//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11 - Fere Antepone Morte 
// Story: Fallen Angels 
// by Lt_Voss 
//------------------------------//

	I took what Helen told me with as much belief as I could. Trust me, it was quite difficult to have much faith in a plan whose main points consisted of making stuff up. Regardless of my thoughts, I began to set aside my whims and tried to concentrate on my task. Unfortunately, I couldn't do so immediately. Without trying to access it, without trying to bring it up, a memory of mine surfaced, incapacitating me, keeping me from doing what had to be done.



"C'mon, Angel, tie your freakin' laces. In case you've forgotten, this is a war?"

I looked around, my vision blurry for a second. It took a while, but pain finally registered in my legs. Turning my eyes toward my limbs, they were met with a beam, or more like a board, on top of my leg. I realised I was dreaming for all intents and purposes, so it came to no surprise when I spoke without meaning to. "Sorry, sir, just got my leg pinched. I'll be out in a moment." My head turned to the speaker, and I recognised Lieutenant Masterson. Naturally, as this particular event came before I'd even seen Equestria from orbit, he was alive and well. Well, mostly alive.

There was a streak of red going from his left temple to his jawline, and it looked like his right arm was unresponsive. That was a shame, considering that was his shooting arm. Accordingly, all he had was his sidearm in his off hand. "Heh," he chuckled. "Let me give you a little hand, here." He holstered his sidearm and went to work trying to lift the board with his one good arm. I helped, of course. Placing both my hands under the board, I pushed with all the might I could muster while being in such a position. With several grunts and heaves, the two of us finally managed to throw the board aside, which clattered to the ground with a sharp clang. Masterson returned his attention to me and immediately swore.

Looking down to see what he meant, my eyes were met with a gruesome sight. My right leg, which hurt the most, was broken. The knee was obviously dislocated, but I could move my upper leg. I turned my attention to my left leg, however, and I began to understand why Masterson had cursed. My left leg was a bloody mess. I couldn't move any part of it. I saw what appeared to be my shin bone jutting from the blood-slick skin. Frankly, I was glad I couldn't feel it all that much. You can thank me for that, Will.

Now, at this point in time the flashback took place, Bill had not said a word to me directly. You seem to forget: I'm an Oracle, Will. And Oracles are Dreamwalkers. I mentally nodded. 'Yeah, I know.' I returned my focus to the memory.

"Well, damn," my dream self said. "Sir," he said, looking up. "I don't think I'll be getting up any time soon."

Masterson shook his head vigorously. "Like hell, you aren't! Mason! Get over here!" I turned my head to the right and watched as a slightly battered Mason with a large blood stain on his left sleeve ran to my side. "We gotta get him to safety! Help me lift!"

"Where should I grab, sir?" Mason asked, not queasy, but concerned.

"Frankly, Mason, just grab somewhere that looks well enough to hold." Masterson grabbed my arms for himself, while Mason moved to lift me by my waist. My legs hung down, but since I couldn't feel them -- 'Thanks, again.' -- I didn't scream in pain the whole way. It was tiresome for all three of us. I was basically dead weight in the hands of Mason and Masterson, and I was sure I was losing much more blood than would be healthy. Accordingly, my vision began to darken.

An explosion sounded nearby, causing the three of us to fall to the floor. I moved my head to try and get a grasp of the situation, when a figure began slowly approaching from my left. Looking up, I saw something that terrified me. It didn't scare my dream self, it terrified me. The figure was that of a woman, clad only in robes. As she drew nearer she removed her arms from behind her back and revealed a terrible thing.

Fluttershy. My wife and love was in the arms of this woman, who I knew was Styx the moment she appeared. It didn't make any sense, of course. This was before anything involving Equestria occurred. There was no way this was happening.

My dream self was blissfully unaware of what was happening, since he couldn't see it. I felt it. 'What do you mean?' I felt something that day. Felt a... presence. Of course, I didn't know what it was, but I guess now I know. 'You're saying my meeting with Fluttershy was planned from the start?' I dunno about the Fluttershy part, but I'm fairly certain Styx was there to collect you. My dream self averted his gaze and turned to look at Mason.

As he did, the voice of Styx invaded my mind. "Don't think you can run, don't think you can hide. I will have you Will, even if some... people... have to die. You can not escape. You may as well give up; Zeus won't talk to you. I've already warned him of you. You have no chance to survive this; make your time as you will."

My dream self turned his head again, to look off to the right. When I jerked my head back to the left, Styx was gone, as was Fluttershy. The odds are, as you might have guessed, against us. 'Yeah. Tell me something I don't know.' Fine. You're not dreaming anymore.




He was right. The pain in my legs had ceased. When my eyes opened slightly, as the light in the room was unbearable for a while, my mother was kneeling in front of me, a worried expression worn prominently on her face. "Will he be alright?" She asked.

"Yes," Bill replied, off to my left. "He just... had a little relapse."

"Of what?" This time it was the nearly inaudible voice of my wife that posed the question.

"Of... his past. Something he'd rather not talk about."

I managed to get over the searing pain that the light was bringing me long enough to sit up. Looking around, I saw everyone around me, even my aunt, who had probably dropped everything and ran at the mere mention that I was in trouble. I looked down at my legs, and that coupled with my recent flashback caused a dull throb to rise. I massaged them to ease the discomfort, but a shock caused my left hand to recoil. Worried, my mother lifted my pant leg, against my feeble attempts to stop her.

And thus, the secret was out. Everyone but Bill did a collective gasp. Shining beneath the lamp light were several metal rods, rivets, screws, wires, and gears. Fluttershy fainted, the poor dear, while Stargazer looked away. Luna looked up at me with bewilderment. "Why didn't you tell us?"

I hung my head in shame and embarrassment. "I wanted no one to know. It was supposed to be my secret that I could live with as it was." At that moment, I felt my vision swim and the room got darker.

"What do you-" Before my mother could continue, Bill placed a finger over her lips and tapped his temple. Understanding, my mother and aunt together tuned their minds to my own.



"We're gonna lose him, give another pack of blood, now! Jeffery, get me as much anesthetic as you can carry. Linda, I'm gonna need you to schedule that appointment as soon as possible." A pause in the orders occurred before it resumed. "You two, I'm gonna need you to hold him down while we at least get him stabilized."

In the background I heard wheels squeaking, and figured I was on a gurney. You were. The squeaking came to a halt and the commanding voice from before began speaking again. "Help me get him on the table." I felt my body being grabbed and lifted. After a short sense of weightlessness, I felt my back hit the cold surface of an operating table.

A door opened behind me relative to me perspective, and I heard frantic footsteps. "They were available now. They'll be here in a moment," a woman's voice said.

"Thank you, Linda," the voice said. "Help me bandage his good leg up. A set should fix that, with lots of time off. Sorry, sirs," he added.

"No problem, doctor," said the voice of Masterson.

"The other leg, however... we're gonna have to get rid of it."

"No way," my person said. "I'm keeping this leg."

"Angel," Masterson grimly stated from my right. "That leg is useless. You're no good to me useless. I'd rather you be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life than sit around at the base all day because you disregarded the doctor's suggestions."

"This leg is gone, Angel! It's worthless! Keeping it is stubborn and, frankly, stupid!" I didn't expect that from a doctor.

Oh God... my mother gasped.

The door opened again, and this time it was Jeffery. "I have the anesthesia, sir. And the operators are here, too."

"Thank you Jeffery." His attention must have turned to the two operators. "Amputee."

"Like hell I'll be an amputee!" My person shouted. "Get the hell away from me!"

"Starting," said an unknown voice. Masterson and Mason held my arms down as the nurses busied themselves aiding the doctors. Jeffery pumped anesthetic into my system, as I could feel the needle go in. However, it worked like it was so much apple juice. As soon as the saw drew one slice my person howled in pain.

"Jeff, how much anesthesia did you give him?" cried the doctor.

"The same amount I give every amputee patient, sir!"

"Give him more!" I felt the needle go in again and Jeffery put more into me.

This is too gruesome... I don't know that I can watch it all. Despite her worries, my aunt continued observing my ordeal.

The saw worked back and forth, and in spite of what I thought at the time, with the added painkillers the sawing wasn't all too painful, nor was the process very long. Shortly, the operator stood back and said, "Finished."

"Give me my leg, bastards!" my past self shouted.

That was also the time I received a slap in the face from Mason. "These guys just saved your life, Angel. It'd be wise to respect them."

I harrumphed, then said, "Fine. With all due respect, give me my damn legs, bastards!" This only rewarded me with another slap.

"Do you have what you need, doctor?" The first doctor, the one who wheeled me in, asked.

"We do," replied the other operator. Wheeling a cart around, I saw buckets of metallic objects: gears, cogs, rods, and the like. "We're ready to proceed when you are."



I gasped, and blinked open my eyes. I shakily looked around, trying to regain my bearings. I tried to stand but found that my mother had placed a prohibitive hand on my "good" leg to stop me. "You're not running from this one, Will," my mother said sternly, a scowl on her face. "I want to know. Everything."

I sighed. As much as I would like to avoid this conversation, it seemed I had no chance of doing so this time, the fact that my mother's hand was on my leg aside. I shot my mother a look that said, 'Are you sure?' She nodded, to which I sighed again. I was about to begin the gruesome tale, and had actually gotten two words in, but Bill had thankfully interrupted. "We need to go."

My mother turned her attention to him, which gave me the opportunity to escape. I slipped my leg out from underneath her hand, pulled the sleeve down, and made a dash for the stairs. Unfortunately, though I recognised the necessity of my success, this action reminded me of my flight from the jail. It didn't help that my mother tried to hold me in the same way, or that Bill released me in the same way as well.

I continued my mad dash down the stairs, half-blinded by a wild card of emotions. My vision was red around the edges as if I were enraged, yet little circles swam before my eyes as if the blood flow to my brain was getting cut off. Frankly, it annoyed me more than worried me, because to my mind it meant that I couldn't get away as quick due to having to mind the bouts of near-blindness that came with this condition.

Eventually I gave up on my plan to dash through the front gates and ended up stopping at one of the landings in the stairwell. I can land safely, you fly away. I'll get to you later. 'What about the risk of capture? How do I know you won't get caught?' Just let them try to stop me. Despite the grim tone of that threat, I went with it. 'Okay, you go first. Can't risk my wings.' Understood. With that, Bill jumped through the window. Shortly after, I stepped forward to follow.

Before I could, however, I heard behind me, "Stop him!" It was Celestia's voice.

"Bolt out!" It was Stargazer's voice this time, and shortly after he said that I felt something pierce my back. It didn't hurt too much, and I could tell it wasn't really a damaging effect. With that in mind, I jumped out. I noticed that I was over the gardens. I unfurled my wings and began to flap, but something took over. It wasn't like Luna's magical grasp on me. It was more like a slowing effect. I felt the adrenaline in my system run dry. On top of that, my vision continued to darken at a steady pace, as opposed to its sporadic reddening that it was before.

Slowly, though, I lost control of my limbs. It started with my arms, then my legs. Eventually it moved its way into my wings and finally into my head. As what usually comes from not being able to flap your wings in mid-air, I began a not-so-steady decent towards the ground. Unfortunately for me, and for the plants and flowers around it, the fence enclosing the gardens were spiked to keep out intruders. And I was headed straight for them.

It only took a few antsy moments for me to reach the ground... or the fence, in this case. I guess the only good thing to come of this prospect was that the spikes were spaced far enough that only one could hit me. But that was still a bad thing. The spike impaled me right next to my heart. I felt the effects of its damage to my lungs. Actually, there was another "plus," if you could call it that. Bill was with me in mere seconds. "No!" I heard him shout, distantly. I felt arms wrap around my body, hauling me off the spike. "Not today, not again!"

I didn't know what he thought he could do. I'm not sure Bill could fix this. After all, the doctors could barely pull me from death's clutches from a stomach wound, and that was a flesh wound compared to this, and this one was a full penetration. Regardless, Bill did his best. He layed me on the ground, muttering, almost shouting incoherently. "C'mon, Will, stay with me, man!"

"Will!" This time, it was my aunt. She'd come down from the tower, along with my mother and Stargazer. At this point, Bill was pretty much blind and deaf when it came to his emotions. On one hand, he was utterly shattered by my current status, but on the other he was furious that it was the actions of Stargazer that had, to Bill, caused this to begin with. He stood in a flash. I could feel a surge of energy and magic, and the next thing I saw by Bill was a courtsword, almost identical to my old one. Actually, as I took a better look at it, it was identical.

"Get back!" Bill shouted. "I don't care who you are, I will strike down anyone that comes close!" His voice, if his actions did not already denote it, was filled with rage and hatred.

"You'd do so to your own wife?" Luna tried to use logic on Bill.

Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly keen on logic at the moment. "If you come close, by God I will do so faster than any of you could draw breath!"

By now, however, the pain I'd felt began to fade, to recede. Slowly, I began to feel more and more painless... even though I knew I was dying, for the fourth time, no less, I held an air of calmness about me. One could probably say I becoming comfortably numb. "He's dying, Bill!" My mother shouted. "He needs help!"

Bill took one glance towards me, and with the last vestiges of vision I had left, I could see his face was incredibly pained. Tears were almost gushing from his white eyes, and his face was red. Looking back at the party of three, he hesitantly lowered his sword. "Well don't just stand there!" Bill tried to shout, but since he was crying so hard, it only came out as a strained croak. "Help me! Help-" Before he finished his sentence, he clipped it. Shortly after I heard a thump, which signified he had fallen over.

And that was when I could feel no more.