//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: The Syndicate 
// by kalikitty52 
//------------------------------//


Dacno

I stumbled backwards and tripped, falling on my rear. I was staring at the flames, my mind screaming for me to run but my body didn’t want to listen. Flashbacks of my childhood played through my head. “Dacno!” Nycto yelled and grabbed my arm, pulling me off the floor. Him and Lime Seed led me out of an exit. when we were outside, and a safe distance away from the building, I fell to my hands and knees and coughed up my lungs. 
“Are you okay, sugar cube?” Lime Seed asked with a slight country twang. His cheeks flushed and he looked away. 
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Are you two okay? What the hell happened back there?” I asked, standing up and brushing myself off. We were at the front of the building, most of the ponies had left, the others were watching the fire at a distance. 
“I’m not-” Lime seed started, then cleared his throat to get rid of the country twang in his voice. “I’m not sure, we were drinking one minute and then bam, a fire breaks out.” I turned to face the building and took a few steps back. Almost all of it was engulfed in flames. 
“Damn, well I need to go and find my sister and my friend. It was nice meeting you two. I hope we see each other again,” I waved goodbye to both of them and walked in the direction of Psychro’s place. As I was walking I came across an alleyway with a coughing pony. It was that DJ guy, “Hey are you okay?” I asked walking up to him. He cleared his throat and stood up straight. 
“I’m fine,” he said while taking off his glasses. He had bright green eyes, they were tinged red from the smoke though. “Hey, can I go with you?” He asked and looked at me with pleading eyes. 
“...I guess, just don't try anything funny stranger,” I said. He smiled brightly and put his glasses back on. We walked in silence for a while, then I heard a commotion near by. “Wait,” I said, throwing arm out in front of him to make him stop walking. 
“What is it?” He said in a whisper. I backed up against the wall and inched along it until I hit the edge of the building. I peered around the corner into the alleyway, DJ What's-his-face did the same. Hunter was against the wall of the building I was against. There were three guys that looked identical except one was a unicorn, one was a pegasus, and one was an earth pony. They had brown hair with pink tips, and their coat color was a really light grey. 
The pink in their hair matched their eyes, “Hunter, why were you talking to that...that,” the unicorn said. 
“That evil witch,” the earth pony finished for him.
“Yeah witch with a capital B,” the pegasus said and all three of them chuckled. The unicorn placed his left hand on the wall beside Hunters face. 
He caressed her cheek with his right hand and said, “Don’t make use do what we did last time to get information out of you.” He smiled creepily and I saw a tear roll down Hunters cheek. The unicorn caught it with his finger and licked it. Rage boiled inside me and I stepped into the alleyway. 
“Hey speak of the devil,” The pegasi said, looking my way and smiling, showing his teeth. Hunter turned her head my way and so did the other two ponies. 
The pegasi walked toward me, I wanted to back up but I held my ground, “Who are you three?” I asked staring into the unicorns eyes. Dj Synthemy stumbled out from behind the building. The three brothers looked at him with wide eyes. He stood up straight and rubbed the back of his neck as he smiled sheepishly at them. 
“Shit,” he said still smiling. 
“Well look who it is fellows, Azure Radius. Nice of you to find us instead of the other way around,” the unicorn said, smiling deviously.
Azure sighed and said, “I didn’t purposely find you, thing one.” 
The unicorn stopped smiling and put on a straight face, “That’s not my name and you know it.”
“What is your name?” I blurted before anyone else talked. 
“My name is Voltese, this,” he motioned towards the pegasi, “is Scythese, and this is Armodese.” He motioned towards the earth pony. 
Azure leaned over to me and whispered, “Lame names, right?” 
I chuckled then cleared my throat, “What do you want with Hunter?” Scythese flew over to me and landed an inch away from me. Instead of stumbling back, like I wanted to, I stood in place and stared him in the eyes. 
He took a small step back and looked up and down my body, “You have some big tits.” He said smiling wide with a crazed look in his eyes. I took a few steps back and bumped into Azure. He looked down at me and I looked up at him, then I stepped forward. I looked back at Scythese, he reached out both his hands, I flinched thinking he was going to hit me, but instead he groped me. I opened my eyes and glared at him, then I kneed him in the nuts and punched him in the face. He doubled over in pain and huddled up in the fetal position. 
Voltese backed away from Hunter and started walking towards me, “You’re gonna get it now,” Scythese said, smiling and looking up at me. 
“Watch Hunter, Armodese. Make sure she doesn't try anything.” Voltese said, reaching out his hand for Scythese. Scythese took it and stood up. “Let’s go,” Voltese said. 
Scythese looked at him like he was crazy, “But the girl, she hit me. Aren’t we going to-” Voltese stopped Scythese from talking by putting his hand up. 
“Let’s. Go. Armodese grab Hunter,” He turned to walk away but stopped when he saw that Hunter was gone and Armodese was unconscious on the ground. 
Azure pushed me and whispered, “We gotta go. They’re not going to be nice anymore and you’re not strong enough to fight them.” I glared at him but this was no time to argue, so I nodded and ran. We dipped into another alley and stopped. We hid in the shadows as we watched the triplets run past us. “Okay, were safe,” Azure said and then turned to face me. He stepped back and looked, wide eyed, at something behind me. I raised a brow and turned around. 
There was a tall figure with tan eyes, “Clank?” He walked into the light. 
“You know him?” Azure said glaring at him. 
I nodded and said, “Well yeah, he’s actually helpful.”
“I’ll be over here then,” Azure said. 
Walking away. “Sorry about him,” I said. 
Clank smiled and said, “It’s mighty fine. I was looking fer ya earlier, before the fire.” 
I looked to the ground and said, “Yeah I got a little drunk, sorry,” my cheeks flushed and I looked back up at him. 
“So what happened earlier?” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and kind of tousled his hair, “I was being watched by one of the canterlot guards, I’m not welcome here.” He said, looking behind me at Azure, who was standing directly behind me now. 
“Guys we have to go, I don’t think we lost those bitches,” Azure said as he stared at Clank. 
“Okay, follow me,” I said as I lead us to Psychro’s place from the back roads.