//------------------------------// // New Tool And Bad News // Story: Displacement // by hornethead //------------------------------// Chapter 42: New Tool And Bad News In the cold, still air of the forest the din of battle could be heard ringing through the trees. It was faint at first, but as you neared the edge of the trees, the clanging of swords grew in volume. In a small camp situated on the outskirts of a quaint little town, two skilled warriors fought against each other in a large circular space cleared of snow and ice. One, a rusty red stallion, was using his magical energy to swing a short sword at the head of his opponent, a nearly six foot biped armed with a well cared for cutlass. The unicorn swung at the human's head again, but suddenly changed the direction of his strike in mid blow. The human barely caught on the flat of his blade before the short sword slammed into his left kidney. "Oh, nice! You're getting better at this James!" "Yeah, looks like I'll be leaving with less welts today." "Not if I can help it!" Sparks resumed his attack, trying desperately to land a blow on his sparring partner. The two exchanged a flurry of blows, driving each other back and forth across the patch of hard packed earth frozen the winter cold. Then, without warning, a white snowball encased in an electric blue aura came whipping through the air, slamming into James' face and temporarily blinding him. James jumped back and swung wildly, trying to deflect the blow he was positive was driving straight towards his body. He succeeded in warding off two blows, but as he finally began to regain his sight, he felt a sharp sting across his ribcage. "Ah, cheater!" James exclaimed, rubbing the now sore spot on his chest. "Weren't you the one who taught me there's no such thing as a fair fight?" "Ah yes, I taught you well." "That you did. At least you're getting better. You just seem a little uncomfortable with that sword.' "Yeah. It's got great balance and it feels like an extension of my arm, but... eh, it's just not the same. Honestly, I miss my knife." James confessed in a slightly depressed tone. "Oh, do you?" Sparks trotted over to his bag, which was sitting on a bench near by, and retrieved a sixteen by four inch rectangular box. He trotted back over and and offered it up to his human friend. "Happy birthday brother!" James looked at his friend with an expression of bewilderment, "How the hell did you know? I didn't tell anyone!" "Well, when you went missing after that botched op a few months ago I found your iPod under a bench in the Clipper. I hope you're not mad, but I looked through some pictures that were on it and saw some labeled with today's date that looked like birthday parties. By the way, there was some weird stuff in there. Why did you have a cake shaped like.... well, they were like what mares got, only they were big, round and hairless." "Oh, you mean tits!" "Uh.... I guess, yeah. So that's what's on those human females in the other photos?" "That's right." "Huh. Kinda weird how they're not, like, down there like a mare's." "Uh... sure." "Well, aren't you going to open your present!?" James looked at the box in his hands, "Yeah, yeah. Just do me a favor and keep the fact that it's my birthday on the down low." "What!? Why?" "I've just never liked being the center of attention. It makes me uncomfortable." "Ok, you got it. I'll pass it on to the others." "Oh, c'mon, you told them too?" "James, shut up and open your present." "Alright, alright." James removed the top of the box and peered inside. Slowly, his eyes went wide and bright and a large shit eating grin appeared on his face. Out from the box he pulled a large knife in a long black sheath. The handle was four inches long and covered in textured black rubber. Gripping the sheathe in one hand and the handle in the other, James slowly extracted a long thin twelve inch long, two and a half inch wide black blade. The sharp edge started at the hilt and ran strait and true to the tip where it slightly curved up into the lethal point. "Holy shit, this is awesome! Did you make this yourself?" "As a matter of fact, I did." Sparks stated cockily, why don't you give it a try? I already put the temporary dulling spell on it." James' shit eating grin transformed into a wicked smile, "Don't mind if I do!" The human tossed aside all his equipment except for the knife and jumped back into a ready stance, handle in his fist, blade pointing out away from the right side of his right hand, left hand raised up in front of his chest. Across from him, his quadruped opponent lifted his own weapon with his magic. They both circled each other, trying to read their body language and anticipate an attack. Then Sparks lunged forward, striking at the human's left thigh. James side stepped it and stabbed at the unicorn, but had to quickly retreat when the sword came swinging down at his left shoulder. James caught the sword on his new knife at the sword's hilt. Moving quickly, James grabbed the sword's handle with his left hand and yanked it out of the magical aura, spinning around to bring his knife to Spark's neck. However, the stallion ducked the slash and stepped past the human's guard, kicking low at his legs. James jumped above the kick and attempted to bring the short sword down on the unicorn's head. Sparks leaped aside and kicked the sword out of James' hand as it struck the cold ground. Sparks immediately caught the blade with his magic as it tumbled across the ground and started swinging it at his opponent. James dodged each swipe with amazing dexterity before finally savagely swatting aside the weapon with such force that it sent a tingle up his arm. Sparks responded by pulling back the sword and launching it in a brutal stab at the human's chest. James got a running start and propelled himself into the air, splitting his legs and allowing the blade to pass uncomfortably close to his crotch. With a vicious war cry, James landed next to the stallion and swatted him on the flank, hard. "HYAAAA, HA HA HA!" "OW! Dammit, that smarts!" "Yes! Got your ass! Literally! Damn I feel great! This thing is perfect brother, thank you!" "Glad you like it buddy...." Sparks said while wincing and rubbing the spot James had struck him, "ugh, I won't be able to sit for a week." "Ha ha, sorry about that. C'mon brother, let's go find the others, drinks on me." ===================================================================== /Looking for some action, Nothing short of bad. I need a quick reaction 'Cause it's late in the evening./ James looked over to the pegasus standing next to him, excited yet breathing calmly in his full face mask as the song began to play through their headphones. She smiled at him, her mouth was covered by her own mask, but he could see it in her eyes. Together, they stepped up onto the guard rail and balanced themselves, staring over the edge ant the distant ground far below. /Radar radar radar, rider! Radar radar radar, rider!/ As the chorus kicked on, they both kicked off rail. James swung himself into a lateral spin while Dash barrel rolled down past the side of the Clipper. As they sped past the side door, a coal black pegasus with a giggling pink mare strapped to his front and a chute on his back tumbled out after them. /On the streets it's like a crap game, You take the roll of the dice. Put your money on a hard way, Hoping something looks nice./ To the beat of the drums and the wailing guitars, James and Dash began performing aerobatics together, thoroughly enjoying their time with each other high above ground. They laughed as they tried to one up each other with complicated tricks. James just finished one he particularly proud of, he spun on a diagonal axis while twirling his whole body, when a warm mass slammed into him and he felt his torso being embraced, it was Dash. He returned the embrace and looked into her eyes as they whirled through the freezing air at terminal velocity. The remained like this for a few seconds before separating. James flared his limbs and Dash her wings, allowing Flash and Pinkie to catch up. The bubbly party mare was having the time of her life while James could see that Flash was a little more than uncomfortable, James noticed that his friend was constantly shuffling his wings under the straps in a subconscious attempt to free them and fly. They were still some ways from the ground, but James went ahead and sent Flash the signal deploy the chute for his sake, doing the same with his own shortly after. James pulled away and flared his chute to get up and above the tandem jumpers and laughed when he saw the pegasus struggling with the pink earth pony who was flailing in ecstasy at her first skydiving experience. Dash pulled up alongside him, mask dangling freely from her neck. James now noticed that they were at a much lower altitude, the cold of the air not as biting as it was higher up, so he removed his own and clipped it to his harness. "How you feelin' there, champ?" She inquire of him. James looked her in the face and smiled, "You know, just... happy. I just feel good. I haven't had one of my episodes in a long time. Thank you." "For what?" "Just being you. Being here. Being here and being you." Dash laughed a little at his comment, "What, are you drunk?" "No, but I think I saw Flash take a shot before strapping up to Pinkie!" "Ba ha ha! Yeah, she did nearly squirm out of her harness in joy!" Dash chortled. Together they all floated lazily down to the cold white earth. Every once in a while, James and Flash would execute some tight turns to the amusement of their two companions. As they neared touch down, James could see a small purple form waiting on the steps of the HQ building. Gently, they all alighted on the ground and began to shed the harnesses and reel in the parachutes. James talked to Flash as Pinkie bounced over to Twilight with Dash. "You looked a little shook up there buddy, what gives?" Flash snorted in annoyance, "I just don't like not being able to control my own flight. The harness kept chafing my wings the whole way down." "Ha, I kinda know how you feel. My first jump was a little messy. For some reason I just couldn't stop spinning, they almost failed me because of it." "Hey James...." The human turned around to see all three mares walking up to the two of them, Twilight being the one calling for his attention, a concerned look upon her face. "Yeah, what's up?" He asked her. "I need to talk to you about something important." "Alright, go ahead." "Privately." This was strange and disconcerting to James. Twilight had never asked to speak with him in private before, thoughts of possible scenarios began to race through his mind. "Ok... we can use the ready room." "Lead the way." James quickly rolled up his parachute and walked up to the entrance to the building housing the ready room, holding the door open for the lavender colored unicorn. He closed the door behind himself and made his way over to the mare who had taken a seat at one of the desks that were still in there. "So what seems to be the problem, was there an attack or something?" "No, I've just been doing some research in my spare time and found some... strange things in relation to you and everything that's been happening." "Uh huh... what about?" "Certain things about your arrival here and those things that showed up and started attacking everypony." James felt like a dense cold stone dropped into the bottom of his stomach as his mind pondered what she had just said. "So you know how I got here and where the Lotkin came from?" "Not exactly. Those things you call the Lotkin were actually natives here, back before Tartarus was sealed off and set under the guard of Cerberus." James' mind did a flip in his head as he processed this new information, "Wait, what? Ok, in all the historical carvings I've seen and everything you guys have told me, I have never heard of this before." "I know, this info was extremely hard to find, I spent many nights in the Starswirl The Bearded section of the Canterlot Royal Archives to piece it all together. They were here thousands of years ago, long before Equestria ever even existed, before even Discords reign over the land. From what I could find, they settled this area, hunting and battling amongst each other, but were driven from their lands by an over population of dragons, burning and slaughtering all in their path. They were forced into the dark lands of Tartarus. I'm sure they planned to return when it was safe again, but by then Tartarus had been sealed off and established as a holding area for vicious and evil creatures." James paced back and forth, considering everything she had just told him, "Ok, that's pretty heavy. What does this have to do with me appearing here?" "Well, not so much you as the other human you mentioned. Whatever caused you and him to be transported to our world also tore holes in the fabrics of space, time and magic. Whatever magic was in place in the area you appeared would be severely weakened by these tears. In addition to this, due to the way our world is so intertwined with magical forces, the environment around the location of these tears would begin to deteriorate catastrophically." "So, what, you think Kraster may have popped up in or near Tartarus or something?" "My thoughts exactly. It's my hypotheses that he arrived somewhere near the border of Tartarus, weakening the barrier in place around it and allowing those creatures to slip through. We must plug this hole, so to speak, before anything else gets out." The purple unicorn told him in a serious tone. "Ok, so how do we go about doing that?" James quandered. "Well, as to that, there's a catch." Alarm bells started going of in the human's mind, "What kind of catch?" "There are only two ways I can think of to repair the tears. One is to send you both back through at the locations where you entered this world." "Which I've been told time and time again is completely impossible, what's the second?" Twilight closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before letting it all out, "You die."