//------------------------------//
// The Biscuits, Biscotti, Bisque and Biscoff Bistro. 
// Story: Destination: Thataway! 
// by Hawattie 
//------------------------------//

	The sorceress and a couple of the train's other unicorn passengers teamed up to send out a sort of "S.O.S." spell and within twenty minutes a team of armor-clad pegasi had arrived on scene with enough sky carriages to hold everyone present. My friends and I received several suspicious looks from the pegasi and I think that only the goodwill of the passengers prevented some kind of verbal accusation or altercation. I honestly couldn't blame them, any normal person would be suspicious of an alien, an elusive spirit, and a madpony with a magical bony axe too.
Of course, I'm no normal pony so I instead made friends with such suspicious characters. Thinking about it, Unique is the most "normal" of our little group, and he spends his free time dabbling in alchemy to make potent alcoholic beverages with dubious effects on the equine body.
Eh, normal's boring. Who wants to read about the life of, say, a farmer? Or a librarian? Or, dare I say it, a seamstress? I'm sure bakers, animal caretakers and weatherponies never do anything fun or interesting at all with their free time. When I finish my autobiography I'll be sure to leave out any boring interactions with mundane individuals.
Speaking of mundane individuals, the entire crowd of background ponies from the train had all departed along with the suspicious armored pegasi, leaving only myself and my awesome, totally-not-boring friends standing next to a demolished train and a pile of bones. I wonder if someone's ever going to clean up those bones, or if they'll just sit there until they're swallowed by nature.
"Well now what?" the Courier asked. The man had taken this little pause in activity to take apart his guns and clean their pieces with a rag. "Are we gonna chase down that baddie Ner'mawhoozit on foot now that our ride's gone?"
"Not if the sorceress can teleport us to his castle or something," I said, looking at our resident magic expert hopefully.
The sorceress gave me a "you're a moron" look. "Do I look like an alicorn to you?" she deadpanned. A cursory glance of her back revealed her to be woefully lacking in the wings department. "The princesses are the only ponies with magic reserves close to what would be needed for that kind of transportation." Maybe if I had some cardboard cutouts and some tape I could pretend she was an alicorn... would she be able to teleport us then? 
"So you could transport us several miles straight up out of your 'Pit of Despair' while magically projecting your voice and reading our minds without breaking a sweat," Fphant accused. Rather harshly, I might add. "But you can't flash us a few dozen miles to the north to ease our travel after the three of us," he motioned to the Courier, himself, and I with an amorphous appendage.
"Hey, leave me out of this," the Courier held up his hands disarmingly, "I'm just here to help however I can."
Fphant continued his tirade as if the Courier hadn't interrupted. "After the three of us. fight off a skeletal abomination while you hide behind a train with the rest of the spineless ponies?"
"Are you calling me a coward?" the sorceress challenged. Her eyes were narrowed, her tone deadly, and the glow of magic surrounding her horn promised a painful fate to whoever pissed her off.
I took a couple steps back just in case things got ugly. The Courier swiftly followed suit. He leaned in close and whispered, "This kind of thing happen often?"
"Nope," I whispered back. "Usually they're too focused on calling me a moron to butt heads."
"Yeah," Fphant matched the sorceress's aggressive stance with one of his own. "I guess I am."  The mirage folded his arms condescendingly. "Are you going to do something about it, little pony girl? Or are you too chicken?"
With a fierce growl the sorceress released the spell she'd been charging. The bolt of light flew threw the air almost faster than I could see and struck Fphant square in the chest. With a puff of smoke and a slight "poof" sound, Fphant turned into a chicken. "Yes," the sorceress snarled at the chicken, "in fact I am going to do something about it."
The chicken just smirked. Don't ask me how a beak can pull off a smirk, I don't know. The chicken laughed, and instead of the clucking chicken's laugh I expected it was Fphant's normal laugh, albeit a bit mocking in tone. Before my eyes the chicken seemed to molt its feathers and stretch into Fphant's familiar amorphous form. "Transmogrification," Fphant snickered, "I'm a bucking shapeshifter and you tried to use transmogrification. How thick can you-"
A second blast of magic, this one much larger than the first, cut the mirage off. Like with the first spell, it struck Fphant square in the chest. Unlike with the first spell, Fphant was launched bodily into the wreckage of the train. "It was to check for illusions," the sorceress coldly explained. "And to distract you."
"Well congratu-" Fphant coughed, and I saw a bit of red come up. He isn't nearly as durable as I am, he could be really hurt. "-lations." Fphant coughed again, with no blood this time. "Now are you going to finish what you started? Or do you not have the guts?"
I watched the sorceress's face closely. I hoped she'd make the right choice and I wouldn't have to intervene. Several seconds passed. The sorceress's horn remained lit, some partially formed spell ready to be fired at a moments notice. Fphant glared defiantly at the unicorn, all but daring her to prove him wrong.
The sudden sound of a snapping twig underhoof broke the tension. The unexpected distraction startled the sorceress into reflexively firing whatever spell she'd been holding straight towards Fphant's heart. For one breathless moment the spell lingered in the air, its glow promising anything from pain to tickles to death for the prone mirage. The sorceress's eyes shrunk to pinpricks when she realized she'd released the spell. Fphant closed his eyes so he wouldn't see it coming.
And then the spell splashed harmlessly off the head of my axe. "Nice to know this thing's resistant to magic," I murmured.  Fphant's eyes cracked open to see me standing above him. A glance confirmed that, while mortified at what she'd almost done, the sorceress was alright. That left me open to level my most baleful glare towards the source of the distracting noise.
Unique squirmed sheepishly under my gaze. "Ah," he swiftly looked away from me, unwilling or unable to make eye contact. "Is this a bad time to let you know I found a way to travel to Ner'Ghalad's tower?" I glanced away from Unique. The pony let out a held breath when my gaze moved off of him.
Fphant was extricating himself from the train. The sorceress was helping him while constantly repeating "I'm sorry". The Courier stood nearby, watching me with a hand on his gun.
"No, it's not a bad time." I concluded, allowing my death-glare to fade away. "Where is this mode of transportation?"
Unique motioned off into a nearby forest, "It's over thataway."