//------------------------------// // Preview: Wounds and Weapons // Story: The Game of Shadows // by Zytharros //------------------------------// Vinyl Scratch cracked up, laughing and rolling on the ground. “Man, Boomer, your marefriend’s always had such a way with words… ‘Come out and get fucked up like a real bitch…’ Classic!” She doubled over into a second fit of laughter. We heard a little filly’s laugh from behind us and turned to see Scootaloo also laughing her flanks off. Rainbow just facehoofed, while I blushed. “This is not going as well as I’d hoped…” Rainbow said. “It’s just not my day.” “Tell me about it…” I mumbled. “Oh, come on, Dashie,” Vinyl said, sidling up to the blue mare and wrapping a foreleg around her. “You’ve let a few words slip sometimes. Loosen up!” “Around a filly?” she shouted. “Never!” “Actually-” Scootaloo began. Dash immediately stuffed a hoof down her throat. “Let’s not talk about that time…” Razortongue chuckled. “Fuckin’ chicken, Rainbow?” “You bitch…” Rainbow Dash seethed, her entire being corroding away into an epic epiphany of wrath that had started building up since before she fainted. “You’re mine!!” With that, whatever control I had hoped to maintain immediately blew up in my face. Rainbow Dash attacked Razortongue. Boomdrop stepped in to defend her marefriend. Scootaloo tried to separate everypony, failing miserably. Vinyl Scratch joined the brigade of violence “to even up Rainbow’s odds”. I simply collapsed on my flank and cried. For a couple minutes, this crazy, violent war of supposed “harmony” continued, drawing a crowd of almost everypony in Pinkieville. They gained a series of cheers and even a round of bit betting on who would win. A couple ponies even started their own brawl in the spirit of the fight, which soon erupted into a full-scale riot. I heard one pony mutter, “And the weekly riot begins…” That was all I could take. I just scooped up Scootaloo and took off, out of Pinkie’s mane, out of Sugarcube corner, out of Ponyville, and deep into the Everfree. I heard some ponies calling my name, but I paid them no mind. Everything had fallen to… well, shit… around me. I had disappointed Zytharros, my friends, my family, everyone… I had derped up. Again. “What the Luna-damned fucking hell is wrong with me??” I screamed. “I’m such a screw-up!!” Just before I barreled headlong into a tree, a blue blur swept around and caught me and Scootaloo, who by that point I had forgotten I was holding and had begun screaming her head off in sheer terror at my long-time-coming, frighteningly self-destructive mental breakdown. As Rainbow Dash carried me around, ashamed that she had sent me into such a state, I just cried. The pressure… the new role… the fight… the… fuck it, the insanity of it all finally drove me to spend the next three hours bawling my eyes out in a clearing in the forest, surrounded by Rainbow and Scootaloo. “What did I do?!” I screamed at Rainbow. “I don’t know what went wrong! Tell me!” Rainbow was completely speechless. She knew I was having a hard time. She knew this. Yet Razor was always able to get the best of her. Somehow, Razor just dug in and stayed there. Through the blurs in my tears I could see in her eyes a thousand apologies wanting to explode from her mouth, yet none could be heard. “Tell me! Let me know how I screwed up! Again!” I shrieked as I took hold of Rainbow Dash’s forelegs in a deathgrip both of us were sure should have been impossible with mere hooves. “I hate this… I wish Zytharros were still here… he’d know what to say, what I did wrong…” “Derpy…” Rainbow finally managed, trying to hold me in an embrace. I angrily pushed away, fed up with her. “No, Rainbow. No. I screwed up. It’s obvious you and Razor need to fight more than you need to be led. You can find a new Element of Determination.” Scootaloo’s small voice, more timid than I had ever heard, pierced through my heart. “D-Derpy…” “No. I’m through. I’m done,” I mumbled, turning away. “I’ve fucked up enough.” Scootaloo ran towards me, and took hold of my hoof. “Derpy… I-I’m sorry…” I hesitated for a second before I shook her grip loose. “It’s not your fault, kid,” I said, glaring daggers at Rainbow. “Rainbow and Razor can’t seem to put off their fucking pissing contests long enough to help us save our entire world. Maybe we should just let them ruin it for everypony.” Rainbow stood, shocked and dumbfounded. She had never heard me speak like this before. I could tell had struck a nerve deeper than anything she had ever been told by Razortongue before – and I wasn’t through yet. “After all, what is loyalty but fucking backstabbing the country you apparently love so much?” I seethed bitterly. “Apparently yours only runs so far as the first challenger to brutalize your Luna-damned ego. No more. If the damn Harmony Continuum won’t fuckin’ cooperate with itself, then I want no part of its fucking ass-backwards insanity.” Read Wounds and Weapons here.