Prototype: Equestria Strains

by A Random Guy

First published 12th of September, 2016

Gilda wakes up with no memories, gross shape-shifting powers, a plague infecting the city, and a shady organization hunting her down. She just wants to bake scones! [A Prototype Crossover]

I want to bake scones, that’s all. I want a nice Manehatten storefront where I can bake scones all day long and make a profit off these uptight city punks. Is that too much to ask for?

But no. Instead, I get to wake up in a secret lab somewhere, lose all my memories, stop a plague from destroying the city, and play monster for ponies in dark suits and blue goggle to hunt down. Sure, I got sweet shape-shifting powers out of the deal, but I never wanted any of this.

I just want to bake scones!

A Prototype Crossover
Contains visceral violence and harsh language, but nothing above what the game has.*
All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective property holders.

*May contain explosions, conspicuous consumption of biomass, involuntary neutering, slicing and dicing, humor, and more.

1 - The Griffon Strain

Lights… bright lights… and shadows moving through those lights…

“Get her stabilized. Where’s that doctor?”

… My chest, my body… my everything… Everything hurts…

“Where do I put the needle?”

“Did you skip medschool? Stick it- Oh, I see. Just stick it somewhere.”

… Except my face… My face just itches…

“I thought you said it was contained. This is not contained!”

Voices, those voices… What happened? If someone doesn’t scratch my itchy face soon, I’m going to ruin them…

“There’s a mare asking about the griffon. What do I tell her?”

“We already told her the truth, the griffon is dead. Good riddance, can’t she take a hint?”

Griffon? I’m a griffon, I remember that. What else do I remember?

Gilda, my name is Gilda. And I make… potatoes. No, I make muffins. Wait, that’s not it. I… I make milk? Ew, that sounds wrong on every level. All I remember is I make something that smells good.

What’s with my memory? What the heck happened to me?

The world clears up a bit. I can hear things, but I can’t see. My face still itches. I need to get that itch. It’s not pleasant. I try moving my talon to scratch it, but something metal is holding me down. Crap, I’m grounded.

“Patient Zero is still in a comatose state. She shows no signs of deterioration from Blacklight.”

Those voices again, I keep hearing them.

“The patient shows several signs of life, such as breathing, heartbeat, and bleeding, and yet our spells still indicate she is deceased. While other subjects have reanimated into a more… lively state, Patient Zero exhibits none of these behaviors.”

This voice sounds much closer than before. Maybe if he gets close enough, I can beat some answers out of him, make him tell me what’s going on here.

“Doctor, you’ve been poking and prodding her for long enough. I don’t think you’re going to get anymore results.”

“Oh contraire, science is all about observation. While Patient Zero is about as stimulating to look at as a dead spider, comparing her to the other subjects will yield valuable data on how the disease behaves.”

This punk just called me boring. I’ll show him boring. I’ll bore my fist right up his ass!

My eyes flicker open and- Ow! Son-of-a-bison that light burns like a sheep-bucker. How long have been out? A day? Two days? A week? After my corneas stop burning to a crisp, my eyes adjust to the light in the room. It’s all… sterile. White walls, white floors, shiny knives on a table, bright lights, and two shadows looking at me. Oh, I get it. I’m in a hospital. Great. What the hell did I do to end up here?

“Oh my gosh! Look, the patient is waking up! I got to record this down.”

“Well I’ll be. I didn’t think this big lady would be waking up.”

Whoever just called me big is getting the beating of a lifetime!

One of the shadows scurries around in the light. They both look a lot like ponies. Oh boy, pony doctors taking care of me. What lame thing did I do to end up in a pony hospital? I hope my spleen didn’t burst. I’d be the laughing stock of Griffonstone if they found out I ended up in a pony hospital because my insides exploded. No, they won’t know. I got into a fight with a minotaur and he gouged me with his horns. Yeah, that’s what happened.

I open my beak to try to say something, but nothing comes out but a raspy cough. Damn, feels like I tried gurgling sand. How am I going to make a cover story with these doctors? We need to be on the same page if the other griffons are going to believe the minotaur thing. Ponies believe in patient confidentiality, right?

“Stay back Doctor. If you get to close she’ll bite your head off.”

Okay, I don’t think the minotaur story is necessary. By the sounds of it, I got into a fight with these ponies… and lost. Is this prison? Am I in a pony prison? It feels like a prison. They keep insulting me, so they might be prison guards. I hope my crime was badass.

“My entire career is based on studying dangerous animals. I think I know my limits.”

So I’m not a prisoner. I’m an animal, eh? Come here so I can show you how much of an animal I can be!

“Doctor, get back. She’s struggling.”

“Oh, hush your mouth. The patient is strapped down tight. I am perfectly fine.”

Not if I have anything to say about it!

I try to punch him, but there’s something holding my arm down. I yank at it, yank at it some more, and then with a really hard yank, and a loud pop, my arm goes up with little problem.

“Doctor! She’s free! Get away!”

The doctor backs up against a wall. Yeah, you better be scared. Nobody calls me an animal and gets away with it.

The doctor squeals. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve heard a squeal like that before, even from a pig. “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”

Dang, you are just asking for it.

Another hard yank and I’m standing up on all fours. My legs wiggle to and fro as I lumber over to give this doctor pony a lesson he won’t forget.

The doctor pony tries to run away, but I somehow pounce on him before he gets a chance. The pounce surprises me as much as the doctor. My legs feel no where up to snuff.

The doctor pony squirms beneath my knees. No, don’t you dare chicken out on me. You wanna insult me in front of my face, you gotta back yourself up. Learn to choose your fights!

“AHHHH! Help! It’s eating me! Help me!”

“Sweet Celestia, back up! I need back up in here! Patient Zero is tearing Strangeglove apart! I need backup now!”

Tearing him apart? I’m not going that hard on him, am I? It is a one sided fight. It feels like I’m hitting a scoop of ice-cream here. These pony doctors need to gain some muscle mass. They just melt under a few punches.

“Code grey! Is this a code grey? I don’t know, just kill it!”

A red light fills the room, and for a moment the worlds appears crystal clear. The pony doctor is underneath me and…and…

Holy shit, he literally melted! The doctor is just a mush of guts and gore, and I’m sitting in it. What the hell did I do?!

Then the world goes blurry again. The bright lights mix in with blue flashes and I can hear the voices scattered all about.

“Back up! Patient Zero isn’t going down!”

I killed someone, I actually killed someone. Is that why I’m here, because I killed someone? The doctor pony is dead, and maybe there’s another one out there I killed too.

“What in Tartarus, it just ate Sarge! I repeat, it just ate Sarge!”

And I think I’m still killing. This doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel right. I want to go home.

“Gray Alert, this is a Gray Alert. Do not let Patient Zero escape!”

The world clears up again. I tumble through two doors out into a rainstorm. The water runs through my feathers, washing away a layer of dust I didn’t know I had. Thunder rolls in from the distance. The night is cool and violent.

Behind me, a crackling voice yells, “Stop her!”

In my moment of clarity, I feel a sharp sting in the back of my head. I look back and see a team of ponies dressed in black charging at me. The blue glow of their goggles stand out in the darkness of this stormy night. Their horns light up and they pelt me with spell after spell.

I jump back, avoiding a bolt or two, but their aim is incredible. Most of their shots hit me with no problem. It doesn’t help that I’m standing out in the open doing little to avoid them. I need to get out of here. These are starting to sting.

“Patient Zero is on the move. Do not lose her.”

My legs move without me knowing about it. They got minds of their own, and they want to get out of Dodge. I agree with them and dash at what looks like an exit. Bolts fly over me as I weave between the spells. I don’t care what I did. I need to get out of here.

Ten blue-eyed armored ponies jump out and block the exit. The unicorns fire spells at me, and the non-unicorns fire spells with something in their hooves. It’s too dark to see what they’re holding, but whatever it is it all stings the same. These punks have it out for me.

I run the other direction. The pegasi take off and target me from the air. I see no way out. They’ve cornered me.

“Keep at it. It’s slowing down!”

Then my legs speak up. Something surges within them, a powerful force. I don’t know how to describe it, but it soon overwhelms me, then it unleashes its strength.

Either the world is going fuzzy again, or I’m jumping really high right now. Sure, I got my wings, but I swear all this air I’m gaining is from my legs. Just one jump, and I’m far above ground. The blue-eyed ponies look like tiny bouncing blue dots from up here.

One pegasus ducks under me and point-blank fires a spell-thingy at my head. It stings like the rest of them. I’m getting sick and tired of this. I extend my claws forward and divebomb the sucker. The pony is not fast enough to fly out of the way as I sink my talons into his flesh.

Another blur passes, and we both crash into the ground. A loud crunch comes from the pegasus, and he starts melting like the doctor did. Except he doesn’t just melt like a regular old icecube, he melts into me! All his warm flesh and gobblygoop clings to my claws and sinks its way into my flesh. I try waving him off, ripping him away from me, but he just dissolves into me.

“Patient Zero is outside the compound. Stop it before it gets away!”

The rain is pouring. I can’t see five feet in front of me. The pegasus is gone. He’s a part of me now. I don’t know what else to say about it. It felt warm and juicy, like a fresh meal, except absolutely disgusting. Did… did I eat him?

I panic. I run and I panic. Where ever I was, the blue-eyed ponies don’t find me. Sirens blare behind me, so I know they’re looking. I killed someone, and I ate at least two ponies, and I’m not even sure if “ate” is the right word. Am I a monster? Is that why they had me in this prison?

I need some answers, and I am damn sure the blue-eyes aren’t going to give them to me now. I just ran away and didn’t stop.

The world clears up again and I find myself on a sidewalk. These streets, to my surprise, are filled with ponies. I bump into some of them, but they don’t chase me. A few do swear at me. I guess I’m not much of a monster to these ponies, or else they’d be running around screaming or trying to kill me.

There are so many ponies out in the rain. And the buildings, they’re so tall, and they got windows with shops in them. It all looks so familiar. Why are they familiar?

Wait a minute, this is Manehatten. Why am I in Manehatten? I didn’t know ponies kept monsters in Manehatten. No, that can’t be it.

A word, I’m remembering a word, something with an ‘s’. Sock, sold, solid, score, store… Scone! Scone shop! I bake scones, and I’m in Manehatten to open a scone shop! The baking, the grand opening, the food, how did I forget?

More importantly, how did I go from baking scones to eating doctors and blue-eyed ponies? The grand opening wasn’t that bad, was it?

2 - Scone Quarry

I know I opened a scone shop, but for the life of me I can’t remember where it is.

For the past hour or so, I’ve been wandering the city with no real direction in mind. It’s raining, I’m soaked to the bone, and I’m lost in the biggest city I’ve ever been in. Despite all that, I have no desire to go indoors and dry up. There’s something inside my head forcing me to keep going until I find my store.

All I know about this city is I have a store inside of it. But every time I try to think about it, all I get is fog. I don’t know where it is, or when I opened it. Did I even open it? For all I know, I was going to open it this morning before all this happened. Heck, I can’t even remember what the name of the place is. I better not have named it something stupid, like GriffonScone. The wordplay is too obvious.

What if I didn’t name the place yet? That would be bad. A store without a name is like… a baby without a name! How would you talk about a store with no name? ‘Hey Donut Joe, I’m going to the intuitive concept of a pony building a house to pick up some nails, do you need anything?’ We don’t have the telepathic infrastructure to handle talking like that!

On another note, they say if enough random things happen in a junkyard, you came make an airship, or at least that’s what I think they say. And if you wander Manehatten long enough with no idea where you’re going, say for an hour or two, you’ll end up right where you need to be.

As I was stressing about the fog in my head, the thing forcing me to walk yanked me back the other direction. Something tells me to look up, and I do, only to find a sign above my head.

Scone Quarry, it reads.

Before I have a chance to yell how stupid the name is, I’m blinded by bright lights and the rest of the world fades out.

Sunlight, warmth, the windows to a storefront…

“That’s a stupid name.”

A sign hanging above a doorframe, a sign that reads Scone Quarry…

Pink, lots of pink, so much pink my eyes hurt…

“Well, you didn’t like GriffonScone, so this is the next best thing I can come up with.”

“This isn’t what I had in mind.”

A sad face, my eyes still hurt from the pink…

“Then what did you have in mind?”

“Hmm, I don’t know, maybe ‘Gilda’s Family Scones,’ the name I told you I want.”

A white blur, an indigo streak, blue eyes…

“That won’t work. We’re in Manehatten, the ponies here demand the fresh, the contemporary, the now. And they want it now!”

“But it’s my store, I get name it whatever I want.”

A flash of paper…

“And you can, from this extensive list of pre-approved names.”

More pink…

“I helped make it! My favorites are this one, this one, and this one, don’t forget this one…”

My blood, it’s boiling…

“Don’t worry dear, everything else is up to you. We’re just here to help. If you want, we can put the name you want underneath the one you choose.”

A long, hard sigh…

“Fine.”

The world came back, and I’m still in the rain, under the store sign. Hey, I’m not dead, yet. That was a memory, I actually remember something!

Gilda’s Family Scones, I like that name. It’s friendly, straightforward, and easy to remember. How did I let someone convince me otherwise to pick something else? I take a closer look at the sign and grind my beak. They didn’t even put the name I wanted underneath! What a bunch of lying punks.

Enough of the sign. I take a look at the store… Oh son-of-a-bison! The grand opening must have been terrible!

The windows are boarded up. There are burn marks all over the outside of the building. There’s dried blood splattered at the foot of the door. It smells like a rat died outside…

Wait a minute… a blood stain?

I take a closer look, and I hate to imagine what happened here. That’s a lot of blood, and it’s all over the side walk. The rain washed most of it away, but the dry spots are still dark red. Did a pony explode or something?

I look around, and then I notice something strange. My store isn’t the only one boarded up. The entire street is closed. There’s no one else. I’m the only living creature walking through this street. There are scorch marks everywhere I look and there’s blood everywhere the rain hasn’t touched. So much blood… The whole street looks like a warzone. What in Tartarus happened here?

Blood dripping, something shiny…

“What the heck Tanya, I told you to be careful with that knife!”

Brown feathers, bronze eyes…

“It’s all greasy and dull. Did you sharpen this damn thing with butter?!”

A mop wiping up a red puddle, wrapping bandages…

“This equipment is brand new. State of the art.”

An angry face, a clenched beak…

“You still got to sharpen the knives, featherbrain!”

That memory came out of nowhere. Though I suppose all memories do that, but they hit hard when all you can think of is fog and darkness.

Tanya. I know that name. She… she…

Oh yeah, the owl-lion, she came with me to help open the scone shop! She wanted to get out of Griffonstone so bad she followed me to a strange land to go on a risky business venture. As I recall, she’s very handy with money.

“Hey you, what are you doing here?!”

I jump up and spin around to find three ponies, covered in armor, walking towards me. Their helmets and chest-plates are matte gray with black undergarments underneath. All their sleeves have Equestria military emblems nailed to them. These guys are full-on military hard types, mostly a home army for Equestria. I hope they aren’t involved with the blue-eyes.

“I’m just looking at my shop, sirs,” I say. If these are soldiers, I don’t want to pick a fight with them. The last thing I need is to have Equestria’s military on my tail.

“This area is off limits,” the middle guard says. “No civilians allowed. Can’t you read signs?”

He points out a sign behind me, and I check to read it. It’s a massive piece of work, covering the entire front side of the building. With large, red letters, it reads, ‘RED ZONE – DO NOT ENTER.’

“Sorry, I guess I didn’t notice that.”

“Clearly. As protocol states, we must detain all trespassers in the red zone. We need you to come with us.”

No, I won’t. I’m not interested in going back to… wherever the hell I was. I don’t say this out loud to the guards, instead letting my actions speak louder than the insults I could think of. Whatever force let me jump really high earlier, it’s now helping me out run the guards. Within seconds, I run five blocks away and lose them around a corner. Damn, I’m fast. Did I always have this speed?

After a little running around, I find a populated area blocked off by a chain-link fence. Sweet, now I can get out of this nightmare zone. With a little twelve foot hop, I make my way back into civilization. The few ponies out this late at night scramble back away from me when I land in the street. I think I hear one scream the word ‘infected’ or something.

Oh come on, I’m just a griffon flying over a fence. It’s not that strange of a sight.

With a bit more sprinting, I get as far away from that crowd as I can. There we go, I’ve seen my store, and the only thing I found out is somepony strong-armed me into giving it a crappy name. Also I got more questions than answers, but that’s not important. How the heck did a pony convince me to go with Scone Quarry? Gilda’s Family Scones is so much better!

Tanya, she might know what’s up. I know that girl, she’s the strong type. I got to smack her over the head for not backing me up on the naming issue.

Also I should probably ask about what happened to the neighborhood. I suppose that’s important. There’s no way scones could destroy a street, right?

3 - Fight for the Owl-Lion

Call me crazy, and I am definitely off my nut, but I think I can jump over that building.

Forget the fact I got wings, with just my legs I feel like I can jump onto the roof. That building is, what? Ten stories high? Fifteen? I can do it, no problem.

It’s the dead of night. It’s still raining hard. Everyone with common sense is inside. The odd night-owl pony couldn’t see me behind the downpour and darkness. As far as I’m concerned, I’m free to do whatever I want.

My knees bend and I crouch down low. I can feel the force filling my legs up. It’s explosive. It wants to escape and blow away everything in its path.

With everything I got, and with all that explosive power, I jump. I rocket through the air, soaring high above the dark Manehatten street. I’ve flown all my life and this is a similar feeling, but it’s completely different. Flying feels graceful and elegant. This feels heavy and direct. I love it!

I’m only at the fifth floor when the power of my jump fades away. I can jump high, but damn it, I want to jump higher. The force inside me still yearns to escape. It won’t take no for an answer. When I say I can’t do it, it takes control.

Without thinking, my wings flap forward and I slam into the building. Instead of crashing and falling, my legs hit the bricks and they sprint up the way up. Holy crap, I’m running up a wall! What can’t I do?

My claws dig into the brick works and leave craters behind with every stride. Soon I fling myself over the edge and land on top of the roof. I did it! I just climbed a building!

I don’t have time to celebrate. The force pulls me along and keeps going, and I chase it. I sprint across the rooftop, then jump at the ledge and land on the building across the street. Then I run across another building, and I jump again. My beak is stretching into the widest grin I’ve ever had and I’m cackling like a deranged witch! I swear I can do this all day.

I wonder how good my flying is.

At the next building ledge, my wings unfurl and I jump as high as I can. They catch the air and I glide over the sleeping city. The raindrops hit my face hard, but I don’t care. Whatever this power is I’m having a blast with it!

I try giving my wings a flap, but they don’t budge. They’re locked up in the flying position. Is this a joke or something, why can’t I move my wings?!

Okay, this isn’t fun anymore. I’m bleeding off height faster than I would like. The cold, wet street looks incredibly hard right now and I’m on a crash course straight towards it. Come on wings, work. Work dang it! Work work workworkworkwo-

I slam full speed into the pavement and skid along until my head crashes into a flower pot. That… didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. If anything, my pride stings more than my body. If anyone saw that, I’ll make sure they’ll never talk about it again.

There’s a petunia dangling over my forehead. I get up, brush it off, and look around. Say, this neighborhood looks familiar, and crappy. Have I been here before?

The world blurs out again and son-of-a-bison not another flashback!

The same neighborhood, daytime, brown feathers…

“So this is our new home?”

An empty room, creaky floorboards, I smell a dead rat somewhere…

“What, can’t stand the grime? You can’t find a place like this in Griffonstone!”

A frowning beak, Tanya…

“I was expecting better.”

Dirt, a cockroach scurries across the floor…

“If you can cough up another two grand per month, by all means find us a better nest.”

Oh right, I live here. Doesn’t matter, this place is still crappy.

It takes me an instant to find the building I’ve been living in. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve crash landed right at the doorstep. What the heck, do I have super-finding powers now too? I got super jumps, super speed, and now I got the power to never lose my keys again. Did a zebra enchant me or something?

Tanya and I moved here to be close to the store. It was the best place I could find with the money I had. The rent rates in this city are murder. Tanya is a good chick, but if I had the money, we would be living in separate units in different buildings and I wouldn’t have to listen to her gargle oil in the morning ever again.

Our apartment is on the seventh floor of this twelve story building. I choose to go up the stairs inside. I’m tempted to jump up there with my new powers, but I don’t think I’m ready to freak out Tanya with them just yet. I’m still coming to terms with it myself. Stairs are fine. A nice stair climb gives me a chance to breathe. I’d like that, especially after tonight’s craziness.

The building is poorly lit. There are a few flickering lights scattered all over, but they barely provide enough light to see. I think about what I’m going to ask the griffon. Why did we go with “Scone Quarry”? Why didn’t you smack those ponies on the head for forcing the name on me? Why didn’t we replace the sign when the ponies weren’t looking? My thoughts circled around these specific questions mostly, though the question of why the street looked like a warzone popped up once or twice.

The stairs are the kind that spiral up. There’s a big enough gap you could push a unicorn off the railing and he’d fall to his death. And there’s enough space to look up and see anyone looking down at you, such as a pair of blue, glowing spots floating in the darkness above.

Wait, blue glowing spots?

Sheep-bucker, not these guys again.

The blue-eye pony scurries back into the darkness, and if I remember the building layout correctly he’s on the same floor my apartment. Not good.

I super-jump up through the gap and land on my floor. The blue-eye runs for my door, which has five of his buddies standing outside it. Down the hall I can hear the battle-shrieks of a large lion-bird. Tanya!

Two of the blue-eyes rush into the door, while the rest look at me and start firing spells at me. The bolts sting, but I don’t care. I can feel the power rage inside of me and I sprint up to the closest blue-eye in a heartbeat. My fist swings at him and his skull cracks under my strength. He flies into a wall from the force and his buddies spread out away from me.

The spells keep flying, but they do nothing. I charge the next guy, but instead of punching him, I grab him by the chest and throw the bastard over the stairs. He screams for a full second before going silent.

The next guy, an earth pony, somehow avoids my pounce, but it leaves him open for me to kick him into the air and strike him with a claw. I don’t just kill him, I slice him in half, from the groin to the head. His blood sprays all over the hallway and on the last blue-eye standing.

Before the two pony-halves fall to the floor, something bloody and oozy shoots out of me and takes hold of the pieces. They look like tentacles, and they rip up the pony into tiny bits, and those bits melt into me just like the doctor and pegasus before.

Okay, that’s new. Puberty was more than enough fun with gross things coming out of my body. I don’t need to go through that mess again!

There’s one blue-eye left, a pegasus with a spell-shooty-thingy, and he looks just as stunned as I am. It’s a reasonable reaction to seeing your comrade be consumed by a mass of tentacles. At least he’s lucky enough not to have to figure out why the tentacles are coming out of him.

While the blue-eye is gawking at the horrors just witnessed, I tackle him, beat him to a bloody pulp, and try not to think about what I’m doing as I “eat” him like his friend before. Ugh, this thing I’m doing even comes with slurping noises! It takes everything I got not to puke while he’s dissolving.

It’s done. I shudder. Don’t think about it. Moving on.

Another bird-loin screech comes from the apartment. I barrel through what used to be the door to find Tanya fighting off her own blue-eyes. What little furniture we bought is either strewn around or blown to pieces. There’s a blue-eye lying on the floor with his neck sliced open. Another is leaning against the wall nursing a broken hoof. Two unicorns got the big bird pinned down with their magic. The chick might be big, in fact she’s larger than me, but those unicorns have no trouble handling her struggling.

It’s the wounded one that announces my presence. “It’s Zero!” he yells. The two unicorns hear this and turn around to fire their spells at me. The effect is predictable at this point. I lock on to the closest unicorn and pounce at him-

Only to be bashed away by a flash of blue. After I’m done skidding across the floor, I look up and notice the unicorn has a shield spell up. I charge again, be he swats me away like a fly. I crash through the wall and tear open a big hole into the flat next door.

After the dust clears up, I find myself in a room with tile walls, a shower curtain, and a mirror. There’s a stallion in a bath cap and a rubber ducky in his hooves looking down at me. He screams like a filly at the sudden intrusion and scampers off into who-knows-what part of the building. Damn, we have noisy neighbors.

Before I get up, the unicorn slams his shield down on me. He hits me again, and again, and again. Each hit makes a deep thud. I can hear the floor cracking beneath me. The unicorn screams at the top of his lungs and hits me with all he’s got. “Why. Won’t. You. Die?!”

Enough of this! I grab the rim of his shield and yank it away, but the blue-eye has a strong hold on it. He yanks back and throws the shield across the apartment. I don’t dare let go, but maybe I should. The shield and I break through the wall to the other flat next door, and I’m hovering above a little filly cowering underneath her bedsheets.

“Hi,” I say, waving.

The filly shrieks in fear as the shield swings back into my own apartment and slams me into the cockroach-infested floor. Oh sweet mercy, I heard something go squish inside me. I hope that wasn’t important.

The shield flies away again, and I have the intelligence to let the thing go. I roll away just in time for the next shield bash, it crashes into the floor, and I flop onto my four feet. Ugh, I don’t feel so well. It takes some considerable effort to stop myself from teetering over. Is the world going grey?

The injured blue-eye yells behind me. “It’s bleeding! We can kill her”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do,” the unicorn snaps back.

And you both can shut up. The injured blue-eye is a few feet behind me. With a little dash, I zip over there and punch him into a big explosion of ponybits. And then the tentacles shoot out and his goop melts into me. Damn it, how do I turn that off?!

The blue-eye behind the shield unicorn screams. “Sweet Celestia, she’s putting herself back together!”

“I can see that,” the unicorn grunts. “Stop giving me a play-by-play and shoot her!”

I’m doing what? I look down at my chest, and Good King Grover my insides are hanging out. No, those aren’t my insides. They’re all red and black and goopy, and they’re slithering. Oh sweet mercy my insides are slithering back inside me.

While I’m not looking up, the shield flies around and swoops in to cut off my head. I grab it within inches of my neck. Damn, this thing is not fun to fight. It’s spinning and slicing into my palms! Come on, just a little push…

Something in my limbs wiggles around, like a bunch of worms trying to break out. Great, something else weird and gross is about to happen. Those worms to break out through my talons and surge forward and over the shield. They slow down, and six shiny blades, one for each of my talons, shoot out with a metallic screech.

What in Tartarus... I got big meaty claws now! Geez, these things are as big as my torso.

With my upgraded claws, I clamp down hard on the shield and stop its spinning. Then I bend it. I put all my power into bending it. The shield warps a few inches before shattering into a cloud of blue sparks.

The unicorn falls over yelling and kicking like an upset toddler. He clutches his horn, but touching it makes him scream even louder. This must be the fabled magic feedback unicorns get on occasion. Huh, looks painful. Time to end his misery.

I walk over to his shriveling form, the claws click and clack with every step I make. I stand over him, look him dead in those soulless goggles of his, and slice him into bits. Oh great, this one is melting too. I need to find a way to control this thing.

Now to finish off the last… why is the world going blury?

“Captain Cole Slaw, sir!”

A dark room, a yellow pegasus looking at me…

“You are to take in the griffon named Tanya for questioning.”

Marching footsteps, a picture of an owl-loin…

“What are the charges?”

Shuffling paperwork…

“She and Patient Zero used to live together. After the incident we just had, we need to track down anything we can use against Zero. The nerds tell me we’re going to have a bitch of a time if we don’t track her down soon.”

A salute…

“Understood. We’ll have Tanya in by the end of the hour.”

Another salute…

“Good luck Sweet Tooth.”

My body shudders. That wasn’t my memory! That was someone else’s. Did that belong to the blue-eye I just ate? I can eat their memories now!

I look up and meet eyes with the last blue-eye. The last one, the unicorn holding Tanya down, sputters and shudders and as I stare him down. His horn fizzles out, and before I get a chance to tear him to shreds, a stray fist hits him in the head and makes the loudest crunch I heard all night.

“That’s for the fight,” the large, brown griffon spits. After giving him a hard kick to the ribs, she looks at me and I can see she’s been in a rough fight. Scratches, ruffled feathers, a crack in her beak, no wait… She’s always had a cracked beak. “Gilda? No, it can’t be.”

My beak twists into a smile. “What, you’d think I’d leave my scone shop out to fall apart without me?”

The big owl-lion’s jaw drops. “But you… you died!”

Huh? This is news. “Eh, what?”

She throws her claws in the air. “You died! There’s no way you could’ve survived the outbreak!”

My left eye, it’s twitching. “I died?” Waking up in a lab, eating ponies, random superpowers popping up… This griffon needs some answers.

4 - What do we do with the bodies?

Four o’clock in the morning, that’s how early it is. I’ve been wandering the streets all night, killed some ponies in costumes, and played around with superpowers. All that in one night. I need a drink.

There’s a tin of coffee beans in the pantry. Good, I could kill for some coffee. Technically I did, and so did Tanya. “How about a kick in the teeth for an early wake-up call?” I say to her.

“Nah, I’ll be fine,” she says. The big owl-bird huffs as she tosses the last dead blue-eye I didn’t eat into a pile. That’s the one I kicked off the staircase. He doesn’t look so hot. Now that we got them all in a pile… I don’t know. Do we burn them? Slice them up and trash them?

“Alright, no coffee for you. Do you know what we should do with those guys.”

Tanya shakes her head as she wipes her claws clean. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

“If you say so.” I reach for the coffee tin, but my big meat claws slam into the cupboard. They’re too big to fit inside. I try picking the tin up by pinching it, but the scythes I got for talons slice the thing in half, spilling beans all over the shelf. This is awkward. Do these things go away or am I stuck like this?

Tanya walks by me, reaches into the shelf, and pulls out a half empty bottle of vodka and takes a long swig. “Having a bad night?”

“You have no idea.” I slam the cupboard shut, but my claws end up slashing it into splinters. No matter, it’s not like we’re going to get our deposit back on this place after all this. But I still need a morning pick-me-up. “So… I died?”

She nods mid drink. “I thought so at least. A lot of ponies died in the outbreak, and you disappeared the same day. I just assumed you died with the rest.”

An outbreak? This is news. “There was an outbreak?”

“Yeah. They’re calling it the Blacklight Plague. It’s a fun one. It messes up the skin, gives you nasty cramps, and turns any living creature into a flesh-eating monster.”

The last thing sounds familiar. “Hmm, sounds bad.”

“It is.” She glances down at my claws. “Would those happen to be related?”

“What, these?” I ask, wiggling the blades around. “Honestly, I have no clue. I woke up a few hours ago and weird stuff like this has been happening to me since. You probably know a lot more than me.”

She takes another swig. “Not as much as you think. I can tell you as much as the next griffon, but it’s not much.”

I nod over to the pile of dead blue-eyes. “Do you know anything about those guys?”

Tanya’s frowns at the bodies. “The Blackwatch thugs? They’re supposed to be keeping the plague controlled in the Redzone, but all they are is a nuisance. You can’t walk five feet in the streets without them pulling you over to check if you’re infected. No clue why they’re here.”

"Didn't you just say they're here for plague control?"

She gives me a deadpan look. "I meant why are they here in our apartment?"

"Ah." I point one of the blades to my chest. “They’re after me. I woke up in a hospital and these guys attacked me. I ate a couple of their guys and fled.”

Tanya’s eyebrow shoots up. “Is that what you did to those two thugs, you ‘ate’ them?”

“Kinda,” I say, shrugging. “I don’t know any other way to describe it. They sort of melt into me, and it feels like I’ve eaten a small snack.”

The big griffon shudders, and then chugs down the rest of the bottle. “Nope, not going to think about it. It didn’t happen.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” It’ll be too soon the next time I see those blue-eyes. Fighting them is fine, but I know I’ll end up eating one or two. It’s not something I want to be doing everywhere I go. “Okay, change of topic. Let’s talk business.”

The owl-lion leans up against the counter. “What kind of business?”

“For starters, why did you let the ponies name the store ‘Scone Quarry’?”

“Scone Quarry? The scone shop?” I give a stern nod. “I thought you wanted that name.”

“No, I wanted ‘Gilda’s Family Scones.’ That’s a much better name by far.”

Tanya shrugs. “I like Scone Quarry.”

My beak drops. “How can you like that? It’s a stupid name!”

“It’s pretty clever if you think about it,” she says. “Although GriffonScone would’ve been better.”

“But it makes no sense! How is my business related to a quarry? I have nothing in common with the stone industry or any sort of rock farm!”

“Pinkie Pie used to work on a rock farm.”

Uh, who? “Pink Pie? Who’s that?”

“Pinkie Pie. She helped you with your scone recipe.”

Nope, no bells ringing. I think I forgot about her. Eh, I’ll let the flashback thing fill me in. The world will fade out and I’ll figure out who this is. Yep, gonna remember who Pinky Pile is.

Let’s go.

Any time now.

“You know, the pink pony,” Tanya says. “The jumpy little nit. Never stops smiling.”

Ah yes, the pink pony. That helps… little. Damn, still no flashback.

“She helped you get Stone Quarry ready for opening.”

Oh right! She… she… Did my laundry?

“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “I got nothing.”

Tanya lets out a sigh and takes another swig of her vodka, only to realize she chugged the whole thing empty. She shakes her head and looks at me with sad eyes. “What in Tartarus happened to you?”

I toss my arms up, destroying what’s left of the kitchen counter with a quick slice. “I’ve been asking that question all night! I know nothing. All I remember is waking up in a hospital, fighting those blue-eye ponies, and having a few flashbacks to fill the memory gap. I’m as clueless as a hatchling and I got”-

A buzzing sound cuts my rant off. “Flashbang 0-5-3, this is Red Crown. Do you copy?” We both look over to the pile of dead blue-eyes. There’s a tiny green light on each of their uniforms. After a moment of silence, the lights flash yellow. A voice comes out in a broken and cackling tone. “Flashbang 0-5-3, this is Red Crown. Do you copy?”

Tanya and I look at each other. Her eyes are wide, though that’s not saying much since she’s part owl. I mouth a question, what do we do? She shrugs and mouths back, I don’t know.

“Flashbang, if you do not reply in the next five seconds, another squad will be sent in to check your status.” Ah… damn it.

There’s a voice in my head screaming and I bet there’s one in Tanya’s head too. I do not have enough coffee in my system to deal with another batch of Blackwatch goons. What do I say to stop them? Can I say anything to them at all? Will they not recognize my voice and send in goons anyways?

As I panic, the force in the back in my head comes up with an idea, and it wants to bring the worms back. All over my body, I can feel the worms and tentacles warping and twisting in all sorts of places I don’t want to think about. Damn freaky powers, this is the grossest feeling one yet. It’s all up inside me doing who-knows-what to my organs and intestines and oh-sweet-mercy my skin is literally crawling!

The force in the back of my head takes control of me and dives for the body-pile.

The voice crackles again. “Flashbang, we’re sending in”-

“This is Sergeant Sweet Tooth of Flashbang 0-5-3,” I blurt out after grabbing a flashing box and talking into it. What the heck am I doing? Also, that wasn’t my voice. Whose voice came out of my beak?

“Sergeant, what is the status of your mission.”

What should I say? I look back at Tanya, but her beak is so low it’s about to break off and blow a hole through the floor. Oh great, I got another weird power so freaky and weird Tanya is-

The box in my hooves crackles again. Wait, when did I get hooves? Where’d my monster claws go? I check the rest of my body, and I’m not a griffon anymore. My wings are gone, feathers are gone, and I can’t find my beak. Instead, I got hooves, goggles, body armor, and an itch on my back I can’t reach. I’m a pony now. And I’m not just any pony, I’m the unicorn I was fighting. I’ve changed completely! At least the monster claws are gone.

“Sergeant, I repeat, what is your”-

“The apartment is clear!” This isn’t just the force talking. This is someone else, someone more physical. All these words I’m blurting out are coming out naturally. These are the unicorn’s words. “All team members are alive and accounted for.”

“Okay… And the target?”

“Terminated.” Yeah, that sounds right. Maybe I can get these guys off our backs. “She put up a fight and we had no choice.”

“That is not acceptable. The mission was to restrain the target at all costs. Why did you fail this mission?”

At all costs? Are these guys suicide jockeys or something? Another answer comes out of my mouth without even thinking about it. “Patient Zero interrupted the mission. It put up a fight but we terminated it as well.”

The box goes silent. I look up at Tanya. She’s staring intensely at me. Her vodka bottle slips out of her claw and shatters on the floor. She doesn’t notice.

The box cackles again, and we both jump when the voice splits the air. “Your actions have been noted, Sergeant. The result of the previous mission is now inconsequential. Patrol the perimeter until the research team arrives.”

Oh no. “Copy that, Red Crown.” They’re coming. More blue-eyes are on the way and they think they’ll find my body, when all they’re going to find is a pile of broken promises and broken spines. This isn’t good.

“We need to get out of here,” I say.

“Yeah, I get that, but…” She waves a talon around her face. “You might want to change… everything.”

I look down at my pony parts. How do I change back? I think hard about it, really hard, as hard as I can, but all I can think about is the itch on my back. There has to be a trick to making these worms and tentacles do their thing. “Great, I’m stuck like this.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just get out of here. I’m right behind you.” Tanya turns around and rushes through the back doorway and disappears into the bedroom. What’s she doing now?

“Forget about the booze!” I cry out. Wow, yelling with this voice feels weird. “We’ll pick some up after we find a new place!”

“I’m not getting vodka!” The owl-lion pops out of the room with a blue suitcase in her talons. A suitcase…

My eyebrows shoot up. “A suitcase? There’s a goonsquad coming and you want to save a suitcase! What are you going to do with that, count stocks?”

“This suitcase,” she says, patting the top of it, “has all the paperwork I need for all my clients, including your sconeshop. If you want your store back after this outbreak crap rolls over, we’re going to need this!”

“Oh.” I stand there for a moment as Tanya runs for the door. “Good idea. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Tanya’s eyes roll wide in their sockets. “That goes without saying.”

“Is that supposed to mean something,” I say before chasing after the big owl-lion.

“It does!” She turns the corner and heads for the stairs. “It means you couldn’t tell the difference between an Equestrian bit and a minotaur’s left nipple without my help!”

I skid around the corner right behind her. I almost crash into the wall. “Are you sure you want to say that in front of your boss’s face? May I remind you your boss has freaky strength powers and eats ponies with tentacles!”

Tanya looks back and throws me a glare. “I’m your accountant. You hired me because, and I quote, ‘the coins are too shiny for me to count.’”

What? I don’t remember saying that! There is no way I’d say something like that about myself. We reach the stairway railing before I can put her in her place. Tanya spreads her wings, jumps over, and spirals down through the air.

I just hop over. My direct approach sends me falling down like a rock. And like a rock, after falling seven floors, I crash into the hard concrete floor and leave a nice, big crater.

“Nice fall,” Tanya says as she gracefully lands next to my impact zone, suitcase still in claw.

“Being a monster griffon has its perks.” I get up with no visible damage and brush the dust off my shoulder. “And for the record, I am excellent with money.”

A quick laugh erupts from Tanya’s beak. “You’re the only griffon I know to lose all her money playing poker with a fish!”

A hoof zooms past her face and smashes a hole in the wall. I lock eyes with her. Tanya gets the message and shuts up.

“Now where are we going?” I ask, taking lead in front of the owl-lion.

“Well, I can’t go back to sleep. I got a meeting with some clients at nine, so I can’t babysit you,” Tanya says. “Go bug one of your pony friends, like Rarity. She tolerates you.”

My nose scrunches up when I hear the name. Rarity… Rarity… “Who’s Rarity?”

Tanya’s claw smacks her face. “Sweet mercy, please tell me there’s one thing you didn’t forget.”

“I own a shop named ‘Gilda’s Family Scones.’” If I didn’t have a blue-eye mask my face, she’d see my shit-eating grin. “Trust me, no one’s more irritated about this whole amnesia thing than”-

A different voice interrupts us. “Sergeant Sweet Tooth! I’m glad to see you. How’s it going, ol’ buddy?”

Tanya and I freeze. Blocking the exit to the building of the building is another squad of Blackwatch goons. The closest to us, the one with different goggles and yellow markings, who I presume is the leader, is walking right up to me.

“Oh, you know,” I say, trying to choke back a string of swears, “Patrolling the perimeter, boring stuff.”

“Good to hear!” The blue-eye give me a pat on the back. He glances at Tanya, who’s looking rather pale right now. “Say, I thought command said you guys killed the griffon?”

Is there sweat coming out of my clothing? I think there is. Oh boy, this does not look good. I’m looking at Tanya for answers, but I know she can’t help. How could she get us out of-

“I’m a different griffon,” Tanya blurts out.

“There’s more than one?” The blue-eye asks. I can’t see under his mask so I don’t know if he’s buying this. Might as well play along.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding in agreement. “She’s a captive. Control wants to interrogate her, so I’m taking her there personally.” Was that convincing? I hope I’m convincing.

The blue-eye grunts and walks by me. “Alright then, carry on. I’ll see you in the mess hall.”

The other blue eyes walk past us. Not all of them are dressed in the blue-eye, black-armor get up. Some ponies are dressed in blue… trash bags? They’re walking trashbags with visors in front of their faces. The visors seem to be one-way mirrors, so I can’t see what the ponies inside look like.

Once they pass, Tanya and I let out a breath. I nod towards the door once Blackwatch clears, and Tanya follows my tail. Once the goons get to the seventh floor, they’ll find what’s left of their buddies and they’ll figure out what actually happened and they’ll come after us.

Too bad we won’t be around to have a nice little chat when they do find out. We book it. Tanya flies, I gallop with super speed. The owl-bird isn’t the fastest of fliers, but damn did my ego grow a little when I outran my finance advisor. Once I felt we were too far to be followed, we turn into a dark corner of an alley, out of sight and out of mind.

“Son-of-a-buffalo,” Tanya wheezes. “You’re one heck of a speed demon now.”

“Nah, it’s all that booze slowing you down.” She throws me a glare. I pretend to ignore it. “So, what do we do now?” I ask.

“Well first,” she waves a claw in my general direction, “You got to turn back into a griffon. Trouble follows Blackwatch, and I don’t want you bringing me any trouble.”

That’s a good idea, and for another reason. This itch on my back is bugging me to no end and I want my claw back so I can scratch it. My griffon claw, not the death-for-fingers claw. That thing could get rid of the itch, along with my abdomen and spine.

“Yeah, give me a moment.” My face scrunches up as I try to command the worms inside me to change me back to griffon form. And just like before, nothing happens. “Nope, it’s not going to happen.”

She rolls her eyes. “In that case, I’m going off on my own.”

My eyes dart up. “You’re leaving me?!”

“You’re a big girl, and you got the new super powers. I think you can handle being alone.” Fair point. Giant claws do make good negotiation tactics. “Once you’re back to being a griffon, come find me and we’ll get your scone shop figured out.”

Her lumbering mass brushes by me. “And where are you headed.”

“I said it already,” she says, patting the suitcase, “I got a meeting at nine. Even in the apocalypse, taxes need to be done.”

“Oh come on, we got time to kill. Let’s get some coffee, and you can tell me what’s been going on while I was dead.”

Tanya let out a long, drawn out sigh. “Blackwatch is hunting you. I don’t know why and I don’t care. I got my own crap to deal with. Some of us still have lives to go to.”

I throw my hooves in the air. “That’s not going to help. I need answers!”

“You’ve been dead for a month. Go out and do your own homework.” The owl-bird turns her back on me and drifts into the street. “I’m not dealing with any more of this bullcrap today.”

“Well, fine!” I yell out. “Some accountant you are! I’ll figure all this on my own.”

She doesn’t even look back before disappearing around the corner. How rude.

Though to be fair, I’m still wrapping my head around all this. It’s been, what, five hours since I woke up with these powers. That’s not a lot of time to come to terms with all this. Heck, I don’t even know how to control half the things I do.

Wait, how long did Tanya say I was gone? A month? She said a month.

Sweet mercy, I’ve been gone a month…

A month…

Give me a moment, I need to breathe. And I need to undo the knot that’s twisting inside my body. At this point, my insides could literally be twisting themselves into knots. This is… Tanya’s right, this is too much bullcrap for one day.

Where’s the nearest liquor store?

Author's Notes:

Tanya likes hard liquor, long walks on the beach, and making sure you pay her on time.

5 - Coffee with Pony on the side

It’s five in the morning. Stores don’t open till eight. Perfect time for a super-griffon to rob a place and take everything she could ask for.

It doesn’t hurt that I’m still a Blackwatch Sergeant. If anyone catches me, they’ll see some destructive blue-eye goon chugging down on the local liquor store’s finest selection. Why add fuel to the griffon stereotype fire if I don’t have to?

Can I still get drunk? I don’t feel drunk. By the time five squads of blue-eyes come to take care of me, I’ve gone through seven shelves of booze and don’t feel so much as buzzed. Oh well, it’s a lost cause. I guess I have to deal with my problems through different means other than drowning them away.

Unfortunately for Blackwatch, I figured out how to ditch the Sergeant disguise and unleash the fury of my claws on the dweebs nearest to me. Unfortunately for me, five squads worth of spells hurts like crazy. I had to high-tail it out of there before they got the better of me.

The sun’s coming up over the city now. I’m standing on a rooftop enjoying the view. The rain cleared up, I got a coffee in my hand, and my powers aren’t acting up. Other than the blue-eye pegasus lying in two pieces at my feet, it’s a beautiful morning. As a bonus, I figured out how to get rid of the death claws. I just need to flex the worms in my arms and they turn back into regular griffon claws. This makes drinking coffee so much easier!

As I take a sip from my fresh dark brew, which I may or may not have paid for, I ponder on what activities I should partake in today. Any mourning routine I had before this monster thing is gone with the rest of my memories. Not like remembering what I used to do would help. The scone shop is neck deep in a restricted area and I doubt the guards on patrol are keen on letting me bake there.

My memories, those would be good to get back. A lot of things are still hazy and I’m sure there’s a bunch of things I’m missing. Heck, I barely remember anything I’ve done in Manehatten, and I own a shop here! Tanya did ask a good question, what do I remember?

I remember growing up in Griffonstone, playing around with the other chicks, nesting with my parents. Early childhood isn’t an issue. There’s flight camp, meeting Rainbow Dash, racing through the clouds, socking Hoops in the jaw. The kid deserved it. My teenage years, I wish I could forget those. It seems I still have most of my life story stuck in my head.

Then what’s the very last thing I remember? Griffonstone? Yes, I was in Griffonstone. Rainbow Dash came for… Something about a map. I had to save her after she got herself stuck in a pit. The goblet! I dropped a goblet. That was embarrassing. The only ones who know about the goblet are me, Rainbow… and someone pink. There was another pony with us, a friend of Rainbow. Pink, pink, pink… Where do I remember seeing pink?

And then I realize something. This coffee is doing nothing for me.

Damn these monster powers. They won’t even let me get a caffeine buzz. Worst five bits I ever stole! Ahem, spent! I meant spent. This coffee was purchased with legal tender. Where’s a trashcan? Don’t these city ponies know how to set up trashcans?

Oh wait, I’m on a roof. Roofs don’t have trashcans.

I look down at the dead Blackwatch pegasus, then back at my coffee cup, then back at him. Sure, I’ve been slicing up goons all night, but I’m no litter bug. Got to keep the city clean. Speaking of bugs, the flies are gathering now. I wonder if this guy had a name. Buttermilk. This guy looks like a Buttermilk.

Maybe Buttermilk had a family. A wife, two kids, a male coworker he spent a little too much time around. He’d come home late most nights from his nine to five job, make excuses as to why his family never saw him, and then head out to meet his secret gay lover at a motel. Buttermilk broke the news to his lover first, he’s joining the army. They cried, made love, then cried some more. Buttermilk’s wife doesn’t find out till the day of his deployment. She’s furious.

He leaves for a year before receiving a letter. She found out about his gay lover. The letter has divorce papers in it. Buttermilk’s heartbroken. He requests a leave of absence, and is scheduled to return home in a week. Before he goes, he’s tasked with hunting down a monster. The monster slices him up, and is now drinking coffee above his corpse. He never got to say goodbye to his kids.

That, or he signed up to kill civilians in a proxy war in a far away country. Rest in pieces, Buttermilk.

What was I thinking about? Oh right, the pink pony. What was her name? Plonk? Picaso? Pigs?

Pink, more pink, it’s cold…

“And that’s the last of it. We got your flour, eggs, sugar…”

She keeps going on and, we’re standing in front of a room full of boxes…

“Pinkie, isn’t this a lot of ingredients?”

Pinkie Pie! That’s her name. She shakes her head…

“Have you ever run a restaurant in a big city? I have, and I can already tell this isn’t enough to last you a week!”

Still chilly, I think we’re in a fridge…

“All this for a week? But this whole room is filled with boxes!”

The pink, the smile, I can’t stand the smile…

“And it’s still not enough. We need a bigger room. You’ll see. Once ponies start coming by and eating everything up, you’ll be glad I ordered all this for you!”

I teeter to the side a bit. Woo, those flashbacks come out of nowhere and hit like a train.

Pinkie Pie, that’s her name. I think I had a different flashback with her. Yeah, she came up with the dumb store name, and she helped me order all the ingredients I needed for the scone shop. And she ordered the kitchenware, the stoves, the ovens, the thermometers, the fridge, the freezer, the cleaning supplies, and so much more I wouldn’t have thought about getting.

Oh, that’s right, the scone shop would’ve died on the first day if I was the only one who ordered supplies. She saved my life there. I wonder if she felt entitled to naming my store for me after all that.

That’s what I’ll do today, I’ll find Pinkie. Tanya is done with my bullcrap, but I bet Pinkie is more than willing to fill me in on the details I’ve forgotten.

I take a proud sip of coffee… then frown. I can’t even taste this crap cold! Where can I find a trash can? I peak over the edge of the building, and I see one right below me on the sidewalk. Hmm, maybe I can toss it in from here.

I let go, and the coffee cup falls through the air. It looks like it’s going to make it, but a stiff breeze comes through and knocks it off course. My insides twist as I watch it fall towards the head of an unsuspecting pony. My eyes close tight before the cup hits with a loud splash.

I dare to open one eye to see the damage. The pony down there is not happy. He’s fuming and stomping around. He looks up at me and my insides twist harder. He’s not just some random pony off the street. This pony has glowing, blue eyes.

“It’s Patient Zero! Kill it!” I hear the Blackwatch goon shout.

So much for the beautiful morning I was having. I duck before a barrage of blue spells fire up at me, then I sprint. By the time three pegasi fly up to my spot, I’m two blocks away and jumping over to the next roof. Son-of-a-bison, I just got rid of these guys. Maybe they’ll be too busy with Buttermilk’s body to chase me.

I peak back. They’re chasing me. Damn it, can’t I go five minutes without needing to kill off some goons?

Okay, this isn’t a big deal. I’ll get over it. Just slice up and possibly eat the pegasi chasing me, then I’ll run off to find Pinkie Pie. Hey, I might even have a new morning routine if this keeps up.

No, forget that. Drinking tasteless coffee in the early morning with a side of eating ponies is not something I want to turn into a habit.

6 - Infectious Smile

The Yellow Zone, an area of the city blocked off to quarantine access only, at least that’s what the signs say. Blackwatch fenced off the area and set up checkpoints along the border. They got pegasi patrolling the skies and spells aimed at the gates. No one gets in or out without them knowing, except me.

The crowds here are just as dense as in any other part of the city. However, the vibe here is completely off. First off, all the ponies here are wearing surgical masks, they’re all just sitting around or meandering about with nothing to do, and they all keep looking behind their backs as if someone’s going to jump them.

I think I’m in a bad part of Manehaten. Other parts of the city have ponies dressed in business suits running around doing something important, but not here. Nopony is remotely professional looking. In fact, a lot of them don’t look like they’ve took a shower recently. There’s a lot of messy rags and cow-licked manes going on here. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lice infestation going around.

As my little force keeps pulling me deeper and deeper into the Yellow Zone, things keep getting worse and worse. There’s a Blackwatch pack on almost every street, and a few of them are “keeping the peace” with excessive brutality. On one corner, there are two goons beating the snot out of a unicorn. On another corner, there’s a blue-eye pack that has five ponies lined up and lying on their bellies. And on another corner, there’s a squad hooking some hoof-cuffs to a screaming mare while a small filly is crying her eyes out.

Why in Tartarus would Pinkie Pie be in a place like this? She’s all about the smiles and happy times and crap. There’s no reason she’d be in this depressing craphole. Heck, no one in their right mind should be here.

I ignore the blue-eye brutes as I walk past them. If they’re not trying to kill me, then I don’t care what they do. If the pony dweebs have a problem with Blackwatch, then they can grow some spines for once and deal with them on their own, just like we do in Griffonstone. I got my own battles to fight.

The force in my head takes me to a good-sized city park. While tossing around a frisbee on a grassy knoll sounds like a fun time at the moment, none of the ponies here have fun on their minds. All through the park, makeshift shacks have been set up with shoddy construction work. These things are made up of any trash found lying around, from sheet metal to plastic bags to wooden planks. Big white medical tents also dot the shanty town. Ponies are milling in and out of the shacks while keeping a clear distance of the Blackwatch goons patrolling the area.

This all reminds me of home, and not a good way. I left Griffonstone so I wouldn’t have to live in a crappy shack. Now there’s shacks springing up in what I understand used to be a good neighborhood. I hope these clear out once this whole outbreak thing is over, or else I’m taking my scone business to Detrot. Detrot isn’t any better, but at least I won’t be hunted by blue-eyes in Detrot!

My force leads me to the front of one of the white medical tents. It’s like a circus tent, only shorter and longer, and made of plastic. There’s also a chemical smell coming out that my nose doesn’t agree with.

Before I lift up the tent flap, I hear it. Laughter. It jumps through the air and makes the depressing vibe of the Yellow Zone a little less grim. My soul feels lighter after hearing that giggle. Maybe this there’s still a little hope in the world left in this tent.

I’m right and wrong at the same time. The first thing my eyes see when I walk in is the hyperactive pink fuzzball known as Pinkie Pie. She’s got a surgical mask on like everyone else, but that facemask can’t hide her smile. She’s sitting in front of a semi-circle of colts and fillies of all races and colors, and they’re all laughing at whatever Pinkie just said. There’s even a little green pegasus colt rolling around the air giggling his tail off.

Look at that, this monster sense of mine found Pinkie. Something about seeing her like this makes my beak turn into a little smile. I barely remember anything about this mare, but I can see she’s neck deep in her element. Make ponies happy, this is what she’s born to do, and she’s living it up.

But the happy times ends there. While Pinkie’s little corner of light and sunshine is all pleasant, the rest of the medical tent is a miserable pile of despair. The entire places is filled with cots, shelves full of medical supplies, trashbag-suit ponies and doctors running around, and sick-looking ponies either sleeping, coughing, or trashing around. Even in the sunshine corner, just as a reminder of what’s going on, all the little fillies and colts are wearing surgical masks too.

“Excuse me, miss.” A cream-colored unicorn mare wearing a white lab coat, a heavy-duty respirator, and a pair of goggles comes up to me with stern, pink eyes. “You’re not allowed to be here. Only case-yellow quarantine personnel are allowed in.”

“I’m here to see Pinkie Pie.” I try to walk past her, but she steps in to block my way.

“You’re not authorized to be here. You don’t even have a protective mask. You’re at much greater risk of spreading infection without one.”

“Well, I don’t have a mask, but”- three metal blades gleam in the light as I extend my monster claw right in front of the doctor’s face –“I do have authorization.”

Her eyes go wide as her reflection gleams in the metal. “I-uh… uh- I”

“I just want to talk to Pinkie,” I say. “I need her to explain to me a few things.”

Her mouth keeps making shapes as she attempts to make words come out, but the best she can do is stutter. “Y-you… you’re the griffon… The griffon b-Blackwatch is looking for. You’re going to k-kill us all…”

My eyes roll and I shake my head. Apparently news of my arrival traveles fast. “Kill you? No, I don’t want to do that.” The claw retracts back into its wormy state inside my body. “I really do need to talk to Pinkie though. I’m having a bit of amnesia and I think she can help me out.”

Her jaw drops to the ground when the big claws turn back to my little claws. “But… what?”

“Yeah, I know, those things are scary,” I say as I flex my griffon talons. “And trust me, no one is more confused about it than I am. I woke up in a secret lab about eight hours ago, and from that point of I’ve been running around with these crazy powers and no clue what’s happened. Since then, I’ve found out I’ve been missing for a month, these Blackwatch goons want me dead for some reason, and someone gave my sconeshop a name I don’t want.”

The doctor glances at my claw, then back at me. “Sconeshop?”

I let out a sigh. “Don’t get me started on that. Can I go see Pinkie?”

The doctor stares up at me for a moment. She gulps, nods, and steps to the side. “Just... Just don’t make any trouble. I won’t tell Blackwatch,” she says. “And put on a face mask.”

I smile. My claws are excellent negotiation tactics. “Thank you, and don’t worry. I don’t plan on causing any trouble.” She jumps when I jab a talon at her chest. “But I’m not wearing one of those dumb masks.”

The doctor scampers off to tend to her patients, and I stroll through the tent like I own it. Some of the other doctors and trashbag ponies notice me, but since the doctor lady just let me by I must be okay.

I hear Pinkie’s voice about halfway through the tent. “And then Zeus says, ‘I’m a pretty, pretty unicorn now.’”

The kids burst out into a fit of laughter, though I don’t know if it’s because the joke is funny or if kids will laugh at anything. From the punch line, it sounds like one of those jokes that needs a long set up to work. Not my taste.

“Alright all you junior doctors, I know we’re not allowed to play tag in here, but I know another game we can all play. It’s called snail tag! Do you all want to know how to play?”

The kids all holler. “Yeah!” They sound enthusiastic for a game that’s obviously engineered to make them excited for doing something slow. It’s got snail in the name, what kind of game is called snail tag? On another note, what’s snail tag?

“So we need to pick a pony to be it. Long John, you won the last game. You get to be it! What we all do is-oh-wait-who-is-that-is-that-is-that-who-I-think-it-is-it-is-isn’t-it!”

Her big, blue eyes lock on to mine as she lets that sentence run wild and crash and burn. In a blink of an eye, she’s up in my face with a smile I didn’t know was physically possible to make.

“Gilda! You’re alive! You’re here and you’re alive and this is so great to see you again and I’m glad I get to see a familiar face after so long and I can’t believe it’s been a month so I got to ask where you’ve been all this time but you don’t have to answer if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it because I understand if you got hard feelings about what happened because a lot of ponies don’t want to talk about what’s been going on because it upsets them myself included but that’s okay since I try my best to cheer them up without talking about the past month and as long as you’re happy I’m happy and now you’re here and”-

A small snippet of memory pops up in my head. Ah, that’s how I shut her up. My claw comes up and covers her mouth. Her rambling voice is muffled by my talons, and she stops yammering and just smiles at me. “Nice to see you too,” I say to her, though I’m not sure if that’s the truth.

I let go of her mouth and she yammers again, though at a more bearable pace. “It’s great to know you’re alive. You’re lucky. Not many ponies who’ve been gone for the past month get to say that.”

There’s a tinge of sadness in her voice, and her smile dips down a bit. “I can tell you it hasn’t been all rainbows and flowers for me,” I say. “I’ve been… dealing with some issues.”

“I understand. You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Her smile dies out and flattens out to a straight line. “But I got to know, do you know what happened to Rainbow Dash?”

“Rainbow?” I shake my head. “I don’t know. Should I know something?”

She nods. “You were the last one with her.”

Ah great, something happened to Rainbow too, and supposedly I’m the one who should know what happened. I try digging in the back of my mind to see if I can remember something, but the last thing I can recall about her is the time I rescued her from the gorge. “Sorry. I got a nasty case of amnesia. There’s not much I can remember.”

Pinkie takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh. “That’s okay. At least you’re alright. That’s the best thing that’s happened in a while.”

“Excuse me, Miss Pinkie Pie…” I high-pitched voice pipes up from behind the mare. It’s the green pegasus colt hovering a few feet behind Pinkie. Son-of-a-bison, aside from his coat colors, this little guy is a tiny boy Rainbow Dash. He’s got her ruffled-up mane and rosy eyes and that big smile she gets when she’s excited. “Can I talk to the griffon?”

Talk to me, why would you want that? I notice all the other kids are staring intensely at us, or more specifically, me. They all have the same look most ponies who’ve never seen a griffon before meet me for the first time. Yes, I get it, I’m part of a rare minority in Equestria. I’ve seen these faces a million times and I’ll see them again a million more. It’s been old for a while.

Pinkie Pie scratches her chin. “If Gilda is okay with it, I don’t see why not. It’s not every day you get to meet a griffon.”

I don’t meet griffons every day either. I need a mirror for that. “Pinkie, I only came here to talk to”-

A filly earth pony in the back raises her hoof. “Can I talk to her?”

Another colt, a unicorn, jumps up. “I wanna talk to the griffon too!”

“What about me?” another tiny voice asks. “Let me talk to her!” Great, we got a kiddy riot going on here. They won’t shut up unless I give in to their demands.

A blue earth pony stands up. “I won the game. I should talk to her first!”

“Don’t you mean him?” a nasally voice say. “That’s not a girl griffon, that’s a guy.”

Excuse me?

“No she isn’t,” the tiny voice says. “She’s got white feathers. Guy griffons don’t have white feathers. There’s no way she’s a guy.”

“Yeah he is,” the nasal voice says again. “He’s all big and buff and stuff. He’s totally a guy.”

Hey, I’m not big. If you weren’t a tiny pony child I’d be teaching you how big I really am! Also, I’m not a guy.

“Mr. Griffon, how high can you fly?”

Still not a guy.

“Dude, how much can you lift?”

Please stop.

“Hi sir, what’s it like having a beak?”

“What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen griffon?”

“What do girl griffons look like?”

The herd of colts and fillies brakes into an outburst of questions and gender confusion. I nudge Pinkie Pie and whisper in her ear. “Can you get me out of this? I just need to talk to you.”

“Oh come on, join the party,” she whispers back. “They’re all excited to meet you.”

“Well, I’m not,” I hiss. “I got enough problems as it is and I don’t need kids crawling up my legs.”

Her pupils dilate into puppy-dog proportions. Oh sweet mercy, she’s begging me. “But I haven’t seen them this happy in a while. They’ve been going through a rough time lately and… and… just look at their smiles.”

I did look. They’re not smiling as much as arguing between each other about my gender. They kind of remind me of a few childhood bullies. Those colts back in flight school also never seen a griffon before too. Way to pitch a sale, you pink spaz. “I’m going to pass.”

“I understand, however,” she looks me dead in the eyes. “I’m not going to help you if you don’t have fun with the kids.”

Wait… she’s serious. The pink spaz is making an ultimatum. I never knew she had it in her. That’s cute of her, but I’m not dealing with this. “Oh come on, I’ve been going through a lot.”

“So have they,” she says. “Just talk to them for a little bit. Who knows, maybe you’ll even enjoy yourself.”

I don’t want to deal with kids, but I also want my memories back. Pinkie is the only pony I can think of who can help me.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” I groan.

She smiles behind the medical mask and steps away and leaves me on my own. Since when did she become manipulative?

Talking to a bunch of kids, how hard can that be? Pinkie Pie claps her hooves, and all the chatter dies down. “Good news everyone, my friend Gilda has agreed to sit down and talk to you. I want you all to be on your best behavior and be respectful to the nice griffon here.”

I lean close to her and whisper in her ear. “I’m not shaking their hands or anything.”

Pinkie Pie nods. “Griffons are a bit edgy on personal space, so not touching unless you ask nicely.”

Not how I’d phrase it, but that’ll do. “Also, no questions about this whole outbreak business.”

“And please be thoughtful of your questions. We’ve all been going through some tough times in the past month, and so has Gilda. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, she doesn’t have to.”

A tiny hoof goes up in the air. “And I’m a girl,” I mutter.

“Before anyone asks,” Pinkie says, “my friend Gilda is a girl griffon. She makes the eggs. She doesn’t season them.”

Woah, what?! Forget her lack of knowledge for griffon biology, she said that in front of a group of kids! None of them are laughing or snickering, so it might have gone over their heads. One of the fillies who knew my gender all along pulls her face mask down and sticks her tongue at one of the boys. He does the same and they get in a battle of silly faces.

Pinkie Pie points to the green pegasus flying around. “Iffy Sniff, since you asked first, you can go first. We’ll go to his left after each question.” Iffy Sniff, what a weird name. The little guy loops through the air and gives me that big, dorky Rainbow Dash smile.

I take a seat on one of the cots and get cozy. I ignore how it’s bending under my weight. Time to get this over with.

“Hi Miss Griffon,” he says. “How fast can you fly?” Damn, he’s even got a raspy voice.

That’s it? How fast I can fly? I’ll give kids credit, they ask the easy questions. “Pretty fast. I’ve won a lot of races against other pegasi, so I’d say I got game.”

His smile grows wider and he soars to the back of the group and whispers to another colt. I can hear him squeaking in excitement back there.

The next kid, a scrawny earth-pony filly pipes up. “What do griffons eat?”

“We’re meat eaters. We like to hunt in the wilds for our food.” Some of the kids made disgusted looks, but I don’t mind. Rainbow Dash needed the restroom after she first saw my homemade lunch. “But don’t worry, it’s mostly rabbits and small critters. And small children.”

How long do I have to do this for?

7 - Please exit in an orderly fashion.

The Q&A went… not as bad as I thought. A kid would ask a question, I’d give my answer, “Above the clouds, a bale of hay last I checked, it’s fun to make clicky sounds with, very fast, like me,” we’d move on, and so on and so forth. I won’t admit it, but Pinkie was a little right. I am enjoying myself.

Of course some of my answers don’t reflect this morning’s events, but that doesn’t matter. These kids want to know about griffons, not pony-eating monsters, and I’m happy to keep it that way.

The colt who’s the most enthusiastic about the subject of griffons is Iffy Sniff, the green pegasus who started all this. He’s trying to stay quiet so the other kids get a chance to ask something, but he keeps squirming in his seat as the questions go around the circle. He has something he’s dying to say, but rules are rules and Ms. Pinkie over here won’t be happy if he speaks out of turn. All that fidgeting reminds me of Rainbow Dash back in flight school. She couldn’t keep still whenever she wanted to give a piece of her mind. And now Iffy Sniff is channeling my old friend’s spirit.

On another note, there’s a buzzing sound in my ear and I can’t pin down what it is. I think it’s a mosquito, but it's a deeper sound and it won’t go away. I hope someone swats that bug soon or I’m going to go berserk!

The Q&A circle comes to an end, and Iffy can’t be more relieved. I could end it here, but I’m actually enjoying myself too much. It’s going to start back at him, and that’s when he’ll get to say his piece.

The last filly asks her question. I point at Iffy before Pinkie Pie ends it. The kid's going to wet himself if he doesn't talk. Let the show go on. “And what do you want to know?”

Iffy leaps into the air with a big dumb smile, almost as big and dumb as Pinkie Pie’s.

“Have you ever killed someone?” he asks.

“I… uh…” Wow, that came out of nowhere. All the kids are giving him funny looks and Pinkie Pie's jaw is down on the floor. It's dead silent other than the buzzing sound.

Yeah, about twenty blue eyes this morning. They tried murdering me and I’ve been slicing them up since. But I’m not about to say that. I scratch the back of my head as I try to think up an answer. “That’s… uh…”

Is that buzzing getting louder? That’s one big mosquito.

Pinkie Pie jumps in to save my flank. “We’re going to skip that one. It’s not an appropriate question to ask somepony.”

But the little rascal won’t give it up. “I heard the Blackwatch guys talking about a rampaging griffon. It’s been going around the city chopping them up! Is it you? Have you been offing those jerks?”

Do I have a fanclub now? That’s would be awesome, if the president wasn’t a small colt out for blood. On one claw, there's a kid who thinks I'm doing something right. On the other claw, I’m not sure if I want kids cheering me on. I'm slicing ponies up and eating their bodies. That’s kind of messed up.

Seriously, where is that buzzing coming from? Give me a fly swatter and I’ll end it now!

“Iffy, I said that’s not an appropriate question. If you can’t think of something nicer to ask, then we’ll be skipping you.” Wow, I remember Pinkie having hyperactive-everything-is-smiles-and-joy as her only setting. Now she’s doing this momma-is-serious-check-your-privilege shtick. This is off-putting.

I think she says something else, but I don’t hear her. It’s the buzzing. The buzzing overtakes her voice. It’s all I here before something far away goes boom. And now the buzzing sound is gone. Odd.

Iffy Sniff’s smile fades away and he sits down. Pinkie Pie points a hoof, and the filly next to him asks her question. Her mouth moves, but I don’t hear what she says. In fact, I can’t hear anything, not even the buzzing, except… Is that growling, like a bear growling? I can hear growling in the distance. It’s a bunch of bears growling. Why am I only hearing growling and not the buzzing?

Wait, the force in my head is acting up. I turn to the direction it’s pulling me towards, which is to the tent entrance. The growling is coming from that direction.

Heartbeats, lots of heartbeats. The kids are muttering to themselves about what the griffon is doing. Is staring off into the distance normal for bird-lions? Some are looking the same direction I am.

A distant scream. Pinkie Pie is looking at the entrance too. Her smile isn’t there. Her ear is twitching. The heartbeats are getting closer.

Sirens go off. Now everyone is looking that way. The kids are getting restless. Something is wrong. What’s going on?

The unicorn doctor I talked to earlier pokes her hear out of the tent, then breaks into a sprint towards our group. “Infected!” she screams, “There’s infected outside! They’re coming!”

Infected?

Pinkie Pie springs up on her feet. “We need to go!” She says this more to the kids than to me, but I get the message. She’s freaking out and is getting the colts and fillies up and running. “Where’s the exit?” Her eyes dart in every direction. “We need to get out of here now!”

The growls and heartbeats are near, very near. They’re getting closer. They’re coming towards us!

The front of the tent bursts open and a crowd of ponies tumbles in, except they’re not regular ponies. They’re growling and yelling and moving like a swarm of insects. The Infected, I presume.

They got red growths all over them, their coats are either patchy or missing, their skin is red and falling off, and their faces are twisted beyond recognition. These aren’t ponies, they’re monsters. And they’re all making a mad dash towards us!

“That’s the only exit,” the doctor cries. “There’s no way out.”

From the way those infected mouths are frothing, and from how fast they’re coming at us, I’d say they’re very hungry monsters. The mob’s running over the bed cots and tearing up the tent behind them. A few stop to wake the ponies who were sleeping in those cots. I can hear their screams as they’re violently torn apart by these… growlers. That’s not a pleasant sound.

Metal rips plastic as my big monster claws shreds the tent wall. “Everyone, get out,” I shout, pointing at the fresh hole. I don’t have enough time to see the kids go. I got business to attend to!

I jump over the colts and fillies and dive straight into the mob. The nearest growler gets a big serving of scythes to the face before he gets a chance to chow down on a tiny blue colt. A couple of the kids behind me scream, but I don’t care about that right now.

More are coming. I grab one of the cots and use it to wail on the encroaching hoard. Swing, swing, swing, I knock away everything in my range. There’s blood flying everywhere as I tear through these monsters and crush their bones. Swing, swing, snap, the cot breaks in half as it cracks the skull of a growler dressed as a mailmare. The cot didn’t last long, but at least I gained ground with it.

An infected pony in a business suit lunges at me and takes a deep bite in my arm. The bite doesn’t hurt, but it's trying to eat me! My free claw grabs the pony and tears it apart. Another jumps on top of me and shoves me to the ground. Its tearing at my scalp with its teeth, and before I can fend it off another jumps on top of me, then another pins my claw down, and another is gnawing on my tail. They’re tearing me apart!

Behind me, I can see the doctor mare’s horn glowing bright pink as she’s holding the infected off. Behind her, Pinkie Pie is holding the hole open for the kids to get through. I can hear her yelling at them to move. I’d hate to see what the infected could do to all those kids.

These growlers keep piling on top of me. What happened to my super strength? I want to knock these guys into tomorrow! Only one of my wings is free, and I’m using it to smack away the growlers who want to chew on that. Stop trying to bite my wing, I need that!

Hold on, my wing is free. I wonder…

With the same flexing I’ve been using with my claws, I command the worms in my body to go to my wings! I can feel them morph into goopy flesh blobs, and then metal blades shoot out of where my primary feathers should be. Awesome, I got a wing-claw!

My wing thrashes around in every direction I can think of. At first I get nothing but air, and then I nick something in the side. A little more thrashing and the wing rips the growler sitting on my arm into tiny little pieces.

With my arm free, I slash apart the one chewing on my skull, and then the growler on my back, and then all the others who want to take a bite out of me! It’s raining guts and blood on top of me, but I don’t care, I’m freeing myself! Slash, slash, slash, the rest of them are gone. I get up and give the one biting my tail a swift kick to the noggin. I send the thing flying into another infected, and they both turn to goop from the force. There we go, free at last!

I flick away the last one biting at my leg and take a look around. The area is clearing up, but there’s still growlers ramming up against the doctor’s shield. I jump in the air and pounce on top of one of the infected at the back of the mob, slicing up the thing into tiny giblets when I land.

Pinkie has a horrified look on her face. My blade-talon flicks a piece of pony goop off my shoulder, and then I turn to slash up a growler next to me. The tentacles decide to shoot at this moment and eat the infected up. The monster pony melts into me, and Pinkies face twists further into the dark realm of disgust and horror.

I shrug at her. “What? I’ve been doing this all morning.”

Iffy Sniff is the last kid to get out. He keeps watching me with his jaw dropped and eyes wide open. Pinkie has to shove him out of the hole before she slips out of the tent behind him. The doctor nods, drops her shield, and lets me take care of the last infected before slipping out. That’s the last of the healthy ones. I run after them, slashing my wing-claws and my claw-claws through the remaining mob before popping out of the tent myself.

The fresh air feels… eh. The air actually feels quite stuffy out here. Not as stuffy as the inside of that tent, but I’m not taking a pleasant stroll in this weather.

We’re in the middle of the shanty town and the group is heading down a central road. I see Pinkie Pie following the group of kids, and the doctor unicorn is leading them. Iffy Sniff keeps dashing ahead, but he falls back to wave at me and cheer. Kid, I like you, and I think you’d make a great new Rainbow Dash, but ignore me, fly away, and save yourself!

As I chase after the kids, I look back to see if the infected are coming after us. There are growlers walking around the side of the tent, but they’re aimlessly wandering about with no real direction. Some of them seem to be running opposite from us. Huh, I guess I scared those ones off. Problem solved!

Now I hear crackling, and it’s coming from up ahead. Crackling, buzzing, heartbeats, it must be a super-hearing power. I guess that’s cool. It’s another one to add to the list. But here’s the question, what’s the crackling sound?

The doctor is about to reach the end of the road, but before she does so, a squad of Blackwatch goons runs out from an alley and blocks the group off. The doctor skids to a halt, and the kids bunch up right behind her. Pinkie Pie almost trips from the sudden stop. Iffy Sniff flies over the doctor, but retreats when the horns and spells start glowing.

Yippee, new problem.

“Don’t you dare move!” one of the blue-eyes barks. “If any of you so much as twitch we’ll gun you down!”

“There’s infected behind us!” The doctor cries out. “And these are just kids! You got to let us by!”

“And how do I know none of you are infected too?” the blue-eye shouts back. The doctor shrinks as the squad aims their spells on her. “I’m not letting any of you by. This area is quarantined and that’s final!”

“They’re with me, soldier,” I say as my body finishes shape-shifting into Sergeant Sweet Tooth. I don’t know how I did it, but I switched back to the old blue-eye I ate earlier. I guess it’s a reflex thing. My voice cackles with an electric buzz I assume comes from the face-masks. “I’m escorting them to a safe location, away from any present danger.”

I know I can slice these guys up. However, there are kids watching and if a fight breaks out a stray spell can hit them. Those spell bolts don’t do crap to me, but I have no clue what they can do to the average pony. Better play this safe.

“Bullshit,” the blue-eye says. “We’re dealing with a damn outbreak! This is an all-hooves on deck operation! No one gets out of this area.”

I walk around the kids, who are huddling behind the doctor. Iffy Sniff is looking all around for something. He’s probably searching for his favorite griffon. Don’t worry bud, I’m right here. “I got my orders,” I say as I walk between the group and the squad. “These kids are to be escorted out of the area. Are you trying to interfere with command?”

If the blue-eye didn’t have a face-mask on, I bet I would see his eyes narrowing into slits. The other blue-eyes still have their spells pointing at the kids. One word from this guy and they’re all toast. Seriously, get out of our way dude. Those infected dweebs are too close behind us for comfort. “Where’s the rest of your squad?” he asks.

“They’re back there fighting off the infected, just like everyone else.” I add a little growl to my voice for intimidation points. “Now out of my way, unless you want command hearing about this.”

The blue-eye blocks my way with a shoulder. “Are you deserting your position? Everyone is ordered to maintain a perimeter, and that perimeter is around the quarantine zone, not outside it. What is your identification?”

I could slice this guy up. I’d rather not, but I could. “Sergeant Sweet Tooth. Now get out of my way, or I’ll make way.”

He doesn’t budge. Instead, he reaches for his chest and touches his little box with the little green light. “Yellow Light, this is Sergeant Keen Eye of Keeper 0-2-1. I’ve got a Sergeant Sweet Tooth who claims he’s escorting civilians out of the quarantine perimeter. I need confirmation.”

His little box crackles to life. “Keen Eye, this is Yellow Light. Sergeant Sweet Tooth was last seen assisting Patient Zero. He is wanted for the murder of his squad. Detain the Sergeant and maintain position.”

But I didn’t… Oh right. Back at the apartment, they saw Sweet Tooth with a griffon leaving the building. They think Sweet Tooth was helping me. Son-of-a-bison, this backfired!

Keen Eye’s horn flares up, and so do the other blue-eyes. “Everyone, hit the deck,” the blue-eye shouts. The blue-eyes wave their spells around, and everyone behind me gets their bellies on the floor. “You are all under arrest for assisting a known criminal!” His blue goggles look me right in the eyes. “We found ourselves a traitor.”

I check behind me, and the infected are wandering towards us. We don’t have time for this crap! “Don’t do this Keen-Eye, it’s not what you think.”

“Shut up! You killed your squadmates! You got your head up your ass if you think you can weasel your way out of this mess!” He glances around me and looks at the group behind. “And you got kids involved! What are you doing with them? You’re turning them into little terrorists, aren’t you?”

“Now you’re just making shit up, you damn”- His glare cuts me of. I shouldn’t be antagonizing him at the moment. “Sergeant, I’m just taking these kids to safety. If you-”

“No! And I said get on the floor!”

His magic grabs my body and tries to shove me down, but I don’t budge. I can’t tell if he’s surprised underneath the mask, but his voice doesn’t sound happy about it.

“So you got an anti-spell charm on you too. You’re asking for an execution, buddy. I should shoot you down right now.”- His head tilts down and aims his horn at my throat –“You’re just as evil as that damn griffon!”

One way or another, this won’t end well. If a fight breaks out, I want it to be on my terms. I drop my disguise and shape shift back into my regular griffon self. The other blue-eyes turn their heads at my sudden transformation. As a griffon, I tower over Keen Eye, who’s a full head shorter than me. My eyes narrow and the blue-eye shrinks back. His horn even fizzles out.

“Are you sure I’m the evil one,” I hiss. “Now let us go.”

8 - This isn't orderly.

I expect the sergeant to yell an order to shoot me down or something like that, or shoot the kids behind me, or run away screaming like a girl, but no. None of that happens. Instead, one of his underlings points to a rooftop of a nearby building screams at the top of his lungs.

“Ogre!”

Ogre? What’s an-

A very heavy object drops from above and- OOOOWW!- crushes me!

There’s a boulder sitting on me and my arms, my head, my everything! I’m being crushed and I’m eating dirt and I can’t move and everything is agony! Is this the shit Manehatten’s been dealing with, falling boulders?! Why in Tartarus did I move here?!

The crushing doesn’t last long. The boulder kindly rolls off of me and I spit out a beak-full of dirt. My body is reinflating, like a balloon. I’d be dead if I weren’t a monster!

Alright, I can get up. I just need a moment to breathe. That boulder knocked the wind out of-

My guts implode when another heavy thing punches me in the stomach. The punch sends me flying through the air and Sweet Mercy that building is coming at me fast-

Glass shatters as I rocket through a window. What the heck is beating me up?

Before I can answer that question, more glass shatters around me, and then everything is water!

The water cascades over me, and something slimy smacks me in the face on the ride down. After a moment, the cascade dies down, and the world clears up. Exotic fish are flopping all over the floor, and there’s a tiny castle sticking in my side. I flick a clown fish off my head and shake the water off my body. Where'd the fishtank come from?

Couch, bookshelf, shattered window I went through. Ah, I’m in an apartment. Nice place.

Outside the broken window, I can see a large, pink monster galloping towards me. The thing looks like a pony, if a pony has muscles the size of a house! The thing’s legs are as big as tree trucks, its skin is all pinkish and throbbing, and its eyes are swollen outside of its sockets.

And it’s coming right for me!

The wall explodes as the thing tears the brickwork apart. I try scrambling to my feet, but the monster jumps on top of me and smashes me into the floor. It grabs hold of my arms before I get a chance to draw out my claw-blades, and OW! Its biting me!

This sheep-bucker has a mouth big enough to chomp my entire torso at once, and it’s chomping hard! I try struggling to break free, but this bastard keeps gnashing and bashing my sides and OWOWOWOW it’s biting right through me!

My wing-blades unfurl and they slash out! They slice into the beast’s mouth, and the monster jumps back and roars in agony. Ha! Try eating me again, see what happens!

I jump up and draw out my claws, but before I attack the monster swings a massive fore-hoof at me and smacks me back out of the building. I hit the ground once, then twice, and then three times before skidding into the dirt.

It hurts… Everything hurts… Am I bleeding? I look down, and I got black and red goop dangling off of me. I guess this is how I bleed now.

I teeter a bit as I get up on my feet, and I see everyone around me is gone. Well, not everyone. The blue-eyes are running around like headless chickens. What, don't they know how to deal with this crap?

Pinkie and the kids are booking it. They’re far away from the park, disappearing around a corner. Iffy Sniff is being a smart pony and getting the heck out of here too, no cheering for the best griffon. The blue-eyes don’t notice them. The blue-eyes are too busy playing with me and my new friend. Glad they’re getting out of here while they can. This playdate is getting messy.

The monster breaks out of the building and charges straight at me. Its jaw is hanging open from the slash I gave it earlier. Red-black goop is dripping from its mouth, and its spitting the stuff all over the place as it roars. Hey, we both can bleed, so we both can die. That’s a comforting thought.

I should run. There is no reason for me to fight this thing now, so I’ll run. Let Blackwatch take care of it. It can tear through them and they’ll eventually kill it. Win-win for me.

I turn around and run. Yeah, I like this idea. Heck, I’ve been doing it all morning and it’s been working out for me. The monster can chase me all it wants, but I think I’m faster than it. The blue-eyes can’t stop me when I’m running the speed of a freight-train. This is good. I can get out of here without dying. Fight another day, as they say.

Wait a minute, where’s that buzzing coming from? Oh great, the buzzing is back. I thought someone killed that fly!

One of the blue-eye goons shouts. “Strike team is here!”

Strike team? So the blue-eyes have reinforcements. Good for them. They can kill the monster faster. And maybe they can get rid of that buzzing sound

Something above me screeches like a hawk. I look up and see a fireball heading my way. Wait, is that… Oh crap!

The fireball hits the ground and explodes in a big plume of flames. The explosion barely misses me. The shockwave ripples through me and the flames eat my tail. What the heck was that, a dragon?!

The sky. I hear the buzzing sound coming from the sky! I look up and find two long, dark balloons gliding through the air, each with the same insignia the blue-eyes have. Crap, those are airships! Blackwatch is sending airships after me!

One of the airships shoots another fireball in my direction. Forget the rampaging monster that’s still chasing after me. They think I’m the real threat! I run out of range as the fireball misses and blows up on the side of a building.

After that, the balloons pepper the area with spell-bolts, and these are packing a punch. Every time one hits me, it feels like someone chucking a rock in my side. These things are tearing right through me! At least the monster behind is feeling the pain too. I can hear him roaring like mad.

I look around, and I notice I’m running alongside the border of the shanty town. I dive into a rickety alleyway and another fireball explodes behind me. I’m running past shacks made of garbage and huts made of trash, and the airship spells punch right through all the junk.

A big shadow passes in front of me. I look up and see the monster crash into a trashpile. It scrambles to its hooves and pounces at me.

I jump to the side and run past him as he slams down behind me. Son-of-a-bison, I can feel it shake the ground when it moves! It turns to chase after me, but one of the fireballs hits the thing square in the face. The explosion tears the skin off its face and upper body, leaving a burnt, pissed-off husk for me to deal with.

I zigzag through the shanty town, and the monster tears through anything in its way. Garbage and trash is flying all around it, and I’m doing my best to avoid the spell-bolts raining down on us!

Out of nowhere, a pony jumps out and slams into me and starts biting my hide. Another pony jumps out and chomps down on my back leg, and another slams into my side and nibbles on my wing-joint.

The infected are attacking me! I thought I got rid of you guys! My wing-blades slice up the growlers eating my sides. The tentacles shoot out and dissolve them both at the same time. I hate to admit it, but I feel a bit better after eating these guys. Heck, I can even feel my goop crawling back inside me!

I smash the infected on my leg with a swift kick to the noggin. More growlers crawl from the woodwork, but I’m prepared for them now. Everytime a growler charges after me, I let my wingblades slice it up, or kick it in the head, or punch it. Punching with monster claws is surprisingly effective.

Infected biting me, the monster chasing me, airships shooting at me, why do I have to deal with this crap? I haven’t even had breakfast yet! Oh wait, I did. Sergeant Sweet Tooth… and others.

Damn, I wish coffee still worked on me.

I run around a corner, and I find the white plastic tarp of the medical tent down the way. Hmmm, that could provide some cover. But there’s a bunch of infected in there too. Let’s say I head in there. The monster would chase me in, and the infected would be coming at me at all angles. However, the airships won’t be able to see me, so they can’t shoot at me.

Now there’s a good idea.

I make a mad dash for the tent. Spell-bolts blast apart the ground behind me as I jump through the tent and tear a new hole in the plastic. The monster jumps through and tears an even bigger hole. Above me, the spell bolts are blowing their own holes through the plastic, but I run to the left and they keep going straight. Good, the airships can’t aim while I'm in here.

The only other living things in this tent are the growlers. Doesn’t look like anyone stayed behind to have a chat. The pile of shredded corpses I cut through earlier is still lying around the first hole I made, so at least I know these guys don’t get back up after going down.

The monster slams is hooves behind me, and I turn around and flash my claws. Okay buddy, I put my goop back inside me, you can’t surprise me anymore, and Blackwatch can’t see us wrestling in this tent. I can take you on now, no problem.

The monster kicks up some dirt, then he charges right at me with its head bowed. Before he mows me down, I jump over him, turn to the side, and let my wing-blades slice into its back. Just before I land, I stab my claw into its flank, about where its cutiemark should be. The thing roars in pain, and I jab my other claw up its stomach.

That’s right, cry you son-of-a-bison! I yank my claws out, or at least try to. I try pulling them out, but they’re stuck!

The monster starts bucking like crazy, and it takes me out for a rodeo! It jumps around, and it swings me all over the place. Left, right, up, and around, just like a child flinging around a rag doll!

At some point he flings me under its belly. I flare out my wing-blade and stick that into his stomach, and now I got three points of contact. It roars and jumps a hell lot more, and my head keeps smacking into its thighs, but at least I’m not flinging all over the place.

Dangling under this punk is awkward. My torso has to twist just to keep the angle of my wing inside this guy. I also got a clear view of the world from between this monster’s legs. Turns out this monster is a “he,” and his manhood is not that impressive. Geez dude, are all those muscles there to compensate for something?

Well, since I’m stuck in this position, I might as well go down and get dirty. My beak nabs that manhood, hard. The monster stops thrashing around, and goes absolutely rigid. I can hear a very feint whine coming from the big guy. Ha! Got you by the balls now!

With a quick flick of my head, I rip that sucker off, hard.

The monster goes quiet, and then he makes the most high-pitched cry I’ve ever heard. Ow, my ears! I think this is above the frequency dogs can hear! Screw you, super hearing!

I spit the little tootsie roll out of my beak. That thing might be tiny, but's it's so salty! I’m going to need Equestria’s entire supply of cleaning products to get that taste out of my mouth! Soap, bleach, industrial solvents, everything!

With the monster standing and whining like a wuss, I focus on getting my blades out of this guy. I try yanking my claws out, but they’re still stuck in there good. Wiggling them gets them nowhere. It’s like they’re stuck in solid concrete, like what the mafia does to ponies they toss in the ocean.

Maybe I can shape-shift a tentacle with a crowbar and pry my way out. How would I do that? If I imagine a crowbar sticking out of me… that might work.

I focus on the worms to form the shape of a crowbar. They stir inside of me, but they don’t do anything. They flex, and that’s it.

Oh come on, I thought I figured this out! I turned my wings into knives. I can turn into Sergeant Sweet Tooth on my own. Why can’t I do this? Give me a damn crowbar you stupid worms!

Maybe I got to do it with my limbs. I retract the monster claws in my right arm, they make a nice pop when they come out of the monster, and I flex my newly-formed griffon talons.

Alright, I got a free hand. I think of the shape of a crowbar and focus on the worms in my arm. They squirm and crawl, and then they shoot out, but they form the monster claw again.

Grrr, stupid claws and stupid powers, why can’t you give me what I actually want?! Give me super-baking abilities, or time travelling powers so I can stop this whole mess! Screw you!

I bash the ground with my free-claw. This angers the worms, as the worms shoot into the dirt, dig underground, and shoot back up several meters away as a bouquet of razor-sharp blades.

Uh, that’s new. Ground spikes… I don’t see how I can use them to escape, but maybe I’ll find a way. The spikes rush back underground and back into my monster claw. Once I get a breather, I’m making a list of all these crazy powers. I’m bound to forget some if I keep going on like this.

But for now, I need to find a way to escape. I shift my claw back to its griffon form and tap my chin to think. What to do, what to do? How do I escape?

I glance at my free claw. Wait a minute, this was inside the monster a minute ago. How did it get free? It wasn’t the ground-spikes. I wanted a crowbar, tried making a crowbar, turned my monster claw into a griffon claw so I can try to make a crowbar-

Oh…

If there’s one good thing about this situation, it’s that I’m the only thing here that can retell this story of stupidity. It is a story that will forever remain untold.

My other claw shape-shifts into its regular shape, and pops right out of the monster. My blade-wings turn back to feathers, and they slide right out of the beast. Yay, I’m free, but I forget I’m hanging off the sheep-bucker and my faces smacks into the ground.

I get up, shake it off, and get out from under this hideous mutant. At some point, the guy stopped squealing, but its face is twisted in an eternal shape of pain. Its googly eyes are twitching, but other than that I don’t see any other signs of movement. It’s not trying to kill me, so that’s good.

I give it a wave. “Later, dipstick,” I say. I see no reason to stick around. Let Blackwatch finish off this sheep-bucker. Maybe it’ll start back up and attack them.

Speaking of Blackwatch, I hear the shrieks of two fireballs coming right at us. They hit meters away from me, and the tent explodes in a big ball of flames.

The tent is billowing with smoke, giving me the perfect conditions to escape. I run away from the Blackwatch goons closing in, running though what’s left of the shanty town, running past the hoard of infected.

There’s a few blue-eye goons at the other side of the town maintaining a perimeter. They didn’t get to see the chaos I was in, and they do nothing as I dash past them at full speed. They don’t follow me into the jungles of the yellow zone, and why should they? They got a perimeter to maintain.

I escape, easily. The crowd of ponies thickens up the farther away I get from the area, and I blend right in with no trouble. The monster isn’t following me, the blue-eyes lost me, and the airships aren’t shooting me up. I’m home free!

Now that crap is over with, I need to find Pinkie Pie again. She owes me memories!

But first things first, I need to find a crap-ton of cleaning supplies. The taste of monster blow-job is still in my mouth! I will empty out all the janitor closets in Equestria until this taste is gone!

9 - Bleach Works

Pinkie Pie still needs to help me out with my memories. I saved her and the kids from the infected and Blackwatch. I bit off a monster’s manhood in all that mess! The least she can do for me is help me out with my problems.

The double-liter bottle empties as I pour all its bleach into my beak. I toss it away and gurgle the crap like mouthwash. Spells can’t kill me, so why would bleach? This is my eighth bottle of heavy-duty super cleaner, and I think it’s my last one. The monster’s taste started fading away on the third bottle, and I couldn't feel my mouth anymore after the sixth. I guess it’s working.

I’m looking down from the roof-top of an apartment building as I swish around the bleach in my beak. This rooftop has a nice view of the Blackwatch airship that crash-landed not too long ago. There’s a big hole in the building where it crashed into, and the balloon portion of the airship is deflated and on fire. Toasty. I should’ve brought marshmallows to make s’mores.

No, I wasn't the one to take it down, although that would’ve been badass. There’s an army of Blackwatch goons closing in on the hoard of infected swarming the crash site. Spells are flying everywhere, and infected ponies are falling left and right.

I think this is where the growlers who attacked us came from, along with the monster I fought. Blackwatch must have been carrying a crap-ton of infected ponies in that thing. Wonder what they were going to do with all of them.

I overheard some blue-eye goons talking about what happened. The airship was transporting “specimens” from the Red Zone to a research facility. Apparently, the pilot screamed over the radio something about the monster tearing up the airship from the inside. Everything should’ve been locked down tight, so they figure it’s some form of sabotage. Something let the monster out of its cage.

At least that’s what the blue-eye goons are saying. In a way, it’s these guys fault the infected attacked. They were carrying the monsters, and they let them out. Thanks for the monster fight, buddies. It was great character building.

I lean over the edge of the rooftop and spit a beakfull of bleach over it. Hey, the monster taste is gone! And my teeth feel minty fresh.

I hear a pony screaming below me. There’s a blue-eye at ground level doused in bleach and swearing up a storm. I wave at him when he looks up, and dash away over the rooftops before he starts shooting.

Time to find Pinkie Pie. I didn’t see where she ran off to, but the force is pulling me in her direction. Thank Grover I got weird finding powers. Combing a city for a single pony would be a pain in the ass without it. Speaking of blindly following mysterious forces, I should make my list of powers while I’m running over rooftops. Might as well put spare time to use.

To start, there’s the finding force power I’m using right now. This one I’m going to get a lot of use out of, even outside of a fight. It’s something I can use to find a lost box of dough when I’m running my scone shop.

There’s the super strength, also useful. I can’t lift something the size of a rampaging monster, but I bet I can move boxes around without breaking my back.

A flock of pigeons takes off when I land on their nesting spot. Super speed, I think that’s my favorite. Who doesn’t want to jump over a building, run up a wall, and outrun the cops at the same time? Going this fast is a flipping rush! I should compete in the Equestria games.

The monster claws… Eh, I guess I can cut dough with it. The other griffons won't dare mess with me when I got these babies. They’re also good negotiation tactics, so maybe I can get better prices at the market by swinging them around.

Ground-spikes, I can’t think of anything for those. I did it once, on accident, and I guess they’re good in a fight if I do it again. We’ll see.

Gliding is a downgrade. I used to be able to fly and now I can’t. Why can’t I fly? Other downgrades include immunity to caffeine and alcohol. Why don’t those work on me anymore?!

I reach the edge of a building, jump for a glide, and hear someone below me shout in excitement. Super hearing, hearing every fly in the room will drive me nuts.

Regeneration, I don’t have to fill out an incident report if I injure myself while working. Cheaper medical bills too.

Eating ponies, tentacles are a gross way to go about it.

Crowbar, no, I didn’t do that one. If I got time, I’ll try to figure it out.

Shape-shifting into ponies I eat… I guess tax evasion.

I think that’s everything. Maybe I’m forgetting something. If I am, oh well. It might come back up if I need it. Overall, I think it’s all an improvement, apart from the caffeine.

Just as I jump from one building to glide to the next, the finding force takes a sharp turn downwards. I look down at the street and find an interesting sign of a sun stretching across a building wall. Sunnyside Daycare, the sign says. Yep, this seems like the place Pinkie Pie would go to.

I land on the roof on the other side of the street and give the place a good look. It’s a short building, three stories tall, but it takes up most of the space in its block. Its first two floors have all its windows boarded up, and the top windows are dark and impossible to see into. There’s a large pile of trash blocking off the front door, so there’s no getting inside from there.

Okay, scratch that, this does not look like a place Pinkie Pie would go to. It’s closed up and worn down. And honestly, looking at this place gives my worms the shivers. I know Pinkie Pie has a random streak, but taking a bunch of kids into an abandon daycare is taking it too far.

In one of the top windows, I see a glimmer of light, maybe the light from a glowing horn. I guess someone is crazy enough to be inside this place. A looter, perhaps? But why would looters choose a daycare of all places?

Near the far corner of the building, there’s an open window on the top floor. It looks like the perfect entry point for someone with wings. I think I’ll drop in and say hello to the looter. Give them a good scare with my claws, and then go search the place for Pinkie Pie. Heck, it may even be Pinkie Pie. I’m still going to scare her.

I swoop over the street and fly up to the window. It’s a bit small. I have to pull my wings in tight and suck my gut in to wiggle past it, but I get through.

The room I’m in now has a floor full of tiny tables and chairs, chests full of toys, walls covered with sloppy crayon drawings, and colorful decorations of flowers and bugs and dinosaurs and anything else kids might find interesting. It’s adorable and all, if it weren’t for the fact it’s dark as Tartarus in here. It’s two in the afternoon and I can open up a haunted house in here.

Now there’s a thought. This place is perfect for a haunted house! Nightmare Night is just around the corner. I can set up an audio system to play the sound of kids laughing or slow nursery rhymes. Then I would invite ponies inside, shapeshift into their friends and mess with their heads, and chase them around with my monster claws and scare the crap out of them. Maybe I’ll do a tie-in promotion with my scone shop. I’ll call this Gilda’s School of Horrors. That’s catchy.

Footsteps echo from the hallway. I put my plans of spooky business ventures on the backburner and take a peak outside of the room. Turns out I also have night-vision, as I can see everything in this pitch-black hallway as if it were day. Add that to the list.

There are two ponies making their way down the hallway. One’s a unicorn, and she’s using her horn to light the way. The other one is an Earthpony, and he’s scanning the hallway with glowing blue eyes.

Wait, those aren’t regular blue eyes. Those are Blackwatch blue eyes! Now that I notice, the unicorn is also wearing a Blackwatch uniform. She just doesn’t have the mask on. Damn it Pinkie Pie, you still have blue-eye goons chasing you! Do I have to save your butt from everything?

After the monster battle, and the infected attack, and the incident at the liquor store, and the apartment, and the lab, and after every other bullcrap thing today, I’m not in the mood to get in a fight, let alone kill anypony. I just want my memories back, and I need to find Pinkie Pie before these goons do.

The unicorn flashes her light spell into the room on her left, and the blue-eye takes a peak in the room to his right. While they got their noses in the doorways, I step out of the classroom and walk over to them. It’s clear they’re searching all the rooms, and I’m too big to hide in a room made for tiny ponies. Might as well meet them head on and avoid a fight somehow.

The blue-eye jumps when he hears my footsteps coming. He pops out of the room and looks me in the eye. “Jeez, you scared me Sir. I didn’t know you were up here.”

My body finishes shape-shifting into Sergeant Sweet Tooth just as the unicorn shines her light on me. I shrug. “What can I say, I’m a scary guy.” This disguise should fool them. As long as they don’t ask any hard questions, I’ll be fine.

The unicorn nods and walks up to search the next room. She’s a brown pony, red and purple mane, green eyes, and has a worried look on her face. “Please tell me you found the kid,” she says without looking at me.

Kid, as in a single kid. I wonder if they know about the rest of the group. “Nope, no luck there. Frankly, I can’t even remember what he looks like.”

The blue-eye tilts his head as he moves on to the next doorway. “You forgot what he looks like? The little trainweck zipped right under your nose.”

Iffy Sniff? I would put my money on the pony they’re looking for to be Iffy.

“And he wouldn’t have run away if someone didn’t have his mask on,” the unicorn says, rolling her eyes.

“Well excuse me for helping you out right after my patrol,” the blue-eye snaps back. “It’s not like I knew we’d be rounding up twenty kids, all of which just escaped case-yellow quarantine, mind you.”

Ah, so they do know where they are, and it sounds like they have them in custody. Great, I’m going to have to free them, and that means plowing through another group of Blackwatch. Maybe they’ll have two monsters for me to fight this time.

The unicorn swings her light over onto her buddy. “Is the big, strong stallion afraid of catching a little cough?”

“You might think it’s a joke, but I’ve seen what can happen to a case-yellow.” The blue eye points down the hallway. “If one of those kids turns, then he’ll bite his best friend, and the best friend will bite the filly he likes. Soon we’ll have a swarm of infected fillies and colts attacking us from behind! All it takes is one to end it all.”

The unicorn stares at her buddy for a moment, and then shakes her head. “I doubt that will happen. You’re going to scare off the kid if you keep talking like that.”

“If he hasn’t left the building yet,” the blue-eye grumbles. “Sir, are those kids staying here? We don't have the horsepower to keep watch of all those kids and run Wellness at the same time.”

Ah, a hard question. Now I might be screwed. Or not. The force is pulling on the memories of Sergeant Sweet Tooth. His army experience, dealing with the Blacklight plague, fighting off the infected. If I give an honest answer from the bottom of Sweet Tooth’s heart, then I’ll be fine.

“Don’t worry,” Sweet Tooth says to the blue-eye. “They’ll be gone soon enough. And if we can't get rid of them, then we'll do what we do to the rest.”

The blue-eye just looks at me, eyes glowing in the dark. “The rest, sir?”

“You know, pew pew, like the rest of them.”

The unicorn shines her horn right in my eyes, and I got to shield myself with a hoof from the bright light. Even with night vision, going from darkness to bright light is not pleasant. “You’re not Pillow Talk, are you?”

And I gave them a bad answer. How do these blue-eyes keep figuring it out? Can I salvage this? “Uh, what are you talking about? Of course I’m Pillow Talk. Who else would I be?”

Something dark slings around the blue-eye’s shoulder and he points it at me. The unicorn’s horn shifts from the flashlight into a bright blue glow. “Pillow Talk doesn’t have a horn.”

I touch my forehead with an armored hoof. Yep, Sweet Tooth is a unicorn. Didn’t think that through.

I let out a sigh and shake my head. “You know, this could’ve been easy. I didn’t want to do this.”

In a flash, I head-butt the blue-eye through the wall. The wall crumbles around him and he crashes into a tiny table and a shelf of coloring supplies.

The unicorn hits me with a flurry of spellbolts, the hall is flashing and dancing like a rave.

I shapeshift back into a griffon and grab her throat with a claw. Not my monster claws, I don’t want to kill her, just my regular old griffon grip. I slam her against a wall and tighten my grip on her trachea. Her horn fizzles out. Her eyes bulge as she tries to grasp for breath. She hits my arm hooves and kicks me in the stomach with her back legs, but I’m not budging.

“So here’s the deal,” I say, brushing off her hits like a champ, “I’m looking for a group a kids. There’s a pink mare hanging out with them, and maybe a doctor of some sort. Any idea where they could be?”

I loosen my grip to give her a chance to say something. She opens her mouth, but only says two words.

“You monster- ack!”

My claw clamps down hard, talons digging into her skin. I can feel her blood dripping from the tips. I hiss in her ear. “Am I the monster here? I’m not the one keeping kids as prisoners.”

“Not- ack- prisoners,” she wheezes. “Came to- ack- help!”

“Ms. Griffon!”

That squeaky voice sounds familiar. I look down the hall and see a small, green, pegasus colt flying my way. He zips right next to me with the biggest smile I’ve seen on him yet.

“Iffy!” I say to him, returning the smile. “You’re alright. Did you get away safe?”

“You bet I did! Ms. Pie told us to run away when the monster came. I wanted to stay and fight it, but she yelled at me to follow her, so I did. She took us across town and into this daycare place, but Blackwatch was waiting for us and attacked us when we got inside, but I’m faster than them and I flew away before they caught me. And now you’re here and you’re going to save us!”

The unicorn is struggling harder, so I slam her into the wall and she quiets down. “I’m glad you’re okay. I just need to take care of these goons and we can go down and save your friends.”

“Cool!” He backflips in the air while squealing in excitement, just like Rainbow Dash. “So let’s kill these bullies!”

“Eh, what?” The unicorn stops struggling. Both she and I give Iffy the same look. Is this colt serious?

“Kill her, that’s what you do.” He shadow boxes the air and points at the pony in my grip. “She’s part of Blackwatch, and Blackwatch is evil. You got to kill the evil ponies.”

I look at the unicorn in my claw. Her face is going a bit pale, and I didn’t notice it before, but tears are streaming down her face. She’s wheezing for air as she tries to hit me, but her punches are growing weaker. It’s kind of pathetic.

“Well… That’s the thing… I’m not”-

“Iffy Sniff!”

Another familiar voice calls out from the other end of the hallway. I turn around to see a pink mare walking around the corner. Pinkie Pie? What the heck is she doing? There’s Blackwatch crawling all over the place.

“Iffy Sniff, we’re not playing hide-and-seek. I need you to come- GILDA!”

“Oh,” I give her a little wave. “Hi Pinkie. How’s it going.”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes dart between me, and then Iffy, and then the mare in my claws, and then the fresh hole in the wall, and then back at me. “Put Cherry down!” she screams at the top of her lungs.

The sudden jump in noise is enough for me to let go. The unicorn drops to the floor, and she’s gulping down air. She keeps sobbing in between gasps, and she ends up hyperventilating on her knees.

Pinkie Pie dashes over and dives down to the unicorn’s level. “Cherry! Breathe, Cherry, breathe!”

The pink mare sits down and holds the Blackwatch unicorn’s head up. Her eyes are bloodshot and tears are flowing from her face. Pinkie Pie pulls a napkin from out of nowhere and wipes the unicorn’s face off, then presses it against the side of her neck where my talons left their bloody marks.

“Just breathe,” Pinkie coos. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”

In between the gasps and the sobs, the unicorn spits out one word at me. “…Monster…”

“Shh, don’t talk, just breathe.” Pinkie Pie looks up at me. The happy mare I remember isn’t here now. Instead, this is a serious mare. Her brow is furrowed and her lips are in a stiff frown.

Okay… there’s something going on here that I don’t know about. Someone needs to explain things, now!

10 - We're All Friends

“So, can you explain this to me?” the purple earth pony asks with a bit of gravel in the back of his voice. He’s tall, about the same height as me, has a white, puffy mane, and is dressed in Blackwatch armor from the neck down. His face scrunches up as he’s giving me a look over. “Out of everyone in Manehattan, why is Zero here?”

Pinkie Pie gives the tall blue-eye a stern glare. “Her name is Gilda, and she’s my friend. And now she’s going to be your friend. Gilda, this is Lieutenant Pillow Talk. Pillow, this is Gilda.”

We don’t greet each other so much as exchange glances and wonder what the heck is going on.

“This raises more questions than answers,” Pillow Talk says.

“I concur,” I say. “A real explanation of what in Tartarus is going on would be appreciated.”

We’re all downstairs in the daycare’s clinic. It’s a decent sized room, with a desk, two beds, and a shelf full of first aid supplies. Tiny zoo animals cover the wallpaper, like giraffes, gorillas, and lions, who are all smiling and playing along with each other.

Pinkie Pie, Pillow Talk, and I are standing by the desk next to the door. Cherry’s sitting on one of the beds, and she won’t stop glaring at me, like how a cat glares at a mouse.

The doctor unicorn from the medical tent is looking after the blue-eye I knocked through a wall. I hear her muttering something about getting his armor off. He should consider himself lucky. I think he’s my first non-lethal takedown of the day.

Iffy Sniff is also here. He’s hovering between me and Pinkie. I’m ignoring him right now, and frankly I’m trying to forget his little, “Kill the bullies,” comment from earlier.

“Yes, tell us Pinkie,” Cherry says. “Why the heck is there a monster standing in the same room as us?”

“Gilda’s not a monster!”

“That’s a good question,” I say. “Why is there a monster in here? I didn’t know you were buddies with these Blackwatch goons.”

Cherry gives a short, but loud, laugh. “That’s rich, coming from the walking bag of Blacklight and death!”

“I’m not the one curb-stomping ponies for looking at me funny. I think I even saved a couple from one of your beat-downs this morning.”

“Saved? I bet you mean cut up into tiny bits! The only thing you’re saving is room for dessert!”

“Oh yeah?! At least I don’t have to hide my ugly face behind a mask when I’m beating the crap out of you!”

“Both of you, stop it!” Pinkie Pie shouts. “We’re all friends. Friends don’t call each other monsters!”

“But”-

Pinkie hisses through her teeth. “We. Are. Friends.”

Everyone goes silent. The only noise in the clinic is Iffy’s wings flapping and the doctor muttering to herself. All eyes are on Pinkie, and she looks like she’s about to blow her cap.

The voice box on purple lieutenant’s armor flashes yellow. “Sir, is Pinkie with you? I need her help,” a deep voice crackles.

Pinkie shakes her head at the blue-eye. Pillow Talk reaches for the box and presses the button. “She’s a little busy right now. Can she call you back?”

“Can she be busy later?” the voice box asks. “The kids- Ow, don’t bite me- the kids are going crazy, sir. They’re freaking out! I need her help!”

“You’re a big guy, you can handle it.” Pillow looks at Pinkie, who mouths something back at him. Charades? “Have you tried playing charades with them?” he asks.

“Charades didn’t work, sir. I’ve tried everything. Peek-a-boo, duck-duck-goose, freeze-tag. Sir, they’re getting”- the voice box cuts off, and then a few seconds later the deep voice comes back. “There’re piling on top of me sir! They’re taking the hill! I repeat, they’re taking the hill! I never thought my death would be so adorable!”

Pillow Talk looks up at Pinkie Pie. “I think Budge needs your help.”

The pink mare lets out a sigh, and looks at both me and Cherry. “Everyone better be alive when I get back. No killing each other.”

I raise my claw. “But what if she”-

“No killing!” Pinkie shouts. She storms out of the room to save somepony from getting mauled by a ravenous pack of fillies and colts.

Great, now I’m alone with a room full of Blackwatch goons, and Iffy. We all look at each other, all while avoiding making eye contact. The doctor is still in her little corner, and that blue-eye is still unconscious.

Pillow Talk is rocking back and forth on his hooves. His eyes keep darting between me and the doorway. “So… how do you know Pinkie Pie?”

Small talk, aren’t I lucky. I shrug. “I knew her before this whole plague thing started. I don’t remember much of the details, but she did help me start a bakery.”

“A bakery. Huh.” The lieutenant’s eyebrow goes up. “You have a bakery?”

“Yeah, right here in Manehattan. I was planning to make scones, but it’s smack dab in the middle of the red-zone. I don’t think I’ll be getting much business.”

Pillow nods. “That sucks. My favorite bagel shop is in the red-zone too. I haven’t had a good asiago bagel in a month. My mornings have been incomplete without them.”

A name flashes though my head. “Bowler Bagels?”

“Yep, that’s the one,” he says. “Now that I think about it, I do remember a new shop opening up on Daffodil Street. Wasn’t it called Scone Cutters or something?”

“Well, that name wasn’t approved by me. It’s supposed to be called Gilda’s Family Scones, but Pinkie Pie named it without my permission. It’s something I want to clear up.”

“I think Scone Cutters is a good name.”

“No it’s not.”

“But it’s a clever wordplay”-

My claw shapeshifts into my monster claw. “Don’t push your luck.”

Pillow Talk gulps and nods. The monster claw shrinks back to regular size. I notice in the corner of my eye Cherry’s horn glowing bright blue. I must have spooked her.

“What about you,” I say to the lieutenant. “How did you meet the infamous Pinkie Pie?”

Pillow Talk taps his chin. “Well, I haven’t known her for very long. She sort of became my boss last week.”

Now my eyebrows shoot up. “How did that happen?”

He shrugs. “I don’t really know. One day I’m patrolling the quarantine zone, and the next I’m assigned to be part of some new Quarantine Wellness Program.”

“Quarantine Welfare Program?”

Pillow nods. “QWP for short. It’s supposed to be a big deal. Morale in the Yellow Zone isn’t all that great, so Princess Celestia herself asked Blackwatch to work with Pinkie Pie to boost happiness in the area.”

“That sounds impressive.”

“Sure is. Too bad Blackwatch doesn’t take it seriously.” The purple lieutenant rolls his eyes. “For the entire week Wellness’s been running, it’s been a disaster. We barely have a budget to work with. This abandoned daycare is the only place we can afford. There’s a big pile of trash at the front door and it’s taking forever to clean up. And Blackwatch only has five ponies working on this program”- he waves a hoof at the beds- “And you almost killed two!”

I glance behind me. Cherry is still drilling holes into my skull with her eyes, and the other blue-eye is still out cold. “Really, just five?”

“Yeah, those two, me, Pinkie, and Budge. You heard Budge over the radio. Nice guy. The higher ups figured Pinkie would do most of the work, but she can’t get anyone else to help her and she's the biggest bitch I’ve ever met!”

"Hey," the doctor shouts. "Watch your language. There are kids here!"

Iffy waves the doctor off. "I know what it means." He looks at Pillow Talk. “And you’re wrong. Pinkie Pie is the most awesome pony I’ve ever met!”

“Oh sure, she’s all sunshines and rainbows,” Pillow grumbles, “Up until things don't go her way. Just yesterday, she had a major breakdown because I didn’t order enough party streamers. Party streamers! She was crying and yelling at me for two hours straight.”

“That doesn’t sound like her,” I say. “Sure, she’s a nut, but she's never cries or shouts at anyone. She's the most happy go pony I know.”

Pillow Talk gives me a strange look. “What Pinkie Pie are you talking about?”

“The Pinkie I'm talking about is the brightest pony in the world, or should be.” There’s no way a pony could change like that in a month. Then again, I got these weird powers in a month.

Cherry groans and sways on her bed. “For Luna’s sake, stop talking,” she whines.

We all look over in her direction. “Do you want us to stand here in awkward silence?” I ask.

“I want you to jump into a volcano and burn,” she snarls. “I’m not exaggerating. You need to burn up and take the Blacklight plague with you!”

“You don’t know who you’re messing with,” Iffy Sniff spits. He zips across the room and gets right up in Cherry’s face. He almost crashes into her. “She’s the hero that’s going to kill all you Blackwatch bullies. She’s going to slice you up good!”

Cherry brushes him aside. I facepalm. What’s wrong with this kid? “Iffy, I’m not killing anyone.”

Pillow Talk’s ears perk up. “You’re not?”

I ball my claw up into a fist and point a single talon at the lieutenant. “Not if you don’t shoot me. Is that too much to ask for?”

“Oh good.” He lets out a breath he was holding in. “I was thinking you would eat us all if Pinkie didn’t say anything.”

“Believe me, the last thing I want to do is go on a killing spree. But someone really wants me dead for some reason and I can’t help it if I defend myself.”

“That’s bullshit,” Cherry sneers.

“Watch your language,” the doctor says.

“Shut up,” the blue-eye unicorn snaps, and she looks back at me. “There’s no excuse for all the ponies you’ve killed.”

I cock an eyebrow. “Is self-defense not a valid excuse?”

“Was this self-defense?” She points at marks I left when I was choking her earlier.

“You were about to shoot me!”

“And we all know how that would turn out. I’ve been listening to the radio all day, and I keep hearing soldiers screaming about how their spells can’t kill you. How is killing us self-defense if we can’t kill you?!”

Iffy flies back in her face. “She’s giving you what you deserve!” he yells. “You took over Manehattan like you own it, and you keep beating us all up! You’re nothing but bad-guys and bullies!”

Cherry points at me. “That griffon, she’s Patient Zero. The Blacklight plague came from her. She’s the real bad guy. If it weren’t for her, there would be no Blacklight, and Blackwatch wouldn’t be here to keep it under control!”

I hold up a claw. “Stop right there. How did I start the plague in the first place? I have nothing to do with the plague. Heck, I’m not even completely sure of what’s going on.”

“Then let me fill you in,” Cherry say. “You’re a Blacklight monster, just like the ones we stop from killing everypony who isn’t infected. You got Blacklight all over you. You’re spreading it wherever you go. You can say you didn’t start it as much as you want, but you’re still spreading it!”

Before I can say anything, the doctor pony stands up. “That reminds me.” The doctor’s magic reaches into the first-aid shelf and pulls out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a wad of cotton balls. She presses the cotton on the bottle’s lid and shakes it up. “Here, wipe that scratch on your neck with this.”

The cotton ball floats over to Cherry and she catches it with her own pink magic. “Why do I have to?”

“You said it yourself, the griffon here is a walking bag of Blacklight,” the doctor says, nodding at me. “She scratched your neck, didn’t she? You don’t want to turn infected from a little scratch.”

Cherry looks down at the cotton ball, then at me, and then she puts the ball up to her neck and violently rubs ger scratch. Geez girl, you’re going to tear off your skin if you do it like that. “For Luna’s sake, why haven’t we called in reinforcements?! Zero is standing right here! Let’s get the entire army on her ass.”

I give the mare a deadpan look. “I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ll slice you up so you don’t call an entire army to kill me. Does that sound like a good reason?”

Cherry glares at me, still scratching her skin off with the cotton ball.

“And I would advise against it,” the doctor says. “We’re all standing in the same room as Patient Zero with no protection from the infection what-so-ever. They’ll place us under case-red quarantine faster than you can blink.”

“What?!” Iffy Sniff shouts. “If they do that, they’ll kill us on the spot. And then they’ll burn our bodies. And then they’ll put our ashes into jars and burn the jars!”

The doctor shakes her head. “You’re thinking of case-black quarantine. Case-red is when they lock us all in a cell for as long as they think we’re infected. But here’s the thing, I haven’t heard back from any ponies placed in case-red. They seem to disappear from existence once Blackwatch takes them.”

Pillow Talk nods. “So if Zero is here, don’t tell Yellow Light.”

The doctor smiles. “That’s a good idea. I got two beautiful kids and a handsome husband waiting for me back in Trottingham. I’d rather watch Gilda tear you to pieces than to face the prospect of never seeing them again.”

Pillow and Cherry stare at the doctor. I grin. “I like the sound of that,” I say.

The doctor winks. “Snitches get stitches. Remember that.”

“Then we’ll keep your presence here a secret,” Pillow says. “Though I have a feeling Pinkie would want us to do that anyways.”

Pillow Talk’s voice box crackles to life. Pinkie Pie’s voice spills out of it. “Hey Pillow, I need your help.”

“If it has to deal with kids, I’m not the stallion for it,” Pillow says, touching his box. “I’m not that great with kids.”

“Then you’re fine. The kids are all in time out, but Budge needs your help.”

“With what? He’s a big boy.”

“You’d think that, but you’d be wrong. The kids took him down.”

“There's nothing I can do to fix a bruised ego.”

“The kids ripped off his armor.”

“I- uh… We got a spare set lying around.”

“He’s tied to the ceiling.”

Pillow Talk pauses. He thinks for a moment before talking into his box. “I’ll be over in a moment.”

“Thanks Pillow.”

He lets the box go and looks at me. “So… is this a truce then?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“Good enough for me.” He turns around and heads out the door. “Why did Pinkie Pie bring the kids here? We’re not a daycare.”

“Yes you are,” I say, pointing at the animal-covered wallpaper.

He stops at the doorway and looks back at me. “If you were my soldier, you'd be cleaning up the trash up front for that comment.”

Pillow disappears around the corner. I think we're going to get along. Cherry, on the other claw, is still fuming with me in this room. “You might have a truce with everyone else, but not with me. I’m going to stop you.”

The doctor rolls her eyes. “If you try to stop her, and if I get caught in the crossfire, then I will be incredibly peaved. Iffy Sniff, give the sad mare a hug.”

The pegasus colt looks at the doctor funny. “Uh, is that a joke? You got to be joking.”

The doctor smiles. “Just think for a moment, where were you a couple hours ago?”

Cherry and Iffy look at eachother. It takes a moment, but a devilish grin grows on Iffy’s face. Before Cherry can stop him, he zips in for a hug.

“What’s this going to do, kill me with love?” Cherry asks, doing her best to push the colt away, but he’s on her tight.

“No, it’s going to stop you from doing something I don’t want you to do,” the doctor says.

“How?”

Good question. How?

“Simple.” The doctor points at the colt. “Mr. Sniff was placed in case-yellow quarantine for swamp-lice. Since you’ve come in contact with Mr. Sniff without protection, you are now labeled a case-yellow patient and can only occupy areas designated by an official Blackwatch doctor.” She points to herself. “And I say you can’t go outside this building if you’re going to be a snitch.”

Cherry’s jaw hangs open, then she shoves Iffy away, who is happy just to get away from her. “You bitch,” she hisses.

The doctor waves a hoof. “Watch your language.” She smiles at Iffy. “Thank you Mr. Sniff for your services.”

The pegasus colt salutes. “No problem, Dr. Heart,” he says. Of course her name is Heart. What doctor in Equestria isn’t named Heart?

“As for you,” Heart says, looking at me, “Keep your distance from Cherry. I don’t want you antagonizing her.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “The further I am from crazy, the better.”

“What?!” Cherry yells. “You screw me over, but you let this monster go free? What are you thinking?!”

“She’s got claws,” Heart says. “I’m not messing around with someone who has claws.”

I smirk, growing out my monster claws and wiggling them in the air. “Damn straight.”

“This is all… aahhgg!” Cherry hops off the bed and storms out the room. “I hate you! I hate you all!”

“We all hate you too,” Iffy Sniff shouts back. “What a bitch.”

“Watch your language,” Heart says.

“Sorry.”

11 - Stick In the Rear

I’m not sure how to feel about Pinkie’s Blackwatch friends. Cherry wants me dead and I don’t know if I should stop her before she’ll do something she’ll regret. Pillow Talk doesn’t seem to mind me, however he may just be following Pinkie’s orders and doesn’t care what I do, as long as I don't kill anyone. Doctor Heart is on no one’s side but her own. She’ll support me if it means she’ll live to see another day, but I have a feeling she’ll backstab me for the same reason.

The blue-eye was still out cold when I left the room. I don’t know how he’s going to react when he wakes up. He might go crazy and try to kill me in my sleep, or he may just be happy to get another person to play in his Friday night poker game. My bets are leaning towards crazy.

There’s no reason for me to care about any of these dweebs. I just need Pinkie to help me with my memories, one way or another. I’ve been shot at by Blackwatch, bitten by infected, crushed by a monster, pulverized by a shield, and exploded by airships, and the sun hasn’t even set yet. I’ve earned those memories, and I’m going to get them.

Unlike the top floor, the first floor of the day care is decently lit, albeit with ugly florescent lighting. Sunnyside Daycare my ass, this place is a morgue! There’s a bunch of crayon pictures and hoof-made decorations and signs hanging on the walls, but with this lighting it looks like the parents made a memorial of their children’s artwork. Given how serious this plague business is, I bet there's a real one of these things floating around.

My little force is guiding me through this dead hallway, hopefully leading me to Pinkie Pie. It’s empty in this place, no one around. I’m about to walk around a corner when large, tan stallion lumbers right in front of me. He’s a big boy, just a bit bigger than me. He’s got a white mane, brown eyes, and a toothpick sticking out of his teeth. There’s a pile of ripped-up clothes sitting on his back, the kind of clothes Blackwatch wears.

We would’ve bumped into each other if I didn’t jump back. Our eyes meet. It takes a second, but his brown eyes go wide when he gets a good look of me. “You,” he grumbles, “You’re that damn griffon whose been causing us trouble.”

“That would be me,” I say. “You must be that Bulk guy I heard about.”

“The name’s Budge,” he says, pointing a large hoof at me. “And don’t you forget it.”

Ah, the wannabe aggressive type. We got some of those back in Griffonstone. Heck, I even went through that phase when I was five. “Don’t worry, Buggy, I’m not going to forget.”

His eye twitches at the sound of me screwing up his name on purpose. “I know you’re messing with me,” he says. “Let me be clear. Pinkie Pie might say we’re all friends here, but I don’t trust you. I know you’ll strike once we have our backs turned. If you try anything, and I mean anything, I’m going to end your miserable existence on the spot. You got that?”

“Those are some big words from a big stallion,” I say. “So did Pinkie Pie finally get you down from that ceiling? Those kids must have tied you up good.”

The toothpick in his mouth drops to the floor. His tan face turns a nice shade of bright red. “They just surprised me, that’s all. Kids are strong when they work as a team.”

My beak curls up in a little smirk. “Right, of course. I’ll keep that in mind next time I fight a kindergarten class.”

Budge says nothing. He stands there for a moment, then steps aside and walks down the hallway. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off of me, going as far as turning his head all the way back just to glare at me. I wave at him just as he trips over a trashcan and face-plants into the floor. He makes a big thud when he falls.

After I finish laughing at him, I move on and follow my inner force. Should I worry about Budge? Nah, he’s harmless. If things go south, he’ll probably go toe-to-toe with me to prove his honor or worth or something else sappy. He’s big, but I don’t think he’s immune to giant monster claws. I’ll be fine.

I don’t have to walk too far, since around the corner I find Pinkie Pie. She’s in a room with a row of windows looking out into the hallway. All the kids are in there with her. She has them all sitting at those tiny desks. Their heads are down, and Pinkie’s watching the room like a hawk. This must be time out for the kids.

I head for the door, but I stop when I see Cherry standing beside it. She’s watching over the kids in her own little corner, presumably to catch them if they try to escape. Her her eyes shoot up when she notices me. She gives me a stink-eye, similar to what old griffon coots back in Griffonstone give to anyone they deem annoying.

As is tradition with my people in these kinds of social exchanges, I flip Cherry the bird. It’s Pinkie Pie I’m after, and I don’t need to get past this harpy to see her.

My knuckles knock on the glass, and Pinkie Pie looks up and at me. She says something quick to the kids, runs over to the door, says something to Cherry, and comes outside to meet me.

“To my office, now,” she says, trotting on past me. “We need to talk.”

“What, no breaking out in song? No happy-partytimes with the ultimate party mare?” I say, following close behind her.

“Do these look like happy-party-times?” she says. “Manehattan is the new Tartarus. Ponies are dying from the plague, Blackwatch is out of control, my closest friends are missing, monsters are jumping all over the place, and now Patient Zero is running around doing Celestia-knows-what damage to an already destroyed city.”

“Pinkie, I’m Patient Zero.”

She looks at me with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. “No way. I didn’t know. I thought Blackwatch was calling you Zero because you have zero sense of awareness. It all makes sense now! Go home everypony, we unmasked the vigilante known as Patient Zero! But you can call her Gilda.”

My eyebrows go up. “Is that sarcasm? Coming from you?”

She shrugs. “I’ve had time to practice.”

“Sheesh, the plague must have done a number on you.”

“Look who’s talking,” she snaps. “You’re one of them. You’re infected! You got arms that turn into claws and you slash up ponies like some cheesy horror movie villain. The plague’s turned you into a monster!”

What freak put a stick up her butt? “Hey, this monster saved you from the bigger monster.”

“That was an Ogre,” Pinkie says. “Sure you saved us, you also might have killed all the kids!”

“How? You would all be dead if I didn’t stop that monster.”

“Ogre.”

“That Ogre would’ve torn right through you, and those Blackwatch goons wouldn’t have done jack squat to help.”

“That’s not what I’m angry about,” Pinkie says. “Cherry said it best, you’re a walking bag of Blacklight and death.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t bring Cherry into this. She has it out for me.”

“And I’ll have it out for you if you’re not more careful.” She jumps in front of me and shoves a hoof in my chest. “You’re an infected griffon. Did you ever stop and think if you could be contagious. That everywhere you go you’re spreading the Blacklight plague?”

I shoved her hoof away. “Give me a break. I woke up last night, and that has been the first time I’ve woken up in a month. I’m still trying to fill in some major gaps.”

“So that’s a no, you don’t think.” Pinkie Pie looks away and huffs. “You might be spreading the plague and you don’t even know it.”

“I’m a walking death machine, what about it?” I say. “What am I supposed to do, find out who’ve I’ve killed and apologize?”

“You,” Pinkie says, “just have to be more careful. I said you might be spreading the plague, might. It’s been a couple of hours since we talked. If you were contagious, I’d have rashes by now.”

“Oh, so I’m not contagious. So why the heck are you angry at me?”

“I’m angry because you’re not careful, and you could’ve infected everyone you met,” she says. “You’re a good friend, Gilda, but you’re impulsive and you don’t think about anything you do or what happens afterwards."

I remain silent. Me, impulsive? And this is coming from the Queen of Randomness and Spontaneity. Pinkie Pie walks over to a door and grabs the knob, but looks at me before she opens it.

“I know it’s hard, but I need you to start using your noggin. Now more than ever, I need you to be careful.”

Before I say anything, she puts a hoof over her mouth, telling me to be quiet. She turns the knob and throws open the door.

“And don’t give me that look,” she says in a louder voice. I try to say something, but she cuts me off. “No, you’re still in quiet time. I am very disappointed in you, Iffy Sniff. I’m going to give you time to think about what you’ve done.”

Uh, Iffy Sniff? He’s still a the clinic, last I checked. Did a blood vessel finally burst in her head?

Pinkie Pie waves at me to follow her inside. “You’re going to sit in that corner until I say you can go. No talking. No moving. Just sitting.”

I enter the room, a light flickers on, and I find myself in a very cluttered office. Filing cabinets are squeezing against the walls, and all of them are overflowing with papers, colorful streamers, folders, balloons, tax reports, plates, napkins, a suit and tie, the occasional cake, and anything else you’d find either at a party or in an office. There’s a desk in the middle, too, with pencils, crayons, pens, and a half eaten muffin.

“I don’t want you giving me any lip, young mister.” Pinkie Pie darts between the filing cabinets. She opens and closes every drawer she can get her hooves on, spilling out confetti and documents wherever she goes. “You know what you did was bad.”

Alright, Pinkie Pie isn’t talking to me directly. I don’t exactly know what she’s doing, but I know she's lost her marbles. She’s tearing through this office, looking in every crevice, drawer, open birthday present, and party-hat she can find, only to toss them aside with a dissatisfied look.

“No, that prank was not funny.” At last, she reaches for the desk and pulls out a drawer. She looks inside for a moment, and motions for me to come over and take a peak. “Caramel has broken ribs. How can you possibly find that funny?”

I come on over and look into the drawer. She pulls the drawer out a bit more, points inside it, and I see a beetle sitting next to a roll of tape and a kazoo. It’s a tiny black thing, with green, glowing eyes and long antenna. It scurries into the shadows when it meets the light. That’s a creepy little bugger.

“I don’t even know how you built that contraption. Where’d you get the bowling balls for it?” She reaches behind her and pulls an empty can off the shelf. The label reads Syler’s Soundproof Cylinder. For prank use only.

“You’re a great kid. You got your whole future to look forward to. But for the love of all that is sugary and sweet in the world, don’t ruin Blackwatch’s day.” She yanks the drawer open and slams the can on top of the beetle. I can hear a tapping sound as it bumps into tin, but it’s not getting out any time soon.

Pinkie Pie looks me straight in the eye. “I need you to ruin Blackwatch’s day.”

12 - Evidence

“Ruin Blackwatch’s day,” I repeat. “But aren’t you all friends?”

“Sure, we say we’re friends.” Pinkie Pie shakes the can, and the bug rattles against the tin. “Except friends don’t spy on other friends.”

Spying with a bug, seriously? Pinkie’s sanity has left the house, taken a one way ticket out of the country, and is now residing in Crazyville. “They’re spying on you with that thing?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s just a bug. How can a bug spy on you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it writes everything I say on a tiny piece of paper and mails it to Blackwatch HQ with pictures and a postcard. Maybe it picks up a couple flags and waves them around to send secret messages to the pony reading a newspaper across the street. Or maybe a unicorn can enchant it to listen to a conversation and emit an invisible magic beam that teleports our voices across a city so the bad ponies can know what we’re talking about and follow my every move. Who knows?”

My eyebrow goes up. “Or maybe you need to work on your sarcasm.”

Pinkie Pie pulls out a rock from another drawer and plops it on top of the can. The can shakes a bit, but it’s not falling over any time soon. “It’s a bug with an enchantment. I found it a couple days ago when I was going through the cabinets. Blackwatch planted this bug in my office to spy on me. We might say we’re friends, but this is proof Blackwatch isn’t interested in being buddies.”

I’m not the greatest of pals with Blackwatch, but I find it odd that they would spy on Pinkie Pie. Out of all the ponies in the world, what’s Pinkie Pie hiding that they need to find out? “Maybe they planted it so they could figure out what to get you for your birthday.”

“Come on Gilda, use your noggin,” she says, tapping her forehead. “You’ve seen enough of Blackwatch’s antics to know that won’t happen.”

“Sure I have,” I say. “And I’ve also seen enough of your antics to know you don’t notice sarcasm.”

“Sure I do. What you just said”-

-“Was sarcasm.” I run my claw over my head. “Went right over you.”

“Oh.” She looks down at the tin, and taps her hoof on the desk. “I guess I still have a lot to learn.”

“Don’t worry. Just hang around me, and you’ll pick it up in no time,” I say, giving her a wink. “So Blackwatch is spying on you. I didn’t know you had any dirt to dig up.”

“Neither did I!” she says, throwing her hooves in the air. “Sure, I got secrets, Mrs. Cake’s real age, Spike’s crush on Rarity, Fluttershy’s fetishes, but there’s nothing I know that Blackwatch would be interested in. Yet for some reason, there is a bug in my office listening to all my conversations.”

“I don’t blame them,” I say, shrugging. “You’re a wildcard, Pinkie. They might want to know if what’s going on in your head so they can brace themselves when you throw them a surprise party.”

Pinkie Pie gives me a deadpan look. “You can quit with the sarcasm.”

“That’s not sarcasm. We both know you blow things out of proportion all the time. You’re parties, your cooking, even your personality. Blackwatch might want to keep tabs on you to check when you go overboard.” At least that’s the only reason I can think up.

“Gilda, we’re talking about a shadowy organization that’s turned Manehattan into a police state and is fighting off the hoard of infected ponies. If they’re spying on me, it’s not because they want to know if I took my pills this morning or not.”

Pills? “Did you take them?”

“Ha! Like I need them.” She plops down in the desk chair and runs her hooves through her hair. “This outbreak is draining the life out of me. The last thing Blackwatch needs to worry about is me throwing them a surprise party. Heck, I’m nothing to them. They just put me in charge of QWP so they can look good on papers.”

“But you say they’re spying on you,” I say, pointing to the can. “They must think you’re worth something.”

“I’m worth as much as a good publicity stunt, maybe,” Pinkie grumbles, leaning her chin on a hoof. “I don’t get it. I found the bug before I got the photos. Blackwatch wouldn’t need to spy on me before that. So why would they bug me?”

“You got photos?” I ask. “What would Blackwatch want with photos?”

Pinkie looks up at me. “You wouldn’t happen to remember anything about Genicorn, do you?”

I shake my head. “No.”

Pinkie Pie sighs. “You should. Genicorn is a medical research company. Blackwatch is sort of their child with the Equestrian army, only to be used in the event of an outbreak like this. Before Blacklight, Genicorn was doing research to cure any injury and illness, or so they said. If you remembered them, then I think you would be very angry in a moment.”

Should I be angry? Sure, Blackwatch are bullies, and if Genicorn created Blackwatch, Genicorn is another bully by extension. But I’m not exactly fuming at what they’re doing. “Do the photos involve them?”

Pinkie nods. “They do, big time.” She gets up to the chair and walks over to the back of the room. She climbs up the cabinets to reach an air-vent in the ceiling. There’s a string dangling from the vent. She bites it, pulls it out, and an envelope comes sliding out.

She tosses me the envelope, and I open it. There’s pictures inside. Most of them are dark. I can barely make out the shapes of what they’re supposed to be. The ones that are developed enough to see were taken at extreme angles. Under a table, behind a metal grate, above a shelf, behind the crack of a door. Whoever took these needed to hide in some tight places to get these shots.

The first photo has some ponies dressed in blue trashbags. They’re standing in front of two cages, one with a healthy stallion inside and the other with an infected. The infected is gnawing at the bars, trying to get a snack of the stallion, and the stallion is backing up as far as he can into a corner.

The next photo has more trashbag ponies surrounding a mare strapped down to the table. The mare has some signs of infection, boils, patchy coat, red skin, but she doesn’t appear to be completely turned. They’re poking and prodding the mare with needles and knives and other medical tools. She’s clearly awake and feeling everything they do to her. She’s crying her eyes out, and she might be screaming, but they have a muzzle strapped on her mouth.

There are more trashbags in the third photo. They’re standing around another table, and this one has the severed head of a small colt sitting on it. It has signs of infection, boils and patchy coat, just like the mare. The trashbags are cutting at it with a small saw. What messed up monsters are these ponies?

While the first few are disturbing on their own, the last one caught me off guard. It’s the monster I fought, the big, pink monster pony that I neutered. It’s chained up tight in the eagle position. Its mouth is wide open, as if it was roaring. Its googly eyes are giving the trashbags a mean look. This is unexpected, but what does it for me is the pony leg sticking out of the creature’s mouth, like a cigar. The leg doesn’t have a trashbag or Blackwatch armor on it. It’s just a plain, yellow pony leg, sticking out of the monster’s mouth.

“What in Tartarus are these?” I ask.

“These were taken inside a Genicorn facility,” Pinkie says. “Somepony went through a lot of trouble to get these.”

I look through the photos another time. “I see why these would upset ponies, but why would this make me angry? It’s just shady scientists doing shady things. You can read this stuff in comics.”

“You actually met some these ponies before,” Pinkie says. She points to the photo with the monster in it. “And you’ve met this one a lot. Doctor Eureka, the head scientist at Genicorn. He took you out to dinner twice before the outbreak hit.”

The pony she points out is poking the monster with a long stick. “Dinner, as in a dinner date?”

“More like a celebration dinner. Rainbow Dash was with you too, along with Twilight, and a couple of Eureka’s assistants.”

She says the name Twilight like I’m supposed to know who that is. I know I should, but my damn amnesia strikes again. “What were we celebrating?”

“Dash’s progress,” she says. “If you still don’t remember what I’m talking about, I’ll tell you. But I have to warn you, you’re not going to like it.”

“Sure, fill me in,” I say. “What should I get angry about?”

Pinkie Pie strolls back over to the office chair and sits in it. There’s a couple of cheap chairs behind be, but I choose to stand. “We weren’t in Manehattan just for your sconeshop,” she says. “Six months ago, Rainbow Dash hurt her wings really bad during a Wonderbolt show. When I say bad, I mean completely shattered, unable to heal, forever grounded bad. It wasn’t pretty.”

I wince as imagine what it would’ve looked like. Wings have to go through something nasty to end up out-of-commission forever.

“She survived, thank goodness,” Pinkie continues, “But the doctors said there was no chance of her ever flying again. Rainbow didn’t take it too well. The first month was the roughest. She almost…” Pinkie Pie trails off. She shudders. “Let’s just say she’s lucky to have friends to support her.”

“I think I get the picture,” I say. I got wings, I can relate. The griffons back in Griffonstone wouldn’t be so caring if something similar happened to me.

“Three months ago, we got a letter from Genicorn. They claimed they could heal Rainbow’s wing with a new technology they were developing. Some of us had our doubts, but Rainbow jumped on the chance to get her wings back. Genicorn is based here in Manehattan, so we all took a vacation and went straight here.”

“And I assume I join in on this trip to open the sconeshop.”

Pinkie Pie shakes her head.. “Not at first. You and Rainbow were writing to each other a lot, and you mentioned you wanted to open up shop somewhere here in Equestria and didn’t know where to start. Fortunately for you, Rarity had connections here in Manehattan, and she found a nice place to do business on Daffodil Street.

“The first thing we did when we got to Manehattan was go to Genicorn. We met Dr. Eureka there, and he told us how they made a new discovery in microbiology that would allow them to heal injuries in no time at all, and they offered Rainbow to try it out first. Of course she said yes, and they started the treatments the next day.

“You came a week after, and you joined up with our group. Every day for the next two weeks, we’d go with Rainbow to Genicorn to support her while they did their thing. We did this as long as we could, but some of us needed to get back home. Everyone but you and Dash left Manehattan at some point, and it was just you two going to the treatment center on a daily basis.”

“But didn’t you help me open the store?”

“We all came back when we could. Rarity and I came around to help you out when we stopped by, but for the most part it was you who stood by Rainbow’s side for the two months she was here.”

I glanced back at the photos, noting the trashbags standing around in them. “And I met those scientists while Rainbow was being treated.”

“Yeah, some of them,” Pinkie says. “At the time, they looked like nice doctors. They were very nice to us, and they were even making progress on Rainbow’s wings. I never thought they would be hurting ponies like they are in these photos.”

“Are you sure they’re the same ponies? They’re all wearing those trashbags. I can’t tell who’s who.”

“Those bio-suits have nametags on them,” Pinkie says. “And I remember the names of everyone I meet.”

I pick up the photos and look at them once more. These trashbags, I met these guys before, and they were helping Rainbow Dash. Now they’re cutting up ponies for science and working with Blackwatch. “You know, I think I am getting a little mad.”

Pinkie leans back in the chair. “I said you’d be angry, and you’re not alone. Both Genicorn and Blackwatch have been pushing my buttons all month, and I’m getting sick of it.”

“It’s not that,” I say. “I’m getting angry for something else. My gut’s telling me there’s more to this than these photos. These ponies, Blackwatch, Eureka, I know all this is just the tip of the mountain. There’s something about this I can’t remember, but I know it’s something that’s making me angry. I just can’t think of what it is.”

Pinkie Pie leans in, resting her elbows on the desk. “I got a feeling too.”

I frown at her. “No you don’t. You don’t have amnesia, like I do.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t have feelings. I have this one feeling, something coming from my Pinkie sense”-

“Pinkie sense?” I interrupt.

She nods. “I get these feelings, my Pinkie sense, and they let me know what’s going to happen in the future.”

That’s… not as unbelievable as I would think. I got this force in the back of my head telling me where things are, so future sense is not too farfetched.

“And I have this one feeling,” Pinkie Pie says, “And it’s telling me Rainbow Dash is alive.”

"Rainbow?" I pause. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” she says, shrugging. “She’s been gone as long as you have.”

“Then how do you know she’s alive?”

“You’ve been gone for a month too, yet here you are. You’re standing right here, breathing and talking to me, aren’t you?”

I nod. “Sure. But how is that proof?”

“It’s just a feeling,” Pinkie says. “And my feelings are always right. Rainbow Dash is out there, somewhere. I don’t know where, but she’s still living. I think Blackwatch has her somewhere.”

“And where would we look? She could be anywhere in Manehattan. Heck, she could be in a different city.”

Pinkie Pie taps on one of the photos, the one with the monster. “Dr. Eureka, he’ll know.”

I pick up the photo again, and look closely at the pony in the trashbag suit. “So what, we go up to him and ask nicely to tell us where Rainbow is?”

“I don’t know how we’ll get him to tell us,” she says. “But I know you can figure out a way.”

I cock an eyebrow. “Is that another feeling, or are you just being sarcastic.”

“I knew you were still alive, even before we met in the tent today. Trust in my feelings, they will guide you to truth.”

Okay… Random sage advice aside, this is all coming out of left field. “You’re asking me to talk to this guy?”

“I’m asking you to find our friend,” Pinkie says. “This guy knows how to find her.”

“And if he doesn’t talk?”

“Then I give you full permission to do what you’ve been doing all morning,” Pinkie says. She kicks up her back hooves onto the table and folds her forelegs behind her head. “Ruin Blackwatch’s day.”

13 - No Good Powers

Our little talk ended around there. Pinkie said what she needed to and she needed to get back to running QWP. QWP, that sounds like Quip If you say it fast. Quip. That’s a fun word to say. She kicked me out into the hall and now I’m sitting on a random chair I found. Fine, be that way. I’ll sit on this chair backwards, like a rebel.

Pinkie filled in some gaps, which was nice of her, but I was hoping I would get some flashbacks to fill in the rest. I only have Pinkie’s word to go off of, and that at least is enough to get some context.

So Rainbow Dash broke her wings. Some mysterious organization called Genicorn offered to fix them up for her. Around this time, I opened a sconeshop here, with some assistance from Rainbow’s friends. Dr. Eureka is also involved, somehow. I guess he was looking after Rainbow during her treatment.

Pinkie said Dr. Eureka knows where she is, and I should go find him. It’s nice that I have a lead, but I got a finding force too. I can cut out the middleman and search for Rainbow on my own.

Okay, how did I turn on my searching force? That’s the question of the day, how do I use X power. Hmm… I found Pinkie Pie with the force, and I just wanted to find her. I guess it’s an automatic ability. Maybe all I have to do is ask.

Finding force, I need to find Rainbow Dash.

Eh... Nope, that didn’t work. I don’t feel anything.

Force, find me Rainbow Dash, please.

And… Still no mysterious pull, even when asking nicely.

Pinkie Pie’s, uh, Pinkie sense has a read on Rainbow. There’s a little voice coming from the fog in my amnesiac mind that’s telling me to trust that. Okay, sure, but if her “Pinkie sense” senses Rainbow, why can’t my Gilda sense find her?

Gilda sense, I like the sound to that. How do I get my Gilda sense to work? Let’s test this.

Gilda sense, find Pinkie.

My sense yanks me towards Pinkie’s office door so hard I almost fall out of my chair. Huh, I got it to work.

Gilda sense, find Rainbow.

Nothing.

What the heck, it finds Pinkie but not Rainbow? These powers are garbage! They never work when I need them to. Give me the big monster claws to cut up ponies and let me liquefy their corpses and eat them, but don’t give me the ability to find my best friend in the world! Screw these damn powers!

Grrr, what about Dr. Eureka. Can you at least find him?

The sense points me in some odd direction to the right. Oh good, at least I can find the sheep-bucker who can give me some real answers. Thanks monster powers, you’ve helped me with my problems once again! Stupid powers…

Speaking of garbage powers, my super hearing picks up the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Wonder who it is. If it’s Cherry, I’ll make weird noises at her. No context, just weird noises. That will freak her out.

The footsteps get closer, and a blue-eye goon turns around the corner. It’s not Cherry, that bitch has a horn. This blue-eye is hornless, and wingless, maybe it’s Pillow, or some random blue-eye that wandered in from the street.

He walks towards me for who-knows-what reason. Maybe he wants to get up close so he can shank me in the throat, although I don’t think that will kill me. Now there’s a question I haven’t asked today, what can kill me? Fatal blows from a monster didn’t work. Spell bolts did jack squat. My mouth is still numb from the bleach, so maybe that’ll kill me later.

I watch as the blue-eye makes his way down the hall. He’s a bit on the short side, shorter than the average mare. Huh, now that I’m looking at it, I can’t tell gender with the armor on. The masks all look the same, and they don’t show off a pony’s feminine or masculine features. I guess that’s the point, get rid of personal identity and establish unity and that military crap. Better for me. If I’m fighting against these guys, I don’t want to see their faces so I don’t feel guilty about cutting them up into tiny pieces. The last thing I need is PTSD from looking at a pony that went through a meat grinder.

Oh hey, the blue eye is right in front of me. The guy looks up at me, and he holds a hoof out for me to shake

“Hi, my name is Caramel,” the blue-eye says with a slow voice. His vowels lag behind for miles. Is this guy drunk? “And I forgive you for punching me through a wall.”

Oh, that guy. I remember him. Did he just forgive me? “What?"

The blue-eye glances down at his hoof, and looks back up. “Hi, my name is Caramel, and I forgive you for”-

“I heard you the first time,” I say, interrupting him. “And… what exactly are you doing here?”

“I’m introducing myself,” he says, “And I’m forgiving you for punching me through a wall.”

Is this real? This pony has to be off his knocker. “I get that, but why?”

“Pinkie Pie says we’re friends,” he says, “And my momma always told me to introduce myself to new friends and to forgive friends for mistakes they make.”

This can’t be real. There’s no way this can be real. “Your momma told you that?”

“Yes,” he says. This is unexpected.

I don’t have a response to this. His hoof is still sticking out for a shake. Maybe it’s covered in tiny barbs that will poison me if I touch it. But something tells me this colt is too… simple to think of something like that. Maybe he’s faking it to throw me off guard. Maybe Cherry is in cahoots with this guy and came up with a convoluted plan to take me down.

“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” Caramel asks.

I look down at his hoof. It seems harmless, but I know he’s plotting something. “Why should I?”

“Because Pinkie Pie says we’re friends,” he says, “and new friends introduce themselves.”

“But we’re not friends,” I say. “You’re Blackwatch, and Blackwatch wants me dead.”

“But Pinkie Pie says”-

“I know what Pinkie Pie said.” I see it now, Cherry set this up to test my patience. She thinks if my patience breaks, I’ll snap and go on a murder spree so she’ll have an excuse to kill me. I’ll show her. “But Blackwatch has been shooting at me all morning and I doubt any of them would consider me as a friend.”

There’s a moment of silence before Caramel says something with his long-vowel words. “I’m sorry we shot at you. We didn’t mean to.”

This has to be a patience test, or this guy is just really dumb. “That’s not something you can apologize for.”

“Momma said I should apologize for my mistakes.”

“And my momma said”- I stop myself. It’s not worth it. The simplest answer is always the right answer, this colt is just dumb. Caramel still has his hoof out for a shake. Does this colt even know that I’ve killed other Blackwatch goons? Does he even know there’s a plague raging through Manehattan?

Fine, I’ll humor him. I grab his hoof and give it a shake. “Hi, my name is Gilda.” What do you know, my talons aren’t burning from poison.

“Nice to meet you, Gilda,” he says. I’m sure he’s smiling under the mask.

We both let go, and he just stands there, silent. Does he want something else? “So…”

“Yes?”

“Is there something else you need to say?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Then why are you still here?”

The colt tilts his head. “Should I not be here?”

“Well, I would like some space to myself right now.”

“Space is a nice thing to have.”

“It is.” Caramel doesn’t get the hint and doesn't leave. Didn’t this guy sound more competent when I encountered him upstairs? The hit must have killed a few brain cells. “You can go now.”

“Go where?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“Oh, okay.” He turns around to walk away, but then he looks back at me, “Should I stay in the base? Lieutenant Pillow Talk told me not to leave the base unless someone tells me to.”

Simplest answer strikes again. “Sure, stay inside. As long as you’re not near me, I don’t care.”

“Should I sort the mail like I did this morning?”

“Yeah, do that.” Sheesh, does this guy need his momma to tell him to breathe? Apparently Blackwatch gets its henchponies from the same place Daring Do villains get their goons, especially the ones after the third book.

Before the dumbest pony I’ve met today goes off to do his own thing, another set of hoofsteps comes down the hall. Dr. Heart comes rushing around the corner. “You,” she shouts when she spots Caramel, “You shouldn’t be walking around.”

Caramel stops walking. “But I need to sort through the mail.”

“What you need is to not be moving. You could have a concussion!”

“But I forgave Gilda for that,” Caramel says. “We’re friends now.”

Dr. Heart gives me a quick glance. I shrug at her. The colt’s dumb, what else can I say. “That’s great, but you still went through a wall. I haven’t had the time to properly inspect you for broken bones.”

“I feel fine. I can show you.” Caramel marches in place and flexes his limbs. “See, there’s no need for a checkup.”

“That may be, but you have clear symptoms of a concussion. Your movement is slow and your speech is slurred.”

“But I’ve always been like this. Momma says I’m perfect the way I am.” He’s perfect alright, a perfect meal for a hungry monster. Excluding myself, what mutant creature wouldn’t pass up a meal that just sits there?

“And you have a perfect head that I need to look at for trauma,” Dr. Heart says. “I need you back in the clinic for a proper examination.”

“I don’t need to be examined,” Caramel says. He sounds agitated now. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need more doctors looking at me.”

“This is for your own good. You could get really sick if I don’t take a look.”

“NO!” he yells. “No more doctors. No doctors. No doctors. No doctors.”

Is he throwing a tantrum? This is… Wow, I’ve seen some weird stuff today, but this takes home the gold. A Blackwatch goon having a tantrum. Caramel keeps repeating “no doctors” nonstop, and its getting irritating. I wonder what his opinion on dentists is.

Dr. Heart tries to get near the blue-eye, but Caramel backs up to keep a good distance between them. “It’s alright,” Heart says, barely audible over the blue-eye’s no-doctor spiel. “I’m just going to help. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Let it go,” I say. Might as well butt in and stop this before it gets too crazy. “He says he doesn’t want help, so don’t give him help.”

Dr. Heart looks at me. “You’re the one who punched him through a wall. You don’t get to tell me I can’t treat the ponies you hurt.”

“I’m not saying it, he is,” I say, pointing at the rambling blue-eye. “He’s got clear issues with doctors, so I wouldn’t bother trying. It’s his decision.”

Dr. Heart glances between us, and then rolls her eyes. “Ugh, fine. I got to work on the kids’ paperwork anyways. Don’t say I didn’t try to help.”

As she walks away, Caramel’s rambling gets quieter and quieter. When Dr. Heart disappears around the corner, he’s dead silent. Glad that worked. I was afraid I would have to headbutt him through another wall to get him to shut up.

“Thank you Gilda,” Caramel says.

Seriously, this requires a thank you? I just told Heart to get lost. Anyone with a backbone can do that. Back in Griffonstone, the kids will rip your tail feathers off if you can’t shoo them away. This was nothing!

“Thank you Gilda,” Caramel says again. I get the pattern now, he says something, expects me to respond in a calculated way, or else he won’t shut up. This guy is a basket case.

“You’re welcome,” I say with no enthusiasm. “Are you going to leave now?”

“But the doctor will come back for me if I leave you.”

Oh no, don’t you dare attach yourself to me. I am not your momma. “No, she won’t. She has better things to do than bothering you. She’s not going to bug you again.”

“Oh, okay.”

Again, he just stands there. He thinks he has nothing better to do than stand here. “You can leave now.”

He doesn’t budge an inch. “Can I stay with you? I would like to be with a friend right now.”

This colt is pushing all the buttons. All of them! “No you can’t. I’m about to leave to search for a friend of mine, and you can’t come.”

“Oh, okay.” That phrase is grinding on my nerves. “Are you going to come back?”

Good question. If you’re still here, no. “No, I’m not. I’m going to find my friend, we’re going to leave Manehattan together, and then we’re going to hide out in Griffonstone and drink ourselves to death while we wait for this plague to clear out.”

I came up with that plan on the spot. That doesn’t sound too terrible. Find Rainbow Dash and ditch this place. Heck, she’s probably chilling on a cloud in Las Pegasus. Maybe I’ll take Pinkie with us and load her up with vodka and let her get loose. Grover knows the mare needs it.

Caramel still shows no sign of leaving. “When are you going?”

I check an imaginary watch on my wrist. “Right now. There’s no reason for me to stay here.”

“Oh, okay.” I swear I’ll send you through the wall again if you say that one more time! “Bye. I hope you find your friend.”

He waves at me before trotting down the hall. Good, I thought I’d never get rid of him. It’s a miracle I didn’t shut him up with my monster claws.

Now that’s over with, I got to find Rainbow Dash. But first, I need to pay Dr. Eureka a visit.

14 - Steamcart Music Hall

Steamcart Music Hall, a showcase of culture and fine art, famous for… I don’t know. I’ve never heard of this place before. I’m just reading what the sign says. The building looks fancy, and it has Music Hall in the name, so I assume rich yuppies go here for operas and concerts and such. Shame there won’t be any show tunes playing anytime soon. Blackwatch commandeered the place to use as a base. All shows have been canceled on account of the plague.

This place is right on the edge of the Yellow-zone, serving as a border checkpoint for the quarantine zone. Blackwatch has a makeshift compound set up from the entrance of the theater to the building across the street. They blocked off the road with tall concrete walls, and there are blue-eye goons running around like ants. There’s also two airships hovering above the building, and one parked on top of the roof. The ponies on the street are keeping their distance away from the gates, and I wouldn’t blame them. The blue-eyes guarding the entrances seem to be heavily armed and ready to shoot anything that so much as flinches.

This is the place my Gilda sense led me to. Dr. Eureka is somewhere in there, and I’m not so sure how easy it will be to get to him. I could slip in as Sweet Tooth, but if they sniff me out, Tartarus will break loose. I also have a good vantage point from this ledge. I could take my time and observe the place, memorize patrol patterns, plan out a stealth approach, and do cool secret agent stuff.

Screw it, I’ll risk Sweet Tooth. Worst comes to worse, I’ll hightail it out of there and come back on another day with a real plan. There’s nothing stopping Gilda sense from finding Eureka again if I bail.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Sneak in, bail if things get loud, rinse and repeat. What’s the worst that can happen? I know Blackwatch’s tricks. They can’t surprise me.

Are those blue-eyes wearing metal plates? There are a couple of blue-eyes standing next to some red barrels, and they look like they’re wearing metal plates. Huh, I haven’t seen that yet.

Welp, time for action. I kick off from my ledge and glide on over to the base. I steer myself towards one of the windows. Going through the front door might sound all fine and dandy, but I’m not feeling up to a flashy entrance. I want to get in without making a scene.

I’m flying at that window faster than I want. I try flaring out my wings to slow down, but my feathers are locked in place. Of course they are. Why should I get control of my wings? Doesn’t matter. It’s not like crashing through glass will hurt me, I’ve already busted through a fish tank today, so what’s another window to me?

Wait, what is behind that window? I can’t see anything through it. It’s just silver and shiny.

Oh. That’s metal. There’s metal covering that window, and I’m flying at it very fast. Son-of-a-bis-

My face smashes into the steel plate with a loud clang. Underneath that clang, I can hear my beak go crunch from the crash. I dig my talons into the wall before I fall off, and now I’m dangling five stories above the ground. Oh good, this is starting off with a rough landing. I’m sure everything else will go smoother.

I shake my head, ignoring the beak chunks flinging away. It doesn’t hurt… Scratch that, it hurts a little. No, that’s wrong. It hurts. It hurts a lot! The pain just needed a moment to register. Owowowowow! Sweet mercy, someone jammed a rail spike up my nose!

Now the pain is fading away, and my beak is growing back into place. Thank goodness for monster healing powers. I glance at the metal plate, and the front half of my beak is sticking out of that. Son-of-a-bison, I broke my beak off!

In retrospect, I should’ve seen this coming. Why would a military base have unsealed windows? A rowdy pegasus or a monster griffon can break in through there. Sealing windows with metal plates is a great idea.

As my monster powers finish up the end of my beak, the sound of flushing water comes from somewhere near. That sounds like a toilet. It’s echoing, like it came from a bathroom.

A voice comes from the same place as the flush. I look towards the sound, and I find an open window next the one I’m hanging by. Oh come on, how did I not see that?!

I hop over to the window ledge, grab on to the sill, and take a peek inside. Yep, it’s a bathroom alright. Stalls, sinks, mirrors, potted plants, all looking very fancy. This music hall spent its money right. I should come back here later and steal some stuff for the sconeshop.

One of the stall doors swings open and an earth-pony mare comes walking out. Her hair is a rat’s nest, she has bags under the eyes, and she has a cutiemark of a hoof punching a bowl of fruit. Interesting character. She heads up to the sink, washes her hooves, splashes some water on her face, and now I feel like a creep. Why am I watching this?

The bathroom door swings open and a blue-eye pegasus trots on in. “I freaking hate these uniforms,” the blue-eye yells. The pegasus pulls the mask off to reveal the peach mare underneath, who also has a messy mane and eye bags, and tosses the thing on onto one of the sink basins. “They get really sweaty! I’m going to go insane if I have to stand another day with this damn suit sticking to me!”

“Preach it, girl,” the other says, splashing more water on her face. “Would it kill R&D to come up with a suit that breathes?”

The pegasus clicks some buckles on her uniform and lets the straps fall loose. “Why can’t we wear the stuff the military wears? Those uniforms don’t turn into a sauna after ten minutes and they don’t have to wear these damn masks.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” The sink mare splashes some water in her hair and tries combing it with a hoof. “We're nowhere near the plague, so why do we even need these suits? All this protocol is command trying to feel important.”

“Command can go suck it.” With the sound of a zipper, the back half of the pegasus’s uniform falls to her hooves and she kicks it away. “If they’re not going to give us decent suits, then I doubt they give a crap about us at all.”

“We’re cannon fodder to them.” The sink mare turns off the water and flicks her hooves dry. “Why give us nice things if we’re going to die and ruin their toys.”

The pegasus rolls her eyes. “Oh please, we’re not going to die. It’s not as if Patient Zero is going to walk in and eat… us… Who the heck is that?!”

The pegasus is looking right at me. Her shout throws me off balance and my hooves lose their grip. Hooves? Ah, I turned into Sweet Tooth without noticing it. I suppose that’s convenient. With my balance gone, I teeter forward and flop face-first onto the tile floor.

“Ow,” Sweet Tooth groans.

“Holy shit!” the pegasus mare shrieks. “A fucking creep’s been watching us!”

Sweet Tooth shuffles back onto his hooves and shakes off the dust. “Well, I’m a girl, so the term creep doesn’t apply.”

“You sound like a guy! Shit, it’s one of those fucking gender benders! There’s a gender bender watching us!”

She’s not wrong. Technically I am a gender bender, and I was watching them. Just give me a second and I’ll physically change to anyone’s sexual preference. They just have to be lenient on what species they get.

“Go get the other officers! Tell them we got a peeper,” the sink mare barks at the other. She turns towards to me with a steely glare. “I’ll take care of this freak myself.”

The pegasus nods, and flies out of the bathroom with just the top half of her uniform. The sink mare shifts into a fighting stance, bending her neck to make the bones crack. Somehow her wet mane adds a level of threat on top of her snarl.

“Okay, I know what you’re thinking,” I say, “And trust me, you don’t want to fight me. It’s gone south for you guys every time you try and fight me.”

She doesn’t listen. Before I can blink, she’s up in my face and gives me a nasty kick under the chin. Her kick sends me into a backflip and my head hits the window sill, busting the tile apart. Ow! This earth-pony has power in her!

“You’re going down, freak,” she sneers. “I’ll make sure you get more than court-martialed for this!” Great, all the Blackwatch ladies want to pick a fight with me. Line up and get the popcorn, let’s all have a cat-fight with Gilda!

Sweet Tooth rolls on his side to get up, but the sink-mare rams her hoof straight into my crotch.

“I did not say to get up! Stay on the floor like the scum you are!”

I wanted to say something, but this chick just whacked me in my no-no spot and I feel like I’m about to explode. Oh sweet mercy, this is payback for flight camp. I’m sorry Hoops! I didn’t know that rock hurt this bad!

“Are you going to cry? Good! I want you to cry like the pussy you are!”

This girl is asking for it. My leg kicks out and lands a hit in the center of her chest. The power behind it sends the mare flying across the room before crashing into a stall. Hah, she didn’t see that coming!

“I’m not taking any smack talk from the likes of you,” I say, groaning as I stand up on my hooves. “Now stay down like a good girl and forget any of this happened.”

“Eat shit, freak!”

A toilet comes flying out of the dust. I duck just in time, and the porcelain throne shatters behind me. I don’t see the mare running at me with the steel pipe until it’s too late. She clonks me upside the head and sends me stumbling for the window. I trip and fall and land on the window sill. My head’s sticking out and I got a nice view of the street below.

My pony ears hear the mare coming, and I push myself away before her pipe smashes the window sill into tiny bits. She takes another swing at me, and I fall back into a stall to avoid her hit.

She winds up for her next swing, but I kick myself forward and bodyslam her to the ground. Her pipe drops with a clink, but that doesn’t stop her. Her head lashes out and she bites me in the throat. The sharp pain stuns me, and she throws me off with a kick to the gut.

She jumps to her hooves, and I just stumble back up. We have a bit of ground between us. “You know, you’re the second Blackwatch today to give me a beatdown,” I say.

“Why am I not surprised,” the mare says, bending back down in her fighting stance. “Another peep show gone wrong?”

“Nah, he just didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him.” I take a moment to shape-shift back into a griffon, making sure my monster claws come out with me. “So I ate him.”

The mare’s eyes shrink into slits as the worms finish their job. “Zero,” she hisses.

My monster claws wave at her. “Hi, how’s it going? Can you be nice and let me go so I don’t have to eat you too?”

Before I blink, the mare picks up her pipe and whacks me in the side of the head, again. “Die!” she yells. A simple no would’ve hurt less!

I bash into her with my shoulder and she stumbles away. “Come on, don’t be a bitch. I got better things to do than to eat ponies!”

I’m not letting her attack again. She’s had her chance to stop, and she blew it. Only one of us is leaving this room alive.

My claws slash at her, and she raises the pipe to block. My blade chops that thing in half and a piece of it flies away. Now she doesn’t have a weapon.

I charge at her, throwing slice after slice at her. The mare turns out to be surprisingly nimble, as she’s weaving in and out of my strikes. In a blur, she snakes between my arms and ends up nose-to-beak with me. She holds up her piece of pipe and yells as she jams it into my eye.

“OW! Buck- ACK!” Her right hook hits me in the throat, and I smash into a bathroom mirror. Red and black goop pours out of my eye-socket, and I can barely see what this chick is doing.

She backs off and is tearing through the pegasus’s uniform. What the heck do you need to steal from a friend’s purse? Perfume? Money? Through my blurred vision, I can see her yank out something long and black. Oh come on, how lonely does a mare have to be to carry around a di-

OW! Everything hurts! The world turns bright blue and I can’t see a damn thing. Is something burning? I smell something burning, like meat. Sweet mercy, I think I’m burning!

The light fades and I can almost see the mare pointing the black thing at me. The thing flashes blue, and my stomach explodes in pain. She’s shooting spells at me! Why do these hurt more than before?!

She fires another shot, and then another. Each hit makes my legs spasm in pain. My feathers, I can smell them burning too!

“Pfft, pathetic,” the mare says, shooting another bolt into my leg. “I can’t see why everyone thinks you’re a big deal. You went down like a bitch.”

I try saying something, but she cuts me off by shooting my beak, which explodes into tiny fragments. I just healed that!

“I bet the reward for your head isn’t that high. Command is probably going to give me a gift card and tell me to get back to work. Whatever the reward, it’s going to be disappointing, like you."

I try moving my body, but I can’t feel anything move. She takes another shot at me, but at this point it doesn’t even phase me. No, I’m not going down to a single goon. Not like this.

One of my claws still works. I scratch at the floor to test what I can do with it. I think I can still move it, but what can I do? I can’t get up and slice her. She’s too busy standing far out of reach and shooting me.

Another bolt to the stomach, and my claws clench up, grabbing something small and metallic. Wait, this is the pipe I sliced off. Hah, now I got all of her pipe, half in my claw and half in my eye. Hmm, there’s an idea.

My claw winds back and I fling the pipe piece at the mare. It whistles as it flies through the air, then it makes a quick slurp sound. I hear the mare choke and collapse to the ground, along with the clatter of the spell stick hitting the tile. Sweet, I hit her. I hit her with her own weapon.

It takes a moment, but my healing powers do enough work to let me stand up. They only patch me up enough to lumber around, but that’s fine. I only need to walk a short distance.

I stumble at a slow pace towards the mare, grabbing the sinks to keep me stable. I wipe the goop off my face, and I can see the mare laying on the floor. She’s grabbing her throat, trying to hold onto the blood that’s squirting out of the pipe. Her face is turning pale, and the only sound she’s making is a weak wheeze.

“You should’ve stepped down” I say. My claws go up in the air, and then they chop down the mare’s torso, splitting it in half. Her eyes go wide as her wheezing turns into a gurgle, and then she disappears into a mass of tentacles and worms.

And so ends another bitch’s life.

Wait, the world’s going blurry. Why is the world-

Airships floating above, blue-eyes marching around…

“At ease, Fruit Punch. Eureka is here to speak with you.”

A yellow earth-pony, a well-combed mane…

“Captain Cole Slaw recommended you as a candidate for a special project we’re working on. Would you perhaps be interested?”

Scientists surround a monster, medical tools poke at it…

“It depends, sir. What do you want from me?”

A big smile, glass eyes…

“I can’t disclose much on it just yet, but I can say we’re looking for individuals who display incredible strength. Seeing as you are one of the top ten performers of the Dozer Brigade, you would make an ideal participant.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I won’t hold it against you. You can accept at any time. In fact, once the project is fully operational in the coming weeks, you may find yourself signing up to join.”

“So you’re offering me an early enrollment for one of your experiments?”

“At this point I wouldn’t call it an experiment. It’s applied science now.”

“I think I’ll pass. I’m not all keen into jumping into one of your projects without a little knowledge.”

“That's... fine. The offer is still open for you. But may I ask you a question before I go?”

“You may.”

“How did you get your cutiemark. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

A cutiemark, a hoof punching a bowl of fruit…

“It’s not that special. I got it when I was much younger. My dad tried to rape me and my sister, so I punched him in the dick. Crushed it to a pulp. He died from shock shortly after.”

A gulp, clenching teeth…

“Ah… I see. You’re lucky Blackwatch doesn’t do psyche evaluations.”

“I’m lucky with a lot of things.”

“Clearly. Well, if you do end up changing your mind, you know where my office is.”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

Ponies walking away...

"Why does everyone say no?"

“Hey Fruits, are you alright?”

My eyes flicker open, and the first thing I see is the peach pegasus staring down at me. The goop is out of my eyes, and my body doesn’t smell like it’s on fire.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I say in a voice not in my own. Wait, this is the mare’s voice. I roll over onto my hooves and stand up. I take a quick glance at my flank, which has a cutie mark of a hoof punching a bowl of fruit. Yep, I ate the mare and now I am Fruit Punch.

A large Blackwatch goon, covered in metal plates, lumbers past me. “Where’d he go? Where’d the creep go?”

I take a look around to see where I am. I’m still in the bathroom, and woo boy, did I make a mess out of this place. The Music Hall is going to be pissed when they find out how much this is going to cost to repair.

“I don’t know,” I say. “We got in a fight, and he knocked me out and left.”

“You got knocked out?” the large goon asks, and laughs. “Did you cry uncle too? How did you let a creep get the better of you?”

“He hit me with a pipe.” Yeah, I got hit a lot with that pipe. As I say that, I notice two pipe pieces laying on the ground not too far from me, covered in a thick coat of blood.

“Go easy on her,” the pegasus snaps. “She got assaulted by a pervert!”

“Hey, I did a number on him too,” I say. “I broke the bastard good.”

“Yeah, you let loose on him too.” The big goon picks up the spell stick and hefts it in his hooves. “Shit, you set your bolt-gun to full charge, and it’s almost empty. Was this pervert an Ogre?”

I shrug. “Something like that.”

The pegasus pats me on the back and pulls me out the bathroom. “Come on, let’s get you to a medic. He’ll make sure you’re all right.”

No, he won’t. He’ll take one look at me, see I’m actual a monster in a mare’s body, and tell everyone to shoot me. Taking me to a medic would blow my cover, and I just got this body. “No, I don’t want to deal with doctors right now.”

“Are you sure. You might be hurt and not realize it.”

I brush the pegasus off. “Yes, I’m sure. I don’t need a damn doctor.”

The pegasus’s brow furrows. “Well at least sit down somewhere. How about some coffee? We’ll sit down and have coffee.”

“Sure, why not,” I say, suppressing a sigh. “That’s going to work just as much as the medic.”

15 - On Her Identity’s Impossible Sitch

I’m in. Infiltration of the Blackwatch base was a success. The eagle is in the nest. I am now undercover as Fruit Punch and am fraternizing with the enemy. Will make contact at oh-five hundred hours. Taxi breaker breaker five. This message will explode in three, two, one-

“What are you humming?” the pegasus asks

“It’s the main theme of the Mission Critical comicbooks,” I say. How does this chick not recognize an all-time classic? I bought the record a few years back when I was visiting Cloudsdale. If I could, I would play it now so I can feel even more like a super-spy infiltrating the evil lair of Dr. Eureka. Call me Agent Born Possible!

“Oh, comic book music.” The pegasus rolls her eyes. “I thought you had better taste than that.”

Better taste? “I think it’s pretty catchy.”

She laughs before taking a sip of coffee. “It’s garbage and you know it. That crap is made for colts in flight-school.”

Flight-school? That settles it. You are the first to die if Agent Born Possible blows her cover.

We’re sitting in a break room in an office area in some back area of the theater. It has the standard office stuff, a few tables with chairs, a coffee machine, grey walls, and florescent lighting. I suppose even theaters need accountants to push the paperwork.

Fruit Punch helped me out more than she’ll ever know. She had memories of the layout of the entire base, complete with a straight path to Dr. Eureka’s office. Apparently the guy turned one of the balconies in the atrium into his personal lab. From what I gathered, he wanted a view of the big stage, where all the big experiments are going on.

The peach pegasus takes another sip of coffee and puts the mug down next to mine. “What pervert gets off at watching mares in the restroom?”

“A dead one, if we ever find him.” Oh, we’re going to talk about this again. Shut up girl, no one cares. This chick needs to buzz off.

“But what was he thinking we do? All that happens in the restroom is restroom stuff. We’re not kissing in there, not at all. We’re doing our flipping business like everyone else. ”

Stop making a big deal out of this! “Just got to hit them where it hurts to teach them a lesson.” I’ve said that five times already. I get it, you’re a damsel in distress who had a unfortunate encounter with a unsavory rogue. I was there, you were there, and I was there again as the rouge. Move on already, you one-dimensional bimbo!

“And he's one of ours. Whoever his commander is, he needs to put more discipline”-

The sound of cracking wood interrupts her. A plume of dust falls from the ceiling, followed by a metallic clang. The pegasus slumps on her chair, and white chunks of plaster fall from her hair, along with a metal pipe that rolls across the table.

I look up and find a hole in the roof where a ceiling tile used to be. The pegasus is out cold. I bet the pipe left a bump on her noggin. Hallelujah, a miracle from the building-maintenance gods! They couldn’t have timed that better.

Good news is I don’t have to listen to her complain anymore. Bad news is… nope, no bad news. A blue-eye knocked out by faulty architecture is always good news in my book.

Footsteps round the corner, and a blue-eye goon runs into the break room. “I heard something crash. What happened?”

I point to the mare, and then the ceiling. “That.”

“What the… How did that happen?”

Good question. I shrug. I’m not questioning this blessing.

“I’ll go get a medic. You make sure she’s alright.”

You got it dude. He runs back from where he came, and I’m left as the only soul who’s wide awake. Ah, alone at last. Let me enjoy this for a moment.

Okay, moment's over, back on track. Queue up the Mission Critical music.

I leave the break room to follow the Gilda sense, leaving that tasteless mug of coffee behind. It’s not like office coffee is good to begin with, but what good is it if it doesn’t even work on me? Now that I think about it, how am I ever going to get by without caffeine? I’m not exactly a morning bird, and the sconeshop is going to require me to get up in the wee hours of the morning just to set the place up for business.

Nevermind, my coffee woes are for another time. For now, I’m just glad the blue-eyes aren’t shooting at me. The offices aren’t too crowded with them. A couple of Blackwatch goons are walking around in full suits, but most of them are sitting at desks without their suits and filing paperwork. These guys aren’t important to me.

After a minute or so of wandering, I find a door that leads me into what I assume is the main lobby of the theater. It’s a lavish place, with intricate chandiliers and detailed wallpaper, fine paintings of musicians hanging from the walls, and a tile floor made of only the most expensive stone money can buy. Fancy.

Unfortunately, the fanciness is ruined by the Blackwatch operations going on in here. There’s an army of blue-eye goons running around and tearing up the place with their shenanigans. Some troops are moving crates and boxes around, some are cleaning suits and weapons, and others are patrolling around doing their own thing. Blackwatch isn’t out to burn the place down, but they sure are doing a great job scuffing up the floor. I hate to be the janitor who has to clean this place up.

The Gilda sense trudges on. I follow it up a grand staircase, keeping out of the way of blue-eyes who are either moving equipment around or just look like they’re in a hurry. Wait a moment, I’m the only one here without a suit on. Sure, some don’t have their masks on, particularly the ones doing hard labor, but my flank is the only exposed flank in this place. I hope no one notices.

Right seems to be the right direction at the top of the stairs, so I hang a right. These hallways are in the same state as the lobby, fancy décor muddied by Blackwatch equipment. It’s a bit of a shame, but it’s not much of a concern to me. The rich ponies can build another music hall if they want their concerts so badly.

On my way through, most of these blue-eye only glance at me, and then they trot on their way. A few blue-eyes let their gazes trail on my flank when I walk by. Three of them whistle, including a mare. Ah, I see why they wear the uniforms now, to prevent distractions.

“Hey Fruit Punch!” I jump when a blue-eye barks at me. “You’re missing something. Where’s your armor at?”

I turn around and look that the soulless goggles of the blue-eye. He’s one of the metal plate guys, one of the larger ones I’ve seen. Just like the regular blue-eyes, his face is hidden behind a mask, a metal one to be exact.

“It’s in my locker,” Fruit Punch says. “I’m off shift right now, so I don’t need it.”

“You damn well need it if you’re going to walk around the middle of this base. Did you forget protocol?”

“No I did not, sir.” Damn, I knew having no uniform would screw me over. It’s not like I knew I stand out like a cat in a rat’s den or anything.

“Clearly you did, otherwise I wouldn’t be staring at your ass. I’ll be plowing it to Tartarus if you don’t give me a good reason why you’re breaching dress code!”

That’s not something I want to go through. Is there anything Fruit Punch remembers that can get me out of this? Oh wait, there is. “I’m going to see Dr. Eureka about an offer he made to me, and I wanted to do it off shift.”

The armored blue-eye stares at me for a long, long moment before saying anything. “Are you out of your mind?! Eureka just wants you as a guinea pig. He’s going to experiment on you!”

I shrug. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. He said I’m an ideal participant for a special project.”

“He’s made the same offer to all the Dozers in this base! You don’t even know what he wants.” The blue-eye leans in and places a heavy, armored hoof on my shoulder. “Look, if you’re having issues, talk to me about it, or anyone else. Don’t put yourself under a mad-scientist’s scalpel because you think you’ll get super powers out of it. That pony is the craziest son-of-a-gun Genicorn has to offer. You’ll just be his lab rat!”

“I made my decision.” I push the armored hoof away. “I want to see what he wants, and that’s final.”

“No,” the blue-eye hisses. “As your commander, I order you to forget about Eureka. You’ll get nothing out of him.”

The creaking of wood interrupts our conversation, and a stack of boxes falls down on us. I jump out of the way before it all hits the ground, but the blue-eye isn’t so lucky. A boatload of boxes comes crashing down on top of him, and he’s buried by the avalanche.

For a moment I assume the guy died, but then I hear his voice come from deep beneath the pile. “My leg! Son of a, my leg is broken! Shit, this fucking hurts! Fruit Punch, help me out of here.”

Um, no. I got better things to do. I turn around and keep following the Gilda sense, leaving the blue-eye behind. He is not my problem.

“Fruit Punch! Are you still there?! Answer me! You better be getting a medic! Owowowow, my leg, my leg!”

Yeah, not my problem.

16 - Eureka

I ignore any other blue-eye I meet on the way. It’s pretty easy, since they’re not paying attention to me. They’re mostly running by to get the one guy out of the boxes. They’re not going to stop me from getting to Eureka.

After snaking through a few more corridors, going up a couple flights of stairs, and stepping out of the way of other Blackwatch goons, I make it to Eureka’s door. It’s a nice double door, dark wood, brass handle, and no gaurds here to bug me. It’s just me, the door, and the scientist behind the door.

The doctor better take walk-ins, because I’m not scheduling an appointment.

The door opens with a loud squeak. Someone needs to oil the hinges. The room behind the door is long, and very cluttered. There’s tables covered in books and science equipment. Behind the equipment are paintings similar to the ones in the lobby, hanging on well decorated walls. All of this is lit up by fancy chandeliers from up above.

There are a few alcoves on one side of the room, and after taking a few steps in, I notice the alcoves lead to an open area. I take a peak outside and I find a huge stage three stories below me. Ah, I see. Eureka set up his office in the hallway behind the top balconies of the main auditorium. I can see why he set up here, this place has an excellent view of the operations going on below.

The seats of the auditorium are gone, and in their place is a sea of science equipment, tables with body parts on them, and blue trashbag ponies walking around. Blue-eye goons are walking around the perimeter and are standing by the entrances. Blackwatch turned the theater into a big research lab, and Eureka has a perfect view of chaos.

The big center piece is on the stage, where Blackwatch has a big, giant monster chained up center stage. Son-of-a-bison, they got the monster I fought earlier chained up for the main event! It's yanking at its chains and biting at anything that it thinks looks tasty, but it's locked up tight. After I gave it the nip, I don't think it'll be happy to see me again.

“Miss Punch, I’m glad you came!”

I nearly jump off the balcony thanks to the unexpected voice. I turn around and find a yellow earth-pony grinning at me with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. He’s got a neatly-combed white mane, thick glasses that make his eyes twice as big as they really are, and a slight tremor that seems to be coming from his excitement. He’s wearing a blue trashbag suit like all the ponies down below are wearing, just without the helmet.

“Damn it Eureka, you shouldn’t sneak up on a soldier like that,” Fruit Punch says. “I’ll break your neck and throw you over the ledge.”

“Oh, it’s just a little case of the jitters, you’ll be fine,” he says in an almost sing-song kind of voice. “So have you reconsidered my offer? Are you interested in my secret little project?”

Hmm, I am here to ask him where Rainbow Dash is. However, this is a mad scientist. I may have to stop him if this secret project of his might destroy Manehattan, and my sconeshop. Agent Born Possible is on the case! “What else do you think I’m here for, lunch? What do you have to show me, Doctor?”

Eureka squeaks in joy. Crap, is he the Pinkie Pie of science? This might be unbearable if that’s the case. “This little project of mine is going to blow you out of this world. But first,” his smile flips over and he rolls his eyes, “Command wants me to tell you this before we do anything.”

There’s a little bit of venom in the way he says Command. “What is it?”

He groans, clears his throat, and lays it on me. “By accepting this position, you agree to treat this project as a top-tier secret unless instructed otherwise. Once you join, you are not allowed to leave your designated areas, and all attempts to do so will be met with extreme punishment. Revealing information about this project will result in immediate termination of both your job, and your life. This is the last chance you have to walk away.”

Okay, I can see why that one blue-eye was freaking out about me agreeing to this. This sounds like super-evil organization stuff right here. But that’s okay, Agent Born Possible doesn’t need to stay for the experiment. She just needs a little info. “Sounds good to me.”

Eureka’s ears perk up. “Really, you’re doing this? You’re actually doing this?”

“Eh, I got nothing better to do.” Except finding Rainbow Dash.

His big, fat grin returns to his face. “Goody! I was actually getting worried this project would get iced if no one volunteered. A couple of your other buddies came in too, but they ran away like chickens when I gave them that speech.”

I don’t blame them. I wouldn't let this crazy mad-scientist even check my heartbeat. “Don’t worry about that. I’m made of tougher stuff. Now tell me what in Celestia’s damn green earth did I just sign up for.”

“Something big. It'll change Equestria forever. Follow me!”

The doctor leads me through his lab. This guy has a little skip in his steps. He’s hopping like a jackrabbit as we walk along. So he is Science Pinkie Pie. Sci-Pie. I’m probably going to strangle him before this is over.

"This project is a modification of a previous one before the Blacklight outbreak. The original purpose was to regenerate damaged tissue and bones when conventional medicine can't do the trick, but I've made some changes for it to do even more. I have a basic outline written on a chalkboard."

Sounds like the thing Rainbow Dash roped herself into. Did he turn it into something evil? I bet he did.

We stop in front of a large chalkboard with all kinds of squiggles and lines that I can’t make heads or tails out of. It’s got a tiny pony with arrows pointing to a large pony, and weird circles and words floating around them. It resembles what a kid would make after playing with his food.

“Here it is,” he says. A few giggles leak out of him. Guess he’s really excited about this. “Just look at this beauty. It’s simple, elegant, and the diagram gets the point across. It represents my most impressive achievement yet!”

The chalk lines blend together in my vision. “Is this the project then?”

“Yep. I can hardly believe it myself. Don’t worry, you can tell me how great it is later.” This pony has one heck of an ego. Hope he keeps it in check, or I might strangle him.

My head tilts to the side, but looking with an odd angle doesn’t help. “So, is this supposed to be the meaning of life or something?”

Eureka frowns. “You’re kidding. You got to be kidding. Everything here is self explanatory. Even an infant could read this and come up with a master thesis. It’s micromanabiology one-zero-one!”

I shrug. “I skipped that class.”

The doctor’s hoof smacks his face. “Freaking Luna, schools aren’t teaching you kids what you should know these days.”

Yeah, I’m probably going to strangle him. It’s fifty-fifty at this point. “Then why don’t you explain your project so someone without a highschool diploma can understand it.”

“Very well,” he grumbles. Eureka pulls out a long stick and slaps the chalkboard with it. “Just so you know, this is the greatest discovery since the invention of fire. Pay close attention, because I’m going to test you on this later.”

I’m strangling him before he gives me the test. “I’m not going”-

His stick slaps on a drawing of a bunch of circles. “This is the Blacklight plague. It’s a little tiny organism, many times smaller than the point of a needle. Normally organisms like these are absolutely harmless, in fact you got trillions crawling inside and outside of your body.”

He's kidding, right? This pony is off his rocker. There’s no way I got trillions of anything on me. Maybe I got trillions of feathers. How big is a trillion?

“Blacklight is different. Apart from turning ponies into blood-thirsty monsters, Blacklight has the ability to mutate itself and the cells around it at an incredible pace. It mutates so rapidly, once it infects a host, it will take control over the host’s cells and force the host to produce copies of itself, and ultimately take control of the entire host in mere hours.”

“That sounds bad.”

“It sounds fascinating,” the doctor says, giggling. “Never have I seen a parasitic organism take control over a body so effectively. I’ve calculated that once a host is infected, there is only about seven and a quarter minutes to administer a cure before a cure becomes ineffective, if we even find a cure. Outside of that seven and a quarter minute mark, the plague would have taken over too much of the host’s body and removing it would be fatal.”

There’s something about the way he’s smiling that irks me. “I’m not sure that’s something to be happy about.”

“Oh it’s not pleasant for the host, but it’s fascinating to watch how fast the plague works. The fastest I’ve seen it in action was with a little filly named Sea Salt. She had boils around the infection zone at twenty seven seconds and was a raging monster at thirteen minutes and twelve seconds. What a sight to watch. I still have her head to remember the occasion.”

He points at a jar sitting on a table- Sweet Grover on a Spike that’s a floating head! It’s the head of a small filly, cleanly decapitated, bobbing up and down in a thick, green fluid. Her hair’s drifting apart in a spidery web. Large boils are pressing against the glass. Her eyes are staring dead ahead.

What the heck is wrong with this guy?! Why does he have this on his desk?!

“The strange thing is her mother almost had the record for holding out the longest. Twenty seven hours, six minutes, and forty five seconds. Impressive, but not the longest, but a notable difference between mother and daughter. I think Blackwatch used the mother for target practice after she turned.”

No, I’m not strangling this guy. Once he tells me what I need to know, I’m ripping him up into tiny ribbons. He’s got a kid’s head in a jar. I think he infected the kid too! Give me a reason why I shouldn’t kill this guy!

The doctor waves a hoof. “Enough of that business, back on topic.”

Crap, his project is something messed up, I just know it. Glad I’m here to stop him before he goes anywhere with it.

“Blacklight is highly mutative, but we can use its mutative properties to our benefit.”

Ah, using a deadly plague for science. This won’t end well.

“We’ve figured out how to manipulate a dose of Blacklight so it won’t kill a patient, but benefit them. Originally we could use it to regenerate flesh and bone. And with our latest batch of modified Blacklight, we’ve successfully increased the muscle mass of test-subjects by three-hundred percent.”

He probably tested his project on kids. Wait a moment, he tested this on Rainbow Dash! His demise will be slow!

“And this is where you come in,” he says, pointing at me. “I believe we can distribute this modified Blacklight to our forces in Blackwatch to increase their strength and power. With it, you and anyone else who signs up will be able to tear through the hoards of infected and establish peace through force. You will be super-soldiers!”

Eureka rears up and throws his forelegs in the air, tossing his stick aside, which plinks off the head-jar. “You will rise as gods, become all mighty and powerful! You will reach a new level pony kind has never seen before. You will be Project Orion!”

The dork throws his head back and laughs like crazy. Son-of-a-bison, Blackwatch hired this guy. They hired a crazy pony who makes crazy science experiments and puts kids’ heads in jars and puts deadly plague viruses in my friends!

“No need to applaud,” he says, coming back down on all fours. “I can sense your gratitude radiating like Celestia’s sun. Now, we’ll begin administering small doses to you every twelve hours, then double the size in three days, and by then you should see a significant increase in body”-

I hold out a hoof to shut him up. “I’m not going to allow this to happen.”

Eureka looks at me, and then laughs. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. Your chance to leave has come and gone. There’s no way for you to get out of this now.”

“You misunderstand me.” I walk up to Eureka until my muzzle is almost touching his glasses. Turns out Fruit Punch is a good bit taller than the head scientist of Blackwatch. “I’m going to stop you. Period.”

“I, uh…” Eureka shrinks back. Sweat glistens on his forehead. He still has that big, goofy smile on his face, but it’s shaking now. “I don’t know what’s troubling you, Miss Punch. Whatever it is, we can talk. Are you hungry? I can get you more rations, fresh fruit even.”

“I suppose I’m a little peckish.” The worms slither and shift, and I morph back into my old griffon self. My shadow completely engulfs the doctor. “Got anything to eat?” I hiss.

Eureka’s eye shrink to pinprinks, then he collapses on the floor and sputters out. “I… I… I… I…” he keeps on repeating. I hope I haven’t broken him yet. He still needs to tell me where Rainbow Dash is.

My griffon claw wraps around his head, and I pick him and hold him at eye level. “Here’s the deal. You’re a monster. I don’t like monsters. I’ve been dealing with monsters all day. I’m not in the mood to deal with more monster crap.”

All that comes out of the doctor’s mouth are wheezes. This guy is hyperventilating, but I don’t care much about that.

“You’re going to answer my question, just one question. No bullshit. You got that?”

I shove my beak in his face. He coughs, almost hacks up a lung. The guy might die of a heart attack before I get anything out of him.

“Where is Rainbow Dash?”

“Infected… you're infected…,” he mutters.

My monster claw comes out and I bring a talon up to his throat. “Where. Is. Rainbow?”

“You… You can shapeshift.”

“Forget that,” I snarl. “Answer my question.”

His mouth turns back up in his spazzy little grin. “This is… Fantastic! Amazing! You can shapeshift! This is exactly what I’m studying, but more sophisticated than I ever thought!”

He squeaks when I put a bit of pressure on his throat. “Shut up and answer my”-

Before I finish, Eureka breaks free of my hold and streaks across the room. “This is incredible,” he squeals. “Your cells mutate with such a rapid pace that you can change your form at will! Most shapeshifting specimens use magic or lighting tricks to change their appearance, but you use the mutative properties of the plague to do so at a more effective degree. This is beyond what I though was possible!”

Eureka digs through his tables, throwing around books and science doodads before leaping up with a big needle in his hooves. “But there has to be some magic behind your transformation. The Blacklight can’t just create mass out of nowhere, unless it’s storing extra mass inside you”-

I lunge at him. Without looking, he ducks out of the way and picks up a clipboard from the floor. He doesn’t flinch as I go crashing into a table full of science gizmos.

-“and uses it to grow. Mind if I get a sample?”

I get up from the ruble and shake of the science trash. “You can get a face-full of pain if you don’t tell me where-ACK!”

Eureka shanks me in the throat with the giant needle. It’s cold and sharp, and it’s sucking me like a straw. Red and black fluid fills up the metal tube at the back of the needle, and the doctor scribbles something on his clipboard.

“And those claws, those claws felt as sharp as a sword. Your cells must harden as fast as they grow to achieve such results. How can I replicate these effects?”

I yank the needle out of my neck and smash it on the ground. “I’m done with this crap. Tell me where Rainbow is, or else!”

Eureka frowns. “Can you please behave. I can’t collect results if you don’t cooperate.”

How dense is this guy?! I ball up a fist and knock him under the chin. Eureka croaks as smacks into the floor. I’m not putting up with this crap anymore!

“Ack! That wasn’t pleasant.” Eureka groans as he rubs his chin. “Backlight still turns the most stable of hosts into an aggressive killing machine. Should’ve seen that one coming.”

He tries forcing himself up on all fours, but I stab his back leg with a monster talon. It drives through flesh, bone, more flesh, and then into the carpet in the floor. Eureka shrieks in pain. It’s time to end this crap.

“You have one last chance,” I hiss. “Tell me where Rainbow is.”

He looks up at me, his eyes are watering. His mouth opens to say something…

The sound of cracking wood breaks my attention. A plume of dust falls from the ceiling, followed by a green blur falling and a high-pitched yelp. The green blur lands on Eureka with a dull thud and the doctor kicks out, tearing his leg away from my blade with a loud squish.

The green blob rolls off the doctor and groans. “That didn’t feel too good.”

Wait, I recognize this blur. “Iffy?”

The little pegasus looks up at me with a big grin. “Hiya Gilda, how’s it hanging?”

“I… what?” This is unexpected. Iffy hit Eureka on the head, so the doctor’s unconscious now. Damn it Iffy, he was about to tell me where Rainbow Dash is!

At least Eureka can't scream bloody murder over losing a chunk of his leg. Oh sweet mercy, his leg is bleeding all over the carpet. The music hall ponies paid good money for this carpet!

“Wow, you tore his leg off!” Iffy squeals. “Oh hey, it’s over there!”

Iffy points under the table, where Eureka’s missing leg chunk is sitting. Good to know where that is. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to watch you kill Blackwatch,” Iffy says with glee, a little too much glee if you ask me.

My claws shrink back to griffon claws. Crap, that’s a lot of blood coming out of Eureka. If he dies from losing a leg, he’ll never tell me where Rainbow Dash is. “I’m not here to kill Blackwatch.”

Iffy’s tilts his head. “But you already killed that one bitch.”

Did he… Nah, I got better things to do than wash out a kid’s mouth. Eureka must have a first aid kit in this lab. He’s got be crazy not to have a first aid kit in a room full of sharp objects and deadly chemicals. Wait, he is crazy.

“So you saw that?”

Iffy nods. “Yeah, you were badass. It almost looked like she would win, but you chucked that pipe at her throat and she bled all over!”

“Have you been following me this entire time?” I ask. First aid, first aid, first aid… Screw it. I grab a book and a roll of tape I see in between a massive pile of science clutter. I’ll have to juryrig this.

“Yep, there’s a empty area with vents and pipes in the ceiling, and I’ve been crawling around in there to follow you. There were a couple times I thought they’d find me, like when I kicked a pipe loose and it fell on that pegasus’s head, or when I broke through the ceiling and knocked that pile of boxes over. You can thank me for that later.”

Well that explains the building falling apart and knocking out Blackwatch by coincidence. As if knowing about that matters. I rip out a few chapters worth of paper from the book and shove it against Eureka’s leg. Blood seeps through the first layers, but some extra paper padding is enough to patch it up. I push hard on the paper, then wrap it tight around the leg with the tape. There, makeshift bandage. Maybe that will help.

“Why are you helping him?” Iffy asks. “Should you cut him into tiny pieces?”

I check over the bandage just to make sure I did it right. Nope, no blood leaking out. I think the doc will hold out. “As much as I would like to fillet this sick bastard, I need answers. He has the answers I need.”

“Oh, so you’re going to interrogate him.”

“Later, but right now, I need a different question answered.” I look down at Iffy with a frown. “Why did you think following me was a good idea?”

Iffy shrugs. “I wanted to see you do some damage. It’s not like I’d be in any danger. I do this all the time.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I come in and take pictures of what Blackwatch does in here. But Doctor Heart took away my camera after I came back after curfew. She’s nice, but she can be mean sometimes.”

Wait, Iffy sneaks around and takes pictures? I wonder... “Where you the one who took those pictures Pinkie has?”

“Depends, does she have pictures of Blackwatch scientists experimenting on ponies?”

I nod.

“I guess so. I don’t know why she has those pictures. Doctor Heart must have given them to her.”

And that’s another small, insignificant mystery solved, and it wasn’t even the one I want to solve. “It’s great that you can get here on your own, but you shouldn’t be here right now. If Blackwatch finds out I’m here, they’re going to kill me, and you might find yourself in the middle of a nasty battle.”

Just as I say that, the door creaks open and a purple unicorn walks in. He’s got a brown jacket on and dark circle glasses covering his eyes. “Good evening Eureka,” he says, “I hope you have that report ready. Prince”-

The stallion freezes once he sees the monster griffon and the pegasus colt standing over the unconscious body of a mad scientist. Or he could be freaking out about the head in the jar. I know I still am.

I wave at the unicorn. “Hi.”

The unicorn looks at us for a moment before adjusting his glasses. “I suppose you must be Gilda.”

“That’s me,” I say. This might turn out bad. “That’s a nice jacket.”

“Why thank you,” he says, brushing off some dust from his sleeve. “I got it in Moroccolt a couple decades ago. It’s served me well over the years.” His dark glasses flash in the light as he looks at me. “Now, are you going to come with me quietly or are you going to fight it out?"

My monster claws grows out and my beak twists into a snarl. “What do you think?”

“I’m thinking we could finish this without bloodshed. I suppose it’s just wishful thinking. Nice to meet you, though.” He steps back into the hallway and points to me. “Kill her.”

Four blue-eye goons storm the room when the unicorn gives the order. Two of them are unicorns with orange-glowing horns, while the other two are massive earthponies with the metal plates for armor. Fun fact, the metalheads are about as tall as me. These ponies are huge!

I glance down at Iffy, who is crouching down and has his wings spread out. Props to him, he’s a brave little kid. “You should get out of here,” I say to him, “It’s going to get messy.”

Iffy shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me. I can take them all!”

Or he’s just cocky. “Iffy, get the fuck out of here.”

Author's Notes:

"What? Sure, I respect you as an individual and not as a walking guinea pig. Now be quiet and drink this."

17 - A Minor Developement

The big metal goon on the left is the first to tango. He jumps at me like a boulder rolling off a cliff. I strafe to the side, but his hoof catches me in the stomach and throws me to the floor with a dull thud. Looks like I’m fighting monsters again for the umpteenth time today.

He stands right on top of me. I throw a punch and it hits him in the cheek with a loud clang. The metal meathead stumbles away and I crouch down to pounce him, but I stop when a ‘woosh’ sound comes at me. I jump backwards just as a plume of flame rips through the spot I was just in. The flame dies down and one of the unicorn’s horns is glowing bright red.

Ah, flame spells. They intend on making roasted chicken with my ass. Not good. I jump out of the way of another river of fire, and it engulfs the science table behind me. Glass tubes explode and books go up in flames. The table turns to cinders in a matter of moments.

A metalhead charges through the flames and rams into me. Holy crap, this guy is fast, faster than anyone in armor has the right to be! He grapples and squeezes the air out of my lungs! I try slicing him up, but my monster claws keep dinging off his metal plates. Crap, I can’t get through his armor!

“You look like you’re enjoying the armor. It’s not as heavy as it looks, right? Trust me, it’s not flimsy. That son-of-a-gun will stop anything up to a dragon from squishing you.”

What? Was that a memory? I don’t remember remembering that.

With me in his hooves, the metalhead winds up and flings me off the side. Wood breaks apart around me, and I fall, and I keep falling. Wait, aren’t I supposed to crash into something by now? I flip around and look down, and find the auditorium floor coming at me at a really big speed. The metalhead threw me off the balcony!

I slam into a table and it collapses under me. Something goes squish when I land, and a bunch of ponies start screaming. I get up, and there’s something gooey dripping off my face. I wipe it off and look down, and find myself sitting in a puddle that looks a lot like the rotting remains of an infected pony. Ick, at least my worms aren’t eating this goop up.

Blue trashbag ponies are running away from me. Some of them are screaming, some of them are yelling at the Blackwatch goons to shoot at me, some of them are doing both. The normal blue-eye goons who see me start shooting at my general direction. I duck as the spellbolts fly over my head. One of the bolts strikes a trashbag in the flank. The spell dissolves the trashbag suit and leaves a burn mark on his leg. The trashbag jumps and screams, then books it out of here at the speed of light.

I look back up at the balcony, and the four goons are looking back at me. The unicorns’ horns glow bright orange, and their magic lifts the metalheads over the railing and floats them down. Three floors, two floors, my floor, they hit the ground and thunder towards me once the unicorns let them go. The trashbags jump out of their way as they blow past tables and lab equipment.

I scramble to my feet and run the opposite direction, not bothering to wipe the pony goop off of me. I’ll worry about personal hygiene after I’m not running for my life. The spell bolts are still flying at me. A few nick me in the back, but they’re doing little to hurt me. What I’m worried about are the big guys chasing me.

A shriek comes from above, the same shriek I heard the airships make. How did they get an airship in here?! Oh wait, the unicorns. They can shoot firebolts.

An explosion erupts next to me and knocks me over with the shockwave. I crash into a big computer thing and knock over some more expensive equipment. The flames singe a few of my wing feathers, but I’m unhurt otherwise. I just wish everyone would stop knocking me around. Being played with like a hacky sack is bound to cause some brain damage.

Something crashes behind me, and a big metal hoof kicks me in the rear. I go spinning in the air and crash into another science thing, and the metalheads charge right at me. Come on guys, I want a turn too!

I grab whatever is closest to my claw and fling it at the metalheads. I wasn’t paying attention, as it turns out I grabbed a trashbag pony and threw the poor guy like a spear. The trashbag screams through the air, and the metalheads stop in their tracks. The trashbag hits the closest one in the head. They tangle up and topple over, legs flailing in the air as the roll around.

I laugh at them. They deserve it. I get up to run again, but come face to face with one of the trashbags. My face reflects in the silver glass of his faceplate, and I can’t make out anything behind it.

“Uh, hi,” I say. Why hasn’t this guy run away yet?

His hoof swings around, and something hard smacks the side of my noggin. I stagger back, and the trashbag swings at me again with the fire extinguisher in his hooves.

“Go back to Tartarus from which you came!” the trashbag screams before bashing my forehead with a metal clang. Son-of-a-bison, that stings! This guy grew balls at the wrong time!

I can hear the metalheads charging at me again. I lunge at the trashbag, but he blocks me with the extinguisher. No matter. I grab the cylinder, yank it out of his hooves, and bash the side of his facemask with it. The glass shatters and blood goes spraying out. Now stay down like a good boy and let the adults talk it out.

“The helmet doesn’t have good visibility to begin with. Putting aviators on top of the visor will just blind you. And you look stupid with them.”

What the heck? I know that wasn’t my memory!

The metalheads are almost on top of me. I can’t see their eyes behind those helmets, but I bet they look pissed. How can they see out of those things? Those eye-slits are tiny!

Wait a moment…

I turn around, point the hose at them, and press the lever, spraying white foam in their general direction. The foam covers up their faceplates and blinds them. I sidestep as they trip over themselves and crash into more science equipment. How much damage am I racking up in here?

Before they can get the foam off of themselves, I rush over to the nearest metalhead and whack him in the back of the head. Clang, clang, clang, the extinguisher and armor ring like bells with every hit I take. Doesn’t feel good, does it? This is what I’ve been dealing with all day, and you get to taste it! Hahahaha!

His buddy starts getting up, wiping the foam from his face, but he drops to his belly when he looks my way. Ha, stay on the floor! I am your god now! Actually, that’s concerning. I know I’m not that intimidating. Why is he on his belly? What scared him?

I look behind me just in time to see a big, orange-glowing desk mere inches from my-

The desk smacks me away from the metal heads. I scream as it pushes me through the air and across the auditorium to places I don’t know and when is this thing going to stop?!

It does stop, but not without hurting me more. It slams into something wooden and everything turns into a big explosion of splinters. Wood chunks bite my flesh and everything is pain. This is my life now, pain and agony. Why must it be pain and agony? I’m going straight to Las Pegasus after all this is done.

After that ruckus dies down, I pull myself out of the wood pile and flop on top of whatever floor I ended up on. There’s a wood plank sticking out of my shoulder. I wince as I yank it out. Black and red goo is dripping from it. Isn't that just pretty?

I lay on the floor and let out a deep breath. This isn’t going too well. The blue-eyes are beating me senseless and chasing me away from Eureka.

Crap, Eureka, I need to get him. He’s unconscious in the balconies, and there are two unicorns up there with him. The metalheads are down here, so maybe I can jump around them and climb up to the third floor. All I’ll have to deal with is the flame-thrower unicorns. I grab Eureka and get out of here. Easy peezy.

A big glob of something sticky and wet drips on top of my face. I wipe it off before opening my eyes. There’s a giant face of a pony monster looking down at me with wild googly eyes. Its mouth is open and it’s drooling on me. Sweet mercy, pony goop and monster drool? I need to wash myself with a pressure hose after this is over.

Wait, is this the same monster I fought earlier? My eyes trail down his body, going from neck to stomach to in between the thighs. Right there, the monster has his tidbits still intact. Ah, different monster. Good to know there are more of these bastards running around in the wild.

The monster opens its mouth and roars right in my face, unleashing a storm of spit and phlegm. Same to you pal.

Footsteps echo around me, and the voices of blue-eyes crackle to life. “We have you surrounded. Give up now!”

I lean up and look around. Blackwatch goons have me surrounded in a circle, including the two metalheads. All of them have their weapons turned at me, and all of them don’t look happy for me being here.

Huh, they have me cornered. How long was I laying here? Kind of dumb in retrospect. Who the heck takes a nap in the middle of a fight?

One of them barks at me. “Put your claws on your head and keep the fuck down!”

“Wait, we’re arresting it?” one of them asks.

“Uh, yeah. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”

“I thought we’re supposed to kill it on sight.”

Arresting is preferable to killing, though I choose neither.

“Our boss told us to kill her,” one of the metalheads says, “So why are we arresting her?”

“I don’t know. Standard procedure? Don’t we usually let these guys have a chance to surrender?”

You guys have been hunting me all day. Not once have you given me a chance to surrender.

“Wait wait wait, back up a bit,” a highpitched voice says, “‘Her’? You called it a ‘her’?”

Oh no.

“Yeah. She’s a girl griffon,” the metalhead says, “Just with mutant powers.”

This is happening.

“No no no, it’s a boy griffon. Have you never seen a griffon before?”

“What are you talking about? She has white feathers. Only girl griffons have white feathers.”

I can’t believe this is happening, again. Fillies and colts are one thing, but grown adults? Did any of you go through school? Okay, that’s a hypocritical question from a highschool dropout, but still.

“No, that’s a myth. Look, he’s big and buff, so he’s a boy griffon.”

The monster above me grunts*. Shut up, you.

“But she doesn’t have the junk in the trunk. That’s a girl.”

I’m going to ignore the fact you’re checking me out down there. It’s not like I’m in a position to complain.

“You can’t tell by that. Griffons have it shriveled up inside of them to be better fliers. It could be a guy for all we know.”

That’s not how that works.

“What about that? That’s her junk right there.”

“That’s her tail.”

“Look at her feathers. Those feathers curve, so she’s a female.”

“Dude, I’m a pegasus, and that’s bullshit. Those types of feathers do that on any gender.”

As much as I appreciate listening to the bickering of henchponies with the IQs of rocks, I got to stop this. “Hey!” I shout. All the blue-eyes shut up and look at me. “Half of you are wrong. I’m a lady.”

Some of the blue-eyes look at eachother, and one speaks up. “Are you sure? How do we know you’re not lying?”

I roll over on my side and run a figure down my chest, flicking my eyelashes and giving a sultry smirk. “I can give you a one on one study session,” I say with a seducing voice.

The blue-eye stares at me for a moment. “I’m a mare. I don’t swing that way.”

Okay, that’s not going to work. Where was I going with that, anyways? Was I going to sleep my way out of this?

Another blue-eye says something. “You know, that’s kind of racist assuming colts and mares look the same.”

Oh, for the love of Grover! My claw smacks my face. “You were doing the exact same thing to me!”

“Not me. I knew you were a girl.”

This is completely insane. Eureka. Get him. Now. Get out of here. Find Rainbow Dash. Head to Las Pegasus and blow my brains out with booze. Why am I not doing that? Get back to work!

The blue-eyes don’t have their guards up like they should, so I jump up and punch the nearest one in the face. He crumples to the floor and doesn’t get up. Lights out for him. One down, a bunch more to go.

Now Blackwatch has their guards back up and are firing their spells at me. Ooh, ah, ow! I’m dancing around like a manciac trying to avoid these bolts. This is not as fun as it looks!

One of the metalheads charges into me and rams me with his shoulder. The spells ping off his armor as we barrel through the spellstorm. I don’t think he thought this completely through, as we slam right into the monster’s stomach. The monster croaks in my ear from the impact, and then I hear the snapping of metal chains.

That didn’t sound good.

I’m sandwiched between the metalhead and the monster, and the metalhead is running us at full steam. He shoves us all the way across the stage and slams us through a curtain. The sound of ripping fabric tears through the air, and the curtain offers just enough resistance to make the metalhead stumble, and we all tumble into a pile of bodies and heavy fabric.

My head pokes out and I take a look at our surroundings. There’s scaffolding, boxes all over the place, and spare instruments sitting in groups. This must be the backstage area. It’s not as glamorous or well decorated as everywhere else, which makes sense. Why spend money on décor no one important is going to see?

The curtains shift around, and the face of the pony monster pops up right in front of my beak. Its mouth is twisted in a snarl and its googly eyes are glaring at me. I don’t think it’s happy to see me. Heck, I don’t think it’s ever happy.

Why wait for the fight? My beak lashes out and I nip his left eye. The monster shrieks and pulls back, and its eye rips out and pops in my mouth. Ack! Eyejuice! It’s thick and watery at the same time. I spit the crap out, but it’s sticking to the roof of my mouth! Nope, I don’t like this, not one bit.

The monster is just as upset about me devouring its eye as I am, probably a lot more upset. Its head lashes out and its jaws clamp down on my face! Son-of-a-bison, that hurts and this guy has the worst case of fish breath I’ve ever smelt.

The monster yanks on me, shakes me, and treats me like I’m its favorite chew toy. With how tangled up we are in the curtains, my body isn’t going anywhere but my neck wants to rip right off! Thank mercy I’m a monster. A normal griffon would be beheaded by now!

This is beyond irritating. My claw and wing blades flare out and they rip the curtain up with a few swings. Now I’m free, and the monster swings me around and launches me through the air. I go flying across the backstage and crash head first into a cello.

Two armored ponies and a monster, I can't win this fight. They'll wreck me if I try anything!

I hear fighting sounds behind me. After pulling my head out of the instrument, I look around and see the metalhead fighting the monster in hoof-to-hoof combat. Wow, that blue-eye is holding his own without breaking a sweat. His armor is brushing off all the monster’s strikes. Why can't I have armor like that? I wouldn’t be tossed around as much.

Those two have each other occupied, and there’s no reason for me to get involved. Like I said, I'll get wrecked. Eureka awaits me, and fighting these dudes is just a waste of time.

Before I get on out of here, the other metalhead steps through the curtains and looks at me. Great, the other one is still standing. Maybe he’ll help his buddy out.

Nope, the metalhead charges towards me. I try jumping to the side to dodge him, but he spins around and bucks me in the gut while I’m in the air. I go flying back again and crash into a drum set, banging my head on the cymbals. Bud-ump tish, this hurts.

The metalhead charges me again, and I raise a claw and strike him in the helmet when he gets near. The blades cling against the metal, and he rewards me with a kick to the noggin for my efforts.

I stumble back, grab a hefty looking bass, and swing the giant string instrument around. The bass breaks into a shower of splinters, and nudges the metalhead back. Hey, that did something!

It didn’t do enough. He stands there, looking at me. Great, he’s taunting me now. What are you waiting for, bud? Too scared t-

A boulder slams into me from the side, smashing a whole orchestra of musical instruments on impact. The boulder rolls off of me, leaving me in what feels like a twitching pile of liquefied griffon. Second time today. How much will I bet there will be a third one by midnight?

I push myself up, and the monster is standing over me. The metalheads are crouching down in a fighting stance. The monster has bruises and scratches all over its underside. That blue-eye sure did a number on this thing while I wasn’t looking.

And now the world is going blurry. Oh crap, this is not the time for a flashback!

Dark room, five metalheads surrounding me…

“Five guys at once? You’re insane!”

A smirk, a laugh…

“They don’t call me the Bully Dozer for nothing.”

“No one calls you that.”

“You’re about to call me that.”

A facehoof, a groan…

“You’ve had that armor on for an hour and you think you can take on the world! And what did I say about the aviators?!”

Dark shades cover my vision. Sunglasses, inside, that’s why things are dark in here…

“Don’t worry, you’ve trained me well.”

“For an hour!”

“And I get it all. I’m heavier than I feel, sight-lines are for pussies, and I should go for the joints, not the dicks.”

“Those Dozers will wreck you! They have more experience in armor than you!”

A small chuckle.

“Watch. I’m going to ride these bulls till dawn!”

A pause.

“I’m not cleaning you up when they beat that spunk out of you. Alright Dozers, plow this mare!”

That was definitely not my memory. How did that get in my head?! And why did it have so much innuendo?!

No one has moved yet. The monster is growling at the blue-eyes, and the blue-eyes are waiting for the next move.

Wait, I think I have an idea. Someone said something in that memory that can help out. What was it? Heavier than you feel... something about sightlines… a dick joke…

Oh yeah, ride the bull till dawn!

With the monster above me, I hug his belly. The monster lets out a confused grunt, and then sheiks in pain when my claws jam into its flesh. I do the smart thing this time and make sure I have a good grip on this guy before he goes berserk. I even bite down on his belly button as a third point of contact. Time for the rodeo!

The monster leaps up and tries bucking me off, but I’m holding on tight and not going anywhere. The blue-eyes scramble away when the beast lands. I dig my right claw deeper into his guts, and the monster yelps and leaps to the left.

Ha, I can steer this guy! I just need to steer him to the balconies. I don’t need to fight the metalheads. I just need to get Eureka. What better way to do it than to ride a giant rampaging monster out of here?

Granted, I’m on its belly, so when it jumps through the curtains, off the stage, and into the seating area of the auditorium, I crash into a boatload of science equipment. The monster jumps again, and another batch of science equipment slams into me upon landing. I did not see this as a problem.

Spellbolts are flying at us, but they all hit the monster, not me. He’s big enough to protect me, like a mutant turtle shell. See, I got armor now, just like the metalheads!

Getting to the balconies takes a bit. The monster is smart enough to jump the opposite direction of where he feels pain, but dumb enough not to land exactly where I want him to go. We’re jumping around the music hall with some direction of Eureka. Blackwatch is having a hard time targeting as when we jump around, and forget about the metalheads. They couldn’t keep up with us if they tried.

Okay, I’m getting tired of this. We’re far enough from the blue-eye goons that they’re not much of a threat. Mostly I just wanted to get away from the armored guys who hit hard, and I did. Thanks Mr. Monster. Now apply the parking breaks.

My back lion paw kicks out, with talons extended, and nicks a bit of skin around the crotch area. The paw kicks again, and I hear and feel a big hunk of flesh rip off the monster. The monster lands, freezes up, and lets out a high-pitched whine. Suck it up, buddy. I know your weak spot.

I let the monster go and kick off the chunk of flesh sticking to my back paw. The monster’s face is twisted in extreme pain, and it has no interest of doing anything else but whine. Good monster, don’t attack me. I wonder if that trick will work on female monsters.

With the metalheads and monster dealt with, my mutant-powers take over and I jump all the way up to the third balcony. I still need to deal with the unicorns. Crap, they got flame-throwers. They don’t have armor, so they'll slice apart nicely, but they’ll burn me alive if I’m not careful.

I step through the alcove, and freeze at what I see. Eureka’s lab is a scorched mess. The unicorns are dancing around, shooting streams of flame at random spots. Where there is flame, a green blur would escape it, and come around and hit one of the unicorns in the head. The unicorns shoot again at the blur, but they miss again and get more hits on the head.

Damn it Iffy, I told you to get out of here!

The unicorns don’t notice me, and they don’t see me run over and punch them both in the face. They both fall down and don’t get back up, and the flames stop burning up the room. Iffy stops flying and hovers in front of me. “Gilda! Thanks for the... You got slime on your face.”

I give Iffy a stern glare, ignoring the mess my face is in. “I told you to get out of here.”

“But they were shooting fireballs at you!” Iffy says. “I had to stop them.”

“Trust me, I would’ve been fine. You, however, would be a burning pile of crisp if they got you.” I take a look around the room. It's almost entirely ash. The blue-eye even burnt up the nice paintings. Wait, something is missing. “Where did Eureka go?”

“The scientist? The purple unicorn took him. He said they were getting out of here.”

Well then, I guess I have to find him again. My Gilda sense lights up to find Eureka, and it tugs me in a direction below me. The lobby, I bet they’re heading for the lobby. Hopefully there aren’t any more goons there to give me a bad time. I can only tear off the twigs and berries of so many monsters to escape.

“I know where they are. Iffy, I want you to get out of here and head back to the daycare.”

“But”-

“I don’t give a shit what you have to say. You could get killed here, so get the hell out of here.”

The colt’s brow furrows, and a frown grows on his face. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“No, but I’m sure Pinkie Pie would want a word with you once I tell her what you did.” The colt freezes in the air for a moment. Huh, I guess Pinkie Pie’s name has some weight behind it. “Now get going. I got a doctor to catch.”

With my monster speed, I zip out of the room and weave through the theater. Iffy will be fine. He just needs to get out of here like I told him to do. He’s not my concern right now.

There are some blue-eyes that see me run by them. I’m there and gone so fast they don’t have enough time to shoot at me. Given enough time, word will get out that there’s a rampaging griffon inside their base, and they’ll probably have defenses set up to try to take me down. In fact, they probably already know I’m here, but they don’t know I’ve left the auditorium.

Gilda sense takes a sharp left, and I skid to a halt at the top of a grand set of stairs. I’m back at the main lobby, and there are blue-eyes swarming the place. At the front doors, I see the purple unicorn carrying an unconscious Eureka with his magic. A couple blue-eye goons open the doors for the unicorn, and he steps outside with the doctor.

“Hey, you!” I shout, “Give me Eureka!”

The unicorn looks back at me, and so does every Blackwatch goon in the lobby. Crap, I shouldn’t have done that. The unicorn makes a break for it, and a wall of blue glowing energy flies my way. Not good.

I rush down the stairs before the spellbolt storm blows apart the spot I was just standing in. I don’t pay attention to where I’m stepping, and I trip on one of the steps. My leg stops and the rest of my body flips over. My head hits a step, then my butt, then my head again, and owowowowowow I’m rolling down the stairs!

Everything is out to kill me today! I flop at the bottom of the stairs and end up at the armored feet of a metalhead. How did he get here?! Another metalhead is standing right next to him, alongside another one behind them. Ah, Blackwatch has more than two armored ponies. Good to know.

The metalhead raises a hoof and stomps on me, but I roll to the side and get up on all fours. His hoof smacks down and shatters the tile floor. Screw this, I’m leaving.

I run right past them and right through the lobby, knocking away any blue-eye dumb enough to try to stop me. The two blue-eyes at the door try to close it to keep me in, but that’s not going to do anything. The door closes with a thud, but I don’t stop. The blue-eyes see this, and they jump out of the way.

The door shatters as I barrel right through it. They didn’t expect me to do that!

I’m outside now, and it doesn’t take long to find Eureka and the unicorn taking him away, especially since they’re boarding an airship sitting in the middle of the road. I don’t need Gilda sense to find that.

The airships makes a whirling sound, and then it buzzes. The unicorn finishes boarding, a door swings shut behind him, and with a loud hiss, the airship takes off. It gains several feet of air every second, and it’s aiming to fly over the buildings and away from me! I can’t have that.

I run at it. Blue-eyes are shooting at me, but I ignore them. Power surges through my muscles, and I jump for the unicorn.

The airship is at least fifty feet in the air now, and I hit the side of the door at full force. Before I fall off, I jab a monsterclaw into the side, sticking my blades in the metal and hanging there. The ground shrinks away fast, and the Steamcart Music Hall disappears in a sea of Manehatten buildings.

We’re high up now, I can see a lot of the city from here. The only sound I hear is the loud buzzing from the propellers. A hatch opens up and a unicorn pokes his head out. His horn glows orange, and a fire jet shoots out at me.

I let go to avoid the flames, grabbing the bottom of the ship before I fall away too far. Just being close to that jet feels like my skin is roasting. I don’t want to get hit by that!

Before the unicorns shoots another flamethrower, I swing around and throw myself at the latch. I grab on and headbutt the unicorn as hard as I can. I can hear bone shattering as he collapses to the floor.

The hatch is big enough to crawl through, and I drag myself inside. It’s a bit cramped in here. When I stand up, my head is only an inch away from the ceiling. The cabin is big enough for a whole troop of ponies to stand comfortably without a problem, but I’m having trouble finding space to move without banging my head.

I look around the cabin, and find the unicorn. He shuts a door to another part of the airship, leaving me with a blue-eye pegasus, unicorn, and a metalhead. I swear these guys are everywhere.

“Look, I’m tired of fighting,” I say, “Just let me get Eureka and I’ll be on my way. I don’t even have to kill any of you.”

They don’t listen. The metalhead comes at me, but he has to duck to move around the cabin. His hoof swings at me, but I sidestep it and jump to the otherside of the the cabin. It’s going to be awkward as heck trying to fight in here!

The pegasus flings himself at me with his backhoof pointed at my face. I duck under him, and throw my head back when he goes over me. The back of my head connects with his and I smash him into the ceiling. The poor guys goes limp and collapses on top of me. I just shake him off and he falls to the floor.

The unicorn’s horn glows bright blue, and I roll to the side before he starts shooting spell bolts at me. All the bolts leave black marks where the hit in the cabin. Sheesh, how many times have I been hit by those? Those things leave nasty marks.

As I’m avoiding the spells, the metalhead lunges at me. I don’t pay attention, and I find myself cornered between the spells, a wall, and the metalhead. His shoulder slams into me and the air pops out of my lungs.

The metalhead winds a hoof back and bashes me in the beak. Ow! I felt something crack! I grab the metalhead by the waist and toss him to the side. He fumbles around and almost steps on his pegasus friend’s head.

The unicorn hits home with his spell bolts, but I don’t feel them hit. Seriously, they’re leaving scorch marks on the wall. How are they not doing crap to me? They should be tearing me to shreds!

As pointless as they are, I’m getting sick and tired of the blue-eyes shooting at me. I lunge at the unicorn, driving my monster claws through his chest. The unicorn gasps, and then I tear his entire body in two pieces. The tentacles come out and liquefy the guy to eat him. Serves him right.

What I don’t do is pay attention to the metalhead, who yells as he comes in from behind and slams my head against the wall. I leave a nice dent in the metal, and he pulls it back again and makes an even bigger dent.

One more crash, and my head breaks through the wall and into the outside world. The wind is bucking me in the face, and it looks like we’re really high up here.

The metalhead pulls be back in, and a chunk of metal rips through my skin. I can feel the red-black goop dripping from my face. I must look like a mess. I twist around and throw a kick at the guy’s leg, and he trips and falls when I knock it from under him.

He lets go of my head, and I stumble to the opposite side of the cabin. These metalheads are giving me a run for my money. I grab onto something to keep me from wobbling around, but doing so makes a click sound, and the airship door flies open! Wrong lever!

By reflex, my wings flair out, and the wind throws me to the back of the cabin with a thud. My wings tuck back in, and I'm able to get up without a problem.

The metalhead gets up too, and we glare at eachother. I wipe the blood off my face, and he bends his neck to crack some bones. Now or never, pal.

He charges at me, and I charge at him. He throws his hooves at me, and I throw my claws. We lock together in the middle, claw grabbing hoof, hoof grabbing claw. We both see the door open, and we’re both trying to throw the other out. This guy is using his weight, and I’m trying to use my strength. We both waver under the other, but it doesn’t feel like the other will budge. Muscle against muscle, griffon against earthpony.

I got something he doesn’t, wings. My wings flare out, and the wind catches them and blows me away. The metalhead falls over with his balance gone and hits the floor hard. He doesn’t get control back before I do.

My wings fold back in and I kick the metalhead in the stomach as hard as I can. My kick sends the guy rolling across the floor and right over the edge of the door. The last thing I see of him is his hoof trying to grab onto something. Even with my superhearing, I can barely hear him scream over the sound of the airship’s engines.

I scoot back and lean up against the cabin wall. There, I did it. The only thing left between me and Eureka is that unicorn. I bet that unicorn has something else planned for me. That’s usually the case in the Mission Critical comic books. The bad guy always has a trap ready to go. I’ll deal with that later.

For now, I need to breathe. I’ve been fighting since I woke up. A break is appreciated.

Woo. The world is fading again. Sure, let it happen. I’ll take a random flashback now.

White lights, nurses running around…

“Three out of five, not bad.”

A spike of pain, a groan…

“I would’ve got all of them if the one guy didn’t kick me in the leg.”

A laugh, a friendly face…

“If you had more than an hour of training, you would know about your weak spots too.”

“I’m going to kick him in the dick next time I see him.”

A pause…

“You didn’t hear that.”

“Of course I didn’t. Anyways, I have good news for you.”

“What, I failed and I’m on Redzone patrol?”

“Even better, you’re part of the Dozer Squad now.”

Silcence…

“But, I didn’t beat all five.”

“True, but you still beat three trained Dozers senseless. That’s impressive in my book.”

“This is great! I won’t let you down sir!”

“Sure you won’t. But do me a favor.”

“What is it?”

“Get rid of the aviators.”

Hmm… I think that’s Fruit Punch’s memory. I guess that makes sense. I ate her, and I have her memories now. I hope she didn’t have any weird kinks. I’d hate to be turned on by a memory of looking at stuffed animals or something.

A high-pitched whine fills the air, and I open my eyes. It’s the purple unicorn, and he has one of those spell-stick things pointing at me. The inside of the tube is glowing bright.

“Do you think that’s going to kill me?” I ask. “These things have been hitting me all day, and I’m still alive.”

“Yes, I can see that,” the unicorn says. “But bolt-guns can shoot overcharged shots.”

I nod. “And I’ve been hit by a few of those too. Are you sure you want to take that chance?”

The unicorn looks at me for a moment. After that, the glow inside the tube dies down and the whine fades away. “I suppose not,” he says with a sigh.

I smirk. “And just like that, you’re giving up?”

The bolt-gun floats to the side and leans up against a wall. “I know when to fold when I have a bad hand. You can easily overpower me, and I would like to live another day instead of being consumed by you.”

I push myself onto my legs. “That’s humble of you. Now where’s Eureka?”

The unicorn nods to the side. Eureka is slumped against the cabin door, still unconscious. He has a new bandage on his leg, a much better one than the hackjob I did earlier. At least that’ll keep him alive for long.

I walk over to him and pick him up, flinging him over my back. I open the door to the outside, and the wind blows into my feathers. We’re still high above the city, but my wings are good enough to glide down. Finally, something today is going my way.

“Just so you know,” the unicorn says, “You’re doing more harm than good.”

Before I jump off the airship, I turn back and look at him. “I’m trying to find my friend, and Eureka knows where she is. How is that doing any harm?”

The unicorn shakes his head. “You're not looking at the bigger picture. All day, you’ve been killing the ponies who’ve been up close to the plague in attempt to stop it. Did you not stop and think about how much damage you’re doing.”

I huff at him. "Sure, I'm the monster here. Blackwatch has been doing its own damage the entire month. I’ve seen the Yellow Zone. I’ve seen what you do in your labs.”

The unicorn’s eyes narrow into slits. “But you haven’t seen the Red Zone.”

My eyes roll. “Sure I have. I’ve seen the street my sconeshop is on. That place is a warzone. I bet Blackwatch did that."

The unicorn’s lips twist into a snarl. “You have not seen the Red Zone.”

“Whatever.” I turn around and ready myself to jump. “Just don’t get in my way, and I’ll let you guys do your own thing.”

“We’re past that line, Gilda,” the unicorn says. “You’ve killed ponies, and you will answer for that.”

“In self-defense,” I say.

“I’m not talking about the ponies you’ve killed today.”

I stop just before I jump off. “What?”

“You’re responsible for all this, and you know it,” the unicorn says. “You have Eureka. Go. The next time we meet will be when you die, Gilda.”

"If that's what lets you sleep at night." That's enough of the mysterious unicorn. I jump out of the door and fall through the sky with Eureka on my back. My wings flare out and I glide across the city.

Me, responsible for all this? Meh, just some villain trying to get under my skin. He wants an excuse to kill me, that's it. I’d like to see that unicorn try to kill me. I’ll admit, I’ve come close to it a few times today, but I’m still breathing, aren’t I? He better bring some firepower next time we meet if he wants a chance.

Now that I got Eureka, it’s time to find Rainbow Dash. Well, I’ll find Rainbow Dash once he wakes up. Damn it Iffy, why did you have to knock him out?!

Author's Notes:

New Level Reached!

Level 17

You have 17 unspent Perk Points!

To use your Perk Points, please purchase the Perk Point DLC.

18 - On Fighting or Dying

Two blue-eyes are chatting to each other on a random curbside. My super hearing picks up some tidbits of their conversation, but it’s mostly smalltalk. Ponies wearing medical masks are walking around them, ignoring them as if them being there isn’t strange at all. Sure, there is nothing alarming about Blackwatch goons policing the streets, nothing alarming at all.

Those blue-eyes should look up more. They might see the monster-griffon flying at them and avoid a deadly aerial attack.

I land hard on the sidewalk, smashing a crater in the concrete. The blue-eyes jump in surprise, and all the medical-mask ponies look in my direction. Some of them look afraid, and some of them are muttering between themselves. Who is this mysterious griffon that just cratered in front of us?

My wings shift to balance Eureka on my back a bit better. He seems to be fine after that landing. There weren’t any sounds of bones breaking, so there’s not much to worry about. Even if something did break inside of him, Doctor Heart can fix a broken ribcage, right?

The blue-eyes are frozen in shock. They have the power to inform the right people of my location and call in reinforcements. I smile at them, and give them a friendly normal-griffon-claw wave. “If anyone asks, you never saw me,” I say. By some miracle, they break their paralysis and give me a frantic nod. Good, they get to live another day.

The crowd breaks apart as I walk down the street. The ponies keep looking at me, and it’s making my back itch. Huh, I never felt that itch before. Then again, I’ve never had an entire crowd look at me like this. I don’t feel anxious, these ponies aren’t creeping me out like they should be, so maybe the itch is just a random itch.

After a bit of walking, the staring strangers fade out, and the throngs of Yellowzone ponies go on doing their own things. A griffon with a pony on her back, this isn’t a strange sight. The Equestrians are used to seeing weird things all over the place. Dragons, magic, mystic hobos, and that’s just for breakfast. Ponies only get spooked when the weird things make loud noises and threaten their lives.

Eureka is with me now, but he’s unconscious and can’t talk at the moment. The best thing I can do right now is drop him off at the daycare and let Pinkie and the gang babysit him. Where else am I going to put him, in my closet at home? A fight tore up my apartment, and I don’t think the landlords are going to want me back.

Huh, that fight happened just this morning. It feels like that happened months ago. What time is it now? It’s getting dark. The sun is about to set. Wow, I’ve been up and fighting all day.

The street lamps flicker on in response to the darkening sky. Ponies are rushing by to get inside before the witching hour falls upon them. I wonder if Blackwatch has a curfew set up. It wouldn’t surprise me. The Ghost Nation in the Mission Critical comics has curfews in places they occupy. Getting to the daycare before the curfew happens may be a good idea.

Gilda sense points me to the direction of Pinkie Pie, who should still be in the daycare. With the group of kids she has, I don’t see her stepping away from them for anything other than a natural disaster.

The flapping of wings comes at me fast from behind. I glance back and see a green blur flying above the crowd. Iffy Sniff flares out his wings and skids to a stop next to me. “I found you,” he says with a big smile.

I look ahead to pay attention to walking through the crowd. “You got out of there in one piece.”

Iffy Sniff flies in front of me and hovers backwards. “Yeah, the Blackwatch bitches were busy figuring out how to deal with you, so I zipped on out of there and they didn’t notice a thing.”

Something doesn’t sit right with me about the way this kid is swearing casually. He’s a kid, he shouldn’t be doing it until he gets to middle school. “And somehow you managed to follow an airship across the city and find me.”

Iffy shrugs. “It didn’t go that far. The music hall is right over there. See?”

My eyes follow Iffy’s hoof, which is pointing behind us. About six or seven blocks in the opposite direction of where I’m walking, I can see the concrete barrier Blackwatch set up to serve as a fort. Red lights are flashing all over the place, and blue-eye goons are scrambling to and fro. Looks like I made quite a ruckus.

“Huh, I thought the airship went a lot further,” I say.

“You went up really high,” Iffy says, “But the ship didn’t move around much. It just hovered there for a bit and moved away once you jumped off.”

So it didn’t move much. That means there’s a puddle of goop nearby that used to be the body of the metalhead I fought. I guess that makes Blackwatch’s job easier to find where he landed.

The sirens are still going. Don’t they know I’m long gone by now? My superhearing picks up a few screams far away, and a pink blob jumps on top of the concrete wall. Oh yeah, the monster is still alive. Eh, not my problem. Blackwatch has enough goons to take the thing down.

“Damn,” I say, looking away from the mess I left behind, “and I thought I traveled halfway across the city in that thing.”

“You could of. Those airships are faster than pegasi.”

“I bet.” Equestrian technology, the best in the world, going far beyond what Griffonstone is even capable of imagining.

“So what are you going to do about that nut on your back?” Iffy asks, nodding to Eureka. “Are you going to kill him?”

Oh great, this line of thinking is back. I should’ve known he would bring this up. “No, Iffy, I’m not going to kill him.”

“Why not?”

“Because he needs to tell me where my friend is, and he can’t do that when he’s dead.”

“And then are you going to kill him.”

For Grover’s sake, Iffy, everything you say involves killing Blackwatch. “What’s with your obsession with killing Blackwatch?”

“Because they’re evil, and evil ponies need to die.”

“Okay, I get that Blackwatch is harsh on you guys, but I don’t think they’re absolute evil. They just do highly questionable things and shoot me on sight due to valid reasons.”

One of his eyebrows goes up. “What reason is a good reason to shoot you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, fear? I’m no stranger to ponies fighting me because they’re afraid. Bullies fought me all the time while I was going to school here in Equestria. I’m familiar with it.”

“They’re not just shooting you,” he says as he flies around to avoid crashing into a mare. “They’re shooting ponies too! Have you heard of Red Night?”

Red Night? Doesn’t sound good. “No…”

Iffy’s eyes narrow into slits. “They killed my brother during Red Night, along with who knows how many other ponies.”

“That’s, uh…” Red Night sounds like a massacre. That’s the sort of thing that has too much emotional baggage for me to deal with. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Is Blackwatch afraid of normal ponies?” he asks. “Is that why they killed my brother, because they were afraid of him? Blackwatch doesn’t kill because they’re afraid. They kill because they’re evil.”

Okay, Blackwatch is a touchier subject for this kid than I thought. I don’t know how to go about talking about that. Better change the subject. “Well, what about your brother. Was he a good guy?”

“Yeah, his name was Fish Eye, and he was amazing. He knew Blackwatch was up to no good the moment they stepped foot in Manehattan. And Blackwatch knew he was trouble for them, so they shot him up during Red Night and covered it up as an ‘accident’,” he says while making airquotes with his hooves.

That sounds like something an evil organization would do. Of course I already knew Blackwatch is an evil organization, so this is just icing on the evil cake. “Well, they wouldn’t just shoot him up for no reason. Was he doing something to get their attention?”

Iffy nods. “Fishy was following their every move, watching them and taking pictures of all the evil things Blackwatch does. I was helping him too, and we both got some juicy info on them. Rounding up ponies, oppressing the masses, experimenting on infected, that sort of thing.”

“And Doctor Heart took your photos when she found them.”

Iffy’s eyes roll. “Only the ones I took that day. There’s a lab my brother set up here in the Yellow Zone. It’s got piles of photos of Blackwatch doing dirty deeds, and a bunch of spare cameras he used for his job.”

Cameras for a job? “Your brother was a photographer?”

“Yep, he was gunning to be the best in Manehatten,” Iffy says with a smile. “He taught me everything I know, like how to get the best shots with my camera, how to develop film, how to sneak around and find good spots to hide, everything.”

“Did he do journalism?”

“For the most part. He got into some tight situations while working for the newspaper. He almost busted a crime ring before they threatened to cut his head off. He should done it anyways, but no. He said he needed to look out for me, but that’s bull. I can look out for myself.”

Fish Eye had the right idea, stay out of trouble and stay alive. An even better idea would be to keep his little brother on a leash. Iffy won’t stop diving head first into trouble. “What about you? You sound like you’re good with cameras too.”

“I am, in fact I’m even better than Fishy when he was my age. And I’m not afraid to back down. I’ll find the craziest ways to get the best shot of the most secret things ponies have ever known. I’m thinking about becoming a private eye when I grow up.”

I glance at his flank, which has the cutiemark of a camera taking a picture of footprints. Huh, I didn’t see that on his flank before. “You have the cutiemark for it. Looks like you know what you’re going to do with your life.”

“You bet. I think I’ll start small, like exposing ponies cheating on their spouses, then I’ll build up a word for myself, get the more risky cases, like drug deals and mob bosses, and get rich off the investigation money. I’ll probably charge hourly.”

This kid definitely has his life planned out, right to the grave. No doubt his line of work is going to get him killed. Mob bosses don’t take too kindly to people intruding on their business.

“But that was before Blackwatch,” Iffy Sniff continues on. “Now that they’re here, I’m going to expose them to the world, show everyone what they’re really doing, and it’s going to be the story of the century. ‘Blackwatch, the most evil organization ever, exposed by a young colt named Iffy Sniff.’ That’s what I’ll do. I’ll take down Blackwatch for my brother, for everyone they’ve hurt. Those bitches won’t be breathing after I’m done with them.”

Again with the swearing. Apparently Fish Eye never taught him how to control his mouth. “And you’re going to do this all on your own?”

“Not any more. I got you,” he says, pointing at me, “You can tear up the Blackwatch Bitches with your claws, and I can get in deep and take pictures of what’s really going on. We’ll be the dream team, the brains and brawn, the Dixie Duo!”

I did not expect him to make a Dixie Danger reference. That comic series ended when I was in highschool. I don’t think he was even born yet. But as impressive as that reference was, it’s not going to sway me to his cause. “No.”

Iffy’s wings lock up and he drifts through the air next to me. “No? What do you mean no?”

“No, I’m not interested in taking down Blackwatch. All I want to do is find my friend, get out of this city, and wait for everything to blow over so I can reopen my scone shop.”

“But Blackwatch wants to kill you!” he says, throwing his hooves in the air. “They’re killing ponies every day. We have to stop them!”

“And I want to live my life without everything trying to kill me all the time. That’s not going to happen if I keep mingling with Blackwatch. They want to kill me, and I want nothing to do with them. All I have to do is hide out in Las Pegasus and let them forget about me.”

“They’re not going to go away. They’re going to stick around and keep the city under control. They’ll even try to take control of Equestria if they can, and then the entire world! They’ll never stop unless we do something.”

“Well, once the plague is gone, they’ll have no reason to be around, and they’ll go away.”

Iffy crosses his forelegs. “And if the plague never goes away?”

I shrug. “Then I’ll hide out until they forget about me. It’s a simple plan.”

“They’re not going to forget about you.”

“Sure they will, if I don’t bug them for a while.”

“Well, they’re not going to forget about you anytime soon. Look at the sky.”

I look up and behind me where Iffy is pointing. The clouds above are turning into their evening colors. There’s not much sunlight left for today. A few pegasi are flying around, but a couple grab my attention. They have bright blue eyes, and they’re looking right at me. Crap.

“Those Blackwatch pegasi are following you,” Iffy says. “And they’re going to keep following you and report everything you’re doing. They’re not going to stop until either you or they are dead.”

This is concerning. The blue-eye pegasi aren’t bothering to stay hidden, and they’re far enough away that they can avoid me if I try to get up close and attack them. Crap, if Iffy didn’t point them out, I would’ve led them right to the daycare.

“Blackwatch isn’t going to stop,” Iffy says, “not until we stop them ourselves.”

“Forget stopping Blackwatch,” I say, “I need to get rid of those pegasi.”

“I was wondering if you noticed them. They’ve been following you since you fell out of the airship.”

“Oh, now you tell me. Why didn’t you bring it up before?”

“Because I thought you knew already and had something planned. You’re a griffon walking in a crowd of ponies. A blind fruit-bat could pick you out from a mile away. You either have to have a genius plan ready to go or have to be plain stupid to not see how much of a bad idea that is.”

I let out a sigh. He’s just a colt, Gilda. It would be wrong to smack him upside the head. “Okay, here’s my plan. You get the heck out of here, and I’ll outrun the blue-eyes.”

“Not going to work,” Iffy says, shaking his head. “Even if you outrun those two, they got more patrolling the city. The others will radio back your location and keep an eye on you, no matter where you go.”

“Oh come on, I didn’t have this problem earlier today!”

“You weren’t carrying around a V.I.P. earlier today.”

This is scary. No, the blue-eyes aren’t scary. It’s the fact that a colt who is nowhere near the age to get out of flight school is smarter than me and knows why anything I do is a bad idea. That’s scary. What else did I miss today that Iffy could sniff out in a heartbeat.

“Okay, so running away isn’t going to work. Do you have a better idea?”

Iffy tilts his head. “Depends, are you going to help me take down Blackwatch?”

I run a claw down my face. “Sure, whatever. If you have a good idea to get out of this, then shoot.”

“I’ll help you,” Iffy says, sticking out a hoof, “but you got to shake on it.”

A hoofshake? Is he joking? “Shake on what?”

“That you’re going to help me take down Blackwatch.” He doesn’t look like he’s joking. He’s got a serious face on, a face I haven’t seen on him before. “Not just for me, for my brother too, and everyone else they’ve killed.”

I look at his hoof, and grab it with a claw and shake. “Sure,” I say, “I’ll help.” And then I’m going straight to Las Pegasus, but he doesn’t need to know that. “So what’s your idea? How do we get away from the eyes in the sky?”

“It’s easy. I’m surprised you haven’t thought of it.” I’m surprised I haven’t chained your muzzle to a pipe yet. “Can you still shapeshift into a pony?”

“Well, yeah, but they’ll see me do it out in the open.”

“Then don’t do it in the open. Do it while you’re hidden.”

“Where? There are only open streets around us. If we go into an alley, they’ll know I’ve changed just by looking at the only unicorn in the alley.”

“Really, you can’t think of anywhere to hide?” I shake my head, and he rolls his eyes. “We’re in Manehattan, for Luna’s sake. There are places all over to hide in. Just follow me and I’ll show you a good one.”

Iffy leads the way, and I follow. The sun’s gone now, and the only lights we have are the street lamps above us. Ponies are running around to try to get back to wherever they need to be. Curfew is upon them, I suppose.

I keep checking behind to see if those pegasi are still following us. Sure enough, I can see the a couple pairs of blue glowing dots looking down at us. Usually there are just two pairs, sometimes three. Once I saw four, but the forth flew away. How many pegasi does Blackwatch have up in the sky?

The itch on my back is still there. It’s too far for me to reach, especially with a full grown stallion on my back. Maybe a copper pipe will help me get that spot. There’s got to be a few pipes lying around.

I don’t know where Iffy is leading me. We’re going down a block, then we take a right, then two blocks more, than we cross the street and go right. After another block of leading me through the dark, Iffy stops in front of a large, ornate building.

“Here we are,” he says, “the local Spirit Temple.”

I cock an eyebrow. “A temple? Isn’t that a bit obvious.”

“It’s brilliant once you take a look inside.”

We enter through a large, open, wooden door. The inside is just as ornate as the outside, but it doesn’t have the same air of luxury the music hall does. Instead, it’s a more classical, and sorrow, feel. Candles are lit all over the walls, illuminating the stained-glass windows with various depictions of spirits and ponies moving to the afterlife. At the far end and center, there’s a tall, white pillar with markings and runes carved into it.

The temple floor is filled with benches, and there are a lot of ponies sitting on those benches. Some are hunched over and looking at the floor. Some are looking up at the roof with a dazed look on their faces. I can hear a lot of them crying softly, muttering quiet words that no one else should hear.

A Spirit Temple, a place for ponies to gather and mourn the ones they’ve lost. Griffons don’t have these. We set our dead on fire and drink booze in their memories, so this is a foreign concept for me. Ponies, however, feel the need to gather in one place to speak their thoughts to lost loved ones. The pillar is supposed to be a gateway or something for messages to travel across. Don’t ask me how it works. It just looks like a big rock to me.

“See, I told you this is perfect,” Iffy says in a quiet voice. “The Spirit Temples have been crowded lately, for obvious reasons. Curfew is coming up, so all these ponies will be leaving soon. You just have to shapeshift into a pony and we can hide in the crowd as everyone leaves.”

“Huh, I guess this is a good hiding spot.” I take a look around. No one is looking our direction. The pegasi didn’t follow us in, so they can’t see what we’re doing. This is a perfect time to shapeshift. “Okay Mister Gray Matter, is now a good time to change?”

“With no one looking at us and Blackwatch outside, yeah. Do it, Miss Pectoral.”

Huh, he got the Dixie Danger reference and played along with it. Maybe his brother had the comics and Iffy read those. With no one looking, my worms go to work and I shapeshift into Fruit Punch in a matter of seconds. With my reduced size, I lose the surface of my back and wings and Eureka flops over onto the floor. Is he dead? He’s been out for a while. His glasses are cracked, but he won’t need those.

Iffy Sniff stares at me with his mouth dropped. “Wow, I know you can do that, but it’s still amazing to watch.”

I grab Eureka with a foreleg and fling him over my shoulder. “Eh, it’s not that impressive,” I say in Fruit Punch’s voice. “I’m sure some unicorns can do the same thing. So now what, we wait the crowd out?”

Iffy nods. “Yeah, let’s go take a seat. They should be leaving soon.”

I follow the green pegasus over to one of the benches. He takes a seat next to me, and I plop Eureka on my other side. The mad scientist sits still for a moment, then he falls over and leans on my shoulder. A glop of his drool drips on my foreleg, and I wipe it off on his stomach. If anyone were to look, they would see a cute little family of three. It’s the perfect disguise.

“Have you been here much?” I ask, “You know, because of your brother and all.” It’s a touchy subject, but we’ve got time to kill. As long as Iffy’s not swearing or yelling at me to kill Blackwatch, I’m fine.

Iffy shakes his head. “Not really. I don’t actually believe in the whole ‘spirit message’ thing. It’s a load of guff. Even if it is real, I don’t think Fishy would be hanging out around a place like this in the afterlife. It’s not his style. It’s too clean.”

I can see that. The whole clean and serene thing makes this feel depressing. I’d rather go with the griffon style of ‘celebrate life by partying’ type of deal. “You know, you’re acting really mature about all of this, especially for your age. Doesn’t it faze you at all?”

Iffy shrugs. “My dad left last year, my mom’s a drunk bitch, and this whole month has been one disaster after another. Life has been forcing me to grow up for a while now. It’s either fight or die at this point. I choose to fight.”

The mare in front of me is whispering something fast, then she breaks down into tears. If there is anyplace to break down and cry, I guess this is the place to do it.

I cross my forelegs in front of me and rest my chin on the back of the bench. “I heard that a lot growing up, fight or die. Or it’s been more like fight or get the snot beaten out of you. Ponies seem oddly obsessed with that idea.”

One of the ponies up in the front benches gets up and walks out the temple. It’s getting close to that time.

Iffy looks up at me and tilts his head. “But you’re a griffon. Isn’t that what griffons are all about. Aren’t you supposed to be brave warriors who fight to the death?”

“Kind of.” I pause for a moment to think about it. I’ve seen the griffon warrior thing a lot here in Equestria, but it doesn’t sit right with me.

“No, it’s a different kind of fight or die,” I say. “The way ponies say it, they say it like it’s for a cause. They’re fighting for each other and the ideals they live by. The way griffons say it, we’re fighting for ourselves. We don’t care what happens to the other guy, just as long as we get out alive. The whole griffon warrior thing is just us being more violent than ponies.”

“So you fight for yourself even if that means running away?”Iffy asks.

“I suppose.” I say with a shrug. “Why die for something pointless when you can live another day?”

“But that’s stupid! That means you’re all cowards. How do you do the impossible when you won’t fight for it?”

I snort. “There’s a saying in Griffonstone, ‘don’t die for your treasure, have others die for you.’ My uncle loves to say that whenever he talks about money.”

“That won’t work. Ponies will realize you’re just using them and stop listening to you.”

I shrug again. “Isn’t that what happened during the Lunar Rebellion, ponies fought each other because the alicorn sisters weren’t sharing?” Iffy stays silent. “It doesn’t apply only to fighting pointless fights for other people. Say I go to Las Pegasus to wait for the plague to blow over. Equestria makes a cure, the plague and Blackwatch disappear, and I get to come in and open my sconeshop again.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“Then let the suicidal ponies fight or die to fix everything for you. If there are ponies out there like you who want to do so, then why should I stop them? Let them do their thing, and I’ll do mine.”

Before Iffy says anything, a pony in a white robe gets up at the front of the temple and says something about curfew time. All the ponies look up at him, and start making their way out of the temple. Some of them walk a normal pace, while other shamble along with their heads down and tears flowing down their faces.

We get up in the middle of the crowd. Iffy gets up first and walks with the crowd, keeping low to the ground to avoid attention. I grab Eureka and fling his foreleg over my shoulder and drag him along. I’m carrying him, but it looks like I’m helping my husband walk home on a broken leg. Well, he did lose a chunk of his leg, so he’d have trouble walking whether he’s awake or not.

The crowd pours out of the temple and disperses out into the night. I glance up and see the blue-eyes still flying around, but they don’t seem to be following me. They look like they’re searching through the crowd to pick up someone who looks suspicious. No luck for them. I’m leaving scott free.

We make it a few blocks down before I bother looking back. The pegasi are definitely not following us. We’ve dropped off the grid and can’t be found now. Good, hopefully I can get even luckier and not have to fight any more monsters tonight.

Gilda sense points me in the direction of Pinkie Pie, and Iffy seems to know where to go too. Iffy glances back at me every now and then, but we don’t say anything to each other.

It’s going to be a long, quiet walk back to the daycare.

Author's Notes:

"Smile at the camera!"

19 - Where's the action?

Here we are, back at the daycare. The big sign of the smiling sun greets us when we get back. Sheesh, I thought this place looked creepy during the day, but the night makes it so much worse. For one thing, most of the street lamps aren’t on, so the street is in almost total darkness. There are also a couple hobos going through the big trash pile at the front doors. I know I got monster claws to defend myself with, but them being there doesn’t make me feel safe around here. Pinkie Pie has a classroom full of kids here, their parents must be thrilled.

Instead of taking the window exit like I did that afternoon, Iffy leads me around to the back entrance, which is tucked away in a dark alley behind the building. Of course it is. I’ll have to make an effort to turn this place into a horror house when I get a chance. Can't let prime scare-estate go to waste.

We enter through the back, and we make our way through the halls. At least the inside is brightly lit up. We pass by one hallway with the lights out. I think it has the room the kids are staying in. I peek in the windows and find the kids in sleeping bags, all of them dreaming the night away.

We keep on trucking through the daycare, ending up in front of Pinkie’s office at some point. I knock on the door with a hoof, I’m still disguised as Fruit Punch, and I hear Pinkie’s voice from inside. “Come in.”

When I open the door, I find both Pinkie Pie and Doctor Heart hunched over the desk in the middle of the room. They’ve got paperwork, folders, and files in between them, and two cups of what I assume is the blackest coffee they can find. Doctor Heart yawns as she scribbles something on a clipboard, and Pinkie Pie takes a big gulp from her coffee mug.

Pinkie Pie glances up mid-sip and places her mug down. She glances at me, then Eureka, and then pulls out her drawer and slams the sound-proof can on the bug. “Can I help you?”

“Probably,” I say. I walk over to one of the chairs and plop the stallion I’ve been carrying on top of it. “I found Eureka, however he’s out cold and I can’t get any info on him right now.”

One of Pinkie Pie’s eyebrows goes up. “Do I know you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course you know me,” I say, waving a hoof at her. “So I figure- oh wait…” I still got hooves on. All Pinkie sees is a random stranger dropping off a body in her office. That may cause some confusion. “Give me a moment.”

The worms go to work, and I shapeshift back into a griffon. Doctor Heart has some unfortunate timing, and decided now would be a good time to sip some coffee. When my guts and flesh rearrange in front of her, she freaks out a bit and chokes on her cup of joe.

“Sorry about that,” I say. “Should’ve warned you I’d do that.”

“No, it’s- ack- fine,” the doctor says, coughing up a lung.

Pinkie Pie rubs her hoof down her face and takes a much longer gulp from her mug than before. “Okay, I see you brought Eureka here,” she says after wiping off her coffee mustache. “Why is he in my office?”

“That’s a funny story.” I glance at the green pegasus. He’s hovering outside the door, keeping his distance from the inside. “Iffy, do you want to tell Miss Pinkie Pie why I had to drag Eureka all the way here?”

Iffy pokes his head in and give a shy smile. Pinkie Pie smacks her face with a hoof and groans. “Iffy, what did you do?”

“I helped Gilda out, that’s what I did,” Iffy says.

I grab the last empty chair in the office and plop my rear in it. Damn it feels good to sit down after today. “You did, I won’t deny that. But tell her what happened when you didn’t help.”

Iffy shrinks down and loses a few inches of air. “I might have knocked out the mad scientist while Gilda was interrogating him.”

Pinkie stares at him for a moment, and then her face slams against the desk. “I would like today to be over,” she grumbles. “Why can’t today be over?”

“We got a couple more hours till midnight,” Doctor Heart says. “And we should be done with these files before then.”

“I want these files done now.” Pinkie’s head rolls on the desk to the point where her eyes meet mine. “I take it Eureka didn’t tell you where Rainbow Dash is.”

I nod. “Knocked out cold before he could talk. We’ll have to wait till he wakes up before we can do anything.”

“Did you try splashing water on his face?” Pinkie asks.

“No, but he did fall down a few thousand feet from the air while riding my back.” Pinkie’s eyes shrink to pinpricks. “Don’t worry, he’s fine. If there was any time to wake up, he would’ve done it then. Oh, now that I think of it, Doctor Heart”- the unicorn looks up from the folder she was browsing- “Our new friend here may need some medical attention.”

“Did you throw him through a wall?” She asks. The doctor glances over at the scientist, and then rolls her head back and groans. “Why is his leg missing?”

“Do I need to answer that?”

“No. You do not.” He puts her things down and grunts as she pushes herself out of the chair. “How long has he been unconscious?”

“Couple hours, more or less.”

The doctor walks up to Eureka and pokes him with a hoof. “Hmm… His breathing is normal. He doesn’t have any nasty bruises. He looks surprisingly healthy for a stallion who I assume was beaten to a pulp by a monster griffon.”

I shake my head. “Nah, I just knocked him around. Although I think I did beat a pony up to a pulp when I woke up this morning, but that’s not relevant.”

Iffy’s ears perk up. “You mean an actual pulp?”

I nod. “Goop and all.”

Pinkie Pie shudders and sticks out a tongue. “Bleh, I don’t need to know that.”

“Pulp or no pulp, Eureka is going to be fine,” Doctor Heart says. “He just needs some sleep, a new bandage for his leg, and he’ll be fine in the morning.”

“Good,” I say, “Then I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

Doctor Heart frowns at me. “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

Iffy Sniff jumps up and smiles. I ignore him. “I don’t think so. I just need some answers from him and I’ll be done.”

“You should,” she says, and glares at Iffy, “And you do not get to watch. If Eureka gets back to Blackwatch and tells them you’ve been here, then this place will be shut down under Case Black Quarantine faster than you can cough.”

Iffy freezes in the air for a moment. “I thought you said we would be put under Case Red?”

“I did, but Blackwatch might put us under Black out of spite. We have a kidnapped VIP in our hooves. Blackwatch can declare us criminals and do whatever they want with us.”

“Calm down, Sacred,” Pinkie Pie says. “Blackwatch isn’t going to do that, and we’re not going to kill anyone.”

“That’ll be a mistake,” Doctor Heart says. “Blackwatch will kill us if Eureka tells them what we’ve done.”

“Then we don’t let him go,” Pinkie says. “We’ll keep him around as a guest and watch over him.”

“That may not be a good idea,” I say. “We’ve got kids running around the place, and Eureka has a kid’s head in a jar back in his lab. He might go psycho and do experiments on them.”

“I say we kill him,” Iffy says, “just like all the evil ponies. Kill him so he doesn’t do any evil experiments.”

Pinkie leans back in her chair and lets out a sigh. “No, we’re not going to kill him, and that’s final. We’ll keep him separated from the kids so he doesn’t get any bright ideas. And if he does start something evil”- she winks at the green pegasus- “Then we’ll give him Iffy and see if that makes him happy.”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Iffy says. We all ignore him.

Pinkie Pie takes a sip of coffee and looks at Doctor Heart. “Go ahead and look after him. I’ll finish up with the paperwork here.”

“Sure, but I think you’re making a mistake,” Doctor Heart says.

“And I am tired of ponies dying around me,” Pinkie snaps. “Now go take care of him and make sure he lives. I don’t want to hear any more about this.”

Doctor Heart stares at her for a moment, and then picks up Eureka with her magic and leaves the room. Bye Eureka, I’ll see you in the morning.

“Iffy,” Pinkie says to the pegasus, “I want you to wait outside while I talk with Gilda.”

“But I”-

“Go,” Pinkie pie says, interrupting Iffy and pointing at the door. “Take a seat out there, now. You are in so much trouble for leaving here.”

Iffy doesn’t say anything. He sulks out of the door, and once he’s out, Pinkie Pie walks over and shuts it behind him.

“This day can’t end soon enough,” Pinkie grumbles. “So Eureka didn’t say anything?”

“Nothing,” I say. “He was talking about using the plague to make gods or something like that, but that sounded like mad scientist talk.”

“Hmm… I’ll talk to him about it in the morning.” She leaves the door and walks back to her chair and sits in it. “Don’t you dare go near him when he wakes up. He might freak out if he sees you. I’ll speak with him and try to get something out of him. I’ve met him before, I think we can get along.”

I shrug. “Sure, I’ll keep my distance.”

“Thank you.” She picks up one of the folders and opens it up, looking at its contents. “I don’t suppose you have any secretary experience, do you?”

“No, not really,” I say.

“I figured that. Couldn’t hurt to ask.” She picks up a pen and makes some notes on a clipboard next to her. Now that I look at her, she seems like a bigger mess than this morning. Her hair is all frazzled and messy. She has dark bags under her eyes. She’s drinking way too much coffee than what’s healthy for a pony. There might even be a little something else in the coffee to help with the edge. I don’t think she wants to talk about anything important right now. She just has me in here because I’m a familiar face or something like that.

“So what’s with the paperwork,” I ask, “Does Blackwatch have you doing their taxes?”

“No, lucky for me,” she says. “You know all the kids in here are Case Yellow Quarantine, right?”

“Yeah, I think someone said something about that. Is that paperwork for them?”

Pinkie nods. “They’re under Case Yellow, so they aren’t infected with the plague, but they are sick in their own ways. Flu, lice, chicken pox, they have stuff that won’t be good if it gets out into the general public. Right now, I’m writing up a proposal for Blackwatch to allow kids in Case Yellow to be under the care of their parents instead of in those cold medical tents, at least the ones who still have parents. Celestia knows why they didn’t do this in the first place.”

I glance at one of the folders on the desk. It has the picture of a kid in it, along with name, parents, address, medical history, and a whole bunch of other things written in there. “And you need details of kids for what reason?”

“Because they’ll audit me and want to have all the details on paper. Believe it or not, even evil military organizations have bureaucracy to wade through.”

I snort, but she doesn’t laugh along. Pinkie Pie sounds… defeated. I recall a happy party pony that never shuts up and is obsessed with making everyone smile, but this… this is depressing. It took one month for her to turn into this. Was that one month that bad?

She looks at her clipboard, and at the folder, and drops it all on the desk. “How many,” she asks out of the blue.

“I, uh… what? How many what?”

“How many ponies did you kill?”

This is what I’m talking about. The happy party pony I knew would never ask something like that. “Today, or just with Eureka?”

“Today.”

I scratch the back of my head. “I haven’t been keeping track.”

“Then guess.”

“Well, um…” I run the start of my day through my head and go through everything that’s happened, counting on my talons when I remember a kill. “There was the lab… and those two… the guys at my apartment… no one at the medical tent… the music hall… Fruit Punch… Maybe ten, twenty. I don’t know the exact number. I might be missing a few.”

Pinkie Pie glances at me. “Did you kill anyone because you wanted to?”

Did I? Maybe a couple in the heat of a fight, but I didn’t start those fights. “I don’t think so. They were all in self defense.”

“That’s good to know.” She picks up her pen and taps it on the desk. Tap… tap… tap… “I don’t think I could imagine one of my friends being a killer.”

“I don’t see myself filling that role, either,” I say. Honestly, I don’t want to think about what I’ve been doing today. Maybe I’ll forget about it once this is all over. Pinkie, on the other claw, she looks like she won’t stop thinking. “You’ve been through a lot this month, haven’t you?”

Pinkie Pie nods, and breathes. “One thousand, three hundred, and fifty nine ponies died or went missing on the first day,” she says. “That number includes you, and Rainbow. You two are the only ones I remember on that list. I tried memorizing all the names, just so no one is forgotten, but the list got bigger the next day, and bigger on the next, and it continues to grow. It’s just not possible to know all those names, not even for me.”

She takes a long breath in, and breathes out for much longer. I let the silence hang in the air. There isn’t much room for me to say anything here.

“They lost count after a week,” she continues. “I tried to make everyone I met smile, to help them with the pain, but Manehattan can’t do it now. The ponies here can’t smile. They’ve been through so much, the plague, Red Night, it’s just all too much.”

“And it’s all too much for you?”

She slams the pen down. “It was too much for me on day one. How do you make people happy when there’s disaster everywhere you look? It’s like trying to throw a party for someone who’s allergic to parties. How do you do it? It can’t be done. Nothing I did helped anypony, and nothing I can do will help anypony after all this!”

She throws her hooves in the air and runs them through her hair. “The number should be one thousand, three hundred, and sixty one, because the plague didn’t just take all those lives away, it took the happiness in the world away too, and me with it. I’m as dead as they come, and ponies don’t smile with the dead.”

I don’t know what to say. She’s staring at her mug now, and her lips are moving. My superhearing can barely hear her repeat that number over and over again.

“Manehattan is miserable. I’m miserable,” she says, breaking her trance. “And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Aren’t you doing something about it now? Isn’t that what Quip is here for?”

Her ear flicks. “Quip?”

“You know, the Quarantine Wellness Program, the initials sound like Quip if you say it fast enough.”

She looks up from her mug, and nods. “Quip, that’s a fun name for this place. I like that name.”

Is that a smile? I think I see a small grin on her face. “I think you just have to find something to laugh at. Maybe that will help you out.” A memory from today pops up in my head. Maybe that will help. “You know, I fell down some stairs while chasing Eureka. A whole army of blue-eyes were shooting at me, and I tripped over a step and went rolling down the biggest staircase you ever saw.”

It takes a moment, but that little grin of hers grows a little bit. “I bet you got a good laugh out of Blackwatch.”

“They probably are still laughing,” I say. “It’s not every day you see a monster griffon trip over herself.”

Pinkie Pie’s smile grows a bit more. She still looks exhausted, but there’s a tiny spark in her eyes, a familiar one I’ve seen before. She looks up at me, and nods at the door. “You should go get some sleep. I got work to finish up, and I still need to talk with Iffy.”

“Okay. Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”

She nods. “I will be. I have to be. I just needed to vent a bit, that’s all.”

I get up from the chair and head to the door, but I stop before I open it. “Hey, I’ll find Rainbow Dash. You may not be thinking it, but I’ll find her. And it’ll be one less thing you need to worry about.”

Pinkie Pie looks up at me and smiles. I open the door and head out, and I hear one last thing from her before I go.

“Thanks.”

20 - Wrong Action

What time is it now? Ten? Twelve? Whatever the time, it’s the dead of night and there isn’t much for me to do. In the city that has everything one could ask for, there isn’t much for a monster griffon to do past curfew.

I flew around the city. There aren’t any good bars open, even in the Green Zone. I think that’s what it’s called. There’s the Red Zone and Yellow Zone, so I assume there’s the Green zone. Whatever it’s called, there’s not much going on with Blackwatch locking down the place. What is a monster griffon who doesn’t sleep supposed to do during this hour?

At some point in my mindless wandering, I decide to head back to the scone shop. It’s the only thing I can think of doing. My other option is to harass some Blackwatch goons who are on patrol tonight, but I don’t feel up for a fight. To Gilda’s Family Scones!

When I arrive, the street looks the same as it did in the wee hours of the morning, a big mess. All the stores are still boarded up, and all the scars of war are still on the street. None of the lamps are on, and I can barely see anything with my night vision. At least it isn’t raining now.

And then there’s my store, still as abandoned as ever. The boards are still up on the windows, and the blood at the doorstep is still there. I wonder what happened here. The ‘Scone Quarry’ sign is still hanging up. Maybe I’ll replace it tonight with a more suitable sign. Find a board and some paint, come up with a nice little design. I got nothing else better to do.

“Hello Gilda,” a voice whispers.

I jump at the voice and find the shadow of a pony standing behind me. It’s a pegasus, with a business suit and a grin with his teeth showing. Even with nightvision, it’s too dark to see his coat colors. I can’t make out his face.

“Um, hello,” I say back to him. There’s a stranger outside of my store who knows my name. This isn’t suspicious at all. “Do I know you?”

“No, but I know you,” the stranger says. That is a voice of a stallion that I do not trust. “You’re a business owner who is going through hard times, is indulging in old habits, and is now mixing with the wrong people. It’s a common story here in Manehattan.”

I suppose that’s correct. My store is in the Red Zone, Blackwatch wants me dead, but I don’t know about the habits. Bullying, I guess. Has this guy been following me? “Who are you? Are you Blackwatch?”

The stranger shakes his head. “It will be best if you don’t know who I am. But you should know that I would like to be your friend. I want to be the friend that helps you, Gilda.”

Yes, Mr. Stranger Danger, that sounds like a great idea. Let’s hold hooves and be creepy stranger friends. Nothing could go wrong. “What do you want?”

“I want to help you. It’s what friends do,” he says. Is it just me, or is he walking backwards? “As a friend, I can help you with your little business issue. Think of it as a favor.”

His hooves trot backwards, and he slides back into the darkness. He is walking backwards! What’s with this guy?

“I just need a favor in return. One simple favor…”

Stranger Danger disappears into the shadows, and he’s gone. Not even my night vision can see that guy.

What the heck was that all about? He wants a favor, but what’s the favor? What does he want? Where did he go? This has to be something Blackwatch set up.

I wait for what feels like hours, but nothing happens. Blackwatch doesn’t jump out to beat the crap out of me. Stanger Danger doesn’t pop out of the shadows to stab me. I’m just alone, and slightly confused.

Stranger Danger isn’t coming back. He’s long gone now. He could be lurking in the shadows, watching every move I make. I don’t know where he is.

The sound of ceramic dishes clatters behind me. I turn around, but find no one standing behind me. However, something is glowing. From between the window boards, there’s a soft glow coming from inside the shop. Someone is inside there, and they turned on the lights.

I go up to the door and tug at the handle. I expect it to be locked tight, but no. It pulls open without any trouble, even a tiny bell rings. Huh, I guess I didn’t check if this was locked this morning. I open the door all the way and walk inside, careful to step around the blood splatter.

A voice greets me when I walk in. “Hey, Gilda! What’s up?”

That voice, I know that voice. I double-take when I see who’s inside. The one pony in the world I thought I’d never see today, the one pony who I thought I’d have to go to hell and back just to find, is sitting on a barstool, taking a sip from her mug.

She smiles at me, and her raspy voice cracks through the air. “Are you going to just stand there? Come on over.”

My mouth is hanging wide open. Every mental process in my head stops dead. The only thing I can do is listen to her and follow her instructions. I walk on over and sit on the stool next to her.

“What’s with the face?” she asks. “You look like someone nipped you in the buds.”

This is… wow… I can’t believe it. “Rainbow Dash…”

The pegasus smiles and takes another sip. “That’s my name, say it whenever you can, as much as you can.”

I… I can’t believe it! It’s her. Her rainbow mane, her blue coat, her cockiness. “It’s really you.”

Rainbow’s eyebrow goes up. “Who else would I be? I’m the only Rainbow Dash around.”

“But Pinkie said you’ve been missing for a month!” I say. “I’ve been gone for a month! Where have you been?”

“Oh, you know, chilling,” she says. She seems casual about all this. We’ve both been missing for the past few weeks and she doesn’t look all that worried about anything. “I do what I usually do. Sleep, fly fast, train for the Wonderbolts. I even saved the world once or twice.”

This is a bit surreal. Out of all the places in Manehattan, Rainbow was sitting here the whole time. I wonder why Gilda sense didn’t pick her up.

Rainbow drinks the last of her coffee and slides the mug down the counter. “And what have you been doing this past month? It definitely hasn’t been running this store. This place is a mess!”

I shrug. “I’ve been trapped in a lab, so I’m a bit slow to what’s going on. I just woke up this morning and been busy all day.”

“Stuck in a lab for a month? I bet you had the biggest cramp when you got out.”

“I do. It’s called Blackwatch.”

She chuckles at my little joke. From the back of the shop, I can here dishes clanking together. Something is whistling back there, but there’s no way for me to see back there through a wall.

“Who’s that in the kitchen?” I ask.

Rainbow looks up and waves a hoof. “He said he’s your assistant chef. Nice guy. He’s baking me a special treat. I can share with you if you want.”

I have an assistant? Crap, there’s so much I don’t remember about this shop. I’m going to have to relearn everything! I am not looking forward to that.

“What’s he making?” I ask.

Rainbow shrugs. “I don’t know. He said it was a special recipe you came up with, so I assume it’s a cool Griffonstone-style scone or something like that.”

Double crap, what are my recipes? Do I even remember how to bake scones? That’s the big reason I opened up a sconeshop in Manehattan, to bake scones! If I don’t know how to bake, then how am I going to run a sconeshop?

The bell rings behind me, and I turn to see who’s walking in. Stranger Danger? No, it’s not him. It’s a little filly earthpony, with a blue coat and a white, wavy mane. As she walks in the store, I notice something odd. She’s limping as she walks. She’s hopping on one hoof and walking with two others, but she’s missing a forth. She’s missing a back leg!

“Hi Sea Salt, what’s going on?” Rainbow says, greeting the filly.

The little three-legged filly smiles at Rainbow Dash and limps up to the stool right next to her. “It’s going great. Who’s the griffon.”

“This feather-brain?” Rainbow says, nodding at me. “This is Gilda. We’ve been friends since we were kids in flight school. Hey Gilda, you remember Sea Salt here, don’t you?”

Sea Salt hops up on the stool and gives me a grin. Something about her face looks familiar, but I can’t put my claw on it. Didn’t I hear that name recently? “Sorry, I’m having trouble remembering anything lately,” I say. “I have a nasty case of amnesia.”

Rainbow reels back in shock. “You don’t remember anything?”

I shake my head. “Nothing in Manehattan. It’s all foggy in the back of my head.”

“Do you remember meeting her in Genicorn?”

Again, I shake my head. “Nope, not ringing any bells.”

“Huh, well that’s a shame. This brave young lady here,” Rainbow says, nodding to the kid, “Is in the Second-Chance program, just like me.”

The filly smiles. “Yep, the doctors say they can grow me a new leg!” She wiggles the stub where her back leg should be. “They already fixed Rainbow’s wing, and they say they can do the same for me.”

“That’s cool,” I say. “So the doctors finally fixed your wing.”

“For the most part.” Rainbow stretches out her wing and gives it a few flaps. “It’s as good as new, but there is one problem. These little random teeth keep growing where feathers should be. I get one or two every couple of days, but they’re easy to remove. Eureka says his team is figuring out how to stop it, but for now I’m happy to have my wing back.”

“Good to hear that.” I can smell the scent of cooking rolling in from the back. I wander what the chef is making. “So these teeth, are they little bones sticking out or are they actual teeth?”

“They’re full-grown pearly whites.” She stretches her mouth open and points to her teeth. “You could pull one of those suckers out and put it in my mouth, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It’s just a side effect of the Blacklight plague. The lab boys say they’ll iron out the kinks soon enough.”

My head perks up at the last thing she said. “Blacklight plague? You mean they’ve been injecting you with Blacklight?”

Rainbow nods. “That’s what the ponies are calling the plague, Blacklight. I hear it’s turning everyone into hideous monsters. Real nasty stuff. Oh hey, dinner is ready.”

I look up and can hear the chef moving around back there. Sounds like he’s done cooking. The wall budges out, and the bricks burst away as the chef walks through the wall. He’s a pony monster, the pony monster I fought today. He’s got a chef’s hat on, and an apron, and is holding a silver platter in his monster hoof.

The pony monster sets the platter on the counter, kisses his hoof and flicks the air, and grunts to wish us a good meal. He turns around and stomps back into the kitchen, blowing the brickwork apart to make another hole despite having the first one available.

Rainbow Dash is almost drooling over the platter, and Sea Salt smacks her lips. All it takes for me is one look at the main course, and I got to grab my beak to keep myself from puking.

The platter is full of monster tidbits, the same tidbits I ripped off today, only a lot more, at least a hundred. They’re not even fully cooked. They’re raw, oh so raw. They’re wiggling and whipping around like a pit of snakes and one of them is waving at me!

There’s a hungry grin on Rainbow’s face, and Sea Salt is just as enthusiastic. “Well, what are you waiting for? Dig in!”

I can’t look. I turn away just as the girls reach out to grab a hoof-full each. I can’t see them, but I can hear them chomp down on the little suckers and hear them go squish in their mouths. Why? Just Why? What is wrong with you two?!

“Hey Gilda,” Sea Salt says with her mouth half full of… bleh! “Do you want some? There’s enough for all of us. There’s enough for everyone in Manehattan to have a bite. Heck, these things can take over Equestria!”

This is a joke. This is one of Rainbow’s sick jokes, and somehow she got a filly involved. A filly! How sick is she?

“If she doesn’t want any, that’s more Blacklight for us!” Rainbow says, munching ever louder on the platter. “Although, this is your recipe. You gave Manehattan Blacklight. You should try some of this, too.”

“Thanks for the Blacklight plague, Gilda, it’s delicious,” Sea Salt says in a sing song voice. “You know, Doctor Eureka said I turned into a ranging monster thirteen minutes and twelve seconds after infection. Heck, I even got boils around twenty seven seconds.”

“Wow, that’s fast,” Rainbow Dash says. “That’s got to be a world record. I bet I can beat you.”

“Not a chance. I already have boils on my neck. Look!”

I dare look up at the filly, and sure enough, she has boils. In fact, boils are popping up all over her head like a boiling pot of water. Huh, boils, boiling pot, I think I figured a word out. I would appreciate the moment, but Sea Salt's face is bubbling like crazy. I can barely see her eyes with how puffy she’s getting.

“Drat, I can’t beat that time,” Rainbow Dash says. “Maybe I should eat more.”

“Nope, no matter what you do, you can’t beat me!” The filly giggles, and then her head falls off. Plop, right off the neck. She keeps giggling as her head rolls on the floor. Her blue coat is turning to a puke-green color, and her hair is thinning and drifting in the air. “Oops. Can someone put my head in a jar please?”

The severed head jumps at me, and I freak out and fall off my seat. It jumps at me again, and I kick it out of the air. What sheep-bucker makes scones out of Blacklight?!

Rainbow Dash looks down at me and laughs. “Look at that, Gilda is a scaredy-cat. Even the severed head of a filly spooks her.”

“She’s trying to bite me!” I yell as I swat the bouncing head away. “You try acting brave when a monster is trying to eat you!”

Rainbow Dash tilts her head, and her faces drops to the side. Her skin stretches down, and then half her face falls off, leaving behind her exposed skull. “Look at you. You’re crawling on the floor like the worm you are. You’re my friend, Gilda. I expect my friends to stand up against their fuck ups.”

I roll over and push myself up, but Rainbow steps on my back and pushes me down. I try to swing around and punch her off of me, but her liquefied face pours over my arms and sticks me to the floor.

Rainbow opens her mouth, and all of her teeth fall out. They land in the face goop with tiny, little plops, and the teeth crawl forward to my face. “You fucked up, Gilda, and you know it.” The teeth move around in the goop to mimic her talking mouth. “You killed me, Gilda. You killed us all.”

Sea Salt’s head rolls over and yells in my ear. “Look at us, Gilda, you did this to us!”

“You killed us all! You killed us all!” A million voices chant those words over and over again. The world shakes, and millions of pony monsters pour out of the kitchen and crawl over the ceiling and walls like cockroaches. “You killed us all!”

“You killed us all!” Sea Salt chants with the monsters. “You killed us all!”

“You did this to us,” the teeth say in my face, yelling over the chanting and heavy feet of the monsters. “You killed us all!”

The monsters scurry behind me and bite at my head, pulling me apart by the feathers. I can’t move my arms! I can’t move anything! Everything is pulling me in every direction. Rainbow’s goop is growing over me. Her lifeless corpse is standing over me, and its grinning. It’s grinning at me!

“You killed us all! You killed us all! You killed us all!”

Another set of footsteps enters through the shop entrance. It wades through the throngs of pony monsters, and walks right up to my head. A horn glows above me, and the face of the purple unicorn looks down.

“Do you even know what you did wrong?” the unicorn asks.

“No!” I shout. “I did nothing wrong! I didn’t do anything!”

“That is a shame,” the unicorn says. “I’m going to kill you, and you don’t even know why.”

The unicorn’s horn glows bright and consumes the world. The monsters, the severed head, the scone shop, Rainbow, all of it is consumed by the bright light. But I can still hear them. They’re all yelling louder than ever. I can’t see them, but they’re yelling the same thing over and over.

My feathers are burning away.

“You killed us all! You killed us all!”

My skin is on fire. The light’s roasting me!

“I didn’t do anything!” I shout.

The world goes completely white, and the chanting is all I hear. I can’t even hear my own shouting now. My bones are melting too, melting into a hot puddle of burning crisp griffon. This is the end! This is how I go!

“This is… insightful.” A new voice breaks through the chanting. It’s a feminine voice, a voice that is calm, a shining lighthouse amongst a raging storm. “I find it sad that this isn’t the most horrific scene I’ve witnessed tonight. Allow me to help you.”

The chanting stops, along with the burning. I feel nothing. Nothing is holding me down. I try lifting an arm, and I can feel it move. My claw clenches, moves around, and even boops my beak. My other limbs can move without trouble, too. Everything is still white, but at least I can see myself.

“Ah, much better,” the voice says, letting out a sigh of relief. “I can hear myself think now. But we can go further than this. Would you like to go to a more hospitable location?”

The white space fades away, and in its place a new world comes forth. The air here has a pleasant warmth to it. The sun is up high in the sky. Its light trickles through the leaves of a tree above me. Green mountains roll across the countryside. There’s a village in the distance, and the shape of Canterlot jutting out of even more distant mountains.

“Hmm, Ponyville,” the voice says with a tinge of curiosity. “I expected to see Griffonstone. Do you value this village more than your birthplace?”

I look around, but I don’t see anyone near me. It’s just me under this tree. “Who are you?” I call out. “What’s going on?”

“This is your dream, Gilda.” A dark-blue shape streaks through the sky. It circles around to my tree and lands in front of me. She’s a pegasus, no, an alicorn! She has wings and a horn, and is about as tall as me, and has a dark crown on top of her head. “And I am Princess Luna,” the alicorn says.

“Oh… wow.” My eyes go wide as it registers in my head what’s going on here. This is a dream. Everything that happened in the sconeshop is just in my head. All of that… gunk didn’t really happen. I didn’t find Rainbow Dash, but at least she didn’t really melt all over me. She’s still out there. “Wait, I thought you only did the dreams of ponies.”

“I enter the dreams of all creatures within the nation of Equestria,” Princess Luna says. “Although I’ve found in the past that entering the dreamscape of creatures outside of our borders is not beneficial to foreign relations.”

“Huh… this is…” I stumble on my words. I don’t know what to say. The Lunar Princess is in my head right now. “So how is this supposed to work? Am I supposed to bow in respect? Is this a casual thing and we’re on the same footing?”

“Normally I’d be respectful to you, as it is your dreams I am entering.” Princess Luna looks at me with stern eyes. She isn’t smiling. Neither is she frowning. Her face is flat. “I would be your guest, only here to offer advice and assistance.”

Something isn’t right here. I can feel it in my gut. “And I take it this isn’t a normal visit?”

“No, it is not. Please, take a seat.” Princess Luna lifts a hoof up, and a table with chairs pops out of the ground. There’s even a tea set and tiny muffins for refreshments. “You can call this visit a meeting regarding national security. Consider this a formal affair, and we both are equals in standing.”

We both pull out our own chairs and sit down. I grab one of the muffins and take a bite out of it. Mmm, tastes like honey and strawberries, an interesting combination. If I still have my baking skills, I’ll have to try to make this when I wake up.

Princess Luna doesn’t take anything off the table. She is sitting up straight. Her hooves are clasping together, resting on the table mat. “I must be upfront with you, Gilda. My goal here is to convince you to turn yourself in and take responsibility of your recent actions.”

I chow down on the rest of the muffin and talk with my beak full. Of course she isn’t here for a nice little chat. “You’re here because Blackwatch asked you to be here, aren’t you?”

Luna nods. “Indirectly, yes. I received a note from a party involved with Blackwatch to set up this meeting with you if necessary. That was in the morning, when your body count was at nineteen.”

The muffin lodges in my throat and I choke on the crumbs. That’s weird, I’m in a dream. I shouldn’t be able to choke in a dream! “Nineteen?!”

“Just in the morning. It’s now estimated at twenty six plus a missing scientist, and that is not counting the lives lost to the monster you released in the Music Hall.”

Oh right, the monster. He went his own way, didn’t he? That guy could reck a city if he wanted to. “How many did the monster kill?”

“I was not told the exact number, but the previous dream I visited was of one of the Blackwatch foot-soldiers who had to kill the beast. His dream was much more disturbing than the one you had, and yet it’s still not the worst I’ve seen tonight.”

Wow, twenty six. That’s not something you think about unless the ruler of a nation sits down in front of you and says it to your face. “Okay, I did kill those ponies. However, they were all in self-defense. Blackwatch shot first.”

Luna bites her lip and shakes her head. “That is not entirely true.”

“What? Did I squish a fly or something?”

“It’s written on the note I received. It gives a detailed report of what happened when you woke up.” A piece of paper materializes next to the princess. Her eyes go down the list as she looks through the details. “Ah, here it is. It says, and I quote, you broke out of your restraints, punched a guard to death and liquefied him and absorbed the fluids, and proceeded to kill and repeat the process to at least four other ponies. From what this says, it sounds like you were the first to strike.”

“Blackwatch could be lying to you,” I say. “It would be something they would do.”

“They could be. However, I also received a roll of film depicting the event. Allow me to show you.”

A large, white tarp rolls down from the tree branches. A film projector falls from the sky and plops down next to the table. It spools up and lights up the tarp with its projection. The image is a bit grainy, and has no color, like what all films look like. I think there’s colored film in development, but this clearly isn’t colored.

The scene on the screen is one of me. I’m strapped down to a table, and a scientist is standing next to me and talking. There isn’t any sound, but I don’t need any. I can sort of remember what the guy said this morning. It’s not anything important.

A few seconds in, my eyes open, my arms yank out of the restraints, and I pounce on the scientist and beat him to a pulp. After a few more seconds, I get this horrified look on my face as the scientist melts into me. A couple of spells come off screen and hit me, and I pounce on the shooter next.

That’s the end of the film. The projector goes dark and the tarp rolls back up.

“As you can see, the evidence provided is against you. While you may not be convicted of every kill you’ve made, a case can be made that you are a dangerous individual and should be dealt with accordingly.”

Son-of-a-bison, they’re going to lock me away! Wait, I was already locked away. “And why am I strapped down to the table? That looks like Blackwatch is doing something to me already.”

Luna puts her hooves to her chin and rests her head on them. “I asked that question myself. Do you have an answer?”

I shrug. I never thought to ask that question today. That is a good question. Why was I on a table to begin with? “I don’t know. I have a bad case of amnesia, and I can’t remember anything that’s happened here in Manehattan.”

The princess frowns. “I had hoped you would be able to answer that.”

My eyebrow goes up. “Blackwatch didn’t tell you why?”

She shakes her head. “No. When I asked, I was told it was best if I didn’t know.”

“Because they would lie to you if they say anything.”

“Possibly. With this absence of information, there is some doubt in your case. I am treating you as an equal instead of a monster because of this. You may have killed ponies today, but there may have been more done to you than I’ve been told about.”

“Like turning me into a monster.” At any point today, did I question where I got my powers? I don’t think so. I just had them and rolled with it. “So what are you going to do with me? Are you going to kill me?”

The princess shakes her head. “Make no mistake, you have to face punishment for what you’ve done. However, it won’t be in the hands of Blackwatch. If you turn yourself in to me, I’ll make sure you have a fair trial, one which you can have the chance to defend yourself in.”

“You’re asking me to give myself up. That would be a dumb move on my part.”

“I understand why you wouldn’t want to do it, but consider the alternative. Blackwatch wants you dead. If they can, they’ll kill you, and you will be forgotten. No trial, no chance to get out, they will do as they wish to you. However, if you turn yourself in, I will ensure you are provided the same treatment as anyone else held in the legal system.”

That’s a fair point. Who knows what Blackwatch would do if they got their dirty little hands on me. However, prison doesn’t sound too nice either. Chains and crappy meals are not my thing. “And the evidence will be stacked against me and I’ll be put in a cell for the rest of my life.”

“That’s not entirely true. With the right legal defense, you have a chance to defend yourself and lessen your punishment. And Blackwatch can’t touch you while you’re within the system. I’d say it’s preferable to Blackwatch sweeping you under the rug.”

“But I’d still be locked up.”

“But you’ll have a chance.”

Those are some fun choices. Take my chances with Blackwatch, or take responsibility and jump into the legal system. With option one, I’ll have to fight against Blackwatch to survive. With option two, I won’t have to do that, just as long I’m ready to put on an orange jumpsuit and give up everything. Fight or die, anyone?

“I understand the position you are in,” Luna continues. “I too have committed heinous crimes in the past, and I was also punished for them. We all must pay for our crimes, Gilda, whether we want to or not.”

Is she bringing the Two Sisters tale into this? One thousand years on the moon doesn’t sound that fun to me either. “Look, I get what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to relate to me with the Nightmare Moon thing, that’s not going to fly with me. We have two completely different stories.”

Princes Luna frowns a little. “You can still relate to something even when some details don’t align.”

“Sure, but you went berserk because your sister didn’t share with you,” I say, pointing at her. “I went berserk because some shady organization strapped me to a table for a month. There’s a difference there.”

The princess doesn’t say a word, so I go on.

“You were working off jealousy, I’m not. I’m trying to figure out what the heck is going on here, and ponies with blue goggles keep shooting at me while I do so. Heck, I’m trying to find my best friend in the world, which is more than Nightmare Moon ever did.”

“Your best friend, who is that?” Luna asks.

“Rainbow Dash. I think you know her.”

“I do,” she says, nodding. “I was under the impression she died in the outbreak.”

“Pinkie Pie says otherwise.”

Her eyebrows goes up. “Pinkie Pie?”

I nod. “Yeah, Pinkie Pie. She has some weird sense that tells her when things will happen. I know that sounds crazy, but I got a sense that tells me where things are, so I believe her when she say Rainbow Dash is out there.”

“I see.”

I slam my claws on the table and stand up. “So when you say I should turn myself in, I say no. I’m going to find Rainbow Dash, because if there’s anyone on this green earth who can do it, it’s going to be me!”

Luna leans back a bit and keeps her face flat. “You sound adamant about this quest of yours.”

“You bet your shiny, black crown I am. There is nothing you can say to get me to back down.”

“Very well.” She waves a hoof, and the table set disintegrates into a cloud of dust and blows away with a gust of air. Without I surface for me to lean on, I lose my balance and fall down in front of the Princess’s hooves. Even in my dreams, I’m falling all over the place.

“Hey, that was uncalled for!” I yell at her, spitting out a tuff of grass.

“It may have been, but I thought it was funny,” she says, letting a sly grin show. “I won’t blame you for trying to find your friend. You still need to answer for your crimes. However, I’ll allow my offer to stand for the time being.”

“I’m not going to take it,” I say.

“And I’ll still allow it to stand,” Luna says. “If you do plan on finding Rainbow Dash, I suggest doing it before you are apprehended. We will be looking for you.”

“You’re going to have to fight me when you do,” I say.

“As I would expect.” Luna gets up from her chair and flaps her wings, taking to the air. “I suggest you consider my offer sooner than later, Gilda. Every day you evade us is another day you’re chances of survival diminish.”

“And I’ll take my chances,” I say. “Now get out of my dream. You’re violating the Griffon-Pony No-Dream-Walking treaty.”

The princess smirks. “There is no such treaty. But it is time for me to go. You’re about to wake up. Farewell, Gilda.”

She disappears into the sky, and leaves me to be. Damn right I’m going to wake up. I am going to wake up and find Rainbow Dash, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

I really hope the nightmares aren’t reoccurring.

Author's Notes:

Achievement Unlocked
24 Hours Later – Survive the First Day

Locked Achievements
Right Out of the Lab – Complete the Tutorial

21 - Finally An Answer

Author's Notes:

Connection to host servers reestablished. You may now continue to enjoy your single player campaign.

Damn princesses invading my damn dreams, ruining my damn sleep! How do ponies live with that crazy chick? She can dive right in your head and see whatever’s been going on in your noggin. What happens if you're dreaming about world destruction? Or worse, dreaming about banging her sister? All it takes is one dream, one little sexy dream, and Luna will fire a death laser at you while you sleep.

Oh yeah, and there’s the whole, “Turn yourself in, face the consequences,” business she brought up. Bitch, I got dual citizenship. Both my countries recognize self-defense laws. I am not turning myself in just because some bio company wants me dead.

Forget about that. It’s a brand new day. I find Pinkie in what I assume is the staffroom. It’s got cream walls, a kitchen area, a door to a restroom, and a dead plant in the corner. Oh, and the windows are boarded up. That’ll bring the property value down. It’s all run-of-the-mill. What caught my attention was the giant cake sitting in the middle of the room. A cake with wheels. A wagon cake.

Right now, Pinkie is digging through an open hatch in the back of the cake, talking to herself as she pulls out and puts in all sorts of knick knacks. Balloons, briefcases, a rubber duck, a stack of paper, clown shoes, that sort of stuff. “No, no, yes. Got that, that needs to go there, that can get out. Emergency bouncy balls are stocked up. Cole Slaw is going to need this…”

Eh, this isn’t a big deal. Pinkie lives in a building made of cakes back at in Ponyville. A cake wagon falls under run-of-the-mill for her. “Morning.”

Pinkie pops out for a fraction of a second. “Morning, Gilda.” She sounds more chipper than yesterday. Never doubt the power of sleep. She dives back in, but I can still hear her voice. “Did the floor make a good bed?”

Oh yes, the floor. Last night, I didn’t waste any time getting some sleep, none at all. A straight twenty four hours of running and fighting has its toll on the body. I took five steps out of Pinkie’s office last night, stopped, and then passed out. No bed, no sheets, lights out and hit the deck. My beak dips to a frown. “I got a major cramp in my back.”

She shrugs and goes on back to her business with the cake. “Sorry to hear that. We tried moving you, but you’re a lot heavier than you look.”

My eyes roll. “Thanks for the effort.” And thanks for calling me heavy. My self esteem appreciates it. “What’s with the cake? Is someone having a birthday party?”

She looks up at the ceiling and taps her chin. “A birthday? Mmmm, not today. I’m hosting one in the north camp, but that’s in a couple of days. Today, I’m just taking this on the regular rounds. Visit the kids, try to make their days happier, that sort of thing. Hopefully I can bring some smiles today.”

“That’s cool.” So she’s going to be doing what I found her doing yesterday, playing games with the kids in the Yellow Zone. Hopefully there will be fewer rampaging monsters this time. “After what happened yesterday, I assume you’ll be packing heat?”

“Party cannon,” Pinkie says. “I got the party cannon.”

“I thought your cannon only shoots confetti?”

“And cake and other gloopy gloop. It can fire a whole wad of superglue at a hoard of baddies and stick them where they stand. I’ll show you,” she shuffles through the junk in the cake wagon, “once I find it in this big mess.”

I nod, and then let out a big, fat yawn. With a quick look around, my eyes catch sight of a coffee maker on the counter. Hmm, a morning mug sounds good. “Want some coffee? I’m making a batch.”

Her hoof waves me off. “No, I’m fine. I got enough energy as it is. But don’t let that stop you.”

“Suit yourself.” I open a couple cupboards in search of a coffee tin. It’s got to be in here somewhere. “Do you think Doctor Heart would like some?”

I hear her grunt. She’s heaves a couple of tanks marked for helium out of the cart. She drops them, and they clang against the ground. “Doctor Heart left before you woke up. Her job is with the medical tents, not us, so she had to get on out of here.”

“Bummer.” I think she would appreciate how black I make my morning joe. Ah, I found the coffee tin, right under the sink! Brilliant placement. It’s right at home with the damp air and cleaning chemicals! The health inspector would kill me if I pulled something like this. I got to smack the moron who organized this kitchen. And look, they put the scotch in here too.

Hold on, scotch? In a daycare?

I pick up the bottle and give the label a closer look. Imported from Shetland. Holy crap, this is the good stuff, like fifty bits per bottle good! Wonder what it’s doing in a daycare. Eh, it’s mine now.

I pop the lid off the coffee tin, and the stuff smells decent, so no mold. This shouldn’t kill me. I dump a chunk in the maker, and then I pour some scotch right after it. Hey, why not? We call this Grandpa’s Cane back in Griffonstone, because it hits as hard as grandpa’s cane. It’s as bad as it sounds.

Pinkie Pie gives me a concerned look. “Isn’t it early to break out the party juice?”

I shrug and push the button. “It’s happy hour in Griffonstone. Got to celebrate it with my sisters in arms. How about Eureka, have you chatted him up yet?”

Pinkie’s head pokes out. “Eureka?”

I nod. “Yes, Eureka, the scientist I busted my behind to grab yesterday. The scientist who knows where Rainbow is. That Eureka.”

From the restroom door, a voice calls out. “Did someone say my name?”

Pinkie points to the restroom. “He’s in there.”

Huh. That makes things easy. I figured there were still a few hoops I had to jump through. I walk over to the door and bang on it. “Hey egghead, do you know where Rainbow is?”

He grumbles, loudly. “Can you give me two minutes? I’m doing business in here.”

Excuses, excuses. “I already gave you the entire night. Hurry it up!”

“Sheesh, you sound like Blueblood. Does anyone understand you can’t rush biology?”

“I’ll show you biology if you don’t hurry it up!” That was a terrible comeback. I shake my head, and look up at Pinkie Pie. “Did he say anything to you?”

Pinkie shrugs. “He asked where the restroom is.”

“That’s it?”

“He got here right before you did.”

Just my luck. Turns out I still have one last hoop. Who’d have thunk it’d be the porcelain throne. “Eureka, finish up or I’m coming in there to finish it for you. I’ve gone through enough trouble getting you here. I’m not waiting any longer.”

“Again with the rushing. What gives you the right to boss me around?”

My monster claws grow out, and I jab them into the door. It makes a nice cracking sound. I hear Eureka scream something nasty, not unlike a little girl screaming. I can imagine his face as a set of blades stab through the door and almost slice him up.

The toilet flushes. “I’m hurrying! I’m hurrying!”

“Good.” I pull the claws out and let them shrink back to normal. They make great negotiation tactics. Pinkie seems to disagree. She’s giving me a flat look. “What?”

“Was that necessary?” she asks. I see not everyone is amused by my antics.

I shrug. “If it gets results, I’m not complaining. He can do his thing after we give him the run down.” The running water comes next. Ah, the sink. I’ll give him time to wash up. Who wants to interrogate someone with dirty hooves?

The sink finishes up, and the door opens. Eureka, with his thick glasses, waddles out on three legs. I notice the stump where his back leg used to be is covered in thick bandages. This must be Doctor Heart’s doing. He’s not wearing the blue jumpsuit I found him in, so I can see his test tube cutie mark.

He looks at me with a smile. His glasses make his eyes look so much bigger than they really are. “I’m done, see?”

I nod. “I can see that. Now, where is Rainbow Dash?”

He sniffs the air. “Is that coffee? Coffee’s what I need right now.”

“No distractions. Where is”-

He’s not listening. Before I can stop him, he hobbles over to the coffee pot and takes a big whiff. “Mmm, it’s almost done! And what’s this? We have some scotch to go along with it?”

His magic picks up the scotch bottle and brings it up to his eyes. He grins, pops the lid, and leans back to take a big swig of Shetland’s finest. With his back leg missing, he almost falls over, but he catches his balance last second. He seems to be handling a missing limb without trouble.

The bottle swings away from his lips and he lets out a sigh. “That hits the spot. Good stuff. I need to find a bottle to put in my own personal cabinet.”

“Are you done yet?”

“One second.” He takes one more quick sip, and smiles at me. “Now I’m done. What did you want to ask?”

Freaking finally! I feel like I’ve been waiting for months! “Rainbow Dash, where is she?”

Eureka raises an eyebrow. “Where’s Rainbow Dash?”

“Yes.”

His lips turn into a frown, and he takes another sip. “She’s not with you?”

“Of course she’s not with me. That’s why I... Why did you say that?”

“Say what?”

“She’s not with me, why would you say that?”

Eureka shrugs. “Because I thought she’s with you. I thought you of all people would know where she is. But if you’re asking me, then I assume that’s not the case.”

“It’s not… You don’t know where she is.”

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t.”

…

Fuck.

I walk up to the guy, and I hold my claw out. “Hand me that scotch.”

The bottle floats over, and I snatch it out of the air. I chug it, hard. I tilt it back and drain that bastard clean in two seconds. It was half full, so no big. After I’m done, I slam it on the counter.

Eureka jumps. His eyes are wide, wider than usual with those glasses of his. “You took anger management classes, didn’t you?”

I glare at him. “When did I do that?”

“Same time Rainbow was receiving treatments for her wing.”

I wipe my beak with a claw. This sounds oddly familiar, but I don’t care. “You mean when you were giving her a deadly virus.”

His smile is wavering. “Well, it wasn’t deadly at the time. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her wing was-ACK!”

Not even I saw my claw snag his throat. Quick as lightning. Eureka gags under my grip. “Here’s the thing, I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything that’s happened to me in Manehattan. I don’t remember living here. I don’t remember any treatments. I don’t remember turning into a monster! And I certainly don’t remember taking any anger management classes! Those classes would be helpful, because I got a long list of things that have been pissing me off, and you are high up my list!”

Eureka doesn’t say anything. Talking is hard when you’re choking to death. His face is turning red, his eyes are bulging behind those glasses, and his horn is glowing.

Wait, why is his horn glow-

The scotch bottle swings into my head. It shatters and the shards tear across my face. I grab my face with my free claw, but that leaves me open for Eureka to stab the bottle in my throat, pointy glass bits up.

I cough blood on his glasses. I drop the stallion and back up, clutching both my face and my throat. Funny thing is I didn’t feel that. My face is scratched up and a scotch bottle is sticking out of me, but I feel fine. It’s a flesh wound, it’ll heal.

My head turns when I hear footsteps outside the door. “Hey Pinkie, are you in here?” A yellow stallion, with a brown mane, and dressed in a Blackwatch suit from the neck down, sticks his head in the staffroom. “Pinkie, do we have any crazy string? Cherry wants to do something with the-OH MY CELESTIA!”

The stallion’s eyes go wide when he sees me. “What?” I ask. “Do I have something stuck in my beak?”

His mouth moves up and down, trying to make a sound but nothing comes out. He turns around and yells something down the hall. “Hey Budge, come and see this! This is gnarly!”

“What did Pinkie do this time?” Budge, the big burly stallion I met yesterday, comes in behind the yellow one. He’s wearing a full suit of armor, minus the helmet, the same armor those guys at the theater were wearing. “Sweet mother of barley, how in blazes are you still up and standing?!”

My eyes dart between the two, and I glance over to Pinkie Pie. Eureka is cowering behind her and the cake wagon. Oh, what am I going to do with him? I don’t know, actually. And frankly, I don’t care. Guy can rot in Tartarus for all the good he’s done.

Pinkie gives a concerned look and points to her throat. Ah, the bottle.

I glance down, and geez that thing is stuck way up there. Black and red goop is dripping from the wound, and little black tentacles are waving around. “Would you babies relax? I’ve had worse.”

“It’s not that!” The yellow stallion yells. “You’re beautiful!”

…

I’m what?

Hold that thought, I’ll address it in a moment. I yank the bottle out. It makes a loud slurp sound when I do it. I take a look at the glass, and it’s covered in my gunk. Some of that stuff is still moving. Ew. I toss it, and it clatters on the floor. “See, it’s nothing.”

Budge cringes back. “You still have that gaping hole in your throat.”

I shrug. “Eh, it'll heal. Bit drafty, though.”

The coffee maker makes a beep. Ah, Grandpa’s Cane is done caning. I bolt over there, grab the full pot, and tilt it back and chug it down. If only I could taste this stuff. At least I can feel my throat stitching itself back together.

“Holy cow,” the yellow stallion says. I don’t know if he’s talking about my healing or me. Either way he’s not taking his eyes off me.

I pat my neck. “Yep, it’s something special.” I didn’t see this stallion walking around yesterday. Does he know what’s going on? “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are. Are you new?”

The stallion shakes his head. “I’m Caramel. We’ve met already. You punched me through a wall.”

“Ah. That incident with Cherry, gotcha.” I put the empty coffee pot back in the maker, but I pause. Hold up, wasn’t there that other guy yesterday? The slow guy, the one who slowed his words. Wasn’t his name Caramel?”

I turn to find this Caramel only feet away from me. He’s leaning on the counter with his head on his hoof, and he’s smiling like a mad scientist. “Hi, how you doing, beautiful?”

Nope, not solving that mystery. I put a claw in his face and push him away. My monster strength easily overcomes the resistance he’s putting up. This could be the same Caramel as the slow Caramel from yesterday, or two completely different Caramels, or something entirely different. I don’t care, I’m not getting anywhere near this mess. “So Pinkie, what do we do now?”

Pinkie pokes her head up. “What do you mean?”

The yellow stallion is putting up a fight to get around my claw, but he’s losing, fortunately. “Eureka was your idea, and your idea came up bust. Are we tying him up and throwing him to the diamond dogs or what?”

She deadpans me. “No, we’re not doing that. Eureka, are you sure you don’t know where she is?”

Eureka shakes his head. “No clue. The last time I saw her was when the virus broke out. She, along with you Gilda, were the first to be infected. You both were transported to Genicorn headquarters, and I was there to give you two a diagnostic. But before I could do anything, Prince Blueblood came in and took both of you away. I assumed you two were kept together, and you escaped together.”

So I was taken with Rainbow by this Prince Blueblood guy, and he stuffed us in the lab? Fuck, for all I know, Rainbow was in the next room over from where I escaped! “Why didn’t you say anything before?!”

Eureka throws his hooves in the air. “You tried to kill me before I could say anything.”

“Bullshit. You could have brought it up, but instead you brought up anger management classes or something and you shanked me with a bottle and will you cut that out!”

I direct my shout at Caramel, who has devolved into kissing my claw. Not just regular kissing. He’s using his tongue. What the fuck dude? What kind of crazy does Pinkie have on payroll? This is not cool, not cool at all. Either he’s flipping crazy, or Cherry put him up to this. I’m betting on the latter.

He doesn’t listen to my shout, so my monster claws grow out and I push him away with my blades. I do it slow enough not to pierce skin, but there’s enough physical and psychological force to push the guy away as they grow. “What in Tartarus is your problem?”

He looks at me, and his smile doesn’t drop. “You’re so beautiful.”

My stomach churns. I am not comfortable with ponies making the moves on me. Griffons, heck yeah, I’ll get down with them. Ponies, ew. Interspecies relationships are not my thing. “Weren’t you talking slow yesterday? You were slurring all your words and crap.”

He shrugs. “Concussion. Doctor Heart made me better.”

“I beg to differ. Hey Budge, can you get rid of this guy for me.”

The armored stallion smirks. “He’s your problem. I got paperwork to pick up and ship out to HQ. Plus this is just too fun to watch.”

I’ll show you two fun. “So Eureka, I escaped from a lab yesterday. Do you think Rainbow is there?”

Eureka taps his chin. “Possibly. Genicorn has several labs throughout the city, but I’ve been to all of them and I saw no sign of you during your captivity, much less Rainbow. The pony who has the definite answer would be Prince Blueblood.”

I give a thumbs up. “That is actually helpful. Would’ve preferred to know exactly where she is, but if I have to go down the rabbit hole, so be it.” Woo, more hoops.

Prince Blueblood, I’ve heard the guy’s name before, somewhere. I think one of Rainbow’s friends told me she dated him years ago. I forget the details. He has something to do with Canterlot and a dance party.

I give him a ping with my monster radar. I get… nothing. I’m getting nothing. Okay, quick test. Ping Pinkie Pie, yep, I’m feeling her. Ping Tanya. She feels like she’s across the city, but I feel her. Hmm, ping Mayor Red Tape, residing mayor of Manehattan. I’ve never met the guy before, but I’m getting pings off of him. I think he’s in the hotel district. No clue how I know that.

This may be harder than I thought. “Okay, where’s Blueblood?”

“In Canterlot,” Eureka says. Great, I’m going to have to take a train to get to him. They don’t sell tickets to wanted monsters. “But I believe he’s coming to Manehattan tonight. He travels back and forth every couple days or so.”

Oh, that makes things so much easier. If Mister Blueblood knows where Rainbow is, then I’m going to need to make an appointment with him. “Well, thanks, I guess.” I look up at Pinkie Pie. “Blueblood then.”

She nods. “Blueblood.”

Eureka nods too. “Welp, if you don’t need me anymore, I’m just going to snag this…” He scurries over to the broken scotch bottle and picks it up with his magic. “I won’t attack with this. This bottle has valuable biomass on it.”

I glance at the bottle. The goop that came from me is still moving around. That’s creepy. Eureka’s eyes are glued to stuff. “Eh, sure. Do what you want. But if you tell Blackwatch what happened here…”

He waves a hoof. “Not to worry, I don’t plan going back for a little bit. This biomass needs quick care to survive, and the clinic in this building has the right tools to do so. You can thank Doctor Heart for the equipment.”

I couldn’t care less about that. “Fine, but I will come after you if you say anything.”

“Snitches get stitches, I’m familiar with the colloquialism,” he says as he waddles for the door. “I’ll say you kept me trapped in a hole and I escaped with a paperclip and some bubblegum. Oh, can you please move, Mister Budge. This bottle is covered in pure Blacklight. It’s a nasty death if you touch it.”

Budge can’t get out of the way fast enough. Eureka struts past on his three legs, and disappears into the hallway. “Weird guy,” he says.

“And dangerous,” I add. “Keep an eye on him. He might try experimenting on one of the kids.”

Pinkie and Budge nod. Pinkie knows all too well. She’s seen the pictures Iffy took. We both know Eureka is the dangerous crazy.

Speaking of crazy, Caramel will not take his eyes off of me. With the blades in his face, he hasn’t moved, but he’s still a nuisance. “You’re just so beautiful.”

I now regret my decision in punting this fellow through a wall. His concussion is getting the best of me. “Anyone want to rein him in? Preferably with a shock collar.”

Budge walks by me. “Nope. Hey Pinkie, where are those papers?”

“Right here,” Pinkie says.

This has been a productive morning. I got Eureka talking, and now I have someone else to talk to. Granted, I’m about to do the same thing I did yesterday. Find a guy, kidnap him, evade a base full of blue-eyes. I’m a little pissed with having to do the same thing again, but hopefully it’ll be worth it.

Now here’s the question. I got some time before Blueblood gets to Manehattan. What am I going to do all day? Maybe I can stay with the kids and do stuff with them. I had fun with them yesterday.

Budge comes back with a saddle full of paperwork. “Caramel, you’re staying inside today. You need your rest.”

Caramel lazily rolls his head to look at Budge. “She’s beautiful.”

I look at Budge too. “So he’s staying at the daycare?”

Budge nods. “Yep.”

“And you said you were going out?”

Budge nods again, slowly this time. “Yes…”

I step backwards and let Caramel fall on his face. Dweeb. “I’m coming with you.”

“That’s not”-

“No choice. I’m not staying here with Casanova. Let’s blaze it, Budge!” I run over to the door to get as far away from that yellow creep as possible. But before I leave the doorway, I turn back and look inside. “Uh, where are we going exactly?”

“Yellow Zone Blackwatch HQ,” Budge says.

Ah… I don’t think that’s good.

22 - The One Tower

I’m not so sure if this is a bad thing or not.

“Really, the Big Pear?” I say. “What the heck are we doing here?”

Budge led me to the base of a skyscraper, the Big Pear, one of the premiere luxury hotels of Manehattan. It’s on the edge of the Green Zone, almost hugging the border with Yellow. There are bellhops standing outside alongside some heavily armed Blackwatch units, so I think this place is still in service.

“Delivering paperwork,” Budge says. Huh, that’s the first thing he’s said to me this entire trip. All he’s been doing is giving me the stink eye. I think he’s a bit pissed with a “monster” tagging along. “Do me a favor while we’re here. Don’t say we work for Pinkie Pie.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated. Just keep your mouth shut.” And he leaves it at that.

Alright, no word of Pinkie. That should be easy. There are guards patrolling back and forth at the entrance, and many more stationed on the street. None of them bother us.

I’m currently disguised as Fruit Punch, but she’s dead. A smart goon would pick me out in an instant if he saw my face. That’s why I have the full Blackwatch suit to cover my face, courtesy of Cherry. As far as they know, I’m one of them. “Does Blackwatch need room service? What the heck are they holding up a hotel for?”

Budge moves for the entrance, nodding at the bellhop and the guards stationed at the doors. “I think they’re paying us to guard it, the hotel that is. We’re nowhere close to the Red Zone, but they want the extra security to keep their guests happy. Business keeps booming during the end times, apparently.”

We go through the entrance and into the main lobby. It’s a bit similar to the theater lobby, albeit with hotel stuff in it. “And the hotel wants paperwork?”

“Captain Slaw wants paperwork. He likes our department to report directly to him. Half of it’s the situation we’re in. The other half is he gets cupcakes when Pinkie’s around.”

“The Captain gets a fancy room and cupcakes?” I brush a bit of dust off my Blackwatch suit. “Then why are us goons sleeping on the floor and eating cold slop?”

Budge looks at me with a scowl. “First off, you’re not one of us. You’re only pretending to be, and that crime deserves far worse than what you’ve been getting.”

My eyes roll, but the goggles hide the gesture.

“Second, Captain Slaw doesn’t stay here. He’s in a meeting with the big boss. He gets the same food and the same beds as we do.”

“Allegedly.”

“And you can allegedly shove your beak up your”- Budge smacks face first into the elevator doors. With the heavy armor he’s wearing, the smack comes with a loud metal clattering and he drops to the floor. Several Blackwatch guards turn to look at the sound. I can hear them snickering.

I come up next to the large klutz and press the up button. “You have to wait for the elevator to open before you walk through.”

He pushes himself up, rubbing the side of his face as he does so. “Shut up.”

The elevator opens. He steps in, and I follow. He presses the button for the top floor, the doors close, the elevator makes a whirring noise, and up we go.

“So the big boss is staying here?” I ask. “And he’s holding meetings here too?”

“In the penthouse,” Budge says. “Prince Blueblood wants all the fancy thing-a-ma-jigs.”

My eyebrows go up. “Prince Blueblood stays here?”

“When he’s in Manehattan. Folks say he’s a pain in the ass to work with. So the less he’s on the island, the better.”

This is convenient. Within the same hour, I’ve been told who I need to find to locate Rainbow Dash, and where to find him. Heck, I could get lunch, watch a movie, and come back just in time to wave hello to the Prince when he arrives. My day’s been wrapped up in a pretty little bow and spoon fed to me from a silver platter!

“You know,” I say, “I didn’t expect the Blackwatch Big Boss to be a prince held up in a penthouse suite. I’d expect him to be sitting in an underground lair, looking at big screens and plotting something nefarious.”

Budge scoffs at me. “That’s what every comic book villain does. We should go for bigger. Personally, I want my big boss to be sitting in a giant, flying fortress. Something not too far off from the one in Daring Do and the Birds of Shamouti.”

I grin. So we got a Daring Do fan. “I can see that. Blackwatch does have the airships.” I look up at the little arrow above the door. It says we’re halfway up the building now. “What about a base on a battleship?”

“Like Captain Rose in Power Ponies?” Damn, this guy knows his pop culture. “Ha, that’ll never happen. Equestria likes their ships too much to give one to us. Luna’s stubborn about it.”

“What about a battle ship commanded by Captain Rose himself?”

“We're just imagining this, right?”

I nod.

“We already have trouble cleaning up Blacklight. We don’t need to clean up all the rose petals that bastard leaves behind.”

I laugh. Yeah, that would be a problem. “Hey, did you notice something?”

“What?”

I grin. “We’re getting along.”

Budge looks down at me. “No we’re not.”

“Yes we are. We’re talking about Blackwatch bases and comic books.”

“So what? You’re still a monster.”

“Well, that’s rude.”

“Good.” The elevator dings, the doors open wide, and Budge steps out. “The day I get along with you is the day I jump off a building.”

I follow behind him. I guess a little elevator talk isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. “The day’s still young. Make sure to do a backflip on the way down.”

We head down the hallway, passing by the blue-eyes standing guard. I say standing guard loosely. I count five of them. Three of them are playing cards on a fold out table, and one guy by the elevator is reading a book. Only two of them are doing any actual guarding, and that’s at the far end of the hallway. Here stand Equestria’s finest. Blackwatch hires the best.

Budge nods to the two guards when we reach them, and they perk up. “Pinkie Pie’s not with you?” the left one asks.

Huh, what happened to no word on Pinkie?

“She’s busy,” Budge says. “Maybe next time.”

“Damn, and I’m itching for some cupcakes,” the one on the right says. “She promised to bring cupcakes.”

Hmm, maybe that’s it. She gives out too many cupcakes. There must be some weird policy about not eating on the job.

“I remember, I was there.” Budge walks on through with me on his tail. I exchange a quick nod with them, and they go back to doing whatever. Wow, security’s lax around here. No asking for ID. What kind of hack operation is Blackwatch running here?

As Budge said earlier, this room is the penthouse. Let me tell you, this room earned its name. First thing I see when we walk in, vaulted ceilings. Freaking vaulted ceilings, with murals. It’s like they ripped the roof off a cathedral and plopped it on top of this skyscraper. That has to cost a billion bits at least!

But there’s more. Budge moves his big butt out of the way, and I get a view of the rest of this place. In the middle, sunken into the floor, there’s a large pit surrounded by a circle of couches. Red hot coals are smoldering in the pit, so it’s one of those fireless pit type of deals. You could roast s’mores for days and not set the roof on fire!

And on the right wall, son of a bison, the entire right wall is an aquarium! Just a big, massive tank full of water and fish, swimming around and doing expensive fish things! It’s tacky as heck, but Grover be damned that’s worth a fortune. Everyone in Griffonstone could sell their right leg and left kidney and they wouldn’t even come close to the price of one of those fancy fish swimming in that aquarium!

I can’t stop myself from letting out a long whistle. “Whose dick do I have suck dry to afford this place?”

“Prince Blueblood’s,” Budge says. “But you have to do fellatio with his assistant first.”

Before I could say anything, a couple of yelling voices draw my attention away from the aquarium and towards the other side of the room. More specifically, behind a closed door. “You broke the deal! You broke the fucking deal! What gives you nerds the right to use my guys as lab rats!?”

“He was my body guard, and he sustained severe injuries on the job. With my way, we don’t have to go through workers' comp.”

“You didn’t give him a fucking choice!”

“He’ll have a choice later.” Wait, that voice sounds familiar. “Convenience stores sell razors for an affordable price.”

“No! Fucking no!” A door slams open, and a pegasus in a blue-lined Blackwatch suit storms out. He’s a tall yellow guy, with his mane completely chopped off. It’s just peach fuzz on top of his head. Oh, and he looks pissed. “Your head’s going to roll for this, you hear me?! Roll!”

I lean over to Budge and whisper, “Cole Slaw, I presume.”

Budge nods. “Yep.”

“I think you’ll find my head is firmly attached to my neck. It’s quite a pain to roll.” Another pony steps out the door. A unicorn, a purple unicorn… Oh hey, it’s that unicorn from the theater. What’s he doing here? “Your head, on the other hoof… Doesn’t Doctor Eureka keep a head in a jar?”

Cole Slaw jabs a hoof at the unicorn’s chest. “You’ll regret fucking with me. You want more test subjects? Stick your vials up your own nerds’ asses, starting with your own!” He swings around, almost smacking the unicorn with his tail. He makes it five steps before he notices us.

“Shit, I forgot you were coming.”

“Is this a bad time?” Budge asks.

“No worse than usual.” Cole Slaw walks up to us. “Come on, fill me in as we go.”

The unicorn arches his brow. “What’s this, an appointment I didn’t know about?”

“It’s none of your concern,” the pegasus barks.

“With that attitude, it is my concern.”

“Too bad.”

Cole Slaw marches by. The unicorn gives me a curious look. Those eyes, those bright blue eyes. Damn, those eyes are intense. It’s like he’s going to strap me down and interrogate me.

Is he going to ask me something? I think he is. Better play it safe. “And before you ask,” I say, “no, we don’t have cupcakes. Pinkie Pie was busy.”

Cole Slaw freezes next to me. His head slowly turns until our eyes meet. His eyes are burning. They’re bloodshot and burning.

“Pinkie Pie?” The unicorn’s horn glows, and the doors slam shut behind us. “You didn’t mention anything in your report to me about Pinkie Pie.”

“It’s a PR thing,” Cole Slaw snaps, not taking his glare off me. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t, but Prince Blueblood is very much worried about PR. Come back inside Captain Slaw. Tell me about Pinkie.” The unicorn walks back through the door, but glances back before he goes completely through. “And bring the messengers with you”

Captain Slaw swears under his breath. “Why the fuck did you say that?!”

From the way he’s standing, I bet he’s ready to pounce on me and rip my neck out. “I thought he was going to ask about the cupcakes.”

“You fucking dumbass! You just screwed yourself over!” Slaw stomps back to the room. Budge nods for us to follow, and we do so. From behind, I can hear Slaw muttering to himself. “I could use one of her cupcakes right now.”

We follow into a dark room with dim, neon lights. Huh, this is a departure from the expense of the last room. There’s a bar on one side of the room, with a wall stocked with liquors of all kinds. I imagine the cheapest bottle on that shelf is about half a million bits.

In the back of the room, in an area with a bit more lighting, are three poles sticking out of a stage area. On the middle pole, there’s a beige mare with burgundy hair flipping and twirling on the pole. She’s wearing a black, leather corset, with a short skirt and long stockings. She jumps up to the top of the pole, spins around it while sliding down. She stops at the middle, looks over at us, and winks at me.

Okay, this is giving me a weird feeling. A low-end strip club in the penthouse suite of one of the top hotels in the biggest city in all of Equestria. Why?

The unicorn whistles, and the stripper looks up at him. “Roseluck, take the Dozer’s report and look it over.”

The mare flips right-side-up and hops off the pole. She walks up to Budge, holds up a hoof, and gestures to hand over the paperwork.

Budge looks down at the mare. He towers over her, so it looks like a kid asking her dad to cough up the allowance money. Given what she’s wearing, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s role-played that before.

“Dozer, the report,” the unicorn says. “I know you have it.”

Budge shakes his head and pulls out a stack of papers from his saddlebag. The mare takes it, smiles at him, and gives me another wink before turning around and flicking me with the tip of her tail. Why do ponies do that with their tails? The winking and mock flirting I get, she’s a stripper. But why the tail?

“Take a seat.” The unicorn nods to a couple of lounge couches. “Do you two want anything to drink? I have all the finest spirits in all of Equestria. Anything you want.”

“I’m good,” Budge says as he takes a seat. I shake my head and sit next to him. Yes, I’m sitting next to the big klutz who wants me dead. This unicorn is throwing off some nasty vibes, and I can tell Budge feels them too. We’re united in our suspicion

The unicorn’s magic grabs a bottle and glass from the bar, and he pours himself a cold one. “Excuse my manners. I’ve let strangers in my domain and we haven’t introduced each other yet.” He places a hoof on his chest and kneels down to bow. “I am Prince Blueblood’s personal liaison to Manehattan, Doctor Arctic North, esquire.”

Arctic North, so this is the guy that gave me a hard time at the theater.

My buddy takes the initiative to introduce us. “Budge.” He grunts and points to me. “And this is Cherry Spice.”

“Budge and Cherry, the pleasure is mine.” The unicorn takes a sip of his chosen poison. “I want you two to be straightforward with me. Prince Blueblood will be hearing this later. How are you involved with Miss Pie?”

Cole Slaw steps in. “This is a pointless waste of”-

Arctic North raises a hoof. “Ah ah ah, I’m asking your messengers the questions.”

The pegasus steps back, biting his lip. Both Budge and Cole Slaw glare at me. What’s with the hostility? Is Pinkie’s name on a blacklist or something?

“We’re with the Quarantine Welfare Program,” Budge says. “Our job is to improve moral around the Yellow Zone. Hosting events, playing with the kids, stuff like that.

The unicorn tilts his head. “And Miss Pie?

Budge shoots me another glare. “Pinkie Pie gets herself involved with the kids. She goes around the quarantine tents and holds little parties for them. Like Captain Slaw said, it’s for PR.”

“That sounds like an admirable venture. It warms my heart knowing ponies still care.” Another sip, and the unicorn glances at the stripper. “Roseluck, what’s in the report?”

The mare is skimming through the stack. She looks up and tosses it on the bar top. “Transfer papers. It’s all for kids in Yellow Quarantine transferring to their parents’ care.”

“A simple policy change, such a harmless thing.” The unicorn looks at Cole Slaw. “Filing paperwork and entertaining the children, I see you’ve sentenced Miss Pie to community service.”

Sentenced, like a prison sentence? Did Pinkie do something I wasn’t aware about?

A buzz erupts from Cole Slaw’s suit. He presses a button and talks into it. “Captain Slaw here.”

“There’s a griffon sighting on Pigs Street,” the voice box crackles. “He’s moving fast and hiding in a crowd. We have reason to suspect it’s Zero.”

Griffon sighting? So Blackwatch is watching the griffons on the streets. They must be looking out for me. Well someone’s going to be disappointed. That’s not me.

Arctic North shakes his head. “Don’t waste resources on that call. It won’t be worth it.”

Cole Slaw sneers at North and turns away from him. “Get the airships in the sky and maintain distance until they arrive. Don’t let Zero know you’re following him until you’re ready to strike.”

“Roger.”

Still calling me a him? Learn your genders, you cloud-sucking foal. Anyone who says ponies aren’t racist can stick a fork up their butts.

“With all due respect, Doctor,” Cole Slaw says, glaring at the unicorn. “You have no authority over my boys. And for the record, yes, Pinkie is doing community service. That’s my dirty little secret. You can take that piece of news and shove it up Blueblood’s ass when you fuck each other tonight.”

Cole Slaw turns for the door. Arctic North whistles, and Roseluck dashes across the room to body block Slaw’s exit. “With all due respect, Captain,” North says with a cold voice. “You just sent your boys on a fool’s errand. They’ll find a greedy little griffon with a clawfull of bits he pickpocketed from the fine folks of Manehattan. At best, you’ll pick a petty criminal off the streets.”

“At best, my guys will turn Zero into a cloud of fine, red mist.”

Red mist? Ha. Your guys haven’t done jack. The monsters did more work on me than your goons ever did.

“Still the antagonist, as always.” North puts his drink on the bartop and lifts over the stack of papers. “Let’s make a deal, Captain. This child transfer policy is a fine idea. I’ll personally sign each with the royal seal. That’ll ease your burdens. Afterwards, I’ll show a special project my boys are about to complete, just to show we’re both still on the same side. It’ll make your spine tingle.”

Cole Slaw grunts. “Thanks for the offer, but after what you did to one of mine, I’m going to disrespectfully refuse.”

“I understand your hesitation, but allow me to finish. For your end of the deal, you’re going to personally shut down this rogue organization of yours, you will arrest Miss Pinkie Pie and give her a proper sentencing,”-

An arrest… Oh shit. I think I might have ruined everything for Pinkie.

-“And before this meeting is over,” he pushes the papers over to Cole Slaw, “you’re going to apologize for your misconduct and appalling language.”

Slaw stares at North for what feels like forever. Budge and I look at each other. I can see the mixed emotions in his face. He’s worried for Pinkie Pie and what’s going to happen to QWP. He’s also pissed at me for blowing everything up with only a sentence.

In our moment of silence, I hear something skitter. I look around the room to try to find the source of the noise. What the heck is making that skittering? I swear I’ve heard something like that before.

Finally, after a long minute of silence, Cole Slaw knocks the papers out of the air, scattering them all over the place.“I am never apologizing to you!”

“I don’t expect you to do so now.” North picks his glass back up takes another sip. “Do so in five minutes. I still need to make a case as to why you should take this deal. Then you’ll apologize.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Indulge me.” North looks over in my direction. “Miss Cherry Spice, I have a question for you.”

I jump at the sudden attention. The train of thought with the skittering sound breaks. “I, uh… What?”

“How long have you been working with Pinkie Pie?”

Crap, I got to talk now. Got to keep it cool, keep my answers short and safe. “As long as Budge has.”

“And how long is that.”

“Since the beginning.”

“The beginning,” he repeats. “So you where there when Miss Pinkie Pie was smuggling explosives into Manehattan under the nose of the military.”

Wait what? Pinkie was running a smuggling operation? With explosives? That doesn’t sound right. “Uh, I wasn’t here for that.”

“I see. Then you were part of the operation to traffic ponies off the island and onto the mainland, putting the entire world at risk to a global, uncontrollable outbreak.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Was Pinkie running a crime organization? Is that why we’re in trouble? Is the daycare for storing drugs?

I hear the skittering again, and now I have a good lock on it. I look where I think it’s coming from, straight in front of me, but up a little. My eyes go up, looking above North’s head.

“So I assume you joined Pinkie upon the creation of QWP, along with your companion Budge.”

I'm trying my best to pay attention to both Arctic North and the skittering“Yeah, sounds about right.”

There, on the ceiling, that’s where it’s coming from. A small black dot is running in circles above Arctic North. It’s small, with long antenna, and bright green eyes. Hey, it’s a bug. It’s just like the bug back in Pinkie’s office!

“Of course. You wouldn’t be a Blackwatch agent if you were caught doing those things along with Pinkie Pie. You’re not that inept.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Why the heck is a bug crawling around here? Is someone spying on both Pinkie and Arctic North? Between North and the bug, Pinkie is well within her right to be paranoid.

“But I have one question. For putting the world at risk with her smuggling shenanigans, Miss Pie should receive a much harsher punishment far beyond the meagerness of community service. But Captain Slaw sees it otherwise. If you worked with Pinkie as long as your friend Budge, then you would’ve known to keep your mouth shut about such matters.”

I glance around. Everyone is looking at me, even Roseluck. She’s giving me the bedroom eyes, but she’s still looking at me. And that damn bug isn’t leaving. It’s skittering is driving me insane!

“I thought everyone knew. They guards outside got cupcakes from her once.”

North looks at Slaw. “Your guards know? This makes it an open secret. I feel insulted not hearing about this.”

I can feel Cole Slaw's glare burning a hole through me. “My guards know how ridiculous the situation is, North. She was just bringing in fireworks, and she wanted to get some scared kids back to their families. You’re making her sound like an international criminal.”

Oh, fireworks and scared kids. is that really that big of a deal?

“I’ll let Blueblood decide the matter. I expect no more secrets from here on out. Even if they are the open kind.”

I hope her Pinkie Sense can sense trouble when it’s coming, because I think it’s going to come down hard on her.

North looks back at me with cold eyes. “Still, Miss Spice, you should know better than to let secrets loose. Is there anything else you would like to share? Anything dangerous, you could say.”

Another buzz comes from Cole Slaw’s radio. He punches it again and speaks into it. “Status report?”

“The griffon spotted us. He confronted an agent and incapacitated him. He stole his firearm and is now running through the Green Zone.”

That griffon’s getting frisky. And he’s got one of Blackwatch’s weapons. Good on him.

“Shit. Put out an alert. Evacuate the area and move those damn airships already!”

“Roger.”

With a bit of static, Cole Slaw’s radio goes dead. However, another buzz emits, this time from Budge’s voice box. “All units, we have visual of Zero on Pigs Street. Target is large, looks like he’s part owl, and has a blue case over his back. Target has a firearm and is dangerous. Be on the lookout, air support is on the way.”

Part owl? Son of a bison, that’s Tanya! Blackwatch is going after Tanya! And they’re sending airships after her! I barely survived with two of them shooting at me. She’s not going to last five seconds with those things bearing down on her!

Arctic North rests his chin on his hoof and stares at me. “It that your friend, Miss Spice?”

Of course she’s my friend. Sure, she’s a bitch of a roommate, but she’s a good-

Why did he say that?

"We've all seen what Blackwatch is capable of. A normal griffon won't last long against an airship brigade." North has a smirk stretching across his face.

That look, I’ve seen that look in too many comic books. That’s the jig is up look. He knows who I am.

I glance up. The bug is still there, circling around. Whoever that bug belongs to, I hope they’re good people and will get Pinkie out of whatever jam is coming to her. I got more immediate matters to attend to.

“Where’s the bathroom,” I blurt out. I push myself off the couch and hobble over to the door. Roseluck is still blocking it. I hope she has the sense to get out of the way. “It’s an emergency. That time of month and all.”

Cole Slaw coughs and steps out of the way. “Around the corner through the kitchen.”

I nod to Slaw, then look at Roseluck. She’s not budging. She’s only giving me those bedroom eyes. “I said it’s an emergency. Move.”

“Oh Captain,” Arctic North says, “Remember when I said I needed to build my argument before we made the deal?”

Roseluck stands up on her hind legs, and swings out one of the magic shooter things, and unloads it point blank.

My vision fills with hellfire as Roseluck lights me up with magic. They tear through my suit and fry my skin. They don’t do much damage, but son of a bison that stings.

North raises a hoof. “This is my argument.”

Roseluck stops shooting. Cole Slaw is looking at me, slack jawed. My suit is in ribbons, and my flesh looks like Swiss cheese. Smoke is rising from the holes, and some black goop is leaking out. But I’m still standing, and my wounds are healing right in front of the Blackwatch Captain.

Cole Slaw is wide-eyed, and he stutters. “You’re… you’re…”

“I swear I’m good at keeping secrets.” I shapeshift out of my pony form and into my more impressive griffon form, drawing out my monster claws as I do so. “It’s just a bad day for me.”

Cole Slaw looks around the room, flares his wings out, and jumps back. “Kill her!”

I level my claws at Roseluck. To my surprise, she steps out of the way, and waves a hoof for the door. And she winks at me. Damn that winking.

“What are you doing?!” Cole Slaw screeches. “Don’t let her go!”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing anyone here can do,” Arctic North says. “She’ll tear us apart if we try anything. But don’t worry, Orion will do the job for us.”

Cole Slaw yells, “I said don’t fuck with my boys!”

“He was my guard, you know.” North smiles at me. “You already met Orion, Gilda. You pushed him out of my airship, remember?”

Great, he’s got a “secret” weapon for me. A guy who almost died brought back to life, I’m assuming. “Let me guess, Orion is a super soldier.”

North tilts his head. “How’d you guess?”

“I read comic books.”

He chuckles. “Go save your friend. You’re wasting my time.”

I glance back before I take off. This feels weird. Here’s a guy who’s out to kill me, and he’s letting me go. And he’s telling me I’m going to be fighting a super soldier in his place.

Whatever. Tanya needs help.

Cole Slaw is still yelling when I leave. Budge hasn’t said anything. He’s been sitting in shock this entire time. Let them be. I dash out the door and head for the windows. I take one last look at this place. I'll be back for Blueblood.

The windows shatter as I crash on through. I glide over the Manehattan streets, which are thousands of thousands of feet below me. It’s a beautiful sight. I fold my wings in, and drop.

The wind whistles through my feathers. The ground gets closer, and closer, until finally-

SHRACK! The street erupts in a big massive crater. A massive shockwave fires out away from me. Blackwatch soldiers and hotel bellhops go flying in the air as the ground bows and flips them over. It’s freaking chaos.

I dash out of the crater full sprint. Those Blackwatch dudes can sort their own problems out. Tanya needs my help, and I need to get there as soon as I can!

Damn, I thought this day was going to be easy. Why can’t this ever be easy?

Author's Notes:

You’re playing on Easy. Would you like to increase the difficulty?

>Yes.

>No, you pussy.

23 - Rotten Oranges

I found her in an alley.

It wasn’t hard to find her. I don’t need monster senses to see the magic bolts shooting up in the air. If you’re on a rooftop, you can see a firefight happening from halfway across the city.

Tanya is running in between two buildings. There’s a blue-eye gang hot on her tail, shooting magic bolts down her way. She’s firing back with her own magic shooter. No clue how she got her claws on one. She had it when I got here, so I’m assuming she stole it from a goon.

Her blue briefcase is hanging on her back, bobbing up and down with every stride she takes. That can’t be comfy. She should ditch that thing. It’s only weighing her down.

I wonder if those goons know that’s not me they’re chasing. Cole Slaw saw my disguise trick, so I figure he should’ve put out an announcement or something. Or maybe they just don’t care.

Another goon gang jumps out at the end of the alley, blocking the exit. Tanya fires down range, forcing them to dodge. While they’re distracted, she spreads her wings and takes off.

She’s a harder target to hit in the air, but she’s still between two buildings. Not much space to maneuver. The goon squads shoot up, and she soars up to evade the volley. I’m looking down at this, and a number of shots wiz past my face. That alley’s a kill zone!

Tanya streaks out from the alley, and flips back to land on a rooftop. Funny enough, she lands on my rooftop, the one I’m sitting on. We’re only a few yards away, and she hasn’t noticed me yet. She’s too busy adjusting the suitcase strap to look my way.

“Hiya,” I say.

The owl-bird snaps her around head at the sound of my voice. “Gilda? What are you doing here?”

I grin at her. The sight of me sitting here while she’s been in a shootout must be a bit jarring. “Oh, you know, hanging around, doing whatever. You?”

“Me? I’m having a little spat with the cops.” She snaps the magic shooter up and fires three shots. I hear a scream, and a moment later a Blackwatch pegasus crashes right next to me. “They’re big on racial profiling.”

I give the pegasus a kick. Dead, hole in the chest. “Tell me about it. I’ve been dealing with them all day yesterday. These guys are relentless.”

“Yeah, I’d like to chat, but I need to get somewhere” She fires another burst in the sky. This time I have the sense to look behind me. It’s not just one pegasus. It’s a whole flock heading towards us. And there’s an airship!

Scratch that, three airships. I didn’t see the ones hovering above the first. Blackwatch sent an armada for us! I do not want to fight an armada. “Lead the way.”

Tanya takes off and I follow. She’s quick to accept the fact I’m here. Out of the blue, here I am. What’s up with that? Not like we have time to question things with an army chasing us down. We can sort these questions out later.

Now for your daily weather forecast. It’s raining death! The moment we take off running, the sky army unleashes Tartarus. Magic bolts pepper the roof all around us, sending debris pieces all over the place. They’re all a million little mini explosions going off around us. It’s insane!

None of them hit Tanya, mostly because I keep jumping up and shielding her from the bolts. They’re all zapping and frying my flesh. I’m holding up, but it still hurts like a bitch. She better buy me a drink after this!

“Off the roof!” Tanya yells.

She bolts for the building’s street side. I follow, keeping my wings spread to ward off the bolts. Tanya spreads her wings and dives off the edge.

Great idea. The buildings will cover us on the street. I run after, folding my wings in and preparing to do a cannon ball after her. Hey, why glide when I can fall with style? Unfortunately, just as I’m about to jump off, I hear a familiar shriek.

The fireball explodes right behind me. The roof erupts in a cloud of rubble and flame, and I’m caught in the middle of it. The explosion throws me off the roof, and I can’t get control over my fall as I descend to the street. I’m flapping my arms around, trying to save myself, but nothing is working!

I hit the pavement at a bad angle. The point of impact is the side of my head, and my neck bends as the weight of my body comes crashing down over my noggin. I hear something pop inside of me.

At some point I stop moving all together. That’s good, no more falling. I test a claw. Yep, still moving. I’m in a crap ton of pain, but still moving. I push myself up, and all my muscles screaming at me. My vision’s grey. Everything sounds distant. There’s definitely something wet and hot dripping from me.

Tanya glides down beside me and pats me on the shoulder. “Shit, you ate that explosion.”

“That explosion ate me!” I grab my head and twist it until my neck pops back into place. “I don’t think I can take another one.”

“Then let’s get out of here fast.” Tanya tugs me, and we run down the street.

There’s a crowd of ponies gathered around this disaster area. Spectator syndrome, I believe that’s what this is called. I can’t tell if they’re murmuring or screaming. My hearing is out of whack at the moment. We dive into the crowd just as the Blackwatch pegasi come flying over the street.

“They’re going to spot us soon,” Tanya says as she ducks through the crowd. “We need an exit strategy."

I nod, or I think I nod. I’m almost tripping over myself following the owl-lion. I can feel the tentacles fixing up my backside, but that explosion knocked everything inside me loose. I’m having trouble keeping my balance and I don’t know how long this will last.

We break out from behind the crowd into a busy street. Ponies pulling carts are whizzing by us to and fro. Stallions in nice suits are walking around with their noses up high. Dames in nice dresses are walking by and avoiding our gaze. With all the crap I’ve been through, I forgot Manehattan is still a city, a snobbish city at that.

I wobble a bit, and Tanya grabs my shoulder. “If you came to rescue me, you did a damn awful job at it. You’re about to fall over and die.”

“I’m fine,” I say, brushing her claw away. “I just haven’t had a good breakfast.”

My hearing is getting better now, because I hear someone shout behind us. Blackwatch is making its way through the crowd. Our time is running out. Tanya steps out into the street and waves. “Hey, taxi!

I blink at her. Either my brain is mush and I’m hallucinating, or she’s really doing something stupid. “Seriously? You’re taking a taxi?”

“If we get one quick, we can get out of here before we’re spotted.” One taxi, a carriage pulled by a large earth pony, ignores Tanya’s call and runs past us. My ears must be all good now, because I hear the driver say something about dirty griffons while he’s speeding away. “That is if we can find one that isn’t racist!”

“I got this.” I see another taxi coming down. I’m still recovering, but I’ve recovered enough to do something stupid. When he passes by, instead of waving him down, I jump the carriage and grab him by the reigns. The earth pony pulling this thing rears back and skids to a halt. He turns back to yell at me, but all he sees are my trademark negotiation tactics sticking their blades up in his face.

Tanya runs up and hops on in next to me. “44 on Cloudburst Street. Make it snappy!” She waves the magic shooter around for extra dramatic effect. The driver gets the message, and he takes off galloping down the busy roadway.

“And we are out of here,” I say.

“Not bad, featherbrain,” Tanya says. “For a second there I thought you would trip over yourself and break your neck.”

I think I already did that. “Cut me some slack. You’re only alive because I body-blocked all the magic bolts.”

“I could’ve managed. You’re the one who brought the sky armada with you.”

“They would’ve come anyways. Cole Slaw was sending out everything because he thought you were me.”

“Cole Slaw?”

“Long story.”

Something taps my shoulder. I look around and find two ponies sitting behind us. One is a lady unicorn with a white coat. The other is an earth pony stallion, who is hugging the lady unicorn. Huh, I see we’ve hijacked someone else’s ride.

The stallion makes a little meek grin at me. “Hi, um… You’re not going to eat us, are you sir?”

Oh, you got to be kidding me. Is there anypony who doesn’t think griffons are complete savages? Tanya and I exchange looks. I don’t think she expected the extra company either, especially rascist company.

“Well, I am a little hungry,” I say. “I’ve only had coffee for breakfast. It’s not that filling.”

“Eh, ponies are too sugary for my taste. Have at them.” Tanya says. The couple’s eyes go wide.

“Relax, I’m not going to eat you two,” I say. “That’s frowned upon where I come from.”

The stallion lets out a sigh of relief, and the mare rolls her eyes. “I told you griffons don’t eat ponies. You can throw those odd thoughts out of you head.”

“You never know,” the stallion says. “Griffons are born to hunt. It’s in their genes. They might get hungry and decide Aunt Humble is a tasty snack.”

The mare smacks him over the back of the head. Atta girl. “Don’t provoke them. They’re our kidnappers. They might stab us if we say something wrong.”

At first I was liking the unicorn mare, but with that stabbing remark, eh… I'll let it pass. We did steal their ride, after all. On the other claw, these ponies have an odd, naïve thing going on with them. “You two do know I’m Zero, right? The griffon Blackwatch has been going after.”

They both give me blank looks. “Who?”

Huh, I wonder if Blackwatch has gone public with me yet? “You know, Zero, the pain in the ass Blackwatch has been dealing with.”

The blank looks continue. “Aren’t you two just regular griffons?”

I blink at them. The gears in my head are grinding together over this. “So let me get this straight. You two just assumed we’re normal griffons. We’re not crazy lab experiments running at large, we’re just griffons.”

They glance at each other. Those blank looks are now a bit worried. “Yes…”

“And the first thought you had when we hijacked your carriage is not if we’re going to rob you, not if we’re going to beat you to a pulp or anything, but if we’re going to eat you. You just assumed us griffons would eat you two ponies. Am I missing anything here?”

The pairs look at me in silence. “Are you?” the stallion asks.

Unbelievable. Just... unbelievable. I look at Tanya, and she looks pretty disgusted. “What the heck is with these city ponies?”

“Racists, all of them,” she says, throwing a claw in the air. “They all keep thinking I’m a dude.”

I throw up my claws. “I’ve been getting that all day yesterday! Can they not tell the difference between a guy and a girl?”

“Maybe that’s why there are so many gay pony couples. They can’t tell what bits they have by looking at their faces.”

The lady unicorn scowls. “Hey, we can tell the difference just fine.”

Tanya glares at her, tapping the magic shooter with a claw. “Oh yeah, what gender are we?”

The lady opens her mouth, but then bites her lip. The stallion squints his eyes at Tanya and tilts his head. He’s making quite the show of effort. “Male?”

Tanya makes a fart noise with her beak. “Racists.”

A bright light blows through the carriage canopy and whizzes past my face. The couple scream, and Tanya pokes her head out to see what’s up. “We’ve got company!”

I look over the canopy to find the Blackwatch flock on our tail. Countless blue-eye pegasi are swooping over the street like hawks. A few of them let loose a couple of bolts at us, and I duck just in time for them to whiz by me. “They got the sky covered! Complete air superiority!”

Tanya groans. As griffons, we both know the importance of air domination. You can see everything below you, and you can make life difficult for anything trying to take off. And these guys have ranged weapons. They don’t even need to swoop in close for the kill.

“Faster!” Tanya bangs on the side of the carriage. The earth pony swerves to avoid a slow cabbage cart, and we almost fly off. “I have an idea. Can you distract them?”

“Uh, sure. What’s the idea?”

“I’ll tell you as we go. Just”-

A magic bolt flies between us, misses us by inches, and goes on to hit the earth pony in the back. He goes limp, trips over himself, and the carriage crashes into him and flips over. Our unplanned stop sends everyone flying and crashing into the street pavement. I hear the couple scream and Tanya screeching. I just faceplant. It hurts.

I’m the first to recover. Pieces of taxi are all over the place. The driver is on the ground, and it doesn’t look like he’s breathing. The lovers are groaning. Maybe they broke something, but they’re alive. Tanya is using the shooter as a cane to push herself up. I get up, and jump out of the way just as another cart swerves around us to avoid the wreckage. Other carts are stopping around us. We’re blocking a good chunk of the road.

“Tanya,” I call out. “Are you alright?”

“No,” she groans. She swings her blue suitcase off her shoulders, peaks inside real quick, smiles, and puts it back on. “But I’ll manage.”

The carts are bunching up around us now, so we have a sizable audience. Drivers are trying to move around us and get a look at the carnage at the same time. There are a lot of ponies that will panic at the first sign of danger. So of course Blackwatch picks now to shoot at us.

Magic bolts pepper the area. The drivers panic, scream, and try running away from the danger. Some have the sense to unhook from their carts, others don’t. Carts all over crash into each other as they try to escape. Some ponies scream as the carts accidentally run over them. It’s just a mess.

The volley stops when the panic breaks out, but that doesn’t stop the panic. Tanya skips out of the way of a driver as his cart swings around us. “Damn, that distraction won’t work now.”

“Well isn’t that grand.” I’m a little curious what she was planning, but we don’t have time to discuss strategies like that.

Several pegasi swoop down and aim their shooters at us. “Surrender now,” one of them yells.

This isn’t good. In the middle of a carriage accident with goons ready to blow us to smithereens. I believe ponies call this cornering the cat. Seems thematic, since we’re griffons, being part big cats and all. “Why should we surrender?” I say. “We did nothing wrong.”

“Because we’re arresting you,” the same pegasus says. I think he might be the leader here. “Put your claws up and come quietly.”

“But why are you arresting us? I don’t remember doing any crimes.”

“Disturbing the peace, for one thing,” the pegasus says. He waves at the surrounding carnage and panicking ponies. “And you murdered that innocent taxi driver.”

I glance at the driver whose carriage we hijacked. He hasn’t moved an inch. With the hole in his back, I doubt he can. “Really, I murdered him? I don’t recall being able to shoot spells with my mind.”

“No, but your friend has a bolt-gun, one stolen from one of our own officers. Evidence points to her killing your driver.”

I glance at Tanya. She shrugs. “If they want to screw us over, they’ll find a way. I, on the other claw, need to be places.” The owl-lion hefts her shooter and fires several shots at the pegasi. The group scatters to evade, and while they’re distracted Tanya jumps over to the couple, grabs the stallion, hugs him in front of her and takes off into the air.

The pegasi take aim with their own shooters, but Tanya spins around so the stallion is between them. The stallion is screaming and kicking in her arms, but she’s not letting go. “Come on, shoot me!” she yells. “You’ll get him before you get me!”

The owl-lion streaks off past the pegasi. The rest of the goon army takes off after her, through a few still stick around to deal with me. If we weren’t in trouble before, Tanya just brought us a whole shipload of the good stuff.

The unicorn mare, who’s still next to me, shrieks. “No! He has my husband. He stole my Pencil!”

Sweet mercy, this mare has one heck of a pair of lungs. “You’re going to give me tinnitus, lady.” I pick at my ear canal with my pinky talon. Partly for effect, partly to try to get rid of the ringing. “I don’t know if I can heal from that.”

She turns to me with burning eyes. “You!” she shrieks. She runs up to me and starts hitting me with her hooves. “You monster! Bring back my Pencil! He’s going to eat my Pencil!”

I stand there, looking down at her. Her hits are all bouncing off my chest. And she won’t shut up about her Pencil. “Okay, first off Miss Racist, that griffon is a she, not a he. Second, she’s not going to eat your husband. She’s just using him as a shield.”

She doesn’t seem to listen. She keeps hitting and hitting. At some point, she smashes her face into my chest and leaves it there. I can feel her tears running down my feathers. “Give him back,” she sobs. “Bring him back!”

I would be emotionally moved, but she’s just as racist as her precious Pencil, and her horn is poking me in the throat. And unless I find a sink and soap soon, her snot is going to be sticking to my feathers all day. The Blackwatch goons that didn’t chase after Tanya are watching us. Just watching. This is getting awkward.

“Look, lady.” I push her head off my chest, mostly to get her horn off my throat. That was uncomfortable. I tilt her head back so she’s looking up at me. Her face is dripping with wet makeup and mascara. Hold up, wet makeup?

I look down at my chest, and her makeup stained my feathers. Damn it, now I got a clown face on my chest! It looks like a shitty superhero emblem for the world’s most depressing clown sidekick. Du-du-du-dun, I’m Sad Clown Bird Thing, here to make everyone cry.

I run a claw down my face. Just another thing to do today. “Look, I’ll make sure your husband makes it out safe. I want my friend to make it out safe, too, so I get where you’re coming from. Do you understand?”

She just stares up at me, not really moving, just sobbing.

“Just promise me one thing.”

She blinks.

“Tell everyone you know, you included, to stop being racists.” I push her away, and she stumbles on to her butt. Not my problem.

The Blackwatch goons raise their shooters at me as I approach. Their leader yells something at me, I ignore them, and I jump through their ranks and run down the street.

I look for Tanya with my monster senses and get a lock on her. She’s moving fast, but not as fast as she could if she wasn’t hauling a hostage with her. No problem, I can run faster than she can fly.

And I hear a familiar shriek behind me.

I dive behind an abandoned cart a moment before the fireball explodes. The street bursts in flame, and all the surrounding carts either turn over or break apart into tiny smithereens. Sheesh, they brought the big guns for this one.

A shadow blots out the sun, and the airship soars over my head. I can see a unicorn looking down at me. His horn glows orange, and another fireball comes shrieking down.

I’m on my feet and running long before the fireball hits the ground. The shockwave drowns out the screams of terror from the ponies running around. Blackwatch has mixed feelings about using weapons in populated areas. Someone could get hurt. And they say I’m the bad guy.

Monster sense pulls me around a corner, and I bank left and avoid the airship’s last explosion. Tanya’s down this street, dodging and weaving through the waves of Blackwatch pegasi. With the stallion in her arms, Blackwatch isn’t shooting her. Instead, they keep dive bombing her to try to tackle her to the ground. They might succeed, but every time they get close Tanya shoots at them with her own magic shooter and they fly away. She has things locked down.

Another airship flies over the street between Tanya and me. Instead of shooting fireballs, the blimp opens up with a barrage of heavy magic bolts. The spells immediately blast apart the area around me, tearing up the surrounding carriages. Burning wood and goods explode around me in a shower of tiny chunks. I duck down and charge out of the line of fire, but the bolt rain keeps on following me.

And another shriek comes my way. Great.

I run towards the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding the next explosion. This one came from behind. The first airship is hovering over the intersection I was at, and the second one is still aiming to turn me into worm mush.

Sorry Tanya, you’re on your own for now. I need to deal with my enemies first before yours.

First things first, cover.

The carts and carriages around here are terrible cover. The airships blow them apart like underpaid hookers. The street has nothing for me! But there is an alternative.

We’re on a residential street. It’s mostly tightly packed apartment buildings. I eye one building in particular. It’s a taller brick building with bars on the windows. Ah good, glad to see we’re in the bad part of Manehattan. If Blackwatch doesn’t kill me, the street gangs will.

Doesn’t matter, I just need the building. I run for the entrance, jut out my shoulder, and burst through the front door, turning the thing into sawdust and woodchips!

That was the plan anyways. Didn’t happen like that.

Instead, in the last moment, a grey, old pegasus opens the door to go for an afternoon stroll. Why he’s still living in a warzone, I have no clue. Maybe he can’t hear the explosions.

Welp, by the time I notice him opening the door, I'm already up the stairs, running for my life from the high-caliber carnage gunning for my head. The geezer must have bad eyes too, because he doesn’t react until I slam into him.

He trips under me, and I trip over him. We tumble through a greasy hallway up until the point I slam into a wall. I slump against the wall, and the geezer slides into my lap. “Ah, my hip. My hip,” he wheezes.

Alright, that was unexpected. I think I’m more dazed than hurt from that tumble. At least I’m inside. The airships can’t get me in here.

I sniff the air, and I gag. Sweet mercy, it smells like rotten oranges in here.

“My hip. My hip.” The geezer’s legs are running in the air.

“Shut up,” I say, pushing the guy off. I pinch my nose as I get up, but that stench is still there.

Ignore the smell Gilda. You’re in cover. It’s time to think. How am I going to deal with those airships? Think, think, think.

Tanya is down the road. She has a hostage and an army trying to take her down. She’s a big girl. She can handle herself for a while. I don’t know how long she’ll last, but she’ll last. The hostage… I’m not so sure.

Two airships outside. They want to blow me up. They’re big, they’re high up in the air, and I don’t know how to take them down.

There’s the question, how do I take them down? If I figure that out, the rest is easy. Slash, slash, stab the guys around Tanya and book it the heck out of here.

“My hip. My hip.”

Oh, for the love of.... “Hey, can you keep it down. I’m trying to think, and that’s hard for me even in the best of times.” I swear, with the noise, and the smell, and the death brigade outside, I don’t see how anyone expects me to solve the world’s problems in five minutes.

“Grandpa?” A voice comes from upstairs. “Grandpa, where are you? You need to stay inside.”

“My hip. My hip.”

“Oh no, did you trip again?” Hoofsteps on the upper floor, and then someone walks down the stairs. “The hospital’s overflowing. We can’t keep taking you- Oh my Celestia!”

I look up, and a younger green pegasus is looking down at me. And this isn’t some regular pegasus. This one has tattoos, weird tribal tattoos. The kind with weird lines and words in between those lines. Weird.

“You’re going to want to move this guy,” I say, not taking my talons off my nose. “Blackwatch is swarming all over the place. It’s a death trap.”

“Oh, I’ll show you a death trap.” He has a slightly high pitched voice, like a teenager in mid puberty. Looks about that age. The pegasus flicks out his foreleg, flashing out a knife in his hoof. “You hurt my Grandpa.”

My eyes roll. I was kidding about the street gang, but I didn’t think the universe would take me seriously. “It was an accident. He’s fine. You should leave before Blackwatch swarms the place.”

The pegasus jumps off the stairs and onto the floor, waving his knife at me the entire time. “I’m not leaving, and neither are you, Clown Face. At least, not in one piece.”

Clown Face? Oh right, the mare’s make up. I still got that on my chest. Yay.

All around me, I hear doors opening. Several other ponies pop out of their rooms. They’ll all ponies of different types. Red, blue, pegasi, unicorns, etc etc. The all have a few things in common. They have tribal tattoos. They have weapons, like knives and baseball bats with nails in them. They all smell like rotting oranges. And they all look like they want to have me for breakfast.

No, seriously, I was kidding about the street gang killing me. Okay universe, ha ha, I get the joke. We can stop this now.

The floorboards creak as the gang members approach me. They’re waving their weapons around, and they’re having a hard time keeping those twisted little smiles of theirs under wraps. Creepy.

My monster claws come out, and I wave them around back at them. Some of them freeze for a moment, but then they continue on closing in. Oh crap, my negotiation tactics are failing. They’re failing, I tell you!

“You think a shapeshifting trick is going to scare us?” The pegasus says. “You’re dealing with the Scone Quarry Gang. We’re not scared of nothing.”

I double take. “Wait, what?”

“You heard me, we’re not scared of nothing. The double negative is on purpose, to show how serious we are.”

“No, back up one step. Scone Quarry?”

The pegasus jabs his knife in the air. “Don’t you make fun of us, Clown Face. We’re not that crappy bakery that closed up downtown. We’re the OG Scone Quarry. Not no one is hurting our Grandpas and getting away with it.”

“My hip. My hip.”

“Give us a moment, Gramps. We’ll take care of you.”

I rub my forehead with my non monster claw. “It’s not Scone Quarry. It’s Gilda’s Family Scones. My friend named it for me and I can’t change it because it’s neck deep in the Red Zone.”

“So you’re the griffon out to take our jive.” The pegasus lunges at me, but he stops just short of my claw range. “You’re here to take our names and hurt our Grandpas. Rojo doesn’t like this one bit, do you Rojo?”

A squat, red earth pony with a machete shakes his head. “Nope.”

Sweet mercy, what the heck is going on? “Look, my claws are full enough as it is with Blackwatch.” I step up and sweep the pegasus’s blade aside with the monster claws. “I’ll change my shop’s name later, but right now I got bigger fish to fry.”

From outside the building, I can hear a voice yell something. “Zero’s location confirmed. Shock and awe, boys!”

Speaking of bigger fish…

A squad of Blackwatch soldiers barges in through the doorless doorway. Blue-eye goons come in, surrounding us and pointing their shooters at me. Some of the Scone Quarry gang back up. One even drops his weapon. The rest, they don’t seem to care. In fact, they look like they’re rearing for a fight.

Surrounding may not be the best term for what Blackwatch is doing. More like crowding together in a tight hallway, blocking off the entrance. Some of them have the sense to go up the stairs and aim down at us. All things considered, they are trapping themselves in here as much as they’re trapping me.

“Stand down!” One of the blue-eyes waves a hoof, gesturing for the gang to move out of the way. “Drop your weapons. This area is under Red Quarantine. I expect full cooperation, or we will shoot.”

“Back off,” The pegasus sneers. “This is our griffon to spit roast. Go play soldier in some other town.”

Lots of bravado in this kid. I wonder if he knows if those Blackwatch shooters can kill him. Then again, I can rip everyone here to shreds and he doesn’t give a crap about that. Maybe he’s just stupid.

The speaker aims his shooter at the pegasus. “Put the knife down and hand over the griffon. She’s a dangerous criminal and we need to take her in.”

The blue-eyes know I can slice them up nice and pretty, and yet here they are cornering the cat, again. They’re just as stupid as the gang here. Maybe all ponies are just stupid. Maybe the reason Blackwatch is chasing me is because they had a stupid thought to experiment on me and they, in their stupid wisdom, thought I would go along with it and play nice, and now they need to cover their stupidity by silencing me. It’s a stupid thought, but not an impossible one.

I check my imaginary watch and pretend to be surprised. “Look at the time. I’m going to be late. Would everyone mind moving so I can run on out and”-

The pegasus thrusts his knife at my throat, getting up into my face, and into the strike zone of my claws. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Yes, I am. And so are you.” I should slice him up, but I don’t. I’m nice like that. Instead, I take a page from Tanya’s book and grapple him. This surprises him, as he drops the knife and makes a little squeak. Heh, that’s adorable. The big bad gang leader squeaks like a dog toy.

My sudden action has everyone moving toward me. I twirl around, get a good look at the gang members coming at me with their weapons, keep on twirling, and throw the pegasus at the Blackwatch crowd.

The goons go down like bowling pins, with the pegasus in the middle of it all. His eyes are spinning circles, and he won’t get up no matter how much the goons under him push.

That’s the blue-eyes dealt with. Now the gang. I look back, and those are some sharp looking weapons. Very sharp, and lots of them.

Nope, not dealing with that. The Blackwatch goons on the stairs are standing around acting dumbfounded. I give them something more to chew on when I jump over the railing and kick one in the jaw as I land. His buddy aims his shooter at me, but I knock it out of his hooves and punch him in the gut. He topples over, and I have a clear escape route to the second floor.

I run up the stairs to the next floor. For some reason, the stench is even worse up here. Sweet mercy, does anyone clean these hallways?

No time to dwell on the smell. Downstairs, I can hear Blackwatch and the Scone Quarry gang going at it. The sounds of screaming and spell shooting are all I can hear down there. It’s enough to wake up the neighbors.

Speaking of neighbors, all the doors on the second floor open. The ponies that step out are all mean looking. They got either tattoos, scars, or tattoos of scars. The big thing they all share are their weapons. Knives, baseball bats, clubs, you name it. It’s exactly the same set up as the gang down stairs, except these guys look older and angrier.

From behind me, a blue unicorn runs up with a club in his magic. Blood is dripping from his forehead, and even more is dripping from the club. “Get the griffon!” he says, pointing the club at me. “He tried to kill Grandpa Scone!”

All the neighbors look at me, and they look pissed. They raise their weapons, and they all charge me, screaming at the top of their lungs.

Oh, for the love of… I turn around, and what do you know, there are more stairs. This set goes up to the third floor. I run up them with an angry gang hot on my tail. By the time I reach the third floor, the third floor neighbors are already out of their doors and ready to pounce me!

I run up the stairs to escape the third floor gang, and run up more stairs to escape the fourth floor gang, and the fifth, and the sixth! Why is this building full of street gang members who want to kill me? Is this a hive? Do they lay eggs in the floorboards and burst out when they want to murder someone? Are they really this pissed over someone’s injured grandpa?

When I reach the tenth floor, I meet a door with a “rooftop access” sign over it. Sweet, I can hop over to the next roof, and this gang will never be able to follow me! The building is shaking from how many ponies are running up the stairs, and only my monster speed is keeping me ahead of them.

Just imagine if I was still a normal griffon. If ponies know what a turducken is, I’m sure these guys would do something similar to me.

I slam against the door with my shoulder and burst on through. Good news, no old man on the other side. Yes! Fresh air. Freaking fresh air. I’ve only been in that building for a couple minutes but damn that smell was getting to me. I take a deep breath in. Ah, no rotting oranges.

From behind me, I can hear the gang fast approaching me. Not much time. I look around for a good building to jump over, preferably towards Tanya. As I’m looking, a large, dark shadow looms over me, blotting out the entire sun.

Oh right, the airships. I forgot about those.

Shriek!

And the fireballs… Also forgot about those!

I dive back through the doorway just as the fireball hits the rooftop. Flames and explosion lick me from behind as I fall back down the staircase. The explosion shakes the building, knocking the dust off the ceiling.

I land with a glorious face plant at the base of the stairs. Ow. What’s with these airships? Why does Blackwatch have airships? What idiot decided the blue-eyes needed air superiority-

Whack! Stab! Punch! Kick!

I forgot about the gang! I forgot about the gang! The moment I land, they all jump me and start beating the ever living snot out of me! Baseball bats, knives, spiked clubs, all pummeling me!

I swat at the crowd with the monster claw, but they’re not giving up. I can’t see where I’m swiping, and a scream of pain is hard to pick out from a screaming angry mob. For all I know, I’m striking the wall and they’re beating me from every other angle.

I crawl back up the stairs, backwards, covering my head with the claws. They grab at me, pull at me, and in general make this one miserable experience. I wonder if they’re curious why I’m not lying on the floor as a bloody pulp yet. Don’t worry guys, I’ll be there soon. Just keep at it.

I take a chance, turn around, and try to run. One bites my hind leg, another whacks me in the butt with a club. I trip and slide down, almost falling back down into the mob, but with some monster speed and strength, I scuttle back up and run for the door.

Fresh air hits me again, and the sun is still blotted out by the airship. No, I didn’t forget about it this time. I at least can run around like a headless chicken and avoid the airship spells. Gangs in a cramped hallway, not so much.

Alright Gilda, airships, gang, surrounded, what do now?

I can see the unicorn in the airship preparing his spells. His sticking his head out of a window, prepping to shoot. Right behind me, the Scone Quarry Gang pours out of the stairway, screaming and yelling and waving their weapons in the air.

Where to go? Away from those guys! I run straight ahead to get as much distance from the gang as possible, which means running straight for the airship. Yay.

When I reach the ledge of the building, I can see the unicorn step back in surprise. Maybe he’s surprised by the raging gang filling up the roof, shouting for the griffon’s head. Or maybe he’s surprised because I’m jumping for the airship, and I’m gliding towards it, and it looks like I’m going to make it.

When I reach the airship, I hit it right below the window. I grab onto the sill with my dear life. I don’t know why, I’m not going to die from this height. Maybe it’s because I’m more comfortable in the air than on the ground. Don’t know, and I’m not feeling up to figuring it out.

I look back over the roof, which is filling up with ponies of all colors and sizes. It’s a kaleidoscope of anger and bloodlust. If they weren’t all screaming death threats at me, this would be a nice little moment worthy of a photo shoot.

Above me, the unicorn sticks his head out the window. “Hey, get off our blimp!”

I look up at him, and back at the roof, and back up. “No.”

“Don’t you say no. You got to get off so we can shoot you.”

Okay… mister unicorn is a bit dense. “I don’t want to be shot.”

“Too bad. That’s our job. We shoot at the people we’re told to shoot at.”

“Well, I don’t like your job.” I adjust my grip to make my current position a bit more comfy. I could hang on for a while. I’m holding my weight just fine and my talons aren’t growing tired.

“It’s not your job to like our job. You job is to be shot at!”

My eyes roll. “Shut up. I’ve dealt with enough stupid for one day.”

I glance back at the roof. The gang is… forming a pile? They’re piling up on top of each other to make a big pile of living bodies. Ponies are waving their weapons at me and yelling obscenities right before they dive in and form up with the pile. That’s odd.

While they’re doing that, some of the ponies are flying up into the air. Oh right, they have pegasi. Joy.

The pegasi are quick to swarm me. They swoop around me, taking stabs and swings at any angle they can. With flying mayhem horses, the party never ends!

I can’t get through that window fast enough. The unicorn lets out a string of swears when I flop into the airship’s cabin. “This is not how this works!” he yells. “This is not how this works at all!”

“Excuse me for breaking all your rules,” I say as I prop myself up. “No one gave me a handbook when you guys trapped me in a lab.”

I look around, and I find it’s just us in here. We’re alone together, me and the angry Blackwatch unicorn. Huh, I kind of expected these things to be full of unicorns wanting to blow my head off. Last time I was in one of these it had enough muscle to beat the crap out of me. Not this one. Must be lonely in here.

“There are no rules. We shoot you, that’s it. And I can’t shoot you or else I’ll blow this blimp out of the sky!”

“That sounds like a you problem.” I can still hear the gang outside. They’re loud, but at least they’re muffled in here. “Can we fly this thing away from here, preferably in the direction of that other griffon? I kind of want to put as much distance as I can between me and that gang.”

Behind the unicorn, a door slides open. A Blackwatch earth pony pokes his head out. He’s wearing a helmet instead of the goggles all the other goons wear. Must be the pilot. “Hey Sarge, those ponies are raising Tartarus out there. We should lift off before they start throwing things at us.”

As he says that, a brick flies through the window. Since the window is open, there’s no broken glass, but it hits the wall on the opposite side and shatters in an explosion of dust and clay. The unicorn shuts the window hatch with his magic, and then the airship’s hull makes all these clinks and clunks of debris hitting it.

“Of course I had to open my big mouth. Hey Sarge, I got a question.”

“What?” the unicorn says.

“Why is Zero in the cabin with us?”

“Because there’s a rampaging gang outside,” I say. “I’m not here for tea and biscuits.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

We sit there for a moment without saying anything, with the clinking of the hull the only thing breaking the silence. The pilot whistles a bit, and the unicorn just glares at me. It’s weird, I’ve had a few of these odd moments with Blackwatch. They’re told to shoot and capture me, but they don’t seem to know what to do when their target gets on the same terms as them.

“So,” I say, “Can we go follow that other griffon?”

“No,” the unicorn says. “Our orders are to eliminate you, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Aright, but can you do that while we fly towards the other griffon?”

“No. We’re staying right here until you’re eliminated.”

Another awkward moment passes. The pilot coughs and taps his foot.

I roll my claw in the air as a “get on with it” gesture. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are you going to try something.”

“I can’t. All my spells will blow up the airship. You have to eliminate yourself. It’s your job.”

“Oh, for the love of, hey Pilot, you!” The pilot snaps to attention when I bark at his face. “Follow that griffon or I eat you. Got it?”

The pilot salutes me, or at least almost smacks his face. “Aye sir, on it sir!”

As he turns around to man the controls, the unicorn yells another order at him. “Don’t you dare listen to this monster! You will not move this airship.”

“But sir, he’ll eat us.”

My eyes roll. “I’m a she, not a”-

We’re all swept off our feet when the airship lurches to the side. A big bang sounds from outside, and the metal frame creaks as I feel the blimp lose altitude. “What the heck was that?!” I yell.

The unicorn magicks the window open, only to find a wall of angry tattooed ponies looking back at him. Before they can pour in and stab us all to death, he slams the window hatch shut and blocks it up with some heavy bolts. “The fuck was that?!”

“That’s what I’m asking!”

“Uh, Sarge,” the pilot stutters, “You got to see this. We’re in big trouble.”

The unicorn and I exchange looks, and we run up into the cockpit to see what’s up.

The cockpit is a mess of gadgets and gizmos, all I assume are important for flying this thing, and I understand none of their functions. The canopy is covered with windows, giving the pilot a 180 degree view of the world below him. The world, in this case, is terrifying.

I remember the gang members gathering up in a pile before I hopped on this ship. Now I see why. The pile grew, and it grew tall. It grew so tall, it’s leaning over and about to grab hold of the ship. Hundreds of ponies, all linked up by the limbs, and holding to each other and clasping down on the side of the ship. The Scone Quarry gang gathered together and made a huge arm made of ponies and teamwork.

Both my and the unicorn’s jaws drop at the same time. The unicorn is in shock because he’s never seen anything like this. I’m in shock because I know how hard these guys hit, and now they’re about have the airship in a giant death grip and they’re going to smash our brains out!

The unicorn swears under his breath. “Fuck m”-

The arm swings, and the hand slams into the side of the airship. Everyone goes tumbling over the controls. My face smacks into a few gauges that are beeping and flashing red right now. Don’t know what those mean.

The unicorn, who knows how he’s still standing, runs up to a panel and hits a big blue button. “We’re hit, we’re hit!” he screams into the box. “We have a Goliath riding us! We need a strike yesterday!”

The pilot drags himself up the controls and slams a lever down as hard as he can. “We gotta get out of here, man!”

A loud whirring sound comes from the back, and the ship lurches forward. Then we lurch backwards. The giant arm isn’t letting us go anywhere! If I were outside this thing, I bet this would be amazing to watch. But no, I’m inside the chaos. I get to experience it firsthand.

The gangers crawl up the sides of the canopy. Their limbs are sticking to the glass, and they make a sucking sound every time they move. The bodies are wiggling around like they’re part of one giant monster. Some are banging their heads on the canopy. One thing’s for sure, they all look pissed.

The ship shudders, and we feel an odd falling sensation. The buildings tilt around us until we’re pointing at the ground, which is coming straight for us. I can hear the ship’s engines trying to fight against the gang arm, but they’re failing. The whirring is as loud as it’s going to get.

“They’re pulling us down!” the pilot screams. “We’re going down!”

The tip of the balloon is the first to touch ground. It makes a loud crunch as it’s shoved into the asphalt. After that, the canopy shatters into a million glass shards when we hit rock bottom. Glass pieces fly all around us in a violent cloud, tearing at us at any angle it can find. The controls explode into metal chunks, and the two Blackwatch goons are blown to the back wall. This all happens in a split second.

Somehow in all this commotion, I finally get the common sense to do something. As everything’s exploding around me, I jump to the side and dive out the broken window, just inches away from the mass of gang members climbing all over us. Since we’re already at street level, I hardly have any airtime before I belly flop onto the road. Like I said, this would be amazing to watch if I was outside the airship.

The belly flop isn’t enough to knock me senseless. I just get a minor case of road rash, a minor inconvenience all things considered. I’m quick to get back on my feet and run. Everything here is just a big mess! I’m a dead griffon if I stick around. Also Tanya. Got to get to Tanya.

I run just in time. The airship groans as its metal frame twists and warps. It comes crashing down where I just was. And just for kicks, something important must have broke, because the entire thing explodes into one big fire ball. Everything on the street shudders. All the windows on all the nearby buildings shatter from the shockwave. The fireblast licks my backside, burning everything from the tip of my tail to my butt.

The airship isn’t the only thing groaning. The gang arm rises above the burning wreckage, and I swear it looks directly at me. All the gang members are moaning and groaning, just like the zombies from those horror comic books. That’s a fun thought, zombie gang members, pursuing me beyond the grave!

The Blackwatch goons that tried to surround me earlier are now shooting up at this giant clump of rage. Magic bolts are hitting this thing all over. A few ponies fall off here and there, but overall nothing Blackwatch has is hurting this monster.

The gang mass glides over the downed airship, aiming to overtake the Blackwatch goons. When they get close, a few gangers hop out off the mass and beat the shit out of the blue-eyes. The blue-eyes try to fight back, but baseball bats and sheer numbers beat magic shooters an day.

Forget Blackwatch, it’s me the Stone Quarry gang is after, and they haven’t forgotten. The gang mass leans back, then slings forward, launching a ball of angry ponies at me. The ball arcs through the air before hitting the ground. It explodes into a crowd of gangers with the smell of rotting oranges. Sweet mercy, what’s with the rotting oranges?!

I’m running at full speed, a speed which gave the Blackwatch pegasi a run for their money. These gangers are keeping up with me! They’re running as fast as I am. Heck, some of them are running faster!

Two of them pull up to either side of me. The tattooed heathens growl before jumping on to my back. The kick and bite me, and I trip from the sudden attack. We all roll in a ball before hitting the side of an abandoned cart.

I punch one in the face as hard as I can. And I mean hard. He doesn’t just back off, his entire head explodes. Fuck me! Black and red goop splatters all over the place. Some of it even sticks to my claw. This is beyond nasty!

Wait... black and red goop?

I look at my claw. The goop is definitely black and red, and it’s throbbing, slithering around my talons. It’s not moving in any particular direction, but it’s definitely moving like it’s alive. It’s just like the goop that comes out of me!

My goopy claw shapeshifts into the monster claw. I throw the other gang member off of me before slashing his stomach. It’s almost a deep enough cut to slice him in half, but just barely. The ganger falls over, and more of the black and red goop pours out of him. And that smell, that rotting orange smell, it’s fucking everywhere!

I look back at the gang mass, but I look closely this time. Before I figured everyone is holding hooves as tight as possible like a campfire circle, if the campfire was a large, murder driven mass of bodies. Now that I’m actually looking, I can see they’re not holding hooves at all. There’s more of the black and red goop in between the ponies, as if it’s some kind of glue holding them together. The whole monster is made of a gang hoard and goop.

More ponies from the gang ball dive on me. My claws tear them up, and my tentacles shoot out and dissolve a couple. They see I can kill them without a problem, but they’re still throwing themselves at me without thinking about self preservation. They’re just like zombies.

And then the pieces fall in place in my head.

They aren’t just like zombies, they are exactly zombies. These are infected!

I now understand what the giant gang mass towering over me is. It’s a product of Blacklight. This is a Blacklight monster! Just like the two monsters I fought yesterday, this monster wants to tear me to shreds for no particular reason.

What the heck is a gang doing with Blacklight? They all looked not-infected to me. What gives?

Blacklight monster. Blackwatch’s problem. That’s what they’re here for, aren’t they?

After finishing off the last of the gang ball ponies, I say screw it and run off before the monster can do anything else. I follow my monster sense, looking for Tanya, and trace her a couple blocks around the corner.

Tanya didn’t get as far as I would’ve thought. It’s no fault of her own. Blackwatch just stopped her. When I catch sight of her, she’s laying on the ground, unconscious, with two blue-eye goons handling her. They put cuffs on her wrists, and are now poking at the blue briefcase on her back.

There’s also that one stallion from the carriage standing of to the side. He looks my direction and sees me. His eyes go wide, and he takes off running the opposite direction. Well good, he seems to be fine. No need to worry about him anymore.

The blue-eyes look up from whatever they’re doing to see what spooked the stallion. When they see me, they immediately open fire. Their magic bolts hit me, but they doing nothing but sting me, as per usual. I jump in between them and punch both of them in the guts. They topple over, groaning in pain. Hey, at least I didn’t blow their heads off.

Tanya’s out cold. I give a light kick to her belly, but she doesn’t react. She’s breathing at least, so she’s alive. That’s good. This all would be a bust if she died while I was away for five minutes.

There’s a commotion from behind me, and I smell the faint whiff of rotten oranges. I look behind to see the monster mass looming around the street a couple blocks back. Blackwatch is shooting at it with everything they have. The airship that didn’t blow up is high up in the air, raining fire from where the monster can’t reach.

One pegasus, high in the air, grabs my attention. I don’t know where he came from, but I see where he’s going. He swoops down at the monster, avoiding the gang pegasi on the way. He comes close to the monster, and a flash of lightning strikes where he hits it. Impressive.

I scoop up Tanya and throw the owl-lion on my back. She’s hefty, but she sits nicely once I adjust her a bit. There we go, I rescued Tanya. That was my goal from the start of this mess. There is absolutely no need for me to stick around.

With that, I book it out of here. Blackwatch and the monster mass looks like they’re having a fun playdate, and I’ll let them play alone. It wouldn’t look good for the school bully to hang out with the weird kids.

Author's Notes:

You can now purchase Anti-Aliasing Settings at the Black Market. Prices start as low as 500 Gene Coins!

24 - Breather Street

There’s one good thing about a raging hoard of mutant street thugs. It clears the city of patrols.

I feel a little sorry for Blackwatch. A lot of ponies, including myself, are running away from the scene, and we keep passing Blackwatch goons who are running to their dooms. Most I assume are heading that way to deal with the street gang mass. None of them bother looking at the griffon with the larger griffon on her back.

Speaking of which, Tanya stirs sometime after we cross into the Yellow Zone. “Lighting… lot’s of lightning,” she mutters. I feel her wiggle on my back, and then she lifts her head to look around. “Where am I?”

“In the Yellow Zone,” I say. “I know a place where we can lay low for a while.”

“Gilda…” she mutters. “Why are you carrying me?”

I turn to look behind me, meeting her eyes. “Did you want to stay and play with the giant gang monster?”

“What gang…”

“That’s why I’m carrying you," I cut her off. "The Manehattan residents are evil. Hey, now that you’ve returned to reality, you can carry yourself.” I lean to the side until Tanya starts slipping. She lets out a quick, birdy bawk when falls off. Sounds just like a chicken. Adorable. Her butt hits the pavement with a dull thud.

The owl-lion shoots a glare at me. “Was that necessary?”

I grin. "I need a bit of stress relief." I flick my tail at her beak as I keep walking. “At least you haven’t been shot, stabbed, bitten, shot, punched, shot, exploded, kicked, or shot today.”

“You said shot four times.”

I shrug. “I’ve been shot a lot today.” And I was shot a lot yesterday. Lots of shooting. "How are you feeling?"

Tanya lifts her wings, flexes her arms, and cracks her neck before she stands up. “My head’s throbbing, but I think I got out of that without a scratch.”

“You’re welcome,” I say with a smile.

“No thanks to you, featherbrain.”

“Hey, Blackwatch would’ve turned you into mince meat if I don’t show up. I saved your ass.”

She skips for a moment to catch up with me. “And the only reason Blackwatch was after me was because they thought I was you. If you weren’t dicking around with the authorities, I would be fine.”

Why you ungrateful little… “So you would rather be eaten alive instead of rescued?”

“You call that a rescue? Fuck, if you didn’t show up, Blackwatch wouldn’t have brought the cavalry, and I would be walking home a rich griffon right now.”

“You… you… I risked my life to get Blackwatch off your ass! You’d be a puddle on the street if I didn’t”- My eyebrow goes up. Rich griffon? “Wait, did you figure out a get rich quick scheme?”

“Maybe. It doesn’t matter to you. Where’s my suitcase?”

I glance at her back, which her blue suitcase is still attached to. Through all that commotion, she kept it with her, even when it was slowing her down. And now she’s glancing all around us, expecting it to be laying on the ground somewhere. Hmm, if she’s going to be ungrateful for my help… “The monster ate it.”

Tanya’s eyes go wide. “What!?”

“The monster ate it,” I say, making it sound casual. “It was chasing us, it got you by the suitcase, so I had to cut it off to save us both.”

“You mother”- she covers her mouth with a claw and screams into it. Dramatic. “Do you have any idea what you threw away?!”

“Well, I do remember you saying something about documents for the scone shop, but being the good little accountant you are, I’m sure you have copies of that lying around.”

“I was lying, dumbass! That suitcase was my paycheck out of here!”

I eye her suitcase still on her back. Maybe she took some brain damage in that fight. I would’ve noticed a big, clunky thing strapped on to my back by now. “I thought I was paying you a fair price for your accounting services.”

“The dead don’t write out paychecks! Not like you wrote any to begin with. You blew all the shop money on booze and drugs, you fucking idiot!”

Well now, I didn’t expect any name calling from the damsel I just saved. Screw this, if Tanya’s going to be all bitchy about this, then I’m out. I turn around, stick my beak up in the air, and walk away from the problem.

“Where do you think you’re going?!” Tanya yells.

“To take a nap,” I say, not bothering to look back. “Hero work just saps the energy out of me, you know.”

“Oh no you don’t!” She flaps her wings and lands right in front of me. She’s a big griffon, bigger than me, so it doesn’t take her much to block my path. “You’re going to get that suitcase back, or I’m going to pummel you to the ground.”

I give her a lazy look, and then extend a giant monster claw and push her out of the way.

She looks dumbfounded. How could I, tiny little Gilda, push her away so easily. Or maybe she’s freaked out over the monster claw. Either or, I’ll take it.

“Don’t you walk away!”

“I’m walking.”

“We’re not done!”

“I think we’re done.”

“I control your life, don’t you remember? I did all the paperwork to give you your little scone shop. My name is all over those documents. I can break your dreams.”

“Funny, I can break you too.” I flash the monster talons in the air, giving them a little wave. “When everything blows over, why don’t we get together for a business lunch? We can use that paperwork of yours to get the shop up and running again.”

“You don’t have the money to do jack shit! That suitcase is worth more than whatever your store was worth. Get it back, or you’ll never sell another scone in this city.”

I grin, and turn around. “I want half cut.”

Tanya snorts. “Bullshit, I’m not giving you any of my cash.”

I shrug. “Oh well. I guess whatever is in that suitcase, I can go back later and get it myself. No need to share with you.”

“No wait!" She runs up and grabs my shoulder. “I’ll give you a fifth.”

I shake my head. “Half.”

“A forth.”

“Half.”

“Thirty five percent.”

I tilt my head, tapping my chin. “Fifty five percent.”

“Don’t you dare raise your price!”

“We can make it a full hundred if you want.”

At this point, her face is completely red. Seriously, her feathers are burning hot. If she could, I bet she’d rip my throat out. Something tells me she knows how to hide my body. “Forty five percent. Final deal!”

Eh, she’s about to blow a fuse. She’s probably lying anyways. “Deal. I’ll get your suitcase back for you.”

“Good,” she huffs. “And make it snappy.”

No grace in defeat, apparently. “Oh, I’ll make it snappy. Guess how snappy I’ll make it.”

“I don’t care, just go get it now.”

This is glorious. I smile, and point to her back.

“What? What are you pointing at?”

I say nothing. My grin grows bigger, and I keep pointing.

“This isn’t funny, whatever you’re”- she turns her head, and immediately shuts up once she sees the blue suitcase. “You mother”-

“Forty five percent please,” I say in a singsong voice. “I’ll take it in cash.”

“No, you’re not getting anything!”

Her face softens when I flash out the monster claws again. Negotiation tactics. “Oh, you do know I can find people with my mind? I can find you again if you decide to bail on me.”

Her eye is twitching, but before she says anything, we hear someone yell at us. “Hey, you two, stay where you are and don’t move a muscle!”

We both look to see a small squad of Blackwatch goons coming after us. Funny, I thought they were all heading to the downtown rodeo. There must be a few leftover patrols in the Yellow Zone.

Tanya groans. “Not these guys again.”

“I know a place where we can hide,” I say. “They’ll never find us there."

He owl-lion grunts. “Fine.”

And so we run, we run far away. Or at least far enough to shake them off our tail. They don’t have any pegasi with them, so they don’t have anyone to chase after us. I’m sure they’re giving Cole Slaw a call to let him know where we are.

Let them call. They’ll never find us in the Daycare.

25 - Everything is Terrible!!!

Ok, I lied. They had pegasi with them. Two to be exact. They cut us off at some point near the Daycare. The encounter doesn't last very long. Short story made shorter, they’re now goop inside of me. Hey, at least I don’t feel hungry any more. It's a weird thing to say, but I’ll sort that problem out later.

We make it to the Daycare in one piece. Yay. No blue-eyes are patrolling the street, so we’re in the clear.

I was about to lead us into the window I entered the first time I was here, but I notice that all the trashbags that were blocking the main entrance are gone. Huh, they were there this morning. That needed an army of garbage ponies to clear out. I would say that’s the case, but there are still trash piles sitting out in the open by the nearby buildings. Odd, shouldn’t the garbage ponies have grabbed those too?

“This is it?” Tanya and I haven’t had the chance to talk while we were running away. This is the first time we said anything since the suitcase business. Hopefully we can push that aside for another time. “How did you end up hiding out in this dump?”

“I followed Pinkie Pie here.” That’s the skeleton of the story. The details are unneeded.

Tanya raises an eyebrow. “And what would Pinkie be doing in this place?”

“She runs a Blackwatch office here.” Tanya’s eyes go wide. Yeah, that’s not the best selling point of this hideout. “Relax, it’s cool. Blackwatch doesn’t give a shit about this place. They just put her in charge of improving moral or some crap and left her to it. It’s fine.”

The conversation with Arctic North pops back in my head. Oh right, I might have cost Pinkie her job. She’s going to be super pissed the next time we meet.

Eh, it’ll be fine. I’ll tell her to hide out for the night, I’ll get Rainbow Dash, and we’ll all get tickets for the next train to Las Pegasus. Hmm, now that I have Tanya with me, I can probably start a new scone shop next to a casino. That’d be fun.

Tanya gives me a worried look. “Did you sell your brain to get those claws? That’s the only reason why you’d think this would be a good idea.”

“Don’t worry. We’re going to stay no more than a few hours. I just need to do a couple of things, and we can hightail it out of this city.”

Tanya stops walking, and it takes me a moment to realize I’m walking away from her. “You’re planning on leaving?”

“I got a militia hunting my ass. It’d be dumb if I stayed.” I don’t know why this is a shock. Anyone would hightail it out of this city if they could. The place is a madhouse.

We end up at the front of the building, and enter through the thick, metal doors. The inside is still kind of creepy, and quiet. I don’t hear anyone moving about. I still think this would make a great haunted house. Hey, I got whatever is in Tanya’s suitcase. That solves the money problem. The big problem is finding people who want to go to a haunted house during an apocalypse. Might be a slim market there.

“Is someone in here?” Tanya asks. “The lights are on, but the place feels abandoned.”

“Blackwatch buys the best of the best,” I say. “I think they shoved Pinkie in this place to get her to shut up.” And it worked. “There should be a few ponies hanging around in the back, and a bunch of kids. You’re good with kids, aren’t you?”

Speaking of kids, I hear the voice of a familiar one yelling my name down the hall. “Gilda!”

Tanya groans. “No, I do not like kids.”

“Too late. Here comes the fanatic.”

That little familiar green pegasus zips around the corner and pulls off an almost right angle turn. Iffy Sniff rockets towards us, calling out my name over and over. “Gilda Gilda Gilda!”

“That’s annoying,” Tanya mutters.

Okay, I’ll give her that. Iffy is an annoying little twat. But I like him. I’m just glad to see my one pony fanclub after the mess this morning. He’s going to eat that story up like the little happy snot he is.

As he gets closer, I notice something odd. He’s not smiling. No, he looks terrified.

“Get out of here!” the kid yells. Oh… That’s not good. “Get out before”-

A red glow catches Iffy in mid air, silencing him. He flies backwards against his will, waving his hooves out towards me.

“Iffy!” I yell before charging after him.

He ends up back at the end of the hall, where Cherry is standing with her horn glowing. She gives me an evil smirk and disappears around the corner with Iffy. Just before he disappears with her, he shakes his head and waves for me to go back.

I’m not going anywhere kid. I want an excuse to give Cherry the smackdown of a life time, and she just gave me one on a silver platter.

Tanya yells at me from behind. “Are you insane?! He told us to get out!”

I look back at her and shrug. “And I’m not listening.”

In less than a second, I round the corner where Cherry and Iffy went down. I find Cherry, with Iffy above her head. She knows she can’t outrun me, so she’s hiding behind this big, tall blue thing standing in the middle of the hallway.

Wait, big tall blue thing?

There’s a bright flash that dazes me. I cry out in shock as I cover my eyes. Son of a bison, that was like looking into the sun!

About a couple yards in front of me, I hear the regal sound of a familiar voice. “Strange, you should be petrified.”

I uncover my eyes, but my vision is still hazy. I still see that big blue figure, and something else blue glows. To my side, I hear Tanya screaming bloody murder. Another blue flash, and she goes quiet.

“If you have nothing to say but obscenities,” the figure says to Tanya, “then I suggest you hold your tongue, griffon.”

My vision is coming back to me fast. The hazy world becomes clear again. The triples turn into doubles and turn into singles. All I’m left with is a dry feeling in my eyes. And an itch behind an eyelid. That’s annoying.

With my vision clear again, I can see who’s standing in front of me now. The tall, blue figure spreads her wings, and her horn glows once more.

“I said I would come for you,” Princess Luna, Lord of Dreams and Ruler of the Night, says to me.

Oh… shit.

Her horn flashes one more time, and a blue tinted bubble forms around me. I give it a poke, but the bubble doesn’t react. Its walls feel pretty sturdy. If this is Princess Luna’s magic bubble, I might not be getting out of here anytime soon.

“I heard what happened over the radio,” she says. There’s no malice in her voice, but it is a bit tense. “If you surrendered yourself earlier today, there wouldn’t be a catastrophe in the Green Zone.”

She stands over the bubble, looking down on me. Shit shit shit, I completely forgot Luna was after me! I think we’re about the same height, but the bubble’s roof is lower than what I stand at, so I’m almost kneeling to her majesty. My mother would call this an embarrassment to the entire family. I call this an oh shit I’m fucked mommy save me thing.

I look around. Tanya is flailing around in Luna’s levitation spell. Iffy Sniff is flailing too in Cherry’s spell, and Cherry is smirking it up.

That bitch! My monster claws grow out, and I tear at the bubble. I don’t even make a scratch on the thing. “Cherry, you bitch!” I yell. “You ratted me out, you dirty snake!”

“Cherry Spice has nothing to do with this,” Luna says. If she’s at all fazed by my monster claws and what I can do with them, she doesn’t show it. “You’re the one who gave me the information I needed.”

I direct my monster claws at Luna, but the bubble still doesn’t pop. “You read my mind! That’s a violation of your treaty with Griffonstone.”

“You lack knowledge of our treaties, Gilda. No, when I visited you in your dreams, you spoke with your own free will, and you said you were with Pinkie Pie. I came here to ask her a few questions, but you arrived back before she did.”

Oh. My claws droop down. Of course this is my fault. Of course it is! “Do you mind letting me go for a bit longer? I’m this close to finding Rainbow Dash, and this is going to not help in that regard.”

“You are not going anywhere. For the chaos you committed in the past two days, you are formally under arrest and will await a proper trial. However, you are welcome to tell me anything you know of Rainbow Dash’s whereabouts, and I will gladly look for her with everything at my disposal.”

Well… shit, again. This puts a huge hole in my Las Pegasus plans! I need to get out of here now, or else everything is going to end here! I look down at my claws. They didn’t do anything with the bubble. What the heck can they do?

Wait, didn’t I… Oh right, the ground spikes! I can do this!

I shove my claws into the linoleum floor. I can feel the blades stretch out and dig underneath me, just like I did on accident at the medical tent.

“Sorry Princess, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

I put all my will into making that blade bouquet pop up under the alicorn! The blades tear through the ground, ripping the dirt apart under my feet. But before they go anywhere far they hit something hard.

The ground cracks underneath me, and I have a quick moment to think, “Oh shit.” The sharp blades spike out. I yelp as they fill the rest of the bubble with sharp deathness. A bunch rip and tear through me. Some push my head in an uncomfortable spot. A lot of them tink against the bubble’s walls, unable to pierce the spell.

Luna looks down at the mess I made of myself. Cherry is laughing her ass off. Tanya is giving me her best deadpan look. “The spell goes underground as well,” Luna says. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“Escape?” I creak. So this is what the inside of a blender feels like. I don’t like it. I pull back the blades, and they slice through my flesh as I recall them. They snap back to my normal monster claw self, leaving me chopped up bleeding like crazy. “I didn’t think that would happen.”

Luna nods. “From what I understand, thinking is not your strongpoint. Come, we’ll return to Canterlot. And your friend can come along with us. I have a few questions for her on why I sense dark magic in her suitcase.”

Tanya’s eyes go wide. Then she looks at me, reaches her claws out, and tries to strangle me through the air. If she didn’t have that quiet spell on her, I bet she would be screaming death threats that would make even the vilest griffon sailors faint.

Dark magic? Hey Tanya, what the fuck is in that suitcase? Hope you get a chance to answer soon, because Luna caught me, you can’t talk, and now you got us both screwed double time. Can this get any worse?

Through the bubble, down the hall, I hear something flush. A few moments later, a door opens next to Luna with a “Colts” sign above it. A yellow pony, with huge, thick glasses, comes whistling out of that room. Eureka’s magic is twirling a red vial in front of his face. He’s so entranced by the vial he almost smacks his head into Luna’s flank. Almost. He gains focus in the last moment and jumps back in surprise. “My goodness, a full moon!”

Luna chooses to ignore the remark.

“And it’s Princess Luna!”

Luna pays attention this time. She smiles at Eureka, and gives him a little nod. “Good afternoon.”

Eureka’s shock only lasts for a moment. He shakes his head, adjusts his glasses, and waddles over to shake the Princess’s hoof. “I am so glad you’re here. I’m Doctor Eureka. I’ve been working on the Blacklight virus from day one, and I‘ve made some progress you’re going to love.”

Luna keeps smiling, but I can see a little twitch in her eye. I think she’s a bit anxious in getting me out of here. “I’d love to see your results, but it’ll have to be another time. I’m in the middle of something right now.”

Eureka body blocks her, keeping her from carrying Tanya and me away. “I know your busy, but take a moment for this. This is going to revolutionize everything!”

He holds the vial up to Luna’s face, who rears back for some space. “I’m glad you’ve made progress on the cure, but I don’t have time right now to see it. I’m sure Blackwatch will be more than happy to see what you’ve come up”-

“This isn’t a cure,” Eureka blurts. “This is the key to our evolution!”

Luna’s eyebrow goes up a bit, and my stomach sinks down a bit more. Whenever a mad scientist says something about evolution or some crap, it always means a big monster is around the corner. Happens all the time in comics.

Eureka continues. “I took samples from Miss Gilda, with her permission,” he nods over to me, just so I’m not forgotten. What sample? Is he talking about the goop on that broken scotch bottle? Damn it Eureka, what did you do with my goop?!

“Her cells are capable of mass regeneration, instant repurposing, and insane growth. I’ve been working with samples similar to this, but thanks to her, I’ve isolated what makes these cells so special!”

Luna’s eyes go wide. I can almost see the gears turning in her head as she figures out what he’s talking about. Tanya and Cherry still look clueless. It’s because they don’t read comics.

“What you have in that vial,” Luna says with a calm but firm voice, “is dangerous. I don’t know what you’ve done, but I can tell you it’s not good.”

Eureka waves a hoof. “Pfft, no it’s not. It’s perfectly safe. It’s just the next step in the Life Salts program. Here, I’ll show you!”

Before anyone realizes what he’s doing, Eureka yanks the cork off the vial, tips it over his mouth, and drinks all the red liquid in one big slurp.

Everyone is silent as Eureka patters his lips. “Hmm, strong iron taste.”

Luna’s horn glows bright again, and another bubble shield appears around Eureka. Her eyes are even wider before, almost as if they’re about to explode out of her skull. “What in Tartarus are you thinking?!” Luna yells.

“What? There’s more where that came from. We can easily make more with Gilda around.”

“You just drank pure Blacklight! Do you have a death wish?!”

Eureka pokes at the shield. I think his shield is more solid than mine. “Sure, I’ll stick around in quarantine for a bit. But you’ll soon see there’s nothing to fear. I’m confident in my math. Soon, the sample will turn me into a prime example of what pony kind can”-

Eureka stops mid sentence. He pauses for a moment, then shudders. Then he kneels over and pukes. The stuff that comes out of him isn’t normal puke, it’s black. It’s a black sludge that bubbles at the doctor’s feet. If he wasn’t trapped in a bubble, I bet the stuff would smell like the rotting corpse of Tartarus. He trembles before falling to his side. Eureka curls up and spasms. A retching sound comes from his throat, and he pukes again all over himself.

Cherry screams at the shivering scientist lying in his own bile. Iffy’s face is twisted in a grossed out look. Princess Luna is holding a hoof to her mouth. I see her eyes bulge for a single moment. Tanya has the sense to cover her eyes and pretend this isn’t happening.

The only person in this room not grossed out by this is me. Don’t get me wrong, this is beyond nasty. I’m beyond grateful to have two magic shields between me and that mess. But I’m not reacting like everyone else is. I’m getting an odd feeling from looking at this scene. It’s not disgust, but warmth? Comfort? I feel like I can go up to him and be alright. Looking at this… feels like home?

It’s that thought makes me sick.

Luna half burps, and shudders, something you’d never see a Princess do in public. She tries looking at the sputtering Eureka, but her constitution isn’t strong enough. She looks away and blocks the scene with a hoof. “You idiot.”

Cherry, still in the back, now done screaming, covers Iffy’s eyes and pulls him down the hall. “I’m done here. I’ll call a crew to clean up the mess.”

Luna nods. “That’ll be most wise. I’ll keep the shield up until then. Keep the kids as far away from here as possible, but don’t have them leave the building yet.”

Oh right, there are still kids here. For fuck sake Eureka, why did you have to pull this stunt off in here? Now Blackwatch is going to put the kids in Black Quarantine or whatever. Thanks, you bastard.

“It appears we’ll be here for a while,” Luna says, looking at me. She’s keeping her hoof between her eyes and Eureka. Smart move. “This is… unplanned, to say the least.”

“That sounds like my life, lately.” I can’t turn my eyes away from Eureka. He’s so pathetic looking, like a sick child you can’t do anything for. I’d argue he’s exactly that. His back hoof kicks out, and I can hear him mutter something.

“Sea Salt… Sea Salt…”

“So this is what Blacklight does?” I ask.

“I haven’t seen a case this extreme, but yes,” Luna says. “Eureka doesn’t have much time left in this world.”

I want to say I’m sorry for him, but I can’t. I’ve seen the theater. I’ve seen his lab. He’s a messed up pony doing messed up things. Figures he’d die by his own experiment. “Princess Luna, can I ask you something?”

“Yes?” the princess says.

I have a thought that's been nagging at me for a bit. Might as well get it out in the open while I have the chance. “I might have screwed things up for Pinkie Pie. Like really screwed things up. When this is all over, can you make sure she’s alright?”

She’s silent for a moment, taking her time to look away from the Eureka mess. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Eh, that’s the best I can hope for. I don’t know what Arctic North plans to do to Pinkie. Whatever it is, I hope Luna can help her before he gets to her. I don’t see a way for me to get out of this shield and help her myself.

A few more moments pass without anyone saying anything. Tanya has given up trying to escape. She’s looking at the ceiling with her arms crossed, tapping a talon on her elbow. Luna is gazing off into the distance, probably thinking about what she’s going to do to us. A rampaging monster and a griffon carrying dark magic, now there’s a good case for the courts.

I hear Iffy flying down the hall before anyone sees him. He rockets around the corner and flies up to Luna. “Blackwatch, they’re already here!”

“They’re quick,” Luna remarks. "I thought they would be a while. Hopefully they can clean this up just as fast.”

“They’re not here for the scientist,” Iffy blurts. “They’re here for Gilda. They’ve come to kill Gilda!”

I put my claws up in a wide shrug. “Luna already has me. Not much they can do.”

“Cherry said that, over the radio. They don’t care. They still want you dead.”

Luna and I exchange looks. Tanya’s head perks up. I think we can all agree how not good this situation is.

“Are they going to play nice and follow your orders?” I ask.

“They should,” Luna says. “Anything less is treason.”

We’re still in the front hall of the day care. There’s a large thud that comes from the front doors. Dust falls from the ceiling tiles, and anything not bolted down rattles a bit. Heck, I’m in a shield, and even I felt that thud.

Another, softer thud comes from outside. Then another, and another. The thuds stop, and in their place, a knocking comes from the front doors. “Knock knock, open up, Zero,” a voice booms from the other side. “Blackwatch is here to give you some payback!”

Lots of thuds, a large booming voice, payback, I am already not liking what’s behind door number one.

After a moment of quiet, door number one explodes in a burst of green flame. The front door flies above us, smashing into the ceiling and tearing through the tiles and the florescent lamps. A power line must have broke, because most of the lights go off, leaving the hall mostly dark, aside from the light coming from the gaping hole that was once the front entrance.

A tall, thick figure ducks through the hole and steps into the daycare. He has to keep his head low to avoid hitting the ceiling. That ceiling is about three ponies tall, and he’s taller. With the dim lighting, I can make out the outline of a large pony. And not just a regular pony, a pony covered in thick, heavy armor. “Well, isn’t this my lucky day. Two tricky griffons in the same building. Both of you won’t make it out alive.”

Nope, I do not like this one bit! Luna must share the same feelings, as she steps in between us and the giant pony. “Stand down soldier. These griffons are my charges.”

“Princess Luna, I’m honored.” The giant gives a half bow, which is easy for him considering he’s almost bowing just to fit in this hallway. “But I must ask you to step aside. That monster is marked for death.”

“By Royal Order, you are not to hurt these griffons!” Geez Luna, turn down the volume. Your voice is going to burst my eardrums.

“Normally, I would obey my Princess.” There’s a black box on the giant’s side that I didn’t notice before. The only reason I notice now is because there’s a green light glowing from it. The box makes a high pitched sound as the light glows brighter. “However, I really want to rip and tear into that griffon.”

It’s treason then!

26 - It Lives!

For the first time in the last few minutes, I am glad I’m in this bubble shield.

The giant’s green light fills up the hallway for just a moment. After that moment, the light shoots out of his box in a massive column and aims for me. It hits my bubble shield and explodes in a massive green blast. Arcane energy surges all around. Everything becomes loud, white noise that blasts my eardrums a second time today!

The bubble can’t take the pressure. Luna’s magic shatters around me, showering me in blue sparkles and green electricity. Everything smells like a burning building. That’s partially because some of the hallway is on fire!

A red light blinks under where the green light came from. The box tilts back, and it makes a loud whirring sound, like a fan going off. The large armored stallion shouts in excitement, half laughing, half celebrating. “Whohoho! The nerds know how to cook up some fire power!”

I look around. Tanya, Eureka, and Luna are untouched. Luna put up her own personal shield, which blocked all the damage from the blast. Her horn is glowing a bright white from keeping up all our shields. The blast was directed at me, so I took most of the blow. The rest of the hallway, that’s a different story.

There are black marks everywhere from where the energy hit. In a bunch of places, there are holes in the walls, and those holes are partially on fire. The ceiling above me is gone, so is the floor below me. I can see sunlight pouring down from the hole in the roof and into the crater I’m sitting in. That blast blew through the second floor and beyond.

Luna drops her shield, and jumps between the crater and the giant pony. “Stop what you’re doing before you do any more damage.”

The giant inhales and starts walking for us, each step rattling the now ruined building. “Princess Luna, I don’t want to hurt you, but if you get in the way...”

Luna’s horn, somehow, glows even brighter. A blue, clear screen fills the hallway, splitting the princess and the giant apart. The giant has no time to react before bumping his nose against the screen. “Don’t worry about hurting me,” Luna says. “You won’t.”

He does.

His hoof is large, thick, and covered in metal plating. When he throws a suckerpunch, he has no trouble breaking through Luna’s screen and shattering it into millions of pieces. Luna must be out of practice, or she’s surprised, because she forgets to duck. The punch rams into her side, sending her streaking away. She makes a nice dust-filled, alicorn shaped hole in the brick wall.

With Luna gone, the magic spells surrounding Tanya and Eureka dissipate. The owl-bird plops on the ground, and the scientist-

Oh sweet mercy! The smell, that wretched smell! The bubble was the only thing keeping his rotting stench to himself. It’s as if a chemical bomb went off and the chemicals are pliers ripping out the insides of my nose! This stuff burns!

The stench is enough to distract me from the big armored elephant in the room. With the shields gone, said elephant plows into me with a steel hoof. The blow rattles all my juices and stirs all my hard bits, and I think I see ducks flying around me.

My stomach lurches as his punch swings me into the air. The wind blows past my ears, which is the last thing I hear before I’m punched into the ceiling. The concrete cracks above me as I crater into an upside-down world. Everything is pain.

The giant leaves me up here, stuck in my own hole. The little red light on his box stops beeping. It turns green, and the bright green light from before returns. “This is too easy,” the giant says. “I thought you were a fighter.”

“Gilda!”

A high pitched voice screams my name from somewhere. Something small and green comes streaking through the air, hitting the big dude in the side of the head with a loud metal clang. It’s enough to throw the giant off balance. He steps to the side just as the green light fires.

Huge amounts of heat and electricity flow past me as the blast tears through the building. The blast’s core is far enough not to vaporize me, but close enough where I can feel it. After a quick moment of destruction, the light dies out, leaving behind another gaping hole in the building.

It takes a moment for me to peel off the ceiling. I fall and flop on the floor. The hard floor. It’s not pleasant.

I push myself up and see why the big guy missed me point blank. The giants is swatting at the green twat flying around his face. Ah, this is Iffy’s doing. Thanks Iffy for the assist, but I think this baddie is outside your weight class.

Tanya seems fine. She has a claw in that blue suitcase of hers, rifling through the thing like she’s looting a body. According to Luna, there’s dark magic or something in that suitcase. Hopefully is the kind of dark magic that obliterates your enemies.

Eureka is sitting up, leaning his head on his hooves, watching Iffy harass the giant. He’s got a crazy grin on his face. The scientist is clearly enjoying the fight. Who knows what side he’s rooting for now.

Ugh, I don’t want to deal with this now. I’ve been fighting for the past day and a half, and it’s grinding my nerves down to the nubs. I think the best way to deal with this fight is to pull Tanya out of here while the giant is distracted. Iffy can get out on his own, he’s fast. It’s not like the giant has monster senses to track-

I do a double take. Eureka? He’s sitting up, fully conscious, almost giggling to himself. He was lying in a pool of his own puke just a moment ago. Now he’s acting as lively as ever!

“What the heck?!” I shout, “How are you still alive? I thought the virus liquefied your insides!”

He looks at me, and I jump back when I see his face. He still has that goofy grin of his. That’s still Eureka. Everything else is not. Half his face is melting off, sliding off his like slabs of dough. There are patches all over his face of tiny, withering tentacles, all reaching out to grab whatever they can. And his eyes, sweet mercy his eyes. His eyes are now black and red blobs barely keeping themselves in their sockets. His eyes are about to literally spill out of his head.

“Isn’t it glorious?” he says, his voice half gurgling. “I put weeks of research into the Orion project. Most of my work has only been tested in small lab experiments. But I see my boys have put everything I found to good use.” He throws his arms up towards the giant. For a moment, I think they’re about to fly off him. “This is the next step in our evolution!”

I look at the giant, who is still preoccupied with Iffy. I think I remember Arctic North saying something about a super soldier. “This is almost as stupid as drinking a Blacklight cocktail. Almost.”

The scientist shrugs. “I don’t expect a griffon to comprehend my genius. You don’t understand the significance, so you call it stupid. I expect nothing less from a lesser species.”

Oh, it’s taking everything I have to stop myself from strangling the nerd. I inhale, count to ten, and through some miracle, resist the urge to outright murder the guy. “You know what, I don’t care. Go be fuck buddies with your Orion. I’m leaving.”

Eureka stares at me, which is creepy given his melting face. He rocks back and forth on his butt, and licks his lips. “I’m hungry.”

I wave him off. “Go find a taco stand.”

I can get out of here, but I have no place to go. Maybe I can find an empty warehouse somewhere to bum out for the night. I just need someplace without any crazy in it.

Tanya is still going through the suit case, muttering to herself as she does so. When I walk up, she pulls her claw out and snaps it shut. “What do you want?” she says.

I nod down the hallway. “Come on. There’s a back entrance we can slip out of. If we’re quick, we can escape before Blackwatch runs us down.”

The owl-lion violently shakes her head. “I’m not doing anything you say. You’ve screwed me over too many times already. You can go fuck yourself.”

The giant, in his effort to swat Iffy out of the air, bangs his head in the ceiling. His metal helmet clangs against the concrete, and dust falls from the tiles. “Don’t be stupid. Mister Giant wants us both dead. Now let’s go. I need an accountant to discuss opening a store in a less racist location.”

She doesn’t budge. I go in to pull her by the shoulder, but she jumps back and swings out the suitcase. I almost body tackle her to pull her out of this warzone, but she reaches into the suitcase and pulls out a huge sword. I mean huge, like a great sword. There must be some powerful shit going on with that sword, because there is no way that thing could ever fit in anything smaller than a walk-in closet.

Tanya levels the sword at me, and I can see a green glint flash in her eye. “I’m done with you.”

Before I can say shit got real, shit gets real. There’s a green flash by Orion while I’m not looking. I brace myself for a blast attack, but that doesn’t happen. When I turn, I find a green magic beam coming from the giant’s box. At the end of this beam is Iffy, who is struggling to fly away. He can’t do it. The beam is keeping him in place in the middle of the air. That think can do telekinesis too?!

“Annoying little brat,” Orion hisses. He steps around to turn, and the beam swings around as he does so. Iffy, still caught, flies with the beam until he slams into a wall. The beam turns off, and Iffy drops to the floor, unconscious.

I hope he’s unconscious.

Orion turns to face us. And he tilts his head until it cracks. “Which of you griffons is volunteering to die first?”

At this moment, either of us would volunteer the other griffon. Neither of us has the chance to make our opinions known, as Orion wastes no time charging at us like a train high on caffeine and stuffed to the brim with rocket boosters.

Right before we can comprehend our overwhelming deaths, a blue flash comes out of nowhere and slams Orion out of the way. He still has the momentum from his run, so he annihilates the wall section next to us with his sheer mass. The building shakes as he stumbles through and falls on his face.

From where the flash came, Luna steps out of her own wall hole, covered in grey dust. Her horn is glowing bright, and she’s brandishing two swords made of pure magic on either side of her. The swords shimmer with the starry night sky. They streak like falling stars when Luna twirls them around for show. “Didn’t I say you won’t hurt me?”

The walls rumble as Orion lumbers out of his hole. His box whines as the green light glows again. “Didn’t I say to get out of my way?”

The green light flashes, and the blast rockets through the air, bearing down on Luna. The Princess of the Night doesn’t flinch. With a quick flick of her swords, she knocks the blast to the side. The green ball of energy heads for the front entrance, where it vaporizes the front doors in a spectacular flash.

After that, they charge each other, screaming. Orion has a massive scream that shakes you to the core. Luna has a more graceful, yet ferociously angry scream, and it shows on her face. They clash together in the middle of the hallway. Orion throws punches at the Princess, who dodges the blows and strikes his armor with her blades. Her swords do nothing but tink off the hardened steel. For now, they’re evenly matched.

As the ponies I don’t want to fight fight each other, I grab Tanya by her sword arm and yank her down the hall. “They’re distracted, let’s go,” I yell.

Tanya swears at me, and she tries to break free and strike me with her great sword. My grip is too strong for her to break through, so she can only run with me as I dash through the hall. “I swear I’m going to cut you, you village dumbass!”

“Save the insults for family counseling,” I yell back at her. What the heck is her problem? Is it the sword? Is whatever dark magic that runs through that sword making Tanya an angry bitch? I hope that’s the case, otherwise I’d throw her back in the middle of that fight just to spite her.

I run down the hall, aiming for where I remember the back exit to be. With the trash bags blocking the front entrance, the Daycare residents were using the alleyway to get in and out of the building. Pinkie showed me yesterday. Sure beats climbing through the windows.

After a couple turns and a whole lot of patience with the owl-lion in tow, we get to the rear exit. Cherry is already here. She’s leading the kids out the back, telling them to get to a safe place somewhere. The kids run past her in a line out the door. With the fight going on up front, this is probably the best thing to do.

She looks up when we skid around the corner. “What’s going on out there?”

“Luna’s fighting a big giant super soldier,” I say. “We’re getting out of here before they tear the place down.”

The building shakes, and I hear Orion’s box go off down the hallway. Cherry glances around us, and looks directly at me. “Where’s Iffy?”

“He’s fine.” Lies. “We got to hurry, the supersoldier has a magic cannon. He’ll bring the place down looking for me.”

Cherry nods, and motions for the kids to go faster. The kids heard me, they got the message. Now they’re picking up the pace and getting the heck out of here.

I pull Tanya to follow, but the owl-lion doesn’t budge. I yank again, but harder. She still doesn’t move. “What the heck’s your problem, Tanya?”

Her eyes are glazed over, and her body is completely stiff. She’s looking in the direction of the exit, but she’s not doing anything. I wave a claw in her face, but she doesn’t even blink.

“Uh, earth to Tanya, we got to go.”

Did her brain fry? Her beak moves, she whispers something that my monster ears have trouble hearing.

“I didn’t hear that. Use your big girl voice.”

Tanya looks at me, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone home. A green glint passes over an eye. This time, I can hear what she says. “Heads.”

Okay… I nod, smile, and push back all my questions about why Tanya decided now is a good time to go cuckoo on me. Cherry gives me an odd look. I shrug. “Yes, head. We should head out of here. Right now.”

Now she just shouts it. “Heads!”

The blue suitcase slams in my face. The blow doesn’t hurt, but between the shout and the hit to the face, Tanya shocks me enough for me to let go of her. I recover just in time to see her swinging the greatsword for my neck.

“Heads!”

I grab the blade right before it cuts through my meaty bits. The metal slices through my palm before the wrist bone stops it from splitting my arm in half. Yes, this is as unpleasant as it sounds. I think it struck a major vein.

I kick Tanya in the side, which is enough to knock her away and pull the blade out of my claw. Already, I feel the tentacles stitching my claw back up. Good to know the sword doesn’t stop regeneration. On the other claw, it’s turned Tanya crazy.

Tanya readies up for another strike, but before she charges me, something catches her eye. She glances to the side and looks at the doorway again, where a couple of kids are still running out of. Our little joust must have kicked up their motivation to get out of here.

The owl-lion turns away from me, forgetting about our fight she started. She straps the suitcase to the side of her arm like a shield, grips the greatsword with both claws, and yells a battle cry. The battle cry of any griffon is quite impressive. It’s both the mighty roar of a lion and terrifying screech of a falcon. It’s the kind of thing that’ll strike fear into any enemy combatant. And given her current combatants are a class of fillies and foals, her enemies are pretty terrified.

The kids scream for their lives as Tanya charges them with the greatsword above her head. She swings the sword down on an orange colt who hasn’t earned his cutie mark yet. Before she cleaves the kid in half, the sword strikes a pink barrier that materializes in mid air, sending sparks flying all over the place.

Cherry’s horn is glowing a dull but bright pink. Her face is curled into a snarl, and she looks like she’s going to rip someone’s throat out with her teeth. “Don’t you fucking dare touch my kids,” Cherry seethes.

Tanya immediately loses interest in the kids. Instead, she focuses on Cherry. When it comes to size, Cherry is the clear underdog here. She’s a head shorter than me, and Tanya is almost a head taller. There’s a sheer difference between the two.

The owl-lion holds nothing back as she charges and swings at the unicorn with a mighty yell. Cherry is ready, and puts the shield between her and the sword. She cringes when the shield blocks the strike. This must be taking a lot of effort for her. She pushes the sword away, and hits Tanya with a kinetic spell. The owl-bird flies back, but her wings spread open to stop her in mid air.

“Go,” Cherry says to the kids, “Get out of here, now!” She says that to empty air. The kids are all out the door now. They’re running out the alley to who knows where. I’m sure unsupervised, terrified children are a problem on their own, but we can deal with that later. For now…

Tanya is charging the unicorn once again. Cherry puts her shield back up, but before Tanya can strike, I zip behind the owl-lion and wrap my arms under her armpits. She lurches forward, but my grip yanks her back. I squeeze her, trying to control her limbs and make her let go of the sword. I’m failing in that department. She’s still swinging the damn thing around. It’s going to take a fight to get it away from her.

“Cherry, get out of here,” I yell. “I got her under control!”

When I check, Cherry is nowhere to be found. All I see is the tip of a tail weaving through the backdoor. Then a large, pink-glowing dumpster slams into the exit, blocking our only way out. You got to be kidding me. The bitch just left me and cut me off. That girl is cruising for a bruising.

This tiny moment of betrayal is enough to distract me from the raging griffon still in my arms. Maybe it wasn’t a betrayal. A betrayal needs some form a trust between us to be called a betrayal. Either way, it’s a dick move.

Anyways, betrayal, distraction, raging griffon. While I’m not looking, Tanya whips her head back and hits me in the side of the face. Griffons are known for their thick skulls, especially the owl-lions. When she hits, it’s two bowling balls smacking into each other, both making a loud thwack. It fazes me, goop drips down my beak, and Tanya lunges out of my grip, kicking me in the stomach for good measure.

By the time I recover, Tanya’s swinging at me again. This girl’s relentless. The green glint in her eye now seems brighter, and it’s flickering. It’s as if her iris is catching on fire.

I have one thing over Tanya, I’m faster. With my monster speed, I easily sidestep the owl-lion, avoiding the blade with a foot to spare. As Tanya fills the gap I was just in, I stick my foot out in between her legs. Her feet catch with mine, sending her stumbling down the floor. She doesn’t let go of the sword, but she’s not getting up for a moment.

I dash for the exit, still blocked by the dumpster. What Cherry forgot was I have super monster strength, or at least I think I do. I don’t know its limits. I grab what I can of the dumpster, digging my claws into the greasy steel. My feet dig in, and I push as hard as I can. With my body weight against the side, the dumpster screeches across the asphalt. Metal and street grind together, kicking up sparks as it moves along.

With all the strength I can muster, I give the dumpster the biggest shove possible. The push is strong enough to send the ten ton trash bin skidding a few feet away. Perfect, that’s enough space to get out. Fuck you, Cherry. Nothing’s going to stop me!

As I dash out to escape the crazed griffon warrior, a blue barrier materializes in front of me. I smack face first into it, then bounce back and fall to the floor. It dazes me for a moment, but when I regain focus, I find an angry, blue alicorn with two magic swords at her side looking down at me.

“Not escaping, are we?” she says.

I glance over to Tanya, and the owl-griffon is trapped in a blue bubble. She’s smashing as hard as she can against the barrier, but the sword isn’t enough to break through. She is screaming something about heads, I can tell you that.

I shrug, giving her a sheepish smile. “Just going for an afternoon stroll.”

Around the corner, I can hear a jackhammer going off. That’s odd, who’s doing construction work in a time like this? It isn’t until the floor starts shaking do I realize it isn’t a jackhammer, or anything construction related.

Orion, in all his hulking, steel glory, runs around the corner and skids to a halt, turning to look at us. Just comparing him to a speeding freight train isn’t enough. He’s more like an out of control freight train that’s derailed off a hill and all the cars behind it are twisting off the tracks and flinging themselves into a small rural town. He’s like that.

We’re in a smaller hallway than the front entrance, and his bulk is filling up almost all of it. He’s still bending his neck low to fit in here, and now he has no room to move left or right. There’s barely any space on either side for a full grown griffon to squeeze past him.

I don’t think Orion cares. In fact, behind that metal helmet of his, I bet he’s grinning up a storm. He’s got us all cornered now. We’re in the perfect place for his magic cannon to blast us to smithereens, and given the cannon is glowing bright green, he’s about to do that right now!

Before the world fills with green death energy, the bubble I’m in lunges forward. I smack the back of my head against the wall as the bubble speeds towards Orion. Before I know it, I’m flying in between his legs and zipping down the hallway. Just in time, too. The cannon obliterates the back entrance just as I fly past the giant’s tail.

Tanya is also in her own magic bubble ride. She hasn’t given up on trying to slice her way out. We both fly down the hallway, side by side, until we reach the main hall once again. We don’t make it all the way. The bubbles pop a couple feet before, and they don’t bother to slow down before doing so. With the bubbles gone, we’re left on our own to deal with the inertia by ourselves.

We both smack into a board filled with crude drawings of cats and dogs. There’s also a parrot by my beak, and it’s not a half bad drawing. Whatever kid drew this one has some talent.

It’s not a hard crash. I get up just fine with only a light headache. Tanya’s wobbling a bit. She’s making a bigger effort in trying to cut off my head, but the problem is she needs to stand up in order to do it. The result is her kicking the floor and moving like a slug, then swinging the sword and missing my ankles. It’s a bit desperate.

She stops swinging when I step on her claws. With her range of motion gutted, the sword clatters to the ground, unmoving. She tries to yank out from under my weight, but something tells me she won’t have any success.

With Tanya immobilized as far as I’m concerned, I look around the place just to see what mess Luna made. There’s another hole in the ceiling. If we get any more of those, the whole building will collapse. The front entrance is gone. It’s blocked off by a pile of bricks and debris. There goes that escape route. Half the walls are gone in the hallway. One of them has two scars running across it. I bet that was from Luna’s swords.

Light is coming down from the ceiling holes. They reach all the way up to the sky. I think they’re the best bet for getting out of here. Jump up a couple floors, reach the roof, and if there aren’t any airships, we can run off without any problems.

One problem, Tanya. The suitcase is still strapped to her arm, and she’s not letting go of the sword. I want to take her with me, but as long as she has that greatsword, she’s a health hazard.

I’m about to fight Tanya for the sword when something slimy taps me on the shoulder. My head snaps around to find Eureka standing there, smiling. Oh right, forgot about him. Shouldn’t the Blacklight have killed him by now?

Here’s the weird thing, it’s just Eureka. He’s not wearing his glasses right now, but his face isn’t melting to one side. He looks normal. There’s nothing rotting or dying about him. He’s as healthy as can be. Now if he’d only stop smiling. It’s getting creepy.

The silence is a bit awkward, so I break it. “Can I help you?”

“I’m hungry,” he says, keeping his smile up.

“Not my problem.” Just ignore him. My main focus is getting the owl-lion out of here. Tanya has a tight grip on the sword, but I bet I can pry-

“You look tasty.”

I freeze. That is never something you want to hear someone else say, ever. Well, maybe if you’re about to shag each other. I think there’s a whole thing about food relating to sexual desire or something like that. I’m not so sure about the whole thing, I haven’t had experience with it myself. But I’m absolutely sure when a guy who just recovered from his face melting off when he drank a killer virus says you look tasty, it’s not because he wants to make babies with you.

I look up at Eureka. There’s drool dripping from the corner of his smile. He has that intense stare predators get before attacking their prey. Yep, he has bad news written all over his face. I don’t know what’s happened to him, and I don’t want to know.

Thanks to the efforts of Orion, there’s a giant hole in the ceiling above us. I grab Tanya by the wrist and pull her up with me as I jump to the second floor. It’s a close call, too. Just as we get out of the way, Eureka’s entire front side explodes into a mass of tentacles! They fill up the space we were just in, tearing through the drawing board as if it were wet paper.

Nope! Not dealing with that. We hop onto the ledge, and I pull Tanya down the dark corridor of the second floor, and I run. I don’t let go of Tanya’s wrist. With how fast I’m running down these halls, she’s keeps tripping and skidding on the floor behind me. While this must be miserable for her, bright side is she isn’t hitting me with the sword.

I skid to a halt and jump into a classroom. Just so I have a bit of time, I throw Tanya into a shelf of plastic toys. It collapses on top of her, burying her in a pile of playtime and broken wood. It’ll be a bit before she gets up again.

Why am I in this classroom? It’s because it has windows! They’re all boarded up, but it only takes a couple kicks to break the wood planks off. Once they break away, light spills into the room, and I have a clear view outside. Small problem though.

Blackwatch is out there. Not just a couple squads, there’s an entire army sitting out there! They’re all stretched around a perimeter, huddling behind an imaginary line that’s surrounding the daycare. They have unicorns, pegasi, those armored dudes, and a few airships. They must be waiting for Orion to do his job in here. And if he fails, they’re all here to shoot me down.

I step away from the window before they see me and blow my head off. That’s not good. With that many blue-eyes standing out there, it’ll be a pain in the ass to slip by them. Hmm, I’ll need a distraction. Or maybe if Luna gets a handle on things, she’ll call things off. Nah, she’ll only have things under control once she has me in a bubble. A distraction is a better idea.

Tanya charges me, but I punch her in the gut without looking. She falls over and coughs, curling up into a ball and shivering. She’s still not letting go of the sword. Bummer.

Distraction, distraction, distraction… Hmm… Okay, I have an idea. I’m going to need to find an accordion, a unicycle, and a chimpanzee. I think Pinkie has two of those things in her office, but where am I going to find an accordion?

Down the hall, I hear someone running. It’s not the running of giant metal boots, or the graceful stride of a warrior princess, but regular feet. Those are regular pony feet. Eureka is coming after us. Better ready up.

My monster claws come out. If he’s hungry, then I’ll give him a knuckle sandwich. The footsteps get close, and a yellow pony runs around the corner. I almost pounce on him, but I realize it’s not Eureka. Eureka is a unicorn, this is an earthpony. And the earthpony is wearing a Blackwatch uniform.

Oh no, it’s-

“Gilda, my love!” Caramel shrieks. Crap, Cherry forgot to get this dweeb out of here! His voice is hitting the highest notes his vocal cords will allow, which are pretty high. “I knew you’d come back for me. No mountain or army can overcome our bond!”

I run a claw down my face. There are a lot of things I keep forgetting about today. Caramel, this bastard, is the worst out of all of them. I have never felt this much pain from someone else’s concussion.

Caramel runs at me, spewing bad poetics like the shitty romantic he is. I stretch my claw blades out, and he has enough self-preservation to stop inches away from them. “While you were gone, I toiled in my room, lamenting on your lack of presence. How could I, a humble soul, live on unable to savior your grace?”

We’ve been reunited for three seconds and I already want to gut the dweeb. “Oh, for the love of all that is good in the world, shut up!” I don’t have time for this, and I mean it. There’s a giant supersoldier, a warrior princess, and a tentacle scientist itching for my head, and I’m stuck between a Blackwatch army and this twat with no escape! “You have a concussion. You don’t love me at all. Your brain damaged noggin thinks it likes me, but it doesn’t. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. Burn that into your brain.”

I was hoping that would kill the poet in him, but it doesn’t. His eyes are wistful as ever. “Oh, your words do sting, but I know you test my faith. Fear not, for I will never leave your side, even when the clouds between us churn into a raging storm. I will never leave you for another, for you are the air to my breath, the wind to my sails! Not even the cold embrace of death will tear our love to pieces!”

Tanya gets up behind Caramel. She has her eyes, especially the one with the green glint set on Caramel’s backside.

You know what, have him. I turn my head away, and look at the crayon drawings on the wall. Hey, that one’s cute. Someone drew stick figures of him with his family. Another drew one of the Princesses. SLICE! And that one drew herself flying with the Wonderbolts. How adorable.

“So Tanya, did you get the whole murder thing out of your system?” I turn to look at my griffon friend. She’s looking at me the same way Eureka did. Nope, she didn’t.

The eye that was glinting green is now on fire. Not just on regular fire, it’s on green fire, a fire that can only rise from the unholy depths of the underworld, or so I assume. Her regular eye and her on fire eye glare at me as she raises the sword above her. “Heads!”

I shake my head and let out a sigh. “Oh Tanya, don’t be a pain in the ass.”

It goes about the same as the last time she took a swing at me, but I’m smart about it this time. I raise up a monster claw. The sword swings into my blades. I twist my hand a bit and lock the sword up in my talons.

“Drop the sword.”

“Heads!”

“Drop it.”

“Heads!”

“Can you even hear me?”

“Heads!”

Should I leave her here? Tempting. I glance down at Caramel, who is a head shorter now. Wow, a concussion followed by decapitation. Not that I care, but this guy had had a shitty week.

I do have one question, why is he still standing? He’s obviously dead, but he hasn’t fallen over yet. This doesn’t seem right.

“Gilda, my love!”

I squawk and snap my head to the direction of the voice. There, by the pile of toy trains, is Caramel’s head, and it’s smiling at me.

“Oh no. No no no no,” I say. “You better be dead.”

His mouth moves to talk, something a bodiless head should never do. “The blades of death shall never separate us. Our souls are linked through the aether!”

No. No no. No no no no no no no no no. No. Absolutely not. I do not need a Blackwatch zombie coming to my house at night and serenading me with love songs from last decade. Giant clumps of gangsters, fine. Giant supersoldiers, I can live with those. Ripping off monster nuts, I’ll admit, it’s both gross and satisfying at the same time, so I can bare it. But lovestruck zombies, no. That is where I draw the line.

I give Caramel’s body another look. It’s still standing. With my other monster claw, I slash the thing apart. His body crumples up into a head of sliced up body parts.

There, problem solved.

Except no, the problem is still there. While his body is mince meat, it didn’t get the memo it’s beyond dead. He body parts pulsate and wiggle, and they make slurping and clicking sounds. Oh for Grover’s sake, will these infected stop fucking around and die already?!

Something nibbles at my claw. I look at the source. There, on the back of my hand, is a black beetle. It has bright green eyes, and massive pincers. It’s like the one in Pinkie’s office, only more mean looking. It’s biting hard on the monster claw, hard enough to pierce the skin. I don’t know what the monster claws are made out of, but whatever they are, they don’t feel the bite.

Meanwhile, back down at the body pile, Caramel’s flesh is bouncing like crazy. It deflates, and a swarm of black pincer beetles spills out of his guts. They spread in a big, black circle, and they make their way towards me.

Usually, little creepy crawlies don’t bug me that much. I grew up in Griffonstone. I’d find five bugs every night in my pillow, and they all made tasty midnight snacks. Hey, don’t judge me. I’m part bird. Birds eat worms and stuff.

Now, however, I’ve lost my composure, and my appetite. I won’t say how much, and the only other two witnesses are either a possessed griffon or a severed head. I’ll just say I might have screamed something that shouldn’t be said in a daycare, and I might have let go of Tanya while trying to throw off the bugs crawling up me to bite my shins.

Tanya, now free of my claw, takes the opportunity to go full out berserk mode. Fortunately for me, she doesn’t see me as her opponent. Instead, she’s fighting off the bugs. She swings the sword down, chopping through the swarm as they come after us, yelling, “Heads, heads, heads!’ each time she does so. I think she’s swinging a little faster with every strike.

I fight off the swarm, too. I’m mixing in claw strikes with stepping on them with my back leg. Despite both our attacks, the bug swarm isn’t shrinking. In fact, I think it’s growing. The rest of Caramel’s body dissolves into the bug mass, and the black and green critters surge forth in a wave of clicking and slurping.

“Hey Tanya, I think this is getting out of hand.”

“Heads! Heads!”

“Run for the door. We’ll find another way to escape.”

“Heads! Heads!”

I think she’s having too much fun. Fun’s over. I grab her by the arm and I jump over the bug swarm, gliding over to the door. Some of them jump up, trying to nibble at my toes. Only one gets me, but I smash in into the ground when I land.

I pull Tanya behind me as I run through the hallway. I think I sense a theme going on.

There’s nothing going in this hall right now. Might as well take stock before the next infected monster comes to bite my head off. Let’s see, I’m surrounded on all sides, there are at least four entities in this building that want to kill me, Tanya included, and unless my guardian angel comes down and opens up a portal out of this place, I’m pretty much screwed. Ain’t my life a joy?

At the end of this train of thought, I realize I’m running right back where we came from, to the hole I jumped through to escape Eureka. That is not a safe space! And just to confirm why running this way is a bad idea, a large tentacle mass flies out of the hole and slams into the ceiling. The tentacles droop down, and I can see Eureka in the center of the mass.

Eureka doesn’t stick to the ceiling. He peels off and falls, and as he does so, a metal giant jumps up through the hole and whams the scientist in mid air. Eureka goes flying through the hall towards us. I duck, he passes over, and he crashes somewhere behind us.

The giant, now falling after the peak of his jump, grabs the ledge and hops up onto the second floor with a loud, metallic thud. “I didn’t know you brought friends, Zero,” Orion booms.

“Hard to call them friends when everyone is trying to kill”- Tanya cuts me off. I have to knock the sword off the path to my neck. It swings over my head, and I can feel the wind brush over my feathers. “For fuck’s sake, stop it Tanya!”

“Heads!” In the dark hallway, her burning eye is the only thing I can see clearly. It’s bright enough to cast a green glow on the rest of her face. Fortunately, I have night vision, so I don’t need her flame eye to see the mass of tentacles rushing towards us!

I knock us both out of the way just as the tentacles brush by. Razor sharp blades cover the damn things, enough to tear anyone to shreds if they so much as tap you. The tentacles retract with a slimy, slithering sound, racing back to the scientist who shot them at us.

My night vision does its work, and I can see the scientist grinning. There are slits all over his body, and tentacles are waving out of them. It’s like somebody took a squid and covered it all in broken glass, then shoved the squid in Eureka and now it’s trying to get out. “You have a lot of meat on your bones,” Eureka says as he walks towards us. “Enough calories to keep my experiments going.”

Behind us, Orion takes a step forward. He slams his hoof in the ground, shaking the entire second floor. I can hear the whine of his box as its green glow returns to haunt us. “You know, it’s a little funny that I’m fighting you two,” Orion says. “I get to destroy both the one who killed me and the one who brought me back to life. That’s what I call poetic.”

“Oh no, I am done with poetics to”- I knock the sword away for the umpteenth time- “I swear I’ll murder you!”

Both Eureka and Orion come charging at me. The former is waving his tentacles in the air, ready to slice me up and eat me for lunch. The latter is aiming the cannon at me. It’s glowing bright, so it’s ready to fire yet again.

At this point it’s all instinct. I think about Tanya. How is she going to get out of this? Simple, I grab her wrist and chuck her into a classroom. She yells, “Heads!” before disappearing through the doorframe. There, she’s out of trouble.

Now me, how am I going to get out of this?

Eureka is the first to get to me. He does a running pounce, leaping into the air and aiming all those razor tentacles at me in a big cone. I cross my monster claws, and just as he reaches striking distance, I throw them apart, catching the ends of the tentacles and splitting them away from me. The frees up the space between me and Eureka of all flesh eating tentacles, but that now leaves him to crash right into me and tear at me in close combat.

Behind me, at almost the same time, Orion digs in his heels as he preps up to fire. I don’t see it, but I can hear him grinding against the floor. The feathers on the back of my neck tingle as I sense the supersoldier lining up his shot. With me currently engaging with Eureka, there’s not much I can do to stop him from firing. Did I engage the wrong guy?

The dark hallway stops being dark as it fills with the brightest green imaginable. My feathers light on fire as the cannon’s arcane energies roll over me. Sweet mercy, it feels like the bastard is ripping off all my skin!

The light dies down after what feels to be an eternity. My body is on fire, literally. There are tiny flames all over my right side. I hop around and brush the flames off like crazy. Well, at least I’m not dead. I’m on fire, but not dead.

Eureka is on fire too. Gone is that stupid smile of his, replaced by the cringing face of terror and pain. He’s howling. The tentacles are waving all over the place. The ends of half of them are on fire, and they’re shriveling up into smoldering pieces as the flames eat through them.

While I’m dancing the fire away, I turn to the side to see what happened. There’s a large hole carving its way to the outside. The cannon was pointing down at me, so the blast tore into the first floor. Come on, Orion. I want to turn this place into a haunted house. I can’t keep doing that if you keep putting holes in the place.

And right behind me is Orion. He’s not paying attention to me right now. He’s more focuses on the glowing rope that’s around his neck. He throws his head left and right in attempt to break off from the thing, but the magic rope is holding strong.

I see Luna flying behind the giant. Her horn is glowing bright enough to light her side of the hallway, and she too is fighting over the rope. The rope ends in mid air about a few feet in front of her, and she keeps pulling the opposite way Orion goes.

Well, at least I know why I’m not a pile of ash right now.

Orion has enough of this. His head snaps around, and the bottom of his helmet opens up to reveal two rows of large, bleeding teeth. He chomps down on the rope and yanks with the force of a train engine. This overwhelms the alicorn, and it throws Luna over our heads. She spins through the air with her limbs outstretched, sort of like an aerial cart wheel, before crashing into the door I threw Tanya in. Just in time, the pesky owl-bird was walking out and was about to charge me. Luna slams into her, and they both fall into a body heap.

Orion cracks his head and starts moving towards us. “Your persistence on letting these griffons live baffles me, Princess.” As he talks, those bloody teeth of his move up and down. I can see it clearly with my night vision. Blood is dripping between the gaps in his teeth, and drooling down his jaw. I don’t think I see any lips moving. Does he have lips?

The metal jawpiece of his helmet snaps shut with a clink. By now, I’ve brushed the fire off me. I’m only burnt on the outside, but my tentacles are fixing that now. The fires are out on Eureka, too. He’s stopped howling, and now he’s eyeing me as his next meal again.

Here we go again. Soldier in the front, scientist in the back. They’re in the perfect position to spit roast me. Count my blessings, at least this isn’t a porno. Again, they both come at me. And my mind is still in the gutter. Bad time for this.

Instincts are still running the show, and instinct knows better than me. As the big baddies come crashing down on me, I jump to the side, towards the hole Orion made. It cuts through the floor, so it’s a one way ticket to the ground floor. I make it through just as the other two clash together. I’m not looking at the chaos behind me, but I assume it’s messy.

I land in a pile of burnt rubble and dust. In front of me, the hole continues until it reaches the outside wall. Daylight’s pouring through the whole and brightening up this musky room, and it feels glorious. Finally, a way out!

I run for the daylight hole. This is my exit. It’s my ticket out of here.

Behind me, something explodes in a cloud of tile and concrete. Before I can register what’s going on, five thousand pounds of steel and muscle slams into my back and crushes me into the floor. It squishes me into the rubble as if I were soft clay. I cough up all the air in my lungs with a pitiful squeak.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Orion says. He puts all his weight on the massive stone column he calls a leg. I can feel the eyes bulge out of my sockets as all my innards are forcing themselves out of my body. Something liquid comes up my throat, and I can feel it dribble out of my beak. It tastes like blood, my blood.

Somewhere above us, I hear a high pitched, girly scream coming from the second floor. “Bugs!”

Was that Luna? I think it was Luna, although it sounds too high pitched to be her. Either way, there are bugs up there. Caramel has finally arrived to join the fight.

Eureka jumps down to the ground floor with us. He’s dancing around, flailing his tentacles everywhere and kicking his back legs out like he’s competing for first place in a rodeo. All the while he’s screaming, “Ewewewew.”

Oh, the screaming came from him. Of course he has a girly scream, all the nerds do. Sneak up on one and scare the crap out of him, he’ll always make that scream. On the other claw, you don’t expect a tentacle monster to freak out about bugs. It’s kind of amusing.

Orion let’s off the pressure on me, just enough to keep me living and breathing, but not enough to let me go. I think he’s a bit confused. I, however, know what’s up. Those black and green bugs are crawling all over Eureka. They keep pinching and biting him, tearing little chunks off him as they do so. His tentacles stab at the places they bite at. He impales a lot of them, but there’s so many on him it doesn’t make much of a difference.

Now there’s something you don’t see every day, an infected monster freaking out about bugs. Orion certainly hasn’t seen this. He’s too distracted watching this show to bother squishing me to death. I have a brief moment to think.

I need to get out from under his foot. I’m stuck, so I can’t wiggle my way out. I have to get his hoof off of me. That might even be harder. If he didn’t have the armor on, I could slice his leg off. Even then, I’d have to move my claw to do so, and I’m lacking in the mobility department.

Hmm… I wonder what the lifting strength of my blades is…

Alright, I have an idea, but it’s not going to be pleasant.

I can’t move my arm, but I can move my wrist. I turn my claw downward and dig a bit into the rubble. I focus the tentacles in that direction, and they shoot straight down into the ground. Good, I can still make groundspikes. I doubt they’ll be able to pierce his armor, but I bet they can lift it.

Now comes the painful part.

I feel the tentacles dig their way down a bit, and then they make a one eighty degree turn and come straight back up. I brace myself, and I try my best to make them miss me and not miss me at the same time. My confidence is fleeting.

The death bouquet shoots up out of the ground below me. I did and didn’t do both of what I wanted at the same time. The blades don’t go through my core, but they do slice through my sides. If I had room to scream, I’d do so. My tearing flesh is sending pain all through my body. I really hate this idea.

The blades clang against the bottom of Orion’s hoof, and they come up fast enough to push him off of me. Like I thought, they’re not enough to break through his steel, but they are strong enough to lift him. The sudden change of what he’s stepping on throws him off balance, and he stumbles away as he tries to regain his ground.

I gasp at the sudden relief. It stings like crazy when I breathe in and the blades slice in deeper, so the relief is short lived. The blades retract as fast as I can make them, and they cut a little deeper as they do so. When they come back all the way, I jump to the side as Orion slams his hooves on me.

As I move, the big slices in me open up to the air. They sting a lot, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take for those to heal up. Hopefully they’ll stitch together before this fight ends. I can feel the goop dripping out of them.

And then one explodes in a ball of needling agony. I keel over when it hits, screaming as I do so. I turn to see Eureka’s razor tentacle slithering its way into one of the larger slices. I can feel it biting through my goop and making a meal from the inside of me. Sweet mercy!

Eureka’s tentacles are still stabbing at the bugs, and I think it’s starting to get on his nerves. Eureka isn’t smiling anymore. His eyes twitch as he looks at me. The one tentacle that’s inside me is the one that’s sticking out of his chest, and he’s petting the damn thing! “You’ll be my food,” Eureka says. “You will do.”

Orion isn’t paying attention to this. He just has his eyes on me. He rears up to slams his hooves on me again, and I jump away before he crashes to the ground. Lucky for me, he step’s on Eureka’s tentacles, splitting them apart. Eureka screams as his tentacle whips back at him.

I grab the other part of the tentacle that’s still in me. It’s still wiggling on its own, and it’s still sucking the juices out of me. I tear it out and toss it at Orion’s face. It hits his faceplate with a watery slap. He throws his head to the side to shake it off.

The supersoldier comes at me again, only this time with a punch. Eureka comes at me, too. His front side explodes in a tentacle fury, and his attack hits the side of Orion’s punching hoof. The tentacles latch on to his armor, but it doesn’t stop Orion.

The punch continues on, only now it’s dragging Eureka with it. I jump back to avoid the hoof, but Eureka swings around, and his tentacles slam into me. Their razors dig into my skin, and the tentacles dig into my slices again. They’re eating me from the inside!

Eureka makes a half arc around the room before slamming into a wall. The tentacles stop with him, but I don’t. I fling off the tentacle ride when he stops, and my skin rips apart as the tentacles tear from my body. I hit the ground as a bloody mess. My goop flies everywhere as I roll to a stop.

The little red light on Orion’s cannon stops blinking, and the cannon part glows green once again. Ugh, if I get out of this alive, I’m finding the one bastard who gave this guy a cannon and I’ll give him the beat down of a life time.

Exploding into a million pieces is enough motivation to get off my ass and book it. Orion tracks me as I run, but he’s tracking me further than where I am. Oh shit, he knows the “shoot where I’m going to be, not where I am” strategy. He’s clever.

I turn on my heel and run back before I walk into his trap. The cannon fires as I do so. Strange, the world isn’t burning into green cinders. What gives?

It takes me a moment to realize I’m not moving. My legs are running as fast as they can, but they’re not touching the ground. There is a good foot or so of air between me and the ground. Rocks are floating next to me, and they’re all glowing green. Then it clicks. I’m floating, too.

I look at Orion to see a beam coming from the cannon. It’s not a death beam, otherwise I’d be dead. The beam diffuses around me in a glowing cloud of dust and debris. Orion has me in a levitation spell!

Orion twists his body, and the beam swings along with him. It flings me across the room, but I eject out of the glow cloud as it makes a tight arc. That’s good, he’s not going to bash me around with a stupid spell. On the other claw, I’m flying straight at a wall with no control.

I twist my body around so my back is facing the wall, then my wing blades shift out. I crash through at least a foot of concrete, rolling into another room in a dust cloud. The wing blades take most of the blunt force, and I receive no damage. Well, the wing blades are bent and dented now, but they’ll fix themselves up. I did not plan that trick. That was pure instinct.

I land on my feet, only to be assaulted by a fist full of tentacles. They slam into my side and dig into my body slices.

Not this time. With both my monster claws and my wing blades, I twist around and dig into his tentacles. The blade storm rips apart Eureka’s attack. The tentacles wiggle around as they retreat, and I can hear the scientist screaming in pain down the hall.

There are still leftover tentacles pieces sticking out of my slices, still trying to eat me. My own tentacles lash out and strike the invading tentacles, liquefying them into goop. Then they get to work sealing my slices back up, and I’m stitched back up to good as new. Well, mostly. My feathers are still a bit singed from that one cannon blast.

I eye Eureka. He’s freaking out over my counter attack, and he’s not paying attention to me what so ever. Ah, an opening. I’ll slice him up and be done with the nerd for good. One less monster in the world.

My muscles tense as I ready to pounce, but then I feel something sting me in the butt. Nope, I didn’t yelp. I didn’t do anything of the sort. I look back to see what’s got me. Did a stray tentacle nab me? Nope, it’s a bug. There’s a black and green bug hanging off my butt by its pincers.

I flick it off with a blade. It flies off to who knows where. I guess Caramel’s bugs are still running around the place. Isn’t that annoying?

Another bug falls on my face. It pinches my beak, but beaks are made of hard shell, so it doesn’t do much. I flick that one away, then another falls on my claw. I bush it off before two more fall on my back, followed by another two.

What the heck? I look up to see where these things are falling from. Orion’s blast carved through the ceiling right above me. I can see up to the second floor, and I find the source of the bugs up there. I regret looking.

The second floor ceiling is crawling with them. Every square inch of ceiling tile has bugs swarming it. It’s a night sky where the stars are all green, and they’re skittering all over the place, and a few are falling down and taking chunks out of me.

A blue glow emerges from the edge of the hole. Some of the falling bugs hit it, and they bounce off the glow. The glow continues to grow until all I see is blue and shiny above me. Through the glow, I see two figures struggling in the dark. One has a horn that’s glowing bright, and the other has a shiny stick and is swinging the stick at the other figure.

Before I put the pieces together, the glow crushes me.

I don’t know why I didn’t get out of the way. Maybe it’s because I didn’t realize how heavy a shield spell is. I can now say they are very heavy, but not as heavy as Orion’s foot. Both Tanya and Luna fall on me in one of Luna’s bubble shields. I probably made a noise dog toys make when it crushed me to the ground. Don’t worry, I’m getting used to this.

Those two are moving around a lot in their bubble. I know this because the thing is rolling all over me. It’s playing a severely disproportional game of pinball, and my back is the machine. Ow, it hits one of the bumpers. Oof, I think it just scored triple points. I pray for my sanity they don’t score a multiball.

I manage to move my head to see what’s going on up there. Tanya is swinging her sword like crazy, as per usual. She’s also using the blue suitcase on her arm to block the alicorn’s hits. Luna is blocking and parrying with her magic swords. I have a feeling Luna could easily break through Tanya’s attack and strike her where it hurts, but the princess doesn’t want to kill anyone because she thinks we’re her prisoners.

The tiny battle on my back isn’t clear to me, even with my night vision, but I do see the final strike. At some point, Tanya manages to get around Luna’s swords and hit the alicorn in the horn. Luna’s horn does a firework show before the bubble shield fizzles out and disappears.

Finally, the bubble shield isn’t crushing anymore. That was getting annoying. Downside is they were both engaged in floating combat, so they both come crashing down on me. Both of them are heavy girls, so you can imagine how much I enjoyed Tanya’s ass falling on top of my head.

I hear the two clash some more. There are clings and klangs of what I assume are the sounds of swords hitting each other. There’s also the sound of Tanya screaming “Heads!” over and over again, but I think that’s a given at this point.

“Drop the sword, griffon,” Luna yells. “It’s corrupted your mind!”

“Heads!” My impression of the Equestrian diarchy would diminish if Luna expected any other answer.

Tanya’s still sitting on me. I push myself up, and the owl-lion falls over with a squawk. Here’s some good news, all the bugs were crushed in all that commotion. Bad news, I got bug guts all over me. Gross. And now more are falling all over me again. Yay.

A blue shield appears all around us. The bugs fall on the top and skid off to the side. They’re not going to be able to get in here. I almost cheer at the small victory, until a blue, glowing magic sword appears in front of my neck.

Luna wipes some blood off her mouth with her foreleg, glaring at me as she does so. “I’m done with this farce. We are leaving now.”

Tanya lunges to strike at the princess, only to be stopped by a blue aura that lifts her into the air.

I nod. “I’m cool with leaving.” I point over to where Eureka stands, “but what are we going to do about the plague doctor over there?”

Just as I say this, a mass of tentacles hits the side of the shield. They slither all around us, scrapping the sides of the shield with their millions of razors.

Luna doesn’t seem to notice, or care. “Blackwatch will take care of him. That’s their job.”

I point behind me. “Alright, should we have the supersoldier carry our bags to the train?”

And just as I say that, the whole world outside the shield flashes a bright green light. Luna kneels over as her horn sputters out, and the shield bubble shudders before dissolving into nothingness. Once that’s all over, we’re left with a dark hallway, a new hole in a wall, and Orion’s massive bulk standing over us.

Steam comes out of the supersoldiers mouth piece as he lets out an angry huff. “Don’t forget to turn in your room keys before you leave.”

Oh great, he has superhearing, and he used it to make a crack at my luggage joke. I got to say, that’s a smooth use of monster powers. If only he wasn’t tasked to kill me, maybe we could be friends and head to the bar and drink our brains out.

“Heads!” Tails. Tanya runs past me to charge Orion head on. Luna must have dropped her when the shield went down. The owl-bird swings the sword at him, only to bounce off his leg armor with a clang. She does this several more times before Orion brushes her away and knocks her on her ass. Orion does not look impressed.

A new blue shield appears by my side. Before I fully realize it’s there, another one of Eureka’s tentacle attacks strikes it. They hit with a thud, and then they crawl all over its face, trying to get past and strike us.

I notice Luna’s really struggling with this spell. Her knees are shaking. Her teeth are grinding together. Steam is coming off her horn as the thing glows as bright as ever. It’s the biggest, and only, source of light in this entire room. She’s putting up one heck of a fight with Eureka.

I look around more to see the shield isn’t just protecting us from Eureka. There’s a shield down the hall away from the action, preventing any of us from running that way if we wanted to. The shield goes above us to block the bugs. It also swings around behind the room Orion just busted through, preventing him from backing out as well.

Luna says something, but her voice is shaky and barely audible. “Don’t you dare leave, Gilda.”

No promises.

Her magic swords pop into existence and fly around me. They intercept Orion’s hoof, who was about to crush me into a pancake. Fireworks fly when the two make contact. They struggle above me, pushing each other either way while giving no more than a few inches of ground.

While Luna has Orion’s hoof occupied, an idea grows in my mind as I wiggle around my claw blades. I stick the monster claw into the ground. The tentacles shoot down and out at Orion. When they arrive, they burst out of the floor in a blade bouquet, not straight up, but at an angle. The attack hits the side of Orion’s other fore-hoof, knocking it out from under him.

With both front hooves off the ground, Orion tilts forward and sprawls out over the ground. Being the massive guy he is, his front side sends out a moderate earthquake upon us when he hits the ground. His impact is more of a loud boom than a thud.

With Orion down at my level, I take the opportunity to pounce on his head and grab him around the neck. I try yanking off his armor, but there are no gaps to shove my claws into. It seems to be one big piece of metal. Someone wanted this to be absolutely Gilda proof.

“Heads!” If I had a bit for every time I heard that in the past five minutes, I’d be richer than the Dream Princess. Tanya runs at me and swings to cleave me in half. I jump back while staying on Orion, and the sword strikes the back of the giant’s neck. Of course it bounces back without so much as making a scratch.

As far as cursed swords go, Tanya’s is a crappy one. It possesses you, but you don’t get anything in return. I have no clue why she thought this would be her ticket out of here. I’m throwing that thing in the trash when I get the chance.

After a couple more strikes while yelling her favorite word over and over, Tanya loses interest in the giant and turns her gaze at the other nearest living thing, me. No problem. I block the sword with a claw and shove her away.

The giant underneath me grunts. I can feel his armor vibrate as he speaks. “You griffons are irritating.”

My stomach lurches as Orion pushes himself up to his feet. He squishes me against the ceiling when he stands at full height. It’s a section of the ceiling he hasn’t blown apart yet. It’s not crushing me, but he’s keeping his head low so he could try if he wanted to.

A green glow appears in the corner of my eye. I look at the source to find Orion’s cannon charging up again. It swivels down to point at the ground, and Orion turns to the side to aim it at Tanya. As he turns, my back grinds against the ceiling, but I don’t care.

I knee him in the side of his neck. It does nothing to his armor. I look at Luna, and she’s not doing too hot. She sees what’s about to happen, and I can see her readying up to stop it, but sparks are popping out of her horn when she tries to cast a spell. With Eureka bashing against the shield wall, I don’t think she can cast another bubble spell. Tanya might be toast!

Tanya’s eye fire flares up into something bigger. I don’t think I noticed it before, but I think the fire grew since she decapitated Caramel. She raises the sword above her head, as she’s done many times before, and then she charges Orion. “Heads!”

I feel the cannon spark with energy. It’s about to fire!

But before it goes off, Tanya strikes Orion. She doesn’t hit his head, or his legs, but she hits the cannon.

The sword chops into it with a solid sounding crunch. I don’t know if she meant to strike it, or if it was an accident, but she’s done it now.

Green, magic sparks arc from the barrel. I can feel heat swelling from the thing. It’s burning up Orion’s armor. The cannon makes a high pitched whine as its fans go into overdrive. The sparks wave around in a storm of arcane chaos before everything goes green.

There’s a loud ringing in my ears. I can’t hear anything but that ringing. I feel vibrations going through my body, and I feel like I should hear them, but I can’t.

My brain is going berserk, like it wants to break out of the back of my skull and splatter itself across the walls. Maybe it already did that, and these are my final thoughts before the splatter spreads out too far to be able to think.

No, that’s not it, otherwise I wouldn’t be tasting ash right now, and I wouldn’t feel all this hurt in my body. Billion of pain needles are dancing under all parts of my skin. All parts, all of them. It’s not absolute torture, but it’s big enough to make everything miserable.

My eyes flicker open, and the light stings them. Ugh, that’s not pleasant. I’m not in that dark hallway anymore. The light seems warm, so I think I’m outside.

I work my eyes open and regain focus of the world. It’s dusty. Brown and grey dust clouds are suspended over the ground. I can’t see anything other than the ground, and that’s covered by rubble. A light rain of little rock pieces keeps dropping on me. I flinch whenever a pebble lands near my eyes or on my beak. Everything smells like a fire.

The ringing in my ears is going away. To replace it, I can hear yelling and moving off in the distance. No screaming. The yelling sounds like a bunch of ponies giving out commands with the loudest voices they can manage. Wouldn’t surprise me. Blackwatch was outside the daycare last time I checked.

Am I even at the daycare? This feels like the outside, so I think I’m outside it. On the roof maybe? Then I have to ask how did I get up here? What happened? Maybe I can answer that if this head ache would go away.

I wander through the clouds, careful to look out for any Blackwatch. I see a shadow run away, but I don’t recognize who or what it is. For all I know there are more infected monsters running around in here with me. I do not want to meet any new bad nasties.

Hmm, I remember the fight. I was riding Orion, and then Tanya charged him. Green light, and now dust. Did everything explode?

Something grabs my shoulder, and I jump and turn around. By the time I have my monster claws out and ready to strike, I see who it is.

Princess Luna pulls herself up, using me as a handle. Her eyes are halfway open, her mouth is slack, and her legs are shaking. Her horn isn’t glowing anymore. I don’t think there was a point at any time during that fight when it wasn’t lit up.

The alicorn stands up half way before her eyes roll back. Her legs give out and she collapses to the ground. Her belly is moving, so she’s still breathing, and still alive. Good for her, and good for me. If she’s out cold, that means she can’t come after me.

I walk away, leaving her behind. Blackwatch can rescue her. She’s their problem. My problem is getting out of here, and possibly getting Tanya out as well. If she still has that sword, I’m knocking her unconscious. No questions asked.

A dull thud comes from deep in the dust cloud, followed by another thud, and another. Soon, a large shadow looms over me, and the supersoldier Orion steps into view, or at least what’s left of him.

Half his armor is gone, including his magic cannon. The edges of the armor that’s still attached are twisted and scorched. Touching those edges will give anyone a nasty cut. That’s evidence for an explosion. The cannon must have exploded when Tanya struck it. I think it took out the whole building with it. Sweet mercy, it’s a wonder any of us survived.

With a huge chunk of armor gone, his body underneath is exposed, and it’s not pretty. What I’m looking at isn’t a pony, but something that used to be one.

There’s no colorful coat ponies tend to have, be it pink, blue, green, or any other color. There’s no skin to talk about either. It’s all raw muscle, and it’s not even that. It’s all flesh of some sort, red and bloody. Tubes made of meat are going everywhere around him, and they all pulsate, even when he’s not moving. There’s a huge gash where the cannon used to be, and little tentacles are sticking out of that gash. They’re grabbing each other and pulling themselves together, healing up that gash to be good as new.

And his face, sweet mercy that face. Half his face is still covered in armor, but the rest… ew. It’s as raw and skinless as the rest of his body, but the face takes the cake in being the worst part to have no skin.

I was right, he has no lips. His teeth and gums are completely exposed, and blood is dripping from them. His eyes are bulging out as if they’re about to fall out of their sockets with the slightest of breeze. In place of his nose are two long nasal cavities that start at the front of his snout and end in two black holes beneath his eyes.

Orion nods. I bet he’d be smiling, or frowning, but without any lips, I can’t tell what he wants to do. “You like what you see?” Orion says. “This is what Eureka’s experiments produced, a monster. Because of his work, I get to be the same as all the other monsters I’ve been fighting for a month. But I wouldn’t have had the chance to become this thing if you didn’t kill me!”

Okay, I think he’s feeling mad. Likely he’s mad at me for killing him, whenever that happened. Eh, I shrug. “You’re a monster, big deal. So am I, and you don’t see me bitching about it.” My monster claws grow out, and I aim them at him. “Heck, I think we both got lucky in the monster department. I have cool shapeshifting powers, and you’re a badass giant that no one will mess with.”

“That’s bullshit. You ruined my life.” Orion points a hoof at his face, a hoof that is only partially armored now. “How many chicks do you think I’m going to pick up with this face?!”

“Yeah… I see your point.” I stand back, growing my monster claws and wing blades out, and level everything at the supersoldier. “I forsaken your honor, blah blah blah, you can never show your face again, yadie yadie yada, and you forgive me and we both go out for a beer, right?”

“Almost everything, except, in the end, only I go out for a beer.” And with that quip, he thunders at me with a charge.

I cock my head. “Got me there. You’re wrong, but you got me there.”

My big issue with fighting Orion is his armor. Like those armored ponies I fought yesterday, I can’t get past that steel. Beyond that, he’s slow. He hits like a train, but I can see his punches miles away. Now that half his armor is gone, Orion doesn’t have anything to use against me.

I dash towards Orion’s bad side before he throws his first punch. With a bit of monster strength, I jump up to the base of his neck and jam my blades into his flesh. Orion screams in agony. It’s a deep and guttural scream. I bet all of Manehattan can hear him.

With both my claws in him, I send out my tentacles. They tear through the insides of his guts, just like what Eureka tried to do with me. I shudder at the thought, and I kind of feel sorry for the big guy for what I’m about to do to him.

Orion realizes he’s fucked, and he thrashes around in a panic. He tries brushing me off with a hoof, but with his armor on he can’t bend his foreleg this far up his neck.

The tentacles flow across most of his body. I focus through them, and ground spikes bust out all over his flesh. They explode out with bursts of bloody goop, and sections of his armor pop off his body as blades replace his skin.

Orion lets out one last scream of agony before his throat explodes with a blade bouquet. He shudders, and then the supersoldier falls over on his armored side. He stops moving, and his meat tubes stop throbbing.

He’s dead.

Everything is still for a moment. My mind takes some time to process what I just did. I did it. I killed him. I collapse on top of his bloody flesh, unable to suppress the laughter willing its way out of me. Son of a bison, I killed him! I actually did it.

My muscles relax as the whole situation comes down to flood my senses. This is amazing! I’ve been having trouble fighting these big dudes for the past two days, and now, for once in my entire life of being a monster, I actually killed a big guy!

My mini party is short lived, as I feel my tentacles growing out. Not shrinking, growing! Tendrils jut out all over Orion’s body in the places where the blades didn’t get him. They chew through his flesh, dissolving him into red and black goop. I can feel the tentacles drinking him up.

His body pulsates and throbs as my tentacles go to work. No. No no no no no. I’m done with this nasty monster stuff! I had enough with Eureka, I don’t want to go all monster on Orion! Stop! Stop!

Liquid around me, warm liquid…

“Falling off an airship, that’s not a pleasant way to go.”

Glass wall, lab coats…

“A fine price to pay for these results. Eureka went above and beyond with his work. If our beloved head researcher is still alive, I’ll have to treat him to a fine dinner in Canterlot.”

Purple pony, unicorn…

“I thought his process required a catalyst. Where did you get one at such short notice?”

Tower, Genicorn…

“I went upstairs and grabbed a sample from Mother. She’s awfully lonely. You should go up and visit her more often.”

Blackwatch, prison…

“I’ll pass.”

I snap back to reality. It’s still dusty. I still can’t see ten feet beyond me. My claws feel heavy. Don’t know why, but they just feel heavy.

That was a flash back, I haven’t had one of those in a while. It’s still weird, haven’t gotten used to it.

I look around at where I am. Orion is gone. His body and flesh are no more. The only thing left of him this the empty husk of armor. It’s a big bowl now, with a couple spouts branching off that used to be his legs. The walls of the bowl come up to my neck. I could fill this up with milk and eat a lot of cereal from it.

As I look around, I find myself at loss for words. I don’t know what to feel right now. I just ate a massive giant. He’s inside me now. The whole thing is bringing up a swarm of questions in my head that relate to if I’m still a griffon or not. I just ate something ten times my size that was trying to kill me. If I can do that, what else can I do? If there’s a monster ten times bigger than Orion, can I eat it? What can’t I do? I can’t fly anymore, just glide. Am I still a griffon at all?

Why do my claws feel heavy?

It’s a hard pill to swallow. I think I need to lie down for a bit. Maybe find a therapist. This is getting a bit existential, so maybe a philosopher will be better.

If I’m not a griffon anymore, can I still bake scones? Will my family still love/hate me? Did I ever have a family to begin with?

Stop, stop. That’s enough. No more life crisis thoughts. Are my dreams still dreams? I said stop!

In the dust cloud beyond the spine part of Orion’s armor, a little green light bobs its way towards me. As it clears the dust, the green light turns into a flame. The flame is covering the eye of an owl-lion, who’s carrying a long greatsword on her back. The blue suitcase is still strapped to her arm, undamaged by the explosion.

I lift a claw to tell Tanya to stop where she is, but my claws barely move. It’s like they’re trapped in concrete. Alright, that’s odd, my claws aren’t moving. It’s probably the life crisis thoughts putting them in shock. I’ll deal with them in a bit.

“Tanya,” I call out, without lifting my claws, “put the sword down.”

She stops before stepping into the armor with me. The sword draws out, and it rises above her head. That green eye of hers has a stone hard glare looking at me.

“I’m warning you, put the sword down or I will make you.” It looks like I’m going to have to knock her out after all. One swift punch to the noggin will take care of it. I’ll try to go light, but I may need to hit her a couple times. Griffons have thick skulls.

Tanya doesn’t listen. “Heads!” she screams before jumping over the armor and into the bowl with me.

I roll my eyes. I have an existential crisis and a possessed griffon to deal with. I bet Blackwatch is still out there looking for us, so I’ll have to deal with them in a moment, too. I want absolutely none of these problems, but it looks like I’m the only one who’s going to deal with them.

At this moment, I would like to say the following. Fuck my life.

Tanya jumps within striking distance before swinging the sword. My claws are still heavy, so they take some effort to move. I duck under her swing, and twist my body to throw a punch at her face. Please, Tanya, please don’t take more than two punches.

She turns just enough for our eyes to lock together. I can’t see anything in the flaming eye. It’s just a portal to the underworld, nothing much to see there. But the other eye is different. I don’t know how to put it, but it looks like it’s in pain. Scared, even. Tanya might be trying to claw herself out, and she’s coming out through her eye. She looks kind of terrified.

Maybe there is a part of her that the sword hasn’t taken over. She still has some control, and she’s doing her best to show it. That’s fine and dandy, if I knock her out, I can take the sword away and she’ll-

Tanya explodes.

It’s not a fiery boom explosion, but an explosion of guts and goop. It happens when my fist connects with her face, or what should be a fist. It’s more like a large club made from the gnarled stump of a petrified tree. And it just punched clean through Tanya’s head!

The upper half of Tanya’s body becomes a smear across Orion’s armor. The lower half falls over onto that smear and gushes a pool of blood to add to the smear. The sword and suit case fall at the smear’s edge and clatter against the metal. The sword, oddly enough, disappears into a puff of smoke.

I stand still, looking at the mess. I glance down at my claw, or my not-claw now. It’s a big, dark, huge lump, about as big as Tanya’s head was. There are large bumps and dimples covering the entirety of its dark surface. It looks hard, harder than steel. It’s also covered in blood, Tanya’s blood.

An eternity passes, and I don’t leave the armor shell. Events just aren’t processing in my head, and I can’t figure out what’s going on. The remaining shreds that I call my sanity are putting the pieces together. Something inside me realizes Tanya is dead. Another part realizes I did it. Both parts are trying to come together to form a complete thought, but there’s something trying to stab those parts to death and prevent them from ever existing. The last part is failing.

The sound of voices and voice boxes buzzing breaks my shock. I look around and see shadows closing in. Those shadows have pairs of glowing blue dots where their eyes should be. Blackwatch, they’re doing a sweep. They’re coming this way. I have no time.

My brain is out of commission at the moment, so instinct takes over once again. The stumps shapeshift back into my regular claws, and I turn to book it out of here. At some point, I got the disguise of a Blackwatch pegasus, so I shapeshift into that. Blackwatch won’t recognize me if they catch me.

For some reason, a small part of me speaks up. It says to stick around for just one second. The part points me to the suitcase, and then leaves me alone. Instinct, the hero of today’s adventures, obeys the small part and runs over to grab it. It slings it over my shoulder. It's still warm.

I jump out of the armor and run through the dust just as Blackwatch yells my name.

Author's Notes:

Congratulations, you’ve acquired Hammerfists!

They’re great against armor and do heavy damage in large areas.

Use your weapon wheel to select your new power and use them at any time!

27 - Sunny Side Blues

Here’s a question, what in Tartarus just happened?!

I’ve been asking myself that question over and over again for a while now. I’m sitting on top of an apartment building on the other side of the city, opposite from the daycare. This spot here has a perfect view of the smoke cloud marking where the daycare is, or was. The place is now a distant black pillar rising against the yellowing sky.

There’s also a giant monster wading through the Manehattan skyline towards the south. I think that’s the Scone Quarry Gang. They’re still rampaging through the slums. Airships are flying above it, and I can see sparks and explosions going off all around, but they don’t seem to be doing anything to stop the thing.

The gang monster isn’t important. I’m just able to see it from here. I’m too focused on the smoke cloud that was once the daycare to give a crap about the gang problem.

So yeah, what just happened?!

What am I thinking about? Everything. Absolutely everything. To be more specific, everything that’s happened in the last two days. To be even more specific, I’m thinking about Tanya.

Tanya, oh Tanya, that great, big owl-lion. Her death was sudden and violent, a death by my claws, no less. Well, it was more like a big rock fist than a claw, but the point still stands.

Me killing her, on accident, came out of nowhere. The scene keeps replaying in my head over and over again. The owl-lion comes out of the dust, drunk on a curse. She raises the sword, charges me, and I try to knock her out, but I knock her head off instead. It all happened in less than a couple seconds, but each time it replays, and it’s been replaying a lot, the whole event seems to go on for longer. I’ve been sitting up here for a while, so now the whole thing seems like an eternity.

And with each never ending replay, I remember more and more details about the whole thing. The dust falling in my eyes, the scratches in Orion’s armor, the glint of the blade as it swung for my neck, it’s all clear.

There’s one detail that’s gnawing at me, Tanya’s eyes. She was screaming her lungs out, but her eyes didn’t match the rage. They just seemed… scared. Something about them made Tanya look terrified.

Every time that scene replays in my head, I see those terrified eyes. Yes, including the green fire one. With how she lost control, it’s no wonder she was terrified. Tanya is, was, a big girl. She was probably doing her damn hardest to fight that curse. Trapped in her own mind, then struck down by her own friend. That is not a pleasant way to go. I’m just glad my tentacles didn’t shoot out to eat her.

That’s the rundown of things that happened, but it doesn’t exactly answer my question. What happened?

I glance over to where I dropped that blue suitcase of Tanya’s, the one she pulled the sword out of. I’m still curious on how that big chunk of metal fits in this tiny thing. Does the curse shrink the blade down? Or is the suitcase a magic suitcase that’s bigger in the inside?

Tanya did freak out when she thought the suitcase was lost. She even asked me to go back and fight the gang monster to get it back. No consideration of my well being, mind you. I wonder what’s worth more on the black market, a cursed greatsword or a suitcase of holding?

My curiosity is growing inside me. What the heck is this damn thing? I grab the thing by the handle and click the latch on the side. The suitcase opens. I expect the sword to be in there. The blade disappeared into thin air, so where else would it be?

No, there is no sword. When I look inside, there is an object that looks nothing like a sword.

It’s a roundish square of leather with sides that are curving up. Straps hang off the edges, and they look like they hook up together. I think this is supposed to wrap around something, like a leg or a neck.

I pick up the leather thing, and just as I do I remember the curse the last item from this suitcase had. Crap, Tanya went crazy when she picked up the sword. Am I going to go on a murderous rampage by touching a piece of leather? Welp, I’m already touching it, no turning back.

I turn the thing over to look at the other side. The leather has a complicated pattern carved into the surface. By the looks of it, it must have taken the leathersmith a while to make it. My compliments to that guy.

Also on the other side is a long strip of metal. It’s silver, with intricate designs molded into it. There’s an insignia I don’t recognize stamped into it. It’s cool looking, but I have no clue what it means.

Was Tanya part of a secret society? This looks like something you’d get from a secret society. It could be part of a welcome package, sort of like a gift basket with wine and snacks, except with cursed items instead. If so, I bet there’s a cloak somewhere in that suitcase.

My talons are going all over the surface as I handle this thing, and something clicks. A blade shoots out and nearly takes out an eye. I throw the thing away in surprise. What the heck was that? Is that a murder weapon?

I check myself for any curses. I don’t have any new warts or heads. And I don’t feel like going on a rampage. I’m no expert in dark magic, but I think I’m in the clear. Even if I’m wrong, I still have my eye. That’s good. I don’t know what that thing is, but I’m leaving it alone.

Actually, I don’t need to leave it alone. The thing disappears into thin air, just like the sword. That’s weird. Maybe there’s something more to this suitcase than I thought. Let’s look in it again.

I open it up again. The sword still isn’t in there, and neither is that blade thing. Instead, there’s only a hat, a red hat.

Huh?

Odd, this isn’t a weapon. I take the hat out and look it over. It’s a stout, fat little thing, like a beret. It’s made for someone with a head larger than mine. This is a different color red from the red in my goop. This is a red more like a fire truck. It’s a very friendly shade of red.

There’s nothing weird with this hat, it’s completely normal. It’s just an ordinary hat.

The hat blinks at me. Two big eyes look up at me, and I look down at it.

I chuck the hat off the side of the building as hard as I can. It disappears over the edge. Nope, don’t need my arm bitten off by a hat. The hat has to go.

Is this suitcase full of weird objects? Tanya, where the heck did you get this thing?

“Look who set the world on fire,” a deep voice says behind me.

I jump at the sound of the voice and turn around. There’s a big, armored pony standing behind me, but he's not big enough to be Orion. The guy is standing with the sun behind him, so his front is covered in shadow. I do see he’s not wearing his helmet, and I do recognize his features to know who he is.

“Nice to see you, Budge,” I say. “How’s life?”

“Don’t pretend to be nice. Manehattan is going shit faced because of you.”

I glance at the monster to the south. I can agree with half his statement. “The monster over there? That wasn’t me. That happened on its own.”

“Don’t make excuses, Zero. Today would've be fine without your help. There’d be no giant monster, the daycare would be fine, and Pinkie would still have her job.”

I roll my eyes as my monster claws grow out. Earth ponies tend to be a prideful bunch. “Alright, let’s get this over with. If you’re going to try to kill me, just do it.”

Budge snorts. “If an army of Blackwatch’s finest can’t kill you, then what can I do? I’m not as stupid as you. The only reason I’m here is to protect Pinkie.”

“Pinkie’s here?”

Budge doesn’t reply. Instead he steps aside to reveal a smaller pony behind him. The sun might be setting behind her, and I can’t see her face well, but I can recognize the shadow of her curly mane.

There she is, time to face the music. I thought I’d have more time before we’d meet, but she found me faster than I thought she would. Must be that Pinkie sense of hers.

The pink mare is far from her cheery self. She’s frowning, and that’s about it. I don’t see any anger in her eyes, or her ears flicking back. She just has a blank expression with a frown on it.

“Who died?” she says, keeping the frown up.

And she goes right for the hard question. I gulp as I rub the back of my head. “At the daycare? Um… A giant super soldier. Blackwatch brought him out of nowhere. He whooped my ass big time. I returned the favor.”

I stop before I say anything else. Pinkie doesn’t nod or acknowledge what I say in any way. She just keeps frowning. It’s as if she knows there’s more.

“Well… Caramel bit the dust. Actually, he didn’t quite die, since I don’t think he was alive to begin with. He was bugs, like the one in your office. He swarmed the place with bugs that came from his body.”

Budge’s head perks up at this piece of news. It’s an outlandish claim that would get anyone’s attention. Pinkie Pie remains stoic, and she just keeps looking at me with that frown. Does she want more?

“Eureka, I think? He’s still sort of alive. He drank a vile of Blacklight and turned into a monster. I don’t know what happened after that.”

This makes Pinkie react. It’s a small reaction, but still a reaction. Her lips curl in and she bites them, and she takes a short breath in. She’s quick to return to her frown. “What about the kids? And Cherry?”

“Oh, they’re fine. They went through the back before the meat of the fight got cooking. I’m sure they’re safe.”

I don’t think she’s let out that breath. She kept the frown up, though. “There’s one more.”

That twists a knot in my gut. She’s tugging on this one. Pinkie won’t be satisfied until I let it all out. “Tanya.”

That breath finally comes out of her. “And that’s it.”

“That’s it.”

Pinkie walks up to me, but doesn’t look at me. She comes up to the ledge of the roof and looks out at the pillar of smoke rising from the horizon. “Well, poop.”

That’s… not what I was expecting from her. “Is that all you’re going to say, poop?”

“Do you want me to elaborate?” she says, not taking her eyes off the horizon. “The daycare is now up in smoke, but the kids are fine. Genicorn is after my head, but I’ve survived on my own before. Manehattan’s neck deep in a zombie plague, yet we’re still alive. All I can say is poop.”

We stand for what feels like an eternity. In reality it’s probably only a couple minutes. The shadows grow longer as the sun sinks deeper behind us. I can see its reflection in the windows of Manehattan’s skyscrapers. It’s a bright disk crossing a large tile mosaic. It feels a bit sickly. The day is ending, and the sky is at the right color to end the world.

Something compels me to break the silence, and I make a note to figure out what that something is so I can punch it later. “So, what are you going to do next?”

Pinkie doesn’t say anything for a full minute. When she does, it’s slow and lethargic, lacking any spirit she once had a year ago. “Keep going. Keep living. Arctic North will make it difficult for me to do anything for this city.”

“How are you going to leave?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t say anything about leaving. The option’s there. Cole Slaw said he could lend me a boat to get me out of here, but that was a month ago. I wonder if he still could.”

My eyebrow goes up. She said Cole Slaw’s name like she knows him like a friend. That doesn’t surprise me all too much, not after seeing the Captain back at the hotel. But a boat, that has me for a loop. “You had the opportunity to get off this island at any time, but you didn’t take it?”

“Anyone can get off this island if they want to. They just have to deal with the laser sharks.”

Laser sharks? I look at her face, but it hasn’t changed from that frown of hers. Was that a joke? She doesn’t seem like she’s in a joking mood.

“Cole Slaw could find a Blackwatch marked boat for me,” she continues, “and I could be in the Bahamares by now. But it just wouldn’t feel right. I feel like I could do much more here.”

“Hence the daycare.”

“Sure, but I haven’t had that place for more than a week. Cole Slaw let me use it as a staging area. No, I’ve been getting into a bit more trouble before that. I’ll probably get into more trouble again. If I can stick around to help those who can't leave, then I'm sticking around till the end. ” Pinkie turns and looks up at me. “What about you, what will you do after you find Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow Dash, I forgot about her! The business with Tanya made me forget. Eureka said Blueblood knows where she is. Blueblood is coming to Manehattan tonight, and I have to meet him there. That’s going to be soon. I haven’t done much today to get ready. I still need to do my hair, put on my makeup, sharpen up my claws, and so much more I don’t have time for.

“When I do find her,” I say, “The plan is to head to Las Pegasus. I thought I told you this.”

“So the plan hasn’t changed?”

“Nope.” No change in plans. I was thinking about bringing Tanya along with me, but that's not going to happen now, is it? “Do you think you could lend us that boat to get out of here? That sounds like the best option.”

“Yes.” She took no time answering that. I’m starting to think she wants me out of her hair.

“Can you do it tonight?”

She gives me a weird look. “You’re going to find Rainbow Dash tonight?”

“One way or another.” I step away from the ledge and scoop up the blue suitcase. I am going to get the heck off this island. I will find Rainbow Dash. I will do it tonight. Any more time in Manehattan might just kill me. It’s now or never. “Don’t worry about where you put it. I can find you once you have it.”

Pinkie nods, and glances over to the southern horizon, where the giant monster is still roaming about. “Do you have any idea what that monster is about?”

“That thing? That’s the Scone Quarry Gang.”

Pinkie’s head snaps around in a blur. “What?”

“The Scone Quarry Gang. Turns out they’re a bunch of infected and they’re having a hissy fit over a territory dispute or something.”

She looks at the monster, then back at me, then the monster, and me again. “But your scone shop”-

“Is called Scone Quarry, I know. Don’t act all surprised about it. You picked the name for it.”

She rubs the back of her head and looks slightly away. “Yeah, about that…”

“Don’t worry, they made it quite clear how upset they were about the blatant trademark thievery.”

“Well… Here’s the thing.” She clears her throat and taps on the ledge. “I got that name off a list.”

“And that list didn’t have Gilda’s Family Scones on it, I remember that.”

“And because of it not being on that list, you could have named your shop Gilda’s Family Scones after all.”

I was prepping to leave to go meet Blueblood, but now Miss Pie has my attention. “What?”

It takes her a moment to find her words. I think she’s stalling. “I was sorting through some paper work I haven’t touched in a month, and I came across the file for your store. The list was in the file, and I looked over it. Turns out it wasn’t a list of names you were only allowed to use. It was a list of names you’re never supposed to use, at all.”

This is... news. “It’s a ban list.”

Pinkie nods back.

“A ban... How the heck did you not know it was a ban list”

Pinkie squirms a bit. “If I'm to be completely honest, it did look like a fishy list at first. Half of the list was just a slew of racial slurs towards griffons”-

“The racial slurs didn’t tip you off?”

She’s silent for a moment. “No…”

I stood there, silent as she is. “Well that’s dumb.”

"Give me a break!" She throws her hooves up in the air. “Everything’s dumb right now!”

She can say that again. “Doesn’t really matter anymore since the store is neck deep in infected territory.” I turn around and walk pass Budge. He doesn’t me try to stop me, or move at all for that matter. Stoic much?

She doesn’t say anything. She just frowns. “Wait, Gilda!”

I stop and turn back just as I pass Budge. “What?”

“Sorry to hear about Tanya,” she says. “I know how hard that must be for you.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. The suitcase on my back feels heavier now. Wait, this thing is a pain to carry. I can’t do any rescue work with a blue suitcase strapped to me.

“Hey Pinkie.”

The setting sun shimmers in Pinkie’s eye when she looks at me. With the sun in her eyes, it makes her movement awkward when she spots the shadow of the suitcase coming for her. I gave it a light toss, so even with the sun, Pinkie catches it in the air, albeit with some fumbling.

“Keep that safe with the boat for me,” I say. “I’ll be back tonight, with Rainbow Dash by my side.”

She smiles at me as she holds the suitcase against her chest. It’s the last thing I see before I take off running over Manehattan’s rooftops. That, and Budge glaring at me.

I have to agree with Pinkie, everything I’ve gone through is dumb.

Author's Notes:

Discussion for patch can be found here. [Link]

Update 27 Patch Log
* Added Level 27
* Added new Power Armor item, obtainable by purchasing its monthly subscription from the online store
* Changed song in Level 17 to "1000 APM" due to artistic reasons and not because of the lawsuit
* Removed socks
* Increased microtransaction prices according to Russian inflation
* Fixed clipping issues in Level 8
* Fixed disappearing models when not looking at them
* Fixed crash when left mouse button is clicked, at all
* Fixed gore particles using confetti particle textures
* Fixed confetti particles using gore particle textures
* Fixed crash when writing a good review
* Fixed crash when breathing, at all
* Fixed other minor bugs
* Refactored Database so the programmers can figure out what the hell is going on
* Added Denuvo

28 - Old Friend

Genicorn headquarters. If there’s one thing I can say about these dweebs, is that they don’t screw around with their buildings. They managed to get one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city to be their main base. They even have their company logo plastered on a giant neon sign towards the top of the tower, a blue “G” with a unicorn head at the end of its neck.

My Gilda senses picked up on Blueblood’s signal a few minutes ago. I ran as fast as I could to meet up with it, and the trail took me to the base of the headquarters. I figured he would be heading to his hotel, but nope. He went straight for the Unicorn G.

It’s about eight right now. The sun fell an hour ago. I’m perched up on a terrace of a neighboring building, and I have a perfect view of Genicorn’s courtyard, all lit up for the night. The music hall might have been a fortress, but HQ blows that place out of the water. The base of the tower is a military base all on its own. It’s not surrounded by walls so much as a thick bunker that outlines the perimeter with a massive metal gate at the front entrance. There are armored ponies guarding the gate, unicorns providing magic support on the rooftop of the bunker, and pegasi swarming the air when there isn’t an airship taking up precious airspace.

And that’s just the perimeter of the compound. The inside is a lot harder. Ponies are walking around, giving each other random security checks. Sergeants are prancing about, barking orders at everyone. There’s enough space to park a few airships in the back, and there are guys doing maintenance on those suckers.

If the outside is this militarized, then no doubt the inside will be just as bad.

And where’s Blueblood in all this mess? I followed him here. To be more specific, I followed his airship. High above the tower, there’s a fleet of five airships hanging in the sky. These aren’t the standard black airships the blue-eyes use. These are white and gold, Canterlot colors. This is a royal escort.

So yeah, he’s up there in the clouds. I don’t know why he hasn’t landed yet. It would be real easy for me to get up there if I had wings.

Oh wait, I do have wings! Flying up is going to be easy. Small catch, I can’t use my damn wings because I’m an infected monster! It’s just a cherry on top of what I consider to be the shittiest day of my life.

I could sneak in and get him, but that’s harder said than done. They’re checking badges at every entrance, and they’ll probably be suspicious when a blue-eye goon who’s been reported missing or dead earlier today suddenly shows up all healthy, happy, and eager to go up to meet the big boss.

I could eat one of the patrols for a new disguise, but I count two problems with that. Problem one, I don’t want to. I’ve had too much pony goop inside me as it is and I’m still not getting used to it. Problem two, even if I wanted to eat some poor sap, there are too many eyes looking all over the place. It’ll be nigh impossible to single out a guy without someone else spotting me.

I run a claw down my face and groan. There is no easy way to go about this. I’m not going to get far without the whole place going on lockdown and five thousand guns pointing at my head.

“…Up here…”

Huh, did someone say something?

I look up. There isn’t anyone above me. Maybe I picked up something a pegasus said. Or I’m hearing things. Better not be hearing things. I don’t plan on going senile till the alcohol finally takes me, and current circumstances pushed that back indefinitely.

Back on track, how do I get to Blueblood?

He’s up there in the sky. No wait, one of the airships is landing on the top of the tower. I think he’s finally decided to land. Alright, Blueblood is up there at the top of the tower. How do I get to him?

What does Agent Possible do in the comics? She usually sneaks in through the air vents. I guess I could do that. Can I fit through the air vents? Agent Possible has to squeeze in to fit through those things, and she’s on the short side for a pony. Given my own size, I might just rip the vents apart trying to go through.

“… Come up here…”

There’s that voice again. I look up, nothing. There aren’t any pegasi blue-eyes flying nearby me. They’re all swarming around the tower. Even with monster powers, they’re a bit far for me to hear a random conversation.

The sewers are an option. Find a manhole to crawl through, come up through the plumbing. If I time it right, I can pop out of the toilet when Blueblood is taking a shit. Actually, no, that would be horrible timing. No, scratch the sewers. This trip is not worth a cesspool dive yet.

“… Hey featherbrain, answer me! I know you can hear me.”

Ah, the voice is in my head. What a relief. For a second there I was worried I was starting to hear things.

“… You are hearing things. You’re hearing me.”

It’s a snarky voice. I’ll roll with that. That’s what I need right now, a voice of sarcasm. That’ll help me break in. At least it’s not telling me to kill everyone.

“… Well, I’m not going to stop you from killing everyone. It’s an open option. Just get me out of here sooner than later, would ya?”

Correction, it’s not directly telling me to kill everyone, just suggesting it. That’s still concerning. “Who are you?”

“Don’t you recognize my awesome voice?”

I shake my head. Why I do it, I don’t know. It’s not like a random voice in my head gives a crap about body language. “Not really. I don’t talk to many voices in my head.”

“It’s me, silly. Rainbow Dash!”

I perk up at this. “Wait, what?”

The voice mentally groans. “Don’t tell me your amnesia kicked me out of your head. We’ve been best friends since flight camp!”

“No, I remember you. In fact I’ve been trying to find you.” I look around, just to make sure this isn’t someone messing with me. After all this time, finding Rainbow Dash feels like a long shot. Maybe I finally snapped and this is my insanity talking to me. My head does feel a little tingly. “I’m not going crazy, am I? You’re not my conscience bringing up ghosts to guilt trip me, are you?”

While I can’t see the voice, I can hear it smack its hoof against its face. “Sheesh, you’ve always had trouble putting two and two together. I’m here Gilda, up in Genicorn HQ. Don’t you have Rainbow Sense to check where I am?”

I look up at the tower, just a bit below where Blueblood’s ship landed. “What’s Rainbow Sense?”

I can almost hear the smirk in her voice. “Oh, you know, just a super cool power I use to see where everyone is. I use it a lot when they’re not sticking me with needles. There’s not much else to do in here.”

I get a smug grin on my face. “Oh, you’re talking about Gilda Sense. I use that all the time.”

Rainbow’s voice claps her hooves together. “Great. Use it to find me and get me out of here. I am sick of this place.”

As if that’ll work. Last time I used my Gilda sense to try to find Rainbow, nothing happened. Kind of pointless to do so again. It also didn’t work for Blueblood when he was out of Manehattan, so it could be a distance thing. Could be useful to try it again.

“Just humor me.”

"Sure, I'll humor you, Mister Voice." I ping Rainbow with my sense. To my surprise, I get a lock on her.

I look towards where my sense is tugging me towards. The top of the tower, almost near Blueblood.

“Holy shit, it’s you!” I say out loud.

“And she figures out two plus two equals four. Way to go, kiddo. You’re the top of your class.”

I grab my head with both my claws. “This is unbelievable. I’ve gone through so much shit trying to find you. I’ve been attacked by monsters and spells. I keep eating ponies for some damn reason. I was about to break into a fortress to beat the crap out of a prince just to find you. But here you are, in this fortress all along.”

“It’s a bit early for a celebration. You still need to break me out of this fortress.”

“No, you don’t get it. All this shit I’ve been through, I could have avoided it. Where do all the bad guys keep their prisoners? In their big lairs! It happens all the time in comic books. Why didn’t I think to look here in the first place?”

“Hold your questions for later. You need to focus right now. I’m still locked in here. They’ve been poking and prodding me for the last month and now you’re right outside Blackwatch’s door, ready to bust in and play the superhero. So get a hold of yourself and get to it!”

I nod. Rainbow’s right. No time to freak out now. I have a goal, get my friend out of this place. Heh, who needs Blueblood? I can get Rainbow out on my own.

I get up and look over the edge and down at the compound. Before I run on in, I take another look at the heavily armed militia patrolling the place.

“Hey Rainbow, there’s a slight problem.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how to get into the tower.”

“Kick in the doors and walk in like you own the place.”

“Let me clarify. I don’t know how to get in without running through the business end of a slaughterhouse.”

She’s silent for a moment. “Hmm, that is a problem.”

I lean against the ledge and tap my chin. I’m going after Rainbow instead of Blueblood now, but I still have the same problem from before. How do I get into this place without causing a ruckus?

From down on the street, I hear a whistling sound. I look over and see a Blackwatch earth pony walking away from the gate. He shows the guard his badge, to which the guard nods and waves him off. The earth pony nods back and continues on down the road.

Hmm, a lone pone out for an evening stroll. I watch him go down the sidewalk and stop at an intersection. What looks to be an armored carriage of some sort drives past him before he crosses to the other side. After another minute or so, he stops outside a sandwich shop and goes through the door.

An evil grin crosses my face. “I think I just found my way in.”

29 - Sandwiched

The door rings a bell when I walk out of the sandwich shop. My hooves click and clack as I whistle my way back to Blackwatch HQ. I nod at two passing blue eye goons, who nod back at their fellow Blackwatch soldier. They don’t see the griffon behind this disguise.

Rainbow Dash’s raspy voice chatters in the back of my head. “Not to kill your swagger, but your disguise is pretty obvious.”

“Really?” I glance back at the two blue eyes. They’re still walking the opposite direction. Neither of them is throwing me a dirty look. Other than the nod, they don’t notice me at all. “It fooled those guys. I don’t see a problem with it.”

“Those are lowly grunts. Of course they’ll be fooled by a bad performance. It will only take one keen eye to notice you are walking like a school filly instead as a professional soldier. You won’t make it five steps through the door before a sergeant calls your bluff.”

“Hey, these pony bodies are tiny. I’m used to walking with more stride and less gallop.” Seriously, how do ponies walk with these legs? They’re all squishy and flop all over the place. I’m just glad I can walk at all.

“Then walk with more gallop. I’m embarrassed from watching you move.”

I brush her out of my mind for the moment. I’m about to infiltrate a fortress, and I don’t need a backseat driver in my head. But I do take her advice a little into consideration. I adjust my walk to be a bit more stiff, aiming to imitate a military march. It feels awkward, but I think it’s passable.

“That looks worse. You’re just kicking up into the air.”

I grunt as I shift back to my regular walk. “Why don’t you show me how to do it when I break you out?”

“If you break me out by some miracle. With your acting prowess, I’m not holding my breath.”

Oh for the love of- I don’t remember Rainbow Dash being this nitpicky. Bullheaded, yep. Loud mouthed, sure. Nitpicky? It’s not her style.

I come up to the main gate of the Genicorn building, where a couple of armored blue-eyes are standing guard. I walk up to one and show him my badge. Of course this isn’t my badge. This badge belongs to an earth pony who is currently locked in a bathroom of a sandwich shop while tied up in several rolls of toilet paper. He may or may not have received a few swirlies before I left. Don’t worry, I washed my claws.

The guard glances at my badge and gives an affirmative nod. He pushes a service door open behind him and waves me through. I give him a smile, which he can’t see behind the mask, and walk through the doorway.

The door closes behind me. I’m in.

The compound is loud with military sounds. Commanders yelling, ponies marching around, so on and so forth. The typical stuff. What catches my eye isn’t on the ground, but rising above it. Now at I’m at the base of the tower, I have a chance to truly appreciate its height. I look right up at the sky, and I have trouble seeing the very top of the HQ. I bet this place is higher than the tallest mountain in Griffonstone.

The next thing I notice is, aside from the door guard, no one has noticed my entrance. “Ha,” I laugh defiantly at Rainbow Dash’s ethereal face. “I’m in and my disguise still works.”

“I said you’ll be caught after five steps. You still have two more to go.”

“Pfft. If they haven’t picked me out now, then two steps won’t help them now.”

“You owe me a soda if you’re wrong.”

“Likewise. You’re on.” One free soda for me. I don’t know what’s with Rainbow. She doesn’t have that much confidence in me. That’s unusual for her. She's the kind of girl to root for you no matter what you do, unless you're competing against her. Then again, she’s probably psyching me out so she can beat me in an escape race or something. That sounds like her.

I take two steps-

“Hold it!” I gruff voice shouts at me.

I freeze and look at the large Blackwatch unicorn heading my way. My gut twists up as he closes the distance on me. Are you freaking kidding me?!

“One soda please. I like lemon-lime.”

My muscles tense as the guy approaches. This could be the moment everything turns into Tartarus. However, it may not be too late. If I play this right, I can convince this dude I’m still one of them.

The guy closes the distance between us with a brisk trot towards me. He almost crashes into a different blue-eye who’s carrying a large crate, but he swerves around the obstacle and continues on forward. That’s a very urgent walk.

When he finally comes up to me, he skids to a stop, grabs both my shoulders, and shoves his nose up against mine. “Do you have my sandwich?”

This whole thing has me reeling back to get out of his shoulder hold, but his question alone is the thing that sends me through a loop. “What?”

“Where’s my sandwich, man.” He shakes me a bit when he talks. I can hear a bit of crankiness in his voice. It’s not an old man cranky, but a sleep deprived type of cranky. “I told you, hayseed on rye. Where is my hayseed on rye?”

“I… don’t know?”

He throws his hooves in the air, letting me go, and lets out a long groan. “You gotta be kidding me. I’ve been on duty for twelve hours straight and you can’t get me a damn sandwich. That’s not right. Where you diddling yourself while you were gone? Is that it?”

I let out a breath and relax a bit. At this point my mind is catching back up to what’s happening. I’m not caught, not yet anyways. This stealth plan is still underway. However, I have a pissed off unicorn on my case, or to be more correct, my identity’s case. I still need to play this out.

“The shop’s closed.”

“That shop is open till nine. They’re open for another hour!”

I shrug. “Don’t know what to tell you. They’re closed.”

“Of course it is. And you’re back is hurting so you can’t lift any boxes. And your feet are aching so you can’t walk on patrol. It’s alright, the unicorn can do it all. He has magic! Take your break to sneak off and smoke a joint while I’m loading up the airships by myself. It’s not like I’ve been at this all day.”

Rainbow’s voice echoes in my head in the middle of the unicorn’s rant. “I think he needs a nap.”

Agreed. This situation is not going to defuse itself. I don’t know much about this unicorn and the guy at the sandwich shop, and I didn’t eat the latter so I can’t channel his personality. I’m just going to do what a good buddy might do. Offer free beer.

“The shops closed, there’s nothing I can do about it. Look, ours shifts are going to be over soon. We’ll go to a bar, and you can get whatever you what. Drink your night away. It’s on me.”

The unicorn doesn’t seem excited over the prospect over free beer. In fact, he seems a bit more irritated. “We both have patrol duty tomorrow morning. A bar trip is not getting you out of this.”

“Since when has a school night ever stopped any of us?”

The unicorn gives me a blank stare, or at least I think he does. Those Blackwatch masks are good at hiding emotions. “Fuck it. I’m done with you. I’ll ask Sunny to get my sandwiches next time.”

Yay, workplace drama, the last thing I expected out of Blackwatch. I don’t know why I feel sucky over this. I’m not part of this at all yet a small part of me still feels like shit from this guy yelling at me.

Up above us, a loud speaker sounds across the compound. “Teamsters Crew 40 report to the 87th floor. Teamsters Crew 40 report to the 87th floor.”

The unicorn lets out another long, agonizing groan. “You better not skip out on this or I swear I’ll pound your ass.”

“Wait, that’s for me?”

He throws me a nasty glare. “That’s for us, dumbass. Stop being useless and get up there.”

With that, he turns around and walks away. I can hear him seething as he heads for the big doors leading into the tower. Sheesh, that guy is not having a good day.

Well, that was that. I made it into the compound and I didn’t get caught. Sweet, this is easier than I thought it was going to be.

“You still owe me a soda.”

“What? No way. I made it five steps without being caught. You owe me a soda.”

“I said five steps without being spotted. You were spotted.”

“That doesn’t count. He was looking for the other guy.”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night. Remember, lemon-lime.”

My eyes roll. She definitely owes me that soda. Back on track, I need to get up the tower and get Rainbow Dash.

“Follow your new friend. He’s taking an elevator up.”

“I was just about to suggest that to myself. Thank you for the input.”

I trot after the unicorn in attempt to not fall behind. He knows his way around this place. I don’t. He may be pissed at me, but he’s my best bet in getting up the tower without notice.

“Do you always narrate your life? You think about yourself a lot.”

I shrug. “It helps me keep track of things. I’ve tried not doing it for a day, and my life completely fell apart.”

“How bad can everything go if you stop monologuing for a bit?”

“I met you that day.”

“Hardy har har. At least tone it down. Everything you say is going through our connection and I’m having trouble thinking with all your thoughts.”

“Oh, so you’re getting whatever I think? What am I thinking right now?”

“I can’t see images. I only hear words.”

“It was your Mom. I thought of her wearing a bikini. Thought you might enjoy that.”

Rainbow lets out a sigh. “Just tone down the words.”

I grin as I trot on after my new unicorn pal. “Can’t stop the griffon.”

30 - Top Floor Please

I jump into the elevator right behind my unicorn friend, who is not bothering to hide his contempt for me. A few more goons hop in before the unicorn hits the button for one of the top floors. The doors close and the elevator glides upwards, and we all fall into an awkward silence.

Unheard by the others, Rainbow’s voice echoes in my ears. “That’s a lot of Blackwatch going to one place. Something big must be going down.”

The only noise is the movement of the elevator, and the unicorn’s growling stomach. He definitely needs that sandwich. With how cramped and quiet the elevator is, I don’t bother talking out loud in fear of the other goons thinking I’m crazy.

“I can still hear your thoughts. A few inches of metal hasn’t cut our connection yet.”

Alright, I’ll mind talk. Prince Blueblood arrived not too long ago. If anything is going down, it must involve him.

“That’s obvious enough. If Blackwatch is occupied with Blueblood, then they won’t be paying attention to me. Slip away when you get the chance and get me out of here.”

I plan to do just that when I get to the top floor. How tight is security around you right now? I have no idea what’s going on in this building and I need all the information I can get.

“I’m not quite sure. I’m in a cell. It’s empty, but there’s a security door that needs an ID to get through and I don’t know how many guards are posted outside.”

That doesn’t sound too bad. Knock out any guards, tear through the door if needed, smash the glass and get on the next boat to Las Pegasus.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll be sitting around waiting for you.”

As if you can do anything else.

“I’ll make faces at a guard if one decides to come on in here. That’ll show them.”

I smirk as the elevator slows to a halt. The doors open, and the goon squad pours out and heads down a hallway. As each goon exits, they each show their badges to a large goon, who checks each one with a quick glance. After a minute, it’s my turn to pass the badge checker. I show him my ticket in, and the dude merely grunts to let me by. I walk past and lag behind the others, waiting for them to get on their way. Once they do, I go down the other direction in the hall to search for Rainbow.

Before I get any distance, someone grabs my pony tail and pulls me the opposite direction of where I want to go. I’m forced to walk backwards until I’m parked next to the unicorn, who’s magic is wrapped around my tail hairs. “Wrong way.”

He spins me around and gives me a shove towards the back of the goon group. He follows me closely to make sure I don’t slip away. This just made things a bit harder.

“At least use your Rainbow senses to figure out where I am.”

They’re called Gilda senses, and that’s a good idea. My Gilda senses ping for Rainbow, which immediately tugs me straight forward to where the crowd is going. Huh, guess I’m following the crowd.

“They could be heading to the same hallway where my cell is.”

Maybe. I wonder what Blueblood wants with all these Blackwatch goons.

With the unicorn staring down my back, I follow the group towards wherever we’re going. For a skyscraper in the middle of Manehattan, the inside of this place doesn’t look skyscrapery at all. There aren’t any windows or office spaces. The hallways are wide and sterile, with thick, steel doors popping up every few meters or so. If I didn’t feel like I was going up in the elevator, I’d say we’re in an underground bunker.

“No kidding. I thought I was underground for the first couple of weeks. Then I felt the building sway a little on a windy day. It’s amazing what you notice when all you have are blank walls to stare at.”

It’s not much better out here. I don’t have my wings right now and I can still feel them stiffing up. This space is too closed off for a griffon to fly through.

“How do you think I’ve been feeling for the past month?”

Worse off, no doubt.

“You’re getting closer, by the way. I can feel you with my Rainbow senses.”

That name is never going to catch on.

I look back at the front of the group. We’re heading towards what looks to be a dead end. It confuses me for a moment. It’s only when a guy at the front of the group steps up to a panel and places his hoof on it do I think otherwise. The panel lights up, and the dead end makes a metallic squeal as it shudders to the side. It’s not a dead end, it’s a door!

Cool, secret entrance, just like in Agent Possible. When the door completely opens up, the front guy heads in, and we all pour in right after him.

We enter a large, fortified atrium. The ceiling is at least five floors above us. Everything looks to be made of reinforced steel. Catwalks are running along the walls with heavily armed Blackwatch goons patrolling them. The guards are a healthy mix of unicorns, armored dozers, and ponies with big bolt shooters.

The group I’m in steps onto one of these catwalks, but it’s an odd section. What we’re stepping on is a bumpy, metal surface with yellow and black lines painted across. When everyone steps on this part of the catwalk, the door behind us closes with another squeal, and the platform shudders before descending down. Ah, another elevator.

The floor of the atrium sinks down about two floors. Now that I can see the floor, I now know the purpose this room is for, cubes. Spread evenly in a kind of checkerboard pattern, there are rows upon rows of large, black cubes. Each one is about the size of a small room. The cubes are solid with no windows or openings. Scattered throughout the checker board are ponies dressed in blue trashbags. They are all either running between the cubes or standing in the gaps, looking over clipboards and instruments.

Aside from the shuddering of our elevator, and the unicorn’s stomach, there isn’t all that much noise in this place. I hear a few hoofsteps and a little bit of chatter, but other than that it’s quiet for such a large room. Occasionally, one of the trashbags will look up at the catwalks to eye the Blackwatch goons, so maybe they’re quiet in fear of the guys up high.

This is a far cry from the music hall.

“I think I’m in one of those black boxes you mentioned. It sure feels like I’m in a black box.”

Then I’ll look for you when I get away from this group. I got to be careful, though. The catwalk guards have eyes on everything.

“Then don’t let them spot you.”

Thanks General Common Sense!

“Don’t you mean Captain Obvious?”

That’s his cousin.

The elevator jolts to a stop once it touches down with the ground. The goon squad steps off of it all at once. Just to make sure I don’t hide somewhere and slack off, the unicorn gives me a shove to get me moving. This guy is going to be my biggest challenge, not the ponies with the big weapons.

The group weaves through the boxes, led by a destination I don’t know about. The trashbag ponies eagerly get out of our way. Whatever little noise they were making before is silenced by our presence. I’m not just saying that because our trotting is kicking up a lot of noise. These guys, even with their visors, genuinely look terrified of us.

I glance at every black box we pass, paying close attention to how strong my Gilda sense is. Its strength grows the deeper into this room we go, but I’m still not near enough to Rainbow to know exactly which box is hers. It’s putting me on edge.

“Do you even know what you’re going to do once you find me?”

I’ll work it out. I’m thinking I’ll slip away when these guys are busy doing whatever they’re going to do.

“In short, you’re clueless.”

Hey, clueless got me this far.

“And it’ll be tricky to get us out.”

Oh ye of little faith. I’ll get us out the door.

We go almost to the other side of the atrium before the front guy stops. The group halts behind him. The unicorn tugs at me again to keep me in place. Damn, he’s a freaking hover parent.

My Gilda sense is going off like crazy. Rainbow Dash is close, very close. If this damn unicorn would let me move a little, I can figure out which box she’s in. Ugh, this is killing my head.

“Alright lads,” the front guy yells at us. “Blueblood wants this box up on the roof and on his airship in the next five minutes. We want this girl out of Manehattan within the hour.”

He gives the box he’s talking about a couple of hard thumps, and the Blackwatch crew converges on the box to connect hooks to loops. The unicorn gives me another shove, and he forces me to run to the other side of the box and get to work.

“Uh, Gilda.”

Out of nowhere, a random goon passes me a hook connected to a long strap. I glance down at the base of the box, and find an empty loop to connect it to.

What’s going on, Dash?

“You said the guy thumped the box, right?”

The hook and loop connect with a click, and the strap goes tight immediately after.

Yeah, what about it?

“I heard those thumps.”

My head shoots up, and I stare at the box’s wall. My Gilda senses ping Rainbow Dash, and they come back burning hot and on fire. She’s inside this box.

Well… I found you.

“Make room,” the front guy yells. “Get this box out of here!”

The unicorn yanks me back before the box lurches to the side. I can hear a faint thump come from inside the box.

“Ow! Would you give a little warning next time?!"

“Hey, I didn’t know this would happen,” I say, tensing up right after when I realize I said it out loud.

A hoof smacks me on the back of the head, and the unicorn drags me alongside the moving box. “Did you turn stupid? This is your job. You move boxes all the time.”

I grumble under my breath. There better be a restroom nearby in this facility. This guy is asking for another Fruit Punch incident to happen.

All the straps connect the box to a team of goons wearing harnesses. As they walk, they pull the box behind them, making it glide across the floor with what looks to be little effort. It’s not making a scraping noise as it moves, so the box has to have wheels or something underneath it. Or maybe it’s hovering on a cloud of magic. I wouldn’t put it past the ponies to rely on magic for everything.

When the goons pull the box into an empty row of the box grid, the unicorn throws a harness with a strap at me. “In case you need reminding, you damned idiot, put that on quick and start pulling when everyone else does.”

I rush to put the thing on, though the unicorn does his almost twice as fast. The moment I’m strapped in, I find myself in the middle of a line of goons, a line that immediately trots on forward, pulling the box in a new direction. I run up to catch up with them before I fall behind. The box offers more resistance than I expected. Without all these goons sharing the work, this thing would be a pain in the ass to move around.

From inside the box, I can hear something repeatedly knocking on the side. “Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out!”

I’m working on it. Give me a second.

“Maybe you could work faster if you didn’t monologue to yourself all the time.”

Rainbow sounds a lot more agitated now her prison is moving to the unknown.

“Go shove it up your hole!”

Do you want to wait a moment or get shot up by a bunch of guards? Go ahead, pick a poison.

“I want to get out of this box, now!”

And I want to not be dead, which is what I'll be the moment the guards sniff me out.

“And that wouldn’t be an issue if you knew how to perform a proper infiltration.”

I’m sorry, did you want that lemon-lime soda? You can’t get that if we’re both dead!

“If I make a plan to get out before you, that one soda is turning into a twelve-pack.”

If you manage a plan to get us out of here all while not complaining, I’ll immediately go straight to the nearest store and buy you twelve twelve-packs, along with the insulin to curb that diabetes you’re going to get from drinking all that sugar!

“Deal. No takebacksies.”

Hmm, you said that a little quick. Do you already have a plan and you just want me to buy you soda?

“Maybe.”

That’s what I would call a dick move.

By now we have the box up against the opposite wall from where we came in. With a little teamwork, we push it onto a similar elevator from before. Once the box is secure, we all huddle around it before someone pushes the button to make us go up. The elevator lurches to life, and we ascend.

“Ready to buy me twelve twelve-packs?”

Oh, so you have a plan?

“Just do what I say and we can slip out of here. We’re going to need a distraction. Can you pickpocket an ID badge from one of the other guards?”

I glance around at the other dudes. They’re all standing firm against the box, which is not leaving us a lot of room to move around on this platform. Any movement towards any of the other goons might draw attention.

The unicorn is still next to me. He’s been giving me the stink eye now and then. I glance at his chest, where his badge is hanging from a clip. Hmm…

My back foot stomps on the little section of platform I’m standing on. A normal hoof might just make a little noise. My hoof has some monster strength behind it. My little stomp makes the platform shake. It’s not enough of a shake to throw everyone off, but it’s enough to fake a trip.

Some goons cling to the box out of reflex, including the unicorn. I stumble to the side, towards the unicorn. I grab him just before I “fall over,” though he’s quick to push me off.

“Get off me, idiot,” he grumbles, right after his stomach grumbles.

I give him an apologetic shrug. He brushes a little dust off himself, gives me his best stink eye, which is impressive given he’s wearing a mask, and steps back to put enough room between us so I don’t throw him off the elevator in a fit of stupidity.

Unbeknownst to him, his chest is missing something. I play with the badge in my hooves, keeping it out of sight of its original owner. He’s absolutely clueless. Classic trip & strip, excellent against the unawares.

“Lackluster stealth, impressive pickpocketing. You’re not completely clueless after all.”

I grin and slip the item into a little pocket in my suit. I had plenty of practice. Where do you think all your fruit snacks ran off too back in flight school?

Rainbow is silent for a moment. “That was you?!”

Story for later. So, what’s the next part of the plan?

“First thing, keep your grubby little fruit snack stealing claws to yourself. Second, you don’t need that badge anymore. Just keep it hidden and out of mind. All we have to do is wait now.”

We’re waiting? I thought you were dying to get out of that box.

“If it means a month supply of lemon-lime, I’ll be patient.”

Glad to know where your priorities lie.

The elevator passes by the catwalks. The guards are watching us, but they don’t seem like they’ll do anything else. My little shake up didn’t grab their attention. Good.

Up above, a panel on the roof screeches as it slides open, revealing the black of the night sky. It’s a clear night, and the moon is right above us. Glad to know the moon is still working. It may or may not have a few issues given Princess Luna had the crap beaten out of her this afternoon.

“Wait, what happened to Luna?”

I’ll tell you later. Let’s get out of here first.

When the elevator finally reaches the hole in the roof, a cool breeze of night wind bites me. The chill goes straight through my suit, although technically it isn’t a suit. With how shapeshifting works, I think it’s an extension of my flesh morphed into the shape, color, and feel of a Blackwatch suit. If that’s the case, I might as well be naked now. In any case, I feel the cold.

With a loud clang, the platform stops as it levels out with the roof. It’s a lot brighter up here than I expected. The entire area is well lit with flood lights, so there’s not a dark corner to be seen. For a skyscraper roof, it’s pretty busy up here. There are Blackwatch guards running all over the place. It’s like the bunker at the ground floor, except this place is built less like a base and more like a fortification. There are turrets placed across the ledges, ponies with large magic shooters patrolling the blacktop.

Oh, and there’s the giant airship.

In the center of the rooftop, lit up by an army of floodlights, is a large, golden airship. It’s decked out in fancy etchings and regal décor, with the seal of Equestria stamped on the front. This thing looks perfect for a cruise above a mountain wilderness.

On its belly, the gondola it wide open with a large ramp leading up to the door. Blackwatch goons are walking in and out of it at a brisk pace, carrying boxes and bags in and out of the hold.

This must be Blueblood’s airship. I check the sky, and sure enough, the other airships are still up there, ready to provide escort and support when called upon. The Prince must be brewing up a storm with his mere presence.

Speaking of presence, halfway between our elevator and the ramp to the airship, two figures are having a heated argument. Even with all the activity going on the roof, their voices are loud enough for me to hear them from this far away.

“There is nothing you can do,” the first pony says. He’s a tall unicorn, with a clean white coat and a well groomed golden mane. The suit he’s wearing is a fluffy piece, something a kid might wear as a Nightmare Night costume, only this looks like it cost tens of thousands of bits. Prince Blueblood, I assume. “This order comes directly from the Princesses.”

“But there’s still work to be done!” The other guy is also a unicorn, also tall. When I notice the color of his coat, I know exactly who it is. Arctic North, in all his purple goodness. Last I saw him was at the hotel. He must have been pretty busy since we last met. “I have a series of experiments lined up of critical importance. Relocating her will delay everything by an unacceptable amount.”

“Do you believe I don’t know that,” Blueblood says, raising his voice. “The Nexus project is already in the red, and this whole ordeal is going to hold back the day before I see any returns. The board is barking up my ass to bring this into control, and I’m the one who has to break this to them. Even then, this is a national threat. If we don’t relocate her now, Zero may just come knocking on our door and release her!”

“And I say Zero isn’t an issue,” Arctic North replies. “I’ve met Zero when she was still Gilda, and I can tell you she has no reason to seek out our boxed friend. She’s more interested in seeking out people she knows and remaining hidden. That’s what we should be after. There is no reason to delay the project over what amounts to a boogieman.”

“What about Eureka? Explain to me why Zero would want your head scientist if he’s not interested in what Genicorn is up to.”

Excuse me, he is interested? Arctic used the correct term just now and the freaking big shot still gets it wrong?!

“Does that really upset you?

It’s been happening more than I’d like.

There are two other ponies off to the side I didn’t notice before. Both mares, both earth ponies. The one closer to Blueblood is a pinkish mare with curly green hair. She’s dressed up in a business suit, and has a flat, bored face. The other mare is a tan pony, with burgundy hair, and she’s dressed up in a skimpy corset.

Wait a moment, isn’t she that stripper from the hotel? What is she doing here?

A hoof waves in front of my face. “Earth to Possum, show me your badge.”

My attention comes back to my immediate vicinity and I notice a blue-eye goon standing next to me with a clipboard. “I, uh… what?”

The clipboard goon has a slight pause, probably to size up my apparent stupidity. “Are you high? This is a badge check. Show me your badge.”

“Oh right, my badge.” I hold out the badge clipped to my chest, the one commandeered from the lone goon shopping for a sandwich. “I still have clearance?”

“Not for long if you’re not on your toes.” He looks at my badge, goes over his clipboard, scratches something on it and nods. “Clear. Hey you, badge.”

The clipboard goon goes off to harass the next guy down the line, which just so happens to be the unicorn.

“He could have figured you out,” Rainbow says. “If he were a smarter pony, he would see right through your excuse of an act.”

Then aren’t I lucky the national test scores are going down.

“Actually, they’re going up, last I checked. But the griffon demographic has been on a steady decline.”

So you ponies are making us griffons look dumber?

“We don’t have to make you look dumb when you’re already at rock bottom.”

I will cut you when I break open that box!

“Heheheh. I missed pushing your buttons.”

And I miss beating the crap out of you when you push my buttons!

“Ah, good times. Good times. Let’s get back on track. You should be getting a distraction in just a second.”

Still giving you a thrashing later. What’s my distraction?

“Take a look at your unicorn friend.”

Upon Rainbow’s direction, I look at my friend the unicorn. He’s spinning in circles, ruffling through all of his pockets all while the clipboard goon looms over him and taps his foot. From the way the unicorn keeps patting his chest, it’s clear he’s searching for his badge.

Uh oh, someone’s in trouble.

“You can make him more in trouble.”

How so?

“Patient Zero doesn’t have a badge, either.”

Hmm, good point. Why would Blackwatch give a monster a badge? Should I remind them of this fact?

“You’d be failing in your duty as a Blackwatch goon if you didn’t.”

I smile behind my disguise. Bravo Rainbow for bringing out a distraction. She just earned herself an entire cabinet worth of soda.

Clipboard Pony is berating the unicorn now, and the unicorn is growing more frantic with his pockets, turning them in and out over and over. The other goons who pulled the box are noticing the scene, and are watching closely at what’s going on.

“What’s the hold up?” one of the box goons says. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Just give me a moment,” the unicorn snaps back. “It’s here, I know it is. I never lose it.”

“It’s true,” I say, grabbing Clipboard’s attention. “He never loses anything. He’s a bit religious over it.”

The unicorn looks up at me. For a moment, I swear I see a glimmer of hope behind those blue goggles of his. “Well, I wouldn’t say religious, but the idiot is right. I never lose anything.”

In a quick flash, I point my hoof at him. “Which means that stallion is Zero!”

Everyone present, the box goons, Clipboard, the unicorn, all give me a funny look. The glimmer of hope in the unicorn’s eyes dies out, just as it was about to catch alight. “What?” the unicorn says.

“My friend would never lose his badge, ever. If you don’t have your badge, you must be an impostor! Zero has been sneaking into Blackwatch bases as one of us. Zero doesn’t have a badge, you don’t have a badge. Ergo, you are Zero.”

The unicorn plants his hoof on his face. “For a second there, I thought your stupid stopped, but no. You remain stupid, and you keep it going loud and proud with this absurd accusation. Captain, arrest him. His ineptitude is a danger to everyone around him.”

He stands there, waiting for someone to grab me under the shoulders and drag me away, but no one comes. In fact, everyone is stepping back, clearing out a circle with him in the middle. Everyone is silent, except the unicorn’s grumbling stomach.

He looks around at the ring spreading around him. “Don’t tell me you believe this imbecile. I only lost my badge. It happens to everyone.”

One of the other blue-eyes speaks up. “You have been angry all day. You’re not an angry guy.”

“I haven’t eaten all day,” the unicorn barks. “If some moron didn’t forget to let me go for lunch, I wouldn’t be so pissed!”

“But you had a break,” another goon says. “You were out for lunch around four.”

“I was in the storage room, by myself, moving cargo, by myself!”

“And that would be the perfect time for Zero to eat you and turn into your body.”

“Don’t be absurd, you daft cunt! Zero can’t step within these walls without us blowing him to bits!”

And you confused my gender, Mister Unicorn. Whatever sympathy I had for you is gone now. I will leave you be and head off on my own to take care of matters that don’t involve you. You were an adequate distraction. I bid you adios.

I unlatch the strap from my harness and step away just as the circle is getting heated. The unicorn doesn’t notice me slip away. He’s too busy verbally fighting the mob and throwing the occasional insult. He’s not doing a good job winning the crowd over.

Patrolling Blackwatch guards, formerly uninvolved with the situation, are now gathering around the commotion. At the sound of someone saying Zero, a few of them heft up their magic shooters and take aim at the unicorn.

“What are you all doing, are you blind?!” the unicorn shouts. “How can you not see I’m not Zero?!”

At this point, even the ponies far from the scene have taken notice. Blueblood and Arctic, for instance, are surrounded by a squad of blue-eyes who are escorting them towards the airship. It seems they’re booking it out at the first sign of trouble. However, their two escorts, the business mare and the slut, are sticking around. They’re staring intensely at the scene. I wonder what their deal is.

“Put your hooves behind your head and shut up,” one of the guards says, taking careful aim at the poor sap in the middle of the circle.

The unicorn is flat out screaming at this point. “I’m not Zero! I’m not Zero!”

As I make my way around the side of the box, entering a blind spot from the circle, I poke my head back and shout at the crowd. “He’s shapeshifting! He’s got a blade!”

Just as I swing back into cover, the sound of a bunch of magic bolts streaking through the air hits my ears. Blue lights flash around the corner, lighting up the night in a brief flurry of flashes. As the night lights up, the screams of a dying unicorn pierce through the air.

Rainbow Dash chuckles after the bolts stop flying. “Blackwatch spooks spook easily, it seems.”

You’d be on edge too if even your closest friend could secretly be a monster waiting to slice your head off.

Rainbow chuckles some more, but doesn’t say anything.

Everyone is too occupied with the scene that just transpired to notice me wrapping around the corner to the opposite side of the box. Most of the box is a smooth, black metal, with no bumps or dents. This side, however, has a rectangle reaching from the floor to almost the top of the ceiling. Ah, a door.

“Freedom, I can almost taste it!”

Hold your horses, we still need to escape the tower.

“We’ll just fly away. We can outrun them in the sky.”

My heart twists a little at the idea. That’s… an issue.

“What issue?”

I can feel my wings ache for open air. Odd, considering I don't have them out at the moment. Not important. Let's get you out.

I reach for the doorknob, only to find the door is completely flat. Right next to the door, however, is a yellow keypad, with the word “Locked” glowing on a little screen.

“I know. I can still hear you monologue. Don’t ask me, I don’t know the code. Can you break it open?”

Let’s see. With my monster strength, I smash my hoof into the keypad, pulverizing it into tiny little pieces. Sparks fly out when I pull my hoof away. To my disappointment, the door doesn’t open. Huh, that usually works in comics.

“Seriously? You might have just busted the only way out.”

You’re the one who told me to break it!

“I meant break in to my cell, not break the key that opens the door to my cell!”

You said… never mind.

“Can you still get in somehow?”

It’s solid steel! My monster claws can’t cut through steel. I don’t have any-

I pause. A thought crosses my head. I glance down at my hoof, which is not really a hoof but a claw covered in a layer of flesh with the look and feel of a hoof dressed in a Blackwatch suit. It’s not the hoof or claw that crosses my mind, but what they can turn into.

“Well?”

I clench my hoof. My flesh shapeshifts back into my griffon claw, and immediately after the tentacles under my skin budge and grow into a massive tumor. With the sudden extra weight, the tumor drops to the ground with a dull thud.

“I heard that. What are you doing?”

I drag the tumor claw behind me. It scrapes against the concrete, leaving a white mark on the roof. I wind up my body as if to swing a baseball bat. Batter up!

Just before I swing my tumor claw, a bright, blue bolt flies past my face and explodes against the metal door.

I look back, and I see a pinkish mare with curly green hair, dressed in a business suit. She’s holding a magic shooter in her hooves, the tip of which is still smoking from the last shot.

Before either of us can do anything, another mare falls out of the sky, this one a cream colored hoe dressed in a frilly corset. She swings out her own magic shooter, stands up straight next to her ladyfriend, and aims it right at my forehead.

Both their mouths move in unison as they both speak at the same time. “You die here, Patient Zero.”

Rainbow’s voice pops in my head. “They see though your disguise. Looks like you owe me another soda.”

I will ram this tumor up your ass!

31 - Explosions, my only weakness!

There’s a trend I’m noticing. Whenever I try to find someone, something always comes to try to kill me. Tanya, Blackwatch wanted me dead. Pinkie, monsters and airships wanted me dead. Eureka, armored ponies and monsters wanted me dead. Tanya again, Blackwatch wanted me dead, again.

Now that I’ve found Rainbow Dash, two bimbos want me dead. Is the universe conspiring against me? I’m I doomed to have the world come after me every time I want to hang out with a friend?

It’s because I’m a griffon. It's racial profiling, I tell you!

The ladies waste no time to attempt to turn me into a pile of mush. Their magic shooters light up and send a flurry of bolts my way. The shots burn and sting my skin. I lift up an arm to shield my face, but my claw sticks to the ground. With a quick tug, I yank my claw off the ground, and a huge tumor smacks me in the face.

Oh right, tumor claws. I’m not used to those yet.

In between the stars and the ringing my head is now feeling, Rainbow Dash’s voice pops in. “Stop hitting yourself.”

Not helpful!

Careful to mind the weight of my new claws, I raise a tumor ball in front of my face. The movement is slow and clunky, but I have the strength to support it. Good news is while the bolts sting my regular skin, I can’t feel them doing anything to the tumor. It recoils slightly when it takes a shot, but other than that these bolts are doing nothing to the tumor claw.

With a griffon war shriek, I charge at one of the bimbos with the tumor raised up. The claw is blocking my view, so I have no clue who I’m going after. I see the feet of the one I’m going after, and the feet step out of the way as I come barreling towards her. She takes my flank, revealing herself to be Miss Business Suit, and shoots me down as I roll on past her.

I kick my body around to turn towards Suit. The tumor doesn’t move with the rest of my momentum, but I’m quick to start pulling it with me. I feel the weight of it pull at my arm as it swings around from the windup. The tumor turns into a freaking meteor heading straight for Suit’s face.

Slight problem, the tumor claw is a bit slow. Suit has plenty of time to jump out of the way before the claw comes falling down where she was just standing. If only she decided to stand there, boy would things be a mess. The claw doesn’t just hit the ground, it craters. The impact feels like an explosion as it pulverizes the concrete roof underneath, smashing a chunk of the roof into rubble and poking a hole into the floor below.

Son of a bison… This thing is a mother fucking wrecking ball!

I can’t stop myself from giggling. That was awesome! The sheer BOOM of the tumor stuns the bimbos for a moment. I take their moment to pull up the tumor and throw another swing at Suit. She sees this and does the same thing as before and gets the heck out of the way!

Again, the tumor obliterates the concrete below it, accompanied by another sonic explosion. Oh man, just imagine if this thing smashed someone’s toe. Steel tipped shoes would not save you from the sheer power of this thing!

Now I’ll admit, it’s great at annihilating the ground, but it sucks at turning bimbos into pulp. They just step out of the way whenever I swing at them. After seeing the first two attacks, Suit and Corset take several steps backwards to put some distance from my fist. They continue shooting at me from afar, stinging my skin with those bolts. My flesh is regenerating fast enough to keep up with the damage, but those bolts still sting.

Time for an old strategy. Tumor fists didn’t do jack. My claws shape shift back to normal, and then the monster blades come out with a fine, metallic shing. I raise them up and immediately dash at the nearest bimbo, Corset.

Without the tumors, I can move at full speed, which is almost as fast as the best Wonderbolt out there. I close the distance between me and Corset in an instant. A normal Blackwatch goon couldn’t avoid my claws if they tried. However, Corset slips out of my attack with nimble ease. My claws shred through empty air as the bimbo passes by me.

What the heck? She was freaking quick! I only saw a blur and she was out of my way. There’s no way she’s that fast.

For my troubles, Corset flicks out a knife blade and jabs the blade into my ribcage. The pain spikes through my side, and I tumble over myself as the bimbo jumps away.

With a scream I yank out the knife with a normal claw. The blade is serrated, so it hooks onto my flesh as it comes out. There’s a thick glob of bloody goop that’s sticking to the edge, and it keeps on sticking when I toss it away. That was not pleasant.

”Please don’t die now,” Rainbow Dash says. “You’re the only chance I have of getting out of here.”

Sure, I’ll tell my secretary to push dying in agony for next Friday. Will that work for you?

Corset, once again, puts some distance between us. Both the bimbos are still shooting at me, but they’re not alone now. A siren goes off, which I assume is for emergencies. More Blackwatch are coming in to surround us now. Some I assume were involved with the incident with the unicorn with the badge, but those guys are far outnumbered by the army that’s surrounding me right now.

The world shudders as a low rumble rolls over the area. The golden balloon sitting in the center of the roof rises into the air, and Blueblood’s airship takes off. The Prince must be making his escape. I see the underbelly soar over me as it takes on air and the landing gear pulling in. Adios, sweet Prince.

“Ignore everything,” Rainbow yells in my head. “Just get me out of here and we can leave. Don’t deal with the army!”

So do my usual strategy.

“Yes, do it!”

Okie dokey.

Blackwatch is closing in on me. A line of goons is forming to cut me off from the black box. I sprint in that direction. The goon line breaks away before I ram into them. Choo choo, get out of my way!

A lady’s voice yells out behind me, probably one of the bimbos. “Shoot her! Stop wasting time!”

At the sound of her command, the air immediately fills with a swarm of angry magic bolts flying towards me. I duck low, and the swarm blots out the night sky. All around me is a tunnel of almost solid magic, deadly to the touch. All the bolts that aren’t flying past me are exploding against my ass. My ass in on fire!

The box approaches. I jump on top of it. Magic bolts rain on my back as I do so. AH! That fucking hurts! I can hear my skin popping! With another jump, I make it to the other side, putting the box between me and the magic swarm. I can hear the pitter patter of the storm from the other side.

“Hurry up and get me out of here,” Rainbow yells.

My words come in the middle of my pained grunting. “Ahhish… I’m working- uugh… On it.”

Sweet mercy, that fucking hurt! I turn to look at the damage to my backside to see what damage there is. Good news, my ass isn’t damaged. Bad news, it’s not damaged because I don’t have an ass anymore! Gone are my tail and most of my rear end. There’s a huge chunk of flesh gone, going deep enough to expose my hip bones. I shudder. That’s not a pleasant sight. What makes it worse are the tiny tentacles sprouting out from my burnt flesh to start replacing my ass.

Rainbow makes a gagging sound. “I did not need you to describe that!”

Isn’t she lucky? She’s protected in a nice, thick box and doesn’t have to get shot. “You’re not the one who has to go through this!”

“Get me out of here so neither of us have to!”

“I’ll pull you out and we’ll get shot together, how’s that sound?”

My claw shapeshifts into the tumor. As I do so, I hear Blackwatch running around the box to get an angle at me. Not much time for me. I wind up the fist and slam it against the box. It makes a huge bang and massive dent in the metal, but doesn’t break it. But it does make the box ring like a large bell.

“OW! My ears! That hurt my ears!”

“Then cover them up!” I wind up the tumor again, and slam it against the metal once more. There’s another bang. The dent grows larger, and the box rings louder.

“Ahahahhh, that’s so freaking loud!”

I wind up for another shot. “I’m not done yet. This box is tougher than”-

My chest explodes in pain. My blood splatters across the box’s side. I choke. Something retracts back into my chest. It yanks me off my feet, and I’m flung back away from the box. I reach out in attempt to grab something, but this thing tugging my chest is pulling me away fast.

I look down at where my chest is flaming in agony. Three metal barbs are sprouting from my sternum, and are looping back to dig into my flesh. It’s a hook. Somebody shot a hook at me and now they have me harpooned.

A steel line is digging into my shoulder blades. It’s pulling the hook, and by extension me, across the concrete and leaving a bloody trail. I flip around to see where the line goes. Fast approaching is a long tube, where the line disappears into the barrel. There’s a Blackwatch goon standing behind the barrel, no doubt celebrating over the big fish he just caught.

In the opposite direction of where I’m heading, the Blackwatch roof army is gathering around the box to watch my bloody corpse drag away. The bimbos come up to the front of the crowd, shepherding the herd of incompetence. It’s Corset who throws her voice out for everyone to hear. “Fire the artillery!”

Spread out along the edges of the roof, the large cannon emplacements spring to life at the sound of Corset’s command. They swivel around, rushing to point their barrels at me. Those are going to fire some big magic bolts, aren’t they? They have the perfect opportunity to do so. There aren’t any blue-eyes within fifty feet of me, so no chance of friendly fire. And with this hook in my chest, I’m an easy target.

I’m starting to regret coming here.

With a normal claw, I grab the cable. It takes a bit of acrobatics to get it in front of my face, but I manage. No time to shapeshift. My beak opens and I bite down on the steel line. The bite only cuts through a couple of fibers, but with a little grinding I tear through the entire thing.

The tension is cut. The cable whips out of my mouth and violently lashes back at its barrel. It takes a chunk off my beak, but it takes a lot more from the other guy. The blue-eye controlling the harpoon only has milliseconds to watch the cable whip back over the cannon. It lashes over his chair and splits him between the eyes and down the middle.

I roll onto my feet and kick myself to running mode. Just in the nick of time, too. The air fills with the sound of, “BRAUMP, BRAUMP, BRAUMP,” and everything behind me explodes in a magical fury. A concussive wave takes me from behind and flips me over my head. Tendrils of magic whip out and cut my flesh with burning power.

The explosions die down. I flop in front of the harpoon cannon. The cable is inert, and the blue-eye is lying on both sides of his control panel, twitching slightly. My head is ringing. I swear I can hear Rainbow Dash say something, but I can’t focus on her voice. The rest of the world is saying something too, but it’s all muffled.

The world does clear up, but it comes to me in gray tones. I see the damage the cannons almost did to me. They left a huge ravine in the roof. The hole cuts down into the floor below, which just so happens to be the warehouse full of boxes. Some of the boxes below are crushed from huge chunks of rubble, and the scientists are swarming like confused ants.

Here’s some good news. The cannons made a hole in the roof, and the roof army can’t go over the hole. It’s another obstacle they have to go around. Yay, they can't get to me!

But they can still shoot at me. To end my moment of peace, any blue-eye or bimbo that can see me starts shooting bolts at my direction. The bolts dart over the chasm and hit the area around me. A few miss, and a few hit. I dive around to the other side of the cannon for cover.

As I crouch between the two halves of the split blue-eye, Rainbow Dash’s voice comes through. “This is one heck of a pickle you’re in.”

All the wounds I sustained in the past minute won’t let me come up with a response to that.

“You’re still narrating yourself.”

I grunt, mostly in pain. Why is everything gray? It’s become involuntary.

“I’ll pretend that’s normal. On to more important matters, how are you going to get us out of this bind?”

The air is filled with the sound of ponies shouting and soldiers running towards my position. They’re going to surround me in a moment. Do you not have a plan, oh great mastermind?

“Sorry. Explosions and underdog tactics are outside of my skill set.”

A blood vessel bursts in my head. It regenerates, but I can still feel its heat. What!? You’re Rainbow “Danger” Dash. Explosions and underdog tactics is everything you do!

“No, being awesome is what I do. I’ve never had experience with getting shot in the chest by a harpoon. You’re on your own there.”

Never before have I felt the intense need to punch someone in the face as I do right this instant. I glance down at the giant fish hook still in my chest. Sweet mercy, that’s going to be a pain to remove. Granted, my entire body is already in pain, but this hook is going to be the end of me. I’m taking back the soda.

My pitiful sanctuary I call cover is not long for this world. A magic bolt streaks past my head and explodes against the ground. I jolt up. That didn’t come from the sides. It came from above.

Up in the sky, two glowing, blue circles are flying against the black of the night. A blue flash erupts near the circles, and another magic bolt shoots down and strikes me in the leg. It does little damage, but it still stings. That said, that little flash was enough to highlight the body and wings attached to those two circles.

It’s a pegasus.

More pairs of blue circles fly from over the edge of the building and soar above me, and more come to join in the fun. The pegasi flock gathers above me. They rain magic bolts down in my direction.

It’s a freaking hail of pain! Once the bolts start hitting, I jump out of the way to avoid turning into soup. This could be either a good move or a bad move. Now that I’m running, the pegasi have to trail their shots. They’re hitting me a lot less now. But now I’m outside of my cover, so the rest of the army can shoot at me now.

When I run out, I find myself mere feet away from a line of armed goons. They’re close enough for me to flick a wing up their noses. When I jump out in front of them, some of their swears are so clear to me we might as well be in a diner having a normal conversation.

I run past the line and out into an open area. The Blackwatch blob only goes so far. Once I’m clear, everyone takes their shots at me. The wall of deadly magic returns, this time with some support from above!

There’s an air conditioning vent close to me. I dive behind it, separating me and the encroaching blob. The vent is enough to block the ground fire. I spin around on my back and raise two tumor claws above me, putting them in a boxer’s block. The tumors absorb the magic hail coming from the pegasi. These things are nice, but if only I had a proper shield, I can get out of this alive.

“Do you think you can kite them around and bust open my box while they’re distracted?”

Considering I get fucked by a million magic shooters every time I’m out of cover, no, I don’t think I can.

In the middle of all the magic bolts sounds of the encroaching army, I hear the sound of rattling metal above me. The pegasi move out of the way as a silvery line arcs across the sky. It glitters for a moment before it cuts down through the air, towards me.

What the-

Everything turns into hot, white pain when a heavy duty, stainless steel chain whips me up and down my entire body. It slips between my boxer’s block and cracks me from my forehead to my sternum, and all the way down to my crotch. My vision turns hazy white, and I can feel hot goop spilling out of the strike like.

Something snaps near my head. The chain drags down my body, and a hook spikes into my inner thigh. The pain is nothing compared to the whiplash I just received, but I don’t think that’s the intention.

The chain me yanks me back into the fray. It pulls me into the air, threatening to tear my leg off at any moment.
I’m soaring through the air now. Other than that I’m not sure what’s going on. I think I hear Rainbow say something, but I’m in no state to comprehend. Everything is a blur right now. I think I have a migraine.

My vision clears up, and I gain enough sensibility to see the edge of the roof coming for my face. The ledge comes up in a half wall, presumably to stop anyone from slipping off. I try to brace myself in any way I can, but my muscles are not responding.

Why did I come here again?

I crash face first into the half wall. It explodes into a cloud of rubble and dust, and my head pokes over the edge of the building. I see the ground below me, which is a good mile down from where I am. The winds of the night whip across my face. Anyone else might have a case of vertigo. Me, I’m a griffon. We like high places. Also, my body is in so much pain a mile high fall is the least of my worries.

The chain tugs at my leg again. My motor skills return at the same moment. I flip around and smash the chain with a tumor claw, breaking it into tiny little shards. The chain whips back, free of my body. I am not going on that ride again.

With a large amount of effort, I push myself into a sitting position. My eyes are having trouble staying open. I look down at myself. I’m expecting half my body to not be there. My expectations aren’t too far off. Every inch of my body is either mangled, bleeding, missing, or a combination of the three. The magic bolts took out chunks all over my body, as if a little kid got enthusiastic with a melon scooper. The chain left a schism down my body. It’s bleeding up and down, and I think my beak is destroyed. My ass is still missing. That’s embarrassing.

I think I’m done for.

All outside noise tunes out for me. All I can hear now is Rainbow Dash’s voice cracking in my ears. “Of course you’re giving up. Why did I expect anything else?”

What? Where did Rainbow get that idea. I didn’t say I was giving up.

“Might as well. I knew this was too good to be true. I’m never getting out of this box!”

I still got some fight in me. I try to push myself up, but my body shakes under the stress. My limbs slip out from under me, and I’m back lying on the ground.

“Can’t even get back up, can you?”

If this is some weird psychological trick to get me going again, it’s not working.

“If it’s a trick, then it’s not one I’ve heard of.”

I pause for a moment. Is Rainbow giving up on me? Are you giving up on me?

“Do you have some hidden pool of strength you’ve been hiding?”

I try moving something, but none of my limbs want to do what I tell them to do.

“Thought so. You put your back towards the army and gave them target practice. Typical. You should’ve been in the crowd tearing them up.”

I’m not a killer.

Rainbow laughs. It’s not a laugh I’ve heard before. It has a strong cackle to it. “The bird half of you, that’s pure chicken. There’s no eagle in you.”

My eye twitches. Don’t you dare badmouth a griffon.

“I’m not talking to a griffon. I’m talking to a chicken. You’re a chicken who runs away while the butchers come after you to serve you on a silver platter. You only fight when the cleaver is at your neck. You might bite a finger and escape, but that butcher will always be coming for you. An eagle would never put up with that. If you were an eagle, you’d fuck up that butcher the moment it gets close to your nest. You are not an eagle.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. This feels… weird. You’ve changed, haven’t you?

“I’ve been nothing but an experiment for Blackwatch to play with since the day they put me in this box. I’ve lost all sympathy for them, and for chickens.”

For the past five minutes, I’ve experience the biggest beat down of my life, and I won’t see the end of it until Blackwatch is sure I’m dead. Rainbow’s words hurt more than that. Rainbow Dash, by best friend since flight school, is comparing me to a damn chicken. Nobody compares a griffon to a chicken.

I step back into reality. The area around me is clear. I can hear one of the bimbos yelling a command. After their command, three loud booms roll over the roof. “BRAUMP, BRAUMP, BRAUMP.”

This can’t be the end. I’ve been working my ass off for the past two days to find Rainbow Dash. Heck, I literally lost my ass to get to this point! And now I’m on the edge of death. Rainbow is giving up on me. Worse, she thinks I’m a chicken. Even worse, artillery is about to explode me.

Wait, artillery?!

The artillery spells ignite all around me. For the tiniest moment, a volcano erupts inside my ears, and an instant later the eruption becomes a single high tone. The tone rings in my head, far from my ears. I hear nothing.

Flame becomes a cloud rolling over the night sky. With it comes a summer breeze that tears apart my skin. The ground below me dissolves into dust without as much as a whimper. Summer turns to winter, and there is nothing but molten snow. I see nothing.

The world is hot, but it doesn’t feel hot. All my pain I’ve felt in the past five minutes melts away, along with my flesh. I feel nothing.

This is how I die. I don’t save anyone. Rainbow Dash lost faith in me. We don’t go to Las Pegasus. I don’t reopen my scone shop. All I’m is an explosion.

When the light disappears, and the heat dissipates, I’m not longer on the roof. Instead, I’m falling. Wind whips past the few parts of me that can still feel anything. It’s cold, so much colder than the artillery spells. I can’t hear the wind. I still hear the ringing.

I’m falling down a skyscraper, one covered in windows that act just like mirrors. I can see my reflection. Smoke trails from my body as I fall. I’m a mangled mess.

Two of my limbs are gone. In their places are two huge, burning gaps where flesh is meant to be. One of my other limbs, a tumor claw, is falling alongside me, albeit several feet away and not attached to me. The one limb left to my name is a back leg. It’s bent the wrong way. Legs shouldn’t bend like that.

Half my face is gone. I think I see my brain. My wings are just stubs. The artillery shells clipped them. What good is a wingless griffon? The core of my body is a burning mess. No one will recognize me.

The moment the artillery spells hit, I’ve felt numb. It’s not like there’s much room for feeling when you’re engulfed in hellfire.

But now I realize something. I can’t feel anything. If I can’t feel anything, that means my tentacles aren’t regenerating. Usually I get a weird slithery or ticklish feeling inside me when I’m injured, which is a sign of the tentacles doing their job to fix me up on the inside. I don’t feel that now. I’m not regenerating! The reflection confirms what I’m thinking. No part of me is growing back.

I’m going to die.

Why now? Of all the times for this to happen, why now? I’ve been fighting for the past two days, and I’m blasted to pieces off the side of a building. I was a metal box away from breaking Rainbow out, just a single box!

The moment I broke out of that lab, Blackwatch has been on my tail. Why? What did I ever do to them? I’ve only acted in self defense in my entire waking life. Why do these Blackwatch bastards have to keep on trying to kill me?

Tanya wouldn’t be dead if they didn’t give a shit about me. Pinkie would be still hidden if they didn’t give a shit about me. I could have Rainbow off this island by now if they didn’t give a shit about me! All my problems are from Blackwatch!

I was so close to rescuing Rainbow Dash. So close!

So close…

A hospital room. Graphs, charts, medical jargon I don’t understand…

A blue pegasus, rainbow hair. A wing flexing in all directions…

I speak. “It works again?! What magic did the eggheads pull out of their ass to do that?”

Rainbow tugs her feathers with a hoof. “They call it Life Salt. I know I’m not a doctor, but Eureka is very hush hush about how this stuff works. He wouldn’t even tell Twilight a thing.”

I snort. “You’re talking about the scientist with big glasses? I didn’t know he was capable of shutting up.”

Rainbow Dash laughs. The room is warm. “Chatty, quiet, it doesn’t matter. I owe the guy my life. You should’ve seen this wing before the treatment. That quack must have made a pact with Tartarus to fix up this poor thing.”

I cringe at the thought. “At least an egghead is doing the soul trading. Any self respecting flier would dive into Cerberus’s house and fight every demon in there without a second thought just to get their wings back. Heck, I’d tag along with you, and we’d both sell our soul to whatever demon could hook you up.”

Rainbow sips her flask of cider, imported from a friend’s farm, slipped past the doctors. “I’d at least ask Twilight for info on what demon to go after. I don’t want to spend all of eternity in Tartarus searching for the right guy.”

“Hey, if she knows a guy…”

We don’t say anything for a moment. The only sound is the heart monitor beeping to Rainbow’s tune.
Rainbow puts down the flask. “How’s the scone shop going?”

A claw runs down my face. “Grand opening is next week. It’s not even open and I’m already losing sleep over that store. Pinkie isn’t helping with the stress. I appreciate her help, I do. But damn does that mare run me up the wall.”

“That’s Pinkie for ya. Forget her for a moment. What’s stressing you out.”

I throw my claws up in the air. “Everything! Can I run a store? Do I want to run a store? Do I have the supplies to keep the store running? Am I going to have excess product that’ll never be used and expire? Will the store make any money? Will anyone bother to come?”

Rainbow holds her hooves out. “Wow, calm down. You’re going to have a heart attack.”

“Oh, believe me, this is calm. I’ve been a complete mess the last couple of days.”

“How bad could it be?”

“I puked.”

“Ew.”

“Twice.”

“Ew!”

“Everynight. Tanya isn’t happy about it.”

Rainbow grabs me by the shoulders. “Nope, stop. That’s enough. I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Sorry.”

We’re silent once more, but I'm still tense.

Rainbow smiles at me. “Just relax. Listen to me. ”

Rainbow lets me breathe. I mellow out. I listen.

“I get it, you’re worried about how this will turn out. You’ve never done anything like this before. But you know what, you won’t be alone next week. When you open your store, I’ll be there.”

I perk up. “Is Eureka letting you out soon?”

Rainbow can’t contain her grin. “Same day Scone Quarry opens for the first time. I will be there. In fact, I won’t just be there. I’ll fly there!”

My eyes go wide. “They’re letting you fly too?”

Rainbow’s wings flare out. “Eureka says they should be good to go soon. If all goes well, then I’ll be able to fly the same day I get out.”

“You’re kidding. This is great! This will be the first time you’ll fly in like… forever!”

“I know! It’ll be awesome.” Rainbow’s face turns serious. She gives me a stern eye. “But you have to make me a promise.”

“What promise?”

She pokes me in the chest. “I’m going to fly to your store. I’ll be there for you. But you can’t chicken out!”

I snort. “Me, chicken out? You’re joking.”

Her face says otherwise. “I’m serious. I want to be Stone Quarry’s first customer, and it’s going to be awesome. But I can’t be your customer if you chicken out.”

Now I smile. “You should know better. Griffons never chicken out.”

“Promise me.”

I put a claw on my heart. “I promise I won’t chicken out, and you’ll be the first and most awesome customer of Stone Quarry.”

Rainbow’s eyes light up. “Good. I look forward to it.”

Huh… now is a weird time to have a flashback. Weirdly topical, too. At least it’s a nice flashback. I’ll be going out with a pleasant little memory. Isn’t that all anyone can ask for.

…

Wait a moment, this is stupid! I’ve fought beak and claw to get this tower. I can’t die now! That would be chickening out! I’m not going to chicken out! I’m going to eagle out!

Now that I said it, it sounds kind of stupid. Chicken out, eagle out, it sounds like I’m about to transform into a magical superhero. Eh, stupid or not, I’m not going to die today if I can help it.

I can survive. I just need to think.

At this moment, I am a pile of goop falling off the side of a skyscraper. I’m about, oh, halfway down, which means I have about half the building before I become a sticky puddle for some Blackwatch goon to clean up. Plenty of time.

Being a pile of goop, I have few options. My wings are bloody stumps, so they’re useless. Three of my limbs aren’t attached, and all I have is my back leg, which is a lion’s paw.

Hmm… can I shapeshift the lion’s paw?

I push my willpower into my foot. Most of my body is a dead clump, but I do feel a few tiny tentacles move about. They shift towards my leg, and a small blade morphs from my heel. It’s a short, stubby hook knife. It would be pathetic in a fight, but I’ll take anything at the moment.

Sweet, I have progress. How am I doing on time? Let’s see, I have one, two… du du du, twenty or so floors left. If I’m falling at a rate of three floors a second, that puts me at… um, add the four, carry the two… No time! Act now!

With all the energy I have left, my body spasms into action. My remaining limb lashes out and strikes the skyscraper. It catches on glass, and a window shatters next to my ears. The resistance yanks me back. My leg wants to tear away for a moment. In fact, I think it almost does. The only reason it doesn’t rip away is because I lost a lot of muscle mass from those explosions. Any heavier and I’d lose all my legs.

I stop falling. It's a sudden stop, but still a stop. The heel blade annihilates the window and catches onto the building structure. My stomach, if I even still have a stomach, almost lurches out of my throat from the sudden stop. Glass shards rain past my head. They continue to fall until they shatter on the ground, which is about five floors below me.

Ha. Ha haha. Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I’m alive! I am fucking alive! Eat it, Death! You’re not writing my name in your black book today!

Hahaha. Ah… Rainbow is going to love this, that little daredevil. Next time we’re at a party and she starts going off about her awesome feats of bravery and crap, I can top her with this story. I survived falling off a skyscraper, right after artillery exploded me, and doing so with only one leg. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways!

Oh, and I can smack her over the head for giving up on me. I think I’ll do that when I break her out.

My hearing is a little nonexistent. I must have celebrated a little loud without realizing it. About a couple second into my laugh session, a magic bolt flies up form below and misses my head by inches.

I look down. I wish I looked earlier. The blue-eyes in the military compound at the base of the tower are mobilizing. Troops are lining up below and taking aim at me. When they do, they let loose their magic bolts, and my life becomes the magic death tunnel again!

Up and at’em! I use my one leg to pull myself up through the broken window. I pull up, hop the leg forward to gain a few inches, and hop some more, crawling one bit at a time. It’s slow going. Being a mutilated blob doesn’t speed things up. That said, if there were a competition for fastest blobs in the world, I’d take the gold and break all the records. With all these magic bolts for motivation, I’m hauling ass by crawling on one leg!

With my last hop, I drag myself over the window sill. I let out a sigh and relax. I’m not falling off a building. The blue eyes can’t shoot me from here. This is great. I could lie here all night.

Heh, I’m alive.

Where am I?

I look around the room. It’s a meeting room. There’s a long table, lots of chairs, and a whiteboard at one end of the table.

Yawn, it’s boring in here. Let’s get out of here.

With my one leg and heel blade, I drag myself across the floor and towards the door. Grab, scoot. Grab, scoot. It’s a little unpleasant moving around with my back on the floor. I feel like a slug.

When I get to the door, I kick it open. The door handle breaks of, and the door swings open. Sweet, I still have some strength left, enough to slug crawl out into the hall. Nothing interesting out here, just cubicles. They look really tall from my perspective here on the floor. Little griffon in a big world.

With the whole exploding into goop fiasco, my plans for breaking Rainbow out of this place have changed. And with how quiet this office space is, now is a good time to rethink that plan.

At a distant corner of the office space I can’t see, a large door slams open, followed by the sound of armored hoofsteps spilling through the door. Flashlights flicker on the ceiling as the goons spread out. A voice full of static pierces the air. “Zero is somewhere on this floor. Find him!”

I change my mind. This is a bad time to rethink my plan.

As the hoofsteps spread out through the office space, I drag myself into the confines of the nearest cubicle. I don’t have the mass to take on a full scale engagement. I need to hide. This isn’t the best place to take shelter, but Blackwatch will take a while looking through each cubicle before they search mine. I have a little time.

Damn it Blackwatch, my life would be so much easier without you guys. Everywhere I go, you guys are always shooting at me. I was sort of cool with it before. Sure, it was irritating, and I had to fight for my life several times, but I regenerated so it wasn’t a big deal. This time, however, I almost died. You guys are coming to finish me off. You guys are starting to piss me off.

No, scratch that. I am pissed off! Blackwatch got the better of me at the worst time ever! I was about to free Rainbow, and they blew me up for my troubles. It’s a damn uphill battle with these guys, and I’m getting sick and tired of it.

The blue-eyes are getting closer. They’re getting louder. The lights keep passing above my cubicle. They’ll find me soon. They’re going to kill me if I don’t do anything.

Everywhere I go, they find me. My apartment. The daycare. Whenever I go find someone, they catch me there. Tanya, Blackwatch is there. Pinkie, Blackwatch is there. Rainbow, Blackwatch is there. They’re mosquitoes. They won’t leave me alone. No matter how hard I try to avoid them, they always find a way to bite me.

Maybe that’s my problem, I try to avoid their bites, like a chicken. Has anyone ever avoided a mosquito bite?

No, you can’t. They’re everywhere. They always chase you. You can never run away. If you don’t want bites, then you need to stop them at the source.

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll stop the source. I going to stop playing chicken. I’m going to break Rainbow out of here. If the blue-eyes bite me on the way, then I’ll bite back.

Blackwatch is almost here. I scoot as close as I can to the wall, staying hidden from the outside hallway. I raise my one remaining leg as high as I can, keeping the heel blade pointed towards the entrance. If someone is going to find me in here, that poor bastard will have to step in my strike zone.

I wait. I hold my breath. I listen. The hoofsteps are on the other side of my wall. A flashlight flicks over the top of my cubicle. Someone is about to walk in.

Off in the distance, a voice yells over the office space. “Are you sure Zero’s here? We might have the wrong floor.”

The pony right outside my cubicle yells back. “Shut up, Sugar Pine! Zero can hear where you are!”

“Oh right, sorry,” the distant voice yells back. “I mean, Zero’s a big griffon. If he wanted to do something, like run away or something, we’d see him right off the bat. I don’t think he’s on this floor.”

“I swear to Celestia, if you get me killed, my ghost will haunt you and shove my dirty socks down your throat while you sleep!”

“Sorry! I’ll stay quiet,” Sugar Pine says, breaking the quiet rule once again.

Something makes a hit sound on the other side of my wall. I imagine it was the sound of a frustrated blue-eye giving himself a face-hoof. Oh, this is nothing. The frustration levels in that pony are about to skyrocket in about three seconds.

A light beams through the doorway of my cubicle. Soon after, a hoof steps through, followed by another. A blue-eye goon walks in, mumbling about suicidal recruits. His goggles scan the entire cubicle, starting from the opposite side from me. He begins to step out before his goggles fall on me.

His flashlight shines on my face. I grin up at him with my broken beak. “I hope those socks are extra stinky.”

Before he was a chance to scream, I kick down my one leg on top of him. The heel blade catches on the edge of his neck, slashing his entire throat. Hot blood explodes over me. The flashlight shines on the geyser, turning it into a rainfall of glittering little rubies. The blue-eye gurgles as he clutches his throat. He tries to say something, but nothing comes out except spurts of blood.

The blue-eye loses control of his legs. He almost falls over, but I swing my heel blade back around to catch him in the shoulder. The tentacles in my leg shoot into his wound and burrow beneath his skin. He lets out a panicked croak as he feels his flesh dissolving inside his body as my tentacles go to work. It takes less than a minute before even his face turns into a withering mass of tendrils.

Good, I found some dinner.

The tentacles retreat back inside me after finishing with the poor blue-eye. Immediately, I feel them go to work with regenerating everything I lost from the artillery. The gash I received from the chain, it stitches back together and seals up my chest. My ass reforms into its full mass, which I have to say is one of my better qualities.

Tendrils shoot out from where my lost limbs use to be. They tangle up and merge into new legs. I roll over on my belly and stand up with fresh legs. They’re a little wobbly for a moment, but after a little stretching they stiffen out.

My beak is the last to regenerate. I chomp a couple times once it fills out. This is good. This is real good! It’s a whole new me!

As a test, I try to shapeshift one of my monster claws, but I don’t get far. My griffon claw only grows about an inch. It looks like a clump up butter knives, a far cry from the pony sized monsters I can conjure up. It looks like I’ll have to eat a few more blue-eyes before I can do that again.

While my regeneration did wonders for the rest of my body, it didn’t remove the harpoon hook stuck in my chest. I brace myself as I grab it by the prongs. With a quick pull, I rip it out of my chest, taking out globs of goop with it. I bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming in pain. Sweet mercy, that was more intense than I thought it would be.

In my moment of pain, the distant voice sounds off again. “Has anyone found Zero? He’s not in any of my cubicles.”

I heft the hook in my claw. It looks a lot like a three pronged fishing hook, just grossly oversized. All I need is some bait and a bobber and I could catch a shark with this. Or I could fish for a more “domestic” kind of catch. I can’t help but smile at the idea.

I yell at the direction of the far voice. “I located Zero. He’s nothing but a corpse now.” Oh great, now I’m flipping my gender. Tanya would shun me for that slip up. At least the blue-eyes won’t catch it.

The far voice replies back to my own call. “He’s dead? Sweet! Let’s tag and bag him so I can go get some shut eye.”

I hear hoofsteps converging towards my cubicle. I want to say there are about twelve ponies here, maybe fifteen. I can’t say for sure. Hey, it’s not my job to count the bodies. That goes to accounting.

I step outside of my cubicle just in time to meet the first of the incoming hostiles. A blue-eye rounds the corner into my cubicle strip. He’s a unicorn, a bit on the short side. His blue goggles make him stand out in the dark office space.

The blue-eye unicorn freezes when he sees me leaning against a wall, twirling the hook in a claw. I smile at him. “Lovely night to go fishing, don’t you think?”

32 - I said the top!

The blue-eye’s horn bursts into a blue, magical blaze, which shoots a stream of magical bolts. Most of them miss me. The few that do hit can’t keep up with my regeneration. The unicorn steps back when he realizes this.

“It’s Zero!” he cries out. Wait, no, that’s a girl’s voice. This unicorn sounds like a she. “Zero’s alive! Everyone, sound- HCK!”

I cut the unicorn off with a hook to the face. It strikes her from the side. One prong pierces her cheek, another pierces the skull. The unicorn twists with the hook, and I punch her right through the chest. My tentacles shoot out and dissolve her within seconds.

Huh, is it hypocritical of me to assume all Blackwatch goons are guys? I’m always giving them flak for thinking I’m a guy. Yet here I am, thinking they’re all dudes, and I just ate a chick alive. Should I cut them some slack?

A magic bolt hits me in the back of the head. It fries my skin, but I regenerate it just as fast as I lost it. I turn around to find another blue-eye running at me, aiming a magic shooter at my face.

“Quick question,” I say, “Are you a guy or a girl?”

“You killed Arsenic, you bastard!” the blue-eye screams. Clearly a guy. “I’m going to rip off your dick for that!”

I close the distance between us in a split second. The hook snags his chin and rips his head off clean. I grab his bloody stub with a claw and the tentacles go to work, doing their thing.

I got an answer to my previous question with that dick comment. No, I’m not hypocritical. I have no way of knowing what sex these goons are without asking. I can only assume they’re all guys. Blackwatch, on the other claw, should be aware by now that I’m a chick. They don’t need to ask. These guys can look my files up at any point and correct themselves.

A cubicle flies apart as an earth pony crashes through. He gets close enough up to me to shove a magic shooter up under my beak and fire the thing at full power. My beak explodes in a magic blast. Damn it, I just regenerated that!

Before the blue-eye can fire another shot, my fist is sticking through his stomach and out of his backside. The pony screams as a mass of tentacles rips him apart and feeds him to me.

These ponies don’t even bother asking if their field reports are correct. If they can’t get my gender right, then do they have anything else that’s right about me?

More magic bolts fly at me, but these are coming from the side, not from the jack ass that just blew my face off. I turn to find a trio of goons blasting away at me with their shooters. Their aim isn’t off, I’ll give them that. All their shots are hitting home right on my flesh. However, I just ate a couple of their friends. I have enough food in me to regenerate whatever damage they deal.

They have no time to get out of the way before I appear right in front of them. I grab the goons on either side of the triad, and I pull them together to give them all one big bear hug. The three ponies flail and scream as they try to squirm their way out of my grasp.

With a quick squeeze, I crunch the group in my arms. I hear their bones crack and pop one after another. They stop moving, but they all keep screaming. My tentacles tear through them all. The last thing anyone hears from these three are their cries for mercy as I eat them alive.

The whole “am I a hypocrite” debate might be moot at this point. I just massacred half a squad of blue-eyes, and I don’t intend on stopping. The justice system isn’t going to give a crap if one party or another keeps using the wrong pronoun.

“It amazes me how inane your thoughts can be.”

Wait, that’s Rainbow’s voice! Rainbow? You can hear me?

My friend’s raspy voice comes in loud and clear. “Yep. Our minds reconnected about the same time you hooked that one mare in the face. What happened? I thought you were dead.”

Two bolts whiz past my face. I turn to find two goons aiming their shooters at me. I jab both my claws into the floor. A second later two clusters of blades burst out from the ground underneath the goons, ripping them to shreds.

As a matter of fact, I almost did die, I say as the ground spikes retract back to my arms. Turns out I have a weakness, and that is consistent artillery fire.

“And here I thought you were immune to explosions”.

Blame my parents. They didn’t vaccinate me for them.

Somewhere in this maze of cubicles, a blue-eye yells a command. “Everyone fall back! Regroup at the elevators!” Following this, several ponies run form their positions towards what I assume to be where the elevators are at. Of course I’m only speculating based on given information. I can’t see anyone over the cubicle walls, only hear them.

Sure, let them run. The fewer suicidal goons in my way, the better. And if they’re heading for the elevators, they’ll lead me to a one way ticket to the top. Now that I’ve sorted things out with myself, how about I head up and get you out of that box?

“And what’s going to make attempt number two better than attempt one?”

I walk towards where I think the goons escaped too. It doesn’t take me long to find the exit for this office space. It’s an open double door leading to a hallway with flashlights flickering all over the place. For one thing, I’m not doing any stealth.

“Thank goodness! I won’t have to suffer from any more ulcers.”

And I’ll be thwacking you in the head for giving up on me.

Rainbow is silent for a moment. “I’d rather you not.”

I’d rather I will. With a sprint, I run towards the double doors and pop on through into the hallway. Blue-eyes are here to greet my entrance with open arms. The goons are lined up in two rows, one kneeling at the front and another standing at the back. Both rows have all their bolt shooters aiming at my face.

“Don’t you dare do anything to me.”

I can’t help but grin. I got to do something. You called me a chicken.

A wave of deadly, blue magic flies at me. I put two tumor claws in front of my face, and the bolts splash off the tough material. I let out a griffon shriek before charging into Blackwatch’s ranks.

A couple of ponies in my path have enough sense to jump out of my way. One pony, not so much. This blue-eye doesn’t stop shooting at me. I have to force him to stop by slamming right into him. When we connect, I take him on a little ride down the hall. He screams right in my ear right up to the point when I skid on my heel and elbow him into the air. He and his shooter go flying down the hall. He crashes through a door into the ladies' restrooms, where he groans in pain after the dust settles.

Turning on my heel, the tumor I just elbowed the guy with spins me around to face the back of the lines. It smashes down on the ground. While it’s too far to crush anyone underneath, its shockwave sends a chunk of goons soaring through the air.

The blue-eyes who haven’t been knocked on their asses turn on me and open fire. I toss another tumor claw at the cluster of buggers, which crushes the middle of them and throws away the others. Then I strike at another cluster with the same results.

After that, there aren’t many ponies left standing. In fact, most of the blue-eye are either lying on the floor in unconscious or in agony, or are squashed to a fine pulp. Only one blue-eye remains standing. His legs are shaking, and he can hardly keep his shooter still.

I look the lone pony dead in the eye. The poor kid looks like he’s about to piss himself. “Boo,” I say.

The blue-eye jumps, dropping his shooter. He spins around and takes off into some unknown part of the building. Good to know not everyone in this damn organization is suicidal.

“Are you done playing with your food?” Rainbow asks. The thought of me thwacking her is a long gone subject now, but it’ll come up again soon.

One moment, I need to wipe my mouth. My tumor claws shapeshift back to normal, and I walk up towards one of the elevators. Question, how does Las Pegasus sound to you?

“Las Pegasus? What about it?”

Once I break you out, we can’t stick around Manehattan forever. I figure we take a trip to a nice place like Las Pegasus and settle for a while.

“Okay, I can follow that. But why Las Pegasus of all places?”

Before I can answer, the elevator dings to announce its arrival on this floor. Ah good, my ride is here. Slight problem, I wasn’t the one who called it.

Hold that thought, I have company.

The doors part open. As they split, they reveal the occupants inside. Two large ponies, dressed in heavy plate armor, wait for me on the other side. Armored ponies, the Dozers, the same type of Blackwatch soldier that made my life hell back at the music hall.

Nope.

They both get two tumor claws to the face. Their helmets implode under the force of my blows. All strength leaves their bodies, and they topple over into lifeless heaps.

“Damn, you didn’t even give them a chance.”

I kick their limp bodies out of the elevator, one after the other. If only I could do that yesterday. With the dozer out of the way, I press the button for the top floor. They had it coming. We were talking about Las Pegasus, right?

The doors close and the elevator shoots up. “Yeah, why the heck do you want to go to Las Pegasus?”

Let’s see, there’s twenty-four seven entertainment, bars open all night, lots of customers running around who would be happy to drop by a novelty scone shop, and it’s in the clouds. Las Pegasus is perfect to hang low at.

“Those are all bad reasons considering our present situation.”

I thought you’d be up for the idea. What’s so bad about Las Pegasus?

“On a normal day there are hundreds of tourists in that city, tourists who are noisy, rude, and downright filthy. Anything there costs a fortune, and don’t even think about opening up a store there without corporate money. I wouldn’t go there at the best of times, and we’re not in the best of times. We’d be wanted criminals, and they’d spot us in a heartbeat.”

Huh, haven’t thought about all that. I just assumed Rainbow would go along with the plan. Can you think of a better place?

I hear nothing but the rush of the elevator for a couple of seconds before Rainbow speaks. “The Badlands.”

The Badlands? That’s a terrible idea. There’s no way we could live out there.

“If you look at the big picture, the Badlands are perfect. It’s sparsely populated, so we can lay low wherever we like. It’s sunny all the time, so you never have to worry about freezing to death in the winter. And it’s far, far away outside of Equestria. Blackwatch can’t reach us out there.”

They’re called the Badlands for a reason. How do you expect us to survive out in that hostile wasteland?

“It’s not too hard. I've done some time in that place. You just have to put some effort into looking for food and water.”

No, I don’t want to do that. And on another note, what about my scone shop? I can’t run a shop while out in the middle of nowhere. I worked hard for that store, I think. I think I worked hard for the shop. Stupid amnesia.

“You think Blackwatch will let you run any kind of store in any nation?”

Blackwatch be damned, I want to bake scones, even if it kills me. Heck, I'll open a place in Canterlot just to spite them!

Rainbow Dash huffs. “Your funeral.”

The elevator slows down and makes a ding at full stop. The doors open, and to my surprise, there’s only one pony outside to greet me.

The little blue-eye is holding up a hoof, expecting me to show my badge. What he didn’t expect is a full grown, pissed off, lady griffon stepping out. I shove the poor bastard to the ground when I get out. Not worth my time.

This is the same metal plated hallway I walked through earlier. It shouldn’t be too hard to find my way to the warehouse room. It is a little weird that the hallway is practically empty. Earlier, blue-eyes and trashbags were running around the place and keeping it busy. Now it’s dead.

“If it’s this quiet, Blackwatch could be setting up a trap for you.”

Makes sense. They have trouble fighting me on even ground. They might be all sitting around the corner, ready to shoot me to bits and pieces on first sight.

After a little bit of walking, I find myself standing in front of the dead end that secretly leads to the warehouse room. I know I’m at the right spot because the not so secret access panel is sticking out from the wall.

“In fact, I bet they’re waiting for you behind that door.”

Then let’s spring the trap.

I grow out my tumor claws once again. I should have these out all the time, I don’t know why I keep putting them away. I slam them against the access panel. The panel smashes into a pancake, and the wall buckles from my strike. I hit it again and make the dent grow. Then I hit it again, and again, and again.

The metal creaks and groans with each bang. At some point, something snaps. Right after that snap, I hit the wall as hard as I can, one more time. The wall spits off into the air, glides for a bit, and crashes down in the middle of the warehouse, crushing one of the black boxes upon landing.

I yell out. “Honey, I’m home!”

I step on through, and I find my trap. Hundreds of blue-eyes are standing on the catwalks. They’re packed tight on each walkway. Their shooters are hanging over the railings, and they’re all pointed at where the door used to be. By extension, they’re all pointed at me.

They all start shooting once they spot me.

It’s a wall of blue, magic death. I dive to the floor of the warehouse before the magic wall turns the doorway into a slab of molten metal. I weave and dodge in between the black boxes. The boxes provide a decent amount of cover. They block most of the angles the blue-eyes can shoot at me. Those that do have angles on me, I keep my tumor claws high so most of their bolts splash off them.

“Round two is doing better than round one.”

I dash between a row of boxes, avoiding a river of bolts aiming for my ass. Concentrating, can’t talk right now.

A thought crosses my mind. I jumped in here as a Hail Mary, but I don’t have a follow up plan for this. I intended to go the same way I did earlier, but that means I’ll have to take the elevator on the other side of the room. That elevator has no cover, and I'll be a sitting duck while I ride it up. Hmm, should have thought this through before busting down the door.

A low rumble erupts from above me. I look up at a hole in the ceiling, one made from the artillery, and see the golden underside of an airship flying above the building.

That’s Blueblood’s airship. It looks like it’s coming in for a landing. Why is it returning?

“Hey Gilda, you’re going to want to hurry up.”

A magic bolt slips past my defenses and stings me in the throat. I choke as that little piece of flesh regenerates. I’m going as fast as I can without blowing up in bits. Is something going on?

“They’re moving my box! I don’t know where they’re moving it too, but they’re doing it!”

I glance back up at the underside of the airship. The low rumble changes octaves as it descends onto the roof. I think I might have a good idea where you’re going.

“Thanks, Mister Monologues-A-Lot. I’d have no idea what’s going on without your constant play by play.”

Yeah, you wouldn’t. No need to be rude about it.

“I just want to be out of this box!”

Fair enough. Just give me enough time to get up to the roof.

“Not much time for that!”

While we’re talking, I run past a broken box. The bunker door I knocked off earlier landed on this box and sliced it in half. As I glance at it, I notice some of the magic bolts are hitting the door, and they’re only leaving little black marks on the steel. I grin. That door might be my ticket out of here. It would make a good shield against the bolts. All I need to do is get it to the roof elevator and I can protect myself.

I turn around and run through the magic bolt storm that’s been chasing me. Several bolts strike my unprotected areas, my legs, my elbows, my butt. They like hitting my butt, weirdos.

With a dive, I jump into the closest half of the box. Relief flows over me as the black metal cuts off the magic storm from hitting me. The bolts ping off the metal. They don’t sound too far off from a rainstorm. That’s one problem temporarily taken care of. Now I have room to think. No time though, Rainbow’s box is moving.

The tumor claws shrink into my normal ones, and I grab the door from the bottom. With all the strength I can muster, I try to lift the thing up. I pull it up several inches, but my body can’t handle the weight. My limbs shudder before I drop it with a loud clang.

Son of a bison, this thing is heavy! How in the world did I punch it this far earlier? Tumor claws, that’s how. Damn, if only they had talons, or something to grab with.

The tumor claws grow out once more. Maybe they’ll work, I don’t know. They’re big balls of hardened flesh. They’re good for smashing things, maybe they're good for lifting. I shimmy them underneath the door. They get under there, but not without some effort on my part.

Once they’re under, I lift up once more. To my surprise, the door lifts up with ease. Huh, tumor claws give me a weird strength boost. They really do solve everything. I wonder how good they are at baking scones.

Something gooey slaps against my foot. I glance down to find a tentacle wrapping itself around my leg. I shout and let go of the door. What in Tartarus is that!

I stomp on it with my other foot, and the tentacle slithers back from where it came from, which is the other half of the box. Sweet mercy, there’s something in this box with me! Why did I jump in here?!

It takes me a moment to realize something important. The door didn’t fall. After I let go, it didn’t drop, not even an inch. It’s just hovering in midair.

A low growl emits from behind the door. The door floats up into the air, revealing the prize behind it.

I find myself standing in front of a giant, bloody eye. Its pupil locks on to my face and dilates. Little tentacles are wiggling all around the thing. Three large tentacles stretch above the eye, lifting the door above the box. It rumbles a bit.

Uh, Rainbow, do you have any idea what this thing is?

“I’ve been trapped inside my own box for a month. I know as much about that thing as you do. Now stop making new friends and break out your old one!”

A slit in the shape of an X forms across the pupil. The X grows, and the eyeball splits open, revealing a maw with rows upon rows of serrated teeth. Goop drips down from its now open flaps, and wave of rancid breath blows over me.

I can’t get out of this box any faster if I wanted to, and I do! With my monster speed, I scramble out of the box and flop on the floor. Tentacles shoot out to grab me, but they miss me by inches. Nope! Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope!

To compound my bad luck, when I jump back out into the open, the blue-eyes up on the catwalks start shooting at me again! A lot more hit their mark than before, but I don’t care. There’s a giant eye slithering behind me that wants me for a snack!

“Stop playing around and get to my box!”

I said I’m working on it!

I run for the roof elevator. After swerving through several rows of boxes, the elevator platform comes into view, or at least the elevator shaft. No one’s lowered the thing from the roof since I fell off the building. No time I suppose. I run up to it and hit the down button on the control panel. The elevator whirls to life as the platform begins lowering from the ceiling.

With the constant bolt fire on my back, I don’t stop moving. I sprint to the left, and just in time, too. A huge tentacle slams into the wall behind me, right where I was just standing. It’s a huge, thick, pulsating thing that’s making all sorts of nasty slobbery sounds.

My eyes follow the tentacle back to the source. The giant eye creature is oozing and climbing over the boxes, and it shot one of its appendages at me. The blue-eyes are shooting a storm at the thing. The bolt swarm is burning its flesh, but it keeps on regenerating its wounds.

Ah great, I think I just met my cousin.

Another mega tentacle shoots out from behind the eye, and it slams into a catwalk right above me. This section of catwalk has a dense gathering of goons, and the tentacle grabs them all and starts dissolving them. They scream as their bodies liquefy and become part of the eye.

Several more tentacles shoot out across the room, each hitting a group of blue-eye lines up on the catwalks. While the monster eats them, the other surviving goons shoot at either the tentacles or the eye itself. None of the magic bolts do any real damage.

Hey, Blackwatch isn’t shooting at me. That’s a plus.

“They stopped moving my box. I think they have me on Blueblood’s airship.”

On my way. Just have to wait for the elevator to -

One thing I forgot about was the eye monster is holding the metal door, the same metal door I kicked out to get into this room. The same one I tried to pick up and use as a shield. The monster flings its tentacle around, and it lets go of the door. The giant, metal slab flies over the boxes and through the air. It doesn’t stop until it crashes into the wall, right where my descending elevator just so happens to be. Both door and elevator collide and they explode in a shower of shrapnel.

- get down here… You know, I don’t think the universe wants me to rescue you.

“Get me out of here or we’re not friends anymore!”

Relax. I’m all for flipping off the universe.

I need to get to the roof now! I look up at the elevator hole up on the ceiling. Crap, that’s really high up. If only I still had the elevator, or a really tall ladder. Heck, if my monster powers could be useful for once and let me run up walls, that would be fantastic!

…

Hey Gilda.

Yes Gilda?

You know you can run up walls with your monster powers, right?

Oh yeah, I can do that. I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me.

Hey Gilda.

Yes Gilda?

You know you’re a dumbass, right?

I’m reminded every chapter of my life, thank you very much.

Time to put inner monologues aside. I need to get up to that roof yesterday!

The tumor claws shift to normal, and I take off sprinting for the wall. With a running jump, I slam into the side and dig my claws into the concrete. I kick myself into a vertical gallop, and I’m running up the wall. Hehe, I forgot how fun this is!

There’s still a catwalk above me, all with blue-eyes shooting at the monster. Eh, they’re not too scary. I headbutt the bottom of the walkway and break it off its hinges. The blue-eyes standing on it tumble past me as I keep running.

Within a few seconds, I pop out of the elevator hole and dive onto the roof. The cold night breeze greets me once again like an old friend. That was easy.

A low rumble grabs my attention. The moment I get up on the roof, the golden airship takes off. It lifts up several yards into the air and makes a beeline out of here. It doesn’t bother making a turn. The airship just goes straight over the Manehattan skyscape, a golden monolith traveling over a twinkling city.

Oh… that’s bad.

“No no no no no no no!” Rainbow screams. A sharp pain shoots through my head. I think her panicking is giving me a migraine. “I was this close to getting out of here! This”-

Her voice cuts off when she gets too far. Our connection is severed! Crap crap crap crap!

As the airship flies away, the sound of artillery fire erupts behind me. “BRAUMP, BRAUMP, BRAUMP!” Great, just great! This is the perfect time to do this song and dance all over again!

I sprint out of the way just as the area around the elevator hole explodes into a much larger hole. Right after, a storm of magic bolts flies at me from every direction. There’s still a considerable amount of Blackwatch up on this roof. Even the pegasi get in on the action and rain death from above. Everyone here has the sense to stay as far away from me as possible.

The tumors come up and shield me from some of the bolts. My instinct for cover kicks in, but the big cover I had last time I was up here is now flying away on a golden blimp. It didn’t do much to begin with, but it was something I could work with. All I have now is a big open plane!

Except I do have something, I have the harpoon cannon! That made for some good cover for a short while…

No! No cover! Cover is for chickens! I don’t have time to hide behind cover! I need to catch that blimp now before it disappears for good!

There’s a pegasus right above me laying down fire from the sky. My normal claws shift out and I super jump up towards him. Before the pegasus can react, I slam into his underside, grab him by the waist, and drag him down to the cold hard ground.

We crater back onto the roof. I keep him, or her, facing up so I don’t crush him, or her, with my weight. I yell right in his, or her, ear. “Fly me to that blimp if you want to live!”

The pegasus flails around and tries flapping his wings as hard as he can to get out of my grasp. Clearly he, or she, is not listening. Scratch that, just he. This gender thing is too much effort. I can see why Blackwatch doesn’t bother.

My grip tightens around his waist, and I yell again. “You’ll wanna try harder if you want to escape. Now fly my to that blimp!”

As the pegasus tries his darn hardest to break loose, something occurs to me. The pegasus is trying his hardest. His wings are working overtime to try to get away from me. He probably has an adrenaline boost to give himself a little kick, too. Even at his best, he doesn’t have enough power to lift me. Forget trying to get to that blimp, I’m too massive for him to pick up at all!

“BRAUMP, BRAUMP, BRAUMP.”

I kick the poor guy off me and jump up on my own four legs. “You’re on your own,” I yell back as I sprint away from the dazed pegasus. Two seconds later, the area he’s sitting in turns into a firework show gone wrong. Don’t worry, I’m sure he lived, probably.

The golden airship has a good amount of distance now. The pegasus idea didn’t work. I could tie a group of them together and use them as a personal blimp, but I don’t have the time or mutual cooperation to do so. I need a solution right now! What do I have? What do I have? Roof, useless. Ponies shooting at me, annoying and useless. Building, sky, airships in the sky…

Airship! Fight airship with airship! I can chase Rainbow’s airship with my own! Yes, that’ll work! But I need to get up to one of those airships to claim one. I can’t jump that high, and I don’t have a wall to run up to get to one. Unless I can get up there somehow, which I don’t see myself doing otherwise I’d be flying at Blueblood’s blimp, I need to bring one of those suckers down here. If I can hook it somehow, I might have enough monster strength to pull it down myself…

Hook! The harpoon cannon! That will work!

I sprint around the holes in the roof, not bothering to shield myself from the magic bolt storm. At full speed, it only takes me a moment to get to the harpoon cannon and dive into the backseat.

The pony the harpoon cord split in twain is still here. It’s been long enough for most of his blood to seep all over the floor. I step around him, but there’s nothing I can do to not step in the blood. It’s wet, cold, and slightly sticky. Ew. I’m going to need a lot of soap to clean it all off.

I plop down on the guy’s seat. It’s not a comfy thing. It’s about as stiff as he is right now. No matter, it does what I need it to do, and that’s put me in front of the controls. The controls are simple to understand at first glance. There’s a joystick, and a big red button right next to the joystick. That’s it.

I grab the stick and push it forward. The cannon whines as it responds to the command. The tube arcs up and points to the night sky. With a little finicking, I aim it at the nearest airship.

Hold on Rainbow, here I come!

My fist slams on the big red button. Something clicks, and a hatch on the tube flies open. On the bottom of this hatch, written in white marker, are large letters that spell out one thing. “It’s Empty, Idiot.”

Shouts and commands yell out beyond my view from this seat. This is starting to turn out like it did last time, and I bet Blackwatch learnt a few things from last time. Well, I learnt something too, and that is to hurry the fuck up!

I search my area high and low for something to load this thing with. In my frantic search, my eyes fall on a hatch on the floor, slightly raised above the pool of blood. In white marker, the word, “Ammo,” is written on it.

I throw the hatch open. Inside are large, metal cones. Some of the cones are covered in the dripping blood of the split pony. Each cone has the word, “BOOM,” in small, black, blocky letters. By sheer coincidence, each cone is about the same diameter as the inside of the tube.

These aren’t what I need! I need to hijack an airship, not shoot it out of the sky!

I stand up from the seat and look over at Big Goldie. It’s almost over the Manehattan coast! Even if I commandeer an airship, there’s no guarantee I’ll catch up to Blueblood’s in time. I need to stop it before it gets too far!
The boom cones cross my mind. I could shoot it down.

A magic bolt hits me square in the eye. I go half blind, but I already feel the regeneration fixing that. With my other good eye, I see the blue-eyes rushing towards me, spraying their magic shooters at my general direction.

No time left. I yank out a boom cone and shove it into the tube hatch. The hatch closes, and magic bolt pings right off the metal. I glance at the source and see a pegasus flying by, taking pot shots at me.

More pegasi swarm the cannon, and they rain more bolts down on me. I put up a tumor claw to block some bolts, and I grab the joystick with the other. With a yank to the side, the cannon jolts to life and swerves around to aim at the gold airship. I pull back to lower the thing, and I hear the tube bang against something. I peak over the edge to find a blue-eye rubbing his head. I think I hit his head with the cannon.

Two blue-eyes jump up onto the seat on either side of me. I kick at one with one of my foot. He slips on the blood and falls off the platform. The other blue eye aims his magic shooter at my neck and blasts a hole in me. It does little to me, and for his troubles I punch him in the face with the tumor fist. His head dissipates into a cloud of blood and brain.

With the attacks on me going on, I somehow point the cannon towards the golden airship. While my one eye is still regenerating, I can only aim with the other surviving eye. I still need to fine tune the cannon to get it right on target, and I’m not quite sure if I’m close. The constant barrage from the pegasi isn’t helping things!

“BRAUMP, BRAUMP, BRAUMP!”

SHIT!

The eleventh hour is past. Midnight has struck! I smash the big red button with the tumor fist, and it obliterates the entire control panel. For split second, I fear that I just destroyed my only chances of rescuing Rainbow, up until another “BRAUMP” erupts from the business end of my tube.

I super jump out of the seat and off the edge of the roof. My wings spread out and catch air high above the streets of Manehattan just as my cannon explodes in a great, big, magical fireball. Sweet mercy, I’m cutting things close!

The explosion's boom rolls over my wings. The spectacular death of my own cannon doesn’t concern me. I look over at the golden airship. It's still flying away. My gut clenches up. I’m not too sure I aimed that thing right.

There’s a few seconds when nothing happens. The airship continues on it original course, riding for the night sky. When it all seems too quiet, and the only thing I hear is the wind rushing through my feathers, the distant airship lights up the dark with an explosion. In the same instant, the airship erupts into a giant fireball, and it comes crashing down over the sleeping city.

I clap my claws and cheer. Yes! Fucking yes! That airship is going nowhere! Suck it Backwatch, you’re not taking away Rainbow tonight!

My wings angle to the side, and I turn my glide towards the downed blimp. At some point I’m going to stop gliding and drop like a rock, but that’s okay. I can run the rest of the way. My monster speed can outrun everything Blackwatch has, except their airships. I just need to keep pace with those.

Here I come, Rainbow Dash! I said I’ll get you out, and I’m going to do just that!

Or I might have just blown you to smithereens…

33 - Down By The River

The Blackwatch airships pass over me when I’m about three quarters towards the burning airship. Their low rumbles snuck up behind me, and then they hauled ass overhead. Blackwatch deployed the airships later than I expected. Even with the delayed start, the airships caught up to me and gained the lead. I better start hauling ass too!

The buildings in this district are far shorter than the skyscraper I just came from. They bounce between five and ten stories, with a few outliers poking above here and there. The different building heights make for an interesting run across the rooftops, as I’m constantly jumping over large gaps to get to the next roof. I’m often falling a bit short and have to run up a wall to get back up topside. It’s an adventure, to say the least.

One benefit of all these low rooftops is I can see the thick pillar of smoke rising from the wreckage. I don’t just see it, I smell it too. This isn’t the smoky smell you get around a camp fire or when you burn your dinner. This is the smell of a blaze. It’s unmistakable. I remember a long time ago in Griffonstone when the fishing wharfs caught on fire. The smoke traveled up the mountain and no one could escape it. I’ll never forget it. This is the same.

The light from the flames is bouncing off the plume and lighting up the night. It’s casting a dull, orange glow on the dark sky. While no one is ever going to blind themselves by looking up, Manehattan is lit well enough to see where I’m going, even without night vision. If the sound of the explosion or the smell of the fire didn’t wake anybody up, an orange glowing city will do the trick for sure.

The flying airships slow down and descend not too far away from my position. If they’re right over Blueblood’s airship, then I’m about a fifteen second sprint away from the crash site. The smoke is staring to get intense. My eyes are watering a bit. I jump up onto the rooftop of one of the taller buildings and get a view of the situation. Sure enough, I can see the site from here. Its close enough for a short run, but far enough away so Blackwatch won’t spot me.

I cut it super duper close with the artillery shot. Blueblood’s blimp was about to fly over the shore when it blew up. It's at the edge of the island! Half of the wreckage is lying on the street, while the rest of the hulk is dipping into the river.

The whole thing is a bonfire. I can feel the heat from here. Sheets of blazing fabric are hanging off the silhouette of a metal skeleton. The cold, dark waters of the river are flickering with orange, and all the buildings in the area are glowing the same color.

A breeze hits my face, and I get a nice, hot whiff of air that’s more smoke than oxygen. This triggers a coughing fit, and I hack up a long for half a minute. If it’s this bad up here, then I’d hate to imagine how bad it is down there.

I go back to scouting the area. There are Blackwatch troops surrounding the downed airship. A lot of them don’t seem to know what to do. They’re running back and forth, talking on their voice boxes, and yelling commands willy nilly. Soon they’re reinforced by the arriving airships, and more Blackwatch goons grapple down via cable to add to the chaos.

The Blackwatch uniforms, the black suit and the blue glowing goggles, are easy to pick out from the burning blaze behind them. I can easily count twenty or so goons establishing control over the scene. I use the term control loosely here, because I don’t think they know what they’re supposed to do.

I know what I’m supposed to do, rescue Rainbow. Now that her mode of transportation is down, Blackwatch isn’t taking her anywhere. The pegasus is mine for the taking.

If I didn’t blow her to bits…

“Gilda, are you there?”

I perk up at the mental connection. If Rainbow is using the connection, then she’s okay. I didn’t kill her! Yeah, I’m here. I’ll get you out in a minute.

“Oh good. I have one question.” Our mental link erupts in a shriek. “What in Tartarus just happened?!”

I rub my temple to calm down the headache she just gave me. I’m starting to hate this mental link thing we have going. I stopped Blackwatch from taking you away. Explosions were involved.

“I… don’t even want to know. Just get me out of here.” She grumbles to herself, too quiet for me to hear. Which is odd, considering we’re listening to each other’s thoughts, so volume shouldn’t be an issue. “It’s getting hot in here. Why is it getting hot?”

Um… I stare at the raging inferno. Rainbow is somewhere in there.

“Explosions led to fire, got it. Just get me out of here before I die by pressure cooker.”

Rainbow is bossier than I remember. Just as a reminder, smack her upside the head when we’re out of here. I still owe her for the chicken comment. Right away, your majesty.

I jump off my perch and glide towards the inferno. The heat grows more intense as I soar closer, and the air clogs up with dense smoke. At some point I'm going to cross a threshold where I will have to get out of here. This is too unpleasant for a mountain girl like me who enjoys cold, clean air. And it’s going to get worse. Rainbow’s box is in the fire.

When my glide starts to decline, I fold in my wings and drop like a stone. Two blue-eyes, who are having an argument about something inane, get caught in my crash zone and fly off their hooves when my shockwave hits them. This prompts all the surrounding goons to look my way. Before they had no clue what they were doing. Now, once they recognize me as a threat, they know to aim their weapons and hold their ground.

“Can you guys help me find a package?” I ask. “I lost it here somewhere. It’s a package for last name Wiener, first name Ima. Do you know where it is?”

I throw up a tumor claw to block a magic bolt. Magic splatters over my fist, and more bolts come after it. The bolts are hard to see against the fiery blaze, but I can still feel them.

“Ima is not going to be happy if you returned to sender!” I slam my fists together in front of my face and charge forwards. “You won’t like Mister Weiner when he’s angry!”

Rainbows voice pops in my head. “Who’s Ima Wiener?”

Ha ha, you’re a wiener! Wrong audience, but I’ll take it.

Rainbow doesn’t dignify that with a response. Aw, no fun.

Blue-eyes jump out of my way as I barrel towards the inferno. That’s fine, I’m not after them. I hold my breath as I run straight into the curtain of fire. One moment it’s uncomfortably warm. Next it’s blazing hot and I can feel my flesh sizzling. Sweet mercy, this is stupid!

I skid to a halt, kicking up flames as I stop. Everything around me is fire, and only fire. I think even I caught on fire. The roaring cackle from the burning is all I can hear, and even that is hard to hear with my melting eardrums. I need to rush this. I don’t know how long I can hold my breath in here.

With all the fire going on, it’s hard to get my bearings in here. Fortunately, I still have my Gilda sense. I ping for Rainbow, and my monster powers tug me in her direction. I follow the tug, hopping over debris and dodging large flame pillars. It’s a death trap in here.

Fortunately for my sanity, airships aren’t large in the grand scheme of things. It isn’t long before the black silhouette of Rainbow’s box pops out against the flames. Awesome. I do my best to run towards it without burning myself or tearing open my skin on a piece of metal.

Rainbow’s box is covered in airship pieces, but there’s enough exposed surface area for me to break into. In fact, the side of the box I’m looking at is the same one I took a whack at earlier. There’s already a big dent for me to work with.

Knock knock, I’m here to break you out, I say over the mind line.

Rainbow sounds relieved when her end of the connection picks up. “Thank you! I’m ready to end this insanity.”

We’re not out of the woods yet. Get ready to run as fast as you can. I raise a tumor claw behind me, ready to swing it. Oh, and cover your ears.

The tumor slams into the side of the box. The box lets out a loud ring, and the shockwave blows the flames back. I slam it again, and again. Each time, the dent grows larger. I’m getting close to breaking it open!

When the dent is big enough, I take one last swing. My fist breaks open the wall and tears a huge hole into the side. A gust of clean air hits me in the face, and I take a breath of it in before the smoke takes over once again.

The room within the box is dark, even with the raging inferno lighting everything up. Out of the darkness, a blue face pops out. Two rose eyes look up at me, and a huge grin grows underneath them.

The tumors shapeshift to normal, and I hold out a griffon claw to the blue face. Grab on to me and run!

Rainbow Dash grabs my claw and uses it to help herself climb out of the hole. She squeezes tight once she’s completely out, and we take off the same instant.

I run towards a direction I feel is safe, which is any direction. We just need to get out of the fire. I don’t go my full speed to let Rainbow keep up with me, but she’s doing well on her own to keep pace. In fact, she gets ahead of me, so I put in a little power to get ahead of her.

Our escape turns into a race. I speed up to stay ahead of Rainbow, and she picks up speed to get ahead of me. In return, I have to put in more monster power to get ahead of her. I smile. It’s a cycle of speed I haven’t felt in a long time. My memory isn’t up to snuff, but I remember us doing this exact same thing back in the Junior Speedsters, only I was the one catching up with her.

There’s a flaming curtain in front of us. We brace ourselves as we charge head on. We crash through it, and we burst out from the airship wreckage. The air is still smoke filled out here, but at least there’s air to breathe! I was holding my breath for too long in that place. With this air that’s not on fire, I open my beak and take a gulp-

Of a gallon of water as we splash into the river! Oh right, half the airship is over the river! I choke as I take in water. My first instinct is to kick up before I drown, and I kick myself up to the surface. After upchucking the liquid that got into my system, a rainbow colored mane pops out of the surface next to me. She gasps. Her rose eyes look at me, and she tugs me in the direction of the shore. I nod, and we doggy paddle for safety.

The airship is only several yards above and away from us when we reach shore, but the heat’s not as intense now that we’re soaking wet. We crawl up onto the pile of rocks at the base of the quay. A few feet above our heads is the edge of the road. . Smoke rises, and the airship is elevated away from us, so we’re in a nice little pocket of fresh air, and we take in as much as we can.

I look at Rainbow for the first time in forever. There she is, eyes closed, gasping like a fish, taking in the first taste of fresh air she’s had in a month. Damn she’s a beautiful fish. It’s platonic, of course. It’s just nice to see her face after all this time of tracking her down, even if her face is covered in soot. It’s just a nice thing to look at.

I must look the same. I’m taking in air in gulps. I’d say we’re both oxygen starved. All my feathers are burnt to a crisp, if not burnt to ashes. My regeneration is already at work fixing that up, but it still stings.

I nudge Rainbow’s shoulder, and her rosy eyes flicker open. “Hey, guess what?”

Rainbow grumbles as she puts in more effort to keep her eyes open. “What?”

“You’re a wiener.” My arm drops back into the rocks and I chuckle.

Rainbow grunts. “You owe me a boatload of lemon lime soda.”

My eyes roll. “As if. I literally worked my ass off trying to save you.”

The rascal of a pegasus grins, showing off all her teeth. “A deal’s a deal, superseding all proceeding events.” I thwack the side of her head. “Ow!”

“That’s for calling me a chicken.” I flop on my back and look up at the raging inferno not too far away from us. While basking under a burning airship is all fun and good, we do need to get out of here soon. Blackwatch is still street side, and it’ll only take one look over the railing to find us down here.

“Do we have anywhere to go?” Rainbow asks.

“Yeah, I know a pony.” Pinkie said she’d have a boat ready for us. Hope she remembered. “Hey Rainbow.”

“What?”

I reach out and pat her on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Before Rainbow can say anything, the rattling of a chain cracks down from the sky, and said chain wraps around my arm.

Fuck.

The chain yanks me over the quay, the force of which dislocates the joint in my shoulder with a loud pop. It flings me above the heads of all the blue-eyes surrounding the downed airship. After a moment of airtime I slam into the hard pavement of the street.

The chain tugs at my arm, but I smash the links with a tumor claw before the chain flies in the air again. I watch it slither in the air before it slinks back to its owner, a beige earth pony bimbo in a tight corset.

Are you serious?! I just got done rescuing Rainbow Dash and these clowns still want this Tartarus damned three-ring circus to keep on going! Sure, let’s keep trying out the lion taming act. The big cat only mauled the entire mime troop and the world famous strong man. Send in the acrobats to finish the job. Thousandth time is the charm!

I’m standing in a clearing in the middle of a street. Blue-eyes surround me, and they all aim their weapons at me. The dull hum of airships hovers over our heads, no doubt preparing their weapons.

I stick my claw in the ground. Corset yells the first sound of an order before a cluster of blades sprouts out underneath her. She must have sensed it, since she jumps out of the way just as they pop out of the ground. She puts all the fury she has in her order. “Blow her to bits!”

Magic bolts from the blue-eye’s shooters, heavy bolts from the airships, and explosive fire spells from the flying airships as well, all rain down on the spot I’m standing on. To be more time accurate, it all rains down on the spot I was standing on a fraction of a second ago. I super jump into the air before my spot turns into a molten ball of arcane death.

The direction I jump is directly towards the burning airship. The fire is still going strong, so that is not a place where I want to be. I flare out my wings and glide along the edge of the inferno. The heat licks my belly as I fly by, and the updraft gives my wings extra lift. While I’m not able to fly correctly, I can get assistance. The airship’s heat sends me rocketing high above the blue-eyes, almost as high as the lowest airship in the sky.

The blue-eyes don’t lose track of me that easy. They’re quick to start shooting bolts up at me. Most of them go wide, but a few of them hit me. It’s enough to give my regeneration a run for its money.

Movement by the shore catches my eye. I scan the area to find Rainbow Dash still below the quay in a struggle of her own. The bimbo in the suit, of course she’s here, is currently fighting Rainbow in a head on battle. Suit has knives in both of her hooves and is throwing a fury of swipes and thrusts at Rainbow.

Rainbow is just fast enough to avoid most of Suit’s strikes, but Suit manages to slip some in. From up here, I can see where Rainbow is hit. Suit will get a cut or a stab on the pegasus, but Rainbow’s flesh will stitch together and heal back up. Sweet, Rainbow can regenerate, just like me.

And just like me, Rainbow is having trouble flying. She keeps hopping and flapping her wings as hard as she can to jump up into the sky, but her wings go stiff when she gains a foot of air. This gives Suit an opportunity to strike whenever Rainbow does this, and her strikes are nasty.

My wings fold in and I dive bomb towards Suit. I put out my tumor claws to crush her into a mushy pulp when I land. Suit must have heard me. She turns to look up at the sky, then jumps away to avoid me, just like her cohort with the groundspikes. I crater in between Rainbow and Suit, sending a shockwave that creates a little mini tsunami in the river and rocks in the sky.

I grin at Rainbow. “Need help?”

I choke when two knife blades pierce the back of my neck and cut through my throat. I try grabbing the bimbo behind me, but all I catch is empty air. A spike of pain shoots up my leg as another knife stabs me behind the knee. I turn to face Suit, and get a knife beneath the jaw for my troubles.

My tumor claws switch into my old classics, the oversized blade claws. “Every last one of you bastards are getting on my last nerves!” With the blades up my gullet, my words come out along with some blood spittle.

Suit twirls her knife blades at me before I lunge at her with my monster claws. She sidesteps me and sticks another blade in me, this time in my flank.

I slow down to a stop, and I simply stand there for a moment. It just hit me how stupid this whole thing is. Why in Tartarus am I fighting? I don’t have to fight. Fighting just gives me migraines and knives in the throat. Fuck this, I’m done.

I turn around, jumping back to avoid the obvious knife heading for my face. I think Suit is going for my eyes. “Rainbow, you can regenerate but you can’t fly, right?”

The pegasus, who took to the sidelines when I stepped in to assist, nods. “Yeah, I can’t fly away. What gives?!”

“If I had to take a guess,” I pause to swipe at Suit, who was stepping in to stab me in the face. She dodges it, of course. “I’d say you’ve turned into a freaky monster, just like me. And just like me, you should have a method of escaping.”

“What?”

Suit takes another swing at me. I step left, which is what she expected as she jams a blade in my shoulder as I do so. Don’t care. I dash past her and grab Rainbow by the foreleg. “Run!”

Rainbow’s legs flail about as I drag her in my sprint. It takes the pegasus a couple of seconds to get her feet on the ground, but once she gets it she starts running at the same speed as me. Her eyes go wide. “Wow! This is cool!”

“I know, and we can go faster.” I pick up speed, and Rainbow matches it, and overtakes me. We get into our racing mindset once again. The blue-eyes shrink to little specks in the distance. The burning airship disappears when we jump out of the quay and run into the urban jungle of Manehattan. The only reminder of the place we just came from is the glowing orange sky. There’s no way Blackwatch can catch up with us.

“Eat our dust,” Rainbow yells behind us. Blackwatch is long gone. We’ve done it, we’ve finally escaped them! “Now that I can run almost as fast as I can fly, where are we going to go?”

“Almost as fast?”

“You know it’s true. Where are we going?”

I grin down at her. She might be fast, but I’m still taller. “I got a boat.”

Author's Notes:

Developer's Notice - In response to recent incidents, our team would like to remind everyone that Unlicensed Software Modification is still punishable by law. This includes the Nexus Story mod. Especially the Nexus Story mod. Please don't use mods. We don't want to sue our fans.

34 - Intension

When Rainbow and I are sure we’ve evaded Blackwatch, we don’t stop running. We keep going, following my monster sense towards wherever Pinkie is right now. Once we have her boat, we can get off this Tartarus forsaken island. The ponies here are too racist for my tastes.

I super jump up onto the roof of a tall apartment building, and Rainbow does the same. She’s learning how to use her powers quick. I’d say I’m surprised she has the same monster powers I do, but I’d be lying. We both were trapped in a Blackwatch lab. Whatever happened to us while they held us captive can’t be too different from each other. It seems natural for us to have the same condition.

After a minute or so of running on top of rooftops, I hear a dull thud behind me. I stop and turn around. Rainbow is lying face first on the floor, legs spread eagle. Based on context clues, the thud was her tripping. Apparently she isn’t as used to these powers as I thought.

“Had a nice trip, buddy?” I say as I rush up to my fallen friend. “I hope you packed your bags for it.”

Rainbow doesn’t lift her nose from the ground. She holds up a hoof to wave off my comment. “Don't worry. I fell on purpose.”

My eyebrow goes up. “Okay. Why would you fall on purpose?”

“Because I can!” She cheers as she rolls over to face belly up. “I’m free! I’ve been cooped up in a cage for a month! There are no spells shackling me to the wall! I can fall over all I want now!”

Alright, I can dig that. She’s exercising her freedom. I’d do the same thing if I were in her position. Actually, I was in her position a day or two ago, but I didn’t do the whole freedom thing. It didn’t cross my mind. “Wait, they shackled you to a wall?”

“Unicorns would come into my box every few hours and cast spells on my hooves to keep me stuck on the wall. I couldn’t walk, couldn’t move, it was agony.” Rainbow gazes up at the night sky. We’re far enough away from the fire to not be overcast in orange. It’s a plain, black sky. Manehattan has too much light pollution to see the stars. It’s one thing Griffonstone has over this place. “Once not too long ago it would pain me to say this, but now is appropriate. I can’t wait to see the sun rise.”

“What, you don’t like saying sappy things?”

Rainbow closes her eyes. “Something like that.”

The pegasus stretches out her wings and basks under the starless night. Her breathing turns slow and deep. She’s savoring every moment of her new freedom. Watching her is making me jealous.

How come I didn’t get this freedom feeling Rainbow is having now? I was trapped in a lab almost as long as her. I should’ve been dancing in the rain right after breaking out. If anything, I was confused. I was bouncing between places trying to get some meaning out of my new life.

Maybe that’s it, I was confused. I woke up from a coma and went on my way without any directions. Rainbow here is lucky. I came to set the record straight and sacrificed life and limb to break her out. She may not know everything that’s going on, but she knows enough to land on her feet and run.

A question pops up in my head. “Hey Rainbow, do you have any amnesia?”

Rainbow’s eyes pop open and she bends her head towards me. “I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“A couple days ago I escaped Blackwatch too. And when I did, I came out with a nasty case of amnesia. All my memories for the past year, I think it’s a year, are all hazy and distant. I’ve been getting bits and pieces of the past, but other than that I can’t remember jack.”

The pegasus pushes herself up to a sitting position. “Blackwatch held you captive too?”

I nod. “They had me strapped to a table.”

“And you don’t remember any of it.”

“Everything up to my escape is a blur, and even that is hazy.”

Rainbow frowns. “Aren’t you the lucky one.”

“How is that lucky? I can’t remember jack!”

“It’s lucky because you don’t know what Blackwatch did to you. I, on the other hoof, do remember. I remember everything.”

“Like what? What happened?”

“Horrible things, just awful.”

I sit down next to her. I think we’ll be here for a while. “Did they cut you open to see how you tick?”

“Oh, they did that, but it wasn’t a big deal. Sure, they’d cut open my belly and get a good look at my guts, but my body always healed itself afterwards, and there wasn’t much pain to begin with. It was embarrassing if anything, kind of like sitting naked in front of an art class that’s taking a peek inside me and poking at my spleen.”

“That’s… an interesting way of looking at it.” Certainly not the impression I got from the comic books.

Rainbow shrugs. “I won’t lie, I enjoyed the attention after a while.”

Now that’s weird. “Alright, if that wasn’t the bad part, what were the horrible things they did to you? Did they dip you in acid or something?”

Rainbow thought to herself for a moment. “There were a couple acid baths. Those weren’t pleasant. They set me on fire once or twice. And then there were the sword stabbings, the beheading, the full week of sharks, the peacock incident. Those nerds are a weird bunch. One scientist, Strangeglove I think was his name, liked hooking jumper cables to my wings and electrocuting me. I think he got off on that, and after a while, so did I.”

“Sweet mercy, that’s horrible!” I shudder when the last image pops in my head. “Ew.”

“Yeah, it sucked. But all that mutilation and torture made the most horrible thing I experienced bearable. I wish I had your amnesia, Gilda, that way I’d forget the most awful part of being in that box.”

My wings flare out as Rainbow hypes me up. “What? What is it?”

Rainbow throws her head back in the most dramatic way possible. “The boredom!”

My wings droop back down to my sides. “The boredom?”

“It was awful!” Rainbow cries. “I don’t know how long I was trapped in that box. When those scientists weren’t cutting me open, they turned off the lights and left me strapped to a wall. I was almost always in darkness, unable to move or entertain myself!”

I remain silent. The disappointment is too overwhelming to form a response.

Rainbow continues. “I passed the time by counting my heartbeats, and then I messed my pulse up because I figured out how to control my heartbeats and I threw off my biological clock! And then I messed that up too because after that I tried to break my record for counting heartbeats I forgot how to control them and had to relearn it all over again!” Rainbow pauses to take a breath. “On a related note, I now know how to play the Equestrian national anthem with just my pulse, as well as a few country songs and show tunes.”

I know freeing Rainbow was a good thing. I’m glad I got her out. Just something about this new context throws me off for some reason. “So the boredom was the horrible thing, not the invasive experiments?”

“Considering no one ever took me out of the box, the experiments were the highlight of my day. Don’t get me wrong, I hate all those scientists and I hope they all dissolve in a vat of shmooze, but they were at least something different from the dark boredom of the box.” Rainbow looks up at the sky and taps her chin. “But I’ll give the nerds some credit. I did learn a few things about myself. I’d never thought I’d enjoy an intestinal massage.”

“Ew ew ew.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“I will knock it all day long. I don’t need someone’s hooves feeling my guts, thank you very much.”

“Who knows, maybe your captors got nitty gritty with your insides and you enjoyed it, but you forgot all about it because of amnesia so you don’t know.”

“I swear I will clip your wings and chuck you back in that box.”

Rainbow throws her hooves up. “Alright alright, I’ll cut it out.”

“Good.”

We stay up on the roof for a while. Rainbow is still taking her time to relax. I’m letting her have her fun, even though I want to get off this island as fast as possible. Anyone who went through what she did deserves a break. To be clear, I’m talking about the experiments she went through, not the boredom.

I won’t say it, but Rainbow had it easy in the box. She had some breathing space. I assume the scientists fed her, and dealt with her calls to nature. Rainbow doesn’t reek, so something was cleaning her. Sure, one month trapped in darkness sounds bad, but try surviving a winter in Griffonstone.

For five months, you’re trapped in a small hovel with three different families huddled together for warmth while the streets fill up with deep, deep snow. There’s no room to move without bumping into at least five other griffons. The chamber pot always has a line, and the guy who has to go out in the blizzard to dump that crap off the side of the mountain is always you. They can’t light the place up because the building catches fire with the smallest of sparks. No one takes a bath because there are no baths. It’s miserable the entire time.

The young griffons have it the worst. The kids are at the perfect height level to smell all the adults’ farts. The big griffons are always stepping on the little ones and yelling at them to get out of the way. If there was a poor harvest, the youngest are not making it to spring. Hey, we all got to eat.

“And let me guess, you walked through ten feet of snow, uphill, both ways, in hot summer weather, with no shoes or socks and a buffalo on your back.”

My head snaps towards Rainbow, whose mouth is curled up in a large grin. “Hey, that was private!”

Rainbow shrugs. “If you want privacy, then you need to learn to stop narrating your thoughts.” The pegasus pushes herself up on all fours and stretches her neck. “Anyways, you do have a point.”

“Yeah. You haven’t seen anything until you spent a winter in Griffonstone.”

“No, not that,” Rainbow says, shaking her head. “We need to get off this island as fast as possible.”

“That too.”

Rainbow arches her back, cracking a few bones. “You said something about a boat. Well, where’s the boat?”

“I was leading you to it. Pinkie is setting it up for us. I don’t know how she’s getting it, but she told me to meet her wherever she is.”

“Huh, Pinkie’s involved. Why am I not surprised?.”

“Yep. Just be mindful. She’s a bit of a nervous wreck right now.”

“Noted. Which direction are we going?”

“We are going”-

I pause. Rainbow rolls her hoof for me to continue. “We are going… where?”

I was about to look the direction my monster sense was pulling me towards, but something caught my eye. Over on the Manehattan skyline, the Genicorn building is lit up like a bonfire. Airships are buzzing around it. Little explosions are going off all over the place. The big thing I notice is the large ball of flesh throbbing on the top of the tower.

The flesh ball is big enough for me to see all away from the other side of Manehattan. The large mass is a pink and red thing, with black tentacles coming out of the bottom and crawling down the Genicorn Tower. That wouldn’t happen to be that eye monster I broke out, would it? Huh, glad I’m not over there anymore.

“Gilda?”

I shake my head and look to where Gilda sense is pointing me towards, which is far from the big flesh ball. “Sorry, got distracted.”

As I start walking, Rainbow looks over at the flesh ball. “Isn’t that where we just came from?”

I nod, not bothering to look back. “Yep. I think that’s the eyeball monster.”

Rainbow gives a quick laugh at the building. “Good. I hope it tears through all the nerds in that building. Saves me the trouble of coming back to seek vengeance.”

That is a bit odd hearing that come from Rainbow Dash. I let it pass and point in the direction of my Gilda senses. “Pinkie is that way. She should have the boat by now.”

“Then by all means, let’s go.”

We both take off at the same time, though Rainbow is adamant about taking the lead. I glance again at the Genicorn tower. Something about that flesh ball is setting off alarm bells in my head. It’s not from Gilda sense or anything monster related. It’s a gut feeling. My gut is saying that thing is bad news.

Good thing I’m getting out of this city. Don’t want to deal with that thing!

35 - Docked

Gilda sense takes us to a ferry terminal along the coast of the Yellow Zone. It’s a large building jutting out into the waters with enough space for a passenger boat to dock inside. It’s built to hold a lot of ponies waiting for their ships to come in, but it’s clear no passengers have visited this place in a while. The windows and front door are boarded up. No one’s bothered to pick up the trash piling up on the sidewalk. It’s not completely abandoned. A few Yellow Zone ponies are sleeping under the trash piles. They look comfy.

A disgusted look crosses Rainbow’s face when we arrive. “What in the world is Pinkie doing in this place?”

“Getting us a boat,” I say. “Is the place not up to your standards?”

“We’re not going to get robbed here, are we?” Rainbow asks. “This looks like the kind of place where we’ll be robbed.”

Huh, I’d thought Rainbow would dive head first into this kind of place to see Pinkie. “Worried you’ll lose all the bits you don’t have?”

Rainbow waves me off with a hoof. “I just don’t enjoy venturing into unsavory places.”

“And yet you picked me as a friend.”

I jump off the roof we’re standing on and land in the street. The noise from my landing wakes up some of the sleeping homeless ponies. They poke out of their trash piles to see what’s going on, then go back to sleep after determining we’re not a threat.

Rainbow lands next to me, though the sleeping ponies don’t bother acknowledging her. Her hoof splashes in a puddle, and she reels back and shakes off the water. “This isn’t water…”

“Welcome to freedom,” I mutter. While I want to get off this island as fast as possible, I think Rainbow just wants to get off this street. I bet she’s dying to get her flight back so she can fly far above this dump.

We come up to the front door of the ferry terminal. It’s a large wooden door with a sign nailed to the front. Trespassers will be violated. Someone must not have read the sign, since the wooden boards nailed to the door have been pried out and tossed aside. The homeless ponies haven’t used the boards to start a fire yet, so they must have come off recently.

Rainbow sticks behind me as I open the door. Together, we walk into a large warehouse room. It’s dark in here, but I can make out some shapes. There are seats and benches placed throughout the area, up until the floor drops off into the water. The back half of the warehouse is cut out to open up to the river, with a large enough space for a ferry to dock. There’s no ferry at the moment. It’s empty right now. The large barn doors for the boats are closed right now, trapping a large pool of water inside the docking bay.

A noise catches my ear and I turn to face the source. There are a couple pony shaped figures working in the dark on the far corner of the platform. They’re doing something next to the boat bay, which I can’t see. One of the figures looks at us and waves. “Hey, who are you?”

Rainbow and I exchange looks. I shrug. I know as much of what’s going on as she does. “We’re Pinkie’s friends,” I call back. “She told us to meet her here.”

Not completely true, nor a complete lie. She told me to find her without giving me a location. Easy to do with my monster sense. This doesn’t seem to bug the mysterious pony, as he beckons us to come over. “So you’re the ones. Close that door and we’ll get you out of here.”

Rainbow closes the door before we head on over to the ponies. The pony who addressed us, he sounds like a stallion, ducks towards the boat bay to talk to someone I can’t see. There are three other guys standing next to him doing their own thing. One of them is on the bulkier side. Other than that I can’t make out the details.

Rainbow leans up to me side and whispers. “Who are these guys?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper back. “I guess they’re Pinkie’s friends or something. She had to get a boat somehow.”

When we get close to the group, the three guys who didn’t talk turn to look at us. My heart skips a beat when they so. Three ponies are looking right at us, and each of them has a pair of blue, glowing eyes.

“I think it’s safe to bring out the light.” The stallion comes back up from the boat bay, holding a magic lantern in his hoof. He flicks it on, and it lights up the surrounding area, including us. “You lot are lucky. Not everyone has a chance to get off this island so”-

The stallion’s sentence dies when sees us. With the light on, I can see him too. Yellow coat, chopped off mane, pegasus. Captain Cole Slaw, with his jaw dropping down. His suit is heavier looking than I remember. It looks like it has a few gadgets hooked up to it now.

“Is this a trap?” Rainbow says. “This looks like a trap.”

All four Blackwatch goons spring into action. Cole Slaw drops the lantern, and the gadgets on his legs light up with electricity. Two of the smaller blue-eyes step next to him and aim their magic blasters at us, while the biggest of them all stomps around in heavy armor and readies up to charge us.

My monster claws level out towards them and I get ready to pounce. Context be damned, I’m getting off this island one way or another. “Where is Pinkie?” I demand.

“Here, I’m down here,” a voice calls out from below the boat dock. A pink hoof grabs a ledge and pulls up a body. With a little yoink, a grumpy looking Pinkie Pie hops up alongside Cole Slaw. “Don’t kill each other, not while I’m alive.”

I lower my claws once she joins the party. She’s not tied up or in a cage. In fact, it looks like she’s working with Cole Slaw. This might be an extension of the whole Quip thing. “Oh. They’re your friends.”

“Yes, they’re my friends,” Pinkie says as she wipes her hooves together. “Pretty good friends, if I say so myself.”

“Friends with questions,” Cole Slaw says. Neither he nor his buddies loosened up their combat stances. Lightning is still crackling from his gadgets. He’s still ready for a fight. “What in Tartarus is Zero doing here?”

“I can say the same thing to you,” Rainbow says. “What in Tartarus are you guys doing at our escape?”

“Providing us an escape,” I say. “Oh right, you have no idea what Pinkie’s been doing, do you?”

“Neither do I,” Cole Slaw says. “Pinkie, please explain why you got Patient Zero the boat. I know you can be strange at times, but what reasoning do you have to give this mass murdering monster a ride to the mainland, where the rest of Equestria lives?”

“Because she’s a long time friend,” Pinkie says. “I’m not going to abandon a friend in need. Not now, not ever.”

“Cool,” Rainbow says. “And are you friends with Blackwatch too?”

“Yes, they are,” Pinkie replies. “And Rainbow.”

“Yes?”

Pinkie turns into a blur as she rushes up to Rainbow. Before the pegasus can do anything, the party mare grabs her in her arms and hugs her. Rainbow looks stunned as Pinkie starts crying on her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

Rainbow stays frozen for a moment, but she breaks her stun when she pats the mare on the shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, just pats.

“Okay, while the girls have their moment,” I say, turning to Cole Slaw, “let’s have ours. How’s it going Cole?”

The gadgets on Cole Slaws legs let out a few sparks. “How’s it going? I just spent several hours fighting a giant Blacklight monster, one that called itself the Stone Quarry Gang. Sound familiar?”

I nod a bit. “Rings a few bells.”

“It took unparallel coordination from every one of my guys in the Yellow Zone to take the beast down. Even with the best of teamwork, many ponies gave up their lives to stop its destruction. Even then, when we finally cornered it, it just slipped away into the sewers. We’re trying to find it before it does any more damage.”

“Sounds like a pain,” I say. “One of your supersoldiers came after me. He’s in my belly now.”

“Did that happen around the same time the daycare collapsed, because that was great news to hear after fighting tooth and nail with the embodiment of Blacklight.”

“You sound bitter.”

“Extremely,” Cole Slaw seethes. “And now, to top it off, I find out Zero is trying to leave the island, using Pinkie Pie no less. It’s been a great day, great day indeed.”

“You might want to seek out a therapist,” I say. “Blackwatch doesn’t want you to come into work one morning and shoot up the place.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I’ll pass,” Cole Slaw grumbles. “I’m too busy to be sane.”

One of Cole’s lackeys, the biggest of the three, steps up. “You could call command,” the big guy says. “She’s here. Backup can arrive in minutes.”

Hey, I know that voice. It’s Budge! Didn’t recognize him with the armor.

Another familiar voice speaks up from below the boat dock. “No, don’t call anyone! She’ll eat us long before back up arrives.” A purple head topped with a white, floofy mane pops up from below the ledge. I recognize that guy, it’s Pillow Talk, from the daycare. Feels like it's been years since I last saw him. “A few minutes are enough for her to eat us.”

“Grow a pair, Pillow,” Budge says. “If you called Command yesterday, we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.”

“Yeah, like Command could do anything,” Pillow says, rolling his eyes. “You heard the radio. The griffon tore through HQ. What do you think she’s going to do to us?”

“Because you didn’t give them the chance to strike when we had it. Captain Slaw, please tell me you’re going to make the call.”

Cole Slaw doesn’t look at them. Instead, he looks over at Pinkie. “Pinkie, are you sure what you’re doing is right.”

Pinkie, who looks like she’s been having a conversation of her own with Rainbow Dash, faces Cole Slaw and nods. “Yes, I am completely sure.”

The captain lets out a sigh. “Then I’m sorry I have to do this to do this. I can’t live with myself if I let this monster go. Too many lives are at risk. Budge, call command. I’ll keep Zero distracted.”

There it is! I was wondering when one of Pinkie’s Blackwatch buddies would snap. I’m surprised it took this long. My money was on Cherry.

I raise my claws up just as Cole Slaw takes flight. He sticks his forelegs out, which crackle with electricity. Oh, those are going to be a pain in the ass to-

A blue streak crosses my vision and slams into Cole Slaw’s side. Rainbow Dash knocks the captain to the ground and pins his fore legs down. “No, I’m not going back!”

Cole Slaw tries to push Rainbow off, but she’s too much for him to lift. The others seem ready to pounce, but there’s a little confusion between them. They hesitate on what to do.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Rainbow says. “I don’t know if your Pinkie’s friends or lap dogs or what. I don’t know because Genicorn held me in a box for this entire Blacklight fiasco!”

The goons look between each other, not knowing what to do. Pinkie looks like she’s about to jump someone, but she’s not sure who to jump.

“I want you to all know it was your side that had me trapped in that box,” Rainbow says, pointing a hoof at the goons. “It was Genicorn who held me captive, cutting me open and experimenting on me day in and day out. It was Genicorn that kept me in the dark, the painfully boring dark! This griffon,” she points to me,” broke me out of that dark. Just a short time ago, she risked her life to grant me my freedom from your people! She nearly died to get to me. Your people nearly killed her, and if they did, I would never see the light of day ever again! ”

The goons now look more confused than before. Cole Slaw isn’t struggling under Rainbow anymore, so I think her words are getting to him.

“I’m the fastest pegasus in Equestria. If you try to call anybody, you won’t even see me come and stop you. I will fight all of you at once so I never have to go back into that box.”

“Maybe you were in that box for a reason,” Cole Slaw says.

Rainbow Dash looks down at the yellow pegasus. “I will be damned if I let you live to drag me back to that hell.”

Rainbow gets off the captain and steps off the boat dock and drops below. I don’t hear a splash, so I think she landed in a boat instead of in the water. I figured everybody here was gathering around a boat. I just don’t see it from this angle. From the way Pillow Talk is bobbing up and down, there definitely is a boat hidden below.

Cole Slaw sits up, and he looks even more confused than his boys. “This is insane,” he says. “All of this is insane!”

“All the better for you,” I say. “You’re too busy to be sane.”

Pinkie walks up to the captain and puts a hoof on his shoulder. “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright in the end.”

Cole Slaw doesn’t say anything. Pillow Talk, however, takes point to chime in. “I’d put my faith in Pinkie Pie. She’s never wrong.”

“You let this go,” Pinkie says, “They’ll disappear in the mainland. They won’t cause any trouble. You’ll never see them again. You’ll be able to focus on more important things, like protecting the Yellow Zone.”

Cole Slaw is still silent. After a minute, he gets up from the ground, and walks towards the door without looking at any of us. “Insane. I’m going for a smoke. Find me when you’re done with this mistake.”

When he disappears out the door, the smaller Blackwatch goons turn to follow him. Budge remains, though. “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” the big guy says.

“Hey, if you can swim, you’re welcome to join us,” I say. I turn towards Pinkie Pie, and smile at her. “So this is it, I can finally get out of Manehattan.”

“Yeah,” she nods, “This is the moment. Make sure you find somewhere where Blackwatch can’t find you.”

She glances at the boat, where Rainbow is. They had their own conversation while I was talking with Cole Slaw, but I don’t know what they said to each other. Must have been deep. “Does Rainbow seem different to you?” she asks.

“Eh, kind of,” I say. “You’re different too with the whole plague thing going on. Of course Rainbow would end up different too.”

Pinkie shakes her head. “No, I don’t mean that kind of different. I mean a different kind of different. She’s different different.”

“I guess so, maybe. I have no idea what you’re getting at.”

The pink pony sighs. “Just keep on eye on her.”

“You sound stressed out,” I say. “You should come with us. Las Pegasus is a fun place this time of year.”

“No, I’m needed here. There are still ponies I need to help in Manehattan, even if Blackwatch command wants me in prison.” She comes up to me and pats me on the shoulder. “The suitcase is in the boat, in the trunk. I didn’t forget it.”

I press my claw against her hoof. “Thanks.”

It feels like an eternity before she lets go. “Goodbye, Gilda. Keep an on Rainbow for me.” With that, she turns for the door.

Am I going to miss her? Probably. I’m sure as heck not going to miss this city. Manehattan can burn for all I care.

“And watch out for the laser sharks,” Pinkie calls back before she disappears around the door. Laser sharks? Eh, it’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. Good to see she still has a sense of humor.

I walk over to the ledge where the boat is and see our vessel for the first time. It’s an inflatable motor boat, large enough for six or eight ponies to sit tight together. The rubber is black, and it has the Blackwatch logo on the side. No doubt this is used to patrol the coasts when in use.

Rainbow and Pillow Talk are sitting in it already. Rainbow is leaning back at the tip of the boat, snug against the corner and laying her forelegs off the edges. Pillow Talk is stationed at the back motor of the boat, holding the throttle and steering. There’s also a metal trunk the same color or the boat taking up one side of the seats. That’s where the blue suitcase must be.

Pillow Talk waves for me to get in. “All aboard the S. S. Rubber Ducky, the most comfy ride Blackwatch command has to offer.”

I hop into the middle of the boat, and it rocks around in the water when I land. “Are you coming with us?”

Pillow Talk shakes his head. “I’ll drop you off and head back. Pinkie still needs me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy the ride. My uncle was a sailor. I took some love of water from him.”

I plop my butt opposite of the trunk and kick up my legs. “Fair enough. Set sail, sailor.”

Pillow Talk revs up the motor. It sputters to life, then the boat glides forward. We glide towards a hole in the doors I didn’t notice earlier. Looks like a rock crashed through the wood. The boat exits through the hole, and we go out into the open waters of the night.

Finally, I’ve escaped Manehattan.

Author's Notes:

Developer's Notice: We're not kidding. No mods. Our legal team is vicious.

36 - This is that part

Out in the open waters, it gets cold. It’s the dead of night in the middle of fall, and water is spraying all over us whenever the boat hits a wave, and there are a lot of waves. Pillow Talk has the right idea. He’s wearing a rain jacket. Bastard looks nice and dry. Rainbow Dash just doesn’t care. She’s laying on the bow taking it all in. The cajones on that mare.

We’ve been going for about ten minutes at this point. We’re at the midpoint between Manehattan and the shore of the Equestrian mainland. Pillow Talk is focused on what’s ahead of us. He had to steer around a couple of shallow points in the river. It’s a bit hard to see when you have no light to navigate.

I, at the moment, am fixated on the trunk opposite of me. Inside is the blue suitcase, once belonging to Tanya. Inside the suitcase is a cornucopia of strange objects I can only describe as other worldly. Tanya said she was going to have a large payday with this thing. I wonder who she would sell it to.

“You know the first thing we’re going to do when we get to shore,” Rainbow says. It’s the first thing anyone’s said since we departed. It’s been a silent ride.

“Go to the nearest train stop and head straight for Las Pegasus?” I know the Badlands might be safer, but I’ve been hooked on the Las Pegasus idea for so long I’ll die before I give it up.

Rainbow looks at me with a huge grin. “Nope. We’re going to find the nearest convenience store, go to the soda isle, and you’re going to purchase me all the lemon-lime soda they have in stock. And I mean all, including the off brands.”

My eyebrow raises at the pegasus. “Pfft, as if. Even if I had the money, I’m not buying all the soda in a store.”

“Hey, we made a bet, and I’m dying for a taste of lemon lime. Genicorn had the gall to only give me water. Water!”

“You’re pulling that card? If anything, you should be buying me soda. You said it yourself, I almost died trying to save you. I need the electrolytes.”

“I’ll share if you want some,” Rainbow says. “We’re friends, right?”

Pillow Talk interjects as we bump up against a wave. “I have to give it to Gilda. Saving your life beats any prior bets.”

I clap my claws together. “Ha, two against one.”

Rainbow waves me off. “Doesn’t count. He wasn’t present at the bet. He can’t play referee.”

“True, but joke’s on you. If you’re a Blacklight monster like me, then you can’t taste jack shit!”

The pegasus sits up. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve drunk a lot of coffee and booze over the past couple of days. Didn’t taste a thing. Heck, I drank bleach and didn’t taste it. What do you think that says about you?”

Her head tilts to the side, and she shrugs. “I’ll still make you do it.”

“Well aren’t you bull headed.”

She grins at me. I roll my eyes.

“Do you think Cole Slaw is going to call his buddies to follow us over the river?” I ask Pillow. "The guy looked pretty upset in the fact we're escaping.

Pillow Talk shrugs. “I hope he doesn't say anything. I’m driving the boat. I’d be put in front of the tribunal if they caught me with you.”

“I hope not too,” Rainbow says. “I don’t want to go back to that box. I'd punch hom in the dick if he turned us in.”

I scan the horizon for any sign of an airship heading our way. Most of Manehattan is glittering in the night, at least the part that isn’t the Red Zone. That area is pitch black. With all the lights against the sky, I don’t see any of them heading towards our boat. Either they’re coming at us in the dark, or no one is going to come.

We fall back silent after that thought. I look back at the trunk in front of me. To think a strange suitcase was the end of Tanya. I’d thought it would be her drinking problem to take her life. Either liver failure or she’d choke on the stuff. Magic cursed sword, who’d have thunk?

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I lean forward to open the trunk. Just as Pinkie said, the cursed thing is inside. The light blue case is striking against the black box. It’s an insignificant thing on its own. I wonder how much it’s worth.

Pillow Talk leans forward to look in the trunk. “What’s that?”

“Magic suitcase,” I say. “You open it, and you can pull random items out of it.”

“Hmm, that sounds interesting.” Pillow Talk leans closer to touch the outside of the suit case. He nods, satisfied his hoof didn’t burst into flames. “Do you think it can pull a bag of bits out?”

“Maybe, who knows? It won’t do you any good. The items disappear after a while, and there’s a chance you’ll pull something cursed.”

“Oh, like what kind of curse.”

“My friend pulled out a cursed sword. Made her go crazy and obsessed with cutting off heads.”

“Ah, that’s a curse alright.”

“And it turned one of her eyes into a green fire. No clue what that was about.”

“Could’ve been magical overflow. Excess energy has to go somewhere,” Pillow says. “That’s an interesting item you have there. You can pull out anything, be it blessed or cursed objects. Sounds like something Daring Do would go for.”

I nod. Maybe that’s who would buy this thing, Daring Do. I could get a pretty penny from her if she was real.

I glance over at Rainbow, but the glance turns into a stare. The pegasus isn’t relaxing on the boat tip, but is now sitting upright. Rainbow is hyper focused on the suitcase. Her eyes are locked on to it, and her face is visibly straining. Oh great, the mare is hypnotized.

I snap my talons by her ear. “Hey, Earth to Rainbow! Did I lose you?”

It takes a couple snaps, but Rainbow shakes her head and blinks. “I, uh…” She mumbles for a moment. “Who’s Daring Do?”

“A fictional adventurer,” Pillow Talk says. “She’s always going out to look for mythical items. Although a suitcase would be outside her M.O. She goes for more of the relics of dead civilizations.”

Rainbow’s little stare off with the suitcase has me worried. I shut the trunk and put the subject out of view. “Rainbow, stay with me. It’s a cursed object. I have no clue what it can do.”

The pegasus doesn’t look at me, but instead trains her eyes on Pillow Talk. “I do. I have a clue.”

Rainbow get up from her seat, climbs over the trunk, and gets up in front of Pillow Talk. The purple pony looks at her with interest. “Hi, how can I help you?”

Out of nowhere, Rainbow slugs Pillow in the face. The stallion slumps down against the steering pole, unconscious, and the boat turns in a wide circle. My stomach lurches as the turns. Rainbow punches Pillow again, and again. With her monster strength, she caves in his skull with just three punches. Pillow Talk lies on the steering, blood and brain leaking from the crater in his head.

“What the fuck!” I yell. I scramble to the front of the boat, putting the trunk between me and the now homicidal Rainbow Dash. “The suitcase cursed you! You’re cursed! Cursed!”

The pegasus chuckles as she stands over Pillow’s lifeless body. “Fool. I’m not cursed. You have no clue what power you have on this boat.”

Shit shit shit! I already lost one friend to this damn suitcase! I’m not going to lose another! “Resist it, Rainbow. Don’t let the suitcase drag you in.”

She laughs louder this time, and deeper. “You truly are an idiot. I knew it from the moment I met you, and you keep proving yourself on any occasion you can get.”

Wait a moment, something’s not right. Sure, Rainbow just murdered a pony, but that’s not what I mean. Rainbow’s different, like what Pinkie said. She’s different different. There’s something in the back of my mind screaming something. It’s loud, screaming the obvious. It’s obvious. Think, you moron. What’s standing right in front of you? Say it. Say it!

The obvious clicks in my mind. All the clues slip into place. When Pinkie said Rainbow was different, she didn’t mean Rainbow had a different personality. This Rainbow is a completely different pony!

My eyes thin into slits. “You’re not Rainbow Dash.”

An eyebrow goes up on not-Rainbow Dashes face “Oh, and what gave that away.”

I yell the biggest clue off the top of my head. “The real Rainbow Dash hates lemon-lime soda!”

In the back of my mind, I can hear several voices collectively smack their faces and call me a dolt. Right answer, wrong reason, one of them says.

The Not Rainbow Dash cackles. Her cackle grows into a laugh. Then she throws her head back and goes into an all out howl. Green flames lick the hooves of the fake, and the flames shoot up into a roaring blaze. When the flames die out, gone is the blue pegasus I know I love. In her place, something sinister.

Standing a foot taller than me is a slim, black figure. Her skin is dark and shiny, with a few glints of green in some places. Her legs are long and full of holes. A set of transparent wings stretches out across the boat. Green strands of sticky fiber drape across the creature’s face. A crooked horn on her forehead glows a sickly green, lighting up her snake-like face.

I stare up at the creature who has revealed herself for what she truly is. I’m sure this show is supposed to be awe inspiring, but I don’t feel the awe. If anything, it’s confusion, and a bursting blood vessel in my head. “Who are you?” I ask.

The creature shows a set of fangs when she grins. “I am Queen Chrysalis, your new ruler.”

I tap my chin. The confusion is going away now. The burst vessel in my head is getting hotter, though. My vision is going a bit red too. “Nah, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“No matter. Soon all of Equestria will know my name, and fear it!”

Oh, that blood vessel his hot. Sweet mercy, I feel like cutting a bitch. “Yeah, you’ll have to hold off on that. I was under the impression I saved my best friend Rainbow Dash”-

“I lied!”

“And therein lies the problem. See, that’s a betrayal of my trust. You took my most treasured feelings for another living being, and you squashed them, squashed them like a bug, no pun intended. I have no words to describe my feelings for you at this moment. So in place of words, I give you actions.” My talons shift into tumor claws, and I swing them both at the giant bug lady. “Die motherfucker!”

The bug lady yelps as she jumps into the air. My tumor claws smash together with a loud bang in the empty space she just was, sending a shockwave across the water.

“Fool,” the bug lady says. “You cannot kill me! I am beyond you in power!”

I look up at her. Her wings are buzzing as she’s hovering above me. “Hey, how come you can fly and I can’t? I thought we had the same powers!”

The flying bug throws back her head once again and laughs. “We have come from the same source, but I have had time to adapt my powers to the magic of Equestria. I am a far superior version of what you hope to be!”

I swing my big tumor claws at her, but she’s too far away for me to reach. “Why don’t you come down here and I can show you my superior ass kicking skills!”

The bug rolls her eyes. “Please, don’t you remember who the stupid one is here?”

I glare at that insect’s beady little slit eyes. I give the trunk a swift kick, and the lid flies open, revealing the blue suitcase inside it. “You want it, right? Come down and get it!”

The bug crosses her forelimbs. “Oh, precious plebian. I have magic.”

The insect’s horn glows green, and the suitcase glows the same color.

“Wait, no, that’s cheating!”

Before the suitcase shoots up into the air, I grab it and hug it tight. It carries me up in the air, high above the raging waters of the river. With Pillow’s dead body on the steering, the boat turns out from under us and goes off on its own.

I shift my claws to normal to get a better grip of the situation, all while the bug lady keeps on gloating. “Why don’t you give up,” the bug lady says. “Tell you what. You’ve been a faithful servant to me thus far. If you bow before me, you will be my personal right hoof griffon in my new empire. Sounds enticing, no?”

As is tradition with my people in these kinds of social exchanges, I flip the bug lady the bird.

“Very well,” the bug lady says. “Then you shall die.”

Green bolts of magic fly at me from the insect’s horn. One hits my face. Ow. Another hits my shoulder. Ow. One hits my foot. Ow. One after another, bolts keep hitting my all over my body. It stings more than the bolts Blackwatch throws at me all the time, but less than an explosion. Still, it all hurts!

It starts with a centimeter, then it grows to an inch. My claws start slipping from the suitcase. I scramble my arms to get a better grip. I grab something, but something clicks. The suitcase flies open, and I’m sent dangling underneath, barely holding on to the inside ridge.

A magic bolt hits the inside of the suitcase. The suitcase starts to rumble, and a loud roar comes from the inside. I take a peek at what’s going on, and I find a vortex opening up from inside the suitcase. Winds suck into the suitcase. I almost make the mistake of poking my head in there.

Bug lady isn’t hovering anymore. She trying to fly the opposite direction of the vortex, but the vortex is too strong for her. It’s pulling her in. Her magic isn’t lifting the suitcase anymore, it’s doing it by itself. Inch by inch, the insect is pulled closer to the suitcase. I can hear her scream in fear as she tries to escape.

At some point, something gives. The vortex becomes too strong for her, and she’s sucked in with a slurp. The suitcase snaps shut, trapping her majesty in whatever hell this thing contains.

Ha! Fuck you, bug lady! You suck! Hahaha!

Without anything holding us up in the air, the suitcase and I plummet into the water with a huge splash. I breach the surface and grab onto the suitcase for a flotation device.

Ha! Haha! Ha. Eh…

Fuck, that wasn’t Rainbow Dash.

I look up to Manehattan, which is still lit up for the night. I have no clue what time it is. It’s early in the morning, I know that. Son of a bison, I think I’ve been up longer than I was yesterday. Actually, no. I think it was about the same time. Got up at midnight, went on till ten or something. This morning was about eight, now it’s early in the morning. Yep, about the same amount of time.

Fuck, it’s been two days? It feels like years! And what did I get for those years?

Cockblocked! I got cockblocked! I didn’t find Rainbow Dash. I found a giant bug who pretended to be Rainbow Dash!

Fuck fuck fuck! Now I have to go out and try to find her again! The boat makes a pass in front of me as it continues to go in a circle. At least I have a way to make it back to the island. Sweet mercy, that’s painful to say.

As I swim towards the boat, the water underneath bubbles with a bright light. Out of nowhere, a massive beam of light bursts out of the water with a roar and burns the boat in two pieces. The pieces separate, and in between them a large fin glides through the waves towards me.

As the fin draws closer, a large shark head breaches the water in front of me. Deep within its mouth, a bright, red glow illuminates its teeth, and it grows brighter as it charges.

Oh shit, it’s a laser shark!

Author's Notes:

Developer's Notice: Our DRM system saw what was on that flashdrive. Seriously, don't install that mod. Nothing good will come from it.

37 - End of Disk 1

After a long, hard battle, my body, along with the suitcase, lazily washes up against the mainland shore. Sweet mercy, land! Oh beautiful dirt, how missed you! Let us never part again, unless I learn how to fly. If I can ever fly again, then screw you dirt.

The first laser shark was a fluke. I used my wings to hit the water and jump into the air. Just in time too. The shark blasted its laser beam right as I got out of the water. I landed on the thing’s back, giving me a perfect opportunity to slice it open with my claws and turn it into a sushi dinner.

Eating the shark let me grow fins and breathe underwater. It was cool and all, up until the point where two more laser sharks came to vaporize my ass. With my fins and underwater breathing, the battle was a lot more fair. I lost a couple of legs to a few lasers, but I won out on the end. More sushi for me.

It wasn’t until the eighth shark I started crying for mercy. Thankfully, the sea hid my tears.

Here I am, lying on a beach, exhausted and sick of sushi. I don’t know how long it’s been. It’s still dark outside, but the edges of the sky are starting to light up. I think the sun is starting to come up.

Woo, my eyes are… heavy…

It’s bright outside, but it’s not the sun. The sky is orange, but it’s night. The sky is orange, the buildings are orange, all of Manehattan is orange. It all looks warm and cozy, like a campfire. Weird. Discord must be out for a midnight stroll.

I sip on my coffee as I watch the night sky. Manehattan is peaceful at this hour. The only person sitting at this café is me. There’s a big “Closed” sign hanging in the window. It’s right above where the owner wrote the business hours in white lettering. Apparently he isn’t open in the middle of the night. That’s okay, I get the whole patio to myself.

A warm breeze comes from down the street. It tickles my neck feathers when it passes over me. It’s a nice break from the cool night air. Hmm, why can’t Manehattan be like this all the time? No ponies, no monsters, just some pleasant weather and a nice cup of hard black blend.

“Do you have the package?” a voice says into my ear.

I flip out. My coffee goes flying out of my claw. My head snaps towards where the voice came from. There’s a pony, I find, sitting in the chair next to me and leaning too close for comfort.

He’s blue, pegasus, and is wearing a nice suit. Looks sleazy, salespony sleazy. His eyes stare at me while he smiles. He tilts his head a little to the side, as if to say he didn’t just sneak up on me and is innocent of all crimes.

“Do you have the package?” he says again. “We can’t do business unless we have the package.”

I lean away from the dude. He doesn’t seem to have an understanding about personal space. “Who are you?”

“I’m someone who wants to help you,” the pegasus says. “I told you that last time. But you have to help me before I can help you.”

My coffee is lying on the other side of the patio, spilling out into a puddle. Crap, it’ll be a pain in the ass to find another cup. What store is going to sell coffee to a griffon at this hour?

The pony puts his forelimbs up on the table and crosses them. “I know you have the package. I know it’s nearby.”

I glare at the pegasus. He made me spill my coffee! “Look bud, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any package to give you. You, on the other claw, owe me a new cup of coffee.”

“I hope you didn’t open the package,” the pegasus says, ignoring what I just said. “Bad things will happen if you open it.”

“And bad things will happen to you if you don’t get me more coffee,” I snap back. “In case you didn’t know, I eat people!”

The café window explodes in a fireball. Fire roars out of the building and annihilates the patio furniture next to us. The pegasus doesn’t notice. He just keeps on smiling. “There’s not much I can do to help if you opened the package, Gilda. Not much at all.”

The pillar of flame slams into the building across the street, setting that building on fire. As the building lights up, the neighboring buildings go up in flame as well. Soon the fire spreads throughout the entire block, and jumps to the next block over.

“Not much at all,” the pegasus says.

As Manehattan turns into a raging inferno, the pegasus slips into the shadows. It’s an amazing feat, since there are no shadows to slip into. All the fire is lighting the place up!

I look down at his place at the table where he was just sitting. There a coffee mug on his placemat, and the mug is full of good ole’ black brew.

Oh good, Stranger Danger left me a new cup. I take it and smell the fumes. Bitter, like my outlook on life. I like it. As the fires rise around me and consume the great city of Manehattan, I take a sip from my cup and sigh. This is fine.

A new voice cuts through the air. “Just a burning city? Considering all that has happened, I’m surprised you aren’t in the middle of a more bizarre dream. Hmm, at least it's not screaming carrots.”

I slam the coffee cup on the table. “I’m getting sick of all the damn voices in my”-

My voice cuts out when I turn around to see who’s here. Standing above me, in all her regal majesty, is Princess Luna. Her dark coat stands out against the inferno. She’s a black spot on the surface of the sun. She’s also glaring down at me, so I don’t think she’s all sunshine and rainbows.

Ah, it’s a dream.

The Princess of the Night glares at me for a long minute. Her eyes close and she breaths in through her nose. We’re in a dream, so she doesn’t take in a lung full of smoke. Lucky her. At the end of her minute, she doesn’t open her eyes, but she lets out her breath with one word. “Why?”

I roll my claw in the air, motioning her to continue on. “Why what?”

Luna tightens her eyes harder, forming wrinkles on her brow. “Why did you unleash Queen Chrysalis?”

I sip my coffee as I mull over the question. “Hmmm… Who’s that?”

Luna’s eyes shoot open and she slams a hoof on the table. “How can you not remember?! You unleashed her out mere hours ago!

“I did?” I think about what’s happened in the past day. Tanya, daycare, Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash turning out not to be Rainbow Dash but instead a bug lady… “Is this Queen Crystal or whatever a bug lady?”

“Yes,” Luna says without nodding.

“Oh right, she’s a bitch. She tricked me into thinking she’s was Rainbow Dash. See, I was going to Blackwatch HQ to talk to Blueblood, but the bug lady started talking with my mind when I got there, and she was talking with Rainbow’s voice. So I went in to free her, and, well, Blackwatch can tell you the rest.”

Luna smacks her face with a hoof. “You simpleton. Blackwatch had her contained for years, and you broke her out. She’ll spread chaos across the lands in a vengeful effort against Equestria! You do not know the least of how problematic she is to capture.”

I wave a dismissive claw in the air. “Oh, don’t worry about her. She’s trapped in a suitcase.”

Luna pulls her hoof off her face. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me right, bug lady is in a suitcase. We got in a fight, I opened the suitcase up, and a vortex came out and sucked bug lady in it. I know it sounds weird, but that’s what happened. I think it’s an ancient artifact or something.”

The Princess gives me a strange look. “Can you describe the suitcase?”

I shrug my shoulders. “It’s a light blue suitcase. Not much else. You can pull random things out of it, but that’s all I know.”

“Your friend, Tanya, it was her suit case, was it not?” Luna asks. “I thought I saw it in her procession at the daycare.”

“Yeah, it was hers,” I say. “I think she got it from a cult. I don’t know. Why do you ask? Do you know something about weird vortex suitcases?”

Luna rubs her chin. Her gaze goes past my shoulder. “A suitcase, it must be in it. That's how it was stolen,” Luna mutters to herself. “But how did a griffon get hold of the Nexus?”

“Uh, Luna,” I poke at her, “Mind filling me in what you’re thinking?”

“If the suitcase is what I think it is,” Luna says, “then it would explain how Tanya acquired the sword.”

“Yeah, suitcase, sword, I put those pieces together a while ago,” I say. “Mind telling me what the heck killed my friend?”

Luna’s head snaps back to meet my gaze. “I'll forget your transgression with Chrysalis. If you have the suitcase on you, you must return it to us the moment you wake up.”

“And turn myself in along with it?” I huff and roll my eyes. “How stupid do you think I am? I’m not going anywhere near you.”

“You fail to understand. What you possess holds a great danger to Equestria. The longer it is out in world, the more likely it will bring ruin to us all.”

Luna’s tone shifted from “Gilda, you’re an idiot,” to , “The world is in danger,” pretty fast. That’s not going to fool me, though. “Aren’t you Miss Melodramatic. ‘The world will end if you don’t turn yourself in.’ Come on, you’re thousands of years old. You’re more clever than that, Princess. I’m not going to turn myself in over that weak trick.”

Luna hardens her glare as she leans in close. “This is serious. I don’t know if you realize this yet, but anything can be pulled out of that suitcase. Anything. Your friend Tanya learnt that the hard way, did she not?”

Luna pauses to let Tanya’s name sink in for a moment. I take another sip of tasteless coffee. The Princess can bait me all she wants. I won’t bite.

“You’ve seen the state Manehattan is in,” Luna continues. “Imagine if Blacklight, or something worse, spreads past the island. Imagine Ponyville, Griffonstone, everything falling to chaos, just like Manehattan. That suitcase must be contained, otherwise it will unleash unknown horrors upon the world.”

A little voice in the back of my head picks up on a bit of subtext from the Princess. “So the suitcase can make anything?”

“’Make’ may not be the correct term,” Luna says, “But to my knowledge, yes, it can make anything. Do not fool yourself, though. It is more likely to bring destruction than wealth to those who open it.”

“No, I get that. More fire and flame than mountains of gold. I don’t plan to use it like that.”

“Don’t plan of using it at all.”

“I don’t. I’m just curious.” I sip on my coffee again. Hmm, I don’t think this cup is going to run out. Dream logic and all that. “The suitcase will probably make something dangerous, that’s what you’re getting at. It will unleash Tartarus upon the world.”

Luna nods. “You understand then. It must be sealed as soon as possible.”

“If if I were to take a guess,” I say, hitting that little subtext, “this suitcase full of who knows what unleashed Blacklight. Is that what happened to Manehattan?”

The pauses for a moment before she says anything. “You're right. Blacklight came from the suitcase.” She puts both hooves on the table. “So you of all people must understand how imperative securing that suitcase is.”

I lean back in my chair and sip some more. Interesting, Blacklight came from Tanya’s little suitcase of horrors. Maybe Luna’s lying to me. Maybe not. If she’s not, then I have the power to end the world strapped to my back. I wonder how Tanya got her claws on it.

“Sure, I understand,” I say. Luna perks up, and I smile at her. “But I’m not going to give it to you.”

The alicorn’s nostrils flare. “Did I hear thee correctly?”

“I hope you heard. No way I’m going to give this to you. It’s how I’m going keep everyone off my back.”

Luna looks at me for a long moment. “This is foolish! You don’t know what you’re saying!”

“I do know, and I think it’s the smartest I’ve ever done.”

“It’s the stupidest!”

“Think about it.” I prop my legs up on the table and pull my claws behind my head. “If anybody, Blackwatch, Genicorn, you, the cops, were to come after me, what’s to stop me from opening the suitcase and unleashing another Blacklight on another city?”

Luna’s jaw drops. A little stuttering comes out, and for some reason that makes my giddy inside. “You dare make threats”-

“I do dare,” I interrupt. “Manehattan is surrounded by water. It’s hard for the plague to spread beyond that. But if you take a land locked city, say, I don’t know, Canterlot, something like Blacklight will spread like crazy across the country side.”

Luna is silent. She closes her eyes again and steps back off from the table. “I take it you’re serious.”

I shrug. “I think I am.”

“You are truly taking into consideration this ludicrous idea of yours.”

“Oh, I think I’ve gone past consideration. I’m going to take every chance I have to live my life the way I want to.”

Luna takes a long breath through her nose. “I will give you a chance to reconsider. Please, for all that is good, make the right choice.”

“I am making the right choice,” I say. “I’m sick and tired of people going after my neck just because I can shapeshift. I want to be done with that nonsense. My choice is to live without anyone hunting me down. I want freedom. That’s my final decision.”

Luna lowers her head. “Then you’ve forced me to do this.”

The alicorn’s eyes fly open, and they unleash a bright light. The fiery city around me goes out all at once. The raging inferno snuffs out, leaving behind an empty, black void. The only lights that pierce through the darkness are the beams coming from Luna’s eyes.

Huh, impressive show- ACK!

I grab my head as a sharp pain spikes through my brain. The coffee mug shatters on the floor, and I keel over and curl up into a ball. AGH, it burns! My head, it burns! It Burns!

The Princess’s voice booms through my mind. “I offered you free will, but you have forfeited the right to make your own choice. I cannot allow you to persist, as you are a danger to not only Equestria, but all of the world.”

My legs spasm out at the pain ripples through my body. My eyes shrivel in tears, and all I can see is a blurry image of two beams of light.

“I command you to bring yourself to my authority, and relinquish the Nexus to my care. This is the only way, Gilda.”

The spasms grow in intensity, and I lose complete control of my body. My spine arcs back and forth, and all I feel is fire inside my skin. Stop it. Stop it! Stop it!

How can she do this? This is a dream. You can’t feel pain in dreams! This is a dream! This can’t happen!

This is a dream!

This is a dream!

This is a dream!

My body shoots up into a sitting position and I gasp for air. I shudder as my senses kick back in and the pain leaves my flesh.

It’s bright out. I’m sitting on something hard. It’s warm, but not burning. My eyes blink over and over and the world clears itself. It takes me a moment to figure out what’s going on, but soon enough I check back with reality.

It’s sunny out. The sun is high about me. I’m sitting on a bunch of rocks. There’s water rushing past the edge of the rocky area. I’m on a beach.

I grab several parts of my body. Beak. Feathers. Arms. Tail. Claws. I still got everything. Everything is attached. Everything feels not broken.

I take another breath in. I make it a long breathe, and I fall back on the rocks. Ow, those are hard, but at least they’re not in a dream. Ah good, I’m not in that dream anymore.

What the fuck, Luna? Were you trying to take over my mind? That is a clear overstepping of your authority. No, that wasn’t cool. That was definitely a violation of a Griffonstone treaty. Don’t know which one, but definitely one of them. I’m going to have to write an angry letter to congress!

The events of the night prior come back at me all at once. Great, I didn’t actually get Rainbow Dash. I’m back at square one. And now I’ve pissed off the Princess, so I’m double screwed.

No wait, she wanted to bring me to justice before. Nothing’s changed about that. The only thing that has changed is I now have something to keep everyone off my back.

I look to the side and find a blue suitcase lying on the shore. Oh good, I still have you. I hope I never actually have to open you. I just made a threat of national security in front of a Princess’s face. Who knows if that thing will be able to back up my words.

I push myself back up to a sitting position. Now that I have some free time on my claws, guess I should try to find Rainbow again. Like I said, square one.

I look up at the island of Manehattan. The first thing that catches my eye is the massive red cloud hanging over the city. The cloud spans from one end of the island to the other, and drifts down to the ground. Looks like a fog of blood hanging over the city.

From this side of the shore, I can hear the distant screams of mass crowds freaking out over the end of the world. That doesn’t sound fun.

I glance over to where the Genicorn building is. The massive growth on the top of the building isn’t there anymore. Instead, flaps of thick skin and goop are hanging off the edge of the top. A thick cloud of spores are hanging around the building. I think the growth might have exploded.

I look at the cloud, then back at the building, then at the suitcase, then back of the red cloud. The far distant screams of terror are still going.

Hmmm.

I grab the blue suit case, stand up, strap it to my back, look at the city…

And I turn around and sprint into the forest.

Nope. I am not going back in there. I am never going back in. I am not dealing with red cloud bull crap. Let Blackwatch handle that noise.

I wonder if Las Pegasus needs a scone shop.

Author's Notes:

End of Disk One. Please insert Disk Two.

38 - Intermission

Ah, it feels good to put my wings to use once again. They’ve been strapped down for so long. I’m surprised they didn’t fall apart the moment I used them. And tonight’s the perfect night to refresh them. Night air is good for the skin, so I’ve been told.

As much as I would like to soar through the sky and enjoy my new freedom, I have matters to attend to. To be specific, there’s an annoying griffon twat sitting in a boat that I must swat down. He wants to entertain the idea he can stand up against me. Maybe he can, if I allow him the opportunity. But he won’t do anything. I can fly, he can’t. I would be an idiot to let go of my advantage.

Speaking of idiots, the griffon twat in the boat is yelling at me. “Why don’t you come down here and I can show you my superior ass kicking skills!”

Why must I bother with this peasant? Despite the fact the scum on my servant’s shoe can outsmart him, this griffon is able to resist all of my mind control efforts. I don’t know if it’s his biology or if it’s how dense in the head he is, he is somehow able to thwart my influence. I am able to get into the griffon’s mind to communicate and read his inane thoughts, but I can’t gain control of it all. He’s nothing but a pain in my side.

I fold my forelegs together. “Please, don’t you remember who the stupid one is here?”

The griffon glares at me. Does he think he can set me aflame with his gaze? In an effort to surprise me, the griffon kicks open the trunk the Nexus is in, revealing its blue form to me. Strange, last time I saw it was a treasure chest. The griffon screeches. “You want it, right? Come down and get it!”

He thinks he can outsmart me. He does not realize he outsmarted himself. “Oh, precious plebeian. I have magic.”

My horn and the Nexus glow the same shade of green. I magic the suitcase up into the air. The griffon is a true fool not to realize I can do this. Fool he may be, he’s persistent. The griffon cries something before he jumps and latches onto the Nexus. I try to shake him off, but the griffon has a firm grip.

What a nuisance. I channel another mind control spell through my horn, and the griffon glows slightly. Again, same results form earlier, my influence doesn’t affect him. The griffon doesn’t even notice I’m trying. Just fall, you imbecile. Fall!

“Why don’t you give up,” I say. “Tell you what. You’ve been a faithful servant to me thus far. If you bow before me, you will be my personal right hoof griffon in my new empire. Sounds enticing, no?”

The griffon shows me a gesture I don’t recognize. Given the context, is must be insulting.

“Very well,” I say. “Then you shall die.”

I fire a barrage of magic bolts at the idiot. Many hit him, but his flesh regenerates. He remains resilient. He scrambles on the Nexus to keep a grip, defying the blasts burning his flesh. Let me be done with this fool. He is only prolonging the inevitable.

After what feels like an eternity, the griffon slips. He loses his grip and slides off the side of the suitcase. I smile. Finally, I can get on my life.

The griffon slips completely, but he grabs onto something that makes the suitcase click. The Nexus flings open, and the griffon dangles from the suitcase handle. I should slam him into the water. That’ll shake him off.

I don’t stop shooting magic bolts at him. One of my bolts flies into the inside of the Nexus. The Nexus reacts immediately. Sparks fly out of the inside, then a massive vortex spews out of the suitcase.

The vortex pulls me in. I try to fly away, but my wings aren’t strong enough yet. The last few months spent strapped to the wall of a dark box did not do my wings any favors. My wings fail, and I tumble into the vortex.

I’m blind in here. I can’t see a thing. I do feel the sensation of being sucked into a hole in space and time, so at least I still feel things. I don’t know if that’s a sign if I’m dead or not. Considering there’s a strong possibility I’ll be trapped in this vortex for all eternity, alive will not be a good thing.

That griffon, that stupid griffon! He damned me to an eternity of swirling in the void! He didn’t outsmart me. He got lucky and screwed me over for life! Damnable griffon! If I ever see him again, I will tear his entrails and rip him asunder. I will make every last second of his life the most miserable experience imaginable. He will regret ever crossing me!

“Curse you!” I yell into the void. “Curse you, you inbred chicken horse!”

Hmm, that insult was weak. Oh well, I have all eternity to come up with better ones.

As I delve into a mental list of insults for my new nemesis, the rooster whore, that’s a good one, my skin tingles. That can’t be good. Tingling skin could mean incineration, or dissolving, or people close enough to me to sense but barely close enough to not touch me, leaving me with no personal space. The first two are welcome fates compared to the last hell.

The tingling intensifies, and the dark void turns into a bright, blue, all consuming light. The sound of ringing glass fills the air. As the light consumes me, the skin tingling grows to my muscles, then my stomach, and soon my entire being is tingling

Huh, I thought I’d get the fire and brimstone treatment.

The light dissipates. My butt slams on the ground in a sitting position. The tingling stops, and the ringing glass stops ringing. I’m quick to realize the vortex isn’t sucking me through the void anymore. I’m free, free of another prison.

Something explodes behind me, and I jump. I flip around to see a raging fire mere feet from my person. It’s a hot, scorching inferno. It’s also blue. It’s very blue. And it’s giving me a headache. I don’t like it.

More explosions sound around me, accompanied by the screams of the dying. I look around to see more blue fires and explosions. Blue fire here, blue fire there. There are also golden buildings that are on blue fire, but I assume those will be exploding soon as well.

Where in the world am I? This is not Equestria. Equestria is not allowed to burn until I enact my vengeance. Even if I enact it, it would be green fire, not blue. This is a different place entirely. There’s something in the air that sets it apart from Ponyland.

Amongst the dying screams, I hear hisses and screeches. This place isn’t safe. I stand up and ignite my horn, ready for combat. I don’t know what I’m up against, but it has to be dangerous. Something set the golden buildings on blue fire, and the fire is spreading all around me. Whatever is doing this, it must be destructive.

In the midst of the blue flame, a shadowed figure appears in front of me. It makes a wiggling motion as it comes for me. I lower my horn, putting myself into a battle stance. The shadow draws close.

As it comes for me, I see more of its features. The first thing I notice is it’s large, larger than either of the Equestrian Princesses. It towers over me by several feet. The next thing I notice is it’s not waking, it’s slithering. The thing is a snakelike creature, and it’s slithering towards me. No legs, but it does have arms, or claws. I can’t say for sure what those limbs are. It certainly isn’t a pony.

When it gets close enough, it opens its jaw, revealing large rows of massive teeth. The crest on the back of its head unfurls, making it look larger than it is, and it’s already considerably large. It’s an aggressive stance. It wants me dead.

My wings flutter and I take off into the air. My horn shines a green light over the area, almost outdoing the blue fires all around me. “I am Queen Chrysalis, Leader of the Changelings,” I say, magically amplifying my voice for intimidation. “I do not fall to any creature!”

This thing is probably a monster. Monsters don’t understand royal hierarchy, such as a Queen. They do understand bigger and stronger monsters, and that is exactly what I shall be.

More monsters wander these lands no doubt, and I will have to deal with all of them. Thank you, you egg farting griffon bastard. Now I have to conquer a land of monsters. Do not count on a painless death next time we meet.

Author's Notes:

Attention! Mods Detected. Using modifications to change or alter your licensed software is a violation of US Copyright Law §69-58008, subject to fines up to $500 for each modification. Cease any attempts to alter this software or face further penalties.

39 - Insert Disk 2

Equestria is finally trekking into spring. The air is still nippy at this hour, but the sun is starting to rise about the same time as I get out of my house. I can look forward to not walking through Canterlot in utter darkness soon. It won’t be long until the pegasi cut back on the snow and start up the rain cycles.

I lock the door to my house just as the first lights of dawn cross the sky. Two Royal Guards walk past my doorstep. They look tired and groggy, as would anyone who has to work the late night shifts. Their shift change is at the end of this hour, so those two will soon be sleeping in their bunks while I’ll be busy getting ready to start my own day. There’s got to be irony in there somewhere.

They both wave at me as I walk down my steps, and I wave back. I turn towards where they just came from, facing away from where they’re going, and make my way up Canterbury Street. It’s a nice little road to live on. Lining the street are townhomes tucked together, colored with whites, blues, and golds with speckled flower beds attached to the windows, typical of Canterlot architecture. The street’s not too far from the business district, yet not too pricy that I need a king’s ransom just to live here. Of course the rent is still sky high, this is Canterlot after all, but at least my job can easily pay for it.

As I trot through the capitol roads, I come across more ponies scattered about, all rising for their early morning work. A pony here, a pony there, the street is peaceful compared to the crowded business district at lunch time. It’s peaceful, but not as peaceful as midnight. At midnight, the city is sound asleep, resting quietly while it dreams the night away. Morning is when the city grumbles as it has to get out of bed. It wants to sleep for ten more minutes, but it needs to do things today. Sours the mood a bit. I prefer midnight peace to morning peace.

After fifteen minutes of walking, I make it to the business district. Two minutes after that, I’m at a door underneath a sign that says, “Buttermilk’s Family Scones.” I flick out a key and unlock the door, opening the gateway to my sanctuary with a little bell jingle.

The shop is still asleep. Chairs are flipped on top of the tables and rugs are rolled up to the side. I ignore these for now and head for the kitchen behind the counter. The ovens roar to life as I turn them on one by one. Powder fills the air as I pour my ingredients into the big mixing bowls. The building hums with life as the large industrial whisk machine blends those ingredients together. Mmm, I love the sound of that machine. The store is waking up to start its day.

With the machines do their morning routines, I head out to the lobby and prepare everything. The chairs get flipped back onto the ground. The rugs are put back into their places. The windows get a quick wash to get rid of the hoof prints kids like to make. I swear the kids have it out for me. They just can’t keep their hooves off perfectly good windows. Got to put their hoof grease all over the glass. Every day man, every day.

When I’m done with the windows, they’re clean enough to see my own reflection. I smile at the handsome devil in the window, and he smiles back. He’s got a lemon cream coat with an eggshell white mane. His smile comes with a few lines on his face, typical of a stallion his age. The spectacles over his eyes make him look ten years older, but they do give him an air of wisdom. I thought the spectacles were a nice touch.

Through the window, I see another pony coming in from the street, a pink unicorn with a purple mane. Right on time. The door jingles when the mare comes in. “Good morning, Mister Buttermilk,” the mare says.

I smile back at her when she greets me. “Morning, Berry Tart.”

Berry Tart returns the smile, and it makes even my grumpy old heart flutter. The mare has one of the prettiest smiles in Equestria. I swear this shop wouldn’t be half as successful without that smile. The mare holds out a folded newspaper for me while she charms me with that precious smile. “The paper boy gave this one free today.”

“Of course he did,” I mutter, just quiet enough for Berry not to hear. That’s the thing with Berry Tart. She has the prettiest smile in Equestria, and she knows it. She melts stallions in her hooves with that smile. I’ve caught a couple guys giving her generous tips at the cash register just because she smiled at them. I don’t even accept tips! She deliberately butters up my customers to get more spending cash out of them. It’s the big reason why I adore her.

I take the paper from her and thank the girl, and she heads to the back to move the dough to the next stage of prep.

At least she’s a good worker. She’s not my best worker, that honor goes to Teacake, but she’s still good. She knows her way around a bakery, and she was quick to figure out her smile doesn’t work on me like the other stallions. It’s a mystery to her why that is. “It’s my eyes,” I told her once. “They can’t see like they used to. But I can see your happiness.” I don’t think she bought it.

Enough of her, let’s see what she brought. With newspaper in hoof, I look at today’s headline. “Blackwatch”- My stomach drops when I read the first word.

The world freezes around me for a long moment. I put the paper down and look out the window. More ponies are starting to walk through the streets. There’s a pair of Royal Guards on patrol in the middle of the growing crowd. Given the time, they have to be the morning shift. Neither of them pay my store any mind. The Guards continue on doing what they always do at this hour, walking the road.

I breathe in. I hear no airships. I hear no static. I hear no growling. Blackwatch is not in Canterlot. They’re hundreds of miles away in Manehattan. There is nothing I need to worry about.

I look back at the headline on the paper. “Blackwatch Captures Manehattan Bioterrorist.” I breathe out. That's not me. It’s not something to worry about. Good riddance. I toss the paper on the counter for a customer to look at and head back to the kitchen to assist Berry Tart. Don’t get distracted, there are scones to bake!

The shop soon fills with the scent of baking goods. The smell relaxes me as I keep on working. It’s such a pleasant, warm smell. I know of no soul who would decry the scent of baking goods. If there are any out there, I pity their existence, as their lives must be miserable if they can’t appreciate the scent.

Ten minutes before we open, the first batch of scones comes out of the oven. They’re piping hot and tickle my nose. Berry puts them in the glass display case that’s part of the front counter, and I go to unlock the door and flip the window sign from “Closed” to “Open.” Right on the dot, the door jingles as the first customer comes in, and thus Buttermilk’s Family Scones begins its day.

Over the next few hours, the volume of ponies out on the street continues to grow as Canterlot’s business district, for lack of a better word, does business. A steady stream of customers pours in from the crowd, each marked by the jingling of the door bell. Berry and I bounce back between the cash register and the ovens and mixers, selling scones to the hungry masses, keeping the store living and breathing as the hours go on. It’s like this every day, some days more busy than others. Today is slightly below average. We’re starting off a bit slow, but that’s okay. It’ll pick up around lunch time, and Teacake should be around at that time to help with the rush.

I love my store.

The clock ticks to nine thirty, almost half an hour before Teacake arrives. Around this time, the door jingles to announce a peculiar customer. The jingle grabs my attention, there’s a customer to attend to, but it doesn’t grab my interest. It’s not until she speaks that my senses tingle.

“Oh, what a lovely bakery,” I hear her say. “The décor is quite rustic, exquisitely charming.”

Berry and I are kneading dough next to the industrial mixer, which is running. Mixers are rather loud when they’re running, loud enough that Berry could never in her life be able to hear what the mare who walked through the door just said. I, on the other hoof, heard every word, every inflection, every quality in her voice, and it all sets an alarm off in my head. It’s not a bad alarm, but more of an alarm for me to pay attention. The best way to describe it is to call it a friendly alarm. Odd, never felt something like this.

While Berry can’t hear the mare’s voice, she did hear the door jingle. She’s about to head up to the counter to greet the customer, but I signal I will get it. Something has my curiosity, and I have to see it for myself. I leave my dough to be kneaded at a later minute and head for the register. “Welcome to Buttermilk’s Family Scones,” I say. My aging grandpa voice gives my greeting a warm spirit to it. “How’s your day treating you?”

The mare looks at me with a smile when I grab her attention. She’s a gorgeous unicorn, with a coat that’s as white as the marshmallows I put is some of my scones. Her mane is a purple, shiny curtain that curls and drapes down the side of her face. She has a truckload of makeup on, though I have to say she applied her kit in a tasteful way. The mare is obviously skilled with her beauty products.

She’s a new customer. I’ve never seen her before, yet something about her feels familiar. I can’t figure it out, but that friendly alarm is now a blaring siren trying to tell me something. Peculiar indeed.

“My day is treating me splendid, thank you for asking,” she says with a smile. “I have several new dresses to put on display at my boutique, and I’m quite excited to see how Canterlot reacts to my new line.” Just hearing her accent sends that alarm screaming up the mountain. I don’t get why. It’s nothing special, just one of those fake uppercrust accents Canterlot is fond of. I hear those all the time.

“Sounds like something special,” I say, hamming up the grandpa voice. “And you came here to fill up for the day, I bet.”

“Indeed,” she continues. “But it comes from a sense of curiosity more than hunger. I keep walking past this place for the past year, yet I never have the chance to visit. I’m always either in a rush to get to my boutique, or I eat breakfast before I come, so I never feel compelled to come inside.”

“You’re here now,” I say. Clearly this mare is going to be a talkative customer. That’s fine, it’s a tad slow at the moment. I can spare some time. “Any special reason today is the day you decided to visit my little bakery?”

The mare shakes her head. “Nothing special. I just decided last night I’d stop by this morning to see what the fuss is about. So far I’m intrigued. Your choice of furnishings reminds me of my grandparents’ house. That’s a good thing, by the way. It’s a nice breath of fresh air from the high end designs most Canterlot restaurants go with.”

I shrug as I take the compliment. “I just set things up the way I like. I enjoy my cozy sanctuary.”

What I don’t say is I got most of the seating and the decorations from a flea market. The six wood tables, twenty bits total. The twelve chairs, forty bits. Other decorations that can only be described as tack and knick knacks, thirty bits and a beer for the merchant. I make more in one hour selling scones than what I spent decorating the shop. Order a baker’s dozen and she’ll pay for five of the chairs!

“It’s heavenly. Makes me want to live here,” she says.

“I work here so much, I might as well live here. ” I say. She giggles at my little joke. I think she's just being polite. “Since you’re here, anything on our menu that interests you?”

“Hmm, let’s see.” She taps her chin as she looks over the display case of scones and pastries, fresh from the oven. I have a warning for anyone who comes in. If you look at the display case for even a second, you’ll be bombarded with colors and smells that will send your stomach into a riot just to eat them all. It’s a serious problem for mares on a diet. This mare looks like she might be on a diet. Those are my favorite mares. “It looks all so good.”

Ah, I see it in her eyes. Her mind says no. But her taste buds say, Out of the way, mother fuckers! Anyone who gets between me and that strawberry scone is getting cut! Too starve for beauty, or to gorge for pleasure, the ultimate challenge for any woman.

I tap on the glass, pointing out a lemon tart scone that came out of the oven a mere ten minutes ago. “We’re experimenting with a new recipe that doesn’t use any sugar. It’s a recent addition, but so far everybody who’s tried them can’t get enough of them.”

The mare’s head tilts as she examines the scones in question. “Sounds enticing. I think I am in a lemon mood, now that you mention it.”

I smile. Hook, line, sinker. Her bits are mine, Mwahahaha! “They’re fresh out of the oven. A warm way to start your day.”

“I think I’ll go with the lemons then.” Yes! Give me your money! “Six please, if you would. I want to share some with my assistant.”

“You ask for six, I shall give you six.” And you’ll pay the ridiculous marked up price on these goods. Canterlot is where the money’s at, baby. Food here is insane. Heck, my stuff is on the cheaper end of the spectrum. If I ran a fancier place, all my flee market furniture just needs one scone to pay it all off. It’s guilt free extortion! “To go, I assume?”

“Three to stay, three to go. I want to enjoy this place a little longer.” The mare’s eyes glance down at the counter, and her gaze falls upon the newspaper I placed earlier. “Mind if I sit down and read that? I’m terribly behind on the times.”

I wave at the paper, not bothering to look at it. I don’t need to see that Blackwatch headline again. “Be my guest. It’s for anybody to read.”

She thanks me with a smile. I silently thank whoever’s watching that this mare’s smile isn’t as potent as Berry’s. I don’t need two perfect smiles in my life. I bag the scones for her, she happily pays the outrageous price in bits, and we finish the transaction. The mare takes the newspaper and heads to a table by the window. I head to the back to finish kneading the dough. Nice girl. Don’t know why that alarm is still going off in my head.

When I get back, Berry Tart is staring me down with wide, intense eyes. “Don’t you realize who that is?”

She points to the mare, and I follow her gaze. The unicorn is sitting at the window, nibbling at a scone and flipping through the paper. I take a moment to analyze her. The only thing of notice is my internal alarm. “Nope, never seen her in my life.”

“That’s Rarity,” the young baker hisses. “How can you not recognize her? She’s one of the biggest ponies in Canterlot! You should get her to sign something.”

At this point the alarm stops blaring and instead goes for an ungodly shriek right in my ear. Good thing it’s in my mind, otherwise I’d have fire ponies inbound to hose my store down. “Sure, she’s not petite, but she’s not fat either.”

Berry gives me a light jab in the shoulder. “Not that! I meant she’s big as in she’s famous.”

“You know I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

“You should. They’re your customer base.”

I roll my eyes. I don’t get paid enough to care. Wait a moment, I pay myself! “Fair enough. Why is she famous?”

“She’s like… well, you know… She’s…” Berry looks up at the ceiling as she stumbles over her words. “She like… knows people.”

One of my eyebrows goes up. “She knows people. Is that it?”

Berry shrugs. “She also saved the world a couple times. I guess that counts.”

“Bullshit,” I say. My eyes snap back at the unicorn sitting at the window. That does not look like a pony who saved anything more than a diamond earring falling down the drain. And yet the alarm is still blaring. “What, does she recycle? Did she donate money to a few charities?”

Berry looks up again as she thinks. “Um, I think she helped defeat five, maybe six evil entities that wanted to destroy Equestria.”

“Pfft, please, the mare is too dainty for that.” A mare with those looks wouldn’t dare allow herself to step in mud, let alone get down and dirty with a bunch of villains.

“Apparently she made it work with a few other ponies,” Berry says. “Something about the Magic of Friendship or some mooshy stuff like that. In all honesty, no one cares about that. She’s famous because she knows people.”

Geez, the girl allegedly saves the world and ponies only like her because of connections? “Seriously, celebrity status is in higher regard than heroism in Canterlot?”

“She also makes pretty dresses,” Berry adds. “She’s really good. I got a couple of her gowns.”

“So she knows people and makes dresses, and saves Equestria as a side job.” I glance back at Rarity. If all that’s true, then she must live an interesting life. “I believe two thirds of that.”

Berry shrugs. “Hey, it’s what everybody says, though I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen her save the world. I think it’s her fan clubs hyping her up as a bigger than life figure.”

“Fan clubs? You Canterlot ponies have fan clubs?”

“Don’t act surprised. Even a country bumpkin like you should know this stuff. Heck, you have a bakery in Canterlot. ”

“So I do, but it’s going to take more than the heavens above for Canterlot to beat the country out of me.” Which country, I don’t specify. I’ve intentionally left my place of origin vague and mysterious. Oh, people try to figure it out. Teacake is on a theory of how I’m running from the mob because I didn’t pay off my protection insurance. I like that theory.

Our conversation breaks when the door jingles again. A new customer walks in, and Berry trots off to go service the guy. She sees he’s a young adult stallion, so she immediately puts on her perfect little smile and starts playing the coercing game with the poor dude. I allow her to do so. I still make more money than her.

I head into the kitchen to finish kneading my dough. At the same time that unicorn won’t get out of my mind. Rarity, oh Rarity. Seems you have a reputation in these parts. She’s nice, I suppose. I don’t know if you actually saved the world or not. Some investigation is required to figure out the truth behind that. Here’s the question, do I care enough to investigate?

After a quick wash at the sink, my hooves sink into the dough for me to knead. Will I investigate? Normally, no. I’m above Canterlot debauchery. However, there’s an alarm in my ear that’s been going off since that unicorn walked through the door and it’s pissing me off. I got to do something about it!

Again, it’s a friendly alarm, no danger about it. Rarity doesn’t look like she’s going to blast me with a magic shooter anytime soon. Or stab me with a bunch of knives. Or turn into a tentacle monster and bite my head off. She looks harmless. Then again, looks are deceiving. Case in point, me.

Friendly alarm, so maybe she has a surprise party planned for me? That would be awfully nice for a stranger to do. Emphasis on awful. I don’t have time for a surprise party right now. I have a store to run.

Do I recognize her from somewhere?

The subconscious equivalent of a “Ding Ding Ding” goes off along with the alarm. Oh good, she’s someone I recognize. I don’t know who or what or when I recognize her, but I guess that’s what it is. Alarm’s still going.

So I recognize her from somewhere. Um, a party? Hoofball game? Cousin’s cute-señera? Sweet mercy this is killing me.

Alleged national heroine, slayer of multiple villains… Did she try to kill me in Manehattan?

A scream breaks my train of though. This isn’t in my head, it’s in the store. The friendly alarm switches over to my danger alarm. At least it’s not screeching in my ear anymore. I drop the dough and rush to the front of the store, where the scream came from.

Finding where the scream came from is easy. The couple customers in the store and Berry all are looking at the same spot. The scream came from the one mare on my mind, Rarity. The unicorn looks to be in complete shock. Her pupils are pinpricks, her eyes are watering, a hoof is over her mouth, and she’s on the brink of sobbing.

Being the good baker boss I am, I run up to my shocked customer to figure out what’s going on. “What happened?” I ask as I come up to her table. “Did you see a rat? I’ll kick that exterminator in the rump if there’s a rat!”

Rarity looks at me, then shows me the newspaper she’s holding. “My friend,” she says, voice quivering. “They have my friend.”

I glance at the paper. It’s the headline, the same one I dismissed earlier. “Blackwatch Captures Manehattan Bioterrorist.” I didn’t pay much attention to it earlier, but now that a customer is freaking out about it, I take a closer look.

Below the large words is a black and white picture. The picture is of a troop of Blackwatch goons escorting a pony in hoofcuffs. Right away, I recognize the pony the blue-eyes have in custody. Pinkie Pie.

“They have my friend,” Rarity whimpers.

…

Fuck!

40 - Figuring It Out

Lunch rush started around its usual time. One moment our flow of customers amounted to a steady trickle. The moment after, groups of three or five ponies are walking in at the same time. Happens every weekday. As usual, Teacake came in about two hours before we got rammed. The extra staff on board helps during the lunch window. They make things flow smoother, especially if another one of us is lagging behind for an emotionally devastating reason. Help helps, go figure.

Lunch rush is done now. There wasn’t anything too special about it, other than needing to do things faster. A lot of customers were here, and they had lots of bits I’m going to have to count after we close. In just three hours, enough customers came in to pay for the day’s expenses. That’s a good thing. I don’t have to worry about paying bills. I don’t have to worry about anything. I don’t have to worry.

Damn it, I don’t have to worry!

A light brown pony in an apron comes up to my side. “Hey, Mister Buttermilk…”

I jump at the voice. Several small blades jut out from my hoof. After seeing there is no threat, my composure returns to see who’s talking to me. Teacake. I look up from what I’m doing and give him a smile. “Yes, Teacake?”

Teacake is a straightforward pony. He does his job and he does it well. He’s also a quiet pony. He doesn’t say much when he’s baking and he tries to avoid serving the front counter whenever he can. He also never starts a conversation. Strange kid, but he’s the best guy I got, knows the kitchen better than himself. With all this in mind, whenever Teacake does say something directly to me, I know something is up.

In this moment, Teacake is saying something to me. Something is up. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Sure I am, never felt better,” I say. “What makes you think otherwise?”

Teacake points at the table I’m working on. “You’re not kneading the dough. You’re tearing it apart.”

I look down at my hooves, expecting wads of scones ready to go into the oven. Instead, I have a single blob, with strips and pieces flung all over the table. It’s a bit of a mess, sure, but it’s not as bad as four small monster blades sticking out of my hoof and tearing up the dough. I hope Teacake didn’t see that.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say. I toss the dough ball onto the blades to hide them, allowing them to shapeshift to normal without Teacake seeing. “I just drifted off, that’s all. Had a late night playing poker with the boys. Happens to all of us.”

Teacake doesn’t seem to buy my answer, but he at least accepts it. He nods and turns to go on with his business, but then Berry Tart happens.

“Is it that thing with Rarity?” she says, poking her head around the industrial mixer. “She spooked you pretty good when she screamed this morning. You’ve been on edge since then.”

Of course it’s Berry. The girl has a need to talk. She’s learned over time her coworkers are of the silent kind, but that doesn’t stop her from finding any excuse to start talking with us. I’d wish she chose any moment but this to get us talking.

“Somebody screamed?” Teacake asks. No, you’re the good one! Please don’t get Berry going.

“Yeah, someone famous,” Berry says. Teacake doesn’t react much to the famous part. We get a lot of famous ponies walking through here. It is Canterlot, after all. And it is Teacake. “She screamed and started crying over something in the newspaper, then she ran out without taking her scones.”

“It’s a non issue,” I say. “We’ll give her a bag of free scones if she ever comes back. Though if she keeps on doing it, she might be scamming us.”

“No, you don’t get to dismiss it as an issue,” Berry says. “This is Rarity who freaked out. Rarity! This is a big deal. The whole city will be asking us questions about what happened.”

“And I trust my staff to tell the press we have no comment,” I say. I give Berry a stern glare. “I’m not joking. No comment. That’s the last I want to hear about it.”

Berry holds her hooves up in a defensive manner. “Alright, alright, I won’t say anything. You, on the other hoof,” she points a hoof at me, “Rarity set you on edge. You were going slow during the entire lunch rush, and you were almost unable to talk to the customers. A bunch of them gave you weird looks.”

“I’ve noticed that, too,” Teacake says. “You’re falling behind on all your tasks today. I’ve been picking up the slack to make up for your efforts.”

I wave a hoof in the air. Fortunately, the hoof doesn’t have any blades sticking out of it. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m as well as ever. None of this is a serious issue.”

I try to go back to kneading the dough, but Teacake places a hoof on my shoulder. “Sir, please go home. We all can tell you’re not well.”

“I’m fine, I told you that already,” I say. I brush off his hoof and go back to the dough. “It’ll take more than one screaming mare to throw me off my game.”

“We all know you’re a sturdy guy,” Berry says. “A screaming mare shouldn’t bother you at all. But something about Rarity got to you and you know it.”

“Except she didn’t,” I say.

“You can say she did or didn’t,” Teacake says, “But you’re still not feeling well. It’s going to affect the rest of the store. You do care about the store, don’t you?”

Teacake isn’t bothering to hold back his punches. I grumble. “Yes...”

“Then go home,” he says. “We can take care of the store. Just go home and relax. You don’t have to worry.”

I don’t have to worry!

I slam the dough on the table and walk off. My minions aren’t going to let this go until I do something about it. “Fine, I’ll go home. The store better not be on fire when I get back.”

“You’ll thank us later for this,” Teacake says.

“I’ll thank you by giving you your weekly paycheck,” I say back. I point at Berry Tart. “You better stay and help Teacake. You’re part responsible for sending me home.” And for kicking me out of my sanctuary. I want my sanctuary.

Berry nods. “Hey, I’ll take the overtime.”

“You better enjoy it, because I won’t be giving out more overtime anytime soon, to either of you.” Overtime’s expensive. I’ll lose a chunk of today’s profit just paying Berry the extra bits. She’s supposed to be getting off in an hour after she’s done the mid day cleaning. A few more hours of her sticking around it going to bite.

“Just get some sleep,” Teacake says. “We have you covered.”

I grumble some more as I step out of my store. Another thing I like about Teacake, he knows how to run the store without me, which he’s had to do on a couple of my sick days. He’s also responsible with the money. I double checked his profits against the ledgers and he’s an honest kid. Better than most of the griffons I know, that’s for sure.

Oh no, I’m going native. Tanya would smack me for even implying anything bad about griffons.

I don’t have to worry!

Usually I’d be going home close to or past dark. The sun is high in the sky. This feels weird. It’s far more crowded than it was when I woke up. The streets are full of ponies going back and forth doing business wherever business needs to be done. And here I am, amongst the business ponies, going home so I can nap or whatever.

At least it’s not Manehattan. Traffic there is a literal apocalypse.

I said I don’t have to worry!

I pass by a pair of patrolling guards. The smile at me, I smile back. Nothing is wrong between us. Everything is fine. I am just an ordinary citizen, nothing to report to your superiors. I am certainly not an at-large fugitive wanted for the murder of over a hundred mercenary personnel and the assisted escape of one of Equestria’s most dangerous villains. No, I bake scones and donate to local charities.

I said I. Do. Not. Have. To! Worry!

Ugh, maybe my minions were right. I think I am on edge. How the heck is Rarity friends with Pinkie Pie, anyways? They live in two different worlds, how does it happen? Alright, Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie. She gets around a lot. But was she such good friends with Rarity that she made the unicorn cry? Oh no, your acquaintance is a terrorist, you shall now bawl your eyes out and scream through Canterlot. I bet I was a closer friend to Pinkie Pie than Rarity ever was. Heck, I saved the mare’s life! I should have the right to cry, not Rarity.

If I know Pinkie Pie better than Rarity, then why am I not the one crying? Should I cry? Am I supposed to cry? Is that not what a friend is supposed to do when something terrible happens to another friend, cry?

To be fair, Pinkie isn’t dead or anything. I’d cry over that. She’s just in custody under the authority of Blackwatch, the organization that’s bent on hunting me down and holding a power grip over Manehattan. She’s not dead. I bet she’s fine.

I don’t have to worry.

I said I don’t have to worry!

…

“Fuck! I’m worried!”

The ponies on the street look at me. Some of them jump back in surprise. Woops, I wasn’t supposed to scream that. I give them all a sheepish smile and wave. Everything is fine, carry on. Some of them relax. Some don’t. Either way, they all continue on their way. A lot of them look over their shoulder to make sure I don’t do something crazy.

Am I going to do something crazy? If I’m going to be honest with myself, it’s a legitimate concern these ponies should have on their minds. I should not be around anyone.

Ah great, I think I am going off the deep end. I speed up my walk to a near run, making my way as fast as I can towards home. Can’t be outside right now. Can’t be outside. It’s a bad idea for me to be outside. Someone could get hurt.

Some guards and cops take notice of me rushing through the streets, but they don’t pay me any more heed. I’m just going a little fast. A bit odd, but nothing illegal. I make record time to the line of town houses on Canterbury Street, and by extent I make record time to my own home. I fumble with the keys when I arrive. I get through my door fast, but not fast enough.

The door slams behind me, and I’m quick to go around and close all the shutters. The place goes dark, too dark for any normal pony to see. Of course I can see. I can do a lot of things ponies can’t. See in the dark, run fast, eat ponies whole, I can do it all.

I don’t have to worry!

Need to relax. I slump on the couch when all the blinds are closed. My pony body shifts into my familiar griffon form. At home, I’m safe. Safe at last. And the world is safe. Everyone outside is safe, too. My head leans back and I let out a breath.

But I can’t relax. My eyes won’t close. I stare off at the ceiling. Pinkie isn’t safe. She’s not safe at all. I’m here, lying on a couch, and she could be wailing in agony in a Blackwatch dungeon somewhere. But how can I know? I can do a lot of things, but I’m not omnipotent.

My Gilda senses ping for Pinkie Pie. Nothing comes back. Either she’s too far away, or she doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a fifty-fifty chance in favor of either possibility. Gilda sense isn’t fine tuned in telling me the status of the people I’m looking for. Nor is it great at telling me if they’re actually those people. Not many frills with this ability.

My talons rap on my stomach. Ah, Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie. Could be alive, could be dead, could be deep underground guarded by hoards of blue-eyes. She could be anything, and I have no way of telling what’s happened.

Got to relax. Got to relax now. I get up and head to the kitchen, where I grab a beer out of the fridge. I pop the cap and chug it down in one go. I don’t even know why I’m drinking this crap. Alcohol can’t do squat for me. I never buy the stuff. A friend gave me this six pack months ago and I’ve never touched it since.

I finish chugging the bottle and wipe my mouth with a claw. Can’t taste it, can’t feel it, it’s a poor choice in psychological remedy. Maybe I should find something stronger to calm my nerves. Light the fire place and huff the smoke, or maybe paint the house black with the windows closed and breathe in the fumes. Or I can drink bleach. Does bleach work?

I slam the beer bottle on the counter. It shatters into a hundred glass fragments. I don’t really care. Damn it, why am I on about Pinkie? First the thing with Rarity, and now I’m going on about Pinkie. Is this guilt? Do I feel guilty? I shouldn’t feel guilty. I did nothing to Pinkie that would make me feel guilty. This can’t be guilt.

The couch beckons for me. I walk over, but then I remember about the bottle. I got to clean it up. I head back into the kitchen, but I don’t care about the bottle. So I head back to the couch. But I need to clean it up. Back to bottle, then couch, bottle, couch, ad nauseam. I’m so glad I don’t have roommates. I’d drive them nuts!

Back, forth, back, forth. Am I guilty of something? Well, yes, Luna seems to think I am. But Pinkie, did I do anything to her? Did I do anything to make me feel guilty for her? I partook in the destruction of the daycare. No, I don’t think that’s it. The boat, I didn’t take her with me on the boat. I didn’t get her out of Manehattan when I had the chance. No, that’s not it. She wanted to stay in Manehattan. Help the needy or something like that.

My fist smashes into the wall, leaving a clean hole in the plaster. I leave it in there as I hang my head. Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie! Do I owe you something? I think I owe you. You gave me a boat ride out of Manehattan. You gave me a chance to escape. I gave you the empty promise of breaking out a friend. You gave me a boat and bug lady stiffed us both. Wild goose chase for Rainbow Dash, you gave me that, and you gave me a boat to get out.

What would Rainbow Dash say right now, the real one? Gilda, use your Gilda senses right now to find me this instant so we can hang out and do stuff. Do what good friends do, you know?

…

Nah, too much effort. She wouldn’t be in Canterlot anyways. This place is too upper crusty for her.

No, Rainbow wouldn’t want me to find her. She’d want me to be an actual friend, a hero friend. She’d want to go find Pinkie, break her out, and beat up any Blackwatch goon that stands in my way. Rainbow’s all about loyalty and stuff, right? Loyal friends will risk their beaks for their other friends.

I pull my arm out of the wall and groan. Aww, I can’t. I can’t go out on an adventure, not right now. I have a scone shop to run. I’ve put so much of my life into the place, I can’t give it up now. I head over to the couch and plop down, staring at the ceiling again.

Go save Pinkie, that’s what Rainbow wants me to do. Let’s think about what will happen. I will go, I will probably break Pinkie out, no problem. Blackwatch isn’t too hard to deal with if you catch them by surprise. But that means I can’t run the scone shop for a while. I can’t play with dough. I can’t play with the ovens. I can’t play with money at the end of the night.

Going after Pinkie means giving up my sanctuary.

Maybe I could leave it for a while. Berry says I need a vacation. I could let Teacake manage for a while. But if I promote Teacake, then I’d have to find someone to replace Teacake’s position. And then when I come back, I’d have to get rid of the person because I can’t afford the extra guy. I’m not ready to expand my employee count just yet. I’m still saving money for more store renovations.

My claws run over my face. Oh this is tough. Why’d you have to get captured now of all times, Pinkie?

Hold on, let’s think. Pinkie is probably still near Manehattan. I don’t know for sure, but I can check. It would take me a day by train to get to Manehattan, or at least near to it. If I take a few days off to find and rescue Pinkie, and then two days for a round trip, I don’t think I’d be gone for more than a week. I’d leave Teacake in charge for the time being, and I’d get a week of “vacation” to do what I need.

But I’d have to dip into my savings to pay the guy overtime. A week straight of morning to evening shifts is not cheap. I also made a slight conniption about not giving more overtime today. Can’t go back on my word, can I?

This is hard.

My hooves fall on my stomach and I stare up at the ceiling for what feels like an hour. I’ve never had the inclination of becoming a parent, but I think I have an idea of how it feels to have kids. Shit comes up but you got to take care of your baby. Oh, woe is me, a single mother of a well off bakery.

…

I have a thought.

What if, bear with me on this… I don’t go and save Pinkie Pie?

…

Nah, that’s stupid. I got to do it, one way or another. There’s no getting out of this.

I clap when another thought pops in my head. The suitcase!

I still have the blue suitcase as leverage. Well, I don’t have it in my house. That’d be silly. I put the suitcase in a spot only my Gilda senses would find. I don’t want someone robbing me and stealing my greatest advantage against my enemy.

The suitcase, it’s the big reason no one’s come after me, I hope. I’d be slightly worried if I made those threats to Luna and the only reason they haven’t come after me is because they don’t know where I am. If they’re still hunting me down, that means I would actually have to do good on my threats and see if I can pull an apocalypse out of that suitcase. I’d rather not. For one thing, I don’t think it will give me an apocalypse on the first go, or the second, or third. For another, I like the world. I don’t want to end it.

In any case, I can still use it indirectly. A devilish little grind spreads over my beak. I hop off the couch and head up the stairs to my study. That’s where my desk and writing tools are. I throw open the door to a cozy little room. An oak desk, a bookshelf stuffed with documents and ledgers from the store, a heavy locked safe, and a lamp overlooking the desk.

I jump into my desk chair, pull out a sheet of paper and a quill, and begin writing. The letters I write come out in beautiful calligraphy. My words look drop dead gorgeous. As a griffon, I could never write anything close to this good. All my writing came out as chicken scratch. But as it turns out, there was a Blackwatch goon I ate a while back who had the most incredible penmanship skills. Boom, overnight calligraphy.

Before the hour is over, I finish the last word of my document, and give it a swift signature. I look it over once more to see how I like it. I smile. It’s exactly what I need.

Written before me in fancy letters is a letter that says the following. “I know you have Pinkie Pie. I want her released. Let her go within seven days or I will unleash the end of the world. You know I can, Princess Luna. The terms are non-negotiable.

XOXO – Gilda.”

Perfect. This will take care of everything. What is the fate of one mare compared to the entire world? Of course the Princesses will let Pinkie go. They know I can unleash the apocalypse. Everything will be fine.

I put the letter in an envelope and seal it. With some more fancy calligraphy, I address it to Royal Sisters at the Canterlot Palace. I put the return address as my old apartment in Manehattan. That’ll get them thinking.

I hold the envelope up to the light and lean back. Yep, this should solve my problems. I get Pinkie released and I don’t have to pay Teacake overtime. Gilda, you’re a genius. Ignore what all those bullies said back in highschool, you’re the smartest kid on the block.

Ah, this is good. I’m not freaking out about Pinkie Pie any more. I wonder what I’m going to do for dinner tonight. Pizza sounds tasty. I think I’ll order in a pizza.

Author's Notes:

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- Activision Blizzard Inc.

41 - They Know

Today I woke up in a chipper mood. I whistled on my way to work, said hi to the patrolling guards, stopped to smell the flowers, all that jazz. Something about today just felt right. Maybe it’s the changing air, or the sun rising a minute earlier than the day before, or the fact I sent an ultimatum to the two high rulers of Equestria last night just so I can liberate a friend. Hmm, I think it’s the sun. I’m glad to have a little more light in the morning.

After I wrote up the letter last night, I dropped it off in a mailbox on the other side of town. No need to make it easy to trace me back. I also took a weird route to make sure nobody was following me back home. Nobody did. Hey, paranoia never hurt anyone. In any case, the letter should make it to the royal courts sometime this morning. Pinkie should be free by this afternoon, if not sooner.

I walk around the block and see the sign for my scone shop. Oh, I’ve never been happier to see that sign. It’s such a great day, isn’t it? But I keep looking at my store, and something makes me skip a step.

There’s a cop there, leaning on the wall below the sign. She’s a pink mare, with yellow hair coming out from under that cop hat of hers. She’s wearing a sleek pair of sunglasses while watching the street. I don’t know why she has those on. It’s still a little dark out. She chews on some gum as she watches a business pony walk by.

What’s with the cop?

I walk to my store’s door. “Morning officer,” I say as I take out my keys. The cop looks at me and nods, then goes back to watching the street and chewing gum. Weird, cops don’t usually hang around at this hour. I wonder if she’s on a stakeout or something.

I go through the door and begin my day. Lights, ovens, mixer, dough, so on and so forth. At any point that I see the window, I glance up to find the cop still standing there, watching the street. She’s not doing anything, but somehow her being there is putting me on edge. Why is she there? She doesn’t have to be there. Of all the stores to choose from, she picked mine to stand outside of. Why?

The time comes around for Berry Tart to arrive. Right on time. I’m setting up the tables when I see her walk past the window. Berry greets the cop, and the cop takes a short break from street watching to greet her back. Once Berry comes on in, it’s eyes back on the road for the cop.

“Morning Mr. Buttermilk. I got another free paper,” Berry says as she places a newspaper bundle on the counter. “That paper boy is so nice.”

I’m too busy watching the cop to make a snide mental remark about Berry’s smile or whatever. Ugh, my day was going so well, now I got a cop on my mind. What, is the cop friends with Pinkie too? Is she going to send me on some weird guilt trip spiral? I don’t want another guilt trip spiral. I’ll have to pay someone overtime if I do that.

Screw it. I go over to grab the paper and read the headline. Might as well distract myself somehow. “Hobo Found Living in Castle Cellar.” Huh, that’s a weird one. Looks like somebody found a way to live right under the Royal Sisters’ noses. I continue reading down the article to get the details. Guy was living there for a year, impressive. Only discovered because he had a schizophrenic episode and threatened a royal baker for more cake. The thing got noisy, and the Royal Guards came to kick him out, but not before giving him a good thwacking. Crazy story we got today.

“Four Shadows,” Berry shouts from the kitchen.

I look up from the paper just as Berry walks out to talk. “What?”

“It’s an idea I came up with last night,” Berry says as she tosses a wad of dough between her hooves. “Around Nightmare Night, we sell boxes of four chocolate scones and we call them Four Shadows, like Nightmare Moon’s henchponies.”

I nod in thought as I consider her idea. “Four chocolate scones, four shadows, not a bad one. Remind me of that when we start decorating for the holidays.”

Berry beams before heading back into the kitchen. Don’t act too smug about your idea. I’m paying you to bake, not brainstorm. I put the paper back on the counter and go back to help her out.

The day continues on as usual. Berry sets up the scones in the display. I unlock the door, and we’re open for business. The usual customers stream in, along with some new and infrequent guys. Business as usual.

I let Berry take the counter for most of the morning. I’d rather not be up there right now. The few times I have to go help the counter, I see the cop at the window, still standing there. What the heck is she doing? If she’s here looking for crime, can’t she wander around a bit? I’ve been here for a year and not once has anyone on this street been robbed. She has no reason to stick around.

“Everything okay, boss?” Berry Tart asks in between customers. “You still have that edginess from yesterday.”

“Huh? Oh, me?” I shake my head a little to snap out of my trance. “I’m good, I swear. I little nap was all I needed last night. But that cop,” I point for the window, “That cop is bugging me. She’s been there all morning. Why is she here?”

“Oh.” Berry looks at the cop, and back at me. “I thought you asked her to be there.”

“No, I didn’t. That cop is here on her own.”

Berry shrugs. “Then I don’t know. Is she waiting for a crime to happen?”

“If she is, I don’t know why she chose my shop to wait next to. She’s freaking me out, man.”

“She’s waiting out there because our shop smells so good? Honestly, I’m not too bugged about it. It just means no one’s going to try to rob this place.”

I throw my hooves in the air. “Nobody ever robs anything in this city. It’s freaking Canterlot. The last time somebody tried something the Royal Guards beat them within an inch of their lives, and that was three years before I ever came to this city.”

“Actually,” Berry says, “That was blown out of proportion. Somebody tried to steal a lady’s purse, and the guy had an asthma attack when the Guards chased him. He’s fine. In jail, but fine.”

“That just proves my point. Crime never happens here. Why is there a cop out there waiting for a crime?”

“Keeping us safe. What else are cops for? Seems to me you’re still having issues from yesterday.”

Me, issues? Preposterous. I got my issues taken care of last night. “I told you I’m fine. All I needed was a nap.”

“Maybe you need more,” Berry says. “Hold what you’re about to say. I need to use the restroom.”

Berry runs to the back to do nature’s business. Wow, way to cut me off. Should I start tracking restroom time? I can mark it down as a lunch break, then I could pay everyone fewer hours. I’ve considered the idea before, but I don’t know how to go about it without incurring lawsuits.

Issues. Do I still have issues? I shouldn’t. The letter resolved whatever I had. Save Pinkie, keep my shop going, everyone lives happily ever after, what problem is there? The cop, she’s the problem. Weird to say that even though she’s done nothing wrong. She just has me on edge. Hmm, maybe it’s because I’m used to pony cops racial profiling me. Their presence makes me think they’re about to pull me over and arrest me for resisting orders. It’s happened before.

The door jingles as someone walks in. Oh joy, Berry’s taking a leak, so I get to take the register. Why didn’t I invest in blinds? All I would have to do is go over and shut the blinds. No more cop. Problem solved.

I give my usual spiel that I give most of my customers. “Hi, welcome to” –

Something bumps my leg. I look down, and my stomach seizes up. There, scraping against my leg, is a bug. Not just any bug, but a huge bug. The sucker is almost as big as my hoof. I’ve never had a roach problem in this store, so this is a big shock. It doesn’t look like any roach I’ve seen before. It’s a black thing with green, beady eyes. Its antenna are sniffing out my hoof.

I gulp. Please don’t have any more friends. The customer can’t see this thing behind the counter, but it’ll be freaking obvious if another scurries out into the middle of the lobby.

- “Buttermilk’s Family Scones,” I finish after a pause. Sweet mercy, am I obvious? Can the dude tell something is up? Of course he can, I haven’t even made eye contact with him yet. I’m too busy looking this damn bug!

A lady’s voice answers me. “This is a nice place you have here,” she says. Oh, not a guy. It’s a girl. I feel like there’s some cosmic irony in that, but I’m not too worried about it. I look up to find a cream colored unicorn staring at me with pink eyes. She smiles at me, apparently unaware of any problems.

“Oh, yeah. I did all the decorating myself.” I hit a button on the cash register to open the till, and then I slam it close. At the same time, I squash the bug under my rear hoof, hiding the squish sound with the closing till. “What can I do for you today? We’ve have many delicious scones if you’re so inclined.”

I wave at the glass display case, and the lady looks in to see all we have on display. “Mmm, it all looks tasty,” she says.

“They’re all fresh,” I say. I glance over the counter to see if there are any more bugs crawling on the floor. I don’t see any, but they could be hiding. You see one, there are bound to be a thousand more. I’m going to have to keep an eye out. “Does anything catch your eye?”

“Maybe.” She traces a hoof on the glass as she browses our selection of scones. “I’m looking for something specific, a recommendation from a friend. I hear only your bakery has this in stock.”

I grin at her. “One of our signatures, eh? Your friend has good taste. What’ll it be then?”

She turns to me and smiles. “I’d like one Patient Zero, please.”

I choke. My eyes go wide. The unicorn keeps that smile on her face. Her smile doesn’t come close to Berry’s. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of Berry’s. Berry’s smile is friendly, it draws you in. This mare’s smile is twisted. It makes me want to run.

And so I run.

Or at least I try to run. I turn to dash into the back kitchen, but something snags my leg and I fall on the tile floor. I flip around to see what’s got me. A column of black and green bugs has my in a hold. I yank my foot out of their grasp, but they yank back even harder.

“Good to see you again, Gilda.” The unicorn leans over the counter to watch me struggle on the floor. “Though I’m a little offended you don’t remember who I am.”

The alarms in my head go off. These aren’t friendly alarms. They’re the danger alarms. My monster claws shift out and I slash down at the bug column. The bugs scatter away from the blades, then they come back and grab a hold of me once more.

I look up and level a claw at the unicorn. “Who are you?”

“You remember me as Doctor Heart, although that’s not who I really am,” the mare says. “How’s it going, hun? Have you been eating your vitamins? How are you sleeping? Do you get enough exercise?”

Doctor Heart, the name is familiar. A memory from back in Manehattan pops up, one of a friendly doctor at Pinkie’s daycare. Damn, that was a long time ago, but I remember that pony. This is the same pony, except without a doctor coat.

“I also brought your boyfriend along,” Doctor Heart says. “Say hi, Caramel.”

The column of bugs shifts and turns. The bugs morph and merge right in front of my eyes. Their shells turn into soft flesh, and the flesh turns into a face. Within seconds, the bugs turn into the head of a yellow pony, and the pony’s mouth is wrapped around my leg. The pony smiles. “Hmmff,” he grunts. The boy can’t talk much with my foot in his mouth.

“How cute, two lovers, back together at last,” Heart says. “He hasn’t stopped talking about you since you blew him to smithereens.”

“Fuck!” My leg kicks up, which is enough to send the bugs flying all over the place. Caramel’s faces disperses into the bug swarm. Is this a fucking nightmare?!

“Now before you go berserk on us,” Heart says, “I should let you know we’re not here to hurt you. We just want to talk.”

“About what?” I ask.

“About giving us our Queen back.” Heart whistles and points to the window. The bug swarm groups up right behind the cop, crawls up the window, and flips the OPEN sign to CLOSED. The cop doesn’t even look back to see this happen. What good is she for if she’s going to let shenanigans like this happen?

The bug swarm gets behind my back and pushes me up to a standing position, right at eye level with Doctor Heart. The unicorn nods to the tables. “Come, let’s have a seat.”

The swarm nudges me. I wave it off with the monster claw. Crap, this is bad. They’re closing my business during critical hours. I’m going to lose so much revenue while I’m talking to these psychos.

I follow the doctor to a table and we sit across each other. She relaxes in her chair and the swarm comes up to her and holds out a scone. The doctor takes it and has a bite. “Mmm, delicious,” she says in between chewing.

“Hey, you got to pay for that!” I say. The swarm is quick to come up next to me and spits out a few bits. I give them a quick count. Huh, enough for two scones. What did the bugs do with the second one?

“You should relax, dear. We don’t plan on hurting you.” Heart gives me another twisted smile. “For the moment.”

I haven’t put away my monster claws since they came out. I’d keep them out, however, the cop can look in at any time and see I’m not exactly a pony. They shapeshift back into Mr. Buttermilk’s hooves. Still have to keep up appearances “What do you want?”

Doctor Heart swallows her bite before talking. “I told you already, we want our queen back.”

And I want to run a bakery without any interruptions from crazy monsters. “I have no clue who you’re talking about.”

Heart’s smile turns into a frown. “Queen Chrysalis. We know you trapped her in the Nexus.”

Those two names sound familiar. I rub my chin as I try to recall. “Wait, is she that bug lady?”

Heart huffs before she replies. “Yes, that ‘bug lady’ is Queen Chrysalis. For future reference, use her proper title.”

“Bug lady queen, got it,” I shoot back. I am not going to give her my full cooperation until I have my store back.

Heart glares at me. She closes her eyes, breathes, and puts on that smile again. “We’re here to make a deal. We want to bring our Queen back in a peaceful manner, and we are willing to make a trade.”

I point to the door. “Get out of my shop and I might consider whatever deal you got. Might.”

“That’s the thing, if we leave, you’re not going to have a shop for much longer.”

“Are threats considered peaceful?”

Heart shakes her head. “We’re not going to do anything. It’s Blackwatch you should be worried about.”

I can feel my claws clench, and I don’t even have my claws right now. “If you rat me out to Blackwatch, I will hunt you down and” –

“Blackwatch already knows you’re here,” Heart interrupts.

That puts me in my place. “You already sold me out to Blackwatch?”

“We did no such thing. We need you to give us our queen back, and Blackwatch would ruin it for both of us.” Heart says, “We only found you because Blackwatch already did the work for us. One of our spies intercepted their communications. They figured out where you are, which is here. We only got here before they did because they’re still busy gathering up a squad to take you down. And from the sound of it, they’re bringing in some special ponies into this squad just for you.”

I stare at Heart for a moment, then I break out laughing.

“What’s funny?” Heart asks.

It takes me a moment to bring my laughter under control, and even then I’m getting a few giggles. “You almost got me there, you really did. Scaring me into whatever deal you’re trying to do, that’s clever.”

“I’m not joking,” Heart says. “Blackwatch is organizing a force, and they’re coming soon.”

“Sure, and they brought King Grover back from the dead to lead the charge. Don’t take me as stupid. You’re trying to get me all psyched up so I slip and tell you where the buried treasure is. I see what you’re playing at.”

Heart gives me a dull look. “I’m trying to help you.”

“And I don’t need your help,” I reply. “So get out of my store.”

Heart lets out a sigh. “Alright, let me prove it to you.” She points towards the window. “Do you see that cop?”

I glance at the window. The pink mare is still there, like she has been for the entire morning. “Yep. I think I should go tell her you’re a bug lady.”

“Don’t. That’s not a real cop.”

I scrutinize the pink mare. “Looks like a cop to me. Sure, she’s been standing out there all morning, but I don’t see why that would get you thinking that.”

“Have you ever seen a cop in Canterlot?” I think about this for a moment, but Heart cuts me off before I can finish my thought. “No, you haven’t. The Royal Guard is the policing authority in Canterlot.”

“True, true, but how do I know that cop isn’t one of your guys?”

“Because Changelings are very anal about their details and I’d slap a drone for a slip up like that crappy disguise.”

“You’re anal, alright,” I say. I look at my wrist, pretending there’s a golden watch ticking away on my hoof. “Every minute you’re here, I lose another minute of potential revenue, so why don’t you get your butt out of here and never talk to me again.”

Heart leans forward on the table and looks me right in the eyes. “Blackwatch is coming. We want our Queen back. Don’t play hard. It won’t end well.”

I roll my eyes as I stand up from my chair. “Tick tick tick, more of my time wasted. Get out of here before I call the” –

A hum cuts through the air. My pony ears perk up. It’s a deep hum that rolls over everything. My skin prickles as the hum passes through me. After a moment, I realize it’s not just one hum, but several coming together in harmony.

My pupils shrink as the hum conjures up memories from another time in my life. “I hear airships,” I mutter.

Heart stand up from the table and looks up into the air. “Damn it, I thought we had more time.”

My hooves clench on the table. Nope, not hooves. They’ve turned into mini monster claws. Damn it, I’m leaving cut marks on my table. “How did they find me?”

“I’m not quite sure...” The bug swarm piles up next to Heart and transforms into the full body of Caramel. Even he is looking up in the air with the rest of us. “I know it involves a letter and a DNA tracer spell, but that’s all I know. How they got the letter, I have no idea.”

Ah, the letter…

How did they trace me through the letter? I’m a bit familiar with DNA tracing. It’s a new technique that’s popped up in the last few months, but it requires a strong sample. It can’t get DNA from just an object you touch. You need blood, or pee, or spit-

Spit…

I licked the stamp, didn’t I?

Heart snaps her attention back to me. “The deal. We want our Queen back. You have our Queen. If Blackwatch chases you away, or worse, we’ll lose our chance to get her back. If you agree to return her, we will put our lives forward to defend you against Blackwatch.”

I chuckle a bit. “Dangling a deal in front of a desperate person and give them hope, a classic scam technique. You’d make a good griffon.”

Heart’s smiles a bit. This smile is slightly friendly. “I know I do. I’ve played my fair share of griffons.”

The bug swarm known as Caramel points at the window. “The cop is moving.”

The door jingles as the cop pokes her head in the shop. The pink mare holds out a little black object in her hoof and tosses it into the lobby. She books it down the street before the object hits the floor.

Heart yells, “Flashba” -

A sharp bang cuts off Heart, and a in the same instant all I see is a wall of white light.

Blackwatch is going to wreck my shop, aren’t they?

42 - Assault In Progress

They came in like a wrecking ball.

No, that’s wrong. Wrecking balls have more tact.

As I’m rubbing my eyes after the flashbang, I hear one of the windows to my shop shatter. Right after that, a two ton weight slams into my side and drives me into the floor. The shock of the impact flushes out the shock of the flash, and my vision clears up for me to find a pony dressed in a Blackwatch uniform and mask standing on top of me.

The pony glares down at me with blue goggle eyes and yells right in my ear. “You’re under arrest, Zero! Don’t move or I will electrocute you!”

Ow, my ears! Blackwatch isn’t using their inside voices. I thrust up my knee to kick the bastard in the -

- “Waghlarglablarglar!” I say. My back arches as pain shoots through my entire body. My tongue flops out of my beak, my limbs spasm all over the floor, and my eyes go all over the place. After a moment, the pain subsides. My body flops back on the floor and air comes back into my lungs. Is something burning?

The blue-eye laughs. It’s a giddy, excited laugh, far from an evil laugh a bad guy would do. More like a child’s laugh. “Oh geez, that packed a punch. See, I told you I’d electrocute you.”

I can only groan in reply.

The blue-eye kicks me in the side. “Come on, resist me some more. This thing is fun!”

“Ugh,” I mumble. “What’s our… safe word?”

The blue-eye is about to say something else, but a loud metal clang fills the air, and the blue-eye flies off me. Standing behind where he just was is Doctor Heart holding a chair in the air with her magic. “Get back up and fight buddy!” The chair flies towards her to block a high kick from a different blue-eye. Sparks erupt between the chair and the kick. Heart pushes him back and winds up for another swing.

“No, don’t!” I yell. “That chair cost me three bits!”

Heart doesn’t hear me. Instead, she smashes the chair over the encroaching blue-eye, bending the life out of the chair’s legs. Damn it, now I have to get a new chair. I have to spend my next Sunday browsing the flea market to find one that matches my set. And since I’m not buying in bulk, I won’t get as good of a price as I did before.

Heart yells at me. “Are you going to fight or not?!”

“I will fight all of you in court,” I yell back. “You’re wrecking my store!” Kids these days, they have no respect for their elders. They all think they can come in whenever and destroy your things. I worked my butt off to get where I am today, and in one case shot off, and I’m not going to lose it to a bunch of dweebs in gimp suits!

While Heart engages the one blue-eye, another jumps through the shattered window and gallops for me. A unicorn. He leaps through the air and extends his hooves out for me. The gauntlets around his hooves crackle with electricity. Seems like Blackwatch has a new toy to play with.

Unknown to them, I have a new toy too.

I raise my arm and my tentacles shoot out. They weave and gnarl together into a jagged disk and harden into a solid mass. The blue-eye slams his hooves into the mass, and sparks go flying in the air. I can’t help but smile when the sparks don’t shock me through my shield.

That’s right, I got a shield! I was so sick and tired of taking thousands of magic bolts to the ass that I decided to do something about it. Took me a few months to figure out how to make this baby. Turns out I can morph my powers into whatever shape I want if I think hard enough, which includes turning the tumor fists into a shield. Monster claws are a different story, though. I kept poking my eye out.

The blue-eye’s weight and momentum push my shield down on top of me, all the while throwing lightning bolts around me. I shove the shield up with a surge of monster strength and throw the blue-eye off of me. He smashes into one of my good tables, breaking it into small pieces. Ah, son of a bison. That table will be a pain to replace.

The unicorn gets up and shakes the debris off himself. He looks at me, then yells as he charges at me with sparking hooves. “This is for Sunnyside, you monster!”

Huh, that voice sounds oddly feminine, and oddly familiar. Alright, the unicorn is a chick, doesn’t matter much. But where have I heard that voice before?

In my moment of thought, I almost forget there’s an angry zap horse coming for me. She slams her hooves at me, which I block with the shield. I’m a bit surprised how fast I can move this thing around. It’s made up of tumor claw, and those claws took ages to swing. Weird. The unicorn keeps slamming and slamming against my shield. Sparks are flying out from the rim. To counter her, I shove the shield back at her, and it knocks her away. She almost trips from the shove

As she staggers away, another blue-eye flies over my shield. This guy has wings, and he’s flying less than an inch from the top of the ceiling. I will be pissed if he knocks a light fixture out.

The pegasus dive bombs me with, surprise surprise, zap gauntlets. My shield rises above my head fast enough to block him, and he pummels the harden shell. My elbow buckles from his force. With my shield above me, that leaves me vulnerable on the ground. The lady unicorn I just shoved away takes advantage of the gap and aims an electro-punch for my waist.

A swarm of bugs comes out from the left and engulfs the lady unicorn. I hear her scream in panic as black and green insects cover her entire body. Sparks fly out of the bug ball, sending plumes of burning insects all over the store.

The pegasus comes out of nowhere, swinging from the edge of the shield. He swings his legs at my face, kicking me in the pony nose. He has enough force to knock me sideways. The shield goes wild as I tumble backwards. I can’t stop it from smashing the glass display case. Glass and pastries go flying as the shield tears through the counter as I fall back. I land with a thud, and a scone splats on my forehead.

I wipe off the scone and look at its goopy remains. My eye twitches. Blackwatch is destroying my store. I swear to Grover, bitches are getting cut tonight!

The shield splits into a million tentacles and shrivels back to a hoof. As I push myself up to standing position, another zap goon charges me with crackling hooves. I reach for the counter to grab whatever I can get a hold of and chuck it at the charging goon. Turns out I grabbed the cash register. The register zips through the air until it cracks against the goon’s skull. The goon’s head flips back, the cash drawer shoots open with a ding, and bits spill all over his body as he crumples to the floor.

The pegasus dives for me again. I grab the next thing I find on the counter. The pegasus gets to close for me to chuck something by the time I grab a thing, so I chose whack him in the head with everything I got. What I grabbed was today’s newspaper. It doesn’t knock him out of the air, but swatting him with today’s headlines tweaks his head to the side. He veers past me in his descent and crashes in front of the counter.

I turn to Heart. She’s finishing up with the one blue-eye she’s been dealing with. By finishing up, I mean smashing a chair over and over again on top of an unconscious heap. “Stop that!” I yell. Heart freezes mid swing and looks at me. “That chair cost me bits!”

Heart looks around at the destruction that just occurred in the past minute. “It’s not much compared to everything else.”

“But you don’t have to add to it,” I snap back. I turn towards the bug ball that’s pulsing and throbbing. Sparks keep flying out. There’s a thick ring of dead, electrocuted bugs surrounding the ball. The health inspector isn’t going to like that. “I expect you to clean this all up, or else I’m bringing Tartarus up in here.”

The bug ball flashes a blue light, and all the bugs fall into one big swarming pile. It’s as if the pony in there disappeared. A half second later, another blue flash pops behind me, followed by a pony falling and grabbing on to my back. I look behind to find the unicorn from the bug ball riding me like a bull. Ah, she teleported.

“Eat thunder!” the lady unicorn screams in my ear. Right after that, her gauntlets ignite and a torrent of electricity courses through my flesh.

“Blayblublablaabla,” I say. A big glob of spit drools from my spasming mouth as I go through the whole zapppity zap zap fun again, just like the first guy. This is a great time to point out another monster ability I figured out a while back. I don’t have to go to the bathroom. It’s a great little perk, especially when I lose control of all my bodily functions, like right now! Without it, there’d be a huge mess on the floor I’d have to clean up later. Oh, the perks of being a monster freak.

I don’t know how long this goes for. Electrocution makes you lose track of time. After some time, I hear a loud pop behind me, and the electrocution stops. A moment later, I smell something burning. I look back at the unicorn on my back and see smoke rising from a box on her waist.

The unicorn looks at this too. She taps the box with a hoof, and sparks come flying out of the panel. “Oh… shoot. I overloaded the battery.”

“That’s unlucky,” I say. I grab the unicorn by the head and yank her over me. She screams as I drag her through the air. Her blue-eye mask slips off her head and she slams into the ground. I grin as I hold her limp mask over her face. “Look gang, it’s Old Man Willikers.”

The unicorn holds her head as she curls up from the pain. Without her mask, I recognize her instantly. Brown coat, pink mane, a bitchy looking face. I knew I recognized that voice.

“How’s it going, Cherry?” I say, tossing the mask away. “You’re a long way from looking after Pinkie’s classroom. How’d you end up here?”

“I joined,” Cherry groans, “Cole Slaw’s team… so I can… send you to Tartarus myself.”

“Aw, did you forget what Pinkie said?” I ask. “We got to do our best to be friends, or something like” –

Cherry’s horn glows blue. The cash register, held in a blue glow, shoots through the air and cracks me in the head. Bits don’t go flying all over the place since the drawer’s been emptied. However, my head does fly back, and I stumble back and trip over the ruins of my glass display case.

My senses come back in time for me to see Cherry whip up a magic disk shield, more elegant than my tumor shield, and slam it into my torso. My air escapes me and Cherry shoves me over the counter and into the back cooking area.

We keep going until Cherry steers me into a table. I smash through the metal. Raw, uncooked dough is still sitting on the surface, and in goes flying everywhere on impact. A good bit splatters on Cherry’s shield, which presses me into the ground.

“Stop destroying my shop!” I sputter. My hooves shift into the tumor claws. I smash them together with the shield in between. The resulting smack sends a shock that rattles everything in the store, from utensils to large mixing equipment. The shield shatters from the pressure, sending a spike of pain back to the unicorn’s horn. She reels back in pain, nursing her smoking horn.

I glance at the tumor claws. The dough that covered the shield is now all over the claws. Damn it, I’m wasting good product in this fight! I’m going to have to pull all the savings I made from the past year to fix up this store!

Cherry shakes her head, and her horn starts glowing again. Oh no you don’t! My tumor claws shift to my monster claws, and I pounce at the unicorn with my scythe talons. Cherry takes one step back, then a blizzard of glowing blobs cuts the space between us. The blizzard centers in around my claws, and globs of dough pile around my blades.

The unicorn shuts her eyes when I strike, but my claws don’t slice her to bits. Instead, they make a glop sound, and I sandwich her in between two dough pillows. Oh great, she’s got me stuck. I try ripping the claws out from the dough balls, but Cherry’s magic presses down on the dough, keeping my blades trapped in the innards of my life’s work.

Cherry smirks. “Can’t do much without your claws, can you?”

I grimace, but then change to a smirk when a funny little thought crosses my head. “You think you have the best of me, but it is you who will accept defeat!”

Cherry raises an eyebrow, but then jolts when I flip back. I swing on my arms and kick my feet up in between us, then lash out with a back hoof. A shield forms in front of Cherry just in time for me to kick it with a dull ring. Cherry winces as the shield ripples from the blow.

I yell at her. “Get it? I’m giving you defeat. De feet!” I think it's a good pun.

I keep kicking her in a bike peddling motion, making the shield bend and warp. Cherry’s face twists in pain and sparks fly out of her horn. I must be putting a good amount of strain on her.

Cherry forces her eyes open and looks at something behind me. Her horn glows brighter, and I hear metal scraping from the back. I turn to see what she’s doing, only to find the two halves of the table I crashed into earlier come flying at me. I have no time to react before the fly to either side of me and proceed to give me the beat down of a life time. Each whacks me on top of the head as fast as they can. It’s like getting spanking from two robots at once! They fill the air with a string of metallic clanging, which sounds as pleasant as it feels.

My blade wings unfurl from my pony form and stick up into the air. When the table halves comes down, they slam on top of the blades. The tables slide down the metal feathers, pushing down hard on my wing joints. With my wings piercing the tables, I bend the tips at an angle, stopping them from sliding back up. They’re stuck.

My head tilts to the side. “I hope you realize you and your friends are going to be paying me a lot of money as recompense for all this property damage.”

Cherry glares up at me. “Oh, I’ll pay you back. Do you accept bits?”

“Sure, bits will be fine, but that’s going to be a lot of bits you’ll have to” –

A blue glowing cash register comes out of nowhere and bashes me in the head. That cheeky little devil. I straighten my neck back to position. I can feel the tentacles patching up a gash over my face. I stare the unicorn down. “Never mind, I only take check.”

My claws morph and surge. Cherry feels something in the dough moving, and her eyes go wide. Her horn flashes, and a bubble shield forms around her, pushing the dough balls away from her. Just in time too, as two bouquets of blades shoot out from either ball, scraping against her shield. Cherry holds against the ground-turned-dough spikes, though I can see the stress they’re putting on her. Her body is shaking now, and she’s having trouble keeping her eyes open.

In spite of her obvious fatigue, Cherry lets out a scream. She runs forward, using her bubble shield to push me along with her. She slams me into the giant dough mixer. I feel the buttons and levers poke me in the back. Something behind me clicks, and the massive industrial whisk in the mixer’s bowl springs to life. The whisk starts off slow, but then accelerates to bone breaking speeds. I must have hit the extreme button.

The dough spikes shrink back into my normal monster claws, still stuck in the dough. I squeeze Cherry’s shield as hard as I can with the dough balls and lift her into the air. Cherry falls to the bottom of her bubble, but she still keeps it stable somehow. With her in my goopy claws, I chuck the bubble into the mixer bowl.

The bubble jams up against the whisk. The whish jolts to a stop with a metal clang. I can hear the motor groaning in an effort to keep going. With my monster strength and the industrial whisk pressing against her bubble, Cherry is under a lot of stress. Her shaking is more intense, and now her horn is spurting fireworks.

“Come on Cherry, don’t you want to be a part of my new line scones?” I yell at her. I lift a dough claw up and slam it on top of the shield. The shield ripples, and Cherry cries out. “It’s a special scone, with a special ingredient us griffons consider a delicacy back in the motherland.”

She looks at the jammed up whisk, and some how she forces her horn to glow even brighter. I think she’s scared. I wouldn’t blame her. Berry Tart once dropped a ladle into the bowl once, and that whisk bent the heck out of it. Imagine what it’ll do to a full grown pony!

I slam on her shield again, and Cherry shudders in response. “We made it all the time back in Griffonstone. Meat scones!” Another slam, the unicorn cries out again. “We usually made it out of rabbits and stuff, but this batch is going to be special. I’m making this batch Cherry flavored!”

I throw my claw down as hard as I can. I want this shield broken. Before I do, Cherry looks at me with a burning hatred in her eyes. Her horn flashes, and all I see is a blinding light. A moment later, I can see again, but Cherry isn’t there anymore.

Damn it, she teleported!

The flash confuses me enough to forget about the claw coming down to crush the shield that isn’t there anymore. It smashes through empty air, to my disappointment. But that isn’t the bad part. The bad part is I hear the mixer’s motor rev back up again. The whisks shoots back to life, catching my claw as it falls into the bowl.

Oh… poop.

When I bought this mixer, I went out to find the most powerful mixer on the market. After a month or so of browsing, I came across this particular model. According to the sales pony, the motor in this thing is strong enough to rip an elephant in half. Of course he didn’t use an elephant in his demonstration. That would be murder. But he did toss in a bunch of melons and the whisk easily grinded them into a fine liquid juice. It impressed me, so I bought it. Ever since then, I always wondered how far I could push this thing. Can it really rip an elephant in half?

I’m about to find out.

With my claw stuck in the whisk, the mixer yanks me into the bowl. It doesn’t just pull me in, it also pulls in the table halves stuck to my wings. I didn’t take those off, did I? The whish tears my arm off, mixing the claw and the dough ball together. It then tears up the rest of my body, along with the metal table. I can’t scream because the whisk wrecks my throat in the first moment.

To answer my question of what this baby can do, what follows is the world’s most powerful mixer mixing up two large globs of dough, a monster griffon, and a metal table all together into a batch of paste. To think of my pain, imagine having every bit of flesh you have simultaneously ripped off your bones, and then your bones grind up, and then metal shards of table rip through your torn up flesh. Not hard for me to imagine, because that is exactly what’s happening to me right now!

This is Tartarus! I receive the punishment the most foul of creatures receive. The wailing souls in the devil’s pits face this fate for all eternity. Repent, my brothers, or you shall suffer the same wrath as I!

At some point, the timer on the mixer runs out with a ding. The whisk slows down to a stop, and the soup I’m in settles. None of my body parts feel like they’re in the right place. Bits of my arms are touching bits of my leg, and my neck, and my torso. Actually, my arm is everywhere. And my legs are everywhere. And my torso is everywhere!

Is this what it feels like to be omnipresent?

As I sit contemplating my new form of existence, the tentacles inside of me spring to life and get to work fixing me back up, like they always do. Well, they’re not inside of me. They’re all around me. It’s sort of like the air I breathe suddenly sprouted tentacles and is now taking my bits and pieces to put them back together. Except it’s not air, it’s scone batter. I’m breathing scone batter. That may not be wrong. I think the tentacles are eating the scone batter for nourishment. So in a way, I am breathing scones.

I should have stayed in bed this morning.

Slowly, my bits and pieces reform inside the bowl. First comes an arm, then half my torso, then the organs inside my torso. My wings sprout out of my back. My other limbs come out as well. Last thing to come is my head, which starts out as a fleshy knot on my neck, but rolls out into a full blob. The feathers on my head grow out the same time by skull reforms. I bet it looks like someone inflating a balloon while growing grass on it at the same time. Last to come are my eyes, which sort of inflate inside my eye sockets. This has to look disturbing to anyone watching. Heck, I’m disturbed, and I’m the one going through this.

My vision comes back once my eyes finish, and I blink a few times. I look down at my body. Gone is the pony I was pretending to be for the last year. Now I’m back to my normal griffon self. I’m sitting in a red dough goop with metal shards sticking out. I hope I don’t have any metal inside me.

I stretch my limbs and give my beak a workout. Hmm, why am I craving fish sticks and custard right now?

I look around my bakery. Doctor Heart and the bug swarm are still fighting a few blue-eyes up front. They’re making a mess of what’s left of the lobby. I grumble some more about repair costs. Damn, how many customers I’m I missing out on right now.

I look around at my kitchen. Other than the table and the mixer, it’s mostly untouched by anything. That’s good. All the expensive stuff is here in the back. I’d like to keep the damage up front if I can.

Hmm, where did Cherry go? I look around the chaos going on, but I can’t find the unicorn. She’s not fighting with Heart and the bugs, and she’s not here back in the kitchen. I guess she took off and ran. That may be good for my sanity. She was giving my ass a good kicking. How does that girl know how to fight? I choked her out last time we went at it.

Behind me, a door creaks as it swings open. I look back to find Berry Tart walking out of the restroom, whistling a tune to herself as she flips back her hair. A loud crash happens in the lobby fight, and Berry stops in her tracks to see what’s going on. Her whistling cuts off when she sees what’s going on.

I lean on the edge of the mixer bowl and rest my head on a griffon claw. “Damn Berry, you were in there for a long time. What the heck were you doing?”

Berry jumps at the sound of my voice. She looks in my direction, and her eyes go wide when she sees the griffon sitting in the bowl. “Who are you and what’s going on?!”

My head tilts. “I’m your boss, and a shit storm is going on.”

Berry Tart reels back a few steps. “No, you can’t be. Mister Buttermilk” –

I shapeshift into the pony I’ve been pretending to be for the past year. Berry looks like she’s about to shit some bricks. “Yeah, I know. It’s a long story. Seriously though, what were you doing on the toilet? You missed everything that went down.”

Berry doesn’t say anything. She stammers over her words, but nothing coherent comes out. My eyes roll, and I look back at the carnage going on. Great, I don’t think I can run the bakery with the mess that’s going on. I’ll have to close the place for repairs, and sue Blackwatch for damages.

I hop out of the bowl, shake of the goop, and smile at Berry. “Tell Teacake and the others they’ll have the next couple weeks off. We can’t do business here until I get the place fixed up.”

Berry stays frozen for a moment, but manages a meek nod. “What happened?”

“Some old friends came by to visit.” I walk over to Berry and place my hoof on her shoulder. I lead her to the back entrance, where Blackwatch isn’t at. “There’s a reason I don’t talk to those guys anymore.”

As I lead Berry to the back, I stop by my office to grab a pad of paper and a pen. I begin writing down a to-do list for me to follow. Get new windows, get new furniture, possibly get a new industrial mixer, call the exterminator for giant bugs, so on and so forth. I even take the time to write in all in the pretty cursive I picked up.

I stop for a moment to try to remember something I think I forgot. I tap the pen against my chin… Oh yeah.

At the top of the notepad, I write in big, fancy calligraphy, “Free Pinkie,” and underline it several times. A special idea pops in my head when I finish off the final stroke. Hmm, I think I can do one or two of these things at the same time.

Author's Notes:

Publisher's Note: We understand paying fines is an unpleasant part of life, but we must all pay our dues when we commit criminal acts. Sending images of crude justers to our HQ address in response to a fine is not an acceptable action from anyone in our society. We take your actions as a declaration of you abandoning your responsibility, and will be sending the proper authorities to your place of residence to ensure all fines are met. We thank you for your future cooperation.

- Activision Blizzard Inc.

43 - Hanging Off the Edge

Night has fallen over Canterlot, though that doesn’t mean the city is going to sleep anytime soon. Blackwatch airships are blotting the night sky and Blackwatch patrols are running all over the place. Canterlot has its fair share of night owls, but seems to me the locals are outnumbered by the blue-eyes two to one. Damn tourists.

It's not all bad. I’m taking a stroll through Citadel Park this evening, and so are a few other Canterlot citizens. All the lamp posts along the path keep us all well lit, so I can see the other ponies, and the other ponies can see me. I greet anyone who walks by me with a smile, and they return the same gesture. The ponies in the town are quite friendly, especially to a nobody unicorn like me. The Blackwatch goons less so. They've just yelled at me to keep walking. Jerks.

As I walk, I look over my notepad, thinking over the items of the list I wrote down. Most of what I wrote is crossed out. Repairing damage, for instance, has a line striking through it. I talked to a local construction company about fixing the damage to the bakery. They can do it, but since it’s the site of a Blackwatch operation, they have to wait a week or so to get an all clear. I told them to talk to my banker for payment, as I may be out of town during construction.

Next crossed off the list is insurance. I made a stop by my insurance agent after the construction guy and made my claim there. The Blackwatch organization destroyed my shop in attempt to apprehend a villain. A claim like that has to be on the same level as criminal arson or a magically induced tornado. Nope. The dirty insurance agent tried to weasel out of it by saying it was a government sanctioned military operation, that I would have to get in touch with the Royal Court to get recompense. I kindly, in my own way, reminded the agent that Blackwatch isn’t part of the Equestrian military. Blackwatch is owned by Genicorn, which is contracted by Equestria to deal with plague and viral outbreaks and are not authorized to participate in true military engagements. Blackwatch is a mercenary company, civilians with arms. Any property damage from civilians is vandalism. Ipso facto, I did my homework and don’t you dare screw me over on my insurance policy!

Insurance is crossed off with a thick, angry line.

After that is my bank. I told my banker about my situation and gave him a list of names that should be contacting him about fixing the shop. He said no problem. Done and done, crossed off.

The rest of my to-do list is unmarked, for various reasons. New furniture is going to take an entire day to shop for, and I don’t want to work on that until the shop is mostly fixed. Exterminator is the same deal. I don’t want that getting in the way of construction. New industrial mixer, I can do that sooner. Problem is I don’t know how far gone that thing is. Did mixing a monster griffon and a table completely destroy it? Is the damage repairable? Is it as fine as ever and doesn’t need any additional work? I can’t even look at the thing until Blackwatch scurries off. I hope it’s fine, in which case I’ll give it a thorough cleaning to get rid of any biohazards left behind. That’ll need its own day entirely.

That leaves two items left, which I should be able to get done tonight, or at least get them going. For both of them, I’ll need to make a very special stop at a very special place.

I put down the notepad and look up the mountain, which is dominated by the form of Canterlot Castle. Citadel Park is right at the foot of the castle. There’s only a tall wall I have to cross separating the park from the castle proper.The bastion looms overhead, looking down upon the rest of the mortal world. The castle is dark at this time of night, merely a black silhouette against the starry sky. The only lights are coming from the many windows covering the palace, lighting up tiny spots. With the castle so high and the windows so many, it gives the impression that the castle merges with the night sky. Where the sky ends and the castle begins, only the gods know the answer to that question.

That’s just a bit of poetry I heard one of my customers spout not too long ago. It’s actually really easy to tell sky from castle. The whole thing is painted white! Kind of hard to mistake it for sky. Still, the castle looks pretty big at night.

I tuck the notepad in a satchel on my back, placing it next to a think envelope. I head for the edge of the park, where the park grass meets the citadel wall. There’s a guard patrol that walks along the top of the wall, but they’ll be easy to avoid if I time it right.

When I get to the wall, I lean up against it, pretending to admire the greenery at night. I also keep tabs on what’s going on around me. A jogging couple runs past me. They’re wrapped up warm for the cold night. Little clouds of breath come out of their mouths like clockwork. Step, breathe, step, breathe. They’re in sync, that’s cute. They leave my area soon enough. Looks like no one else is coming down the path.

My ears turn to the top of the battlement. My monster hearing picks up two guards walking past me right now. I listen closely to their footsteps, waiting for them to clear. When I hear them walk far enough for my comfort, I jump, kick up the wall, and run up the side to the top. The guards are walking away from me when I get to the top. Excellent. I glance down the other side of the wall to make sure no one is watching, and jump down into the courtyard.

I’m in. Canterlot Castle, you’re mine for the taking. My Gilda senses ping for a specific pony, and I get a pull slightly to my right. I dash that direction, careful to hide from any patrolling guards. A few cross my path as I make my way through the courtyard. It’s easy enough to dive behind a bush or hide behind a statue. Huh, this is easier than I thought. I expected the most famous castle in the world to have better security. Helps to have monster speed and hearing, I suppose.

Run, hide, run, hide, the cycle continues as I cross the courtyard. I even run up some stairs at some point. Exciting! After all that, I follow my Gilda senses to the base of a tower, where they pull me straight up. Aha, my target is up this tower. Tonight is a fruitful night indeed.

I look either side of me, checking for any incoming guards. Nobody is coming, or at least nobody I can hear. The Equestrian army isn’t known for hiring ninjas to patrol the castle, so I’m going to make a safe bet and say nobody’s coming. I crouch down as low as I can go, putting all my power into my back legs. When my muscles tense up as far as they can go, I release the power, springing high into the air with an impressive monster jump.

Several windows streak past me as I ascend. When my jump slows down at the peak, I grab onto the wall, digging my talons into the brick with my talons. This gives me enough grip to kick the wall and start running up the tower face.

This is just like the Mission Possible comics, sneaking around the enemy base, hiding from guards, grappling up walls, all leading to an encounter with the big bad dude running the place. Granted, I’m running up the wall, not grappling it, so there’s a slight difference. The essence is still the same, and that’s what I’m enjoying.

When the ground is far below me, and the wind is threatening to blow me off the wall, I reach the bottom of a balcony, just as my Gilda sense pulls me to the inside the tower instead of up. Bingo, I found my boy. I grip the edge of the balcony with my claws and heave myself over the edge, getting a good look of the tower’s inside.

The balcony leads to a large door, which someone left open for air. Past the door is a large room with a large dining table in the middle. It’s covered in fruits and breads and all kinds of other foods no one from Griffonstone can afford. It’s all lit up by a bunch of candlesticks sharing the same table space. That’s a lot of food. I wonder who’s going to eat it all.

At the middle of the table, sitting in the center of my view, is the one unicorn I would like to talk to. He’s a tall guy, white coat, fine blond mane, wearing a suit that probably costs as much as my scone shop. He’s a total fruit, but he’s the fruit I’m looking for.

Prince Blueblood, I found you.

The royal unicorn has a folder hovering in front of him. He’s reading something in the folder. What he’s reading, I don’t care. My problems are more important than what’s in that folder. I’m about to step in to interrupt his folder reading when he looks up to talk to someone off to the side.

“You don’t seem pleased by the news,” he says to the stranger. My monster hearing can hear what he says from this distance. “I thought you’d be ecstatic. This is the best thing to happen in a year.”

The stranger he’s talking to, with a familiar voice, replies to the prince. “This news is hard to believe for me. Gilda isn’t one to die so easily. She’s too stubborn. The griffon survived everything you threw at her in Manehattan, but this is what does her in?”

Blueblood shrugs. “We got lucky. Zero tried fighting a single agent, and the monster tripped over his own feet. Not even the best of our tacticians could plan for stupidity.”

“Still, death by industrial mixer, such a death is not at all common.”

“The batter is a DNA match. Our agent watched Zero get, well, battered. There’s no way he’s still alive.”

“She, Blueblood,” the stranger corrects. “Gilda is a she.” Bravo, stranger. You know what’s up.

So they think I died. By the sounds of it, they must think my ride through my mixer killed me. To be fair, I did turn into a liquid. Nobody can walk away from that alive. Of course I’m the exception.

This does open up a new opportunity. They think I’m dead, so they won’t be looking for me. I could go right now, leap off this tower and escape the city within the hour. I could start a new life somewhere. Go to Las Pegasus, open up a store there, live a profitable life, the ultimate griffon dream. I could just walk away, leave this all behind, and no one would be the wiser.

Hmm… Nah, I want to scare the crap out of Blueblood.

I hear the stranger’s hoofsteps make their way towards the balcony. I tense up to pounce in the middle of their conversation, everyone loves a surprise, but the first glimpse I get of the stranger gives me second thoughts. First I see a long horn, then a dark blue figure. Then comes a mane made up of stars and the night sky. My stomach twists once I realize who is between me and Prince Blueblood.

I jump back over the ledge before Princess Luna looks my direction. My claws snatch into the brickwork, allowing me to hang off the side of the tower. Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap! Why is Princess Luna here? It’s Canterlot Castle you feather brain, of course Luna is going to be here! Where else is she going to be, Zebrica?

Luna’s hoofsteps make their way towards the balcony. “Excuse me for a moment,” I hear her say. Did she see me? She must have seen me. Why else would she be heading my way? Oh crap oh crap!

The princess’s head pops over the edge of the balcony. From here, I have the perfect view of the underside of her chin. Her ethereal hair billows out above me, blocking the night sky. She’s not looking down at me. She doesn’t know I’m here! Then why is she here? I hold my breath and clench my mouth shut as hard as I can. Please don’t look down.

Luna raises her head and closes her eyes. Her horn glows with a magnificent light. I can feel the magic radiating from her. Off on the distant horizon, the moon rises above a far away mountain range. It crawls high into the night sky, casting a soft light over all of Equestria. After a moment, Luna’s horn dims, and the moon slows to a stop.

Once the princess’s horn snuffs out, and the moon is still, Luna turns around and heads back inside. “Sorry about that. I forgot to raise the moon tonight.”

Her hoofsteps go away, and the balcony doors creak and slam to a close. I let out a huge breath. Holy crap, she was right above me! All she had to do was look down and I was toast! Luck must be on my side tonight.

I hop up to the edge of the balcony once more. The doors are shut, blocking my view to the inside. I can’t look in, but Luna can’t look out either. I should be safe for now. I run up to the door and press my ear against the crack. The conversation inside is slightly muffled, but I can still hear what’s being said. Blueblood and Luna are having a conversation about something I don’t care about. Why should I care what they’re saying? I only care about getting to Blueblood.

Hmm, either Blueblood or Luna has to leave the room. I can't barge in with the princess in there. Luna has to leave so I can have some alone time with Blueblood. Or, alternatively, Blueblood leaves so I can follow him to a different, quieter, part of the castle and talk with him there. I slump down and lean my head against the door. I didn’t think I’d be playing the waiting game tonight.

“You there, friend or foe?”

I jolt up at the sound of the voice. Standing in front of me are two Royal Guards dressed in full regalia. Where the heck did these guys come from? I didn’t see them up here with me.

“I’m… uh…” I try to think of an excuse for being here. I'm still in my unicorn disguise, right? What would a unicorn be doing outside Blueblood's balcony at this time of night? Nothing good comes to mind fast enough.

One guard steps forward. “Relax Gilda, we’re not who you think.” How did he know my name?! After saying that, his buddy’s skin bubbles. The other guard breaks up into a pile of black and green bugs. The bugs scurry all over each other for a moment before coming back together and reforming into a normal guard form.

“You’re those bug things,” I say. The guard nods in response. “How did you find me?”

“Our kind is hidden all over Canterlot,” the first guard says. His face doesn’t show any emotion, like a statue. “We wait, listen, observe, until our Queen calls upon us to retake this city once again. It just so happens you jumped behind us on that wall down in the courtyard. It was a coincidence encounter, nothing more.”

The other guard speaks in a similar statue fashion. “Our sisters told us you would be escaping the city, as that is the most logical thing to do. None of us anticipated you would be coming to the castle.”

“I have someone I need to talk to,” I say. “Now scram, your talking is going to draw the Princess out here.”

“She is currently too occupied to notice our discussion,” the first one says. “And we have something important to discuss.”

“We have nothing to discuss,” I say. “I know Heart was trying to set up a deal, but that deal died when she helped Blackwatch destroy my store.”

“While what happened to your store is unfortunate,” the first guard says, “our matter is of far greater importance.”

“You know where our Queen is,” the other guard says. “Our sisters in Manehattan saw what you did through our Queen’s eyes. You trapped her in the Nexus, and you took the Nexus with you when you escaped the city. We could not find the Nexus when we searched your house or your store, so we know you’ve hidden it somewhere.”

Ah great, they admitted to crawling around my store. I think I’ll have to get the exterminator sooner than I planned. He should at least do my house. “When you say Nexus, you mean the suitcase, right?” I ask

“Affirmative,” the first guard says. “The Nexus is in the suitcase. Our Queen saw this when you trapped her, and we saw it through our Queen.”

“We want the Nexus,” the other guard says, “so we can release our Queen.”

“Hmm, interesting.” I say. “No deal.” I’m not giving up my biggest lifeline.

“That is a regrettable choice,” the first guard says.

“How so?” I ask. “I fought a lot of Blackwatch and a lot of monsters, and none of them could do anything to me. What do you have that they don’t?”

“A presence across the world, hidden in plain sight,” the second one says. “We can always find you, and we will come for you.”

“It’s best to give us the Nexus now,” the first one says. “If we release our Queen, I’m sure she will forgive you if you give yourself to her. One day she will rule the world, and a fine specimen such as you would do well under her.”

“I’m not following any crazy bug lady,” I say. “Especially one who used my friend against me. I’m not going to forgive her for that. She’s staying in this Nexus of yours.”

“You will regret your decision,” the second says. “We will get our Queen back, one way or another.”

“Oh buzz off, bug boys.” My monster claws come out and I slash through both of their bodies at once. I tear through their disguises, slicing a good chunk of bugs. The rest of the bug piles dissolve into a huge bug puddle. They don’t attack me. Instead, they scurry off over the edges of the balcony, disappearing over the side of the tower. All that’s left on them is a small pile of bugs I cleaved in half. Good riddance.

Those bugs are nothing but a nuisance. Back to the task at hand. I lean my ear up against the door to listen to what’s going on. I don’t care what they’re saying, I’m just listening for one of the dweebs in there to leave. Fortunately, the bugs helped kill some time, and I now can hear the muffled endings to the conversation.

“I must bid you goodnight soon,” I hear Luna say. “I must get to my nightly duties.” Damn, I tuned in right at the end. That’s some good timing.

“Yes, those must be done,” Blueblood says. “I hope the nights have been easier for you. The Manehattan situation has been quiet for a while.”

“I may not have had a midnight emergency to attend to in a while, but Manehattan still has a presence in ponies’ minds. It lingers in their dreams, but I’ve learnt how to deal with them. Though the only dream I dread visiting is one of a pony who keeps dreaming of screaming carrots.”

“Screaming carrots? That does sound dreadful. The crazy things our imaginations create…”

“Indeed. But I still must attend to it. That particular pony dreaming of it has some serious issues to work through.”

“Then I won’t delay you any longer in helping that pony. Have a good night.”

“You as well.” With the last words spoken, I hear Luna’s hoofsteps as she leaves the room. When I can’t hear them anymore, I give her a ping with my Gilda senses to check where she is. Below me, descending the tower. Oh good, I have Blueblood to myself now.

I stretch, cracking my spine and neck bones. Time to get this show on the road. With a kick, the door flies open. Blueblood jumps at the noise, spilling glass of wine. I check to see if there’s anyone else in here. Nope, just me and the prince. "Know knock, Prince Dweeb!"

44 - You've Been Served

The prince nearly falls off his cushion when I barge in. “What in blazes!” Blueblood shouts. Ooh, he's spooked good.

I walk into the light so Blueblood can get a good look at my face. My tentacles shift and churn, dropping my unicorn disguse and forming my Griffon body. I smile at the prince. “Hi there, Blueblood. I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Gilda.”

Blueblood looks like he’s about to piss himself. His mouth gapes open, and he stutters a bit. “Y-you can’t be here. It’s not possible. You fell into an industrial mixer. You’re supposed to be jelly!”

I shrug. “I got better.”

He springs out of his seat and bolts for the door. He’s about to scream for help, but with my speed I easily dash in front of him and put a monster claw scythe up to his lips. He skids to a stop, and I have to take a step back to keep him from slicing his lips on my blade.

“Whoa there, I’m not letting you get away.” I move forward, pushing Blueblood back with the single blade. He backs up to his cushion at the table, then trips back into a sitting position. “Good boy. Now we can talk.”

His eyes stare down the razor edge of my monster talon. “I-I don’t know what you want, but killing me isn’t going to solve anything.”

“You’re double right. You don’t know what I want.” The monster claw shrinks into my normal griffon claw, and I flick Blueblood on the nose. He blinks. “And killing you won’t solve my problems. So relax, I won’t lay a talon on you if I don't have to.”

His eyes are locked on to me. He watches as I walk around him and pick up a shiny looking apple from the table. “What do you want?”

“Welp, I did my homework, and as CEO of Genicorn, you hold a lot of power over Blackwatch.” My eyes look over the entire table, taking in all the colors of the fruits and vegetables on display. “Thisis a lot of food for one pony. You're not going to share this?”

“None of this is for eating,” Blueblood says.

“You don’t eat any of this? You rich ponies are weird, setting up a table like this just so it goes to waste.” I take a loud bite out of the apple. I chew for a second, but slow down when I sense something is off. I haven’t been able to taste anything for a year, but I can feel something is strange. The texture feels hard and gooey, also a little too smooth for an apple.

“That’s because it’s fake,” Blueblood says. “All the fruit is fake. It’s a display piece.”

I stop chewing upon hearing this. I look down at the apple and see the part I bit off is made of wax, like a candle. Yep, that’s a fake alright.

Blueblood points to the door. “I could have a chef get you something if you’d like. More apples, a fruit platter, fancy cakes?”

"Yeah, you’d tell the chef to go get help so they can beat off the monster holding you hostage. Heck no, I don’t need you chef!" I look Blueblood dead in the eye as I take another bite out of the apple, chewing it slowly to drill the point home. Power move.

“Uh…”

“What I want,” I say, gesturing at Blueblood with the chewed up fake apple, “first off, is for Blackwatch to get off my case and stop hunting me down like a rabbit. You’re their CEO, I know you can do this.”

Blueblood is about to say something, but I cut him off.

“I’m not kidding. You saw my scone shop. I’ve been a productive citizen for the past year and you know it. But these blue-eye goons of yours, they do nothing but sit around, bully other citizens, and jerk each other off when they’re not after my head. And you all have the gall to come in and wreck my place just so you can take my head as your mantlepiece or do some other messed up crap to my body. No, you guys are destroying small businesses everywhere and you need to stop.”

“That won’t happen,” Blueblood says. “If we don’t stop you, you’ll end up killing more ponies. You’re a monster who needs to be put down.”

I hold up a talon. “I only killed in self defense. You guys are far worse. Like I said, I did my homework. You establish police states around quarantine zones just so you can have a power trip. You take Blacklight infected foals away from their families and experiment on them. Thousands of ponies have disappeared because you claim they have the plague, even though there’s a good bit of evidence saying many of those ponies were healthy. And you bust down people’s stores for no good reason. Speaking of which…”

I toss the apple over my shoulder and go fishing through my satchel. The apple thuds on the floor behind me. A second later, I’m pulling out a thick envelope and handing it to the prince. Blueblood grabs it with his magic, but he’s hesitant to open it. “What is this?”

“Court summons,” I say. “I’m suing you.”

His eyes go wide and he freaks out. He rips the envelope top off and yanks the papers out. His eyes dart back and forth as he skims the words my lawyer cooked up today. If Blueblood was scared before, then he must be having a heart attack now. “What in Tartarus? You can’t do this!”

Blueblood seems more scared about losing a chunk of money than he is of me eviscerating him. Gotta love the rich. I push the papers down with a talon to bring his attention back to me.

“I can, and I did. Your goons, that you are responsible for, broke into my shop earlier today, vandalized the place, and caused me emotional distress. It’s going to take me a considerable amount of money and time to fix the place up. Plus you’ve caused me to lose potential revenue while my store is under repair. Since I can’t make money, I can’t pay my bills or pay my employees wages. I want to keep my employees, so you’ll have to pay for that too. Add on the legal fees, and that puts your bill at around” – I pause to count on my claws – “ten million bits.”

Blueblood gags, almost dropping the papers. “Ten million?!”

I nod. “Give or take.”

He throws his hooves up in the air. “This is an outrage. You’re a monster! No one will listen to your case.”

A sly smile crops up on my face. “I wouldn’t say no one. My lawyer thinks it’s a good case. The Canterlot Historical Society loves to go after ponies who vandalize city architecture. Oh, and the Mercenary Oversight Committee, they’ll take an interest in today’s events. I think you’re already under investigation from them, are you not? Something about ‘gross mishandling of detainees.’ But what do I know about that?”

Blueblood glares at me. The papers crumple up in his magic. “The Princesses will see that your lawsuit will never see the light of day.”

I give him a deadpan look. “Lawsuits are civil matters. The Royal family has no control over them. Check your privilege.”

“You’ll rot in a dungeon cell before you ever see a bit from me. You are Equestria’s most wanted, after all.”

I snap my talons. “Dungeons, thanks for reminding me. There’s a third thing I want from you.”
"What else could you want?"
"Simple. I want" -
Blueblood holds up his hooves in surrender and hangs his head. “I can already guess. It’s against my will, but as my duty as Equestria’s Prince, I accept your terms. You may gangbang me, but please let me live.”

…

The heck? “Uh… Sorry, I think I misheard you. Could you say that again?”

“I will accept the gangbang, but please spare my life.”

Is he serious? “Right… That’s what I thought you said…”

Silence takes over the room. I try to look at Blueblood, but my eyes keep finding something else to look at. My plan was to use my monster claws to add some gravitas to my third request, act all high and mighty while I’m at it. But this… This is…

Blueblood clears his throat. “So, are you going to do it?”

“Do…?”

“The gangbang.”

I reel back a bit. “No. Just, I… Sweet mercy, no!”

“But I thought you wanted to” –

“You brought it up!” I shout at him. “Why did you bring it up?”

All Blueblood can do is shrug. “Well, you were stressing me out with the lawsuit and all, and I had a stray thought, and I thought people who kidnap princes bring them to the dungeon to” –

I hold up a claw. “No, stop. Stop making this weird.”

“Sure it’s weird now, but it’s a natural thing for some ponies to think about.”

“That just makes it more weird! This is not the situation to bring that up!”

“But I thought” –

“No, I wasn’t. I was on a roll, and I was going to do this badass thing where I hold a monster claw up to your throat to scare the crap out of you. And then I’d tell you in a deep voice what I want, and you’d do what I want and I’d be on my way.”

“So you don’t want a gangbang?”

I smack my forehead. “No, I don’t want a gangbang. Geez dude, find a girlfriend after I’m done with you. You’re desperate.”

“Then you” –

I wave to cut him off. “Nope, no more talking for you. You make things weird. I’m going to say want I want, and you’re going to do the thing I want.” I clap my claws together, take in a deep breath, and look Blueblood in the eye. “I want you to set Pinkie Pie free.”

A confused look crosses Blueblood’s face. “You want to free Pinkie?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Oh.” Blueblood fidgets with his cushion. “Are you sure you don't want the gangbang?”

"Damn it dude! Enough with the gangbang!" I swear I'm going to crack his skull.

"You might want to reconsider, because freeing Pinkie is nigh impossible right now."

“Why?”

“She’s in Manehattan right now.”

“And that’s a problem because?”

“You do know what’s going on in Manehattan, right?”

“Sure, apparently Pinkie is still there. You know where she is, so go free her.”

“But Manehattan’s a mad house!” Blueblood cries. “The whole island is covered in Blacklight, and the facility containing Pinkie is in the middle of it. I’d lose too many agents trying to get her for you.”

Hmm, that may be a problem. I haven’t bothered to keep up with the Manehattan issue. Didn’t have interest in it. It is quite possible Manehattan went tits up while I wasn’t looking. Hey, it’s not my problem to control. “Why is she in the middle of Manehattan to begin with?”

“Blackwatch still has a station there,” Blueblood says. “They caught her trying to free some ponies in quarantine or something like that. Even if I wanted to, I can’t set her free. She broke Equestrian law trying her little prison break scheme, and Manehattan is thick with the spawn of Tartarus. We can’t get our forces through our own outposts without casualties. You’re asking me to fight tooth and nail to free a high risk criminal. I can’t do that.”

My talons tap on the table. “That’s not the answer I want to hear.”

“There’s nothing else to hear! I can’t risk an extraction operation for one criminal. Our forces are spread thin over the island as it is.”

I point to the sky. “Can’t you send one of those fancy airships of yours to fetch her?”

Blueblood leans in close. “If you knew how bad Manehattan is right now, then you would know why that’s a stupid idea.”

“I’m not asking if my idea is stupid or not,” I say. “I’m telling you to free Pinkie.”

The prince rubs his hooves over his face. “Please don’t kill me over this. There’s nothing I can do right not.”

“Why would I kill you? I still need to get my lawsuit money out of you.”

Blueblood’s head lifts from his hooves, showing his eyes but hiding his mouth. I think I see a little water building up in those eyes.

I look away and pick my talons. “Although, I could eat you and shapeshift into your form. Then I can show up to court as you and forfeit the case. Heck, I could pose as you for a while and play with your money all I want. It’d make things easier for me.”

Blueblood lets out a little whimper. That sound makes me smile.

The satisfaction of a cowering prince doesn’t last long, as the door to the room opens up. I tense up, ready to fight whoever is coming in, but I relax once I see who it is. A familiar purple unicorn, Arctic North, is trotting on in with his nose deep in paperwork.

“Got some bad news for you, prince,” Arctic says as he comes up to the table. “Blacklight mutated again. That cure we were looking at is useless now. Third time this happened this year. I swear that plague is taunting us” – Arctic freezes in place when he looks up and sees what’s going on. His eyes lock on to me. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“That’s what I thought too,” Blueblood says.

I shrug. “I might be. The afterlife is crap if that’s the case.”

Arctic North points a hoof at me. “But the batter, and the DNA test” –

“I’m still alive,” I say.

Arctic looks at Blueblood. “I think we underestimated her regeneration.”

Blueblood glares at the unicorn. “You think?!”

Arctic’s eyes look off into space, then those eyes take a trip around the room in the most exaggerated eye roll I’ve ever seen. Looks a bit weird. If I knew better, I’d say he’s look at something behind us. Eh, whatever. “Okay Gilda, I know Blueblood looks tasty, and I of all ponies know how much that pain in the neck deserves it” –

“Hey!” Blueblood cries.

“Hush, I’m doing the talking.” Arctic gives the prince a stern look, and the princes holds his lips tight.

I wave a claw. “Relax, I don’t want to eat him. I’m suing him.”

The unicorn’s eyebrow goes up. “Really?”

I nod. “Yep, I’m suing him for damages against my store.”

“Oh right, I did see the carnage.” Arctic looks up as he does some mental math in his head. “I’m guessing it’s around… five hundred thousand?”

“Ten million bits.”

“Oof.” Arctic winces. “That’s a lot.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Blueblood cringe at the number. That’s satisfying to see. “And that’s not all,” I say. “I also want Blackwatch to stop hunting me down.”

“Is that part of the lawsuit?”

“No. It’s part of me not slicing your prince to ribbons.”

Arctic nods. “Fair enough. Anything else you demands?”

“Yea. Free Pinkie Pie.”

“Free Pinkie?”

“You heard me.”

Arctic bites the inside of his cheek. “That’s not an easy thing to do.”

“Blueblood already gave me the rundown.” I lean back on a cushion and cross my arms, not taking my eyes off the unicorn. “But I don't care what either of you have to say. That’s all I want. Do it, and your prince stays alive.”

Arctic tilts his head. “Is Blueblood’s life your only bargaining chip?”

My monster claw grows out, and I press one of the blades against Blueblood’s throat. He yelps as I pull him back. “I’m serious.”

The unicorn shrugs. “Go and have him. I’ll get a few nobles drunk and we’ll have a new batch of princes by the end of the year.”

Blueblood nearly slices his throat from jumping out of my claws. “What?!”

I look at Arctic. “I concur. What?”

“In the eyes of the Princesses, you pose a significant threat to Equestria,” Arctic says. “We can’t afford to stop hunting you down, or free Pinkie for that matter. The life of one prince isn’t going to change anything. In fact, it’ll just further prove how much of a menace you are.” He lowers his head, keeping his gaze on me. “Would you like to try again, Gilda?”

I tap my talon on Blueblood’s throat as I think. He squirms every time I do so. I love doing this to him. Arctic has a point, Blueblood’s death may not change anything. My plan was to force Blueblood to do my bidding, but now that there’s another, smarter, pony in the equation, this makes things complicated. “I could kill you too,” I say.

“Sure, kill both of us,” Arctic says. “If you do, who’s going to give the order to stop hunting you, or free Pinkie for that matter?”

“Orders are easy. I can shapeshift into either of you and give orders that way.”

He grins. “Alright. If you’re going to pose as us, then you’ll need to report to the castle doctor at nine o'clock tomorrow morning for your daily DNA test. It’s something all Blackwatch higher ups do to counteract shape sifters.”

They can check me? Damn it, he’s got me in a bind. I really don’t want to kill anyone if I can, and even if I did, it may not matter. If I’m going to kill a bunch of ponies, I might as well fight Blackwatch and free Pinkie myself. But I’m tired of fighting Blackwatch.

There’s still my last resort.

“The Nexus,” I say.

Arctic’s head tilts up. “Yes?”

“I unleash the Nexus if you don’t give me what I want,” I say. “I know Blacklight came from it. Who knows what else I can take out of it.”

“See, that’s the same problem as before,” Arctic says. “You’re threatening to unleash a catastrophe. It’s the same problem as killing me or Blueblood, but with a lot more people. Nobody is going to do what you say if they’re all dead. That, and it just makes you a bigger threat and gives us less incentive to work with you.”

Another good point. “I’ll do it. Don’t work with me or there will be heck to pay.”

Arctic smiles. “You’re not that kind of person, Gilda. I know that.”

“You don’t know what I can do.”

“I think I know a bit more than you do. For instance, I know how to out-bargain a griffon.”

Arctic North walks up to me. He stands next to Blueblood and touches the throat blade with his hoof. “May I?” he says. Before we say anything, he lightly pushes my blade to the side, freeing Blueblood. With a push of telekinesis, he shoves the prince off the cushion. With Blueblood tripping out of the way, Arctic takes his place on the cushion, putting himself between me and my claw blade.

Damn, I think I just got power played. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“I’m showing you how to actually do a bargain,” the unicorn says with a smile. “I’m putting my life on the table as collateral. You can easily kill me if you want.”

This is far from my original plan. I glance at Blueblood. He’s lying on his back, watching what’s going down. He looks tense. I wonder if he’s just as confused as I am. “Alright. So what’s the bargain?”

Arctic leans the back of his neck against my blade. Really pushing it, man. “You’re a reasonable Griffon, we both know that. You haven’t killed anyone in over a year, even when we ruined your store. The lawsuit is a good idea, a civil way to settle maters. So, let’s settle this civilly. I will command Blackwatch to stop attacking you, and I will free Pinkie Pie, and Blueblood will pay for all expenses of repairing your store” –

Bleublood yells, “I am not agreeing to that!”

Arctic silences the prince with a dash of the hoof. “Let me finish, your highness. In exchange for all you desire, we would like one thing from you.”

He pauses. Oh come on, don’t do a dramatic pause. That’s overrated. “Which is?”

“The Nexus.”

My last resort? Tall order there. “That’s it?”

“Of course you’re still subject to Equestrian law if Princess Luna gets her hooves on you. But Blackwatch won’t bother with you anymore. We’ll say you're not worth the trouble, too many causilties, let the authorities deal with you, something along those lines. And you and Pinkie can live happily in that little bakery of yours.”

“You know that suitcase is my lifeline. I’m going to open it if anyone tries anything funny.”

“You didn’t open it when we ransacked your store,” Arctic points out. “That aside, the Princesses are coming after you whether you have the Nexus or not. In fact, just having it in your possession puts you higher in their priority list. They don’t want it causing chaos. The Nexus is a liability to you.”

I pause to think. I never thought that deeply on the Nexus situation. Luna mentioned it was capable of disasters and I jumped on the idea to try to shake her off of me. With the Nexus, I’m a bigger threat, and big threats have to be taken down for the safety of the country. It may not have been the best idea at the time. Hey, there’s a reason it’s my last resort.

Still though, “What if I don’t want to give it to you?”

Arctic gives me a sly look. “What are you using it for, a mantelpiece? You only see the Nexus as a tool, and you don’t need that tool. I don’t know why else you would hang on to that thing other than for that misguided plan of yours.”

What am I keeping it for, sentimental value? I do look at it as a symbol of what killed Tanya. No, it’s not a symbol. It did kill Tanya, end of story. Is that what the Nexus is, a tool that cut Tanya right in two? Well, when I put it that way. “So the deal is this. I give you the Nexus. You give me Pinkie’s freedom, Blackwatch off my back, and my store expenses all paid up.”

Arctic smiles. “Yes. Is it a deal then?”

Look at him, he knows he’s got me beat in the logic department. When this is all over, I’m getting drunk. Heck, I’m a monster who can’t get drunk. Why can’t I drink forever? That's what I'm going to do after this. “Fine we have a deal.”

“Good.” Arctic raises a hoof for us to shake, but I hold off on it.

“But,” I say, “I give you the Nexus on my terms.”

“Of course,” Arctic says. “Shake it and name it.”

I grab his hoof with my normal claw. “First, we do it tonight, right after this.” We shake once. “Second, we do it alone. Just you and me, no escorts or followers.” We shake twice. “Third, the only people who know about this are in this room. No one else will know.” We shake a third and final time.

Arctic raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure about keeping it a secret with the ponies in this room? You’re asking for a lot there.”

“Are you or Blueblood going to blab to Luna about this?”

“No, we won’t. I accept your terms. I’ll have Blueblood get our side of the deal prepped.” Hoof and claw part ways, and Arctic smiles. “There, doesn’t peaceful resolution feel good?”

I shrug. “Frankly I just don’t want things to spiral out.”

“Doesn’t everyone hope for that?” Arctic North looks behind me and claps his hooves above his head. He shouts past my ear. “Back to your posts everyone! I have this all under control! There’s no need to stick around.”

Confused, I twirl around to see what he’s talking about. My stomach, heart, and lungs all implode from the shock of the sight. Standing behind me is a huge wall of Blackwatch blue-eye goons, all holding magic shooters at me. The wall spans from the ends of the room, forming a tight line of goons with no spaces in between. An unicorn line is crouched in the front row. An earth pony line is standing in the back. A thick pegasi swarm is hovering above everyone’s heads. From my point of view, it looks like a solid black mass with blue dots moving all over the place.

Holy crap, that’s a lot of blue-eyes.

Upon hearing the unicorn’s command, the army of goons shuffles and breaks apart. Clumps of blue-eyes break off the formation and head for the exit as a river. The ground ponies trot alongside the table, and the pegasi float on past above us.

My jaw hangs low, and I look at Arctic North. “How long have they been there?”

Arctic North smiles at me for the umpteenth time tonight. “Blueblood has a charm that sends a signal to Blackwatch whenever he says ‘gang bang.’ It’s a great way of getting him out of danger. We put it to good use every now and then.” Arctic stands up from his cushion and calls out to the army. “Great job everyone! Your speed and discipline is incredible! I’m putting in a good word to all your commanders!”

A lot of the blue-eyes glare at me. One of them juggles a partially eaten apple in his hoof, then chucks it at my face. I wince when the wax fruit smacks me in the beak.

“Don’t mind them. They’re just disappointed.” Arctic says, “They really wanted to kill you tonight. I’m impressed by their discipline. I saw a few of them who were itching to put a bolt in your brain.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I suppose not. I just love to gush about good discipline.” Arctic taps my claw blade with a hoof. “Do you mind putting this away? The edge is chafing my neck.”

Author's Notes:

Publisher's Notice: Local law enforcement has asked us to message you through the game's update system. Please come out with your hands up. Release your family and come quietly. This isn't a game. You have to face the consequences of your own actions. You escalated the situation too far. If you only abided to the EULA and paid your fines like a good citizen, you wouldn't be in this situation. There is nowhere to run, modder scum. You lost.

45 - Betrayal In Canterlot Woods

When I moved to Canterlot, I took great care in hiding the suitcase where no one would ever find it. My own town home is an obvious place to look, so I didn’t hide it there. In fact, from what I can gather, Blackwatch searched the town house right after they hit the scone shop. Good thing I had the foresight not to hide under my bed, otherwise I’d be out of options. But Blackwatch invading my home does mean I’ll have to hit Blueblood with another lawsuit for wrecking my crib. Hey, more money for me.

The suitcase is nowhere in the city. Technically I don’t know exactly where it is. That’s intentional. The first thing I did when I got to Canterlot over a year ago was jump off the train outside the city gates and get lost in the forest at the base of the mountain. I made sure to walk long and far, staying away from any settlement. When I found a good spot, I buried the suitcase right there and walked out of the forest. My eyes were closed on the way back, so I have no clue where I buried it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t say where I put it if someone forced me to talk.

I constructed the plan with my living situation in mind. If Blackwatch or anyone came for me while I was living here, I’d jump off the side of the mountain, follow my Gilda senses to the suitcase, dig it up and head to the nearest town to open it up and unleash Tartarus. I’m proud of how brilliant and simple it all it. The jump lets me evade my pursuers. The forest lets me shake anyone who’s following me. And there’s at least six nearby small towns I can set up shop at. It’s all perfect.

That was the original plan. My plan did not include a guest following me to where I buried my suitcase.

Arctic North and I are sitting on the edge of the lower Canterlot circle, looking down at the forest far below us. It’s night. It’s cold. The wind is blowing up our faces. Neither of us are happy about the situation.

“So…” Arctic says, looking down at the forest, “it’s somewhere down there.”

I really don't like having Arctic tag along with me. There's something about him that doesn't sit well in my belly. But here I am, making a deal with Discord. “Yep.”

He waves a hoof over the side of the disk. “And it’s somewhere in that general direction.”

“More or less.”

“And the only way down there is either train, which doesn’t run this late at night nor does it come down this side of the mountain, or airship, which you won’t let me take since you don’t want anyone following us.”

“You got it.”

“I see.” He mulls over this information as he scrutinizes the wide expanse of trees and nature. “You can jump down easily, I know that. But this leaves me with my hooves tied behind my back.”

I look at him with a raised eyebrow. “What, you don’t know how to teleport like your other unicorn pals?”

He gestures at himself. “Do I look like Twilight Sparkle? I’m too busy with my job to practice my spells.”

“I don’t know who that is. What about something else? Say… a feather falling spell.”

“Hmm. Feather falling?” Arctic taps his chin. “I haven’t done that since grad school. I’m a bit rusty, but I could pull it off in a pinch. Why would” – His sentence dies abruptly in his mouth. He looks me dead in the eye. “Oh no, don’t you” –

He screams when I punt him off Canterlot’s edge. “See you at the bottom!” I yell as he flails high above the forest tops. I might have given him an extra boost of monster strength, so he’s going to be falling for a while.

Somebody gasps behind me. I turn around to see a homeless pony frozen in the middle of digging through a trashcan. He’s looking at me with wide eyes and jaw wide open. I shrug at the fellow, then I jump off after Arctic, tuck my knees in, and yell, “Cannonball!”

People often underestimate how tall mountains are. As a mountain girl myself, I can say they’re pretty tall. This particular mountain is so tall that it takes me a full minute to plummet to the base of the mountain. When I do finally hit the ground, I have enough momentum to blast the biggest crater in my life. The dirt goes rolling away in a massive wave. Trees uproot and fly into the air. The resulting sound wave rolls up the mountain like thunder. I giggle as I step out of my crater. I bet the entire valley heard that.

Above me, a pale faced purple unicorn floats down on a cloud of magical sparkles. When Arctic is low enough to see the white of my eyes, he glares at me from his magical cloud. “What in blazes were you thinking?!”

I give him an innocent little smile. “Well, I certainly wasn’t going to let you ride me.”

The sparkle cloud dissipates when he touches ground. Arctic tries walking, but his legs are shaking too much for him to control. It takes a bit for him to overcome his jitters, but once he does he’s back on his feet and ready for the next thing for me to throw at him. Hopefully it’s a rock. “Where to next?”

My Gilda senses ping for the suitcase, and I point the direction they pull me towards, which is somewhere deep in the forest. “That way.” Yep, my Gilda senses work with inatimate objects. Suprised me too. There is a slight chance that I didn't bother checking if I could do that until a few months after I buried the sitcase, but who's gonna know?

Arctic North follows me as I lead the way. There’s enough moonlight for him to stay close without losing me in the dark. He grumbles about crazy griffons and how he should’ve pulled funding from my experiment or something. He's quiet enough that he thinks I can’t hear him, but I don’t think he’s aware of my monster hearing. I won’t say anything. The more he doesn’t know, the more I can surprise him later.

The lights of Canterlot poke through the trees as we descend through the forest. It’s a pretty sight. Most of this land is mandated as a protected forest and I can see why. The forest canopy hides the city in a way that you can’t always see the entire thing all the time, giving Canterlot a mysterious feeling to it. With how high it is in the mountains, it almost looks like a second moon.

Arctic North’s voice comes from behind. “How much further?”

My Gilda senses ping for the suitcase. It returns an average strength, meaning we’re still some ways away, but the direction we’re going is still the same as last time I pinged. “I’m not sure, but we’re still going the right way. Just be patient and enjoy the hike.”

“For you, all I have is patience,” Arctic says. “I’m just curious how far we’re going. From the looks of it, you buried it as deep in the forest as one can go. If Blackwatch knew you hid it somewhere in these trees, we would lose it forever. It’d be impossible to search for, even with the thousands of working bodies at my disposal.”

I push a branch out of the way. Arctic grabs it with his magic and passes after me. “That was the point,” I say. “I wanted to keep the suitcase hidden but in a place I can run to if you guys came after me. Buried in a forest was the obvious choice.”

“Very effective,” Arctic agrees. “But you didn’t run off to grab it when we came for you. Why was that?”

I stop in my tracks, and Arctic stops too when I shoot a glare at him. “I can’t fix the damage you did to my shop if I’m on the run.”

“I suppose you can’t.” Arctic starts walking when I move forward, and we continue our journey through the woods. “That brings up another question I had. Why Canterlot of all places? Your choice of residence is bold. It's right under the Princess's noses. Might as well have built a carnival in front of the den of an Ursa Major.”

This guy is talkative. Eh, I don’t mind. We have a ways to go, so might as well entertain ourselves. “Canterlot wasn’t my first choice. I originally wanted to do Las Pegasus.”

“Oh? And what made you change your mind?”

“I couldn’t walk up there,” I say. “I planned to talk to a real estate agent when I first got to the city. We were going to meet up at the balloon station when I arrived. He was there, right on time. I got off the balloon to shake his hoof, but when I stepped off, I plummeted straight through the clouds, right in front of the guy.”

This elicits a laugh from the unicorn. “The agent must have been confused to see you survive a fall from the sky.”

“He looked confused the second time I rode up a balloon. We tried it again, three or four times. The clouds never held me up. I think there was something going on with the cloud walking spell. The damn unicorns tuned it wrong.”

“No, it wasn’t the unicorns. In fact, that sounds consistent to what I’ve seen.”

I look back at him to throw him a confused look. What's consitent about me falling though clouds? He's too busy giggling to himself to catch my confusion. “And after that, you came to Canterlot.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Where, for the past year, you lived right under the Princesses’ noses.”

I shrug. “What do you think a fugitive would do, run to the Badlands, or buy a townhouse in Equestria’s capital?”

"I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to pick option B.”

I am going to take that as a compliment. “Sometimes stupidity is your greatest ally. Took Blackwatch over a year to find me, so I'd say the stupid option worked out pretty well.”

“If stupidity is your ally, then what does that make the letter you sent?”

I’m silent. Damn, he’s got me there.

Arctic grins at me. “Let that pass. We all make mistakes.”

Story of my life.

The forest has been growing thicker. I draw out a monster claw to slash away at any shrubbery standing in our way. Arctic assists by magically grabbing loose boulders and branches and tossing them aside. “I notice,” he says, “that the places you chose to live in are expensive to do so, let alone set up a bakery I the busiest part of the city.”

“Yeah, so?”

“How on earth did you get the money to set up your life? The question’s been digging in my mind ever since I saw the letter. Do you have a benefactor I’m unaware of?”

I look back at him again. He genuinely looks confused, no motive behind that face. “You could say I have a benefactor. Many benefactors, in fact.”

His confusion turns to worry. “Please don’t tell me you have a cult following you.”

“Heck no,” I say shaking my head. “I couldn’t stand the attention. No, the benefactors are your Blackwatch goons.”

Arctic switches back to confusion, only this time it’s a more violent confusion. “What?”

“You know all the goons I ate while fighting you?”

He nods, slowly. “Yes. There’s a dedicated shelf full of files of my agents whose deaths we account to you.”

“Must be a large shelf.”

“I'm hopeful it doesn’t grow.” He shoots me a glare as he says that. “What about those agents? How do they pay for you?”

He seems miffed. “Welp, turns out anyone I eat, I gain their memories.”

“And that does…?”

I smile at him. “Those memories include bank account information.”

Arctic’s eyes go wide. “You’ve been stealing money from my deceased agents?!”

I wave a claw at him. “Oh, don’t throw a fit over it. It’s not like they’re going to cash out anytime soon.”

He throws a hoof into the air. “But it’s still their money! It would go to their families! It’s unforgivably disrespectful!”

“Technically, it’s not stealing if I’m them,” I say. I shapeshift into a goon I ate back in Manehattan. I leave out the Blackwatch suit, so Arctic North sees the real face of a dead goon. I think this guy’s name was Arsenic. “It’s still Mister Goon walking into his bank, asking to withdraw all his money, and walking away with his life savings. The clerks were wondering why this was the hundredth guy that week to withdraw everything, but there was nothing illegal about it.”

Arctic is on the brink of screaming. “That’s a major felony! You committed a crime.”

I shift back to griffon form and wave a talon at him. “The real crime was how much you underpay your goons. Seriously, if they’re going up against me, they should get paid at least five times what you give them.”

He’s about to shout something else, but my Gilda sense lights up underneath me. “Oh hey, we’re here!”

Arctic North, while still looking like he’s going to strangle me in the name of the law when I have my back turned, perks up at the news. We circle around a mound of dirt, covered up by a year’s worth of grass and vegetation. Arctic uses his magic to brush it all aside, leaving the dirt exposed to the air.

“Right under our hooves,” he mutters.

I nod. “Yep. Eight feet of ground keeping it hidden from the world. No way anyone would stumble on this thing.

Arctic looks up at me. “Eight feet? We’re going to be here all night digging this up.”

“Dig? Pfft. Who said we were digging? Step back and watch.”

The unicorn takes a step back. I lean on my side, shoving a claw into the ground. The claw splits into a tentacle and shoots into the dirt. Moments later, the earth rumbles, and the dirt mound explodes into the air. The blue suitcase breaches the earth, carried by a cluster of my ground spikes.

Arctic’s eyes flicker between me and the suitcase. I wiggle the blades a little bit and smile at him. “Well, go on and take it.”

The unicorn hesitates, but his horn glows, and the suitcase floats over to him. He clicks the suitcase open and gazes inside. His horn glows slightly brighter, and he pulls something out of the suitcase. The object he pulled looks like a clown mask. It’s mostly white, with red stripes on part of it and a red nose. It’s giving Arctic a sinister grin. After a moment of examination, he puts the mask back into the suitcase without closing it. “This really is the Nexus.”

The blades shoot back down into the earth, and they whip back to my claw. “I didn’t lie to you. That’s my half of the bargain, now you have to do your half.” Finally, I can get Blackwatch off my back. Breath of relief, right there.

Arctic North looks up at me. He flips the suitcase around so the dark inside is pointing towards me. “Nah.”

His horn flashes, and a bolt sears into the suitcase. I’m hit with a roar, and a vortex flies out of the suitcase, similar to the one that sucked the bug lady inside.

Oh. Shit!

Leaves and twigs whip past my face as the vortex sucks them in. I flip around to try to run, but the vortex keeps me from going anywhere. My speed can’t overcome its pull. My monster claws shift out and I slice them into the ground. No good. The vortex is so strong that my claws only rake through the ground. I yell over the vortex’s roar. “We had a deal!”

I hear Arctic laugh over the noise. “We had nothing!”

In little time, I give out. My claws rip out from the ground, and I tumble back into the void. Every little particle of me twists and warps as I’m sucked into the suitcase. I fall back into blackness. The last I see of the world are the lights of Canterlot seeping through the forest canopy.

"Good riddence, you monster."

Everything disappears when Arctic North shuts the suitcase. All is dark.

Backstabbing bastard!

Author's Notes:

Notice: Thank you for installing the Nexus Story Mod. You now have access to thousands of mods that you can install with a single click of a button. Due to recent arrests that we feel are complete bull crap, we've recently rolled out an update to assist anyone who's facing a tyrannical, capitalist government. If you are under police seige, please feel free to go to Nexus Settings, go to the EMP tab, hit the big blue button, and RUN FOR THE HILLS! We hope you enjoy all your new mods!

- The Nexus Team

46 - Into the Void

Once my seething rage settled down, I had the chance to observe my current surroundings and figure out where I am, but that sent me in another fit of rage. It only took me five seconds to figure out I’m where I am, because I’m in literal nowhere! There’s nothing here. It’s just gray void all around me with nothing to be seen. That bastard unicorn sent me to Nowhere, capital of Absolute Nothing!

Once my second seething rage settled down, I analyzed my new situation. From what I can tell, there are no lights in here. No suns or lamps or anything like that. That’s weird, because I can see myself perfectly as if I was standing outside in the middle of the day. I can see my arms, my legs, my tail, all of it! It’s all clear to me. I think it’s something weird with this void, because what I don’t see is any shadows on my body. It’s hard to describe, but I look flat, but not actually flat. My feathers aren’t casting any shadows on each other. My armpits are well lit despite almost never seeing the light of day. As a test, I clench my talons to see if I can cast a shadow in my claw. Doesn’t work. My claw stays lit no matter how I position it.

I guess I’m a vampire now. Isn’t that how it works?

Aside from lack of shadows, there are a few other weird things going on. As an experiment, I try flapping my wings to see if I can move around. It’s hard to tell with literal nothing as a reference point, but I don’t think flapping my wings does anything. I don’t feel any air resistance. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’m breathing any air at all. It all feels empty.

“Hello, anyone out there?” I yell into the void. My voice sounds weird and muffled too. I hear my voice inside my body, but not outside. I think that’s because there’s no air for my voice to travel through, or any walls for my voice to bounce back at me. My flesh is the only median, so it’s all coming from my throat. Side effect of nothingness I suppose. Hmm, I think I can hear my pulse through my neck. That’s unsettling.

I try a few other things. Shapeshifting still works. I can draw my claw blades just fine. Memories are intact. Scone recipes are still in my head. That’s the important stuff. I try pinging a few people with my Gilda senses, but nothing comes back to me. They’re too far away for me to sense them, or they’re in a completely different dimension.

So… yeah. That’s the void. Not much to do here. I’ll probably spend the rest of eternity floating in here in boredom. I can see why bug lady was pissed about having nothing to do in a dark box. Curse Arctic for tricking me and sending me to this place! If I ever do end up back in Equestria, the first thing I’ll do is find him and ring his neck.

I stretch out and yawn. My eyelids are heavy. Ugh, it's been a long day. Maybe after a snooze I'll land somewhere that isn't stark nothingness.

Just a... snooze...

...

"What have we here, a mad little bird?"

WHAHG! "Who said that?!" I yell.

The void doesn't respond. All I hear is my pulse in my neck, and nothing else. Huh... Don't tell me I'm already going crazy.

What time is it? Oh, why am I asking that? There's no way to figure that out. I don't feel tired anymore. How long did I sleep? Did I even sleep?

Oh for Grover's sake, this void is making me nuts. Something better come out of this or I'm going to claw my eyes out!

Might as well try to make some entertainment as I wait for the inevitable insanity. I twiddle my thumbs. I play rock paper scissors with myself. I give my wings a good, long preening. As a griffon who’s been disguised as a pony for a year, it’s been a long time since I got a good preen in. Preening may be unnecessary for me, since I can shapeshift and set my feathers straight, but I’m not about to argue with my primitive bird brain right now. It’s nice to feel clean.

At some point, an old sea shanty pops in my head, so I start singing it. It doesn’t go all that well. I keep forgetting lyrics. I’m off key half the time. The inside of my head is the only way I can hear things so it sounds like I’m pressed up against my own ears singing with a pillow covering my beak. Crappy singing be damned, I don’t see a music teacher floating around to criticize me.

“Day after day, day after day, we stuck, nor breath nor motion, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean!” Sweet mercy, I sound horrible.

That particular verse is about five minutes or so into the shanty. I’m about to go on and sing the “water water everywhere” verse when a tingling happens. The tingling starts in my chest, then it moves to my limbs, then my head. Soon the tingling is all over my body. I cut my shanty short to see what the heck is going on with me.

Once the tingling reaches every little bit of me, everything changes. The void, gray and endless, is shredded by white-blue light. The sound of ringing glass fills my ears, or at least I think that’s ringing glass. My gut lurches as I’m sent flying in a direction I can’t figure out.

Woo! Stuff is happening.

After a brief moment, the pulling sensation stops, and I hover in place. Images are forming through the light. They’re faint at first, but as the white-blue light clears up, their forms become clearer. Pyramid shapes surrounding me, along with what looks to be giant crystals. There’s a figure, no, figures beyond the light that are running in a certain direction. The figures are tall and walk more like dragons than ponies. But they’re not dragons. Too skinny.

The light blocks a lot of details, but there’s enough there for me to realize I’m about to end up somewhere that is not Equestria.

The tingling stops, the glass ringing ends, and the light fades away. Glad that’s all over. Now I can –

Wait, no, feeling sick. That did not do my tummy any favors. I lean on something as pieces of fake apple come back up in the least pleasant way possible. Ugh, I can drink bleach but a trip through the void leaves me upchucking my dinner. Yay, monster powers.

After the all the wax bits exit my system, I feel stable enough to figure out where I am. The first thing I notice is the thing I’m leaning on. The surface is a blue crystal with some griffon sludge dripping down the side. There’s a sort of energy radiating from the crystal. I’m no unicorn, but I’d say that’s strong stuff brimming inside this thing. I look up, following the crystal up to the sky. Huh, this is a really big gemstone. It’s as big as a building. There’s also a golden ring floating up there around the crystal's rim. Oh yeah, this thing is magic.

I look around the rest of the world. There are more of these building sized magic crystals scattered around the place. They’re all floating above the ground with golden rings slowly spinning around them. I check my crystal, and sure enough, it too has a couple feet of clearance from the dirt. Magic.

Beyond the crystals, I count three of the giant pyramid shapes. They’re large, far larger than all the floating crystals. The tips are almost poking through the clouds. I want to say each is as big as the city of Canterlot. They’re all built out of a shiny gold metal with blue highlights painted for details. And of course there’s a blue magic crystal floating at the top of each of their peaks. Whoever built these things has a fetish for crystals.

As for the tall not-dragon figures I saw, I can see them all now. They’re running in organized groups, as if they’re army platoons heading out on a mission. They’re tall guys, clad in golden armor. Crystals and gold, I’m sensing a theme. From what I can see, their skin is pale white. They have claws and two legs, sort of like a dragon. Braids of long, black hair swing from their heads as they run in a common direction. Something is off about their faces. I squint to try to look as some of the closer ones. Yep, those faces are weird. Their eyes glow blue and they have no mouths.

Big buildings, weird looking people, I think I landed on an alien homeworld, just like the comics. Sweet.

My eyes follow where all the soldier alien guys are running to. At the edge of this alien city, there’s a forest with immense trees. Each tree is as thick as two of the crystals put together, and they’re all almost as high as the pyramids, if not taller. I give an impressed whistle. The pyramids are as big as Canterlot, but this forest could hide the entire Canterlot mountain range. The alien platoons are pouring through the forest, running between the trees and disappearing into the woods. Where they go, I don’t know.

Four pillars of light appear around me. They have the same color as the light I was in, and the same glass ringing. In each pillar, a figure similar in shape to the other aliens appears. The lights fade away, and standing in their places are four alien soldiers who appeared from nowhere. They waste no time diddling themselves as they run of for the forest the instant the lights go out.

Well, I know where the aliens are coming from. Judging by the light show, I think that’s how I came here too. Bet one of these guys knows how to use the light pillar thingy to send me back into the void, then back home. Shouldn’t be too hard to –

A spike of blue, hot plasma crosses my vision, breaking me out of my train of thought. It’s radiating the same energy as the giant crystal, but more compact and intense. My eyes follow the spike down the shaft, where it meets a pale, armored claw. The claw holds the spike in front of my face, and all of the sudden I’m made aware of someone standing behind me.

The person behind me speaks, but instead of his voice coming from behind, I hear his voice inside my head. “What are you doing here, creature? You are not a native of this planet.”

It’s kind of like what the Not-Rainbow bug lady was doing when we were talking with our minds. The voice is deep and has a strong sense of authority. The authority is enhanced by the dude speaking inside my head.

I glance behind me to get a look at the dude. It’s one of the alien soldiers. Like what I saw from a distance, this guy’s face is pale and has no mouth. His eyes are burning blue, and he’s staring daggers at me. Metaphorical daggers, of course. Considering what he has up against my neck, I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy could shoot actual laser daggers from his face. His armor looks impressive. Up close the detail is astounding. How expensive is his ensemble? I want to get a smith’s opinion on it, then see if I can sell it for a pretty penny.

The alien holds up another claw, and another plasma knife thing shoots out and almost pierces my chin. The voice booms in my minds again. “Speak to me, creature. Don’t monologue as if I’m not here!”

Ah crap, he’s got me. Better get this all sorted out so I can go home as soon as possible. “Yeah, I’m not from around here. Someone sent me here against my will after they sucked me in a suitcase. I was wondering if you guys could use your light pillar beam things to send me back home, because that’s how I think I got here just now. Could you send me back, pretty please?”

The alien’s brow furrows as I give him the rundown. Kind of hard to read this guy since he doesn’t have much of a face. All I got are those glowing lights of his. Not much you can do with lights. “Only the Protoss can use the warp network,” his voice says. “You are fool to think we would allow you to use it.”

“Can’t you make an exception for me? I would like to get back home and shell out some justice” –

“Enough!” the alien yells. “I don’t know how you made your way into our base, but clearly you have no good intentions.”

“Hey wait a moment, I just want to get” –

The voice yells a battle cry inside my head. Oh sweet mercy, that’s not pleasant. The alien swings his plasma knives at my neck, but I duck fast enough for them to cross over my head. Guess things just went tits up. I shove my claws up the alien’s chestplate, sending him flying back with my monster strength. The alien falls flat on his back several yards away, leaving me with some good distance between us.

“What the heck man? I’m not trying to kill you!”

The alien ignores what I say. He gets up off the ground, raises his plasma blades to strike, and charges at me. The dude is a blur as he closes the distance between us. I barely have enough time to shift my monster claws out and block the first strike with my giant scythes. Despite being made out of pure energy, my claw is able to make physical contact with his blade, enough for me to deflect his strike harmlessly off to the side. His second blade comes up from an undercut, and I bat it away with my other claw.

“Zerg!” he says. “I knew you were hiding something. Face oblivion, you abomination!”

Crap, here’s another guy who wants my head. Not much different from Equestria. The least Arctic could have done is send me to a nice beach dimension, one with endless margaritas with little umbrellas sticking out of them. But no, send me to the dimension with the crazy murder alien. Thanks Arctic, you fart horn!

As the alien takes his swings at me and I block them as best I can, my legs wind up for a big jump. When the alien leaves me an opening, my legs spring up, sending me rocketing up high in the air. Ha, try to fly after me, you pompous lunatic!

“You do not shield your thoughts well! I do not need to fly to kill you!” the alien shouts from below. Weird, this mind talking thing accounts for distance and direction. He’s still talking in my head, but he sounds like he’s coming from down there. Eh, it’s above my pay grade to figure that out.

The power from my jump dies out, and I slow down around the height of the ring that’s circling the giant crystal. My wings flap to give me a boost towards the ring. The ring wobbles when I land on it, but I manage to get a grip on it without falling off. I look down at the ground and yell at the alien. “Try to reach me up here, sucker!”

His blue eyes are glaring, or glowing, up at me. Clearly reaching me from his position is out of the question. I stick my tongue at him, just to rub the fact in.

The alien turns to one of the pyramids, and he calls out. “Stalkers, I need Stalkers here with me. There is a Zerg in our base!”

I lean over the side and smile at him. “Aw, does the big tough alien need to get his friends to beat up the mean birdy for him?”

He raises a plasma blade at me. “Your drivel means nothing to me. Soon, my Stalker brethren will deliver your end!”

“Stalkers? What, are they going to hide in the bushes and follow me around?” I laugh. I throw an arm over my head and bump my voice up a few pitches. “Officer, help me. There are Stalkers taking photos of my tooshie and going through my sock drawers. I wanted attention, but not this kind of attention! I’ll need a restraining order and a stern talk with their parents!”

As I roll on the ring laughing, four pillars of light appear around the alien. Four silver, bulbous figures step out of the lights and line up at the base of the crystal. They all walk on spider legs and all have heads poking out what seems to be their chests. Those heads have little scarves hanging off where their mouths should be. I hear one of them do the mind talk thing. “You require our skills?”

There’s a dweeb party forming down there. Better greet them. I yell down at the new guys. “You all look like onions walking on toothpicks.”

The first alien waves his blade at me. “Stalkers, silence the Zerg menace!”

At the command, the silver guys look up. Little circles on the tips of their bulbs light up, and they all shoot a volley of blue energy bolts at me. They all hit me in the chest, and I feel a bad case a heart burn. Ow! Those are just like the bolts Blackwatch likes to throw at me!

The silver guys shoot another volley at me, but this time I’m prepared. Tentacles shoot out and twist together, and my shield forms in front of me. The bolts splash against the hard material, leaving me unharmed. Cool, I made this thing to block magic bolts. Looks like it can block alien bolts too.

I poke my head out to the side to get a look at the ground. The party is growing. The alien soldiers that were running for the forest are now stopping here to see what’s going on. The first alien dude is giving the newcomers the rundown, while the Stalkers keep shooting up at my perch. Their bolts keep holding the shield, which I think is holding up pretty well.

“You think you all are hot stuff?” I yell down at the dweebs. “I’ll show you how hot you are when I get the restraining - WAH!”

I pull my head back to avoid a volley of bolts. They wiz past my and strike the crystal behind me. They explode and a blue ripple flows over the crystal. I think that’s the ripple of a shield, similar to the shields unicorns use. Why do they have a shield around the giant crystal?

A side effect of the aliens’ weird mind talk thing is that my monster hearing doesn’t work all that well hearing their voices from a distance. But because their weird mind talk thing is weird, I can hear them clearly this high up if they raise their voices. “Stop it,” I hear one of them yell, “You’ll damage the pylon!”

This mind voice is new. It certainly doesn’t belong to the first alien guy. The Stalkers obey the new voice’s command and cease shooting. I poke my head out to see what’s going on. More alien soldiers have gathered, and they parted ways to let a different, flashier alien make his way towards us.

This new guy is about the same height as the other aliens, and has the same skin and blue eyes. His golden armor looks a little similar, but there are floating pieces of metal all over his body, making him stand out. His headpiece is also more impressive than what anyone else has. And this guy as a sweet ass cape. This guy is the head honcho, and he wants everyone to be damn sure he’s on top.

The honcho looks up at me for a moment, then directs his attention to the first alien guy. “Ceretel, what is the meaning of this?”

The first alien, who I presume is Ceretel, motions up at me. “We have a Zerg trapped up on the pylon. I tried to dispatch it, but it’s offering too much resistance for us to kill it quietly.”

“I’m only resisting because you tried to kill me first,” I yell down. “And for the record, I’m a she. A girl, a lady, a chick! I’m laying that down before any of you dweebs get the wrong idea.”

The honcho and Ceretel exchange looks, and then the honcho steps up to talk to me. “You do not behave like the other Zerg we’ve faced.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m not a Zerg! What the heck is a Zerg anyways, some kind of rash?”

“You plead ignorance, then. Maybe you are not Zerg, but there’s no reason for us to trust you. What business do you have in the middle of our base? Nothing less than an army could get past our defenses, and yet here you are.”

Lack of trust, but at least they’re talking instead of shooting. I adjust the grip on my shield, just in case. “I’m here on accident. A guy from my world used a portal to send me into the void and I ended up here. It’s kind of like that Mission Possible comic where the Moon Wizard sends Agent Possible to a different dimension. I figure something like that happened to me.”

The honcho is about to say something, but Ceretel butts in to add his unwanted input. “Do not believe the creature’s lies, Ordaes. This is clearly a trick sent from the Zerg to distract us from the battle.”

Ordaes, I assume that’s what the honcho’s name is, rubs his mouthless chin as he ponders the current situation. “Do not be so hasty. We may not trust each other, but there is no honor in killing an innocent creature. Doing so would make us no better than the Nerazim." The Stalkers turn towards Ordaes and give him a weird look. “Oh, sorry. I’m still getting used to our alliance.”

Trust is important, but I would like to get home sooner than later, so I can push a few things before the trust thing happens. “Hey, if you guys could help me, I’d like to get back to my home world as soon as possible. Could someone do one of those light pillar things on me to send me back?”

Ordaes looks up at me. “Are you wanting us to warp you back, like how our soldiers arrive for battle?”

I shrug. “If that’s what you call it, then ya.”

“That’s impossible,” Ordaes says. “We only warp fellow Protoss. What gave you the idea we could do that for you?”

“It’s how I got here in the first place. Can’t you Protoss guys do the same thing to send me back? It can’t be too hard of a spell to do.”

Again, Ceretel butts in. “It wants to sabotage our warp network. The creature will unleash untold damage upon us if we don’t do something. This must be the work of that new Brood Mother!”

Ordaes glares at the soldier. “And what damage has the creature done to us so far that warrant such extreme measures?”

One of the Stalkers points to the base of the crystal. “She puked on a pylon.”

“Corrosive bile!” Ceretel yells. “She intends to destroy our structures!”

“Sorry about that,” I say. “Rough trip.”

Ordaes leans close to a random alien bystander. “Find a youngling to clean that up.” The alien nods and runs off to one of the pyramids. Ordaes looks up at me again. “What is your name, creature?”

“Gidla,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

“I suppose,” Ordaes says. “I don’t know what you are, Gilda. You have more common decency than most Zerg we face, but you give us no reason to believe you’re not deceiving us. What you’ve told us is hard to believe, especially how you used our warp network to get here.”

“Well, it’s true,” I say. “Heck, it only happened three minutes ago. Right where you’re standing, too.”

Ordaes look down at his feet for a moment. Ceretel chimes in while his leader is doing so. “There’s too much risk in believing the creature. We should destroy it while our warriors are present.”

“And destroy the pylon in the process?” Ordaes asks the soldier. “That’s not an option. We don’t have the minerals to spare for another pylon.”

“And we don’t have the time to spare on a single creature,” Ceretel says. “Just kill her and move on to the battlefront.”

The growing crowd of aliens is muttering between themselves. Some of them are saying to get on with it, while others are saying give me a chance. Seems like a fifty fifty split. I pipe in to add my own opinion. “I’m kind of opposed to rushing things if it means my life is on the line. Can we talk about it, figure out a deal?”

Odaes turns to the side to look at no one in particular. It looks like he’s talking to air. He’s still for a moment, nods, then turns towards the alien crowd. “All of you, forget about our intruder for the time being. The enemy line is drawing near. Do not waste anymore time. Move out!” The honcho waves an arm at the forest. “En taro Tasadar!”

The Protoss look at each other, hesitating at the orders. It’s the Stalkers who move out first, making their way past everyone else. “Into the shadows,” I hear them say to the crowd. The other soldiers get the message. The group breaks into small clumps and disperses into the forest, leaving behind Odaes, Ceretel, and me.

Ordaes turns to Ceretel. “That means you as well.”

Without a face, I can’t understand most of these aliens’ expressions, but Ceretel looks quite offended. “You can’t possibly believe this creature will do nothing if left alone.”

“She will not be alone. Someone is on their way to ensure our guest won’t cause any trouble. There’s no need to worry,” Ordaes says. “Now go. The enemy draws near.”

Ceretel nods before turning to run with the rest of the army. Before he disappears into the forest with everyone else, he gives me one last glare, just to make sure I know I’m not welcomed.

As is the standard practice in griffon culture, I flip Ceretel the bird.

“Now that is dealt with,” Ordaes says as he directs his attention at me, “there’s still one matter we have between each other. Trust.”

“Well, maybe getting me home is another matter to think about, but yeah. Let’s start with trust. How do you want to sort that out?”

“We can’t,” Ordaes says. “Not at the moment, at least. Our battle with the Zerg rages this moment, and I can’t give you the time to see if you’re ally or foe.”

“So what, you’re going to walk away and leave me up here? That doesn’t help me in the slightest.”

“Patience. I may not be with you, but I will give you time. For now, in case you do mean to harm us, I will have to ensure you cannot do any damage in any capacity.”

“So what, put me in a prison cell, hope I’m a good inmate so you can let me out?”

“Not exactly.”

Yep, this sounds like it’s all going well for me. I’m not getting the short end of the stick at all. Not at all. Ugh, the things I have to do to get my life in order. “Fine, I’ll play ball. I just want to go home as soon as I can. Where’s the cell you’re putting me in? Lead me to it and I’ll wait for you to finish your battle with the Big Rash or whatever.”

Ordaes shakes his head. “I’m not leading you to it. In fact, you don’t have to go anywhere at all. Just stay up there for a” –

His words are cut off by a sheet of glass that suddenly appears between us. Blue energy and sparks crawl over the surface, giving my eyes a workout looking at the stuff. I perk up and look around me. The glass isn’t just between us, it’s a sphere that has me trapped inside. It’s not glass, it’s a shield.

- “moment. That came sooner than expected."

I press my claws up against the shield, trying to find a way to break it. No good. It’s like that one time Luna put me in a shield at the daycare. How did that go? Poorly? I slam a fist up against the glass. “Ordaes, let me out right now!”

Before the alien says anything, the world falls below me. I shoot straight up, almost going above the treetops. I stop far above the ground, far above where I can hear Ordaes say anything. I can see far more of the alien base up here. It’s not just the pyramids. The crystals are everywhere, and there are other golden buildings scattered about. I did not ask to be this high.

While an unexpected and irritating surprise, the flight up here wasn’t too bad. Much better than my trip through the void. I roll around my bubble, trying to get a view of my situation. When I look behind, I see I have a friend hovering right next to me. It’s a large machine, plated with gold metal with pulsing blue energy going down the sides. It has wings that curve towards me, and a bulge in the center with a window. Behind the window is an alien sitting in a chair and holding a set of controls.

I cross my arms at the alien and look right at his mouthless face. “So, this is my cell for the evening.”

As a testament to how weird this mind talk stuff gets, the alien inside the machine talks to me. “Affirmative. I am not to let you go until I’m given orders to do so."

“Right.” I look down at the ground below me. It’s pretty far down, almost as far as that jump I did with Arctic. I flick the wall of my bubble shield. My flick sends a ripple of energy across its surface. If Ordaes wanted to keep me out of trouble, he found a good way to do it. “So,” I say, turning to the alien pilot, “know any sea shanties?”

47 - Mass Recalled

This planet has two suns. I didn’t notice before since they were behind that monster of a tree line. I wonder if this planet needs two alicorns to move those suns, or if the Protoss have a bunch of magic guys working as a team to do the job. Eh, questions for later if I care enough.

The suns were behind the tree line when I got here, and now they’re right above our heads, so I figure I’ve been an alien captive from mid morning to noon. That time stretches out when you’re trapped in a magic bubble a mile up in the air. Feels like I’ve been in here for a week. Ah well, at least I have an alien pilot to talk to.

“And then Blackwatch uses the spit they found on my letter to track me to my shop,” I say, retelling my tale to Saltair.

Saltair is the name of the pilot. Since he’s not on the front line with his battle brothers, he’s as bored as I am. We’ve been chatting it up for the past couple of hours or so, which is a great way to get my whole story out so I don’t have to wait on Ordaes. Apparently the Protoss have something called a Khala, which lets them read each other’s thoughts. The details are beyond me. All I know is I’m talking to Saltair and Ordaes is somehow listening in.

“So they crash through my windows and wreck the place just so they can try to bag and tag me. Heart and I put up one heck of a fight, but that doesn’t stop the blue-eyes from incurring hundreds of thousands of bits worth of damage that will come out of my pocket!”

Saltair is leaning back in his cockpit, feet on the dash and hands behind his head, listening to every word I say. He’ll occasionally comment on something here or there, but mostly he’s been content to just sit back and listen. At this point in my story, he decides to make his occasional comment. “Did you make one of your 'tactical retreats,' or did Blackwatch finally corner you?”

“They didn’t corner me. I had a back door,” I say. Satlair pointed out earlier that I make a lot of “tactical retreats” from Blackwatch, even though there’s never any reason for me to stick around. He didn’t say if it was a good or bad thing, just that it seems I’m always running. “I led my employee out to safety, gave her the day off, and went to find my lawyer so I could write up a lawsuit to smack Blackwatch with.”

Saltair moves an arm out from behind his head and points to me. “If there was ever a time to stand your ground, it was then. You worked hard for your scone shop. You raised it as if it was your own child. When your enemy crashes into your home and destroys what’s precious to you, you have to take a stand and fight them back. But instead you turn and run away.”

I got to force myself not to roll my eyes at that. “The situation is more complex than that. I know you guys are neck deep in this Zerg war, so that’s all you think about. But I’m not a warrior. I’m a griffon who just wants to run a scone shop. Blackwatch threw all this crap on me and I don’t want to play their game.”

“But it’s because the scone shop is your desire that you should fight for it,” Saltair says. “You were fully capable of doing so. If what you say is true, you are a fierce fighter. With this Heart and the bug swarm on your side, Blackwatch wouldn’t be able stand a chance against you. You could’ve defended what you love.”

The image of an angry Cherry crosses my mind. I didn’t say yet how my fight with her went. “Defending what I love doesn’t mean I have to destroy my shop in a brawl. I’m a civilized griffon. There are other ways for me to fight than just using my fists. What I did right after the attack was head straight for my lawyer and have him set up a civil case against Blackwatch. If I can prove they’re specifically targeting me for no good reason, I can sue their butts to oblivion and gag them with a restraining order.”

Satlair tilts his head. “Tell me, did fighting with paper and words stop your enemy when he threw you into the void?”

“Eh, you got me there. But that’s because that guy is a dick.”

“And will paper and words save your friend Pinkie Pie from imprisonment?”

My beak grinds a little. “I know what you’re getting at. No, fighting is never my first option. At this point, any more fighting on my part might make things worse. I’ll have a harder time with the law if I go on a murder spree.”

“I’m not saying you have to go on a murder spree, just that you have to fight for justice.”

“I am fighting for justice, using the proper legal channels. I know you’re a warrior, but don’t you have some concept of government and law?”

“As a matter of fact, we do have law.” Saltair tilts his head back and looks up at the sky. “Or at least, we had law. I’m not so sure. Our government fell apart when we fled Aiur, so law is in a limbo state while we focus on taking back our home. But I know what law is.”

I throw my claws in the air. “Great, so you should know why it’s important for me to stick to the law.”

Saltair leans up in a more straight sitting position. “Indeed, I know law. But law didn’t stop the Zerg from destroying our home.”

I could point out that Blackwatch is not the Zerg, and Blackwatch is bound to the same laws I am, which makes the law useful in this case as opposed to the other, but my smart ass really wants to get me in trouble, so… “Would a big fence have done the trick?”

Saltair looks like he’s about to say something, but he hesitates. Without a face, I can’t be too sure what he’s thinking, but it looks like he’s distracted my something else. His head is turned slightly away from me, and his eyes look like they’re concentrating really hard on something. After a moment, the alien springs back into his seat and throws his hands on the controllers. “The Zerg have breached our front line!”

He must have been mind talking with his friends. I wonder what the distance limit is for their mind talk thing. At the sound of this, I sit up the best I can in this bubble. “Didn’t you say there was no way the Zerg could breach your front line?”

“I did! We have too many units out there for them to break through. I don’t know what’s going on.” He holds a hand up against his head. For once, I see him close his glowing blue eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever saw one of these aliens blink, let alone close their eyes. “They got us with a trap! They disguised themselves as trees and waited for our forces to push forward. Then they sprung out and surrounded us down from behind!”

“That sounds bad,” I say. “The Zerg can disguise themselves?”

Saltair shakes his head. “No, this is the first time I’ve heard this happen. I didn’t think they could do anything like that.” He pauses again, presumably to listen to the mind talk thing. “Ordaes ordered a mass recall. Our army is returning to base.”

Just as he says that, the ground below us shimmers with a dark blue glow. A moment later, everything flashes. The ground is now covered with a thick layer of Protoss army. A lot of soldiers I saw before are standing down there, among other units I haven’t seen before. Many of them are limping or look like they have some injury. But they ignore it. The army, teleporting in as a disorganized clump, moves around to create new defensive formations. The soldiers get into lines while golden machines ranging from cart size to building size arrange themselves into firing positions. It might be my eyes playing tricks on me, but I think a few of those guys are just balls of energy.

Another flying machine, one with the exact same design as Saltair’s, darts up to us and parks right next to Saltair’s wing. From here, I can hear the pilot spew out his orders. “Group up, Saltair. Mutalisks are inbound on our position, along with the rest of the entire swarm!”

Saltair jolts to positon, but he glances at me before he does anything. “But the prisoner” –

“Let our ground forces deal with her,” the other pilot says. “Fly out. We have no time to spare. En taro Adun!”

“En taro Adun,” Saltair replies right before the other pilot darts off again. Saltair looks at me one last time. “You’re okay if I drop you from here?”

I glance down at the ground. I’d say we’re almost a mile up. Maybe two. I could be wrong, though. “Yeah, just tell your guys down below to watch out. I’ll make a big splash.”

The alien nods before pressing a button on his console. My bubble shield dissipates, and gravity gets its hands on me once again. Saltair’s aircraft turns into a spot in the sky as I fall. His spot loops around and darts off after his buddy. Crummy way to say goodbye.

There’s enough air resistance under me to pretend I’m lying on a couch. I lie on my side and rest my head on a claw. The air whips past my face as I enjoy my aerial loveseat. Bit of a bummer our conversation got cut short. I was having a fun time debating my life situation with a complete stranger. Helps put things into perspective. It’s also nice he didn’t call me a monster at all during our talk, so that puts him up there with the most respectful people I’ve talked to in a while.

Either the ground troops got the memo, or nobody was buzzing around the clearing underneath me. In any case, nobody goes flying when I punch a massive landing crater into the ground. I think I can fit a few of those monster trees in the hole I just made.

Dust hangs in the air when I crawl out of my crater. A lot of ground troops are looking at me as I brush the grit off my shoulder. All these looks these aliens are giving me are a bit unsettling. That golden onion head giraffe thing is especially unnerving. Having a “face” look down at me from the height of a building, that’s sends a chill down my spine. I shrug it all off, and sit at the edge of the crater. “What? Is there some food in my beak?”

An alien with a cape and metal bits floating off his armor storms out from the crowd. He looks at me, then at the crater, then back at me. “How in the world did you survive that fall?” Ordaes asks.

I glance back at the crater. Just going from the size, I was pretty high up. “Oh, you know, practice.”

The alien army doesn’t seem to appreciate my humor. Some of the soldiers draw out their plasma blades, while some of the machines aim their cannons at me. One of the energy ball dudes is cracking his knuckles. Hmm, tough crowd. At least it’s only a part of the army that wants to beat me to a pulp. Everyone else is scrambling around in preparation for an incoming attack.

Ordaes holds a hand up to signal everyone around the crater to hold fire. “My brothers, do not let this creature distract you from the approaching swarm. Prepare yourselves and focus on our defenses!”

Most of the guys looking at me keep their weapons up, but they do comply with their leader. All the units wander off to do their own things, but not without giving me a few mean glances on their way out. While most of them leave, there is still one group of soldiers that sticks around. One of the soldiers heads towards me, and the rest of his pals follow. I don’t recognize him at first, but I recognize him the moment he mind talks.

Ceretel points a finger at me. “You! You spied on us and fed the Zerg information. It’s because of you we’re cornered in our own base!”

Ordeas steps between me and the approaching alien gang. “Calm down, Ceretel. There is no time to waste on this matter. I will deal with this creature myself.”

“You said you deal with the creature before, and now we have the Swarm breathing down our necks!” Ceretel marches up right in front of Ordaes, leaving only a few inches between their nonexistent faces. “This abomination must be dealt with now before it tears us apart from the inside!”

I wave at the lunatic soldier. “Hey, I can hear you.”

“Your accusations are unfounded,” Ordaes says. “There is nothing this creature has done yet that makes her a danger to us. The real threat is looming behind that treeline!”

Ceretel raises his voice over Ordaes’s. “Your mercy for this creature is unfounded!” Huh, weird how volume works with this mind talk stuff. It should be all the same volume, right? I think I had the same thing happen with Not Rainbow when we were doing it. “How can you be so blind to the truth? The Zerg can see our every move through the eyes of this abomination. Keeping it alive is nothing but negligent on your part.”

“Dude, I got a name,” I say as I step around Ordaes. “It’s Gilda. Not ‘this creature’ or ‘this abomination.’ Gilda. Say it with me now. Gil-WAH!”

I can’t help but swear when one of Ceretel’s posse members charges me and lunges a blade at my face. It’s only by the grace of my monster reflexes that I see it in time to jump back. The soldier’s plasma blade slashes empty air, leaving me untouched. His attack leaves his arm stretched out in front of me, so I grab it. I twist the alien’s arm behind his back, and grab his shoulder so he can’t spin around. The alien lets out a yelp, more of surprise than of pain, as I lock him down. He tries to wiggle out of my grip, but he’s doesn’t have the muscle to overpower my monster strength.

In the middle of this maneuver, Ceretel and the rest of his gang draw their plasma blades. Ordaes yells something, but I don’t pay attention to it. “I swear to Grover I will fight all of you if you make me,” I yell over the alien’s shoulder. “I don’t want to, but I can. I’ll eat you to! I haven’t tried alien salad yet, but I bet it’s delicious!”

“Look there, Ordaes,” Ceretel says to his honcho, “the creature shows its true colors!”

This dweeb is getting on my nerves. “You attacked first!” I point out. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. I haven’t even eaten this guy yet.”

This time three aliens charge at me. These guys go for my side, while two others run in front of me, forcing me to chose how I want to use their friend as a shield. Clever, they plan to flank me one way or another. Flank me on side A, or side B, my choice. Well I choose C. I hold the alien’s shoulder tight, then twirl him upsidedown. The alien screams as I let him fly into the group of three. One alien is smart enough to stray out of the way, but the other two get a face full of their friend slamming into them at twenty miles an hour. Boom, they fall down like bowling pins.

The other two flanking me go in for the charge. Both my claws shift into tumor fists, and I slam them into the ground right in front of my attackers. The gorund ripples into a crater, and the shockwave knocks both aliens off their feet. One falls on his face, while the other on his butt.

The last alien of the three I didn’t knock down charges me with burning blades. My monster claws shift out and I catch his first strike in between my talons. The scythes pinch down on the plasma, giving me a grip on the soldier’s weapon. I fling him off to the side, sending him tumbling down the large crater I made when I fell from the sky.

A beam of light in the corner of my eye catches my attention. The light comes from the forest line, where I can hear other alien soldiers yelling battle cries as they charge into a fight. The beam is coming from that golden onion giraffe. Two energy lances are shooting out of its head and frying a foe I can’t see from here.

This action grabs the attention of the guys around me who are still standing. “The Zerg are here,” Ordaes mutters. “Ceretel, if you have any sense left in you, you will drop this fight of yours and join me in the front lines against our true enemy!"

“And allow the creature to strike us from behind? Your foolishness will get us killed.”

This is grating on my nerves. This proves the universe has it out for me. Even in an alien dimension, there’s always somebody who wants to kill me. I just can’t escape it. “Dude, I’m not going to do anything if you leave me alone. Go fight your little battle. I can wait.”

The aliens I knocked down are getting up now. The crater dude is climbing over the edge. They seem to be aware of the fighting that’s going on at the tree line, but by the way they’re looking at me, I bet they see me as the bigger threat. I level my claws and brace myself. Today was going to be a good day. I was going to bake scones and sell them at high prices to gullible Canterlot ponies. What happened to that?

“Everyone, cease this fighting,” Ordaes yells. “This is an order from your executor!”

“With all due respect, Ordaes,” Ceretel says, “you’re a crap executor.” Damn. I think I saw the guy’s eyes flash. Ceretel raises is plasma blades and charges me. The guys in his posse that got up again do the same, surrounding me with angry, screaming aliens. Seriously, what happened to that good day?

As the raging aliens close the distance, I notice something. In between us, the ground shifts around. It starts as a small dirt pile poking out of the earth, then bursts into a large mound. Something claws its way out of the ground and sits in the middle of the fight. The raging soldiers slow to a halt when the thing makes its entrance.

The heck?

What I’m looking at is something I’ve never seen before. It looks like a beetle that was grown to the size of a baby hippo. The body is green and pulsing. It looks like its flesh is about to burst open. Its maw snaps at me, green liquid drips from its fangs as it does so. It waddles around on knifelike legs to face me, and it makes a gurgling sound.

The soldiers seem to know what this thing is. I say that because they aren’t charging at me anymore. In fact, they’re running the opposite direction. Ceretel even stopped by the crater guy to pull him up so he too can get the heck out of here. Ordaes is gone. No clue where the honcho went to.

I take a few steps back. The creature makes more gurgling sounds, this time with more aggression behind it. “Uh… good boy?”

The creature trips over itself and rolls towards me. Considering I didn’t expect it to start rolling, and the soldiers ran away from this baby hippos sized gurgling thing, I flip my shit and run the opposite direction. I hear it roll over leaves and twigs as it chases after me. Crap crap crap crap, what in Tartarus is this thing?

It chases me to the rear end of the army. A group of Stalkers hears me yelping as I try to get away from this thing. Their magic shooters light up, and they send a volley of bolts at the creature. A couple bolts blast against the creature’s flesh, which is enough to trigger the creature to explode. It erupts in a wave of green fluid. The fluid splashes in a large circle, the edge of which is mere feet away from me. The ground the fluid splashes on sizzles as plants and twigs dissolve into sludge.

I watch the forest floor melt before me. If I’m to make an educated guess, I’d say I just met one of the Zerg. Geez, no wonder why the soldiers took off. That bugger packs a punch. And there’s more of them up at the battle line that I can’t see. How do the aliens deal with these things? I give a thumbs up to the Stalkers, and one of them gives me a little salute with a spider leg. That’s cool. It’s nice for someone to shoot magic bolts at something that isn’t me for once.

The ground under our feet shakes. The Stalkers wobble on their legs, and I grip onto the ground to keep my balance. Ah great, more rollers are coming, aren’t there? That last one gave me one heck of a chase. I don’t think I have anything to deal damage without a roller exploding in my face.

The rumbling intensifies, then the ground swells and explodes in a cloud of dirt behind the army. A worm that’s as thick as one of the mega trees rockets out of the ground. It makes a loud, monstrous roar as its head coils back and settles in place. Two large flaps open up, and a massive maw full of teeth widens.

Sweet mercy, that thing is huge!

Shadows dance around in the back of the maw. The shadows spew out, swarming the ground with what appears to be giant insects. These aliens are of similar size to the roller, but they don’t look like they’re going to explode. Instead, they have slender bodies with wings sticking out of their backs. Large claws are sticking out of their fronts, and they have nasty little mouths with lots of teeth and spit flying all over. The best way I can describe them is if demon had sex with a grasshopper and made a bunch of little babies.

The demon grasshoppers dash for the Protoss’ backline and tear through the first aliens they tackle. Some are unlucky and die screaming without knowing what just happened. Others hear the commotion, and turn around to start fighting the attacking monsters.

Upon reflection, I'm regretting my decision to write that letter.

Author's Notes:

Notice: If you're running through the wilderness in attempt to shake off the authorities, we've included several helpful PDFs to give you tips on how to live off the land and engage in guerrilla warfare. You can find them in your Mods directory in the Documents folder. Best of luck!

- The Nexus Team

48 - Spleen of the Swarm

There’s a stigma against griffons that says we don’t do anything unless we profit off it. A lot of times that’s true, but we find it deeply offensive when it’s not. For instance, a lot of folks think the only griffons who get down and dirty are good for nothing mercenaries who would be more than happy to bail if a bigger source of coin comes around. If anyone thinks that, my grandpa would be more than happy to shove their heads up where the sun don’t shine, and then ram a broom stick up there for a threesome. His words.

Truth is we griffons have a proud history of military tradition going back long before Equestria was even a cluster of tents. My ancestors would not hesitate to dive head first into the front lines for their king and country, plowing away at the enemy to the rhythm of war drums and trumpets. It wasn’t just our trained soldiers. The wives and children would join the big battles if our backs were against the walls. Every griffon has a strong line of veterans in their family tree, and we’re damn proud of it. Sure, the Equestrians would call some of the stuff we’ve done “war crimes,” and some of the stigma might stem from that, but a good griffon would never, ever, sell out his honor just to make a few extra bits.

That said, I want to get paid for this shit.

With the wave of Zerg spilling out from the giant worm forces the Protoss army to split their attention between the worm and the front lines. A surprise surround attack can make things go tits up, and the Protoss know this. Their ground troops are clustering around their bigger units, forming a defensive line against the rear Zerg onslaught.

The colossal golden onion giraffe, for instance, is still firing towards the front line. But at the base of its legs there’s a cluster of soldiers beating off a rush of those demon hoppers. They’re all that’s there to stop the Zerg things, Zerglings?, from chewing up the giraffe’s legs. If the soldiers fall, the giraffe falls with them, the Protoss would lose their big siege unit, and things would go tits up from there.

Against my will, I’m fighting alongside the Protoss. Nothing against them, I just don’t want to be here. I lose my choice in the matter when the first Zergling tackles me and tries to rip my face off. Up close the monster looks damn ugly. I can understand an overgrown insect, we have lots of those in Equestria. But its face is uncanny. It looks like something I can talk to, but its vocal capabilities are hindered by the massive fangs jutting out of its mouth. Demon grasshopper indeed.

It gets two blades the size of its body in my chest, and then digs its teeth in my neck, and then it scratches up my hind legs with its back feet. I have no qualms about ripping it in half with my monster claws. My tentacles get in the action too. They shoot out and dissolve the little devil before either half of its body hits the floor.

The first Zergling took away my chance to escape. It gave enough time for his friends to swarm me. I get up in time to bisect one of his buddies with a claw. It goes down with a shriek. At the same time, two more Zerglings leap my flank. I stick a claw in the ground and one of them is torn to shreds in a cluster of spikes, while the other I swat at with my free claw and take off its demon face.

It doesn’t stop there. A hoard spills out from the worm and charges me. The next minute fills with our battle. My claws are put to work as they rip and tear through the Zerg swarm. Many get past my claws and stab or chop my butt up, but a slash or two later the tentacles are eating them up and stitching my flesh back together. This swarm is turning into a buffet for me, a buffet where I have to kill my own food and eat it raw. Glad I can’t taste these things. All the salt and pepper in the world wouldn’t drown out the flavor of demon hopper.

As I carry out my slaughter against this alien menace, I notice the Protoss aren’t doing so hot. The onion giraffe is still up, but other parts of the army are falling apart. The Zerglings are carving out pockets along the back line, and a lot of soldiers are fighting two or three Zerg at once. I see a couple vanish in a puff of light when a Zergling gets a good hit in. The dying screams of soldiers mesh with the shrieks of the swarm. I’d hate to see what the front line is like right now. Give it a few minutes, and enough Protoss will fall that I’ll see the back and front lines meet.

More Zerglings gush out of the giant worm. Some run towards me to gnaw at my ankles, while the rest pile up against the backline assault. No clue what’s going on at the front, but back here it’s chaos. But I can do something about it. If I stop the Zerg from coming out of the worm, then that’ll cut their forces from attacking the Protoss’s rear. Then the Protoss can focus on the front, I’ll gain their trust, and they’ll send me on my way back home.

Yeah, the worm. That sounds like a good place to go. Let’s get hacking.

After I eviscerate the last Zergling going for my face, another groups comes after me. I let out a mighty griffon roar and charge them. My shield forms in front of me and I plow into the group. Zerglings go flying in all directions! They try to bite and slash me, but there’s enough mass and momentum behind my shield to knock them all away.

I tear a line through the Zerg straight for the worm. More and more monster aliens thud against the shield as I get closer. I dare to look back, and I find the swarm I cut through closing the gap behind me and coming for my rear. The floor behind me is a thick sea of demon hoppers who all want a bite out of my ass. Of course they surround me. What did I think was going to happen?

Something shrieks above my head. I look up and see a Zergling perched on the top of my shield. How did that get up there? It jumps down and jabs its blades into my skull. The blades go right through my brain and burst out of my throat. Blood and goop spurt all over my shield. Geez, not the brain. I need that!

Through some miracle, blades in the brain don’t immediately end my life. Explosions didn’t do the trick, so why should this? But it does send a shock through my nervous system. My legs lock up, I trip over myself, and I roll over the shield. I hear the shield squish a cluster of Zerglings. Good news is I do a complete flip onto my back. Since the demon hopper is still on my back, my weight crushes the critter into a chunky pulp. The tentacles go to work cleaning the pulp out of my feathers.

The Zerglings take the chance to dogpile me and dig their blades and fangs into my flesh. I switch the shield for my monster claws and slash at the swarm, slicing and dicing the demon hoppers into bite sized chunks. The tentacles are going crazy with all this fresh meat. The Zerg are tearing me up, but the tentacles are keeping well ahead of the damage.

As nice as it is that I’m not dying, the Protoss don’t have the luxury of meat eating tentacles. Still need to kill the worm. I claw my way towards my target in spite of the hundreds of Zerglings climbing and dying on top of me. The worm is still standing, or lying, whatever worms do when they have their heads poking out of the ground. A healthy amount of Zerg is still pouring out of it. It’s a wonder how the Protoss are still alive if they have to deal with this mess.

I push up to the surface of the Zerg dogpile. One of my monster claws shifts into a tumor fist, and I slam down into a spot where the demon hoppers are clumping together. Limbs and guts go flying with the shockwave, leaving me a nice clearing to step into. I slam the fist down on another meaty crowd, sending more Zerg guts flying and clearing more ground for me.

I alternate between the tumor and the claw. The tumor on my right arm goes for the groups of Zerglings and turns them into a cloud of meat chunks, while the monster claw on my left arm tears through any Zerg who get past the tumor.

After a few moments, I notice it works. The tumor claw combo is clearing a way for me to get to the worm while keeping the Zerg at bay. I also notice that the Zerg figured my strategy out. They’re spreading out now, keeping far apart and staying out of the range of the tumor. When I strike with the tumor, they take advantage of the long wind up time and three or so will jump me on the right side. The get their fangs in before I have time to slice them away with the monster claw.

The demon hoppers aren’t dog piling me. They’re giving me space to move, but they’re taking advantage of my weaknesses. How intelligent are these things? I was under the impression they were a mindless swarm wanting to kill the Protoss or something like that. No, they have a reasonable understanding of tactics and strategy, at least enough to give me and the Protoss a run for our money. I just hope they’re not smart enough to throw one of those exploding rollers at me right now. That would, at best, throw me off position when I jump away and give the Zerglings a chance to dogpile me again. At worst, that would melt my face off.

Lucky for me, that doesn’t happen. I clear my way to the base of the worm. Up close, the thing is has some impressive girth. If you put together several of my industrial mixers from back home in a clump, this thing would be as wide as that, if not wider. Zerglings are crawling out from its lips, and they have to take a second or so to travel down the side and hit the ground. I didn’t realize the worm was as big as a boat when I was fighting the Zerg. Now that I’m here, I’m a bit stunned at its size.

Let’s get the obvious joke out of the way. How am I going to handle a dick head this size?

I check on the Protoss army to see how they’re doing. Better and worse at the same time. The fighting has moved towards the woods so the front line meets the tree line, so they’re at least pushing forward. Trouble is I don’t see as many of their bigger machines hanging around. It’s mostly ground troops and soldiers doing the fighting, along with a lot more of those energy ball guys shooting lighting all over the place. By one of the giant crystals, I see several clusters of light pillars form momentarily, and then a bunch of troops charging of from the pillars. At least they’re bringing in reinforcements.

What grabs my attention is the golden onion giraffe. It’s still blasting away at the front line, and it still has the cluster of soldiers at its feet defending the Zerg. But my eye catches a streak of movement. A rope or a line shoots from the sky and latches on to the giraffe. The giraffe recoils back from the impact, but then the line yoinks the giraffe into the air and over the heads of the Protoss army. Sheesh, that line has to have Tartarus levels of strength to pull that machine up in the air. The giraffe soars through the sky, then crashes into a mega tree, where it explodes in a ball of blue flame and golden shrapnel.

Well, there goes the Protoss’ main siege unit.

I’ll let them sort that out. Back to my own personal clusterfuck. How am I going to kill this massive worm? Piece by piece?

I slice a claw through the worm. My claw leaves three deep cuts in the worm’s flesh, causing the worm to shriek. From these cuts, a torrent of blood splashes across my face. Once the torrent dies down to a trickle, I wipe the blood off my face and flick it to the ground. That was nasty, but it looks like it did something. Now I just need to do a lot more.

I run around the worm in a circle, slicing wherever I can and fighting of all the Zerg trying to stop what I’m doing. Slice, fight, run, slice, fight, run. I’m giving the worm a ribbon of deep cuts around its neck. A lot of its blood is spraying all over me. I hope this thing doesn’t have any blood borne pathogens. The last thing I want is alien AIDS.

After a minute, I make it back around to where I started, finishing off the ribbon. The demon hoppers are putting up one heck of a fight in attempt to stop me. One problem. Despite the profuse bleeding, I haven’t stopped the worm. The worm is still standing, Zerg are still pouring out of the mouth, and to make matters worse, I think my earlier cuts are healing up. I can see my first cuts fusing back together and patching up good as new.

What?! This thing can regenerate? At this rate I’ll never bring the worm down.

A sharp spike in my shoulder breaks my train of thought. I gasp and grab the offending spot. Something’s dug into my shoulder blade. A line of my red goop sticks to the thing when I pull it out. It’s a needle, as thick as one of my talons and twice as long as my claw. The end is barbed, so it took out a strip of my flesh when I pulled it out. This did not come from a demon hopper. What the heck shot this thing?

A hiss above me catches my ears. I look up and see something new slithering out from the worm. At first the shape makes me think of a cobra. It’s a long, thick figure with a crest on the back of its head. It extends its front claws, which are less like claws and more like giant death blades. Sort of like the blades on the Zerglings, but bigger. It looks down at me with narrow eyes and opens its huge jaw, showing off its rows of massive fangs. Just like the Zerglings, this thing also has a demon face with demon fangs. What is it with Zerg and demon fangs?

The demon cobra hisses at me. With that face and that head crest, it sort of reminds me of those drawings of Hydras back in my home world. Sure, this monster doesn’t have multiple heads, but there’s something about it that looks Hydra-esk. Hydralisk? Hmm, not a bad name for a freak of nature.

In a move faster than my eyes can see, the Hydralisk flicks its head crest up. There’s a whizzing sound in the air, and another needle plows into my chest. The needle has enough force to knock me back a few feet. Son of a bison, that stings!

More hissing comes from the worm. Another wave of Zerglings leap out from the mouth, and behind them comes a line of Hydralisks. The demon cobras slither out to the edge and glare down at me. From only a glance, I count around somewhere between ten and twenty Hydras. Of course there are more of them!

The line of Hydralisks flick their crests. A storm of whizzing needles rains down on me. A good cactus’s worth of them spike into me before my shield shifts out. The needles thunk against my shield like rain. My arm recoils every time one hits. These things pack one heck of a punch.

With the whizzing needle storm above me, the Zerglings come from behind me. The first demon hopper jumps on my head and digs its fangs in between my wings. I yelp just as I slash it apart with a claw. Two more leap at me, and I swat the first, but the other latches on to my wrist. I kick it in the gut with my rear lion foot, splattering its entrails all over its encroaching friends. These monsters are relentless!

To combat the two pronged attack, I press my body up against the worm, keeping my shield up to hold off the needle rain. That leaves three other limbs, plus some support from my wings for balance, to slice up the Zerglings attacking me from the ground. Lash out with a claw, strike with a foot, keep the shield over me, I feel like a clown performing a juggling trick at the circus.

The enemy has my back up against the wall. Would be nice to get those women and children griffons to help me out like my ancestors did.

On either side of me, the Hydralisks slither down the side of the worm. When the demon cobras hit the floor, they flare up their crests and shoot me with needles. The one on my right gets me in the armpit. The one of the left gets me in the cheek. Ow ow, there goes my cover plan!

I bring the shield closer to me so it blocks my right side and my top, just in time to block the right Hydra’s needle. Holding the shield like this cuts off half my vision of the field, but that’s not my biggest problem right now.

The left Hydra nails me in the ear. All the sounds of chaos and battle go silent in that ear. On a whim, I slam my monster claw into the flesh of the worm. My tentacles dig through its muscle, and a cluster of blades burst out of its skin and impales the left Hydra, killing it instantly. The blades retract, pulling the Hydra against the worm and peeling it off my grip. It drops to the floor when my blades stop supporting it.

As the tentacle comes back into my arm, a thought crosses my mind. Didn’t I do something like that a while back? Not the impaling thing, but digging my claw through something’s body? Yeah, I did. A year ago, back in Manehattan, that’s how I finished off that giant pony guy. I shoved my tentacles in him and they ate that beast up.

That did not come out the way I wanted, but the message is still there. I can just eat the worm.

Before the monster claw tentacle comes all the way back, I force it to go back forward. I feel it split off into branches, each branch digging into a different part of the worm. The worm’s body quivers as it’s torn asunder from the inside. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?

One arm holding a shield, one arm in the worm, that leaves me only a foot to defend myself with. I kick a Zergling away from my exposed side when one of his buddies squeezes his way under my shield. By the time I catch him in the act, the little demon hopper is half way under wiggling his way up close to me. That gives me no time to react to the bastard leaping up on me and clawing my face away.

I scream. It rips my eyes out. I try knocking it away with my shield, but it’s too cumbersome to do anything useful here. All the shield does it brush the Zergling’s wings a bit. Out of panic, I tear my arm out of the worm, abandoning the tentacles inside, and slash the Zergling off my face. My eyes regenerate when the claw strike eats the Zergling up.

Right, can’t eat the worm without the swarm ripping me to shreds, otherwise this would be too easy. We can't have that.

How am I going to solve this problem? Think and fight, think and fight. There are Zerg all around me, Zerg above me, and they’re keeping me from doing anything. I need to find a way to stop them from attacking me so I can finish off them worm.

Time. Time is what I need. I could slay them all, but more reinforcements will come out of the worm and I’ll have to deal with them again. I’d I need to find a way to delay the Zerg long enough for me to have time to eat the worm. What about doing this at another spot? Is there anywhere I can go that the Zerg won’t get to me? That can buy me some time.

A Hydralisk slithering down flicks a needle at me. The needle whizzes past my defenses and nails me in the throat. I choke. I’m forced to keep on choking until after I get back at the Hydralisk with a ground spike. Only after then do I rip the needle out. More choking, lots of coughing! Blood went down the wrong pipe!

Hold on, choking?

With a sweep of the arm, I dissect three Zerglings at once, and I do it with a smile. Choking, eh? Now there’s an idea that might work. I’ve never been a fan of BDSM, but in this case I can make an exception.

Right after I finish off the three Zerglings, my claw and shield shift into tumor fists. The Hydralisks get their needles in me once my main defense comes down, but I’m just going to have to truck on through that crap. I raise the tumors up and slam them into the ground. They squash a group of Zerglings coming for my front and send a shockwave that either knock or stun the surrounding Zerg. That will keep them busy for a moment.

The fists shift to normal claws, and I super jump into the air. I zoom up past the line of Hydralisks and go far above everything.

At the peak of my jump, I’m high above the worm. From up here, I can see its circular mouth lined with large teeth. These damn Zerg and their teeth. Zerglings and Hydralisks are pouring out of that mouth and heading for the Protoss backline. I don’t care about the reinforcements. All I care about is the worm’s mouth.

Gravity pulls me back to the ground, and I angle my wings to direct my dive towards the open maw. When I’m sure I’m not going to miss, I extend out a claw and shift out my shield, pointing it down at the monster’s gullet. Open wide, here comes the choo choo train!

Light goes dark when I blast past the worm’s teeth and go down its throat. I hear the shrieks of Zerg as I knock them back into the abyss. The inside of the worm’s throat is all slimy and gooey. Better take a shower after this. I expand the width of the shield so the rim scrapes against the monster’s throat. The worm shrieks as I rip off its lining. I can feel the beast thrashing. After a moment, the friction kills my speed, and I am now stuck in the worm’s throat.

Ha, choke on me you oversized dirt eater!

I can feel the Zerg on the other side of my shield. They’re thrashing and slashing at the hardened tentacles, but they can’t do jack to my shield. Keep on trying, you freaks of nature. I made this thing to stop artillery fire. What makes you little monsters think you can break through?

A needle whizzes through the air and gets me in the shoulder. I wince, but ignore the pain for the most part. What concerns me is where it came from. The Hydralisks from before are gathering at the opening of the mouth and glaring down at me. They flick their crests and send a torrent of needles down the shaft.

With my free arm, I throw up another shield to block their attack. The needles all go thunk on the other side, protecting me from further attacks. I widen the shield to block off the Zerg from above, just in case.

Hmm, it’s damp in here. Also smells like bile. Nasty. Guess the Zerg aren’t worried about hygiene. Maybe that’s why they’re attacking the Protoss, to pick up some air fresheners.

The Zerg begin hammering away at my top shield, and more bang on my bottom. They’re assaulting me on both sides, but they can’t get through. That’s great. They can’t bug me while I get my business done.

With both my arms occupied with the shields, I’m left with only my wings and back feet to use. That’s all I need. I lift up both my lion paws, and tentacles shoot out of them. The tentacles pierce the worm’s throat and start digging through its flesh. Not only can I feel them do their thing, but I can see where they go as the worm’s flesh budges into webs

The tentacles are going to take a while. It’s a large worm to eat through. Alright Gilda, how do you want to pass the time? I don’t know, I could think about what I’m going to do to Arctic North when I get back home. That’s a great idea. What am I going to do?

Well, I won’t go after him at first, at least not directly. I’ll start small. I’ll leave little scratches on his walls, tear up his furniture when he isn’t looking, just little things. It’ll be a treasure hunt to find the little clues that I’m nearby. Over the course of a week, I’ll get bigger, and bigger. A smashed pot, shelves and drawers scattered over the floor, a red sock with his white laundry. It’ll get him going. Then, when he’s most paranoid, I’ll jump out and beat the crap out of him. I won’t kill him. No, I’ll leave him with the thought that I can be anywhere, anytime, watching his every move.

Or I can just eat him.

I’ll also finish up that lawsuit with Blueblood. Got to fix up my store. Oh, and Pinkie. Got to free her too. I’ll be busy for the next month or so when I get back.

Are my tentacles done? Hmm, I can feel them poke into dirt and open air. Yeah, I think they’re done.

With a twitch of a muscle, my web of tentacles tear the worm apart. Gibs and globs fly all over the place, and the tentacles dissolve them all together. Within seconds, the throat I’m in turns into a mass of tendrils and melting flesh. While this goes on, all my tentacles rush back into my legs, bringing the worm’s meaty bits with that. I think I caught some Hydralisks and Zerglings in that mess

When the tentacles clear up, I’m left hovering in the center of a dirt tunnel. Both shields shift into normal claws, and I dart towards a wall. I kick off the dirt and jump out of the hole, landing at the rim of where the worm used to be. Left in its place is a deep, empty tube that goes far into the world’s crust. Without the worm for support, the dirt in the tube crumbles, and soon the hole collapses in on itself, cutting off the Zerg’s path up here.

The battlefield looks less chaotic now. Me choking out the worm stopped the flow of Zerg, and cut off reinforcements to the back line. What Zerg I didn’t kill are now dying to the blades of the Protoss, whose own reinforcements are wiping out the last bits of resistance from the alien menace. There’s still fighting going on at the front line of the army, but all in all I’d say that was a successful operation.

Wew, I contributed to a large scale battle. Bet my warrior ancestors would be proud. I throw my claws up to celebrate. “Ha, take that, you dirty bugs,” I yell. “That’s what you get for messing with” –

A rope cutting through the air cuts me off. It hits me in the chest with a sticky slap. I look down. It looks like a sucker got me good. Goop is dripping down from the sucker and all over my chest. Ew, what the heck is this?

Rather than answer my question, I’m yoinked up into the air, just like that golden onion giraffe from earlier. I go soaring over the Protoss army’s heads. From up here, I can see what’s going on at the front line for the first time. The army is pressed up against the mega tree line, keeping the enemy at bay. A swarm of Hydras and Zerglings are assaulting the front line, poking out from the trees, only to be cut down by plasma blade or shot by magic bolts. The Zerg are picking off Protoss here and there, but overall it’s a lot less chaotic than the backline.

At the peak of my arc, the goopy rope disconnects from my chest, leaving me to control my own glide. The rope thing was a neat little trick from whatever did that, but they didn’t account for the fact that I have wings. While I can’t fly, I can still steer myself to land in a safe –

The tree and my face make a loud knock sound when we slam together. For a second, all I see are the little birdies circling my head, then I feel my cheek scrape against the bark as I slide down.

At some point during my slide, I just peel off from the bark and let gravity take over. Don’t fight it, let it happen. Do what the little birdies say.

I hit the ground, but not hard enough to make a crater. Instead, something cushions my fall. Parts of it feel soft and leathery, while other parts are hard and jagged. No clue what I landed on. I’m still watching the birdies.

A voice talks inside my head. It sounds pissed, and familiar. “Get off me you cretin!”

The birdies fly away, and my vision clears up. I get a good look at who’s under me. It’s one of the Protoss soldiers. Whoops, guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The voice yells again. “Do you ever stop with your monologues, you filthy abomination?!”

I blink. I know whose voice that is. “Oh, hi Ceretel. Fine weather we’re having, are we not?”

The Protoss answers me with a plasma blade through my chest. I grab his arm before he can cut me in two. I pull him out and get off the soldier. He get gets up and brushes the dust off his shins. “Why has nobody killed you yet? Is everyone as blind as Ordaes?”

The hole in my chest closes up and I’m good to go. I don’t think he could kill me if they tried. “Hey, I just killed the giant worm for you guys. There’s no reason for you to keep bringing up the torches and pitchforks when I’m around.”

Here’s something we shouldn’t forget, we’re standing on the front line! A pack of Zerglings makes a beeline for us. Ceretel cuts down the pack leader when it leaps for him. “You killed the Nydus Worm? I don’t believe it.”

I backhand mine Zergling when it jumps. I don’t even bother looking. “Want to use your Khala thing to check? I bet some of your buddies in the back saw what I did.”

Ceretel is silent for a moment. I bet he’s looking into that psychic link of his to check the truth. Four Hydralisks slither out from the trees and flick needles at him. A transparent bubble forms around his body when they hit, and he raises his arms in a defensive position. I jump in front of him and shift out my shield to block any other needles from hitting. I stab the ground with a claw, and a moment later, a giant cluster of blades, far bigger than my usual cluster, sends Hydralisks chunks flying in the air. It got them all.

“What’s with the silence?” I ask as the blade cluster ravels back to my arm. “Do you guys still think I need to be burnt at the steak?”

Ceretel glances at me, and at the spot where the Hydralisks where just standing. “There’s still… a lack of consensus. But do not think your actions gained my trust.”

I shrug. “I don’t need your trust. I just want to go home.” And tear Arctic North a new hole.

Before the soldier can reply, a roar echoes from the woods. Flocks of three-winged birds fly out from the trees. Thuds ripple through the ground.

I turn to Ceretel. “What was that noise” –

One of the mega trees bursts apart. I raise my shield above our heads to protect us from the shower of splinters and dirt. The ground trembles, and the roar reaches my ears, louder than before.

From the rim of my shield, I can see a gargantuan figure, far larger than anything I’ve ever seen, creep above my head. On either side of the figure, I recognize a shape I’m far too familiar with. Two. Enormous. Blades.

Damn Zerg and their damn blades.

If the Zerglings are grasshoppers from Tartarus and the Hydralisks are cobras from the same address, then the monster in front of me, a monster far larger than the worm I just killed, is a rhino from Tartarus, Plus Size Edition. Its head extends back into a massive crest, though it’s less like a crest and more like a battering ram that can smash through an entire castle in one go. Two blades, each large enough to tear a house apart in a single swing, extend from either side of the back of its neck, sort of like killer dragon wings. The blades take the Zerg’s love affair with sharp objects to a whole new level. At that size they won’t slice things, they’ll vaporize everything they hit!

Its face is at the base of the crest, and it looks tiny in proportion to everything else, yet it still looks damn pissed. At least it doesn’t have rows of fangs protruding from its demon face, just thick teeth. Good for crunching on bricks.

My butt cheeks clench up when the boulders that are the titan's feet send earthquakes through the ground. What to call this gargantuan freak of nature? Mega… Ultra… Ultra something? Ultra-Rhino? Nah, that’s what you’d name an evil robot rhino from a comic villain. ‘Beware, I am Ultra-Rhino 500!’ Sounds cheesy. What else is there? Big Bug. King of Bugs. Big Bad King of Bugs. Bug Tyrant. Big Tyrant. Tyrannosaur. Tyranid.

Tyranid?

Yeah, let’s go with Tyranid. I like that.

49 - King of Blades

A wave of Zerglings surges forth in front of the Tyranid. By some miracle, none of the demon grasshoppers are squashed by the Tyranid’s boulder feet. They all scurry out of the way right before the monster takes a step and smashes a crater out of the ground. It’s like the Zerg are synced up in a hive mind of some sort.

The mega tree the Tyranid knocked over in his spectacular entrance falls to the ground, right on top of the Protoss army. The tree is so large it takes a while to fall, long enough for the Protoss to get out of the way. The Protoss clear as the mega tree slams into the earth with enough force to send a cloud of soldiers and Stalkers flying. Nobody looks like they got crushed, but the tree split the army in half. The rim of that trunk is as thick as a Blackwatch airship, so there’s no way the Protoss are climbing that thing. The Protoss army is now two smaller armies, whether they like it or not.

Ceretel and I are on the side with the Tyranid, and the Tyranid is charging straight towards us. Joy.

“The Immortals,” Ceretel says, “Where are our Immortals?” He looks back at the army behind us, searching for these Immortals of his. “Oh, we have no Immortals.”

“We don’t need any stinking Immortals,” I say, grinning at Ceretel. “You got me.”

The alien stares at me for a moment. “I’d rather have Immortals.”

The wave of Zerglings crashes into us. Most fan out to attack the army, but a few leap for our throats. I ditch the shield and shift out my monster claws, slashing the first Zerg to leap at my face. Ceretel joins in and slices apart his share of attacking Zerg with his plasma blades. Together, we make short work of the Zerglings, though Ceretel comes out with fewer wounds than me. A couple of those buggers got their claws in my chest.

A Zergling leaps for Ceretel’s backside. I dice it before it nails him, spraying the soldier with the demon hopper’s guts. Ceretel glares at me with his glowing eyes. I shrug. “Got your back,” I say.

Ceretel doesn’t reply. Instead, he ducks.

The world turns into a blur when a giant, metal baseball bat whacks me in the ass and strikes me out of the ball park. I think I feel a shock cone form around me, but I don’t have time to figure it out before all I feel is my body pancaking against the downed mega tree. Ow.

I peel my face off the bark, along with my arms, legs, and torso. The tentacles are hard at work pulling my body back into a not flat shape. Ugh, what the heck hit me? As I peel off the tree bark, I turn around to see who the batter was. What I get is the sight of the Tyranid charging full speed at me, flexing its blades in anticipation of cutting me into tiny bits.

Oh, so the Tyranid was the batter. How in Tartarus did that beast tank sneak up on me?

The Tyranid barrels through the mega tree without stopping. The tree ruptures into a cloud of splinters as he plows through it. Before he gets a chance to rip me apart, I super jump off the tree and flare my wings out for a glide. The thing is a giant meat fortress! How is anyone supposed to kill that? It turns towards the army on the other side of the tree and barrels for them. The Stalkers unload their magic blasters at the Tyranid. While effective against the smaller Zerg, their bolts do nothing against the big guy. They just splash off his bulk.

The Protoss scatter to get out of the way of the giant meat battering ram. The soldiers at the edge of the army run clear from the beast while the Stalkers teleport to a different part of the battlefield. I didn’t know they could do that.

The soldiers who can’t run or teleport realize their predicament, so they double down and charge straight at the Tyranid. They raise their blades and let out a battle cry as they face down the humongous Zerg. The Tyranid doesn’t care. He winds up one of his massive blades and wipes it across the battlefield, knocking all the charging soldiers into the air in one blow. Some disappear in puffs of blue light when the blade cuts through them. Others turn into light puffs when they hit the ground, miles away from the strike zone. The area that the Tyranid cut through is now eerily empty.

Sweet mercy, forget the worm. This monster is going to be the death of the Protoss army. It just slew a whole regiment of soldiers with one strike! I can’t have it kill the Protoss. I need the Protoss to get home! The Tyranid is going to ruin that.

I’m going to have to fight this thing, aren’t I? Hopefully the Protoss can help out. Hopefully.

My wings angle me in the direction of the Tyranid. They fold in and I dive towards the giant. Got no plan, just winging this, pun intended. Pray to Grover this won’t be the end of me. My claws shapeshift into tumors, and I wind up to rain down a beat down from the sky. If I aim for the right spot, I wonder how big of a concussion this will give –

The Tyranid’s head whips back, and its ultra blade swats me out of the sky. It’s like someone whacking me with a stone pillar, except sharper. A beast this size should not be this quick. It’s unsettling. A thousand tons of force from the flat side of a giant bone cleaver sends me careening for the trees.

Tree bark and flesh smack together when I collide with a mega tree. The back of my skull shatters on impact. I can feel the bone shards shoot around inside my head. Then i feel the tentacles patching them back up. It makes a grinding, clicking noise when they stick back up. Eww, I can hear it inside me.

I grip the tree as I pull myself off the bark. This Tyranid means business. Guy whipped me out of the sky with just a flick of the blade. Military tradition be damned, my ancestors didn’t have to fight something like this! Wait, scratch that. There was Arimaspi, but that was more of a draw.

The Tyranid continues to plow through the Protoss ranks, but it does something odd. It takes a hard turn right, cutting a chunk out of the army as it does so. It keeps turning until it is running back towards the forest. Is it running from the army? Did the Protoss do enough damage to it that the giant needs to retreat?

When it makes a complete one eighty, I realize the Tyranid’s not running away. It’s coming after me!

Of course it’s coming for me. Why wouldn’t it? Everything in the universe wants me dead. Blackwatch, Blacklight monsters, alicorn princesses, and now a giant demon rhino. I’m not allowed a break. Why would I think otherwise?

The Tyranid closes the distance faster than I want. It rears up its boulder legs and slams them down on the trunk of my mega tree. At my height, the tree swings back by several feet. Wood cracks and creaks and several large nuts come falling down. I cling onto the bark when the tree rubber bands back the other way. This is sort of like when a dog chases a cat up a tree, except it’s scaled up to stupid sizes and the dog is a giant demon bug thing. Bad day to be a cat.

The tree bounces back again, and the Tyranid times his next hit with the swing. The extra power pushes the tree even further. The giant presses down, and I hear a loud wood crack run up the tree. My tree doesn’t rubber band this time. Instead, it keeps going until its falling down. Wind rushes over me and my guts lurch up to my spine as I fall with the tree. Timber!

These are incredibly tall trees, and I am incredibly high up. As my vertical distance rapidly turns into horizontal distance, I descend deep into the forest. The Protoss army disappears behind a thick line of mega trees, and I’m thrown into the darkness of an alien forest.

My tree smashes and crashes into other trees as it falls. Each impact almost flings me off with the shock. Leaves and bark and seeds are flying all over the place. Finally, after a good minute of falling, the tree slams onto the forest floor. My chin smacks into the bark, and I lose my grip and go flying from the rebound. When I land, I bounce of the ground a few times before eating the dirt and skidding to a stop. Note to self, never become a lumberjack.

Hold up, this isn’t dirt. This is some kind of goop. It moves and shifts when I touch it. Is the ground alive? I spit the goop out as I get up. At least it’s not sticking to me.

It’s dark here. My night vision kicks in as I look around. The forest canopy is so thick, no light is reaching down here. It’s like a massive cavern, where it’s so dark only the blind can find their way around. The blind, and monsters with night vision. Lucky me I fall into category B.

Here’s a fun thought. These woods are where the Zerg are pouring out of. I’m deep in Zerg territory now. The Protoss are nowhere near to give me support. I can’t hear the sounds of battle anymore. In fact, I can’t hear much at all. It’s quiet here.

Damn, that tree was tall.

Something runs past me. I flip around to find what went by, but it’s only me and the giant trees. Well, that’s unnerving. My monster claws shift out, ready to strike at whatever comes after me.

A distant shriek fills the air, but I don’t know where it came from. I turn and flip, keeping my claws extended, but I see nothing creeping towards me. Oh come on, this is clearly turning into a horror comic. Lone girl lost in the woods all by herself, with unseen monsters lurking behind the darkness. It’s a damn cliché. Here’s the kicker, I should be the monster, because I am a monster! I should be the one stalking the poor girl to death, not the other way around!

Lurking behind the darkness, that’s where the Zerg has to be. Another shriek echoes across the woods, but I can’t find its source for the life of me. I can’t be alone here. That begs a great question. This is a Zerg forest, so where are all the Zerg?

My monster hearing doesn’t pick up anything. The only sound I got is the slurping sound the goop is making every time I take a step. Not a pleasant sound. Seriously, where the heck is everybody? If the Zerg are going to attack me, they better do it soon. Despite what other ladies might be into, I’m not much of fan of getting teased like this.

Maybe if I pretend to let my guard down, they’ll come out. My monster claws shift to normal, and I walk over the goop. Hmm, nothing’s jumping out at me. I lean up with a claw against a nearby tree. The Zerg might not be that interested in –

YEOW! I Yank my claw back, and a chunk of the tree comes with it. The tree bit me! The tree freaking bit me! I try shaking the bark off, but the wood won’t let go. With the other claw, I punch a hole right through the middle, and the bark lets go of my wrist and flies off.

As I’m shaking the pain out of my claw, a bright light catches my eye. The piece of wood goes up in a ball of green flame. It lights up the area around us, and messes with my night vision for a moment. The flame dies out. Gone is the tree bark, and in its place a Zergling crashes into the ground. The heck?

I walk up to the Zergling. The demon hopper is limp, and has a fist sized hole in its body. Hold up… the Zergling was the tree? Explains the bite, I suppose, but that leaves a few other questions open for discussion.

The tree seems to be normal, aside from a Zergling shape empty space in the bark. As a test, I walk up and slap a different part of the trunk. The bark moves in response to the slap, and then shrieks.

Ah, a shrieking tree. I hear if you chop one up and make some furniture out of it, the furniture will be forever doomed to squeak if you so much as touch it. Great for haunted houses.

The shrieking bark erupts in green flame, just like the Zergling I punched. The bark around this bark erupts in green flame as well, and soon the entire tree goes up in a green inferno. The surrounding trees light on fire as well. It’s a green forest fire!

The fires soon go out, and everything goes dark again. My night vision takes a moment to readjust again. Going from dark to light to dark again gives your eyes a workout. Once my night vision returns, it gives me a sight that makes my jaw drop. The entire tree, from trunk all the way up to canopy, is covered in a thick layer of Zerglings. It’s not just this tree, the other trees that lit up are also covered by the same layer of Zerg. Turns out I was never alone in these dark woods. The Zerg were with me all along!

Well… poop.

The swarms of Zerglings break out in mass shrieking, and they all leap from their trees all at once. Zerg rain bears down on top of me, and the sight stuns me enough that I don’t think I can move. It’s like a rain of spiders. You want to run but at the same time you just got to watch. Goes without saying I scream like a little girl. Good thing no one I care about is around to hear it.

Thousands of blades and fangs skewer me all at once. What the Zerglings are doing resembles the wet dream of a psychotic serial killer. My screams shift from that of terror to that of agonizing pain as the Zerg rend and tear me apart. My innards are supposed to stay inside my body, thank you very much!

Lucky for me, the Zerg aren’t the only ones with blades. From sheer willpower, I send blades throughout my body. The Zerg chewing on my back, they get a mouthful of blades. The Zerg stabbing their blades into my head, blades shear off their limbs. The Zerg that’s tugging on a loose strip of my meat, the meat wiggles and instantly grows a coat of blades. Blades, blades, everywhere is blades!

The tentacles go right on eating the Zerglings I slice up. Eat, tear, eat, tear, the cycle goes on. While I’m regenerating as fast as I can, I think the Zerglings are tearing a little faster. As the fight goes on, I notice some little things. My regeneration stitches things up a little less every time. Another blade gets past my defenses, adding to the blade storm going on in my face. The dog pile of alien monsters is growing thicker by the minute. Even with night vision, it’s getting hard to see what’s going on with all these bodies swarming me.

The best way I can describe my current predicament is if I’m getting buried alive, and someone keeps throwing dirt on top of the pile. Except it’s not dirt, it’s spiders. Everything is spiders!

Years of therapy won’t fix this.

Through the sounds of the shrieking and the stabbing and slashing, I hear something crackle. The air electrifies, and the tips of my feathers stand on end. There’s an overwhelming power coursing through the air, and I don’t think it’s coming from the Zerg.

Electricity goes everywhere. Light becomes all there is. The darkness of the forest and the Zerg pile dissipates as energy fills every gap of our beings. The silhouettes of Zerglings spasm and convulse. The pain the Zerg were inflicting on me doesn’t disappear. Instead, it changes into an intense burning that rips and tears on my nervous system instead of my meat. The energy sends my limbs flailing out of control in a crazy dance, just like the Zerg around me. Tongue and spit fly out of my beak. Eyes go two different directions. This is not pleasant.

As quick as it comes, the energy sputters out. It releases my body, and I collapse into a gasping heap. The Zerg around me fall to the ground as well. Some of them are twitching, but otherwise none of them move. It’s a field of demon hoppers with dead eyes and gaping mouths, and it all smells like BBQ. That energy did a bigger number on them then it did to me.

Some distance away, the sound of feet crunching on top of Zerg corpses approaches me. With some effort, I use my shaking limbs to push myself up to get a look. There, in the darkness, is a pair of blue glowing eyes.

My night vision returns, and I get a good look at who this is. He is Protoss, standing high and mighty on top of the dead Zerg pile. There are pieces of metal floating over his body, and a impressive cape billows from behind. I swear I can hear some mystical, heroic music playing behind him. I think the music is just residual brain damage.

The Protoss raises a leg on top of a bulge in the Zerg pile. He holds out both his hands, and lightning crackles between his fingers. “I heard a scream,” the Protoss says in my mind, “of a little, terrified girl. I came as quick as I could.” He glances at my fried feathers standing on end. One of them even has a little flame still burning. “Sorry about that. Storms aren’t known for being selective.”

The name of this Protoss pops in my head when my brain connections realign. Oh right, this is Ordaes. Crap, got to save face. “Yes, you’re right about the girl. There was a kid with a red hood. Loud little screamer. She left before the Zerg got here. She’s on her way to grandma’s house right now, so don’t worry about her. But thanks for the save, Ordaes. I owe you one there.”

Did he buy the story? I can’t tell with his faceless face of his. He lowers his arms and cocks an eyebrow, I think. “You know I can hear your thoughts when you monologue to yourself. None the less, you owe me nothing. If anything, I just repaid my debt to you for slaying the Nydus Worm. You have my eternal thanks for that.”

I give him a thumbs up. “Cool. Is the battle over yet? I’d like to get home soon, if you guys will help me on that.”

The Protoss shakes his head. “Our battle is far from over, but we do make progress. As I speak, my forces are pushing into the forest, though we do so carefully. The Zerg are in the trees, waiting to ambush us, just like they did to you moments ago. They are hidden by a strange green flame that not even our Observers can see past.”

My gut clenches up from the thought. I glance back into the forest to see if there are any more Zerg. Nothing, there’s only trees and darkness. “There are more out there?”

“Many.”

“That sounds like a nightmare.”

“It is. This battle is the first time they shown such abilities. My brothers are still trying to learn how to best deal with them. The Zerg are a cunning foe, but the hearts of the Protoss will not falter against them, no matter what tricks the monsters may pull.”

“Well that’s noble.” That’s not sarcasm. I really do think that’s a noble sentiment. It would make my ancestors proud. Of course I’m not talking about the ancestors from the Griffon Kingdom. The military went downhill when we switched to straight up monarchy. No, I’m talking about the ancestors from the old Griffon Empire.

Everyone keeps on forgetting we griffons had an empire, even griffons to some degree. We pretty much had everything east of Equestria on lockdown. It was a big deal at the time. Shame they forgot. The most legendary griffons in history came from that empire. One of my big disappointments with Equestrian schools is they taught nothing about the glory of the old Griffon Empire. In fact, the curriculum barely had anything about griffons. The textbooks even mislabeled the pictures of male and female griffons!

Huh… the textbook thing explains a lot.

What was my point? Oh right, the Old Empire Griffons would be proud of me or something like that.

“Are you okay?” Ordaes asks. “Your mind is wandering there.”

I blink, then shake my head. “Yep, I’m good. The concussions are just catching up to me. So what about the Tyranid? Did you guys kill it yet?”

Ordaes stares at me for a moment. “What’s a Tyranid?”

“Executor!” Another mind voice yells from the darkness, and soon a group of Protoss soldiers comes running from the woodwork. Their gold armor and glowing blue eyes are a nice breath of fresh air in this dark cavern of a forest. “Executor, you’re in grave danger!” the front soldier calls again

“We’re always in danger, Ceretel. Be more specific.”

Ceretel skids to a stop on top of the Zergling bodies, and his companions stop right behind him. “The Ultralisk burrowed and is heading this direction. We must get you to safety before it attacks you!”

I cock my head in confusion. “What’s an Ultralisk?”

Ceretel ignores my question. “Immortals have reinforced our army. When we regroup they can annihilate the Ultralisk when it breaches.”

Ordaes brushes the soldier off. “I know we have Immortals. I ordered their construction. I left their protection unattended because our friend Gilda was in trouble.”

Ceretel glares at me. “You. How dare you bring our Executor into the arms of danger! Everything you do brings harm to the Protoss.”

I facepalm so hard I crack my skull in two. Seriously, I actually broke my skull there. I got the monster strength to do that. “How can you be this dense? I’ve done nothing but help you guys! Why do you still think I’m out to get you?!”

Before Ceretel can respond, presumably by shanking a plasma blade up my throat, the earth trembles. All the Protoss wobble on their feet, and even I’m thrown off balance. A primal instinct in me kicks in, and I yell out, “Get away!”

The ground erupts, dirt goes flying everywhere, and two giant blades surge from the dead Zerg pile. The Protoss run out of the way, and I dash off to the side to avoid getting chopped in half. We clear from the area before the Tyranid emerges from the ground.

It happens pretty quick, but I see enough to figure out what the heck happened. The Tyranid dug underground and is breaching the surface. Reminds me of a painting I saw a while back of a haunted ghost ship emerging from deep and breaking the waves. They say ghost ships are scary, but watching an alien as big as a ship dig its way out from under your feet is what’s really scary. How the heck does a monster that size dig underground anyways?

Following the blades comes the head and the battering ram crest. It shoots straight up into the air, then twists its body to land towards my direction. The Tyranid lands right behind me as I’m running away, and its blades encircle the area I’m in. The blades swing inwards to slice me in half, but I jump over them right as they almost cleave my feet off. I almost believe I’m out in the clear, but the blades swing out, clipping me in the back and batting me off into the darkness off the forest.

Fortunately I don’t hit any trees this time. I just skid, crash, and burn off the goopy floor. No big deal, shake it off and I’m back on my feet. My back is bent out of whack, though.

The ground shakes as the Tyranid stampedes for me. Huh, I’m starting to think this bastard has it out for me. There are two juicy Protoss targets right next to him and he decides to run after the griffon it knocked away. It didn’t even do a hit and run with the Protoss. I can still see their glowing eyes in the distance. The Tyranid doesn’t give a crap about them.

If the Tyranid is after me, then I doubt there’s much chance he’ll give up the chase if I run away. Not that I should run away. I need to stay near the Protoss so they can send me home. And if I leave the Tyranid on its lonesome, it’ll just wreck through the Protoss while I’m gone. I’m going to have to fight this thing, aren’t I?

An old lesson pops back in my head. Don’t run for your life in a skyscraper, or you’re going to run off the ledge. Or maybe it was don’t be a chicken. Eh, first one’s better.

As the Tyranid barrels for me, I stretch, crack a few bones, and stare the giant down. Alright Mister Alien Freak, you and I are going to have ourselves a good ol’ fashion tussle. No rules, last monster living wins.

The giant whacked me really far away. It’s still closing distance even after all this time thinking. Jeez, why does it look bigger than before? No, stop it Gilda, don’t chicken out. Make your ancestors proud.

The giant blades cleave for my neck. I jump over them before they cross. The Tyranid barrels underneath me, and I land right on top of his crest. He’s having none of that. The giant flings his crest to the side, and I go spiraling off. While I’m airborne, a blade comes up for a follow up and whacks me up higher through the forest.

Ugh, that last hit broke a lot of ribs. My wings flare out and I level off in a glide high above the Tyranid. His blades are massive, but they can’t reach me up here. The giant circles below me, waiting for me to come down. Does he know I can’t stay up here forever?

Before I plummet to the jaws of the alien, I glide towards the nearest tree and grab hold. The Tyranid follows me, and with one swing of a blade chops right through the trunk of the mega tree. The tree jolts and cracks as it falls down. I jump off and glide to the next tree, where the Tyranid follows me to.

My feet plant against this tree, and instead of grabbing hold, my wings fold in and I kick off towards the approaching giant. My tumorclaws shift out and I hold them in front of me as I dive down. The Tyranid raises his blades up at me and winds them for a mid air slice.

Right before I reach its strike range, my wings shoot out and give me a flap up, air dashing me out of the way of the giant’s swipe. The blades cut close enough for me to feel the wind graze my feet. I keep diving down and my fists collide against the Tyranid’s crest. The giant wails as its crest caves in, and the force of the blow sends him toppling over on his side.

I superjump away from the falling beast and land in a gooey clearing in the forest. I smile as I watch the Tyranid slam against a tree as it falls over. There’s a huge cavity where I struck it, and its crest is going lopsided from the damage. The blades are waving in the air in an effort to strike something, but I don’t think it’s in any good shape to hurt anything more than air.

Huh, that wasn’t too bad. Just got to knock the big guy off his socks. Seems like a well placed sucker punch will take down anything. If only my grandpa could see me now, beating the crap out of giant monsters, just like my ancestors. He’d shut up for once and stop calling me a deadbeat disappointment.

The celebration is cut short. The ground next to me bursts apart, and a creature I’ve never seen before climbs out. On first glance it kind of looks like a Hydralisk, except it has spider legs and a bulbous butt. Tentacles are waving out from the back of its head, and it’s a bit greenish. What the heck is this thing?

The creature doesn’t pay me any attention. It flat out ignores me. I think that’s good thing, probably. It opens its jaws wide, and an orange gas shoots out of its mouth like a firehose. The gas darts through the forest until it splashes against the downed Tyranid. The Tyranid shudders, and then by some miracle it gains new life and twists its body up do a standing position.

The creature turns off its gas hose, and the Tyranid is trotting around like it never got hit. My jaw drops when I see the massive crater in the giant’s crest heal up and become solid again. The crest not only patches up, but large, heavy duty scales with horns spurt out in an even pattern all over its body. They just budge out from its flesh and pop out like daisies. The Tyranid is growing a bunch of jagged rocks for a new set of armor.

I throw my claws up in the air. “What the heck? The thing heals up and it gets an armor upgrade?”

A crackling, hoarse, feminine voice comes from the creature next to me. “Chitinous plating, a result of our forced evolution. The Ultralisk can now withstand your attacks.”

The voice makes me jump out of my skin. “Zerg can talk?!”

The creatures turns its head to me. “I can.”

This is… bizarre. Since when do alien monsters talk? Not sure what to make of this. “Well… can you tell the big guy to stop attacking me? And everyone else?”

The creature makes a slimy clicking sound. Something tells me that’s how the thing laughs. “Our Brood Queen has ordered the swarm to tear you apart. The Ultralisk will hunt you down until you are shredded to pieces. Even if you defeat it, we will spawn as many as it takes to kill you.”

“Ah, pleasant.” Now I know why the Tyranid is choosing me over the Protoss. I don’t know why this “Brood Queen” wants me dead, but I don’t really care about that part. “So, if not me, mind leaving the Protoss alone?”

“We already are,” the creature, all matter in fact.

“Eh?”

The tentacles on the back of the creature’s head wiggle in agitation. “Despite my concerns, the Brood Queen has ordered the swarm to put aside the slaughter of the Protoss in order to focus on you. I know not why the Brood Queen would pursue such an inane goal, but it is not my place to question those above me.”

The ground rumbles, and a recently healed, recently armored Tyranid comes charging this way. I glare at the creature next to me and shift out my monster claws. “Since you’re not with me”-

The creature spits. A needle shoots out of its mouth and nabs me right between the eyes. The needle flies out the back of my head and sprays my brains all over the ground. It stuns me long enough for the creature to dig down and disappear underground. Well screw you too!

The Tyranid barrels for me. The tumor claws shift out. Eh, I can dance for a while longer. I’ll have to kill that creature when I get a chance to stop it from healing the Tyranid. Just like last time, I jump over the blades when it slashes for me. But instead of landing on the crest, I slam down on it with the tumorclaws.

The claws smash into the giant’s armor, but its skull doesn’t cave in. Instead, its rocky scales crack under the fist, and they shatter under the blow, leaving the monster underneath unscathed. Well, that’s a problem.

The Tyranid whips forward and sends me tumbling to the ground. I go splat on the goopy floor, right in the center of its blades. Seriously, what the heck is this stuff? This isn’t like any other forest floor I’ve ever seen.

The Tyranid grunts behind be. I flip around and ready to jump to dodge the blades, but he isn’t attacking with his blades. Instead, one of the boulders that is his feet hovers above my head, ready to slam down and squish me into goo. Hey, maybe that’s what the floor is made of, squished griffon.

The foot comes down like a city destroying meteor. Right before he does the deed, the sky lights up in a storm of lightning. The giant convulses as electricity arcs all over its body. The boulder foot draws back as the Tyranid stumbles backwards. I flip on my own feet and dash out of there, jumping past the blades and making it out to the clearing.

When I make it to relative safety, I flip around and look to see what’s happening. There’s a storm raging amidst the trees, tearing through the giant with bolts of lightning. Standing some distance away from the Tyranid, there’s a Protoss holding out a pair of glowing hands. Going off the flowing cape, I think that’s Ordaes over there. A group Protoss soldiers runs past Ordaes. These Protoss hold out their pairs of plasma blades and charge for the Tyranid. Five bits says the leader is Ceretel with some big balls.

The storm dies out, the forest goes dark once more, but the Tyranid is still feeling the effects. It wobbles around, trying to shake off the shock. The charging Protoss either dive under or jump over the blades and charge for the giant’s face. Their plasma blades stand out in the dark, and I see them slash into the giant’s armor. The Tyranid rears back from the attack and lets out a loud roar.

Huh, didn’t think I was going to get help on this thing. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. I run towards the Tyranid, who is briefly distracted by the Protoss. The giant steps back and clears some distance between his face and the soldier squad. It’s enough distance to put them in the center of his blades. The giant flicks his head and sends a blade streaking for the group.

The blade would’ve chopped the soldiers in half if I didn’t stop it. Right as the blade swings, I superjump forwards and shift out my tumorclaws. As the blade cleaves through the air, I target the tip and slam into it tumors first. The blade impales the ground and scrapes into the earth, digging deep into the gooey floor. It makes a full stop mere feet away from the nearest Protoss’s face.

With the blade immobilized in the ground, I run up the edge with monster speed. The Tyranid tries to yank it out of the dirt, but one Protoss distracts him by slashing at his mouth. This gives me enough time to run up the entire length of the blade, and with a monster strength tumor punch I nail the Tyranid in the side if his head. The crack echoes for miles across the forest. Several of its scales shatter into flying shards, and the Tyranid stumbles off to the side from the force of the blast.

The familiar voice of Ceretel reverberates in my head. “Be gone. We don’t need you interfering with our battle any longer.”

The tumors shift to normal, and I clutch the edges of the not broken scales to get a good grip on the giant. “You just don’t want me hogging up the big kill,” I yell down to Ceretel. I think that’s Ceretel I’m looking at. All the Protoss look the same.

The skin under the scales I just broke off looks tough, but not as tough as the scales. A monster claw shifts out and I jam the blades into the exposed area. The Tyranid wails when my tentacles shoot out and dig through its flesh. It rears back and runs around the forest like a headless chicken. Can’t shake me off! I got a claw elbow deep in you, and then some!

A swish of light catches my eye. On the other side of the Tyranid’s head, a plasma blade plunges into the giant’s scales. Behind the blade, a Protoss rises up using the lodged blade as a handle. I think that’s Ceretel. He’s climbing the Tyranid. Damn, didn’t know he had it in him. The guy must have hopped on board the same time I did.

“Now you’re just copying me!” I yell over to him.

Ceretel stabs another blade into the monster and climbs further up the crest. A few of his buddies do the same thing, and soon Ceretel’s whole brigade is scaling the monster’s crest. His voice stands out among them. “I’m taking the clear path to victory. You’re just messing around!”

My tentacles keep digger, but they hit something hard. I try pushing past the hard point, but they don’t budge. Huh, wonder if the Tyranid has some anti-tentacle muscle in its head. Ah well, I’ll do with what I got. The tentacles stiffen, and I yank them out of the giant. A huge chunk of flesh rips out of the beast. Scales fall to the ground as the tentacles dissolve the fresh meat. It wasn’t a huge chunk, but there’s a decent sized hole in the side of the Tyranid’s head, so that counts for something.

The Tyranid flings his head around. The Protoss blades are still in the scales, so the flop around like ragdolls. One of them doesn’t have a strong grip and flies off the crest. I grab on a scale spike and the inside of the hole and hang tight. I almost fall off when the Tyranid crashes into a tree, and then plows into a second and third tree, but I hold on.

I yell over to Ceretel. “I wish I was messing around! This giant is a pain in the butt!”

“That makes two of you!” Ouch.

The hammer fist comes out, and I give it a swing around the world and smash away another layer of scales. The monster claw comes out and I dig into the patch of now exposed skin, and the tentacles go to work once more. “You want to lay off man? It’s pretty clear I’m trying to help the Protoss.”

The Tyranid rears its head back. In a gung-ho move, Ceretel takes this moment to turn off his plasma blades. Riding the monster’s momentum, he flings up the giant’s crest after letting go, then the plasma blades turn on again and he digs them into the scales. They leave an orange, glowing trail as he skids to a stop. “Your help means nothing. You could be from an enemy hive and are using my brothers as a tool to slay your foes.”

Again, the tentacles hit a hard layer. Again, I rip them out and take out a chunk of the Tyranid. The beast is getting a nasty scar from me. “Or maybe I’ve been telling you the truth the whole time and you just hate me because I’m not a blue glowing alien like you!”

Ceretel wedges a blade in between the edges of a scale. He cuts along the edge, and soon enough the scale pops off, leaving behind an exposed patch of skin with a smoldering rim to it. “That’s exactly it! You’re not Protoss. I have no reason to ever trust the likes of you.”

I grab a scale spike and fling myself up to Ceretel’s patch of skin. I grab on to the side and hold on. “So this is a race thing, huh? You and every other pony out there has some nerve to think us griffons are all untrustworthy, penny pinching scoundrels!”

“What you do with your pennies is none of my concern.” The Protoss stabs both his plasma blades into the skin patch. The Tyranid makes an immediate stop and nearly flings us both off. He lets out a wail unlike the ones before. I think we hit a nerve. “You’re a threat to the Protoss race. Our survival is the only thing I’m concerned for, not that of other races. You may trick my brothers into thinking you’re on their side, but I see the truth. You’re more threat than ally to us, and you’ll cut us down the moment we turn our backs to you.”

I look down at some of his brothers riding along with us. Most of them are distracted, though one does give me a shrug when I glance at him. “I’m staying out of this,” I hear him say. That makes me think they’re not all on board with Ceretel.

My monster claws plunge into the Tyranid alongside Ceretel’s blades. The Tyranid shudders and cries out even louder. We lurch to the side as it rams its body into a tree. “Look, we’re tearing this Tyranid together. Would your enemy ever do something like this?”

“Yes!” My tentacles spread out in a web underneath Ceretel. I don’t think he notices the bulges. “You’re not the only one we’ve encountered who twists their words. The Protoss have been betrayed by a gilded tongue before. My brothers are fools to think it won’t happen again. But I’m no fool. I’ll never forget!”

“But I’m not going to betray you. What’ I’ve been saying all along is the truth.”

The alien’s voice booms in my head. “Lies! Lies! Lies!”

As we attempt to bring the Tyranid closer to its deathbed, a new sound fills the air. It’s not coming from the Tyranid. It sounds like it coming from above us. Huh, why does it sound like deep disappointment with the world? Leaves rustle and branches snap from above. Bits of tree debris fall on top of us. Now’s probably a good time to look up.

Flying, no, floating in the tree canopy is something big. Not as big as the Tyranid, but it’s still pretty sizable. It’s a creature of some sort, with a large bulbous body with legs dangling down. There’s an insect head sticking out from the bottom of the thing. It looks like someone took a beetle and inflated it like a balloon. “What is that?”

The Tyranid almost throws him off with a thrash, but Ceretel shrugs it off and looks up. He just grunts. “Why are you pointing out simple things? That is an Overlord.”

The Overlord lazily drifts above us, following the rampaging Tyranid. “Is it dangerous?”

“No, they’re not. They just float around. Be quiet. You distract me with your questions.”

When the Overlord is right overhead, a sphincter on its underside opens up. From the sphincter, a little green ball pops out and fall towards us.

I point up. “So those aren’t dangerous?”

One of the soldiers below us yells, “Banelings!”

I throw up my shield like an umbrella, covering both of us just in time for the first green ball to hit. The Baneling explodes on top of my shield, and green glowing goop splashes all around us. The goop sizzles when it splashes against the Tyranid’s armor, letting off a putrid smell.

Another Baneling lands further up the crest. The green ball rolls down the ridges and aims for one of the Protoss down below. Right as it rolls past me, I knock it away with my shield and it bounces off. The Baneling flies over the Protoss, misses him, and lands in front of the Tyranid, where it explodes when the Tyranid steps on it with his boulder feet.

“Still think Overlords aren’t dangerous?” I yell at Ceretel. “Because they seem to be pretty fucking dangerous!”

Before Ceretel slaps me with the back of his blade, something soft and squishy bounces off my head. It falls between me and my shield, nesting itself at my feet. The heck? I look down, and a green ball unrolls, revealing a bloated demon face that looks back up at me. The thing looks like it’s about to puke all over me.

“Look out!” I yell. I jump back and grab Ceretel. The Baneling explodes in a cloud of green sludge. I hold the Protoss soldier as I fall off the Tyranid’s side and crash into the ground. The Tyranid stomps away from us, thrashing against the team of soldiers climbing its face.

“Woo, that was a close one,” I say. “Saved your life, didn’t I?” I let go of Ceretel, who’s lying on top of me now. Despite letting go, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t berate me or call me names. In fact, he doesn’t even get off me. Ceretel is just staring at me with those blue glowing eyes. Strange, did he get hurt? I tap him on the side of the head. “Hey buddy, aren’t you a bit close for your comfort?”

He stares at me for a bit longer, then the Protoss erupts into green flame. I shield my eyes from the light, but the fire show is quick. The flames die down, and Ceretel is gone. All I see is a jagged mouth, dripping with green goop, attached to the bulbous form of a Baneling.

Shit!

I jam my shield between us, but I’m not fast enough. The Baneling explodes on top of me. The shield protects half my body from the sludge, but the other half of my body isn’t so lucky. Boiling acid dowses my unprotected side. I scream.

Acid melts eats my flesh. I jolt to my feet and run around, screaming obscenities and bloody murder. Ayayayayayaya! Sweet mercy, it burns! It burns! My body is melting. I’m melting! Is this what ice cubes feel like? Why do we put ice cubes through this?! Ice cubes are war crimes!

The acid eats its way to my throat, and my windpipe dissolves. I fall to the ground, gasping for air, except air isn’t coming in from my beak, it’s coming in from the hole in my neck the acid just made! Air pumps in and out of the hole, bursting little bubbles in the acid whenever I breath out and spreading it even more and some acid gets loose and sucks into my lungs when I breathe in and melts my esophagus and lungs and sets everything inside me on fire and heartburn heartburn heartburn!

I'm writhing on the ground. The tentacles are trying to heal up the damaged spots. Not helping, they’re just touching the acid and shriveling into soup. Stop trying to heal me! For once, just stop helping me!

After what feels like forever, the acid wears off. It doesn’t do so all at once, but gradually. The burning dies down in steps. I feel less compelled to flail on the floor. I’m gurgling the liquid remains of my own lungs but at least they’re not on fire anymore.

Once the acid is absolutely, positively done, the tentacles do actual work. Their patching skills aren’t hindered by constant dissolving, so at least I’m going to make it out all right.

Sweet mercy, I never want to get hit by one of those fuckers again.

A Zergling jumps out of nowhere and stabs me in the face. Damn it! I slash it in half and the tentacles absorb its guts. I hear another one of the buggers coming. Give a girl a break, man. I just got half melted! I jump up on my feet and cut the incoming demon in two. Its halves go skidding past my feet.

“If there’s one thing I can say that I like about you, it’s that you're fun to toy with.”

Who said that? That voice, it sounds familiar. I spin in circles trying to find where the voice is coming from. I can’t see anything in these woods, except for the Zergling pouncing for my face, but I cut that in half without a thought.

“But that’s the only thing I like about you, you overgrown omelet maker.”

Omelet maker? No, the voice isn’t in the woods. It’s in my head. “Show yourself,” I say. “Get out of my head and face me.”

“Mmm, if you insist.”

Another Zergling comes rushing out of the dark. I pose to strike it, but it doesn’t pouce me. Instead, it bursts into green flame, and a figure steps out from the blaze, a tall, insect horse figure. The figure gives me a toothy grin, and it clicks who I’m looking at.

“Hello, starlight.”

“Bug lady!” I yell. I pounce on the giant insect and slash it apart with my claws. She disappears in a puff of flame and an eviscerated Zergling falls apart at my feet.

Another burst of flame comes from behind. I turn to face the bug lady, who is laughing maniacally and overall unscathed. “After all this time, you’re still the fool I know.”

I seethe. “Bug lady, I should have known it was you!”

The towering insect horse gives me a flat look. “Would you, though? I thought my minions shape shifting in front of your eyes would give me away. But you’re acting so surprised to my appearance, it makes me wonder if you are capable of any rational thought. Of course I already know the answer to that.”

I slash at the bug lady. She backs away to dodge, ignites in green flame, and a Hydralisk pops out with a flaring crest and nabs me in the chest with a needle. I ignore the hit and slice the demon cobra in half. “I thought I was done with you!”

“Oh contraire, we’re not done,” her voice says in my head. “You merely misplaced me. Because of you, I’ve been trapped in this realm for over a year now. There is nothing I want to do more than rend you apart for your actions! Lucky for me, I made some new friends here.

The ground bursts apart in a ring around me. Creatures with thick shells and blades sticking out of their shoulders emerge. Jagged beaks take up most of their head areas. They kind of look like turtles from Tartarus, sort of, although they remind me more of mutant roaches. Eh, Roaches are a better name.

The Roaches open their maws and a green bile spews out at me. I super jump over the ring, avoiding the bile. My tumor fist comes out and crushes the Roach I land on with a satisfying splat.

“The Zerg were surprisingly easy to take over,” bug lady says. “All I needed was a little bit of mind magic and boom, instant army under my command. Even Shining Armor wasn’t this easy to enchant. Heck, he put up a fight, futile as it was. My new friends here just let it happen. It’s as if the Zerg want to be mind controlled! How crazy is that?”

The Roaches vomit at me again, and I hop out of the way. Their puke sizzles on the ground, though it isn’t as intense as the Baneling’s acid. Eh, don’t want to deal with these guys. I high tail it out of there with monster speed. There are other things I need to get done, and those Roaches are just distracting me.

“That’s not to say it was all a smooth ride. There was another creature before me who controlled the Zerg, a Brood Mother. She was not happy with me when I stole half her forces. The Brood Mother waged a war against me in retaliation. It was the biggest mistake of her life.”

I run past a large tree that ignites in green flame. From the flame, a hoard of Hydralisks slither down and spit their needles at me. I throw up the shield and the spike bombardment impales into the hardened tentacles.

“I’ll admit, that Brood Mother posed a considerable threat. Our armies were equally matched, neither able to get the upper fang on the other. It came down to a one on one battle between us leaders. While she was far more powerful than anything Equestria could throw at me, the outcome of our fight was determined long before we laid eyes on each other.”

With the Hydras to my side, I block their attacks with the shield and bolt through the forest. Before I get to far, the figure of the bug lady crosses my path. She walks in front of me with elegant arrogance, giving me that smug smile of hers. I know it’s not the real bug lady. Probably a Zergling or, if she’s getting creative, a Hydra.

“I won, because I have something she didn’t,” her faux form says. “Do you know what that something is? I’ll be disappointed if you don’t know, since you essentially stole it from me.”

I slash the bug lady’s form in half. The form doesn’t turn into green flame. Instead, it splatters into green goop. My claw plows through a ball of acid and my arm gets a good wallop of the stuff. I scream in agony as the acid takes its time dissolving my arm into goop and vapor.

“It’s the same thing that lets you survive popping a Baneling without much consequence.” The mind voice barely registers above the searing pain in my arm, but I still hear it. “Sure, you’re in agony right now, but you’ll heal up and be good as new in a few moments. I know that, because I can do it too. We share the same thing.”

I don’t answer. I just wail as the acid turns my arm into Swiss cheese.

“If you’re not going to answer, then I’ll do it for you. It’s Blacklight, child. We both have Blacklight in us, although mine is a more evolved strain than yours. Mine adapted to use Equestria’s magic, while yours is only the common, magic repellant strain. But we are the same in one regard. We cannot die. The Brood Mother didn’t expect someone who has transcended death to take her brood away. Her defeat was inevitable” - a loud slurping sound echoes in my mind -“and delicious!”

Sweet mercy, end the pain! I slice my own arm off with a monster claw. It comes with a burst of pain, but relief soon follows as I don’t feel my arm melting anymore. The arm hits the ground and curls up as the acid breaks down the muscle. Worth it.

“Hey, are you listening to me? The least you can do is pay attention to me when I‘m gloating!”

Black and red goop leaks from the fleshly severed stub. How long is it going to take to grow back my arm? Hope not too long, I still need to fight the Zerg. “I didn’t know cockroaches talk this much,” I say.

There’s a huff in my mind from the bug lady. I think she’s pouting. “You’re no fun. I’ll just let the Ultralisk kill you and laugh about my revenge later.”

“Didn’t you say I couldn’t die, though?”

The bug lady is silent for a moment. “Shut up.”

She says nothing else. Ah, silence. I’d enjoy the quiet longer, but I hear the tell tale sound of boulders running towards me.

The base of a nearby tree bursts into splinters when the Tyranid charges through it. Just like the bug lady said, here it comes. The Protoss are all still climbing its crest. They look like a bunch of golden ants climbing a dog. No clue how much damage they got in, but can’t be much. Their blades cut through the armor, but they don’t go deep.

The Tyranid barrels for me. It’s blades make a cut for me. Same as before, I leap and avoid the edges, then my wings flare out and give me a flap towards the giant’s crest. I slam a tumor claw into a scale, shattering it on impact. Before the Tyranid flings me off, I stab a monster claw into the flesh, and the tentacles dig in and start eating it up. This is getting a bit repetitive.

The tentacles hit the hard wall inside the Tyranid, just like before. Hmm, I’m going to have to get past that barrier if I want to off the giant for good. Once finished digging around, the tentacles rip the meat chunk and eat it, exposing that barrier to the open air. With my monster blades, I stab at the fleshy wall, but the flesh doesn’t tear apart. Instead, it stretches against my blade tips, then bounces back to position when I let it go.

Rubber flesh, that’s a new one on me. Maybe since the creature is so big, it’s got room to grow some weird muscles inside it. This flesh could keep the thing together whenever it crashes into a tree or something. I don’t know, I didn’t get a degree in biology. All I see is a wall I need to cut through somehow.

A little light bulb goes off in my head. Who has some good cutting tools? The Protoss. Their plasma blades pierce the Tyranid’s armor easily. That’s how they’re hanging on to the damn beast as it runs around. I bet they can cut through this flesh barrier.

I poke my head out of the cavity and find the nearest Protoss hanging for dear life. “Hey, can I get some help here? I have a way to kill this guy but I need to cut past some muscles.”

The Protoss looks at me, and I hear a sneer in my head. “Be gone, monster. I told you I will never fall for your tricks.”

Oh, that’s Ceretel. He’s not going to be any help at all. Behind me a different Protoss soldier climbs to the edge of the cavity. “I can lend you my blades,” the Protoss says.

Ceretel bursts out. “What are you doing?! You’re playing right into her trap!”

The Protoss meets eyes with his angry brother. “You’re letting your distrust get the better of you, Ceretel. This griffon has been fighting alongside us for the entire battle. If she says she has a way to kill an Ultralisk, then I believe her.”

“She’s manipulating us all! She may assist us this one time, but she’ll turn our trust against us and strike us when our guard is down!”

“I am no fool, even if you think of me as one for trusting this outsider. It may be the case the griffon will betray us once this is all over, but her actions are proof against that idea. The only reason we have to distrust her is your prejudice.”

“Have you forgotten the Queen of Blades? She came to us as an ally but turned out to be a snake waiting for the right time to strike.”

“I have not forgotten, none of us have. That’s why we’re not outright dismissing your concerns. But I also want this Ultralisk dead, so I’m helping the griffon.” The Protoss soldier ignores Ceretel’s glare as he hops over the edge and stands with me. “What did you need?”

I point to the fleshy wall. “Just a cut from a plasma blade. I need to get past that barrier.”

The Protoss nods. With a swish of his blade, he strikes into the fleshy wall. The flesh smolders as the blade splits a line open. The Tyranid, of course, is not happy about this. He roars and almost flings us all off with the flick of his head. Mmm, love the smell of cooking Tyranid in the morning.

I give the Protoss a thumbs up. “That’s it. Thanks.” He nods again and hangs on tight, waiting for me to do my thing. I glance up at Ceretel and point at the new hole. “That’s all I needed, man. Are you so hung up about me that you have to make a big deal over this?”

Ceretel says nothing. He just broods. Eh, he’ll get over it.

I jab my claw into the slit, and tentacles sprout out and surge forth. With the barrier gone, I feel the tentacles go in so much further than before. Right off the bat it’s effective. The Tyranid makes a sudden stop, almost throwing us all off this rodeo for the umpteenth time. It makes a low pitched whine with a bit of a gurgle to it.

“You all might want to get off,” I say to the Protoss. “This is about to get messy.”

The Protoss soldier in the cavity with me takes this to heart and scramble out as fast as he can. The other Protoss soldiers climbing the Tyranid pull out their blades from their armor and drop to the ground. Even Ceretel gets the heck off this thing. I think that’s the first time he’s listened to me. The Protoss run to what they think is a safe distance away from here.

The tentacles keep webbing their way inside the Tyranid. The giant is shaking. It makes a choking sound when I get to around its throat. One of the tendrils wraps around something that’s still beating. That must be it’s heart. Wait… that feels like… Why is its heart in its butt?

From all the sounds the beast is making, I gather this is an unpleasant process. I never thought about what this feels like on the other end. Nobody lives long enough for me to ask. It’s always slash, slash, eat, and they’re just gone. The eating thing goes by so fast I don’t have time to ask how it feels. On a scale of one to ten, how much agony are you in right now?

The tentacles stop growing out. The Tyranid feels like it’s on the brink of having a seizure. Yep, this feels like I’m ready. With a pull of a muscle, the tentacles whip out in a storm. The Tyranid makes one last groan before it explodes in a cloud of chunky gore. Tendrils eat and dissolve all the flying meat chunks. Finally, I killed the giant.

The meat chunks finish up and withdraw back into me. Something I notice is not everything got finished off. A bunch of armor plates are sticking to a bunch of the mass of tentacles, and the two ultra blades are wrapped up in a wad of tendrils. Odd. The armor and blades look like they’re still getting eaten. Harder material takes longer, I suppose.

The tentacles make a full withdrawal. Some of the armor plates pull on top of me. My skin flares up, and little globs of my flesh shoot and stick to the underside of the plates. Uh, that’s not normal. What’s my body doing? Is it using the Tyranid’s armor and making it my own?

My body isn’t stopping work with just the armor plates. It’s also working with the two ultra blades. They’re much smaller now with the whole eating thing. Now they’re a bit longer than my arms. The tentacles toy with them so that the bases of the blades touch each other, fusing them together. The tentacles retract completely back into my shoulder, leaving the two blades exposed. It takes me a moment to realize what I got. In place of a monster claw, or any claw for that matter, I have a Tyranid blade sticking out of my arm. I got a new weapon!

The tip of the blade starts a couple feet from where my normal claw should be, then the edge sweeps back around my forearm and ends a foot out from my elbow. I swing the blade around. It feels sturdy. It also feels weird not having and talons to wiggle around. I think I can slice a mega tree in half with this baby.

I give the rest of my body a look. The Tyranid armor is now completely fused with the rest of my body. Instead of feathers, I have jagged, rocky plates covering every inch of me. I can’t even call them scales. Each plate is large enough to wrap around half my body. I touch my face, and even that is covered in a hard shell. With the blade at my side, I look like what a knight might be if a reptile grew the parts to be one.

I stretch out my legs and my arms and crane my neck. Movement is a bit stiff with the armor, but other than that I have free range of movement. As a test, I shift back into my normal griffon form, then I command my body to grow the armor. It takes less than a second to go either way. It’s not any different than shape shifting into other ponies for disguises. What did that creature call this stuff, Chitinous Plating? I think I like it. Makes me look regal.

The Protoss who were climbing the Tyranid come running back over to me. None of them have faces for me to see their emotions, but they still have eyes, and those eyes are wide as they can me. Must be amazed I ate the thing in one go. The group stops a yard or so from me. The first of them to say anything isn’t Ceretel, but the Protoss who sliced the hole for me. “Are you fine?”

Am I fine? Ah, must be a bit concerned about my new look. I shift out the armor and the blade and go back to my normal griffon self. “Yep, I’m good. Just got a bit of Tyranid in me now.”

Before the Protoss says anything, Ceretel shoves his way to the front of the pack and raises his plasma blades at me. “See, what did I say?! You helped the monster eat the Ultralisk, and now she’s more powerful than before! You didn’t see her wearing that armor beforehand, did you? She’ll use her new abilities against us now!”

I rub the front of my head with a talon. “For the love of… I’m not going to do anything to the Protoss. Geez, it’s like you’re getting off on bashing me or something.”

“Enough from you,” Ceretel says. “I’m going to end this here and now, before you can do any more damage!”

The soldier charges for me and plunges his plasma blade in my chest. I look down, sniff, and gently pull him out of me. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“I will never trust you,” Ceretel seethes.

I roll my eyes. I have better things to do. Let’s see, go home, bitch slap Arctic North, fix up my scone shop, free Pinkie. Oh right, there’s still the bug lady problem I have to take care of.

My Gilda sense pings for the bug lady, and they give me a strong tug deeper into the forest. I crack my knuckles together and spin around to walk that direction.

“Do what you will,” I say to Ceretel, and then I look back at the rest of the gang. “I’ll be back in a little bit to borrow your warp network thingy so I can get back home. But first, I have to go eat an old friend.”

Before the Protoss say anything, I monster dash forwards into the woods, following my monster senses to the bug lady. Oh, I’m going to give it to her. She owes me for the Baneling in the face.

Author's Notes:

Notice: The Nexus Team is always looking for new members. If you want to be a part of the development process, or if you want to join the hundreds of people across the country fighting a shadow war against our tyrannical police state, go ahead and shoot us an email, or shoot at strategic locations.

- The Nexus Team

50 - Wings of Compromise! Just lower our tax rates and we'll stop protesting.

Why did the Griffon Empire fall from grace? A lot of the old geezers back at home say the kingdom collapsed when we lost that silly Idol of Boreas. But that was the Griffon Kingdom, which is only a tiny sliver on a larger continent. When the Griffon Empire was around, we had the whole continent. Our rule was the law of the land. What happened to that?

The scholars aren't quite sure. We have the ruins to prove the empire existed, and archeologists keep on finding written records of all the amazing things we did. But there’s nothing definitive pointing to what brought the whole ship down. Some say it was pressure from raiders from the east. Others say it was a collapsing bureaucracy taking everything with it to the grave. Many more say it was the griffon’s greed getting the better of them.

As a descendent of that mighty Griffon Empire, I have the real answer to what really happened. It was the greed. Definitely greed. Kind of obvious in hindsight.

The whole greedy griffon stereotype is not completely untrue. Actually, it’s pretty true. I bet those Empire griffons would call us modern griffons a disgrace. They’d be hypocrites, but they wouldn’t be wrong. Griffonstone is a third world country, a far cry from the once proud Griffon Empire. A bunch of shanty huts and a lost idol are all that’s left of that epic legacy. But I like to think some of that Empire blood still runs through us. We all still have pieces of the old legends inside ourselves, waiting to come out.

As my Gilda sense grows stronger the closer I get to that bug lady, I can feel those legend pieces coming out of me, yearning for glory. Those pieces are screaming at me to squash that bug!

After a few minutes of constant running, the mega trees thin out and open up to a clearing. Now that I’m out of the darkness of the forest, the two suns light up what I couldn’t see, and I wish they didn’t. The goop covering the forest floor doesn’t stop at the edge. It keeps going into the clearing. In fact, I think the goop is covering a good chunk of a continent. The stuff looks like rotting skin.

Farther in the clearing, there are giant structures jutting out of the landscape. These seem to be about as big as the Protoss buildings, but these are not those elegant art pieces. The structures all have a fleshy, insect quality to them. They look like giant alien pimples that are about to burst, supported by massive skeletons and rib cages. Ew, makes my skin crawl just looking at it all.

If the scenery didn’t give away the fact I’m at the Zerg’s doorstep, then all the Overlords drifting in the sky does it. They all float aimlessly in the air, keeping watch of everything below them. I eye them carefully as I continue to run over the goopy landscape, making sure they don’t drop any Banelings on me. Not letting that happen again.

It’s not long before the a swarm of Zerglings surge over a nearby hill, all of them scurrying for me. The Tyranid blade morphs out of my arm, and I run for the Zerglings head on. The blade cuts into the crowd. With one swing, I slice through eight Zerglings at once. It cuts them right down the middle, right between their upper and lower jaws. Their top halves go flying in the air while the bottoms go flopping on the floor.

There has to be around fifty Zerglings in this swarm. They all surround me, leaping for my throat from all sides. Anything that jumps, I slice it in half with the Tyranid blade, and chop apart a few others as well at the end of each swing. When I’m finished, all that’s left around me are the severed halves of a lot of dead demon hoppers.

Done, let’s run. The blade shifts into a normal claw and I keep on running, leaving behind the carnage. My monster sense is growing stronger as I approach. Bug Lady is deep in this alien mire. I bet she’s in the heart of it all.

The bug lady’s voice pops in my head. “Is pigeon brain looking for a worm to eat? We got plenty of those here.”

“Come out and face me!” I yell. I wish she’d get out of my damn head.

“But you’re already on your way to my throne. I see no reason why I have to move. Just keep running for the big hive. You’ll get here soon.”

I lock on to the large structure in the middle. It resembles the other blobs and boils in the landscape, but it’s much bigger. It’s a large maw sticking high in the sky with massive, barbed tendrils curling above it. Overlords are clumping around it, along with bat monster things that are flocking around the tendrils. Looks like a giant mutant kraken sticking out of the landscape.

“See it? Impressive, is it not? I’ll make things easy for you. My servants won’t attack you on your way over here. Yes, what a benevolent ruler I am!”

Oh joy, I get the red carpet treatment. Or would this be the goopy carpet treatment?

The big kraken boil thing gets bigger and bigger the closer I get too it. Jeez, look at the size of that thing. Did the Zerg build it or did it grow on its own? That question poses two different ideas. The first idea is these alien bugs are intelligent enough to construct mountain sized structures. The second idea is these alien bugs can just grow whatever they want, including mountain sized structures. Both ideas do not sit well with me. I’d hate to see what the Zerg could do if they came to Equestria.

I shudder at the thought. From what I’ve seen, Zerg coming to Equestria would be an absolute disaster. Total chaos. The Hydralisks would take our jobs and drive out working griffons for cheaper labor. The Zerglings would run around campaigning for better civil liberties, which is more than what griffons get. Banelings would sit around and drain all the social programs because they can’t do any hard labor or else they’ll literally explode. Zerg construction would out-compete local construction, since the aliens can either build better or grow their own buildings. Equestria would become a Zerg haven with mindless drones taking all our jobs and leaving us griffons to bite the dust.

Whatever I do, don’t let the Zerg get back to Equestria, or Grover forbid Griffonstone. Gotta keep them out, just like the hippies.

As the bug lady promised, my run is mostly Zerg free, apart from that one swarm of Zerglings I slaughtered. Occasionally I’ll see a shadow slithering behind a rock, or a bunch of menacing eyes staring at me from a crevice, but it’s mostly quiet. That is until I get to the base of the massive kraken hive.

A mass of tentacles erupts from the ground. I skid to a stop before I ram into those tentacles. They uncurl, and the figure of the bug lady ascends on a rising, pulsating throne. Her mouth twists into a jagged smile when she looks down at me. “Welcome to my lair,” the bug lady says. “I’m glad you found your way… to my trap!”

In a circle around me, several Banelings burst out from the ground. Their bulbous bodies rumble and surge as they verge on the brink of exploding. They pop out so fast I have no time to react. The only thing I have time for is to clench my eyes in anticipation of the acid bath.

The Banelings all go off at once. They all crack like fireworks, followed by a sloshing of goop. Crap, crap, crap! Of course the bug lady would try something like this. She saw how one Baneling wrecked my day. She must have figured out a whole ring of them will finish me off! This was stupid, Gilda, so stupid!

I wait for the inevitable melting agony, but it doesn’t come. I open one eye. The Banelings are gone. I’m standing in the middle of a green, sizzling puddle. I check my body for any damage. Everything is intact. I’m covered in green goop, but I’m not dissolving.

Bug lady seems to be just as confused as I am. “How are you not dead?” she asks. “You should be a screaming in agony right now.”

I shrug. “Dunno, this is a new one for me.” I scrape the goop off my arm, flicking a thick glob of it to the ground. My arm looks to be intact, except it looks a bit different. Instead of my normal griffon arm, I’m looking at a tree branch covered in bone. “Yep, really new.”

As I brush more of the goop off, I reveal more and more bone. It's thick stuff, with a bumpy, thorny texture. Hey, it’s that Chitinous Plating from the Tyranid. I guess it came out in the nick of time to protect me.

“New toy,” I say out loud. “I’m figuring out how to play with it.”

“No matter,” bug lady says. “I’ll just kill you the old fashion” –

I jump at her. The Tyranid blade morphs out and slashes for her neck. I’m done talking. All I want to do is kill you and go home. No more bull crap!

Bug lady steps back. Before I lob her head off, she flicks a hoof up in the air and her leg morphs into a long, straight blade. My curved blade strikes the edge of the straight blade, making a loud clang that rings my ears.

I pause for a moment. “Uh, what’s with that sword thing?”

The bug lady smirks at me. “How did you think Changelings shapeshift, with magic?” With her other forehoof, she punts me in the chest, shattering my rib cage without any effort. A glob of red goop flies out of my beak, and I go tumbling back down to the ground. The bug lady’s blade breaks apart into a mass of tentacles. These tentacles slither back into her leg and form a hoof. “If you bothered to listen to my gloating, you’d know that you and I are both Blacklight. I can do anything you can, but better.”

The bones in my chest realign with help from the tentacles. I push myself up and look the bug lady dead in the eye. “I don’t give a damn what you are. You’re just getting in the way of me going home.”

“I don’t have to get in your way to change that,” the bug lady says. “There is no way home. Trust me, I’ve tried. You and me, we’re trapped here in this accursed realm. There is no escape.”

“I don’t care what you say. I’m going to go home, one way or another. I have a scone shop to run.”

The bug lady smirks. “You’re very one-track minded. Is there anything else you care about other than your precious scones?”

My blade swings for her neck, but she steps out of the way. “Sure, but what does it matter to you?”

“I just told you we’re both Blacklight. In fact, I believe you were created from my own blood. Don’t you care about that?”

“I don’t see why that’s relevant.” Another swing. She avoids it without trying. “If you’re trying to say you’re my mother or something I got news for you. You have to smell a lot worse before you’ll even get close to my mom!”

“In some ways I am,” she says. She frowns for a second. “Minus the smelling. But I don’t think you’re grasping what I’m telling you. We are both Blacklight! You’re a walking hive of Blacklight. Your old body, that’s gone. You’re just an imitation of your old foolish self. Your mother isn’t even your mother anymore. How do you feel about that?”

Slash, slash, slash. Dodge, dodge, dodge. Why won’t she stand still!? “Sounds pretty stupid.”

In the middle of one of my strikes, her wings spring into action and she flies over my blade, over my head, and lands right behind me. Her tails flicks my flank when she lands. “More intelligent people would be perplexed by this news. ‘Am I really me? Am I a completely different person? Do memories make me who I am or is there more to me than just my thoughts?’”

The blade arcs around me as I twist back. The bug lady steps out of the arc long before it cuts her in half. “Do you ever stop talking? I swear you’re doing this for attention.”

Bug lady’s hoof erupts in a green flame and shifts into a sword. I look close, and I can see tentacles moving around behind those green flames. Ah, just for show. “You’re probably right. I think I’m in need of some attention. The Zerg aren’t good conversationalists.”

She lunges for me. Her sword slides for my neck. I parry with my Tyranid blade and throw a punch with my free claw. The punch aims for her stomach, but the bug lady grabs it with her free hoof. Tentacles sprout out of the hoof and envelope my claw. My claw goes from normal to monster, and my scythes shoot out and rip her tentacles apart. She shouts in pain and jumps back to her throne.

I stick my rear paw into the ground. A moment later, the bug lady’s throne erupts in a cluster of blades. She jumps in the air before the blades tear her to ribbons. Her bug wings flutter, and she goes higher in the air, almost as high as the Overlords above us, far above where I can reach. “This fight is futile. Submit yourself to me and I’ll show you mercy. I might even make you my most trusted servant.”

I super jump towards her, winding up my blade for a slice. Her horn glows green and she fires magic bolts at me. They all hit me and knock me out of the air. I go tumbling back, but my wings shoot out and I’m able to stabilize myself for a glide back to the ground.

She continues to fire magic bolts at me. I draw out my shield and block her volley from hitting me. The bolts pop and fizzle safely on the other side. My feet touch down on the ground and I run towards the remains of her throne. When I get there, I grab the largest throne section I can find and, with my monster strength, chuck it in the air towards bug lady.

Bug lady darts out of the way and the throne piece whizzes by her. It collides with an Overlord, which explodes in a gooey red cloud from the impact. Mmm, that was satisfying.

“If you’re anything like me like you say,” I yell up at the bug lady, “then you’d come down here and fight me for real!”

“Give me a break,” she says in my head. “If you could shoot spells, that’s all you’d be doing. You’re always taking the easy route. But if you want a ground fight, I’ll give you a ground fight.”

Two bug lady clones erupt from the ground next to me. They flutter their wings and hiss at me. Is she really sending her minions after me? I can slaughter them by the dozens. What are two clones going to do to me?

“You said you wanted me to come down there, so I did.”

“Smart ass roach,” I mutter under my breath.

My Tyranid blade slashes at the hissing clones. It cleaves through the first one, and then bangs against something hard and invisible. The blade stops, leaving one clone bisected, although the clone doesn’t seem to notice. It’s still hissing despite the fact the top half of its body is floating an inch above the bottom half. Huh?

The clones erupt into green flame, and the green flames plume out into a firestorm. When the flames die out, I find myself standing between the massive blades of two gargantuan Tyranids.

My pupils shrink to pinpricks. “There are more of them?!”

“Isn’t that something you should already know? One of my Queens told you directly there would be more. You’re terrible at listening. Why do I even put in the effort in talking with you?”

“Shut up” – I jump mid sentence when the Tyranids slash at me with their blades. I land on the crest of one of them, and shake my fist up at the air – “you fat ass tick! Get out of my head!”

“Temper, temper. It boggles my mind how that rainbow pegasus thought you were a good friend with that mouth of yours.”

The Tyranid I’m on flicks its head. I’m not prepared, so it flings me a mile towards the giant kraken hive thing. I recover mid air and manage to hit the ground without tripping. “You have no right to talk about Rainbow!”

A green magic bolt blasts me in the face. The Chitinous armor protects me, but the force flips me on my back. “Why are you upset about that? I think I played a pretty good Rainbow Dash. If anyone has the right to talk about her it’s me.”

“You used her to trick me!”

“Be honest with yourself. That’s not hard to do.”

Tentacles burst out of the ground and wrap themselves around me. I try to escape, but they lasso me before I have the chance to do anything. They tighten their hold against me, keeping me hard to ground. I struggle against them, but they’re too strong to shake off.

The bug lady comes flying down, smirking as she watches me try to escape these tentacles. “In a way, I pity you,” she says as she lands next to me. “You have no idea what’s going on and you’re not smart enough to figure it out. You’re just as clueless as the day you broke out of that lab. You’re a dog, Gilda. You roam the world without a care, following your nose to the next plate of food. But you don’t have the intelligence to realize how much power your masters have over your life, and how little you mean to the world.”

My cluster of blades sprouts from underneath the bug lady, but she’s out of the way before they impale her. I bet my Griffon Empire ancestors didn’t have to fight monsters this annoying.

Bug lady draws out her sword again with a flash of green fire. “Of course pity won’t save you now.” She points the blade at me, then jabs it in my throat, piercing the Chitinous armor. I cough up globs of red black goop. The sword breaks up inside me and splits into a bunch of tentacles, all of which dig through my neck. “You know what comes next. This is the part where I eat you.”

I twist and turn to try to break out of the large tentacles holding me down. No luck. I try cutting them with the Tyranid blade, but the ground tentacles press it down so it can’t move. All the while, the bug lady’s tentacles dig under my skin. My own tentacles try to fight them off, but bug lady bats them away. It’s a little mini battle inside me! Feels like snakes are fighting it out inside my veins. It’s making my skin crawl, literally

Crap, crap, crap! This is what I get for breaking out a bug lady, death by tentacles?! My lungs are going stiff as my monster body works overtime to try to stop the invaders from eating me. Ugh, it’s like worms, just all worms. Yep, it’s bad, but in a different way than I expected. It’s not total agony that I’m feeling, it’s violation. Just feels wrong having something all up inside your grill. I’ve done this a lot to Blackwatch goons, and I’m getting an idea of how they felt.

I never was a fan of ironic deaths.

While the cosmos is laughing at my doom, something catches my eye. Up in the sky, something with a blue glow flies past the Overlords. It dips down towards us, and I see more detail. It looks like a cluster of blue, transparent petals, all folded in a neat pattern. It also has some gold trim. Oh hey, it’s got a gold and glowing blue color scheme. Jeez, I wonder who it belongs to.

The thing makes weird, metallic gurgling sound when it flies close to us. When it’s almost overhead, the nose flips up and stops mid air. The petals unfold out and a beam of light emits from the center of the thing. A glass ringing fills the air, similar to the ringing of the giant Protoss crystals, and two balls of energy appear next to us.

The bug lady flips around to face the energy balls. Her horn glows green and she fires off a large magic bolt at one of them. The magic bolt splashes off the left one, and the right one raises a hand and fires a bolt of lightning at the bug lady. Lightning and bug collide, and the bug lady goes flying off me. Her sword rips out of my throat, leaving behind her mass of tentacles inside me. Without the source, they lose their strength, and my body quickly consumes them.

One of the energy balls comes up to me. From it, a deep voice resonates in my head, far deeper than the other Protoss voices. “Do you need assistance?”

I struggle against the tentacles holding my body some more. Nope, not getting out of those on my own. “Yes, please.”

The energy ball raises its hand. Lightning shoots out and blasts the tentacles apart. I jump up on my feet and kick the writhing tentacles into the ground. Once I’m done ensuring those tentacles won’t ever try something funny again, I give the energy balls a thumbs up. “Thanks for the save. How’d you know I was in trouble?”

“We followed the screaming of a tiny girl, and that led us to you,” one of the energy balls says.

Oh, now I’m a tiny girl. Could be worse. I could be a tiny boy.

A familiar voice sounds off in my head. “Why didn’t you leave the creature trapped?” Behind the energy balls, a group of Protoss soldiers comes around. The lead soldier glares a me. “Now you unleashed her and made her our problem again.”

“I think you’re over exaggerating how much of a threat this griffon is, Ceretel,” the energy ball says. “And with all due respect, we’re all getting sick and tired of your complaints.”

“How can you be so careless?” Ceretel says. “If you give this creature any inch of mercy, she’ll turn around and attack while we’re not looking!”

One of Ceretel's soldier buddies speaks up. “We know. You’ve reminded countless times already. And for another countless time, yes this could turn into another Kerrigan, yes we are all cautious about it, no we’re not going to persecute someone out of fear alone. The Protoss are above tribal judgment.”

As they’re all bickering about my life, the bug lady is getting up a ways from us. The lightning bolt didn’t look like it did much. In fact, I can see tentacles in her chest patching up the wound. “Uh, guys…”

“As you said, this could turn into another Kerrigan! We should not allow any chance of that happening!”

“And if all the Protoss had your mindset when the Queen of Blades first arose, then we would have killed the Dark Templar when they came to our rescue! Should we slay all creatures we encounter, whether they’d be friend or foe just because there’s a chance they’re foe?”

Once the tentacles finish patching bug lady up, she looks at us with a snarl. Her horn ignites with green magic, and she takes to the air with her bug wings. “Hey, everyone, we still have” –

“That’s different! The Nezarim are fellow Protoss. They don’t have rows of teeth or bat wings or barbed tails or anything like that! They’re elegant and proud, just like us. This griffon creature isn’t one of us. She’s a Zerg monster, waiting for the right time to strike.”

The bug lady’s voice screams in my head. “I’m going to wipe your friends off this planet!”

Oh for Grover’s sake! I grab Ceretel by the shoulders, whip him around in front of me, ignore his protests, and point at the flying bug lady about to fire her horn. “Look! Big bug in sky. Shoots pew pews. We go squish squish. Is that too hard for you to understand?!”

The bug lady fires a beam of green magic at us. I shift out my shield and block the blast. Magic bolts go flying all around us, scorching the ground and leaving an awful smell behind. From behind me, the energy balls fire lightning blasts at the bug lady. She dodges and weaves around them, leaving without a scratch.

“What in Tassadar’s name is that monster?!” Ceretel shouts.

I shrug. “Some crazy bug lady. I think she thinks she’s my mom. I don’t know. Point is she’s controlling the Zerg and if you want these attacks to stop you’ll help me put her six feet under.”

Ceretel pushes me away and holds out a plasma blade at me. “And what will you gain out of this? You’re going to take control of this brood once we do kill her, isn’t that right.”

My eyes roll. “What I get out of this is the good grace from you guys to send me home so you never have to think of me again.”

“Hmpf, or you have an ulterior motive you’re hiding.”

“What ulterior motive could I possibly have? I want to go home. I want a long hot shower to get rid of all the gore and Baneling juice I got on me today. The only reason I want this chick dead is so I can” – I stop. I just realized how ridiculous this is. Why am I arguing with this guy? I’m more or less on the good side of all the other aliens, so why am I trying to justify myself against him?

“So you can take this brood for yourself,” Ceretel says.

None of this is going to be over soon if I don’t do anything about it. That’s the way things are right now. I sigh. Got to put some elbow grease in this if I want to speed things up. “Ceretel, what’s your opinion of that bug lady?”

The Protoss glances up at the flying insect horse circling around lighting strikes. “A vile monster, just like you. Make no mistake, she is no better than you, but that doesn’t change my stance towards you.”

I look up at the bug lady as well. Ceretel is super paranoid about me, but at least he’s smart enough to realize bug lady is a threat too. “Good to know.”

“Why is that relevant?”

I shrug. “Oh, just thinking. I can probably kill her myself, if she didn’t have those wings.”

The Protoss’s brow rises a bit. “Are you going to say what I think you’re going to say?”

“What am I going to say?”

“That we should team up. Because I’ll have you know we can take her out without your help.”

The bug lady loops around a few more bolts. She stops for a moment to blow a raspberry at the energy balls, then zips out of the way before another blast nabs her. Yeah, you’re all doing an excellent job on your own. “Could you cut off her wings?”

“Of course.” He holds up his plasma blade for me to see. “These will cut through anything.”

“Alright. Can you do that from down here?”

“I can’t fly. What do you think?”

“Oh, you can’t fly?” With monster speed and strength, I grab Ceretel by the waist. He yelps when I heft him over my head. “Let me help you with that.”

Ceretel screams when I chuck him at the bug lady. It’s a loud enough scream to grab everyone’s attention. Soldiers, energy balls, and even bug lady all turn to see what the heck is screaming like a little girl. Hehe. Since it doesn’t sound like my screaming voice, it gives the bug lady enough pause not to dodge the flailing soldier.

By the time Ceretel slams into the bug lady in mid air, he gained his bearings of what was going on and straightened himself out. His plasma blades jab under bug lady’s wings right before their heads and chests smack into each other. They make a loud clack sound, followed by a quiet zap.

Ceretel and the bug lady bump off each other and fall to the ground. Above them, two pairs of transparent bug wings flutter gently down. Sweet, two problems with one angry Protoss.

Bug lady smacks into the goop covered ground. Ceretel is more prepared, and he lands with a graceful roll. Bug lady pushes herself off the ground. Green goop is dripping from her nose. Oof, that did not look pleasant.

Before bug lady can recover, she receives a body full of me plowing into her at full monster speed. Her exoskeleton cracks from the force of me bear hugging her, and she coughs green goop all over my face. I smirk at her. “What’s the matter? Can’t you walk away from a fall like I can?”

She pushes her nose right up against my beak and looks at me with narrow eyes. “Fool. I can defeat you. I can regrow my wings. What pathetic attempt of a plan are you trying to accomplish?”

“The one where I squash you like a bug!” Bug lady tries to get off a spell, but the ancient Griffon Empire ancestor in me roars in her ear. The spell fizzles when the roar stuns her. The ancient Griffon Empire ancestor in me is excited!

We fast approach the giant kraken hive in the middle of all this. Bug lady tries to regain her senses, but the wall is going to come before she can do anything. Hope you’re ready to get squashed, you dirt beetle dweeb!

We hit the wall at well over lethal speed. The Zerg wall splatters when we plow in -

51 - Watch Out For Trains

- And burst out the other side. I trip over and face plant in some dirt. Globs of flesh and goop splatter all over my back.

Huh, that was a quick ride. I thought I’d be plowing through a mile of flesh given how big the kraken hive is. I stand up and brush the dust and goop out of my feathers. Jeez, I’d expect the Zerg to keep their space a little cleaner than this. Did bug lady teach them any manners?

Wait… Where’s bug lady?

I look down where I just landed. There’s a griffon shaped impression in the dirt, but no bug lady. One would think she’d get compacted in the ground from my body weight, but there’s nothing here to suggest she was ever under me. The heck? Did she escape that? She was trapped in my bear hug, and I didn’t see her do any tricks with her horn. Where the heck did she go?

As I try to figure out where that pain in the ass went, something weird grabs my attention. The bug lady is gone, but so are the rest of the Zerg. The goop covering the ground isn’t here. It’s all dried up dirt. None of the big Zerg structures are anywhere to be seen. It’s mostly dead trees from here to the horizon. There aren’t any Overlords drifting above me. It’s all clear sky. Well, it’s not all that clear. The sky is pretty hazy. It’s got a sickly brown tint to it. I can barely see the sun through this brown soup of a sky.

Hold on a second, the sun? As in one sun, singular…

Didn’t this world have two suns?

Something chitters behind me. I flip around and come face to face with the biggest bug I’ve ever seen in my life. It looks similar to a caterpillar, except browner and uglier. It’s rearing back and standing on its hind legs, no doubt to look more intimidating. On its face are a bunch of little feeler antennae and several black, soulless eyes. Ugh, this thing smells as bad as it looks. What were the Zerg thinking when they made this ugly bastard?

“Can I help you?”

The ugly caterpillar makes a sucking sound from the back of its throat, and then it spits a sticky wad at my face. I wipe the putrid substance with a swipe of the claw.

“I see. So we’re still on not good terms.”

Behind the caterpillar, I notice a Zerg structure of some sort. It’s a boil, of course, with tubes and holes going all over it. The tubes look like they’re pumping something. Inside the holes are what look to be white eggs. One of the eggs pops, and another creature pops out. This one looks like an ugly caterpillar too, except it has a shell that bulges above the shoulders and it has large pincers that look like they can take off someone’s leg.

“Huh… I thought you Zerg had more teeth.”

The ugly caterpillar spits in my face again. Again, I wipe the substance off with a claw. It appears we’re using primitive forms of communication to speak. If that’s what’s going on, then the course of action should dictate us devolving into fisticuffs. Considering how many bouts of fisticuffs I’ve won in the past hour alone, I’d say this is a pretty stupid move on the caterpillar’s part. Then again, I don’t think it can do anything other than make stupid moves.

“Can you” -

Another wad of mysterious substance nabs me in the face. Fisticuffs it is! The Tyranid blade comes out and I decapitate the caterpillar on the spot. Two halves hit the ground. Its legs squirm and substance pours out of its maw as the death throes take over. I’ve learnt my lesson, can’t be civil with the Zerg.

A pair of jaws clamps down on my arm. Ow! The creature that came out of the egg mere seconds ago is now pinching down on the wrist the Tyranid blade is attached to. I punch the thing in its many eyes, which makes it let go of me. Before it gets another bite on me, I stomp the crap out of its shell.

But it’s not over yet. Once the biter is nothing but mush, another wad of substance hits me in the face. Oh come on! I thought I killed the spitter. The two caterpillar halves are still squirming in front of me, so I know it didn’t do the spitting. I glance up to see... Oh for Grover’s sake!

There are more biters and spitters, all pouring out of the boil nest thing. The spitters are lobbing wads at me, and the biters are making a full frontal stampede for me.

Is this it? Is this all the Zerg? I check for anything else that may be coming for me. Other than a couple other boil nests I didn’t see behind the first, this is it. This is all the Zerg I got to deal with.

Screw this. I punch a biter before it gnaws at my leg. This is just a nuisance. I’ll let the Protoss deal with this if they really want these Zerg gone. Let them get wadded in the face!

I turn and split for the great open desert away, making tracks away from the pesky caterpillar Zerg. Goop wads splatter behind me as I make a break for it. After a couple seconds of running, I look back to see the bugs that were chasing me turning back around to head back to their nests. Ah good, they were protecting their territory. That means they won’t come and turn me into a snack.

I’ll let them retreat. For now I’ll keep running until… I don’t know, until I meet up with the Protoss again, I suppose.

Where did the Protoss go anyways? My Gilda senses pings for Ordeas, but they come up blank. That’s strange. They ping for Ceretel, as if I want to deal with his crap again. Nothing. Uh… Saltair, the guy with the Phoenix? Once more, nothing.

I don’t want to do this one. Bug lady? Gilda sense returns a negative on her location. That’s a relief.

Where the heck did everyone go?

“… The little bird really is mad. Can she not hear all the voices?”

Uh… Is someone talking to me? That can't be it. There’s no one else here! That voice had to be the wind, unless those bugs can talk…

Hold off on that thought. I see something. Something is coming up on the horizon. It’s blocked by all the haze, so it looks fuzzy from this distance. It’s long and gray. Kind of looks like a wall. If it’s a wall, then thank Grover there’s someone else in this planet! Someone had to build that wall, so I can’t be all alone here.

Hmm, doesn’t look like something either the Protoss or Zerg would make. It's too blocky. Let’s hope whoever built that wall also built hot showers. Baneling goop is not good for my feathers.

As I get closer, it becomes more obvious the wall is indeed a wall. The haze makes the details difficult to see, but I can pick out ramparts and structural reinforcements. It doesn’t look like a castle wall, so its not griffon or Equestrian. For how long it is, it’s not very tall. I’d say it’s about a ten foot high strip of concrete that goes a long way either direction. Ten feet isn’t much for a wall. Someone can easily climb over it with a ladder. Maybe it’s just to keep the bugs out.

A few seconds later, and I step on something metal. I skid to a stop and turn back to investigate. Whatever I stepped on is covered by a layer of sand. Maybe the Protoss left something buried.

I brush the sand off to reveal a long, metal strip. It goes off in either direction, just like the wall. Bits of it are gleaming from under the desert some ways off from here. Odd. I keep brushing away the sand to reveal more metal bits. There are steel rods sticking out from the metal strip’s side. Further digging reveals there’s another metal strip connected to the ends of the rods.

Two metal strips running next to each other, connected by a bunch of metal rods. Hey, I know what this is! These are rails! Trains go over these. Right now I’m standing on a semi buried railway. Huh, this is an interesting find. I’m assuming these rails belong to whoever built the wall over there. I don’t think the Protoss use railways, but at least I know I’m dealing with an industrialized civilization. No doubt they have hot showers.

One question. If these are rails, then where’s the tr-

A locomotive rams me up the ass with a loud clang and carries me down the tracks. We’re going so fast the wind is threatening to tear my face off. Over the roar of the wind and the fact my ears fused with this metal beast on impact, I can hear the inner workings of a high torque multi-engine diesel powerhouse pulling cargo wagons with thousand ton payloads at breakneck speeds. It’s a deep growl accented by the clickity clacking of going over the rails. This train stops for no one.

Oh hey, I found the train!

I peel myself off the front of the train. The mass of my body left a large griffon shaped dent in the train’s plow. When my spine realigns itself after the impact, I grab what I can get a hold of and climb up to the train’s top. Once I’m up on the roof, I get a nice view of the landscape around me.

There’s a lot more going on than I thought. It’s not just desert. There are forests and plains, and a few ridges lining the horizon. From up here, I can see more caterpillar boils dotting the desert. Some are in groups of two or three. On the other side of what I think is a lake, there’s a whole field of those boils sticking out of the ground. It’s no Zerg hive, but it is an acne epidemic scarring the landscape. I’m glad I didn’t come out of that mess.

But that’s the outside of the wall. The inside is a whole different ball game. The inside of the wall looks like a sea of machines. There are rows upon rows of blast furnaces billowing smoke from their chimneys. Right next door to those are rows upon rows of big metal boxes with gears and pistons sticking out on top. Those gears and pistons are all moving and spinning at crazy speeds. All of these machines have some sort of doohickies coming out of them, whether they be metal plates or fully constructed engine units.

Am I looking at a factory? Oh. I am. This was not what I was expecting.

The train makes a sharp turn towards the wall. I fling off the roof, and I only save myself by grabbing a railing on the side. The train finishes the turn as fast as it starts it, and I climb right back up on top. Jeez, if I was a passenger inside this thing, I’d be smacking my face against the window every time it made a turn like that. I clutch my claws tighter to whatever I can grab. Not letting that happen a second time.

The wall comes at us fast, then we wiz right by it. The land goes from sand to machinery in a quick snap. I’m assaulted my smoke plumes and the sound of grinding cogs and hissing pistons. Yep, this is definitely not Protoss. I sort of knew I wasn’t on the same planet anymore, but all this just confirms it.

Something zips past my head. I turn to see what the heck that was. A silver dot flies away from me as it heads to some unknown part of the factory. That was odd. I wonder what that thing was.

Not a moment later, something hard smacks me upside the head. I tumble to the train car behind the locomotive, almost falling in between the two. The metal thing that clogged me in the head clatters past me and scrapes across the car. After fixing the massive crack in my skull, I head over to the metal object and pick it up to examine it.

It’s a weird little thing. It’s sort of like a tube with a fan in the middle of it. Little metal arms are sticking out of its sides, and it has a couple little blinking lights in a few places. The fan tries to spin up again, but it only shoots out sparks when it tries.

Weird little thing. I toss it off the side of the train and it disappears in the field of machinery whizzing by us. How did I end up on this odd little world?

Definitely a new world. I don’t think the Zerg things by the boils are actually Zerg. The machines here are definitely not Protoss. The last place I was at had two suns, not one. Yep, different world. Explains why everyone disappeared on me.

Crap, I’m not on the same planet as the Protoss, which means the Protoss can’t send me home! I got myself stuck on a different planet and I don’t know how! Now how am I going to get back to Equestria?

Metal squeals. I lurch forward when the train hits the breaks. The machines blurring past us become a little less blurry. The deceleration doesn’t throw me off like the sudden turn, but it does come out of nowhere. While it’s slowing down, I see a fork up ahead in the tracks. I latch on before it makes another sharp turn, but at least the train is going slower this time. It crawls up next to a large rectangle of burning furnaces. The nearest furnace is probably a good twenty yards away, but I can feel the heat wafting from all the way over here. It kind of looks like a graveyard full of tombstones that are all portals to Tartarus.

Here’s something weird I noticed. There’s no one operating any of these machines. A lot of the machines I passed are running on their own, but there wasn’t anyone there to run them. Sure, the whole point of letting machines do the work would be to let them go without help, but they still need an operator to at least do maintenance. The only thing I’ve seen is that metal fan thing I hit and I don’t think it was doing much.

Wait… What if that fan thing was the operator? What if I hit someone really important and now that important person is dead? What if that was their king? Oh boy, the locals won’t be happy if I killed their fan king. That would be bad. I, the emissary for the once great Griffon Empire, may have committed regicide. Last thing I need is a bunch of metal fans chasing me out of town. That happened to a friend of mine at a rock concert.

The train hisses to a stop. I guess this is where I get off. Oh boy, hope the locals don’t gut me when I step out. Before I get so much as a foot off this train, the roof of my train cart falls out from under me. I fall into a pile of shiny rocks inside the cart. Wasn’t much of a fall. Just surprised me.

Oh haha, very funny. This is what I get for hitting the king. I claw my way up to the top of the pile and poke my head out of the cart. Maybe this is just a local custom they greet all newcomers with. Hey, the Protoss shot magic bolts at me when we met. I’m not a stranger to weird greetings.

The shiny rocks rumble, and the pile I’m standing on shrinks. I’m about to grab the ledge when the rocks pull me under. Everything in the cart shifts around, and a moment later I’m buried underneath sparkling rubble. Okay guys, you can stop this weird greeting of yours. Getting buried alive is one of my phobias! I roll and tumble in the rock pile. I’m sure all these rocks bashing me from all sides would kill a normal griffon, but I’m glad I’m the exception. I get to have all the fun of baseball sized rocks hitting me in the head without the downsides!

A minute of rocks brutalizing me later, something grabs my ankle. I shriek in surprise. I hope that’s not a local. Please don’t sacrifice me to your gods! Something yanks me out of the rocks, and I land out in open air with dust settling all around me. The thing lets go of me, and I sputter a cough and I push myself off the ground. Would it be a bad thing to say I preferred when Ceretel was stabbing me?

I stand up and brush the dust out of my feathers. Baneling juice, shiny rock dust, life is driving me to the point where I’ll kill to get a shower. I’m only half joking.

Why are the machines moving?

I’m in the middle of all the big furnaces, and they all are moving past me. Am I missing something? I look down at the ground. I’m standing on some metal plates with yellow arrows painted on them at regular intervals. The arrows are still, but the ground next to them is moving past me. Wait a moment… No, the ground is still, it’s the arrows that I’m standing on that are moving.

Oh, I’m moving on a conveyor belt. That answers my question. New question, where am I moving too?

The belt carries me down through the field of furnaces, or if you want have fun, tombstone Tartarus portals. It’s mouthy, but sounds awesome. Lot hotter down here than it was up at the train. Not as hot as that burning blimp I had to go through, thank Grover for that.

Out of nowhere, a large, metal claw grabs my throat. Ack! I did not see where that came from! With the strength of a hundred bulls, the claw lifts me up and chucks me into the open mouth of a furnace. I latch on to the mouth edges, not thinking how hot they could be. My talons get deep roasted in my attempt to stop myself from getting chucked in a metal melting fire. Good news is I don’t need to worry about trimming my nails ever again. Bad new is AAAHHH! MADAFAACKMMMMMAA!

I push myself off the mouth and land at the base of the furnace. Blowing air on my talons helps a bit with the sting while my nerves repair themselves, but only a bit. Son of a bison, when will the griffon abuse end?!

The metal claw that grabbed me swings over my head and drops a bunch of shiny rocks in the furnace. The claw is connected to an arm, which is connected to a base, and the base is sitting right next to me. Stupid thing was hiding between the machines! That’s how it snuck up on me. I kick the claw when it’s swinging back. The claw falls on the conveyor where it moves away from me. At some point another claw picks it up and tosses it in another furnace. Burn, baby, burn!

King or no king, I need to find the guy who runs this place so I can give them a piece of my mind. There are safety hazards everywhere!

A loud bang cracks through the air. Almost the same instant, a bunch of sparks fly off the furnace, and something nasty stings me in the knee. I wince, but I’ve had worse. The tentacles fix up the knee sting, and a tiny metal ball pops out of the hole in my knee cap.

I trace the bang sound to somewhere behind me. Standing by the train is a figure holding what looks to be some kind of magic shooter. The figure is standing on two feet like a Protoss, but there’s nothing about him that looks Protoss. He’s got fewer angles, no gold or blue. Instead, he’s dressed in what appears to be metal plates with an orange hard hat on top. I can’t see his face. He’s got a metal face protector or something like that.

Hard Hat aims the magic shooter at me. Ah, I see what’s going on. “Hey, what gives? What gives you the right to shoot at me?”

The figure perks up when I talk. He looks a bit confused to the fact I can use language. But his confusion doesn’t last long. He shrugs, puts away his magic shooting, and gets out a shorter, stockier tool that looks like a different kind of magic shooter.

The front of the creature’s new weapon lights up with the sound of a violent bowel movement. In the same moment, a bunch of invisible wasps sting me in the chest, splattering my goop all over the floor. Out of reflex, the shield comes out, and the bees turn into a pitter patter against the hardened flesh.

More metal balls spill out of the holes in my chest. Alright, that isn’t a magic shooter. It’s something else entirely. It’s not frying my flesh. It’s going inside me. Feels like it’s giving my tentacles a work out. Welp, baddie identified, doesn’t want to talk. My skin morphs into chitinous armor, the shield goes away, and I charge Hard Hat head on. Another bang from his big shooter. The armor doesn’t completely stop his shots, they dig into the scales, but it puts up enough resistance to not pierce my fleshy bits.

The Hard Hat notices his attack doesn’t stop me. He pulls out a handful of metal spheres and tosses them in the air. The spheres light up either green or red, and little legs and antenna pop out of their heads. The spheres make some buzzing sounds and they all fly around Hard Hat.

The flying spheres confuse me for a moment, that is until they start flying towards me. The green ones stick around the Hard Hat and fire magic bolts at me. Those fizzle against my armor. The red ones fly over my head and shoot lightning bolts out of their bottoms. Those are the ones that get me.

Zap! Ow. Zap! Ow. Zap. Ow! These aren’t as bad as those shocks Blackwatch gave me at my scone shop, but they’re still not fun. Retreat!

I trip over a claw machine as I scramble to get out of the range of the spheres. The red ones keep dive bombing me and take every chance to shock my ass. The claw machine falls over, and I squeeze through a gap in the furnaces. The heat is wafting over my back, and the spheres are diving through the gap above me to give me some nasty shocks.

The field of tombstone furnaces ends at a train track. Right as I’m about to step on the rails, a massive train goes flying inches in front of my face. The wind nearly blows off my feathers. Okay, lessoned learned, watch where I’m going in this place. I ignore the swarming spheres for a moment to make sure no other trains are coming, then I run over the tracks to an open paved clearing.

A sphere makes a bombing run for my head. Sparks pop out from its prongs. It swings down to shock me, but I slash it to pieces with a strike from my monster claws. Its metal bits clatter on the concrete. Two more spheres come down to shock me. Just like the first one, I slash them apart with overkill blades. The spheres don’t bother avoiding my strikes.

More and more spheres come flying at me. I break as many as I can, but for every one that I turn to scrap, five more come along to pump thousands of volts down my throat. You know, I opened up a scone shop and avoided Blackwatch for a year so I wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of shit. Yet here I am.

Another train comes rolling down the tracks. It smashes a few straggler spheres that are coming for me. Hmm, I could use that. I monster sprint towards the train and catch the last car before it escapes my reach. The train rips through the factory, leaving the furnace graveyard and all those zappy spheres behind. Those things try flying after me, but the train is just too fast for them.

I get on top of the train and run up to the main engine. Those collapsing roofs aren’t going to fool me twice. The smoggy wind whips past my face. The growl of the diesel engine gives me a nice foot massage. Oh, this is nice. A moment of quiet, or at least a moment where something isn’t trying to kill me. I haven’t had a moment like this since, oh… before that Protoss Zerg battle? Jeez, that was only a couple hours ago. Barely an hour, now that I think about it. So much shit went down that it feels like months.

And my scone shop, the attack on my scone shop was only this morning. Or maybe it was yesterday. I think I might have had a nap in that Nexus void, but that place was so dull and grey I have no clue if I did anything in there. So depending if I had a nap or not, everything that’s been going down has only happened over the course of either one or two days. Sweet mercy, I know I had a year to myself, but these couple day spurts of action are going to age me up fast. I’m going to be an old crow before I’m thirty.

Wait… I’m twenty nine. I’m going to be thirty in a couple months. That means I’m going to be an old crow within that time. Ugh, I’m twenty nine. No, these adventures of mine aren’t going to age me. I’m doing that well on my own. I feel like I’ll turn to dust at any minute now. It just… doesn’t sound right. Me, twenty nine. Wasn’t I going to be that rebellious fifteen year old forever? Row row, fight the pony power! That… isn’t me anymore. Where did the years go by?

Feels like yesterday I was chilling with Rainbow at her cloud house in Ponyville for the first time. Then we had the fight, and I went back to Griffonstone, where I tried to avoid that annoying rooster Christov and Mom pestered me about settling down with that nice rooster Christov. Jeez, that was years ago. According to griffon tradition, I should be a mom right now. In fact, I’m old enough to be packing school lunches for my kids. Twenty nine, man. Those kids would be a couple years away from their teenage years!

Me, a mom… No, I don’t want to think about that. I can feel the wrinkles on my face just saying that. If I had kids like I was supposed to, they’d be going through their rebellious teenage phase like I did, and I’m not dealing with that crap. Never having any griffon chicks. The scone shop is my chick, and I want to get back to my chick as soon as possible. Question is, how?

A cluster of metal balls blasts me up the ass! Ow! I get the message, save the midlife crisis when things aren’t trying to kill me! I flip around to see what shot me in the behind. Tailing my train is another train, and someone is riding the top of it. Hard Hat, and he’s aiming his big shooter at me.

Looks like we’re about to have a battle on top of two high speed moving trains! I let out a sigh. Teenage me would think this was the tightest shit. Me, right now, at twenty nine? I just want a nap. Why couldn’t some young kid get this Blacklight monster virus of mine? He’d have fun with it. These monster powers have done nothing but make me miserable.

I lazily grow out my shield when Hard Hat lets off another round of metal pellets. The shots impale themselves into the shield. I should be taking this fight more seriously, but I put myself into a mood now. “Hey, you wanna talk this out?” I yell over the shield. “I’ll pay for any damages I did. I didn’t break anything major, did I?”

Another boom of pellets answers my question. Will whatever god who’s looking down tell me if I even have the diplomacy skill? It’d be good to know if I should even bother.

Got to lose this guy. I hop down in between the gap of the engine and cart and break the connector with a tumor fist. Engine and cart separate, and the line of carts falls behind without anything to pull it down the tracks. Hard Hat's train plows through te carts, and the carts explode in big fire balls. Hard Hat’s train comes out of the flames with only moderate structural damage. Damn, what is his engine made of?

At least I got rid of the extra weight, so now the engine is gaining speed. Hard Hat falls behind as I accelerate away from him. Ha, I’d like to see him catch up with me now!

My train makes a sudden sharp turn. I’m not holding on tight. Since I can’t break the laws of physics, the train goes one way, and I go flying down the same vector I was before. My body crashes and skids on the hard concrete. Ow.

Hard Hat’s train takes the same bend, but he hops off before that. He’s holding a new shooter, but it’s different from the other ones. He aims high, as if he’s trying to shoot a bird out of the sky. Uh, dude? My eyes are down here.

A stream of yellow flame spews out from the shooter. The flame arcs in the air and descends on top of me. I jump out of the way right as it lights the ground up!

The spewing flames chase me as I run as fast as I can. Problem is when I check to see if I outran Hard Hat, he’s the same distance behind me, keeping pace and shooting fire at me. His legs are blurring like crazy in order to keep up with me. Oh crap, he has monster speed too!

Hard Hat chases me to a large tower thing. The tower has a bunch of pipes and tubes running all over it, and has three large cones situated on the top. Aha, an escape! I run towards the big tower thing. When I get to it, I jump over large gap that’s separating the concrete and tower. Apparently the tower goes deep underground.

The tower was a decent idea, as now Hard Hat isn’t chasing me with fire. Instead, he’s switched back to the small shooter. His shooter makes the bowel movement sound again. A line of sparks crawls up the tower behind me and goes over my back. Pain slashes me across my spine as the shooter finds its mark. It stings, but I can live. I’ll live longer if I just climb this tower.

As I’m making my way up, grabbing pipes and tubes, more red spheres buzz for me. They make little sorties around me, sending lightning arcs up my ass. BZZT! BZZT BZZT! Somehow, despite the constant shocks, I make it to the top. If anything those shocks are encouragement. I thought this would be safe, but of course the spheres can fly. There’s no where I can go to avoid them! I swat at them with my claws again, taking out a few, but barely thinning out the swarm.

Another bowel movement rips across the tip of the towers. I duck in the middle of the three cones, using the cover to avoid the attack entirely. It’s at least safe from his shooter. Maybe I can take him out from up here.

A sphere flies close to my face to shock me. Instead of destroying it with a monster claw, I snatch it out of the air. Its prongs send bright volts up my wrist, but it stops when I give the thing a bit of a crunch. The bowel movement stops for a moment. I take advantage of the moment and poke my head out of cover. “Hey, batter batter batter!”

Hard Hat looks up just in time to take the crumpled up zap sphere I chucked to the face! There’s a loud metal crack, and his body flashes a bright purple, a sign of a type of magic shielding I’m slightly familiar with. Hard Hat doesn’t go down, but he is holding his face and stumbling back.

I yelp up in joy. “Swing bat” –

A train plows into Hard Hat. Metal scrap and guts splatter all over the train tracks, and the train keeps rolling on.

- “ter… Oooh.” Even I felt that. His shield didn’t save him from that.

Moments after Hard Hat’s untimely demise, the zapping spheres fall out of the sky like dead flies. They rain on top of me, pitter pattering all over the metal tower. I hold my shield up like an umbrella to protect myself from the spherical downpour.

I guess really did kill the king after all. Eh, I didn’t like his fiscal policies. Too much fire, not enough support for small businesses. I’m sure the land will be better off without him.

The train that ran the king over pulls up next to the tower. The roof of the cart opens up, revealing a large, white cylinder with a bunch of buttons on the side. A large claw reaches over the cart and picks up the cylinder, and then the claw places the cylinder in an open hatch on the side of the tower. The hatch closes, and the train goes off.

Well, that’s the power of automation. The king dies, yet all the machines keep doing work without him. The land will be fine without Hard Hat. The factory survives.

An alarm goes off. Its blaring, rhythmic sound dominates the world. The tower shakes. I cling to a set of pipes out of instinct. Somewhere below me, far below me, a crackling roar grows from the depths of the planet. Its volume soon drowns out the alarm.

I think the locals are celebrating the king’s death. Maybe they’re implementing a new government system?

My stomach lurches when the tower jolts up. I try to stand up, but gravity seems to have tripled in the last moment. A hammer force wind presses down on my back. The surrounding factory falls away, taking the world with it.

Um… I think there’s more to this tower than I originally thought.

Author's Notes:

Achievements Unlocked:

Watch your step - Get hit by a moving locomotive

Golem - Survive a hit of 500 damage or more

Still Locked:

Right Out of the Lab - Complete the Tutorial

52 - Lunacy

My legs are curled up under my chin. The ceiling is so low I have to squeeze my head in between my knees. Two small seats are squishing my tooshie. The creatures sitting in those seats are leaning away from me to try to give me room, but their big heads keep knocking against me whenever they need to check an instrument panel. Any effort to make any of us comfortable is beyond pointless.

Yep, it’s cramped. Very cramped. People talk about getting packed in like sardines and this isn’t far from the truth. Even without the three other creatures that are kindly letting me share what little space there is, this capsule has absolutely no room for me to move. My wings are getting so stiff I can attach an angry note to one and chuck it at Arctic North’s windows like a brick.

“Nah naaah na,” one of the creatures says with a big smile.

Oh right, the creatures. They’re odd little guys. If we had any ability to stand, they’d all come up to the underside of my beak. Two thirds of that height is just their heads. They have big, cylindrical heads, kind of like coffee cups. And they’re green, very green. Those big, green, coffee cup heads of theirs have big eyes and huge mouths that can swallow my head in one gulp. No, they’ve tried that yet. They’ve just used those big mouths of theirs to smile and make weird noises.

“Ma ha naa,” the one to my right says to me. I half smile at him and nod. I have no idea what they’re saying.

The three little green creatures with big coffee cup heads are all in special suits of some kind. They got what looks to be fish bowls over their heads with tin foil wrapped around everything but their faces. Those fish bowls squish my face whenever they have to move their heads to check the dashboard in between my feet. Their bodies are also wrapped up in this special tin foil. Looks airtight.

The one on my left stretches in front of my face, practically shoving my beak out of the way, and hits a few switches on the ceiling. I’d protest, but they’re generous enough to let me hitch a ride in this already tight space, and I have no room to be a choosy beggar in my current situation.

Barely under an hour ago, I was on the tip of a tower with a volcano spewing out of its butt. The tower flew into the sky, and then flew above the sky. I didn’t know there was more to the sky than the sky itself. It got really cold and quiet. All the air disappeared. Fortunately for me, I found out my monster body doesn’t need air to breathe. I didn’t pass out and die when I got out of the sky. That said, my body doesn’t know I won’t die without air. It went into panic mode and I got to have fun with all the joys of suffocation without the dying. Yes, that means I was flailing around, clutching my throat in an effort to find air. No amount of monster powers can overcome natural reflexes. Ain’t biology grand?

While my lungs were on fire and I was gasping for nonexistent air, I also had to jump around on the tower. As it ascended above the world, pieces of it broke off and fell back down. I could’ve hopped on one of those pieces and rode them back down, but they were on fire and at this height I don’t know if I could survive the fall, even with monster powers.

At some point everything broke off, except for that giant cylinder the metal arm loaded in the tower earlier. A couple of shiny blue plates folded out from the sides of the cylinder, and I drifted above the entire world.

Not going to lie, it pretty up there. I ignored my gasps of suffocation long enough to admire the big blue and green ball spinning underneath me. I knew worlds are round, I’m not stupid, but I never thought I’d get the chance to see a planet in its entirety.

Makes me feel small.

Didn’t take long for me to figure out I was stranded. The machine I was sitting on wasn’t going anywhere, and there wasn’t anywhere for me to go. I was stuck. I had a whole planet below me and no way to get back to it, much less get back to Equestria. What a pickle I was in.

And then I got visitors. Out from the darkness of space, a cone vessel came out of nowhere. It started as a dot, then grew to the size of a train engine when it parked right next to me. A hatch opened from the head of the cone, and a strange creature popped out and waved at me. He tossed me a rope and invited me to come on in.

With nowhere else to go, what choice did I have?

And that’s how I got crammed in this tiny pod with three other creatures. I got no room to complain, or to do anything for that matter. It’s tight and miserable, but how many aliens are out there who are nice enough to pick up a hitchhiker? Heck, these guys were jumping out of their seats when we first met. I think they were pretty excited to see me.

The alien on my right taps me on the shoulder. “Na naa?”

I lean forward as far as I can, almost snapping my spine in two during the process. The creature opens a cupboard behind my head and pulls out a silver bag. I lean back up when he closes the cupboard. “Got what you need?”

The creature rips the bag open and hands it to me. I take it from him and look inside. It’s full of chips. The creature points to the chips, and pretends to put imaginary food in its mouth. These are for me? Well, thanks! I toss a clawfull in my beak and chew. I give him a thumbs up, which makes him pretty giddy.

See, these are good aliens, the nicest I’ve met. Granted, it’s not hard to be the nicest. All the other aliens I met tried to kill me, so the bar is pretty low. The fact these guys didn’t try to gut me on first sight puts them high on the list of chill dudes I’d want to hang out with.

While I’m chewing, I hold out the bag for anyone else to grab a bite. They all shake their heads and politely decline. All for me, I guess. The one across from me hits a button next to him and speaks in a little box. “Ah ha maa. Na ha na na?”

The box crackles, and a hazy voice comes out of it. “Nha ahn ma ah na.”

Kind of cool. I think he’s talking to someone who’s in a different location. Reminds me of those voice boxes Blackwatch uses to communicate. Of course I don’t understand anything of what they’re saying. I get the feeling they’re talking about me, but without a little book to help me translate their “Nah”s and “Hah”s, I’m just lost. For all I know, they could be talking about sticking a pike through me and spit roasting my corpse over an open flame. Probably not. These guys are too chill for that.

I eat my chips. The little green people do their business. The voice box comes in and out every now and then. “Meh mah ha Na hmm… hmm… The mad bird has to be deaf. I can hear the voices from my castle, and yet here she is, ignoring the riot going on in her noggin.”

What the heck? That wasn’t a “Nah” or “Mah.” The creatures look confused too. They’re giving each other glances as if they don’t know what to do. The one next to the voice box presses the button. “Na nah an?”

The voice box sparks at the green alien. “Are you a bird? Do you have feathers? Wings? A beak?! No? Then I wasn’t talking about you! Shut up and wait your turn!” The creature flinches when the guy in the voice box snaps at him. The sparks might have freaked him out too. “The nerve of some people, hmph. I should call upon the kraken for your impatience! But I won’t.”

I can understand what the box is saying! I lean forward and press the button on the box. “Hello, can you hear me?”

“Barely,” the box replies. “There’s so much chatter coming from you I’m surprised you haven’t blown my eardrums out!”

Yes, someone I can talk to! These Nah Nah creatures are neat, but conversation between us is slim. It’s nice to hear someone I can actually talk to. “Great! You will not believe the day I’ve had. It’s so great to hear someone talk my language.”

“Your language? What makes you think I’m speaking your language? If anything, you’re speaking my language. Did you even think of that? The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know. Or maybe this one does…”

Huh. It’s nice to hear someone’s voice I can understand, but this guy is coming off as a little… off. The creatures are watching me talk with the guy. They seem fascinated by it and confused. One of them has a notepad and is scribbling furiously. “So… who are you?”

“Nobody important. I’m just a pilgrim in the void, looking for some spectacle insanity. You’re my main course, but I have to say these little green men put up one heck of a show. They jam pack giant metal tubes with high yield explosives and pierce the sky on a wave of destruction! How crazy is that? High chance for failure, too! That’s when the fun happens. I’ll have to come back one day and watch them attempt to break the laws of nature some more.”

You know, I don’t have a good streak for aliens not killing me. These space creatures are nice, but I got the Protoss, Zerg, and Hard Hat on record for trying to kill me on first sight. Who says the guy on the voice box is going to be nice. “Out of curiosity, do you plan to cut off my head or something?”

“Good question. What am I to you? Well, in one moment I could be a dear friend, and in a different moment I could be ripping off your limbs and shoving them up your orifices. Either or. Depends on the quality of the moon.”

Well then, glad we got that sorted out. Or didn’t? “Yeah, you’re coming off as a weird creep. You know that?”

“Me, a creep? Why, I find your remark so offensive that it reminds me of a joke. What’s the difference between a Creeper and a Kerbal? The Kerbal smiles when he explodes!” The radio crackles with the laughter of the mysterious stranger.

I don’t get it. “Is there a reason you’re doing standup comedy over an alien voice box?”

“Oh, because I want to. Don’t need more reason than that.”

“Mmm. I’m ignoring you now.”

“Please do. Don’t listen to a word I say! That way, when I tell you how to get back to Equestria, you’ll miss what I say and I can make fun of you while I mince out your liver for being such a dunker head.”

Equestria?! “Waoh waoh waoh, back up. You know how to get me back home?”

“No, I don’t. But I know how to search for a way back home.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

The voice sounds amused. “Ha, those two things are completely different! Shows what little you know. It’s the metaphysical difference between feeding a man a fish and teaching a man to fish. I can’t feed you the metaphorical fish, because that’s going to take you to my home. And I don’t want you in my home. Degenerates are not welcome in my home.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“Drop the sarcasm. You know what I said is true.” The voice pauses, and I hear a long snort come from the box. “Woo, that’s killer stuff! Literally, that guy just died! Where was I? Oh, yes, teaching you how to fish. I’d come to you, but I’m preoccupied at the moment. You’re going to have to mosey on over to my location if we want to sort your life out.”

“What makes you think I’d want to be anywhere near you?”

“Griffon, you want to go home, which is enough for you to end up here. At the rate you're going, you’ll be sitting at my table before the night is out, like it or not. Now when we do meet, you might as well get something out of it. I am a cache of wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Also sunflower seeds. I got a lot of those. It’d be wise of you to take advantage of my sunflower seeds to better yourself as a person. Wait, no, that came out wrong…”

The voice trails off. The alien by the voice box reaches over and presses the button. “Naa na?”

“Alright, fine. I’ll get off the line. But a quick message for the griffon. You’re going the right way. Just keep taking the path of least resistance and you’ll probably end up with me in no time. Or not. I don’t know, my perception of time has left the building folks! Ha… I’ll be waiting.”

The box turns off with a click. A different voice comes out of it. “A naha na?” I think the crazy guy is gone. The creature by the box squirms with excitement and starts a conversation with his guy on the other side. They look over their notes with lively “Na”s and “Ha”s. For the most part I tune it out.

Oh joy, the only person I’ve met who knows anything about my situation and he’s a nutjob. I do not want to meet this guy. Is there a way I can get back to the Protoss? I bet they can sort my situation. I can wait if I have to.

Author's Notes:

~ Connection reestablished. Tracking rouge player. Location locked. ~

53 - World Hopping

The nutjob didn’t call back. Lucky me. The only guy on the voice box is the alien creature’s friend back home. They exchange “Na”s and “Ha”s, all of which I still don’t understand. Along with the beeping of the devices on this craft, it’s all I hear for the trip. That, coupled with my limbs going dead from staying curled up too long, is making my life just a little more unbearable. But hey, at least they gave me more chips.

It’s a few hours before anything interesting happens. My brain is turning into sludge. I got nothing to do. I’ve looked over the same buttons and switches over and over again. Still no clue what they do. The aliens won’t even let me play with any of them.

Bleh… Just when I’m contemplating jamming my thumbs in my eyes for entertainment, the craft shakes.

Oh hey, something’s happening! The cabin walls shudder from the strain of an outside force. The creatures start flipping switches and pressing buttons like some sort of rehearsed opera. We all bounce in our seats when the intensity of the shaking grows. My internal organs sink down when I feel the craft pushing me up. Are we slowing down? Feels like we’re slowing down, but I’m not so sure.

Something outside roars. The one window we have to the black void, a small, glass circle on the hatch door, glows as flames spurt up the edges. We’re thrown around as the craft violently jerks us side to side.

What the heck is that? Is that a dragon? Are we getting attacked by a dragon?! The aliens don’t seem concerned about this. They’re concentrating on flipping switches and buttons, occasional saying a quick Na or Ha to each other. What are they doing? Don’t they know we’re getting attacked by a dragon?!

Something outside goes bang. The creatures look at each other, then they shrug and go back to work. “Uh, guys?” I say, “I think something bad is going on.”

They look up at me, but since they can’t understand me, they shrug me off and continue what they’re doing. Something else goes bang outside. They don’t even acknowledge that one.

Screw it, ship is sinking. Time to go!

I scurry forward towards the hatch, the same hatch with the flames outside the window. I squish the aliens when I climb over them, and they make their complaints as audible as they can. I reach out to yank the latch open and escape, but a creature grabs my arm before I do so. He yells at me with a loud “Na!”

“We’re falling apart!” I say back. “I’m not sticking on this disaster ship! I want to get out!”

Two of the creatures try to wrestle me away from the hatch, which is hard considering there in no room in here to fight a Blacklight monster griffon. The third creature is frantically pushing all the buttons and switches, as his friends are too busy trying to pin me down. All things considered, the first two put up one heck of a resistance. The latch is only a foot away from my claw, and I’m closing in a little bit at a time!

“Let me go!” I yell, “or we’re all doomed!”

Doom! Oh yes, I can smell it in the air! That dragon’s going to rip us apart! I shove the creatures out of the way and spring for the hatch. I yank the handle, almost breaking it off with my monster strength, and the hatch flies open. Torrents of wind and flame punch me in the face.

I jump past the flaming hurricane and dive out of the craft. I am not dying in that cramped space. If I’m going to die, I’m going to do it out in the open where I can get a chance to fight back! Come here dragon, I got a piece of my mind to-

I smack face first into hard ground. Ow.

As I push myself off the ground, the alien craft I jumped from descends behind me. Large flames billow out from the bottom, slowing it down into a nice landing. Three metal legs stretch out from the sides, and the feet of the legs touch the ground. The large flames die out, and the dragon’s roar disappears with them. One of the creatures pokes his head out and waves at me.

Huh… I feel like an idiot now.

A ladder extends out from the hatch. The creature climbs down, and his buddy isn’t too far behind. They’re pretty calm considering my freak out. Maybe this is just run of the mill stuff for them. I should probably apologize to them for what I did. Maybe I can get them some snacks.

Anyways, where am I? I look around the horizon, and I’m… disappointed? What I see is red, lot’s of red. Only red. The hills and mountains in the distance are red. I look down at my feet, and the soil I’m standing on is red. I’m standing on red, the aliens are standing on red, everywhere I look is red. Red, red, red,red, red. Alright, it’s not completely red. It’s got a slight orange tinge, and the sky is more yellow than red. I wouldn’t be surprised if we landed on Tartarus.

I turn to check what the creatures are doing. One of them takes out a long pole and sticks it into the red ground. A flag waves out from the pole. Alright, so they’re like explorers or something. The flag is to stake a claim. This seems to be a big event for them. They’re all jumping for joy. Good for them. Glad someone is getting something out of this.

As they’re celebrating, one of them looks off to the distance. His big smile instantly turns into a frown. He shouts at the others, and all the aliens turn to stare off. For the first time, they don’t look all that happy to be here.

Don’t know what they’re dumbfounded about. It’s just a big, red rock we’re on. There’s nothing interesting for- What the heck is that?!

I was about to say “for miles,” but that sentence died when I bothered to check what the creatures were looking at. There, off in the distance, is a red magic beam shooting off into the sky. Thick storm clouds are circling the red beam up top. Down below, there looks to be some sort of artificial complex the beam is coming out of. The complex is iron and blocky. It wouldn’t be a welcoming place on any other day, but today it’s extra unwelcoming. The complex is also on fire.

Why is there a burning complex on an alien planet with a red magic beam shooting out of it? From the looks of the creatures, they don’t know either.

Red sparks appear out of thin air in front of us. A moment later, the air flashes in a bright red light. Once my eyes readjusted from getting blinded, I got a good look of what was in front of me. Abs. Big abs.

Connected to those big abs are two meaty goat legs on the bottom, a boulder of a torso on the top, two arms swollen with muscle, and a big angry head with thick horns curving at me. Oh, and all of this is red, because of course it’s got to be red!

The big red meat beast in front of me lets out a powerful howl. A ball of green flame ignites in its hand, and the beast tosses it at me. I jump out of the way, and the green ball explodes past me.

That’s a demon! That's a freaking demon that crawled out of Tartarus! Not fighting that, back to the alien vessel! I turn around to escape, but a blast of hot air hits my face. Flames roar out of the bottom of the craft. The vessel ascends up in the air. One of the green creatures waves at me before closing the hatch, and the vessel rockets up into the sky, disappearing into the swirling clouds. All that is left is a trail of smoke.

A-holes!

The demon behind me sweeps me off my feet with a massive fist. I flip in the air and come crashing back down with a roll. When I get up, the massive demon is running at me.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope!

I take off in the other direction, milking my monster speed for what it’s worth. But the giant fuck off demon is right behind me. I can hear its hooves go bang, bang, bang every time it takes a stride! Why is this my life?!

The demon chases me towards the iron complex. I dive for an open doorway and dash through a metal corridor. I’m probably leading myself into a corner, so the corridor may not be the best idea. The bad idea gets even worse when I make a turn and find pentagrams and demon symbols painted all over the walls in blood. There’s also a bunch of body parts hanging off the ceiling and a pile of skulls in the corners. Yeah… I’m going to pretend this is all a pretty cool Nightmare Night set up and move on.

The big demon skids around the corner behind me. Oh fuck! I high tail it through the blood room and make my way deeper into the complex. At some point I find a hallway that leads to a bright red light. Eh, this place is a maze. I could jump down a chasm and still be just as lost as I am now. Follow the red light!

When I reach the end of this particular hallway, I enter a massive chamber. In this middle of this chamber is a giant red beam shooting off through a hole in the ceiling. Ah, I think I found that red beam from earlier. I don’t think I wanted to be near it.

The demon chasing me tears out of the hallway after I do. I yelp and keep running forward, but stop myself right as I’m about to tumble over the edge. I turn around, and the demon is about to tackle me into the beam!

Then something more terrifying happens.

The demon raises his arms to strike me down, but something else grabs my attention. A gurgle sounds off behind the demon. The gurgle turns into a grating roar, and globs of blood splatters from the demon’s head. The demon splits completely in half, and its two parts fall to the ground.

A tall figure steps on top of the demon’s remains. The figure is dressed in heavy green armor, and looks at me with a dark blue visor. He’s holding a chainsaw in his hands, but puts it away in favor of a shooter of some sort. The shooter has two barrels. Double the fun.

I wave at the green armored figure guy who just slew the demon. “Uh, thanks for that, Mister. What’s your name?”

The guy pauses for a moment as he looks at me. He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he hefts the shooter up and aims the barrels at me.

“Woah, woah, woah!” I say, holding my claws up. “What the heck did I do? I’m not a demon!”

The guy tilts his head to the side. It looks like he’s deliberating what I just said. He thinks for a moment, taps on the shooter, but in the end he just shrugs. Next thing I know he smashes his boot in my face and I go flying off the edge of the platform.

I yell, “Oh, come o”-

Red the beam fills my vision.

All I see is red. Red light. Red energy. Red everything. I think even I’m red. I’m not just the color red. I am the concept of red! Gone is Gilda, the monster griffon. There is only red now.

I hate this red planet.

“Lucario, I choose you!”

What the heck?

The voice came from outside the red. Did the green armor guy say that? Just as I hear the voice, I hear the buzzing sound of energy rushing through my veins. At the same time, I feel my body exit the red and retake form. This all takes place in almost an instant.

Woof, is that sunshine? And is this grass? And is that sky not red? I don’t think I’m on that red planet anymore. That’s great! Now where did I end up this time?

There’s a creature standing a little bit always from me. The best way I can describe the creature is as a person. For some reason Person just fits the description the best. He’s got the posture of the Protoss, and Hard Hat, and the guy that just kicked me in that magic beam a second ago, but this one is different. He’s got some pale flesh and a head of long, brown hair. He’s also wearing a red shirt and some low cut shorts, and is wearing a red bandana on his head. Guess I can’t escape all the red.

“What kind of Pokémon is that?” the creature asks with a girlish voice. Oh snap, that’s not a dude person. It’s a lady person! Now I feel bad for doing that.

A young male voice talks behind me. “I don’t know. I wanted to send out Lucario. This is… what is this?” I turn to find another person of similar physicality as the female over yonder. This one has long pants and a red jacket, along with a headband wrapping around a head of short, white hair.

The female taps her chin with a gloved finger. “He looks pretty cool.”

He? He?! Actually, I’m going to let that one slide. I mistook her gender and she just gave me a compliment, so…

“Well, it’s got wings, so it’s probably a Flying type?” Ha! I wish. I haven’t flow on my own in over a year! The lady pulls out a tiny ball from a fanny pack she’s carrying. She tosses the ball, and it flashes with a brilliant red light. “Go Electrode, I choose you!”

Another, bigger, ball, top half white and bottom half red, materializes out of the red light. I squint to check if my eyes are right. Does that ball have a face?

“Let’s get this show on the road,” the lady yells. “Electrode, use Thunder!”

Sparks emit from the ball, and then a massive bolt of lightning arcs through the air and blasts me in the chest. “WHAGALEBADFOGALLLLUUUUU,” I say. This electrocution thing never changes, does it?

The lightning goes as quick as it came. My feathers smell like they’re on fire. My beak feels numb. Did the lady person do this? That bitch!

“That wasn’t very effective,” the guy behind me says.

The girl throws her hands up in the air. “How?! That has to be a Flying type! He has wings and everything!”

The guy shrugs. “It just wasn’t effective.” Says you! I just ate fifty thousands volts! “Apparently he isn’t a Flying type. My turn. Use Cut, uh… I’ll name you later. Just use Cut!”

Yes sir!

My claws come out and I jump on the white and red ball. I slash it across that creepy face, and it goes spinning across the grass. When it stops spinning, it rolls on its side to reveal its X’d out eyes. Huh, I thought I would chop it in half.

“Wow, one hit KO,” the lady says. She picks up the ball she threw and uses it to return the big sparky ball into the red light. “That’s a strong Pokémon. I’ll have to go with something bigger. Go, Your Mom!”

Huh? Is that supposed to be a name?

The lady throws another ball, and another red light flashes. Instead of another ball, something else comes out. It’s a large creature. Looks kind of like a bear. It’s body is blue and it has a tan belly. When it comes out of the ball, it lands on the ground with a massive thud. That landing went up my bones.

Damn, Your Mom is huge.

“Your Mom,” the lady says, “use Body Slam!”

By some miracle, this large tub of lard stands up on its two feet, then it leans forward and starts falling. It’s not until its shadow is over me do I realize it’s about to fall on top of me. I’m stunned in awe as this freak of a beast descends upon my mortal frame.

Why am I not moving out of the way?

Fifty thousand tons crushes me. The leaves on the surrounding trees shake off their branches from the resulting thud. My monster goop squishes in a pancake from the weight. Oh sweet mercy, how can something be this big without collapsing into a black hole?

From the flabs of fat of the creature, I can hear the other guy say something. “Oh, I got it!” the guy says. “Democracy, that’s what I’ll name this guy.”

“Democracy?” the lady asks.

I can hear the shrug in the male’s voice. “I mean, he looks like an eagle. What else am I going to name him?”

“Isn’t that corny?”

“Can you think of anything better?”

I don’t know. What if you called me by my actual name? Gilda. It’s Gilda. Not that hard to say. I’d shout at him, but this truckload of lard is making it really hard to move anything.

“Baldie,” the lady says. “Alec Baldie? Mister Squawks? Eagle Eyes? Dorkface? Dweeb?”

“Those are terrible,” the guy says. I agree. Please let me end her! “I’m sticking with Democracy. Democracy, use Rock Smash!”

Uh, sure. I’m not smashing any rocks, but I’ll gladly smash this creature in his gut. With the zero space I have, I somehow wind up my arm to nail the bastard with my knuckles. The blow sends ripples up the creature’s fat, and he makes a burp sound. The creature rolls off me and I can’t be happier to see sunshine again!

“Super effective!” the guy yells.

The creature keels over, and I see the X’s glaze over his eyes. I peel myself off the ground and kick him in the side. He doesn’t react at all, but damn it feels good to do that.

“Huh, what the heck is that bird?” the lady says. She beams the creature back in its ball with a red light and pockets it in her pack. “He’s powerful. I’m going to have to bring out the big guns for this. Go, Mister Fish!”

The lady tosses out another ball. From the red flash, a long, thick, blue figure stretches up to the sky. It looms overhead, and a large face looks down at me. The face looks a bit fishy. Looks to be a large eel of some sort. Maybe a leviathan? How can this thing survive out of water?

“Mister Fish, use Hyper Beam!” the lady yells.

The leviathan opens its mouth. A ball of light forms between its jagged teeth. Oh… crap. I’ve had bad experiences with glowing lights where glowing lights shouldn’t be. This is not going to go well for me.

A powerful baseline rattles my bones as a blast of pure energy fries my skin and feathers. AHHH, everything is pain! Why am I not avoiding this?!

After a moment, the light dies out. I’m left standing as a smoldering mess. I smell my own flesh cooking from the eel’s attack. My eye twitches. I think I have some new bald spots.

“How did it survive that?” the lady asks. “That had to be a one hit KO!”

The guy shrugs. “You can’t stop Democracy. Alright, return the favor, Democracy! Use Strength!”

Yes, I will return the favor. My claws shift into the tumor fists, and I charge the giant eel and implode its neck with a right hook punch! Mister Fish goes flying and blasts through a nearby tree. When the eel stops rolling, he turns over to reveal those X eyes the other guys have been getting.

“Critical hit!” the guy yells.

The lady pouts. “That’s just luck.” she puts the giant eel back in the red light. “Wait till I bring out my next guy. Go, Buttface, your opponent’s weak!”

The next ball is thrown, and the red light flashes. The creature materializes before me, though I blink a few times when I see what it is. Is that what I think it is? Is that who I think it is?

Bug Lady?!

There’s no mistaking it. The black figure, those transparent wings, that crooked horn, it’s her. Bug Lady looks stunned to be here. She looks around, confused about her surrounding, but she finally meets eyes with me. Her confused look turns into a death glare.

“Uh, you’re not Buttface,” the lady says.

“I guess we both have mystery Pokémon,” the guy says. “What are the odds?” Greater than I want. “Democracy, use Fly!”

I turn and glare at the guy. Is that a joke? I haven’t flown in a year!

“Ha, he’s confused!” the lady shouts. “New Buttface, use Psychic!”

Bug Lady gets an evil grin on her face. Her horn lights up green, and I light up green. Eh? The next second, the green crushes my body. My guts implode. Every square inch of my being gets squished by the force of Bug Lady’s magic.

The person lady throws a fist in the air. “It’s super effective!”

One moment I feel agony. The next it pops away, just disappears. Everything fades to black. I’m I losing… consciousness…

…

…

…

…

…

This is a story about a griffon named Gilda. Gilda is an ambitious griffon who dreams of baking scones for a living and enjoying a peaceful life. However, after a long and harrowing series of inconvenient circumstances, Gilda now found herself in a new parable. The ambitious griffon wakes up inside an office with one door and no windows. How she got here, no one knows. All she could do was get on her feet and, as the kids say, freak the fuck out.

The griffon jumps around to find the voice. Gilda asks, Where am I? Who’s that talking? Where are you?

Gilda spins in circles, trying to find the voice, but she finds no one. All she finds in this room with one door and no windows is a large computer screen with a keyboard underneath it. A single letter appears on this screen, but Gilda ignores it. Gilda comes from a society where computers don’t exist, so she has no clue what this machine is.

Gilda asks, What’s a computer? And who are you? Where am I?

No matter how loud Gilda yells, no one answers her. It seems she is alone in this office with one door and no windows.

I’m not alone, Gilda says. I can hear you talking. Show yourself!

Despite knowing she is alone, she continues to yell in hopes of someone responding to her. Maybe if she yells enough, someone will come running through the door and tell her to shut up. This hasn’t happened yet, despite all the yelling she’s done, but it might happen.

Still, she persits. She asks, Aren’t you going to answer my questions?

No one runs down the hallway to tell Gilda to stop yelling. Gilda looks at the ceiling and shakes her fists at the god above her, but the invisible god doesn’t respond. What’s the point in yelling your problems at an invisible god who you know isn’t going to help? Maybe if you did things on your own instead of relying on an invisible god, you can find the means to improve your situation. But if yelling at invisible gods makes you happy, then the invisible god is happy for you.

Gilda thinks to herself. She looks at the one door of the room. Maybe there’s something outside of this room? She forgets about the invisible god and goes out the door to see what’s outside.

I’m not forgetting about you, Gilda says. I’m just ignoring you. Stupid voice in my head.

This statement from Gilda is ironic. The voices in her head have been calling her stupid for over a year. How funny.

Hey! I’m not stupid!

She says this forgetting all the stupid decisions she’s made that have all led to this point. Projecting one’s issues onto others is not a healthy way to solve those issues.

What? No, I- Aaarrgggg! Gilda shrieks to the air. Just finish this bit up and send me to the next world!

Gilda doesn’t realize how much effort the narrator has put into making this world for her, and that her words hurt the narrator’s feelings. The griffon didn’t know how much love and care the narrator put into this, and apologizes for her bad attitude.

But I didn’t-

Let’s continue. Gilda goes down the hell, searching for other souls. But no one is there. At some point in the hall, she comes across two open doors in her path. She decides to take the door on her left.

…

I didn’t do any of what you said, Gilda says, crossing her arms in defiance. I’m still in the office.

Gilda also doesn’t realize how patient the narrator is being, and that the narrator could kill her off if he wanted to. But this is Gilda’s story, and it would be rude for the narrator to do that this early in the game. After realizing this, Gilda goes to the two doors and takes the left one.

Gilda asks, Is this a commentary on something? I swear you’re making a commentary about something.

The narrator says nothing else and waits patiently for Gilda to do what he says.

Screw this, Gilda says. I’m above meta! I’m going my own way, without you talking in my head!

Gilda opens a door in the hallway that the narrator forgot to lock- Hey wait! Don’t leave!

I slam the door behind me. The world goes quiet. Is there anyone talking over me? Mmm, nope! I don’t hear anyone. “Good riddance. That narrator guy was getting on my nerves.” Now where am I?

“Hello there,” a voice says. Ah, I’m not alone.

I turn towards where the voice came from and find a person sitting at a desk. The person has a similar figure to that one lady with the big monsters a couple jumps ago. She has long, brunette hair, a school uniform, and a soft smile. Kind of innocent looking. I don’t think she’s the type to try to kill me.

“Uh, hi.” I wave at her as I check out this new place. The room we’re in is a bit odd. It appears to be an empty classroom. It’s completely empty. No tables, no chairs, well, except for the one desk in the middle of the room that the lady is sitting at. Other than that the place is barren. It’s just clear wooden floor and walls all around. Oh, and a couple windows with stars and clouds crawling by. “Where am I?”

“Welcome to the Literature Club,” the brunette says. Her eyes glance over the empty space and her smile dips to a frown for a brief moment. “Or at least, what’s left of it. There’s not much here anymore. It’s just me, waiting for the one I love to return.”

“Mmm, neat,” I say. Crappy place to wait for one’s love, but I guess everyone has their own digs.

“And now you’re here,” she says. “So it’s not as empty as before.” Her smile brightens up. Glad she’s friendly.

“Yes, I’m here.” Not the first place I want to be, but also not the last. Going by the stars and glowing clouds outside the windows, I don’t think we’re in any sort of physical realm. “Sorry I can’t stay long. I’m trying to get back home, and I’m forced to take the scenic route back.”

The lady shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s possible. All you see here is all there is. We’re trapped here, forever.”

“What are you talking about? I just came in through the door.” I turn around and open the door I just came through. “There’s a whole hallway with an annoying narrator just out… side.”

When I open the door, there is no hallway. There is no narrator. The only things beyond the door are the floating stars and glowing clouds.

“I told you we’re trapped,” the lady says. “There is only me, you, and the one I love when he returns.”

“I call bull on that.” I slam the door shut as I walk away from it. This whole day is just getting weirder and weirder. “I’ve been going down some sort of path for too long to just to stop in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know about you, but there’s got to be some way out for me.”

The lady rests her chin on top of her hands. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?”

The clouds coalesce outside and make a bright flash before dispersing again. “No, I’m not. I’m supposed to be home making scones, but fate had other plans and now I’m trying to get back without losing my head.”

Her fingers tap together under her chin. “I’ll get you out of here. I know how to do that.”

My head snaps to her. “You can? That would be awesome!”

She nods. “I’ll need a moment.”

I can’t stop myself from smiling. This is great. Here’s someone who can actually help me with my problem, unlike those backstabbing green aliens. This is the best thing that’s happened all day! It’s nice to meet someone who isn’t trying to kill-

…

…

…

I slam the door behind me. The world goes quiet. Is there anyone talking over me? Mmm, nope! I don’t hear anyone. “Good riddance. That narrator guy was getting on my nerves.” Now where am I?

“What the hell?” a voice says. Ah, I’m not alone. I turn towards where the voice came from and find a person sitting at a desk. The person has a similar figure to that one lady with the big monsters a couple jumps ago. She has long, brunette hair, a school uniform, and a soft frown. She looks upset about something.

“Uh, hi.” I wave at her as I check out this new place. “Where am I?”

“How do you still exist?” the brunette says. “I deleted you!”

“I- uh…” What is that supposed to mean? “Sorry, that’s a new one on me. You did what to me?”

The chair scoots out when she stands up and slams her hands on her desk. “You shouldn’t exist! There’s no way you can come back if I deleted you!”

Oh no, someone else who’s trying to kill me. Or tried to. I think. “Hold up, I’m confused. Did you try to kill me? I never met you before.”

The lady tosses her hair back and turns away from me. “I guess I did something wrong. This time I’ll make sure you’re gone for good.”

This time? “What’s the big”-

…

…

…

I slam the door behind me. The world goes quiet. Is there anyone talking over me? Mmm, nope! I don’t hear anyone. “Good riddance. That narrator guy was”-

“HOW ARE YOU STILL HERE?!”

I jump out of my skin. Who the heck is yelling at me? Doesn’t sound like the narrator guy. I turn towards where the voice yelled from and find a person standing at a desk. The person has a similar figure to that one lady with the big monsters a couple jumps ago. She has long, brunette hair, a school uniform, and a deep scowl. Her fists are clenched up tight. I don’t think she’s happy to see me.

“Uh, who are”-

The lady throws her fists in the air. “How do you keep coming back?! There’s no reason for you to keep coming back. Only I and the one I love are allowed here! You don’t belong here! This is impossible!”

“I’ll just…” I grab the door handle and sneak through the crack. “…go.”

Before I make it all the way, I notice something. The hallway I came through is gone. There is no narrator, either. The only things beyond the door are the floating stars and glowing clouds.

“This time,” the lady yells, “I’ll get it right.”

“Get what ri”-

…

…

…

I slam the door behind me. The world goes-

“HOW?”

I jump out of my skin. Who the heck is yelling at me? Doesn’t sound like the narrator guy. I turn towards where the voice -

“No, I’m stopping this! I’m putting an end to you right now!”

Every turns to squares. My claws turn to squares. My body turns to squares. My eyes turn to squares. Everything is squares! It all meshes into this weird checkerboard pattern where all the squares stretch and distort. I move a claw, and all the squares go flying all over the place.

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“GAH!”

I slam the door as hard as I can, again. The wood almost breaks from how hard I do it. My head presses against the frame and my breathing turns into a rapid panting. Sweet mercy! What in Tartarus was that?! That was not cool!

I look at my claw. It’s a normal claw. No more squares. Oh thank mercy, I’m back to normal.

What happened? I think that was a lady person. The lady person tried to kill me, I think… I’m not sure. She just yelled at me and then… that happened.

A sob comes up from my throat. I want to go home.

The room I’m in shakes from a distance source. From the sounds of it, I don’t think I’m home yet. Where am I?

Even though I went through the same door as I did before, I’m not in that hallway with the annoying narrator. Instead, I’m in a different room. It’s similar to the room I was just in, but utterly destroyed. The ceiling caved in. The floorboards are either rotting or missing. The windows are smashed to bits. It’s a mess in here.

There’s another door to my left that leads to another hallway. A quick string of pops sound off from that door. They’re followed by several loud cracks that shake the dust off the ceiling. They sound closer than that first sound that shook the room. I wonder if whoever is making that racket is coming closer.

Two griffons run past the doorway. They’re running pretty- Wait, griffons? Griffons?

I rub my eyes. No, those couldn’t be griffons. Could they? I got to be imagining things. I haven’t seen another griffon since, well, since Tanya. And that was a year ago. If those were griffons, does that mean I’m home?

Just to prove I’m not seeing things, a third griffon runs past the door. He glances my way, then stops in his tracks. The griffon’s feathers are all ruffled up and dirt covered. It’s as if he’s never heard of a bath before. He’s dressed in a thick layer of battered clothing. He also has some tarnished metal strapped to various parts of his body. To top it off, he’s holding a shooter, similar to what Hard Had was trying to kill me with. I got to be imagining this. He does not look like any griffon I’ve ever seen.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

He’s yelling at me. I look either side of my. Nobody else here but me. Oh crap, he’s talking to me. “I, uh… I just got here.”

“What is that supposed to”- An explosion sounds off down the way. The griffon snaps his head to look down the hall. “Shit! Never mind. Just get in the fight!”

The griffon grabs a second shooter strapped on his back and tosses it to me. I catch it. It feels cold in my claws. “Uh, how do I use this thing?”

The griffon’s beak slightly drops. He’s giving me the kind of look that asks if I’m stupid or not. “This is not the time to be fucking around! We’re under att”-

A bang sounds off. The griffon’s head splatters all over the door frame. His headless corpse collapses in the hall. I can’t help but yell. “HOLY SHIT!”

Normally I’m not the squeamish type, but this came out of nowhere! This is the first griffon I’ve talked to in over the year. He’s one of my own kind! The same species! In a world of ponies and thousands of other creatures, we’re practically blood brothers! And his brains are all over the wall!

A shadow crawls across the wall of the outside corridor. A hoof steps across the doorframe, avoiding the headless corpse. After the hoof comes the full figure of a pony, a unicorn mare. She’s gray with a brown mane. Looks kind of young. She’s wearing a blue jumpsuit and some metal thing on her foreleg. In her magic she has several different kinds of shooters floating in the air around her, along with a bunch more strapped to her back.

The unicorn’s green eyes scan the room I’m in, up until her eyes meet mine. We stare at each other for a moment, and then all the shooters she’s carrying with her magic swing towards me.

Oh… crap. My claws squeeze the shooter I’m holding. Oh right, I got a shooter! I flick the barrel of my shooter towards the unicorn. That’s about as far as I get before hot lead comes at me with hurricane force. Even comes with the sound of thundering bangs!

The shooters rip though my fresh. My monster powers keep me standing, but damn does that feel like fire! I return fire with my own shooter, or try to. I look at a long hole that’s been drilled through one of the ends. How do I fire this thing?

After what feels like an eternity, the bangs stop, and the unicorn ceases filling my body with metal slugs. She tilts her head and gives me a weird look. “How are you still alive?”

“Genetics,” I say without looking at her. I’m paying attention to my own weapon more than her. I shake the shooter, trying to get it to fire. How does this thing work? I check the side, only to find clusters of metal slugs embedded deep in the shooter’s metal. I think my shooter is the only thing the unicorn mare killed with all her shooters.

A thought crosses my mind, and I stop shaking the thing. What am I doing? I don’t need this junk. I toss the shooter aside and grow out my Tyranid blade. Ah, much better!

The unicorn’s green eyes shrink to pinpricks. I don’t think she expected me to do that. “What the hell is that?!”

I shrug. “Something I picked up from a giant alien demon rhino.”

She stares at me for a moment. “What?”

“Eh, I don’t question this stuff.” That said, I dash for her throat. The unicorn squeals in surprise and unleashes another lead storm at me. She looks like she’s about to crap her pants!

A magic green grid flashes in front of the unicorn’s eyes. Her eyes flicker between the grid points. All of the sudden, the entire lead storm concentrates towards my head. The shooters tear my brains and skull off my body. My body doesn’t care. I can’t hear, see, or talk, but I can go headless. It’s not too different from going commando.

I don’t see it, but I feel my blade spin around as I twirl. It cuts through the unicorn’s flesh. Warm ichor splashes all over me. The tentacles shoot out and dissolve the sliced unicorn, dissolving her flesh into my own goop. With this newly acquired meal, my head grows back, and I blink with my fresh set of new eyes. Fresh out of the oven!

The unicorn’s shooters clatter all over the floor, and on top of that headless griffon. I’m surprised I didn’t trip over the guy while I was blind. The wall is covered with the unicorn’s blood. Jeez, that was gratuitous.

Someone screams down the hall. I look over to find another unicorn. This one is a black mare with a white mane and a red streak in her hair. I don’t see any shooters on her. In fact, I don’t see much on her at all. Just a yellow saddle bag with some pink butterflies on it. Huh, why does that look familiar? The mare covers her mouth with her hooves and looks at me with shock.

I hold up my claw and blade in a shrug. “What?”

Another pony runs around the corner, this one a brown stallion with a Stensen? on his head and two large shooters on his hips. “What’s happening? Who’s attacking?”

The mare points over at me. “That thing killed Little Pip!”

Ah great, I’m going to have to deal with the fallout of what I just did, aren’t I?

A massive pony figure storms around the corner behind the other two. This guy is in heavy armor, kind of like those armored ponies in Blackwatch I fought, but this guy is styled different. He almost crashes through the wall when he makes that turn.

A shooter on his back lights up, and a black objects hurls at me. It’s too fast for my eyes to follow. It flies over my head and explodes in a cloud of shrapnel. The metal bits zip into my flesh and cut me up real good.

AHH! That’s an artillery pony! The artillery pony fires another round, but I’m dashing back into my room before it hits. I am not getting blown up again. Once was more than enough!

The corridor behind me explodes. The arm of the headless griffon flies past my head. Ignore that, not important! I jump out a broken window and dive out the building. Artillery pony can’t hit me if I run fifty miles away from this place!

The wind whips past my face as I race past the floors of the building. This building is taller than I expected. I kind of guessed I was two or three floors up, maybe five. Nope. Looks like I just jumped out of a fifty floor skyscraper! Unless the artillery pony can survive a high fall, he won’t be able to chase me.

There are other sky scrapers around the same height around me. Looks like I’m down town in some city. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is Manehattan. It’s got a similar style of architecture to the buildings, and the same building density, but there’s no way this could be Manehattan. I’m not that lucky.

Wait… the sky is red. When did the sky turn red? It didn’t look red when I was inside the building.

As I plummet further down, I notice movement down below. There are figures walking all over the street below. I think they’re person figures, not ponies. If they’re persons, then I’m definitely not back in Equestria. Figures. Probably another world jump. The persons are wandering about the road in random directions. The place around them is completely trashed. A few are lying on the side of the road. I think they’re dead.

Yeah, this doesn’t look like home at all. Kind of does, but I’m not going to fall for that trick. Bit weird. I find a bunch of griffons and ponies, then I jump out a window and end up in a familiar city in a different world. I think the universe is taunting me.

The street erupts in a shockwave when I land. Persons go flying away from the force of impact. Same old, same old.

I walk out of the crater, and one of the persons lurches for me. This guy’s face looks like it dried out in the sun for too long. It’s pink and wrinkled, and I think his eyes are about to pop out. I side step him and he stumbles past me. After that, another lunges for me, and I dodge him as well. The locals are grouchy. Don’t think I’ll make any friends with them.

I hop out of the crater, ignoring the masses of lumbering persons. I think something got to these guys. None of them look healthy. Their skin is reddish and they got boils all over. Do they have the plague?

The bangs of shooters fill the air. Metal slugs whiz by. Any that hit the sick persons knocks them off their feet and splatters blood all over. A good chunk of the slugs nail me all over. Oh, come on! I just ran away from those gun ponies. Did they really follow me all the way down here?

I turn to face the ponies, tossing up the shield to absorb all the slugs. They all ping against the hardened material. I peek over the edge to see what’s going on. Huh, those aren’t ponies shooting at me. They’re more persons. I think this confirms I jumped to a different world when I jumped out of that window. I’m losing track of where I’ve been so far.

There’s something familiar about these persons who are shooting me. They’re dressed in full black suits from head to toe, with some armor bits and a hood covering their heads. All black, except their eyes. Masks cover their faces, and those masks have eyes that are glowing blue. They’re blue eyes. Wait… Blue-eyes?

Holy crap, these guys are Blackwatch. I just found the person version of the guys who’ve been hunting me for the past year. Just looking at these guys is giving me goose bumps. The uniforms, the shooters, the unyielding desire to kill me, this is uncanny. Am I really seeing this?

If these guys are Blackwatch, then the people wandering the street, I guess they’re infected with Blacklight. They do have the zombie look. So Blackwatch, and Blacklight… I look up at all the tall buildings around me. These skyscrapers, I think they’re part of Manehattan. I’m in Manehattan, or whatever the person equivalent of Manehattan is.

Wow, this is crazy. This feels like if I walked into my home but I found out I walked into someone else’s home by accident, but this someone decorates the exact same as you except in a different color. This feels something like that. I did not expect to find a person counterpart to Manehattan. I wonder if I’m in the person version of Equestria. Is there a person version of Celestia and Luna? Are there person griffons flying around? Is there a person Arctic North that I can kick the shit out of?

I wonder if there’s a person version of me.

The guards continue to fire upon me, but then the ground around them explodes. They go flying past me, and their bodies hit the ground with dull thuds. The infected persons immediately rush for the Blackwatch bodies and rip them apart.

Where the blue-eyes once stood is now a crater. Out of the crater a figure stands. This figure is another person, but looks a bit different from the rest. He has a black hoodie on with a white undershirt. His eyes are hidden in the shadow of the hood. Dark, but otherwise normal looking. I say that, but his arm erupts in a fury of tentacles and turns into a blade that’s almost as big as he is.

I think I just found my person equivalent. Cool. Maybe he’s like a prototype version of me, or the other way around. My shield shifts away and I give the guy a nod. “Sup.”

The guy looks, and he nods back. He turns around, and then monster jumps away to the top of the nearest skyscraper. He runs across its wall, and disappears down a different street.

He seems chill.

Alright, I guess I’m off to go to the next world. As nice as it is to be in person Equestria, I got dumped into the worst part of it. Granted, that guy was the first guy I met on this journey who wasn’t a jackass to me. Cough, cough, green aliens, cough. But I would like to get back to my own home. How am I going to do that?

I look around, and I see an iron disk embedded in the ground. A sewer entrance. Hmm, really, that’s what I’m thinking, a sewer? Of all the places I can jump to, I want to try my luck with a sewer?

Another infected lunges for me. I dodge. Welp, the buildings had ponies who wanted to kill me. The only other option I see is to jump through another window or barge through a door. Those worked out so well last time, didn’t they?

Eh, sure. I’ll try my luck. I already need to shower off the Baneling juices, so what’s a little bit of sludge going to do? I kick the iron disk out of place and gaze down the hole. I can’t see what’s down there. It’s absolute black. That’s reassuring.

Welp, got nothing better. I pinch my nose and jump right in. Any regrets? I haven’t told my parents I loved them in a while, that’s a regret.

Actually… no. It is not.

Everything goes dark. The red sky of person Manehattan disappears above me. One would expect to hit the bottom of the sewer after jumping down a sewer hole, but nope. I just keep falling. Gravity seems to shift at some point, and my fall starts slowing down. Soon a new light shines down upon me. Huh, this actually worked. This would never happen in an actual sewer. I successfully jumped.

The sun blinds me when I reach the light. It’s enough to distract me so I don’t brace for landing. I reach the peak of my fall, then fall backwards again. Going from a fall to another fall, that’s confusing. Doesn’t last long. I land on the ground with a dull thud.

My eyes blink back to focus and I get a good look at the world around me. Safe to say I’m in a different place. The sky is blue, the sun is warm, the ground is rocky. I’m surrounded by brown rock. There’s a few bushes scattered about, along with a few green hills in the distance. Those add some green to this rocky scene. It’s pleasant and all, but those aren’t what grabs my attention.

Up in the air, held up by nothing, are several brick platforms. They’re floating several feet above the ground. They look like they’re made up of brick cubes. How brick cubes are floating in the air by themselves, I have no clue. It’s just… the heck?

I walk underneath one of these brick cube platforms. Seriously, there’s nothing under these things. They’re floating by magic. I jump to try to touch a brick, but the brick shatters when I hardly scrape it. “Jeez!” I shout when the debris showers me. These things are delicate.

Is this some weird magic land? I’m used to unicorns and all that, but this is just off putting. There are more of these platforms floating in the distance, so this isn’t an isolated occurrence. What kind of world did I end up in?

Movement catches my eye. I turn around to face it. There’s a little creature walking towards me. The thing barely comes up to my chest. It’s got a wide brown head and a stout white body. Kind of looks like a mushroom with feet. The mushroom creature has a pair of furrowed eyes and a mouth with tiny teeth poking out of it. Doesn’t look all that happy. Odd creature. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Magic land indeed.

The mushroom waddles up to me. He looks bothered about something. Maybe he’s bothered about me breaking the brick. Are these things important? I hope they’re not important. They break on the slightest touch. Kind of bad to break like that if they’re important.

“Uh, sorry about the brick thing,” I say. “I didn’t know it would break like that.”

The mushroom walks right up to me, opens it mouth, and chomps down hard on my arm.

“YOW!” I shout. Add this thing to the list of things that try to kill me. I fling my arm up, and the mushroom loses its grip and smashes into one of the bricks above me. The brick shatters, and a second creature pops out. Eh?

I hop out of the way. The mushroom lands on its head, and the second creature hops right next to it. The second creature is clearly another mushroom. This one has a red top with white spots. It doesn’t have a mouth or feet, but it does have two dots on its stalk for eyes.

Super, the mushroom has a bro.

I draw out my monster claws, ready to fight these mushrooms off. They don’t come for me. The brown one is flipped over and wiggling its feet in the air, and the red one is sliding in random circles.

Walking mushrooms, floating bricks, I can’t make sense of this place. Is it too late to go back to the person Manehattan? At least things made sense there.

The red mushroom circles around some more, and then it curls towards the brown one. The they make contact, the red one pops out of existence. Yep, still screwy. When the red one disappears, the brown one gets sudden growth spurt. Its body expands all of the sudden, obliterating the brick platform when it shoots to full size. The creatures tilts over and lands back on its feet. Its angry eyes stare down at me, and I look up at it.

How?

The now-giant mushroom opens its mouth. It leans down and swallows me up in one motion. Everything goes black again.

How?

Now I can’t see a damn thing. Monster night vision isn’t helping. Welp, this could be a jump. Could be my death. If this is going to keep going forever I think I’m going to start wanting death. Too many screwy things are happening all at once. I want to go home!

Out of the darkness, a door appears. No ceremony, it’s just there. Yep, this is a jump. I hope this ends soon. I swear, if there’s another jackass who wants to kill me…

I grab the handle and open the door. On the other side of the door, a person greets me with a smile. “Finally, you arrived! Your cheese was getting cold.”

54 - The Madness Begins

The person is an elderly gentleman. He flashes his teeth with a manic grin. Going by the long, gray hair and pointed beard, I’d say he’s pretty old. The old guy is wearing a purple suit. Gilded swirls dance and flow across the fabric. Guy has a sense of elegance. His eyes are like a cat’s, golden with thin pupils. He’s sitting on the arm of a stone throne twice his size with one foot propped up on the seat. He’s also holding a cane in between his legs. From the looks of it, the old guy’s been waiting for me.

In front of the old person is a large table. Foods of all kinds adorn the table, some I recognize, many I don’t. It all looks fit for a king, except for one thing. There’s another person on the end of the table. His face is submerged in a bowl of red liquid. He isn’t moving.

When I step out of the door, the person whips the cane in the air, knocking over a bunch of food and cups off the table. “Welcome to Sadrith Mora, the mushroom forest of Morrowind! I hope your journey was a pleasant one.”

I look at the rest of my surroundings. Sure enough, we’re in a mushroom forest. All the mushrooms here are large and thick, about as big as houses. In fact, they are houses. Most of the mushrooms have doors I could walk into. Heck, the door I just walked through is attached to a giant mushroom house. Kind of brings up the question of what I came out of if a giant mushroom just ate me.

I’d admire the place, but there’s something off. There’s screaming. There are persons running around, screaming cries of terror. There are many of them running around. They got different shades of gray skin and pointy ears. I also catch glints of red in their eyes. What are they running around for?

The elegant person puts his cane back down and relaxes. “Don’t mind the locals. The Dunmer are the grumpy sort, but that’s only because they have a bad history with outsiders. That, and I’m currently terrorizing them!”

As the guy says that, a massive blur swoops down and knocks off a ton of food with its draft. Yikes, I nearly jump out of my skin! I get a good look at the blur as it climbs the sky. It’s long, blue, and looks a bit like a brick. Wait, no, not a brick. More like a train engine. It banks through the air, and I blink. It’s not like a train engine. It is a train engine.

The flying blue train engine swoops down by a house. I catch another detail as it does so. The engine has a face. It’s freaking smiling! The train flies over a mushroom house, and a plume of flame shoots out of its mouth and ignites the giant mushroom. More gray persons run away from the inferno. I can’t help but stare and watch.

What kind of Tartarus did I just walk into?

“I’ll admit, this isn’t helping their perception of foreigners,” the person says. “Though that ship sailed when I summoned the fifty bears earlier.”

The train flies back up to the sky again, and it joins a flock of other trains I didn’t notice before. The trains look exactly alike. Long, blue, all with faces. Occasionally one will swoop down and spew fire at some of the natives. It’s a train apocalypse!

“What the heck is going on?!” I say.

The person waves it off. “Isn’t it obvious? The flying trains are meant to exterminate the bears. But now that they did the job, they’re exterminating the villagers! They deserve some fun as a reward for a job well done.”

“That’s insane!”

The old guy looks at me as if I said the stupidest thing in the world. “Of course it is. It’s my thing. A party guest of mine spurred this episode. Not you, the one before you. Prissy little pageant girl found a way to press my buttons. Bravo on her part, now she regrets it! But enough of that. You are my present guest of honor! Come, sit down. Enjoy yourself. Find something that looks tasty. I promise at least half of this stuff won’t kill you.”

This guy is… off. A voice in my head tells me to do what this guy says, or else. I let a burning villager run past me, then I walk up to the seat across from the guy. Before I sit down, I give him a quizzical look. “Are you the guy I heard on that spaceship? I think I recognize your voice.”

The person nods. “Guilty as charged. It was an unorthodox way to talk to you, but you use what you got. You should be awed that someone such as myself put in the extra mile to reach you like that.”

I shrug. “Why should I be awed?”

The person slaps his forehead. “Oh, silly me. I just assumed you knew my name. Most mortals I murder do.” He holds out his arms and bows. “I am Sheogorath, Prince of Madness.”

The name alone is sending up red flags in the back of my head. He hasn’t tried to kill me, yet, but this Sheogorath guy seems like the type to do it just for laughs. I don’t think I have a choice other than to play along. “Nice to meet you. I’m Gilda.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Gilda, with a D?”

I nod. “Yes…”

He coughs in his fist in a sheepish gesture. “Ah, well then. Ignore the name tag on your plate. That’s a mistake on my part.”

I look down at the plate in front of me. There’s a piece of paper with a name on it. ‘Gilpa.’ “You were actually expecting me. That’s kind of terrifying.”

Sheogorath laughs. “How could I not expect you? I heard you coming from twelve worlds away! Your voices just won’t shut up!”

“Uh, sure.” What voices is he talking about? Given that he knows I’ve been world jumping, he might just be talking about something way over my head. Or he’s just a raving lunatic. The latter seems the most likely scenario. “So why am I here?”’

“Why else? To feast, to party, to celebrate! All this,” Sheogorath gestures to the entire table, “is for you! You’re the guest of honor, and I went all out for you. I even invited Vivec,” he points to the man with his face in the bowl, “the local god emperor, king, thing. Uh… I actually don’t know what he-she really is. But I know he-she’s important, that’s for sure. Vivec stopped a meteor with his mind once. Isn’t that right, Vivec? Tell our guest about the time you stopped a meteor with your mind!”

The man at the end of the table, Vivec, doesn’t respond. For the entire time we’ve been talking, he hasn’t lifted his head from the bowl. “Is he alright?” I ask.

“Of course not. He’s dead!” Sheogorath says, more happy than needed. “The poor bastard never could hold down his-her skooma. What a party pooper.”

Yep, I’m in danger.

Sheogorath plucks something green and unrecognizable off the table and takes a bite out of it. “Hmm, salty. Go on and try something. Anything. It’s all up for grabs.”

The food on the table all blends together as a big, colorful mosaic. I have no clue what most of this stuff is. I pick up the most familiar thing I can find, which appears to be a blue apple. I guess I should eat something if I don’t want Mister Crazy to kill me. My monster powers may not save me from him. I chomp down on the apple. Apples are supposed to be a little crunchy and really juicy. Not this one. The apple breaks apart into dry chips. I crunch on a beak full of what are essentially fruity nachos.

My face twists in confusion as I try to make out what’s in my mouth. This seems to delight the mad prince. “So, tell me about yourself,” Sheogorath says. “What kind of alien creature are you?”

“Wha?” Pieces of apple nachos spit out when I try to talk. I take a moment longer to finish chewing, and then I talk. “Don’t you know that already? Aren’t you the kind of guy who knows everything about me before I get here?”

“Gilda, what a silly thought. That’s Hermaeus’ department.” Sheogorath tilts his head slightly. “I’m only a mere Daedric Prince. I’m far from omnipotent. Close, but not all the way there. I still need to get my information from my friendly neighborhood spies like everyone else. So please, enlighten me. Why is a mad bird playing in the Nexus?”

His vibes are bad, but he hasn’t done anything terrible to me yet. What does he want? “Well, I didn’t come here by choice. Some a-hole sucked me in a suitcase and kicked me into the void, and that was after he sent his goons to destroy my shop.”

His face lights up as if that answered everything. I guess it sort of does. “Ah, you’re a small business owner.”

Huh, didn’t expect to get appreciated here. I’m so conflicted right now. “I bake scones for a living. Pays the bills.” I take another bite out of the nacho apple. Too bad I can’t taste anything. I wonder what the flavor is like.

Sheogorath rubs his beard. “Hmm. Nope, I got no mad banter for scones. How embarrassing. Now cheese, I got plenty for cheese. I can banter all day with cheese. Nothing for scones though. But this a-hole, did he destroy your shop because you owe him money? Insurance scam?”

I shake my head. “No. I was labeled a threat to national security, and he’s on the side that wants me dead. He keeps ruining my life just because I got some crazy monster powers! It’s not fair.”

His eyebrow goes up. “Crazy monster powers?”

As a demonstration, I grow out the Tyranid blade. It glistens under the light of the fire-breathing trains. “I couldn’t do this before. It wasn’t until I woke up in some secret lab a year ago that I could grow blades out of my arm. Apparently that’s grounds for the entire government to hunt me down.”

“Your government’s been hunting you down for a year?”

“Yes!”

“Sounds exhausting. You should elect better representatives. They must be incompetent if they’ve let you survive for a year.” Sheogorath watches one of his train engines burn a villager to a crisp. He chuckles as the villager keels over in agony. “What were you doing before you became enemy number one?”

If only I knew. “I’m not sure. The powers came with a case on amnesia. Everything a few months prior, that’s all gone.”

He shrugs. “Inconvenient. I’m sure there’s something juicy you’re forgetting.”

I play with the nacho apple in my claw. “From what I gather, a lot.”

Sheogorath holds up a figure. “Hold a moment. Bear.”

“Bear?” A large paw bashes me out of my chair. I flip on my back, and a massive brown bear jumps on top of me. Its head dives in to rip my throat off. I raise the Tyranid blade quick enough to slash the bear right down the middle. Two bear halves fall apart. Blood spurts all over my face. I get back on my chair and gawk at my host. “Bear?!”

The Mad Prince shrugs. “One of the original fifty. The trains must have missed one. Back on track. At what point in your life story do you explain the voices in your head?”

Huh? A bear just tried to maul me and this guy brings up the voices again. What the heck am I dealing with? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What voices?”

“Oh, you know, the mob of voices yelling at you to kill yourself. Those voices.”

I pause for a moment to listen. All I hear are the villagers’ death throes. I’m pretty sure I’m not imagining those. “Nobody is yelling in my head. It’s just me.”

Old guys doesn’t look like he believes me. “Are you sure about that? Because I keep hearing voices coming from you when your beak isn’t moving. It’s so distracting. You must be a special kind of mad if you can’t hear any of it.”

“I’m pretty sure I only have one voice in my head, and that’s mine”

Sheogorath leans back on his chair and folds his arms in. “Gilda, I’m the Prince of Madness. Head voices are my specialty. When I say you have voices in your head, you have voices in your head. Denying this could mean either of two things. One, you’re so far gone that you’re in denial of your own insanity and have reached a greater level of madness, which I applaud. Or two, you’re lying to me. Pray you’re insane, because people who lie to me don’t live very long.”

I throw up my claws. “What do you want me to say? Yes, there are voices in my head. They want to come out and have a tea party with you and sing songs and dance. Is that what you want?”

He shakes his head. “Your voices do not want to dance.”

“For all I know they do! How am I supposed to know what they want? I can’t hear them. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist.”

“Either a lie or a delusion, I really can’t tell.” The old man chuckles. “That’s rich. The Prince of Madness can’t figure out if a mad bird is lying or not. Boethiah will never let me live this down.”

Why am I even arguing with this dude? I just met him. “Do you really think I’m lying?”

He shrugs. “I just said I can’t figure it out! Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. If you are lying, then you’re just denying to yourself that you’re crazy, and insulting me in the process. But if you aren’t lying, and you really can’t hear those voices, then you’ll be doomed to jump in the Nexus for the rest of your miserable life.”

All I understand of that was the doomed to stay in the Nexus part. I trace back what he just said so I can try to sift out some tangible meaning. I’m not too fond of what I figure out. “I need to be crazy to get out of the Nexus?”

He looks disappointed in my conclusion. “No. Being crazy makes it harder.”

Several persons in armor run up to a hovering train. The train sees them and lays down fire upon them. They writhe on the ground as the flames consume them. Yep, that’s crazy. “If I’m seeing stuff like that, no wonder I’ve been having a hard time jumping around.”

Sheogorath waves that off. “Ignore that. That’s my crazy, not yours. You’re having a bad time for different reasons.”

I’m pretty sure that’s my crazy. Everything’s my crazy. “How does crazy factor into my Nexus jumping?”

Sheogorath leans forward. “Tell me, what do you want?”

What do I want? I think a moment. “Honestly, a hot shower.”

“And have you received your hot shower yet?”

Can’t he smell me? “Uh, no. What does this have to do with Nexus jumping?”

“What doesn’t it have to do? If you yet haven’t received your hot shower, then you’re never going to get it. Not unless you make a bargain with your voices.”

The heck? “That makes no sense.”

The Mad Prince snorts through his nose. “Wow, that bug queen was right. You are dumb! It’s a wonder how you function properly if that doesn’t make sense to you.”

I stand up, kicking my chair out from under me. “Hey, you’re the one spouting nonsense! How can I make heads or tails if it if you don’t — Wait, did you say bug queen?”

The old man nods. “Self proclaimed royalty. That bug queen was my last guest here before you. She wasn’t a nice guest. Kept talking over me with long winded monologues. I didn’t like her manners, so I summoned fifty bears to maul her.”

That sounds familiar. “Is this bug queen an overgrown insect?”

“Well, we are in Morrowind. Overgrown insects are all over the place. I could hardly call her overgrown by comparison. But yes, she was an insect.”

I slam a fist on the table. “Bug Lady. Where did she go?”

“She jumped through the Nexus while the bears were tearing her apart. And she left at the worst time. I was just about to tell her the secret of how to travel the Nexus before I decided to kill her. Unfortunate, but that is life. You win some, you lose some, you get mauled by bears.”

Forget the crazy, Bug Lady is out there still. I may not want to pick a fight with her, but there’s a good chance I’ll encounter her if we’re jumping around together. If we do meet, I’m beating the crap out of her. But she doesn’t know how to jump through the Nexus. Neither do I, but I’m aiming to fix that. “How can I jump through the Nexus so I can beat up Bug Lady?”

Sheogorath eyes a plate on his side of the table. He scrapes a finger on it, then lifts it up to his eyes. There’s a stain of white powder on his finger. “Do you want to beat her up?”

“If it comes to it, yes.”

“But I thought you wanted a hot shower.”

“Well, that too. But I also want to beat the crap out of Bug Lady.”

His cat eyes follow the powder up and down his finger. He licks his lips in anticipation. “You can’t have both. You got to pick one or the other.”

“Why not? They’re not mutually exclusive.”

“Because that’s how the Nexus works. That’s why.” He puts the finger up to his nose and sniffs the stuff clean. His body shudders, and his cat eyes dilate. “Mmm, that’s good stuff. Moonsugar really opens my fifth eye. Lets me see worlds beyond Nirn whenever I take a whiff!”

I’m going to take his word on it. “So to get out of the Nexus, I need to want one thing, because that’s how the Nexus works?”

“That’s the gist.”

Odd, but this sounds like the most sane thing he’s said, so… “But I can’t want more than one thing?”

His pupils come back to normal, and he shakes his head. “The Nexus gives you what you want. You’ll confuse it if you want for more.”

“So if I want to go home?”

He scrapes more off his plate, and takes another whiff. “Then the Nexus will take you home. It’s as simple as that. I don’t see why you can’t comprehend it.”

I slam my fists on the table. The food and plates shake from the force. “But I’ve been wanting to go home since I got here. I wanted to go home since I met the Protoss, and that was I don’t know how any jumps ago! I’m still not home. Explain that!”

He leans back and enjoys the powder’s effects. His eyes are staring off into space, but somehow he can carry on the conversation. “That’s because you’re confusing the Nexus.”

Back to insanity. “How? How is wanting to go home confusing? Does it need a zip code?”

Sheogorath taps the side of his head. “Voices, voices.”

“There you go with the voices again.”

He waves his powder finger at me. “That’s what makes you so adorable. You’re so dense! You’re so dense I just want to bash your head open with my fists!”

I think he might just do that. Got to play along, Gilda. Play along till I get out of here. “Alright, the voices. I have them. But I can’t hear them.”

Sheogorath claps his hands together with the cane in the middle. “Splendid. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it. Don’t you feel better now? Nah, you’re destined to be miserable. You’ll never feel better!”

Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence. “I got voices. How are the voices confusing the Nexus.”

“Do I have to explain everything to you mortals? Even the Oblivion guy didn’t ask this many questions, and I’m the Oblivion guy!” The old guy points his clasped hands to me. “Here’s how it goes. Voices count as their own entities. They may be constructs of your own insanity, but they still have thoughts, feelings, personalities, motives, wants. If they could, they can take over your body and act as a completely different person. And let me tell you, it’s hilarious to see a voice takeover and trap the body in a ladies’ changing room. The look on the host’s face when he switches back is priceless. Bonus points if he slaughtered his whole family in the process.”

I scratch my head as I think. Forget about the family slaughter part. Just focus on the voices. “So if the voices have wants, does that mean the Nexus is hearing those wants?”

Sheogorath beams with pride, as if I’m a kid that just figured out how to use the potty for the first time. “Ding ding! You figured it out. You and your voices are competing for those wants. The Nexus can’t handle more than one want from the same body, so it pulls a page out of my book and goes nuts!”

Alright, I think I’m getting somewhere. “So for me to jump back home through the Nexus, my want has to be the only one.” The mad prince nods. Awesome, I think I get it now. I just have to get rid of the voices in my head he’s been talking about. “So, how do I get rid of the voices?”

Sheogorath shrugs. “No clue. I don’t cure madness. I induce it. Trust me, I’m the last person you want to dump your life problems on. I’ll find your center, chew it up, spit it out, put a little cinnamon on it, appreciate it from a distance, then forget about it on the stove while it sets the house on fire. You don’t want me to fix your problems. Not that I want to.”

The last thing I want is this guy’s help, and yet... “Then what do I do with the voices?”

He shrugs. “Talk to them. They’re in your head. Strike up a conversation and convince them to want what you want.”

“That’s the problem. I can’t hear them, much less talk to them.”

Something in Sheogorath’s face snaps. “And it bobbles my mind how you can’t hear them. Those voices of yours are louder than the screaming villagers.”

Here we go again with the voices I can’t hear but apparently exist. “How can you even hear those voices if I can’t? People talk in my head all the time and they don’t say anything about my voices, just my internal monologues. Out of all those people, how are you able to hear something I can’t?”

“Simple. I can sense insanity with my fourth eye.”

“Your fourth eye? Like one of those hippy, metaphysical things?” I never liked those hippies.

He holds two fingers in front of his forehead in a V shape. “My fourth eye. It transcends time and space to let me see all insanity I encounter. If there’s a man about to crack, or a woman who’s lost her way, I will know, and I will pull them down to my level. By my hand, they descend below society, doomed to rave as lunatics in an uncaring world.”

Yeah… that just give me more motivation to get out of here faster. “If that’s your fourth eye, then what’s your third eye?”

The old guy winks at me. “Little Jyggalag.” I shudder. I regret asking that.

Focus, Gilda. Don’t get pulled in by him. Nexus and wants, voices confusing the Nexus with wants, I can’t hear the voices. That’s where I’m at. “So if I want the Nexus to take me home, I need to convince voices I can’t hear to want me to go home. If you can hear them, why don’t you talk to them?”

Sheogorath gives me a sly look. “Do you really want me inside your head?”

Nope. “How do I do it on my own?”

The Mad Prince looks down at the table. He reaches over a platter of exotic vegetables and grabs a large bottle. The bottle is made of purple glass with a golden cork at the top. There’s a dark liquid inside it, but I can’t see it clearly. “This one makes you smaller.”

“I don’t under”- Sheogorath chucks it at me, and I catch the bottle in my claws- “Hey!”

“Descending,” he says with a low voice. “The only way back is to go forward. The only way out is to go down.”

More madness. I look closer at the bottle. The glass is flawless. Not a scratch or smudge on it. My talons don’t leave any prints when I hold it. I pop the cork off and give the liquid a whiff. It smells sour. It’s something between a sun dried lemon and spoiled milk. “This will help me get home?”

He props his legs on the table. His cat eyes thin to slits as he stares at me. “It’ll let you talk with your voices. Pray that you can persuade them.”

The bottle in my claw grows in weight. Something about it feels off. Do I trust him? I haven’t had a good track record with trusting people that feel off. “I don’t have another choice?”

He shrugs. “You can drink, or you can wonder the Nexus till the end of time. What do you prefer, a quick madness, or a slow insanity?

The sour odor strikes my nose with a hard punch. Not much of a choice. I guess what I should ask myself is if I want to take my chances in the Nexus. Would I survive on my own?

Banelings are out there. Not a chance.

I lift the bottle’s neck to my beak and drink the liquid. While it smells sour, I’m still unable to taste. I’m thankful for the small mercies. I chug the thing in half a minute, then chuck the bottle to the ground. With the back of my arm, I wipe the last of the juice that’s dripping from my beak. My eagle eyes stare right back into Sheogorath’s cat eyes. “There.”

The Mad Prince smiles. “That’s impressive.”

Yeah… I’m probably going to regret that. “So, when do I start hearing the voices?”

Sheogorath holds a hand up to his mouth to suppress a laugh. “You won’t.”

I perk up. “Excuse me?”

He points to the bottle. “I found that underneath a table in a bar in Riften. I have no clue what it was. I just wanted to see if you would drink it.”

…

WHAT?!

“And you did!” He throws his head back and lets out a powerful laugh. The fires that are burning down the village flicker from the force.

This bastard!

Sheogorath throws his cane in the air and catches it mid shaft. “But if you’re so insistent in going insane, allow me to oblige you.” With a twirl, he points the cane at my face. I feel a force ripple through my body. Feels like an impending sense of doom is seeping out of every atom of my being. “There, you should now be able to talk to your voices.”

I throw my claws up in the air. “What?!”

He bounces the cane in his hand. “Oh, I could’ve helped you the entire time. Heck, I could’ve gotten rid of the voices in your head. I just wanted to see if you were stupid enough to do whatever I said, and you were! Oh, this is priceless! Who in Oblivion is stupid enough to drink from a bottle that a Daedric prince gave them? Heck, that was just something nasty smelling. I could give you bleach and you’d still drink it!”

The tumor fists come out and I obliterate the table. Food and splinters go flying in the air. Even Vivec’s limp corpse takes a trip above our heads. “You could have gotten rid of the voices?!”

Sheogorath clasps his mouth and tries his best to contain his laughter. “You… sknrk… You’re getting mad about voices… kpphmt… That I told you about. You didn’t think you had voices five minutes ago, and now you’re furious about the fact I could get rid of those voices. Ckhckh, this is glorious!”

My eye twitches, but I hold myself together. “So after all this time, I don’t have voices in my head? I could just go home without having to deal with any voices. Freaking waste of my time.”

Sheogorath’s face is twisting. That grin of his is growing into a manic crescent moon. His cat eyes are about to pop out of his skull. At any second his skin could rip apart and collapse in a twisting knot. “Oh no, everything I said is true. Truth is the leading cause of madness, so why would I say anything but the truth? You should be having a conversation with your friends right… about… now!”

I look around. All I see and hear are burning villagers. Actually, the villagers who are left are just smoldering corpses, and those don’t make much noise. “I don’t see”—

A pink haze appears out of thin air. It’s nothing thick. I can see right through it. It’s kind of like smoke from a pipe. It hangs for a moment before rushing forth to crash into my face. A force pushes me back and passes through my body. For a weird haze, it sure packs some weight. It’s nothing I can’t handle, but it sure is surprising.

More hazes appear around me. They’re all different colors, white, brown, blue, green, red, yellow, so on and so forth. They all hang in the air. Some drift around. Others are still. Here and there, the hazes are clustered in groups. Not all of them. Some are off on their own. My ears might be playing tricks on me, but I think I hear whispers coming from the haze groups.

Oh no, I’m conjuring lipans!

The pink haze rushes me again, and it pushes me enough that I side step. “What the heck?! What’s going on?”

“Your voices manifest,” Sheogorath says with a grin. “How they manifest, I have no idea. I always enjoy watching someone’s madness unfold. It’s never the same. Usually there’s a lot of screaming. Are you a screamer?”

Now the hazes are moving. The whispering is turning into raving. I can’t understand what they say. The voices are too muffled. It sounds like they’re getting excited.

One of the hazes, a brown one, rushes for me along with the pink. Together, they push me back a step. This can’t be madness. Madness doesn’t push you around like this. Sheogorath is doing something.

“You’re doing this,” I say. Another haze, this time a yellow one, knocks me in the back of the head. “Stop it right now!”

“I’m doing nothing.” Sheogorath steps back and plops down in his stone throne. “This is out of my hands. There’s nothing I can do about the free will of mental constructs. From what I hear, your voices despise you. Did you piss on their dead mothers or something to the effect?”

The hazes ripple, and all at once, they rush me. My vision fills with multicolored smoke. My body squeezes from the force of all the haze. Mumbling is all I hear from all directions. It sounds like thousands of people are trying to talk in my ears at the same time. Most of it is garbage, but I do hear one thing.

“Rip and tear him!”

Something wraps around my neck to choke me, and it yanks be back into the cloud of haze—

55 - Neural Network

— Right onto the cold, hard ground. The back of my head bangs against what feels like crusty mud. I groan as I rub my disheveled feathers. That’s going to leave a nasty bruise. “Damn prince,” I mutter. “Prince of Jackasses more like it.” At least the choking thing stopped.

My eyes flicker open. I expect to see mushroom trees and flying trains in the sky, but no. Everything is different now. Gone are the screaming people and the Mad Prince’s banquet. Instead, I’m in a web. Thick branches the size of houses link up to spherical nodes. The branches are made up of a red, fleshy, muscle type material. The nodes are massive clumps of tendons and tissue, wiggling under the rhythm of the pulses. These branches and nodes crisscross over, under, and through each other for miles around, up, down, and sideways. It’s all web, viscous web all over. No sky, no ground, no horizon. The giant flesh web goes on into the distance before it disappears behind a red fog.

That haze back at the banquet must have triggered another one of my Nexus jumps. Of course I’m not done with this adventure. Why would I be?

Right now I’m standing on a flesh branch of my own. Veins below the skin beat to the rhythm of a heart. Feels like I’m touching someone else’s pulse. I step back, but I feel the beat under every step I take. I think I might be inside something living. Let’s hope it doesn’t try to forcefully evict me.

Aside from the web, I see nothing of interest in this place. There aren’t any discernible landmarks anywhere. If I started climbing around, I’m sure I’d get lost within minutes. I listen to see if there’s anything around me. All I hear is a quiet, high pitched whine that seems to be everywhere. Mostly white noise. The only other thing I pick up is my own pulse thumping behind my ears.

Well, at least nothing is trying to kill me. Pretty quiet here. I’ll take boredom over things trying to kill me every day of the week. It’s a good time for a rest, get myself sorted out. I’ve been running around for what feels like years. I think I deserve a break.

I lie down on my back and rest my head on the flesh. Hmm, this is surprisingly comfy. It’s no water bed, but this flesh branch is kind of soft. I could sleep here if I wanted to. The heart beats underneath are a little annoying, but I think I can tune that out if I give it some time.

My limbs stretch out as I make myself at home. My eyes shut and I try to get some sleep. Try is the key word there. I try to take a nap, but there’s something that’s keeping me from taking that step. Something doesn’t feel right. Even with my eyes closed, there’s something keeping me tense. Something keeping me on edge.

I sit up and listen carefully. Is there something nearby? I don’t hear anything moving. Could there be something out there that’s silently stalking me? No, I don’t think so. All I hear is white noise. That, and my own heart beat.

Wait, my heart beat? I feel the veins behind my ears pulsing, and at the same time I feel the flesh I’m sitting on beat with the same rhythm. In unison, my pulse and the ground beat together. Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. It’s the same.

Before both were quiet enough that I wouldn’t notice it if I was doing anything else, but now that I noticed it, I can’t not listen to it. The two beats, conjoined in timing, is all I hear now. Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump.

I shiver. Things trying to kill me, I know how to handle that. A world that shares my heart beat? I don’t know how to process that. I don’t think it’s dangerous, but at the same time how am I supposed to deal with a giant web that’s synced up with my body? It’s unnerving, man.

I shake my head and get up on my feet. I don’t notice it as much standing up, but my feet still feel the heartbeats. It’s putting me off. I think I’ll go insane if this keeps up.

Hold on, I think I can fix it. I just need to change my own heart beat. Yeah, that should work. Let’s do a bit of exercise, raise my beats per minute. That’ll throw my pulse out of sync!

The moment I get the idea, I jog in place. I start off with a normal pace, but then I bump it up to a super fast trample with my monster powers. My legs turn to blurs as I stomp out a ditch in the fleshy ground. Huh, maybe I should compete in the Equestria Games once this is all over. I could blow away the competition in a hundred yard dash!

After a minute, I stop jogging. I’m not panting, but I do press a talon behind my ear. My pulse shot up to at least twice of what it was. It’s now a rapid stream of thumps. I’d be worried if it didn’t do that after some exercise.

Good to know I can do that. I drop on my back again and stretch my limbs once more. I’m getting myself that rest one way or another. Maybe my pulse will sync up with the flesh web again, but hopefully I’ll doze off before that happens. If it bugs me I’ll jog again.

I rest my head on the flesh. My eyes shoot open. The beats underneath the flesh have sped up to match the pace of my pulse. They’re in sync again.

I jump up and cry out. That’s not a thing that should happen! Why is that a thing that is happening?! Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. The beats send chills up my legs. Seriously, I’ve dealt with magic aliens, demons, damn warzones, but this is crossing the line. This flesh web should not be doing what it’s doing right now!

Is this Tartarus? Am I in Tartarus? I’m going to stab that Mad Prince Bastard next I see him for sending me to Tartarus!

My Tyranid blade grows out. Screw it, I’m not playing with this! I slash through the tendons of my branch. It splits apart like melting butter. Blood spurts out of the hole. I smile. Ha, take that you flesh web-AH!!

A pain spikes through my skull. I collapse, clutching my head and rolling around. AAAAHHH! Feels bad! Feels bad! Feels bad! It’s like my brain stubbed its toe on a table leg. Ow, ow, ow, this is not pleasant.

The sharp pain leaves as soon as it came. All I’m left with is a throbbing sensation in the back of my head. I look up, and the hole I made in the flesh is sealing up at the same rate my brain pain is going.

Duly noted, don’t hurt the web. I slump on the ground. This place seems to share more than just my heart beat. I think it reflected its pain back onto me. Well, that’s a bummer. Can’t do anything about that synced up heart beat. This place is going to drive me to insanity! Better find a way out before that happens.

The web spans miles in every direction. I don’t know if there is anything of worth to find. No matter. I’ll never leave if I don’t try. With that thought, I get up and wander up my branch. No doubt I’ll get lost, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about that.

I make my way up to one of the nearby nodes. The node has five other branches stemming off from it. The ends of the branches twist together to form a wad of warped flesh, hence the node. It doesn’t look anything spectacular. It’s just a connection point for all the other branches. Still, it’s rather large. I think it’s the size of a house.

As I approach the node, the white noise that filled the air changes. It bends and twists and grows and shrinks. The white noise transforms into something with more shape. This is all figurative, of course. Noise doesn’t have a shape. But I can tell the high pitched whine is gaining form, becoming something more complex than just an ambient tone.

At first I don’t quite recognize it. It sounds muffled and choppy, but there is a sort of pattern to it. As I get closer to the node, I’m able to identify the noise. It’s voices. I don’t understand what the voices are saying. They sound like they’re coming from a different room with the door closed. It’s all mumbling that I can’t recognize.

This is weird. Raw wads of flesh aren’t supposed to make voices. What I’m looking at doesn’t have any mouth parts or holes to make voice sounds with. The voices don’t sound like they’re coming from behind a wall of skin and muscle. It’s like the voices are just there. It’s off-putting. Combine that with the infinite flesh web and the heartbeat thing…

Oh jeez, I know I mentioned I might be in Tartarus right now, but that was a spur of the moment thing. I didn’t think I’d actually be in Tartarus. Well, maybe not Tartarus, but I’m probably inside something equivalent to it. Voices and flesh structures are never a good thing. Just ask the Zerg and Protoss.

The voices are getting louder as I approach them. Yeah, great idea, approach the mysterious voices. What could happen? Solid words float up from the chatter. Soon I’m able to hear full sentences. When I’m standing at the base of the node, I can make out a full blown conversation.

There are two voices. I hear a lady’s voice, somewhat on the older side. “I worry about you all the time.”

The other voice sighs. It sounds macho, maybe somewhat young. Mid twenties perhaps? “I’ll be fine, Mom. Mister North never gets into any dangerous situations. I’m just there to look tough and scare off anybody that wants a piece of him.”

Mom? Mister North? I don’t know if this is the heartbeat thing, but I’m getting a feeling I should know these names. It’s as if the Mom is actually my mom and I work a lot with Mister North. It feels familiar, but I don’t know why. My mom would never worry about me like that, and I don’t know a Mister North. I know Arctic North. Is that what they’re talking about?

“I worry about you all the time,” the woman says.

“I’ll be fine, Mom. Mister North never gets into any dangerous situations.” Wait, are they repeating themselves? I think they’re repeating. “I’m just there to look tough and scare off anybody that wants a piece of him.” Yep, they’re repeating.

Eh, not important. I got to find a way to get out of here. “I worry about you all the time.” Or at least get away from this. I swear this place is designed to make me go insane. I think that’s why the Mad Prince sent me here. Got to get out of here before I give him what he wants!

A line from our conversation pops back in my brain. “So if the voices have wants, does that mean the Nexus is hearing those wants?”

Oh right, he said the Nexus will give me what I want, but I have to deal with the voices first before that. Huh… I wonder if these are the voices he was talking about. I didn’t think he’d actually help me. He could be lying. He probably is.

“I worry about you all the time.”

I don’t see a way to talk to random voices, especially ones that repeat themselves over and over. But if this is what the Nexus hears, can’t hurt to try. Just how do I go about doing it? Do I touch the node? I raise a talon and poke—

A cozy room. A blazing fireplace. A mare in her sixties sitting on a couch. “I worry about you all the time.”

A huge hoof patting the mare’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Mom. Mister North never gets into any dangerous situations. I’m just there to look tough and scare off anybody that wants a piece of him.”

Wait a moment. Isn’t this what happens when I eat a pony and see their memories? I do this flashback thing. This feels like a flashback thing.

“But you’re heading to Manehattan,” the mare says. Oh hey, we’re moving on in the conversation. That’s progress. “What if you catch Blacklight? I keep reading about how Blackwatch guards keep turning into monsters!”

The large hooves lift up. Embrace the old mare. “I said I’ll be fine. I won’t be going anywhere near that stuff. Plus I’ll be wearing my armor. That’ll protect me from anything short of falling from the sky.”

The mare sobs. “Please don’t fall out of the sky.”

“I won’t, Mom.”

A long moment of silence. Sobbing. “Please be safe, Orion.”

Huh, that got me nowhere. It was just a memory. What the heck can I do with a memory? At least the memory had ponies and Blacklight, no crazy world of aliens and monsters, so I think I’m going in the right direction, maybe.

I look out at the infinite web of flesh. There are nodes all over the place. Is each one of them a memory of a pony? That’s a lot of memories. I guess I should start making my way through them.

I turn to climb the node I just touched, but it isn’t there. Instead, I see the cozy room from that memory. It didn’t replace the node, it’s just there. It simply is. In the middle of the room, a large stallion is sitting on a chair. It looks like he’s embracing somebody, but there’s only empty air between his hooves.

Again, huh? I just went through a memory. Is this the owner of that memory? Is he the voice I have to talk to so I get out of here? “Hey, dude,” I say to him, trying to grab his attention. “I need you to do me a solid. I need you to want me to get out of here. Can you do that?”

The stallion looks up at me. Originally he looked calm and peaceful, but now something about him is off. I can’t put… Oh wait, it’s the eyes. His eyes are burning with intense hatred!

“Are you okay?” I ask. This does seem off.

The stallion’s mouth curls in a sneer. “You killed me,” he hisses.

I take a step back. My tentacles are tensing up, ready to shift out if needed. “Uh, I’ll just let you be.”

The stallion lets out a roar. The roar shakes the branch I’m on, and it shakes the inside of my head! The stallion steps forward, and he grows. He grows from his normal large stallion self to a fleshy giant the size of a house. The cozy room fades away, leaving behind the fleshy node. The flesh surges. The giant’s form presses against the skin like a pimple about to pop. The flesh bursts apart, and the giant charges out screaming.

The monster is a giant pony with raw flesh exposed and a mouth of bleeding gums. He roars, “You killed us all!” I dash out of the way before his foot squishes me into a pulp. He punches a crater out of the flesh branch, and I feel a sting in the back of my head. “Rip and tear until you are done!”

I clutch my forehead as I make a mad dash away from the bastard. Fight through the migraine, get out of here. Okay, clearly he’s not a happy camper. This whole voice talking thing might be more challenging than I thought. Sheogorath did say the voices want me dead.

The monster makes chase. I feel the branch shake every time he smashes a hoof down. I wince every time he does so. Sweet mercy, it’s like a mountain is bashing me inside the head. My brain is going to split apart at any moment!

I run towards the other end of the branch where it connects to a different node. There’s a branch running vertical from the node. Aha, I doubt Mister Big-n-Angry can climb anything more than a flight of stairs, so it should be a good escape option.

I reach the node and jump on top, ready to climb—

A warm bed. Beneath the covers. Oh, right. The nodes trigger memories.

A female voice comes out of me. “I wish this would last forever.”

A bump in the covers. The bump. Out comes a green mare. She smiles at me. “Isn’t this already forever?”

I laugh. A hoof strokes the mare’s hair. “You’re so cheesy.”

The mare giggles. She leans into the hoof. “No, I’m just that gouda.”

Ah! Bad pun! The green mare starts kissing my face. I kiss her back and get right in there with my tongue.

Oh great, a random memory that certainly isn’t mine is getting more action than I ever have. It’s just a crappy reminder of how dry my love life is. Do you know how hard it is to find a nice guy griffon who isn’t a deadbeat? It’s piss hard.

The mare pushes her head into the crook of my neck. “Don’t go to Manehattan.”

I stroke the back of her neck and kiss her forehead. “But I have to. I have to protect Equestria.”

She buries her nose in my skin and sniffs. “But what if you don’t return.”

Why do I feel inadequate watching this?

I lean on top of her head. “Then I die as your hero.”

Warm tears drip down my throat. “But I want you to live with me. You don’t need to be a hero.”

My hoof squeezes her tight. “I have to do this. I can’t live with myself if I don’t do something. I have to do something, anything.”

Silence. “Please come back.

Just the warm breathes between us. “I promise.”

The web world comes back to me, along with that splitting headache. I’m on top of the node. The monster is still chasing me. Thank Grover that memory ended before those two went at it. If I had to be reminded of my loneliness, I’d gladly let the monster eat me.

Stupid mares getting more action than I ever have. Grumble, grumble.

I look down at the node. Same as before, there is no node. There’s a bed with a mare in it. This is a different mare than the one I saw, so I think she’s the one the memory belongs to. The mare is stroking an empty spot next to her, as if she’s cuddling with a ghost. Hmm, not to different from the other guy’s memory thing.

There is one big difference. The mare has a giant fish hook sticking out of the bottom of her mouth and poking out of her cheek. Fish Hook mare turns her head and looks right up at me. “You took her away from me.”

“No!” I shout at her. “Don’t you dare nail that crap on me! I’m not interested in mares!”

The bed disappears, leaving behind the node. As quick as it goes, Fish Hook Girl presses against the node’s skin from the inside. The skin breaks apart, and she lunges for me. I jump and grab the vertical branch. “Because of you,” she yells, “I’ll never see her again!”

“Maybe I did you a favor!” I yell back. “The single life isn’t so bad.” Keep telling yourself that, Gilda.

The mare twists out of the node and latches on to the base of my branch. She crawls her way up towards me, ignoring the concept of gravity. The big monster comes up to. He doesn’t crawl. He just runs up the wall as if it wasn’t a steep vertical incline.

Sheogorath didn’t say anything about the voices climbing walls!

I kick it into overdrive with my own wall climbing. The distance between us grows as I run up the branch. My headache is pounding my skull to dust. All this running we’re doing is going to turn my brain into a fine goop by the end of this.

The node at the top of the branch blocks me from going anywhere. I’m going to have to touch that if I want to go anywhere else, aren’t I? And that’s going to bring out another voice that wants to kill me. I swear there’s a better course of action for me to take, but my headache is making it hard to think.

I sigh. I really don’t have any good ideas. I jump to grab on to the bottom of the node—

A bottle smashes against a wall. “Bitch, don’t you dare take my kid from me!”

A mare. She’s standing defensive. Her magic holds a wooden bat. “Stop you tantrum, Sunrise! You’re making things worse for yourself.”

I snap. “Bullshit. You’re the childish one here. I’m the one acting reasonable.”

The mare steps back. The bat comes between us. “Stay right where you are. You’re not going to hurt my daughter.”

Another bottle goes flying. It hits the wall. “Our daughter! We raised her together. And you have no right to take her from me!”

What’s with all these weird memories? I didn’t ask to look into everyone’s dirty laundry.

The mare steps forward. Tears run down her face. “How can you raise a kid from a bar? Did you get diapers off that waitress hussy of yours?!”

I step forward. “Leave Sapphire out of this! I didn’t catch her packing her bags when I came home from work early!”

The mare spits. “And I don’t put my dick in every hole I find!”

I yell. My hoof smashes the mare across the face.

Wow, I found the wrong node to look into. Can I get out of here, please? I’d rather run from crazy voices than to sit through this shit show.

The bat swings. I black out.

Oh hey, a KO. That’ll end my suffering. Now to do the other suffering thing. Excuse me? World fade, please?

The web world returns to my vision. Thank you!

The voice monsters are nearing the node. Yipee. Maybe I was too hasty in leaving that node. I look up to see where the next branch is. But there are no branches. There’s just an angry stallion looking me dead in the eye. Oh right, the memory room thing. Got to deal with that first. “Uh… hi,” I say.

The stallion grabs my wrists and yanks me off from what I’m grabbing. Which is weird, since I don’t see what I’m grabbing now that the memory room is up. Looks like I’m grabbing empty space. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” the stallion sneers. “Now I got to kill you.”

“Join the club,” I say. “I’ve met a lot people with that exact same hobby.”

The stallion smiles. “Then I suppose this makes me club president.” He flings me away and lets go. I fall past the voice monsters, past the node, and down into empty space.

It doesn’t feel like I’m falling. It feels like the world is moving up and I’m standing still. Yeah, this doesn’t feel like falling, and I’d say I’m an expert on falling. I’m not getting any wind in my feathers or that gut feeling that gravity is dragging me down. Other than the web moving up, I would have no idea I was falling.

Now that I think about it, I should’ve tried this in the first place. When that monster popped out of the node, I should’ve jumped overboard. Fall through the sky and leave that monster behind. To be fair, I have a splitting headache. I doubt I would’ve thought that up at the time.

Hmm, I’ve been falling for a bit. Branches and nodes keep zooming past me. I think I hit terminal velocity. How far does this flesh web go? It can’t be infinite. Or maybe it is. I don’t know enough about extra dimensional realms to make anything close to an educated guess. And what happens if I do get to the end? Will I have enough velocity to finally go splat hard enough that I won’t be able to reform? That idea worries me. I don’t know how durable my body is. It’s pretty durable, but I don’t know how far it goes.

This is a really long fall. I’m starting to get worried about what would happen if I hit something—

I splat against a branch. I shriek bloody murder. The fall didn’t hurt me, not at all. It’s the branch that’s hurting me. I’d find a way to describe this feeling, but I’m too busy clutching my head and banging my skull against the branch. The headache, the mother of all headaches. Feels like all the blood vessels in my head burst all at once when I hit the branch.

I roll on the floor, kicking, crying and shrieking. It’s not a pleasant sight, or sound for that matter. We griffons make the most awful shriek sounds. Just imagine what an eagle sounds like if you ripped off its wing. Then add the volume of a lion. Then just rip off the lion’s nuts while you’re at it. And twist the eagle’s neck right before it snaps, and keep it there.

That’s close to what my brain feels like right now.

Pain doesn’t last forever. A good noose will usually end it for you. But that’s not an option for me. The pressure on my gray matter dulls. My shrieks stop and I’m left panting on the floor, lying in a pool of my own sweat. I want to go home.

After some time of just sitting still, I gain enough composure to stand up like the big girl I am. I really got to be more careful with these branches. Now that I know what will happen if I hit one at terminal velocity, I have no incentive to jump into the void. If I’m going to move around this place, I have to walk.

I get up and look around. Oh, who am I kidding? There’s nothing to look around for. It’s all just flesh web. What am I going to find in this dump, more things that want to kill me? It’s just all going to be flesh web and killer voices.

A yellow light glitters in the corner of my eye. I flip around, expecting one of the voices to attack, but instead I find something odd. The node I landed next to is wrapped up in thick chains. There’s nothing peculiar about the chains, except they’re glowing yellow. There doesn’t seem to be a padlock anywhere. Do the chains connect with themselves?

Odd… Very odd. In a realm that has my heartbeat and crazy voice monsters that want to kill me, something about this chained up node bugs me. It’s like it doesn’t belong.

I step up to the base of the node. I can hear a voice coming from it as I approach. “She’s my mistake…” The voice sounds elegant, and has some authority behind it. Definitely a lady with power. “She’s my mistake…” Also sounds worried. I feel like I heard that voice somewhere before. “She’s my mistake…”

“She’s my mistake…”

Sounds so familiar. I wonder what kind of voice is in that node for it to be chained up like that.

“She’s my mistake…”

Eh, not my problem. Got to find a way out of this dump.

“It’s my fault Gilda turned into this. She’s my mistake…”

I freeze in my tracks. Excuse me, what did the pretty lady voice say? I run up to the base of the node again. What did she say?

“She’s my mistake…”

“You said my name,” I say aloud. “Why did you say my name? Why am I your mistake?”

“She’s my mistake…”

Freaking broken record. “Yeah, I know, you said that ten times already. Why am I your mistake? What do you have to got to do with all this?”

“It’s my fault Gilda turned into this. She’s my mistake…”

This is going nowhere. I look at the node locked up behind the chains. Whoever is saying my name is inside this node. I’m going to have to touch it to get any answers. Tempting, but how desperate am I for an answer to a question I just asked? If I touch it and look in that memory, I’ll have to run from whatever comes out of it. Going by all the chains, I don’t think I’ll like what’ll come out.

I poke my head over the edge of my branch. I don’t see another branch anywhere down below me. If I jump, I’ll probably hit another branch at terminal velocity. That’s another headache I don’t want. But it’ll be an escape route from whatever decides to poke its head out of that node.

I look back at the node. It’s yellow glow is tempting me. “She’s my mistake…” Do I risk it? I got nothing better to do, but I don’t want to keep running around. Decisions, decisions.

Eh, screw it. I’ll down some pain killers if I find some. I come up to the base of the node once more. The lady’s voice is as clear as ever. Please don’t make me regret this. My talon reaches out, I poke the flesh of the node…

Nothing happens.

Huh. Didn’t expect that. I slap the flesh a couple of times, give it a few more pokes. Is it on? Did I break it?

“She’s my mistake…”

Who is saying that?!

I pull at the chains. They don’t budge. They’re so tight they’re squeezing the flesh. I think the chains are keeping this node locked down tight. If they’re keeping something in, then I bet they’ll keep me out.

Well, that’s a bust. That memory is sticking in place. I walk the other direction towards the other side of the branch. I’m back to my original problem now, how do I get out of this web world? I bet there’s a door marked exit somewhere that I missed when the voices were chasing me. Ten bits says I was sitting on that door the moment I got here. Wouldn’t be the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me.

“Gilda, you featherbrain!” That’s a different voice. It’s coming from the node I’m walking up to. Hey, it used my name! I think I’m in the part of the web that says my name a lot. The node doesn’t look weird. Looks like any other node in this web, twisted and fleshy. No chains.

Then, of all things, I hear my voice. “Stop being a buzzkill, Tanya.”

I blink. That was my voice, wasn’t it? That sounded a lot like me. Did I say Tanya?

“Gilda, you featherbrain!” Holy crap, that is Tanya. It’s been a year since I last heard her voice, so I didn’t recognize it at first. Now that I’m paying attention, it sounds exactly like her! She still sounds like a buzzkill.

“Stop being a buzzkill, Tanya.” And that does sound like me! And I agree, complete buzzkill. Did I just find something useful? I don’t know how much it helps since she’s dead, but it’s better than playing with the memories of lesbians and violent spouses. Let’s get in this baby!

I practically ram into the side of this node! This has me excited!

Broken glass. A clear puddle. A blue suitcase. Hold up, blue suitcase? Why the heck is the Nexus here? “Gilda, you featherbrain!”

Me. I see me. Holy crap that’s me. Head of an eagle, body of a lion, a nice ass. I’m standing in front of me, and I’m looking at me. I’m looking at myself. It’s like looking in the mirror, except the image isn’t reversed. This is what I look like to other people!

I’m getting more excited over this than I should be.

I, or memory I… My memory self, holds up a claw. “Stop being a buzzkill, Tanya.” I look kind of tipsy. Have I been drinking? I think I’ve been drinking. I can use a stiff drink right now. “Grab your vodka. Tonight we party!”

A raised fist. “You dropped my vodka! It’s all over the floor!” I sound angry. I mean Tanya sounds pretty angry. Memory self doesn’t seem to notice. Tanya holds the blue suitcase up as she steps over the glass. “It was a good one, too. Imported from our fatherland.”

Memory me stumbles over to a table and latches on. “Where’d you get that suitcase.”

That’s what I want to know. Tanya clutches it close to herself. “I won it in a poker game.” Bullcrap.

“Tonight?” I ask. “Who’s playing poker at this party?”

Tanya chuckles. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

A yellow unicorn with thick rimmed glasses walks by us. Memory me almost body tackles him and spurts in his ear. “Hey… Hey… Eureka… Where’s Rainbow? I want to ask her who’s playing poker?”

Really, Eureka? The unicorn pushes me off with his magic. “Last I saw her she’s doing tricks on the patio. She’s really putting her new wing to good use.”

Memory me pats him on the shoulder. “Thanks bud.” He walks away, and I waddle in some random direction. I can’t help but stare at my own butt as I leave.

Tanya looks down at the blue suitcase. “Now, what country would give me a fortune for this?”

The web world comes back. That was an interesting memory. It didn’t get me anywhere close to an exit here, but I’ve confirmed something I suspected for a very long time. I’m straight up sexy. Heck, I’d go gay for myself. Don’t know why Tanya didn’t. Or maybe she did. Hmm… That would explain a lot.

I turn back to the node. Like the other nodes, this one is—

A pair of massive talons shoot out and grab me by the neck. I choke as I’m thrown on my back. A massive owl-lion towers above me and slams my head repeatedly into the ground. “How are you this stupid!” Tanya yells while she bashes my head into a pulp.

Oh right, the voice memory monster things. I forgot those happen. While Tanya is a big girl, my brain hurts less from her bashing my head around and more from her bashing my head in the branch. Yep, another headache coming on.

I swipe her side with a clenched fist. A trail of spit follows her as I knock her off me with my monster strength. I twist up on my feet and grow out the Tyranid blade. I haven’t fought one of these voice monsters yet. Don’t know why I didn’t up there. Let’s see how this plays out.

Tanya clutches her side as she gulps for air. She stumbles near the edge of the branch, then looks at me with a dull glare. “Oh great, you’ve finally come to grace us peasants. How are the Banelings treating you?”

I wave the Tyranid blade around. “Yep. And I’m not afraid to stab— Wait… how do you know about the Banelings?”

Tanya lifts her head and wipes the spit off her beak. “Hard not to. Those things burnt like motherfuckers.”

Uh… my brain is making sparks. “You remember that?”

She nods. “It hurt me as much as it hurt you, but it was damn funny hearing you scream.”

I raise a talon. “First of all, fuck off. Second of all, how do you remember that? I thought I killed you!”

Tanya gives me a deadpan look. “You did. Wasn’t pleasant, for the record.”

“So you remember the Zerg? And Sheogorath? And the suitcase?”

She nods again. “And I remember how you got your ass handed to you by a unicorn. Griffon smoothy anyone?”

The web branch we’re standing on pulses frantically at the mention of that memory. “Are you talking about Cherry? I nearly killed that bitch if”—

“If you didn’t use my bank account to buy an industrial mixer?” she says with a raised eyebrow.

I roll my eyes, then I perk up when something occurs to me. “How do you know any of this? I thought I killed you.”

“No, you didn’t kill me. You just ate me.” Tanya taps her noggin. “I’ve been in your head this whole time.”

What… “What?!”

She shrugs. “I’ll explain. But first I have to ask, do you have to monologue all the time?”

Author's Notes:

New Message - "Hey, you seem to be doing alright, all things considered. The Feds are watching your home and keeping tabs on your family. It's a bad idea to go and see those, but I think you already get that. We're going to help you through this the best we can. Keep your head low and keep moving. We'll contact you in time. Oh, and don't eat those berries. They'll give you one hell of a tummy ache."

56 - X marks the logout button!

I hop around a flesh node and land on a connecting branch. Tanya just flies across the gap. She can still use her wings. Lucky. We’ve been traveling through the flesh web for a bit, trying to find a way out of this Tartarus. So far we’ve been good about not touching the nodes. We just have to jump or fly to cross between branches. Beyond that, all we’re doing is just wandering around. I still don’t know if there’s an exit or not.

“And after that, I just kept talking to myself,” I say. I’ve been sharing something pretty personal with Tanya while we’ve been traveling. Got to pass the time somehow.

Tanya blinks at me. “Wow. You know what, I’ll give you a pass. I would monologue all the time too if I had to go through all of that.”

I give her a thumbs up. “Thank you! Everyone I mentioned it to said it’s weird to monologue in your head, but I told them they would do it too if they went through what I did.”

Tanya shudders. “Yeah, I can see why. Do me a favor and never bring it up again.”

I smile at her. It’s nice for someone to understand me for once. “Enough about that. Tell me how you’re still alive!”

“I’m not sure on the details, but I have a general idea of what happened,” Tanya says. We come up to one of the nodes, but she keeps on talking as we jump branches. “It has something to do with your monster powers and how you eat people when you kill them.”

We land on the next branch and keep moving forward. Of course it has something to do with my monster powers. Everything weird that happens to me has something to do with them. “Figures. What sort of weird crap did my powers do to resurrect you from the dead?”

“Eh, I wouldn’t say resurrected,” Tanya says. “It’s more like I’m haunting your body, like a ghost.”
I stop and look at her. “So you’re telling me my monster claws come with a Ouija board?”
She gives me a deadpan look. “Always the featherbrain. How the heck have you not figured this out yet? It’s pretty obvious.”

“It’s clearly not obvious, since I haven’t figured it out.”

“No, you’re just stupid.” She shakes her head either out of pity or the desire to smack me over the head. Screw you too. “You know how you gain the memories of anybody you eat, right?”

“It’s a regular annoyance, yes. Did I eat your ghost?”

Tanya throws a claw in the air. “Sure, you ate my ghost. Go with that if you want. But there’s more to it than just that.”

“Then tell me.”

“I’ll tell you if you stop interrupting with your stupidity!”

I stop and look at her. “Why did I hire you as my accountant?”

“Be honest with yourself. Hiring me was the smartest decision of your life.” She walks past me, keeping her eyes forward. “When you eat people, you don’t just eat their memories. You eat their entire brain. You pick up their personalities, their desires, wants, interests, all that stuff. You eat an entire person and keep them inside you.” She turns around and pokes her talon in my chest. “And then those people live inside you. All those parts that make a person a person come together and function as if they never really died. That’s how I’m here, standing in front of you, calling you stupid, even though you bashed my head in with those brick fists of yours. You ate my brain, and now my brain lives on inside you.”

I pause for a moment to think. “That actually makes sense.”

“No shit it makes sense. I have no clue why you didn’t put the pieces together when that Sheogorath guy said you have voices inside you. You actually have a bunch of people living inside your body right now!”

I ponder for a bit more. Even though he sounded crazy, that mad prince did say some things that are turning out correct. There are monster voices running around in my head. Do those voices belong to people I ate? Is everyone I ate now inside me, just like Tanya? Geez, with the amount of people I ate, they can start their own economy inside my head and hold elections for mayor and stuff. “You know, insanity loses its mystique when the things the crazy guy says turns out to be right.”

“Crazy doesn’t have mystique. It’s just crazy.”

“There’s some mystery with crazy. You get your mystique from that.” Though crazy is still just crazy. Heck, having voices set up a small nation inside my head is just crazy. “Since you brought up Sheogorath, does that mean you know what’s going on around me?”

“I am a part of you, for better or worse, mostly worse. I’ve seen everything that you’ve done since you ate me.”

“Even when I go to the bathroom?”

“You’re a Blacklight monster. You never go to the bathroom.”

“Well, maybe I go just for fun.”

“Do you ever stop being stupid?”

“Do you ever stop being a prick?”

“Only when you pay me.” We cross between another set of branches. After we land, Tanya takes a moment to look around the web realm. “I think we’re inside your head.”

I turn and give the owl-bird a weird look. “Now you’re the one who’s saying something stupid.

“Am I?” She presses her claw against the skin of the branch. “This web has the same heartbeat as you. If I hit it”- Tanya punches the flesh and I feel a slight ache in my head- “you can feel it. And there are a bunch of voices you ate running around somewhere up there who want to kill you. I say we’re in your head.”

That does sound rather convincing. She better not say I’m stupid for not thinking it.

“You’re stupid for not thinking it,” Tanya says. “I’m still a part of you. I can still hear your thoughts.

“Oh fuck off.” I keep walking for the next node. “We’re in my head, so what? It’s not going to help get us out of here.”

“Can’t you still Nexus jump or did you lose the ability to do that?”

“I didn’t have much control over that to begin with. Besides, where am I going to jump to? I need to get back to Equestria so I can sue Blackwatch for damaging my scone shop, and save Pinkie. Jumping to some alien world with monsters that want to kill me isn’t going to get me any closer to home.”

“What did Sheogorath say?”

“Sheogorath said a lot of stuff. Most of it was crazy.”

“He said the Nexus gives you want you want. If you want to go home, you have to want to go home. Problem is all the voices in your head want you dead, so you keep ending up in places that want to kill you.”

My eye twitches. I swear if she calls me stupid for not remembering that… I point up to the sky. “Then in order for me to get out, we got to convince those voices they \don’t= want me dead.”

“Yeah, I think that’s impossible too.” Tanya looks up at the sky, looking for the distant voices that ought to be up there. “There’s no way you’ll convince any of them to not want to kill you.”

Glad we’re on the same page for at least one thing. It’ll be a high order to convince all the voices I ate that I should live. If a griffon eats you, would you want the griffon to live? You probably won’t want anything, since you’ll be dead, but this is a special case.

A question crosses my mind. I look at Tanya. “What do you want?”

Tanya meets eyes with me. “Hmm?”

“I want to go home. The voices want me dead. What do you want?”

She stares at me for a long moment before saying anything. “I don’t think you need to know.”

“I kind of do need to. If we’re not on the same page, it won’t matter if I convince every voice I ever ate that I’m a golden god who can do no wrong. If you want something different, then the Nexus is still going to be confused and we won’t get anywhere.”

“I don’t think it matters much what I want right now.”

“Tanya!” I bark. My blade wings shift out with the sound of sliding metal. Sudden noise is enough to make Tanya jump. “Do you want me dead, yes or no?”

She runs a claw down her owl face. “If you absolutely have to know, I want to shove your head in a toilet bowl and keep flushing until toilet water bursts out of your ass.”

I blink. “Wow. That’s specific.”

She tilts her head. “You might notice I don’t want you dead. I just really, really want to hurt you.”

“I, uh…” Kind of speechless here. “Where’s that coming from?”

Tanya raises her voice. “You know that memory you saw a bit ago, the one where you told me you bought all those comic books?”

In the memory where her check bounced? “Is that what I bought?”

“YES! You spent forty grand on fucking comic books of all things! That’s what you bought. You somehow managed to clear out three comic book stores with the loan money you got on the same day! Who in Tartarus is stupid enough to do that?!”

I think I’d remember something like that. “I don’t remember that.”

“Of course you don’t! You don’t remember anything! But I remember. I remember I had to drag your drunk ass back to those stores and threaten the clerks to take back thirty three grand worth in comic books!”

“Thirty three grand? I thought you said forty?”

“It was forty, but your dumb ass opened a bunch of them and the clerks wouldn’t take them back for full value. You lost seven thousand bits on comic books! It was going to be more. One of the store clerks was about to kick us out without taking the comics back because you puked on the counter! I had to pull out every sales tactic I know just to keep her from calling the police.”

“That actually sounds impressive.”

Tanya slams her claws on the ground. I wince when the pain shoots through my head. “It is damn well fucking not impressive! That was on of many times I had to bail your ass out of bankruptcy! There was the time you bought a bunch of pigs because you wanted to know what truffles taste like. There was the time you got wrapped up in a pyramid scheme. We’re lucky the Blacklight plague hit, because the cops were close to finding where I hid the body. There was the time you pulled everything you had from the bank in one check and mixed it in a cocktail so you could, and I quote, ‘drink your money away.’ You bought an antelope! Grover knows where the heck that antelope went now that Manehattan has gone to Tartarus.”

“That all still sounds impressive.”

“And I was the one who cleaned up every single one of your messes. Pinkie was even getting on your case on how impulsive you are!” I vaguely remember Pinkie saying something about that. “You know why I kept saving your dumb ass?!”

“Uh… love and charity?”

“My paycheck! You kept giving away my paycheck! Who knows why I didn’t bail on you the first time you threw my check in the fire.”

“But I don’t remember anything that you said. How can you be angry at me for that stuff?”

“You don’t remember your own stupidity? Then let me give you something you do remember. Rainbow Dash? You didn’t think there would be a bug at the end of that, did you?”

“That’s a low blow. I was helping a friend.”

“And you let lose one of Equestria’s most wanted villains. Oh, how about Arctic North. Smart move showing him where the suitcase was.”

“Well, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you, now would I?”

“And then there was the time you blindly went in to fight the bug queen because you suddenly got a boner for our Empire ancestors.”

“I needed to help the Protoss to get home!”

“Just like you needed to help that unicorn who needed you to sell all those spoons you bought from him?”
I stop to take a breath. There’s really no need for me to get wound up about any of this. I can’t even remember most of the stuff she’s talking about. “Okay, so I get why you’re angry.”

“Do you, now?”

“Yes, but it’s not going to get us anywhere.”

“Your stupidity won’t get us anywhere.”

I see where this is going. Tanya has a thing going and it’s going to take some time for her to come down. It’ll be like talking to an angry brick wall until she does. “You really want to hurt me?”

“For a while now. It was in the back of my mind before you ate me, but since I had time to sit and brood while I watched you make mistake after mistake, it’s come to the forefront.”

“I can see. Would it be okay if you can wait until we get home?”

“See, you’re under the impression that I have any reason to go home. You ate me, remember? Your head is my home now. What am I going to do from inside your head? It’ll just be you going home. I have no choice in the matter.”

I tap my talon against the ground. If I’m having this much trouble with Tanya, just imagine the challenge the other voices will be. I knew it was impossible, but now I’m grasping how impossible this is going to be.

Something changes in the air. My feathers stiffen and my ears perk up. “Do you hear that?”

Tanya looks around, forgetting about her rage boner for me. “I hear what you hear, so yeah. What is that?”

At first the sound is faint. I can’t make it out. But it grows. It grows, and it sounds like its coming closer. “Sounds like… a bunch of people screaming.”

Tanya keeps looking, then her eyes lock on to something above us. “What’s that up there?”

I turn and look at what she’s pointing out. Up there, in the rafters of nodes and branches, there’s an odd blob making its way down the web. Now that I’m looking at it, the sound is clearly coming from that thing.

I squint. My eyes focus on the thing in the distance, but I still can’t see clearly. It’s descending one of the branches. As it comes closer, I can make out a few details. It looks like a bunch of creatures grouped together, along with one giant creature in the middle of the blob.

Something clicks in my mind, and I get a sudden sense of dread. “Uh oh.”

Tanya turns towards me. “What?”

“The voices found us.”

“They found you.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

The herd of pony voices is coming down the branch like a waterfall. I can feel them stampeding through the branch. I can also feel them giving me another headache, but at this point everything is just a headache for me. I hope one of them will have the decency to spare me some ibuprofen before they bash my skull in.

“How did they find us?” I say. “This place is a maze. It should take them ages to get to us!”

“Probably because they’re inside your head, too,” Tanya says. “Piece it together, featherbrain. We’re all trapped in your head. They see and hear everything you say. They probably listened to our entire conversation and figured out where we are from that.”

Oh, right. The voices are inside me, like Sheogorath said. That makes sense. “But they’re in my head, and I’m in my head right now. How does that work? Should we be separated by space or what?”

The owl-lion just shrugs. “I don’t know. This is some acid trip shit going on. This is the first time I’ve had an actual body in over a year, so this is as new to me as it is to you.”

“But you can still see and hear what I’m doing?”

She nods. “Yep. I’m looking through my eyes and yours. It’s pretty trippy. Heck, I can see and hear what the other guys are doing right now. They’re zeroed in on you.”

Ah great. This is some weird horror situation where the serial killer knows my every move.

Tanya points up to the riot coming our way. “Evergreen takes offense to that.”

“Who’s Evergreen?”

“One of the ponies up there. I think she’s one of the first ponies you ate.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m talking with her,” she says as if it should be obvious. “She’s a really nice pony once I taught her the difference between a male and female griffon.”

“How are you talking with her?!”

“Same way I can hear your thoughts when you monologue. We’re in the same brain, Gilda. Our thoughts overlap a lot.”

Sweet mercy, this is hurting my brain. Not in the stampede wrecking the branches kind of way, though that is a bitch in a half, but in a confusing, I don’t know what’s going on kind of way.

Tanya shrugs. “Yeah, it is confusing. But we’ve all been in here so long that it’s become normal for us. We even have game night on Tuesdays.”

“Can you at least… You have game nights?”

“Yep.”

“That’s… How?” I shake my head. “Never mind, questions for later. Can you at least tell them not to come and beat me up?”

“You know how I said I really wanted to hurt you?”

Crap, she’s helping them. “You bitch.” All I get from her is a smug little smile. “Utter dick move. I’d have half a mind to kick the shit out of you.”

She chortles. “I’m a size bigger than you. I think I can take you on.”

Again, crap. She has a point. The owl variants of griffons have always been the bulkier birds of the flock. If I went head on, she could pin me down with sheer power. Going up against her would be—

Wait, what I’m I talking about? I got monster powers! I whip out my arm and the Tyranid blade rolls out in a mass of tentacles. “You’re forgetting something.”

That smug little grin wipes off of Tanya’s face. Her eyes shrink to pinpricks as she catches sight of my giant Zerg blade.
“Oh, shi”—

She doesn’t have time to react. Before she knows it, I’ve dashed right past her. My blade cleaved her in twain. Owl-lions are something to worry about, if I wasn’t a mass of Blacklight virus. “To be fair,” I say, turning towards the owl-lion to gloat, “I forgot about that to.”

Tanya’s body hangs in the air. Instead of two pieces flopping on the floor, her two pieces are right where they were before, pre slice. The only sign I did cut her is the big gap in her waist. Clouds form around the two severed halves of her torso, and her two halves come together. It’s as if I never sliced her!

The owl-lion pats her mid section. She looks as surprised as I am. “Uh, I didn’t think I’d live through that.”

I look at my Tyranid blade. There’s no blood on it. That was the literal definition of a clean cut. “What in Tartarus is with this place?!”

“Allow me to return the favor.” As I’m staring at my blade, Tanya nails me in the beak with a punch. My head whips back, and I clutch my nose. I think she gave me a nose bleed. “Huh, I can hit you.”

I throw my claw up in the air. “That’s not fair!”

Tanya throws another punch. I’m quick enough to raise my blade and take it in the hardened flesh. Her fist harmlessly hits it. Normally, anyone who hits something as hard as steel would cry out in pain from breaking their fist, but Tanya doesn’t seem to have that problem.

“So… I think we should probably talk about our issues instead of beating each other”—

Tanya flies over my blade and grabs my head. She flaps down, and smashes my head into the back of the branch. My vision goes black for a moment, and all I see are stars…

Web… Flesh… A voice…

“Fucking heck, Tanya. That was a good move.”

Running… Ponies around me… A different voice…

“Do you think we can do that, beat him up while he can’t hit us back?”

Down the web… Two griffons… One on the ground… Third voice

“Hold up, is Zero hearing us now?”

“I think Tanya knocked Zero so hard that he’s finally crossing thoughts with us.”

“Hi Zero! We’re going to beat the snot out of you!”

My eyes blink open. The heck was that? Tanya’s standing over me. I throw my blade up just in time to deflect another punch.

“Save some for us, Tanya! We want a piece of him, too!”

Tanya looks up at the approaching heard coming down the web. “Okay, stop that. You’re ruining this for me.”

“Stop what?”

She glares at the herd. “Stop calling this bitch a him. Gilda’s a girl. I will not let you disgrace our griffon pride with your ignorance!”

“Sorry. Old habits.”

“I’m still calling him a him, Because it’s insulting.”

“It’s insulting me!” Tanya yells. “Learn your damn genders or I’ll do more than insult you!”

I slice Tanya through the neck while she’s distracted. It does nothing but leave a gap of air in her neck, but that’s enough to give me a chance to jump away and create some space.

The griffon slices the other… She jumps away…

The griffon yells…

“What’s going on?!” I yell.

Tanya looks at me. She cracks her neck while it’s reforming. “I’m kicking your ass. That’s what’s going on.”

“No, not that. The voices. Why can I hear voices in my head? And why are you talking to them?”

Her eyebrow goes up. “So you can finally hear them.”

“Maybe? I hear you talking to someone, and someone is talking with other someones, and I see us fighting from somewhere!”

She points up at the herd. “You must be crossing thoughts with them. Took you long enough.”

“The heck does that mean?!” she says. Gilda pulls the feathers from her head as she tries to wrap her mind around what’s going on. What an imbecile. She perks up, and pints at me. “That’s not my monologue! Whose monologue was that?”
“Oh, and now your crossing with me.” I fold my arms and watch the featherbrain freak out. I can’t help but smile. It’s nice watching the idiot go through what I’ve been living with for the past year.

“Those are your thoughts!” I say. I say? I said… I say, saw, see, raw raw raw… Oh good, I’m back to my thoughts. “Never mind, I’m back to normal.”

Tanya shrugs. “That won’t last long.”

I glance up at the incoming mob. They’re close now. I’d give them a couple more minutes before arrival. “So I’m picking up those guys’ thoughts, and yours too?”

“And we can hear your thoughts too,” Evergreen says. “Most of us are in agreement. Your thoughts are stupid.”

“Who the heck is Evergreen?!” Gilda yells. She pauses for a moment. “Oh, come on!”

This is the best entertainment I’ve had for a while. “Now you know my life for the past year.” I approach her. “We actually have a saying here. The first thing you lose is your body. The second thing is your privacy. Your mind comes next.”
Gilda throws her arms wide. “I think I’m well into losing my mind in this place! Damn Sheogorath. This is what he wants, isn’t”—

I cut off Gilda with a swift punch to the throat. She chokes and stumbles back. Heck ya, this is satisfying. “Sheogorath didn’t eat us.”

“Stop doing that,” Gilda chokes.

“Okay,” Tanya says. “I’ll let the others get a piece of you.”

I back up as I rub my throat. Do I have my thoughts back? Hi, I’m Gilda. Yes, I have my thoughts back. Screw my throat, my head hurts from this thought crossing thing. “Don’t you think this is messed up?!”

“It’s as messed up as a monster eating us with tentacles and crap,” one of the mob voices says.

“I didn’t ask you!” I yell at the mob. “Tanya, this is insane. None of this makes any sense! I’m getting your thoughts and those guys are getting my thoughts and it’s all a mess and I can’t make any sense of it!”

Tanya crosses her arms. “Welcome to my life for the past year. How do you think we feel?” She looks to see if I have an answer. I don’t. “To give you an idea, none of us have had a private moment to ourselves since the moment you ate us! It’s been constant mind melding and bleeding every waking hour of our lives. One moment I’m thinking about how my pony husband is doing at home, the next I’m thinking about my pony daughter is liking her first day at school.”

I blink. “But you’re not married…”

“Exactly! It’s gotten to the point to where I got to think hard which memories are and are not mine! And that’s assuming my memories still exist. There’s one guy in here who can’t remember his own name! His thoughts will be bleeding into my head but I’ll get this empty void of nothing when he tries to remember what people called him.”

“Hey, I remembered I like strawberries and milk the other day,” one of the mob voices says.

“And we’re proud of you, Holland,” Tanya says. “We call him Holland.”

“And you’re on a first name basis with these guys?”

“Well, yeah. You tend to bond with people when you’re constantly sharing your thoughts.”

“Sharing is caring, they say,” another mob voice says.

“But there are just some cases when they share just a bit too much,” Tanya says.

We’re almost there. Just keep him distracted, Tanya. Just a little longer…

Zero rubs his temples with his claws. “Now I have to deal with this nightmare,” he mutters. The monster perks up. “That’s just great! Now I’m picking up someone else’s thoughts again!”

“That’s an annoying bit,” Tanya says. “You’re in a conversation, but then you jump in someone else’s mind and they’re thinking about prancing through the flowers or some shit and now you’re talking about flowers to the first guy. Happens to all of us.”

Is Tanya singling me out? “Are you singling me out?”

“It was just an example that I came up with off the top of my head. It’s fine if you like flowers, Fruit Punch. No one thinks you’re less of a stallion for doing so.”

“That Fruit Punch chick,” Zero says, “I’m getting her thoughts.” Oh, I’m flattered. “Shut up!”

“Oh, be nice to them,” Tanya says. “They’re guests in your head.”

“They’re coming to kill me!” Zero says.

“Oh, we’re not coming,” I say. “We’re already here.”

My tentacles tense. “What?”

Tanya steps out of the way, and a large, pink pony leaps over her head. My reflexes kick in, and my Tyranid blade swipes up, slicing the incoming pony in half. Right behind her is another pony, this one a crusty stallion who sucker punches me in the jaw. I stumble back, and the pony I just sliced delivers a swift rodeo kick to my behind. I face-plant with my butt up in the air.

Crap, should’ve come up with a plan while Tanya was bitching at me. No time like the present. My Chitinous plating morphs to cover my body, but an aggressive soul kicks me in the stomach while it’s forming. I curl up in pain, and the ponies gang up to stomp me out of my armor plates.

With the plating, the attacks don’t do much, but they’re enough to force me on the ground. I brush watch I can away and try to call out, but there’s too many angry hooves kicking the shit out of me. All the while, the mob is screaming obscenities at me.

“Piece of shit!”

“This is what you get for destroying Manehattan!”

“Let’s see how you like getting your brains smashed in!”

“Jackass! You drained my bank account! My uncles’ inheritance was in there!”

Everybody is crowding around Zero, trying to burst him like a piñata. They’re all pushing and shoving to get through. “Come on, guys. Learn to share.” Usually my voice is loud enough to be heard over crowds like these, but everyone is too busy to care.

“You ever see a nest of angry hornets swarm their prey?” Tanya asks.

I look down at the owl griffon. While she’s one of the bigger people of our little community, yet she still only comes up to my belly. I still tower over her, like the rest of them. But she’s tall enough to look over everyone’s shoulders if they’re all huddled like they are right not. “No. But I assume it looks like this.”

Tanya picks at her talons while we watch the chaos from afar. “It’s pretty close. Although the prey never makes little girl noises.”

Is griffon hearing that good? I can’t hear what Zero is doing over all the yelling.

Tanya nudges my leg. “Are you going to dive in, big guy? You’ve been aching for a round two, have you not?”

A large blade slices through the crowd. It doesn’t stop my friends, just inconveniences them for a moment. “I can’t do anything until everyone clears out. I’m too big.”

“They can’t do anything with that armor Gilda has on. Kicks and scratches don’t do much to alien plate scales. But you could probably crush her like a nut.”

The monster griffon pokes his head out from the top of the crowd. “Get out of my head, whoever you are!” he yells before the others pull him back down. Looks like he’s having a tough time, but not tough enough.

A hoof jabs into my eye, and someone tries to bite through my wing. Ow, ow, ow. Oh hey, I’m back to normal again. Based on context clues, I think I figured out whose thoughts I was just reading. It’s the big guy standing off to the side next to Tanya. Sweet mercy, that guy is as big as a house.

I grab the back of somepony’s neck and push myself up above the raging pony sea. Hey, that sounds like a good band name, Raging Pony Sea. Sounds cooler than those general concept name bands people seem to think are good, like Tool.
So I’m pushing myself above the raging pony sea and the raging ponies are trying to pull me back down. Feels like I’m sliding a mile, six inches at a time. Hardly any progress. Not like it’s doing them any good. Armor plating beats all! But I am breaking a bit of a sweat. If this goes on they’ll exhaust me, and then I’ll really be in trouble!

A pink pony pops in front of my and grapples my neck. “Suplex!” she yells in my ear. Next thing I know I’m flying over the crowd and my back slams on the floor. My headache comes back with a vengeance from that move. The pony has me in a neck lock and won’t let me get up. “Orion, break open his armor!” she says. “Be the nut cracker you were born to be!”
The branch shakes as the giant pony comes barreling for me. Ah, ah, ah, not helping the headache. His shadow looms over me, and I see the impression of a giant hoof coming to burst me open.

Nope! Don’t want to find out what happens! I flip over on to my belly, narrowly avoiding the hoof. It leaves a big crater and a loud boom where it lands and balls and tits that’s not pleasant! My head is on fire!

I at least got enough sense to keep on moving. I keep on rolling, breaking out of the pony’s headlock. Once I’m free, I waste no time getting on my feet and running for the edge of the branch. Once there, I turn around, jump back, and fall off the branch while giving the mob a traditional griffon farewell by giving them the double bird.

The griffon yells as he descends into the depths of the web. “Screw you three ring circus sideshow of freaks!”

Evergreen comes up and looks down at the shrinking dot below us. “What did Zero say?”

I shrug. “Beats me. Did you see that awesome headlock I put him in?”

The mob shrinks above me as I fall deep into the web. Apparently I’m still picking up on their thoughts. I wonder if it changes with distance.

I look down. Welp, there doesn’t seem to be anything below me. That means when I do hit something, I’ll be hitting it at terminal velocity. Yay, another splitting headache coming my way. I’m so excited. At least it’s better than an angry mob tearing me to shreds.

What was the deal with that mob, anyways? They really wanted to tear me to pieces for some reason. They were acting all happy about it, too. I think it’s because I ate them all, but if I were them I’d get over it by now. Not much they can do about their situation. Just get over it and move on. If anything they would want to keep me alive. They are inside me after all. If I die, they die.

Maybe it’s because I drained their bank accounts. Sure, they might be angry about that, but I needed capital for my scone shop and dead people don’t need money to live. I’m sure they’ll turn around when they figure out money has no value in my head.

Here’s a thought. They’re a community of sorts living in my head, rent free. If they’re sharing headspace, they got to pay rent, or else I’ll evict them. My body isn’t a charity. I always wanted to have a bunch of renters underneath me who give me easy money. I can sit back and relax while the voices put their checks in my mailbox. No work from me, easy money!

Oh, even better idea. I can declare my head a sovereign nation! I can file the paperwork in my head, and my government will give me tax exemptions, so I’ll never have to pay taxes on the rent I collect. Even better, I can drive up the taxes on these squatters, so they’ll pay me in both rent and taxes. The crazy rent rates and insane tax policies will force them to emigrate out of my body. I’ll evict the voices and make a nice profit on the side at the same time. Brilliant!

Now I just need to establish a legal tender inside my noggin. It needs to be exchangeable with real world currency. Imaginary coins don’t translate well with Equestrian bits.

A yellow light catches my eye. I look down, and I see a web node wrapped in chains glowing in yellow. Hey, I’ve seen one of those before. I don’t think voices pop out of the chained nodes if I touch it. It’ll be a good place to make base.

I check my trajectory, and I’m heading straight for it. It’s getting close real fast. Huh, I wonder what will happen if I hit those chains at terminal velocit—

A dark room… A pony in a lab coat…. “Thank you, Princess. This will be invaluable to my research.”

A white alicorn… Looking over me… “Yes. Just remember this is top secret. It’s treason if word were to get out.”

A Blackwatch goon… no mask… “So you’re just going to hide her, Princess Celestia?”

I recognize the alicorn… Princess Celestia… “It’s my fault Gilda turned into this. She’s my mistake.”

A nod… “Understood. No one can know about this.”

Another pause… “I’m sorry, Gilda.”

…

What?

[The April Fools Chapter] One of Four

Here’s a question, does Twilight ever get lost in her castle?

I’m wondering because I’m lost in her castle, again. This place has too many hallways to go through, it’s all made of the same crystal stuff, and there are no landmarks. I don’t know if I’m in a different hallway or running in circles in the same one over and over. Would hanging a few signs kill the Princess of Friendship?

Back when Twilight first got her castle, the entire town paraded behind her to check out what’s inside. It was a pretty good party. Problem was no one knew how to get back out. The entire town got lost. Some ponies were wandering this place for days. Rumor has it the search teams never found Misses Walnut. Mister Walnut said this was fine, and he left town the next day.

Did I pass that staircase? I swear I’ve seen that staircase at least five times. This is getting on my nerves! I’m going to be wandering this castle for days! Where’s Rainbow Dash? She showed me the way last time.

“Hey, Scoots!”

I jump at the voice, and spin around to find Dash standing in a door way, waving for me to come over.

Dash is smiling, so she’s not mad at me for being late. That’s good. “You walked by this door six times. I was wondering when you’d figure it out.”

I walked by six times?! And she didn’t say anything?! “Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugs. “It was funny. But we got bored and want to start now, so joke’s over. Come on in. We’re all set up.”

My eyes roll. Element of Loyalty my flank. I follow Dash through the door and into the room beyond.

This place is called the Map Room, because there’s a big, magic map of Equestria in the middle of the room. It usually tells Dash and her friends where to go to find a friendship problem, but we managed to grab it for our game. Twilight even figured out how to zoom into places, and she made Manehattan big for us. Moving play pieces in an exact replica of a city is so much cooler than imagining it in your head.

Rainbow Dash takes her seat in the big chair with her cutie mark on it, and I sit in the chair with the butterflies. Dash adjusts the DM board, stands up, and grins. “Welcome, ladies and gentle-dragon, to another night of Prototype: Equestria Strains!”

The little dragon next to me tosses a handful of chips in his mouth and crushes them in a big bite. “Finally, I thought we’d never start.” Pieces of crumbs fly out of his mouth. Mom would freak if she saw this.

I shrug. “What can I say, this castle doesn’t have any maps.”

“Yeah, I need to talk to Twilight about that.” Spike points to the yellow section Manehattan. We color coded parts of the map to represent the zones. Pretty nifty trick. “Twilight and Applejack went to solve a friendship problem yesterday, and they moved all the pieces around. It’s not perfect, but I put them back where I remember. Most of us where in the daycare, anyways.”

I look at where he’s pointing at. It’s a flat, long building that’s glowing yellow. Three figurines are standing in it. The smallest one is a green pegasus with a camera around his neck. The middle one is a unicorn in a black jumpsuit. The largest is a griffon showing off her monster claws. The biggest one is mine.

A twenty sided die rolls across the table and lands in front of me. I read it aloud. “Twelve.”

Dash grins. “Oh good, none of you were attacked by zombies in the middle of the night. We can start where we left off. It’s now the next day. Tensions are rising”-

A voice from the other side of the table interrupts Dash. “Before we start, I need to say this. Scootaloo, change your character’s name.”

Spike smacks his forehead and groans. “Can’t we play the game? We’ve been sitting for half an hour already.”

I agree with him. I want to get down and dirty today. “Why, what’s wrong with my character?”

The griffon at the other end of the table leans over and glares at me. “You’re character is me. She is literally me.”

My hooves go up in the air. “Don’t look at me, Dash helped me make her… you… it…”

The griffon directs her glare to the mare behind the gameboard and growls. “Rainbow. Tell her to change the name.”

Dash leans back in her chair and waves a hoof at the griffon. “Lighten up, Gilda. Scoots needed a character to rollplay, and I gave her the first thing that came to mind.”

Gilda’s head cocks to the side. “I get that, but you could have at least used a different name.”

Dash shrugs. “I don’t know any other griffon names. What else was I supposed to give her?”

Gilda holds up a claw. “Robin, Beatrice, Francine, Edna.” She counts each name with a talon. “Martha, Wanda, Lorene, Irene, Daphne, Hilda”-

“Okay, okay, I get it. But we were short on time, and I needed to make up a quick character.”

“Use a friend other than me. Pinkie is already an NPC, and you’re the damsel in distress. Why not Twilight, or Applejack? Heck, I’d like to see Fluttershy cut up some minions. Can we replace me with her?”

A monster Fluttershy would be weird to play as. She’d probably tame the zombies and ogres and invite Blackwatch to have a picnic with them. That’s one way to win a game, but it’s not my style. “You weren’t complaining last time we played,” I say. “And I kind of like playing monster Gilda. She’s fun.”

Gilda looks at me with the same look Cheerilee gave me when I broke her chalk board. “Look, I’m just as new to this as you are. All the rules and numbers are already enough trouble to wrap my head around. I don’t need the DM calling my name out every time something happens. Is she talking to me, is she talking about your character? Is the damage going to Cherry or monster Gilda? I don’t know. It’s messing me up.”

Spike stands up on the chair and waves his bag above his head, grabbing our attention. “While we’re talking about Scootaloo’s character, can we talk about how over-powered she is? She’s level two, yet she has stealth powers, kills most enemies in one hit, has an insane amount of health and regeneration, has max stats, and is immune to magic.”

Gilda’s head perks up. “Immune to magic? Let me see her stat sheet.”

Spike grabs the top paper from my stack and hands it over to the end. Gilda takes it and reads it over like she’s grading my grammar. “It’s insane, you just gave her random abilities and broke her character!” Spike continues. “I got Tanya to level seven with almost max strength stats, and monster Gilda outclasses me by miles, at level two! She has final boss level stats! Heck, she even killed one of the biggest bosses in the game.”

“Someone misspelled ‘gryphon,’” Gilda mutters. “And they can’t choose between griffin or griffon. Who wrote this game?”

Dash’s eyebrows scrunch up, ignoring Gilda’s complaint. “How’d you know that guy was a boss?”

“I do my homework, unlike everyone else. If she gets up to level five, monster Gilda can take down a Hydra on her own! That’s the strongest monster she can fight!”

Gilda taps the paper with a talon. “I don’t see ‘immune to magic’. Where did she get that?”

“It’s the class she picked, Infected Experiment,” Spike says. “All infected are immune to magic. They get a penalty to intelligence and stamina to balance it out, but somepony forgot about that little detail.”

Gilda glances back at the paper, and then her beak twists into a snarl. “Negative three intelligence?! Is this a joke? Why is my character dumber than a rock?!”

Rainbow Dash shakes her head. “I gave you… her… it max strength and luck. Those are the best stats to have.”

“Screw luck! I don’t want to be a dumb ass.” Gilda slams the paper on the table. “Change the name, now.”

“Forget that,” Spike says. “Make a completely new character, and don’t add random abilities this time. They way this is built, Scootaloo could solo the game and the rest of us would be on the side twiddling our thumbs!”

Gilda’s raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you do that in real life?”

“What? No, not at all! Tanya won’t have anything to do if Scootaloo is going do everything for us. It’s not fun.”

I think I know where this is going. Rainbow talked about how they once had to kill a character off because the rest of the party had nothing to do. Everyone is looking at Rainbow, who is rubbing the back of her head. “I see where you two are coming from, but this is Scoots’ character.” She looks at me and gives me a smile. “What do you want, squirt? We can reroll a new character for you.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. I’ve played Gilda for too long to let her go. And I like having the monster claws. They’re fun.”

“There you go, she’s too attached.”

Gilda points a talon at Rainbow. “That’s BS, and you know it.”

With a griffon in the room, I can see this turning into a fight if something isn’t done. Gilda is kind of scary, even when she isn’t yelling at everyone. She’s the last person I want to make angry. “Why not give my character a nickname?” I say. “She’s fighting against Blackwatch, and they use codenames for everything. Why not call her something cool, like Eris?”

Gilda thinks for a moment. Her head nods a little, so I think she likes the idea. I wanted to give my character a nickname anyways since last session, but I couldn’t think of one at the time. Eris sounds cool. Twist helped me come up with that in math class.

“Zero,” Gilda says. “We’ll call her Zero.”

“What?!” I shout. “I am not calling her Zero! Why not Eris? Eris actually means something.”

Gilda’s eyes roll. “You can’t pick your nickname. That’s not how it works. Blackwatch was already calling her Zero over the radio. Hell, Cherry would be happy to call you Zero. It’s in character. So for now on, we’ll refer to her as Zero. There, problem solved.”

My hooves slam on the table. “Problem not solved! We can’t call her Zero. Zero sounds like she’s a zero at everything. That’s not true!”

Spike mutters under his breath. “You’re right. She’s negative three in intelligence.”

Gilda grins. “Alright, let’s settle this. Rock paper scissors, winner chooses the nick name.”

“You’re on!”

We stretch over the table, leaning over Spike to meet in our field of battle. We hold our fists out, and we chant the countdown. “Rock, paper, scissors, go!”

I throw down rock.

Gilda throws out paper.

“Zero it is.”

“Best two out of three!”

She shrugs. “Sure, whatever floats your boat.”

Again. “Rock, paper, scissors, go!”

I have rock. She has paper.

“Come on, how did you beat me twice?!”

“You have hooves. You always play rock.”

That’s dirty. She rigged the game. “That’s cheating!”

“You agreed to play. You knew what you were getting into.” Gilda looks at Rainbow and holds out a claw. “Toss me a pencil. We have a new name.”

Rainbow tosses a pencil, and Gilda catches it. “Sorry Scoots, nothing I can do about it. Now let’s start playing before Spike eats all the chips.”

Spike freezes in mid bite. His claw already has the next handful of chips ready to go. “We have more. But don’t start yet. Scootaloo’s character is still too OP.”

Rainbow waves him off. “I’ll just throw stronger monsters at her. Problem solved.”

“And watch her experience skyrocket? No. You need to nerf her.”

A shiver runs down my spine. Something about that word doesn’t sit well with me. Rainbow, on the other hoof, isn’t fazed by it. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll talk to Twilight about what we can do. We can go one play session with an OP character.”

Spike cocks an eyebrow. “Just so you know, I live with Twilight. I’ll make sure you do.”

“While you’re at it, tell her to return my feather preener. It’s about time for her to get her own.” Ew, I did not need to hear that! Spike blushes a bit, and a smug grin crosses Rainbow’s face. “Enough of that, time to- hey, where’s Pinkie Pie?”

I smack my forehead. “I thought you said we were ready.”

“I did, but Pinkie slipped off somewhere. Where’d she go?”

A high-pitched voice yells from down the hall. “I’m coming!” The doors burst open, and a pink blur dashes in and sits at the seat with the balloons. “Sorry I’m late. I had to pick up snacks. Who wants carrot platters?”

Rainbow and I raise our hooves, and Pinkie slides a couple of plates filled with carrots and ranch dip towards us. Spike and Gilda give each other a look, and they both stick their tongues out in disgust. I have no clue what’s wrong with them. Carrots are delicious.

Rainbow takes a ranch-covered carrot and crunches on it. “Alright, that’s everyone. Let’s start”-

“Hold on,” Pinkie yells.

Rainbow’s head rolls back. “This better be important. We’ve wasted too much time already.”

“Trust me, it is.” Knowing Pinkie, it is and isn’t important at the same time. “I know this is the apocalypse, and I know everyone is sad, and so would I if I lost all my friends, but N-Pinkie-C was giving me the downers last time we were playing. I didn’t vibe with her at all. Can you make her more cheerful this time, please?”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Spike says. “I thought you replaced her with a changeling.”

“It’s the real Pinkie,” Rainbow says. “Well, real in the game. Although…”

Pinkie munches on a carrot, and offers a plate to Gilda. The griffon gives her an evil eye, and the hyperactive pony pulls the plate back. “Doesn’t this game have a potion system? Give me a truckload of uppers and throw the biggest party the Yellow Zone has ever seen!”

The rest of us just want to get the game going at this point. Although, Gilda has a curious look in her eye. “Pinkie, are you okay? You’re asking for your NPC to overdose on happiness.”

“N-Pinkie-C has Doctor Heart. She can wipe away the side effects.”

“It’s not just that. Last time, all your character did was spout out how much he hates Blackwatch. I get you’re in character, but your character is a kid, a very angry kid.”

Pinkie shrugs. “When in Roam…”

Gilda is the last person I would think would be concerned about Pinkie. Weird. Rainbow is also showing a bit of concern on her face, too. “Gilda has a point. You’ve been… extreme with this game.”

Pinkie finishes licking the ranch of a carrot before eating it in one bite. She swallows, and gives both Gilda and Rainbow a soft smile. “This is an RPG. It’s all about the escapism. If I want to play a little psychopath, I can do that. I don’t have to be the number one party pony in everything I do.”

Pinkie pulls out a bottle of pop and takes a sip. Everyone else looks at each other, and I’m wondering what the heck just came out of her mouth. “We just didn’t expect you to go that route. Happy pills and a stalker kid, where did that come from?”

Pinkie shakes her head and finishes her drink with a sigh. “I’ve been watching a lot of B-rated horror movies lately. I can’t help it, they’re so cheesy. Start us off, Dash! It’s morning and Eureka is waiting for us!”

Rainbow nods her head, slowly. It’s weird, but Pinkie is always weird. I’m not complaining. We have a game to play! “Well, today’s a new day, and no zombies attacked, and no one has been kidnapped, yet…”

Author's Notes:

Happy April 1st. Chapters should become regular this summer. Fewer commitments, more time to write.