//------------------------------// // The Daughter of Uranus, Pt. 2 // Story: Flash Sentry, Savior of the Universe // by redsquirrel456 //------------------------------// Something hit Flash in the side hard enough to knock him over. Then he hit something even harder, and realized it was the floor. He covered his head as something huge and dark and screaming passed over him. He rolled away, somehow keeping a tight hold on his phone, and shone the light in every direction. Dust swirled in the little beam like ghosts, his whole body shivered, his eyes couldn’t focus. He felt like he was about to eject his bowels hard enough to propel him out the window. “Intruders, Alecto!” he heard Jenny yell from far away. “Intruders in your home!” “Βανδάλια! Κλέφτες! Θα τρώω τις καρδιές σου ωμές!!” something answered her, in a voice that shook Flash’s bones. Flash turned to run, except he didn’t have his feet under him so he just flopped like a fish. Blinded by stinging grit, he had no idea where up and down might be in the maelstrom of dust. “Stupid,” he chanted. “Stupid stupid stupid—” “—stupid!” Brad said as he lunged out of the whirlwind and grabbed him around the shoulders, carry-dragging him toward the stairs. “Get up, Flash! Get up, we gotta go!” “Εισήλθετε στο σπίτι του θανάτου!” A large hand closed around his ankle like a vise, dragging him back. Flash cried out as iron-hard fingers strangled his veins and squeezed down on his flesh. It felt as if the creature might squeeze his leg until it popped. He clawed at the ground, refusing to look back. If he looked back, he knew he wouldn’t escape. “Get off him!” Brad yelled, grabbing Flash’s arm and pulling the opposite direction. His wings buzzed like a hummingbird’s, lifting both of them clear off the ground. Flash wailed and cartwheeled his free limbs, suspended in a remarkably painful tug-of-war between a pony and the face of certain death. “Ένα πόνι! Βρήκα το σημάδι μου!” The grip on Flash’s leg jerked to one side, tossing him and Brad like dolls. Brad, bless his heart, was still trying to fly with all his might, and the added momentum sent them both crashing into the nearest wall. Brad had the presence of mind to coil around Flash’s head like a pillow before impact, and bounced off the wall with a toy-like squeak. “Ow,” said Flash, since the entire rest of his body had just collided with solid concrete. He managed to put a grateful inflection on it, given Brad had just been his crash cushion. “Ow,” agreed Brad, who did not enjoy being a crash cushion at all. A huge clawed hand on each of their necks crushed any attempt to breathe. Crushed the idea of breath. “Ple…” Flash sputtered with the air left in his mouth. He spasmed as the Kindly One crushed him against the wall. Alecto stood before him in all her righteous anger. A massive dog’s head like none Flash had ever seen poked through strands of shadow draped over that hideous visage like hair, coiling and twisting with a mind of their own. She was the color of ash after hours of burning, and her eyes bulged with absolute fury. They had no whites, no pupils, only a solid coat of crimson that seemed to glow in the dark, drenching her face in blood-red light that felt hot on Flash’s face.Her pointed snout opened to reveal a maw lined with ugly, snarled teeth, and hot breath washed over his face as she clamped her jaws shut right in front of his nose with a loud clack. Something wet and sticky splattered from her mouth onto Flash’s face. He prayed it was saliva instead of blood. The shadows around her head slithered forward like snakes, raking across his skin. He felt something sharp bite into his flesh, and Alecto’s eyes somehow bulged even wider, her nostrils flaring. “Έχετε τη λάμψη!” Flash shivered. The Kindly One did not just speak—she roared. Fear answered from inside him, deep-seated, self-loathing, cowardly fear. The kind of fear that ran from knowing every wrong they had ever done was about to exposed, every shame laid bare, every guilty secret exposed in the searing light of Alecto’s vengeful eyes. “Why are you here, glowing boy? I was told only a mare would carry the spark! Yet here I find you, and a stallion quivering like jelly. Speak!” The hand around his throat relaxed, just enough for a sliver of air to reach his lungs. He let it out with a squeal of pants-wetting terror not unlike a deflating balloon. It was abruptly silenced by another squeeze from the Fury’s hand. Alecto snarled and turned to Brad. “Does the colt have an answer?” “You can speak our language?!” Brad wheezed. Alecto bared her teeth in a grim approximation of a smile. “I have hunted across eons, child, across kingdoms uncounted and long-forgotten, and I spoke the language of them all. It is useful to hunt the guilty with the tongue they use to profess their lies. Now you will answer me in your tongue: I was told to hunt a pony mare of great magic, yet I see a pony colt and a human child, carrying a spark like a guttering flame. This vexes me.” The talons on her fingers flexed, and Flash shuddered as they pricked his skin. “I do not like being vexed.” “Look, m-miss mighty and p-powerful creature,” Brad squeaked, “we know it is in your nature to hunt and destroy the guilty when you are called upon! We know not who you seek or why. It is our wish to help you in your errand by redressing the grievance so we might have peace!” “Peace?” Alecto snapped. The very word seemed to make her angrier. “Peace?! The Hooved Folk speak of Harmony yet breed more chaos with their unconditional mercy. One of your own is what I seek, and I will destroy any and all who get in my way.” “B-But the Princesses—!” “This wretched place is not your world, child. Your Princesses have no power here.” She dropped them both. “Now, speak quickly. Why do you possess magic?” “I don’t know!” Flash gasped out, massaging his bruised throat. “I really don’t. This all started just a few days ago. I woke up and Brad was in my bedroom, and then I started talking to rats, and now I hear you’re going around my town and people are going to start dying!” “Only the deserving, and those who obstruct my revenge. But you cannot simply have the spark of magic. This world has muted it, trampled it. Its absence is a hole in the earth. Did mighty Kronos never touch this plane? Did Harmony never take root?” Alecto sneered, waving her claws. “Bah! No matter. I sense no fiction in your tale. You are either an unlucky fool or an ignorant thief. Magic settled upon you by chance from somewhere.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or someone.” She turned back to Brad. “You! What portal did you tear asunder to reach this place?” “I didn’t tear anything asunder! My hooves aren’t good for tearing!” Brad said, holding up his little legs. “I just found the door and walked through!” “Where?!” Alecto roared, spreading her shadowy wings until they stretched from floor to ceiling. Her shadowy hair twisted wildly. Brad curled into a ball, covering his head with his hooves. “In the castle, okay? In Canterlot!” Flash squinted. “... Canterlot?” he whispered. Alecto growled. Her claws twitched impatiently “Where did the portal lead?” “To this world, same as the one you’re in!” Brad cried. The Fury roared aloud and swiped her claws, gouging furrows in the wall directly above their heads. “To what place, you simpering idiot?!” “Stop yelling at me!” Brad whimpered. “I’m speaking Equestrian as clear as I can, lady!” Alecto’s eye twitched. She slowly turned back to Jenny, who had been watching in stoic silence. “You called my name to deal with these fools?” Jenny gasped indignantly, putting a paw over her chest. “What, I’m supposed to grade the prowlers who break in now?” Flash, who was trying not to think about how close he had just come to being decapitated, suddenly realized something. He sat up, turning to Brad as Alecto and Jenny bickered. “... Did you say ‘speaking Equestrian?’” he whispered. Brad peeked out from between his hooves. “Uh, yeah? That’s the language we’re all talking in. You know, pony-speak.” Flash blinked. “No. No, we’re speaking English.” “English? What’s English?” “The language we’re all talking in!” Flash hissed. Brad narrowed his eyes. “No, we’re definitely speaking Equestrian.” Flash scoffed, gesturing aimlessly in confusion. “That’s… what… Dude. Are you saying back in your world all the ponies speak human?” Brad shrugged. “I just assumed all the humans here spoke pony.” “ENOUGH!” Alecto roared. A blast of pure, kinetic force radiated out from her as she screamed, knocking everyone else onto their backs. Flash felt not just force, but rage. Pure, focused rage that coursed over and through and around him like an emotional tidal wave. Alecto extended one long claw and pointed down at Brad. “Do not toy with me any longer! What is the exact location your portal led to, pony?!” “I can’t tell you!” Brad whined. “We can’t give you info, we need to get info to stop you from killing someone!” “Killing people is bad,” Flash said. Alecto stood statue-still for a long, precarious moment. Her claw withdrew to tap her chin, and she grinned wide enough to nearly split her head in half. “Yes,” she purred, in a manner disturbingly cat-like. “You are in luck, children. Killing is not on my mind right now.” Her talons snatched Brad by the tail and dragged him forward, kicking and hollering. He was stilled by five deadly claws pressing lightly against his fur, trailing down his neck. “But I am very good at knowing how far to go before death takes you,” she said. “No!” Flash yelled, standing up before being abruptly sat right back down by a buffet from Alecto’s wings. “I am as old as stone and have the patience of a roaring fire,” Alecto snarled down at Brad, who had no choice but to whimper in her grip. “If you will not tell me willingly, then let pain be your motivator.” “You…” Brad made a show of struggling, helplessly whacking his hooves against her hand as she splayed it against his chest and pinned him to the ground. “You’ll never make me talk!” “No,” Alecto said, baring her teeth in a smile almost grossly affectionate. “But I will make you scream, little pony.” Flash scrambled to his feet. He took the whole scene in. Alecto, standing over Brad, ready to dig into wherever hurt the little pony most. Brad and his futile struggling. He was helpless. Frightened. Terrified. And Alecto was smiling. She had the twisted grin of a predator that knew it had all the time in the world. That knew her prey was going nowhere, that was so totally, utterly confident in her own strength that Brad’s helpless agony only confirmed her own place in the world. She stood like a rock, immovable, unchanging. Content with her life. Happy with it, even. Happy to hunt and hurt. Happy to control and dominate and sneer at the lesser things around her. Whoever Alecto was hunting would end up right where they were, and then they would die, and the Fury would feel nothing but contentment. The sight of Brad’s muppet-like face scrunched up with mortal terror dug at Flash, dug down deep and hit something way down at the bottom of his heart. Something that remembered other times he felt the same way, powerless and hopeless and sad. Something that remembered another person who scoffed at the pain of others. A fissure opened. Inside of it was rage. The red-hot rage of the impotent. The helpless. The weak struck with the desire to be strong. Flash did not think, or speak, or blink. He moved. He sprang off the floor and charged Alecto head-on. On the way he grabbed a loose piece of masonry and raised it as high as his arms could reach, aiming for the writhing mass of snake-like shadows atop Alecto’s head. Alecto’s ears swiveled towards him. The rest of her didn’t turn fast enough. Flash slammed the concrete down as hard as he could. It hit Alecto’s skull with a resounding crack and split in two in his hands, scraping his fingers as it fell apart. Alecto’s head went down. Brad gasped, Jenny howled, Flash… Flash backed away, eyes wide. Alecto reared back up to her full height, completely and totally unharmed. Her shadow hair wriggled and writhed. Beneath the squirming mass, her eyes shone red, bulging with rage. She looked distinctly unimpressed. “Uh,” Flash said, backing away slowly and holding up his hands. “I’m, uh. I didn’t really… that was… Are you…?” Out of any other options, Flash went for the one thing he always knew he could fall back on. He flashed Alecto his Trademark Smile, and made two shaky finger guns at her. “Are you the only one seeing stars?” he asked, giggling in pure terror. “Cuz’ girl, you are lookin’ stellar.” It was then Flash Sentry earned the distinction of being the first human to know what it was like to be slapped by a Fury. He did not know what it felt like, because she hit him so hard he mostly just remembered flying through the air, wondering why his best material was being wasted on such an ungrateful audience. The next thing he knew he was lying on top of a broken table across the room, and wood splinters were jabbing into his back, and the entire right side of his face felt dented inward. Alecto strode across the room towards him. She raised her hand again, this time pointing all of her claws at his chest. “Magic child or not,” she hissed, “you interfere with retribution. And now you will die.” Flash didn’t reply. He was still dazed by being smacked by a monster and then landing on a table. The world swam and his body ached and he suddenly felt very, very tired, as if the mere act of speaking or standing was just too much trouble. He had a vague notion something horrible was about to happen, and the rage he felt before had dried up like a creek in summer. Of course, trying to be angrier than the literal incarnation of fury herself was an exercise in futility, but Flash figured he had to at least try. Alecto planted her taloned foot on his chest, holding him down for the killing blow. That’s why he did all of this, wasn’t it? He wasn’t much of a doer or even a succeeder. He was a tryer. Flash knew, deep down, that he was pretty unremarkable. He had no plans. No real future in mind. No real direction apart from the one Sunset was trying to steer him in. But he at least tried to rise above it. He knew how to play the guitar, that was something, right? He had the car and the hot girlfriend. He had magic and a talking pony for a friend. And he was about to get stabbed to death by an ancient furry goddess of bile and hatred. Who else could put that on their obituary? Being such a tryer, Flash still tried. He took hold of the fur on Alecto’s leg with a groggy hand and pushed. He put on a brave face that was more nausea than fear. And like all the other things he tried, it didn’t make a difference. Or it would have, if Brad didn’t suddenly return Flash’s favor by slamming his rear hooves into Alecto’s face. “This kid!” he shouted, zipping away before Alecto could react and bouncing off a nearby wall. “Is not your prey!” he said as he rebounded, ducking a swipe of the Fury’s claws and slamming his hooves into her stomach next. “He’s my FRIEND!” he finished with a devastating uppercut to Alecto’s chin. Flash heard the brutal strike, and winced, which made him wince again now that feeling was coming back to his face, along with nerve-screaming pain. Alecto stumbled two steps backwards. She stopped and slowly raised her face. Smiled. “Then,” she said, licking her lips, “you may die together.” Brad charged her, moving faster than Flash could blink. Alecto moved faster, spinning away and catching his tail as he went by, hurling him into the wall with a wretched smack that left spiderwebs in the concrete. Flash winced as Brad flopped to the ground. “Are you done, pony?” Alecto asked. “Please say no. You are no match for me, but I revel in prey who can fight!” “Stay down,” Flash croaked, or tried to. He tried to sit up, but pain flared through his back, through his face. He managed to roll onto his side. Something felt broken. Everything felt broken. Was this what a concussion felt like? “S-stay down, Brad,” he hissed. “Alecto, please… please don’t hurt him.” “Too late for that, child,” Alecto growled. Brad staggered upright, bleeding from a cut beneath his ear. Tears cut angry rivulets in the ancient drywall stuck to his fur. He tried to flap his wings and take to the air again, but one of his wings failed to open all the way, and he cried out in pain as he fell to his knees. He tried again, gritting his teeth. He fell once more, and settled for glaring daggers at the Fury. Alecto flared her own wings in response, spreading her arms wide. Welcoming another round. Flash stared at the absurd sight. A little pony half his size, facing off against a monster larger than a grown man. A mortal marshmallow creature assaulting a divine being. Knowing he had no chance. Knowing this was just a pathetic last stand. For the sake of Flash. Nobody else had ever done that for him. “Is your poor wing hurt?” Alecto cooed, her voice seething with sarcasm. “We may need to amputate!” Flash saw the claws of Alecto, raised up high and ready to cleave Brad in two. He saw Brad, frozen up with pure fright. He saw Jennybeans watching, stoic and disinterested. He saw the shard of particle board next to him, which he grabbed in both hands. He forced himself to stand, planting one foot in front of the other as he hurried to intercept Alecto. He did not see how his fingers sent sparks and glitter flying like confetti. He did not see how the lightning bolt symbol on his favorite t-shirt suddenly lit up like a spotlight. But he felt something. As Alecto stooped down to swipe Brad’s life away, Flash felt something beyond fear, or hope, or anger, or anything else. He felt friendship. He dropped to his knees and slid between Alecto and Brad, holding up his pathetic little plank of wood. No. His shield. His bright, burning shield, eating away the darkness with radiance that blinded Flash even as he huddled behind it. Alecto’s claws struck the golden surface like the hammer of an angry god, screeching with the sound of bone on metal, or maybe just a roar of frustration. An angry flash of lightning answered her, and there was a noise like thunder and a triumphant shout. Flash felt the impact almost shake his arms to pieces. The light glared through his eyelids, bursting into color, and all Flash saw next was gold. Gold and green and glory.