Gem smiled, working Magpie’s back with her hooves. The griffon was lying on the bed and breathing slowly, not giving off any signs that he was listening. All members of the group were around in varying states of consciousness and mental damage. In case of the unconscious batpony lying on the bed next to Magpie, almost lethal damage. Gem had had a look at him after her zebra escorts had taken them to the house of one of them, and quickly realized that she wouldn’t be able to do much to help without proper equipment. In light of that, she had sent her zebras on a little shopping trip.
“You know, there is one thing I like about lawless places like this, and that’s how easy it is to get pretty much anything as long as you have enough gold.”
The only one in a position to listen was her unicorn friend sitting cross-legged on a chair by the door with her eyes closed.
“Having hypnotic eyes and the ability to have anyone forget they met you must be nice...” Prominence rolled her eyes, but there was nothing genuinely negative in it, “Being able to evaporate anyone inconvenient just doesn’t compare.”
“Pfff,” Gem waved her hoof, “There are times I would kill- well, bite to be able to instantly make tea or coffee.”
“I see, so that’s what I’m to you - a portable heater,” Prominence pouted at the smirking changeling.
“And a gorgeous piece of plot to look at, which is why I always let you walk ahead in tight spaces.”
“And here was I thinking you valued my combat and scouting skills, not just my body.”
“Promi, Promi,” Gem wiggled her eyebrows at the unicorn, “If I wanted a proper wall ahead, then I’d be sending Magpie, but while his ass is great for a guy-”
“Gee, thanks...” the griffon mumbled into his pillow, “This discussion was definitely worth waking up for- owwwwwwwww!” he moaned as Gem pressed her hooves against the back of his hind thigh.
“Punching bags don’t get to talk,” Gem continued her massage, “Where was I? I lost my train of thought.”
“Comparing my plot to Magpie’s, and I seriously doubt any thought process was involved,” Prominence replied immediately.
“Oh shush.”
“Ufm… frry… buh cagn ue ot e ohking bout hof buhs?” Harriet, curled up in the corner of the room, forced out few choked words, “Ihs iff- hiffcuh- hard uff do finkh auedy.”
“Oh, sorry,” Gem gave her an apologetic smile, “It’s a coping mechanism at this point.”
“What did she say?” asked Prominence, “I forgot my ponish to tentacle dictionary in Canterlot.”
“Awmmmm...” Harriet whimpered, one of her throat tentacles rolling out of her mouth like a depressed noodle.
“She said it was difficult to think straight with me talking about butts,” Gem translated.
Three knocks on the door resonated through the room, a short break followed, then five more, another break, and finally a single knock.
Prominence sitting on guard opened and let in six zebras carrying saddlebags clearly filled to the brim. They put them down on the bed where Magpie sighed as Gem finished his massage, sat up, and grabbed a bigger backpack filled with clothes, quickly sorting out stuff that might fit him.
Gem stood up as well, and gave each of the zebras a kiss. They were completely devoted to her by this point, but it never hurt to break them fully just in case she needed them to do something completely against their principles.
Prominence joined Magpie in examining the clothing the zebras brought.
“You know, I’m not sure any amount of clothes will help conceal someone of my size. I can’t shapeshift like you.”
“We won’t need to sneak for long. The gear should be suited for a desert trip on hoof more than for hiding in a city,” Gem walked over to Pack Rat who was asleep on a pile of blankets under a table, and gently shook him, “Packy?”
The earthpony groaned, rolled over, and opened his eyes.
“Wh- where are we?” he croaked through a parched throat, and added after a quick thought, “When are we?”
“Not important,” Gem shook her head, patting his head, and talking slowly and quietly, “How are you feeling?”
“I...” he pushed himself up, and crawled from under the table towards Gem who made space for him, and pulled the confused stallion into a hug, “Huh?”
“I asked how you were feeling,” Gem repeated.
“Well… the spiders seem to be gone, so… that’s an improvement. I’m still seeing a group of armed zebras in the room, though, which isn’t helping.”
“They’re mine,” said Gem simply, “I grabbed them in the slaver complex, and one had an apartment near the edge of the city where we’re now. Thankfully, the fire Promi started caused enough chaos for us to get her without any problems.”
“Fire?” Pack Rat gave her a confused stare, “I’m sorry, it’s all a bit… chaotic. I’m not sure what happened, I mean which parts were real.”
“As I said, it doesn’t matter,” Gem smiled, letting him out of her embrace, “Grab some clothes that fit you,” she pointed to the pile of clothes Magpie had pulled out of the zebra backpacks, “Wait, do you need another fix? I kept your dose low this time.”
Pack Rat rubbed his temples, took few deep breaths, and said:
“No, I’m not feeling great, but… I think I can go for few more hours without.”
“Good stallion,” Gem nuzzled his neck.
He stumbled off, stopped by the griffon’s side, and stared at him, brows furrowed.
“I think that arena thing was real,” he mumbled to himself, making Magpie look his way, “Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Magpie shrugged, and continued to examine the offered clothes.
“I mean it,” said Pack Rat quietly, “I don’t recall much, but it can’t have been easy to protect-”
Magpie turned to face him, and leaned to his ear.
“Look, you want to be useful, and so do I,” he whispered, “You know what’s in your future, and so do I. Now don’t waste thanks on me, and do what that nice changeling lady who is worth thousand times more than both of us combined told you, okay?”
Pack Rat nodded, allowing himself a weak smile. Magpie was right, of course.
“What are you two lovebirds talking about?” Gem glanced their way, fully aware of the contents of their conversation. Not right in the head, both of them. It was always hard, and often impossible, to fix guys like those two, but from Gem’s centuries of experience, it was worth thousand times the effort, “If you need fashion tips, Promi here knows her way around the royal court.”
Magpie raised a bright red thong with golden frills around the waist.
“Any tips regarding this?” he replied, raising an eyebrow.
“Keep it,” Gem didn’t bat an eyelid, “You can model it for me later.”
“If you want to see it on a proper bod, keep one of the zeebs,” Magpie tossed the thong at Gem who casually put it on, and wiggled her hips.
“Pweeeeefh...” Harriet moaned from the ground, covering her eyes with her forelegs.
“Sorry,” Gem took the thong off, and threw it back on the pile, “Speaking of which, Harriet, how are you on the old self-control? I can get us out of many things, but wild Corrupted chasing zebra booty around the city isn’t one of them.”
Harriet whimpered. She wouldn’t be able to explain how she was feeling anyway. It was a fight against something which everything inside her kept telling her she didn’t want to fight. Like an itch, but all over as well as inside her, and as if she knew deep down that scratching the itch was only a good thing with no downsides at all. It was well and truly fighting herself, not anything external, and it was exhausting. Any look at her companions fueled her desire to jump at them, tentacles raised. The bad part was that closing her eyes wasn’t helping at all. Prominence in her imagination was even more tempting than in reality. Gem was…
Harriet had to stop herself again. Thinking about the godly-proportioned changeling was as bad as looking at her, because even her imagination couldn’t make Gem more desirable. Unfortunately, the zebras, Magpie, or even Packy proved little to no relief. What kept her sane was Prominence’s faint presence in the back of her head as well as her replaying the memory of her pleasuring herself on the shattered hips of a dying zebra, and his agonized face.
She was a murderer. That knowledge was eating her inside, but also stopping her from turning into something even worse.
“Ahl fry,” she sucked her free tongue in, gritted her teeth, and looked at the ponies in the room.
“That’s my girl,” Gem flashed her an encouraging smile, “Now let’s gear up, split the bags, take a deep breath, and get going. My good boys got us an old military van.”
“I’ve never liked those zebra and griffon transports,” pouted Prominence, “Give me good four legs over those any day.”
“I’d rather not waste weeks going north on hoof,” Gem clicked her teeth in disapproval, “I honestly doubt this place has some special agreement with the marauding army, and those guys haven’t left a stone unturned yet.”
***
As the member of the group with the most driving experience, Magpie was at the wheel-
“Slow down!” he heard Gem call from the back. Again.
-and it was a pain. No matter how good of a healer, medic, and surgeon she was, she clearly wasn’t used to having to practice her art on the go.
“I am going slow,” he called back over the rumbling of the engine, “Why don’t you tell the road to be less full of potholes instead.”
“I’m not a driver, but even I know the point isn’t to hit them all!” she called back, making the griffon growl and call back:
“We can switch if you want. I’ll kill the batpony and you can total the car!” he took a deep breath. It had been a very long two hours on the road, “I’m sorry, Gem.”
“No biggie,” the changeling called back, “It’s just a way to distract myself while I’m working on this extremely indecisive corpse. I have no idea why he isn’t healing properly, but at the same time why he isn’t already dead if he’s like this. It’s like pure bull-headed tenacity and vitality fighting against something horrible.”
The van had two seats in the front, and two benches on the sides of the back part, on one of which Gem was carefully doing her reopening and cleaning of the batpony’s wounds with Harriet resting on the other. Pack Rat was in the front with Magpie, studying the maps Gem’s zebras brought. Currently, they were driving northeast to a city called Manaewa which by all reports the zebras told Gem should be still untouched by war. From there, the plan was to find a military checkpoint and use Prominence’s credentials to…
That’s what they weren’t sure about yet. In short, they just needed to get to safety and report the events from the Badlands hive to someone. Desert Shade and her associates were working with Flow whose base was in the hive, and getting the Soulstealer there was the goal all along.
Gem added a carefully shapeshifted drop of her saliva into a small bowl which sizzled.
“Heat,” she said, upon which Prominence’s eyes flashed a little. Gem immediately felt the bowl warm up, and used a brush to clean the batpony’s wound again, “Goooood...” Gem finally smirked, “There was so much near-dead tissue, but not outright necrotic. It was as if the wound closed, but was still slowly dying underneath. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I’ve met diseases that made testicles melt out of one’s scrotum.”
“I doubt that,” Prominence replied without thinking, “You know, I think I might help now that you’ve cleaned him up properly.”
“Cauterizing the wound won’t help,” Gem shook her head, “I disinfected the slash better than fire can, and I can close it cleaner as well.”
“Sun, heat, and vitality, remember?” Prominence raised an eyebrow, and Gem shuffled away from the patient. The unicorn’s horn lit up very slowly, and warm, golden glow, almost liquid, started flowing from it to the long slash wound, “Now close it,” said Prominence after a while.
Gem didn’t argue, and immediately started sowing the wound with threads previously floating in a different bowl filled with green goop.
Despite the van shaking occasionally, the grip of her telekinesis was immaculate, and within few minutes the wound was sowed shut. Afterwards, even if changelings can’t sweat, Gem wiped her forehead.
“Nnnngh...” the batpony tried to turn around, a motion which Prominence stopped immediately by pushing him down, “Ughhh...”
With his movements restricted, the batpony moaned again, blinked, and gave Gem a confused look. However, when he laid his eyes on Prominence, he croaked:
“Blade?”
“Bladedancer is dead, Starry Night,” replied the unicorn, “She died trying to buy us time to get you away from Flow.”
“...fuck...” Starry Night closed his eyes. He wanted to cry, but he felt everything inside him was too dry.
Gem furrowed her brows, transformed her hoof into claws just to snap them, looked at Prominence, and said:
“You didn’t say you knew him!”
Prominence scratched her head, chuckled nervously, and replied:
“You’re right. I didn’t, did I? Heheh...” she withered under Gem’s glare, “Well, you know, there really wasn’t any time. First, I was knocked out, then the boat, and now we’re here.”
“Promiiiiii...” Gem growled.
“Aaanyway, this guy is Starry Night, princess Luna’s son, and that unicorn mare Flow killed was Bladedancer, the head of the paladins right under old Sunnybuns herself,” Prominence wiggled her eyebrows at everyone other than Magpie, who had his eyes firmly on the road, now staring at Starry Night, “Not a bad rescue mission, everyone.”