//------------------------------//
// An Offering of Blood and Flesh 
// Story: Appledashery 
// by Just Essay 
//------------------------------//

	Clink!  Cl-Cl-Clink!  Several chaos shards littered the dirt floor of the Wasteland.

Silence.

... ... ...THUD!  Rainbow's meaty body slammed down hard.

Lancie grunted, being thrown off her figure.

Rainbow rolled and tumbled through the night.  At last, she coasted down the side of a hill, sliding, leaving a long bloodstreak behind her that glistened in starlight.

The pegasus slid off the crest of a hill, fell sideways, and tumbled down a gravel-laden embankment before finally settling to a stop between two large boulders.

At last, she lurched to a stop, staring skyward and twitching.  Blood fountained out of her impaled figure, and her muzzle hung open.

Wincing... sputtering for breath... Lancie got up.  He gasped, staring all around with wide, gray eyes.  He looked down the hill, his gaze following the bloodstreak to where Rainbow's battered body lay.  "Sparky...?!"

No response.

Gritting his teeth, he scampered down on all fours... tripped... slid... then regained his hoofing.

"...Rainbow Dash!" he seethed, descending, stumbling closer to her figure.

When he reached Rainbow Dash, she scarcely moved.  Her limbs jerked, and her breaths came out in shallow wheezes.  There was a slight flutter to her lashes, but very little else.

"Rainbow..."  Lancie perched above her, shivering.  His stone eyes darted to her legs, her wings, her bleeding chest.  He gulped.  "Rainbow, just hold on, I'll—"

Swissssssh!

Lancie turned around—CLANK!  A dagger ricocheted off his forehead.  "Ooof!"

Th-Thump!  Romulus landed, snarled, and slammed his talon hard into the granite statue.

Lancie rattled off with a grunt, settling somewhere past the boulders below.

"My contracts... my money... all gone!"  Romulus spat.  "And for what?!"  He turned towards Rainbow Dash, seething.  "Just to dwindle in the shadow of a loyal piece of shit like you?!  Grnnngh!"  He rushed forward and kicked her.

A tiny whimper escaped—but that was it.  Rainbow rolled limply down the hill, past the boulders.  She coughed and gurgled up blood.

Romulus marched towards her.  He hissed through his beak.  "You think you had everything covered.  But you didn't.  Listen closely, my little pony."  Schiiiing!  He brandished his blood-stained scimitar.  The blade glimmered with moonlight as he approached the skewered pegasus.  "With your last dying breath... with the fragments of hearing still left in your ears... hear me and hear me well."  He stood over her, raising the blade high.  "I am going to eviscerate you... gut you like a pig... and then I'm going to track down every living thing that pretends to call you a friend... and feed you to them before gutting them too... slowly... intimately... with the smell of their own insides wafting across their noses as I make them curse your name."  His one good eye narrowed.  "That... is my solemn promise..."

A dark shadow rippled overhead.

Lancie craned his neck to the sky.  Wincing, he shuffled deep into the shadows.

"I'll see you in Tartarus, bitch," Romulus spat, and brought the sword down—

CRACK! A pair of dragon claws snapped the scimitar just milliseconds before grabbing Romulus' tiny figure in a vice-like grip.

"Grnnkkk—gaah!"  The assassin let out an avian shriek.  His limbs were restrained tightly against his body.  Within seconds, he was being hoisted up... up in the air.  His lower legs and tail dangled as he was held up before Blood Fire's snout.  "Mrrffnngh—aaaugh!  Let me... grnnngh... go!"

"... ... ..."  Blood Fire stared the griffon down.  "... ... ...hrmmmm..."  His iron-jaws curved into something resembling a smile.

From far uphill, along the edge of the crater, the matriarch's voice boomed:  "Blood Fire, my son!  Have you got a flesh and blood offering?"

"Indeed I do, mother," Blood Fire said, wings flapping.  He lifted up with Romulus in his grasp.  "And it will make you proud."

"Come here, my child, so that I may anoint you..."

"Grnnnkkk... wait... mrnnfghh—no!"  Romulus hissed, wheezed.  He struggled and fought against Blood Fire's iron grip, but it was no use.  He was carried up beyond the mists, where even his panicked shrieks were stifled.  "Let go of me!  Don't you... don't you dare—No!  Grkkkt!  Nooooo—graaaacuhkkk—spfllktkttt!"  And all was indecipherable sputtering, gargling, and then silence.

Lancie panted... panted.  Crawling out of the shadows, he gazed up at the edge of the crater.

"Mmmffnngh... L-Lancie..."

Jolting, he tunred about.  On panicked limbs, the statue scurried back down and past the boulders.

He rushed towards Rainbow's battered body just as a violent wave of involuntary spasms began.

"Sparky...!"