Chapter 14
Lance stared at her stump before smiling and reaching out to shake it. “Likewise, miss…?”
The moment he touched her stump she remembered it was a fresh wound and her eye twitched in intense pain, but she held it together.
“Scamp, my mom was your lawyer during your trials,” she replied, her excitement overcoming the sinking feeling of the pain meds wearing off.
“Meadow Glory was your mother?” Lance asked in surprise, then smiled warmly. “So you’re the little filly who was obsessed with my book.”
For the first time in years, she blushed and stammered, “Oh, yeah that was me.”
“Should have seen her room,” Greg joked as he came over and hoof bumped with Lance. “Wall to wall crazy shit about you and our lives.”
“Scamp, sit down and stop moving! You’re making your injuries worse!” Calypso commanded as she tried to sit her down.
“I’m good, Cally,” she replied in good spirits, turning to face her and fell to the floor. Flank up in the air and chin on the floor. “Okay, now you can save me, Calypso.”
“Idiot,” Calypso scolded as she flipped open her medical bag and started looking her over. A grim look on her face.
Greg smirked and slugged Lance in the shoulder, “So, fucked by a stallion back on earth?”
Lance sighed and chuckled, “You read the book.”
“Oh yeah,” Greg laughs. “You’re a weirdo, bud.”
“I’ve missed you guys,” Lance said, his faded mane hanging in his face.
“What about them?” Greg asked, getting a confused look from Lance. His horn flashed, and a moment later Lance brightened up even more.
“Break! Dawn!” He yelled to no one around them. But Scamp knew who he was speaking to. A smile formed on her face.
“These wounds…” Calypso remarked slowly, a grim look on her face. “These are far worse than anything I’ve seen on a living pony. You have internal bleeding, several broken ribs, fractures on all your legs and one actually broken. Not to mention your teeth are chipped to hell and both of your orbital bones are shattered. Missing a leg and a wing, and the other broke at the base. And more holes than I can count. You shouldn’t even be moving right now, let alone conscious.” Her eyes narrowed, “what are you on?”
“Eh drugs?” Scamp offered, the pain coming back in full now that the drugs and adrenaline were wearing off.
“She’s on this,” Greg said as his horn flashed causing a blue syringe and the empty combat injection to appear by Calypso. She only had to glance at it to realize what it was.
“You’re both bucking idiots!” She yelled, digging through her bag frantically.
“I had to, it was the only way,” Scamp said as she started to feel faint, and a new pain started rising in her hooves and chest. “My chest is hurting.”
Calypso slammed her hooves down on the bag in frustration, and snapped, “because you’re dying! You mixed the worst kind of drugs together! And there’s nothing I can do!!”
“Ominus can save her!” Shadow Breeze yelled. “We just have to get back to our entry point!”
Scamp looked past them and saw her mother standing among the crowd. “Mom?!”
Her mom shook her head at her and pointed to her.
Everything darkened as she lost consciousness.
ooo000<^>000ooo
Scamp thrashed awake, horrid images and memories haunting her dreams. Panting she looked around and was confused to find herself in a bedroom of some kind.
The objects that littered the room around her was nothing she’d ever seen before, or knew existed. What surprised her more was that she felt fine, better than fine actually. She felt like she was young again, all the pains in her body gone.
She looked down to find she had all her legs, even her wing was back. “Huh?!” She jumped up in a panic, and looked herself over. She was covered in healed scars, and where she’d lost her leg she saw a seam like it had been fused back on. But it and her wing didn’t look like they belonged to her.
The leg rippled suddenly, as if it was alive.
She decided she’d had enough of that and was just going to ignore that thought.
The door opened and Calypso stood in the doorway, “You are literally the luckiest mare alive, you know that?”
“Huh?!” Scamp asked, still confused.
“Come on,” was the only thing Calypso said in response as she left the room. With nothing else to do she followed after her friend.
Once out of the room she realized they were no longer in Equestria. The pictures on the walls showed a human male with a goatee standing with many different creatures, each picture seeming to be from a different universe.
“We’re in Ominus’s dimension?” Scamp asked her friend.
“Yep,” Calypso said unhappily. “I didn’t want to stay, but when this Ominus guy said that the moment he pulled us out some thing called the Watcher erased our home, then I had no choice.”
She did not sound happy at all, but Scamp understood why. They’d both just lost their home, just like that.
They remained quiet as they entered a living room of some kind where the others were. They were all in their human forms, and laughing together.
This brought a smile to her face as they neared.
“There’s the Queen Slayer,” Lance joked as they neared. He was now back in his younger body, the body of a late twenty’s male.
“Nah, Horn Snapper,” Greg interjected, a blunt between his lips. “She just grabbed that horn like she was an expert, and snapped that bitch!” He imitated the action she’d taken, laughing the whole time.
Scamp waved them off as she took a seat on a couch with Calypso.
“She’s an expert at snapping horns,” Calypso added, looking to be trying to get over losing her home.
Lance looks her over and asks in a deeper voice, “how old are you exactly?”
She blinked at him for a moment before remembering that his subconscious Break could take over sometimes, “Thirty two.”
“Barely older than us then,” Break/Lance said with a nod before Lance asked in his normal voice. “I’ll never be able to thank you for all you did for me.”
Scamp raised her hoof and looked at the Mark of the Outsider, a grimace flashing across her face. He may be grateful for what she’d done, but she’d never be the same after this. “I had to do things in that palace. Things I’ll never be proud of.”
“I heard,” he replied sympathetically. “But you’re among others who’ve been there, we understand how you’re feeling.”
This helped her, but she still felt like kicking herself some more.
“Besides, it doesn’t matter because they all got erased in the end, so you killing them or the Watcher, same result,” Greg added, trying to be helpful.
This did not help her. She just sighed and held a smile to them, “well, I’m not new to truama. I’ll work through it.”
“Not meaning to intrupt,” Shadow Breeze began. “But what now? Can we all go home?”
Ominus sighed as he sat back and rubbed his goatee. “I was waiting too see if Scamp’s body would accept or reject the upgrades before saying anything.”
Scamp looked at him wide eyed, filled with questions.
He only smiled sheepishly at her, “it obviously accepted them. But we’ll talk later.” With a clap of his hands he jumped up and stood in front of everyone.
“Alright guys, that was the easy part,” he exclaimed, getting surprised looks.
“THAT was the easy part?!” Scamp was floored at this. She’d basically been killed and that was the easy part of whatever this was.
“Yep,” he began to pace. “So we’ve pissed off the Watcher, and when he erased the new world he’s begun looking for me. I’m sure I could avoid him here for a while, but we need to deal with him, not hide from him.”
“From what I can tell,” he said grimly. “He’s taken the original souls of our friends and spread them among other dimensions. It’s bait to draw us out.” A smirk appeared on his face, “and we’re going to take the bait and use it against him!”
“How?” Shadow Breeze asked with a cocked head.
“We’re basically two ships out at sea at night with old radar systems,” Ominus said, a hologram appearing and displaying what he was saying. “We can’t find each other if we don’t move, but if we want to win, we’ll have to get our opponent to move as well. This means us making the first move, and watching for a response. The winner will come down to who spots the other's position first and acts.”
“What do you mean he’s spread our friends out?” Lance asked, arms crossed.
The hologram changed to a diagram of a few human shilotes being dragged to little circles. “Exactly that. I’m not sure of any of their locations, but I can find them. The Watcher wants us to go after them so he can track us down. But two can play that game.”
“So we’re gonna stick it to the Watcher?” Lance smirked.
Ominus snapped his finger and the song ‘paralyzer’ began to play through some speakers.
“We’re gonna get our friends back and fuck the Watcher,” he declared boldly.
Scamp looked at everyone gathered, a smile touching her face.
Looks like the adventure is just starting.