A bird flew lazy circles in the sky, next to what he assumed was still a distant ball of white, nuclear fire, like it should be. Through the air, there was a clear parting between empty, blue skies and dense swirly cloud masses. Under the clear sky, there were rolling sand dunes, with slightly green tinted sand. Under the cloudy sky, there was swampland, with puddles and pools pockmarking the land and more dense plant life growing deeper in. The gravel road ran directly between the desert and the swamp, and the parting in the sky ran directly above the gravel road, like the road either was built on the borders, or defined them.
It was so hot.
“And, more specifically, all I gotta do for this job is make about thirty land-bound birds dead. that’s what I’m here for, and you can follow me out, if you still want to help. They could be anywhere out here. Which way would you go?
He looked between the desert and the swamp. “Well… do they need much water? I don’t really know enough to have a preference.”
“Well, I do!” Hot spread his wings and flew into the shady, cloudy sky over the swamp. As he lifted into the air, that muffled popping sound returned. Hot pulled out two metal sticks and dangled them, flying lazy arcs and swoops as the sticks clanged together.
He ran off into the swamp, trailing along behind Hot and trying to follow higher ground trails and avoid the pools. Constantly, his hooves sank into the mold and mud. As he went, sudden downpours of water and waves of hot and humid would wash over him. Hot just kept flying his swoops and arcs through the cloud cover, and whooping. He was quickly getting tired. While he had been on the move constantly, he hadn't been on two legs for nearly often enough for this kind of abuse. He could see hot flying in the distance, across a pool from him. He chose to move left, along the raised dirt path along the edge of the puddle. A mass of tentacles and blades rose out of a deep puddle. He backed up and took a longer, more complicated path.
He chased after Hot and into denser tree cover. The canopy was almost dense enough to stop him from tracking Hot. As he gazed up, trying to see through the trees, he heard a rattling from the branches of a tree to his right. He moved through a puddle to his left.
He felt things brushing against his legs. He looked down. Something was moving through the water with him. He caught a glimpse of a ball of fins and pink fluff looking up at him with two big, blue eyes. He was torn between fear and adorableness. Small teeth sank into his leg. The thing smiled up.
His eyes widened and his mouth clenched around a strangled scream of pain competing with confusion. He began jumping from hoof to hoof. He raised his sword and began stabbing and slashing through the water. No fluffy bodies floated to the surface, though cut branches fell and gashes opened in trunks.
He heard the wet squelch of a foot sinking into mud, and looked toward it. Plates of natural rock armor formed the shape of a giant alligator, or maybe a crocodile. He held still and did nothing as the creature came closer to crushing him. The little bites continued.
Hot dropped through the canopy and landed on the large creature. There was a flash of blue-white and pain filled the grey pony. Pink bodies floated to the surface and the rock creature flailed. A blade came out of the bottom of Hot’s fake hoof and he inserted it into the giant’s spine. Hot exhaled.
“Sorry about givin’ ya’ a bit of the zappy, there. What’s that you were swinging at?” Many cute, little, pink faces were frozen in looks of pain and betrayal, floating upside down. Mixed in with them, small blue fish with full sets of flat, white teeth and tiny, red fish-eyes were also dead. “Oh, Luna, you don’t know what you are doing with that thing, do ya? Nevermind that, though, I found them. Come on, quietly.” Hot pressed a hoof into a metal plate on his chest and the popping sound stopped. Hot trotted for the treeline. He followed.
The ponies were quiet and they stopped three puddles away from the open air of a clearing. Through the weeds, they could see the birds milling about on their long legs in a shallow, wide pool. They had brown feathers on a big, round torso. Their wings were long and skinny and the tips had sharpened bone protrusions. The head was covered in a metal ball. The ball had a hole for a long beak, two slots for sight, and a hole for with a long, bendy neck sticking out of the bottom. Their legs were bladed and their knees bent backward. When they stepped, sharp, metallic blades could be seen, attached to the back of their legs.
They were walking slowly and jamming their heads into the water to eat wandering creatures. They seemed to be doing their part for the ecosystem. Everything seemed to be alright. For some reason, somewhere, some ponies disagreed.
Hot began to reach his hooves out into the air before sweeping them into his chest. A white discoloration formed in front of Hot and thickened into a white, fluffy ball. Half submerged, half sitting in humid, swamp shade, Hot built a cloud.
After two minutes, Hot had compressed three clouds into dense balls. One was dark grey, one was clear, but wavy, and one was dull grey, like a stone. “Ok,” Hot whispered, “we are gonna’ toss these at ‘em. Cover your eyes and ears and stay out of the water until all of these hit.” Hot pointed a hoof to a dirt patch with a tree growing out of it, a bit closer to the clearing, Just run for that patch of dirt. Ready?”
He nodded and Hot immediately and rushed for the birds. He followed. The birds stopped and brought their heads up, looking around for the source of the noise. Hot hurled the cloudballs as the beaks turned to point at them. Hot dove into a patch of dirt at the base of a tree. The grey pony stood on the patch of dirt for a fraction of a second before copying Hot. The grey ball hit the water and a blinding flash of light followed. The wavy ball hit the water and a deafening boom followed. The black ball hit the water and electrified it.
Hot moved first. While the birds were squawking and bumping into each other and running directionally, Hot took to the air. Hot’s hoofblade came out, and he glided by, claiming one dumb animal head after another.
He uncovered his eyes and shot to two hooves. He glanced around and found his sword lying on the ground. He noticed that the gem was no longer orange; it was a dull grey with a slight orange tint. He picked it up and charged into the shallow pool with his sword raised, crying a mighty awful battle cry.
He swung at the neck of the first bird to stumble in his direction. The sword bent around the soft flesh, settling at a thirty degree bend. He fell onto his backside in the water.
Hot dropped another set of helmets in his pile. He had twelve, so far. The birds weren’t bumbling about anymore. They were moving quickly and regrouping in the distance.
He sat up, covered in leeches. He held his bent sword in front of him and just looked at it, opened mouthed. He was yanked from the water and into the sky by Hot, but managed not to drop his sword. “How many did you- Oh… your sword seems to be out of commision, there. You got your horseapples together real good, don’t you? Just nevermind, I got this.”
Hot followed the birds across the swamp, toward the desert. That popping sound was back, and it seemed to be coming from Hot’s chest. As they crossed the gravel road, Hot dropped him, and then Hot flew into the swamp cloudline. The birds had collected on a sand dune. They were calling, in a shrill, reverberating call, and their heads were swiveling about, on the lookout. A chunk of natural cloud descended from the sky, pushed by Hot, and slammed into the birds. They disappeared under it, for a moment, and then began struggling to the cloud’s surface, as though suck in the cloud, like it was semi-solid to them. As each head emerged, they lost it.
He looked down at his bent sword. He grasped the tip and tried to bend the sword straight. It bent, but it didn’t straighten. Instead, the tip snapped. The resulting piece of metal was a sword, still, if it ever had been. It just kind of went up from the hilt, like any normal sword, before bending forward, and then bending backward a little bit farther along, leaving it pointing basically straight up again. The tip had snapped cleanly, leaving the front edge of the sword taller than the back edge.
Hot landed with a huge clattering of helmets and beaks. “You can replace the gem later, just load these up. Come on, we got places to drive.”
They hauled the heads, and then the bodies (meat had value, too), into the steam-mobile and left them in the bathroom. The rest of the day was spent driving, chatting, and turning in heads. Also, they played cards a bit.
“So, as the guest,” Hot put a pile of coins on the table and pushed a portion of it to the side, “you get the bed again. That is, of course, unless you were some kind of employee, now.” Hot folded his hooves and waited.
That night, he would sleep on the couch. That arrangement was perfectly fine with him.