Drifting Through Realities

by Thadius0

Chapter 19 - If there's a way to be scarier, I don't know it.

Octavia and I watched as the stallion slowly came to, giving off little jerks as his brain rebooted. Eventually he realized we'd bound and gagged him and he opened his eyes to see the situation he was in. Which was simple enough to describe: bound by ropes looped several times over both sets of legs and his wings, with a rather fierce knot tied in each set. He could do little more than wobble around like some sort of full-body dance move. Most specifically, The Worm. His eyes scanned the room wildly before landing on me and Octavia just a short distance away, upon which they contracted nigh-instantly.

"Funny how you had the right amount of rope to tie him up, Octavia. Anything you want to tell me?"

She snarked back at me without missing a beat. "Only that you seemed to know quite well how to tie those knots and did so very fast. Had a lot of practice?"

I shrugged my shoulders at that one. "I made it a practice to immobilize spell-flingers when I was on a world where spells were a combination of what you said, the movements you made while saying it, and the power you channeled through you. Kept me out of trouble for a while."

Octavia sighed, and I imagined she'd rolled her eyes at my little nugget of history. "So. Do you want me to try out my remaining two cellos on him? I'm sure there's some portion of his skeleton that could use tenderizing."

I held a hand to my chin and pondered what she'd said for a moment before shaking my head. "Nah. Just leave this to me."

Octavia nodded, but made no moves. I looked at her and cleared my throat to get her attention, and when she looked over to me, I pointed in the direction of the front door. "No, seriously, leave this to me. I'll get him talking, but you'd object to how I'd do it."

She hesitated for a second at that. "Will he be in one piece?"

I nodded, without vocalizing the condition. If he's smart and cooperates, yeah.

She either didn't notice my slight hesitation, or did, and approved of what I'd not said, because after only a moment herself, she got up and stiffly walked to the front door. Before it closed behind her fully, she shot back a single sentence through it. "Word to the wise, I'm pretty sure that the guards won't be as lenient if he isn't in one piece."

The door clicked shut, and it was just me and the stallion, alone in the house.

I jerked a thumb at the front door over my shoulder. "Remember her. Because while she beat you over the head with a cello, and likely would do so again two more times, she was the nice one."

I leaned a little closer to the stallion and snarled. "I'm going to get answers out of you, and you will not enjoy it."

He blanched a bit at that, and I reached inside my hoodie for Origin. I palmed it in my left hand and looked at it, smiling softly at the memories of Agatha. "Have you seen this sword before?"

I glanced at the pegasus on the sofa to see him slowly shaking his head, and I looked back at the hilt. "It's a remarkable blade. Only activates with a precise charge of electricity...which I can generate. Wonderful thing, it is. Able to cut any material...or, rather, if there's a material it can't cut, I've yet to find it."

I picked the stallion up and positioned him so that instead of laying on the couch, it would look more like he was sitting at it. Granted, sitting and playing a very odd game, but sitting nonetheless. I switched the hilt to my right hand, and Origin came to life, resembling the inky blackness of space where no stars shone. I then looked at the stallion on the couch and put my left hand on his bindings.

"Vinyl and Octavia are very dear to me. Very dear to me. They are the first beings in so many worlds to show me genuine, actual kindness. That priest in the last world who healed away my scars only did so because I traded with him. Every scar, the story of how I got it, and then he removed it. Sorry, rambling. Point is..."

The tip of Origin traced its way downwards and the flat of it nudged a very particular part of the stallion's anatomy. Suddenly, all his little struggles stopped, and my smile dropped.

"You made a big mistake by working for him, by participating in the taking of her. Your boss and your associate flew low, over the rooftops. Broke our line of sight. I don't know where he is, where she is, where he'd have taken her. I don't know these things. But you...you do. So let's make a deal, you and me."

I nudged his anatomy again, and the stallion gulped. "If, when I take these bindings off, you tell me, and tell me quickly, then you retain the ability to procreate. If you fail to tell me, that'll only be the first thing you lose. I wonder how thinly you can slice a pony's legs?"

His eyes widened while the iris and pupil contracted to the size of pins in panic. I merely continued my talk, making sure that when I took the ropes off his muzzle, he'd speak, and speak quickly. "See, you made the very big mistake of taking something dear to a human. A human who's been kicked around, mistreated, badgered, bullied, maimed, tortured...it's only when I got my sword and got training in how to use it that I began to work out those emotions. And oh boy, do I have a surplus to work out!"

The blade was up again, between our faces but not cutting off eye contact. "And another thing you should probably know. Humans are not like the majority of ponies, what with your innocence and your trusting and general niceness to your fellow prey-species. We're omnivores, apex predator of our world. Give us a challenge, we'll either find a way around it, or demolish it. We live in the frozen north of our world as well as the scorching equator not only because we can, but because there are those of us that like it there. We've explored the depths of our ocean and climbed our highest mountains. No magic, no wings. Not that it stopped us from inventing things to replace them. We've even gone to our moon and back, and looked into going to other worlds. A human is nothing more or less than the most stubborn foe or friend you will ever find in the right, or perhaps dreadfully wrong circumstances, and you went and pissed me off."

The blade had returned to nudging the stallion's family jewels, and I carefully eased the rope from around the stallion's muzzle, but kept it clamped shut with my left hand. "Now, if, when I remove my hand, you don't tell me exactly what I want to know, you'll lose your future progeny, and then we'll see just how much of a leg is enough to walk on."

The moment I removed my hand from his muzzle, the stallion chose to do a very smart thing. He answered the question. I was frankly surprised he could remember it. "Drury Lane! 110 Drury Lane! It's a warehouse down near the base of the city! That's where Cloud Stuffer has his base of operations, where he'll have brought Vinyl!"

I nodded and removed my sword from his unmentionables, but the stallion shook his head. "Wait! There's things you're going to need to know!"

I paused, then motioned for him to continue with my left hand. He obliged. "You can't go in the front door, there's an office overseeing the whole floor, and it has a prime view of the south door. The east and west doors are also pretty close to it, he'd hear it if you went in. Plus, he talked about this for a bit. He's expecting some sort of shipment at around one in the morning, and once it arrives, he's going to get Vinyl back on her old ways, then finish breaking her in. Or so he says."

I moved my sword back to between his hind legs. "You're not giving me a lot of good news..."

I could actually see the sweat pour off him. "Wait wait wait! There's a hidden entrance at the north side, comes out right underneath the office. I'm one of the few who know it's there, and Cloud doesn't! He never planned for it in our patrols! You could use it to get the drop on him, get the mare, and get out!"

I considered his words for a moment, then removed the blade and powered down Origin. "I could. Were I that sort of person."

I turned and walked towards the front door, but paused when I heard the stallion speak up. "You...wouldn't have really done any of that stuff to me, would you?"

I smiled my most sincere smile, turned, and walked back to the pony before crouching down and rubbing him right between the ears. "Oh, you're right. Of course I wouldn't have."

He sighed at that, before stiffening up as I pinched his right ear between too fingers. My voice lost none of its sincerity, and my smile remained plastered on. "Why, if I'd cut you up here, Octavia would have killed me for staining the couch! I'd have to move you to the bathroom first! More drainage."

I heard a faint whimper and the sound of fluid being loosed as I walked to the front door. Walking out got me an extremely angry grey cellist in my face. "So?"

I nodded at her, then the house. "I know where she is. Where he is. And I'm going to get her back. You may want to get in there. I might've scared him a little too well."

I walked down the street to find Drury Lane as Octavia walked in. I was whistling a familiar tune as a mare screamed her rage to the heavens and a stallion yipped in pain.

There was a six-stallion team outside the warehouse known as 110 Drury lane. They all worked for Cloud Stuffer. Everypony worked for Cloud Stuffer, or Cloud Stuffer would find a way to bring certain things about you to the papers and make it look like they'd just 'found' them. These were stallions and mares who had nowhere else to go. They'd tried, oh how they'd tried, to fit into the city. But somewhere along the way, they slipped up. Somewhere along the way, they'd made one mistake too many, and Cloud Stuffer had been there to take them in...then make sure they stayed with him.

Tonight promised to be interesting, mainly because not only was a shipment due in an hour, but also because the boss was in a good mood. Apparently, he had finally gotten his hooves on one of his old investments, and would now get a chance to see it pay out. Or at least, that's how he talked about it. None of the ponies guarding the exterior knew what he meant, and none of the ones on the inside would answer any of their questions.

It promised to be a nice, calm, peaceful night for an hour yet. Which is why it freaked each and every one of them out when they began to hear somepony singing in the darkness.

The sound had been coming from the road, but it was a ways away, at least fifty feet down the west end of the road if the last words were anything to go by. Which is why it, once again, freaked out the sentinels that the song was now directly by the west entrance.

At that, there was the sound of something swinging through the air, and a meaty thumping noise of something living or at the very least made of meat hitting the cobblestones. And the song didn't stop.

Another swing, another thump, and then there was silence for a minute. When the voice spoke up again, it came from the east entrance.

Swing. Thump. This time, one of the sentinels there caught sight of a huge arm, gleaming in the darkness. He was about to scream before the voice spoke up again.

His strangled cry had been halted by another swing, and he hit the ground soon after, joining his comrade in sleep. There was silence again for a minute, and the two pegasi left to watch over the main gate were very nervous. Moreso when the voice seemed to come just from their right.

A swing, a flash of shiny metal, a thump as one of the sentinels hit the ground, and then there was one. One last pegasus who was looking around wildly into the dark, looking for their mystery assailant. He got his wish in the form of a shiny metal hand wrapping around his throat and dragging him up to look into a face that would haunt his nightmares.

One of the eyes in the human's face was a normal green. The other was blood red. And then the human opened his mouth and growled the last line.

And then the last sentinel for the warehouse knew no more.

Eight ponies were inside the warehouse at this ungodly hour. One of them was the unconscious Vinyl Scratch, bound, gagged, blindfolded. One was Cloud Stuffer, keeping an eye on both his 'prize' and the doors of the warehouse in the office within. The other six were various pegasus goons that kept watch over the inside, making sure that nothing could get in to disrupt this shipment. Two per each door; east, west, and the main south door.

None of them knew about the door in the north wall, which was a bad move on their parts. Thankfully, it opened silently enough for the biped using it to sneak through while drawing a minimum of attention to himself. The human looked around carefully and saw none of the ponies looking at him. He then crouched double to minimize others ability to see him. A quick glance showed him where the stairs up to the office were, and a moment's quick movement brought him close enough that he could test them. Each slow step up the stairs brought a slow creaking noise, and every one caused him to flinch and hesitate. After a slow minute of climbing, the human was finally up at the office's door.

A quick motion brought a sword hilt up, and in another moment, a jet-black blade extended from it. Another fast motion saw the blade silently inserted into the door's top and brought down to the floor. There was a moment when nothing happened, and then the door swung inwards due to its lock being cut. The male looked inside the office and saw Cloud Stuffer looking out the window to the south entrance. Vinyl was in the far corner, starting to stir and make noises, which drew Cloud Stuffer's attention.

"Oh, so my trophy is getting up? Sooner than expected, but I can work with this."

The human tenses for a moment before bursting into the office like a hurricane of anger. With a quick strike to Cloud Stuffer's head, the stallion was dropped with a minimum of fuss. A hand over Vinyl's muzzle even as the rope is removed along with a quick 'shush' noise keeps her quiet even when she could speak. The bindings are removed from her and used to tie up Cloud Stuffer's legs and muzzle, leaving only his wings free. With as much stealth as had been mustered for the entry, Vinyl and Eric left, with the human carrying the unconscious pegasus with him.

And with that, only six ponies remained within the warehouse.

I wanted to hurt this stallion. I wanted to rip him limb from limb. I wanted to rend him from stem to stern. I wanted to invert his insides and outsides. I wanted to turn him into a puzzle for the guards to solve. I wanted to do so much to him.

And yet I couldn't. I was held back by one simple moral: if I did anything to harm him, anything, then I wouldn't be any better than him or any of those that harmed me over the years. I never harmed anything that was mortal. Undead, sure. Divine, yeah. They either didn't feel it, or it didn't matter to them. To grievously, permanently harm a mortal would be to demean my own humanity. What was left of it, anyways.

There was a solution I could use, though. One that would sting and pass eventually, but would render him harmless for a while, considering that all the ponies had magic innately.

I walked Vinyl home, made sure Octavia knew we were back, and then proceeded to a dark alley. I moved the binding from Cloud's muzzle to his wings, then opened his mouth. I then set my pack on the ground and fished out a handful of crystals, and gently inserted one at the back of muzzle. I stroked his throat after closing his mouth, and there was a gulping sound. When I opened it again, the crystal had vanished. I repeated the process nine more times and smiled. Then I moved the binding from his wings back to his muzzle, made sure they were all secure, and flexed my right hand before closing it in a fist. I ran a charge through it, one that was strictly more powerful than needed, but would and could do the job despite any variables.

The elctro-punch to the gut made Cloud twitch and flex while screaming. After he opened his eyes, he looked at me and flared his wings, but his iris and pupils shrunk when he realized one important thing:

His magic wasn't working.

"Hello there, Cloud Stuffer. The crystals inside you, the amount of them and power running through them? I'll be surprised if you manage to fly ever again before passing each and every one."

He started to breathe heavily. I'd robbed him of his magic with a simple set of actions, something I'd be surprised if any pony had done. I merely stroked his mane while looking him in the eyes. "I could have done so much more. But I've robbed you of everything that made you a pony, much less a pegasus, much like how you robbed Vinyl of choice, of her mind. And now, adieu."

With that, I punched him again, rendering him unconscious for the second time that night.

Shining Armor received a most unusual package at the Palace Gates the next morning. A bound pegasus atop a briefcase. When the pegasus was removed and the case opened, a plethora of papers was found, each one bearing the name of somepony, along with something that pony had done. A quick survey revealed it to be Cloud Stuffer and his web of contacts, along with what he used to keep them in line. With this information, the whole system could be safely dismantled. Heck, with their leader in custody, and the list of those who'd likely try to free him by less-than-legal means in hoof, he'd be going away for a long, long time. Assuming, of course, any on the list wanted to testify against him.

Shining looked from the files to the stallion and smiled. "It's a little early for Hearth's Warming, but I'll have to send Eric a gift nonetheless..."

I sat on the couch, with Vinyl spread across my lap. I'd asked this time, and she let me stroke her mane. Apparently, it was a calming gesture, something trusted friends do. Not only did they enjoy it, but it soothed them, as well as myself. Vinyl stirred a bit and spoke up after a moment.

"So he's dealt with?"

I nodded at that before replying. "Made powerless, delivered with all his information to the palace gates itself, even put a note on the bundle so that Shining would be the one to get called. Oughta be the end of that."

She turned one eye on me as I finished talking. "Hang on. You went back there after we were done to pilfer files?"

I nodded again and kept stroking. "Needed to put him away for a while. Figured that making sure none of his 'associates' would come and snag him, along with putting him away for quite a few cases of blackmail would do it."

Vinyl thought for a moment, then shrugged. "If you say so."

I played with her ears for a moment. "I know so. Now how about some music?"

Vinyl grinned wildly at that. "Thought you'd never ask."