//------------------------------// // The Daughter of Uranus, Pt. 1 // Story: Flash Sentry, Savior of the Universe // by redsquirrel456 //------------------------------// Flash broke his plan to find the rats into three easy steps. Step one, a slice of cheesecake purchased from a local bakery. Step two, a lot of plaintive calling into holes in the walls. Step three: the cover of darkness. The mall parking lot was abandoned this late at night, and security consisted of a single person asleep at the wheel of his truck. The way Flash figured it, if nobody saw him squatting in bushes with a slice of cheesecake and asking holes in the wall for help, then nobody could call it strange behavior. It didn’t keep him from feeling stupid though. “Are you sure this is gonna work?” Brad asked, hovering nearby. “I’ve circled this place twice and not a single rat to be seen.” “I’m telling you, the cheesecake is key,” said Flash. “Once they smell this stuff they’ll come running.” “Oh, you do know us well, sir.” Flash and Brad later denied that their squeals of fright sounded anything like a suddenly deflating balloon, but Scuff only twitched his ears and kept his eyes on the cheesecake. He perched on the corner of an open dumpster, and behind him cowered a dozen pairs of hungry eyes. “Is that for us?” asked Scuff, pointing at the cheesecake. He seemed mesmerized. A dozen rats spilled out behind him, all their gazes locked on the cake. They followed its every move with disturbing precision, as if possessed by one mind. A very cheesy mind. “For us?” the other rats chirped and squeaked and chittered. “Is it for us? Can we eat it? For us! He brought something for us!” Flash stood up, holding the confectionary close to his chest. “It can be,” he said, “if you give me an audience with, uh. Your ratty kingdom, or whatever.” “We rats,” Scuff said proudly, cleaning his whiskers, “do not subject ourselves to the authority of kings and queens. There were a bunch of chaps who called themselves rat kings a while back. Nasty business to get, hehe, tangled up in.” “Say what?” “Never mind. What is important, sir, is that you came back! You came back to speak to us lowly rats! And you brought a…” Scuff regarded Brad with a look that could only be described as “disgusted confusion.” “A pigeon horse?” he wondered. “Looks ugly,” said one rat. “Looks fat!” said another. “Hey! That’s ‘pegasus’ to you little rodents!” Brad snapped, putting his hooves on his hips and flicking his mane. “Calling a pegasus a bird is really frowned on back where I’m from, buster! Like, literally, the Princesses will frown at you, and it’s super embarrassing. Also you have to spend a weekend at Compassion Camp.” “Speaking from experience?” Flash deadpanned. “No, I totally am not!” Brad squealed, in the way of those who meant ‘yes, I totally am.’ Flash turned back to Scuff. “Back on topic. We have a problem in the shape of an angry monster that may or may not also be an ancient goddess of death and retribution and we need your help to track it down before it kills someone.” Scuff blinked. “Goodness. You have been busy lately.” Flash sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I find it’s best to just take these things as they come. Anyway, I’m the only human who can see it and nobody will believe me if I tell them. I have no idea how to find this thing, so I figured you guys are my only option. So far it’s only killed cats and dogs and other animals, so I guess that it won’t bother with rats since you’re…” Flash felt a sudden blush and clamped his mouth shut. Scuff crossed his arms. Every rat behind him followed suit. “We’re what?” Scuff asked. “Yes, what?” asked a dozen other rats in chorus. “Uh.” Flash coughed and stuttered. “You’re so… s… small? Small! And yet so ubiquitous! Not, you know, unimportant or anything. Because you are so important. When you guys have your little rat revolution or whatever, I’m definitely siding with you.” Flash used his free hand to make a finger gun. His Trademark Smile was a little shaky, but it seemed to work. “Is that so?” Scuff wondered, a sly glint in his beady eye. “You can talk to animals and yet you come to rats bearing gifts and promising friendship? You wouldn’t feed us to the local cats when you are done?” “Well, I mean.” Flash shrugged. “I’m not really a cat person anyway. I almost dated this girl with purple hair once… Rarity, I think? Obsessed with fashion. We had some pretty sweet chemistry, up until her cat took a chunk out of my leg while she was fitting me for a tuxedo. ‘Either the cat goes or I go,’ I told her.” Brad winced. “Dumped for a cat? Ouch.” “Actually, she chose the tux.” “Say no more, good sir,” Scuff said, holding up his paw. “Honestly, you had us at ‘not a cat person.’ Having a human with the Sparkle who does not destroy us on sight could be an investment with many great returns. Give us the cake and for tonight our services are yours.” “Hold on a second,” Brad said. “You seem pretty confident you can help. How are you going to find this thing?” “It is a creature with the blood of dozens on its hands,” Scuff said, wiggling his nose. “If there is one thing that rats know, it is the smell of blood. We shall spread the word as quickly as we can. Every clan shall know: for this, a human promised friendship to the lowliest of creatures. We look for a dangerous beast for you, Flash Sentry. We shall expect recompense.” “You’ll get it,” Flash said. “Start at the abandoned brewery on 5th avenue; that’s where it might have been last. I’ll meet you there.” “It shall be done,” said Scuff, and with a chorus of squeaks, the rats and the cake disappeared in a flash of fur and naked tails. --- “You said you read a book on this kind of thing?” Flash said when they hit a red light. Brad didn’t answer at first. The pony leaned his head against the car window, where street lamps illuminated his shockingly blue mane. A queer feeling coiled in Flash’s stomach like a snake. Driving his car helped with that, usually. It did not help tonight. In the ten minutes since Scuff scurried off with the other rats to wherever rats scurry, Flash had time to think about what his plan. What he agreed to. He had made a pact with rats—rats!—to help hunt down and banish a demigod murder beast. He was a high school student with decent grades and a hot girlfriend. He had a car and money and sports scholarships in his future. He had good looks and a sick electric guitar. What exactly in that list made him think he was at all capable of doing this? “Yeah,” said Brad, tracing circles with his hoof on the cool leather of his seat. “I never saw a Kindly One face-to-face. But there’s procedures on how to deal with one.” “You guys get a lot of those?” “A lot of everything.” Brad smiled in a strange way. “The Guard has to handle a lot of stuff in their spare time. When the Princesses are busy we’re the first line of defense against monsters from every corner of the world. We help ponies no matter who they are or where they’re from. Everypony knows you can depend on us to be there when you need it.” He looked over at Flash and waggled his wings. “That’s why I’m here, Flash. I think you needed it.” The queer feeling in Flash’s gut intensified. “Right. So, about the Kindly One…” “Never say their true name, obviously. It’ll bring it right to you. Always have a clear route of escape. If possible, ask what it’s taking vengeance for. If possible, resolve the problem yourself.. The Kindly One must withdraw if there is nothing to avenge.” “Just like that?” “Just like that. Well, I mean, I never saw it, remember. And I haven’t the faintest idea who or what it’s looking for here.” Flash pursed his lips. “So, really, we don’t even have to fight it? We can just talk our way out of this if we convince it there’s no need to kill anyone.” Brad hesitated, mouth open, eyes searching. “Well… I guess so? I’ve never actually talked to one, but I have read reports where things were resolved peacefully. Usually it took a really really really smart pony like the Princesses to do that, though. But I do know it won’t kill without cause… it’s just that the ‘cause’ can be anything from getting between it and its prey to just annoying it.” “And the times it wasn’t resolved peacefully?” “Honestly, I don’t think we have a choice but to do whatever we can to stop it. It’s a monster made to hurt things, Flash. You know the story behind their creation, right?” “Yeah, the god Uranus got his joystick snipped off by his kid Cronus, and when it fell, the Kindly Ones were born from the blood that rained on the earth. Hard to forget a story like that,” Flash said, smiling. Reciting the research he did made him feel smart. Brad blinked, his mouth hanging open in disgust. “I… what? No, that’s not it at all! That’s disgusting! What kind of crazy person would write something like that?” “The Greeks, apparently. They had a lot of crazy stuff going on.” “No wonder everyone here wears so many layers, they’re clearly paranoid,” Brad muttered. “Ha! Yeah,” Flash said, squirming uncomfortably. Hopefully the ancients felt as awkward as he did. “So, that story…” “Right. Well, Cronus is a thing, I think, or maybe it’s got a different name, or a lot of different names. But anyway, the Kindly Ones were born like, a bazillion years ago, back before the Princesses, and some say before even ponies, but then you have to ask ‘how would ponies know if we weren’t there?’ But anyway, Cronus’ kids were grazing in a field, and one of them got all uppity and started eating all the other grass before it could grow back. He ate and ate and ate until all the earth was barren and brown. Now the other siblings were angry about this, but Cronus wasn’t there to mediate, since it was and is the Void That Hears, so instead of telling their brother to share, they got super mad and decided to ruin his next birthday party.” Flash blinked. “Wait. Wait, what was that with the, uh--” “And they stuffed his birthday cake with firecrackers, and theologians debate where those came from if the other brother ate everything--” “--the Void That Hears?” Flash said under his breath. “--but of course,” Brad tumbled on, “being a god that just made him real peeved, and there was some stuff about a war of gods or whatever, but it got so bad Cronus appeared again and said, ‘Because you have been total jerks to each other, the very next thing that grows from the ground shall be of your jerky-ness!’” Flash squinted, hard. “Yeah, I have a hard time believing Cronus talked like that.” Brad shrugged his wings. “Well, I cut out about eighty-seven verses of pontificating from the original text. But yeah, sure enough the very next thing that sprouted was the Kindly Ones themselves, full of all the revenge the children of Cronus spilled on the earth with their tit-for-tat squabbling. So now anyone with a grudge can draw them to him, and that’s where we get trouble.” “News flash,” Flash grumbled, “humans carry lots of grudges. The Kindly One is the only link we have to whatever drew it here. Can we just, like, ask it why? Would it tell us?” “We’ll only find out if Scuff pulls through.” They pulled into the empty lot surrounding the abandoned brewery. It had once been a mark of booming potential decades ago, built in a park-like area next to a stream that led to the woods outside town. But fickle fortune dictated the city expanded away from the brewery, and after imported alcohol became all the rage, the entire operation shut down. No new buildings had gone up near it, giving the place its own little private buffer zone, and thus, an air of isolated mystery. Only hobos and teens with nothing better to do hung out here, along with the occasional criminal, all of them using either the old lot or the trees nearby for shelter. While the rest of the city saw an economic upturn, nobody even considered buying the property for renovation. It continued to rot, and might one day be an anthropological curiosity. The entire building suffered a slow decay, teetering like an old man falling in slow motion. Blotches of rust stained every chimney, every tower, every wall, and broken windows gaped monstrously. It seemed to Flash the building dared people to come inside. Abandoned places always seemed to, and never for wholesome reasons. “What an ugly place,” Brad remarked as he hopped out of the car. “Yep,” said Flash, keeping a tight hold on the door before he shut it. A tiny part of him wanted to keep it open, in case he needed a quick getaway. “I like it,” said Scuff, somewhere around Flash’s left shoe. “It’s got many things going for it, like rust and shadows.” “Gah!” Flash jumped, reflexively covering his head with his arms. “Don’t do that, man! There could be a monster here!” “Oh, there isn’t,” said Scuff. “We already swept the area, and determined the beast is currently going south through the sewers.” Scuff smirked and snapped his claws; something Flash didn’t realize rats could actually do. It struck him as remarkably human, and the familiarity of it frightened him. Did rats always do such things when he wasn’t looking? How much were they hiding, and why? How much of his own world was Flash really ignorant of? The sound of rustling grass and tiny feet scampering over concrete and metal distracted him. All around seethed a black carpet of wriggling, squeaking bodies, convulsing and writhing over one another. The constant motion made counting them impossible, and Flash recoiled at the thought that maybe, just maybe that was as deliberate as Scuff snapping his claws. Maybe they didn’t want people to be able to count them, after all they did so many other things on purpose he hadn’t even considered before… “That was awful fast,” Brad said, squinting at the rats. “How many do you have working on this case?” Scuff puffed his chest and squared his shoulders, looking eminently pleased with himself. “Many little eyes and many little hands, flying horse. And squeaks travel far down pipes.” “Squeaks!” squeaked the other rats. “Squeaks in pipes, squeaks in pipes!” “Hoo boy,” Flash said, his skin tingling from the stares of a thousand and one beady, gleaming, so very intelligent eyes. “Lucky us. And you guys have checked out the brewery too?” “Empty of monsters with the Sparkle, sir,” said Scuff. “Though drenched with the smell of blood and anger. The Kindly One has been here more than once, possibly as a base of operations. It is old, and mostly private, and is centrally located within city limits. Incidentally, also a perfect place for our kind to muster.” “Perfect! Perfect!” the other rats echoed. “If this is where it’s been hiding out,” said Brad, “we might be able to figure out more about it. Even lay a trap!” “Like, antagonize it?” Flash wondered. “I thought you said these things could be talked to.” “If by ‘talk’ you mean ‘Kindly Ones can use words,’ then yeah, I guess they can be talked to,” Brad said, tucking his wings tight to his sides. “But there’s a lot more procedures on how to get rid of them than talk to them.” “There is, I must add, a little snag,” Scuff said, wriggling his snout. “We could not get a favorable picture of whatever lair the creature might have made for itself. There is another smell underneath the blood and anger. Something worse.” “Worse!” the chorus sang behind Scuff. “So much worse!” “A cat,” Scuff hissed, amplified by a thousand other little throats hissing and spitting and saying remarkably creative curses about the questionable parentage of all felines. “There’s a cat in there?” asked Flash. “Yes!” “... Like, just the one?” “Working for the monster! A monster to keep the company of monsters!” Scuff said, clenching his wee little paws over his heart. “Probably a guard to chase away spying eyes like ours! We cannot go in, sir, it must be you and your pigeon horse to remove it! Or we can no longer help you!” “That is an extremely dramatic way to ask someone to shoo away a cat,” Flash said, jamming his hands into his pockets, “but uh… okay. I can handle one cat. Does it, uh… is it feeling, you know, talkative?” “No point talking to cats!” Scuff spat. “They only ever growl and hiss and bite, and sometimes make ugly comments about our hairless tails!” He grabbed his tail and hugged it. “Hurts our feelings something awful, it does. Not our fault we don’t have fur on them.” “We’re wasting moonlight,” said Brad. “We going in, or what?” “Yeah,” said Flash. “Even if the Kindly One isn’t here, we should check this place out, learn something about what we’re dealing with.” His voice was thick and distant-sounding, like a whisper through heavy fog. They were really going to do this, weren’t they? Yes they were, and his legs were already moving and his mind already made and he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. A thin wire fence surrounded the building, but other enterprising teens had already cut through it. One of many doors left ajar by those previous occupants let them slip inside without trouble. They stood in the middle of a large, dark room. The bare walls echoed with the slightest movement. “It’s dark,” said Brad. “Yeah.” Flash pulled out his phone to light the way. Getting inside had been easy. Staying inside got more difficult every second. Everywhere Flash stepped, something crunched. Everywhere he looked there loomed shadows of abandoned equipment and furniture. Ugly graffiti caricatures that looked comical in the daylight now leered at him in the gloom, staring with forever-open eyes and warped, screaming mouths. Every room they passed swirled with dust, as if disturbed by the breath of some huge, sleeping thing. Brad kept close to Flash’s side. “A Kindly One isn’t really known for being subtle, but this one’s already shown to be pretty sneaky given it finds a place to hide and doesn’t go on a rampage. And they like to go high up, because, you know.” He fluttered his wings. Flash glanced up the nearest set of stairs he could find. They were the ugly, frightening kind, concrete flights laid on top of each other so you couldn’t see the next floor until you got there, yet echoed with noise until you didn’t know what lurked above or below. Flash peered through the gap between flights, up to where his light vanished. They had at least four more floors to climb. “Then I guess we’ll find its roost up there,” he whispered, but didn’t know why. It wasn’t like anyone could hear him. He hoped. “Might find that cat, too.” “Yeah. Careful, now.” “Uh huh.” Brad licked his lips. “You wanna go first? You have the light.” “Sure.” No one moved. Flash’s hand made a fist. Opened again. Closed again. Nothing was up there. Something could be up there. Something with claws and teeth to rend him limb from limb until his own mother didn’t recognize him. “You know,” Flash said, “I’ve been thinking.” “About what?” Brad said. “What if we…” “Yeah?” “What if we just died?” “What if we what?” “What if we died?” Brad chewed his lip, scrunching his face in an adorably thoughtful expression. “Well, I guess that means we’d be dead.” “That sucks,” Flash said. “I kinda want to graduate before I die.” “There’s lots of things I wanna do,” Brad said. “Like... go on a date. With mares that I haven’t gone on dates with yet, because I’ve been on a lot already.” Flash nodded. “But if we don’t go up there, then other people might die.” “Will die,” Brad said. “Kindly Ones don’t give up.” Flash remembered Scootaloo, wondered what it felt like to be there with that dead dog. Probably stood mere feet away from a monster she couldn’t even see. Too young to even understand what kind of danger she was in, and the terror he saw when she realized it. He took a deep breath. Let it out. “Right.” He put his foot on the stairs and started walking. Brad followed close behind. Flash ascended the stairs with the reluctant bravery of a worker called to his executive’s office, praying for anything but an important meeting. He didn’t hope to find the monster, or anything else. He hoped to reach the top, look around, climb back down, and go home to get some sleep. He still had school tomorrow, and tomorrow was only about forty-five minutes away. At least tomorrow was Friday. He enjoyed weekends more than anything else. Sunset usually liked going out on weekends. He reached the top of the stairs. The smell hit him first. Something like syrup and something like sulfur. Something like ash and rotting wood. It made his gorge rise and his eyes water. Brad wilted beneath his wings, putting a hoof over his mouth. Flash ventured into the hallways and followed the smell, which grew along with his dread. He reached a long hallway, and at the end, an open door. He shined his light into the room beyond. At first glance it was like all the others: large, dirty, dark, and dusty. Windows lined the opposite wall, overlooking the city outside. Flash felt momentarily comforted by the sight of downtown’s vibrant skyline, glowing with lights and city activity, so far removed from the morbid brewery. It was a reminder of other human life, at least. “Flash,” Brad whispered, staring at something behind them. Flash turned. His heart dropped into his stomach, and then his stomach dropped into his pants as he beheld the grisly scene. The Kindly One had set up some kind of storage rack with the skins and viscera of various animals (please let them just be animals) along a section of pipe jutting from the wall. All bloody, all rotting. “That is disgusting,” Flash would have said if he didn’t immediately drop to his knees and heave loudly. “I agree,” Brad would have said if he didn’t immediately go pale and swoon straight to the ground. “Oh come now,” a third voice said with a gentle, rolling purr. “It’s not as if humans do any better to their four-legged friends.” Flash turned away from the rack of dead things and cast his phone light around, looking for the source of the noise. A shadow darted between two crates and leapt up to some exposed pipes near the ceiling. Flash pointed his phone at it, and two bright lights stared back. When his vision stopped swimming, the shadow coalesced into a charcoal-grey cat. “But I am curious what a child with the Sparkle and a bug-eyed horse with wings are doing in the lair of my associate,” she said. “You can see the Sparkle?” Flash asked. “Of course,” the cat purred. “It outshines your flashlight tenfold. But not blindingly so, no… the Sparkle is… well. You notice it more than see it, I should say. My associate will be terribly interested to know a holder of it dropped by, and a human no less…” “You mean the Kindly One,” Flash said. He reached over and shook Brad until the pony stirred, rubbing his eyes. “You must have chased the rats out, too.” “It wasn’t difficult.” The cat licked her paw and spat. “They’re disgusting vermin that crawl around in the dirt, scavenging off humans. Cowardice is in their blood.” Flash managed to stand on shaky feet, dusting himself off. “Well, uh. Ahem. I don’t really have an opinion on inter-species tensions, miss…?” “Jenny,” the cat said, sharply. She hopped down and walked between them with a dramatic strut. “And don’t forget it. Ignore the collar.” Brad looked at her collar. “Jennybeans? Your name is Jennybeans?” Jenny squinted at him. “Are you kidding me?” “Unfortunately no,” Flash said with a helpless shrug. “He’s pretty much the real deal.” “My name is Jenny,” Jenny said through clenched teeth. “My cover is Jennybeans, when I’m with my human.” Brad pointed at the cat’s nose. “Okay then, Jenny, we’re gonna need you to start talking and then start walking! What’s the Kindly One doing here, and why are you working with it? Also stop eating rats! They have feelings too, you kn—OW! She swiped me!” Jenny smirked and pulled her claws back before retreating to the top of a filing cabinet. “The one you’re looking for is a tougher customer than you two jokers could ever hope to be. And I don’t eat rats. They’re disgusting, stringy little things. I get my food curated and delivered by humans. They give me only the best.” She took a moment to admire her little paws and primp the fur on her cheeks. “As for why I’m in this dingy hovel? My associate and I have come to an understanding. I keep an eye on this place and keep it free of spies and vermin, trot about town to places she can’t take the risk of visiting, and in exchange…” She flicked her tail and sniffed. “She doesn’t rip out my spine like all the others.” “‘She?’” Brad said, tilting his head. “The manual doesn’t say the Kindly Ones even call themselves that.” Jenny snickered. “What, did you think her job is her whole life? She’s not a monster, just very driven. Rather like us cats, actually. She’s not letting anyone get in her way, even me.” “You’re being held hostage?” Flash asked. Jenny flicked her tail ambivalently. “I wouldn’t say hostage so much as compelled guest. I ran into her when she was on one of her nightly murder-sprees, and unlike her unfortunate victims, I know how to talk fast enough to cut a deal. When I heard she handles grudges, I might’ve let slip I have a grudge or two against a few nasty alley-cats myself...” “Disgusting,” Brad spat. Jenny shrugged. “Opportunity kicked down my door and I made it a guest. And anyway, once she’s done with her business here, she’ll be nipping back to whatever shadowy hole she crawled out of. It’s really no difference to me as long as she does it quickly.” Flash crossed his arms. “And what is her business, exactly?” Jenny purred and smiled, revealing her sharp canines. “Retribution, of course.” “For who?” “For someone powerful enough to put her on a leash and send her between this world and whichever one she came from. I don’t know the specifics, but even my associate feels her cause is just… enough that she won’t stop until she’s done. Something about a jilted lover, a runaway, and a pony princess? All very high-profile stuff. But my associate has found this place… difficult to move around in. Her target is a lot more difficult to find than she assumed, and she’s getting… frustrated.” She turned to Flash, narrowing her eyes to slits. “In fact, she mentioned that her mark was also a pony supposed to be dripping with the Sparkle, and here you are with shining with Sparkle and a pony-thing at your side… what an astonishing coincidence, eh?” “I have absolutely no idea what you mean,” Flash said. “Yeah, me neither,” Brad said. Flash raised an eyebrow at him. “What?” Brad squawked. “I really don’t! If the Kindly One is here for a pony, I think I would’ve seen them by now! Not like you can hide one in plain sight in a world like this.” He blinked and glanced to one side. “I mean, not from me, who is another pony, but from humans without the Sparkle, yeah, I guess it’d be pretty easy to hide—” “Ha!” Jenny yowled. “Did you boys really come up here without a plan, without weapons? What were you going to do if she was here? If she showed up right now?” Flash cleared his throat uncomfortably. He’d come here to question a cat, not get talked down to by one. “Uh, scream and die horribly, I guess. Brad here hasn’t been very forthcoming with the specifics on how to fight mythological monsters.” “Hey!” Brad squeaked. “I have training! I’d be able to fight! It’s not my fault I don’t have my guard equipment.” “The point is,” Flash said, “I didn’t come here because I wanted to. I came here because I don’t have a choice. I have the Sparkle, I’m the only one I know who has it, and since everyone else is blind to it, through some incredible cosmological coincidence I’m the one saddled with the responsibility to find where this monster is and stop it!” “Oh, please, dive right into the details of your dull human life, Sparkle-boy,” Jenny said, sprawling on top of the cabinet. She looked as bored as a plank of wood. “As if my associate doesn’t do enough crazy ranting. You’re just another small fish in this city’s big pond.” Flash’s eye twitched. A thrill of old anger swirled inside him like a hungry shark. “I knew cats were jerks,” he spat, “but you have to realize what we’re dealing with here. This monster isn’t going away until it kills someone.” “Yeah, and that someone is going to be you and your freaky pony if you don’t skedaddle,” Jenny yawned. “Face it, kid. Even with the Sparkle you got nothing to bring to the table.” Flash clenched his fists. “I don’t have nothing.” “He’s got me!” Brad said, puffing out his chest. “He’s my friend. And where I come from, friendship can do anything.” “It can get friends killed,” Jenny said with a pitying sigh. “You guys are in over your heads. My associate will come back soon. Leave here now and I won’t even tell her you were poking around. That’s me putting my life on the line for two kittens I don’t even know. So be grateful and…” She waved her paw to the door. “Get.” “We’re not leaving until we know why the Kindly One is here,” Flash said through gritted teeth. “I’m not having someone dying be on my conscience.” “Oh, you think just because you can talk to me that elevates you above what all the other common house humans are?” Jenny said with a tsk. “You think that makes you a hero, because you’re too dumb to have a danger sense? I’ve known some tough tomcats who thought they were heroes. One got run run over, another eaten by a dog, another keeled over from spoiled meat. You just scurry back to school and be like all the other kittens of your kind. It’s really all you can do.” “And that’s another thing!” Flash said, pointing up at the cat. “You might be okay with ignoring my capabilities, but even if I can’t stop an evil monster, I’m still doing more than most kids I know! I play the guitar, drive a car, take my girlfriend out, the works! But after all that, what do I get? Magic I didn’t want, responsibility I don’t need, and now I have to deal with the idea that I might not still be here tomorrow all because I didn’t attend your stupid student council meeting and bumped into that stupid kid on her stupid scooter and felt guilty about her stupid scared face!” His voice echoed back at him in the ensuing silence. Jenny’s tail flicked, the only sign of agitation at Flash’s outburst. “... Student council meeting?” she asked. “Long story,” Brad said, helpfully. Flash cleared his throat, muttering behind his hand. “Yeah, uh. No idea where that came from. Like, none whatsoever. She’s not even here, Flash, get a hold of yourself…” “Look,” Jenny said. “As painfully boring as this has been… my neck’s on the line if I don’t at least report you two were here, and that a human has the Sparkle. It’s not like I want the death of a human and a whatever-that-guy-is on my conscience, but she’ll kill me just for thinking about covering for you. The deal still stands. Leave now, and forget you were ever here, and I won’t have to bring her home.” Flash shook his head. “I’m already here, lady. The Kindly One will murder someone if I don’t back down.” Jenny stared at him a long, long time. Her eyes were bright. Mirthless. Pitying. “You really mean it?” she said. “You’re gonna see this through because you’re too brave or too mind-numbingly stupid to just walk away?” Flash jutted his chin out, having no idea why he was justifying himself to a cat. But then, he had never met one that actually expressed the sociopathic hatred he knew all cats had so clearly. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I mean all of this is real, right? It’s really real. And if the Kindly Ones are real, so is everything else. There’s a lot more monsters than just those around, and… People could die. They will die. And I’ll be the only one who knows why. I can’t do that. I won’t just sit back and let it happen.” Brad reached up, putting his hoof on Flash’s pant leg. “I’m proud of you.” Flash nodded, trying to put on a stoic front in the face of the pony’s shimmering puppy-dog eyes. “Thanks.” “... Wait.” Brad’s eyes widened as he turned back to Jenny. The grip on Flash’s pants tightened (how did he do that without fingers?). “Bring her home? You can summon her here? She actually told you the true name of the Kindly Ones?!” Jenny smiled as sharp as a knife. “Oh yes. I do know how to make an erinyes come calling—” “DON’T SAY IT!” Brad shrieked, dropping to the floor and covering his head. Flash held up his phone like a weapon, and the beam of light was his sword. “No no no no—!” The echo of Brad’s shout trailed off to silence. The light revealed nothing but dust. Slowly, he lowered his little light again. “Well,” he whispered. “I guess that part… doesn’t actually happen?” Jenny blinked, put a paw to her chest. “Oh. Ohh! You thought erinyes was their true name? Oh, no no no! Kids. Come on. Just saying erinyes isn’t much more than a poke at the edge of their psyche. If you really want a girl’s attention, you don’t say ‘Hey! Girl over there!’ You use their name.” She stared straight at Flash one more time. Her eyes widened, and her pupils dilated. Flash knew that look. Rarity’s cat gave him that look before she jumped him. A predator ready to pounce. “I didn’t want to do this,” Jenny whispered. “But it’s a dog-eat-cat-eat-rat world out here, kid. But at least you’ll know who pulled your head off... unlike old Titan.” She craned her neck forward, and Flash saw every one of her little white teeth. “And her name is...” “Brad,” he said, shoving the pony away from him. “Brad?!” “Flash, RUN!” “Alecto.” Keening noise erupted all around them, as if the shadows themselves were screaming. Flash spun, unsure if he had been struck or just fell in a panic. The light from his phone illuminated something huge and dog-headed rushing towards him, claws outstretched, with a mouth full of teeth and eyes full of fury.