-Prime-
I was leading this strange group back to our headquarters in Night Fright Grotto City, I wondered a lot of things about them. The most curious was how close Jade and Fizzle were being, I turned to the one that called herself their mother.
“Tell me, are those two…” I started to asked as I glanced back at Jade putting her left arm around Fizzle and Fizzle leaning her head again Jade’s side.
“Yes, they are certainly lovely together. It’s mostly kitten love at the moment, any further and I’d step in.” It seemed like Kuril had things well in hoof where they were concerned. “Also before you say it, puppy love wouldn’t be the right term for it. That would involve less pussy and more horn dog than it currently does. Despite my adopting her, Fizzle is definitely not like a sister towards Jade. Jacky on the other claw, she’s definitely the requisite sister here.”
“You know we’re right here mom, we can hear you talking about us.” Jade commented loudly and in a deadpan tone, she and her mother seemed to have issues with one another.
“Yes and I’m involving you in the conversation by talking about you’re sweet relationship with one another.” Kuril seemed to be quite the motherly cat, looking back on the couple I could see a blush on Fizzle’s face. Jade seemed unperturbed and bored by the topic, she might even possibly be shameless about it.
“Okay, but you know that female horn dogs exist and are about as vicious as normal horn dogs.” Wait, what was Jade talking about?
“Oh goddesses, please don’t tell me that literal horn dogs exist.” Fizzle looked towards the stalactite ceiling above us and possibly at the few thestrals sleeping up there while shaking her head.
“Okay, I won’t tell you about dogs with forward pointing curved horns like what you’d see on a Minotaur only obviously smaller and on a dog.” Either Jade was well travelled or well read, perhaps both. “What I will tell you is that bull dog is a breed, but it has nothing in common with a horn dog unless it is a Bull Horn Dog created through cross breeding.”
“Are those as ugly as they sound?” Jacky asked blithely as she followed along while avoiding falling stalactites and other random objects like wash basins, safes and bowling balls that nearly struck others in our group. She even jumped over a random quick flying thestral that almost hit her by a less than coincidental looking accident while crashing into the ground.
I think Ms. Chickadee was used to how unlucky she was, because she just pirouetted gracefully out of the way of a falling wall of bricks with nary a glance at the wall in question or even acknowledging that it was about to fall on her. She stopped as a stalactite grazed her chest and then stepped around it to continue walking with them.
“Yes, you’d think bull dogs can’t get any worse, but then you give them horns and make them literal… well from there the imagination can’t exactly do it justice really. You’d likely see them in Minos at the very least, it gets even worse if you take an orthrus or a cerberus into account.” Looking away from Jade, I continued towards a building. We avoided the patrols and other things on the way and now we were at EVEN’s place of operations. It was a bit ramshackle, but we were trying to bring thestrals back to believing in the one true goddess of our kind and Princess Celestia. “Looks pretty good for a poorly hidden rebel base.”
“It is home for us who want to believe in the ancient tales of the princess of the moon.” I led them inside, trusting that they were allies. Very strange allies, but allies that were willing to help us. We had already traded stuff with Kuril, now she was offering to do us some favors from the goodness of her heart.
“Yeah, Princess Luna should hear about this when she gets back from being the mare on the moon. Though she’ll need to lose the living nightmare that’s corrupting her into being Nightmare Moon first.” After a pause Jade said something that let me know my cause was not going to end in tragedy, we were walking down a corridor passing by a bunch of thestrals as she spoke. “The stars may aid in Nightmare Moon’s eventually escape, but afterwards she’ll be brought down pretty quickly and cleansed of outside influences. That will stop those mildly nasty planet destroying tendencies that throws out the balance of the world as we know it. I’ll even declare it a prophecy as a sun priest that…”
Jade paused, her arm falling away from Fizzle’s neck. Something was happening to her, even her mother and the rest of their family took instant notice when her eyes were flooded with bright white light as we entered the conference room.
“When the guiding light ceases to shine, sealing all to an uncertain fate. A broken heart will be blind, to be filled with sadness or hate. No matter what the power must be sought, the seekers will ultimately find it long after creating from the shattered a grand dissolution. Those in the darkness should be wary of the time they have bought, as there is no fighting against the lamenting queen or their false conclusion.” The glowing in Jade’s eyes continued and Fizzle looked up into her eyes looking quite worried, she reached out and gripped one of Jade’s left paw with a hoof. I myself was finding this to be quite interesting. Logically speaking this is the first time I’ve ever seen a prophecy being set in motion, the eyes narrowed at me and spoke. I shivered at the words flowing from her lips unbidden. “The pillars of this age will rise up and they will succeed, no matter the perils they will survive to see the bound mare truly freed. All thestrals, their pride and greed they should swallow, if it is the true princess of the night that they wish to follow.”
After that Jade fell on her face and blinked confusedly, the light now gone from her eyes which quickly closed and didn’t open. I had feared the worst and it only turned out to be exhaustion for the sun priestess, if we are to save the thestrals here we need to start caring more about one another no matter our differences.
-Next Day, EVEN headquarters, Kuril-
I watched as my kitten stirred awake as did Fizzle who smiled and pulled Jade tightly to herself, she had been worried about Jade collapsing like that after doing that prophecy thing. It had been a pretty tiring day overall, running around and fighting a utility golem until she
“What… happened… mom?” Seeing a sign that she was okay, I ran my right hand affectionately over her left ear. She purred happily at my touch, a mother’s touch always made a kitten stay calm.
“Your body was used a as a conduit for some higher power to give a prophecy that doesn’t mean much quite yet.” I smiled down at her. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”
“Well we both know that Celestia at least has some precognitive abilities.” Jade had told me about that previously, it explained a lot about the princess in how she’s managed for the last thousand years by herself. My supposition is that the perk of being a god or goddess of the sun gives one the ability to shine a limited amount of light on the future and steer with a rudder from that limited information. “She might not have perfect future vision, but she can definitely see threats coming.”
“I’m glad you’re feeling okay Jade, you were pretty exhausted yesterday after fighting that golem. You had me worried when you collapsed like that.” Fizzle nuzzled jade’s cheek and continued snuggle up to her, she was kind of insatiable and my kitten really seemed to appreciate it judging by how her tail started flopping about.
-Jade-
“I’m fine Fizzy, this isn’t the first time I’ve gone down for a while.” Only this time I didn’t go down from injuries or poison, I went down because I became the conduit for some sort of higher power. Said power might have been the harmony of the world itself. I honestly don’t remember how it felt or what I said, but it was obviously way too euphoric to recall. “Though I have to ask, anything interesting happen after my collapse? Also who wrote the prophecy down, I can’t remember what I said.”
Rolling her eyes, mom held out a notepad. Apparently Blade had been around to hear my prophecy and became somewhat of a believer. I read the prophecy and blinked.
“Do any of you understand what it means?” I had quite a few clues as to what the prophecy possibly meant. Well nothing for it, we'd just continue on as we have been.
“Not really. Though the pillars involve tales of ancient ponies doing incredible things, I wouldn’t know what the pillars of this age would be.” Fizzle stopped cuddling me and got out of bed. “The thestrals of EVEN seem pretty excited though.”
“Okay, enough about that, what crazy thing are we doing this time?” Jacky seemed eager to jump back into thing as she walked into the barracks style room. “Captain’s perfectly fine and it’s boring around here, we’ve seen much more excitement from a normal Tuesday back home.”
“Even a hippalectryon is admittedly more interesting than this place, as far as cults go this hasn’t been a very dangerous trip… golems being the obvious mild exception.” Fizzle muttered lazily as I sat up.
“So any news on what Daring is getting up to? Blade sounds like she’s having fun snooping around, befriending ponies and being a spy for us.” Yeah, I didn’t feel too horrible. All my scratches, cuts and bruises weren’t there anymore, probably the entire conduit thing fixing me up as it left.
“We haven’t contacted or seen Daring specifically, but we at least know she’s searching for information about something big that her nemesis Dr. Caballeron is also seeking. Also there’s apparently some magical pegasus based artifacts around here that Daring is looking into acquiring on the side.” Mom that really doesn’t surprise me. I’m pretty sure my expression said as much. “Yes, I know more nocturnal pegasus ponies eventually became thestrals. Not that they are seen very often by the ponies that are more active during the day.”
“Again, what are we doing today?” Jacky asked impatiently. “I mean we don’t exactly have a solid plan and Captain seems alright enough to do stuff to me.”
“I think we’ll crash a briefing and take on a mission for EVEN.” Okay, mom had me perking up in interest. “Figured you’d want to do something random kitten, but we’re making this a family thing. No doing your prisoner pranking thing this time. All four of us will do whatever it is we’ll end up doing together.”
“Sound good to me.” I got up and made for the door. “Let’s do this thing... now where’s the briefing room again?”
-Kuril-
My kitten was certainly eager as we filed into the room with four thestrals, one was Prime and there was a diagram on a wall for some kind of weird thing. The other three ponies were some of the ones me and Jacky had met previously. Their names were Remote, Bumble and Stalk.
I liked bumble, his yellow and black stripes were really quite standout for his chipper appearance. Don’t honestly know how a zebra ended up all the way up here though. His special talent was humming.
“We don’t know what it is Prime, but it is more than likely a weapon given Hollow designed it.” Remote Chance was the one currently speaking, she was quite open with her distaste of how the cult was being run.
“Most likely.” Back Stalk commented idly, he was quiet and overly logical. My kitten would despise him if they were left alone for more than two minutes, it already looked like my kitten was rubbed the wrong way upon hearing his voice just once.
“Isn’t that a PATTYCAKE seventy seven?” I turned to Jacky who looked at the diagram with scrutiny.
“A what? Oh… it’s you.” Stalk narrowed his eyes at Jacky. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, I said I was sorry!” Well my little chick did apologize for that… and multiple other incidents while I was in the midst of haggling with EVEN. They needed supplies and we had a stocked airship nearby. “It’s mostly outside my control anyway, so can you really blame me?”
“You know what this thing is Ms. Chickadee?” Prime asked curiously as his fluffy ears flicked in her direction.
“It’s obviously a tank.” Jade stated out loud. “Also I would say Ms. Chickadee La Perm, mom definitely loves my mostly pirate sister.”
“Yeah, party tanks are supposed to be really fun, though a bit expensive to get running.” Well now Jacky had me curious. “I’m not a tank expert, my expertise is primarily in boats and airships.”
“How do you know what that is when they themselves don’t?” In explanation to my question, Jacky reached behind her back and pulled out her party cannon.
How in the world did she… where did she even pull that from?! Has she had that on her the whole time, its half her size! How have I not seen that before now?
“I think you broke mom.” Snickering a bit, Fizzle looked to me giggling some more.
“To be fair I think she broke almost everyone in the room.” My tom cat commented dryly. “Just to get things out of the way, yes, she’s been carrying that on her all this time. No, I don’t know how people who own and operate party cannons do that.”
“Hold on a second just let me…” Fiddling with the barrel of the party cannon, one that had a notable brightly colored parrot skull and crossbones logo on it, Jacky eventually pulled the cord and what look like a book launched itself into Stalk’s face knocking him over. “Whoops, might have set that to be a little too strong. Sorry about that.”
Jacky didn’t look particularly sorry and Jade smirked a bit, what am I going to do with my rambunctious children? Probably go insane and become senile while I’m still somewhat young.
“The party cannon manual and guide to other large party supply paraphernalia?” The confused Stalk read the cover, Jacky quickly went over to him and snatched it out of his hoof and opened it up to start looking through it.
“Yeah, judging by this, it appears that Hollow Heart guy weaponized a party tank.” She was comparing the diagram in the manual to the one on the wall. “Increased armor, more power source potential and stronger barrel to fire something much deadlier than party streamer ordnance. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be in the way of the cannon's barrel when that thing fires.”
“It’s a trap, they want you to go after it.” My kitten blurted out. “It’s really that obvious. I have a plan on how to…”
“No!” I think I frightened my kitten a bit by rebuking her like that, but I had my own ideas. “I’m doing the crazy plan this time kitten! Now we need a pony, named Macaroni..."