Chapter 28
“There you go,” came Doc’s voice as I slowly came too, the pain in my body reduced by a wide margin. I at least felt not as broken on the inside.
“Mallogory?” I asked as I sat up. “Reinhardt?”
“Alive,” Doc said with a nod.
“How long was I out?” I looked around, seeing nothing had changed.
“Barely a few minutes,” he said, working on Reinhard’s gut wound, his glowing hands working their magic.
With a grunt, I sat up and raised off the ground using my wings. I fluttered over to the window and looked out the hole, seeing the two ships still there.
“It’s only a matter of time before they make a move,” I started, frowning. “Once they realize Leem’s not on the ship, they’ll probably open up on us again.”
“We need to get off the ship then,” Doc said as Remi ran into the room carrying more medical supplies for him.
Looking over at the blinking device connected to the ship, I frowned. If we leave, we’ll miss the teleport. Then we’ll be stuck here, wherever here is. “We’ll need to figure something out, because we can’t leave the ship.”
“Then I guess we wait for them to just shoot us down,” Reinhardt said, watching her wounds slowly close.
Mallogory groaned as she came too and sat, checking her stomach for the now healed over wound. “Well, that’s a neat trick.” Then she noticed she no longer had a left arm. “Ah, that sucks.”
“Welcome back,” I say to her with a nod.
She blinked at me, looking around, “Wait, you killed Leem?”
“No,” I admitted, pointing over my shoulder out the window. “I took his memory and threw him overboard. So we shouldn’t have to worry about him for a while, I hope.”
“Brutal,” she said with a nod of approval. Then smirked at me, “Lost another leg?”
“Lost an arm?” I retorted, chuckling.
“Alright love birds,” Reinhardt interrupted, groaning as she stood up. “We need to focus here. What’s the plan?”
I cleared my throat and looked out the window again, the two ships still sitting there among the clouds. “We have two options as I see it; take the fight to them, or make peace.”
“Make peace?” Reinhardt said with a touch of disgust.
“At least for now, long enough to get out of this mess,” I reply, staring at her. “We’ll have a vote.”
“Ah, I knew democracy would rear its head eventually,” Beans said with a few clicks, laughing. “I’m for peace.”
Moxxi walked onto the bridge, looking a bit better than the last time I saw her. “I vote for peace. I don’t feel like getting shot out of the sky today.”
“Kill em,” Reinhardt crossed her arms, huffing.
Remi held up her board. ‘Fight.’
“Peace,” Doc said, his white fur covered in our blood.
“I say,” Mallogory began, looking conflicted as she looked at her arm, then me. “Fight.”
I nod, seeing the votes were tied. “I guess it's up to me.”
Looking between my friends, all of them looking to me for the final decision. I called for a vote because I did not want to make this particular decision.
“Peace,” I finally said, eye closed as I heard a mixture of relief and disappointment. “I will not risk your lives further, this is final.”
With a sour look, I flew over to the communications station and opened up a link to the warship that’d hailed us earlier.
“Come in, this is the Bountiful Wealth, hailing the lead warship on our port side,” I said into the mic, nervousness taking me over.
“What?!” a voice yelled into the mic. “Where’s Leem!?”
I looked back at my friends, sighing, “He’s no longer with us.”
“Lies,” the voice said in anger. “Leem is the undying! You have thirty seconds to put him on, or we’re blowing you out of the sky!”
“So much for peace,” Reinhardt huffed, clearly unhappy.
Shit! I kicked the console before me and turned to my friends. “Okay, we need-”
The ship shook hard as two explosions were heard. The ship began to groan as the gravity field seemed to start to fail.
“The lying bastards!” Mallogory yelled as she grabbed a chair as the ship was rocked with another explosion.
“You expected them to be honest?!” Reinhardt yelled as everyone ran to a chair and jumped into it, buckling in.
“Calm down and prepare for a crash landing!” I bellowed as I jumped down into the pilots chair. The engines may be gone, but the controls should still control the fins and turning thrusters. The best we could do now was hit the ground with the belly of the ship.
“This is how I fucking die?!” Reinhardt yelled in anger.
The ship seemed to scream as it was hit with another shell, causing the gravity field to completely fail.
“Here we go,” Mallogory sighed, tightening her straps.
We began to fall, slow at first, but quickly it picked up speed as we plummeted through the clouds. Falling straight down, a death sentence for us.
“At this angle, we will for sure die on impact,” Beans called out calmly, despite the situation.
“Thank you, Beans!” I yelled, racking my brain for a solution.
“Mallo! How are our turning thrusters and engines!” Moxxi suddenly called out.
Mallogory turned to the screen and frantically looked it over. “Uh, thrusters are good. Eh, engines are still gone.”
“What about power to engines?” she asked as we broke through the clouds, the ground far below us but fast approaching.
Looking over her screen, she punched it in anger as she couldn’t find what she was looking for. “I don’t know!”
“Okay, we’ll assume they’re still getting power!” Moxxi yelled in a panic. “Scamp, push all ship power to the engines and overload the thrusters!”
I blinked over at her, but she waved me on, “Do it! It’ll blow the engines and thrusters all at once, which should send us flying forward so we can try and control our fall!”
“Moxxi you’re amazing!” I began to divert the power and prepare the thrusters. Slamming my hoof down, the power flickered as we all heard the engines roar to life below us. Then they exploded, followed by the rear thrusters also blowing.
Just as she said, we shot forward roughly, picking up more speed than when we were free falling.
Pulling hard, I used my wings and hoof to try and pull the front of the ship up.
“Oh this is going to hurt,” Beans said as he hunkered down in his chair, pulling in all his legs.
My eye strained as I stared out the window, watching the ground quickly approaching.
Then as a loud groan was heard, a bright flash blinded me.
ooo000<^>000ooo
“Do not touch that,” Calypso yelled as she saw Rainbow Dash reach out for the beacon.
“But,” Rainbow Dash started, but sighed as she backed away from it.
Jero stood up slowly, looking out over his hurt friends and the innocent bystanders who’d got caught up in the fighting. Most of the park goers who had been hurt were hit with attacks redirected by Lorenzo. Calypso was sending her Ego to everyone, not caring if they were part of the group or not.
Lance was punching the ground, cursing as he reeled in his sobbing. Greg was still holding and soothing Pinkie Pie, looking very forlorn as he stared blankly ahead. Drax however was looking better, his wounds healing back to normal.
With a frown, he walked over to the beacon and lifted it, not sure if he should destroy it or accept the teleportation request.
After being tricked by Lorenzo appearing, he wasn’t sure he wanted any more surprises.
He looked over to his three dead friends, tears finally touching his eyes as it all started to hit him all at once. But instead of crying or feeling sorry for himself, he tightened his grip on his Traveler’s blade and turned to his friends.
“Listen up!” He yelled, catching them all off guard. “We need to gather ourselves and get out of here. Lorenzo and the Watcher know where we are now and we have no ace’s up our sleeves anymore.”
“What about them?” Rarity asked meekly, trying not to look at the bodies of their friends.
“I’ll handle that,” Jero said in a calm voice. “But we need to go, now.”
“Throw away that device first!” Adry yelled from her hiding spot behind a few tables. “It only brings death!”
Jero looked at the beacon and sighed. “We have a choice, ignore this, or press it. It could be Scamp, or it could be another bad guy.”
“We’re not voting,” Lance said as he drug himself to his hooves, stomping over and snatching the device from Jero with his remaining wing. “It could be Scamp, but I can not risk anymore of you. We’re not allowing the teleportation request.”
“Who’s Scamp?” Adry asked as she came out of her hiding spot slowly.
Lance looked at her, thinking if he should tell her or wait. His mind was made up for him.
“She’s your daughter from the timeline Lance was trapped in,” Greg said, getting a glare from Lance.
“My what?!” Adry asked in shock, looking to Lance for clarification.
He just blinked back at her, still not wanting to be the one to tell her. He wanted to wait and let Scamp decide how to approach that.
Calypso appeared at his side, holding his severed wing up to the stump, using her Ego to heal it.
“It’s…” Lance began, sighing in relief as he felt the pain in the wing stump reside. “It’s very complicated.”
She narrowed her normally happy eyes and glared at him, now more resembling the Meadow Glory he knew in the other dimension. “Lance, tell me. This Scamp is my daughter from another timeline?”
“... Yes,” he finally confirmed. “It’s a long story that I think she’d rather tell you herself. But, she is the only reason I am here now and we’re all slowly working towards restoring our old lives to normal.” He then looked at the device, frowning. “That does not change my decision about using this.”
Adry chewed on her lip as she nervously twirled her mane around her hoof. “But what if it is this Scamp?”
“It could be,” Lance conceded, still looking unhappy. “But the risk of it being another Lorenzo type guy is too much. So if it is Scamp, then we’ll just have to trust she can make it back on her own without our help.”
“That’s cold, Lance,” Rarity commented, looking at him in disappointment. “She’s a friend of yours, and you're okay letting her fend for herself? Shame on you! If Peter was here, he’d tell you to do it.”
The mention of Peter brought more dread upon him as he glanced at her. “I’m looking out for the group.”
“And the group wants to help this Scamp chick,” Rainbow Dash said as she landed roughly by Lance. “From what I’ve heard, she’s one bad flank. And a loyal friend, like myself. You gotta at least risk it. We can handle any bad guy who comes through otherwise!”
Lance’s eye twitched as he fought with himself internally.
“She’d risk it for you,” Jero said calmly.
“God! FUCK! Okay,” Lance finally said, taking the device and pressing the button. He tossed it to the ground where it began to flash orange, which was new.
“MASSIVE OBJECT TELEPORTATION IMMINENT! MAKE SURE THERE IS CLEAR SPACE ABOVE DEVICE FOR TWO MILES!”
“What the hell does that mean?” Greg asked as they all suddenly heard a massive boom above their heads. As they looked up they saw a massive airship rocketing through the air, fire covering the entire hull as parts broke off of it as it flew straight towards the ground far from their current position.
“Fucking hell!” Lance exclaimed with wide eyes as they all watched it smash through a tall building and crash through a ton of booths and stalls as it made contact with the ground and violently slid. The front separated from the back as it flew off to the side, the rest of the ship grinding along the ground.
“That definitely just raised our kill counts…” Greg cringed, getting a few dirty looks from the ponies.
The remains of the ship rolled forward, finally coming to a stop with the tail pointing straight up. Fire roared out of the engine part of the ship, looking about ready to explode again.
“Come on!” Lance yelled, testing his reattached wing before taking off towards the burning ship in the distance. The others quickly chased after him.
ooo000<^>000ooo
I coughed loudly as I felt the ship finally come to a halt, with the front flat against the ground. Which left all of us hanging in our seats.
Working the buckles of my restraints, I struggled to see the others in the black smoke that poured up into the bridge.
“Alright! Who’s not dead? Sound off!” I yelled in a horse voice, the smoke gagging me.
I heard the responses of all my friends, except Remi, but that didn’t mean anything with her being mute.
With a twist, I was able to get out of my restraints and flew over to Beans. He was already out of his seat and helping Doc and Moxxi.
Flying to the other side I saw Mallogory helping Remi out of a jumble of wires that had fallen on her.
“Damn life saving devices!” Reinhardt cursed as I moved to help, but she just turned to liquid for a moment to let them fall through her.
Satisfied they were all free, I looked around and saw a much bigger hole than the one before, smoke being sucked into it.
“This way guys, come on!” I screamed over the groaning of the ship around us. I hovered by the hole, holding a hoof over my face as I continued to yell to them.
Thankfully, they all slowly climbed their way to me and began to pull themselves through the hole. Once I saw the final one pass me, I flew out last.
As I landed on the outside of the window, smoke pouring out behind me, I began to cough violently.
Someone slapped my back a few times then pulled me up, “Gotta get off the ship, move!”
I nod, seeing that it was Mallogory that was dragging me along. Coming back to my senses fully, I flair my wings and look towards Moxxi. “Get on.”
She looked over, and despite the situation, smiled, “Knew you’d come around.”
Once she was on my back, I looked to the others. “I can only carry one at a time, so hang in there.”
But as I prepared to fly off to the ground, two others suddenly shot up the side of the ship and hovered before us.
Lance! And Rainbow Dash?
“Oh boy, this looks bad,” Rainbow said as she looked us over, then saw me. “OUCH! What the buck happened to you?!”
“Help first, questions later!” I yelled up to them. They both nodded and flew down to help.
Lance grabbed Doc, who held Beans, and motioned for Mallogory, who jumped on his back.
Rainbow Dash grabbed Remi as Reinhardt got on her back. Both of them let out strained groans as they struggled to lift off the ground, but luckily the two of them were powerful flyers.
I grabbed the bottom of Remi to try and help as the three of us flew off of the burning ship.
“Who are you guys?!” Rainbow Dash asked in an annoyed voice as we slowly flew away.
“My friends,” I said as I struggled to keep a grip on Remi with my one leg. Luckily, she used her tail to hold onto me, which helped greatly.
“And you?!”
“That’s Scamp,” Lance said, his eyes filled with sadness and regret as he stared at me, which confused me.
“Oh damn! You’re Scamp?! I repeat the question from earlier; what the buck happened to you?!” Rainbow asked, eyes wide in amazement.
“Life,” I say simply, getting a few chuckles from my friends.
Lance just looked away.
We flew towards the ground, far from the crash, with Lance leading us. After a moment, I saw a familiar group of ponies. Ones I’ve only seen in pictures from Lance’s book.
FInally, we landed, all of my friends climbing off of us. I sat down hard, trying to catch my breath as my lungs burned like they were on fire.
“Scamp?! What have you done to yourself?!” Calypso roared as she ran over, her Ego attaching to me and the others. I started to question what she was doing, but I felt a cooling sensation run over my body as her Ego spread through my body.
For the first time since arriving in the arena, I felt relief from pain that had just kept building up as time went on. Even my lungs started to hurt less as I felt the little pulses of her Ego through my body.
“It’s a long story,” I sighed, giving her my best smile.
“Idiot,” she spat out, then hugged me tightly.
I returned the hug, happy to see my friend after all the shit I’ve been through. She pulled back, looking at my burns and eye in confusion.
“Why aren’t these healing?! My Ego is supposed to be able to heal stuff like this!” she yelled in frustration, pumping even more Ego than necessary into me.
“That would be my fault,” Doc said remorsefully. Upon Calypso wheeling on him, furious eyes staring into his, his shoulders slumped. “I have the ability to speed up healing, but only along its natural progression stages. But the drawback is that they become unhealable with anything outside of cosmetic surgery.”
Calypso stomped her hoof in anger, obviously trying not to start screaming, “That is the worst healing ability.”
“I know,” was his only response.
“I’d be dead without him or his abilities,” I say, getting her attention. “I chose to have him use them on me. It was that or die. So please, Cal, lay off him. He’s a good person.”
She sighed, patting my shoulder. “Welcome back, Scamp.”
“So you’re Scamp?” A woman said from my left side. Turning my head, I was taken aback by what I saw.
“Mom?!”
The green mare laughed awkwardly, “According to Lance, I guess I am.”
I blinked at the much younger version of my mother. A much happier looking version too. This looked to be about the age that she had me, according to pictures I had of her from back then.
I was at a loss for words, just staring at the mare that was my mother in another time and place.
“Do we hug?” She asked, a sheepish smile on her face.
“Do we?” I asked, completely confused on what to do at that moment. As we blinked at each other, I forced a chuckle. “Let’s put a pin in that, yeah?”
She relaxes a bit and smiles thankfully back at me. “Sounds like a plan.”
Looking at Lance, I saw he was looking at me with tears in his eyes. Seeing that I was looking at him, he turned and walked away, wiping his eyes.
In the distance behind us were the sounds of screams and sirens as people ran from the burning debris.
That’s when I noticed everyone outside of my group looked pained, like something was bothering them.
“What happened?” I asked, putting the pieces together. If it took them that long to accept our request, and they all look tired and hurt, then something must have been going on.
“Lorenzo happened,” Jero said in a grim tone.
My eyes widened as I sat on my flank, looking around at the ponies. “I know he killed Omnius… who else?”
“Vinetion, Grace, Octavia, and Zane,” Jero replied evenly, looking more mad than sad. “The Watcher found us and sent Lorenzo to Omnius’ dimension. After killing him, he tricked us into teleporting him here. We barely stopped him.”
I looked to the ground in shock. I may not have personally known them, but I felt like I did after years of following their story. Everything finally caught up to me. We lost. My small victory against Leem meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
“Then we lose, the Watcher wins,” I suddenly said with a loud exhale of air, slumping my shoulders as I hung my head.
I felt two others come up on either side of me, placing their hand and hoof on my shoulders. Looking up, I saw Adry and Mallogory, both with looks of concern.
“Don’t give up,” Adry said, lifting my chin with her hoof.
“You’re too badass to just quit,” Mallogory said, giving me a confident smile. “Where’s that chick that was kicking my ass back in the Dome? Or the mad bitch who defeated Leem?”
This at least brings a small smile to my face.
“We have a way to win,” Jero said, getting me to look at him. “It’s complicated,” he said as a little fairy thing flew up beside him, looking at me with a little animated face.
“What the fuck?” I said with a shake of my head. “You’re going to have to explain this one to me.”