LOVE'S BEEN A LITTLE BIT HARD ON ME

Chapter 23: Danger Zone

A feeling of dread settled over Blueblood and Rugged Peak the moment they laid eyes on the house. Situated as it was in the woods far away from the small town, it was no wonder that nopony had heard the commotion that had obviously occurred here. The tiny house- more of a shack, really- had definitely seen better days. Not a single window remained unbroken, shingles were missing from the roof, and most telling of all, the front door dangled loosely from a single bent hinge.

A closer examination of the building was even more unsettling. Furniture lay overturned and broken, and the remains of a meal- most likely breakfast, going by the smell of spoiled oatmeal- was scattered across the rough, wooden floor. Blueblood silently cursed to himself as he picked up a pony doll from the floor. “Blast...”

“Blimey.” Rugged Peak agreed.

“How often do these two come into town?” Blueblood asked of his partner.

The pegasus sighed. “Every couple'a weeks,” she replied. “They don' talk much; just get their supplies an' scarper. Bloody 'ay! 'Is daughter's only six! When I find out 'oo did this, I'm gonna beat seven shades of shite outta 'em!”

Blueblood bent over the broken remains of a bed and asked, “Do they often have dealings with griffons?”

“'E'd sooner peel back 'is own eyelids with 'is teeth. T'was them what ran 'im and 'is wife off of their first 'ome,” Rugged Peak answered.

“Then I think we have our first clue,” Blueblood said as he turned around holding up a large black feather in his magic.

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Scaryx hissed as his wounded leg touched the ground for but an instant; an instant that felt like an eternity of pain that almost sent him rolling on the ground howling. It took a supreme effort of will to not mewl like a newly hatched cub, but he managed it... barely. The team's medic, Orphelia came alongside him and tried to examine the many wounds he had received in this latest battle, but he waved her off. “Not now. I can't afford to look weak in front of the meat. Twelve thousand high quality gems is a lot to lose just because the client decided he didn't need to pay.”

Morox came up beside him and said, “If he's stupid enough to try it, we'll just take it from him.”

“Idiot! This is why you'll never be a leader,” Scaryx replied with a snarl. “He won't be stupid enough to bring it with him. Smart ones like him work by drops. Kill him and we never will find it, look too weak, and he reneges.” He turned to Orphelia and said, “Just wipe up the blood, and wrap my missing talon. I can shrug off the rest long enough to meet with him.”

The ebon griffoness nodded and did as ordered. She had just finished and was tending to the rest of the wounded griffons when the cloaked pony entered the glade. He took in the scene set before him of wounded and winded assassins and nodded. He trotted over to Scaryx, totally unafraid. Stopping before him, he said, “It appears they gave as good as they got. Is it safe to presume the deed is done?”

Scaryx shrugged nonchalantly and almost winced at the pain this simple action caused his abdomen. “Enh. We fought worse. And yeah, she's down. Maybe not for good, but it will be a long time before she causes any trouble.”

A wry smile appeared on Backtalk's face. “Indeed. I suppose you'll be wanting the balance of your payment now?” A nod from Scaryx answered him. “Then by all means, let payment be given.”

Without warning, the forest was alive with ponies. Pegasi dived in from above, while earth ponies and unicorns charged from the surrounding foliage. The glade was suddenly a cacophony of action as the griffons fought for their very survival against ponies armed with weapons and magic. Scaryx himself fell to Backtalk's bolt of force, which took him right between the eyes, stunning the tough griffon. The second bolt made sure he would never rise again.

Wounded as they were and outnumbered, the griffons never stood a real chance against a fresh force. Several ponies fell to them, but the ending was never really in question. They were as wheat before the thresher.

Treachery complete, Backtalk looked around the bloody field, noting that the carrion birds were already circling, waiting for the larger ponies to move on so they could begin their banquet. Nodding, he said, “Well done, everypony. Let's hide the bodies, then get back to the ranch and celebrate! There's a dozen barrels of cider with our names on them!” A cheer met this proclamation, and he couldn't help but smirk. And then I'll have to get started on your graves.

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Each broad sweep of her wings brought her a little closer to her goal, but it just wasn't fast enough. Each second that ticked by another shuddering breath or wheeze could be heard from the wounded ponies on the cloud she was pushing. Limnear looked up and wanted to leap for joy at the sight of the reinforcements winging over to the flight of pegasi and one griffon. Cloudchaser was the first to meet up with them and gasped in horror at the bloody mess on the cloud.

A medic pegasus landed on the cloud and didn't even ask what had happened, instead going to work straightaway. Limnear could tell from the grim expression on his face that it wasn't good. She knew that many of the wounded would need a lot of recovery time, and some might never recover.

Upon landing on the airship, the wounded ponies were carted off to the medical bay. One of the medics tried to see to her wounds, but she waved him off. “Go on. There's others much worse off than me. Just leave me some bandages, and help the doctors.”

He seemed unsure, but she shooed him away. Unfortunately, she wasn't alone long enough to even catch her breath when a familiar flag lieutenant came up to her and saluted. “The admiral requests your presence at your earliest convenience, Ma'am.”

Limnear returned his salute with a wince and followed him to the Admiral's quarters. Inside, she found the pegasus seated behind her desk and came to attention. “You wanted to see me, Admiral?”

Honor returned the salute. “At ease. I wanted to hear directly from you just what happened out there, and whether or not we should be finding ourselves a bunker to hide from a certain unicorn's wrath.”

Carefully sitting on the floor, the griffoness related the events leading up to their unceremonious return. “After that, they fled into the forest. With so many wounded, I felt it better to let them go in favor of getting as many ponies home as possible, so I commandeered the rest of the pegasi to make a cloud stretcher for the wounded and we returned to the ship. If you want to reprimand anyone for that, I'll accept full blame, but I knew that we needed to get the Captain back A.S.A.P.”

The pegasus nodded. “I suppose it was the right thing to do in the long run, but for now, we still have to deal with a pack of assassins from an ostensibly hostile nation running loose within our borders.” She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This is going to be a nightmare to work through...”

“If it helps at all, I know who it was that attacked us, Ma'am,” Limnear said with a grin.

Honor sat up and leaned forward menacingly, forgetting that the griffon was actually the same size as her. “What? Why didn't you say so sooner?” she yelled.

Limnear gave her a lopsided grin. “I wanted to give you the good news last. Hopefully it's give you a better outlook on the day.” She saw Honor twirling her hoof to urge her on, and she smiled. “His name was Jettar, but he changed it to Scaryx after he left the Royal Griffonian Air Wing. Seems he was making a living selling his services on the side.

“As you may have heard, such a thing is not all that unusual in our nation. I myself, have done so to Equestria many times in the past, but Jettar always had a passion for the finer things in life, and found that mercenaries get paid much more handsomely than military personnel, not to mention that his 'official' job was putting a crimp on the offers he could take from his sideline. Long story short, he left to pursue a life as a mercenary, and one of the better paid from what I've heard.”

Honor's lip curled in disgust. “Mercenaries. Soldiers I can deal with, since they more often than not have a sense of duty that I can respect, but pure mercenaries?” She shook her head and looked back at the griffoness before her. “Do you know how to find him? We need to track him down and find out who hired him before this becomes an international incident, and blows up in our faces.”

“Offpaw, I couldn't tell you where to find him, but I'll do some recon. I believe he has a base of operations here in Equestria, since each border crossing increases the chance of being discovered, he'll want to limit those as much as possible.” She rose to her feet and saluted again. “I'll leave Cloudchaser here to watch over Captain Spitfire while I'm out searching. See that she's given all due access to her at all times.”

Rising to her hooves as well, Honor replied, “Take a squadron of Wonderbolts with you for backup.”

Limnear shook her head. “I'll move faster alone. Besides, they'll be needed here since I'm sure a few of them will be down for some time.”

With a final salute, she dismissed herself and made her way down to the medical bay. She had to shoulder past more than a few ponies who crowded the hallway. In frustration, she growled at them, “Don't you all have duties to attend to?”

This cleared the way, allowing her to get into the bay. Inside, she found Soarin' and Cloudchaser waiting outside the lone surgery room. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough that they had to take her in there,” Soarin' replied gruffly as he casually pointed towards the door. “Can't get a word out of any of them. You'd swear that they're the best spies in Equestria with how tight-lipped they are.”

Limnear chewed on her tongue as she considered her options for a few moments. Finally coming to a decision, she said, “I'm chasing down the mercs who did this. Cloudchaser, you are not to leave Spitfire's side for any reason until I or PS show up. You hear me? For any reason. If she needs to take a leak, you hold up her hospital gown.” The terrified pegasus nodded, satisfying her.

“I'm going with you,” Soarin' said.

“No, you're staying here and leading the team in the Captain's absence.” She saw him bristle at her command, and tried a new tack. “Which do you think she would want from you right now, chasing down some wounded mercs, or leading the team that she had worked so hard to put together?”

Soarin' was undeterred, however. “So I'll bring the team with us.”

“And then you land them all in the brig for abandoning your post in wartime. Think, Soarin'! I know you have a brain rattling around in there somewhere, so use it!” Though some of the aggressiveness went out of his stance, he didn't back down. “Look, I know you want to get back for your own, but you have responsibilities here. Mine is catching the mercs before whoever hired them takes them out as a liability to whatever plan they have going, and finding out just who pulled the trigger, before he can destroy the weapon.”

The stallion's face looked like he had just swallowed a mouthful of lemon juice, but he nodded. “If you need us, we'll be right here, waiting for the word.”

Limnear smiled at him sadly, and put forepaw on his withers. “I'm counting on it.”

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She studied the torc under the heaviest magical magnification possible, but could not see anything useful. As far as she could tell, it was a simple gold band of metal and jewels that looked pretty, that happened to have some minor enchantments placed upon it. Disgusted with her lack of progress, Twilight took the magical jeweler's loupe from around her face, and wiped the sweat from her brow with a sigh before replacing her glasses.

“Problem?”

Twilight turned to see Nyx standing at the door to her magical experiments room within the library. Turning her attention back to the torc, She shook her head. “It just doesn't have the oomph needed to see what I postulated. This magical artifact is just too powerful. Are you sure it's within the power range I asked for?”

Nyx walked over to the workbench and peered over the unicorn's shoulder; a feat easily accomplished as she was currently the same approximate size as Celestia. “You checked yourself, Twilight. You would know as well as I that it falls within the accepted range.”

A unicorn head plopped down onto the table with a THUD. “I just don't get it. Splitting this into two equally magical artifacts should be simple enough for me, but trying to see into it's magical matrix so I can is like trying to eat with two ten-hoof long poles. I've done this before, but now...” She turned her head to look up at Nyx without lifting it from the table and asked, “This was really made using the same sort of magic as the Elements of Harmony?”

Picking up the neck decoration, Nyx turned it over in her paw examining it, even though she already knew every detail on it. “Even made by the same person. Granted, she was an incredibly magical being, but you have at least much magical knowledge as she did.”

Twilight reached for the torc, saying, “Well, let me try-”

As she touched it, a spark of energy flowed from sphinx to torc, to unicorn and back again, enveloping both beings in a field of electricity that exploded in a great burst of light sending both flying off in opposite directions. The room was filled with a noxious, blue smoke. Nyx sat up on her haunches, groaning from the pain. “Ugh... what-”

Some of the smoke cleared, and the sphinx saw a lilac alicorn laying slumped against the opposite wall and started in shock. “T... Twilight?” The alicorn before her wavered and a dizzy spell overtook her, almost making her vomit, but she shook it away and looked again. The alicorn was gone, replaced by the smaller, yet very similar unicorn. A unicorn that wasn't moving.

Nyx scrambled over to her, screaming her name. “TWILIGHT! SPEAK TO ME! TWILIGHT!”

Onyx barged in through the broken door, shouting, “NYX! WHAT HAPPENED!”

Turning to her assistant, she yelled, “Send Kat to Celestia! Tell her there's been a terrible accident and we need healers here now!” She looked down again at Twilight, who still hadn't moved and tears started to pour from her eyes. Her lion's paws morphed into human-like appendages and she cradled the unicorn to her like a child as she rushed up the stairs to her bedroom to lay her down.

Casting a minor enchantment upon herself, she examined her to find that she was indeed breathing, though very shallowly. No internal injuries were apparent, but she was totally unresponsive to outer stimuli.

Celestia burst into the room, glowing like the noonday sun herself, and immediately went to Twilight's side, nearly pushing Nyx out of the way in the process. One glance told her what she feared. She turned her fury towards the sphinx and roared, ”WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER? WHY IS HER SOUL MISSING?”

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( . .)
*(“)(“)

Twilight looked around in confusion. “Where am I? What is this place?” A gray mist suffused everything, making it appear like she had walked into an especially dense fog bank. Looking down, she could see that she was not standing on anything at all, but her experiences with cloudwalking magic at least made this seem somewhat familiar. A tightness around her neck caught her attention, and she brought a foreleg to find the torc she had been examining on it.

Quirking an eyebrow in confusion, she tried to examine it more closely and despite the bad angle, she saw that it was indeed the same magical artifact, and that's when things began clicking into place. Looking around in wonder once again, she finally recognized it. “Of course! This must be the Astral Realm!”

A sudden, icy fear gripped her heart, and she looked down to her belly. Concentrating hard, she saw the tiny, still-forming life squirming around, and she breathed a little easier. “Let's just hope there's no adverse effects for you, little one,” she said quietly, patting the not even noticeable bulge. She could feel the love for her emanating from the small life, and knew that she could feel the same from her.

Looking around, she realized that she was completely lost, yet she didn't panic. “Keep it together, Sparkle. Just follow the silver thread back to your body and we'll be-” She turned to look for the silver thread all Astral travelers used to connect them to their bodies, but couldn't find one. A nervous chuckle worked its way up from her throat, which quickly turned into a nervous laugh.

Twilight slapped herself, the pain bringing herself back to her senses. “Okay, let's think about this logically. One: we're lost in the Astral with no silver thread to follow back. Two: I can't use much magic on myself without hurting the foal in me. Three...”

A strange clicking sound to her right caught her attention, and she lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. “Three: there's something out there...” Instead of walking or running, Twilight used the strength of her mind to push herself away from the noise; slowly at first, but with increasing speed as the clicking grew louder and followed her.

What started out as sneaking away, was soon turned into a full-blown flight for life as Twilight fled with all due speed. Shadowy forms within the mist let her know that she had stumbled upon a pack of thought eaters; creatures that feasted on the minds of travelers unlucky enough to cross their paths. They appeared to be flying platypus skeletons, but were reputed to be among the most dangerous creatures known to spell casters.

A great pressure built up behind Twilight's eyes, alerting her to the presence of an incredibly strong mental presence approaching. The thought eaters behind her paused for a moment before retreating back the way they came. The pressure became unbearable the closer it approached, but Twilight kept her wits about her. The mist before her grew darker and darker until a massive wall of gold bumped into her, causing her to bounce back several hooves.

Twilight came to a stop and placed a protective hoof over her belly to shield her child, and got ready to cast whatever magics she'd need to escape the situation. Her eyes focused on the gold wall, and she noted that they appeared to be... Scales? Looking up, she saw a lean, pointed head easily the size of her library. A blue eye blinked at her, and a familiar voice said, “Twilight?”

The mare's mind raced until she could finally place the voice. “Sal?” She would have recognized her sooner, but the dragon's voice was much deeper than she had ever heard it before.

A wash of magical energies pushed away the fog, allowing Twilight to see Salanshandaraen floating before her; or at least, the front half of her, since the rest of her massive bulk was still shrouded in the astral fog. She noted that she was also missing a silver thread. The dragon shrunk herself down until she was just a little larger than Celestia. “What are you doing out here? This part of the Astral is incredibly dangerous, especially for ponies from your world.”

“I... I'm not entirely sure,” she replied nervously. “I was in Nyx's library doing some research, and when we both touched this torc,” she gestured towards the piece of jewelry, “and the next thing I know, I'm here. I'm not even sure where in the Astral we are, and I seem to have misplaced my silver thread.”

The dragon bent her head down to examine the torc, her eyes suddenly blazing with a golden light. “Hmm... Yes, now I recognize that. It was made by y- a talented magic-user a long time ago. It was designed to protect it's wearer in hostile planar environments.”

Twilight nodded as she looked at it. “I know, but why did it send me here? That's not even been designed into it.”

“I suspect that this is the last place it was used. Somehow, it reacted to your magical aura as well as Nyx's using them to bring you here.” Salanshandaraen tapped a claw to her chin thoughtfully. “The question then becomes, why?”

“What's special about this part of the Astral?” Twilight asked.

Sal looked around and said, “Well, this is one of the few nexuses on the plane that allows almost instantaneous access to any other part of the plane.”

Twilight looked around in wonder. “You mean that if I go to the right spot, I'll be instantly taken to any other part of the Astral? I... I thought that was just a theory; untested.”

With a wide smirk, Sal replied, “Oh, I can assure you that it is indeed very much fact. I use them all the time. I've come to rely pretty heavily on them in my work.”

“But why-” Twilight's question was interrupted by a mental tug she felt pulling her away from her dragon companion. She started to drift away from her, and had to exert energy to stay still. “Um, this nexus, does it tend to pull you towards it?”

Sal flapped her wings once, landing herself closer to Twilight again. “Only when you have a clear destination in mind. Do you have one?”

With a panicked shake of her head, Twilight answered, “No! I don't know why I'm feeling this tug.”

The dragon used a claw as long as a dagger to gently prod her belly. “Then perhaps this little one does?”

Twilight looked down and concentrated again to see that the foal had reoriented herself so that it looked like she was trying to go in the direction of the pull. “But... how? She can't even have any concept of what's going on! Why would she have a place to be when she can't even understand that there are places to be?”

“There are more reasons to be in a place than the location itself,” Sal replied smugly. “I think that perhaps there's someone there she wants to be near.”

An icicle of fear stabbed through Twilight's heart, and she gasped. “Spitfire!” Without further ado, the unicorn used the power of her vast mind to move faster through the Astral than she ever had before. Using the tugs she felt from the nexus as a navigator, she flew through the fog at speeds inadvisable for anything but a towering intellect.

Feeling a familiar pressure, she looked to her left and spied her dragon companion gamely keeping pace with her. “I'd better watch over you until you return. You're in no shape to take on anything out here with your foal still in it's crucial development stages.”

“Thank you,” Twilight replied, nearly loosing a tear in the process. They flew on in silence until they came out of the fog bank into a great, open space. Before them, loomed a vortex of swirling gray clouds, converging on a hazy, dark spot. “Is that it?” Twilight asked in a low gasp.

The golden dragon nodded grimly. “Yes. I must warn you, many lives have been lost to these nexuses. The trip will not be easy, nor will it be pleasant. It is quite... painful. If you want to find another way, if only to protect your child from this, I'll understand.”

Twilight considered for a moment, also noting how the pull was now so strong that even maintaining station was becoming difficult. “Do you have a way to get wherever it was my filly was taking me?”

“Well, if I cast the right spell, I can easily know just where she was headed, and while it won't be instantaneous, here in the Astral, I'm the next best thing to it,” Sal replied. She tilted her head to the side and asked, “Shall we?”

With a nod, Twilight agreed. “Let's, but we'll have to be quick about it. I've been worried about poor Spitfire since she was deployed, and if our filly is seeking her out, I fear the worst.”

Salanshandaraen closed her eyes briefly before opening them again, only this time they glowed with a bright golden light again. Looking around, she nodded. “Alright. I see the spot we need to go. Let me assume my full size, and we'll be on our way.”

Without even waiting for a response, she released the shrinking spell she had cast on herself. Twilight floated there in shock as her entire world was suddenly encompassed with a single dragon. She was easily larger than the entire Canterlot palace, and her pearlescent wings could surround all of Ponyville with no difficulty. Iron bands of muscle rippled under scales as large as a barn door contrasted with the plush softness of her wing's feathers that seemed to radiate their own diffuse glow.

Salanshandaraen gently scooped up Twilight in one titanic paw and held her close to her chest. ”Hold on,” she sent telepathically, ”this is going to be disorienting.” Bypassing the nexus entirely, they flew past and were out of sight of it before Twilight could even blink.

Twilight forced her head out from between claws as big around as grown oak trees, and felt a thrill of excitement at seeing how fast they were going. In the span of three breaths, the dragon came to a halt and released her. They looked around and saw that they were surrounded by the gray shady reflections of living beings in the physical world.

Sal shrunk down to more manageable proportions again and tapped Twilight's shoulder with a talon. “Twilight?” The unicorn looked up at her, and the dragon pointed down at her hoof. “I think you should follow that.”

Looking down at her hoof, Twilight saw a tiny red thread leading away from her left forehoof. “What the?” She picked up her hoof and examined it closely. The red thread just sort of seemed to appear out of the air from many smaller threads near her hoof before leading away. “What is this?”

“Among my people, it's called Gurock Nocali. Loosely translated, it means-”

“Thread of Fate?” Twilight finished.

The dragon smiled down at her and nodded. “I keep forgetting that you know ancient Draconic. But yes, it signifies that your fate is intertwined with that of another. Most times, you never see them, even here on the Astral, but when you're especially close to the other end, it becomes visible.”

Looking closely at the thread, Twilight replied, “So if we follow this, it will lead us to wherever my foal was taking us?” A nod was her answer, and she wasted no more time in following the thread. After several minutes of flying, they came to a gathering of shades, one of which she recognized immediately. “Spitfire!” She ran up to the wavering, reclining image of her herd-wife and tried to touch her, but her hoof went right through her.

A weary-looking Spitfire gazed up at her and smiled. ”Twi... you brought our filly.”

“What happened to you? Are you all right?” Twilight asked in a panicked tone.

With a serene smile, the pegasus replied, “I was wounded, Twi. Pretty badly. I don't know if the doctors here can help...”

Twilight looked over to Sal with tears in her eyes. “Is there anything we can do for her? Anything at all?”

Sal's eyes glowed again and she said, “Yes, I can help her, but there is something I need for you to do for me; something that you can't do right now, but I'll remind you of this when it's time. It's nothing to which you would normally object, but I just need... reassurance that when the time comes, you won't hesitate.”

“Anything! I'll do anything for her!”

Salanshandaraen leaned down and gently kissed her forehead. “I knew I could depend on you, Twilight. I just needed the peace of mind this promise brings me. Honestly, I wouldn't have even held you to it.” With that, she turned to the floating pegasus and held out her forepaws. A diffuse golden glow surrounded both pony and dragon. Beatific expressions of joy spread across their faces, and Spitfire's wavering form slowly faded until it resembled those of the others around it. Her working complete, she simply said, “It is done.”

“She'll be okay?” Twilight asked with a nervous quaver.

Sal smiled down at Spitfire's shadowy reflection. “She'll be fine. Now let's see about getting you back to your body, shall we?” she said, looking down at her side, but found that Twilight was no longer there. "Huh. Convenient."

Author's Notes:

I was going to stretch Spitfire's condition out for another chapter, but judging by the comments on the last one, I decided I like keeping myself alive. I've grown fond of this living stuff. Unfortunately, the troll in me just couldn't let it go and literally changed the ending just before uploading it. Seriously, I still haven't even changed it in my original draft, yet. Consider this a lesson. Try to change my mind through force, and something possibly worse happens. >:D

The usual disclaimers go here. I own the arrangement of the words, Rugged Peak, Scaryx and his entire band of griffons (for whatever that's worth now), Backtalk, Limnear, Nyx, Onyx, and Salanshandaraen. I also claim the ponification of Honor Harrington, but not the character herself, she's David Weber's. All else belongs to Hasbro and Lauren Faust.