Author's Notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SswDbI5sQUDIaJ3oOuJnVu5ZHsKkX-6KQFtUlqUcKXA/edit

We started seeing signs of habitation far before Zecora said we were almost to her original village. It was mostly zebras living in yurts and huts along the riverside. Each place had a small farm around it and oftentimes, someone was working the land as we flew over. In each of those cases, they stopped what they were doing and stared as we passed.

Once Zecora said we were a mere twenty kilometers from her old village, the peasants below us started sending runners as soon as they spotted us, presumably to tell everyone what was coming. At that point, the crew I hand-picked for landing started readying themselves. For some of us, that was easy. All Kat had to do was strap on her daggers, a rapier (that I had never seen her use, actually), a small pack of bolts, and find a good way to keep the crossbow holstered. Ames just needed his sword. Spike didn’t even need that, though he might have wanted to bring his anyway.

For the rest of us, we needed to get armored up. Applejack still wasn’t entirely proficient in armor, but she managed it easily enough anyway. The single bat pony squad (Sentinel’s, per Watcher’s request) geared up quickly in their old night guard armor, though it looked somewhat odd with my red hand symbol instead of Luna’s cat eye. I kinda wanted them to use the dragon armor Jak made before we found that it was haunted, but I didn’t want to risk it in case we actually did have to fight. And I wore my standard metal armor, because I figured that would be very imposing to people that didn’t have steel. I also had my ring, just in case Pertz found a way to circumvent the lack of magic.

Zecora wore a single ratty cloak with a hood that covered her entire head. She drank a potion that made her eyes start glowing a faint yellow under the hood. I’m not sure if they were weapons or not, but she also had a bandolier of potions strapped to her chest and two saddlebags with even more potions in them.

Around ten kilometers from her old village, we started seeing kayaks and other small boats on the river. Soldiers in what looked like bronze or copper armor were patrolling the area. They were a mixed bag. Mostly zebras, but as we started getting closer, we began seeing more species. A few rhinos, one or two hippos, a small amount of elephants, and some cryptids that I didn’t recognize.

Given the number and types of troops he had, I was starting to seriously doubt our ability to fight our way out if it became necessary. If it were just zebras, we’d be fine. Ames and I could cut our way through them like butter, as long as we were able to keep moving and not get surrounded. But rhinos and hippos are vicious as hell and elephants are huge enough to be problems, armor or not.

When we were just five kilometers away and could barely see the overgrown village, a large bird with a long beak landed in front of Ames and squawked. As soon as it made that noise, the thing started emitting sparks of static electricity.

Zecora pressed her hoof against my side to get my attention, then ran over to it. I followed right behind her, since it was presumably important. She didn’t make any hostile moves, so I assumed the thing wouldn’t attack us.

Sure enough, it started talking instead, though its beak didn’t move at all. “What is your business here?” a female voice asked from inside of it.

“We were sent by Princess Celestia to speak to Pertz,” I replied. “I am Navarone. He may know of me.”

“He may. The flag you fly is not one of the sun. Nor is it the one of our god. How do I know you speak the truth?”

Shit, I should have gotten Celestia’s seal or something. Zecora took the reins, though. “The waters we tread are dangerous ones, witch doctor.” The bird’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The symbol of the sun is an unwelcome one in many areas. As is the symbol of your god. I advised them against flying either. The unknown is better than that which is hated.”

“It has been long since one of your ilk has shown themselves here, shaman.” The bird looked back at me. “Were you the ones that attacked our scouts?”

“No. We were the ones that your scouts attacked. I decided to let the survivor go as a show of goodwill. And to deliver a message, of course.”

“He delivered a warning, not a message. Pertz has no desire to speak to those who attack his subjects.”

The naga snorted. “I imagine his list of new souls to talk to is very low, when his subjects attack everyone unfamiliar on sight.”

“A god has no need to waste his time on frivolous conversations.”

“Your so-called god has very much upset his ruler,” I said, putting my hand on the pommel of my sword. “He will speak to us, or he will answer to Celestia. And I can guarantee that no matter how powerful you think he might be, she’s stronger. I would greatly advise you save yourself some casualties and tell him to meet us when we land.”

The bird was silent for several seconds before more static started pooling out of it. “He will hear your words.” With that, the thing dove off the side and flew back toward the city.

Immediately after it left, Zecora whirled to me. “That is not a shaman, Nav! This is bad. Very, very bad!”

“Yeah, you called her a witch doctor. What’s the difference?”

“Shamans strive for order and peace in all things. We need balance and seek to end conflict. Witch doctors seek power by any means. And only the strongest can summon and control the great impundulu. He doesn’t have a shaman, he has a powerful monstrosity!”

“...Huh. Can you kick her ass?”

She calmed herself slightly and leaned back. “Perhaps. I will return momentarily.” She left without another word, walking back into the depths of the ship.

The naga shook his head and muttered, “Blasted magic users.” I kinda agreed, but didn’t see any reason to voice it. Instead, I walked over to the helm, where Watcher and Gourd were both standing.

“What was that thing?” Watcher asked when I got close.

“Some kind of witch doctor or something,” I said. “Zecora’s pretty worried about it. She thinks things might go poorly if we have to fight.”

“Given the number of troops he has, I agree,” Watcher said. “I very highly suggest against antagonizing them too far, sir.”

“Noted. Gourd, do you think we should land? Or would we be better off continuing to fly and hoping we don’t need a quick extraction?”

“I suggest landing,” Gourd said. “If you do have to fight, you don’t want to climb that ladder under possible enemy fire, or while being harassed by flyers. And if you have to drag in an unconscious Pertz, getting him up the ladder would also be difficult. If I can find a suitable place to land, I’ll do so.”

“Can you keep the ship prepped in case we need to extract quickly?”

“Of course. How long do you think this should take?”

I shrugged, which was kinda pointless since it didn’t show up very well in the armor. “No clue. This’ll mostly be Zecora’s show. We’re here as muscle and to get her in. If shit hits the fan, we might just deep six this asshole and book it.”

Gourd blinked a few times before looking at Watcher. “He means they’ll kill him and run if things go bad,” the old man said. “I think. And the princess’s order allows for that, if necessary.”

“She’s very understanding,” I said with a smile they couldn’t see. “I’m going to go talk to the shore party. Watcher, you coming?”

“Yes sir.” We walked down the stairs to the center of the ship, where everyone that was heading down was congregated, aside from the naga who was at the front of the ship and Zecora who was still downstairs. The three soldiers saluted quickly before going back to stretching. Applejack was nervously toying with her hair. Spike was flexing his claws. Kat was sharpening a dagger.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s almost showtime,” I said. “The goal is to get in and out quickly. But we’re pretty sure that’s going to go to shit, so the goal is to not get separated. I kinda doubt that’ll happen, too. Kat, you’re in charge of Spike and Applejack.” Spike’s mouth opened, but I silenced him with a short stare. “Sentinel, you’re in charge of your squad. I’ll try to keep the naga and Zecora with me. We’ll rearrange as needed. Regroup spot is the ship. Do not speak to the natives unless spoken to. Do not show fear. Applejack, there’s a chance they’ll think you’re our liaison, since you’re the only normal pony we’re taking with us. If that’s the case, refer them to me.”

“Yep. Why you bringing me, though?”

“Because you’re the most reliable normal pony we have here. You have common sense and won’t do or say something stupid. You can also fight and get around fine without magic. That’s why Pinkie and Rarity are currently distracting Dash.” By forcing her to dress up in all kinds of adorable dresses, from what Rarity was saying. “The reason we’re bringing you at all is because you look like a normal pony and I don’t want them to think we’re just bringing what the locals think are demons or non-ponies.”

“I reckon that makes sense,” she said with a nod.

“If we end up having to fight, we should all head for the ship. If we’re separated, don’t try to find the others. Just get to the ship as quickly as possible. Try to avoid combat if at all possible, but if you get forced into it, eliminate the hostiles by any means necessary. That means you might have to kill, Applejack. If you’re not okay with that, I’m willing to leave you behind.”

She looked away for a few moments before looking back. “I put this armor on knowing I might have to do that. I ain’t gonna let nopony down.”

“Gourd is going to try to land us in the water, so we don’t have to climb up the ladder while under attack. Zecora is going to try to take care of their mage, if it becomes necessary. I’ll back her up if my ring helps me against their magic. If he’s awake when we grab him, you’ll guard him, Sentinel. If we have to knock him out, Spike can carry him. If we kill him, leave the body. Questions?”

Kat nodded. “A lot of tribals have customs involving guests. They might feed us and expect us to spend the night in their hospitality before talking business. Should we eat their food or sleep in their village?”

I turned to Watcher, hoping he could field that one. “Don’t,” he said. “I knew Pertz before he came here. He was paranoid then. Spending a few years here likely only compounded it. He’ll be suspicious and poison or late night assassinations would be an easy way to deal with you. If you’re there that late, try to return to the ship and stay here.”

“Anyone else?” I asked.

“Why aren’t I going with you?” Spike asked.

“Because you’re a heavy hitter and Kat’s physically weak,” I said. “If she needs heavy lifting done, you’re doing it. I’m keeping the naga with me because he’s the best fighter we have and I’m probably going to be right in the middle of the village with Pertz.”

Before I could ask for more questions, Zecora joined us with another bag of potions. When she realized no one else was talking, she set the bag down and said, “We cannot leave the witch doctor here, whether we leave with Pertz or not. And I might not be able to kill or incapacitate her myself.”

“Will she have magic defenses?” Kat asked.

“Likely,” Zecora said with a nod. “Witch doctors specialize in making fetishes from lost souls that give them many extra abilities. They can also act as armor.” She reached into the bag and took out two milky-white potions. “Dripping these over weapons will allow them to pierce most magical defenses, at the cost of making them worthless against any physical armor stronger than cloth. On a sword, the effect would last around fifteen minutes. Thirty on a dagger. A bolt would be a single shot.”

I pushed one into a pouch on my belt and passed the other to Kat. “We’ll plan her assassination as needed,” I said. “Pertz is the primary target, Zecora. I know I said I’d help you save your people or whatever, but I wasn’t expecting this many fucking people. This shit’s gonna be dangerous enough without purposefully going after their secondary leader.”

“Noted, and I understand.” She pulled out an orange potion and passed it to Spike. “This will increase the intensity of your flames for an hour. It’ll also make you emit a heat that will be painful for anyone within a meter of you, so be wary when drinking it.” He gulped and nodded. She pulled out a red one and passed it to me. “This fills the imbiber with a great strength and nullifies pain, but you can’t talk or reason. Everyone that you don’t know will be seen as an enemy and a target.”

“This one goes to the naga,” I muttered, also pushing it in the pouch. “Do you have any potions that don’t have drawbacks?”

“I’m afraid that is rarely how it works,” she said. “Balance in all things. But the ones I am carrying around me are all entirely negative, if it makes you feel better.”

“It does not. You got anything else in your bag of wonders?”

She pulled out three green potions and handed them to Sentinel and her two soldiers. “These make quadrupeds fleet of hoof. Should you need to run, drink these and you will be able to move much more swiftly. Unfortunately, it dims your eyesight, so you won’t be able to see as far.”

“Seems dangerous,” Sentinel said. “How long does it last?”

“Three kilometers,” Zecora said. “Or two hours. Whichever happens first.” She closed the bag and tossed it on her back, then slowly looked around our group. “I should mention now that should the worst come to pass, allowing yourselves to be captured alive would be most inadvisable. I feel no need to go into the indignities that will likely be committed upon you, but know that they will be more than slightly unpleasant. It is unlikely that even the water elementals would be able to save us. Should we have to fight, and should we begin to lose, fight to the death.”

“Sounds like good motivation to avoid a fight to me,” I said.

“Indeed. And of course, you shall not call me Zecora while we are there. My name will be Peregrine.”

Before anyone could reply, the ship’s bell started ringing. When it stopped, Gourd shouted, “We’re going to land. Brace yourselves!”

“We’ll leave the ship as soon as we can,” I said. “For now, hold onto something.” Our group broke up as everyone went to find something to brace themselves with. For most of us, that ended up being the railing on the side.

Since Ames was being antisocial, I walked to stand next to him. He saw me and put a hand on my shoulder to help support me for the landing. “Are you ready for combat?” he asked.

“As ever. But the point of this is to avoid combat if at all possible. These guys have a lot of bad motherfuckers that I don’t want to have to deal with. I’d much rather disprove Pertz as a god and then get the hell out. That said, I’m going to want you and Zecora by my side as much as possible. If the fighting does start, the three of us will probably have the best chance of getting to Pertz and taking him down. Oh, and here.” I pulled out the red potion and passed it to him. “If the shit does hit the fan, drink this. Zecora said it’ll make you stronger, but you’ll attack anyone you perceive as hostile. Just stay with me and I’ll direct you.”

“I will be by your side, sister of battle.”

That was all we had time for before we touched down in the river. Thankfully, Gourd knows his business, so we didn’t bounce too badly or hit the bottom. Everyone milled around until the ship slowly ground to a halt next to some shoddily made docks, where a welcoming party of three armored hyenas and a gorilla was waiting for us. The gorilla had a large wooden shield and a spear tipped with bronze.

One of the crew members lowered a gangplank and I was the first on it, walking down to speak to them. “I am Navarone,” I said. “And this is my ship. We are here to speak to your leader.”

“Any emissaries from the goddess of the sun are welcome in the village of our god of trade,” the gorilla grunted, placing one of his hands on his chest. “Though you don’t look like those that came before.”

“The river is a dangerous place,” I said, placing a hand on the pommel of my sword. “The last group that was sent did not return. She decided to send a more… battle-ready crew to determine why.”

The gorilla’s eyes gazed over the group standing behind me, those of us in the shore party. His eyes lingered on some people and passed over others. Finally, he looked back at me. “Your use is not mine to determine. But the river must have truly degraded for the goddess of the sun to send so many demons.”

“She does not do things by halves. If the first attempt fails, she will ensure that the second does not. And if the second attempt still falls short, she will come personally to punish those who dared attack her subjects.” Hint hint.

“You serve a wise goddess. Come this way.” He turned and started walking away from the ship, toward land. The hyenas eyed me for a moment before following him. My group joined them, though as soon as they got to land, the hyenas stopped so they could flank us.

I passively noted that Spike stood very close to Applejack, presumably to shield her if necessary. Sentinel’s squad quietly surrounded Zecora. The naga fell in on my right shoulder and Kat took my left.

This village was very different from the shaman place. That one had no permanent structures, despite presumably having been there for a while. This town had several huts with thatched roofs, a few wells despite having a river, and children were running between houses, cavorting freely. Several female zebras were sitting in whatever shade they could find and spinning thread, tanning leather, sewing, and doing other menial tasks. We passed a few training grounds that had soldiers practicing all kinds of combat, though I didn’t see them doing any magic.

The only free pony in the entire village was right in front of a large group of wooden cages, bound together by leather ropes. Each one had a different creature in it. A lion, three of Celestia’s royal guards, a very battered unicorn mare, a few hyenas, several zebras, one wounded popobawa that flinched when he saw us, a very large and wizened elephant, a warthog, a meerkat, and two rhinos. Seeing the royal guards gave me a very bad feeling in my gut.

Pertz was a bright yellow unicorn with a cutie mark of a trading scale. He was standing in front of the unicorn’s cage, just staring at her. A female zebra that was covered in tattoos, had no tail, and was wearing a creepy mask stood next to him, watching us. The same bird we saw earlier was sitting on her back, also watching us. It was still emitting random sparks of electricity, which the zebra ignored.

The gorilla walked up to Pertz and bowed down. “My lord god, these supplicants have come to show obeisance, and deliver a message from the goddess of the sun.”

Pertz finally turned to face us and I could instantly tell something inside of him checked out a very long time ago. His eyes had a manic look in them, the same kind of look I saw in Miguel and similar to the one I saw in the king of Egypt. There wouldn’t be any talking this guy down, that’s for sure.

“Visitors from Celestia,” he slowly said in an off-puttingly high voice, which was not at all what I was expecting. “Why do you come here?”

“She hasn’t heard word from you in a long time,” I said. “She was worried about you. It would please her to have you return to Canterlot for a short amount of time, so she can speak to you in person.”

He was silent for several long seconds before turning back to the cage. “Do you hear that? She wants us to come home.” The mare flinched and whimpered. He turned back to me. “I am going nowhere.”

“It wouldn’t be a long trip,” I said. “We made it down the river in less than a week. We made it across the ocean in a similar amount of time. You wouldn’t be away from your post long.”

He slammed a hoof on the ground, making the area around us start shaking for several seconds. When it stopped, he said, “I am going nowhere.”

“Shall I dispose of them?” the zebra asked, tilting her head slightly. “Or would you prefer them in your cages?”

He shook his head, though his eyes didn’t leave my helmet. “Many of the servants of Celestia are milquetoasts and will need no convincing to depart. They will spend the night here to recuperate from their assuredly arduous journey, then leave in the morning. They will carry a message to Celestia.”

“Some of her servants are cowards,” I said, putting my hand back on the sword’s pommel. “I am not one of them.”

The gorilla gripped his spear tighter and squared up in front of me. “You dare speak back to your god?” he growled.

“I fear no god or king,” I said. The gorilla thrust his spear toward me, but the naga grabbed it before it could hit me. The hyenas started growling and circling and Pertz’s horn lit up.

Surprisingly, Zecora broke the stalemate. “There is no need for mass bloodshed,” she said, stepping forward. “Dueling is the way of war, and this village has long since turned from its peaceful nature. Select your champions and we will select ours. Should you win, we will peacefully depart. Should you lose, you will return with us.”

The witch doctor bitterly laughed while the gorilla yanked his spear back. The witch shook her head and said, “Such is the weakness of the shaman! You desire equality, even if you must stoop into our violence to obtain it. Kill them all, Pertz. That will send your princess her message.”

“Do you fear me, witch doctor?” Zecora quietly asked, turning her glowing yellow eyes directly onto the bitch.

“My power is absolute. I have no need to prove it to you!”

“Shows of power are always necessary when surrounded by brutes,” Zecora said, turning her head to gaze around the camp. “Such displays keep the weaker willed in line. That is the way of the witch, is it not? Rule by fear and power, not respect and love?”

Pertz wryly smiled. “So it is, shaman. What is your name? Your voice seems… familiar.”

“I am called Peregrine. My assistance was requested for this journey down our Heart’s Vein.”

“We will meet your challenge. Five champions. Five duels to the death or until one surrenders.” He looked at one hyena and said, “Lead them to the arena. I will join them there shortly.” The hyena bowed and then started jogging away. My group followed.

When we were away from Pertz, I waved Zecora forward. “So what the hell was that?” I asked. “That wasn’t unicorn magic.”

“It was not,” she said. “It was also not my magic, or the witch doctor’s magic. If I knew how he did what he did, he would not have been a threat to me.”

Oh boy. “So what do you expect in this duel?” I asked.

“His best warriors, though I doubt he would throw away every member of a race at once. So it will likely be one or two of each race. An elephant, a rhino, a gorilla, a hippo, and likely his witch doctor.”

“Fun. Rules?”

“Melee only, for the most part. No throwing weapons, either.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“But it’s the rule. Or so it was, once upon a time. Should he use the witch doctor as a champion, magic will be allowed. But she would only deign to fight me. And even if your ring would work against her, I must be the one to defeat her.” I kinda wondered why, but I figured it was probably just an honor thing. This world is stupid like that.

The arena wasn’t too far from where they kept the prisoners. There was probably a correlation there, one that I didn’t think too hard on. The place wasn’t all that large, unsurprisingly. There were a few stands on all four sides, and the sidelines were large enough that competitors could comfortably stand around while waiting for their turn.

When the hyena wandered off, I turned to face our group. “Thoughts?”

Sentinel shook her head. “I have no interest in being a part of a pissing contest against savages, sir. Especially not ones with hides thicker than my armor. If you need me to fight zebras, I can. But there’s not much I or anyone on my squad can do against a rhino, elephant, or hippo.”

“Noted.”

Kat drew her rapier and looked down the blade. “I can handle an elephant, Nav. It certainly wouldn’t be the first this rapier has claimed. No amount of toughness would help any of you against one of them. Speed is needed, and I have the most here.”

The naga gently pressed against Kat, making her stumble back. “You are weak, kitty. What use are you against something that large?”

“Finesse beats brute strength any day, big guy. Or have you not learned that from our bouts?” He silently rubbed at a large bruise on his hip. “Being able to quickly hit a small target with perfect accuracy means a lot.”

“Then you’ll get the largest thing we fight,” I said. “But you better not get fucking crushed. I sure as shit don’t want to have to deal with Spider alone.” She smiled and bowed. “Naga, can you handle a rhino?”

“Of course. I could also handle an elephant or a hippo. Weaponless animals are cake to bring down.”

“Good. Spike, you’ll fight a hippo.”

His eyes widened. “What?! Why me?”

“They have no piercing weapons, so your scales will be impenetrable. You’ll just have to do your best to not get trampled. Use your teeth, claws, tail spikes, and fire if it’s allowed.”

“It’s not,” Zecora hastily said.

“Then don’t use your fire. But use everything else and tear the thing apart.” He gulped and nodded. “I’ll fill in the gaps and take whatever’s left. Sentinel, keep an eye on the stands. Make sure none of them try cheating if they start losing.”

“Of course, sir.” She looked around and then said, “It should go without saying that when we win, we need to negotiate the release of the pony prisoners as well.”

“We’ll worry about that when we can.” She nodded.

Zebra villagers were starting to filter into the arena, taking places in the stands. I suppose it wasn’t too often that they got to see actual fights. They probably usually only saw slaughters, though they might have expected this to be one. I certainly intended for it to be that way.

About fifteen minutes after we arrived, Pertz appeared on the other side of the arena. Sure enough, he had a hippo, a rhino, an elephant, the same gorilla, and his witch doctor. He and his mage started walking toward us, so Zecora and I met him halfway.

“I never learned your name, armored stranger,” Pertz said when we got close to him.

“I am the human Navarone,” I said. After a moment of thought, I removed my helmet. His eyes widened and his breath seemed to catch. “You may have heard of me.”

He recovered quickly, I’ll give him that. “I have. Blueblood sent me many letters about you. So did several of the other nobles. It will be good to put you in your place.”

“We shall see about that,” I said as I put my helmet back on. “I have chosen my champions. Are your troops ready to die?”

“My holy champions are ready to win,” he growled. With that, he whirled around and marched back to his side. Zecora and I walked back to our area.

The first one he sent out was the rhino. Ames drew his sword and slithered out to meet the foe.

There wasn’t any kind of indication that the round started. The rhino just suddenly started charging. Ames grinned and slid right around the beast. It grunted and skidded to a halt right in front of us, showering most of us with dust and rocks. Applejack and Kat apparently saw it coming and decided to hide behind Spike. The rest of us just turned away and let it ping off our armor.

When the rhino was facing the right way, he started walking toward the naga, who was still waiting near the center of the arena. The rhino chuckled darkly and said, “So you can dodge, naga. But how long can you stand against me? I am the boulder tumbling down the mountain. I am the avalanche that eradicates a city. I am the wave that eats away the shore! And you will fall to me, naga.”

Ames chose not to participate in the smack talk, which probably pissed the rhino off. There’s nothing quite like being ignored when you’re trying to build yourself up.

Instead of charging this time, the rhino got within goring range of his horn and tried stabbing the naga. Ames lifted his sword up and blocked the stab with the flat of his blade, which pushed his upper body back slightly. I had a feeling he was just judging the rhino’s strength.

The rhino pulled back and tried a sweeping attack that the naga ducked away from. Since that failed, the beast reared back and thrust both legs forward. Ames finally responded by quickly shifting away and swinging his sword in for an attack, which the rhino just barely blocked with his horn.

He swung his head to the side, throwing the naga off balance, then tried another sweeping attack. Ames grabbed the horn with one hand and pulled. The rhino felt him pulling and jerked his head back, which is what the naga wanted. He used that extra momentum to pull himself harder, letting his entire body fly forward.

The rhino saw that and twisted, trying to make Ames let go of his horn. He chose to twist the wrong way, because the naga landed on his back and immediately started wrapping his tail around the rhino’s neck. In response, the rhino sprinted forward and shook his head around to try to dislodge his unwanted passenger. Ames started trying to bring his sword down to stab the bastard in the back of the skull.

The rhino started bucking, making Ames hold onto one of the rhino’s ears with one hand and stopping him from stabbing the guy. Instead, his tail started tightening, though I had no idea how much pressure it would take to make a rhino choke. The horned fellow was definitely starting to panic, though, whether or not his windpipe was actually cut off. His movements got more frantic, enough that one particularly wild buck made Ames rip the guy’s ear off.

The rhino howled in pain and stopped long enough for the naga to finally get his sword ready. But he recovered and turned what should have been a killing blow into something that sliced into his horn instead. It didn’t cut it off, but it got close and the sword became stuck inside.

It gave the rhino the opening he needed, though. He finally reared back and started to fall on his back in an attempt to crush the naga. Ames smiled, grabbed the guy around the horn, and twisted around so he was sitting on the rhino’s underside when he hit the ground. The sword slammed into the dirt and cut the rest of the way through the horn, leaving it in the naga’s grasp.

Before the rhino could recover or start moving, Ames slammed the horn into its neck. His entire body jerked and his legs started flailing, so Ames pulled the horn out and slammed it in several more times, until the rhino finally stopped moving and his blood leaked out into a large pool in the dirt around them.

Ames uncoiled his tail, yanked the horn out, and slid to where his sword was. He slung the dirt off it, put it in its sheath, and slithered over to us without another word. The horn was glistening with blood, so he started rubbing his trophy off in the dirt to clean it.

Pertz stepped forward with an unreadable expression on his face and slammed one hoof into the ground. The dirt rose up around the rhino’s body and then completely engulfed it, dragging it down into who knows where. When the body was gone, he walked back to his side and the hippo moved forward.

“That’s you, Spike,” I said. “Remember that your wings don’t work and that you can’t use flames.”

“And remember that hippos are deceptively fast,” Zecora said. “Even on land, they can likely outrun you.”

“But you eat gemstones,” I said. “So you can tear through him like butter if you can get your teeth on him.”

Spike nervously rubbed his claws together before nodding and stepping up. The hippo sized him up from across the arena. When he realized he’d be fighting a dragon, he actually started looking kinda nervous.

For Spike’s part, his body started morphing as he neared the center of the arena. His claws doubled in size, sharp spines shot out of his back, spikes ripped from his tail, his currently useless wings flared, and his neck elongated sharply. When he grimaced, the hippo could see all of his very sharp teeth.

When Spike’s transformation was complete, the hippo stared in silence for a moment before shrugging and charging. Spike’s eyes widened at the unexpected speed and he dove out of the way. The hippo stopped much faster than the rhino and started charging again, making Spike dive once more.

That repeated a few more times until Spike was sure of the thing’s speed. Across the arena, Pertz was smiling, thinking this a sure victory for him. I knew better, and watched as Spike finally stood his ground against the hippo. Instead of diving to the side as it charged, he stabbed forward with his claws and then elegantly spun around it, impaling its chest and completely dodging the blow.

It wasn’t until the hippo disengaged that I noticed Spike also stabbed him in the side with his tail spikes, leaving a small hole between his ribs. The hippo noted the pain with a loud snort and charged forward with his mouth open. Spike backed up a few paces, took a moment to judge its speed and the distance between them, then sprinted forward.

Even my eyes widened at that one. I started to yell a warning, but Spike dove under the hippo. He timed its leg movements perfectly and somehow squeezed under the fairly low animal. When the hippo was right over him, Spike pushed up, pressing his back spines into the thing’s relatively unarmored stomach.

None of us were expecting that one, least of all the hippo. When he cleared Spike, he slowly ground to a halt, not quite realizing what just happened. Then his stomach burst open, spilling his guts on the ground and making him start screaming.

But he didn’t surrender.

Spike slowly pulled himself up off the ground, nervously watching the injured hippo. He didn’t seem to notice the blood dripping down his back. After about fifteen seconds of pained screaming, Spike looked over to us. I lifted up my head and drew my finger across my neck, hoping he’d understand that meant to finish it. He sighed and started walking toward the hippo.

When it saw Spike, it started trying to crawl away. It either couldn’t talk or its throat was too sore, so it didn’t try to surrender.

Spike stopped right next to it and looked back to me. I nodded. His shoulders sagged and he reached down to its neck, then used his claws to rip out its throat. The hippo quickly finished dying and Spike walked back to our side, shaking blood off his claws. As he got closer, his body started reverting to its normal form.

When he finally got to us, he didn’t say anything and didn’t meet anyone’s gaze. Applejack silently started rubbing the blood off his back with a towel she got from who knows where.

While she was doing that, Pertz was moving forward to deal with this body as well. The unreadable expression he was wearing started dipping into anger, but it wasn’t quite there yet.

“So if we win one more, does that mean it’s over?” I quietly asked Zecora.

“No. All parties will fight, regardless of the number of total victories. And neither dueler is allowed to surrender until their blood has been shed, so we can’t just beat the next one and immediately surrender to end this farce.”

“Dueling is fucking stupid,” I muttered as Pertz walked back to his place.

This time, it was the elephant that moved forward. I suppose they wanted what they thought would be an easy victory. When Kat started walking forward with just a rapier in her hands, they all grinned, thinking they had it. That was an understandable belief, given that each of the elephant’s tusks was longer than Kat’s entire body and thicker than her legs.

Even the elephant seemed to smile as he walked toward her. “Turn around, little kitty. Stomping you is barely worth the effort.”

“Ten years ago, an assassin killed King Babar in the middle of a pitched battle. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.” The elephant stiffened. “I see that you have,” Kat said as she lifted her rapier. “This is the blade that pierced his eye. And this is the paw that wielded it.”

“You slayed my king!”

“He was one of many,” she said with a cute little shrug. “The fight was too easy to be memorable, but I believe I remember enough to foresee how this battle will go.”

“YOU KILLED MY KING!” The elephant lost all pretenses of smugness and charged, baying his trunk like mad. Of course, an angry opponent is exactly what Kat wanted, because he’d lose a lot of wariness and caution. It also gave him a speed and strength boost, but Kat was still faster.

When he got close, she jumped out of his way. He tried grabbing her with his trunk while he passed, but she slapped it away with the rapier. “Too slow!” she said with a chuckle while she lifted her sword back up.

He bayed again and whirled on her, trying to use his trunk to grab her. She dodged back and kicked dirt into it. That made him stop trying to grab at her. Instead, he jumped forward to try to stab her with one of his tusks. She ducked under it and poked him in the foot, though he didn’t pay it any mind. Since she was low, he tried swinging his trunk along the ground.

She did a fairly sexy backflip over it and pulled a knife out at the same time. While he was trying to recover from that, she sliced his ear open with the knife and put it away again before he could even turn.

“You ready to surrender yet?” she asked as his blood started sprinkling onto the arena.

“Vengeance will be mine!”

I rolled my eyes. “Kat, stop toying with him!” She dodged away from another of the elephant’s blows and stuck her tongue out at me. “Fucking sadistic cats, man...”

Spike walked up next to me and asked, “Is she really just… playing with him?”

“Yes. She could have ended this fight as soon as it started.” I shook my head and sighed, “But that’s not her way.”

The crowd was also starting to get antsy. They wanted to see action, not someone tiny dodging away from someone huge while occasionally stinging him with mosquito bites. Of course, the crowd’s pleasure wasn’t exactly my concern, but I really didn’t want them to do anything stupid.

I also didn’t want Kat to risk getting clobbered by what should have been an easy conquest.

But thankfully, it seemed that she was quickly growing bored. Elephants aren’t exactly the best fighters, honestly. They’re great for shock and awe, but they’re not all too nimble and they usually aren’t extremely violent. This guy had a lot of energy and he was throwing out blows that would probably fuck Kat up if they ever hit her, but she was effortlessly dodging and could likely do so until he wore himself out.

And every blow she dodged just enraged the elephant more and more, until his eyes were bloodshot and he was continuously emitting an awful noise from his trunk.

Finally, Kat got the attack she wanted from the guy. He drove his trunk straight down into the ground, trying to slap her. She quickly sidestepped. When he yanked it back up, she stepped on it and sunk the claws on her lower legs into it. He didn’t even realize Kat was stuck there until she was right in front of his face.

He just barely had time to look surprised before her rapier impaled his left eye, making Spike gasp and grip my arm. She ripped the rapier out, tossing corneal fluids all over the arena. Before his trunk slid down to the ground, she had his other eye impaled and repeated the process of tearing it open. When both were mangled, she slid off his trunk, backed up a few meters, and waited.

The pain probably knocked him flat before blood loss did, but the eyeless elephant quickly fell to the ground, leaking blood and other fluids onto the arena. After nearly a minute passed and he was still sort of breathing, Kat walked back up to him and jabbed her rapier through one of his eye sockets, then twisted it around until he stopped twitching.

With him dead, she slung the juices from her rapier, sheathed it, then started walking back. Before she got a meter away, she stopped, pulled out a very large dagger, and walked back to the body to she could remove one of the tusks. By the time she rejoined us with her trophy, an extremely pissed off Pertz had started making the elephant’s body disappear.

“Mine’s bigger,” she happily said to the naga, hefting the tusk she could barely carry.

“Size isn’t everything,” the naga grumbled, stroking his trophy.

Kat cackled and said, “Just because your wife tells you that doesn’t mean it’s true.” The two ponies in Sentinel’s squad giggled and I kinda wanted to see what the naga would say, but the next enemy champion was walking forward. Of course, it was the gorilla.

“I suppose that’s my cue,” I said as I started walking forward and drawing my sword.

“Good luck!” Spike nervously called. I didn’t see a need to respond to that.

The gorilla didn’t attack immediately, surprisingly. He stopped several meters away, pointed his spear at me, then turned to bow to Pertz. I kept walking with every intention of stabbing him in the back while he was being an idiot, but he got up before I had the chance.

“I will teach you fear, heretic,” he growled.

“I learned that from a far better teacher than you,” I said. “Your story ends today, gorilla. I’d tell you to make peace with your god, but you probably already sucked him off before you came here.”

That really got him riled up. He sprinted forward and jabbed his spear directly at me. I neatly sidestepped and then brought my sword up in a fast arc, cutting the spear’s head off. It was made of wood, so he had no right to be so surprised by that.

Unfortunately, he recovered before I could cut his head off instead, and swung his shield at me. My reflexes failed and I got knocked on my ass and pushed completely out of breath. He jabbed me right in the chest with what was left of his spear, which knocked me onto my back and dented the armor yet again.

He tried swinging it down on my head, but I rolled over and pushed myself back to my feet before he could attack again, then finally went on the offensive. Since he knew how strong my sword was now, he deflected my first slice with his pole and backed up, then tried blocking a stab with his shield. My sword went right through it and the arm on the other side, since wooden shields aren’t the most sturdy of objects and trying to block a heavy pointy metal object is stupid, magical or not.

So he started screaming in pain and pulled his arm away. The shield uselessly clattered to the ground right around the time the cold enchantment kicked in and he started shivering. He tried swinging the pole again, but he was shaking so hard and in so much pain that I casually bisected it further, leaving him practically nothing.

He finally dropped what was left of the stick and started backing away. “Ready to die for your god?” I sarcastically asked, stepping closer. His eyes were full of fear and pain and his one good arm was holding his injured one against his body.

When I got close, he whirled around and started running toward Pertz. “Protect me, please!” I immediately caught up to him and brought my sword down on his back, slicing through part of his spine. He dropped to the ground and started crawling. “My god, please! PLEASE!”

I slowly walked up to the gorilla and put my foot on his back, making him stop and start whimpering. I looked Pertz dead in the eye as I brought the sword down in an arc, cutting the gorilla’s head off. When I looked back at our group on the sidelines, Zecora nodded. I reached down and grabbed the gorilla’s head, then held it up for everyone in the audience to see.

“Is this how you protect your subjects, Pertz?” I called out. “Is this how you save those that beg you for mercy?” I dropped the head. “Your so-called holy warriors have been turned into mere holey corpses. Would you care to cut your losses and admit defeat? Or should we turn another one of your misguided slaves into mincemeat?”

He stepped forward and some kind of magic amplified his voice. “This is the price one must pay for failure, outlander. No more, no less. I did not save him because I couldn’t, I chose not to save him because he failed me. And I choose not to silence you not because I can’t, but because proving you wrong serves a better purpose!”

I put my sword away and held my hands out to my side. “I’m calling you out, Pertz. Silence me if you can. Prove your so-called divinity!”

“Do not tempt me, outlander!”

“I’m not tempting you, Pertz. I’m daring you. We cut four of your best soldiers down without breaking a sweat. I will let you be the fifth, here and now. I won’t even use my sword.” To punctuate that, I unbuckled it and let it fall into the dirt next to me.

He actually looked tempted and I thought for a moment I’d get to beat the shit out of him and call it a day, but his witch doctor ruined it by stepping forward. “He has nothing to prove to you, weakling. You have beaten your champion and now it is my turn to fight. Remove yourself from the arena!”

It seems Pertz was using her as some kind of common sense metric, because he turned around and walked back to his side without even making the gorilla body disappear. “Coward!” I called out. He didn’t reply, so I grabbed my sword and went back to our lines, shaking my head. As soon as I crossed over the edge of the arena, Zecora started walking in, but I stopped her before she got too far. “Do you want to use my ring?” I asked.

“I do not,” she said. “We have already won this fight. If I begin to lose, I will surrender. But I do not believe I will lose. I knew this witch doctor, once. This fight was over the moment she agreed to it.”

“Ballin’. You gonna kill her or try to take her alive?”

“...I will try to kill her, though it will haunt me forever.”

“Alright, cool. Kat and I will be watching from the sidelines. If you do anything stupid like turn your back on her before she actually surrenders or unmask her and pause in surprise long enough for her to do something dangerous, we’ll kill her for you. I’m about done with playing around.”

She shook her head. “This zebra died a long time ago. All that’s left is this monster in her body. There’s nothing surprising about her, nor is there any reason for me to turn my back on her before the job is done.”

“Oh. Then I’ll see you when it’s over.” She finally went away without another word.

As soon as I stopped, the naga slid over to me. “You made several mistakes in that fight, human.”

“I underestimated an opponent with wooden weapons. And I relied too heavily on my armor to stop possible damage. I knew the actual spearhead would have hurt me, but I wasn’t overly worried about the shield or the stick, so I let him get hits on me.”

“...At least you know your mistake.”

“Yeah, now shut up. I want to see a spooky voodoo battle.” He snorted and fell silent.

At the moment, there wasn’t too much to watch. Zecora was standing several meters in front of the witch doctor. For once, the crazy bitch wasn’t advocating murdering someone. She was just standing there, waiting. After nearly half a minute, her bird flew off, away from the arena. I guess using it was against the rules or something.

Either way, that acted as the start of the match. One of the witch’s hooves caught on fire and she lifted it up to her face. She did something and a green fireball shot away from her and toward Zecora, who caught it and casually tossed it aside. “You underestimate the power of balance,” Zecora calmly said, her hoof smoking.

“You underestimate the power of destruction!” the witch shouted back. The eyes of the mask started glowing off white and then a burst of lightning shot out of its mouth. Zecora countered faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move and threw one of her potions at the bolt. The lightning shattered the potion and a glob of smoking green goop plopped to the ground.

Zecora shook her head. “Proper training and plentiful practice provides more strength than bartering your soul ever could.” She picked some dirt off the ground and blew air into it. The stuff flew away and then started whirling around, creating a small dust cyclone that quickly built up size and strength. It shot off toward the witch.

She ignored her hair flying everywhere and lifted a hoof to the mouth of the mask. It elongated and she sucked the cyclone in, dust and all. Her body vibrated rapidly for several seconds before she spewed it back out as a spear of rock that flew across the arena at Zecora.

Our zebra spun, slinging her cloak up and letting the spear impact it. As soon as it did, the rock became flexible and then quickly broke back into dirt. When Zecora was facing the proper direction again, she threw another bottle at the witch doctor. In response, the witch pulled out a single hair and threw it like a knife. It somehow flew true and hit the bottle, piercing it and making it explode into some kind of confetti.

Instead of falling to the ground, each piece of paper froze in the air and then shot directly toward the witch. She managed to jump aside quickly enough to dodge most, but some of them sliced open her right flank.

She wiped some of the blood off and stared at it for a second, then managed to convey a glare through a wooden mask. “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood! Nobody!”

Then whose blood are you going to bleed? Jesus.

Zecora chuckled and said, “I merely do unto you what you have done unto others, witch doctor. It is unwise to give that which you cannot take.”

The witch lady growled and rubbed the blood over her mask. It seared in instantly and the expression on the mask changed from one of anger to one of pain. Then both of her front hooves shot into the ground and she started yelling. A few seconds later, the arena started rumbling and then the ground in front of her began cracking. Finally, what looked like a herd of zebras made of dirt rose out of the cracks and started stampeding toward Zecora—and everyone behind her, which concerned me more.

Zecora slammed a hoof down on the ground in front of her, making the herd split and break away from her. They continued running on either side of her, pushing them toward the crowd around her. As soon as they got to the edges of the arena, they exploded into dirt, showering everyone on both sides in filth.

When the dirt started settling in front of Zecora, another ball of fire shot at her, thrown by the witch doctor. Zecora casually backhoofed it, pushing into the sky. Then she spat in the dirt, put her hoof above it, and then tossed that hoof in the air. The water expanded and flowed around her hoof. She waved her leg around for a moment to give the spit momentum and then pushed it at the witch.

She tried shooting lightning to stop it. Instead, it electrified the water, which made it probably hurt even more when it slammed into her. Zecora still had some control over the water, because she used it to pull at the witch’s mask. It was somehow stuck on the mare’s face, so a portion of it broke away instead of coming off entirely.

When that mask broke off, some kind of green smoke started pouring from its mouth. The witch ignored the pain she was in and tried clutching at that smoke, doing her best to drag it back in. But holding smoke in with hooves isn’t exactly the best way to go about it, so it quickly evaporated and left her howling in rage.

She jumped up and then slammed all of her hooves on the ground, making the water instantly evaporate into steam. Then her entire body burst into green flames and she reared back onto her hind legs. Both her forelegs shot a continuous stream of green fire at Zecora.

Her eyes actually widened in surprise and she threw a burst of dust up from the ground. It solidified as a thin wall of stone, but even that started smoking. She used the time it granted her wisely and pulled out another vial, which she tossed at the ground in front of her feet. It exploded in a puff of blue smoke and she disappeared into it right as the flames broke through.

The blue smoke instantly evaporated in the fire and Zecora reappeared several dozen meters away. The witch didn’t notice, though; she was enraged and focused very singularly on that one spot. It backfired quickly when her flames turned cyan and started burning out.

In her anger, she didn’t notice that her flames were disappearing until her hooves went back to normal. The pain on her mask immediately turned to surprise as all the flames around her body just instantly snuffed out. That’s when Zecora’s next vial finally hit the witch doctor on her side.

It exploded in a burst of green and some kind of vines immediately started growing around the evil witch. She tried struggling, but the vines responded by going right for her mask. She gave up trying to cast a spell to use both hooves to hold the mask on, doing her best to stop them from prying it off.

After several long seconds of a shitty tug of war, the vines turned spiky and started pushing spines into the mask, making the mare scream out and give up on holding it. Instead, she started frantically beating her back legs into the ground, starting some kind of small earthquake.

But Zecora wasn’t idle in that time. While the witch was fighting with the plants, Zecora pulled out a small knife and a very thin slice of leather from one of the naga’s kills. She sliced into one of her legs and rubbed it over the leather, then used the knife as a shitty quill to write something onto the parchment. When her message was completed, she awkwardly walked on three legs to the struggling witch doctor and slapped the paper onto her mask right as the earthquakes started rustling the stands.

Some kind of unearthly wailing began coming from the mask itself as the area around the parchment started leaking green smoke. The witch froze and the earthquake immediately stopped. Her head tilted up as she tried to look at what was causing the smoking, then she started screaming in horror and doing her best to peel the parchment off.

At that point, it was burned in and there wasn’t much she could do but try to beat down the green flames that started licking at the mask. Its expression started wildly changing as it burned away. Finally, the vines covering the mare got to her legs and forced them down, so she fell into the dirt and just screamed as the mask burned.

Zecora watched on with her glowing yellow eyes until the mare was immobilized, then carefully ripped off a piece of her cloak and used it to staunch the small wound she had from her dagger. By the time she finished that, the fire had burned its course and all that was left of the mask was a smoking husk that Zecora very easily yanked off the witch doctor’s face.

It revealed a surprisingly young looking zebra with tears streaming down her face. I don’t know if they were from pain, rage, or sadness, but she was glaring up at our shaman with all the anger she could muster.

Zecora stared down at her for an uncomfortably long time before gripping the edge of her cloak with one hoof and then yanking it off, revealing herself. Several zebras in the audience gasped and some started yelling, but our eyes were on the witch.

When she saw who really bested her, several emotions shot across her face. Confusion, surprise, fear, sorrow, and then right back to anger. When Zecora saw where it ended, she shook her head. “You were my sister, once.” Back up, what? “You were my family. I loved you, but—”

“You didn’t care about anything! All you wanted was power!”

Zecora sighed and gently caressed the witch’s smoking hair. “My dear sister, I am… I was a shaman. My path did not allow me to show strong emotions. But I loved you very dearly. And I still very much do.”

“All you ever did was ignore me!”

“I gave you advice, sister. It was my mistake in thinking you were old enough to understand it.”

“You gave me riddles, Zecora. Meaningless stories around meaningless messages, all shrouded in so many mysteries that they were impossible to understand!”

“That is the way of the shaman,” Zecora sighed, shaking her head again. “It is a path I fell away from, sister. But once, I thought it was the path I wanted for myself… and for you.”

“I don’t care about balance! I don’t care about equality! I only want power!”

“And that is why you will die,” Zecora said so quietly I could barely hear it from the sidelines. She lifted a hoof above the immobilized witch’s head and waited for some kind of response. All she did was glare.

But before Zecora could bring it down, I shouted, “Wait!” Zecora slowly looked to me. “She’s family, Zecora! She’s your fucking sister! We’ve already won this stupid duel. Just let her surrender!”

The witch spat on Zecora’s hoof, the one that was still on the ground. “I will never bend my neck to you!”

Zecora lowered her hoof and said, “Nav, there is nothing left of the sister I once knew. The path of the witch doctor is not one that allows redemption. It is not one that allows change. All that she was died when she sold her soul to the spirits. The only thing this mare can do is bring suffering.”

“...I lost my sister,” I said. “She is gone. Forever. It will haunt me for the rest of my life. If you truly believe your sister is already dead, that there is no way for her to come back, then I won’t stop you again. But if you think this will haunt you, you have the power to walk away right now.”

Zecora looked back at her baby sister, who was struggling to free herself from the vines. Then she looked at the mask. “Without this, you have no power,” she softly said, then stomped it into the ground with one of her hooves. Between catching it on fire and breaking it in half with blunt force, she probably wouldn’t be wearing it any time soon.

When it broke, the witch started screaming again.

I guess Zecora realized that was about the only response she would get, so she sighed. Then she lifted up one of her hooves to look at it, the one that she sliced open for her parchment spell. After an uncomfortably long silence, she lifted that hoof up high, so everyone could see it. “My blood has been shed,” she called out, looking around the audience. “I yield.”

“COWARD!” the witch on the ground yelled when she realized she was going to get to live. Zecora looked at her sadly, shook her head, and started walking back to us.

Ames put his hand on my shoulder and quietly said, “I have a feeling you will regret this, human.”

I passed Zecora on my way to the center of the arena. She didn’t even spare me a glance. When I got to her sister, I paused a moment to cut the vines around her before continuing to walk to the center. She immediately grabbed what was left of her mask and scurried away from the arena. Pertz stared very disdainfully the whole time and when I stopped, he didn’t move.

“You have lost four duels out of five, Pertz,” I called. “By all rights, you lost five out of five, but I’ll give you the last one out of the goodness of my heart. It is time for you to return with us to the princess of the sun.”

He took a few steps forward and looked around the audience. “Who among you would have me leave?” he asked. Silence greeted him. “Who among you would allow these outsiders to take me?” None answered. “Who among you will fight to the death to keep your god here, where he belongs?” The audience roared. He continued looking at them for nearly a minute before raising a hoof, making them slowly grow quiet. Then he looked back at me. “You have your answer, pawn of Celestia.”

“What god needs normal peasants to defend him?” I asked. “What god demands people fight and die in his name? And what god refuses a direct challenge to his power?” I drew my sword and pointed it at Pertz. “No god of mine. No god of any kind. If you choose not to return to Equestria, I challenge you here and now, Pertz. Prove your overwhelming power. Prove your divinity. Show your subjects what power you really have!”

The audience immediately started baying for blood. Pertz let them go for another minute before his eyes lit up a fiery red and he slammed one of his hooves into the ground. The entire fighting part of the arena lifted up a full meter, pulling straight out of the ground.

“I will remove you from existence, heretic,” he growled.

“I gave you the chance to do this the easy way,” I calmly said. “Remember that, when it comes time for your trial.”

He fucking vanished, with no indication that he was teleporting. I usually take that as a surefire way I’m about to get attacked from behind, so I immediately spun around, swinging my sword in an arc behind me.

I just barely stopped my blade in time from actually hitting him. He grinned very menacingly before pressing his hoof against my chest. “And I gave you the chance to walk away,” he replied. “Remember that while you rot in your cell.” He lightly pushed, chuckling.

Nothing happened.

He blinked a few times and pushed slightly harder. I looked down at his hoof and saw that it was glowing the same color as his eyes. Since it was doing nothing, I pulled my sword away. He also pulled his hoof back.

“What. Are. You?” he asked, the light around his eyes growing brighter with each word.

“I am someone with skills tailor-made to bring people like you to justice,” I said, sheathing the sword. “So you have two choices. Now that you know your magic won’t work on me, I can beat the everloving shit out of you and drag you back to my ship, then let a professional torturer play with you until we get back to Canterlot. Or you can willingly come with me and we can avoid all that unpleasantness.”

He vanished again and reappeared several meters away. His horn lit up and a fireball flew at me. I let it impact my armor and dissipate, then started walking toward him. His eyes opened wide and he tried hitting me with a spike of ice that also dissipated, then lightning that did nothing.

By that point, I was about a meter away from him. He tensed up and I lunged forward to grab him, then he disappeared and ended up somewhere else in the arena. I held my hands up and started walking again. “I can do this all day, Pertz!” I called as I walked. “I wasn’t expecting actual magic from you, but that doesn’t do much to me either.” Or at least, I don’t think it does. “Cast your spells, use your magic. Doesn’t bother me at all. But when I get my hands on you, it’s going to hurt. And the longer you do this—” He interrupted me with another fireball. “—the more I’m going to make it hurt.”

The anger in his eyes was starting to be replaced with panic. He tried several more spells, each that I effortlessly walked through. When I got to him, he teleported yet again.

I lowered my arms and looked around the arena. “How much do you think it’ll take?” I called out. “They see you failing against me, Pertz. Their faith is dying as we speak.” Or at least, I certainly hoped it was. If I had to drag him back through a mess of pissed off soldiers, shit might get bad.

Pertz discovered my weakness right as I got to him again. In desperation, he threw a rock at me. The magic around it died as soon as it hit my armor, but it still impacted it and made a very audible noise. His surprise let me finally punch him in the face with the hand wearing the ring, which his magic didn’t block.

Unfortunately, that knocked him out of his stupor and he blinked away to the other side of the arena yet again. When he was situated, he teleported in a boulder and threw it at me. Dodging it would have been easy, but instead I drew my sword and cut it in half, breaking the magic over it and letting it fall on either side of me.

“You’re starting to seriously piss me off,” I said, stalking toward him. “Celestia wants you alive, but I’m getting tempted to settle for just giving her an apology.”

He grinned and summoned several spears. My shoulders sagged as all of them shot to me at once. I chopped the first one in half and dodged the spearhead coming at me, ducked under the second one, grabbed the third one out of the air and used it to bat the fourth one away, then spun to narrowly let the fifth one glance off my armor.

When the immediate threat was gone, I held the spear I was holding up and carved the head off with my sword, then spun around to start dealing with the ones that ended up behind me. I slapped the first away with my sword, grabbed the second and slammed it into the ground, then sliced the head off the third. Right as the one in the ground started pulling up, I sliced its head off as well.

I knew those spearheads could still very much fuck me up, so I started running at him before he decided to use those against me or summon anything else to throw at me. Instead of doing that, he slammed a hoof against the ground, sending a crack careening right at me. Of course, I jumped to one side before it got to me and kept running along it, hoping nothing bad came from it.

When it missed me, he grimaced, almost as though he had expected me to be stupid enough to just stand there and take it. I got almost close enough to hit him when he disappeared again. “Fucking shit!” Sure enough, he reappeared on the other side of the arena.

I growled, put my sword up, and pulled up my gun. He eyed it with some apprehension before deciding it wasn’t a threat and throwing another useless fireball at me. I aimed at his chest and emptied an entire magazine into the motherfucker.

The first five stopped against a magic shield with no effect. The sixth made him flinch, the seventh made his knees bend, the eighth made him lift a hoof to his head, the ninth shattered the shield and dropped all of nine of the bolts to the ground, and then the tenth impacted his left shoulder.

He yelled in pain and the red light around his eyes died out. The audience around us erupted in anger, so I swiftly reloaded. Flo, kill or kidnap?

“You already have him down. Cut off his horn, grab him, and run.”

“Everyone, to me!” I shouted, trying to scream above the crowd. My group of soldiers started pulling themselves over the side of the arena and then rushing to Pertz, which is where I was running. I got there first and immediately chopped his horn off, making him start howling. Since it might be useful later, I shoved the horn at Kat, who slipped it into a pouch. “Spike, hold him. Kat, Applejack, guard him. Sentinel, rear guard. Zecora, interdiction. Naga, we’re cutting a path out. Pop your potions!” The audience was already rushing us, at that point, so the naga drank his red potion and his eyes went unfocused, Spike drank his orange one and started glowing slightly, and Sentinel’s squad drank their green ones and seemed to blur.

“Rules of engagement?” Sentinel asked so fast I barely understood her.

“Kill all who attack,” I said, raising my gun up.

That was all we had time for before the battle began. I started picking targets off with my rifle, though its scope wasn’t really suited for up close engagements. As soon as the chamber pinged empty, I slung it and drew my sword, since shit was starting to get hairy.

Ames was laying into everything around him with his giant blade. Despite the fact that I focused on fighting, I quickly realized he was actually using his greatsword one handed and using half a zebra as a club in the other. He’d use his massive hunk of metal to chop three zebras in half in one swing and then smash a skull with the body in another. He cut such an imposing figure that the majority of berserk zebras coming from that way started trying to flow around him and come at us from another side.

Unfortunately for us, they were coming from all sides, so scaring them away from one avenue didn’t help all that much. Sentinel’s squad was moving so quickly between targets that I could barely see them, though. They set up a very clear line and any zebra that got over it had their face kicked in before they could get a single step further, then before the others around them could react, the batpony was already away and onto the next target. Soon, they started steering clear of that side as well.

Spike looked like he was so scared that he was about to piss himself, but he was holding onto Pertz regardless. And since he was the primary target for the zebras, every one of them that got past us rushed straight for him. But despite his fear and despite his distaste for it, he fucking toasted every bastard that tried getting to him. Normally his fire breath is green and extremely hot, but now it was orange and came out as actual lava. It coated the people he hit it with and completely fucked them up instead of just charring them.

Applejack, for her part, watched his back. Enough got past us that he couldn’t toast them all before they got to him, even if his head was on a swivel. But once the zebras got that close, they weren’t paying attention to anything except for Spike and Pertz. That made it easy for Applejack to use her sexy applebucking thighs to send her back hooves right into their skulls with the kind of accuracy that only a decade or two of practice can provide. She probably didn’t like the feeling of blood on her hooves, but she damn sure did her duty.

Kat saw that Spike and Applejack had Pertz covered and sidled up next to me, holding her rapier in one hand and a dagger in another. We fought side to side. Since the zebras were more interested in saving Pertz than they were fighting, our job wasn’t really all that hard. Several zebras did try to fight, but I sliced their legs off when they tried to kick, dodged when they tried to body slam, stabbed them in the chest when they tried to bite, and just generally made their life a living hell, assuming they had any life left at all when I was done. I couldn’t really see much of what Kat was doing, since she was in my blind spot, but I imagine it was pretty similar.

Zecora was fucking everywhere in that fight. Whenever Kat and I started getting overwhelmed with numbers, she’d appear and throw up a wall of stone to redirect them long enough for us to thin the numbers out again. Or she’d throw some kind of acidic potion at a crowd, cutting through them and making them shriek in pain as they melted. And when Sentinel’s group started losing ground, she threw another vine potion on the ground in front of their line that quickly grew and started snagging legs and stopping people from moving easily.

The naga didn’t lose any ground, so she didn’t have to help him. Most of her time was spent helping Spike and Applejack pick off anyone that got past us.

After what felt like thirty seconds but was probably closer to five minutes, the assault ended. The village wasn’t all that big, despite the influx Pertz probably brought, so they didn’t really have the numbers to attack us for long. Truth be told, they probably didn’t have the numbers to survive attacking for as long as they did. We probably left over two hundred bodies around us, both dead and too wounded to keep fighting, and the naga had to actually push us a path clear through them.

“Similar formation,” I said as we started moving. “With one difference. Zecora and Kat, you two are the most stealthy guys we have, at least in this camp. You two can blend. Go rescue the pony prisoners and try to get them to the ship. While you’re at it, bust everyone else out as a distraction. But you two getting out alive is more important than getting the pony prisoners out, so ditch them if you have to.”

“...Why are we saving them?” Kat asked.

“Because chaos in an enemy camp we’re running from is good,” I said. “And I bet the others will make a lot of fucking chaos. And you can get out stealthily with wounded prisoners more easily between the two of you than you can with all of us. Also, the naga would kill them in his enraged state.” She opened her mouth, so I continued, “And because I’m ordering you to.”

She closed her mouth and rolled her eyes, then nodded.

“We will meet you at the ship,” Zecora said. “But if we do not make it before you are forced to leave, wait for us five kilometers north of the shaman village. I will ensure that we have a way of making it that far quickly.”

“You’ll have three days,” I said. “I don’t like leaving people behind, but I don’t think we can afford to wait forever, not unless we kill everyone in this fucking camp.”

“Which should not be necessary,” Zecora said, though she turned back to stare at the group of dead zebras we left behind, many of which she probably knew once. “But I think it likely that you will have to fight your way out.”

“Then let’s get fighting. Naga, start moving faster. Sentinel, you guys are flankers. Applejack, watch Spike. I’ll get the rear.”

Zecora and Kat hurried off toward the prisoner cages, which weren’t too far from the arena, but were the opposite direction from the ship. And the zebras that fled were raising the alarm in the town, so we wouldn’t have time to free the prisoners and escape without fighting while guarding injured ponies, which wouldn’t be fun. The two of them would have a much better chance of getting out by themselves, even if it did leave us uncomfortably shorthanded for a running retreat.

Thankfully, the naga still had the sense to head directly for the ship instead of trying to go through the village, which was starting to burst into life. He also had the sense to drop the body he was using as a club. He was still holding his sword with only one hand, so I could only assume he was just waiting to get a new club.

The first attacker tried coming from above, but one of Sentinel’s troops was watching up there and called out the popobawa before he could get too close. I shot him out of the air and he thudded into the ground to our left. After that, I kept the rifle up instead of my sword. My sight lines were pretty decent at the moment, since we weren’t trying to go directly through the village.

The next challenge was a bit worse, though. Two elephants charged us from the village, followed by a rhino. Before I could lift my gun to start taking potshots, one of the guards called out more fliers.

I muttered some unpleasant words, then called out, “Naga, take the left elephant. Spike, the right. Sentinel, distract the rhino! I’ll get the flyers. Applejack, try not to die.” They hurried to do my bidding as I started sniping. This time, there were three of the bastards and they were coming in much faster.

When I knocked the first one out of the air, they shifted their attention from trying to save Pertz to trying to take me out. I injured one of the other two before they got on me, then I dropped my gun and drew my sword out with a slice attack that sliced the leg off the injured one.

The survivor darted out of my reach momentarily, then landed and came at me with his claws bared. I completely ignored those claws and just stabbed him through the chest. He choked up blood and uselessly batted his claws against my breastplate for a second before I pulled my sword up and cut him from his heart to the top of his head, then kicked him back.

His body thudded to the ground. That threat gone, I slammed my sword into the ground in front of me, then pulled my rifle up to lend fire support to the others. Ames had one elephant dead already. It was missing a leg and was partially decapitated. He was squaring off against the rhino while Spike tried burning a hole through the other elephant’s tough skin.

The naga looked like he had his business taken care of, so I started shooting Spike’s elephant. I knew my gun wouldn’t be able to completely penetrate its hide, but if I hit an eye, it would probably die. I emptied one magazine into it, but before I could reload, Spike finally got his aim right and hit the fucker right on the tip of the trunk with his lava. The elephant immediately started choking and slamming his trunk into the ground, trying to put it out so he could properly breathe again.

That gave Spike the time he needed to time his next shot right, and torched the fucker’s eyes. His normal flames would probably make an elephant blind forever and possibly kill it, if he got lucky or the blast was sustained enough. His enhanced flames burned straight through the eyes and toasted the elephant’s brains.

Applejack got a front row seat to that one, since she was standing behind Spike. She very messily got to see what she had for lunch when that one went down. Spike seemed like he was about to join her, but then looked over at the naga and rushed to join him.

By the time he got there, it didn’t matter. Ames waited until the rhino was charging him and then brought his sword straight down, slicing through the horn and cutting the rhino’s face in two. Before the momentum carried the rhino’s body through him, he slithered right out of the way. The rhino slid all the way to Spike’s feet before grinding to a halt.

We all stood there for a moment, just breathing (and retching, in Applejack’s case). Finally, I slung up my rifle and grabbed my sword. “Let’s move.” The naga started slithering again, Applejack shrugged off Spike’s attempt to comfort her and then both of them started following, Sentinel’s troops started darting around our flanks, and I brought up the rear.

We just left behind several hundred thousand dollars of ivory, I bet.

“It’s worthless if you can’t live to sell it, and stopping to try to cut it off and carry it would be detrimental to that cause,” Flo replied.

I’m just saying. That would be a nice retirement… if I wasn’t already loaded.

The next attack was a pack of hyenas, twenty strong. I wasn’t expecting those assholes to be as fast as they were. They came out of the town and were halfway to us before the warning was called. Spike finally dumped Pertz on Applejack and pushed her behind him, then bared his claws. The naga didn’t wait and just started sliding to them. I began taking potshots. Sentinel’s group surrounded Applejack.

I stopped five, though all of those probably survived. My gun is strong, but it doesn’t shoot through metal armor that well, bronze or not. Either way, injuring them too much to keep fighting at the moment was enough for us. Five split off to try to deal with the naga while the last ten went right for Spike.

He immediately burned three of those to death with his lava breath and used his claws to tear another two apart. The last five scattered around him and tried getting to the ponies. I took out one when it got close to me. Sentinel’s squad each crushed one. The last one managed to touch Pertz before Applejack spun around and crumpled his helmet in.

I didn’t give them time to breathe this time, since I knew the attacks would only get worse as the enemy had time to prepare. “Keep moving!” We all fell in and I pulled my gun back up to take potshots at more flying bastards trying to get to us. I don’t know where Pertz got so many creepy bat rapist things, but they were really annoying and left a trail of bodies anyone could follow, even if they lost sight of us.

The good news is that we were able to see the ship at that point. The bad news is that the ship was under siege and I had almost all of the heavy hitters with me. Thankfully, they had the good sense to pull up the gangplank shortly after we left, so the only things able to get up there were the popobawas and a few climbers. But they couldn’t get off the ship, because they were surrounded by hippos and crocodiles.

Those hippos and crocs noticed us as we started getting closer, too. And worse, another wave was coming out of the city. Two more very pissed off rhinos, one of which was being ridden by a gorilla with a spear, were charging right to us. I snapshotted the gorilla twice, making him tumble to the ground, then started shouting orders.

“Naga, Spike, front! Sentinel, distract left rhino! Applejack—”

“Don’t die?” she cut in.

“Cut the sass.” Everyone hurried to follow my orders. I was absolutely not looking forward to trying to kill two rhinos, but making myself the rear guard kinda made that my responsibility. The naga and Spike rushed forward to start picking off the crocs and hippos that began coming for us while I started running to the rhinos with my sword drawn.

Sentinel’s squad appeared right next to one of them and started harassing it. Extra speed may have given them better jumping skills, because one of them got on its head and started rapidly kicking at its eyes. The other two hounded its legs, not that it really felt that too much. Either way, he veered off while trying to get the one pony off his head.

The other turned to me when he saw me charging and I thought I saw what might have been a grin on its face. After all, it probably didn’t expect much from someone my size coming at it. Right at the last second, I dipped to the left and swung my sword right at its knee. My sword slammed into it and caught for a second before slicing through. I dipped a little too far, though, so instead of cutting his leg off, I just cut it so deeply that he buckled and tumbled to the ground. When I ran up to try to finish the job, he started thrashing around, so I backed off until he finally managed to get back on three of his legs. The fourth was limply flopping around and he had to be in a shitton of pain, but an animal that big probably has methods of dealing with even the most grievous of injuries.

So I went to his side before he could fully recover and sliced his spine in half. He didn’t have a way of dealing with that particularly grievous injury, and fell to the ground with a croak.

The other rhino managed to get the pony off his head and was playing what had to be the most frustrating version of whack-a-mole ever, one where the moles are adorable bat ponies that are kicking you wherever they can appear, then disappearing before you even realized you got hit.

They were doing such a good job distracting him that he didn’t notice I was stabbing him until one of his lungs was cut in half. I was trying for his heart, but I didn’t want to get too close and my sword wasn’t really long enough to get all the way there from outside his rib cage. Thankfully, my sword leaves the kind of cut that causes ridiculous pain, so his insides started freezing when I pulled it out. By the time I managed to cut his throat, I probably didn’t even have to.

Before I could check on the progress of the fight for the ship, a loud baying caught my attention. I looked to the village and saw a massive elephant with a full war carriage on its back. It was full of small monkeys, each of which had several small spears that looked like they were designed for throwing. It was almost within throwing range at that point.

“For the love of god,” I sighed, slinging blood off my sword.

I knew I had to close the distance to that bastard as quickly as possible, before the monkeys could fill me full of spears. But before I could start running toward it, a massive bolt pierced its chest and then exploded, taking out a large chunk of it and sending the monkeys all flying. They were running away to the village before what was left of the elephant even hit the ground.

When I turned to where the bolt came from, I saw Jak reload a ballista before picking up a hammer and slamming it down on a monkey trying to scale the side. He turned to yell something and Smiles started twisting the crank on the ballista, aiming it closer to the ship. When he stopped, Jak pulled the lever and shot clean through a hippo.

Since they seemed to have their shit handled, I finally looked down at the ground fight. Spike and the naga are good fighters, but hippos are giant, fast, ridiculously strong, and in this case, they had the numbers. Crocodiles are fast, have sharp teeth, a predator’s instincts, and even more numbers. So unfortunately, they were quickly getting overwhelmed.

Sentinel’s group shot off before I could order them to and started helping. I didn’t bother with my gun and just ran in with my sword to protect Applejack, who was surviving by running and trying to make hippos collide with each other. She couldn’t keep that up forever, so I started slashing the fuckers that were distracted by her cute butt.

I didn’t have to kill most of them, thankfully. The way Applejack was running (in abject terror), just slicing up one of their legs meant they couldn’t catch her, and that they were out of the fight. They were all so focused on getting Pertz that none of them really paid any attention to me.

Well, up until what I thought was Applejack’s mindless running brought her to the docks, that is. One of the crew members lowered the gangplank long enough for her to get up with Pertz, then immediately picked it up before anything could follow her, either friend or foe.

Most of what was following her were foes, but there was one friend in particular who would have really benefitted from a higher vantage point to shoot down from. Instead, I was stuck on the ground with a group of very angry and very strong animals. Since fighting in the middle of a group of enemies by myself was a good way to force my daughter to pick out a tasteful tombstone, I Scooby Doo’d my way to Ames and Spike, who were fighting back to back to try to stay above the tide of enemies.

My help was enough to finally make the enemies wary. We made a nice little triangle of fire, ice, and steel and anything foolhardy enough to get near paid for it very dearly. Between me helping Applejack, what the naga and Spike had done before I got to them, and what Jak was doing, it honestly felt like we could hold there indefinitely.

Unfortunately, we didn’t really have ‘indefinitely’. The village was still stirring, though I could barely see chaos unfolding inside it. Another group of zebras was making their way toward us, so I knew we didn’t have too much time before overwhelming numbers started picking us off.

My little group was about thirty meters from the ship, and those thirty meters were controlled by ten hippos and probably twenty crocs, spread out. There were more on our other sides, but whenever I took my eyes off my side long enough to really see what was going on, one of the crocs tried nipping at me and I got to add another tally to the number of souls haunting my ship. Because of that, I had no idea what Sentinel was doing.

With the arrival of Pertz on the ship, my crew finally got their shit together. I could hear Jak shouting orders from where I was and guards started loading all the ballistas on the side facing us. I couldn’t quite tell what they were loading, but I could make a pretty good guess.

I quietly said, “Spike, on the count of three, swap sides with me.”

He coughed a few times and then hoarsely replied, “Yes sir.”

“One.” We both tensed up. “Two.” The enemies closest to me got ready. “Three.” Spike and I seamlessly swapped sides. Two crocs immediately tried going for him and a hippo tried chomping on me. I stabbed my sword through the back of the thing’s throat, taking out its brain, and ripped my blade out before it could fall and slam its mouth shut.

Right after that, I heard several loud explosions on Spike’s side and felt a searing wave of heat hit me. While my ears were still ringing, the naga grabbed one of my arms and started dragging me toward the ship. Spike was clearing the way through the survivors with his breath and the naga was swiping at whatever was trying to charge us from behind when the second volley hit where we had been standing, fucking up another large group.

The survivors finally fell back, demoralized as fuck and not willing to risk getting burned, blown up, or stabbed. We got to the ship’s gangplank right as the group of zebras got to where the second explosion went off, shepherded in by familiar blurs. That’s when I realized Kat was on one of their backs and saw the cloaks on some of the ‘zebras’ billowing enough to reveal that they were just ponies.

So we got to the deck as they were getting to the dock, and the crew member in charge of the plank started pulling it back. I immediately rushed to him and slammed my foot on it, keeping it in place. The blurs stood guard at the front of the dock while the ponies dropped the cloaks and rushed up the plank. When everyone else was on board, Sentinel’s group joined us.

“Holy Christ almighty!” I shouted. “Gourd, air, now!” Another group from the village was starting to run for us, now. These guys seemed unnaturally fast and were closing the distance a lot faster than I was comfortable with.

But the airship started picking up out of the water, so I figured we might finally be home free.

“Is Pertz secure?” I asked aloud, not really knowing where anyone was. Neither him nor Applejack were on the deck, so I figured he was.

Watcher appeared next to me and said, “As far as we know, sir.”

“He could do some magic that we weren’t familiar with. Take my ring and—”

Something on the ship exploded. Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched the tail of our ride start going up in green flames. We stared aimlessly for a few seconds before the crew started rushing to put it out. Before they could, another fireball hit our balloon and we immediately started falling from the sky.

We weren’t too high up and we were directly above the river, but the impact was still bone jarring. At least half of us ended up on the deck and Gilda actually tumbled out of one of the masts, though she thankfully landed right next to Spike, who was able to miraculously snatch her out of the air.

As soon as we touched down, Gourd immediately started yelling orders and Watcher joined him. One crew member immediately went below to check for leaks, four of them continued trying to put out the fire, and the last two started rolling up what was left of the balloon so it wouldn’t be in the way. Two of the guard squads joined the fire brigade, one went downstairs, and Watcher and Sentinel stayed up top.

Zecora joined me at the rails, staring back at her sister with a new mask. They just stared at each other. I don’t know if they were magically dueling, having a staring contest, or just trying to telepathically ask each other where in life they went wrong. Either way, that wasn’t fixing anything, so I rushed over to Jak. “I need that bitch with the mask dead,” I said, rooting around in one of my pouches. Before I could find the potion I was looking for, Kat handed me hers.

“We’re low on incendiary, lass,” Jak said, holding up one of the explosive bolts.

“You don’t need it, if you can hit her,” I said. “Pour some of this over the bolt before you shoot.” I handed him the potion.

“I’ll do my best, but she’s a wee target a long way away.” If he couldn’t hit her, I’d have to try sniping her with my rifle. It was a pretty long shot, though. Long enough to be difficult.

But he apparently has experience, so he loaded a regular bolt and poured some of the white potion on it. The metal bolt head changed to glass. Jak looked at me and I shrugged, so he started calling instructions to Smiles.

A few seconds later, he pulled the lever and the bolt flew off. The witch doctor saw it coming and lifted a hoof to try making it stop, but it pierced whatever ward she put up and slammed right into her chest. The fires on the ship immediately died out and her mask fell off as she flew several meters back and then landed in a crumpled heap. After that, her body started burning green. The mask started floating and all the smoke from her body absorbed into it. When all that was left was the shattered bolt, the mask disappeared.

“So… now what?” Kat quietly asked.

“Pick your poison,” I said with a shrug. “Fight to the death, give in to despair, or let yourself starve. Your choice, really.”

Of course, my prediction didn’t quite prove true. Right as I finished saying that, some kind of roaring caught everyone’s attention. It took us a second to figure out where it was coming from, but we soon realized it was coming from the river. By the time one of the guards came back up to report a ridiculous leak in the hull, we saw the flood of water coming at us with all the fury mother nature could provide.

“Welp, guess nature picked for us,” I said. “It’s been fun working with you guys, but—” And then I realized they were all water elementals. “Oh.” They slid around and under the ship, then lifted us off the river’s floor. Before any of us could really comprehend what was happening, we started moving down the river faster than we flew up it.

Flo?

“We picked up our last sister and got here as quickly as we could. We should be out of Africa in a few days.”

“Gourd, Watcher, a moment, if you can,” I called out. They started making their way to me, so I turned to Kat and handed her my ring. “Find a way to get this on Pertz and make sure it stays on Pertz. Then talk to Zecora and see what she can do about keeping him asleep for a few days without killing him.”

“You got it, Nav.” She ran below right as the two leaders got to me.

“As you can see, shit went south,” I said. “I can explain later. The elementals got their sister out and are ferrying us down the river. Flo’s thinking it’ll be just a few days before we get to the ocean. She’ll probably be able to give a more accurate time table later, but if they keep this pace up, expect three or four days. Watcher, any injuries?”

“Nothing serious from the fighting,” he said. “We lucked out on that front. I know there were few broken bones from the landing. My medic and Fluttershy are already working on them. I’ll talk to Zecora when she gets a moment and see what she can do for them.”

“Good. And when you both get more than a moment, talk to her about personal stuff. We just killed the shit out of her sister and, like, more than half of her entire village. She might be a bit… you know.”

“Yes sir.”

“Gourd, what can you fix and how long will it take?”

He sighed and shook his head. “It’s bleak, sir. Without the tail, we can’t steer. And without the balloon, we can’t fly. I’ll talk to Rarity and see what she can do with it, but I wouldn’t expect to fly until we can get to a friendly port. And we have a large hull breach that let in a lot of water. My crew reported that the elementals are stopping more water from getting in and cleared out what was already in there, so we might be able to use the boat as a… well, actual boat until we can get to a port sophisticated enough to have what we need. But I’d honestly like it repaired before we head into open waters, elemental or not.”

“Alright, this time, can you answer my question? What can you fix and how long will it take?”

“We can try to fix the balloon. If we can, expect it to take at least four days, most of which will need to be spent near the coast so we can use magic. We can patch the hull if the elementals can keep it dry. It should take a few hours, but we’ll need to use magic on it as well, so that’ll be another coast job. We can’t fix the tail at all, so the elementals will have to help us steer until we can get to a port. Aerie if we’re flying, waters if we’re floating.”

“Shit fuck. Get Rarity out here as soon as possible to look at the balloon. Tell her fixing it is top priority and that she can use whatever she can find to make it happen. And find Twilight and ask if she knows any magic that can help. Tell them to put their heads together and get this shit fixed. I do not want to have to fucking sail to Europe and sit in a shitty coastal town for a few days.”

“Yes sir. Do you need anything else?”

“Not from you, Gourd. Keep me updated.” He nodded and ran off to dictate more orders. “Watcher, I want a full squad watching Pertz at all times. With us moving this quickly, I don’t think we’ll have too many more problems out here. Especially since we’re going out the same way and everyone knows what we’re capable of now.”

“Yes sir, and I agree. I already have one squad watching him now. What were you saying about his magic?”

“It’s nothing like anything I’ve ever seen before. Same for Zecora. But my ring worked against it, so I’m having Kat find a way to affix it to him now. I trust her to make it work.”

“Good. Now what about the ponies you brought back with you?” We both looked at the three royal guards and the random mare that were watching the movements around the ship with confusion in their eyes.

“That’s a very good question,” I said. “Let’s find out.” Together, we walked over to them. When they saw Watcher, the guards’ eyes lit up and they saluted.

“At ease,” he casually said. “I’m ex-guard, now. Who are you and why were you in that town?”

“We were prisoners, sir,” one of the guards replied. “The princess sent us with a trade ship. Our job was to deliver a letter to Pertz and demand a reply. He… didn’t like being ordered around.” One of the other guards scoffed. “We’ve… been there for a while.”

The mare was silent, so I looked at her. “What about you?”

“S-silver Quill, m-ma’am,” she squeaked, then went back to silence.

“...And why were you there?” Watcher asked after a few seconds.

She looked down and said, “I was the secretary on the trader ship…”

The guards nodded. “The trader didn’t take to… being in a cage. So Pertz gave him a jug of water, then broke two of his legs and told him to walk home. After that, the rest of us decided being in a cage wasn’t so bad, all things told.”

“Man, what a prick.” One of the guards snorted. “Alright, we’ll get you guys situated with some food and maybe some rooms later, once we get this mess cleaned up. But rooms are in short supply, so you might find yourselves double bunked. If you want to formally lodge a complaint, I’ll formally tell you to shove it up your ass. We’re heading back to Canterlot as soon as we get our shit fixed, so you guys should be home pretty soon.”

They all sagged in relief and the mare started crying, so I started walking away. Watcher joined me and we walked to the far side of the ship together. “Thoughts on them?” he asked.

“Probably telling the truth. It sounds like a Celestia thing to do, doesn’t it?”

“Yes sir. And provincial guards are tough, so we can put them on duty to replace the squad watching Pertz. No armor, but they’ll survive.”

“Give them a day to recuperate, then put them in the rotation. You’ll be in charge of the guards until we get rid of them. Pass the order on that none of them are allowed to see or talk to Pertz, just in case.”

“Of course. We didn’t risk all that just to have him killed on the way home. Or worse, have him freed.”

“...I can’t overstate how nice it is to work with someone that’s actually competent. Thank you for being you, Watcher.”

“Yes sir. Do you need anything else?”

“Not at the moment. Put two squads on duty and tell the rest to get some rest, food, and showers.”

“Happily. When we get some time, you’re going to tell me what exactly happened.”

“Of course. It certainly could have been handled better. I definitely made a terrible judgment call, even if it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But whatever, live and learn and all that. Now, I’m going to go take a shower.” He lazily saluted and wandered off to talk to his soldiers.

Zecora found me before I could head below, though. “I want to thank you yet again, Navarone.”

“For fucking what?” I asked. “Getting us knocked out of the air? Fucking up our steering? Almost making us get stuck here?”

“For making me remember love, even if it was for just a moment. For bringing me home, even if it was a bittersweet return. And for helping me bring Pertz to justice, even if it came at such a cost.”

“...Zecora, we just killed a good two to three hundred members of your village. Are you really okay with that?”

She shook her head. “They stopped being mine a long time ago, Nav. Now, they are merely familiar faces with unfamiliar voices. And in many cases, unfamiliar faces with unfamiliar voices. We did the land of my birth a favor by removing a blight from its face and helping drain a good chunk of its pus. The survivors of the arena will know that Pertz is no god. They will spread the word, and news of his defeat will travel far and fast. We did a good deed today, and I do not regret it in the slightest.”

“And the sister thing?”

Her smile dampened slightly. “Her actions proved that she is no sister of mine. I gave her the chance to pick herself up. She chose the path of darkness yet again. You merely did what had to be done, though I suppose I do regret that it came to it. I am now the last member of my family. And in a way, I am perhaps the last true member of my tribe.”

“Nah, man. You’re a part of our tribe, Zecora. As long as this ship is flying and I’m leading it, you have a place here.”

Her smile picked back up and she actually hugged me. I was covered in blood, so I didn’t really feel right hugging her back, but I did it anyway. “It feels very nice to belong again,” she whispered in my ear. I didn’t reply, so she cut the hug off a few seconds later. “Thank you again, Navarone. Truly and deeply, thank you.”

“I’m happy to help, Zecora. I mean, I’d be a lot happier if I wasn’t singed, covered in blood, and forced to limp back to Equestria, but I’m still pretty happy, all things told.”

“Of course. And I shall happily be by your side until you no longer have need of me.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Those potions were really useful. We’ll have to keep more on hand. They didn’t have nearly as much of a negative effect on the naga as I thought.”

“He was fighting it,” she said. “His honor-bound mind didn’t allow it to take full effect, so I believe he was able to retain limited mental faculties. Though when it wore off, he instantly became so weary that he retired to bed immediately.”

I looked around and sure enough, he wasn’t there. Neither was Spike. “Did Spike’s also knock him out?”

“No. He carried Gilda down. I believe they’re vigorously… celebrating at the moment.”

“Ah. Well, I’m going to take a shower. If you ever do start feeling regret about that shit, come talk to me. I’m very much used to regret.”

She smirked. “It sounds as though you should be talking to me.”

“Nah. Letting stuff fester inside until it becomes a mental illness is easier. See you later.” She bowed her head slightly, which I took as a sign to go.

It felt good to finally be done with that business.