Flora waves at us as we gather on the edge of the roof overlooking the Drachenberg streets we have to take.
“Good luck, boys. I’ll be covering your plots.”
Others salute, and I wave back. It feels a bit more personal.
“Hey, Flora,” I say to the microphone, “If anything goes wrong down there with me and Crom… thanks for everything. You helped me a ton when I first arrived to this town, and no matter your reasons and the consequences you’ve been a great help all this time.”
“Come on, saying it like this sounds like a goodbye.”
“I’m about to face a Corrupted griffon warrior who possesses some amount of divine power and has centuries of combat experience. If he… if he doesn’t remember… I know how much can go wrong, and I want you… all of you, actually, although I know you are here on Nicolai’s orders, to know that I appreciate what you’re doing.”
And another salute, this time to me. That’s all. Nothing more needs to be said.
“So, what now? Stairs again?”
With a flash of light and a hiss, two agents drill something into the concrete. Huh, hooks.
Oh geez, ropes, really?
“I hate to break it to you, but hooves aren’t the best for climbing, though I used to be decent at it back in school. I was better with poles, though.”
So many innuendos. SO MANY.
“Hmm,” hums Nicolai thoughtfully and hands me one of the ropes, “Will the knots be enough?”
At very short regular intervals, there are bulges everywhere I can reach. They are big enough to be grabbed with locked fetlocks.
MORE innuendos. Yep, I’m getting close to Crom.
“Yeah,” I nod. Unless I forgot everything from the quick practice before the last time I climbed up a mountain, I should be alright.
“Good,” he gives one end to a griffon who fastens it to the prepared hook, and throws the other one into the darkness, “Get down there, secure the alley, and look for any Corrupted in the vicinity. I have a static image of the area scan we got, and Flora will update us via the radio about all bigger movements.”
The first two griffons start climbing. After a short moment, two more drop off of the roof. I don’t know how quick the agents are, but the ropes are clearly strong enough to hold at least four climbing pairs at the same time. My legs are shaking when it’s my time, but that’s normal by now. Carefully locking my hind legs around the rope, I feel the heavy weight of my backpack dragging me down.
One knot, two knots, three…
No, bad brain! Stop with the images of me in a bathroom surrounded by diamond dogs.
No, I don’t care how great of an idea that is. Now’s knot the time.
Can someone up there cut the rope, please? I'd consider it mercy at this point.
Shush, head!
It serves as the perfect distraction, though, and neither the whistling wind nor the growing weight stop me from safely getting down. Yes, I am slower than the agents, but who cares...
“Status report,” says Nicolai.
“Two Corrupted behind that dumpster. One of them looked at us when we got down, likely curious about the dropped ropes, but then he just went back to sleep.”
Pretty lucky. I wonder when the horrible part is about to start.
“Three Corrupted lying around in boxes or in bushes on the main street. Our best bet is to go down the middle of the road, since the Corrupted prefer to sleep in cover. We’re pretty lucky since it looks like most of them are inside for the night.”
“Corrupted don’t exactly like cold, I think,” I mutter, “at least longer exposure to it.”
“According to our data, Corrupted don’t mind rougher climate.”
“They don’t mind the climate, nor will they be significantly hurt by low temperatures I think, but they won’t seek it out if there’s a more comfortable option. If possible, they will at least look for a shelter from wind.”
Nicolai looks at his glowing map and makes it zoom in. The buildings along the road indeed do have bigger red clouds in them.
“Checks out,” he says, “Let’s take the middle of the road then.”
As we sneak out of the alley, I wonder how I know. I guess it’s just a memory of how I felt when I was a Corruptor. It quickly turns out that the slightly gooped asphalt is no match for our muffler boots, and the only reaction we elicit from the sleeping Corrupted is a curiously wobbling back tentacle or two. It is clear that while we can’t stop ourselves from making the air move, the windy night covers our progress just fine.
Well, until-
“Movement on two o’clock! Hostile contact,” warns our point guard, which is followed by a clearly unreasonable amount of firepower aimed in the reported direction.
A corrupted griffon Hunter -damn, we really need a name to separate them from pony Corrupted. There are far too many differences- is prowling towards us. Even with his low-arched back and sneaky posture, he is as tall as the agents standing up straight. His back tentacles are swaying menacingly, and he looks ready to pounce at any given moment.
Yes, he is over ten pony lengths away, what of it?
“Back off, back off,” mutters Nicolai. I’m not sure if the Corrupted can hear our voices from inside the helmets, but there’s no reason to risk anything, “Blazing, can we repeat what we did in the shopping mall?”
“Nope. What’s your quietest gun and how quiet is it?”
“I guess it’s time to use the beam charges then,” he says, “Aim, and let’s hope no one is looking, because it’s going to be pretty bright for a while.”
“Slow down, commander,” I hear Flora’s voice, “I’ve got the cannon prepared and your problem in my sights. Calibrations are done, and the spinny things are spinning.”
“Alright, Flora, shoot when you’re ready,” Nicolai raises his foreleg, “Everyone stop! Let’s make the enemy’s movement as predictable as possible.”
The agents freeze, not lowering their long pyramid-y rifles though.
I hate to say it, but Flora’s weapon will wake up everything and send it rushing straight towards her. Oh well, I guess sneaking time had to end at some point.
A deep, slow ’whooooom!’, not unlike a single bass string being rung, resonates through the sky, and-
-the upper half of the Corrupted’s torso disappears completely, ripped to small shreds scattering wide across the street. His head and neck fall on the ground, twitching, followed by his lower body gradually keeling over, liquifying, and draining into the hungry dark tainted asphalt.
After that, only silence. No Corrupted hunting howls, no curious growling, nothing, as if this encounter never even happened.
“Target eliminated,” says Flora, “Stop standing there and admiring my work. You’ve got a job to do.”
“I’m admiring my engineers, Flora,” mumbles Nicolai, still sounding a bit detached, “We didn’t have any real data aside from firing range experiments.”
“Which I passed with flying colours, now move your ass… boss.”
“Right,” he recovers, “Everyone, let’s keep moving. Flora, tell us if we have to take a route that’ll make you lose vision.”
“Will do.”
And just like that, we’re running again through the quiet night streets of Drachenberg. I can’t let what just happened slide, though.
“Ehh, what the hay was that, Nicolai? I saw sniper rifles in Manehattan. They go boom and someone has a hole in their lightly armored head. They don’t go full quiet whoom and half of a Corrupted Hunter is suddenly missing.”
He chuckles.
“It is a sniper rifle, technically, albeit a bigger one. You see, Flora has excellent eyesight and amazing sense for distance distortion. If you put a scope on a mace, she would hit the Corrupted with it from her roof.”
“Heh, you might think that was a joke, but I’ve seen some space-bending stuff in my time.”
“I can imagine. Anyway, thanks to her excellent aim, Flora was chosen to test our new long-range weapon we call a gauss rifle. It’s an attempt to shrink a cannon we very rarely deploy against ships and tanks.”
“What does it do exactly?”
“In short, it uses electrmagnetic field to accelerate special bullets enough to go across vast distances. The full-size cannons can reach from Griffonstone to Manehattan. There’s no explosion, very little noise, and no light.”
“Oh god...”
“Which one?”
“All three of them suck and I wish they were repeatedly shot with that damn thing.”
“Heh.”
“And the rifle version?”
“Works well enough, as you saw. The problem is that it requires a lot of power and a solid stationary place to fire it. When Flora puts together all the necessary bits and pieces it looks like a griffon-sized turret more than a rifle. Plus, there’s a delay between firing the shot and it leaving the barrel, which is why Flora’s aim and prediction are vital.”
“The bullets though. I get that they fly faster, but a Corrupted’s chest got completely shredded.”
“Yeeeeah, we’re kind of using ammunition banned by international treaties here. Any complaints?”
“I’ll take anything that makes my life a bit easier, thank you very much. The bullet didn’t sound like an explosive one, though.”
“No, pressurized gas shattered the container as soon as it got damaged by penetrating the tough Corrupted skin.”
“Do your other guys have rifles with those things? Or miniguns, like Cassius’ power armor guards.”
“No. As I said, the production and use of these things are banned internationally, but what wouldn’t I do for someone whom I owe so much, right?”
“And now the real reason?”
“The caliber of bullets used by standard assault rifles doesn’t allow for this kind of ammo. Flora’s stationary gauss rifle is the only big enough thing we’ve got here to use those. We only have normal armor piercing rounds, some acid bombs, napalm, and the beam rifles. Special ammo like hollow point bullets and various other kinds poisonous, crippling, or deadly to griffons straight up fails to bother a Corrupted.”
“Only...”
“This isn’t a place where I would want to be with some pea shooter.”
Passing a big black pile of yet another sleepy corrupted griffon lying by a news stand, I couldn’t agree more. The thing is that I still have my doubts about how useful our weapons would be if we had to fight and woke the whole neighbourhood up.
As if I called it, when our surroundings change from the main streets to roads dusted with sand criss-crossing the outskirts of Drachenberg, a huge corrupted griffon walks out of a side-alley ahead of us.
A Protector patrolling his territory even through the night.
Sadly, whether we are about to enter or leave his territory doesn’t matter at this point. He knows about us, and he’s angry.
“Aim!” orders Nicolai calmly, making the agents stop and prepare their heavy weapons.
Silently, the griffon charges straight at us. This time I have enough foresight to look down at the ground and close my eyes as well.
As the barrage of bright light accompanied by electronic buzzing ends, I look back up again to see the smoldering Corrupted, parts of his black skin and feathers charred and hissing. However, the lack of any significant damage is shocking. Those beams cut a hole through a Hunter, and yet a Protector just shrugged them off. Fortunately, he’s now standing still two ponies away from our front line, breathing heavily and visibly seething.
Our attack might not have wounded him much, but it definitely HURT.
Then he takes a step backwards, and begins opening his beak.
Time slows down for me. I see everything, every reaction is in slow motion because deep down I know this is the worst possible outcome. He’s about to scream, and we’re about to have comp-
*WHOOOOOM!*
The Protector’s body jerks backwards as Flora’s projectile shatters against his chest, making him do a half-backflip.
“Tsch- I was aiming for the head. Note to self- these bullets make the falloff range go down,” I hear her voice.
The Protector is already getting back up. The beam rifles are still recharging.
“Acid!” is Nicolai’s next order, and within a fraction of a second a bunch of small containers shatter against the rising body. The tainted flesh is melting too slowly...
I see the beak open again. This time the screech is coming.
Can the balancing divinity allow me to go hoof to hoof against a Corrupted?
That passing thought makes me jump forward towards the hissing monster, levitate my sword, punch the Corrupted’s chest which gives in as if he was a muscular but normal griffon, all that while my Black Ops blade goes into his beak and upwards through his brain and skull.
No resistance.
You can rip me in half with a good swipe.
I can now do the same, bastard.
With bit more telekinetic focus, I rip my sword out of the Corrupted, slicing off half of his head in the process and turning back towards the completely stumped agents as the body falls on the ground and dissolves.
“...holy feathers!”
“...I thought he was just some rich bigwig.”
“...I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“...how?!”
The whispered comments of agents forgetting our open comms make me grin inside my helmet.
“Blazing, you do have the standard issue Black Ops sword, right?” asks Flora, “Because if not, I want what you’re having.”
“To be honest, Flora, I’d like to take a look at your rifle too, but no, the sword isn’t the reason,” I answer as I flick the black goo off of the blade and sheathe it.
“Cut the chatter,” says Nicolai firmly, “The lightshow must have woken at least someone up. We need to move. Any movements, Flora?”
“Not as far as I can see, but hauling ass does sound like a great plan. You’re not far anyway.”
Those words make my breathing quicken.
Almost there.
My legs are shaking again.
Nicolai takes out his floaty map once more.
“Move!” he orders.
Minutes later -five, ten, fifteen, thirty? I don’t know anymore- we arrive to a familiar neighbourhood. One-story houses, dashed and stomped black gardens, broken white fences grown through with tainted tendrils. I was here when it was still a place of peace and serenity.
I don’t need the agents to lead the way anymore. The point guard eventually stops with a raised foreleg.
“Target in sight. Sleeping in under the window. Requesting confirmation.”
I look to where he’s pointing.
“Yes, that’s him. Stay back and let me talk.”
There’s a terrifyingly huge pile of black and grey feathers, oily fur, tentacles, and bulging muscles indeed lying under his house’s side window which is slowly rising up and down in regular intervals. The masking ability of the Black Ops suit is amazing, because his back tentacles don’t appear until I’m about two pony lengths away from him, upon which I stop.
“Cro?” I say quietly, taking my helmet off and using my magical vision along with what little I can see normally, “Wake up, it’s me.”
With a growl, Cromach opens his bright green eyes glowing in the darkness. There is no moment of waking surprise or uncertainty, he’s focused at me. As he stands up, I finally fully realize how massive he is.
Crom is almost three times as tall as I am, with a curved beak, talons half as long as my foreleg and nearly as thick. More than before, every muscle on his body is defined to perfection visible even through the combination of black and grey of both his fur and feathers. The plumes of his wings look like folded steel, dwarfing his back tentacles as he spreads them wide. Last, but not least, a thick, long tail whips the wall behind him, scattering mortar everywhere.
“It’s me, Blazing Light. I- I know it’s been long… far too long, Cro. I know all this,” I raise my hoof and circle it around, “is my fault. But I also know that you never forgot over the centuries, that you had pictures of me and everyone else in your office. Bucket told me you kept waiting no matter what happened, that you were… certain I would come back at some point. I need you.”
He takes a single step to me, sniffing the air.
Curiously, maybe?
“Look, I know that deep down you would never lose yourself to Harmony’s curse. You fought hard by my side, and much longer afterwards. These are just words, but I love you. I love you so much that I was scared of everything on the way here. I was scared I won’t make it here in time, that I won’t make it here at all. I was terrified I won’t be able to feel what I used to towards you, or that I won’t be able to show you.”
I’m rambling… and crying.
“But I’m here right now. I love you harder than ever before. Nothing has stopped me, not the gods, not Corrupted, not griffons, not- urk!”
As my hooves leave the ground, I look down at the three talons impaling my barrel.
“-”
I try to say something, but I just gurgle as blood trickles out of my mouth.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
The screech rings through Drachenberg, and echoes between the houses as well as tall business buildings.
In few seconds, Corrupted will answer the call and come. The agents will die, Nicolai and Flora too.
I didn’t make it in time.
Every breath is harder than the one before as I choke down more blood.
The physical pain is nothing, though, compared to the agony of my heart feeling as if it has just been ripped out.
That’s all right, though…
You gave me the best few years of my life…
You can take… all the rest… away...