Ponyville Noire: Kriegspiel—Black, White, and Scarlet
Chapter 40: Case Ten, Chapter Nine: ...and Switch
Previous Chapter Next ChapterOne hour later, the police had cordoned off a block-wide radius around the warehouse. The usual crowd gathered at the gateways, staring past to try to catch a glimpse of the carnage that the mass response and spinning lights always promised.
A black armored truck stood parked next to a now-evacuated brick mall, opposite the warehouse; the lights had been switched off, but the white “PONYVILLE POLICE EMERGENCY COMMAND” lettering painted on the sides spoke loud enough. Several officers stood around it, all of them adorned in heavy vests and steel pot helmets. Above the vehicle floated a little rogue cloud; atop it sat Wheellock, a silver corded bracelet with a feather woven into it clasped to her foreleg, a Summerfield .30-03 in her hooves as she stared down the scope, her body half-hidden behind the edge of the mall’s roof.
Inside the truck, Captain Hewn Oak stared at a collection of blueprints pinned to the wall of the truck, depicting what had once been a fish cannery, then scanned a series of blurry photographs taken through the windows of the warehouse with a telephoto lens. The pictures depicted a large interior scattered with loose crates and rusted machinery, but no actual ponies or griffons: at best, a tail or a hoof hidden behind some cover.
“This is a terrible situation,” he stated to Sergeant MacWillard, who stood at his side amidst the racks of guns, ammunition, grenades, gas masks, shields, and other specialized equipment. “That warehouse is expansive and littered with dark corners for our rodents to hide. Their machine gun covers the front doors, and it is more than probable that they have the back entrances covered as well. More to the point, it is unknown where our lad is.”
“Wheellock, still got nothing?” MacWillard called out of the van.
“Nothing, sir,” Wheellock replied, scowling as she pressed the scope to her eye. “They’re all staying far away from the windows, and the walls are too thick for thermal. Wait, hang on…” She squinted. “Looks like there’s...yeah, one guy on the roof with a rifle. He’s staying behind some cover, though. I don’t have a good shot on him: if I try to raise this cloud higher, he’ll get a bead on me.”
“Damn these fiendish devils, and that accursed black-eyed monstrosity,” Oak muttered, looking to his left. “Daring, do we have a way inside?”
“I think I have something,” Daring stated, staring at several blueprints tacked up on the back wall of the van interior as Phillip watched over her shoulder. She traced a line across a tunnel. “We could get in through an old sewage tunnel beneath the warehouse,” she explained. “It leads to a drainage grate in the back. Looks like it’s just big enough to squeeze through.”
“Not for these ponies wearing armor,” Phillip pointed out.
“I can,” Daring said grimly. “If I can get inside, we can at least learn more about what we’re dealing with and maybe take some of them out. Maybe I can even get Flash out before the bullets start flying.”
“I’m going with you,” Phillip stated.
“I knew you were,” Daring smirked, though Phillip caught the spark of gratitude in her eyes.
“The question remains: how are we going to get close to the warehouse without being cut to ribbons?” Oak stated. “No ordinary unicorn has the power to teleport the entire crew in there, especially blind.”
“Sir?” Twilight offered, stepping forward. “I’ve been training in a new spell: a portal spell. I need to see where I'm putting the portal, but if I can just get a line of sight on the front of the warehouse for about half a minute, I can construct a portal that will let you all go right through.”
“Excellent, lass, and I have a better idea!” Hewn Oak nodded, scanning the racks of the van. “Daring, a suggestion. Take this with you.” He handed her a black box marked with runes with a thin cable attached to it; at the other end of the cable was a blue curved crystal.
“A remote surveillance crystal, one of the newest models,” he explained, gesturing to a small black screen on a wall. “With this, we will be able to see what you see on this screen here.”
“Perfect!” Twilight cried. “I can use that to make a portal inside the warehouse. It’ll take a little longer, but it will be enough to get your crew through, and maybe get you and Flash out.”
“Sounds good,” Daring nodded as she and Phillip checked their revolvers.
“You’d best take gas masks as well,” Oak stated, handing them two pouches. “Once we breach the serpent’s den, we’ll be using tear gas. And here; take these radios and earpieces, as well.”
“Noted,” Phillip stated, putting in his earpiece and clipping the radio and gas mask to his vest.
“No unnecessary risks, my friends,” Hewn Oak stated. “May Celestia in her grace watch over you both.”
With a final nod, Daring and Phillip both exited the van. The armored police officers stepped aside to let them through.
“Go get ‘em!” Bumblebee cheered, banging his shield in applause.
“Be careful out there,” Trace stated, clapping Phillip on the shoulder as he passed.
“Yeah, whose dicks are we gonna stroke if you die?” Red remarked with a small smirk, earning him a Flying Feather and a grin from Daring.
Grasping Phillip beneath the forelegs, Daring took off, keeping a wide berth around the warehouse to avoid being spotted. “Pipe runs out into a drainage ditch a half-mile from here,” she stated, putting on speed.
“You sure you don’t want to call the ankle-biter?” Phillip asked, trying not to watch the ground zipping past hundreds of feet below him.
“No way,” Daring replied. “This is way over her head.”
Phillip nodded in silent assent as he spotted the concrete ditch beneath them, a narrow hoofpath crossing over the artificial river that ran with foul, greasy brown water. He could smell the pungent odor even from up in the air.
“There it is,” Daring confirmed, swooping down. The scent increased in intensity as they approached; once they landed on the bridge, the smell was bad enough that Phillip had to fight back the urge to plug his nose.
“Eh. I needed a reason to take a shower anyway,” Daring said, jumping into the water. The sewage reached almost to her knees, splashing heavily with every step, garbage swimming around her limbs.
“The things I do for this city,” Phillip muttered and jumped in after her, gagging as the scent burned his nostrils and turned his stomach.
“Here’s the tunnel,” Daring announced, pausing before a gaping round mouth of dark green plastic, four feet in diameter. The bottom was permanently marked with dark brown slush from years of sewage and waste.
“You sure it’s big enough for us both?” Phillip asked, peering down into the darkness with the aid of his flashlight.
“Of course I’m sure, you big chicken,” Daring replied, hopping up into the tunnel and climbing down into the darkness. “Well, okay. Maybe 85% sure. I just kind of glanced at the blueprints.”
“Well, it’s more thought-out than most of your plans,” Phillip commented, following her into the tunnel, cringing internally as he felt years worth of silt and muck grinding beneath his hooves.
“It’s not the first time I’ve snuck into someplace via the sewers,” Daring commented, her flashlight leading the way, voice echoing strangely off the close tunnel walls. “I remember this one time, I was snatching some painting from a museum, had to replace it with a fake. Squeezed in through a tunnel much thinner than this.” She glanced down at herself. “Of course, I was about twenty years younger,” she added quietly.
They continued forward in silence, their voices replaced by the sound of the soft splashing of their hooves and the echoes of drips. The walls hugged them close, their shoulders scraping along the slick plastic.
“We’re almost there,” Daring whispered, slowing her steps and switching her flashlight off. “Best stay quiet.”
A beam of light shone down from the ceiling up ahead. The two paused beneath the grate, which was just under three feet wide and perforated with holes; Phillip could hear several voices from above, and eventually realized that they were singing in a low, heavy chant, a rapid, beating rhythm of stamping claws and paws behind their words.
“Riket det skriker efter vår hjälp
Kriga an vaknar, lämnar graven
Med kraftigt tjut han samlar trupper
Redo att slåss för oss nu…”
“They’re praying,” Daring whispered. “It’s a prayer to Kriga, the griffon god of war.”
Phillip sniffed. There was a scent behind the lingering fish guts and waste, a fresh one, very faint: rum and mushrooms. “Whitestone’s crew,” he hissed. “And…” He heard a faint, familiar rattling and felt a chill.
“Roaring’s here,” he whispered.
Even in the dark, Phillip could see Daring’s eyes widen, heard her gasp, felt her stiffen. “Shit,” she breathed, looking up through the slit.
Phillip took the surveillance crystal and turned on the switch on the side, then slowly fed the tube into one of the slits in the grate. “Oak, you getting this?” he whispered into the mouthpiece.
“Solid copy, Finder,” Oak replied through their earpieces. “We’re seeing this clearly. Turn it around to give us an entire scan.”
Phillip turned the crystal all the way around in a slow circle. “What do you see?”
“Push the blue button on the side of the box,” Oak suggested.
Phillip pushed the button and a small projection flashed before his and Daring’s eyes, revealing a line of wooden crates stacked two high, their labels long faded.
“I want one of these,” Daring breathed as Phillip slowly panned the crystal around in a circle.
The sewer grate was towards a back corner, with two cinder walls behind them. A line of crates and other junk completed a perimeter around the grate. Turning the crystal up, Phillip observed that what had initially appeared to be a balcony was actually the remnants of the second floor, rotten and broken wood clinging to metal struts and forming a hole that exposed the rusted ceiling. The only figure he saw was the distant outline of a pony manning a tripod-mounted machine gun over the front doors, staring out the large bay windows, though he could hear the prayer continuing its harsh rhythm, carried by a dozen voices from out of his view.
“You’re clear for entry,” Oak reported. “There doesn’t seem to be anypony watching you.”
“Phil, Daring, there’s a problem,” Twilight’s voice cut in. “I can’t form the portal: something’s blocking my magic. You were right, there’s probably a magic circle around the warehouse, and it’s blocking any magic that goes in there. I need to have that broken before I can create the portal.”
“How?” Daring asked.
“They wouldn’t have had time for anything complex: it’ll probably just be a simple chalk circle around the warehouse,” Twilight explained. “Just rub out part of the circle!”
Phillip frowned in thought. “Twi, I don’t know that much about the details of magic, but I know about magic circles: I've seen them before. You said that it’s used to concentrate magical energy.”
“And to prevent outside energy from interfering with it,” Twilight added.
“So, what happens to the energy in the circle if we break it?” Phillip asked.
“It...it’ll be fine,” Twilight said quickly. “If they’re not concentrating any magic into a spell, it won’t be that dangerous. There’ll be some magical feedback that you might feel: it’ll be like a mild electrical shock, but it won’t hurt. At least, not too badly.”
She paused for a beat, during which Phillip’s scowl was nearly audible. “Listen, this is our best option,” she urged. “Trust me.”
Phillip sighed. “Long as we don’t get fried,” he muttered, staring to push at the grate.
“Wait,” Daring hissed. “Something’s not right about this. I smell a trap.”
Phillip looked again, studying the boxes and other debris that had been haphazardly placed in a semi-circle around the grate, save for a single opening wide enough for two ponies to pass through. Nopony in sight, easy cover. It was easy.
Too easy.
Something scratched at the back of his mind, and he looked closer at the image, squinting at the ground. “The dust,” he finally breathed, realizing what was wrong. “It’s been disturbed recently. Those crates were just moved.”
That’s when he spotted it. In a narrow gap between two crates was a dark-colored limb. As if sensing his gaze, it retreated out of sight. And as it did, Phillip heard a familiar rattling sound.
“Roaring’s hiding behind the crates,” Phillip reported, his heart speeding up, pattering against his throat. “Bet there’s more. Trap.”
“Shit,” Daring muttered. “And there’s no other way in.”
“Hey, Twilight, can’t you use like an invisibility spell or something?” Bumblebee suggested.
“No, invisibility spells are absurdly hard,” Twilight stated sadly. “Trying to use it on all of you would drain my energy too fast. And besides, once you crossed the circle, it would switch off the spell. In fact, it could even cause a magical feedback that—”
“Wait,” Daring interrupted. “Invisibility…”
She turned away from the grate and walked slowly back down the tunnel, head lowered and hoof stroking at her chin as she thought. Phillip could almost hear the gears turning in her head as she thought.
“I’ve got it!” she declared, her head snapping up, a glow in her eyes. “Phil, stay here.” Leaving him with a final boop on his nose, she dashed silently back down the tunnel, quickly disappearing into the darkness.
“What am I doing?” Phillip hissed after her as loudly as he dared.
“You’ll know when you’re needed!” she called back.
Sighing, Phillip stared up at the sewer grate and settled in for a wait.
Reaching the end of the tunnel, Daring spread her wings to grasp the filthy air and flew back to their command center, banking around wide to avoid the sniper, a single object in her mind.
“You sure you know how this works?” Daring asked, staring down at the dog tags that she had retrieved from the police evidence room. The runes stamped into the metal glowed faintly with a familiar orange light.
“Positive,” Twilight nodded, fidgeting in place as they stood outside the command center truck. “Gear Shift explained how it worked before he…” She swallowed. “Before he was killed. The word is ‘Latito.’”
“‘Latito,’ got it,” Daring nodded, pulling the dog tags over her head. The metal tag bounced against her chest.
“We’ll have to time this right,” Oak frowned as Daring trotted around to the corner of the brick mall, peering around the corner. “The serpents within the warehouse will feel the feedback from the circle and will know that something happened.”
“Be careful, Daring,” Wheellock advised from the cloud, not taking her eyes off the scope of her rifle. “If that sniper has a thermal scope, he might still be able to see you.”
“Noted,” Daring said, pressing her back against the cold brick. She let out a slow breath and closed her eyes, willing the spell to work.
Sparks, she thought. You made this hoping it’d do some good. Well, I’m going to be using it for just that. It’s almost like...almost like we’re working together on this, big sis.
“Latito,” she breathed. A cool touch like a wet blanket slid over her head and draped over her body, and she heard gasps of surprise from the observing officers. Opening her eyes, she glanced down to see that her own hoof had become semi-transparent, as though she’d been transformed into glass.
“It only lasts a few minutes at most, hurry!” Twilight urged Daring, her face creased in effort and horn sparking as she tried to hold the portal spell.
Daring rounded the corner and darted forward, racing through the open concrete plains towards the target warehouse. Her heart began to pound steadily in her chest, like a war drum: at any moment, the sniper on the roof might send a round streaking towards her head, but the only thing she could do was charge onwards, racing past the smoldering ruins of the booby-trapped car.
She almost ran into the circle before she spotted it. Twilight was right, it was just a simple chalk circle around the perimeter of the warehouse; but even as Daring approached it, the tingling in her wings increased, the wet blanket that hugged her form seemed to become warmer, and she hesitated. The chalk circle suddenly felt like the closed door blocking a room on fire. If she opened it, the energy, the flames, would rush out at her.
But Flash was in there.
“Fuck it,” Daring snarled, and rubbed out a portion of the circle.
There was a sound like a whip cracking, and a wave of heat rushed over her, slamming into her like a wall, her wings suddenly burning, electric tingles racing across her wings and limbs. She stumbled back, biting back a cry as the dog tags flickered like a dying neon light.
“The circle’s down!” she heard Twilight shout, and shook herself off. Back to work.
Phillip waited beneath the sewer grate, the smell of the tunnel clinging to the inside of his nostrils. Above him, the griffons continued their prayer, bites of impatience in their voices, in the soft rustling of shifting bodies he heard beneath the voices.
And then there was a sharp crack, and he was struck by a hammer of lightning, staggering beneath the wave of pain that raced across his body that triggered a gasp of shock. The song from above was abruptly cut off by a wave of pained and startled cries.
“The circle’s down!” he heard Twilight shout through his radio, and then he heard a sound like a massive zipper opening. Then came the thunder of booted hoofsteps, the barks of overlapping shouts and the rattling of gunfire. A Summerfield rifle let out its distinctive roar as Wheellock took out the enemy sniper. Shaking off the momentary pain and strapping his gas mask onto his head, Phillip pushed the grate open and shoved himself up through the gap.
Twilight’s portal looked like a swirling arch of purple energy, formed on the other side of the warehouse, opposite the crates that his would-be attackers had been hiding behind; through the portal, he could see the exterior of the police command center van. A stream of officers had charged through it, fire roaring out of their rifles. A few thugs already lay dead, struck down by the surprise attack; he caught a glimpse of the other griffons retreating further into the warehouse, behind lines of crates and equipment hastily formed as additional lines of defense, raining hasty covering fire upon the intruding officers.
“Move up!” MacWillard ordered as the regrouping officers threw silver canisters through the air. They landed amidst the defensive lines with clatters, already spewing out thick clouds of silver gas.
But Phillip paused. There were no sounds of coughing and retching as their enemies choked on the tear gas. Through a brief gasp in the smoke, he spotted one of their enemies, a unicorn, firing at the officers with a shotgun. He was wearing a gas mask.
And so were the other thugs.
At that moment, the mounted machine gun on the second floor let out a heavy thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk as it fired a salvo down at them. MacWillard cried out and fell to the ground, blood spewing from beneath his vest.
Trace leapt forward, a magical shield blossoming before him; bullets pinged musically off the construct, adding to the music of shouts and gunfire. Bumblebee sprinted forward and dragged MacWillard behind cover, returning fire with his revolver.
Suddenly, there was a blur of black and Trace screamed in agony, staggering and dropping to his knees. A rip appeared in the golden shield, and a few bullets raced through the hole before Trace could close it, pinging harshly against the concrete floor.
It took a moment for Phillip and the others to realize what had happened: Roaring had swooped in between a salvo of gunfire and slashed one of his swords across Trace’s shield, cutting through the magic.
Trace retreated as fast as he could, stumbling, grunting in pain as another salvo from the machine gun crashed into his shield. Phillip spotted Roaring crouching like a panther behind a conveyor belt, his cutlass clutched so tightly in his claw that his talons were white.
Suddenly, there was a great crashing of glass and everything froze, every eye turning towards the great front windows as it shattered open. A golden figure swooped through the opening, wings spread open and eyes glowing like lightning bolts as she dived atop the heavy gunner, driving him into the floor with a crash of bone and wood.
“Roaring!” Daring bellowed as she smashed the machine gun with a single kick, breaking it into pieces.
The first mate let out a shriek of challenge and streaked towards Daring in a black blur.
“Too slow, fugly!” Daring taunted, dodging to one side as the police began their counterattack, led by Bumblebee’s riot shield.
Find Flash, Phillip reminded himself and looked around. He spotted a slightly open door to one side, drops of blood visible on the floor. Stealing up to the door, keeping his head low to avoid the flying bullets, Phillip sprinted up to the door and shoved it open with his shoulder, pistol raised to attack.
The room used to be an office, judging by the desks and rusting cabinets, but his attention was instantly taken by the stallion tied to a chair in the center of the room. “Flash,” Phillip breathed, hurrying over to him and undoing his bonds.
Flash smiled feebly beneath the blood and bruises. “I knew you’d come…” he whispered, voice thick beneath a bloodied nose.
“Can you stand?” Phillip asked, undoing the last of the ropes.
Flash tried to get out of the chair, but immediately collapsed and fell to the floor, clutching his chest and whimpering. Phillip dashed to Flash’s side and started to gently pull him up, but Flash firmly pushed him away. “No,” he said through a feeble hiss. “No, I can do this.”
“No one escapes Roaring twice!” Roaring bellowed. Both stallions looked up to see Roaring diving towards Daring like a falcon swooping down on a pigeon, cursed blades flashing in blur that she just barely dodged. The two began to duel in midair, gold and black blurring together in a strange, colorful dance, each moving so fast that they could barely be tracked by the eye. Phillip watched, palpitating heart growing colder by the moment, gears spinning in his head as he tried to think of a way to help her.
“Get down!” Flash cried, yanking Phillip downwards just as a .50 hoofgun let out its distinctive bark at them, a bullet narrowly missing Phillip’s head. Raising his pistol, Phillip centered his sights on the charging unicorn, but an orange aura yanked his weapon aside as Star Cluster continued to charge at them, firing wildly with the far-too-large pistol that floated beside his head.
Ducking out of the way again and shoving Flash back with a gentle mule kick, Phillip’s hoof snapped to his pocket and flicked out his wrist. The boomerang whistled through the air and struck the pistol, sending it clattering across the floor.
And then a surge of orange lighting struck him in the chest and threw him back into the room, crashing into Flash and tumbling across the floor, his trilby flying off. Gasping in pain, head spinning from the blow, Phillip looked up to see Star framed in the doorway. Even beneath his gas mask, the former officer’s eyes glittered in fury as they focused on Phillip, his horn lighting up for another charge.
“Wandj—!” Phillip started to cry, but the call only made it partway out of his mouth before another surge of orange lighting attacked him. Every nerve in his body became alive with agony, the pain so great he couldn’t even scream. He collapsed to the concrete floor, muscles convulsing as he fought for control.
“You ruined everything!” Star howled, increasing the power of his spell. “You ruined all of our lives, mine and my buddies! We had good jobs, we had power, we had fucking respect! And now we have to ally with these scumbags and dig for every scrap we get!” He stood over Phillip, snarling in hate.
“It’s all your fault, Finder,” he snapped, giving the helpless stallion a harsh kick in the ribs. “You and this little fuck. And you’re gonna die for it now. Painfully.”
“No!” Flash cried, standing up and rushing Star. The elder unicorn merely moved to one side, dodging Flash’s wild swing and countering with a crashing elbow that smashed into the back of Flash’s skull. The heavy smack of the blow and Flash’s yelp of pain as he tumbled to the floor once more pierced deep into Phillip’s heart.
And once more, deep inside, thunder roared. Snarling, glaring up at Star, he pressed his hooves on the ground and pushed himself up. Every inch of his muscles screamed in protest, but the thunder inside him drowned out their cries. Panting and growling with every breath, he forced himself forward. One step, then two, then three.
Star Cluster took a slow step back, his eyes widening slightly. “The hell…?” he muttered, his horn glowing brighter as he forced more energy into the spell. The agony redoubled itself and Phillip nearly buckled beneath the weight of the magic lightning, knees buckling and collapsing.
Get. Up!
Inch by inch, he pushed himself harder, shoving the pain into his gut and letting it mix with his rage, turning into fuel. His gaze bored into Star Cluster as he staggered forward step by step.
His eyes widening in disbelief, Star Cluster retreated, crouching down as he poured what little remained of his magic into the spell. “Stay back!” he cried. “Stay the fuck back!”
An orange hoof lashed out in a kick, striking Star in the side; distracted, he faltered in his spell and stumbled back, looking down at Flash.
He paid for his distraction dearly when a punch slammed into his jaw, sending pain exploding across his head and cutting off the spell entirely. Something seized him by the throat, cutting off his air and lifting him fully off the ground; choking, flailing in desperation, he looked up at a pair of stormcloud gray irides full of fury.
A moment later, another blow struck him in the face like a train and Star Cluster was sent flying back, blood flowing from his freshly shattered nose to fill his mask and a howl of pain rising from his throat as he skidded back. Looking up through tears of pain, he briefly spotted Flash forcing himself up, using the discarded assault rifle as a crutch, but his eyes instantly focused upon Phillip Finder. The earth pony's chest was heaving with breath and shoulders were slumped in exhaustion and pain, but he was standing fully tall, gray eyes full of fury. Finder let out a growl like the winds of an approaching cold front and started to approach him again, his steps slowed by pain but as sure and unstoppable as a storm.
“No!” Star Cluster wailed, scrambling to his hooves and diving into the crossfire in a desperate bid to escape.
Raising the rifle to his shoulder, Flash sucked in a breath that made his broken ribs flare with pain. His hooves trembled beneath the weight of the gun, but he took aim and fired a wild burst that made Star Cluster dive for the floor to avoid the salvo. He crawled forward another few feet and grasped the hoof of a stallion whom Flash and Phillip vaguely recognized as a former police officer, who lay on his side, clutching his bloodied torso.
Flash took in a breath and lined up the sights more carefully on his enemy’s torso, but there was a sudden flash of orange light and Star Cluster and the other stallion disappeared.
Flash snarled in disappointment and disgust. “Coward!”
“Forget him,” Phillip grunted, taking off his gas mask and placing it over Flash’s head. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“We gotta help Daring and the others!” Flash protested.
“Flash, you’re hurt,” Phillip stated. “You—”
His sentence was cut off by Flash shoving him hard in the chest; caught off guard, Phillip stumbled onto his rear and could only watch as Flash dropped to a crouch, snapping off three quick controlled shots.
The thestral that had been aiming at them stumbled and fell, three holes stitched out in a tight grouping in the center of their chest.
Phillip looked back up at Flash, who returned his gaze steadily. He could hear him hissing with each breath, hooves trembling beneath the weight of the gun, wincing occasionally, but the boy was calm and steady.
Phillip nodded and drew his pistol. “Aces,” he grunted, and the two charged into the smoke-filled battlefield.
Daring tumbled in midair, narrowly avoiding another slash from one of the cursed blades, hissing as the tip almost kissed her back.
“Stay still!” Roaring barked, stabbing at her again.
Whipping out her kusarifundo, Daring snapped her weapon out at Roaring’s head as she banked upwards hard. The griffon dodged and the blade in his tail snapped at her like a scorpion’s stinger; she retracted her hoof just in time with a sharp gasp.
A burst of gunfire zipped past Daring’s left side and she turned into a barrel roll to avoid the next salvo, but Roaring stuck to her like glue, blades whirling and whipping like a tornado. No matter how she dodged and twisted, he was right on her tail. She twisted to the side to avoid a downward slash, then pulled herself up at a harsh angle to avoid the balcony.
A shadow fell over her and she looked up just in time to see a thestral diving at her, a silver talon embossed on his neck and a vicious glimmer in his eyes as he attempted to seize Daring. Daring dodged to one side and snapped her kusarifundo out, entangling the pony’s hind leg. A twist and a snap, and she flung the thestral at Roaring with a shout of “Catch!”
Both of the pirates grunted as the thestral slammed into Roaring’s chest, the griffon pulling up short to avoid impaling his compatriot. “Out of the way!” Roaring snarled, shoving the thestral aside.
He looked up just in time to see Daring drawing her pistol, the silencer staring at him like a Cyclopean eye.
Three sharp coughs rang out in succession and Roaring ducked, zigzagging through the air. Daring flew backward in retreat, eyes wide beneath the gas mask, firing off her last three shots in a frantic salvo, every single one of which missed. A grin spread across Roaring’s face and he dove, blades whirling like a mower.
“Fuck!” Daring shouted, throwing a smoke bomb at Roaring. He sliced the tinfoil capsule in half in midair with a contemptuous snarl, speeding after his target like a guided missile.
Daring dove into the clouds of smoke beneath her, zigzagging past blurry shadows, dodging metal rounds, but Roaring was still right on her tail, vision unencumbered by the gas. Daring pushed herself as hard as she could, even as her wings screamed in agony. Her heart was racing so hard that she thought it might burst and her lungs felt like they were on fire, but she pushed herself harder. If she allowed Roaring to get close to her, it was over.
She banked hard and a flash of light nearly blinded her; the sunlight through the window! An idea struck her, and she flew for the front windows.
“Wheellock, you still out there?!” she cried into her radio, ducking to avoid a cursed blade.
There was no answer on the radio. Daring pulled up short to avoid another stab and found herself flying right at the wall.
“Wheellock, I could use some help!” she shouted, turning in midair to kick off the wall at an angle, ricocheting like a hockey puck. An enormous crack pierced the air and she glanced behind her to see Roaring carving a gash into the wooden wall, splinters flying ahead of his blade like the wake before a ship’s prow.
Daring flew upwards, pausing before the broad windows. She panted, exhaustion seeping into her bones. Roaring shot up after her like a cannon, wisps of smoke dancing around his blades and his wings; the light reflecting off his gas mask’s lenses made him look particularly demonic.
“Wheellock!” Daring cried, grasping her kusarifundo tight in her sweaty hoof, bracing for the impact.
And then the window shattered and Roaring grunted in pain as a plume of red blossomed from his shoulder. His right claw reflexively opened and Asocrac’s sword fell from his grasp.
She wouldn’t get another chance. Daring dived, allowing gravity to accelerate her downwards, spinning her weapon as she fell. She snapped it out as she passed Roaring; the weight cracked into his temple with a smack like a stone striking a coconut and the first mate screamed in pain, lashing out at her as she fell with the blade in his tail.
Daring twisted, but was a second too slow; the blade cut into her cheek and cleaved through the mask and her skin with its cold embrace. She screamed, already feeling the burning itch of tear gas at her wound, but forced herself to ignore the pain. Her kusarifundo snapped out, winding around Roaring’s tail like a boa constrictor, and she allowed gravity and her weight to pull him down.
Asocrac’s sword was still tumbling towards the ground, so sharp it seemed to pierce the air. Daring snatched it with her free hoof, miraculously managing to grab the handle, then turned, pushed herself up against the air, and sliced upwards at the black shape above her.
Roaring threw himself aside, but there was the sound of rending flesh and a flash of dark scarlet. Something cold grasped Roaring’s left foreleg, the icy touch seeping up his limb to his chest. He hovered in midair, blinking in confusion as he tried to process the sight before him.
His left forelimb had been sliced off midway up the upper limb, blood spurting from the stump. He glanced down just in time to see his limb flop pitifully onto the concrete floor.
Motion caught his eye and he looked up to see Daring charging at him, the sword, his sword, drawn back for the finishing blow.
And then he felt the ring around his right talon grow hot, and the coldness over his heart tripled.
“No!” he heard himself gasp, lurching away from what would’ve been Daring’s finishing cut. He shot upwards, heading for the open doorway above them that led to the rooftop.
Something snatched at his tail and he looked back to see that Daring had wrapped her rope thing around his tail and was trying to pull him back towards her.
“Get off!” he snapped, stabbing at her with the remaining blade in his tail and forcing her to retreat. “You’re letting them kill her!”
“Kill who?!” Daring shouted, still chasing him.
Roaring stopped suddenly in midair and whirled around, allowing Daring to fly straight into the grasp of his claw, talons squeezing her throat. She gagged and dropped the sword, struggling in his grasp, desperately seizing his tail even as he tried to stab at her.
“My daughter!” Roaring growled into her face, squeezing tighter.
“Drop her!” a voice barked from below and Roaring looked down to see an officer aiming his rifle at him. The gunfire had quieted, and a glance over the battlefield showed him that all of the crew he and the coward had brought were either dead or pinned down by other officers, including Finder himself and that orange bastard. Even the sight of a wounded griffon officer brought no warmth to his heart.
Snarling, Roaring threw Daring at the officer, sending them both down in a heap, then turned and darted out the door and into the cool evening air in a flash of motion. Whipping his headband off, he wrapped it tight around the bloody stump as he pushed himself northwest, aware of nothing but the growing burning of the enchanted ring.