• Published 27th May 2015
  • 472 Views, 22 Comments

King and Kingpin - Istaran



The ponified human known as the Itinerant King reaches Manehattan, following up on a lead involving shipments of dangerous dark crystals. What dark secrets will he find lurking beneath the skyscrapers?

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Down in the dumps

Mirror awoke with a pained groan, looking around blearily. At first he couldn't see anything, but eventually he shifted enough that a thin shaft of light filtered down to his eye. Looking out through it, his eyes confirmed what he nose was registered: he was in a pile of garbage, surrounded by other piles of garbage. The one small comfort was that a majority of the garbage was safely contained in bags.

He closed his eyes, seeing no value in reflecting on what was outside. And he was thankful he had gone mostly nose-blind to it during his unconsciousness. He wanted to shut off his own sense of smell entirely, but Rorrim was still too unresponsive to comply with that request at the moment, too busy rebuilding itself and its host. He focused on his own body's state, assessing his condition. First off, he had a horn and wings manifested, making him look like an alicorn. While it had been a practical choice mid-battle to be able to wield both forms of magic, it would be too attention-grabbing if he was caught that way. So he spent a moment to undo the wings, especially since they were full of fractures anyways, but kept the horn. The bone had been snapped, but the kingsblood had already repaired it, as one of the prerequisites to getting his pain level low enough to regain consciousness. Some of his other breaks had been left lower on the priority list, and some were essentially untreatable until he got himself out of this pile. His internal organs were not yet in good enough state to live without constant intervention by his kingsblood, and there were large chunks of his insides that had actually died, leaving necrotic tissue that would have to be cleared out and regrown.

On top of all that, he had a dizzying array of infections. As part of the integration process, the kingsblood had to permanently disable the body's own immune system, so when the kingsblood itself was disabled the host was open to every manner of infection. Being tossed into a pile of garbage with uncovered open wounds all over his body just ensured that it became a problem sooner rather than later.

In short, he was barely alive. Ultimately he owed his life to the copper shielding on his bones, keeping a portion of his kingsblood active in his brain and marrow when the lightning had struck nearby. Which meant, ironically, that he owed his life to the Canterlot guardpony who had nearly disabled him the first time while he was fleeing from the city and the professor who had outed him as a changeling and forced him to flee. If they hadn't learned that harsh lesson and started shielding themselves from EMP as best they could, he would simply be dead now.

Perhaps it would have been a mercy.

After another hour of healing, Mirror reached out with his senses to see what other subnets he could still reach. Wind Chaser was happy to know he was alive, but was too busy with her own machinations to spare him much thought. null was just as busy, and as cold of a reception as ever, meeting the news of Mirror's survival simply with [Acknowledged.] The King's subnet, Deus Machina, was still unresponsive, leading to concern about his welfare. Since they had hopefully been taken to the same place, Wind Chaser ordered Mirror to start searching for him as soon as possible. If the Itinerant King was dead... well, they needed to know so they could begin deciding the direction of the Kingdom from there.

More distantly, Cherry Blossom answered his calls and was much more comforting than the others. She had a number of messages for him to hear and answer, concerned inquiries from Midnight Oil and Midnight Hunter. He was pleased to hear of their concern, even if Hunter's affections made him a bit uncomfortable. The lunar pegasus stallion had been an enjoyable fling, and he would have liked the chance to develop their relationship further, but it seemed unlikely now and he worried that trying to develop something long distance would just make things harder for Hunter.

Eventually, with his everything still aching, Mirror struggled his way free of the garbage pile and began to look around. With his ears uncovered, the cacophony of the busy city began to assail his ears. And the free flowing air made the stench even harder to ignore. He scraped as much garbage off of himself as he could with his horn's magic before beginning to explore his surroundings.

The garbage pile next to his had a similar burst pattern to his own, suggesting that something somewhere around the size of a pony had emerged from that pile as well. There was a trail of blood leading away from it, making a light trench through the garbage like the pony had been dragged away rather than walking on its own four hooves. Mirror followed the trail, watching the blood quickly become less and the trench harder to follow until he found a pair of ruts on either side of the end of the drag trail. These deeper, narrower ruts extended out to the clear area of the dump up ahead. Beyond, the clear area lead to a gate in the front.

[It looks like maybe he was dragged away and loaded into a truck and driven off,] Cherry Blossom suggested.

Mirror wasn't sure what to do with that suggestion, or whether he should go back and dig in the other piles just to be sure, when he became aware of sobbing from the other side of a pile. "Won't somepony please help?!" the voice said, filled with resigned despair. The voice sounded female, but more than a little raspy as if she had been worn down by sobbing and pleading for some time. It was doubtful anypony would here her here as quiet as she was now. But she had had the good luck to catch Mirror's notice.

Mirror limped his way around the pile until he could see who was crying. It was a pegasus mare with heavy makeup streaming down her face, dressed in the skimpy bits of clothing that highlighted the erogenous zones by hiding them from view and little else. Put simply, she looked like a whore, and not an especially classy one. She looked disheveled, but not injured. However, at her hooves was a stallion who looked like he'd been treated as roughly as Mirror had. It was obvious from a glance he had broken ribs and legs, and it was much less obvious if he was even breathing.

The mare looked up at Mirror, her eyes shimmering pools of tears gathering, waiting to fall. "Please, sir! Won't you please help him?! He needs help! Save him... " her voice dropped even more quiet. "He saved me once, please save him now..."

Mirror didn't answer yet, but merely limped the last of the way to the fallen stallion. It was a massive brute of an earth pony, muscular and covered with scars. Mirror put a hoof on his neck and paused, feeling the heartbeat pulse through him, weakly. Not dead. Yet. So he did what he could. He willed a drop of his blood through a half-closed wound, letting it drop into the stallion's open mouth. "If you live through this," he said quietly to the unconscious stallion, "you owe your life to the Itinerant King. Sorry I couldn't ask first."

The pegasus looked at him strangely, almost as if seeing him for the first time as he plopped down onto his haunches, staring vacantly at the downed stallion. "What did you... are you alright? Do you need me to find a medic for you too?"

Mirror shook his head. "Do you have someplace safe we can rest... and shower? I've done what I can for your friend, but I can't promise miracles. Only the chance for one," he answered.

"Of course, of course! It's not much but.. can you move him safely?" she asked.

"I'll try," Mirror said, sighing as he struggled back to his feet. His horn lit up, and carefully lifted the limp form of the stallion, careful to keep his neck braced.


The mare's apartment was tiny, a 'studio' apartment if you were very generous. It consisted of two rooms. The first held a couch that was covered in sheets and blankets, apparently serving as her bed, and a sink, counter, stove, and refrigerator that served as a kitchen. The other room had only a toilet and shower, apparently assuming the kitchen sink was adequately close by. A low, wide chest of drawers in the middle of the room doubled as the only table. The whole thing was a hundred square-hooves at most. But it was something, and it would have to do.

Mirror washed the stallion first, straining to keep him steady in his telekinetic grip while the mare gently scrubbed him down. She laid out her only towel on the couch after drying him as best she could, and Mirror set him down there gently. That left nothing for him to dry himself with after his own shower, but he did his best with his magic. An actual drying spell would have been helpful, but he didn't know one or even where Midnight Oil could look up such a thing. As he slunk to the ground in the main room against one wall, the mare took her own shower, before requesting a similar drying. Naked, she slunk to the ground next to Mirror, watching the other stallion breath quietly on the couch.

"So what's your name, mysterious stranger?" she finally asked, while resting a hoof lightly on his inner thigh. As a changeling, Mirror could easily sense her affections toward him; gratitude, laced with hints of forced lust. She would probably try to 'reward' him physically, and he wasn't sure how to respond. At this moment he'd probably turn her down out of sheer exhaustion. His body was still struggling to recover, and probably wasn't the safest thing to be touching right now, much less having sex with.

"Mirror," he said, not bothering with a cover name for now. "What's yours.. and do you know his?"

"I'm Apple Core," she said, though she lacked any apple-based cutie mark. In fact her cutie mark, a pair of lacey panties, appeared to have washed down the drain when she showered. "And this is Breaker. 'Stone Breaker' I think he likes to go by, though the orphanage used to call him 'Bone Breaker'." His own cutie mark at least fit, a stone with a massive crack down the center.

"Don't," Mirror said as he caught her wandering hoof with his own. The strain in his voice as he fought his own instincts was obvious, though Apple Core misread the reasons. Mirror was desperately in need of some love, and the King wasn't able to transfer any at the moment. Whores were always slim pickings anyways, doing more for the body than the heart, certainly not worth risking her health over.

"I didn't mean to..." she started objecting, pulling away and behaving herself, but Mirror cut her off by changing the subject.

"How do you know him? Were you in the orphanage together? And do you know what happened to him?"

Apple Core shook her head. "No, I was part of a farm family until I got tired of the hard work and poverty and came here to try and make it big. You can see how well that worked out," she said, gesturing to the tiny apartment. "Back on the farm, my bedroom was bigger than this. But I got into some debt when I got here, and haven't been able to get out of it. I tried paying it off, but the payments kept getting bigger and the interest was out of control. I tried running but they..." she paused, refusing to voice the memories going through her head. "I wasn't always a whore you know. Breaker stepped in a few times when they got too rough with me. That's actually how I met him the first time. They made me watch while they took revenge on him for every bit of defiance I gave them. This..." she pointed at his unconscious body, "this time it wasn't about me. It often wasn't. He takes the lumps for everypony he can. Usually gives as good as he gets... until they pin him down and paying him back double for those as well. I don't even know who he was protecting this time, or if they just finally decided to be done with him."

"Who are 'they'?" Mirror asked, a bit worried for her.

"Vito Calabrese and his thugs. They're bad news.. stay as far away from them as you can. Once they get their hooks in you..." she shook her head.

Mirror just got quiet, thinking, and checking in with Cherry Blossom. He knew what the king would do if he were here. He didn't want to do it, not without a lot more backup than he currently had.

"We should get you away from them. Far away. You don't deserve this... you deserve much better," Mirror said at last.

Apple Core opened her mouth to object, but Stone Breaker cut her off, talking without bothering to sit up. "I agree. But you should give her the blood too before we go. And then, when it's settled in, ask her if she wants to run. Or fight."