//------------------------------// // 11: Cool story bro. Needs more dragons. // Story: Honor the Dead // by BinaryTroll //------------------------------// Honor the Dead by BinaryTroll Pre-read by nobody. :( Chapter 11: “Cool story bro. Needs more dragons.” -------------- We dropped like two guys sitting in a 1 ton jeep. “Fuck me.” I muttered, curling into a ball. We hit the ground with a loud crunch. I uncurled myself and checked my body. Unhurt. Completely unhurt. No wounds whatsoever. That didn't seem right. I re-checked myself. Nope. Still nothing. Not a scratch. “Hey Joel. You okay?” The ball beside me moaned. “I'll take that as a no.” I roughly grabbed Joel under his arms and dragged him out of the jeep, laying him down on ground. I checked his arms. Not broken. Head? Fine. Legs? “Dude, fuck off! I'm fine.” I offered my hand and pulled him to his feet. I looked up at where we fell from. “Jesus, at least that was a relatively small fall. Only ten meters or so. But still, we're lucky to not have hurt ourselves.” “Yeah. The jeep's still intact too.” I heard an explosion, felt a sharp pain on my temple, and blacked out. Because the universe only takes that as a challenge I opened my eyes slightly. Something smelled. A bit like sulfur, but nicer. Weird. Nice smelling sulfur, now I've smelled it all. I tried to open my eyes further, but no, my scumbag brain decided that I shouldn't. Dick. Wait... Did I just call my brain, and by extension me, a dick? One day I'm going to have to think before I think. That makes no sense. I guess I rest my case. My case against who? Myself? Ugh. Shut up me. While I was having that little conversation with myself, my motor skills were rebooting. I felt feeling come back into my limbs, chest and unfortunately, head. “Fuuuuck.” I moaned. I had a headache. I hate headaches. Like, they're on my top 10 things I hate most. Up there with Cameron. Nobody likes Cameron. Opened my eyes to find a blue-gray face staring at me. “WHAT THE FUCK!” I yelled, leaping to my feet. I had the pony pinned to a wall in less than a second. To her credit, the mare was unfazed and calmly pulled my hand off her throat. Damn, she was strong. “You aren't exactly the most cautious species, are you?” I stepped back and the pony dropped back to all fours. “Yeah... Wait what?” “Your companion tried to stab me with a knife when he woke up.” “Ah” With my adrenalin rush fading, I looked around the room. It appeared to be a cave of some form, the walls were made of solid stone and it had a dome-like shape. There was a bed that I presumably had been sleeping on and a small wardrobe next to it. Hmm. I felt like I was missing something. I looked down. Shit. “Umm, do you have my clothes?” “They're in the wardrobe. Why do you need them?” “You have got to be kidding me. For now, lets just say I don't want to be naked.” “If you wish.” I strode over to the wardrobe. Interesting smell, not a wood I was familiar with. I opened it and found my shirt, pants and cloak in a heap on the bottom. I pulled them on and sighed. Still no knives, boots or Famas. “Hey, do you have my knives? And my boots and gun for that matter.” “I decided to temporarily confiscate your weapons so I didn't have a repeat of last time.” “And my boots?” “Outside.” The mare turned around and I noticed something odd. She was a pegasus, but a bat winged one. I wonder what she's doing living in a cave? I stepped outside and was greeted by intense sun. “Fuck me, that's bright.” I blinked the dots out of my eyes and studied the area. I was at the base of a mountain, with a small, gray rock cliff to my left. A pond of clear water and another cliff was to my right. “Nice place you got here.” “Thank you.” the mare said. “Your boots are here.” “Dankeschön.” “Pardon?” “That would be thank you in German. Which is a language you've never heard of.” “Okaay.” The pegasus took a few steps back. I grabbed my boots and pulled them on. “Well then, where are my knives and where have you put Joel?” “Joel is your companion?” “Yes.” “This way then.” The mare strode towards a staircase carved from rock that wound it's way up the mountain. As we walked, I studied my savior. She was a blue-gray coated, pegasus mare, with a blood red mane and tail. She stood about 5 feet tall, coming up to around my nose. Her wings were bat-like and rather large. Her cutie mark was the head of a dragon. I took some longer strides, falling into step beside the unusual mare. “So, do you have a name?” She looked at me curiously. “An interesting way of phrasing that question, but yes. My name is Shyvanna. Now if you'd be so kind as to give me yours?” “Edward. Also, your name sounds familiar somehow, but I can't quite place it.” “I doubt it's a very common name, but I have no knowledge of your species so I cannot make assumptions.” The pegasus returned her gaze to the path. “It's not a common name. I can tell you that much. But I'll leave that for another time.” We walked in silence for a few more minutes before reaching what was probably halfway up the mountain. I was greeted by a rather happy looking Joel. “Sup Wards?” Joel asked, standing up and brushing off his pants. “The sky.” I replied shortly, smiling. Shyvanna look at us in confusion. “Isn't your name Edward?” I sighed. “Yes, roly poly Joely boly here likes to call me Wards. Why? Because he knows I hate it.” She just looked even more confused. “I thought you two were friends?” “We are. We just like annoying each-other.” Joel replied for me, walking up to me. “Here you go Wardo; Luna, Celestia, a combat knife, a ballistic knife, and your G2 Famas of awesomeness.” I took my weapons and smiled, turning my favorite knives over in my hands. “Thanks.” I sheathed the ballistic and combat knives before throwing Luna and Celestia up in the air and catching them by the handles. My grin grew even wider. “Lets go kill some shit.” Joel crossed his arms and smirked. “Alright then, what are we going to kill?” My smile faded and I sheathed the bowies. “Buzz kill.” Shyvanna stared at us. “What just happened?” “Friendship just happened. Which, by the way, is magic.” “What?” “Nevermind.” I cracked my knuckles. “So, what are we going to do?” Joel shrugged. “Dragon hunt?” Shyvanna looked up at that. “I don’t know.” “I suggest you don't do any strenuous activities for awhile. You were hurt pretty badly.” “Yeah. I need more time staring off into space after four days of nonstop driving across a massive plain.” I said sarcastically. “I still do not believe that dragon hunting is wise.” Shyvanna replied, unfazed. “Noted. So what do you propose we do?” Shyvanna... Blushed slightly? “Well- I- umm. I kind of want to know more about your species. I've never seen anything really like you before. The closest I've found are diamond dogs, so...” “You want to know more. You're curious.” I finished for her. “Yes.” She said quietly, hanging her head. “Alright then. Do you want to sit down or what? This may take awhile.” “Umm. Okay.” Shyvanna led the way into a nearby cave. The small cave entrance opened up into a massive expanse, many times larger than a house. Speaking of houses, a stone wall cut off the rest of the cave, with a metal door sealing it. Shyvanna trotted towards it. She looked back and smiled slightly. “Welcome to my humble abode.” The door opened with a screech of rusty hinges and we were inside. Massive emeralds carved in the shape of bushes littered the floor, some bearing tiny rubies like they were fruit. A marble path cut down the middle of the room, leading into a huge marble structure. It was a house of some form, but a bloody massive one. The house was reminiscent of a temple, with large pillars holding up the roof. It seemed to have several floors that spiraled up into the ceiling, disappearing from sight. Oh, and there were huge heaps of jewels and precious metals lining marble bowls the size of cars on each floor. “Holy shit.” I said slowly, gazing upon this horde of treasure. “I wonder how much this is worth? Those bushes would be pretty close to priceless.” I took some shaky steps forward into the room and did a 360, drinking in the sights. Joel followed suit. “Come on, this way.” The clip-clop of Shyvanna's hooves echoed around the cave. I blinked and wrenched my eyes off of the sights. Jesus, that was harder than I thought. I jogged a bit to catch up with Shyvanna. “Do you really live here?” I asked, coming level with the pony. She sighed and looked down. “No. I'm not allowed to. I can only visit sometimes. In fact I shouldn't be here right now.” “Who lives here? And why aren't you allowed here?” Shyvanna looked up sadly. “The dragons live here. And I'm not allowed because I'm the leader's bastard daughter.” I stopped. “Wait wait wait wait. You, a pony, are the leader of the dragons' bastard daughter? Does that mean a pony a had sex with a dragon? How the hell does that work? Everything about it is genetically wrong, scientifically impossible, AND FUCKING RULE 34 TO BOOT! WHAT THE SHIT?” “I knew I shouldn't have said that.” The half-dragon muttered, looking close to tears. I laughed. “That is fucking amazing.” I looked back over my shoulder. “Hey Joel! Come here!” Joel jogged up beside us. “Yeah man?” “Shyvanna here is a half-dragon.” “So that’s why you were screaming about rule 34. Good to know.” “Indeed. Alright Shyv, We've found out something new about ponies, and dragons for that matter, so it's your turn. What do you want to know?” Shyvanna though for a second. “Why did you just call me Shyv and why did I find you in under a huge sheet of steel?” “Well. Here we go. I called you Shyv because Shyvanna is too long to say. As for the steel sheet, I'll give you the simple version. That was a part of a special carriage. This carriage can go up to 200 kilometers per hour. That's probably close to 10 times as fast as you can run. Anyway, this carriage runs off oil, burning it to make it drive. Now oil is highly combustible, so if the oil leaks out and gets ignited...” “Boom.” “Exactly. Now we are normally protected against that, but when you fall 10 meters directly onto a rock, well, it's not good. So it exploded with Joel and I only a few meters away. Thus, buried under a huge sheet of metal.” Shyvanna tapped her ear with a hoof. “That's probably the most ridiculous thing I've heard.” I stared at her. “You're the daughter of a pony and a dragon, and that is the weirdest thing you've ever heard?” I rubbed my hand over my face. “Ugh, this world just doesn't appreciate science.” We reached the huge temple/roost/house thing. “What now?” Joel asked, looking at the rather apparent lack of stairs. Shyv facehoofed. “That's right, you don't have wings. Ugh, what am I going to do with you two now?” I leaned against a nearby pillar and slid down to the floor. “I'm good with the 'sit down and talk' option.” “Sit down and talk it is.” Shyvanna stretched her wings and refolded them. “So, you wanted to know more about humans?” I prompted, unconsciously pulling out Luna and laying her down in my lap. Shyvanna eyed the knife. “Well for a start, why do you have one of the princess's cutie marks on your knife?” Shit.