Worth Less Than a Fly

by nightshade745

Chapter 13: No Luck Lasts Forever

Finally, it's here. Shadaico gets an entire chapter dedicated to him? What madness is this? I will say that I'm very proud of this chapter...especially that last line

The sun was just starting to set as Shadaico awoke from his nap. He was just outside of Canterlot city and he was still well fed. The ponies were starting to clear the streets and settle in for the night. He weighed his options for the moment. He had napped so he would be well rested, but he had to decide when to make his move. If he was too early, he’d be caught easily. If he was too late…well there weren’t a lot of consequences for taking his time actually. Shadaico let himself grin at the thought of Nash being captive for a little longer because he didn’t feel up to it today.

Regardless, he wasn’t going to lose the only real friend he ever had. He was going in there to save Nash today. The only question was when he should act. Shadaico was not use to sneaking around, he’d only ever done it five times in his entire career! Almost 50 years of causing chaos and destruction and he’d only gone covert when he was a kid. When he first started, he was going around for hire as mercenary. A few of his first jobs required stealth, one of which went haywire. After that, Shadaico swore he’d never become a ninja.

Following that oath, every job he took until he began acting on his own was very public: executions, terrorism, mass murder, or assassination. Very rarely did he take up jobs of any other sort. When he finally decided to become his own boss, the jobs became much more enjoyable and even narrower in their requirements. Mass murder was his number one favorite. Shadaico had always wondered why people liked to shoot their targets in assassination style from half a mile away when they could simply blow up an entire city block.

He shook his head suddenly when he realized he was knee deep in old memories. Memories he hoped to replace someday. The situation hadn’t changed though. The streets of the city around the white castle were still packed with ponies trying to conclude their business and get home. The way they went about was identical to his home world. The only difference was their bodies. They were quadrupeds and pretty uniform in height, while Shadaico (and Nash’s) home world was populated mostly by bipedal creatures whose heights could differ by extreme quantities.

Shadaico continued to observe the action from his position among the trees. Security seemed pretty lax, but they obviously weren’t expecting someone to sneak into a public area, like the streets. As he waited for the light to dwindle a little more, he thought it might be a good idea to review what he was getting into. Shadaico had very little magic in his reserves. He wouldn’t be casting many if any spells for a while. His back still screamed with pain from the screws, but that was nothing. The vibrations were what tortured him before. He could take the little ache they were causing him now.

Shadaico went over the basics of magic in his head too. He hadn’t used magic in over a year after all. Not since they finally defeated and captured him.

[Visual Aid]

Magic was divided into three trees of study, then it could be broken down into branches, and finally into specifics spells. The trees were called: Magic of the Heart, Life, and the Elements. Magic of the Elements was the largest tree with the most branches. It was all pretty self-explanatory too. The branches were Fire, Lightning, Wind, Water, Ice, and Earth. Shadaico didn’t know why they needed a separate branch for ice; it wasn’t like you could even learn it without first learning water magic.

Magic of Life was very common practice among civilians. The branches were Cursing, Healing, and Sealing. Healing Magic was the most practiced field of magic in the world. Virtually every magic wielder to ever live learned at least the basics. You’d have to be crazy not to learn healing spells. Magic could be a dangerous unpredictable force after all. Sealing was once considered among the non-categorized magics, but it had grown recently and gained a field of study. The Sealing branch was the smallest branch of magic among all three trees! Then there was Cursing, the least practiced art among all the trees and branches.

The knowledge to even perform curses had been dying for years. It was an art without a point these days, for three big reasons. Cursing was the most difficult magic to perform. The easiest curse could be twice as difficult to get right as the most powerful Wind spell in the book! Curses were also chant dependent. Normally, only rituals required chants to perform. But every curse there was required the user to memorize and say a few words. And finally, there wasn’t any benefit to cursing anymore. The field of Healing magic was so well practiced, known, and spread that it was practically a walk away to get the cure. As a result, it was believed that even learning to curse would soon completely disappear in only a few more years.

The final tree of magic was the most tricky, the Tree of Heart Magic. The two branches were the big magics when it came to combat, Light and Dark. The thing about these two branches that made them different from the other trees and their branches, was the fact that you could not practice both. No one could perform both Light and Dark magic spells, and you could literally count the number of exceptions on your fingers! It wasn’t a matter of being against the law or against the idea of right and wrong, but there was something about the body and magic that just wouldn’t let someone perform both.

The way it worked was pretty simple. The first one you perform a spell in, is the one you will practice for the rest of your life. Once you perform your first Light magic spell, your magic and your body won’t let you perform a Dark magic spell ever again, and vice versa. This rule is absolutely solid, and those who seek to break it usually end up wasting their time, or dead. The first trick would simply be to study the one you have been locked out of and try to perform it repeatedly. The result would be nothing. Your spells simply won’t do anything. The other trick was attempted by stupid teens trying to get access to both by performing a Dark and Light magic spell at the same time before they had locked themselves out of one.

As Shadaico’s father had warned him, this was literally suicide. The two magics, Light and Dark, are opposites. They don’t like each other and are destined to clash forever. When a wielder has not chosen his path and tries to cheat by performing one of each at the same time, the two types of magic backfire into his body to counteract each other! This will cause the one attempting it to explode in a great red mist! So don’t be a smart-aleck and just pick which one you want to practice for the rest of your life, Light magic or Dark magic. As could be expected, Shadaico had performed a Dark Magic spell first, so he would never be able to use Light Magic.

One final thing Shadaico noted was the unsorted spells; a handful of spells that didn’t fit into the trees and were simply practiced at one’s own discretion. Those spells included invisibility, telekinesis, and telepathy, among a few others. Shadaico’s mental review of his magical knowledge had taken up a decent amount of time and he felt it was just dark enough to begin the operation.

Ponies were still in the streets, but he could avoid them easily by weaving between alleys. He’d hide in the shadow of one and wait for a brief clearing of the street, and then dive for the next. The city did not have an orderly grid design, which made it a little harder to get from one alley to another unseen. He hoped that anypony that might see him would pass him off as just a wild dog or another pony.

For a while, it worked. No alarms were going off and he had yet to hear a scream. Shadaico grinned, he was getting cocky. But when he peaked around the next corner, he choked. It was full of ponies going about late night purchases. I bet someone out there is selling drugs, Shadaico grumbled in his head. He backed into the alley and contemplated his next move. How was he going to get through the crowd and make his way to the castle? Maybe he had started too early. He was probably going to have to wait for the sun to firmly set. Its glare was just barely still visible.

Shadaico ground his teeth a little as he leaned against the wall. Wait, I’m in an alley. He looked upwards and saw exactly what he wanted to see. Looking around the thin alley, he spotted a tall green dumpster. Their roads might have been clean but they still needed places to put their trash. The dumpster was stained and rusted, but he wasn’t interested in it for its appearance. Shadaico leapt on top of it and then to a window sill. It was very thin, but he kept his narrow footing. Shadaico tapped into his small magic supply and attained a second of flight as he leapt to the roof of one of the buildings.

Shadaico barely made it and had slipped slightly when he landed. He pulled his back legs up and shook out his fur. “Whew, what a jump,” he chuckled. He then made his way jumping from rooftop to rooftop. The allies below served as cannons to be traversed by his powerful legs. That was something Shadaico found convenient; his new wolf body was very strong. How strong, he wasn’t sure exactly, but he was having little trouble making the gaps.

He couldn’t stay up there for long though. The sun went below the horizon and the street lights went on. The soft pitter of his paws on the stone roofs ground to a halt as the walls around the castle came into view. There was a road, a clearing as Shadaico saw it, around the wall. He would not be able to jump from this roof to, and over, the wall. The guard ponies patrolling both the street and the trail along the top of the wall itself didn’t make it look any easier either.

“How do I get past that?” he asked himself. He could easily use his Wind magic again to amplify his jump. It would be incredibly cool to leap the 50 foot gap, but it would use all of his magic. He didn’t want to do that unless it was his last possible option. Shadaico began looking around for a non-suspicious alternative. He found the weirdest and probably most insulting one imaginable. He made another quick leap, but he had to put just a hint of Wind magic into it to complete the jump. He had leapt across the street so he was on the roof of the houses on the other side. He leapt over another alley and began scanning the clearing below for guards.

“This has to be the most pathetic security force in the world,” Shadaico spotted the golden armor and white coats of the guards easily in the night. There was also how he intended to get into the castle that bothered him. There was a huge tree growing right into the wall. The wall actually looked structurally challenged because of it! Cracks rang along the wall and the whole thing looked like it bent upwards because of the trees roots growing below.

Shadaico had two options; he could dig along the roots and hope he emerged on the other side, or he could use it to scale the wall. He planned to scale it. Digging is dogs work! Wait, Shadaico groaned at his own insult backfiring. He quickly moved on though, he had work to do. “Nash, you’re going to owe me big for this.” Shadaico jumped down from the roof and charged across the clearing as soon as none of the guards were looking.

Hiding in the shadow of the tree, he quickly pulled himself over each branch and gradually reached the top. He stopped himself from just running out over the top of the wall. He peaked out and quickly ducked back down as a guard walked past. This one had been a dark brown color with a horn instead of being a white pegasus. He waited an additional second before he jumped out of the tree’s leaves and dashed across the wall's roof before he jumped down on the other side. He found himself in a courtyard full of statues and a tall hedge maze.

He could get lost if he went into the maze, but if anything went wrong, it would be a good place to go to lose the guards. Shadaico made sure to avoid the building and stay near the statues as he sneaked toward the only visible entrance from the courtyard. Two large torches burned on either side of a large pair of red iron doors. Three steps led up to a small platform where two unicorn guards stood in front of the doors. Looking down, Shadaico saw a rock and decided to test his luck.

He instinctually reached down and picked it up with his paw. When he lifted it to his face he paused, “how did I do that?” His paw was strangely flexible compared to normal dog’s paw, but he wasn’t complaining. He aimed the rock at a nearby bush and threw it as hard as he could. The small rock tore through the bush with incredible force and got both guards to wander off. “Why does that always work?” Shadaico shook his head as he made his way into the castle. If he ever built a castle and had an army of guards, he’d train them not to leave their posts for any reason. Especially small noises out in the dark where they can’t see.

Shadaico made sure to close the door once he was inside, he didn’t need them getting suspicious when they came back. But where did he go from here? The hall was pretty fancy; potted plants, red carpet, and paintings lined the marble hall. Shadaico used a second long telepathic link with Nash to get an idea of where he was rather than talk to him. “I’m going to kill him,” Shadaico growled. Nash was on one of the higher floors on the other side of the castle. Shadaico would have to walk through almost the entire structure to get there!

Luck was on his side as the halls seemed devoid of anyone. The late hour had led to a downsize in security and many of the torches had been allowed to go out. The halls were pretty dark and an eerie quiet radiated from both directions. Shadaico picked a direction and began his journey. Shadaico moved as quickly as he could without making a horrible racket, which proved to be a good run. The hall he picked was lined with doors, pointless columns, and the dark.

The hall came to a “T” intersection. The road that went right led to another long hall. The hall straight ahead was a staircase going up. Shadaico didn’t even have to think about it as he went upstairs. Again, no guards got in his way. It was like the interior was considered unreachable or something and they just didn’t bother having any indoor defenses. Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining, he mused. The new hall went straight for only a dozen feet and then turned right as well.

Around the bend was another pair of doors. Shadaico had to slam the brakes so that he wouldn’t run out and be spotted by the two guards. But something was wrong, these weren’t like the guard’s he’d seen before. These guys looked a lot like the Nightmare Soldiers from back home, only as ponies. They had the pony body, but with bat wings, gold dragon eyes, dark purple armor, and fangs. They were far more intimidating then the previous guards. How am I going to get past you idiots?

Shadaico waited with just his eye dangling around the corner…until it happened. He didn’t have to wait long for one of them to yawn. Without a moment’s hesitation, Shadaico burst out of his cover and charged the guard who wasn’t in the middle of yawning. The demonic pegasus didn’t know what hit him as Shadaico delivered a powerful palm (paw?) strike to the side of his face and knocked him out cold. The other guard could barely register what happened as he regained his hearing and found a wolf striking him in the face.

Shadaico stood proud with two unconscious guards before him. “Now what were you gentlemen guarding?” He slowly opened the doors and found himself outside. “What the-?” Shadaico asked himself. He shut the door behind him and made his way across the stone bridge to the other side where another pair of double doors waited for him. Shadaico knew there would be guards on the other side, but he had an idea. When he got there, he pushed one of the doors open a crack and then stood off to the side. He waited for the telltale sign that one of the two guards had gone to close the door from the other side.

When the door started to move, Shadaico shoved his paw through and grabbed his chest armor and ripped him outside! The bat-winged pegasus had no idea what was happening as Shadaico put him in a choke hold and took a few shaky steps away from the door. The other guard quickly opened the door and stared at the scene. His partner was being strangled by a wolf with screws jutting out of its back! It was like a monster out of some horror novel. Its eyes clearly told him that if he moved, it would break his partner’s neck. The second guard kept his distance as Shadaico felt the creature in his paws go limp. Slowly, he let him slip out of his grasp and onto the floor. He then stood with his chest puffed out as he took slow strong steps toward the other guard. As he expected from a herbivore like a pony, when a predator was approaching, it froze up.

Shadaico made quick work of him by knocking his hooves out from under him and giving his head a little help as he slammed it into the ground below. He was out cold. “Hmph,” Shadaico was so not impressed with their security. Why didn’t the other guard just go call for help rather than stand there and watch? “Idiots,” Shadaico giggled. He went inside and found the halls just as dark as before. He still needed to get to the third floor where Nash was, but where was the stairs?

The answer came to him on the left. There was an alcove carved into the wall where two sets of stairs sat side-by-side, a standard double staircase. The one on the left went up, while the one on the right went down. Shadaico obviously went up. Finally on the third floor, he was only a few empty halls from Nash! So he began moving again. He didn’t want to be in this castle any longer then he had to.

The final hall was just ahead, Shadaico made sure he looked around the corner before just going for it. The hall was empty except for two of the demonic pegasi guarding only one of the rooms in the entire hall. Gee, I wonder what’s in there, Shadaico shook his head. These ponies just couldn’t disappoint him anymore it seemed. Shadaico suddenly heard hoofsteps behind him. He flicked his head around and saw a pair of patrolling guards walk by at one of the past intersections. Whew, close call. Wait, Shadaico froze up. He had knocked out four guards and just left them lying around!

He hadn’t considered the possibility of patrolling guards showing up and finding them. He was thoroughly screwed. [No pun intended] Shadaico had a few minutes tops, so he had to move it now. Who knew when the alarms would go off. Shadaico flew out of his hiding spot and charged down the entire hall, shooting the few sparks of magic he had left!

*****

The dark princess had left him alone in her room again. She had given him more water to drink and she seemed to trust him a little more because she didn’t put the barriers up this time. But he was still lonely in the jar. The clock ticked and somewhere far away he could hear steps. The jar muffled everything, so Nash wasn’t sure if there was even anything else to listen to.

Suddenly, the door burst open! Flying into the room was a massive black wolf! Nash was about to panic, when he saw the screws in its back. It was Shadaico. “Wait…Shadaico!!” He ignored Nash as he began looking around the room desperately.

“Think-think-think-think-think-think-think-think-think-think-think-think-think," Shadaico was mumbling at a hundred miles a minute.

Nash tried calling out, “Shadaico, it’s me, Nash! I’m over here, in the jar!”

“Come on, THINK! What am I going to do?” Shadaico seemed like he was in a panic as he ran along the edges of the room.

“Shadaico? Hello, I’m right here!”

He stopped bouncing around the room and told Nash off, “I’m not blind. I know that’s you--wow. You did get small.” Shadaico suddenly smacked himself. “We don’t have time for this. Shut up so I can think.”

“About what?” Nash pressed.

“How I’m going to get you out of here quickly, now shut up!” He ran over to the bed and ripped the sheets off with his mouth. “Wait, he’d suffocate,” Shadaico grumbled to himself. He continued to look around the room until he spotted the closet. Shadaico took all of three seconds to get to it and rip the door open. He began digging through the various random objects that were stored in there. “YES!!” Shadaico declared victory in the closet.

Shadaico had a new bounce to his step as he emerged from the closet with a small rusty lantern. There was a small used white candle still imbedded in the center and some of the glass had burn marks on it making it ugly. “Should be big enough,” he rambled as he undid the latch and pulled the old candle out and threw it off to the side. The lantern had a loop on the top so it could be hung from a hook, but Shadaico intended to carry it in his mouth as he broke Nash out of the castle.

“Oh no! You are not putting me in that!” Nash protested as Shadaico went to grab the jar.

“There is no time to argue! We have to go, the alarms going to go off at any second!”

“What did you do?!” Nash asked as Shadaico took the jar off the desk.

“Something really stupid,” Shadaico huffed as he tossed Nash into the lantern not very gently.

“Hey, that hurt!”

“Sorry, but we got to go now!” Shadaico bit down on the ring and ripped the lantern with Nash in it into the air as went back out into the hall. The ride was not pleasant for Nash. The lantern was smaller than the jar had been, at only about six feet of floor space, which was three inches in reality.

Shadaico burst out into the hall and froze. A dark ebony alicorn with a wispy energy like mane and tail was standing at the end of the hall staring at him. “Oh shit,” Shadaico whispered. Luna had just been returning to her room when she saw her guards were unconscious on the floor. Before she had time to even approach them though, a massive black wolf had exploded out of her room with the changeling in a lantern he carried from his large mouth.

None of them moved. Shadaico waited for her to make the first move. He couldn’t move first because he had absolutely no magic left. Technically, he had more than he could ever use, but he couldn’t access it because it was sealed by the chain and screws. Luna was waiting for the wolf to move because she wanted it to tell her, by its actions, if it was hostile. If it ran, she could catch it and subdue it. But if it attacked her, she would know it was the enemy and she could fight it, even kill it. Nash sat there, powerless. No one was moving and it was a stalemate if they didn’t. Nash wanted something to happen just to break the tension in the air. He got his wish…

One of Luna’s night guards materialized behind her screaming about a possible intruder. In the briefest of moments, Luna took her attention away from the wolf, which Shadaico used to turn and bolt! Luna quickly saw it running and told the guard to wake Celestia immediately while she gave chase to the wolf.

Corner after corner, bend after bend, Shadaico was lost. The alicorn had forced him down the wrong hall and he had completely lost his sense of direction. Shadaico had no idea where to go. He was somehow able to duck and weave between groups of guards that kept showing up, and he was somehow able to outrun the dark alicorn behind him the whole time, all while carrying Nash in a lantern with his mouth. He didn’t have time to think about how rough the ride was for him, because he couldn’t afford to slow down.

“Slow down Shadaico! I’m going to throw up!” Nash yelled as he bounced around.

“Bear with me,” he slurred through the metal loop in his mouth.

Luna couldn’t understand why a wolf would go to all the trouble of kidnapping a changeling, small or not. Even if he did have a reason, why kidnap this one? Could this wolf be the changeling’s ally from before? What about the screws in its back? There was something powerful about them, the way they glowed, the way they clearly went through his shoulder blades yet didn’t interfere with his mobility. These two were both highly unique and on the run. The swarm of guards with Luna only continued to grow as the wolf seemed to have lost his way.

There was no telling where they were going. Luna wanted to start shooting the wolf, but she didn’t want to hit the lantern and kill the changeling. She couldn’t grab the lantern with her telekinesis either because it was moving around too much. In short, she and all the guards were stuck playing Ring-Around-The-Rosy until the wolf came to a stop.

When the wolf made another turn, Celestia was waiting at the end of the hall with a line of her own guards! She looked fully awake, fully alert, fully ready to fight, and fully dressed. How her sister had done it all so fast was beyond Luna. The wolf didn’t stop however. Shadaico continued his mad dash towards her, in fact, he seemed to actually accelerate! “What is he doing?” Luna asked herself. He must have been suicidal.

For some reason, neither Celestia nor any of her guards prepared to shoot magic at Shadaico. They were all calm and stood strong. Shadaico saw what was happening only when it was too late. He had fallen into their trap and he had figured it out just as he went to make the turn. The blockade in the hall had been clumsily made just past another intersection. Shadaico had initially thought they were idiots and he could just take the turn and get away, but right before he went for it, he noticed their smiles.

Shadaico found himself exploding into a great throne room with a fine red carpet and wondrous drapes hanging from the rafters. Along with its fine marble columns and tile floor, the throne itself was of exquisite beauty. It had a small pool of water around it and gentle waterfalls. The carpet ran up to the throne where it turned into a pillow. And…oh yeah, the entire room was full of almost a hundred gold and black armored unicorn guards.

Shadaico slammed the brakes and looked around. Shit, now what? He thought. Without a moment to think, the lantern suddenly glowed blue and was ripped from his mouth as the dark alicorn levitated it to her. Shadaico almost jumped after it, but the fierce eyes and glowing horn of the white alicorn kept him rooted. His breathing was heavy from all the running, but he still found the air to growl like an animal.

Celestia made sure that her horn was packed with power should the wolf move while her younger sister continued to bring the changeling in. When the lantern got closer, they could clearly tell the ride for him had been pretty unpleasant. His pupils--if he had any--would clearly have been spinning. Other than that, he looked okay. Returning their attention to the wolf, he was ready for a fight. He obviously wasn’t thinking of surrendering.

Celestia was taken aback by the sight of the screws. What form of torture is that? She asked herself. The wolf barked at them. Nash was finally coming out of his daze and wondered what Shadaico was doing, barking like a real wolf. As he looked up, he could tell Shadaico was doomed. There was no way out, but he wasn’t backing down! Shadaico’s head was turning like crazy. What do I do, how do I get out of this? He had no idea what to do as he looked around. Outnumbered, outgunned, out planned; he’d never been in such a position before.

“Shadaico, there’s a glass window behind the throne! GO! Get out of here!” Nash yelled at him.

“What about you?” he couldn’t believe Nash’s proposed plan.

“I’ll be fine, they don’t actually want to hurt me. They want to study me, I think.”

“I came here to bust you out and that’s what I’m going to do!”

“You can’t win!”

“Then I’ll die trying,” he showed his teeth as he growled.

“And then what?! You’ll spend eternity in hell!”

Shadaico’s violent stance dissipated, “but Nash--“

“Dying here won’t do either of us any good. Now escape, so we can fight another day.”

Shadaico bent his knees and lowered his head slightly as he thought. “I’ll come back once I’ve recovered. Goodbye Nash...I’m sorry.” Shadaico was so angry with himself. He was accepting defeat, but he didn’t have a chance in this fight.

Celestia and Luna had watched the exchange carefully. The small changeling's begging had gotten the wolf to drop his aggression for a moment. “Get ready Luna, he’s about to make his move,” Celestia advised her sister.

Luna gave a single nod as she lowered her body. They were both ready for anything he could do…except bolt towards the throne. The guards that encircled him prepared their spells, but Celestia was faster. She reached out with her telekinesis and grabbed at him. But she missed and only grabbed the screws on his back.

Shadaico howled in pain as Celestia wrenched on the sealing screws. Nash was quick to start screaming for her to stop. Shadaico's painful screams sent the exact message Celestia wanted to hear. She knew she could get him to submit to surrender if she kept pulling on the screws. They obviously caused him pain with just the slightest tug. Luna didn’t like this plan. She knew what her sister was thinking, but those torture screws weren’t designed to be pulled on. The agony it caused must have been unimaginable.

Shadaico felt like his entire back was being ripped from his body. He didn’t think his sanity would hold together as the sheer torturous pain tore through his bones. He collapsed on the ground and whimpered, he couldn't believe that he was remaining conscious through this. Celestia made her demand, “surrender and we will not hurt you anymore!” She then released her grip on him so he could decide to given in. It was true that Celestia didn't want to hurt him. Her mistake with Nash was still fresh on her mind. She desperately hoped the wolf would not run again.

Shadaico took a minute to get back on his paws, but that’s all he could do. His limbs shook from the fading agony and his breathing wouldn’t slow down. It had almost been as bad as when they executed him. I’ve got to get out of here! He only now realized just how badly he had underestimated the ponies. Shadaico went to run again, but Celestia saw his move. Celestia grabbed all four screws again and yanked on them at the same time Shadaico lunged forward trying to get away.

The sound of tearing flesh resounded off the walls of the throne room as the four large golden screws were torn from the body of the black wolf............

Author's Note:

That last part just makes me think of this song

Comments

[Redderject]

Last sentence was the 'you dun goofed' moment of the chapter. I can't friggin' wait for the next part!

[Armadaes]

lets rock......

[Fat Autistic Weeaboo2222]

fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/219/7/1/mlp___hush_now__mommy____by_danteincognito-d5a6bxq.jpg NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Zephyrus Scary]

back fire

and

stale mate

are both one words.

he could here steps.

should be "hear."

[The perspectives are all fused to help the action flow better]

... Don't. Need. This ... Get. Rid. Of. It!

Oh, Shadaico... I knew he was a pretty big idiot, but... damn. Part of me is, for some reason, still hoping he's not going to die. Here and now, anyway.

[nightshade745]

1846944
Thank You, Thank You, and Thank You...and it's gone.