//------------------------------// // The Clash // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// The Clash Dash was in a dark room, dressed in a lab-coat of sorts. She looked around, checking the dusk for any signs of life. She turned her attention back to a small cart covered in various medical equipment. Dash grabbed a scalpel off of a tray, running it over her hoof and observing it. What a nice blade. She giggled, and walked over to a sheet that was hung over a something that was strung between a few wooden posts. She grabbed the sheet with a hoof and pulled it off. Jason stared back at her, grief in his eyes. "Stop Dash, I know you're still in there." he said. She smiled, throwing her head back in laughter. "I am Dash. There's nothing new." She shoved the blade through one of the cracks in his armor. "Well, maybe a little." She left the scalpel stuck in him and went to grab another tool from the table. She perused her choices for a while, eventually selecting a tweezers. She chuckled and walked back to Jason. "Open those eyes now." Jason struggled against the chains. "Tisk tisk." She grabbed some metal clips, quickly pulling his eyelids out of the way. "Dash, you don't have to do this." "I know I don't have to, but it's so much fun! Now let's see just how compound those eyes really are..." ______________________________________________________ "Dash are you okay?!?! You were screaming and yelling about something, I was getting scared." Scoots yelled, pushing a hoof into Dash's cheek. Dash awoke with a start, still reeling from her dream. Damn, that was vivid. Still somewhat in dreamland, she tried to get off the couch in a panic but ended up collapsed on the floor. Apparently there were already streams of tears on her face, made worse by the easily recalled memories from the dream. She felt numb. "Dash, say something!" Scoots yelled. She was the one torturing him, why? What did it mean? The pressure of the cloud on her face seemed to increase and she rolled over, turning her field of vision to include Scoots, who looked like she was having a breakdown on the couch. She finally pulled herself the rest of the way out of the dream, shaking off the residual mental images. "Scoots, it's okay." She got up off of the floor, then walked over and hugged her. If scoots was back here, that must mean that it was already morning. She glanced up at the clock, noting that it was, at least, still early. They hugged for a few minutes as Scoots tried to pull herself together and Dash continued to feed the rivulets that trickled down her cheeks. Just trying to handle losing Jason was one thing, but that? That was like the nightmare from hell, she could almost feel the cold metal of the scalpel on her hoof as she tortured Jason. She wasn't in control of the dream, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel responsible. She just prayed that whatever they had done to Jason hadn't been worse than that. "Dash, why were you acting like that?" She finally asked. "I--- I had a nightmare about Jason. I was in the middle of torturing him." She sighed as a few residual images flashed through her head. "You wouldn't really do that, would you Dash?" "No, of course not Scoots. I guess I should just start from the beginning here and explain the nightmare. Jason's been gone these last couple nights, because he was taken by some stallions. I want to get him back, because he's my special somepony, as I'm sure you know by now." "Is that why you were yelling yesterday morning?" "Well, partially. I was yelling at my friends because they never trusted Jason, and were ungrateful for not doing so. I kinda freaked out a little more than I should have, but I think I got my point across. I spent the rest of yesterday getting a plan together with two of the few ponies on my side, and I'm going to go save Jason today." "Is he going to be okay Dash?" She could see that Scoot's eyes had become foggy again. She threw an arm around Scoots and pulled her into her chest. "I hope so Scoots." She felt part of her chest dampen as she continued to pat her on the back. They sat there for a few minutes, the only noise being Scoots' quiet whimpering and the growing wetness on her chest. Eventually Scoots pulled her head away and looked up at Dash. "I know you have to save him, but don't leave me alone, okay?" "Yeah, Scoots, I won't." She really needed to cheer this kid up. "You wanna help me get ready then? I can show you a pair of knives Jason had made for me." "Yeah, okay." She said. Dash smiled, at the very worst, she still had Scoots. They both trotted across the room over to the pile of armor and weapons that was still leftover from the day they had gotten back. She sighed in reminiscence as she grabbed part of a foreleg chunk. She looked through one of the holes, peering at Scoots, who let out a quiet giggle. She tied on the forelegs, then got up to grab the box. She carried it over to scoots, laying it in front of her. "Care to open it, Scoots?" She nodded, letting a small amount of excitement play over her face. She briefly struggled with the latch before getting it open and lifting the lid. She mouthed the word 'wow' before carefully pulling out one of the knives, balancing it between the two of her hooves. "What do these things mean, Dash?" "I dunno Scoots, I think they're just designs. Maybe I could ask Twilight. Hopefully she isn't annoyed at me, not that I really care how she feels, but because I won't get information out of her if she's mad." "Are you still friends with them Dash?" "I'm not sure Scoots. They didn't really trust Jason, and they thought that I was wrong about trusting him. I'll have to see how they act around me next time I see them. Help me get the rest of this on." Scoots walked over and pulled a few strings tight, locking Dash's chest plate in place and completing the armor set. She moved her legs around, running through every conceivable movement before deciding that the armor was on correctly. "Are you going to have to kill the ponies that took Jason?" "I don't know, Scoots." She threw the belt of explosives on. "If they surrender I won't have to. Do you not want me to kill them?" "No, I couldn't care less if those jerks died." Dash looked over at the clock and jumped. "Listen, Scoots, I gotta go. You wanna see the explosion?" She finished tying the second knife onto her foreleg. They fit like a dream. "Yeah!" "Okay, I'll stick you on a cloud pretty far away. At any hint of trouble you gotta run though, Squirt." "But I haven't had anything to eat!" Dash ran into the kitchen, returning with a couple apples. She threw one over to Scoots. "We gotta eat it on the wing." Dash walked over to the trash can, rapidly taking a few bites of the apple when she realized that she couldn't hold both that and the bomb. She awkwardly dragged it over to the door, rolling it along the front yard. "Ready to go, Scoots?" "Yeah, how are you going to carry that?" "Simple." She pushed it over the side before diving after it. She flapped back up a few moments later, holding it with her legs. "I don't need my legs if I'm flying." She smirked. "Now let's go get Jason back." __________________________________________________________ Dash quickly glided towards her destination, noticing a glint behind a bush nearby. She landed on the ground, hearing Scoots land behind her, and set down the trash can. She pushed the leaves of the bush behind, scrunching up her face in confusion when she saw the source of the glint. It was a long thing, and it had several things sticking out of it. One of the things held a lens. There were several other slightly curved blocks of metal scattered around. She shook her head and sighed, she couldn't figure out what it was, but it definitely wasn't equestrian. She covered the thing in leaves, she'd come back for it later. "It's something from Jason's country Scoots. We'll have to come back later to get it." "Do you know what it does?" "I honestly have no idea. Maybe a shovel? Let's just get going." She grabbed the trash can again, quickly lifting off of the ground. She landed near the brick building, carefully depositing the bomb before turning to the others present. She was slightly disappointed when the only ponies there were Luna and Heavy, both wearing light armor. Heavy was weilding a spear. "Where's everypony else?" "Called in sick today, bastards." Heavy replied. "Ah, yes, but there should be a couple guards coming. I sent for them lat night, in case something like this were to happen." Dash let out a sigh of relief. "Why did you bring a trash can?" "Aha! That's how we're going to get through the wall. All we need now is something heavy and mostly immobile to kind of direct the explosion into the wall." Luna rolled a dumpster on the other side of the bomb from the wall. "Like that?" "No, we need more stuff." She started shoving more of the trash cans and boxes behind the dumpster to keep it in place. After the seventeenth trash can she figured she'd added enough. "Okay, so listen," Dash started, "That thing's going to go off, and it should blow through that wall. Then I'm going to chuck a few of these things inside," she gestured to the fash-bangs on her belt. "And most of them should be stunned. That's when we'll go in, and hopefully sweep the floor with these pieces of shit. A word of warning, get really far away from that explosion, if the shockwave doesn't kill you, the shrapnel will." "Princess, when are those guards supposed to get here?" Heavy asked. The princess pointed a hoof in response. Two ponies were trotting down the street in full royal armor, one of them an earth pony, the other a unicorn. They stopped in front of Luna and saluted, looking around at the rest of the rag tag team. "At ease, soldiers." They dropped their solutes. "What's the plan, Princess?" One of them asked. "To simplify for you, we art going to blow a hole in that wall, then go inside after Dash gives us the signal and take out the hostiles inside. Is that correct, Dash?" "Yeah. Have either of you seen combat?" "Yes, Boss. We were assigned to sector G8 in Canterlot along with the rest of our squad." "Where is the rest of your squad?" "They're still M.I.A. ma'am." "I'm sorry to hear that. Stop with the formalities by the way. This should be basically the same as it was out there, but with ponies instead of griffins." She turned to Luna. "Luna, can you deal with at least a few of them when we blow our way in?" The Princess laughed. "I'm sure I can deal with at least a few, if that's all you're going to allot for me. It's been quite a while since I've been able to outright fight something. My sister says that violence by the princesses is no longer looked up to like it was." She smirked. "But this is off the record. Are we taking them dead or alive?" "It doesn't matter. Their boss is in there though, watch out for him. The captured pony said that he was pretty freaked out by the guy, he might have a large amount of power." Dash turned to Scoots, who had been watching intently the whole time. "Get to that cloud over there if you want to watch, Scoots. If something goes wrong, I want you to fly into town as fast as you can, okay?" "Yeah, Dash." She jumped forward, throwing her arms around Dash in a hug. "Be careful." She could hear a few 'aww's from behind her. "I will be Scoots. Now get over there so we can get started." She nodded and took off, quickly ascending to the cloud. She had gotten much better at flying in the last two weeks, Dash noticed. She turned back to the group, putting a hoof up to her mouth to tighten the string around one of the knives. "You guys ready to blow some shit up?" There was a resounding cheer from the team. "Luna, will you do the honors of lighting the fuse? As soon as you do, get back to a safe distance." "Ah, yes. I would love to." She tapped her hooves together happily before trying to regain her composure and walking over. Her horn glowed and she gestured for them to get away as she took off into the air. Dash pulled out a couple of flash-bangs and got ready to prime them as she hovered back at least fifty extra feet. The five of them waited in silence as the fuse continued to burn. It was a long wait. Her nervousness grew as the time period continued to drag on. The worst part of this plan was not knowing what was inside. Everything was based on them successfully surprising the gang members. They definitely had an advantage, but that never seemed to help them in the past. They'd just always squeaked by on the slimmest of margins, why would this plan be any different? BANG!!! The dumpster fell over backwards as trash and dirt flew everywhere. A small mushroom shaped fireball floated past the top of the building as debris started to rain down, creating a light pattering noise. Dash took off towards the opening that was making itself known through the rapidly clearing smoke cloud. She pulled the pins in midair, throwing them through the rather sizable hole as she neared. Bang!!! Bang!!! The two slightly muffled bangs sounded as the other ponies rushed up to the entrance. Luna got inside first, immediately picking up several ponies in her magic. They briefly struggled before going limp, and she tossed them into the wall. Dash looked over at Luna, who was smirking. "What, I can't have some fun of my own?" She said, continuing to smirk. Dash shrugged and looked around for an exit. An open door led out of the room into a long hallway, and the five of them crept through while making sure they weren't running into a trap. As Dash went around the corner into another room, a stallion jumped out of the shadows, diving at her with a knife. She knocked the knife to the side and put her other hoof in front of her chest, impaling the stallion using his own momentum. They ended up face to face, and Dash watched as a trickle of blood flowed out the side of his mouth before she threw him into a corner. "Clear!" She loudly whispered back to a pony at the door, who turned out to be Heavy. She snuck back out the door, moving to the next room in the long hallway with him by her side. They entered and split up, Heavy immediately taking out a pony that was too slow to get out of his chair while Dash sparred with the other, more ready stallion. He swung at her with a knife, jumping back to avoid her counterattack. He repeated the process a second time, eyes going wide when he jumped backwards into a wall. Dash smirked before quickly running a blade across his exposed throat and throwing him to the ground. She looked over to see Heavy finally kick the stallion off of his spear, and they both ran back out, nearly colliding with the other three ponies. The only room left was at the end of the hall. They snuck along the walls, careful to not burst into a situation they weren't ready to handle. Dash grabbed another flash-bang, making it obvious that she was going to use it before tossing it into the other room and covering her ears. From what she could see before she closed her eyes, the others did the same. They all rushed into the room as a stallion was thrown aside by Luna, crashing into the wall and going limp. Dash punched another across the face, stabbing him with the blade from her other hoof as he fell. She heard several other bodies slump to the ground. That left two ponies in the room. A pony and a changeling, that is. Dash felt tears start to pool in her eyes when she saw what Jason looked like, he was cracked all over, covered in blood. One of his eyes was looking over at the group of them. He smirked, wincing a bit when some of the cracks on his face moved around. She managed to tear her gaze away from him and focus on the stallion that was standing on the raised platform that held Jason. He was laughing maniacally, something you really didn't want to see from somepony you'd thought you had beaten. There was an almost unnatural darkness around him, obscuring his face and most of his grey coat. The baseball bat like weapon was floating in the air next to him. "You think you have me beaten? Not now, not ever! I have resources, I have more power than any of you. I have what I came for, so I'll just be taking my leave. Expect another visit from me, because mark my words, I'll be back. And next time I'll bring an army!" There was a burst of light and the pony disappeared. A tendril of smoke rose off of the platform where he was standing. Dash flew over to Jason, struggling with the manacles that bound him. Luna's magic extended to the chains, and Dash watched as the chains unlocked and opened. She managed to grab Jason before he hit the ground, and carefully laid him out in a way that looked somewhat comfortable, propping him up with a hoof. Her tears started to flow again as she looked him over more closely. He looked terrible. Worse than terrible, actually. Besides the cracks that spiderwebbed over his body, she could see that he was missing part of an ear, and that a sizable chunk of armor on his side was missing entirely. One of his fangs was chipped more than it had been, and was now missing at least an inch and a half of it's length. The tissue around his closed eye was so swollen he couldn't even open it. And worst of all, they had somehow managed to completely saw off part of the very bottom of his hoof. She had chipped off part of one of hers before, and it was one of the most painful weeks of her life. He focused his eye on her, seemingly unable to form words. Finally, he got some out as he smiled up at her. "Dash," He chuckled lightly. "I knew you'd come for me." He coughed and contorted in pain as he re-closed his eye and his head lolled sideways. "Jason!" she gently slapped his cheek, which had apparently not received any mercy whatsoever. There was no reaction. She shook his body around, still not managing to get him to re-open his eye. "JASON!!!"