The Bounty Catching, Freedom Dreaming, Winged Wolf Phenomenon
Chapter 10
~{WWP}~
Nightmares.
Everyone has had their fair share of them, some more so than others. The worst part about it all though is how it’s not even those that have nice lives that are cursed with theses horrors. No, it’s those that have already lived through enough hell in their lives that can find no peace in their deep slumbers.
I belonged in the latter group of individuals. I didn’t remember going to sleep at all really. All I knew was that the dreams I had over those few nights were some of the worst I had the horror to live through. And unlike most of the other dreams that you forget the moment you wake up, these ones were somewhat burned into my mind.
So I guess they aren’t really nightmares, as much as night terrors. Whatever, you get the point though. Well, you may as well find out what I remember from them.
I was back in my home town, a light rain was pouring down from the clouds above. For some reason everything was black and white, but I didn’t put too much thought into it. I was simply walking down the street, heading to a light when I saw a bright red car shoot by me like a bullet. I didn’t put a second thought to it until I glance up further in the street.
The light at the intersection had just turned red, but the bitch driving the red car was going too fast to stop. Just as she entered into the intersection, a blue mini-van had pulled out. Immediately my heart stopped and time seemed to slow as the impact began.
The red car ripped the mini-van in half, blasting right through it and into a moving van on the other side, flipping it over. It takes me a moment before I recognize the mini-van, and when I do my heart goes from dead stop to nearly exploding from my chest as I run towards the wreckage.
Shifting through the glass and debris of it all, I hoped to God above that I would not find what I already knew was amongst the wreckage. My gut filled with dread as I approached the object of my search, the black and white coloring emphasizing the red pool forming beneath it. I slowly and gingerly flip the object of my search over and unbuckle the strap, my tears dripping down onto the form now resting in my arms.
I kick the offending car seat as far away as possible as I wipe the blood away from the body resting in my arms, my tears helping as much as the steady rainfall to get rid of the red color. The child wasn’t moving at all, not even the steady rise of the chest. I let out a wail into the fading sky that echoed through my mind as the dreamscape shifted.
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The wail quickly morphed into a ferocious howl as I drove through a thick black cloud of bodies. This new scene was in a spot I had never been before, but had seen multiple times on TV. I was flying through Canterlot, but it was all wrong. Little, black, bug-like ponies were raining down on the city, leaving craters in their wake. Most were detaining other ponies, but those stallions that fought back against the bugs were dealt with a harsh sentence.
Soon, more bugs flew after me, which I quickly slaughtered after a few daring moves. Glancing down, I saw another horrific scene forming. Two pony sized insects, and one supersized one were heading straight towards a group of fillies guard by two Royal guard members. I turned to help them, but a wall of black exoskeletons obscured my view of the scene below. I broke not only the first two speed barriers, but a third as well as I outflew the swarm, causing multiple tornadoes in my wake.
For all of my speed though, by the time I landed at the ground of the scene nothing was left but blood splatters and torn limbs. Glancing over, I saw the bodies of the two smaller ones ripped to pieces and scattered about as well, but the large one was sitting in front of me, with a cruel grin while he shape-shifted into a manticore and tossed a screaming filly into his gaping maw. The sickening crunches and terrified screams made me add my vomit to the gore across the alley. I took off, shattering the first speed barrier as I let loose another howl, streaking towards the beast before me as the space between us began to shift another time.
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The howl of rage slowly became the roar of an angry crowd. Looking around I saw a large mob surrounding another wolf, but this one had horns and seemed to be feminine. She was attempting to talk down the crowd that was slowly surrounding her, but her efforts seemed futile. Soon they had her trapped in the middle of what looked like a hundred different ponies, all of whom had nasty looks on their faces.
Soon the wolf turned towards and looked at me with pleading eyes. She was yelling something towards me, but no words that I could hear came out. For some reason though, I felt compelled to protect her, as if she was deeply important to me. I let loose a vicious sounding bark towards the crowd, and start charging towards the girl. I’m quickly pinned down by multiple ponies though and can only stare on as the mob converges onto the poor girl. All I can hear now are the sickening crunches and pounding of hooves onto flesh, followed by a scream of pain. My vision slowly blurs as I strain my wings against the weight of the ponies.
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The realm of slumbers shifts one last time, the screams of that horned wolf now the whining of propellers on an airship. I’m sitting on the prow of the lead ship, my vision slightly obscured though with a bandana over one eye. Looking over to my right, I see Scootaloo sitting next to me, with my wing over her body and holding her in a side embrace. Something seems off about her, but before I could place it, I heard an ear splitting boom.
Glancing over the guard rail, I see a massive amount of shades, with what appear to be massive bug-like thing acting as artillery for them. I wasn’t quite sure until they started blasting at a few of the ships that were still taking off on the ground. Looking up into the clouds, I see even more shades descending on the other propeller driven aircraft, some of which are still be loaded on the ground. I hear Scootaloo scream something about the “Evac Ships” and I know I have to do something to help.
I lunge into the air, noticing hundreds of pegasi and griffins with a variety of creatures on their backs fly off to meet the threat as well. I bark orders at them for some reason, but the real shocker is how they give me a curt nod and follow through with them.
The airships were taking evasive maneuvers, and raining hell down upon the shades on the ground, but it did very little to deter the attacking forces. The strange thing was though; the shades weren’t attacking anything but the evacuation ships and the individual flyers. The aerial shades were tearing through those of us that were in the air trying in vain to stave off their assault. For every one we killed, another three seemed to take their place.
After dispatching another one of the shades, I took a peek at the last evac ship still on the ground and could see loads of children getting onboard. I then saw a large number of shades diving towards those kids. I jacked up the speed, even faster than I was in Canterlot, and any shade in my wake was sucked into a vortex that my speed created, crushing them into each other along with debris. This cleared the area around the last Evac ship to take off. It was perhaps a thousand feet away when I heard another chorus of eardrum shattering explosions.
Looking towards the ship that had just gotten off the ground, it was now riddled with holes and in flames, plummeting back down towards the earth. My heart froze as I watched the doomed ship, souls and all, minute long descent into the ground, spawning a fireball that wiped out a chunk of the shades ground forces. I blast higher into the air than I thought cynogriffinly possible, breaking three of the speed barriers on my ascent. I could just make out the curvature of the planet from this height.
I pulled a quick 180, and dove back down towards the battlefield, breaking the fourth speed barrier and screaming a massive war cry the entire plummet. A fifth cone was forming around me as I reached the highest clouds, which vaporized as soon as I was close. Once the battlefield was in view, the cone shattered and the world blurred out of existence once again.
My war cry shifted to one of pain and panicked sobs as I woke up from that hell hole of a dreamscape, with the Night Terrors burned into my mind for the rest of my living days.
Once I had managed to calm myself down, I noticed I was in a hospital bed with bandages covering a good chunk of my body. Also that the lights were off and I couldn’t see out of my left eye. A quick check with my paw let me know that the eye simply had a bandage over it. That was a load off of my chest, last thing I needed was to find out I lost an eye.
Glancing over to the window, I can see the sun is just starting to rise. I have a great view of the path towards the tavern, though I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t see a pillar of black smoke rising from the rubble. Guess the Royal Guard extinguished it before the fire spread too far out of control.
“Wait, was there a fire? I definitely remember a fireball though. And why the FUCK is my mouth so dry?!” Yes, I talk to myself sometimes. It helps me think when my mind is all cloudy, like when you wake up in a hospital bed not knowing how you got there.
So I just sat there, mumbling under my breath for the next hour or so until the door opened up by an earth pony. She was yellow, with a lollipop cross for her cutie mark and was wearing a nurse hat. When she noticed that I was staring at her rather crossly, she jumped in surprise.
“You’re awake?!”
Awesome, I’m dealing with a fucking genius right now. I counted to five mentally to calm myself done before I replied. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be awake? Its morning isn’t it?” Okay, next time I should count to ten before I answer someone.
The nurse first looked a little peeved at my response, but her professional training kicked in as she calmly explained to me the situation. “Sir, you’ve been unconscious for about three days now. Spitfire and Soarin carried you and the diamond dog back here.”
My ears perked up at this one. That son of a bitch was still alive? Spitfire and Soarin saved his ass?! I was going to chew them out for that one. Before I could continue my inner rant, the nurse continued.
“You were both in rough shape; you more from exhaustion, but you’ll have a scar over your left eye now. The doctor wants to keep you here for another five days though as a precaution. The Beta though, is in the ICU. His throat was nearly torn completely out, and he had some severe burns on his body,” the nurse paused to think of what she was going to say next. “Smoke inhalation and multiple cracked and broken ribs on top of that. I’m shocked that he managed to live at all.”
The nurse noticed my ears being perked up and must have taken that as a sign of boredom somehow, because than she giggled out “I’m sorry for rambling, allow me to fetch you some water and breakfast. Your friend Gustave is supplying us meat to feed you with.” Then she was off leaving me alone with my thoughts.
My thoughts had two very simple goals; first and foremost recover as quickly as I can, and secondly, find the Azragni.
And then kill him.
~{WWP}~
A/N:
Hello again everyone. I bet you weren't expecting to see another chapter up so suddenly were you? Well neither was I really, but here it is. Truthfully I broke what I was going to have planned for my next chapter in half at the suggestion of some of the other authors so the chapter didn't get to cluttered. Don't expect another chapter so soon though, because it will be full of closure between some characters, and I want to do justice to them.
In other news, Happy 1 Year Anniversary to FiMfiction!! Oh and Mandopony has a new song out, Listen to it!
Also, standard "Point out Mistake" goes as usual. Hope everyone has a great day.