why the hell do they all look the same?”

“To confuse predators.” Marty said, clearly without considering her thoughts on the matter.

Her glare could easily kill those with with less bravery. “Does your stupidity ever end? Damn. I thoug-” She shook her head. “Think happy thoughts, keep concentrated.” She looked down once more, scanning the crowd.

Very quietly, he replied “No. I wish it would.” She was torn between laughing at him and listening closely. “Surely he’s outside the city by now.”

“Can’t you use some kinda magic thing to track him? You can tear gaping holes in time in space but you can’t find a zebra?” She tried to goad him into action. Do something. Damn you.

“If I thought I was going to need to find him, I would’ve woven something over him earlier, or given him a good luck charm made out of metal or something. I’m powerful, but useless for some things. This is is one of those things.” Of course he was useless. Why would fate ever give her anything she can work with?

“So... useless. Just what I thought.” She huffed again, turning away, her face twisted in worry. “Damn it all.” She needed to find him.

“Could be worse, I could be a groundpounder, but have the only hope of finding him in time, rather than flying and have an idea of what direction he is.” Marty said nonchalantly, as if he wasn't aware of just how bad the situation was.

She looked blankly at him, her mind abuzz with everything. “I hate you. Just. So much fucking hate. If I had magic I’d cast whatever and you’d die.”

“I’m sorry I’m not better company, but I figured you’d prefer me acting like this than my other alternative of brooding, angst-ridden depressed idiot.” Marty sighed “And I don’t want to inflict that on anyone.”

She looked around at the clear blue skies, trying to ignore her growing anxiety. “Would you be more helpful?” She bit her tongue lightly and flew off farther ahead of him.

“Probably not, plus I’d probably make you either more angry, or more angsty yourself.” He shut up, then, against all logic or air flow, ascended 100 feet into the air as simply as she could.

“Look, I think we should make slow spiral around, looking for him. Maybe see if you can taste his insanity or something.” She groaned. “I need to find him.” She didn't mean to say that out loud.

“Doubtful I’ll be able to do that, but I’ve heard worse ideas.” He soared around in a circle, looking all the while like an idiot, before he pointed off in a random direction. “This way.”

She followed doubtfully, but didn’t voice her complaints. “Say. How good is your fighting?”

“Depends on what I’m using and if I’m allowed to channel or not. Why do you ask?” He looked back at her, almost clueless. She decided to give him a fair warning, at least.

“It’s Ivan. After a while, you stop questioning if you’ll have to fight something. You just assume you’ll be fighting something and leave it at that.” She shrugged, correcting her flight path to stay level with the snake.

“That sounds like me in a lot of ways. It’s not an if so much as a when for fighting something around me. Though a long time can and has passed between such shenanigans.” He went silent, as if he noticed that she didn't really care about his life story. “Assuming I’m not taken out immediately by an ambush, I should be able to handle most problems.”

“How well will you do with fighting someone without killing them?” She asked curiously, aware of the forshadowing in her tone. “It fits the next cliche.”

“Assuming I don’t have to do that to something like ten people at once, I can just bind them up in flows of air. That also makes for great practical jokes.”

“If you touch me I will kill you. There is nothing on this planet that will stop me.” She threatened. The mere thought of his scales next to her skin made her want to jump into lava.

“I kid, I kid. I wouldn’t do anything like that to someone I didn’t consider a friend, and was sure they considered me one as well.” Damn right she wasn't his friend. “But yeah, I have some really funny practical jokes I can pull.”

She nodded like she was listening, or even cared. “Yeah yeah. I’ll invite you to entertain for my kids. Bobo the clown.”

“You would use someone who looks like me to entertain children? That drops you from the potential babysitter list.” He spun her statement around as easily as she didn't want him to, startling her from her thoughts.

She glared and sputtered. “Do yo- What i- Wh- I HATE YOU.”

He took off in a slightly different direction, and she followed.

She lets out a strangled scream of frustration. “Dick.” She finally said.

They flew along in silence.

She cleared her throat, a thought occurring to her. “How the fuck did he get this far? It’s only been a day.”

“Blind panic? Galloped till he passed out from exhaustion? We’re searching the wrong area? It could be any number of things. I don’t know.” She didn't voice her doubts on his sanity, or the doubts on everything else he had done so far. “Catastrophe, help me find water.”

She sighed. “Can’t you cast waterfall or something?” She descended closer to the ground. “I still hate you by the way.”

“It doesn’t work like that. I can’t create something out of nothing, and for finding material, I can only find metal. Which makes it really easy for me to get the raw materials for my job, but makes finding actually useful things difficult. Now then, let’s find water so we can set up camp.”

She nodded. “Mind that you keep your guard up.” She mumbled, turning away. Even from where she was, she could hear the sound of water slipping through the landscape. Even an idiot could've heard it. “I just might slit your little throat and watch the blood run down your scales.” She flew up higher. “Water.”

“As in you found some, or as in you want some?” He once again defied all explanation and flew up into the air.

She pointed down with a talon. “There’s a stream, dumbass. I can hear it from here.”

“Thank you.” He flew down and she felt herself smile, waiting for him to crash. Unfortunately, this didn't happen, and instead, his wings pulled back and formed a sort of air brake, slowing his speed. And then his wings disappeared.

“So, not that I really care, but for the sake of you actually telling me something vaguely important, What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing.” She dove from the sky and landed gracefully, her wings puffing out at the last second and slowing her down dramatically. Ha. Suck it, she was still the master of the skies around here.

He turned to watch her, his impassionate eyes trailing across her. “I give that landing a nine out of ten, ten being perfect. As for what I’m doing, I’m warding the perimeter of the camp. I don’t exactly like the idea of waking up in someone else’s stomach, in chains, or robbed.”

She blinked, a bit of pain clouding her thoughts and making her wish it upon everyone else. “They better explode. Can you make them explode?” She looked down. “Nononon. You should make them bleed out from their pores.” She smiled sickeningly, licking her beak. “Or or...” She trailed off, looking off into the distance.

“While I can do that... A ward that makes an alarm is a better idea. If I did what you’re asking, we’d have everything from snakes to dragons dying if they even brushed the edge of the ward, and I do not want the death of some traveler or kid on my conscience.”

“Yeesh, what are you, some kinda good guy? Who cares about a kid? Or some traveler. It would be their own damn fault for trying to sneak up on us.” She sighed. “Hey, you getting hungry, I’ll go hunt.”

Ignoring her attempts to get him to react in a way she could take advantage of, the snake replied. “Yes I am, but you don’t have to go hunting if you don’t want to, I have more than enough food for the both of us.”

She blinked. “Ever kill a dog or something? Oh, you probably have some sort of deep dark inner hatred for slavers. Or some other random things to do with children?” She sighed. “And don’t bull shit me about the food. I’ll go hunt, you survive on whatever things you brought.” She turned away.

He called out to her. “Hold off for a moment. You won’t want to miss this.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a rather large horn. She stared at it for a long moment, wondering what the hell was wrong with the world.

“Ewe’ve got to be kidding me.” She turned back around. “Have fun with your... horn.”

He raised the horn up to his mouth and decided to taunt her. “Behold!” And then he blew into the horn. The noise made her want to bury her talons into her ears. A table appeared in front of him when she turned back around, a chain beside her with all the things she could ever want to eat in a meal, meat, a few random fruits, that sort of thing. On his side, meat of all sorts appeared.

She stopped cold. She sputtered for something to say for a long moment and then relaxed, almost melting into the chair. What was the point in resisting? He could summon food and who knew what else.“So. Wards. They work?” She said feeling far more relaxed than earlier.

“Yes. And to your earlier question, I don’t have an inner hatred for slavers, it’s entirely visible for the brief seconds I’m around them. As for children, I’m a parent. You don’t want someone else to hurt your kids, so you don’t potentially hurt theirs.” He sat down in a chair obviously designed for his long tail.

She nodded. She had to try and get something useful out of this. “So. Any chance that you could make alarm wards last forever?”

“Sure, but if I’m only going to be staying in place for one evening, and plan on crossing them myself eventually, why do so?”

“Could you say, key them to a certain location? Like, make it tell whoever is inside of the ward when someone crosses it?”

“I see what you’re getting at, but at best I could make it tell me what type of creature crossed the ward. Which, trust me, can be very useful. Knowing whether it’s a small critter or a monster is knowledge you definitely want.”

She held out a talon without looking at him, her face a perfect picture of distaste. “Tents.”

“I only brought mine with me.” Looking about for a moment, Marty looked back at her. “I’ll let you use it for the evening.”

She felt a seething layer of disgust pop up at the suggestion and she crushed it under her proverbial foot.

She sank a daring death glare on him, wishing him to catch on fire or show some reaction to her rising ire. “Like hell. I’ll sleep outside of the tent, I’m not going to find myself in your ‘debt’ or whatever you could use as an excuse to see me again after this.”

“Suit yourself. I was only being the gentleman, err, snake.” Marty resumed eating.

“So. Human, right?” She asked curiously, smirking. She knew something he didn't.

“I think that word still applies to me. Why do you ask?” Marty looked at her, and she could practically hear and see the gears in his head click in thought.

“No reason. None at all.” She remained smirking, delighting in actually knowing something the snake didn’t. She looked away. “You can’t read minds, right?”

“No, but I could force you to tell me. And if we’re talking about humans, yes, I do know that Ivan is one. He told me himself.”

She smiled even wider. “Oh? But you wouldn’t force me to tell you. That would go against your... ‘morals’. I figured Ivan told you.” She stretched out, cracking her back, relieving the tension bound up in there.

“Less morals so much as I’m terrified of what someone else would use my abilities for if they controlled my mind, so I refrain to avoid karmic retribution. There are of course exceptions that I will use the full power of my compulsion on others.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. I just know stuff you don’t and that makes me happy.” She blinked. “Wow. That kinda sounds petty, but you are a bastard so I don’t care.”

“Eh, everybody knows something someone else doesn’t. I’d rather not know everyone else’s secrets.”

She sighed. “Damn it. You are both the most infuriating and the most boring person I have ever met. Geez, at least give me a hint of what to say to piss you off? Give me a little something to work with? It’s not like you are going to start a conversation I can relate to easily, and fuck it if you expect me to start something about what I think.” She looked at him. “Also, you creep me out.”

“I could give you something to annoy me with, I could even give you something that would likely anger me. I don’t want to kill you, so I’m not going to give you something that pisses me off.” Marty cocked his head to the side. “Boring is good, boring is in fact really nice. I’ve had way too much excitement in my life. And no, I’m not talking about rescuing a runaway zebra.” He sighed “I really hope you never see what I consider excitement.”

She winced. “Probably involves trying to be in multiple places at once trying to fix things and then something exploding.” She thought back to a few airship disasters and almost felt bad.“At any rate, what should I avoid? Not mention I eat animals or something else?”

Marty started to laugh. “Have you noticed what I’m eating? Bloody and cooked meat? Catastrophe, I’m a freaking carnivore, and I’ve hunted and butchered my own meat before.” Marty chuckled some more. She was tempted to see how well a dart could pierce his throat. “So no, it’s not eating animals.”

“So? Just because you are a carnivore now doesn’t mean that you weren’t a vegetarian before. It would just be delicious irony if the sight of blood shed turned your stomach and you were a carnivore. And fate is a fucking bitch.” Her talons dig into the earth as she choked back her rage at being laughed at. “Fuck you, by the way.”

“I’ve only been a vegetarian when it was forced upon me. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy a nice salad every now and again, or a good piece of broccoli, but I prefer to be omnivorous.” He had the nerve to smile, AND continue talking. “Fate is the largest bitch ever. What I wouldn’t do to find that cunt and gut her.” He looked at her with a maddening smile on his serpentine face. “No thanks, but thank you for the offer anyways.”

She stopped moving for a long second. “You know, I’ve always wondered what snake tasted like. Do you think poison would spoil the flavor?” She spoke in a straight voice, though it seemed laced with death. She let out a tiny warning tell on purpose to inform him that pushing it further would probably end badly.

“Chicken. Snake tastes real similar to chicken. And you have to be careful to avoid the glands, but other than that no worries about the poison.” Marty looked over at her and smiled.

She smiled back just as sweetly, maybe sickly sweet. “Not the kind of poison I had in mind.” She smirked and turns away. “You value friends, right?”

Marty nodded his head. “My memories of my friends, lovers, and children are the only things I get to keep. So value is a rather weak word for them.”

“Hmph. Found a weakness.” She mused, but shook her head. “Not going to push that one, family is something people shouldn’t joke about.” She shrugged. “Was fairly easy to get that from you though. Are you normally that easy to get information from?” Why did he give up information? SHE CLEARLY HATED HIM.

“Depends on the information, and how much I care about keeping it a secret. Most normal, rational beings value friends and family. I like to think that I’m rational.” He looked slightly confused.

“Rational. Tell me, do you know enough to keep your fucking mouth shut for a change about something?” She looked away and curled up against the ground, her wings falling to her side.

“Good night, Catastrophe.”

“One thing. Do you think it will work out?” She didn’t even mean to say it, put it felt good to actually confront the issue. “You know what I’m talking about, right?” She let out a frustrated growl. “All I need is a yes or a no.”

“Yes Catastrophe. Everything will work out.” She felt an enormous amount of hope flare up.

“You sound like a teacher. Good night, you fucking dick snake.”

She closed her eyes and drifted off to a better place, one where snakes didn't haunt her.

Lost, one Ivan

She prowled silently across the camp, her ears picking up on the faint foot falls of a small rabbit. Her talons flashed out and ended it's life without it probably even knowing.

“Meliel! Please! Stop doing that! Please!” A voice that she held a special kind of hate for cried out. The tone in it brought about a stab of fear and anger. “Meliel, it’s not right!”

Cata licked the most of the blood clear from her beak nervously, looking towards the tent. “What...?” She muttered. In a way, it seemed to be the most foreboding thing in the entire prairie. “Snaky?” She asked.

No response, though she could just barely hear him stir.

She carefully approached the tent, forgetting about her current state of bloodiness. “I swea-” The statement died on her tongue as she parted the tent flaps and saw the tears on his face.

“Who?! What?! Where?!” He yelled as he shot back to wakefulness. In a sick way she enjoyed seeing him shaken up.

She threw the rabbit at him. “Why the fuck are you crying?” She also threw on a little false bravado.

She watched him try to calm himself, almost wanting to laugh. “Onions. I was cutting onions.” He lied, clearly.

She let out a huff and leveled yet another death glare, though she was sure her smirk permeated it. “Tell me, you idiot. If there is something around that can make you cry, I think I should know before it EATS me.” She yawned.

He sighed. “A horrible dream, and a horrible memory. That’s why I was crying.” He then yawned back at her.

She looked over to the rabbit she had thrown. “So... are you going to eat that rabbit? I’m still hungry and I was hoping that it would wake you up.”

The snake looked down at the rabbit for a long moment before smiling. He looked back at her, then the rabbit, then repeated the process, an unnatural glee dawning on his face. He burst into laughter. He picked up the rabbit, and tossed it back to her, the laughter continuing all the while.

“Don’t you dare get hysterical or I will see how well you can laugh with a few holes in your throat.” She gently caught the rabbit.

The laughter slowly died down, but a few tears fell off with the laughter. “I can breathe just fine, I’d rather you not give me a tracheotomy.” He replied, somewhat over his trauma she supposed.

“To be honest, I’d rather stick my talons in a fire and get another replacement then help you, you weird ass snake.” She turned away to hide her glee at his misery. “Try not to wet yourself.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem.”

She looked down at the rabbit and sneers, her disgust turning the taste in her mouth sour. She tossed it onto the embers of the fire and watched a cloud of half dead embers fly into the air, smoke turning into an unseeable black smog in the night air. “I hate you.”

Just faintly, as if the wind wanted her to hear him, she caught a few passing words from him. “I do not hate you, my friend.”

“Fuck you. And not literally, before you crack anything else.”

Slightly amused that she still heard him, Marty replies. “Sleep well, and I hope your dreams are better than mine.”

With that, she threw her wings over her head to blot out his voice, amusing herself with imagining the several ways he could die the next day.

The rest of the night passed quietly, with no more confrontations.

-----

She had a really good dream that night.

REALLY good.

She knew that because her wings felt a little stiff and she knew her face was blushing from the heat she felt. She bathed in the imagined afterglow and felt the specifics slowly fade from her mind.

She stirred slowly awake and looked around, knowing her blush still persisted. She cracked open her eyes and blinked them for a few seconds before taking in the fact that Marty had somehow conjured up a tea pot. “Oh great. You somehow fit a kettle in your pack.” She mumbled, sarcasm at her disposal even when not completely awake.

“Why not? It’s not like I need to carry that much in there. Anyways, do you like tea? If so, how do you like it?”

“Bloody.” She mumbled, then shakes herself awake. Why does the snake carry around a tea kettle? “Why th- Not going to ask. Just. I. Er.” She groaned. “I hate you.”

“So you’ve said. So you want me to steep blood in boiling water. That’s going to smell awkward.” He looked around while she stared at him blankly.

“It’s pomegranates. Bloody tea. Pomegr- You actually thought I liked blood in my tea? What is wrong with you? Do you think I’m some kinda sadist who gets her fucking kicks off of draining blood from small animals and listening to their screams?” She felt offended in a deeper way.

“I’ve met worse. And I’ve never heard it called that before. Let me look in my tea things for some dried pomegranate seeds.” He poured his cup of chai, rummaging through the pack to pull out a few familiar seeds. He set her half aside to steep. A delicious fruit smell emanated over the campsite and she sighed a bit in memory.

She looked off into the distance and pulled out single seed to numb her growing desire. Withdrawal did weird things to her.

“So. Any idea where the hell Ivan is, why the fuck he thinks that getting away from me-” She blinked. “And the group is a good idea, why he seems suicidal, or anything like that?” She asked, turning her mind away from her plots to kill the snake. Honestly, just hitting him with some sort of poison that would knock him out would be her best bet. Not that she actually planned to off him, that was just in case he did turn out to be the bad guy. Always paid to be prepared. ALWAYS.

She felt tense.

“Could be any number of things, and psychology was never a specialty of mine, but I do have a few guesses.” He lifted up his hand and began counting them off. “One, he is afraid he’ll get you hurt. Two, he might be afraid one of you will hurt him. Three, the spider god whatever thing decided to possess him. Four, he’s trying to misdirect some hunter only he knows about. Or five, he’s playing hide and seek and forgot to tell everyone.” Marty shook his head. “Five is pretty unlikely, knowing him.”

She bit back her response, something that was becoming all too familiar to deal with while talking to the snake. “Fuck you-" She said for good measure "-and is there any chance he will attack us?” She looked to the distance and thought about what she had in her pouch. Her head was lightly pounding.

“If options two or three are to blame, then that is quite possible. One or four he might also attack to get us to leave him alone so you don’t get hurt.” Marty looked acrossed his cup at her, waiting for her reply.

She sipped her tea, shutting her eyes as she carefully school her features to avoid showing just how tempted she was to take off after Ivan on her own. "In case he tries to fight, or we end up in a hostage situation, or what have you, what is your plan of action?”

“If he tries to fight us, I plan to use compulsion to make him go to sleep. It should do minimal to no harm to him. If we have to fight others, I’ll draw their attention while you catch them from behind. And before you take offense at me saying that you’re some sort of backstabber, you happen to be a decent amount faster than I am.”

She blinked and sips the rest of the tea. “Nope. That is a horrible fucking plan.” She nodded, making shit up off of the top of her head just to be contrary. He deserved it.

‘Alright, I’m up for suggestions.” Marty gestured for her to speak.

“I’m willing to bet that he will try ANYTHING to get us to leave him. You know, stab little children, stab himself, give up parts of his soul, whatever the fuck goes on in his little head. Or, maybe we’ve been going the wrong way this entire time.” She smiled and carefully gives him back the tea cup. “Or maybe this is still a trap and you are still waiting for me to let down my guard. Or maybe you spiked my tea like I planned on spiking yours.”

“Only thing I spike drinks with is alcohol. And like I said before, I wouldn’t have bothered setting a trap for you. If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it from the get go.” Marty sipped a little more at his sissy Chai brew and then continued. “As for us going the wrong way, it’s entirely possible, but I have my doubts that we’re on the wrong path.”

She groaned. “You are missing the point. We are chasing after a guy who thinks like that, so we should think like he thinks for a second and try to figure out exactly what he is willing t-” She blinked. “I think I’m going to need a vacation after this.” She clutched her head. “Damn it all. Fuck.” Her head pounded harder. She considered that she might indeed have been poisoned, just to piss her off a little more and threw it to the side as it sounded like a stupid plot device.

Plot device. Ok, maybe she did need help.

“I’m going to go fill the canteens while you try and get inside his head. You know him a lot better than I do.”

“I’ve already been in his head. It’s not easy to explain and I don’t want back in there for a long time. Go stay on the mainland, he said. You’ll be safe there. Go live your life while your brother decides to try and right the wrongs of the world.” She hissed, glaring up at the sun behind squinted eyes like it was personally responsible for everything that was bad. “Fuck everything.”

----

She remained in her sitting position, staring blankly at the sky while her head pounded. She tried to distract herself with thoughts of what could go wrong and found that that only made her head hurt worse. She shuffled her wings over her head to block out a little noise, her headache on the verge of a migraine. Her wings are around her head. “Damn.”

“No luck?” She felt like cursing but knew that would only make the pain worse. She held out on relinquishing her pride for a long moment.

“Headache. Poppy. Please.” She moaned, shuffling towards him. Her pride spiked up, and despite her stomach wanting to revolt and start a new country else where, she pulled her pouch off of her wings and threw it at him. The few feathers still attached to the clamps didn't hurt quite as much as her head. Or her pride. “Give me a few poppy seeds from here, will ya? I’m not going to trust myself to keep from fucking up the doses.”

“Withdrawal headache, huh? Those are no fun.” He pulled out five seeds, FAR more than she needed and she couldn't bring herself to tell him otherwise. “Here you go.” He handed her the seeds, then closes the pouch up tight.

She sighed. “Look, don’t you dare think less of me.” She tried to salvage the shreds of her pride. She looked around. “Just.” She closed her eyes and turned away. “Why do you have to be so nice? Why can’t you be easier to hate unconditionally?” She chewed through the seeds. “Damn it, I hate you and I feel bad because you haven’t done anything to really deserve it. Make a mistake or something.”

“I’ve been annoyingly chipper, that’s worth hating someone over. I’ve been known to do that myself. As for thinking down on you for a minor poppy habit? You haven’t spent years of your life doing nothing but drinking.” Marty flicked his hands randomly, almost as if he wanted to flick away his past mistakes. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes, I just have happened to have learned from a few of them.”

“Ok. Shut up. I now have reasons to hate you and killing you is starting to sound good again.” Her eyes remained closed. “Ever had multiple prosthetics interfere with one another?” That's what it was. The pain was clearly from her limbs, not from anything else.

“Can’t say that I have, considering I’ve built most of mine. Hard to have that be a problem.” She opened her eyes, a cooling relief rushing through her body as she felt her energy free up and surge out. Her head cleared up in a short while.

“Cool story. Mind shutting up? It doesn’t matter how godly you are, I can still kill you eventually, just like everything else in this fucking world.” She said, surprising herself with the note of desolation that hung in her voice like a fly trapped in a web.

“I’ll shut up. If you want me to, though, I can take a look at prosthetics that aren’t needed for flight. I might be able to help with the interference problem.” He said with an annoying tone of helpfulness.

“Remember? You touch me and you don’t get to have little snake men with anything.” She snarled, looking at him. “Can we find him before you drive me nuts?” Now that was an honest question.

His face went into an odd half smile “Sure, just let me clean up camp real fast.”

She walked away, feeling unsteady and knowing her body was betraying the feeling. She forced herself to straighten her gait. “Right. Just. I.” Words are literally failing her. “I hope I never see you again.”

Marty looked back at her. “If it happens, it happens. Whichever way it does, I hope you are happier.”

“Stop being a nice guy. Start being a helpful guy.”

Marty shot her a look of annoyance and she almost smirked back.“That’s it! I’m dunking you in the stream!” Marty gestured at her and she found herself in the air, floating over to the stream. In almost a mockery of comedy, he sets her gently down in it.

“If you make a single wet feathers joke I will come after you.” She said, but lightly chuckled, finding the tension broken. “When I find Ivan I want to lock both of you in a room together until either your drive him sane or he drives you crazy.”

“I don’t know about the former, but the latter happened long ago.”

“So how many times has the female companion crept into your bed late at night and slit your throat?” She wondered aloud. “Oh wait, you only live once, right?”

In a small voice, he replied. “Five times.”

“Whatever.” She stalked out of the stream, water streaming off of her body. “No comment.”

The camp was soon cleared by the surprisingly swift snake. “Shall we head out?”

“Sooner we find him, the sooner I can forget about you, snake boy.” She made it a point to not look at him.

“Right.” He spun around, ending while pointing to the east. He then created a gateway, and to her non shock reformed his wings and prepared to take to the sky. “Ladies first.”

She flew through without comment, her face blank.

Marty ran through, once more forming and reforming his wings as they pass the threshold. Closing it behind him, they soared into the east.

She continued to not talk, glad that he wasn’t violating her ears with his voice for a change. It felt good to not listen to him.

Almost as if he could tell that she was ready to kill him, he wisely didn't talk.

----

He looked to the skies, his eyes slightly watering. He hadn’t brought water. No water. His throat was parched and he regretted his decision but he had to get away. There was no point unless he got away.

He took a deep breath and shut out the screaming noises that all the things were making around him. They were singing, not screaming, what was he thinking?! They were heralding his demise. Such sweet song. The song of the world.

“Heh...” He laughs, opening his eyes and looking around. “Heh...hehehhe....” He laughed deeper before going into sobs, but still he pushed on, one leg after another, pushing towards a destination that he couldn’t pretend to know.

And you know, he didn’t even care.

"Free-e-e-eeeeee..." He hissed, looking around suspiciously. "I'm free as a biiiiiiird..."

Ivan found, Trouble lost

"Hehh....heh...eh..." A torn twisted laugh, she thought, echoing over the prairie they found themselves on a few days out of town.

She stiffened but tried her best not to let on that she just heard something. Hearing things was just one of those signs that you were going crazy. “Catastrophe, do you hear laughter?” Of course, when the beings around you hear them as well, then there are issues.

She blinked and looked at him. “I was hoping that torn twisted laughter was in my head.” She tried not to be too redundant, but she didn't think the narrative allowed it at that point.

He looked over at her with a look that expressed a light amount of distaste. “No offense, but if we have a psychic link for some strange reason, I’m killing myself. Anyways, I think it’s coming from below us.”

She winced a little, but laughed on the inside. “Damn. Harsh much?” She asked jokingly, trying not to look below. “I’m guessing-” A barrier of yellow appeared in front of her.

“Stay Away.” A voice cackled, a familiar voice. Ivan's voice.

He sighed in relief. “Oh good, it’s definitely not from you.” Marty scanned the ground, probably spotting a certain striped crazy at almost the same time she did.

“STAY AWAY DAMN IT.” The barrier expanded and lurched around the two of them. The zebra fled. Catastrophe growled under her breath. He just HAD to get his magic back, didn't he?

She almost chuckled with glee when Marty slammed into the barrier. “Damnit Ivan! I can’t hover!” He yelped as he slipped downwards.

Ignoring her every right to let him fall, she caught him by his shoulders and kept him propped on until they kit the bottom of the barrier.

“What do you need to get him?” She paused. “Oh yeah, and try not to let him explode your head.”

The zebra rushes farther ahead, disappearing besides a few flashes of black and white through the grass.

“I have an idea, but it requires several things going right for us... Which I doubt will happen, seeing as we’ve used up a huge portion of our luck just finding him.” Marty sighed, then continued. “I’ll skim us ahead of him, then make us invisible. Assuming he continues going this direction, and assuming he can’t see through my weave, I should be able to use compulsion to bring him under control.” Marty shook his head.

“Yay relying on luck!”

She dug her claws into his shoulders. “Why the fuck did you just say what you had to do out loud? That’s just pushing it. I’d be surprised if one thing works now that you said it so the narrative could follow it.” She glared down at him. “We have to think like him.”

“Right, think like the bloke who acts like he’s insane. My insanity involves making gateways into a planet’s core and corralling the local populace. Not running away from my friends.” Marty shook his head again. Cata could almost hear his miniscule brain hitting either side of his head as it tried to spark an idea. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing.”

“Ok. We need to think this through.” She smiled with no actual idea what she was doing. “I have a plan that may work. Trust me?”

“About as far as I can throw you, but that’s surprisingly far. What’s your plan?”Marty smiled wryly.

“Let’s wing it.” She punned closing her wings and dropping like a stone. “Just follow my lead.”

“So we treat it like every battle in history after it has started. I like it.” Marty made an all too fitting predatory look appear on his face. “First, I’m going to break this barrier down.” His voice changed for the umpteenth time, and he glared at the barrier.

A moment passed, then a few blurs which left streaking after images in her eyes shot out from his hands and impacted the barrier. Large crystalline fissures formed across the surface as he continued the magic barrage. After a minute the barrier explodes, making her wonder just how Ivan had supercharged it.

She flared out her wings, making sure she had a tight grasp on Marty. “Can you fly on your own? Oh yeah. Not sure if he can do that, but he might try putting one of those barriers in your head. Might want to watch out for that, as much as I want you dead I’d rather be the one to do it.”

“Yes, though I’ll need to dive to build up momentum first. I’ll be sure to shield him as best as I can. I’ve blocked stronger opponents, so he shouldn’t be too hard.” She rolled her eyes. Sure, don't take her advice to heart.

She shrugged. “So, should I just drop you or should I dive. Hmmm...” She laughed lightly, her mind clear for the first time in a long time. She dove towards the ground.

“Whenever you feel like letting go, I should be fine now.”

“Promise me you won’t die until I kill you?” She laughed, her beak going into a vicious grin. It felt great to fly. She felt her heart pound.

“Disembowelment by a gryphoness, sounds like fun.” Marty pulled his wings out of the dive, forcing the two of them into level flight.

She released her claws from him, letting him fly on his own. “So, any ideas on how to take him out from here?” Her heart pounded faster and vague feelings of hunting prey flashed through her head. The Zebra would be hers...

“My limit for fine control is about three hundred meters, or around a thousand feet. That’s the distance I’d want to risk compulsion from, and I’m as likely to kill him as knock him out from this distance.” Marty swung his tail about, making a few course adjustments. At least, that's about the only reason she could figure for why his course changed slightly.

Cata let out half of a cheer and did a quick flip in the air, speeding up towards the direction he had been fleeing in. “I’ll go see what he thinks about the issue.”

“Alright, be careful. He’s definitely not in his right mind.” The snake pointed out.

She smiled. “Relax, will ya? I’ve faced down airships exploding, I can probably survive a zebra.” She looked away, her heart pounding for another reason. “Even if he loves me or whatever.” She mumbled.

She knew he heard it and was thankful he didn't comment. “Get out of there if he shows himself to be truly violent.”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever, Snakedick.” She brushed his concern off of her and smiled. She quickly sped up further, her wings guiding her forward, her eyes trained to catch the tell tale stripes.

Ivan stopped and stared at her, looking straight on at her even while she dived towards him. Up until the last second, at which point he dodged out of the way, letting her dive catch nothing.

"Stand still." She commanded, though she knew saying that was pointless.

Cata swooped down at him and Ivan jumped away just as nimbly, She flew back into the air, her head slowly stopping its nigh undying pounding. “Hold still and let me get my talons on you...” She caught a flash of the snake/ local bane of her existence coming up behind her. She smirked.

She dove at the zebra one more time.

"Sleep." Marty said in a flat voice.

Ivan fought it for a long moment, his eyes wild and flashing out with barely contained magic.

She felt his pain as her own.

She let out a pant and hit the ground heavily, her wings strained beyond where she should've placed them. “Ivan.” She groaned, then reached into her pouch, dealing with one pain at a time. She sat on the ground and watched him.

Her tail flicked out as she stared at his fallen body, half suspecting that he would rise up again within seconds.

She was almost disappointed when he didn't.

He approached the zebra. He stared at Ivan for a moment before speaking again. “I’ll go ahead and heal him, and then we can head back to your airship. We’ll need to be careful of his mental state and his dehydration, though.”

She picked up Ivan up and carefully carried him, flashing Marty a glare as she started to walk away. She stifled her urge to carry him in another manner... “Well gee, what could’ve made you think that, genius?” She cradled him against her chest.

“Why thank you, milady. I have never been so complemented in my life.” She once again resisted the urge to hurt Marty.

She spits out a few seeds on the ground next to Marty and feeling rather awkward, continued carrying Ivan. “Do you think he’ll be ok?”

“Physically? I can make him fit as a fiddle. Mentally? Let’s find a real therapist.”

“Know any good ones around here?” She asked, not really wanting him to respond.

“Closest person I know of around here that is a decent therapist goes by Jim. Jim Bean and it tastes delicious.”

She blinked blankly, the meaning going over her head. “Just. No.” Ivan let out a pitiful cry and she twitched. Damn it, he was being adorable.

“I never said that there wasn’t a better therapist around here, just the one I knew about.” He cocked his head at an angle then continued on with his little dialogue. “We should try and get some fluids in him. He needs water.” He pulled out a full canteen. “Here, you probably want to do this instead of letting me do it.” Marty holds out the canteen to her.

Which was probably for the better, as she didn't feel like letting go of him any time soon.

“Just pour a little bit into his mouth at a time, then gently massage his throat so he reflexively swallows.” Marty instructed, not that he needed to.

She gently placed him against the ground, propping him up with on one of her wings. She placed the canteen against his mouth, and ignoring the growing heat she felt in her face, massaged his throat slowly. “He’s been running for two days.” He swallowed a little at a time.

She tried to take her mind off of just how easily it would be to slit his through open with her talons.

“Which definitely explains how he was able to keep ahead of the two of us on the wing.” He might've looked at her and she might've just not cared about it.

“You going to be okay by yourself for a moment? I’m going to go look at something real quick.” She smiled and waved him away.

She nodded. “Yeah. Sure...” She said in her distraction.

She felt humiliated, like she was a young chick again, forced to rely on others for help. Which was odd, since she was helping someone else.

Her face was redder.

She might need to lay off the poppy after this. Clearly, she had been taking too much.

“A mystery and something I’ll investigate later. I had a hunch that something like this would happen. Dramatic convenience and all that. Anyways, I see that you’ve had luck in getting him to drink something.” He talked again, back from whatever he had been doing.

“Just a little luck. He feels really light.” She looked at Marty for a second. “I think he might be a little uh... malnourished?” She asked, then shook her head. “Yeah, malnourished. Do you think he might’ve been skipping meals or something?”

It would certainly explain why they still had supplies back on the ship.

“It’s certainly possible, and that might have contributed to his running away. Hunger and lack of necessary nutrients can make you do some really stupid shit.”

“Am I rubbing off on you?”

“I don’t know. Could be. Just so long as you don’t literally rub off on me. I don’t think my girlfriend would approve.” He seemed to slow down his speech to choose his words.

“Who the hell would ever want to stay around you?” She stared down at Ivan and sat him on his side, laying him out.

“Hellspawn, duh.” She ignored the look he gave her.

“Hellspawn. Right. Whatever. Soooo. What do I owe you for this?”

“Nothing. I’m fairly certain what I’m looking for is over by what I was looking at. So in return for ‘helping’ me in my investigation, I won’t charge you a thing.” He bobbed his head at this. “Besides, money really isn’t something I care about.”

“Still.” She shook a little. “I suppose I have been a little.. Uh...” She had to apologize. “Abrasive.”

“No harm done, hon. I’ve not helped matters any, and my abilities tend to cause those with feline characteristics to dislike or mistrust me. Which, last I checked, gryphons have some feline characteristics.” He was coming up with explanations for her behavior.

“Yeah. You can say that." She tried to bring a smile to her face and felt it die almost instantly, smited by her mood. "What do we do when he wakes up?”

“I shield him, and hope that we can calm him down. Your face would probably be better for him to wake up to. Equines are instinctively fearful of snakes. Which, for better or worse, I resemble.”

“Yeah.” She stared thoughtfully at Ivan. “So... what now?”

“Now, we wait. And I have a game that can pass the time. What you do is take a word that starts with a, like apple for instance, and then reply with a word that starts with the letter at the end of that word, so elephant would be a workable reply. The game continues until you can’t think of a proper word.” Marty waits for her reply.

“Tarry.” She says without looking at him.

“Ysolde.”

“Every.” This was a stupid game.

“Ysengrime.”

“Early.” They should play another game.

“Yolk.”

“Kooky.” "Let's play kill the snake?

“You. You like ‘Y’ words, don’t you.”

“Unfortunately.” Hey everybody! It's Cata-strophe! Let's play kill the snake.

“Ye.”

“Extremely.”

“Yield.”

“Duration.”

“Null.”

“Leery.” Time slowly passed as they went at this.

“Yip.”

“Perplexingly.”

It was rather easy for her to win. “I’ve got nothing. You used all my ‘Y’ words. Good game.” She turned to look back at the zebra and saw his eyes open wide with panic and saw his intent to start running again plainly written across his face.

She growled deeply and threw herself on top of him, pinning him down like he was a mere animal. “Oh hell no, I’m not letting you move yet.” She half way snarled, half way cried. Her brain felt like it was dancing about, throwing bits of nonsense at her and trying to distract her.

“Go away.” He mumbled without opening his eyes. She frowned at him and kept him pinned.

“Sorry Ivan, no can do.” Marty replied

He slowly cracked open his eyes and stared at Catastrophe, his face going red for a long second before paling back to a panicked white. “I need to not be here. I’ll end up killing you.” She remained on him, staring back into his blue eyes unwaveringly.

“Uh huh. I’ve used that justification before. It’s stupid, and hurts everyone in the end. Plus, I think that getting Catastrophe here killed would just annoy her.”

She had a sudden flash of breaking free from the underworld just to smack Ivan across the face and found that Marty had made a pretty fitting statement.

She nodded, and then Ivan flared out his magic, seeking to push her off of him. It faded almost instantly. “Stay here.” She demanded, almost hissing into the zebra’s face. “Stay here.”

“Help me? She’s warm.” His face went redder, whether from the fact that she was compressing his lungs or some other matter, she didn't care.

“And considering I’m worried about you going into shock, that’s not a bad thing. I think this is the best thing I can do for you.”

He slowly blinked. “So... why are you guys here?”

Cata bit back her response about Marty being here to just annoy her.

“Business.”

“Business.” His eyes flashed from her to the snake and back again.

Cata glared at the zebra. “And? You don’t even seem excited to see us.”

“Look guys, I know that you want me to come back, but I can’t.” He turned his head to look at the sky. “I need to get away.”

Of all the stupid things she had ever heard anybody ever say, that was one of them.

Cata looked at Marty, taking her eyes off of him for just a second. “What am I supposed to do now? He’s still nutty.”

“Got me. I vote we bind his legs and take him back to town. That will take care of the whole running away from us bit.” Marty looks to Catastrophe for her thoughts.

“Think we could shock him or something? Don’t crazy people get shocked? I’m clueless.”

Ivan squirmed. “Guys. Just let me go.”

“No.” She spat at him, though not literally.

“Shh, the adults are talking here.”

The griffon smirked. “You know, he’s kinda like an adorable puppy, when he’s not trying to be naughty.”

Ivan blushed. “Guys. Please?”

“My sort of shock therapy kills, but I have heard of it working. Also a sequel to a wonderfully bad movie.” He muttered the second part and she ignored him.

“Right. I’m just going to sit here and maybe he’ll stop being crazy. That’s less likely to kill him and less likely for fate to let him go.” She smirked down at Ivan, who at least looked miserable.

“Sorry bro. I’m not going to let someone hurt themselves when I can prevent it.” Marty smiled at him. “I’m just a dick like that.”

Ivan glared at the both of them.

“This is kinda pathetic. Damn it, act your age, Ivan.” She rolls her eyes.

“I don’t want to.” He whined.

She felt a surge of frustration build up and practically saw read. SHE SUFFERED FROM DEALING WITH THE FUCKING DICK SNAKE FROM HELL AND IVAN WOULDN'T EVEN LISTEN TO FUCKING REASON?

She huffed and rolled her eyes again. “So childish.” She put one of her taloned appendages on his throat. She took a great deal of satisfaction is pricking the under side of his chin with a sharp claw.

Her right eyelid twitched when he didn't react. “What. Are. You. Waiting. For?” She hissed, glaring down at him. She leans down closer to express her ire more clearly.

“Catastrophe, ease up a little.” Marty looked at her anxiously. “I don’t think you want to really maim him.”

“Fiiiiiine.” She snarled, taking her appendage from his neck. “So what shou-”

Ivan let out a sigh of relief and then promptly kissed her beak. A shock of emotions buzzed through her like the last time she tried drugs, lancing through with startling clarity. She felt her face turn a dark red. Beyond dark red.

She went dead silent, not moving. Her eyes were locked with Ivan's.

Marty looked on, doing his absolute best to not start laughing.

Ivan stopped kissing her. “So... can you let me go yet?” He asked curiously.

She looked at Marty. “Did he just?” She said, almost speechless.

Marty burst out laughing. He stopped for a moment, looked at the two of them, then starts to laugh again.

She dared to look back at Ivan.

Not a flicker of remorse or regret. “Might as well.” He kissed her again.

“What.” She croaked not moving her face. “You... D-don’t... Kiss a beak. You... Y-you.” Her mind was torn between confusion and outright mental explosion. She knew her face mirrored that. “What?”

“Oh... Oh god. Your face. I wish I had a camera to share this with everyone.” He said, laughing with tears. That was Marty, always being annoying.

Cata glared at Marty with one eye, but doesn’t move her face. Such venom was passed through the air that it probably would’ve killed him on the spot if she had been capable of actually producing it.

Ivan stopped kissing her. “What, you don’t like it?” He looked hurt.

She stared blankly down at him. “I. Uh. Er. W-what? You.” She stumbled over her words. “CAN YOU AT LEAST WARN ME BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?” She shouted.

Ivan’s ears closed against his head. “Oh.”

Marty wheezed from the sideline. “I... can’t... breath.” He finally started to get his laughter under control. Which was for the best, because she had not gotten her urge to kill him under control.

She growled loudly. “Marty...” She warned.

Her mind went blank when she realized Ivan was still waiting for her response. She said the first thing that came to mind.

“And uh... It was ok ...I guess.” She said in a softer voice to Ivan.

He smiled. “Oh, should I do it again?” His ears came back up.

“If you do, I should probably leave.” Marty said with a mirthful tone.

“Stay here.” She hissed. She lunged at Marty.

The zebra, of course, ran for it.

She turned away, a few seconds from using her rage to pummel Marty. “Did he just...?”

“Nope.” Marty used his magic... thing... and Ivan floated back over to them.

“Aw. Damn it.” He said without any real feeling.

Cata blinked slowly, her face still red. “Marty, if you ever tell anyone this I will hunt you down and shove your tail down your throat until it comes out your ass. YOUR ASS. YOU HEAR ME?” She meant every word of it.

“Biological impossibilities aside, I wouldn’t dream of it. This moment is too precious to use as blackmail.” Marty tied off the weaves binding Ivan, and sets him down. “Now you can’t run away.”

Cata sat a bit away from Ivan. “Think we should try his meds?”

Ivan frowned at Cata. “Uh... why are you over there?”

Marty looked over at Catastrophe, and answered. “Probably couldn’t hurt.”

“Because Ivan, beaks are sharp. If you kiss them, you’ll get cut.” She said in a matter of fact tone, then tossed Marty a pill bottle.

“Oh. Guess I should get chapstick or something.”

“Or prepare for a lot of scars.” Marty looked at the bottle, takes out an appropriate dose. “If I put this in your mouth, are you going to take it? Or am I going to have to force you to swallow? I know how to force you to swallow if you spit it back out.”

He looked at Marty. “Got any water? I’m thirsty.”

“I’m sure.” Marty brings out his second canteen, and tips it up so that Ivan can drink from it easily.

He drinks from it greedily.

Catastrophe stares at him while he does so. “So...” She started, but didn't finish.

“Doh” Marty answered back, musically.

She glared. “We will not start a musical segment.”

“Dang it, I had what is love planned.” Ivan complained.

“Probably better than part of ‘The sound of Music’.”

“JUST GIVE HIM THE PILL.” She screamed, fighting back another blush. “Uncrazify him so I can beat the shit out of him for kissing me.”

Ivan frowned. “So... you didn’t like it?”

Marty raised his eyebrow at Catastrophe, and then places the pill on Ivan’s tongue. “Some water to help the medicine go down.”

“Just a teaspoon?” He asked, but swallows almost obediently.

Marty smiled at this, but made sure Ivan gets a decent amount of water. “You took it without complaint. I almost feel proud of you.”

He spat a mouthful of water into Marty’s face. “Yeah, fuck you.” He mumbled.

Oh, so that's what love feels like.

Cata clapped. “Oh look, he takes after me.”

“You both do know that I can dump the both of you in the nearest ocean, no problems, right?” Marty grinned evilly. “In fact, that’s one of my favorite ways of dealing with douchebags.”

They both ignored him.

Ivan frowned. “Can I go now? I kinda don’t want to be here...” He looked away, at the fields around them.

Catastrophe groaned. “Damn, I’ve been flirting with disaster.”

“Family of yours?” Marty asked snidely.

“Marty, if yo-” She burst into laughter. “Heh...” She chuckled. “Oh it’s been a long couple of days.”

Ivan looked at her. “You telling me? I’ve been running for two days straight.”

“Yes, but she’s dealing with me sleep deprived. I’m more than a bit of a dick when I’m sleep deprived.”

“If you were anymore of a dick I’d see how much I could sell you to the sex trade.” She sniped, looking at Ivan.

Ivan laughed weakly. “I should’ve known someone would track me down.”

At that, Marty shot Catastrophe a look of pure hate. “Don’t even joke about that. Not around me, not ever.”

She recoiled slightly. “Huh. I probably should’ve known you would be sensitive about the ‘friend trade’.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, but I hate it, and I kill things I hate.”

For the first time since meeting the snake, Cata felt a real spike of danger. She glared at him and snarled.

“Cata.” Ivan said, his voice cracking. “I’m kinda scared.”

Catastrophe looked Marty in the eyes, her mind telling him, commanding him even, to back down.. “Snap out of it. You’ll do something you regret.”

Marty breathed in and out slowly several times, seeming to lose size with every exhalation. After the sixth exhalation, Marty looked at her, a sad, ancient mien about him. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

She glared. “That’s right. Now apologize to Ivan. You scared him and he is still insane.” She closed her eyes. “Good. Fucking. Job.”

“I apologize Ivan. No one should have to see that part of me, especially someone who is hurting.” The snake man looked small, fragile, and maybe a little broken.

Ivan closed his eyes and opened them. “Actually, I kinda feel better around Catastrophe, you know?”

She resisted the urge to bash her head against the nearest wall.

The griffon groaned. “Marty. You’ve got to stop being a... You’ve got to stop. Stop trying to be perfect. It isn’t going to work and it’s just going to drive you nuts. Like Ivan.”

“Perfection is impossible, as well as boring. No, I’m merely trying to atone.” Marty’s mask snapped back into place. “But that’s neither here nor there. Lets get him back into town, shall we?”

Cata nodded at him, almost feeling her neck sore from all the nodding she had had to do. “Uh... Thanks. I’m a little sorry that I didn’t trust you, but thanks, I guess.” Her apology reeked of bitterness.

Ivan shrugged from being carried. “I’m just saying that the hot tub had better not be occupied.”

“No promises. But lets start out. No offense, but I have other things I need to get done.” Marty did his thing and defied every natural law she could think of, opening a hole in space.

Ivan looked at him. “Where are you going?”

“You know the spider god you have in your head?” Ivan blinked. “Yeah, I have something similar, except mine is better behaved. He gave me a long term goal, and in return he owes me a favor.”

Cata nodded. “Like the one I don’t owe you.”

“Like I said, this chase led me right to where I think is next on my task list. So yeah, that squares us up nicely.”

The griffon smiled. “To be polite, if we ever meet again I might try to skin you alive and set you on fire.”

Ivan blinked. “Uh... did something happen between you?”

“Oh, we found we have a significantly different opinion on art. I like surrealism, and she likes the destructive anarcho movement. Simple as that.” Marty flicks his tongue at Catastrophe.

Ivan blinks. “So you pissed her off and she didn’t kill you?”

She looked away.

“To be fair, I think she’s a little intimidated by me.” Marty fake whispered to Ivan. She twitched.

“To be fair, you can tear holes in time and space.” He pointed out. “I’m terrified beyond belief of you, myself.”

“Point. Anyways, shall we?” Marty gestured to the open portal.

Ivan looked at it. “Where does it go?”

Cata picked him up and they both flew through.

“WAIT! THAT’S NOT A GATEWAY!” Marty yelled as loud as he could, a real note of terror in his voice. “Land on the platform!”

She blinked and landed on the metal platform surrounding the gate...thing. She hadn't really noticed it before, but it had a bit of a handrail and some pulsating flashy lights. “Wow. You really do suck.”

“This is known as skimming. It’s similar to the gateways I make, except slower. If you didn’t land on that platform, you would eventually tire, and fall forever, eventually dying of thirst or madness. I’m doing this so that we don’t have to wait a stupid length of time for me to learn the area.”

She blinked. “You can die of madness?” She looked at the zebra worriedly.

“Well, it’s more or less death by madness. Your brain shuts down, and nothing can reboot it. But this place is just special like that. It’s the falling for forever in complete darkness that messes with your mind like that.”

She nodded. “Sounds... uh... interesting?”

“Well, if there’s someone I really detest, and don’t feel like torturing them to death, I just throw them off the platform.” Marty thought for a moment, then continued. “And no, neither of you qualify for that particular horror.” Marty started the platform moving.

“Remind me to never piss you off.” Ivan said, his eyes slowly draining of madness. “You know, when I’m not trying to plot out something it is a lot easier to think. I might hire someone to do the planning.”

She smiled. “What, and miss out of the fireworks after your plan fails?”

“Fireworks are fun.” Marty continues the ride in quiet, saying nothing.

The zebra smiled. “Can you unbind me yet? I’m not into anyone watching me, if you catch my drift.”

Catastrophe blinks blankly before the meaning slides through. “Bondage, hmmm?”

The somewhat less than sane zebra slumped down as his invisible bonds were finally cut.

Ivan laughed. “No.” He sank to the ground, laying on his side.

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

Marty opened up the end of the wormhole, letting light shine in. “That’s the ride folks. Please remember all of your carry-ons, and have a nice day. And as always, thank you for riding Stu wormways.” The sarcasm was horribly flat as he had no emotion in his voice.

She shook her head.

“I’m going to have to report you to your company, there were entirely too many things wrong with that flight. The engines, for example, were on fire.” Ivan joked.

Marty emerged from the hole, followed by Ivan and Catastrophe. “Any landing you can walk away from. Now, I’m going to go find the nearest bar, hire a room, and then drink myself into oblivion. Maybe I’ll finally get a decent nights sleep.”

Ivan looked at Catastrophe. “Hot tub?”

“Hot tub.” she replied, smirking.

“You two kids have fun.” Marty slithered off, perhaps to go fuck with someone else's mind, or perhaps to give them a little privacy.

Catastrophe waved half assedly at Marty. “Fuck you Snake.”

Ivan shrugs. “So... where does this leave us?” He looks at her deeply.

“Cut it out with the eyes, Neon pegasus.”

He flinched. “I thought you said you forgot about that!”

“Hell no.”

“Damn it.”

Cruel Angel

"Sera? Where are you?" Her mother asked, looking around the deck of the ship. Sera. It sounded plain. It wasn't what I wanted, I wanted something better. Still, Sera would do for now. I peeked my head from out of the room and looked over the edge of the ship. The ever present sound of waves and of the ocean greeted me, along with the disgusting smell of salt. Ugh. Salt.

"Sera?" She asked again and I turned to look at her.

"I'm over here!" I replied cheerfully. "Where's dad?"

She smiled reassuringly at me, which was never a good sign. "He's meeting with the captain. He wants to try and make a little detour so we can get home a little quicker."

I blinked at her for a moment. "It's not going well, is it?" The smooth paneling on the top of the ship was shadowed by the balloon stretched over the top.

She bowed her head low. "No sweetie."

I nodded and looked away. Talking about Dad and the captain was never that easy. It was kinda like trying to eat raw meat. The blood always made her stomach hurt and her dad insisted that she try it. Being overcivilized. as he would say, is a horrible thing. In this world, a little savagery will get you a LONG way Sera.

I disagreed.

I smiled widely at her and felt a wave of relief when Mom smiled back at me. It felt kinda good to make her happy.

The wind picked up, blowing against my feathers. I felt a tug and looked out to the open air. "Mom, can I fly?"

She walked over to my side, tucking me under one of her wings and cooing. "No dear, you can't fly as fast as the ship. You'd get left behind."

"Aw... but Mom..." I tried, pulling out the big guns and pulling the adorable card.

"No means no, sweet heart."

"Fiiiiiiiine..." I pouted, looking down.

She nuzzled against me and I nuzzled back. "I love you Sera..." She cooed into my ear.

"Mom... Do we have to do this here?" I asked, looking at the smiling crew around us. "I'm a big girl..."

"Oh? And how old is my big girl?" She pulled her head back and smiled with a trace of wry humor.

"I'm 8 mom! My birthday was last week, remember?" I tried to scrabble away from her. She pulled me tightly into a hug.

"I love you..." She purred.

"I love you too Mom." I replied, letting myself get into the hug.

My Mom has the brownest fur I had ever seen, like the chocolate cake that I had on my birthday. Her feathers were kinda like vanilla, I guess.

"Guess what?" My Dad's deep voice cut into the hug and I felt myself squeezed tighter as he joined in the hug.

My dad kinda looked reddish browning. Kinda like dried blood, I guess, though Mom didn't really like it when Dad took me to watch them gut the fish. I didn't like to watch it either, so I sided with her. He had a splash of white feathers, like a shock of them across his front, while the rest were grey.

"What?" I squawked, almost having trouble breathing through all the hugs.

"We're going home a day early!" He smiled, dropping out of the hug. Mom dropped the hug as well, letting me hit the ground panting for breath.

"Stop being such a drama queen." Dad scolded, though it didn't reach his eyes. His smile remained the same.

Mom shook her head and frowned at him. "She's only a hatchling. Give her time."

"Fine..." He said in a half decent impersonation of myself. I kinda felt insulted and growled at him.

Yeeeeeerp. I squeaked out cutely. I frowned, my throat feeling like I had choked on another fish bone.

Mom and Dad looked at eachother and burst out laughing. "Ok, maybe she does need to be a little older before she develops that killer instinct." He said, ruffling the feathers on my head with a talon until they fell on my face. I blew them out of my face and frowned when they fell back down.

I coughed, and it rasped out.

Mom frowned. "I guess you aren't used to this sea air..." She said worriedly, the previous laughter gone.

He shrugged. "Glad we'll be out of this soon, right?"

He and Mom nuzzled and I felt a little sicker. "Scurry off to bed, Sera." Mom said, looking down at me.

She didn't have to tell me twice. When they nuzzled like that... I shivered. Ugh.

I ran below deck and to the little room they had for me. I tucked myself in and waited a few minutes for my parents to show up.

I frowned, the expected good night nuzzle not coming. I shrugged and tucked myself in further, entombed in a little cocoon of blankets.

----

I awoke for a few minutes at one point when the ship shook. Something hit me and I cried out and then something fell and then I went back to sleep, shivering. I could smell salt and blood.

----

Something poked my side. “Kid.” A gruff voice said. I halfway recognized it as the voice of one of the late comers. Dad had had to hold up the entire ship because he was a little late. I ignored him, feeling sleepy.

“Kid. You alive?” He poked me harder and I squeaked, my eyes popping open and my mouth parting into a yawn.

“Mister...?” I asked, looking around. We were on a beach. Bits of metal were around us, some of it still steaming. Steaming from what, I didn’t actually know.

“My name is Val.” He sighed. He was a big griffon. “Do you know where your parents are?”

I blinked once at him. “N-no...?” I said. My parents weren’t around... I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers...

“Well. I haven’t seen them either. You’re the only one I’ve found.” He sighed, pacing.

My eyes teared up. “Where are we, Val?” I asked, trying to stand up. My paws sank into the sand and after a long struggle during which I felt like I was standing in gelatin, I was on my feet.

“I don’t know kid. This is a right catastrophe, isn’t it?” He sounded like a teenager.

“I’m scared.” I felt like crying. And I did. “W-w-where... are my parents?” I needed a hug...

He sighed. “I think they might be dead. Whatever hit us last night tore the ship in two.”

“M-m-my... n-name is S-s-sera.” I got out, shutting my eyes and letting the tears flow.

“Stop being a baby. You’ve got to be a savage if you want to go where you want in life.” I could almost hear my dad say.

“Stop crying.” Val said, slapping me to the side.

I hit the ground stunned, looking at him with my eyes wide. I was silent.

“I don’t want to be here either.” I felt my tears start up.

Val stalked over, his tail flashing. He pinned me against the ground. “STOP. CRYING.” He hissed in my ear.

I quivered. “V-va-va-val... Y-you... Y-ou’re scary.” I felt my tears dry up.

“I’m a terror, aren’t I?” He replied, getting off of me and helping me to my feet. “Sorry. I don’t like it when good griffons cry. Makes them useless. Maybe if we spent less time in tears, and more time fighting our fears the most of us wouldn’t be in chains.” He hissed.

I nodded like I understood. “A-are... we gonna d-d-die? Val?” I asked, looking around. The wind blew against me and I almost took off screaming.

He looked at me without a trace of amusement. “I don’t know.”

I sobbed and let the wind dry the rest of my tears.

Echoes from another time and place

There. There it was.

In the sky, floating high and higher. As I watched and smirked and laughed and pushed more magic into it, the island floated higher and higher. I was glad he taught me how.

It was marvelous. Perfectly marvelous. I closed my eyes and focused, disappearing into the void and reappearing on the edge of the island, fresh cut grass gracing my nose and the smell of oily trees, innumerable in number, greeting me. I smirked and cleared the shadows off the trunks with a flare of light.

I carefully walked over to the edge, the clean viridian scrub tickling my underside. Missed a spot. The guy who was supposed to cut the grass missed a spot.

Not that it mattered. He was dead. I had killed him myself and fed him to the oxygen plants. I could still hear the quiet gasp of surprise when his equine eyes glazed over into silent defeat. He was dead.

I hummed, under my breath. It was a sad music, one that fit far too well. And soon, I found myself singing. And staring at the cold grey orb that used to be the sun. In an hour, maybe less, the temperature of the outside of the ship would dip below freezing and the glorious grass would be dead, and the majestic trees to follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnL3e7FAMF8&feature=plcp

Oddly, tears were falling down my face. I was numb, just like everything else. The cold black frost over my heart wasn't comparable to that on the oceans, or the ones on the graves of those who died. My heart sang out like the words falling from my lips.

At the end of days, at the end of time

Was there truly ever a person who loved and truly cared for what they had? Or did it always take a loss...

When the Sun burns out will any of this matter?

I smiled a little in bitter sweet remembrance. Celestia was dead. The world was dying. The leylines were destroyed.

Who will be there to remember who we were?

The sky was viridian. It wasn't a pleasant color. It reminded me of the cold and of the blood seeping down her... How she cried in pain and how I held her when she died. How she drew her last breath...

Who will be there to know that any of this had meaning for us?

But still. That was then. This was now. Now, I had to keep up with the one task that everyone else had entrusted me with, the one task I couldn't fuck up.

Staying alive. That was something I was good at.

And in retrospect I'll say we've done no wrong

Though... I looked at the large spires protruding from the mountain. The gods were on our side. We could make it. I might live to see another person. There were a few clouds pouring out the collective sorrow of the world.

Who are we to judge what's right and what has purpose for us?

Again, I looked down at the ground. It was cold, and grey, lifeless, apathetic, infertile. I knew a few of those words and had heard them before to describe other things. They were nice words. I knew them.

With designs upon ourselves to do no wrong

But really... why... why... why? Why were we struggling? Why couldn't I just ditch the ship, crash it down on the earth and let them all die?

Running wild unaware of what might come of us

I itched at an inked symbol on my side and sighed, looking away from the edge. I had... things...

The Sun was born, so it shall die

I could feel her smile on me. I could remember what it all was like.

So only shadows comfort me

There was nobody else awake. Only a few meaningless magic creations, bumbling about their programmed paths.

I know in darkness I will find you giving up inside like me

I walked away. The trees were starting to break into black frost and I forced magic into the atmosphere around the island. It held, barely. Just another thing that couldn't go wrong.

Each day shall end as it begins

Justice. What was it even supposed to mean? What was justice? Was it just that I lost everything, that we all lost everything? I could feel hot tears trickling down my face again.

And though you're far away from me

But no matter what I did, I could still feel her next to me.

I know in darkness I will find you giving up inside like me

I could hear her voice. I could hear her avarice towards me, her desire to be close.

Without a thought I will see everything eternal

Only I would see the wonders of space. Only I would be the silent observer. Maybe, centuries, years later, I would forget how to speak. That would surprise them when they woke up, just a single griffon with yellow eyes and skin drawn taught over ribs that stuck out like trees.

Forget that once we were just dust from heavens far

I laughed and cried and cried and laughed and it still didn't stop it from hurting. And I could still hear him calling my name, my little son, bouncing about, calling for his dad. Calling for his mother.

As we were forged we shall return, perhaps some day

I was late.

I will remember you and wonder who we were

Always late. Always Always Always late. They said I was only seconds late, that he didn't feel a thing.

The Sun was born, so it shall die

But I felt it. I could feel it. I can feel it.

So only shadows comfort me

The cold was gnawing, painful. Frost started to form on my beak and I cast a bit of fire as the planet slowly sped away from us, tugged by the sun.

I know in darkness I will find you giving up inside like me

I walked away, through the frost bitten dying wood to a small site. A few graves littered about and I stopped by one, tracing out the pattern of a feather, tears rolling down my face.

Each day shall end as it begins

"A true hero." I read, not looking at the name. I hugged the stone for a long time, ignoring the burning cold. It was time.

And though you're far away from me

I felt so tired. I could hear their voices. They were so soft... and near... I was so tired...

I know in darkness I will find you giving up inside like me

Equus was dead and we had killed it.

In the ship, sealed up in cryo storage, miles of it, hundreds of thousands of lives packed together in tight tight foul smelling compartments like so much sardines, lay the last of the population.

And I was their keeper. By some quirk of fate, me, Sera, the griffon, was the last one awake.

I laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

"Don't you get it? Fate has sunk her nails into us. After we take out this bad guy, there's just going to be another. And another. AND ANOTHER. Heh... I-i.... What's the point? We are the heroes. We just sit here and wait for another disaster, ignoring how we can't have normal lives. Because the danger never stops. There'll always be another damsel. There will always be another villain. It'll just go on and on until the world dies. And we don't die until then. Don't you see? This victory is pointless! We won't be remembered. Never. We will never be remembered. Just another bump in the road, another stone in the scales of justice. We aren't unique. We are just one of many, forced to defend the weak by our own wills. There will always be someone else. There will always be another problem. And when there isn't? Do you really think the world will want a group of people with the power to level cities without thinking about it? The power to do whatever we want? No. The second the world decides that they don't need us, we'll be cast as the villains. That is what a hero is. Fate's play thing, to humor the world." I paused, looking at the grave and feeling him around me, embracing me.

"But I'm the only one left. What am I supposed to be a hero of?"

I closed my eyes and drifted away disloyally, wrapped in a dream of feathers and of people I loved.

There, hugging a grave, I let the sweet embrace of someone I loved take me away, not sleep.

Ebon Gloam

Cata's beak nipped at my ear and I blushed bashfully under her attention. We had spent the better part of an hour simply sitting in the hot tub, trying to forget the past few manic days we had spent apart.

I felt better around her.

It wasn't just mentally. Physically, I felt better. Stronger. Faster. Tougher. Like I could take bullets without dying. Her beautiful black feathers were just... invigorating?

It was a rather interesting effect on me, at any rate. Like prickling tension dripping away. The hot water helped, as did the bath salts. Lavender was a good smell. Really good smell.

Almost as good as Cata and holy hell I have it bad for her. My breath quickened, almost imperceptibly. How bad am I for her?

Been thinking about her for the month or two I knew her. We had kissed, though under odd circumstances.

She nibbled my ear again and I felt something inside of me melt. Bad sign, Ivan. Bad sign. I felt a shiver run up my spine and my ears perked up. Catastrophe literally purred her contentment.

REALLY bad sign, Ivan. This is actually happening to you. You are next to the griffon who has haunted your dreams, she is touching you, your ear is bleeding and that is kinda disturbing that she is licking it off, but also feels good and panicking panicking panicking....

“Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” Congratulations self, I think you just fatal errored.

“Hey, idiot. Yeah, you.”

Hey, look, a great distraction. I did my best to look like something was attacking my brain again with the intent of driving me insane again and Cata luckily stopped nibbling.

Though I didn’t really want her to. Actually I did, it was really painful. I didn’t want her to.

ARGGHHHHH

“...” I managed before slamming my head into the water. Perfectly warm water greeted my soon to be aching head, and my already aching ear stung from the soap provided from Oblivion. The scent, Love Nights was given by the local brothel and it just occurred to me at that very moment that my griffoness - and saying my griffoness brought forth a stream of conflicting thoughts that tried to swarm through my head - was probably planning on seducing me fairly shortly, and holy hell that would be really awkward because all I can remember all of a sudden are things I shouldn’t be thinking of, and my thoughts were swimming around like fishes in a barrel and I couldn’t shoot without killing all of them with the shock waves and that is bad and oooooooooh...

“Hey, Kid.”

Malice’s raspy sibilant hiss was actually pretty welcoming. I mean, it was nice to have someone else in my head to talk to. He’d been in a relationship before, probably. Gods dated, right? RIGHT?!?

“Your ship is on fire, Kid. Ivan?”

Man, that incense, or fragrance, or whatever the hell Love Nights was smelled a lot more like my ship on fire than I gave it credit for. It actually smelt like watching a ship crash into the water!

On a related note, Cata’s beak, after I surfaced, had a sheen of red to it that was all the more entrancing.

Er...

Catastrophe growled, sniffing the air. “What’s on fire?” she said, kinda out of it. Her eyes were laced with the lust of a predator stalking after a fine cut of beef. Or horse. Or zebra, I guess.

Cata slapped me awake from my dazed. “We can love later, Ivan.”

Wow. I never thought I would hear those words from anyone’s lips. Well, she had a beak, so maybe I should’ve? Whatever.

She snatched me from the suds and carried me to the deck of this ship, water dripping down,

The side of the ship was on fire. It was mostly surreal, really, to switch from freaking out over being in close contact with a griffon who may or may not be literally insane about me, to freaking out over the fact that, “Hey, my ship was on fire while I was still on it and I should be getting off of the ship.”

Orange flames licked at whatever wood was left on the ship, and another salvo of fireballs, the spell that had set The Scourge alight, were deflected away by a guardian fueled by my growing frustrations and my slowly replenishing magic supplies. My hooves clanked against the metal deck of the ship and I whirled out some more force fields as best I could to put out the fire.

“Really. I should get a water spell or something,” I mumbled. The topaz that I was focusing Guardian through glew a myriad of shades of yellow. Some were kinda disgusting off shades, some like the morning sun.

Catastrophe retook her position as pilot of the ship, her black body cutting a contrast from the flames that I was still snuffing out piece by piece. Boss scurried about this way and that, as if trying to figure out when she should dramatically hurl herself from the airship. She’d probably land with a roll and stand up unscathed, ready for more. Canary was there as well, and for once I could say I actually appreciated him. I didn’t, though. No use giving him a swelled head, though his own use of the shield spell was stopping my own head from pounding any harder than a bad porno.

I clutched at my temples with my hooves and privately wished it wouldn’t be too much of a waste to blow out my own brains before they started leaking out of my nose. Too much magic in too little time. Already, I could feel it start to set in again and again. Pounding headache. Canary hadn’t lightened the load quite enough and The Scourge was blazing away in puffs of smoke from some enemy mage I couldn’t even see, but knew was probably some self righteous twit who decided I was uglifying his sky or something.

The ship began a slow and graceful descent from the sky, courtesy of Catastrophe’s previous experiences with landing and crashing airships. Hm. What was her count on those? 3? 4? Should probably ask some time later. Sure that would be a great story.

The ship landed without much disturbance. Luckily, Las Pegasus did have a lake next to it for... fishing purposes or something. Hell if I know, it could’ve been for naked cheerleaders. Point is, we landed the burning ship that was full of holes in a lake.

Really. Would it have been better to smash it to pieces on the ground? It was a shallow lake, I guess...

“GUARDIAN!” I flared up the barrier, yet again watching a cascade of fire splash against it like an oncoming wave.

I plucked the feather from the leather pouch I practically slept with and forced enough power into it to keep me from killing myself as I climbed down the ladder on the side of my burning ship while Boss calmly threw herself off the side and Cata just flew off. Canary went the same course I did and jumped off before me on the ladder, splashing down in about...

Say, how much does a zebra weigh? Whatever. It was more than a hundred pounds, at least. I was sprayed in icy lake water, just before I took the same plunge and was shaken from my pain addled thoughts to the idea that hey, this water is really cold.

I swam my way to shore, dripping wet. Catastrophe landed next to me, Boss beside her, and Canary on the other side of me. I suppose that if two of us weren’t dripping wet it would’ve made for an inspirational moment, a dramatic pose or something.

I sneezed, definitely ruining the effect.

“HALT!”

“God. The authorities?” I mumbled. “Cock blocking authorities? That’s a thing?”

What little obscurance between us and our adversaries cleared up to reveal yet another surreal moment.

Facing us was a zebra. Another zebra. A diamond dog. And a griffon.

“...” Really?

“HALT!” The lead zebra, and I could tell he was the leader by how loud he screamed at us, shouted. “I am here to collect the bounty taken out on this group. Will you come peacefully?”

“...Bounty?” I don’t remember anything about a bounty...

“You seem confused!” The zebra said with an over dramatic flourish. Then he did something I’m pretty sure will haunt my dreams. He smiled and his teeth FLASHED. Like, bad tooth brush commercial style. “Are you not Ivan?”

I could distantly hear mutters about his group. “Did we really just set the wrong airship on fire?” The other zebra, a mare said. Oh good. They weren’t complete clones. That’d just be weird and slightly contrived.

“Ivan is I,” I stated with a bit more bravado, and caring than I had in me. Useful talent right there.

He had a burn scar over one of his eyes. Dang. The only thing cooler than a mysterious scar over the eye was a burn scar. He looked like he had been in a fight, or accidentally spilled his brownies on his face after trying to take them out of the oven too early.

The zebra mare next to him had an eerie resemblance to Canary. As did the dog to Boss, but let’s face it, all dogs and zebras look about the same. Really. There’s no sense hiding it.

Now, the griffon on the other hand... Looked nothing like Catastrophe. Looked more reddish. Kinda... out of this worldish? A looker, I guess. At any rate, she carried herself like... how to put this politely? A slut. Like a slut. Yeah.

“Ivan!” The lead zebra who looked like something out of a bad anime shouted, “You have been charged with Seventeen counts of cold blooded murder in the second degree, 3 counts of arson, one count of sexual harassment, five counts of theft, three counts of drug possession, one count of drug transaction-”

Did this guy have like, a poster I didn’t see or something?

“- One count of public inebriation, and two counts of jaywalking.”

I blinked. “When the hell did I jaywalk?” Man. I’d been slacking if that was all the crime I’d committed. “And who the hell are you?”

“I am Mark.” Oooooooh. A human name? Intriguing. “I am a chess piece, just like you!”

Wait. Chess piece? The hell? That’s what I’m supposed to be calling myself? That’s kinda lame.

“Right. Sure. Can we talk this over another time?” I tried, sounding a bit more sarcastic. “I mean, I know you’ve come all this way to assault my ship and crew members, but really, can’t this wait until after we have some tea, maybe some cookies?”

Catastrophe bristled beside me. She wasn’t exactly all right with the whole burning ship thing. Can’t say I blamed her. “Well, MARK.” She snarled. “You’ve got on the count of five to tell us whatever the fucking hell you burned my ship for.”

“I burnt it to stop you from escaping, lady Catastrophe.”

I sighed. “Look. I don’t want to be captured right now. So...”

“IN THE NAME OF PURGE, I WILL STOP YOUR RAPE OF THIS LAND.” Mark roared.

“The fuck?” I mumbled before the zebras, and I mean both of them did a halfway erotic jig which made me think that maybe Mark was banging all three of his group on the side along with being a ridiculous vigilante and bounty hunter. They spewed flames from the sky which swirled about.

“Guardian.” I sighed, head pounding again. “You know what? YOU KNOW WHAT?” I growled, fed up with all this weird shit that had to happen to me.

“FUCK YOU AND DIE!” I roared out, slipping into that sort of have trance thing that I didn’t really understand but knew gifted me with great power and possibly great responsibility as well. My thoughts swam about like fishes being slowly cooked. I snatched them and devoured them greedily. All concerns of consuming my sanity aside, I was more than a little confused when my return volley of fireballs that I shot off without shouting out the attack was deflected as easily as an umbrella stops rain.

“I have seen the filth that humanity brings,” Mark said in a way that was synonymous with growling and snarling all at the same time. He was clearly the victim here. Not me at all. “I will not let another place be corrupted by greed and pain!”

Riiiiiiiiight. Totally not sounding like a misanthropist environment loving hippy. Did wonders for his credibility, clearly. “Well then, Captain planet,” I snarked back, the pain giving me access to that part of my vocabulary that was going to make me feel dirty afterward.

“Let’s get this over with.”

End

Whispers from a future dead

Somewhere far away drifting over the echos fair.

Somewhere just south, and north of despair.

Across the cracked and destroyed faces of the air...

Upon the noon time's moonlight gleaming.

With the shattered bleeding of true love's dreaming.

The single last sound of a world's final screaming...

Love scattered all barriers but what when its the last to break?

What's left to wonder, what's left to drive when heart's all turn to ache?

The wind will blow on scattered shoals when mind's finally bake.

In stone, a single poem I etched. Something I took up, once everyone seemed to die. Then I would die, and I would wake up and she was still there watching and waiting for me.

I barely remembered her, this time around. Somethings are better to forget. Forget about all the happy times we shared. Forget about the love that we once shared. Forget. Forget.

Here. You've found my death bed. Isn't that great? You'll find it again, I'm sure, but you won't ever realize it. The snow is falling and the sun is shining and the rain is pouring and the dinosaurs still walk the earth. And hell will freeze over before I stay dead.

Or she stays dead. We'll never kill each other. We still live for the other, you know. Or maybe you don't, after all, and this is another time wasted away. It's happened so many times before you. You are her child after all.

Maybe... Maybe you'll be able to live long enough to tell her I love her.

Shhh... Shhh child. Child, I mean no harm. I know she loves another now, but...

Shhh... Tell her that Ivan is waiting for her. That he has always been waiting for her, and that when the time comes we can embrace each other and finally die. Finally die and stay dead and stop living longer than anyone has any right to.

I can understand how Marty feels now. Yes... Looping about on worlds, worlds that are corrupted just by your presence. I just wish I could keep powers, like he does, or be once again in a world with magic.

That's the joke. Magic. I haven't tasted magic since the beginning of it all. So many worlds, so many paradises, so many times wasted, so many kisses and loves, and all the time she was still there, so close and so far.

If I was a police officer, she was the criminal. If I was ambassador, she was the sniper. If I was the leader, she was the second in command who'd back stab me. Sometimes... I think she remembers.

N-no... Child. Don't leave yet. Please. T-tell your mother. Tell Sera. Tell Catastrophe, that I miss her, and that when we die I'll wait for her, that Ivan is waiting for her. Tell her we'll embrace once more before the end, before everything dies and we can see our friends again.

Now... Now I remember them, when life's blood still pours from my breast, and my heart is bared. They were so happy, and we were so foolish. My gods. What were we thinking back then?

Here, in this park, I'm going to die.

Child, don't cry. Please don't cry. I just want her... to know... that... I miss her... and that she can... wait for me... I'm still waiting... f-for... her...

Tell her that I love her. Please. I just want to know that she knows that nothing matters anymore, that the truth is that I don't matter as long as she knows I still care.

I remember the explosion. I remember when they came for us, and so many people died so horribly, and the fires kept the night as day, and the day as something that would kill. I remember when clouds were so scarce, and we just held on to each other as we starved in the house together. No food. We never found out what happened to Isaac, did we?

That's your name, Child? M-maybe there's hope. Please... Please.. Go now. Go.

No. I'll hang on til then. Get her. Get your mother.

I understand she's frail. I understand. I'm frail too, right now.

GO.

I sat in the snow, feeling the cold slowly eat away at my will. It was never good enough. I was never good enough, could never be good enough to figure out the puzzle. This was all a puzzle, I was sure. An illusion. There was no way that the gods themselves would not intervene to destroy such horrible suffering.

And then I remembered that the gods were long dead, and that magic was long dead.

We were the last of the magicked. Here and there, I would catch glimpses of other times.

The gods were dead because we killed them for trying to kill us.

Sometimes I can still hear Malice.

Wake up, Ivan.

Sometimes I can still hear Malice.

Who am I even talking to? Would it be that much of a trouble to close my eyes and drift away from it all again?

And then I heard foot steps. And I looked up to the crunching of the snow and saw her again.

She was just as beautiful as all my memories told me. For a brief moment I saw her as she once was, as a beast of myth. Then she was back to being a human being, faded in age. Hair was bleached with the tides of time. She was as old as I was.

I recognized her from my high school. We were never that great of friends, we just felt awkward when we spoke, but now...

I looked into her eyes and saw she recognized me, and for a brief moment that smile that I had fallen in love with before memory was on her face and then she was next to me.

I was frail. I could hardly've walked to the park, but I did anyway, without question. This was my birthday, and the day that It all went so horribly wrong.

Oh... she embraced me, and there were tears. It hardly mattered, she was there and she remembered, and I could feel her again, though my eyes were failing, and tears were falling. Here, here we were again.

"Here we are again." She said, with a voice that was beyond herself.

"I missed you." I said.

She said. "Ivan."

"Sera." I said.

And then we were somewhere else entirely, an island away from disaster.

And then I lifted a hoof into the air, then turned and kissed her as deeply as a I could.

Then the world died, and here was the last words of a dying dimension.

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

The old couple died in the park.

The criminal died with the officer.

The woodsman died with the maiden.

I died and so did she.

And like a single voice, the world sighed in relief.

"...Heh..."

"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Author's Notes:

This is one of those future chapters. This should be confusing and make little sense, but it is FULL of spoilers of the best sort. They will only make sense after I write the corresponding content.

You give love a bad name

A long time ago there lived a little cabin next to a stream. In this cabin there were two brothers, a spider, and a snake.

One day, the stream dried up. So they went to the spider who caught all sorts of information on his big web.

"There is a dam being built up stream. Break it and you will have water again."

The brother went up stream and did that. Then they had water again and they were happy.

But when they got home, the snake was angry at the brothers. "You killed the beaver that was building the dam! What gave you such a bad idea?"

They said the spider did, and asked the snake what he would've done.

"I wouldn't have asked the spider." The snake said.

That was the end of the story. There was nothing more to it, just a simple little fable.

There were always more fables with the brothers.

And the wheel kept on spinning and slowly the brothers bled out on to the world.

---

Sometimes in the middle of a fight I get this feeling that something is watching. A throbbing sensation, like a sense that everything is just a few shades away from going horribly horribly wrong. It is to this sensation that I normally get paranoid, or feel like everything is going horrible horribly wrong and take appropriate countermeasures.

Really, it is a miracle of the opposite degree that I did not immediately possess anyway to destroy the opposing faction before it could destroy me. It was such a miracle of the darkest nature in as much as it were when my spells were deflected by his shielding, and Boss's surge of movement did little more to the shield than a fist does to the average built up brick wall.

Canary's answering volley of fire to my own was just as ineffective, causing his advanced shield to just ripple a hair. And Catastrophe? Catastrophe couldn't do shit with the shield up. Go figure. She was flying about, however, looking for just the right moment for the shield to falter. She looked rather well and good right there, like a flying angel in the sky looking out for me. I almost smiled, despite the situation.

Again, there was this feeling of all encompassing doom and destruction on the horizon, and I hardly knew what was about to happen.

"Don't blink."

The shield fell down.

Bang.

Catastrophe fell down, and I could hardly know what happened from the blood that suddenly starting to pool out from beneath her crumpled form.

Suddenly, all I could hear was my heart beat in my body thumping away like some sort of hammer hitting an anvil, slowly cracking away at the integrity of the piece of forge equipment, like a machine gun then, shooting bullets as it rapidly overheated from the repeated actions of the violent struggle.

For a scant few seconds, there were no noises beyond the slow slow beating of the heart thumping along like a train, oxygen pumping and my brain feeling like something was wrong why was my body so very very sluggish all of a sudden.
I moved a hoof and it was so very very slow and I looked up and everything was slow.

Like the lightest shades of right I immediately decided that something very very wrong had happened. I was almost giddy, for the first few seconds while I decided that something was horribly wrong. Very very wrong indeed and why were there tears suddenly bursting from my eyes? She was going to be alright, wasn't she?

She had to be alright.

Gun shot. There was a gunshot. I heard this now, recognized what the noise was that echoed off from afar.

In a moment, sped on by whatever was happening and how slow everything was, I was beside Catastrophe, soundless horror echoing out in my head like the superfluous words of a dying man in a language I could never hope to understand.

I picked her up as best I could, the sounds of battle dying down. I didn't care anymore, and for the record...

I found my weak spot, after all.

Something broke inside of me and the rest blurred into a haze of half memories. Boss bounded up besides me with a look of horror on her face.

Gun shot. Someone had a gun.

Guardian. There was never a second shot.

Canary was soon after me, the words to a healing spell on his face, fruit crumbling to ashes from the exchange of life.

Thump thump...

I could hear my heart beat.

Thump thump.

I could hear her heart beating beside mine and I felt like the world was falling silent beside me. Like the only one who truly mattered was dying beside me, without warning besides the feeling that it was all going so horribly horribly wrong. I felt myself break, I felt the world falling silent beside me.

The rest was a blur of half memories.

And the world fell silent.

Thump thump

"Don't blink."

The Shot Heard

CRACK!

Catastrophe fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, almost limp. Boss knew she was in shock almost instantly, instinctually. On her own half, she knew that if there was one crack, there would be more.

Dimly, she recalled knowledge of the topic. Primitive tools not designed for more than a close quarters engagement, a sword would do better than piece of pipe and lead that made up the weapon she recognized the sound from. But to her amazement, she realized that the sound was from the distance. A gun capable of shooting from a distance? That was... dangerous. She never pretended to be completely up to date with weaponry, but a weapon like that could change just how all battles worked...

And then Ivan lurched forward, unburying her train of thought and reminding her, despite her shock at Catastrophe's sudden plummet, that they were still fighting the zebra who shouted out Purge's name. Mark. They were still fighting Mark, and Catastrophe's sudden plummet could mean nothing unless they were defeated.

She didn't have a clue what Ivan was doing, she only hoped he was about to pull off one of those absolute bullshit magic feats that she knew him for. But wait, no. All he did was throw up another shield...

And break down into tears. The battle feel silent, then. It was a curious feeling, watching Ivan cry with no regard for anyone. Fat dripping tears rolling down his face, wetting the fur that oh so light resided there. The battle was already lost for her side, she could see this now. Canary soon rushed over to the fallen griffon's side, looking rather worried himself.

Boss strangled down a groan. They were in the middle of a battle...

She tore her gaze away from the spectacle of blood and zebras and found a rather odd sight from the other combatants. They weren't doing more than staring at Ivan as well. A little confused, Boss made her way to their side, blades drawn.

They didn't react, a look of almost soundless horror on their faces. Except the one called Mark. He just look shaken, like he was confused as well.

Ivan's Guardian spell blazed on, blocking any incoming shots with the same eerie silence.

She nudged Mark with the hilt of a sword. "You." In a second, she had the other blade pointed at his throat. "What is the meaning of this?" Her bad hand spasmed, messing with the steadiness of her aim. The slutty griffoness, -look, she could tell rather easily that this griffon bitch had seen more guys in the last week than Cata crashed airships- looked taken aback by Boss's supposedly sudden arrival and almost tried to save him. Boss made a cutting gesture with her free blade. She got the drift, as did the other zebra and dog.

The dog was a guy, for the record, and smelled like rancid shit.

"Meaning?" The zebra said, silent. "... I thought..." A griffon flew in from afar and touched down beside them. In an instant,

"Mark. What is the hold up?-"

Boss pulled Mark, who she thought was more than likely the boss of this ragtag group, into a hostage position, blades pulled almost tightly against his scrawny little neck.

"-I get paid by the shot. The griffon said. Boss noted that there was a long bundle on his back, still smelling a bit like brimstone. She shuddered, memories of the mines coming back.

The griffon made a threatening move with his talons, as if he honestly believed that he could take the blades from her before she could slit the zebra's throat.

She bared her fangs at the new griffon and growled. "Make one move against me and his head rolls."

She shook her head. She did not need to have flash backs when she was holding the leader of an enemy group hostage. "What is the meaning of this attack?" She asked, again, with an annoyed tone.

The griffon sighed, dropping his talons. "Look, bitch-"

Boss made a show of pressing the sword closer to the zebra bastard's throat. He actually moved this time, squirming away from the sharp edge. She barely cut him, blood dripping off of one of her blades. It smelled... rather delightful, if she admitted. Maybe Catastrophe had a-

Catastrophe was lying near dead with a bullet in her chest while she wasted time here. "Don't call me bitch."

"Look, dog. My pal that you have at sword point thought it would be a good deed if we offed the murderous bastard. We got paid a nice pretty penny to kill the zebra in that shield over there and to put the hurting on that sociopathic griffoness, as well."

For a few seconds, Boss saw red. She saw a flash back to the shoggoth, and she remembered just why she was with Ivan. Protection. For what little it mattered, Ivan was a... stable environment, he could protect, he could kill, he could destroy, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted as long as she was around. And...

She could hardly follow her own thoughts, now. Shit, was she panicking? She was panicking.

"Clearly..." She muttered.

"Look, we're doing you a service. We kill off the amoral bastard who was probably using you as a cheap labor source, and you get to go free. Just let Mark go, and we'll let you go." The griffon tried to negotiate.

The swordsdog shook her head. "How about this, idiot. I slit this zebra's throat, then move on to each of his idiot companions, then shove that gun so far up your ass that when I pull the trigger your brains'll shoot out your nose?"

He, just like his bounty hunting buddies, got the drift. "Now, as you can fucking see... and hear.." She was silent for a while, and Ivan's sobbing filled the air, as did Canary's grunts as he did his best to try to save the griffon. "As you can fucking hear, I think you got the wrong group. Would a fucking sociopath cry over anyone?" She asked.

Mark, whatever the hell a chess piece was as he so called himself earlier, stilled in her grasp. "Shit... Guys... I think we blew this one..."

Boss spat on Mark, letting it run through his mane. "You think? You shot my employer's girl friend and ruined my ship. You're really lucky, lucky because I'm not about to skewer you and leave you on the side of the road as a warning." She growled again. Her tail flicked a little.

She was panicking... Get it together, Boss. You don't panic.

"Now, you're all pretty damn sorry, right?" She could tell this, as well. Most of Mark's group looked... somber, and sad. Except for the griffoness, but Boss could give less than the worth of her for a night for her concerns. Now, the griffon, the one with the gun, he was a darkish color. Not quite like Catastrophe, but from Boss's eyes he looked like a strong sort.

Mark didn't dare nod, but she got the idea that he agreed. "...What are your conditions."

Boss blinked almost glassily for a few seconds. They... they were actually giving up? She gestured at the griffon with her tail. "You. What's your name, and how good can you fly?"

"Davi-" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "I go by Deadshot. I can fly quite well."

Deadshot? What kind of a stupid name was that? "Go see if Ivan and Canary have stabilized Catastrophe, the griffon you shot like a fucking idiot." She was cursing more than normal... She felt like she was still on the verge of panic. Hold it together...

Deadshot did as commanded, walking over to the shield and knocking on it like it was a door. Almost as she expected, the shield bulged from the opposite side of the sphere and then slammed into the griffon, sending him flying.

"IVAN. I'M ALRIGHT!" Boss roared out, hoping that he could hear her. Mark was getting sweaty in her grasp, and he didn't smell great either. "THE GRIFFON IS GOING TO HELP US FLY CATASTROPHE. DO YOU THINK YOU CAN KEEP HER STABLE?" She almost went hoarse with screaming, she did it so loud.

The zebra mare rushed over to the barrier, then seamlessly jumped through it, landing inside of it. She hadn't gotten the mare's name, but the mare immediately joined the efforts to keep Catastrophe alive through the blood matting her chest. Damn... had she been shot through the heart?

Boss had a sinking suspicion that the worst was about to happen, and that not only was Catastrophe...

Catastrophe, one of her... few friends...

Not only was she about to die, but Ivan was about to flip the fuck out and level the area around him. This was not only Catastrophe's survival, this was preventing the massacre of everyone around.

The barrier finally fell, and Deadshot made his way over to the group of Zebras all huddled around the fallen beauty. Damn...

Boss could hardly recall when Catastrophe fell now, the seconds felt like years.

Had it really been just a few minutes?

Finally, she let drop the zebra was was holding hostage, then rushed over to her... friends' sides. She had friends. Interesting.

Finally, she had a look at one her imagination had been telling her. There, on the ground, covered in healing magic trying to heal her up as best they can, Cata lay, blood pooled out in front of her, her eyes closed like she was sleeping. She was sleeping, she wanted to say, ignoring the tears and blood that matted Ivan's fur and Cata's feathers...

Like a fallen angel.

Boss felt the cold sucker punch of reality hit her like a brick wall.

----

Far away, over an ocean that was traveled by myriads of ships, further even, through the islands that encircled the globe, there was a single rather unremarkable island. There was a flat plain, grass growing despite the most of it being near the salty water of the shore, there was a rather large mountain, smoke billowing up from it, with harpy nests dotting the sides of it like a solemn warning.

Well? This griffon, a rather large on at that, like a Terror bird, Terror was his name indeed, this griffon, Terror, was not one to heed unspoken warnings. Hell, he hardly even paid attention to spoken ones.

His studies of... everything he could think of to achieve his goals had led him here. Here, being the rim of the active volcano. The air was purple and thick with smoke, like the lungs of a tobacco user after his third pack. He didn't much care for cigarettes, he thought as he stared down into the dim glow down below. This was his stop. He was going to test just how... invincible he could be, right here.

He faintly recalled the warning made by a zebra sage he had come across by the foot of the mountain. This was an evil place, an unhallowed site of the pure profane. Honestly? Honestly, he didn't give a damn what the sage thought.

A few drop of sweat rolled down his beak and dropped into the fiery hell pit. He could almost imagine them evaporate long before they hit the bottom.

This was his stop.

Calmly. and without any ceremony, he took the plunge into the golden glow below.

A harpy screamed out behind him, the flock angrily debating whether to give chase.

Terror hit the lava and knew no more.

Author's Notes:

For Nathan Traveler.

Elysian Fields

Catastrophe found herself alone, and in a field.

This was rather unusual as last time she had checked, she had not only been flying, but she had been in the middle of a battle as well.

Which was no longer the case. At any rate, she was in a field full of grass as far as the eye could see. Rather relaxing place, she guessed. The sun was high up in the sky, the clouds were lazily drifting on a light silvery zephyr.

The grass was rather tall, actually. Came up to her beak. She had to part the grass with her beak to get any where in the mess of grass. Verdant, it was a color of green that didn’t seem real, it was purity.

She took a deep breath and tasted the air. The air was sweet, like... honeysuckle... It tasted better than anything she could imagine.

On a hunch, she leaned forward and nibbled on a stalk of the grass that surrounded her. Instantly, a sensation of purity washed through her and seemed to leak into every one of her pores. She shuddered a little, then decided to keep right on walking.

Something was wrong here, and she didn't know what it was. The sky was too blue...

No, that wasn't it, the sky was the right shade.

The grass was too green...

No, that wasn't it. The grass was the right shade.

The air was too-

It hit, her, all of a sudden, that she hadn't had to take a breath until she decided to taste the air.

She blinked a few times, trying to figure out exactly what that actually meant. She didn't need to breath in this beautiful placid paradise. She took a breath, just to be sure that it wasn't her imagination, and found that it was an actual effort to do so. She had to focus on doing it.

She didn't have to breath, and she had no idea what that actually meant.

Catastrophe knew that she was not the smartest griffon in the world. She knew that she wasn't even close, but far more importantly, she knew that when things weren't breathing... they tended...

To be dead.

It was with this, that she realized something else fairly important about not breathing. Without the sound of her own breathing, it brought to her attention that her heart was beating either. The organ that had been the reason she was living, for the most part, was, indeed, to her shock, no longer working.

"-t do you mean the magic isn't working?" She started at the sudden noise, jumping high enough to clear the grass. The grass seemed to stretch on into infinite, without cessation.

"I don't know, dammit, the healing is just sliding off of her!" Canary...

Like a solid cloud, a suddenly deep and compelling revulsion for the noise went deep into her, into her very soul. Bitterness seeped in, now. Who were they trying to save? She was dead, dammit. DEAD. ACCEPT IT, ASSHOLES.

"Then use more magic." Ivan roared, snapping through her thoughts. Catastrophe growled, throwing her wings out with a powerful snap that flattened stalks of grass around her in a fan shaped blast. She snarled louder and louder still, remembering just how... painful...

She remembered the pain of something hitting her in the chest and she had the sudden surge of blind anger that she could only imagine happening from an unjust death. No... She was not....

She was dead, she wasn't breathing now...

"I already used all of our stores, Ivan." Canary yelled out, then let out a yelp after a meaty sounding THWACK echoed out.

"Our stores of life? Then......" Ivan cut off in a harsh explosion.

She narrowed her gaze and took off running through the grass. Nonono... This was all going wrong. She couldn't be dead.

She was dead. She was going to go cold, and she should really be moving on with the rest of her unlife.

"Then I'll use you as a life source!" Ivan startled her again, then a wet cutting noise sounded out.

"Are you mad?"

"No, I'm motivated you fucking bastard. Now hold still so I c-"

Catastrophe bowed her head and kept right on running, ignoring everything. She didn't need to hear this, she needed to move, didn't she? She had to move on, this was what was right, what was supposed to happen, what was happening.

She had to move on...

She kept running through the fields of sweet grass, the sky above calling her name in a way that only griffons can understand, truly.

“Sera Ascent.” A quiet whisper came from almost directly in front of her, once more startling her from her own quiet contemplation of the lack of her own heart beat.

“Sera Ascent.”

A few seconds passed before she started to recognize the name.

It was her own, of course. Before she went by Catastrophe, she was Sera, a...

It didn’t matter who she was. She was dead. She was dead.

“That’s not my name.” Her voice... was rough, like it hadn’t been used. She felt like she needed to breath, so she did, taking in a lung full of what was most certainly the sweetest smelling air in all of existence.

“Sera Ascent, you have died.”

She felt something entirely wrong about that statement, like it wasn’t entirely true. Like... Like an inkling of an idea that the world wasn’t entirely the way she had always thought of it.

“My name isn’t Sera.” She snarled, anger coursing through her. She liked this anger, it was good, it was filling, it was like a raw piece of meat in her beak, blood spewing out in a jet of life’s ichor, like everything she had ever wanted, to be alive, to be remembered, to be alive! To be REMEMBERED! She didn’t want to die, she wasn’t going to die, she was going to live, she could feel the blood dribbling out of her chest like a weak kitten desperately crawling for a taste of mother’s milk, she could feel the pain, she could feel life SHE COULD

But she was dead.

But someone was in front of her with a black cloak and a single rune that glowed with bright azure light.

“Your name is Sera Ascent.”

Catastrophe snarled, another lance of white hot righteous indignation roaring through her head.

“And you are dead.”

She let out a roar of denial now. She wasn’t dead yet, she was still here, in front of someone who could very well be the literal face of death himself.

“FUCK YOU AND DIE!”

“Now... I am willing to cut a deal with you, Sera.” The figure spoke without any lips, the skeletal, bare face not moving an inch from the grinning griffon skull that resided beneath the cloak. “And you must understand that I have been authorized to allow you to dwell here, in the Elysian fields, forever more instead of rotting in the depths of Tartarus like you were destined to.”

“My name is Catastrophe.” She growled in response, the figure shifting and swaying. “And I do not do deals with those I do not know the names of.”

“I am an agent of He-who-in-light-purges. I am willing to offer you redemption at the cost of shaking off the hold that foul He-who-walks-in-Malice has upon your soul, currently.”

Catastrophe blinked at that. She had that goddamn spider on her? “...”

“You cannot truly die until he is removed from you, and if you choose not to do this willingly I assure you that you will reside in the darkest bowels of Tartarus for the rest of eternity.”

She let out a huff and turned away from him, arms crossed.

“I’ll not do business to anyone who talks in tongues, refusing to tell me the real reasons for your actions.” She replied in the same tone and tongue as he, trying to get her point perfectly across.

“You will see your parents again, and all your sins in life shall be forgiven.”

She paused from her grumbling, at that part of the deal, and looked over at the cloaked figure. “I have no parents.”

The figure growled, then lunged at her, the cloak drifting aside to reveal the skeletal frame of a griffon, bright blue azure fires for eyes, a ghostly blue glow surrounding the entire construct. She snarled, then blinked as it sailed over her.

She turned to follow the trajectory of her new foe in the Elysian and watched him drift towards an abstract collection of golden light.

It reminded her of Ivan, oddly enough. Like... the gentle... soul...

FUCK!

She raced after him, taking to the air to try and block him.

“If you will not remove the taint from your immortal soul, THEN I SHALL DO IT FOR YOU!” The skeletal figure almost made it, right before Catastrophe wrapped her hand around one of its long bony legs and tugged him out of the sky.

What followed was probably the most literal example of beating death that anyone could ever expect.

“FUCK!”

Cata slammed her fist into the skull of the thing that was offering her heaven, almost fracturing her dead lifeless arm.

“YOU!”

She slammed her fist again, feeling her wrist buckle now, her arm shattering from the savage fury of her strikes on the one that dared try to reunite her with her long departed family!

“AND!”

She slammed her new stub again and again, ignoring the agony, ignoring the feeling of lifelessness that was starting to set in, she stabbed her jagged shards of arm into the skull, breaking it even more.

A tiny, almost impossible to see crack appeared in the bone surrounding a skeletal blue flame eye.

“BURN!”

She grabbed him in her wings, beating him with her face, feeling her flesh red. Nobody dared to touch her zebra, nobody was going to fucking touch him ever if she had her way with the issue.

“IN!”

She slammed her other fist into his face, trying to widen the crack that was now forming. Blood gushed from her stump and she ignored the exquisite agony, so deep was her rage.

“HELL!”

The crack widened, then split, the skull turning to powder. Gone were her arms that she could use to punch death in the face, they had long become useless.

This was the force at which she mauled death.

“YOU!”

She stuck her beak into the skull and started tearing, desperately trying to protect the only thing that still seemed to brim with life in the perfect Elysian fields that surrounded her.

“FUCKING!”

She mauled and mauled and ground her beak, burning her face in the abomination of fire as she desperately tried to destroy the one thing she knew could possible return her, the one thing that DARED to ever offer Catastrophe, the fallen Sera, the one thing that could possible offer her a return to the light.

“PANSY!”

SHE MAULED AND MAULED AND THE FIELDS STARTED TO BURN!

“BITCH!”

The world seemed to waver, and there was a surge of pure agony, like a lightning bolt striking her. Beneath her, death stopped existing, fading away into powder.

And suddenly, she was on a familiar battlefield, bleeding out through a hole in her heart. She was in pain, and now she smelt burnt, and electricity still shook through the one person on the planet she cared for.

Ivan stood before her, a look of such avid heartbreak that seemed like he was the one with the bullet through his heart, not her.

She barely managed the energy to smile at him, despite all the agony.

“...Fuck you. I’m not dying that easily.”

She gurgled.

She was still bleeding profusely. Fucking Canary better not fuck that part of the healing up.

With that, she collapsed, pretty damn sure she was about to live.

Ivan the Ivan

"And... I'm gone. You're on your own for a bit, Ivan. Good luck."

I cracked my eyes open for what seemed to be the first time in years and stared blankly at the hospital wall I found myself in. It was... all in all... Pretty... alright.

Wait. What? It was alright? It's just a blank wall. How in god's name can it be alright? Wait...

Wait...

Give me a moment...

Running diagnostic processes, please wait...

Where's... The spider? The spider? There was a space in my head where it wasn't. The walls of the hospital room were white. Stark white. I could... feel myself... There was clarity, it was unexpected, but for the first time in a long time it felt like I was breathing again. Like the slow tide of a long sleep had been lifted, and I sat on the bed, or lie in it with my thoughts unmolested, undisturbed...

And I could remember again.

There was the normal strong taste of self dislike that flowered like a blooming rose within me, just like it always had. There was the feeling of weakness, I half expected the familiar wheeze when I took a breath, the familiar pounding of my heart when I could finally taste the air and revel in the fact that the world hadn't smothered me in my sleep like I had dreamed, the slight feeling of serendipity...

But more importantly, I remembered earth again. I remembered the taste of the air...

My thoughts were looping. Something was wrong, I had been changed somehow, I was different... Right... I was a zebra... there were things... I had done...

...

...

...

...What have I done...? Who am I? Who was I? Who...

............Malice...

I'm... I'm a murderer.

I'm a liar. I'm a murderer. I'm a savage. I'm a rapist of souls. I'm nothing more than a shadow of something that should never have been, a creature born of darkness who existed only to try and blot out the light on others, someone who was nothing more than a plague bringer, a Typhoid mary, someone... Someone who... didn't deserve...

Suddenly a wash of bile came from deep within me, so perfectly vile as to capture everything about my little trip into Equestria since the very beggining, and I purged myself rather quickly, just barely managing to get my head over the edge of the bed before I vomited...

The floor was a rather nice checkered pattern. I could barely see the hospital filth on it.

I was a murderer. I had stabbed and killed and cheated and... God... What...

That wasn't me. I was cruel, sure, I was manipulative, but killing? Killing? In cold blood? While someone stared at me beggingly, their eyes lightly dappled with the sorrow of their eminent demise...

Skinner. I could remember him, how I had saved him... Then cut him down. Then lied.

But that wasn't me. It couldn't have been me. It was impossible that that was me. I'm not...

"No..." I muttered, and my voice shocked me, startled me to the core. "No..." That wasn't my voice.

That wasn't me. That wasn't me, the voice was too deep, too grizzled, too imperfect. I felt the urge to scream and found that I couldn't force myself to scream yet.

But then I did.

It was a glorious scream and it was loud and full of anguish. It was perfect. It was precisely what I wanted at that moment, for I realized something. I was a puppet with cut strings and I was lying limp on the bed with my own desires in control. It wasn't a cruel scream. It wasn't harsh or hurtful to anyone but myself.

"...no..." My voice was cracked no, slightly raspy. It wasn't cruel anymore. It was like someone had shattered a mirror and I had just lost a cruel reflection.

Then the doctor's arrived and I remembered someone very important.

Catastrophe... ... ...Sera... Catastrophe... Shot... Lying shot...

There was a stab of agony in my heart at that. A very deep piercing stab.

The doctor's looked at me like something was horribly wrong. I managed a polite smile to them, almost sheepishly. "Bad dream. How is she?" Her... Being Sera, Of course. I was Ivan. Ivan Marks. Yeah. That's who I was. Ivan the zebra... was out for a while. I was ignored for the most part, a few doctors shot me a glare over drawing them there for something as pathetic as a bad dream.

I was panting slightly from the dream as a nurse arrived to clean up the pool of vomit. "... Mirror..." I begged from the bed. Begging... This was a true beg, I was a beggar from the soul. Things were wrong, so very horribly wrong and I feared it might be entirely too wrong to salvage them. Was I too stained with blood to save myself? Was Salvation too far away now? If it was... did I dare to just... leave my good deeds behind?

Pshaw. What good deeds? When was the last time I had done something even close to being good? God, I was going through a villain's blue screen of death and I wasn't even sure that I was the villain! What horrible thing had I done that I hadn't done to survive.

Except I hadn't done any of it willingly. My last... real... memory... was of... Earth...

Gareth's death.

I managed to stand up within the hour, my mind fueled with indignation and healthy doses of self loathing. An hour after that, the doctor arrived with medicine.

"You're suffering from a massive reduction in magic. It's unlike most things we have seen in a long time, thought according to your friends, you pushed most of it into the griffon we are still treating for a ballistics injury. Quite out of character, I must add, from what we have heard from. As it would appear that you are... alright... apart from a few nicks and injuries, I am prescribing you a magic supplement to return you to your full faculties."

He walked away and left it on the counter next to me, namely because I had thrown my best dull look at him while he was speaking to assure him he was talking to a cow so far as intelligence went.

I stared at my medicine for a long moment, my mind pondering and thinking as hard as I could, trying to divine within certainty... Within certainty what might happen if I actually took my meds.

Malice was gone. Malice was gone from me, and he had left suddenly, shattering the illusion that I had been under. Maybe... Maybe that was tied... to my magic? Maybe he had to send his coils down my magic in order to control me... Which meant that getting my magic back... Would...

I was free. I was free. I was tasting freedom from something I didn't even know I was chained to and I was liking the taste of freedom. It was like a splash of acid had set me free, I was weak, I was pathetic, but I could change that. I could change that. I could CHANGE that.

I could... I just had... to... Keep awake... Couldn't sleep, Malice would get me.

I focused on the pill bottle... Focused as hard as I could, feeling for the strings of magic I had, remembering how the... Other had done it, the murderous other, the bad other, how Malice had done it... and hesitantly tried to lift the bottle. As carefully as I could, I couldn't do it. I was missing a piece.

A focus. Right. I needed a focus for magic. I needed a focus to burn off as much magic as I could.

I rolled out of bed a half hour later and slipped in the slickness of the floor. I hit the ground hard. Fucking. Hell.

Walking was hard. I took a few attempts to get hooves under me and failed. I tried... I remembered Bambi on Ice. Trying to emulate that, as horribly lame as that was, it wasn't too much longer before I managed a wounded limp across the hospital room. "... Gotta... redeem..."

Yeah... That's what I was after. Redemption...

Redemption.

Author's Notes:

Well. This is the thing I was hiding from you all. My bad.

Night Terrors

If, by any chance, you were confused by Terror's plunge into an active volcano, which you should've been confused as it was given without context as is the style of the piece to do as such, it would probably improve your idea of what happened if I were to explain it in a bit of better detail. It is as such (And with the coercion) that I must start on such a statement of what happened following said plunge with an ambiguous statement.

The world was burning. All was ashes, think choking bellows coughed up from the core of the earth. It was stagnant. harsh, grating rasping caustic fumes, with heat everywhere.

Terror was in it and he reveled in the sensation of feeling the electric hot pain of the lava lancing through his spine lighting his nerves on fire both literally and metaphorically.

Oh? But of course he didn't die. That would be a horrible way to end Terror's chapter, wouldn't it? Instead, perhaps, we should draw attention to Terror's title as written within a sub chapter. That is, Terror the Invincible. And, if you can follow what that means, it stands to follow that Terror did not choose a random volcano for this pseudo suicide. He chose one on an obscure island.

See, Terror needed a weapon. He needed a special weapon, and deep in the heart of the molten mountain, flame liquifying rock and rock liquifying flame, he found what he needed.

A perfect blade, with a breaking part several powers beyond that of the gods. One that was special. One that was... Interesting. A godblade, to be sure. Forged by gods with the souls of mortals, what it was doing here was a long story in of itself.

The Mindsword spun in the dawn's gray light
And men and demons knelt down before.
The Mindsword flashed in the midday bright
Gods joined the dance, and the march to war.
It spun in the twilight dim as well
And gods and men marched off to hell.

-Skull Twister. The sword of madness.

This was his destiny. An immortal warrior with an invincible sword. HAHAHA!

"Yes..."

He rose from the volcano like a phoenix, lava or magma, which he didn't care dripping from his form like embers, turning to rock once it splattered against the ground, leaving a trail as he flew out to sea on wings that were burnt through with flame. This was his destiny! He was so close now... He just had a few more pieces to play, a few more things to do... Just a few more final touches and he could finally face himself and be proud...

Redemption. Well... Good as place to start as any would be to try and figure out what my party members really thought of me-

But more specifically, I guess, I should be focused on avoiding Malice for as long as possible, and further, to find a way to wrest control of him whenever I can

-So I should keep in mind both of these things...

That's what I was thinking while I was slowly walking, well, stumbling, through the hallways. It was a rather... sterile place, considering I assumed I was still in the pony equivalent of the city of sin, and I had half expected provocative posters showing off the... well... prostitutes of the world to dapple the halls like a New Orleans red district. Hm... Was there an equivalent of New Orleans in Equestria?

But I kept walking, yes, that was what I had to do, I had to keep right on walking and thinking about what I was going to do, I had so much more that I could do now that I had to do now...

In fact, I didn't even know how much time I had to make up for all the time I hadn't had before.

Aw, damn it. I was just confusing myself now.

At least that was familiar enough.

I had the feeling that something was wrong, but I had long had that feeling and ignored it, and I hardly knew what I was supposed to do when I felt that anymore, short of leaving it alone and hoping it didn't involve me, despite that it always involved me. There was that feeling of hopelessness again, and I tried to ignore it in favor of not letting the tears cloud my vision. God... I was dead, dreaming, or a murderer, and I hardly knew which one would be the better choice.

...Was I a good person?

Was... I a bad person?

........It's.... such... a fine line...

Catastrophe, lying dying in a bed with a bullet removed from her chest, dreamed. It was an odd dream, to be sure, and a mere description of a description would hardly be good enough to really get by what the dream was about, and as such, I should describe the dream from her perspective.

I was floating, then. I was floating in a void while blood rose around me like the tides of an infernal... or perhaps, internal, sea. I was never that much of a poet, I point out, but something about the sanguinity, the insanity... was familiar. As too, I guess, the webs which the blood clung to, rising up like a crimson frame work from the sea of copper.

"Hello Sera." came a sibilant hiss, like many voices were speaking at once. Ivan's voice, I could hear, at the least, was one of the voices layered over like fine cheese and wine, like sand and chocolate, like blood and vanilla, like death... and dessert. Like...

Feathers and earth.

"Hello Malice." After a while, I did realize that he was talking to me. It had been a long time since I had been referred to as Sera, Angel. That's what Sera meant, after all, and I was far from being an angel. If anything, I suppose, I was Catastrophe and Sera was the angel, and I was fallen.

I had never told Ivan this, but that brief snatch of his mind I had gotten, the most interesting part of it, the weirdest, the most intriguing part, was the religion he knew. It was so different... It was...

"Why do you let idle thought consume you so? You are greater than that."

I hadn't a clue what he was talking about, or why even, he was talking to me about it. Or more over, what he was doing there with me. That was important, I supposed, like I was in the middle of a puzzle and he was quite a few pieces already connected, just waiting to let me in on what the whole puzzle looked like. I guess it was stupid to begin the metaphorical puzzle without looking at the box first, but I had never been one, metaphorically, to look before I leap, so to speak.

"Ooooh. My oh my. An unbroken mind? An unbroken peace? How... quaint." It was clear, however, just who the opposite had to be. He had to be talking about Ivan, in that case, and I was not Ivan, I was not near shattered...

Suddenly, I had a pang of worry about what Ivan was doing, and I felt the blood cling to the webs ever faster.

"What are you doing here?"

"Watching. Waiting. Biding."

That... Couldn't be correct. That wasn't... the same as the infernal devil that Ivan described, complained, whined, BITCHED about. Just watching? Yet I knew he was telling the truth. The web in my mind hardly vibrated with lies, only with truths, though I felt it hunger for flies.

"Why?"

"Because, my dear... You're very special. Imagine, the threads of fate so tightly wound across your group... And to me. Just... imagine the chances against you even living to have this conversation with me. You have with you a princess, a key to awakening Purge himself from his tomb, the key to awakening me from MY tomb... and you."

Princess and keys? That... didn't... Well... in a rather lewd ways, dicks could be keys, I guess. Man, I wasn't high enough or near drunk enough to deal with this puzzle shit. Not that I really got drunk anymore, and I was kicking the habit of the 'poppy' seeds I was taking, though super charged as they were, I could probably replace them with sunflower seeds.

At any rate... I had a feeling that both of the guys in the party were the keys, and it had nothing to do with their dicks at all, which meant I had no real clue what the hell the spider was talking about, as there was no way in hell that Boss was a princess in ANY reality.

Something flew down like a Haast's eagle, like some prehistoric bird from...

Ergh... This wasn't my memory... I had no idea what a Haast's eagle was, nor what it had anything to do with anything at all. Which was nothing. Like a goddamned candle, it had nothing to do with the task at hand and yet...

The wings were made of fire and it cast shadows in the sea of ichor, on the webs, burning them away from the blood like massive cables of fire.

"And me."

I could feel the world nod and the webs vibrate through their fire. "Of course. You're special too. You could hardly be so resistant to the healing magics that I had to nest in your head to heal you up if you weren't. Just imagine how much easier it would be if I didn't have to interfere, to do evil in the name of good... Just imagine a simpler world..." Malice almost seemed wistful, as if remember the simpler times.

"Me." I reminded helplessly, watching the bird; the eagle, the blood; the sea, the webs... the spider...

"You, my friend of my broken peace. You are very special. But you already know that. Your brother still lives, you know, and he is closer to harnessing the powers of the gods more than any mortal SHY of a few pieces, those pieces with unbroken peaces, these pieces WHO DARE harness... Terror... Valder... Your brother, he is so very close... But you..."

"Me..." I muttered, wondering when the hell this was going to be over. What was this, poetry hour or something?"

"You... One day you will understand... but my time here grows short... Just remember..."

Something lashed out from the pool of blood still slowly wrapping around the webs. A sharp blade wielded by the eagle, wielded by the blood itself, snapped through one of the webs, sending the presence of the spider scurrying away. "Just remember..."

"Remember... What?"

There was a loud SNAP! A crack, a falling.

"Phaserend."

The world of blood and webs and feathers and death suddenly flashed a dark azure, then a light rose in color, thousands of gems floating about in the air like some form of Hearth's warming gift that a unicorn made, power crackling through it all.

I felt myself move; I felt myself stir. "...Phase...Rend..."

The world snapped into perspective.

Callous disregard

Talons clicked. They clacked. Clipboards were shaken, papers were rustled. Sharks were jumped. Cats sat on keyboards.

“-She’s waking up. That should be impossible. What in celestia’s name is happening here?” Grah... I didn’t like this, whatever was happening. I’m Catastrophe, by the way. Like you even needed to know that. Pfffft.

My head hurt, at any rate, I think I should mention. Like a rusted nail throbbing under my skin, like a tattered tossed blanket full of holes straining out molten lead... But I’m getting ahead of myself with detail right now, so let’s just make it clear that it hurt like a kick to my mother fucking head and leave it like that, yeah?

Point is, I was in pain, and by reflex, I reached for where my pouch should be for some poppy seeds to take away quite a bit of it. Bad habit, yeah, we’ve fucking covered this so bite me if you want me to stop, but more importantly, I became aware that it wasn’t there.

That, and I felt like I was being watched. After awhile, the feeling stopped. I think the doctors walked away.

Oh, another thing. I couldn’t see worth a damn. Everything was blurry, like my eyes were way too watery, like the inverse of not blinking long enough. Damn... Felt a bit like...

I had a flashback which I won’t go into too terribly much detail with where, upon waking up from one of my many airship crashes that I had the same experience, where I had been dosed with magic and they had had to use eye drops of me, something about magic resistance being innate or some shit like that...

Ah. Then I was in a hospital. This made sense... Happened quite a bit when you were as dangerously... dangerous as I was. Probably... got...

Hurt. Yeah... Hurt..

Gasping pain. I could remember that. Just, quick shots of it... Fuck. Shit. Damn. Fuck.

Grah...

I managed to stand up on the bed, ignoring, for the most part, the mass of equipment that had been stretched over me like a mechanical cocoon.

Someone slammed open the door, and it took me less time to recognize who it was then it took me to launch myself at the zebra of her contentment, Ivan the zebra, my zebra!

I blinked a few times as something subtly shifted in the air. Like the world was in chorus for a long moment, perfectly sounding true. A lot of other babble that wouldn't make too much sense description wise, but I assure you it made sense at the time through whatever pain medication they had me on. It was like... I could smell how solid the air was...

Wait, that didn't matter! I was in the air while I was still sluggishly thinking this, and I ended up wrapped around my current... complicated relationship partner. Wheee! Oh...

Yes... This was better. I could feel the quiet quiver of his flesh, the scent of terror that had so thoroughly infiltrated his own scent... Hm... Had he taken a bath lately? I needed a bath, too, unless the hospital had bathed the blood off of me... What had happened to me? I was shot. And now I was clinging to Ivan, which was all the better.

Oh wow... Pretty colors and suddenly dizzy.

I, Catastrophe, passed the hell out on top of my zebra.

Also, I was high.

It is at this point, that I should fairly mention, if not outright point out that obvious conclusion that may or may not grace someone who is just now joining us, that is, that every character in this story has their own chapters to go through, and, regardless of Ivan being the so called main character, all are important in their own ways. It just so happens that Ivan’s conflicts are often more interesting than that of the normal conflicts of Boss, who gets her way through plain old intimidation and violence, or of myself, I having my own share of fun healing the wreck of a crew I had been dealt.

This is Canary, I might add.

If there is any confusion, I suppose it is only in that everyone has their stories and everyone’s stories are not just additives to the main story line, but far more like twined and frayed rope. Sometimes, all the different strands are together and agreeing with each other and sometimes, there are knots in it that impede proper understanding. I suppose if you pinch and pull enough at the knot you might unravel the real truth. I guess that sometimes, people just want their rope story to be hanging by a thread. They want to be able to follow a single path line at a time for fear of forgetting something.

But why would you ever use a frayed rope? You want one that is dependent upon all of the strands. You want strength. That makes sense, right?

I think so, at least, and sometimes I feel like I’m the last of the truly sane around these parts.

This relates back to the matter at hand. It relates that we, we being Boss and I, were dwelling next to the very people that had shot down the liability of our crew, Catastrophe. Really, the griffon, for all of her bluster and fuss and growling and slashing talons was a complete mess when it came to fighting more than one person, and it was going to get us killed if we weren’t careful. Careful, I guess, was not the reason why I was also almost out of magic. Thankfully, I managed to not pass out dramatically like Ivan did (the drama queen) so I managed to stay out of the detested hospital.

I detest hospital rooms, not anyone else I’ve referred to. Though they might detest them, I am referring to my own hatred of them which managed to get me removed from the chance of being in such a disease covered landscape.

It was, of course only a matter of time or so I believed, before Ivan finally noticed that I had been the one who had stolen his little book he had taken so long to decode. Or maybe he wouldn’t discover that, considering he had forgotten about the thrice damned mystery.

And a mystery it was. “A guide to basic metamagical theorems.” I muttered. Well. It rolled off the tongue.

That was a lie, if you couldn’t tell.

The rest of it was... about as straightforward as a brick. It was all about making runes, except the runes were made out of smaller runes which were also made of smaller runes that were arrayed in a tesseract pattern that allowed one to make runes inside of runes inside of runes that were already inside of runes except in a theoretical pattern that only existed outside of three dimensional space, thus allowing for near infinite imbuing of enchantments and a proper enchantment of the thaumaturgical constant when it is divided by the innate magical resistance squared, but only when it is allowed to by being x distance away from a sufficient source as to not make it to the cube power, which is only during an excess of 500. It mentioned things like something on magical string theory and how the threads of fate were actually literally strands of pure magic woven into the ground as ley lines and that by mirroring that into runes and runes within runes, Meta runes, you could-

Ugh... What in the gods’ names does that even mean?

Of course, all of this was covered in statements like; the exact runic methods for this have long since been lost and that nobody knew the exact methods and that it was actually considered impossible for anyone short of an alicorn to do anything... Which begged the question, why did the text even exist? If it was impossible to do anything in the book, why did you even write the bloody thing?

All I really managed to get out of the text was a new spell... That needed blood and the feather from a griffon in love; a pen spell. It just. Let you draw. On stuff.

If it wasn’t obvious where I was going to get that feather, you REALLY haven’t been paying attention.

I paused from my internal monologues and looked about the room I was in. It was... adequate for housing the party that had almost caused Ivan to turn into a horrible spell beast for the seventh time.

...Actually... I looked around and spotted the vibrant red griffoness that I had noted at one point when I had been busy healing Catastrophe from her near fatal wound. Eh... Did I ever get her name? Probably should. After all... Maybe I could get the feather from her?

Speaking of which, though this might end up being a disappointing plot thread adjoining that of Catastrophe's stay in the hospital, I REALLY needed to learn more about magic. It just seemed weird... In theory, of course, the reason why zebra healing spells worked was because they were transferring the life force contained within a fruit to the injured being, and that almost made enough sense that I didn't need to question it, but what about the fireball spell? What was it about certain gems which helped to power spells better than other gems? Was it some intrinsic property? Was there just the right kind of magic in something that wasn't there in something else? It almost seemed like some zebra spells made sense and others didn't... One was creating fire from nothing but gems and others was just a transfer.

Like this new spell. This writing spell. It was made from a griffon in love's feather, which almost made sense considering that you can use feathers to write with, but without that connection, it seemed more foolish to think of that. So... I'd classify that spell as a chaotic... spell...

What if that was the answer? That there were ordered, transferred, alchemical... zebra spells... and that there were chaotic spells that seemed to go without real sense? Like the chaotic spells, the fire, the shields, everything of that sort seemed to be more in the way of destruction, but also seemed to be centered around from drawing something from very little of something else.

I widened my eyes a bit and started writing. Damn. This was going to give me all the reason I could ever want for learning new spells.

-----

A spider and a snake met in the barrier between metaphysical spaces. They stared, seemed almost sad for once and turned away without another word.

"Watch out for Wave. She's on the prowl." The spider said.

"Watch out for Zephyr. She's out for blood." The snake said.

Two gods met in the middle of the world and didn't speak again.

Mythology: The crow and the snake.

A long time ago there lived a little cabin next to a stream. In this cabin there were two brothers, a spider, and a snake.

The spider provided wisdom and helped stop insects from getting inside.

The snake had the task of making sure the fields were barren of mice. It was a good job, and he was paid in the vermin he killed.

The brothers plowed the fields and kept them in nice order, and the stream kept the crops watered.

One day, the snake grew bored of his task. He was now a rather old snake, and sometimes he would hear whispers about things that weren't there. He ignored them, though. There was no reason to be anything other than a snake.

The snake was envious of the spider. The spider was able to glean wisdom from the wind on his web, and had mastered the ability to make music by plucking his web. He did not have to manage the fields and kill so many vermin. So he listened to the spider's song and stole wisdom from the web with his long forked tongue.

He heard tell of trees not to far away that had long ago been deserted. A town was springing up, and lumber was rare and the trade was high.

He heard tale of something in the sky.

He heard tale of a bird who lived in a small grove of trees. It preyed on dead things and living a like.

The snake had an idea.

The next day, the snake went out into the fields and then slithered away to the trees. It was a long journey, but the snake was more than just a snake, even if he didn't know that.

As he had heard by stealing from the web, there were several great trees. They were older than he thought, and it took him some time to figure out how to get the bird's attention.

He went back to the field and killed a rat and brought it to the trees, and then waited.

Up in the trees, he was watched. A bird came flying down and grabbed the rat...

... and the snake reared up, hissing. "Wait..." Said the snake.

"I want to make a deal with you." Said the snake.

"I have more food." Said the snake.

"Please." Said the snake.

The bird took the rat up into it's nest... and then dropped down to the ground.

The snake saw that it was an immense black crow, wisened by years of living and with feathers as black as the eyes of the snake.

"Hello." It said, with a voice like coal dust.

"Hello."

"Are you going to make your deal?" Said the crow.

"I have a field not more than a few miles away from here." Said the snake. "And it is full of rats just as plump as the one I gave to you. Would you help me clear it out?"

The crow cocked it's head to the side. "What do I get for it."

The snake looked around. There were no other birds in the trees, nor food. The trees were dying. "Why... you get to keep the rats." Said the snake.

The crow nodded. "Fair enough. I will be by at noon to help."

And the crow did.

And the snake was happy.

And the brothers were happy.

And the spider was unhappy.

Since the snake now had free time, he had taken up singing. The snake sung far better than the spider could, and insisted on singing the last song of the night, something which hurt the pride of the spider.

The spider listened to its webs.

No matter how much it listened, it could not figure out how the snake had free time.

The birds were flying, said the web.

The field mice are dying, said the web.

The rats are dead, said the web.

The crow is well, said the web.

Then the spider knew.

There had been a crow hanging around.

The spider knew what to do.

The spider snuck away during the night and made a trap out of web for a rat. A rat soon came for it, for when there is a trap made for rats, rats will always fall for it.

The spider presented the rat to the bird and said a few simple words, having figured out how the snake was having time to spare. "The snake is swindling you. He says nothing of how you help him, only brags that he has gotten grand at clearing the fields."

The crow cocked her head to the side and frowned. "I will talk to him about it."

The next day, the crow tore out the right eye of the snake and ate it, before telling the brothers the truth.

"Never trust the snake." Said one.

"I wouldn't have asked the spider." Said the other one.

Author's Notes:

Hey guys. I have a question. The real reason for no updates, (apart from laziness) is that I am having trouble with a crossover. I can give you guys a short condensed version of it and keep writing, or I can spend the next 8 months without updating as I try to get it into my standards. Which do you prefer?

Zephyr

She who lives in Zephyr sighed softly, then grinned down at the cowering zebra in front of her.

"Oh hello, Deary." She said with a voice that was the sound of death. "Would you mind telling me your name?" To say that the one known as Zephyr was... attractive, was a bit of an understatement. She was luscious, a curvy thing that was draped in a cloak. Her beak was ivory, like a mockery of plague masks.

To tell the truth, she was beautiful in the human way of things, like she had long ago made a choice in her appearance, and despite it all, had chosen to stick with it. She looked down her beak at the cowering zebra in front of her.

"U-um...U-um..." The zebra shivered, having spent a long time in a cold dark place where things were whispered.

"Well?" She hissed, reclining in a throne made out of skulls. This was totally not just a fear thing, she had personally collected the skulls of those she had deemed worthy and polished them until they gleamed in the dark. It was a hobby of hers, actually. Collecting skulls, polishing them.

She sighed, staring down her beak at the poor frightened zebra.

"I don't remember." He finally said, collapsing off of his legs.

To be fair, the poor creature probably hadn't walked in some time. She had had a back log of zebras who were without names.

"Are you from that blasted hell hole, Rej?"

The zebra nodded it's striped body innocently, looking and moving like a hurt puppy.

She sighed. "Dammit." She snapped her talons. "Well... What name were you known by?" She had found a Floyd, a Mark, and a Ken. She really needed a break, she wasn't used to her chosen race dying quite so horribly.

"Skinner, Ma'am." He swallowed hard. "Um... Does this mean that I'm really dead?"

Her eyes widened and a smirk played at her beak. "Oh, an observant one?" Truly, the only reason why she had the smirk was because so many had died so suddenly that they hadn't had time to adjust.

That, and they were eaten by a soul munching abomination. She had to give the ones who would even speak to her credit for that.

"Yes Ma'am. I skinned things when I was alive." He kept with the hurt puppy look, probably trying to score pity points with her.

It worked, if only because he wasn't a gibbering wreck.

"And who killed you?"

Skinner focused, his eyes narrowing. "I... I uh... don't..."

Then he paused, standing up. "That mother fucking bastard fucker." He roared, making Zephyr jerk back in surprise. "Of all the fuckers I put my trust in, HE'S THE ONE WHO KILLS ME OFF?!"

Zephyr slowly blinks her red eyes. "How... Interesting. May I ask who killed you?" It wasn't the soul eating shoggoth. Thank god. Which only means that... someone was twisted enough to be considered an utter disaster.

"Ivan. Ivan the zebra."

Her eyes narrowed and she lazily sprawled herself across her throne in a way that would be considered indecent for anyone but the mistress of plagues.

That's who she was.

She cocked her head to the side and looked at the poor dead soul in front of her. "That should be under Malice's domain..." She mutters, grumbling. Just because shoggoth's were outer planar creatures didn't mean that they should count as plagues. Rationally, she understood that they were some sort of plague from beyond the stars, but the very attempt to get information out of all the idiotic souls the shoggoth had slurped up was making a migraine grace her godly head. "Unless..."

Skinner shifted his weight from leg to leg evenly. "Unless?" He asked, totally confused.

"Ivan is Malice's... piece." She grumbled,

"Piece." Skinner repeated.

"Ugh." She coughed, shaking her head. Then she pointed behind him. "There. Go on to your after life, or whatever. Or be a ghost and haunt things. I hate Rej. Big pile of jerk faces." She sighed.

Rej was... different. It was a nexus for a few ley lines, and as such was an island of importance. But only so much importance. The most importance, the important importance, was derived from the fact that it was a lock.

A lock with a key that Malice had a hold of.

"Dammit." She swore again. She was actually going to have to do something for once.

"What a complete and utter drag..."

The world would know the touch of the mistress of plagues again.

Author's Notes:

A BROKEN PEACE CHAPTER 59! THE PLOT THICKENING

Questions, answers, queries, solutions

I couldn’t tell if I should have been happy that Catastrophe was okay, or scared that her first reaction to waking up was to tackle me and then go unconscious on me.

To be honest, it was hard to tell. On one hand, I had my… whatever the hell I was supposed to call her (airship pilot came to mind, but that in of itself was so impersonal that I might as well be examining her behind a pane of glass) on top of me, and on the other hand, she was not among the waking. (Which again, stopped me from wondering exactly what using all of my magic to keep her from going to wherever sexy murdering griffons go left me.)

Maybe I should feel both. I mean, why choose one over the other when it’s easy to split the decision? I was happily frightened. Which is a frightening statement in and of itself.

That describes a lot of things. On one hand, I had a group of (mercs, whatever the term is) idiots who had shot my airship pilot in a hotel room not far from here, and on the other (I don’t have hands, fuck) hoof, I have a griffon on top of me.

...I have a griffon on top of me.

I should do something about that, shouldn’t I?

The moment I tried to push her off, however, I realized one sad little detail. I was not strong enough to move her on my own. Either she had gained weight, or I was quite a bit weaker than I gave myself any sort of credit for.

But then again, should I even be trying to move her in the first place? I wrapped a hoof around her, trying to be mindful of the bandages.

Here I was, free of the eldritch abomination god spider top hat serial killer whatever the fuck is wrong with me for the first time in literally ages, and there’s a griffon on top of me. Shouldn’t I just indulge in the sheer what the fuckery of the moment?

...She was pretty soft. Her feathers were slightly fluffy, like she had spent quite a bit of time keeping them in order. So was her fur. That sounds weird. I mean, most of the time, when I’m thinking about fur, I’m thinking of things on non sentients, and here I am thinking about a gryphon like there’s something mildly attractive about her, despite being nothing more than a combination of two deadly creatures.

I’d also be lying if I said that she wasn’t cute when she was slightly berserk.

Oh god what the hell is wrong with me.

I’ve been here more than four months, and I’m JUST NOW THINKING THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?! God. Maybe I do need help.

There was this sneaking suspicion that something incredibly wrong was right with me, or something incredibly RIGHT was wrong with me, and then suddenly I was gently petting the massive death machine like she was a cat, gently stroking between her wings with a hoof.

Hooves. They fucking suck. I could use a hand right now. How long has it even been since I’ve mourned the loss of my hands? Is it just because I no longer have any magic, that I can’t use the surrogates of spells that I normally had at my disposal?

could it be that i wanted to feel what it would feel like to run my hands through her pelt

Then came a sound. Purring. Was this instinct on her part, or was she really…?

Better not think about it. Or mention it. At all.

Unless she did.

This is now growing awkward, despite being able to feel the steady slow vibration through her body and listen to the sound of her heart thudding in her chest, slowly, regularly.

and the sound of my own heart thudding in my chest with all the refreshed reality of a man freed from his jail, knowing that one day he’ll be back without knowing anything.

and then her heart beat

and then mine

thud thud

like the passing of a watch

like wind through a window

like heavy eyelids

closing.

And then the wings flew open. Just…*fwoomp* Nooooow it was far more awkward than I wished it to be.

Heh. Let’s just uh… leave it at that…

Nothing bad happened. I fell asleep pretty soon after that.

Totally. You can trust me.

-----

Boss kept a glare focused at the group in front of her. Two griffons. Two zebras. A dog. If not for her history, she probably would’ve found the dog… attractive in some sense.

The dog for one, looked like he at least understood the deeper parts of sword play. Namely, not stabbing yourself with your sword. He still smelled like utter shit.

Unattractive except to certain species of dung beetles, at least.

The griffoness was clad in red. Her fur was red, her feathers were red, her eyes were blue, and oddly enough, she could see a star pattern on the underside of her right leg. Bright purple, but weirdly enough, it seemed natural on her.

Both zebras were… zebras. In the name of her den, she didn’t think she would ever be able to tell zebras apart, if not for the fact that Ivan was a bit bigger than Canary, she would probably get the two of them confused as well!

One was male, one was female.

The male griffon looked a bit like Cata, if not in direct opposite. He had black feathers with a shock of white fur. Also, a gun thing. It went bang, and she currently wanted to point it at his face and pull the trigger back, and laugh at the mess it made.

Specifically, because he was talking like he was all that and a slab of ribs, and she was tempted to see just how much blood his bullshit would back him up with.

“Seriously. Why the hell are you acting like we did something that bad? Scum just like him kill whoever the hell they want.”

The male zebra spoke next. Mark, I think his name was. “Look, I think we made the bad choice here.”

“Definitely, did you see just how hot that gryphoness was you shot?” Like she had called it, the red gryphon was as slutty as they came. If Cata was a slut, then this gryphon was as open as a meadow.

Then the mare spoke, and glared at the red gryphon at the same time. “Did you hear how that stallion screamed? Hell, I’ve heard mothers let out less terrified noises when the slavers come a calling.”

“You haven’t quite answered my question…”

The stallion in the room (and boss rarely counted Canary as a guy) shook his head. “I just feel like it was wrong, alright? He… he fits the description of the ‘hero’ of port oblivion…”

Boss barely managed to stop from bursting out into harsh hard laughter. “Ay. You got the right person.”

All five turned to look at her, though only the gryphoness’s wandering eyes made her feel like she needed a long hot shower and several bars of soap.

“The gryphon that was shot? She’s an airship pilot.” She paused. “Which you’ll be paying for the repairs on, given that you shot it out of the sky.”

Deadshot, the asshole, opened his beak to speak, and she almost slit his throat for it. Almost.

“She’s famed for surviving several airship crashes. The zebra? Saved an entire town from being devoured by a hell blob. Myself? Ex slave.”

She then motioned at the zebra furiously studying in the corner. “He’s a medic.”

There was a period of silence until Boss cleared her throat. “Come on. You started the battle. Why don’t you convince me that you’re nice and sorry before I beat the shit out of you again?”

Deadshot shifted back and forth a little… not quite nervously, but not quite as cocky.,

“Ten seconds to start talking before I start kicking. Chop chop now.”

Mark pointed at the gryphoness. “This is Leona.”

Leona snorted, tossing her red tail about. She pointed to the Zebra mare. “She’s Xyla.”

Said zebra mare seemed a little nervous. Shy flower type.

And then she knew the names of the party in front of her. Oddly enough, it just made her angrier. Even more so, they had yet to answer the question. She wondered how difficult it was to carve gravestones…

She fingered her right sword and drew it. They got the picture.

Namely, Mark, who appeared to be in charge, tosses a large bag of coins at her feet. She raises an eyebrow at them, and motioned. “That’ll hardly cover the medical bills…”

The gryphon spat. “Like that would stop you from cutting and running. This town doesn’t owe you anything.”

Boss drew the sword.

“WILL YOU SHUT UP, LOGAN?”

The gryphon glared. “The name is DEADSHOT.”

“That’s a stupid name and you know it.”

“Oh, fuck you Mark.”

“No, FUCK YOU!”

The red gryphoness poked her head up. “Did someone say fucking?” She had a pleasant voice.

Both Zebra and gryphon turned and screamed at her. “NO!”

Boss turned to Xyla. “They do this often?”

“All the time. Leona has a running bet on whether or not they are gay for each other.”

“WE ARE NOT GAY!” They both shouted, then turned to look at the other in astonishment, before turning away from each other.

Boss nodded… slowly… good den whore, these people were nearly migraine inducing. Scratch that, they WERE migraine inducing. And pains in the ass, but doesn’t that mean the same thing?

She frowned. She was getting as bad as Cata. Mayhaps she should shove her nose into a few books, like Canary was, and crow about what she found instead of dealing with complete and utter idiots?

Endearing as they would probably be to anyone who wasn’t aware of the world’s truth of being a shady at best hell hole, to her, they were symptoms of a big problem.

The world was seeing everything in black in white… which made her think about something else.

“Alright. How about a trade of information? I give you the information that I won’t slit your throats, and you give me the information on… these… chess pieces…”

Canary, to his credit, poked his ears at attention while still reading.

Boss was going to get her damn information.

----

Terror slept.

Clutched to his side was a long sword. Not long by his standards, but by the standards of a regular gryphon, or even a sword’s dog, it was of passable length to be a long sword.

Bits of molten rock still slung to the steel of the blade from it’s long stay in the middle of a volcano. The blade itself was sheathed in a fine black piece.

It was entirely unclear whether or not the blade liked the sheath.

Swords were notorious for having a personality all their own.

And that’s before they are made by the god of forges.

Skin and Bones

To his credit, Mark didn’t react at first. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that Boss felt that she was on to something deep and important, she would have almost cut off his head with her sword. Honest.

The air had the faint tang of sweat to it, like a thick electric fog was settling on everything in sight, and beyond. Tension in the air.

It was only when he still didn’t react that her sword hand flicked the blade out of its scabbard and swung it towards his neck. Eh, she could get the information somehow in a way that involved Mark being headless.

Instead, Canary canceled her sword swing with an application of magic without even looking at her. Annoying as hell. Mark gulped when he realized just how close he came to death by Boss’s sword, and bowed his head.

“My word.” Boss repeated. “For your words.” Dammit, had she really been about to kill him? Her heart was almost in her throat.

That’s a very stupid saying. Her heart pounded. That’s a far better saying.

Would she finally have an actual explanation on why all these nearly impossible to explain coincidences kept occurring? She had almost ruined it already!

She watched a drop of sweat roll off of the tip of his muzzle and hit the ground before he replied. It had taken him long enough to understand that she was being serious.

Mark opened his mouth. “This is going to sound really stupid…” Everything that came out of his mouth so far was similar enough, and Boss could almost tell that similar thoughts were coming from Canary.

Well, not really. Canary was reading a book. Looked as boring as Canary normally is, so it fits.

The rest of his party nodded, including Deadshot. Deadshot moved to speak, and Leona shot him down with a glance that was either a if you speak you will lose your favorite organ or maybe even a Deadshot, I swear to god…

“But Logan and I-” This zebra, Mark, was nervous enough that his gaze was flicking around. As was the griffon gunner, who was looking at Mark and speaking. Again, Boss barely managed to give enough of a damn to pay attention.

“DEADSHOT.”

“SHUT UP.” Came everyone else, including Canary. Leona, the gryphoness, really had a voice to her. Then again, so did Catastrophe.

Mark took in a deep breath, to finish his statement, his body tense, stiffened with almost audible nervousness, like a hive of bees had been stuck right above his head and that by talking again, he would be stung into oblivion.

Nervous sort. That’s what he should’ve gotten for putting a member of her team in the hospital.

Her team. She liked the sound of that. She really liked the sound of that.

“-are aliens.” Then he exhaled, like that explained everything. It didn’t of course.

Aliens.

Wait what?

Boss paused, her false hand wavering on the hilt of her other sword. “Wait, what?” Those were her thoughts on the matter.

“Aliens. We’re not from here.” Illegal immigrants? Illegal emigrants?

Boss nodded, and motioned with her sword to continue. “Keep talking.”

“Well… We’re from a place called Earth. Third planet from the sun…”

Deadshot rolled his eyes. “And we didn’t used to be like this.”

“Like what?” Boss asked, looking clearly confused. What the fuck were they saying?

“You know. Zebras, gryphons.” Mark said. He has a voice like Ivan’s, except without the breaking point in it. “We were these…” He looked over at Deadshot, who shrugged.

“Human things, I guess.” Deadshot continued. Mark glared at Deadshot.

“That’s not what I was going to say at all!”

Deadshot looked confused. “I thought we were trying to do that thing where we finish each other’s sentences?”

“My god, you are so useless.” Mark face hooved.

“...”

“AS I WAS SAYING… We come from a place that is far more advanced than this, is barren in magic, and we were brought here by gods to make war on other people brought here.”

Boss blinked. “... That’s it? Really? Alright.” She looked completely uncaring. Her hand dangled on the hilt of a sword, gently brushing it with loving care and attention. Her eyes unfocused, drifting about the place looking for something far more important to invest her attention upon.

“...What?!” Mark and deadshot looked totally confused. “Don’t you get it?! THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.”

Canary flipped a page in his book.

“Not really.” Boss yawned at this apparent change. “He’s still the unlikable asshole he was before, and he now has even more reason to be an unlikable asshole. Not anymore than any other long term slave, but why the fuck should it matter that he’s some sort of human thingy?”

“Because he lied to you about it!” Mark exclaimed incredulously. “Isn’t that kind of worrying?”

“If I really worried about everything everyone around me lied about, I’d be a lot worse off.” Boss muttered, rolling her eyes. Really, if she kept this up, they would roll out of her head.

“What?” Deadshot turned and shot a look at Mark.

“You know, honestly, I guess it isn’t that big of a deal. It’s a bit like being from another country, except from another reality.”

Leona facepalmed. Again. Like, full palm on face action. Her paw caressed the side of her face for a moment, before her talons raked it, parting the fur like fine toothed comb. Her tail flicked disagreeably. Boss observed her. The gryphoness was almost entirely too fluid and languid, as most of the female persuasion of the hybrids tended towards; she went almost beyond that, like she was too comfortable in her own skin.

Catastrophe was similar only when in a state of euphoria brought on by the cessation of the pain that now constantly plagued her from her replacement parts. Boss could understand that.

Boss moved her eyes from Leona to her own false hand and watched it twitch, almost as if it were aware of her eyes. It was a hard loss to not have as fine control, but she knew that it could always be far worse. She could be just like the gryphoness laying in the hospital bed...

NOT AT ALL A FORCED SCENE CHANGE
-----

I stared at the sleeping gryphon in the bed, watching her chest rise and fall. I felt… odd. Very odd. Was this what love was? Watching someone you hardly really knew, staring at them, counting each breath, each rise and fall as a measure that they still exist? Was it pressing against their hands, desperately wishing you had your own so you could intertwine your fingers with theirs, just so they know that someone else is grasping for life along side them, that they aren’t alone in the world?

I paused from my thoughts.

What did I even know about love? I had a family. I had to think analytically here. I had to separate what the spider made me do, and what was my own thoughts.

What was love?

The purest love is between mother and child.

But that’s purely a symbiotic relationship. The touch of a child to the mother releases a pleasure causing chemical rush as powerful as crack and just as addicting; mother’s selflessly care for a child out of a need for it, not only through such a frail and fragile concept as love.

Then maybe a dad and son? Surely there is a reason for this affection?

Ah, but as mother and child, so to is the father affection. Namely through loss of testosterone, meaning the father has no reason to roam and look for other mates. Therefore the father stays home and bonds with the child.

So the love of the mother is created by an addiction. The love of the father is facilitated by chemical changes.

What is love beyond that? Is love some sort of magical, mythical thing?

In harry potter, I could remember, it’s a metaphorical and literal magic.

In the bible, it is for love that all humans carry the ability to avoid sin.

But in reality… who can really say? Is love nothing more than a series of chemicals which promote a belief in something greater than the singular I? Is WE, the idea of companionship just a way of reproduction? Do we risk it all for the sake of our love, or is it pre programmed into our minds?

What’s the damned difference?

Is it just chemicals?

I stared at the steady rise of her chest and tried not to think too much harder on anything else. Maybe I should consider retiring from everything as soon as I got settled? Sounded great to me. It’d only been a few months, and yet… So much has happened. So much I can barely remember.

She snorted in her sleep. Oh, if she could hear my thoughts, she’d probably say I was being a fucking moron while secretly being touched.

Or just call me a moron. Hard to tell a lot of the time to speak the plain truth.

“Heh…” I laughed a little. Hard not to. This was all so very surreal. So many people I knew, but didn’t know at all.

How many people? Myself… Canary… Ser- Catastrophe… Boss… ...floyd… mark… skinner… ken… skinner.

Skinner.

SKINNER.

…

And then I tapped Skinner on the shoulder and slit his throat. Blood sprayed out and then he died, his lifeless corpse resting against my side. I shut my eyes to stop from getting blood in them and then turned to Grim. "I expect you to tell the truth; that I beat you at your own game."

Like the oddest of visions, I saw a memory winking at me from beneath a cheese cloth like veil.

…

And then I tapped Skinner on the shoulder (and saw his eyes so full of hope looking into mine, his heart, just like mine in his chest, a fellow person stuck in such horrible shitty times, alone except for me, me who he had finally helped him to have hope again.) and slit his throat. Blood sprayed out and then he died (Falling to the ground, the hope still in his eyes, just an expression of surprise as well. The cut had to have been deep, but how could it not be when I was cutting through friendship? ), his lifeless corpse resting against my side. I shut my eyes (not to stop the tears but) to stop from getting blood in them and then turned to Grim. "I expect you to tell the truth; that I beat you at your own game."

Like an unending torrent, I watched Skinner die by my hand and no matter what, could not stop my own body from destroying him.

Time.

Time.

Time.

Again.

…

I beat them at their own games. I killed them better than they killed me. They left me just alive to kill again, and I left them just dead enough to be at peace.

Skinner. He was a friend, right? He was my friend, and he had eyes that had hope in them. But he’s dead.

Dead.

So was Floyd. So were the rest of my flock, all dead. Had I ever even cared? Did I even care at this point? Was I a caged bird singing, or was I the cage? I know why the canary sings, he has yet to die.

I know why the caged bird sings, it's because he cannot cry.

Their deaths felt like it had been twenty years ago, though I wasn’t even that old. I was… I was… only… 19… and yet, so much had happened lately. When is showing grief angst, and when is it justified?

When is grief too much? I didn’t know. Is it like a weight on your back, pressing down sharply, aching, aching, aching? Does it have a weight?

Why do I feel so horribly guilty?

What was love?

What was…

then a cold wind drifted over me and I was out of my thoughts and watching the slow rise and fall of the chest of the gryphoness in the bed, with her black fur in stark contrast to her white feathers.

----

Leona looked over at Boss and pondered, before elbowing the absolute ogre of a dog who already smelled like he was dead. They whispered at each other for a moment, before both of them walked towards her purposefully.

“... Excuse me. Would your name happen to have ever been Muse?” The ogre dog spoke.

Boss stopped, dead and cold, at the mere sound of that name.