Edited by TacoTown
Chapter eleven
Twilight and Ethan appeared in her library home in a flash of purple light. Spike, who had been smoking his
bubble pipe in a red nightgown, a book in one hand and a plate of cookies lay upon his lap, jumped into the air in surprise, scattering cookies all over the floor.
“Spike, what have I told you about eating sweets when I’m not home?” Twilight asked the dragon, who blushed.
“Well, I was baking a batch for whenever you came home, and these are the testers.” Spike said as he began to crawl around the floor and pick up cookies.
“Mhm…” Twilight said as she raised an eyebrow at the dragon while he finished getting the cookies off of the floor. “So where is the rest of the batch?” Twilight asked.
“I’m about to put them in the oven.” Spike replied, and then he noticed Ethan.
The dragon’s eyes took in the blood, gore, and tear covered man, and his eyes went wide. Ethan looked terrible; his eyes were shadowed and bloodshot while his hair was soaked through with dried blood. Dirt and blood caked his skin in a firm layer of grime that was impressive, even for someone like him. His armor however, was unharmed; apparently Rarity’s enhancements and enchantments had worked very well.
“So I’m guessing that you’re Ethan?” Spike asked after a few seconds of quiet observation. He’d heard a lot of stories about the guy, and Twilight had sent him a message saying that the man had arrived so he was hardly shocked to see him covered in blood and gore. He was a dragon, so things like that didn’t really matter to him.
“Yeah… that’s me.” Ethan said. To Spike, his voice sounded tired and defeated, almost as if he’d been shouting a lot.
“Do you want a cookie?” Spike asked as offered one of the cookies in his hand to the man, who eyed it oddly for a few seconds before taking it and popping into his mouth. His eyes lit up as the sugar rolled over his taste buds and he eagerly held out his hand for another.
“Ethan, you need to bathe. Who knows whose blood you just shoved into your mouth along with that cookie.” Twilight commanded before Ethan could grab another.
“But Sparky, they taste incredible!” Ethan protested as he swallowed the last of the cookie.
“Look at your hands.” She instructed and Ethan did so. His gloves were so covered in blood and gore that it was almost impossible to see the material beneath the surface.
“Fine, I guess you’re right.” Ethan said dejectedly as he began to take off his armor. “But what about you Sparky? You’re just as dirty as I am.” Ethan asked, gesturing at Twilight who was also wearing blood covered armor. Her horn lit and suddenly a wave of purple energy washed over her. Once the energy had disappeared Twilight was much cleaner, although there was still a bit of blood clinging to her mane. “Cheater.” Ethan snorted, regaining a small amount of his humor.
“It’s not perfect, but you need the shower way more than I do; it’s upstairs and to the right.” Twilight told him with a nod of her head towards the stairs. Ethan sighed and made his way towards the stairs slowly, almost as if his armor had suddenly gained fifty pounds. Once he passed out of sight Twilight heard him walk into the bathroom, and then the sound of his armor hitting the floor with a heavy thud followed by the noise of water coming from the shower.
“What’s wrong with him?” Spike asked. “He doesn’t seem much like the way that you described him.” The dragon added.
“He’s dealing with PTSD, or at least I think that’s what it’s called.” Twilight answered. “Honestly I haven’t had to deal with anything like that in, well, ever. I mean, being around Tia made it easy for me to ignore the bad parts of the Wasteland. Hell, I love my new eye and leg; it’s kind of hard to imagine life without them at this point.” She said while lightly stomping her metal leg on the wooden floor to make her point.
“PTSD?” Spike said in confusion.
“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Spike, it affects people who’ve been through horrible events and have seen people that they care about die.” Twilight explained while she poured herself a cup of tea.
“What does it do?” Spike asked.
“It depends. Sometimes it gives them nightmares, sometimes it makes them anti-social, most of the time at the very least it gives them flashbacks of the events that gave them it in the first place. I read about it in one of my psychology books a while ago.” Twilight explained.
“So Ethan has it and that’s why he was acting so depressed?” Spike asked.
“I believe so, yes. He had to watch one of his best friends die, and then found out that an entire town of children had just been killed by an enemy that he thought that he’d already destroyed.” Twilight replied with a sad frown.
“Wait, what happened?” Spike asked in horrified surprise.
“I’ll tell you later Spike, but I need to write a few letters in private right now. Tell Ethan that he can have the guest bedroom.” Twilight told the dragon before she headed towards the basement.
“Why are you writing letters in the basement?” Spike asked in surprise.
“This is going to require a bit of research from some of my older tomes, and I can’t bring those up here or else they’ll be damaged by the unshielded air. Besides, there are some things going on right now that worry me and I need to do a bit of research.” Twilight explained as she opened the basement door.
“So I just keep him company.” Spike said.
“Yep, it shouldn’t be too hard.” Twilight replied. “Just keep him busy until he goes to bed, this’ll be an all-nighter.” Twilight added.
“Whatever you say Twilight.” Spike told her with roll of his eyes and a smile.
“Oh, and where are my cookies?” The purple unicorn added with a playful chuckle.
“Umm… here you go.” Spike replied while handed her the tray of cookies after a few seconds of silent internal deliberation as he decided whether or not it was worth it to keep the cookies or not.
“Thanks Spike, see you tomorrow afternoon or so.” Twilight told the dragon before she gave him a peck on the cheek and closed the basement door.
The sound of running water stopped a few moments later, and Spike heard the sound of Ethan bumping around in the bathroom for several minutes before he heard the door creak open. Ethan walked down the stairs a few seconds later once again wearing his armor, which seemed to have miraculously cleaned itself while he’d been showering. He looked better without the lines of blood and dirt streaking his body.
“Where’s Sparky?” Ethan asked a little tiredly.
“She said that she had some research to do in the basement, so it’s just you and me.” Spike replied with a shrug.
“Oh… alright.” Ethan said with a sigh as he sat down in one of the easy chairs that were scattered around the room. The chair groaned slightly from his weight, but it subsided quickly and Ethan’s eyes began to look over the small reptile before him. “You know, I always thought that dragons would be taller.” Ethan said with a slight chuckle.
“Well I’m a baby dragon.” Spike clarified. “I won’t get that much bigger until I’m around a hundred or so when I hit my first real growth spurt.”
“You’re going to live that long?” Ethan asked in surprise.
“Apparently being a dragon is the next best thing to being immortal.” Spike replied with a grin. “The oldest known dragon lived somewhere around fifty thousand years, and only died because some knight killed him.” The dragon replied with a shrug.
“So no one really knows how long you can live.” Ethan said as he removed A Light Shining in the Darkness from his holster and began to slowly clean the gun. Cassandra would kill him if it broke or got damaged from misuse, or clogged with dirt and blood.
“Yeah. Personally, I’m hoping to beat that record.” Spike replied with a cheeky grin.
“Well I wish you luck.” Ethan said with a chuckle.
“Thanks, so umm…” Spike said, trailing off as he tried to think of a new topic of conversation.
“Do you know why Sparky came here instead of heading back to Canterlot?” Ethan asked Spike.
“Well you can only teleport so far, and I’m guessing that the teleport, along with whatever battle you were just in, probably drained her a lot.” Spike replied with a shrug.
“Ah, magical exhaustion.” Ethan said, but Spike shook his head.
“Na if it was that bad she’d have gone right to bed, she’s just running low.” The dragon said.
“I’m going to sleep; it’s been a long day of fighting and I could really use a rest.” Ethan told Spike, who nodded.
“Twilight said that you could have the guest’s bedroom. It’s the one on the left.” Spike told him. Ethan nodded thankfully and headed towards the stairs. “Call me if you need anything.” Spike called after him, he received no answer except the sound of Ethan’s footfalls upstairs.
***
Twilight sat in her basement in a firm cushioned chair behind a large desk, a light spell floating next to her head. Twilight peered deep into an old tome of lost arcane knowledge. Well it was actually a psychology book, but that’s beside the point. An unfinished letter to Celestia sat beside her on the tabletop, but Twilight was too busy reading to worry about finishing it. Shining should’ve reported in by now and told Tia that she was alright, so Twilight didn’t have to worry about her lover fretting over her lack of correspondence.
The book before her was one of the older books on the subject of psychology; in particular it covered the thought processes of soldiers after the last hippogriff war. It was a surprisingly interesting book, containing several extremely detailed interviews from soldiers who’d fought their way through the hippogriff held territories. Included along with that was an extremely in-depth look at the way that soldiers who’d lost their entire units in combat operated on a mental level afterwards.
All in all, it was a wealth of knowledge that Twilight definitely needed if she was going to help Ethan out of his current slump. His moodiness was starting to disturb Twilight; she was used to him almost always smiling, or smirking, or laughing at his own jokes while everyone else in the room stared in bewilderment; now he was somber and even his snarking had died for the most part. Worse by far however, was the drinking. Twilight had seen drinking destroy several respectable ponies from her days at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and she didn’t want Ethan to turn into one of those dead-eyed drunkards.
The real question was, what could she do to prevent it? She already knew that Ethan didn’t think that either she or Celestia were really capable of talking to him about it. Twilight herself wouldn’t work because as Ethan had said, she hadn’t really lost anything that dear to her so she wouldn’t understand what it was like, and Celestia because neither really respected the other. She briefly considered Luna, but discarded the idea. The Princess of the Night was still extremely sensitive about her time as Nightmare Moon, and Twilight didn’t want to subject Ethan to an emotional breakdown from a goddess of the night.
Twilight also briefly mused about asking Discord for help; after all, he had become a sort of unofficial therapist around the castle, but she quickly banished that idea back to stone where it belonged. Not only did the idea of using the god of chaos to help Ethan disgust her out of principle, along with lingering hatred for the beast, but she was concerned with the type of damage Ethan would do if he fell under Discord’s control.
After all, no matter how much good he’d been doing lately he was still an evil, bat-shit insane god of chaos and disharmony who’d mind-raped her and her friends with the ambition to overtake the throne and turn Equestria into a twisted wasteland of cotton candy and bubblegum. Twilight probably would’ve preferred Equestria being like Ethan’s wasteland to that twisted fate. At least then she’d have an idea of how to survive, unlike what would happen if Discord ever truly won. Then again, if the snake ever did win than Twilight would likely be dead, or most likely something far worse and indescribably more painful.
That left her options for helping the man incredibly slim. An un expected flash of light from behind her interrupted Twilight’s musing, and she turned to find the violet eyes of Celestia regarding her with a worried expression.
“Oh hi Tia, I wasn’t expecting you.” Twilight said with a tiny blush as she remembered the blood still streaked through her mane, and still noticeable in several places over her purple fur.
“I heard that something happened with Ethan.” Celestia said after she gave Twilight a quick kiss.
“Yes, he’s hurting Tia.” Twilight whispered after the warming effects of the alicorn’s kiss had decreased.
“Tell me about it.” Celestia said as she lay down on one of the padded rugs that decorated the basement’s floor. Twilight got out of her chair and lay down next to her, leaning against the elder white mare.
“He watched one of his best friends, who couldn’t be older than sixteen, get shot through the back of the head with a railroad spike while he was forced to sit helplessly and watch. Then he escaped and went to try and prevent the ones who did that from destroying a town of children, but by the time he got there they were all dead and mutilated horribly.” Twilight explained with a sad sigh.
“An entire settlement of children killed…” Celestia said in shock.
“Yes, and apparently he’s been dealing with it by drinking.” Twilight added.
“That’s not good, that’s not good at all.” Celestia said with a shake of her head. “Over my long life I’ve seen nothing consume as many good souls as alcohol.” She added. “Of course, that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy the occasional bottle or ten of wine…” She finished with a light chuckle.
“Tia…” Twilight said, giving her marefriend a hard glance.
“Sorry dear, I was trying to lighten the mood. Anyways I think I should talk to him, Faust knows I’ve seen things that easily compare to what he’s gone through.” Celestia said with a sigh.
“I don’t think that that would work Tia, you two haven’t quite gotten off on the right hoof.” Twilight advised. “Besides, shouldn’t you be in Canterlot?”
“Lulu should be able to handle things. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?” Celestia asked. Twilight had a sudden flashback of Ethan telling her to never say that, and couldn’t fight the sinking feeling that something bad would likely happen very soon.
“I don’t know. Maybe you should go back and let me look for someone else to help with Ethan.” Twilight suggested, but Celestia just shook her head.
“I’ve been treating him badly since he got here Twilight. Honestly, I’ve been more than a bit of a… well, a bitch. If I can help him get over what happened than maybe he’ll accept my apology. After all, he did manage to get the majority of the foals back unharmed.” Celestia said.
“Some died?” Twilight asked in shock.
“No!” Celestia said firmly. “I meant that some were harmed.” She clarified.
“Oh. Dammit Tia, you can’t do that to me.” Twilight said while leveling the alicorn with an impotent glare.
“Sorry dear, I misspoke.” Celestia told her with a tiny sigh. “Well, I’m off to make sure that Ethan is okay.” She added with a smile before she disappeared with a flash of light.
“But he’s asleep!” Twilight shouted at the empty basement. Millennia old deities could be extremely infuriating, even (or maybe especially) when you were bonded to them as intimately as Twilight was to Celestia.
***
Ethan was sitting on the balcony of Twilight’s house, gazing up at the sky in wonder. From the Wasteland the sky always looked a little off, a little greener than it should’ve, or at least than it had when he’d watched videos of it as a kid growing up in the vault. But here in Equestria there was no fallout, there were no bloodthirsty raiders picking on defenseless towns without fear of retribution. Here the sky was a pure and perfect black, dotted with tiny stars and far off swirls of foreign celestial formations.
A flash of light behind him signaled the arrival of Twilight and Ethan spoke without looking back.
“Hi Sparky, did you come to try and make me go to bed?”
“No, I came to talk.” Celestia said simply as she came to lie down behind the man. “Lay back if you want.” She added.
“Oh, it’s you…” Ethan replied, but did as she suggested and leaned back into the solar alicorn.
“Ethan, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong hoof.” Celestia began.
“We might have.” The man agreed while he absently began to stroke Celestia’s neck; it wasn’t a real decision on his part, it was just a natural reaction for someone like him.
“Indeed, I wasn’t very nice to you was I?” She asked him while her body arched slightly under the unexpectedly pleasant feeling of his hands running up and down her neck.
“No, then again I’m a bit of an ass so I guess I had it coming.” Ethan said with a sad sigh.
“Is everything alright Ethan?” Celestia asked gently.
“No, no it isn’t.” Ethan said with a frown.
“Tell me about it.” The white alicorn said softly.
“Tell you about what? Tell you about how I can see each and everyone one of their faces STARING AT ME?!” Ethan said angrily. “Tell you about the fact that their deaths were all my fault?!” He continued “Tell you that I got fourteen children killed?!” he was weeping at this point. “Would you like me to name them for you? Well I can do that for you! Biwwy, Bumble, Eclair, Joseph, Nick Nack, Knock Knock, Lucy, MacCready, Penny, Princess, Sammy, Squirrel, Sticky, and Zip!” Ethan said the last name, and then promptly became incomprehensible as his words blurred together under the weight of his grief. Without thinking about it Celestia draped one of her white wings over Ethan and pulled him closer to her body, which began to give off a calming heat.
“I know how hard it is to lose the ones you love, especially when it’s your fault.” Celestia whispered softly as the human’s eyes continued to run with tears.
“I doubt it.” Ethan replied as he blew his nose on her wing. A look of disgust crossed Celestia’s face, but it vanished before Ethan looked up.
“Ethan, how old do you think I am?” Celestia asked.
“Thirtyish.” Ethan replied.
“I’m over five thousand.” Celestia told him.
“You look good, for a horse.” Ethan replied while he brushed a line of tears away from his face with the back of his sleeve.
“Thank you. During my time on this planet I’ve seen many wonderful things; unfortunately I’ve also seen my share of horrors and atrocities.” Celestia told him. “I’ve seen my little ponies made fatherless by war and motherless by plague. I’ve seen colts and fillies slain by wild animals. I’ve even been forced to almost kill my sister. When I say that I know what it means to lose someone I’m telling the truth.” Celestia whispered softly in his ear.
“Have you ever had to watch helplessly while your father dies sacrificing himself for something that he believed in? And then had the same man that your father thought that he killed get back up afterwards leaving you with nothing to do but pursue revenge?” Ethan asked her.
“Not my father, but my first love.” Celestia replied softly.
“Really?” Ethan asked in surprise.
“Indeed, poor Goldenrod.” Celestia said sadly, Ethan couldn’t help himself; he chuckled at the stallion’s name. “Yes, his name was hilarious; I teased him about it all the time.” Celestia agreed with a sad forlorn chuckle.
“What happened to him?” Ethan asked.
“He was killed fighting a sorcerer of great power, the sorcerer killed him… The poor, idiotically brave stallion.” Celestia said with a shake of her head. “If he’d just listened to me and not charged then it wouldn’t have happened.” Celestia sighed. “The memory of that stallion is the only thing keeping me from disowning Blueblood.” She added.
“Wait, Blueblood is your...”
“Twentieth times great grandson.” Celestia filled in.
“Ah, I was wondering why you kept him around.” Ethan said with a sigh before he looked back at the sky.
“What do you think of my sister’s work?” Celestia asked changing topics.
“It’s beautiful, I feel like I could stare at it forever.” Ethan answered.
“She’d be overjoyed to hear you say that.” Celestia with a light chuckle. “Lack of appreciation for her work was a part of what made her go insane.” She added, her smile immediately falling into a frown.
“She went insane?” Ethan asked as his hands explored Celestia’s mane. It felt just like normal horse hair, except for a sense of heat and strength that radiated from within it.
“Yes although it was more that she went mad, insanity is slightly different. The experince was very painful for both of us and I had to seal her on the moon for a thousand years.” Celestia replied with a sad shake of her head.
“I’m sorry.” Ethan offered.
“Thank you, that means a lot.” Celestia said, giving him a small grin.
“You’re welcome.” Ethan replied, then he sighed. “I can still see their faces.”
“I understand, I still see the faces of all of those I’ve killed and those who were close to me who’ve died over the years.” Celestia told him.
“Does it get easier?” Ethan asked, his voice was quiet and small. Almost as if he was a child, which in a certain sense he was.
“No, no it doesn’t.” Celestia told him. “It just gets easier to hide.” She released another wave of heat that covered Ethan in its embrace. “It’ll never go away, and your heart will never heal.” Ethan let out a tiny sob. “But if you hold onto those you love, then the ache will become dull instead of sharp.”
“I, I think I’m going to go to bed.” Ethan said as he leaned on her while he got to his feet.
“Goodnight Ethan.” Celestia told him.
“Goodnight Sunny; and thanks.”
***
Kane wasn’t happy. Now, there were an innumerable amount of reasons why Kane wasn’t happy. For starters was fact that the second that the cat had emerged from his humble adobe in the city the wind had started to ruffle his fur in a very annoying fashion. Secondly, the air was entirely too thin up on the top of Canterlot Mountain, it made it hard to breathe and left him lightheaded. Thirdly there was the fact that he sensed a storm on the horizon, so besides it just being hard to breathe and having his fur tossed to and fro by the wind it was also puffy with static electricity. Lastly was the fact that it was a bit after twelve, which meant that he’d usually be asleep; or at least in bed being entertained at this point. The fact that he was hanging upside down from the underside of one of the guard towers of the Canterlot Palace by his claws and his trusty grappling hook was just exasperating the other problems.
Kane’s furry brow furrowed and his ears twitched in annoyance from beneath his gray cowl. There so many places that he’d rather be at the moment, so many places in fact that he couldn’t even think of one without having the whole heap of them come crashing through his mental barriers. Kane was an assassin. It was his job, his career, his profession, hell it was the way he put food on the table and kept women in the bed. He loved his job, loved the sense of excitement it gave, the thrill of the chase, the look of hopeless acknowledgement as his victims realized that they were doomed.
That being said, he wasn’t happy about this particular assignment. Despite his less than holy career of choice he liked to think of himself as a good cat. Ordinarily his targets were corrupted aristocrats, drug lords, mercenary captains, and other scum. He’d been offered to assassinate Prince Blueblood on multiple occasions, but he’d always decided against it, nothing ruined an assassin’s career faster than the killing of royalty. Now however, he was being forced to break one of if not two of his cardinal rules.
A weeks ago he’d been looking for a job in his normal style, namely sitting in the darkest corner of a bar sipping a beer looking for potential employers. A sweet looking queen (cat word for eligible female of the species) had moseyed up to him and they’d started to talk. She’d bought him a drink and she must’ve drugged, it because the next thing he’d known he’d woken up in a dark room with a magical contract sitting in front of him. His name had been singed in his at the bottom in own blood, and so had started what he liked to call the absolute worst hangover of his life, ever, of all time.
So now here he was, preparing to break into one of the most well-guarded places on the planet, charged with the kidnapping of a prince and possibly the murder of a princess if she was unfortunate enough to be in the room when he entered. Yeah this sucked. The wind picked up, billowing around his cowl annoyingly and Kane decided that he’d spent long enough contemplating his navel. His tail twitched to the right and he suddenly released his hold on the underside of the tower, and fell towards an open window below him.
The light within was off meaning that the kid was hopefully asleep; Kane didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he was awake. Hell, he might get killed by the eighty or so guards that would bumrush him. Either that or one of the two gods living in the castle would show up and blast him to pieces. Actually, they could probably help him if he had a chance to explain himself. Of course that implied making so much noise that it attracted every guard in the palace, and frankly he didn’t have enough faith in his abilities to evade that many weapons long enough for one of them to show up. Especially when you took into consideration the fact that- wait he was still falling!
“Fucking mind control!” Kane swore quietly as he fell towards the courtyard. Two seconds before the light from down below would’ve touched him his grappling hook shot up towards the open window and settled into place with a nearly soundless clink.
The grapple pulled the cat upwards and he landed gracefully on the windowsill. The biggest problem with the magic contract, even greater than the fact that he was bound to it was in the way it influenced him. Whenever he began to get thoughts about releasing himself from the contract, or getting around it’s parameters in any way, or even just sometimes when it felt like fucking with him, the spell would make him go off on random mental tangents that essentially boiled down to him standing somewhere completely slack jawed with a glazed over expression across his face. It also made it extremely difficult to get laid; for some reason the opposite sex wasn’t interested in him whenever his eyes glazed over while they were talking to him.
Kane hissed softly to himself as he realized that he’d just spent the last five minutes poised on the edge of the windowsill, and he stepped quietly into the room without making a single sound. A sad smile appeared on his face, the foal was right where he’d been expecting him to be, and on the bright side Princess Cadence was nowhere to be seen. That was good; he loved love far too much to even think about killing someone who represented the sacred activity. Why, he’d even been in town the day of the wedding. That was probably one of the most exciting, and extremely unexpected, hits that he’d ever undertaken. Changelings in the sky and all over the ground, draining ponies of their emotions and such, he must’ve killed ten or so within the first few minutes, along with the fun surprise that his target was actually a changeling. That kill had been both unexpected and enlightening. Why, he’d even scored that night with this beautiful little qu-
“Dammit!” Kane exclaimed as silently as he could. Shining Star stirred slightly in his cradle, but otherwise didn’t move. “Sorry about this kid.” Kane said as he quickly opened the child’s mouth and began to pour the specially prepared sleeping potion down the foal’s throat. The foals eyes shot open and he was about to yell, but Kane clamped his mouth around the lip of the bottle, making it impossible for him to get any sound out from between his lips. However, the foal’s eyes were wide with terror and as they stared into Kane’s, who forced himself to watch however much it hurt him on the inside.
Once the foal had finished the potion, the fight slowly left his eyes and he slumped down in a deep dreamless slumber. A sickening slimy sensation overwhelmed Kane as he took a finely made pouch off of his back and slid the foal into it before tying the drawstrings sealing it. He’d been told that the pouch was enchanted to create fresh air so that the foal wouldn’t suffocate; Kane had tested it to be sure. One because he didn’t want the foal’s life directly on his paws, two because suffocation was a terrible way to go, and three because- he was still standing there as Princess Cadence entered the room. She took in the scene before her. The empty crib, the cat holding a suspiciously heavy looking bag in one paw, the gray cowl that symbolized his specialty, and let out an angry shout.
“An Assassin killed my son!”
“Shit, sorry, not my fault, damn magic contract, go north, not my fault, please don’t kill me!” Kane shouted as he dashed for the window; he’d be damned if he killed her, magic contract or not. A bolt of pink magical energy threw him forward towards the window as it dissipated off of his enchanted cloak. “He’s still alive, not my fault!” Kane shouted over his shoulder as he vaulted out the window head first, holding his grappling hook in one paw and the pouch containing the foal in the other.
He let out a very manly, though strangely high pitched, cry as the air whipped past his head while he fell. Lamps and torches were exploding into light as he fell towards the courtyard. A trio of draconic Lunar Guard flew down at him from out of the sky; one tried to tackle him out of the air, but Kane’s grappling hook shot out to the right and pulled him along behind it, pulling him away from the pegasi’s grip. The cat flipped to the side in order to avoid another of them.
“Seriously, I’m not doing this by choice here!” he yelled to them, but if the pegasi heard him they didn’t stop to ponder it.
Instead all three rushed him at once and Kane’s grapple retracted, sending him plummeting towards the ground and underneath them simultaneously. Luckily for Kane he landed on the outer palace wall with a roll and was on his feet again within seconds of landing, pouch still in hand. An extremely angry looking unicorn shot a bolt of lightning at Kane, who had to do a front flip off of the wall to avoid being on the receiving end of a very bad case of singed fur. As he fell headfirst off of the palace wall, Kane spent some time thinking about how annoying this whole ordeal was. If he’d been in complete control of his mental capacity he’d have gotten out of the room before Princess Cadence had even had a chance to enter. Hell, he’d probably already have a cute queen curled up against him and getting ready to- and there was the ground rushing towards him again, DAMMIT!
Kane’s grappling hook shot out and snagged the roof of a nearby mansion, pulling him towards it and once again out of danger of becoming a very furry pancake. He thanked Bast for the enchantments on his cowl that kept his neck from snapping from the extreme G-forces that he was subjecting it to, along with keeping his joints intact. He landed on the roof of the noble’s house, and took off at a sprint as an angry group of Lunar Guards gave chase from above.
“Stop where you are!” The leader shouted.
“I’d fucking love to, but I’m kinda trapped in a magic contract that I signed while drugged!” Kane shouted back as he rolled under a draconic pegasi and tumbled off of the noble’s roof, only for his ever faithful grappling hook to save his life yet again by snagging a nearby streetlamp. He was thrown onto the top of the streetlamp, and quickly started running across the rope that led to another nearby lamp. A unicorn sent a freezing blast of cold at him, but Kane simply jumped off of the rope and landed on the ground, completely evading the attack. Now he was in the middle of a panicking crowd of Equestrian citizens.
Although the civilians made it next to impossible for the guards to safely hit him with a spell, they also forced Kane to go in their direction, right towards where a group of guards was waiting expectantly.
“Mental note to self. Don’t ever accept drinks from women, it can only end badly.” Kane muttered to himself before launching away again with the help of his grapple. “Not my fault!” He added as he smashed into an airborne Lunar Guard, knocking the pegasi out of the air. Now that he was airborne once again a nearby unicorn shot a beam of magic at Kane, who just narrowly dodged it, once again avoiding a horrible pain filled death. It was like they didn’t realize the fact that they could kill the kid; wait. They probably didn’t know that the foal was still alive because Cadence probably hadn’t believed him. Shit, he should probably do somet- oh dammit!
A lunar guard member had taken the initiative and constructed a large blue forcefield that completely blocked Kane’s path. Unfortunately, Kane didn’t have time to change directions so he slammed face first into the barrier and fell to the ground, somehow managing to stay on his feet. He was a cat after all, and as such he had an image to uphold. An entire squad of Lunar Guard, complete with black earth ponies, draconic pegasi, and misty unicorns surrounded him.
“You are under arrest for the murder of Prince Shining Star, injuring members of the Lunar Guard, endangering civilians, trespassing, disrupting traffic, smelling bad, and conspiracy to kill Princess Cadence!” The lead guard shouted. “You have the right to remain silent!”
“By Bast this isn’t my fault! Also the prince is alive and in this enchanted pouch. Oh, and I was not trying to kill Princess Cadence, if I wanted her dead she already would be. Oh, and I smell great!” Kane shouted the last word as his paws finally found what he’d been looking for, and he smashed a small black sphere against the ground and disappeared in a cloud of inky blackness.
“What the hell was that?!” Brighteyes shouted as they began to search for the cat.
“I think it was a self-contained teleportation spell sir, although if he had that the whole time then the questions is; why didn’t he use it the second that he needed to escape?” Specialist Dawnbreaker asked him.
“It’s because of the wards around the palace.” Luna said unexpectedly as she appeared among them. The guards hopped to a salute, but Luna waved them down with a single twitch of her wing. Luna went up to the spot that the cat had vanished from, and began to scan the area intensely with her magic. “I can track him, follow me.”
Why does everything like this have to happen when Tia is somewhere else? Luna asked internally before shaking her head. Thinking those kinds of thoughts wouldn’t help her follow the cat, which was going to be tricky enough as it was.
***
Kane let out a sigh of relief as the smoke cleared and he found himself in the extraction point. The black queen stepped out of the shadows and smiled seductively at him.
“Now was that so hard?” She purred.
“Well let’s see. I’m forced to do something that I hate, I almost do something else that I hate, I get chased around the city by the guard, and now you’re going to leave me here to be picked up and possibly killed by the entirety of the Lunar Guard, who are surely going toing to kill me without even letting me get a word in edgewise, oh and I never even got to have sex with you first so as far as I’m concerned this whole experience has been a total bust.” Kane said as he handed the black queen the pouch containing Prince Shining Star. She took the pouch with a seductive chuckle before she placed a single kiss upon his cheek and stepped back into the darkness where she disappeared.
Kane sat down with a heavy sigh and leaned his back against a nearby tree. He began to clean his claws, seeing nothing else to do before the Lunar Guard showed up. He wanted to make a handsome corpse after all. Not that he thought anyone would see it, he’d probably be chucked into a shallow grave somewhere in the middle of the Everfree, where his bones would be eaten by a manticore or a timberwolf. Or maybe if he was lucky a dragon would come along and use his bones to add an exotic flare to his cave.
Well at least this clearing in the woods was a nice place to die. It had some great trees everywhere, and the moon looked so nice to his night vision enabled eyes. He sighed again as the wind blew through his fur, he was never going to be able to keep it nice and orderly the way he wanted, so why bother. A wet leaf hit him in the face and the cat let out a hiss. He pulled the leaf off of his eyes and found himself face to face with Princess Luna herself.
She looked pissed as all hell, and her horn was glowing with swirling dark blue magic, which distracted Kane as he followed its flight path around her horn. The Princess raised an eyebrow as the cat’s head moved around in a circle, his eyes obviously tracking the light spell that she’d cast.
“Where is Prince Shining Star?” Luna asked after quickly growing tired of watching the brown furred tabby tom.
“He’s with that bitch of a queen, who is now probably hundreds of miles away at this point, if not more. Sorry that I can’t be of more help than that, but at the moment I really can’t shut up, and it isn’t my fault. I never wanted this to happen, I didn’t even want this job. Fuck, I’m not even getting paid for this, not that I’dve taken it in the first place if it had been offered. But seriously, why would I want to kidnap one of the royal family? I mean that’s just stupid, the only one that I’d even considering killing would be Blueblood, and honestly that prick isn’t worth the time or the effort that it’d take an-” Kane would’ve kept talking but he suddenly found his mouth magically shut by Luna, who was looking extremely exasperated. Her mouth worked slowly and her eyes shone with moonlight. ‘She looks beautiful’ Kane thought to himself, almost enough to convince him to be a bit more adventuress with his carnal conquests. After all if you couldn’t bed a queen you might as well bed a princess, right?
“What do you mean you didn’t want this job?” Luna asked before releasing her grip on his mouth.
“Well you see, it all started a week ago in a shady tavern. I was looking for work, and then this sexy as all hell pitch black queen shows up, queen is the cat word for female by the way. So anyways, she walked up to me showing off her rather nice assets, she bought me a drink, we talked, and the next morning I awoke in some dark, cold room. My fur’s warm mind you, but hell, I almost froze my balls off in there. Oh, and did I mention the magical contract that I’d apparently signed using my own blood? Yeah, the one that said that I had to do what the queen told me to? Well, that’s why I kidnapped your prince. Sorry about that really, it wasn’t my fault. Well not really anyways, but I feel awful about it none the less and- oh please Bast don’t kill me! I’m too damned handsome to die!”
“And this contract is the thing compelling you to talk so much as well?” Luna asked.
“Yep, it’s supposed to make me easier for the queen and whoever the hell her employer is to control. Honestly, it doesn’t make much sense if you ask me. I mean, this could only hamper me when I’m doing their damned dirty work, it’s so bad that I can’t even think straight without going off on a mental tangent and accomplishing next to nothing.” Kane told Luna with a shrug. “Oh, and would you hurry up and kill me? I finally got the dirt out from underneath my claws and I want to leave a nice corpse for the family. Well, my brothers at any rate, not that I talk to them much anymore but we’re still close enough to care about each other and –” His jaw was suddenly shut once again by magic.
“If what you say is true than I can neither kill you nor press charges. However, you will be taken in for questioning.” Luna explained. “Oh, and you have to wear these.” She added as she floated a pair of hoofcuffs out of a pouch on her hips and slid the cat’s paws into them.
“You do realize that these things are really easy to break out of, right? I mean I could do it in a few seconds if I wanted to, especially this design, it’s ancient.” The cat babbled as Luna began to charge her teleportation spell. “Just look at this thing! The lock is right here, I can pick it with my claw just like thi-” His words were interrupted by an extremely loud shout of pain as the cat pulled his claw out of the key hole. “Fuck me sideways it’s got a Bast damned spell matix in it. They haven’t made them like this since before… oh right, you’re Luna. Damn I’m stupid sometimes, like the way I got here in the first place…” Luna sighed and teleported them back to the castle, it was going to be a long, long night.