//------------------------------// // Chasing a Dream: Exhaustion // Story: Imbalanced: New Age // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// [Blazing's Entry] I don't remember that much, mostly flickers and connections when somepony mentions a name or event. Whenever I try to focus on something in detail I draw blanks. It seems to ebb and flow just like my unstable power. Also, what the heck is a Corrupted, and why does the mare noiselessly lurking in the shadows have giant crotchboobs almost touching the ground and flailing tentacles reaching up to the trees? What happened to Equestria while I was gone? [End Entry] I fake a cough when the thick smoke envelops me, tracing spell clearly showing the hippogriff's lunge. Absorbing the magic from the protective spell sparing her the effects of the billowing vapors, I lean away from her rapier. She takes a lungful of her own dark medicine and starts coughing uncontrollably. Breathing through my mouth, I shove myself under her, push upwards with my shoulder, and with just a little telekinesis for stability I stand up on my hind legs and use the motion of her failed lunge to throw her over my head down the slope of the hill. If I'm lucky, she'll impale herself on her weapon as she rolls. Impact shakes my whole body. Was there a train somewhere? "Did anypony get the number of that cart?" I recover on my back a short distance away, and shake my head. Angry growling accopanied by loud stomping rapidly approaches. It's the griffon. Me burning half of his chest apparently doesn't bother him too much anymore. He rears and I have to roll away to avoid his sword pinning me to the ground. Jumping back up on all fours, I... ...feel explosion of pain in my muzzle and see stars. He didn't bother taking his sword out of the ground and just bashed me with his shield so hard I taste iron. Still on the ground, I feel a serious charge of magical energy nearby. Thankfully, I can deal with spellcasters on instinct, and this time I'm not in the position to play nice. "Lightning." Thanks! I give the unicorn a second more to carefully craft the spell, and just before she's done I force her to release the energy. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" a high pitched scream followed by smell of burning hair, seared flesh, and ozone is my reward. I could have just redirected her own spell at her, but causing her to miscast prematurely also triggered an agonizing magical feedback of a failed spell. The fact that she likely fried herself in the next moment was just a cherry on top. "Scroll!" I hear a mare's voice which must belong to the earthpony. The tracking spell allows me to 'see' everything around me at the same time, although my head can't really handle such input, so I get only a flickering image of the eartpony rushing over to the smoldering unicorn twitching on the grass. Rolling on my barrel as the griffon charges at me again, I buck up with one hind leg first to knock his shield upwards, and then push with my forelegs to give my other hind leg a good momentum to ram my hoof straight into the griffon's burned scar. He screams and clutches his chest with both arms. Jumping on my hind legs, I spin around and kick him off of the hilltop straight into the recovering hippogriff. Damn, being able to move easily only on hind legs helps a ton when fighting unarmed. Both the griffon and the hippogriff seemed to be able to do so as well, but to a much lesser degree than I can. Dropping back to all fours, I turn only to face a blur punching me so hard I stumble backwards, completely blanking out. Burning spikes running through my right foreleg wake me up just in time to see the earthpony prepare for a second stomp. I cover my chest with my other foreleg to soften the next blow. The leg hurts but holds. Some of my ribs must have cracked, though. The earthpony rears on her hind legs to drive her maul-like front hooves through my ribcage. "Too many enemies, too little power." Yeah, I sort of guesed it would end something like this. She stomps again... ...on my wing, though, crushing my wingbone with ease. My tracing spell fades, leaving me in black world filled with pain. When my other wing breaks under the assault, I just gurgle through blood and foam coming from my mouth, completely overloaded. Motionless silence. Am I dead again? "Yeah, totally, that's why you can still talk to yourself in your own head." So my senses just collapsed completely. "Adrenaline and endorphine overdose caused by shock shutting you down." Well, I don't really have a way out of this. Hey, at least whoever wanted me resurrected and sacrificed lives of others for that can go screw himself, right? "I wouldn't be so quick to celebrate if I were you..." Why? "Cause this is gonna hurt." Wha- "Aaaahrghrblbrlbl..." the agony returns as I feel my hind legs being thoroughly bound by rope. A piece of cloth enters my mouth, clearing away clotting blood and spittle. Strong talons hold my head steady while that goes on. Not that I want to move, but the needles of pain spearing me from my leg and barrel make me raggedly gasp for breath and twitch. "Drink!" says a firm female voice, and something cool and sticky trickles into my mouth, "Good, now don't even try to move or Lyam will snap your neck," the talons on my head tighten, and the other set previously holding the cloth presses menacingly against my windpipe. Hooves press softly against my chest, making me gasp and thrash around a little, but it doesn't take long. It doesn't even hurt as much, now as strange calm spreads through my body. I suspect whatever concoction they've just made me drink. "He had a pierced lung, I'm sure of it, but it's gone now. Even the ribs seem less sensitive otherwise he would be screaming despite the potion. The other bones are not healing in any unnatural way, so I think it was just the fatal wounds," I hear a deeper voice of the earthpony mare. "Good... maybe," the hippogriff hesitates. Despite not seeing anything and what must be minor concussion making my tracing magic too painful to use, I'm getting better at recognizing the voices of this group, "Strong Back, keep him restrained! Don't be afraid to break some more bones if he tries anything. Lyam, go help Rolled Scroll! She is breathing, so just give her another calming potion and clean the burns. It looks much worse than it is, her contingency shield must have saved her." Hmmm, so their unicorn is pretty skilled. Contingency spells allow the caster to set up a condition in which a certain other previously prepared spells will be cast automatically no matter in what shape the mage is. However, as those spells sort of 'exist' permanently until cast or dispersed by the user, they drain the mage's power which means even the most talented magic users can store only weaker spells as an all-just-went-to-hell-and-I-need-help 'package'. That means no timestop spells just when you're about to die from a dagger piercing the skin on your back, that's cheating. "Yeah," the griffon agrees quickly, letting my head and neck go and walking away, "You gonna check out things down there, Des?" "Mhm," the hippogriff hums, "Somepony might still be alive or something. Worst case, I just go through the stuff they brought with them." Grass crunches under her hooves until she walks back into the tunnel. I lie there, completely spent. My divine power feels barely present. The muscular legs of the earthpony mare are still on my chest, moving under my shallow breathing. Minutes of me trying to think of a way out of this mess pass. "Lyam, how is Scroll?" asks Strong Back loudly. "Arrgh..." I groan, her voice splitting my head again. The sound of Lyam's paws and talons cushioned by the soft grass stops near my head. "Bandaged like a mummy, a bit confused about what hit her, but awake. Hmmm," he says quietly, which I appreciate more than he might expect, and carefully turns my head to the side, "Strange, he looks familiar." "You know him, seriously?" Strong Back's skeptical voice evokes a raised eyebrow. "No, no. I know for sure I've never met him. I'm pretty sure I remember all alicorns I've ever met, but he still feels as if I've seen him before. Maybe a picture, or a description in a book? I don't know." "Help me patch him up, will you?" Strong Back says out of nowhere, "I doubt Desert Shade would want him dead after all this, at least not without some questions." "Yeah, sure," talons wrap around my head and one taps my horn, "Now, alicorn, this is going to hurt, and I would like to avoid more burning of everypony around. Strong Back here is going to bind a steel splint to your broken leg, are we clear? Don't try anything, and I won't make sure that leg never heals again." Tears streak down the sides of my head as my leg burns, stings, and grinds at the same time. I groan, not having the strength to scream anymore. I've gotten so used to instant divine regeneration that I completely forgot how things were for a normal pony. Normal. Weak. Useless. "Aaand done," my torturer concludes. I let out a long sigh as my leg is lowered carefully on the grass, "It doesn't even feel broken, just fractured, although judging by his reactions it's pretty close." "What about the wings? You went pretty ham on them." "You, Des, or Scroll can do a better job than me. I'm not used to wingbones too much. Switch?" Strong Back asks. "Mhm," Lyam agrees, then taps my horn again, "I'm going to see what I can do about your wings. The bones are visibly in pieces, though." "Screw... flying... anyway..." I croak. "Glad we understand each other," he walks off, likely to wherever Strong Back got her medical supplies from, and returns quickly, "As usual, if he tries something just kick his muzzle off and I'll explain it to Des somehow." I get it, you don't like me. "Amazing what causing lifelong mental and physical scars to their friends does to ponies." I got shot at! "A warning?" Four times?! The first one maybe, but twice in the back and once in my head? "In case you didn't get the hint the first time?" Shut up and pretend to be useful, can we see again? "Nngh!" I grit my teeth and gasp as my tracing spell restarts. I'm too weak to use it continuously, so I only get reflected echoes about every second or so. The traces last long enough, it's just confusing if ponies move too fast. Too bad I can't light the area with my divine power to see real colours. Better than nothing, though. Strong Back, the earthpony, is well-built in a way betraying some sort of army training coupled with hard work. I can't get much more detail with my makeshift vision, but she looks like a mare in her prime, probably something around thirty. The griffon is big, strong, but not in the overly bulky way of a bodybuilder. He looks like somepony who has spent his whole life travelling with a sword on his belt. If he isn't or at least wasn't a mercenary then I'm a walking potato. Strangely enough, as I recall my brief visions of the hippogriff and the unicorn of the group who looked the same age as Strong Back, the griffon must be in his fifties. In his case, age means only more experience though. The numbness from my wings being moved and having more splints applied to them is not encouraging, but sort of comfortable in a weird way. I reduce my vision angle to only what my eyes would see when I hear the hippogriff returning up the tunnel, apparently struggling with something heavy. "Keep an eye on him," says Lyam and runs towards what seems to be a three ponies tall stone burial mound hosting the entrance to the underground from which we came, "What have you got there, Des?" "The bastard we've been tracking. It looks like he distributed the poison to the others while he himself just drank normal water." "Fuuuck..." Lyam mutters in disbelief, "Why?" "Well, that's what we'll be asking now," Des, or Desert Shade as her full name must be, grins joylessly, throws the struggling unicorn she'd been dragging by his mane on the grass, and kicks him for good measure. "Now, you scum, tell us why you led thirty ponies here and then killed them to summon an alicorn. I've tailed you in Canterlot long enough to know you are some minor useless noble and so were most of the others. Money, power, long life?" "Screw you, half-breed," the unicorn spits at her. Lyam's crushing punch makes his head bounce off the ground. "See here," Desert Shade leans to him, "You are already dead, either by execution when we bring you back to civilization, or just by pissing me off so much that I slit your throat. You can make it much easier on yourself if you talk now, because I'm not a Hex Guard, a Nightguard, or a Royal Guard and I don't have to obey any laws here." Lyam pulls a knife from his belt and carefully sharpens the tip of his talon with it. "Do you know that we are carnivores?" he asks innocently, "And so far from any larger city it is soooo difficult to find fresh, uncorrupted meat. Speaking of Corrupted," the griffon looks down into the ominous forest looming in the darkening gloom of coming evening, "I think I see a Hunter curious about us warm creatures up here." Desert Shade grabs the unicorn's horn with her talons and shakes him. "So these are your options. The one easier on all of us - you answer all my questions. If you don't Strong Back of Lyam will simply beat them out of you. If you are too stubborn even for that, Rolled Scroll will put your brain through a nice magical wringer and take all information she can. Mental magic isn't her speciality so you'll probably end up a little more... drooly. And," her eyes narrow and she growls, "if you somehow still resist or if something fails, I'll let Lyam slowly roast you alive and eat you starting with legs so you can watch. Nopony is around to hear you scream other than us." "HELP ME!" the unicorn screams, trying in vain to drag himself upwards from underneath Desert Shade's talons, "I BEG YOU! HELP, PLEASE!" Uhh, why is he looking at me? "Yeah, especially because you got your ass whooped by them as well. Seriously, though, he seems to think you are supposed to be on his side for some reason." We're not gonna get anywhere with just guesswork. Do I say something divine and smite-y to make him talk? "Hnnngh... hrrgrh... owwww..." I try, manage to move my head while irritating my entire body, and flop back. Sounded divine and godly enough? "Just about right for you." Good. "You know, there will be more Corrupted gathering around this hill soon enough," Desert Shade frowns, "Let's not waste too much time. Strong Back, prep the fire pit. Lyam, go get your cutlery. It's not as if he needs limbs to talk-" "I'LL TALK, I'LL TALK!" the unicorn screams. "Strong Back, we're camping up here, the order still stands. Lyam, you'll have to settle for vegetable dinner," the unicorn breathes out a loud sigh of relief at Des' words, "for now. Scroll, can you levitate the alicorn here next to the fire pit?" The bandaged unicorn unsteadily gets up from where Lyam treated her. "Can we feed him to Lyam or the Hunters, please? That guy is dangerous," Rolled Scroll asks, carefully levitating me closer to a circle of ground cleared of grass by Strong Back. Desert Shade just chuckles, and I grudgingly admit Scroll has excellent control over her telekinesis as I feel nearly no pain during the transfer, my wings flopping limply under me aside. "Now, murderer," Des shoves the captured unicorn, "give me a good reason too let you live."