• Published 5th Aug 2013
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The Titans' Orb - Mister Horncastle



Callum lives a miserable life on Earth. But that is soon to change, when some unexpected visitors change his life forever.

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Chapter Twenty-Four: A Dash of Trauma

We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, reading, watching TV, and getting used to the fact that Oliver was now in the fold. In turn, he spent the day getting used to the girls’ presence, along with Blu’s. As the day transitioned into night, we all went outside to sit in the garden around the chiminea, where my brother lit a fire and cracked out some drinks for us, of the alcoholic variety.

“Here we are!” he announced to everyone, “To celebrate you surviving Brazil!”

Oliver passed a bottle of beer to me, a Doom Bar to be specific. To the girls, he gave cans of Strongbow, a very popular apple cider.

“I doubt it’s as good as your Sweet Apple Acres stuff, but it’s the best I’ve got.” he said to Applejack.

With a chuckle, the farm pony thanked him, and professed that after what we had been through, she wouldn’t have cared if it tasted like parasprite piss; a drink was a drink. Every one of us concurred with that sentiment, and very eagerly took our first sips. Oliver sat beside me and opened a can of Guinness, his favourite. For a few seconds, there was complete and utter silence, followed by sighs and gasps of refreshment and satisfaction.

“Oh, I needed this.” Rainbow Dash moaned.

“Me too.” Applejack breathed.

We didn’t speak to one another for a good while, simply enjoying the drinks. We eventually got to chatting again though, and quite quickly moved into some heavy topics regarding what had happened to us in Brazil; needless to say, this led to a few unhappy faces. Despite not being one for showing his emotions, Oliver was surprisingly compassionate. He gave us a lot of advice, especially when it came to dealing with feelings of anger. With a joking manner, he implied that taking it out on little brothers wasn’t a good idea, as in his experience, that led to them dying. Through the awkward laughs, I looked over to Rainbow Dash, where I saw the orange glow from the chiminea in her teary eyes. She met my gaze for a second, before clearing her throat and looking away.

“I uh… I’m going to get to bed.” she croaked.

She got up to leave, and Rarity decided to go with her, ensuring that the pegasus wasn’t left alone up by the camp. After that, the population slowly deteriorated, with Twilight leaving next, followed by Pinkie, and then Applejack. Fluttershy stayed for a third can of cider, and then eventually went off to bed as well.

“And then there were two.” I remarked, looking to Oliver.

“What am I then? Chopped liver? Quaark!” Blu squawked angrily.

“Oh shit, sorry Blu!” I apologised, laughing, “I completely forgot you were here, you were so quiet!”

Forgiving me with a playful peck, the bird decided to get some rest as well. He took off and fluttered up to a nearby tree, which coincidentally, was the same ironwood tree that I had hidden in during our game of Hide and Seek, back on that fateful day where I had chosen to give myself to the girls’ cause. With flight on the mind, Oliver turned to me and leaned forward, speaking in a lower, hushed tone.

“So, Rainbow Dash’s wings.” he started, awkwardly moving his mouth to one side, “She’s quite literally kept them under wraps all day. How bad is it?”

Sighing, I tilted my head down and gave it a defeated shake, before looking back up and locking eyes with him, struggling to get the words out.

“It’s… awful.” I breathed, shuddering, “That bastard plucked every single feather. They don’t… look… like wings anymore. They’re like… thin fleshy… arms or something.”

“Yeah, that’s fucked…” he murmured, taking a swig of Guinness.

I explained how it had completely destroyed the mare, to the point where she now believed that she was utterly worthless. He asked if there was any hope for them, to which I went on to say that the limbs had been thoroughly coated in Oozima, and just a few weeks later, earlier today, I had spotted a new feather forming.

“There’s definitely hope.” I said, shrugging, “But it’s not a certainty.”

Oliver hummed thoughtfully, and the chiminea’s flames danced in his beady green eyes as he seemed to do what he always did best; hold his tongue, and concoct a scheme within that devious little noggin of his. Changing the subject, I brought the matter back to my demise.

“So uh, did I get a funeral or anything?” I asked.

“You did.” he replied after taking another swig, “Quite touching actually, more people came than I thought would.”

“Really? Who came?”

Clearing his throat, he listed those present at the ceremony. A fair few of my friends from secondary school had come, like Harry, George, and Scott. Family from Dad’s side came too, like my auntie Becca and her son Camille, along with my cousin Amber. According to Oliver, Amber had been the most tearful person there; we adored one another growing up, and it saddened me to hear how upset she had been. My godfather came too, a firefighter by the name Mark Christmas, of whom I called ‘Marky Mark’ throughout my childhood. To be fair, it didn’t really feel right to deem him my godfather, as he never once came to visit me, the last time I had actually seen him was on my eighth birthday. Still, it was nice to know he had actually cared enough to show up.

“Oh, that girl you liked was there too.” Oliver said slyly, smirking.

My eyes flashed with excitement.

“Annabel?” I asked, lighting up.

“Yup.”

Annabel was a girl I had been crushing on for the past year and a bit; we had met at the bus stop during one of my visits to the leisure centre for a swim. The bus had been delayed, so we got to talking, and almost immediately hit it off. Every so often, we would see each other at the stop, until I plucked up the courage to ask her out for a hot chocolate at the local Costa café. We became good friends rather quickly after that, and quite frequently saw one another for hot chocolates, along with the odd trip to the cinema. I had hoped for a relationship with her, but she never felt the same way, or at least, so I thought.

“Damn girl wrote a poem for you.” Oliver murmured, “Made everyone cry.”

“Wh-What?” I stuttered, my heart skipping a beat.

“You heard me.”

Chuckling, my brother went on to tell me how Annabel had requested to say a few words, and ended up reciting a whole poem about me, and how sweet of a friend I was to her. Towards the end, she had professed her feelings for me, and that she had been eagerly awaiting the day for me to buck up and kiss her.

“I hadn’t even realised it was possible for you to garner such female attention.” Oliver teased, “A shame really, she genuinely seemed quite broken-hearted.”

“Fuuuuuuuck…” I blurted out.

“Aww, did the poor widdle baby miss out on a shag?”

Playfully hitting Oliver in the arm, I shook my head and cast the lost opportunity aside.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m a part of something far more important than getting laid. Besides, I think it’s safe to say I got fucked hard enough by Brazil.”

“Well, you know what they say…” Oliver shrugged, “If you don’t come to Brazil, Brazil will come to you.”

The both of us laughed, and then cracked open our fourth round of drinks. After a moment of silently enjoying the warmth of the fire and the pleasant atmosphere between us, Oliver inhaled deeply through his nose, and asked me something that I had wondered for myself on occasion.

“So, why are all six of them here exactly?” he said, “Like, I can understand the knob-heads, because they've got magic. The inbred’s got strength, and is, I’m guessing a decent cook. And of course, before her wings got the pluck, the tomboy could fly, serving as a scout and whatnot…”

Pausing for a moment to sip his drink, he then brought up Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.

“But what I don’t get is… why the poltroon and the meth-head? Do they actually bring anything to the table? Or are they just two more heads in the group to keep an eye on? If your job’s to keep them all alive, surely having two invalids comes as a detriment to you?”

Rolling my eyes at his choice of terminology for each pony, I scratched my chin and set him straight, explaining that each girl had their use. Admittedly, I feared for Pinkie’s safety the most, along with the devastation of her innocence, but her game-changing bright ideas and ever-positive mentality was a must. We needed her, both for morale, and for her hidden genius.

“Just this morning, she was the one to suggest using man-made frequencies for long-range teleportation, which, if that works, will speed up this mission by a hundred-fold.” I said.

“Yeah, fair one.” Oliver hummed, “And the piss-horse?”

“Oliver, you have got to stop with the names.” I snorted, almost inhaling my drink.

After composing myself, I told him that Fluttershy, although timid, had already proved herself invaluable by way of her medical expertise. Although she was no surgeon, the pegasus’ capabilities as a field medic were vital to the group. Chuckling, I told Oliver that she had already patched me up more times than I cared to admit. He nodded with understanding, coming to realise just how important each pony was.

“Plus, at the end of the day…” I continued, “These girls are just, better off together, you know? Their vastly different personalities make for a very strong team, with very unique skill-sets. They rebound off each other constantly, allowing them to overcome pretty much anything if they set their minds to it.”

“Hmm, makes sense.” Oliver muttered, “I suppose they’re designed to come as a full package, in both the cartoon and in reality.”

“Yeah, exactly.” I replied, “The loss of any one of them is a detriment to the rest.”

Scratching his chin, my brother agreed that it was right for all six of them to come here together, retracting his former statement.

“They’re a decent bunch.” he said, “Novelty aside and all, they’re just nice company. Well, that said, there’s obviously something wrong with Sparklefarts, what’s her problem exactly?”

Almost inhaling my drink for a second time, I gave my head a solemn shake.

“Bro, that’s the question of the bloody century… She’s been like it since day one, and no one knows why. She’s been standoffish, paranoid, insulting, and straight-up sordid at times.”

Adjusting my sitting position and taking a second to swig some beer, I went on.

“Despite my assurance, she’s convinced that I have some sort of ulterior motive, that I’m going to turn on her one day and kill her. It’s full-on schizo levels of paranoia, all because Celestia showed her something.”

Tilting his head, Oliver asked what Twilight had been shown, to which I sadly professed that I did not know.

“From the sounds of things, I think Celestia’s shown her some distorted visage of me.” I speculated with a grimace, “Probably hurting her, or her friends, or something like that. One way or another, it’s caused us to be at each other’s throats pretty much the whole time.”

“That’s messed up.” Oliver tutted, shaking his head, “So is that how your hand got burned then? The two of you actually got in a fight?”

“Eh, some and some.”

Explaining that we had been at the peak of our hostility, it had very nearly been a fight. But thankfully, grabbing her horn had quickly put an end to it, injuring the both of us in the process. Much to everyone’s relief, the incident had led to Twilight apologising, and she had finally settled down for the most part.

“Well then…” said Oliver, raising his can of Guinness, “Here’s to hoping she stays that way.”

“I’ll drink to that.” I replied, huffing with amusement.

After a few more swigs, we decided that it was about time we went to bed as well. We let the fire die out and finished our drinks, before getting to our feet. Oliver came over to me and gave me a tight hug, before bidding me goodnight. Smiling, I took myself off to the camp at the end of the land, taking my shoes off and quietly slipping into the tent with Fluttershy. I got into my sleeping bag and nestled up against the pegasus, which was when she rolled over and latched onto me, breathing sluggishly. At first, I found it to be utterly adorable, until she pressed her muzzle into my neck, and began to mumble passionately.

“Hmmnn… Oh, Middy…”

My eyes widened and I gulped, realising that the mare was having a dream of a dissolute nature, most likely enhanced by the alcohol. I lay there frozen, unsure of what to do as she rubbed her mouth against my Adam’s apple. Her breath was hot and heavy. Eventually, I decided that enough was enough and gently tried to shift her away from me. It worked for a time, until she found her way back and emitted light whimpers into my ear. Clenching my jaw and sighing awkwardly, I had a feeling that this was going to be a very long, and very uncomfortable night…


I woke to the sound of Applejack yawning loudly outside, she and Rarity were unsurprisingly the first to wake, as per usual. It was then that I heard the light jingling of a dog tag, followed by Chilli sniffing at the entrance of the tent. Grinning, I sat up and shuffled forward to open the entrance, allowing her to scuttle in and clamber into my lap, happily greeting me with a series of excited licks. She planted her tongue on my neck and I quickly shoved her away, glancing at Fluttershy, of whom was still asleep.

“Nuh-uh, too soon.” I muttered to myself, recoiling from the dog.

I peered out of the tent just as Oliver arrived, carrying a wooden tray in his hands.

Wagwan bitches! I’ve brought tea!

The bellowing immediately roused Fluttershy from her slumber. Sitting bolt upright with a squeak, the pegasus flared her wings and looked around with panic, before immediately flopping back down to her side and groaning, evidently suffering from a mild hangover.

“I really should have had some water before going to sleep…”

{And a cold shower…} I thought with a crooked smile.

She rubbed her eyes and sniffed loudly, and then we emerged from the tent at the same time. Oliver gave me a sly look, to which I flashed him a glare and craned my head, warning him not to comment. Putting my shoes on, I stood up and took a mug. The others then emerged from their tents as well, and soon enough, we were all sipping tea and chatting.

“So, what’s the plan today?” I asked openly.

Speaking up, Twilight requested to be driven to Gatwick Airport sooner rather than later, so she could locate the next Orb shard, and then have enough mana by nightfall to teleport to wherever it was. It was a good call, and no one had any arguments. After breakfast, Oliver opened the large gate at the front of the house and brought his jeep onto the land, allowing Twilight to hop into the back without the risk of prying eyes from any passers-by. Oliver adored his Land Rover, the classic Defender had been a gift from our dad on his seventeenth birthday, and the rugged vehicle had been perfect for him. He was out in it more days than he wasn’t, usually greenlaning, and nowadays, I could imagine metal detecting. This immediately proved itself to be true as he opened up the back door, revealing his detecting kit, complete with shovel, pitchfork, trowel, Wellington boots, bucket, and of course, the metal detector itself.

“I see you’re fully committed to the hobby.” I chuckled.

“You know me, I never half-arse anything!” he laughed back.

After making enough room for Twilight, he beckoned the mare in. She hesitated for a moment, before clambering in and plonking herself down. Blu then fluttered over and asked if he could ride along, clearly eager to keep adventuring. Not seeing any issue with that, Oliver shut the door on Twilight and let the parrot accompany him in the passenger seat. He then got in on the driver’s side and grinned at me like an idiot.

“We'll be back home in a wobble of a reindeer's buttocks! Cheerio!”

Slamming the door shut, he started the jeep and promptly drove off. Leaving me to close the gate behind him, and turn to the girls.

“Your brother is insane.” Rarity tutted, “Genuinely, he is categorically insane.”

“He’s something alright.” I huffed with amusement.

With time to kill, I asked what the girls all wanted to do for the day. I was almost immediately besieged with requests.

“Let’s watch another one of those three-D movies!” shouted Rainbow Dash.

“Ooh, for that matter, can we watch one with real human actors this time?” Rarity suggested.

“Can I brush the dogs?” Fluttershy asked.

“Can we destroy the house again?”

Every single one of us stared at Pinkie, who giggled awkwardly.

“What? That was so much fun last time! And besides, that voodoo box is just asking for it!”

“Nobody’s destroying anything!” I barked, throwing my hands into the air.

“Aww…” Pinkie moaned, sulking, “You’re no fun.”

Aside from Pinkie’s suggestion, I decided to give everypony what they wanted. After finding the dog brush and giving it to Fluttershy, I led everyone into the lounge with the dogs in tow, where we settled down to watch two films back to back. We began with the second Kung Fu Panda, which everyone ended up thoroughly enjoying. About halfway through however, during the scene where Gongmen Tower was destroyed, the bird character, Crane, suffered a wing injury and lost the ability to fly. Almost immediately, Rainbow Dash’s eyes glossed over, and she lost all interest in the film as she fell deeper and deeper into the memories of Brazil. I was able to catch her eye contact, which was when she picked herself up and left the room. Having already seen the film, I told the others to keep watching, and went to chase the pegasus down. I found her upstairs in my old room, looking out of the window. Her breaths were sharp and rapid, and I could tell immediately that she was having a panic attack.

“Hey…” I said gently.

Whipping around with a jolt, the pegasus looked at me and opened her mouth to speak, only for shallow breaths to escape her lips. After straining to swallow, she stumbled forward and I came to meet her, catching her just as she came crumbling to her knees.

“Alright, alright… You’re okay, you’re alright…” I spoke to her, easing her down.

Sitting cross-legged beside her, I allowed the pegasus to lay chest-down in my lap as she desperately tried to calm down. Beneath the bandages, I noticed her wings twitching aggressively. Eventually, she was able to speak, and quickly began to lament about what had happened to her.

“It was… it-it… it was so scary, dude… It was scarier than anything I’ve ever been through back home. It was worse than the changelings, it was worse than the shit I’ve seen in the Everfree Forest, heck, it was worse than coming face-to-face with a fucking dragon!

Stroking at the side of her shoulder and down her foreleg, I made sure that she knew this was a safe place for her, and let her continue.

“I thought they were going to kill me.” she whimpered, breaking into small sobs between the panicked breaths, “Then they pulled my wings open, and I thought they were going to cut them off! But then they grabbed my feathers… and they… and they just kept pulling until they came out!”

Completely breaking down, Rainbow started shaking against me, and I held her just a little tighter to help ground her, but not too tight as to make her feel trapped. Hushing to her softly, I continued firmly stroking down her shoulder and to her wrist, repeating the motion again and again.

“It hurt so bad, and-and I was just so… so powerless! I screamed and kicked and tried so hard to get away! But there was nothing I could do! They just kept pulling, and pulling, and pulling!

Through her whimpering, anguished voice, she told me how they had then played with her feathers, pretending to tickle each other with them. There hadn’t been an ounce of empathy, it was all just a game to them. After that, Inigo’s men had threatened to cut her up and eat her, among other things. The mare had been completely and utterly traumatised, more than I had realised. In fact, it felt safe to wager that she’d been put through something worse than I had. My torture had been brutal, that much was undeniable, but Dashie had been literally crippled by Inigo’s men, and had been dealt threats of things arguably worse than death. The poor thing began to shake more and more violently, and her words trailed off into an incomprehensible mumbling.

“Rainbow, sweetie? I need you to stay with me, okay?”

Try as I might, Rainbow Dash fell further and further into the depths of her mind. At this point, she was hyperventilating to the point of severe dizziness, and I was worried that she was going to pass out. It was beyond upsetting to witness such a confident individual be this broken; Rainbow Dash had always been so untouchable, but here she was, in absolute shambles. Without knowing what else to do, I put my arms around her and cradled her from side to side. And then, casting my insecurities aside, I began to sing…

Come up to meet you… tell you I'm sorry… you don't know how lovely you are…
I had to find you… tell you I need you… tell you I set you, apart…

Tell me your secrets… and ask me your questions… oh let’s go back to the start…
Running in circles… coming up tails… heads on a science apart…

Nobody said it was easy… It's such a shame for us to part…
Nobody said it was easy… No one ever said it would be this hard…
Oh, take me back to the start…

I didn’t know why I had gone with Coldplay, I wasn’t even that fond of their music these days. But there was just something about ‘The Scientist’ that felt right in the moment, so I had chosen to sing it. Plus, it was the only calming song that I could think of off the top of my head that I knew all the words to. Either way, it seemed to be doing the trick, as the pegasus’ shaking had now died down to a faint shiver, and her breathing had slowed right down. On the grounds that it was working, I lightly cleared my throat and decided to carry on.

I was just guessing… at numbers and figures… pulling the puzzles apart…
Questions of science… science and progress… do not speak as loud as my heart…

But tell me you love me… come back and haunt me… oh and I rush to the start…
Running in circles… chasing our tails… coming back as we are…

Nobody said it was easy… Oh, it's such a shame for us to part…
Nobody said it was easy… No one ever said it would be so hard…

With blurred vision from my watery eyes, I cupped Rainbow’s cheek with my hand and met her gaze, smiling warmly as I delivered the final lyric.

I'm going back to the start…

I wiped the tears from her eyes, and Rainbow Dash at last came back to me as her full self. Letting loose a long, steady breath, the pegasus blinked a few times, before swallowing.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Sshh…”

Hushing to her softly, I told her that she never, ever, needed to apologise for this. Dipping her head, she planted her forehead against my chest and huffed.

“Thanks dude. You’re the best.”

“Nah, I’m alright.” I scoffed back, smirking, “Shall we get back to the film?”

Nodding, she picked herself up and we went back downstairs together. Upon seeing us, Pinkie zoomed up to us and excitedly told Rainbow everything she had missed. Everyone else gave us warm smiles and respectful nods, and we sat down to enjoy the rest of the film. By the time the credits came up, Dashie was back to her normal self again, energetically going on about how good the animated flick was. Before looking for the next film to put on, I went into the kitchen in search of some snacks, which was when I heard the rumbling of an engine outside.

“Ooh, I think Oliver and Twilight are back!” I called out.

With great excitement, the others came racing out into the back garden with me, dogs included. I opened the gate, and Oliver drove in. He cut the engine and hopped out, donning the same goofy grin he had left with.

“Kneel, bitch! Your lord has returned!”

Rolling my eyes, I shut the gate and came over just as he was opening the back door for Twilight. She hopped out and gave herself a little shake, before trotting over to greet her friends. I asked Oliver how the journey went, to which he gave me a wide-eyed expression, pulling a face.

“Well, aside from your mentally unstable leader going off on one, it was just fine.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you over a cuppa.”

Nodding, I asked if Twilight knew of the next Orb shard’s location at least.

“Yup, not that she would tell me. Apparently, she wanted to get back here before discussing it.”

“That’s Twilight.” I shrugged, “Cryptic as ever.”

We all started walking to the house, and I explained to Oliver that we had just finished watching a film, and were about to start another one over lunch. Clapping his hands together, he suggested we could do a proper movie marathon later tonight, complete with some popcorn and a takeaway. I very happily agreed to the idea, on the condition that we got the takeaway from anywhere but the local Chinese place, on account of my last order from there coming with a piece of metal embedded in the noodles. Laughing, he agreed to my terms, and we went into the kitchen to make some tea for everyone. While the kettle boiled, I asked Oliver what happened with Twilight on the drive.

“Mate, she went ballistic.” he whispered to me, making sure she couldn’t hear from the lounge, “She saw a spider in the back and totally freaked out, started screaming at it like a banshee. I nearly crashed the bloody car!”

“Huh, I never took her for an arachnophobe.” I murmured, tilting my head.

“Well, you can take her for one now.” Oliver grumbled in reply, “Thankfully the bird ate it, but even still, she was foul as anything after that. She barely spoke a word, mind you, but she had this look in her eye, this really nasty look.”

Raising my eyebrows slightly, I gave an unsurprised, dull expression.

“Like she wants to carve you up and eat your liver?”

“Aye, that’s the one.”

“That, brother mine, is the look I’ve been getting since day one.” I told him, crossing my arms.

With a single tut, Oliver shook his head with irritation and got to making the tea. Loading up another tray, we went into the lounge and distributed the mugs to the girls. Once we were all comfortable, I pulled out my phone and opened my offline maps app.

“Right, where are we headed?” I asked Twilight.

“I’ll show you.” she replied.

Her horn lit up, and the phone jumped out of my hands, now floating just a few inches in front of me. Closing her eyes to focus, the unicorn cast an enchantment onto the device, in a similar manner to what Rarity had done in Brazil, magically tapping into the phone and permanently marking the Orb shard’s location within the app. With her magic being more advanced than Rarity’s, we thankfully didn’t need to wait for the device to cool down and reboot. The screen flickered brightly, before returning to its normal state. Twilight passed it back to me and I looked at the new marker, which unlike the white dot from before, was now a pulsating icon, fashioned after the Orb shard already in our possession.

“Couldn’t resist making it look fancy?” I teased.

She bluntly told me to shut up, and I huffed with amusement. The blinking marker was stationed in the eastern side of Europe, evoking a hum of interest from me. With a finger and thumb, I touched the screen and zoomed in.

“Huh, it’s in Ukraine of all places.” I murmured.

The marker was way up in the northern part of the country, and as I zoomed in even further to pinpoint its exact location, my blood began to run cold. Noticing the dread on my face, Pinkie asked me what was wrong, to which I gulped and let out a long, heavy breath. Backing out of the app, I turned the phone’s screen off and put it into my pocket. Oliver, with his sound deductive skills, looked at me with wide eyes. There was only one place in Ukraine that could garner such a reaction from me.

“Oh shit.” he muttered.

The girls looked at him, and then back to me, now donning fearful expressions of their own. Despite not knowing the details, the harrowed reactions from two humans were enough to tell them that the location in question was somewhere worth worrying about.

“That bad, huh?” Applejack chuckled awkwardly.

Twilight boldly placed a hoof on my wrist and acquired my eye-contact.

“Don’t sugar-coat it.” she ordered, “Where are we going?”

Nodding, I cleared my throat, and answered her honestly.

“If this marker is accurate, which I have no reason to believe that it isn’t, then the Orb shard rests at the nuclear power plant near Pripyat, the heart of the Chernobyl Disaster…”

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