Chapter 41: For Family
The white Pegasus was coming in hard and fast. So far he had performed his routine to the letter. All he needed to do was nail his signature move and his position as one of the next Wonderbolts was all but guaranteed. He took a deep breath, puts his wings in the proper position, then performed a spinning dive towards the landing zone. As he spun, the stallion began to give off blue flames as cold as dry ice. The air around him began to freeze, leaving a tornado of ice above him. Finally he stabilized and came in for a landing. As soon as his hooves slammed against the sand, the tornado above him exploded into snow. It was now winter in the deserts of Korhal.
It was a rather dangerous maneuver, as more than once during practice, large chunks of the frozen pillar exploded into deadly shards of ice. But today, he had performed well. The only other Pegasus who had come close to his act was a certain cyan Pegasus and her fancy rainbow trick. It was expected the two of them would have to have a tie breaker, but there were also rumors that the Wonderbolts might be making room for two new additions to their team. Frankly the Pegasus wouldn’t mind sharing the spotlight, it would make things less complicated for him and a certain filly.
“Excellent work Snow Fire,” complemented an older blue stallion. “At twenty-two years old, you might very well become the youngest member to ever join the Wonderbolts. Not to mention the first Cadian… provided you perform well tomorrow against Rainbow Dash.”
“Thanks Soarin,” replied Snow Fire. “But is it true you might be accepting both of us in if we both perform well tomorrow?”
“It’s starting to look that way. If both of you perform the way you did today, we might be making an exception to the rule,” explained Soarin. Soarin looked around as the snow melted and quickly evaporated in the Korhal heat. Snow Fire was still drenched, and that's when Soarin noticed just how sweaty the young Pegasus really was. “Still getting used to the weather huh? It’s not Cadia, but you’ll adapt. We all did.”
“I hope so,” said Snow Fire still sweating buckets. “Well, I’m going to be heading out. Got to get some rest for the big day tomorrow.”
“You really should. You’ve been looking rather tired these last few days. Something been keeping you up at night?” asked Soarin.
The young Pegasus was blushing under his suit. “Umm… no… nothing in particular.”
“If you say so. Good luck tomorrow kid,” said Soarin as he took his leave.
Snow Fire took off the mask on his flight suit, only to immediately regret the decision as the light now shone directly on his eyes. “Why would anyone choose to live here?!” he asked himself as he started flying back to the hotel.
After making his way into his room, he was greeted by a familiar orange Pegasus. “How’d it go?” she asked as she approached him.
“Couldn’t have gone better,” he replied before kissing her.
“Up for some more endurance training?” she asked.
“Uhh… maybe not tonight Jet. Soarin says he could tell I’ve been missing sleep,” answered Snow Fire.
Jet Stream frowned. “And I thought stamina was a requirement for WonderBolts.” she replied.
Snow Fire let the remark slide. “So, does your sister know yet? With us competing, things might get… awkward between the three of us.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” said Jet Stream. “By the way, a package came in for you today.” Jet Stream trotted over to the counter and picked up a large envelope. “It says it’s from your mother.”
Looking at the size of the envelope, Snow Fire already knew what it was. He opened the envelope and revealed an old vinyl record.
“Another one?” asked Jet Stream. “I can’t believe you collect those. Earth era music was garbage.”
“No, it became garbage. Then further devolved into the post-Earth era filth you listen to,” replied Snow Fire. “Their old stuff was brilliant, don’t even try to argue with that.”
“Why the record though?” asked Jet Stream.
Snow Fire sighed. “It’s in honor of the era. Anyway just listen to this. You can’t tell me this is garbage.” Snow Fire began to play the old vinyl record on a record player. A song began to play that Jet Stream hadn’t heard in years. It began to bring back memories with conflicting emotions. A part of her brain told her she should be horrified, while the rest of her brain told her to simply relax, and let the music take her away.
Snow Fire noticed a smile creep onto his girlfriend's face as the music continued to play. “See! You like it down you?”
“Yeah… it’s beautiful. Say, how about a bottle of wine? Nothing hard, just something to help you unwind. You seem tense,” suggested Jet Stream.
“You know I can’t be giving you alcohol Jet. You aren’t old enough,” replied Snow Fire.
“That’s not the only thing I’m not old enough for, but that didn’t stop you,” she replied.
“Well… alright,” said Snow Fire. “The gloves are in the cabinet by the fridge. Cork screw is in the drawer below it.”
Jet Stream found the gloves and equipped them. She then retrieved the corkscrew from the drawer and hid it under a rag. Finally she picked out one of two bottles of wine from the fridge. “Snow, I can’t seem to find the corkscrew. Can you help me out?”
“Sure thing Jet. One moment.” As Snow Fire entered the kitchen, he began to notice just how happy and up beat Jet Stream had become. She was humming the song and even swinging her hips a bit as the song kept playing. “Wow… you must really like this song,” he said. “I have others we could listen to as well if you’re willing to give Earth era a chance again.”
“Don’t change the song,” requested Jet Stream. “It just… reminds me of an earlier time.”
Snow Fire began looking through the drawer for the cork screw. “Well it really seems to have put you in a lively mood,” he commented. “Strange, I could have sworn the corkscrew was-” Snow Fire was cut off when he was bashed over the head with a bottle of wine. Snow Fire fell forward, hitting his head on the edge of a counter. As he was about to get back up, a buck to the head laid him out cold.
Snow Fire eventually awoke to the taste of blood in his mouth. His arms and legs were stretched out on a bed tied to each bed post. He tried to yell, but his mouth was tied shut and gagged. Something in his mouth also felt very off. He felt a painful sensation where his tongue should have been. That’s when he finally realized his tongue had been cut off.
Tears and horror began to well in Snow Fire's eyes. What the hell is going on?! he thought. Then he heard a humming coming from outside the door. He recognized that tune, it was the song that was playing on his record. Finally he saw Jet Stream enter the door.
She continued to hum as she approached his side and started stroking his mane. Snow Fire tried to shout at her, begging her to untie him. She replied with a “sssshhhh” followed by a smile. “You told me you wanted to be the stallion that made me into a mare,” she began. “You did have quite the bit of fun making me into a mare didn’t you? I know I did.”
Snow Fire was breathing hard, his eyes were widened. He continued trying to break his bindings, but to no avail.
“At the time I thought I knew what that meant,” said Jet Stream. “But when you played that song… I realized I’m still not a mare yet. I’m still just a filly, both in age, and in spirit. You said making love to you would make me a mare. I still think you’re right… but I did it wrong. I want to right that now.”
Snow Fire’s eyes were bloodshot. His heart rate was increasing, but so was his curiosity. Jet… please don’t do this!
“Do you love me Snow? I love you,” continued Jet Stream. “You know what that song reminded me of? It reminded me of what I’m supposed to do to the things I love. It’s what my father raised me to do. I love you Snow. That’s why I have to kill you now.”
Snow Fire's eyes widened again. He began struggling harder than ever and started futilely trying to shout out for help.
Jet Stream smiled in glee at his terror. She then revealed a metal object. “I found the corkscrew.” Jet Stream approached the old vinyl record and began to play her favorite song. Once the music started, she got to work.
The sun was about to set, and Rainbow Dash was already in bed. Unfortunately she was awoken by a loud banging at her door. She was exhausted after the tryout, and the last thing she needed was to lose a good night’s sleep. The fact her sister had been missing for a few days now didn’t help matter either. Realizing the knocking wasn’t going to come to a halt anytime soon, she finally got up to open the door.
As Rainbow Dash opened the door, she filled with a conflicting brew of joy, anger, relief and disappointment as she found her sister in front of her. The drowsiness quickly left her eyes as she wrapped her hoofs around her sister.
“Squirt! Where have you been?! It’s been four days. I called K-Sec thinking something bad happened. Why didn’t you call?! Why didn’t you come home?!” shouted Rainbow Dash.
Immediately Jet Stream also wrapped her hooves around her big sister and started crying. “I’m so sorry sis! I’m so sorry I’ll never do it again!”
Rainbow Dash could tell something was wrong with her if she was crying like this. “Alright calm down. I’m sorry I yelled. I was just really worried about you. Now tell me what’s wrong. I can tell something happened squirt.”
“Well… I’ve been… staying with Snow Fire these last four days-” started Jet Stream.
“What?! Squirt you’re only sixteen. You are way too young to be staying over at another stallion's hotel room. What the hell is wrong with-” Rainbow Dash stopped herself. She could tell just by looking in Jet Stream's eyes she obviously felt guilty about something. “Oh my gosh! Did he touch you anywhere? Did he lay his hooves on you?!”
“No! I mean… we slept together… more than once,” admitted Jet Stream.
It took everything she had, but Rainbow Dash managed to keep herself calm. He must have broken her heart. I’ve been there. “Squirt… Jet Stream. I’m sorry if things between you didn’t work out. Some stallions are just like that. Trust me, it’s all going to be alright ok. Just come inside, get some sleep. We’ll talk about this tomorrow after the trials.”
“Sis he isn’t going to be at the trials!” shouted Jet Stream.
Rainbow Dash was growing more confused and concerned with each passing moment. “Ok, what happened in that hotel room? Why isn’t he going to be at the trials?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Sis… he had an old record with him. He started playing it and… that song came on!” said Jet Stream.
“No… Jet Stream is he?” Rainbow Dash was too horrified to finish that sentence.
“I’m sorry sis! I couldn’t help it! I just… I don’t know what to do!” cried Jet Stream.
Rainbow Dash tightened her hug and wrapped her wings around her little sister. “It’s going to be alright Jet. We’re sisters remember? And what do sisters do?”
Jet Stream sniveled before replying. “They watch out for one another.”
“Exactly,” said Rainbow Dash.
“Sis… this is your dream. You’ve been at this for years now. If you do anything rash, you’ll lose it all again,” said Jet Stream.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve taken care of this before remember? You just go to bed, and in the morning this whole mess will be taken care of,” promised Rainbow Dash.
“Al-alright,” agreed Jet Stream.
“Do you have the keys to his hotel room?” asked Rainbow Dash. Jet Stream didn’t say anything. She just handed over the keys. “What color was the room’s walls where you killed him?”
“White,” replied Jet Stream.
“That’s all I need to know for now. Now go to bed. We’ll talk more about this in the morning,” commanded Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash would have preferred flying, but there was no way she was going to be able to carry her “kit” across town, and a dead body into the desert without anyone noticing, so she had to take her car instead. This wasn’t the first time she would have to clean up a dead body, so she had a good idea what she needed. After hitting the store, she had everything the job called for. She could only pray it would be the last time she would ever have to do this.
Rainbow Dash arrived at the hotel Snow Fire was staying in. No one seemed to pay much attention to the large bag she had brought with her as she entered. Hopefully no one would notice when she walked out either. As she entered the hotel suite, she found a broken bottle and shards in the kitchen. Quickly Rainbow Dash started getting to work. She put on some gloves and began sweeping up all the pieces of glass.
Finally arriving in the room where the dark deed had taken place, she found a grisly sight. The stallion’s body had a number of lacerations that weren’t done with a particularly sharp object. The eyes were also missing as well, apparently scraped out in chunks, one piece at a time. The mouth was open, and the tongue was missing; a bloodied gag also laid on the bed. Lastly the body had been burned. Looking around the floor, she found a corkscrew and was certain this had to have been the murder weapon. Rainbow Dash also found an empty bottle of wine as well.
The first thing Rainbow Dash did was open her bag to reveal a large number of other bags inside of it. Fully unfolded, some of them were large enough to hold a body. She then placed the bottle, the corkscrew and the gag into one of the smaller bags, then the body into a larger bag. She needed to make sure not to let it touch the floor and leave nasty evidence behind.
After pulling the body into the bathroom, and putting it into the tub, she produced a hacksaw and began cutting Snow Fire up into a more manageable pieces for packing later. She was careful to keep all the blood inside the bath tub. The hardest part was flaying the flesh; once the meat was stripped from the bone, she placed it into vacuum sealed bags. Once the air and liquids had been removed, the meat was quite easy to carry. She then took the bones apart and put them into two other bags. It wasn’t a perfect process of course, as there was still much meat left on the bones. It was simply meant to get the flesh portable enough to effectively transport. The bag was waterproof, and sealed well enough that none of the still dripping bones would let anything slip out.
A good scrub down with Hydrogen Peroxide on the bathtub removed any bodily fluids before it could stain. Liberal application of drain cleaner was also added to make sure nothing stayed behind in the pipes. Rainbow Dash would have to take a shower when she got home as well of course.
Rainbow Dash still had a suspicion and checked the smoke alarms. She found Jet Stream had turned them off so she could enjoy the display of burning flesh, but forgot to turn them back on. Very sloppy squirt. Fortunately the floor and walls were stone and tile instead of carpet or wood, so the room was mostly undamaged, though the ceiling was blackened. Rainbow Dash would spend a while applying a new code of paint to the ceiling, ever so careful not to drip any on the floor. While the body was now packed and ready for disposal, the bed still had a number of burnt sheets. She gathered the sheets as well and placed them into another bag.
With the body, sheets and murder weapons packed, and the fluids cleaned out of the bathtub, the sight had been effectively cleaned. It had been an exhausting night, and Rainbow Dash just wanted to hit the sack. She had to make multiple trips out of the room back to her car. Now that the sheets, bones, flesh, weapons and paint cans were packed and ready to be disposed of, the next part wouldn’t be too hard. Once she was out of Augustgrad, there was nothing but miles and miles of desert. Since the trials happened in the desert, neither hotel was too far from the city limits.
Unfortunately the night’s events had really cut into her sleep time. The sun was on the raise, which meant she was going to be completely wiped for the trial later today. “At least the competition won’t be too lively,” she said to herself chuckling. Her eyes started to shut on her, and her vehicle slowly started to lose control. She awoke shortly afterwards when the vehicle came to a sudden stop, accompanied by the sound of a large crash. She opened her eyes to find she had crashed into a K-sec vehicle.
No! No no no no! I was so close! she thought to herself. Calm down. You’ve gotten out of tickets before… just none this bad. She looked at herself in the mirror and realized she wasn’t exactly looking her best. Her mane was more than a little scruffy, and her eyes were bloodshot. Not to mention the smell of chemicals and a slight hint of Snow Fires fluids.
An officer stepped out of his vehicle and approached her driver’s seat. It didn’t take a genius to tell he was more than a little upset over what had just happened. Finally he met Rainbow Dash face to face.
“Hello officer. Here to help a lonely mare in distress?” she asked.
“Ma’am, what the hell was that? Were you drinking?” he asked.
“Me?! No no. I never drink alone. Not without a stallion by my side at least,” she teased. “I understand I’m in a bit of trouble here, but maybe you and I could talk this out? Perhaps over dinner?”
“I’m sorry, but my husband might have a problem with that,” said the stallion.
“Just so you know, I voted to support you and your husband’s marriage,” lied Rainbow Dash. “How about you return the favor this one time?”
“Get out of the vehicle,” demanded the stallion.
Rainbow Dash lowered her head against the steering wheel. Tears started forming in her eyes. I was so close! I was so close!
Rainbow Dash sat in an interrogation room, her hoofs cuffed together. She was sleepy, but more than anything else terrified. If I go to jail, no one is going to be there to take care of my sister. If I’m not there for her, she’ll relapse and kill someone else!
A mare, along with two armored guards, walked into the interrogation room at long last. “Miss Dash, you know as well as I do why you’re here. We already know why you did it, so don’t bother denying it.”
“You do?” replied Rainbow Dash.
“Yeah we do. He was your competition to get into the Wonderbolts. You thought you had it in the hole. But then Snow Fire came along, and he started serving up some piping hot ass wuppin’s didn’t he!? You thought you could take him out before the trial. A sick bitch like you doesn’t deserve to become Wonderbolt!” she yelled.
“Well… what are you going to do to me?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Normally for murder you’d be looking at either life in prison, neural socialization, or no less than fifteen years of military service. Infantry for stallions, medical corps for mares,” answered the mare.
“I guess I could do military service,” said Rainbow Dash. “Does it matter I’m Kel-Morian?”
“The problem is the way the victim was killed,” said the interrogator. “You did quite a number on that corpse, but we were still able to get some details out of the remains. His flesh was lacerated with a less than sharp object. We’re guessing it was the corkscrew you had in the trunk. As if that weren’t bad enough, his flesh was burned. You carved him up, then roasted him on those bed sheets didn’t you? Worst part is, that fire didn’t burn hot enough to kill him. He probably laid in agony for god knows how long before he finally died. Or maybe you decided to flay the flesh from his bone while he was still alive?” The mare slapped Rainbow Dash across the mouth. Some blood trickled down her chin. “What the hell is the matter with you?! What did that kid do to deserve to die like that?! You’re one twisted freak! That said, you're too unstable to serve the military in your current state. We’re going to have to fix you instead.”
“What?! No! Please not that! I’ll do the service. I’ll do twenty, I’ll do thirty! But please not resoc!” begged Rainbow Dash.
The mare chuckled, then bucked her again. “You think you can kill someone the way you did and walk away? No, death is too good for you.” She revealed a paper and placed it in front of her. “You’re going to sign that confession one way or another.” She then revealed a corkscrew. “But first we might decide to give you some of your own medicine.”
A guard held her down, then held her snout shut. She tried to resist, but was no match for the power armor's strength. A tear ran down her face as the corkscrew made its way near her neck. “You want to beg?” asked the mare. “I’m sure that kid would have if you hadn't cut out his tongue!”
Before the display could be taken any further, a stallion entered the room. “That’s enough of that. Guards, leave her with me.”
The guards let her go and began leaving the room. The mare did the same, but not before delivering a buck to Rainbow Dash’s gut. As she slowly regained her breath, the stallion started to speak.
“You’ll have to excuse her for acting that way,” said the stallion. “We get some very violent criminals, some even more deranged than you are. It can get to all of us at times.”
“Please… not resoc,” was Rainbow Dash’s reply.
“Well that’s actually what I’m here about. What do you know about the reaper corps?” asked the stallion.
“Nothing. I’m not from the Dominion,” replied Rainbow Dash.
“Simply put, it’s were we send criminals who are immune to the resoc. They go through very difficult training. Most die during the training, but some survive and eventually join the reaper corps,” explained the stallion. “Once in the corps, you serve your life sentence through military service. Ordinarily only the resoc immune get sent. But they’re running low on bodies at the moment. So I’m offering you a choice Miss Dash. Resoc, or reaper.” The stallion placed two confession in front of her. One that would result in neural resocialization, the other would send her to the Ice House where reapers were made.
“Can I at least contact my sister first?” asked Rainbow Dash as she grabbed the reaper confession.
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Next chapter of Tale of an Exile is up as well.
Also. TWO-HUNDRED-THOUSAND WORDS!
Well...this was...unexpected. To say the least.
Everypony in this story is crazy!
Rainbow Dash: I could of gotten away with it too, if I was a better driver!
Music turns Scootaloos into Pinkamena
Don't play the music.....or else RD is next
I say again be careful what music you play to Jet stream
HAAAAAAAAA. I DIIIID IIIT. I READ THOUSANDS OF WORDS AND FINALLY CAUGHT UP. *falls over in exhaustion*
Seriously, reading all those events in a sitting is a lot to take in.
Also, if you still want me to comb through your story and edit, I'll be happy to do it. Some time. If you want me to do it for future chapters, I'll do it also.
3058817 Here take this images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110630173424/terraria/images/c/c9/Restoration_Potion.png
it will help you.
Um, I would like to say that this chapter was slightly terrifying. Especially considering that you didn't add the Dark tag until recently. Also, I really really hope that no one in the main group has any Lovin' Spoonful albums lying around.