//------------------------------// // Off-Spec // Story: A Battleground of Kindness // by StormDancer //------------------------------// Wasn't the first time I've had my face used as a doorstop. Wasn't the first time I've found out that blunt impacts can leave open wounds. WAS the first time I've discovered that flying horse beasts can propel themselves at near ballista speeds and maintain the aerial maneuverability to aim at a tiny window and strike from a quarter mile away. Spike may have just fallen a bit on my list of 'potentially more dangerous than the Master believes' list. My list is a list and I just absorbed the momentum of a small equine traveling at near-teleport speeds. I'm allowed to say list twice. Either way, my course was clear... it was time to ignore the rules and defend the Master! Fireballs! Well, it would have been fireballs but, like I said, I was a little bit out of it. So, instead of a heart stopping battlecry and the roar of fel fire screaming through the air to impact the blue invader, there was quite a bit more stumbling involved and an overturned tea kettle. -~oOo~- Once the soothing caress of boiling tea and overheated metal had sobered me up from my stupor, I came to the realization that the Master had been wholly unprotected for however long my loss of senses had been. I scrambled to my feet, tripped over the oven mitts that had been placed for the teapot, nearly fell down the stairs to my Master's lab, and barely managed to grab the leg of the blue assassin. I say "barely" because, as I've said before, my fingers are like daggers. There was blood. There was screaming. There was a kick of the type that was becoming increasingly familiar as being reminiscent of the smelly, orange, 'farmer'... but was, in this case, actually from a smelly, blue, aerial warrior. I would like to say that I held on doggedly; that I bore its violent thrashings as a demon in the most glorious sense. I would like to be able to state that when that beast planted its hooves into the ground and kicked, that I bore the impact with a stoicism reserved for fel reavers and other monstrous creations that habitually shrug off siege weapons. I would be lying.... which the Master continues to claim is "dishonest" and therefor "naughty." I was launched like a stormbolt, shrieking, through the door to the Master's lab. Bounced off the ceiling to the stairwell, and promptly pinballed down the steps into a crate of broken Erlenmeyer flasks (yes.... the Master has endeavored to teach me their proper names) and onwards into a similarly compromised sack of Calcium Carbide. Calcium Carbide? It's a fancy chemical that alchemists use to light ice on fire. Little pinch of the stuff and pretty much any heat source and the flames can cut metal. As a side note, I was unaware, exactly, what I had fallen into, which should explain exactly why I was confused why my own fire suddenly felt hot. Real hot. Really, REALLY hot. Suffice it to say that my screams of pain and fleeing at high speeds towards the nearest source of water (the kitchen sink), may have been misinterpreted as a sign of aggression. Also, I stand by my assessment of this "Rainbow Dash." It is most definitely the most ready combatant the Master has attempted to subjugate yet. When I came bolting up the stairs, leaving a trail of searing flames, screaming bloody murder (which, in my defense, is a relatively mundane thing back home), the Rainbow Dash spun around fast enough that I didn't even notice it. There was a thumping sound, which I ignored due to the pain of being bodily immolated, followed by the world seeming to abruptly change. One moment, I was fleeing the (chemically speaking) fires of hell, and the next? The next moment I found my face embedded in the porcelain basin of the sink. Oh... and before you think that was the end of my suffering, let me emphasize that "Spike" had been put in charge of doing the dishes... and had left the sink full of soapy water in anticipation of the end of "tea." Remember what I said about Calcium Carbide? Turns out that soapy water will ignite as well.... but even better! The stuff was all over me, so when I found myself stuck in the basin, my body fell into the water... the scalding-powder-of-inferal-suffering started to bubble from where it touched, and the bubbles started to froth over the sink. Combine highly flammable gasses with bubbles, add one partially incinerated imp, and you get a spreading field of flames capable of cutting metal and igniting wood at four paces. ... with me in the middle of it. And, at about that moment, I had an epiphany. ... what? I live with a mentally advanced crackpot with the magical reserves of a greater legion of warlocks. I learn fancy words from time to time. I remembered I could phase. The resulting combat was brief... though not of my choice. By the time I had leapt upon its face and started biting, the Master had regained her senses and pulled us apart. This "Rainbow Dash".... it is a worthy minion for my master. ... even if 'she' keeps shooting me death glares when the Master isn't looking. -~oOo~- "Tea" resumed with the decorum of one of the Dreadlords of Ruin. That is to say after a brief (though impressive) display of overwhelming force, all parties retired to the 'lounge,' whereafter the Master apologized to the Rainbow Dash and Rarity for the misunderstanding. Oddly, or perhaps to my good fortune, the Master spoke just as harshly to the Rainbow Dash as she did to me. Apparently, I was "not to blame" for the Rainbow Dash's ballistic fire (which it waved off as a *supposed* "crash landing"). There were heated 'words' exchanged between the Rarity and the Rainbow Dash over 'proper etiquette' and the inappropriate use of the lounge as a landing site. HAH! The Master planned ahead! I knew it! "Etiquette" must be some form of corrupted arcane spellform to muddle the senses and induce paranoid delusions. I'm actually rather surprised that the Master went this far. For all her power, she keeps almost convincing me that she is, in reality, just a wildly powerful, though naive, warlock. But- BUT then she goes and manages something like this! It was glorious! The Rainbow Dash had just started shouting about how I 'attacked her'... waving around her bloody legs as proof, when the Master glared, a glow surrounded its mouth, and the Master simply pointed out that it had crashed directly into me, and probably scared the 'living daylights' (whatever those are) out of me. The Rainbow Dash's ears began to flatten, but the Master continued. She pointed out that I had probably thought she was under attack, and that I was "very-VERY protective" of her. Then she pointed out that the Rainbow Dash and I were quite similar in that respect... which I highly doubt, but that's besides the point. I couldn't see the magic. I couldn't even sense the magic, but there it was.... working right in front of me! The Rainbow Dash began to almost wilt when the Master pointed out that I was "basically helpless" when she'd kicked me THROUGH the door, down a set of stairs and then into the Calcium Carbide (which she simply called the "fire powder" for the Rainbow Dash since it seems rather stupid), caught me on fire, then proceeded to make it even worse when I was only trying to put the fires out. There is no possible way that the Master wasn't using magic. This "etiquette" is some powerful stuff..... it reduced the Rainbow Dash to a 'polite', though clearly reluctant, participant in the "tea"... And I got off without any actual punishment. Oh? You were wondering how I was talked to harshly when I wasn't punished? Well... it went something like this. "Gakham!" said the Master, "Don't grab our guests. You wouldn't mean it, but your fingers are sharp and they could get hurt." And there it was. The Master turned her dark powers directly upon me. I had been grinning right up until the moment I realized that she was probably using high level etiquette upon me as well. Then.... well.... then........ I started to panic. It turns out that when I panic and don't phase, my fires get warmer... and, on a marginally related note, we're short another teapot. But on the upside, the Master has clearly claimed another minion. I couldn't be more proud.... unless that's her doing as well, but... well.... she IS the Master.