//------------------------------// // Pickled 'Pork'. // Story: A Lost Soul Returns: The King of Monsters // by Dark Star the Crazed //------------------------------// If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later. ~ Lewis Carroll. Twilight and Fang were walking down the streets of Transylmaneia's Earth District, the one in which monsters such as goblins, trolls, orcs, and werewolves lived, with their newly adopted daughter, Ana. The three were just walking, they had no destination in mind, they just wanted to spend some time together. That's when Twilight saw a werewolf, in his beast form, the spell cast over the kingdom allowed all of the monsters to show their true forms if they wished to do so, pulling small, golden brown, strips of something out of a green jar filled with juice and eating them, before just spitting it right back out. "W-what is he eating?" Fang looked at his wife and daughter before looking at the werewolf. "I'll go ask..." Fang smiled at his wife and looked back at the werewolf, only to see him walking towards them. "Or I'll ask him when he gets here..." The werewolf stopped bowed, and looked at Fang. "My king... I know that you have occasionally eaten pork..." Twilight and Ana both gasped and looked at Fang who had a sheepish smile on his face. "This... This pickled pork... I... I need you to taste it... I... I don't think its pork!" Fang sighed and pulled one of the pieces of meat from the jar and popped it into his mouth, much to his wife and daughter's disgust. His eyes went wide and he spit the flesh out. "That is definitely not pork!" Fang summoned a glass of water and a bar of soap before washing his mouth out. "Where did you get this...?” The werewolf looked up at the monster king with a look of fear on his face. The king had a look of anger in his eyes that could only be described as pure rage. "Metzger sold it to me... He is a... I don't know what his now that I think about it... Anyway he immigrated here from Germaney... He used to sell jackets, pork, and belts to the ponies, griffons, and minotaurs that lived in Boarlin... He is very nice, he always gives some of his profits to the community and to charities. He also allows a homeless pony to stay with him each night... His kindness has earned him the nickname 'Papa Metzger' because he acts like more of a father than a friend." Fang growled and looked at Twilight. "Twilight... We're going home." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Why? Is that pork so bad that it ruined your mood?" Fang shook his head. "I-I'll explain when we get home ok? I just want to make sure that you and Ana are safe..." Twilight looked at her husband for a few seconds before smiling and nodding. The two looked down at their daughter to get her opinion, only to see she was gone. "Ana! Ana!" Twilight began to look around in every direction trying to find the filly. "Ana where are you!?" Fang began looking as well only to stop when she saw the werewolf trying to sneak away. "Where do you think you're going?" The werewolf jumped and ran away with Fang following close behind. The werewolf tried to lose him by running down an ally, only to find that it was a dead end. The werewolf turned around to see Fang and Twilight, with murder in their eyes. "Why would you run? Unless you know where Ana went." The stallion took a step towards the werewolf who gulped in response. "H-hey! W-we can w-work this out! I'll tell you w-where she is and you let me go!" He gave a short shriek when Twilight teleported in front of him. "Or, you tell us where Ana is and I don't rip your spine out through your throat!" The werewolf fell on his haunches and backed up until he was against the wall. He closed his eyes and held his front hooves out in front of him. "I'm sorry! He didn't tell me what we were going to do until it was too late for me to back out! Metzger doesn't sell pickled pork! He sells pickled flesh! Pickled pony flesh! He makes the jackets and belts from pony skin! I'm sorry! I didn't want to die!" He opened his eyes and saw Twilight holding a hoof to her mouth with Fang standing right next to her, a fire burning behind his eyes. "Please don't kill me! I don't care what you do to me, as long as you don't kill me! You can gouge out my eyes with a melon baller! You can cut out my tongue! You can cut off my-" He was cut off when Fang slammed him into the wall. "Three seconds... You have three seconds to tell me where he took her... If you tell me in under three seconds then you will only be charged as an accomplice in the kidnapping a member of the royal family... Begin... 1..." "His shop! His shop! He took her to his shop!" The werewolf felt his face connect with the ground and looked up to see two guards standing over him. "Take him to prison. The charge is that he assisted a pony in the kidnapping of my daughter. Lucky for him, kidnapping, no matter how important the pony is to me, and no matter how much I want it to be at the moment, is not punishable by death." The guards nodded and picked up the werewolf before placing some hoofcuffs on him and walking away with him in tow. Twilight and Fang ran down the street until they found a bunch of monsters, kinds that were known for being carnivores, which were holding jars like the one the werewolf had. "Nopony eat the pork in those jars!" The entirety of the large group of monsters turned and looked at the queen with curious eyes. "It's not pork! It's pony skin!" Every single one of the jars fell to the ground and the monsters began trying to make themselves throw up. "Where is Metzger's shop?" Everypony pointed down the street towards a normal sized building and Fang and Twilight dashed for it. Fang lowered his head and bashed the door down. He then ran into a back room that was used for storage only to find that it was empty. "I-I don't understand... Where is she!?" While Fang was looking around franticly trying to find the little filly Twilight heard a muffled scream. Even though it was muffled she recognized it. It was Ana. The pregnant mare's horn glowed and began to rip up the floorboards. Until she heard a growl. There was a loud thud when a trapdoor opened and hit against the floor before a large earth pony stallion climbed the stairs that it led to. In his hoof was a large, rusty, bloodstained, cleaver. "Why won't anypony let me fix the problems in this world?! I just want to get rid of the homeless problem!" The stallion turned towards Twilight revealing he had the face of a pig, not a wild one, the kind Applejack had on her farm. He ran at Twilight and tried to strike her with the cleaver, only to be blasted to the side and onto a table that had a knife rack above it. The resulting shake from the impact caused the knives to fall free and impale the stallion. Twilight's eyes landed on the cleaver that the stallion had been holding. The blood on it was fresh. Twilight's knees buckled and sat down. "F-Fang?" Her husband ran over to her and sat down as well before hugging her. She was crying so badly there was a constant stream of water hitting the floor. "I-I don't think I can go down there... The b-blood on his cleaver was f-fresh... He killed her... He killed Ana... He killed our little filly... He killed our daughter!" Twilight began bawling like hungry foal. Her tears suddenly ceased when her ears picked up a soft sound. A whimper. It was Ana's whimper. Twilight stood up and ran over to the trap door and down the stairs with Fang following close behind. The stairs leg to a large, cold, room. There were large hooks on the ceiling that, skinless, pony corpses were hung on, over on the far wall were pony skins, hung up like they were paintings. In the corner were ponykins that had coats made of pony fur on them. That is when she saw it. A large pit full of bones, next to a table that had the corpse of a pony that was missing its legs and head on it. Twilight turned and threw up on the ground. "MMMMRRRPPPHHH!!!!!" Twilight turned towards the sound and saw a bunch of cages. Three of which had a pony in them. A stallion, mare, and Ana. Twilight and Fang ran over to the cages and caused the locks to shatter, and the ropes and gags that bound the ponies to fray and snap. Ana stood up, pushed the door to her cage open, and ran into her mother's loving embrace, quickly squeezing the purple mare's chest. "Mommy! Daddy!" Ana began to cry her tiny, sapphire blue, eyes out. "Mommy! I was so scared! I wandered away to look at the toys in a store window and he grabbed me! He brought me here and made me watch as he cut off a pony's skin and... And... And... Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!" Twilight wrapped her wings around her daughter and began to run a hoof down her back. "Shh. Shh. Don't cry sweetie, everything's alright, mommy's here and the bad pony can't hurt you anymore..." After a few minutes the filly started to quiet down a bit and Twilight looked down at her and smiled. "Better?" The tiny grey alicorn sniffled and nodded. "Let's get you home so we can make sure you aren't hurt anywhere... And after that we'll get you some ice cream, ok?" A small smile formed on the fillies face. Her eyes had become bloodshot and she had rings of wet fur around them. The smile disappeared and she began to look around. "Where's daddy?" Twilight went wide eyed and looked around. She saw her husband standing over at the table that was near the bone pit. He was just standing there with a book floating in front of him. Twilight told Ana to stay still and she went over to her husband. "Fang what are you- Oh dear Celestia!" Twilight turned around and puked again. On the table were three suits. The suits were made of cutie marks. They were in a box that was covered with wrapping paper. On the paper was a gift tag and next to the tag was a letter. To: Metzger Swine, From: Gemetzel Swine. Happy birthday brother. I will be coming to visit soon. The guards here are onto me. That is why I sent you the suits, all three, I was going to send only two but it would have been too risky for me to keep one. I will see you soon. To a new life and happy life away from the scum that is the homeless! Twilight looked at her husband with a grim look on her face. "Fang we need to get Ana, and ourselves, out of here." Fang nodded, gripped the book he was reading in his teeth, wrapped his wing around his wife, walked over to Ana, who was shaking and crying once again, wrapped his other wing around her, and teleported them all back to his castle. As well as the stallion and mare who were in the cages. Fang stood up and walked over to two guards. "I want you to gather a group of at least ten and seize the property of Metzger Swine in the Earth District. If anypony gives you trouble show them this." He summoned a small silver coin that had fangs carved into it. The symbol of the royal Transylmaneian family. The guards nodded. He then turned to the two confused ponies who were now bowing to him, Twilight, and Ana. "You two, here." He summoned a fair sized bag and tossed it to them. It landed with a jingling sound. "Find an inn and get yourselves cleaned up, and some food." The two looked at each other and then to the bag, nodded, and walked out of the castle. "Twilight, Ana... I have an idea... How about we go and visit Jack?" Ana's sadness seemed to disappear at the mention of the frost spirits' name. "Can we!? I haven't seen him since the wedding! Do you know where he is?" Fang nodded. "I made him governor for the ice district..." Fang smiled at his daughter who ran up, bounced into the air, and hugged his face. Fang just stood there until Ana decided it would be a good time to get off. She bounced over to the door and stopped for a second before turning around and bouncing away towards the stairs that led to the bedrooms. "Why didn't she just teleport her coat here?" Fang's horn glowed and the coats that they had used during their trip to Stalliongrad appeared. Hers seemed to have been slightly altered so that it would fit her when she started showing that she was pregnant. Fang helped her get it on and put his own on before Ana ran down the stairs and to the doors. "Come on! Let's go see Jack!" The two older alicorns smiled at their daughter and nodded as they went off to see the spirit of frost. One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others. ~ Lewis Carroll.