//------------------------------// // "Long time no see." // Story: The Winds of Change: Fog of War // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// "Long time no see." "Jason, you don't even know where you're going!" "Yes I do, I know Dash is this way!" He yelled back, watching the injured griffin struggle to catch up. "Slow the fuck down, there's no outrunning a hallucination!" Eravel responded, watching the changeling start to slow down. "And secondly, how hard is it to transform?" "Not that hard, I guess. Depends on what I do." "Would a regular pony work?" Eravel asked, watching the resulting ball of fire. Alternis stepped forwards, examining his features. "It's been a long time since I've used this disguise." Jason noted, trying to ignore a shadow that moved behind Eravel. "So you're sure you know where we're going?" "Yeah, positive. It's one of the few things I actually know." "What do you mean? You've got the highest security clearance, I don't see how you can't know something." "You'd be surprised." Jason responded. "I don't know why soul magic guy-" "Can't we just make a name for him?" They both thought for a moment, before Jason simply said, "Bob." "Works for me, I guess." "Okay, so Bob has an interest in me for reasons I can't understand. I mean, I'm kinda powerful but I'm nothing seriously special." "Well..." "Look, I'm no Twilight. I can't do anything without Dash and everyone else I know, and even then I use everything up pretty easily. I mean, my only advantage over her is that I could hurl way more stuff at her in a shorter period of time." "No stamina." "Yeah, I'm screwed after I run out of love." "Thus, why you don't use magic to fight. Tiring, I take it?" "Yeah, I mean small things have pretty much no effect as far as I can tell, but as soon as I start factoring teleportation and heavy fighting-type magic things become taxing." He paused, looking quickly to one side. "Anyway, the problem about all of this is that I've never really been charged up all the way. Every time I start to feel full and content I have to go use a bunch of magic." "Hold on, does the amount of love you have correspond to how you feel? Emotionally I mean?" "I...guess so. Yeah, that makes sense. I was feeling great right before I got sent here, right before the war and really up till the fighting, so yeah, you're right." He'd never really thought of that one before Eravel went silent, and they walked in silence for what must have been twenty minutes. The midmorning sun was really starting to beat down as the village disappeared into the heat-waves of the desert and flat ground extended as far as the eye could see, peppered with occasional trees and some groundhogs. Not exactly the crowds of grazing animals Jason had expected, but they had just left a zebra village. "So how do you get love, exactly? Forgive me if I'm prying, but it's not like I have any other changelings to ask." Jason chuckled, stopping short before he shook his head. "Fuck." He muttered under his breath. "It's like- ponies have this kind of field of undirected love that they already put off. That changes depending on their emotions, but not by all that much. Anyway, it's a small amount of stuff. When stuff gets directed towards me, wow, that's still kind of a rush. I mean, Dash always has something going, but sometimes she really sends a lot my way." "Like when? Sex?" "Not really." Jason replied, shaking his head. "Like after, romantic stuff, like that. But when I proposed was still the biggest stream of love I've ever gotten, and with the broken leg I had at the time and all, it felt like liquid painkillers had just replaced my blood for a few seconds." "The power of love, right?" Eravel asked with a grin. "I guess so." Jason answered with a chuckle. "I never thought I'd be budgeting my activities on what ponies thought of me. Or Dash." He finished, looking slightly off-put. "Guy, look, she won't leave you." "Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it." Jason replied, looking away. The heat continued to beam down upon them as more time passed, quickly heating Jason up much more than it seemed to be doing to Eravel. He felt a drip slide down his forehead, leaving a cool trail as it situated itself at the tip of his muzzle. That's funny, he didn't particularly remember ever sweating before. He ran a hoof across his forehead, swiping up the moisture and giving it a quick lick. Definitely sweat. Chances are the only reason it was showing up now was because of how much hotter it was around here. Higher body temperature, less need to sweat. Especially in Ponyville weather. Not that he really missed not sweating, but it made him feel more human somehow. Like he wasn't as far from the way he had been as he had once thought. But then again, it's not like it really meant much. Sweat, big deal. His stomach grumbled again, and Jason looked up at a mountain that was starting to emerge out of the haze in the distance. "Is that the Canterhorn?" Eravel asked. "No, we have to go through some forest first at the very least. Probably some of the old Griffin Empire." "Great." The griffin responded, turning back to the bleak environment. ____________________________________________________________ "Twilight, how's that location spell going?" Dash asked, pushing the door to the library open and finding the mare passed out in a pile of books. "Twilight." She said, shaking the mare's shoulder as Scoots trotted over with a giggle. "Mrf." "You fell asleep Twilight." "Oh, Dash." The sleepy mare replied, sitting upright. "I'm not getting much closer to finding what I need." "Well you didn't need to kill yourself over it." "Whatever you say, Dash. Anyway, I can find him if you happen to have part of him laying around. Like a hair or something." She paused. "On a hairbrush maybe?" "You expect me to keep a hairbrush around?" Dash asked, putting a hoof under her bangs. "When I can look this fabulous with no help?" She asked, flipping her mane as much as she could while she batted her eyelashes. "So, that's a negative?" "Yeah." The blue mare replied, getting quiet as she thought. "What about his hoof?" Scoots asked, reminding the other two of her presence, which was at this point in an empty space in one of the higher bookshelves. "What about it?" Dash inquired. "You remember when they, you know, that pony..." "Yeah." Her mother responded, grimacing. "I know I didn't grab that, and I'm assuming nopony else did." She paused, giving a slight heave. "Guess I better see, huh?" "Maybe you'll find something that Luna didn't turn up." Dash chuckled nervously. "I kinda doubt it Twilight. I'm not sure how hard I want to look anyway." "Yeah, I guess I can understand that one." _______________________________________________________________ "Jason, how're you feeling?" Eravel asked, looking over at the tired Changeling. "Fine I guess. Kinda hungry." "We should stop walking, wait for dusk." Eravel said, looking at the near vertical sun. Jason agreed, eyeing the brown dots in the distance that he figured were grazing animals. It was only now that he could see somewhere, the herd slowly moving away from the path the pair had taken. Now that they had started up this mountain, he could even see the curvature of the earth. "Makes you feel pretty small, huh?" Jason asked, joining Eravel under a tree. "The space? Oh yeah." He laid down, watching Jason scratch away some of the loose topsoil and lay in the small hole he'd created. "What's that for?" "It's cooler this way, the lower dirt doesn't heat up." He grabbed what looked like an animal skin canteen out of his saddlebag, chugging down a fair amount of the water. "How're we doing on fluids?" Eravel took a moment to answer, checking himself over first. "We have two full sacks of water and some tubers, ignoring the two half things we still have." "Ah." "So how's the horn?" The griffin asked. "I mean, I like walking, but..." Jason touched his horn with his hoof, sighing at the still chipped end. "It's going to be a while. I'm not sure how long, more then that it's gotten a lot better." "At the result of a whole lot of love." "Yeah." Jason replied. "Fast healing kinda sucks when you can't tell it to stop." There was a long pause. "So, got any stories? We'll be here for a while, so the floor's all yours." "I'm sure I have one, at least." Jason said, wiggling around a little in the dust and enjoying the opportunity to rest. "I mean, pretty much anything through high school just seemed to be a joke between Ben and me. Not to say we failed it, I got into college and all. I'll never understand that guy though, he had good grades but he ended up just enlisting in the military. He called me and told me that he scored crazy high on the IQ test too. That tests how smart you are, by the way." "So what'd he do?" "Well somehow he meandered into the 101st Airborne, which is nicknamed 'the tip of the spear' for a reason, and was eventually deployed in Afghanistan eight or so months ago as part of a recent deployment. Uh, three hundred twenty...seventh infantry, if I remember correctly. 'No slack' was their nickname, and from what he said they really didn't have much to give. With him it was trial by fire, things seemed to heat up before they got better, and he called me after the first three weeks, told me that he'd gotten part of his ear knocked off by an old pistol some terrorist had. He kept saying that maybe he wasn't cracked up to be in the military at all." "So he left?" "No, he stayed. I asked him why he was there, and his reasoning hadn't changed in the slightest. He didn't say anything for a while besides a thanks, and then he hung up. Ben called me again a few days later, thanked me again for what I'd said. I mentioned that it was nothing, but he wouldn't hear it. Kept repeating that he was sending something out to me, that what I'd said had meant a lot." Jason paused, taking a breath. "So what was it?" Eravel asked, taking a sip of water. "He sent me a couple pictures, a letter, and his chest armor. I kinda opened up the package and couldn't figure out what it meant until the pictures and stuff fell out, and then it was pretty clear. They'd taken an intelligence post and were ambushed just down the road when it had been cleared, from a nest of machine-gunners up a hill. Ben wrote something about the fact that he'd figured that was the moment when he was going to die, with all the bullets impacting around him. He ran for cover and a round hit him in the chest. He couldn't get over how much it hurt when it hadn't even gone inside his body, which was something he repeated several times throughout that letter. Two other soldiers went down on the road and he dragged one off into the ditch by the side." "I'm assuming you're not telling me a depressing story, right?" "Just hold on. They had a Humvee to provide cover, but as the gunner started to fire this RPG came down off of the hill where all of the terrorists were and it took off the guys head. Didn't even explode, just a neat little *fwoop* gone. That's where this story turns around, because Ben decided that he had to get into that Humvee. He knew it was stupid, a thought that he explicitly stated on that page, but he ran out into the road to get behind the vehicle anyway. Another round bounced off his side and threw him into the dirt. This was where the letter got less detailed, like he seemed to remember less of what happened. Anyway, Ben got inside the gunner's seat of that thing, threw the other guy out, and mashed the buttons that make it fire so hard he said he broke off a fingernail. Two other guys that he said must've had a couple of extra testicles ran up the hill as Ben fired and cleared the nest like it was nothing." Eravel didn't respond, only staring blankly back at Jason as if expecting more. "Those two in the road both survived, although one had his arm amputated." "Oh." "Yeah, so I kinda figured after that letter that I wouldn't let myself go to war, because if Ben had trouble I figured I'd be nowhere near ready for it. Funny how I ended up in the military despite that." "I guess." "You're a griffin of many words." "I don't know what you want me to say." Eravel paused. "So, why the armor?" "The side got shredded and it was probably not good for another run in the field. But on another note I have Rarity making bulletproof stuff for us. Or, making bulletproof stuff in general, I'm not sure if she's gotten that far yet." "Ah." "You mind if I get some sleep?" Jason asked, watching Eravel shake his head. "Good, cuz even though Dash isn't talking to me, I'm still seeing her." "Jason, what you did,-" "Look, the fact of the matter is that I kissed another mare, maybe more. Not someone else, me." The changeling said with a sigh. "I hope you know I'm not letting you push that side of the argument. It's not your fault at all." "Whatever, Eravel." Jason responded, closing his eyes and easily falling asleep in the blanket-like heat. _______________________________________________________ "Oh my god." Dash said, motioning for Scoots to stay outside. There was a slight ruckus and the other crusaders joined her, presumably catching up on whatever had happened in their time apart. "This place looks like it's about to fall apart." She breathed, pushing past some boards labeled 'condemned' and looking around the decrepit place as she stumbled down the pile of bricks they had created from before. She was on the floor now, a cool breeze keeping the place from heating up. But it was winter anyway, she doubted that would happen. It was creepy, looking at this place. Luna had made sure to keep things under wraps, and from what Dash could see so far it was a tomb to the gang members they had killed before along with whatever else happened to remain. As she walked down the central hallway she couldn't help but notice the stench, covering up her nose with a hoof. Luna must've missed a few bodies, if she had even decided to take any of them away. It may well have not been worth the effort, especially if this building was scheduled to be demolished. She wasn't sure if that was true, but it definitely made sense. That way things stayed buried. But then again, it had been quite a while. If it were going to be demolished, she would've expected it to be already. Maybe it was just unimportant, and there wasn't anything here to be found by anypony else. That made sense at least, all things considered. Randomly knocking down a building drew some attention as well, and then there would probably be questions, and things would look bad for the princesses at a sensitive time. Some of the bodies had been moved for sure though, so it wasn't as if things had simply been left. At that point it could be more of a warning, keeping any other members away. That seemed to make sense, seeing as it would be a little hard to set up camp in a place where several of one's brothers had been killed in gory ways. Dash's hooves clopped against the smooth stone as she exited the hallway, entering into the pitch black room and looking around. She lit up her forehead after a few tries, casting a flickering white light around the room. It didn't take her long to find the place where Jason had been tortured, and with a sigh her eyes focused on the round slice of bone and chitin that she was sure was his hoof. She heaved, throwing up a little in her mouth. Dash spit it to one side, shaking her head and throwing the bone into her saddlebag. She turned, more than a little ready to leave. SLAM!! Her blood froze, keeping the rest of her in place momentarily before she got herself moving again. She galloped towards the door, grabbing the handle and pulling against it as hard as she could. It hardly moved. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck." She rattled off in quick succession, putting a rear hoof against the wall next to her to try to add some leverage. "Long time no see." Said a low voice, one that she found oddly memorable. Dash swiveled, keeping her back to the door as she pulled both her knives from her saddlebag and began to tie them around her hooves. It only took her a few seconds before she looked back up, her mouth free again, and saw him. He looked no older, not a speck of dust on the guy as light seemed to beam off his smoke covered face. "Nice to know that one of the alarm spells is still limping along." "Fuck you." "Hey, let's be civil about this. I mean, what's the fun in being angry at each other all the time?" "It's not supposed to be fun, you tortured Jason for nothing!" "Tortured is a strong word, what do you say we use tested instead?" "Whatever. So you're going to do the same to me? What the fuck is your game anyway?" She asked, taking a step back despite the unafraid air she wanted to put off. "Torture you? No, I'd have no reason for that. But tell me, has your coltfriend had anything weird happen to him?" Dash's eyes widened. "What did you do to him!?" "I didn't try to do anything, but I suppose anomalies do occur." "What did you do?!?!" She screamed, anger racing through her body. "What right do you have, targeting him like that?!" "I hardly targeted him, he just made himself notable." Dash didn't respond, only crouching lower to the ground as she stored away his words in the back of her head for later. "Like how?" "Oh, if I told you now what'd be the fun? He's already helped me, I'll probably afford him the knowledge at some point." Dash couldn't contain herself anymore, she ran off at a sprint, splaying her wings and taking off as she hurtled towards the pony. The mist in his face cleared, showing what looked like a surprisingly normal and youthful pony's face. The knife in her hoof went straight through his neck and a low chuckle circulated the room. As Dash turned, she couldn't find the apparition anymore. He'd disappeared. Dash's legs trembled as she landed, and she let herself fall into a sitting position. "Fuck. I wish you were back, Jason."