Login

The Pieces Lie Where They Fell

by Evilhumour

Chapter 49: Chapter Forty Five: Wind Breaker, Page Turner, Rex, Vix-Lei, Night Blade

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Chapter Forty Five

Wind Breaker

Groaning in pain, Wind Breaker pushed himself onto his talons, wincing as there was a nasty scraping sound against the floor that made his aching head feel even worse.

He hadn’t felt this bad in a long time when he had really binged badly and he knew he hadn’t been drinking.

In fact, he had been running away when something heavy smashed into his head…

“Ah, you are all awake,” somepony cooed at him, causing Wind Breaker to snap his eyes open to see that he and the rest of the group were in a glass sphere like room. Standing in front of them was King Well Banded but…

“Whom, or what, are you?” Rex barked at the earth pony who was just chuckling at them. It sounded like talons dragged down a chalkboard only worse somehow.

“Very well, I suppose I could honour a last request of sorts,” Well Banded said before his voice began to change into something more ambiguous; darker but with a hint of lightness to it. “I am The Nightmare, the Bearer of the Mantle of Bad Dreams and my Role and Purpose is scare those who stray back onto the right path.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Vix-Lei snarked as she slowly got to her hooves, with Page and Night standing up. Only Xvital was still on the ground and something was wro-

“Oh you understand so little, Laughter,” it laughed again. “Everything that we have done has caused fear and terror in the masses’ dreams; I have been doing my very best work of late to ensure that the nightmares received by all of you, be you ponies, minotaurs, changelings, diamond dogs, griffons, ahuizotls, dragons, yaks or others, are very effective. Is that not right, Loyalty?” Wind Breaker looked over at Night who seemed to be spooked by this before the bat pony managed to shove it down. “In any case, it matters not for you have lost before you even began your pathetic attempts to stop me. I hold Magic and soon enough, this Age will pass into another and with Magic failing to do their Duties, there will be no magic in the Age to come and it will be gone from this world for a very long time.”

“You bastard,” Page hissed, flaring her bug wings.

“Tsk tsk Kindness,” the Nightmare said as it stalked closer to them with shadows forming on its head that resembled a horn. “And here I am performing your Duties and bestowing an act of kindness on you all that falls in the realm of the Lady of Dreams.” It then laughed, showing shadow fangs. “She will be furious to learn what I am planning to her second Heirs.”

Before any of them could react, there was a burst of brilliant light from its fake horn, and Wind Breaker suddenly needed to do a break in midair as he got a wave of confusion. Landing on a cloud, he frowned at the sight of the mountainous landscape of the ancestral kingdom of Griffonstone - far different from the more forested Griffish Isles where some of his cousins lived - below. This was his home, of course, but something was off from it, something very important. It was on the tip of his tongue and he would need just a second to figure it-

“Wind Breaker, are you okay?” a female voice called out to him from behind.

“Yeah mom,” he said instinctively as he tried to figure out why his throat was burning so badly all of a sudden. It couldn’t because of a bad drink; he never touched the stuff and had no plans to start drinking.

What was going on?

Page Turner

With a soft chirp, Page looked out over the herd of foals waiting for her. “Hello, little ones,” she said happily.

“Good morning, Miss Turner!” they all replied, their own faces beaming.

“What story are you going to read us today?” one asked eagerly.

Page smiled. “How about the day Queen Chrysalis the Gentle first met with Prince Shining Armor the Valiant and Princess Cadance the Radiant?”

“Yeah!” the foals cheered, and Page smiled back as she drew the scroll from the shelves and began to read.

About half an hour later, she had finished the story, and smiled as most of her audience came up to thank her before leaving.

Finally, the last one silently flew down and gave her a friendly nuzzle. “I see another storytime went well,” he remarked.

Page nuzzled her husband back. “They always do,” she said happily. “That one’s always been one of my favorites too…”

“I can understand,” Night Blade said with a chuckle. “After all, why wouldn’t you love the story of how your ancestors got together and brought peace and happiness to an entire race?”

Page beamed. “And that peace and happiness has lasted for generations,” she said. “Which reminds me, are you ready for the royal banquet tonight? Mother has really been looking forward to it, and of course you and I will be accompanying her…”

“Absolutely,” Night Blade replied. “Mother and Father will be there as well. You know, they still can’t stop bragging to the other noble families about how their son snagged the Changeling Princess… won’t listen when I say it was love at first sight for both of us!” He chuckled.

Page smiled back. “And it was one of the happiest days of my life,” she said with a dreamy sigh. “Right up there with our wedding…”

Night Blade nuzzled her again, and she smiled as she felt his love flow into her.

Rex

“Professor Rex, is everything okay?” one of his students asked him with concern as Rex paused in writing in the last formulae on the chalkboard.

“Yes, everything is fine,” Rex replied in a distracted tone, tapping the chalkboard as he tried to dissect what was bothering him. It could not be his upcoming conference where he would show and demonstrate his latest alchemical creation to the rest of the Academy’s staff as well as experts across the globe, he had been preparing for that for months. He was about to call his class back to session when something trickled into his head that he could not explain. Pausing, he turned to his students and leaned onto his desk. “Actually, there is something that I wish to inquire.”

“What is it sir?”

Rex knew that something was amiss, he just needed to figure out what.

Vix-Lei

“Fillies and gentlecolts, griffons and griffettes, dogs, dragons, my lords and lady minotaurs, and every other species represented here, please put your hands, paws, hooves or what have you for our very special host… Vix-Lei!

There was a loud cheering as Vix-Lei stepped out onto the stage, waving to the audience. “Thank you so much!” she exclaimed. “It is great to be here in the nation’s capital!”

As the audience began to calm down, Vix-Lei grinned. “Wow. It is so great to be here. And I’d like to apologize to some of the locals, ‘cause I am pretty sure I scared the living daylights out of some of them on my way to this here theater.”

She looked out at the audience. “See, I flew all the way here from Ledra today… and there are some griffons and pegasi who will vouch for that, ‘cause I went right through an entire flock of ‘em this morning. And I tell you, one minute they were flying all together, then woosh!” She clapped her hands together. “My skimmer and I went right past ‘em. Left ‘em in the dust. Pretty good trick considering we were flying over a lake!”

There was more laughter, and she grinned. “Now, this skimmer, I’d tricked it up real good. When I say it goes fast, I mean fast. Faster than the speed of dark. I set it up at the start of this well-lit tunnel, almost a mile long. Then sometaur hit the switch, and by the time the lights were out - and believe you me, they all went out at the very same instant - that skimmer and I were already at the other end.”

More laughter, and Vix-Lei’s smile grew even wider as she continued her routine, finally coming to the end. “Thanks so much, everybody! Good night!”

As she left the stage, still smiling and waving, she headed for her dressing room. Now was her absolute favorite part of the show, and sure enough, a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” she called. A moment later, nine familiar faces crowded in, and she beamed. “So, how was the show tonight?”

“Wonderful as always, honey,” her mother told her with a proud smile.

“Yeah, you were really knockin’ em dead out there!” Herakles chimed in.

Vix-Lei looked to the next ’taur. “Dad?”

Shipmaster Petros, the most well-respected minotaur in all the Minos Islands, smiled. “You were great, Vix-Lei. I’m so proud of you.”

Tears of joy sprang from her eyes. “Thanks, Daddy.” Standing up, she moved to give him a hug, one he happily returned.

Something was niggling at her, but she shrugged it off. This was her and her family’s time to celebrate.

Night Blade

Night Blade opened his eyes as he woke up in his luxurious cloud bed next to his wife Page Turner.

Tilting his head, Night managed to pull himself out from under her hollow hoof and went to the window.

They were in the Blade manor in the badlands; this was his barony that his parents gave to them as a wedding gift; it was his inheritance after all but both mom and dad decided that they needed a place to live. It was done on the catch, however, that they fill the place with as many foals as they could and soon as they could.

He looked down the street and saw a number of his workers pass by the front gates, waving up to him. It had taken a while to prove himself to them but they had come to like him as a good and fair boss.

“Good morning, love,” Page said as she walked to his side, placing a kiss on his cheek. “How are we today?” Night closed his eyes, holding them tight. She noticed this immediately and went to console him. “Nighty, is something wrong?"

“Everything is just perfect,” he said with a low tone before turning around and wrapping his hooves around her neck, strangling her. Night ignored her protest with his heart hardening at what he had to do.

Wincing in pain, he heard the neck snap before he heard the mocking laughter.

“Well well well, I did not expect you to awake first Loyalty,” the Nightmare grinned at him while Night felt nothing but pure hatred for this monster. “Tell me, how did you know the dream was false?”

“You made me happy,” Night snapped, drawing his sword. “I don’t deserve that, not now and not ever. Not after what I did to Page; I deserve Tartarus for it!”

“Perhaps; you will find out after I kill you,” the Nightmare said, narrowing its head towards Night. “The Judge rarely accepts any excuse for a crime and you have committed several serious crimes. I wonder how long you will suff-” it let out a snarl of pain as a bolt slammed into its side.

“Night, once we deal with this fucker, we’re going to have some serious talks,” Wind snorted as he loaded another bolt and prepared to fire it at their foe.

“If you live that long, Honesty, which I strongly doubt,” the Nightmare said as its body shifted the bolt out of its side and let it fall to the ground. “If you will allow an ancient soul that cannot even remember if it is Lord or Lady of Nightmares; my dream unto you failed because you couldn’t believe the lie that you had no addiction; that you had a family that loved you and a person to call mom, correct?”

Night saw with worry that the Nightmare was able to get under Wind’s skin and cause the griffon to make a deadly mistake.

Thankfully everyone forgot about the minotaur in the room and the fact that she had a warhammer.

“That’s such a bad joke I forgot to laugh,” Vix-Lei snorted as she swung Señor Hardhead into its side, knocking it across the room. “As is messing with these guys while I’m still around.”

Laughter,” the Nightmare spat angrily as it rose to its hooves. “Out of all the Elements, I hate yours the most. Always unpredictable and bothersome, no matter who Laughter is. Nor the fact that tricking you is akin to fooling Honesty!”

“Hey, what can I say? You can’t fool a fool,” Vix-Lei said with a grin on her face. “Your little paradise was good except for that fact I was topless and my mom didn’t complain once about it! That ain’t right, no matter what’s going on!”

The Nightmare let out a low roar at this before narrowing its head and firing off a spell at the minotaur only for Page’s shield to snap into place to protect her.

Kindness!” the Nightmare snarled as it saw her. “How did you get out of your dream‽”

“Easy,” Page shot back. “You may have created a wonderful world for me, but you made a very big mistake.” She bared her fangs. “You forgot why I’m the current Queen of my hive.”

“And what is that, pray tell?” the Nightmare glared.

“I am like my mother before me; she abandoned me to the elders of our hive so I would live a normal life while I was to prepare for becoming the Queen before she killed herself as the suffering of our hive was too great for her,” Page said as she began to weave a spell of her own. “I am nothing like that damn coward who will leave her daughter an impossible mission to care for my changelings. I vowed to be the last Queen of the Badlands hive due to the endless abuse and hatred thrown at them. Hatred because of you!” Page screamed as she let loose a bolt of magic at the creature.

“Yes,” the Nightmare said as it dove out of the way, a grin forming on its face. “Chrysalis proved to be the perfect scapegoat with her suicidal idea to invade Equestria. Then again, all those nightmares she was having of her hive wilting away did play some part in her decisions all those years ago.”

NIght’s heart wrenched itself into a knot as Page froze at this revelation, her eyes going wide, her lips trembling and her horn going out with her shield vanishing. Night realized what was happening after his body was already moving to push Page out of the way, feeling the end of his tail being singed by the ball of fire that the Nightmare sent flying past. He crashed poorly into her, their limbs getting tangled up as they tried to stand up with the Nightmare throwing its head back in deep laughter.

“I forgot how much fun it was to torment mortals that I have not broken completely already; it gives me fresh ideas in what new nightmares I can bring the world,” it said with a happy sigh before roaring out in pain as it briefly caught on fire.

“Such as being burned alive, you abomination?” Rex growled viciously as took another bottle from his vest. “And in case you are curious to how I escaped mine, you made the error of leaving too many details out. It was simple deduction when I could not recall all the steps that I took to become a professor at the Academy.”

“A mistake on my part Generosity; one does not normally pick away at their lives like you do,” the Nightmare spat, shaking the flames off its body. “How sad it must be that you would look for reasons why things are not what you always wished for and latched onto explanation that made your life a lie.”

“The only lie here is that you think you will win, right Xvital?” Night risked a look at the ahuizotless only to freeze as she had vanished.

“Ah dear Loyalty,” the Nightmare said from in front of him, nose to nose. “I told you I had Magic and you were all doomed from the start to fail.” The Nightmare then slammed a shield into Night’s barrel and sent him flying backwards. “Now comes the fun part where I get to kill all of you and Magic gets to watch it happen for all eternity.”

Night lifted his head in time to see Rex lob a smoke potion at the Nightmare at the same time Page created another shield to protect him with Vix-Lei moving a desk into makeshift barrier and Wind Breaker bracing him on it to shoot at the Nightmare, with it growling as it was forced to back up.

“I think not,” Rex growled as Night got to his hooves and redrew his blade.

And the battle was on.

Next Chapter: Chapter Forty Six: Rex, Vix-Lei, Wind Breaker, Page Turner, The Nightmare, Night Blade. Estimated time remaining: 51 Minutes
Return to Story Description

Login

Facebook
Login with
Facebook:
FiMFetch