//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: The Team Grows // Story: The Sword of the Helpless // by albedoequals1 //------------------------------// Brownie was awakened by a mare’s scream right next to her ear. She leapt to her hooves and reached to grab her sword off the ground, but Shadow stopped her. “Easy, Brown, it’s okay. Perfida’s just having nightmares.” Brownie looked over at where the pony succubus was thrashing about and occasionally mumbling in a language she couldn’t understand. “How long has she been doing that?” “Pretty much all night. I can’t say I trust her, but I think it’s obvious she was at least telling the truth about her change of philosophy. In my admittedly limited experience, I’ve never seen someone who hated themselves so much.” Perfida’s sleep-talking arbitrarily switched to the common tongue. “No! That’s not true, she said I can choose!” She abruptly lay still, and said in an eerily-clear voice, “Kill me then; it would make everything so much simpler.” Shadow gestured towards Brownie’s sleeping bag. “You can go back to sleep, it’s not your turn yet.” “That’s alright, I got enough sleep, and I talked to Luna,” Brownie said with a shrug, “I can take over now.” Shadow looked at her curiously for a moment. “Okay, thanks. I’ll take you up on that offer.” He went over to his sleeping bag and lay down. “See you tomorrow.” Brownie walked over to the cave entrance and peeked out. Behind her, Perfida resumed her argument with her subconscious. It was going to be a long night. * * * In the morning, Brownie woke Shadow first, then went to Perfida and gently poked her with a hoof. Her black wings unfolded violently, cuffing Brownie across the face. She yelled something in another language and tried to focus on Brownie with bleary eyes. After a moment, recognition started to seep into her expression. “Brownie Sundae, right?” “That’s me.” Perfida tried to stand on her back legs and fell over. She tried to stand on all fours and fell over again. She glared at the stump of her right foreleg for a moment, then carefully stood on her three good legs. “I’m sorry, I remember now. What do you want me to do?” “Well, you should probably eat breakfast first,” Shadow said as he flew towards them with a box in his talons. “What is that, Shadow?” Brownie asked. “Pinkie Pie gave me a box of extra provisions,” Shadow explained as he opened the box to reveal a full-sized cake, which was mostly mashed into a lump from bouncing around in his pack for a day. “Cake?” He held out the box invitingly. Perfida looked questioningly at Brownie. “You eat cake for breakfast?” Brownie shrugged. “I guess we do today.” Proper cake-eating utensils are not part of the standard adventurer’s kit. Shadow managed to get only one talon sticky, but both of his companions ended up with some cake on their faces. “That was a very good cake,” Brownie observed. “What do you think, Perfida? Can you eat pony food?” Perfida was staring straight ahead with a stunned expression on her face, as if someone had just revealed the great secrets of the universe to her. She slowly nodded. “I could get used to this.” They all went back to the river to wash off the cake and then came back to pack up their camp. Let’s see,” Shadow said, “the next order of business is to pick a nickname for you, Perfida.” “A nickname? Why?” She looked confused. “It’s his thing,” Brownie explained, “It’s best if you help him pick one, or he’ll call you something you hate.” “Speaking of,” Shadow responded, “why do you hate being called ‘Blondie’?” Brownie scowled. “Because,” she said with a low growl, “that’s what my father always called me.” Shadow’s face fell. “Oh.” “Why would that—“ Perfida was cut off by a talon over her mouth. “Don’t. She’ll tell you about it later,” Shadow promised. “Let’s find you a nickname. How about ‘Bats’?” He flicked one of her wings with a talon. “Or maybe ‘Fida’. Perhaps ‘Gimpy’?” “Shadow!” Brownie said sharply, “that’s horrible!” “I don’t mind. How about ‘Stumpy’?” Perfida suggested. “By the way, where are we going?” “We’re tracking that devil-boss fellow that you saw so we can spy on him,” Shadow said candidly. Perfida looked like she was about to relapse into her panic of the day before, so Brownie quickly grabbed her shoulders with both forehooves. “Hey, relax, we’re not planning on him seeing us. The last thing we want is to get into a fight with him. We just need to know what he’s up to.” “B-but if he catches us, he won’t just kill us; he’ll torture us for days or weeks before he lets us die. You inner-planers cannot imagine what sort of things we outsiders do.” “Well then,” Shadow interjected, “if he’s so bad, it’s all the more important that we stop him, right?” “We’re not going to stop him,” Brownie responded, “we’re just going to spy on him and report to Luna so she can stop him.” Perfida still looked quite distressed, so Brownie added, “Tell you what, Perfida. If things start getting too dangerous, you can just run away. You’re not responsible to us. If you’ll pardon my bluntness, we don’t care what you do as long as you don’t stab us in the back or something.” The succubus took a step and spread her wings as if to fly away but suddenly froze. She seemed to be looking at a normal tree, but she didn’t respond when Shadow waved a talon in front of her face. The three of them stood that way for a minute before Perfida started moving again. She turned back to face the others. “She says I need to help you as part of my penance.” “Who?” Brownie asked. Perfida stared into space again, but only for a moment this time. “Princess Luminace. She is the goddess of knowledge, and you seek information. I may no longer live only for myself.” “So…does that mean you’re staying with us?” Shadow asked. She nodded. “I will try to help you, but I’m not sure if I still have any of my powers from before.” Her brow furrowed. “Or if I could justify using them even if they still work.” Brownie nodded. “Okay then, which way did you say it is to the monster cave?” Perfida pointed her stump. “This way.” “Lead on, Stumpy,” Shadow said with humorous flair. Stumpy gave him a half smile and flapped her wings, lifting into the air. “I’m going to try flying slowly instead of walking, if you don’t mind.” “So, Fida, if you don’t mind my asking, what do devils do when they aren’t…um…doing what they do when we see them?” Shadow queried. “Well, first, I’m not a devil, I’m a demon. I have some devil blood, but succubi are abyssal beings, which means they are demons…” She trailed off as she noticed Shadow starting to get a glazed expression. “You know what, never mind. It’s complicated.” Shadow grappled with what she had told him so far. “So, devils and demons are different, but you’re both?” Perfida tried to facehoof, but her preferred limb was too short. “Here’s the thing: I don’t remember any of my mortal life, but I was apparently an infernal sorcerer or part devil or something like that. All I know is, now that I am a demon, I still have devil blood. I don’t know what to tell you; it’s not like one is worse than the other, it’s just another kink in my twisted, messed-up past. The only part of my mortal essence that remains is my lechery, which is how I ended up a succubus in the first place.” Brownie’s ears had been angled towards Fida since the start of the conversation, but at this they flattened a bit. “Lechery?” “Promiscuity, licentiousness, debauchery, habitual adultery, you get the idea.” “When you look at us, do you…?” “Yes, Luminace forgive me. I will beat it though. This is my only chance to escape that life, and I will not let it pass me by.” * * * An hour later they came to a deep canyon spanned by a dubious rope bridge. They cautiously peeked over the edge and saw a river running on the canyon bottom, a hundred feet below. Shadow poked Brownie’s flank. “This must be important, eh Brown?” Brownie rolled her eyes. “I highly doubt it.” “I don’t like the looks of that bridge, but we can just fly over, right?” Perfida suggested. When Brownie gave her a flat look, she added, “We could carry you?” “Knock yourself out.” Shadow said with a smirk. Brownie closed her eyes and sighed, but did not protest. Perfida drifted over Brownie, hovering easily. However, when she tried to grab the earth pony she discovered that weight was more of a consideration than she had thought. Furthermore, grabbing her smooth armor with only three limbs that all ended in hooves turned out to be nearly impossible. Brownie tolerated her impotent grasping for a little while before finally saying, “Okay, enough. I’ll walk across the bridge. If you guys could carry my stuff it might not stress the bridge so much.” “Sure, we can do that,” Shadow agreed. Brownie divested herself of weapons, armor and saddlebags and offered them to the flyers to carry. Perfida shrunk back when Brownie held up the Sword of the Helpless. “I’m sorry, I can’t touch that one; just looking at it gives me a migraine. If I touched it, I might burst into flames or something.” Brownie cocked an eyebrow, but hooved the sword over to Shadow instead. “Alright, let’s do this.” She started across the bridge. Shadow flew quickly to the other side, dumped the gear he was carrying and flew back to hover adjacent to Brownie as she walked. “We should give the sword a name too,” he observed. “Sword of the Helpless is such an unwieldy title. Maybe S of the H, or Helps. Not doing it for you? Hmm. Tira? Howie? Chops? Oh, I know, the Slashinator!” “It’s not even our—“ Brownie’s thought was cut off by a cracking sound as the plank she stepped on gave way. She tried to stabilize herself by lunging for the next plank, but it failed as well. She pitched forward into the hole, but caught a horizontal rope in her teeth. “I’ve got you!” Shadow said as he flew under the bridge to catch her. Brownie tried to pull herself back up, but she bit too hard and severed the rotten rope with her teeth. With a volley of snaps, the bridge started to unravel, forcing Shadow to dodge out of the way. Brownie fell head-first through the hole in the deck and plummeted into the canyon. She hit the water, and then something hard. * * * Brownie woke to a throbbing pain in her head and the peculiar sensation of a griffon trying to give her mouth-to-mouth. She tried to say something, but was suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea. “She’s alive! Brownie, can you—eugh! That’s a fine way to say thank you!” Shadow pulled back and tried to wipe off the mix of river water and cake that Brownie had just shared with him. The pony broke into a fit of coughing. “Whr’s evypny? Whappend?” she slurred between coughs. “Take it easy,” Perfida called to her, apparently just catching up, “you probably have a concussion.” Brownie stopped talking and looked at Shadow again. His fur and feathers were soaking wet and there was blood on one of his front legs. “Are you hurt?” Brownie asked, finding the simple words surprisingly difficult to pronounce. “Naw.” Shadow waved a talon dismissively. “I’m the best swimmer in my village.” He noticed the blood on his leg. “Oh, you mean this? That’s yours; you hit your head when you fell and you’re bleeding all over the place.” Brownie carefully felt her head with a hoof and was rewarded with excruciating pain and a sticky feeling. Perfida grabbed Brownie’s hoof and held it away from her head. “Eh, eh! None of that. Hold still.” She bit her own crippled foreleg, then squeezed the wound with her other leg to make it bleed. Brownie watched in confusion and suspicion as the demon held out her stump and shook it, allowing a drop of black blood to fall on the earth pony’s head. There was an odd hissing sound and a subtle sense of violation, but both soon passed. Shadow looked over the succubus’ shoulder with morbid fascination. “Wow, that’s healing fast. What was that you just did?” “A drop of devil’s blood can cause regeneration in mortals,” Perfida explained. She looked at Brownie nervously. “I only meant to help; are you angry?” “Um, no…it’s fine…I actually feel a lot better already,” Brownie said carefully. Shadow’s curiosity continued to overpower his squeamishness. “Do you regenerate like that all the time?” Perfida chuckled. “No, actually, and most pureblood devils don’t either. Ironic, huh?” Brownie staggered to her hooves. “Thank you, Perfida.” She turned to Shadow and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Thank you too; you saved my life.” Shadow grinned. “Now we’re even; you saved me three times and I saved you three times.” Brownie lifted an eyebrow. “You’re keeping score?” “A little healthy competition never hurt anypony, right?” Shadow teased. He walked back to the river to wash off Brownie’s various contributions to his coloration. Brownie looked at the low bank of the river she had just been fished out of. “How far are we from the bridge?” Perfida looked back the way they had come. “Eh, ten miles, maybe?” “And most of my gear is still at the bridge where Shadow left it?” Shadow returned in time to hear the question. “Oh yeah, sorry about that.” “No, no!” Brownie reassured him hastily, “You did the right thing. We might both be dead if you had been weighed down with all my junk.” “It’s a long walk back though,” Shadow observed. “You chicks stay here; I’ll fly up and get it. It should take me less than half-an-hour.” He grinned and flew off suddenly, leaving a flurry of leaves in his wake. “Be careful!” Brownie called after him, but she could not tell if he had heard her.