Cleaning House
Pronounced: kam-yen
You'll see what I mean. 
Chapter 25
~ One Month Later~
“Are you sure about this, your Majesty?” Fluttershy whispered.
She spoke out of the side of her mouth as she trotted down a side road through the industrial district of Stalliongrad. It was a musty, smog-choked section of the city that was among the oldest of its districts.
Both its age and its location near the heart of Stalliongrad was a part of its appeal for the criminal famiglias, but the main draw was the network of interconnecting tunnels that wove beneath the central industrial areas. Originally, they had been built by none other than King Sombra during the Second War of Shadows as an intricate set of interlinked supply depots, although they had long since been cleared out by the Sisters by the time the famiglias moved in.
Now they were being put to use as smuggling tunnels.
‘Perfectly sure, Mouse,’ the shadows around her whispered.
Fluttershy nodded and continued. She had mastered the ability to refract light around her some time ago and was using its more advanced form to close in on a warehouse that King Sombra’s shadow spies had narrowed down as the main base of operations for the Kamjen Famiglia, who had originally hired Nyada.
After the assassination attempt, Sombra had put Fluttershy through her paces more rigorously than ever. It went beyond her simply joining him for his morning routines and exercises. Now he was teaching her, along with Scootaloo, how to defend themselves.
Part of that training was mental. Sombra had drawn both mares into the Dream where he taught them the finer points of their pegasus-born magic. Time passed far more slowly in the Dream, as well, meaning he could pack days of training into a single evening.
The fact that both mother and daughter had proven to be even more apt pupils than he had anticipated helped too.
Scootaloo had little talent for the subtler points of holothurgy like Fluttershy did, but her skills as an aerothurge were prodigious. She might not be able to turn herself invisible, but she could manage basic disguises, and Sombra considered the ability to pulverise a boulder into gravel with a hammer of air to be a fair trade-off.
Furthermore, while they had been training, Sombra’s spies had been gathering information.
‘There are several guards, Mouse,’ Sombra whispered from the darkness. “Once we’re inside it will take time for me to manifest, find a spot out of the way so I can emerge, then I can end them and we can confront this bloated fool.’
“I would rather not turn this warehouse into a slaughterhouse, your Majesty,” Fluttershy replied quietly.
A quiet sigh issued from the darkness.
‘Do you have a better idea?’
“Well, uhm… we could ask them nicely?” Fluttershy offered.
Sombra mused on that notion from where he rested in a side-dimension of shadows. If it were anypony else who made that suggestion, it would have certainly been a joke. These were hardened criminals they were approaching, not some gaggle of misguided ne’er-do-wells waiting for a helping hoof to put them on the right path.
The only reason that Fluttershy was going in instead of himself was to ensure no one witnessed him. If any of the guards were compromised by the EID and escaped, that would be it. All of them had to die, or else none of them could witness him.
‘You’re aware that won’t work, yes?’ Sombra said after a long moment.
“You don’t know that,” Fluttershy countered quietly as they approached the door. “Can we at least try?”
‘They sent an assassin after you, Mouse, do you really think they’re open to dialogue?’ Sombra grumbled.
“They did try dialogue first,” Fluttershy said pointedly, and Sombra grimaced within the shadows. “I’d like to try it… please?”
Another sigh rippled out.
‘Very well.’
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Fluttershy said warmly.
With their plan settled, Sombra guided Fluttershy through the maze of alleys and backstreets. It was raining and like everything else in Stalliongrad the rain was cold and bitter. This was actually a benefit to the pair, however, since pegasus magic used water to reflect light, and the surfeit of rain ensured Fluttershy remained totally invisible. A unicorn would find maintaining their own version of the spell impossible in these conditions, with the rain constantly striking their invisible form and making their presence painfully obvious.
The warehouse near the northwest edge of the district was an old one, and from the outside it looked practically condemned. King Sombra’s arcane sight revealed somewhat more, however. The facade of crumbling brick was reinforced with layers of enchantment that would keep the building standing through an artillery fusillade. It also contained a powerful dimensional lock, preventing any teleportation in or out of the building except by those who knew the key that bypassed it.
Magically speaking, the place was a fortress, and that made the dark king smile. It had been a long time since he’d toppled a fortress.
“Where do I go in?” Fluttershy mumbled.
‘Around the left side there’s a door,’ Sombra replied. ‘My spies have seen ponies go in and out of it throughout the day and night.’
Fluttershy followed Sombra’s guidance. As she did, she glanced up and around, occasionally spotting her King’s little familiars. They had all the appearance of an average black crow, save for their beady red eyes and unnerving silence, and Fluttershy quite liked them. They were friendly enough if you didn’t bother them, and they seemed to like her as well.
‘There.’ Sombra whispered, a tendril of shadow spilling up from beneath her and nudging her to the side.
Turning her head, Fluttershy spotted the door. It was old and made from rusted metal, and the frame was set deep into the wall such that if she hadn’t been looking for it she probably never would have seen it.
She glanced around rapidly, twitching her feathers as she did to pick up any slight motions of the air, and once Fluttershy was certain she was alone she approached the door and gave the handle a little tug.
“It’s locked,” Fluttershy whispered.
‘Not for long.’
The shadows boiled up from underneath Fluttershy, flowing like oil into the lock. A moment later, Fluttershy heard a quiet click and rattle, and the door creaked open.
‘Ladies first.’
“How gallant,” Fluttershy flashed a warm smile at the tendrils of shadow that were surrounding her like the tentacles of a daemonic sea-beast before they silently retreated into her shadow.
Pulling the door open, Fluttershy stepped inside. It was cool, but not cold, and the temperature was too regular and comfortable to be anything but the product of magic. She’d entered a small vestibule that contained something like a waiting room. Cheap carpets covered the stone floors, and a few decent chairs were pushed against the walls. There was a table near the largest assortment of chairs that had an ashtray filled with spent cigarette butts and a stained deck of cards.
A few meters down from the table was a heavy wooden door reinforced with solid steel bars and a thick padlock.
Another smaller door to the left of the table opened a moment later to the sound of a toilet flush as a lean, scarred stallion with a cutie mark depicting a tire iron and whose coat was the color of old asphalt stepped out and went back to the table. He was wearing a flat cap over his dirty brown mane which he adjusted as he plopped down on a seat and pulled out a cigarette.
Fluttershy cleared her throat with a quiet cough.
“Uhm, pardon me?”
The stallion yelped and leapt to his hooves, scattering the cards and sending the chair sprawling as he snatched up a long, heavy bit of lead pipe in his mouth from near the wall which he brandished as he looked wildly around.
“Oh, right.” Fluttershy shook herself daintily, shedding a layer of water from her coat and bleeding back into the visual spectrum in the grayscale guise of Cloudy Skies. “Good morning, my name is-”
“AAAAHHH!” The stallion let out a muffled blend between a shout of panic and a battle-cry past the pipe he gripped in his teeth as he charged Fluttershy down.
He got all of a meter before he was nailed to the floor by Fluttershy’s irritated frown as their eyes locked and panic filled his soul and emptied his bladder.
“Please don’t do that,” Fluttershy said firmly, and the stallion staggered drunkenly as a pair of eyes that alternated between warm brown, piercing blue, and burning, neon green sliced into him. “I just want to talk, alright?”
The pipe dropped from the stallion’s jaw with a clatter as he made several inarticulate squeaking noises.
“Oh my,” Fluttershy broke off her Stare as she frowned down at the damp spot beneath him, then sighed. “I really wish that didn’t happen all the time.” Looking back up at the stallion, she gave him a warmer smile. “If you’re willing to stay civil and be nice then I won’t have to do that again, okay?”
“Uh… uhm… y-yeah,” the stallion nodded numbly. “Sure that, uh… that sounds good.”
“Good.” Fluttershy’s smile turned beatific. “What’s your name?”
“Uhm, it’s uh… it’s Grit, m-ma’am.” Grit looked fit to expire on the spot as Fluttershy took a few steps closer, her smile never shifting.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Grit,” Fluttershy said. “My name is Cloudy Skies, and I’d very much like to talk to Papa Kamjen about something, can you take me to him?”
“I… I don’t-” Grit stammered as he tried to back up.
Fluttershy frowned again and reached out to put a hoof on Grit’s shoulder.
“Grit, I really need to talk to him,” Fluttershy said. “It’s important and I am sorry, but you’re going to take me to see him, and I really would rather force you to do it if I can help it.”
Grit stared at the strange mare who called herself Cloudy Skies for a long, agonizing moment. Sure, he’d probably get his nuts chopped off by a burly minotaur in a gimp mask if he brought this crazy mare to the big boss himself, but between that and whatever hoodoo she’d put on him just by looking into his eyes?
“B-Baba Yaga…” Grit mumbled, and Fluttershy raised an eyebrow.
This was her. Grit knew it like he knew his mother’s teat. Nothing- nothing- compared to the sheer horror that had filled him when she looked him in the eyes. It was like a curse. This mare was a pegasus, not a unicorn, so she shouldn’t be able to cast spells, but legends said that the Baba Yaga was a shapeshifter and a witch… she could look like anypony at all.
“Who?” Fluttershy asked, but Grit clammed his mouth shut and shook his head.
Maybe this was the witch of legend, maybe not. What he did know was that the mare was terrifying and Grit decided that if there was one thing that scared him more than his bosses, it was the prospect of this little mare looking him in the eyes for even one more second.
“I’ll t-take you,” Grit replied finally.
The warmth returned to Fluttershy’s expression as she patted him on the cheek and stepped back,
“Thank you, Grit,” she said with a smile. “I would really rather do this without everyone in the warehouse dying.”
Grit swallowed hard before nodding.
He too, Grit decided, would also like this to end without everyone in the warehouse dying, since that would almost certainly include him.
Turning about, Grit moved to the door with the slowness and care of a stallion who suspected he was about to shot in the back of the skull, reached under his flat cap, and drew out the key before fitting it to the lock. It clicked and the door opened smoothly to a spacious room.
The room had a number of other ponies in it as well as an assortment of griffons, all sitting around drinking and smoking. Among the ponies, there was also a pair of minotaurs in the back playing cards and a heavy-set yak who appeared to be napping upright near the corner. All of them had the look of hardened criminals, and Grit swallowed back his panic as he stepped inside with the mare who called herself Cloudy Skies right behind him, smiling as if she were just visiting a good friend, and not walking straight into the primary base of one of Stalliongrad’s most notoriously violent famiglias.
One of the minotaurs stood up from their game and eyed Fluttershy suspiciously before turning his gaze onto the stallion door-guard. He was an enormous specimen, fully eight feet tall, and better than half that wide. His coat was the color of loamy earth, broken up by networks of thick scars, and his belt held a brutal, heavy, single-edged blade that resembled nothing so much as an enormous machete.
“Grit, who’s this?”
“Don’t matter, she’s got business with Papa Kamjen, Two-Stack,” Grit squeaked out. “She’s a player.”
The minotaur, Two-Stack, turned back to Cloudy who smiled up at him, utterly unperturbed by the tower of bipedal muscle that was glaring down at her.
“It’s very important, I assure you,” Fluttershy said. “Will you let us through?”
Confusion crossed Two-Stack’s features as he glanced between Fluttershy, Grit, and his companion. His stature and expression only ever provoked one kind of response from ponies, which was terror. Even the most fearless of Stalliongrad’s mercenary elite knew a moment of hesitation when he stood over them, but this waif of a mare had no fear whatsoever.
And it wasn’t feigned.
Stay in the merc-for-hire business long enough and you can tell who’s just trying to fake it til they make it, assuming they ever did. Those ones tended to die early, though… too much bravado, not enough sense. The other ones though? The ones that could stare down a manticore and grin? Those were the ones Two-Stack had learned to be truly wary of.
Two-Stack lowered himself until he was practically bent over the mare. His shadow eclipsed her entirely, and Grit let out another squeak as he scrambled out from between them.
“Oh, my.” Fluttershy reached out and patted Two-Stack’s chest with a hoof. “You’re very large, you must be getting plenty to eat, hm?”
She chuckled lightly as she smiled up at the minotaur.
“You ain’t scared.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Of course not,” Fluttershy replied brightly. “Why would I be?”
Something about the way she said that put a knot of ice in Two-Stack’s gut. For a moment he felt an unfamiliar, almost nostalgic, flicker of fear at her tone.
She wasn’t crazy. Two-Stack knew crazy, and that wasn’t it. This mare was just very, very… certain. She knew she was in no danger from him and that worried him, because the only ponies who acted like that were the ones who had stacked the deck so far in their favor that it was all but impossible for them to lose.
Those were the worst enemies to go up against.
“Name?” Two-Stack rumbled, feeling that Grit probably had the right of it. Whoever this mare was, she was a player. No one who wasn’t deep in the game had a spine that straight.
“Cloudy Skies, it’s very nice to meet you, sir,” Fluttershy chirped. “Would you mind seeing me to Papa Kamjen? I’m sure Grit has to get back to the door, and he’s been very kind to see me in.”
“Yeah, sure.” Two-Stack turned to Grit and jerked his head for him to back, which Grit did with obvious relief. “What’s ya business with the big cheese?”
“I just wanted to clear up a teensy misunderstanding,” Fluttershy replied with a smile. “Some of his men came by my house and my majordomo was, uhm, a bit rude, and it all got a little out of hoof, so I thought we should talk and clear the air.”
“Uh-huh…” Two-Stack felt the oddest premonition of something awful creeping up his spine as he turned and gestured for her to follow him.
Two-Stack escorted Cloudy Skies into the main compound, down a few flights of stairs, and into a lushly appointed foyer. There was operatic music playing faintly but clearly over a hidden P.A. system, and the whole place smelled of rich, smoky oak.
“Wait here,” Two-Stack said as he stepped past her and knocked his fist twice against the door at the end of the room.
The grille of the door slid open with a hiss and Fluttershy listened to the muted exchange. It sounded like a hushed argument.
‘I cannot believe we’ve gotten this far,’ Sombra mumbled from Fluttershy’s shadow. ‘There is something very wrong with these ponies.’
“With respect, they’re just ponies, your Majesty,” Fluttershy spoke quietly out of the corner of her mouth as she watched Two-Stack’s broad back. “I’m sure they don’t want to fight any more than I do.”
Another sigh issued up from the floor.
‘I highly doubt that, Mouse,’ Sombra said after a moment.
“Well that’s no reason not to give them the chance, at least,” Fluttershy countered. “You always resort to violence first and talking second, when it should be the other way around.”
“Miss?” Two-Stack turned and straightened, looking down at Fluttershy as he did.
“Yes?” Fluttershy replied, trotting up to his side cheerfully.
“Papa Kamjen will see you now, but he’s a busy guy, so…” Two-Stack trailed off, but Fluttershy nodded knowingly.
“Of course, I want to finish this quickly, too,” Fluttershy assured him. “I’m sure once we can talk we’ll have this all sorted out in no time!”
“Uh, right…” Two-Stack stepped away from the door and nudged it open for Fluttershy, who bobbed her head, thanked him, and stepped through.
The moment she was out of sight and the door closed behind her, Two-Stack heaved a sigh that was dredged out from the deepest parts of his lungs. A shiver ran across his limbs and down his back as cold-sweats broke out over his skin, leaving trails of gooseflesh behind, while his stomach roiled with uncomfortable waves of nausea as a pressure he hadn’t even realised he’d been feeling was suddenly gone.
“What in Tartarus-?” Two-Stack staggered as his vision swam for a moment before righting itself.
He hadn’t felt like that since his first years as a mercenary, decades ago. Stepping away from that mare had been like coming down from the torturous adrenaline high of his first real battle, one that left him weak-knee’d and vomiting on the floor even though the company he’d signed with had won.
Slowly, Two-Stack turned to stare at the closed door that Cloudy Skies had just passed through with wide eyes as a deep, terrible, instinctual fear took up residence in the back of his mind. It was that primal fear of a natural disaster incoming, and it warned him to run. Run far, far away, and don’t look back.
Something was about to happen and Two-Stack hadn’t lasted this long as a mercenary by sticking around for those particular types of ‘things’. Instead, he obeyed his instincts, turned on his hoof, and ran, hauling at full tilt back the way he had come, out past his companions in the entrance hall, and past Grit who stared at Stack’s fleeing back for all of half a second before immediately following him, leaving the rest of the crew watching them in bewildered confusion.
Back in the compound and through the door, Fluttershy trotted happily down a short hall until she reached another door. This one was pony-sized and made of thick, warm mahogany, and she admired it for a moment before pushing it open.
The door opened to a wide and well-lit room with an enormous, conference table that stretched a full six meters down and at least two wide. There were seven ponies in total seated at the table, three on either side and one at the head on the far end of the room, and none of them looked very nice, in Fluttershy’s opinion.
Furthermore, there were another ten assorted mercenaries, six ponies and four griffons, arranged about the room and armed to the teeth.
And it was dead silent.
Fluttershy looked over the ponies at the table as she closed the door behind her, noting each one in turn. Sombra’s spies had turned up their identities which Sombra had shared with her, and they were all ponies she had expected to see today.
Along the left, nearest to Fluttershy, there was the dun-coated smuggler, Rook. Limber and lean, he had a dangerously nervous energy about him. Seated beside Rook was a black unicorn mare with a teal mane named Grim Tidings, a highly rated wetworks broker who was said to know every killer in a hundred-mile radius, and just next to her was one such killer, a one-eyed blue pegasus named Payday, a notorious marksman, and a black-market arms dealer on the side.
On the other side of the table was Winterlight, a pale-coated, red-maned unicorn mare who had gone rogue out of Celestia’s own school, fleeing to Stalliongrad where she started up her own spellwork business. She sold all manner of illegal enchantments and spells that had been banned by the crown for good reason. Then there were the twins down from her, Kindle and Spark. The two crimson earth ponies were known for their highly illegal concoctions, all of which exploded regardless of whether or not they were supposed to. Their once-unbroken red coats were pocked with scorch marks, and both of their manes grew slightly patchy, the result of numerous close calls.
At the head of the table, of course, was the crimelord himself.
Papa Kemjen, or ‘Stone’ in common Equestrian. He was possibly the biggest, meanest, nastiest looking stallion that Fluttershy had ever laid eyes on. His coat was a shade of granite commensurate to his name, and his black mane was cut to a short buzz. His body rippled with a combination of fat and muscle, and the sheer immensity of him gave the stallion a ponderous look.
His eyes told a different story, though.
They were the sharp, bright blue of the open Stalliongradi sky in winter, and there was nothing slow or ponderous about them at all.
“Dabro pazhalovat.” Kamjen’s voice was like a distant thunderhead boom beyond the horizon.
“Uhm, good morning,” Fluttershy bobbed her head in greeting. “I’m very sorry to have interrupted, but I needed to speak with you, Papa Kamjen.”
“And who are you to decide this?” Kamjen asked.
His inflection did not change, but a subtle pressure washed over the room, and everyone in it flinched.
Everyone but Fluttershy.
“Well, my name is Cloudy Skies, and recently you tried to have me killed,” Fluttershy explained, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. “I’m certain it was just a misunderstanding, so I wanted to discuss it with you and hopefully we can sort this out.”
Kamjen stared at Fluttershy in contemplative silence for several moments as he tried to decide if she was joking, crazy, or a combination of both. It took him another few minutes to eventually come to the conclusion that she was neither, and that she was, in fact, being entirely genuine.
“Cloudy Skies,” Kamjen repeated finally. “You are the one who my men say made nightmares come to them for days on end.”
“Well, uhm… not exactly,” Fluttershy sighed as she scuffed her hoof awkwardly on the floor before raising her head again to meet Kamjen’s dour expression. “It was really just a misunderstanding, your men were rude to my majordomo, and he overreacted. I’ve already spoken to him about it.”
“And the assassin?” Kamjen asked.
“Oh, she’s fine,” Fluttershy said brightly. “I’m afraid I fractured her spine and broke her wings when she attacked me, but she’s recovering nicely now.”
The ponies seated around the table shared nervous looks. Even the notoriously unstable twins looked unsettled at the casual remarks Fluttershy was making. For her part, Fluttershy read their expressions as ones of concern and stepped a little closer until she was at the table.
“I promise you, she’s perfectly fine,” Fluttershy assured them. “We had a nice talk and she’s promised not to try and kill me again, and I told her I would get all of this sorted out with her employer.”
“I am curious how she gave you the location of this compound since, to my knowledge, she did not know of it,” said Kamjen in a deadly tone that sailed cleanly over Fluttershy’s head.
“Oh, she didn’t tell me anything,” Fluttershy replied.
Kamjen leaned forward on the table, and the massive wooden beam creaked under his weight as he glowered at Fluttershy.
“You lie.”
“I would never!” Fluttershy replied in a huff. “That’s very rude! Accusing someone of lying when you don’t have any proof? Shame on you!”
Winterlight sighed and there was a dull thud as she dropped her head to the table briefly before looking back up at Kamjen, then over at Fluttershy with a tired grimace.
“This is a waste of my time,” Winterlight said in the stiff, cultured tones of a Canterlotian native as she stood up. “I’m just going to kill her and-”
“Sit down.”
Fluttershy’s voice never rose. It never pitched higher or grew any louder than before. The only sign of something different happening was Fluttershy turning to Winterlight, fixing her with a heated glare and only the slightest narrowing of her eyes.
Winterlight shat herself on the spot.
Tremors rolled up her body as her mind was filled with screaming. Her skull rattled with the voices of the hundreds of ponies her pain-spells had tortured, and from behind her eyes the accusing glares of all of the corpses she had helped make stared at her with hungry, silent rage. Her breathing became harsh and labored as she toppled backward, spilling out of the chair before striking the ground and scrabbling backward on her rump while babbling near incoherent apologies, although who they were directed at was a matter of debate.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Miss Winterlight,” Fluttershy continued sternly. “I was talking to Papa Kamjen, so please wait for your turn.”
When she turned back to Kamjen, his expression had hardened to something far darker than annoyance. Now he was wary. He had heard of an unpleasant curse that somepony had laid on a few of his men, and had struck back on principle. His men were his hooves, so to strike at them was to knick at Papa Kamjen’s fetlocks, and the murderous stallion’s policy had always been to repay every knick and scar a hundredfold.
Kamjen watched Winterlight babble and scrape. Moments ago she had been as proud and haughty as ever, and now she was reduced to little more than a terrified filly who couldn’t even control her own bodily functions.
“I’m so sorry about your carpet, Papa Kamjen, but that sort of thing happens a lot, I’m afraid,” Fluttershy said, turning back to the famiglia boss. “I’ll be sure to pay for the cleaning bill, just send the invoice by post.”
Without a word, Papa Kamjen clapped his hooves together with a dull boom, and all ten of the guards raised crossbows and took aim at Fluttershy, whose only response was to frown a little more deeply.
“We don’t have to do this,” Fluttershy insisted. “I’d rather just talk.”
Kamjen snorted and the sound came out more like a bull ox than a pony as he raised his right hoof and poised it like an executioners axe that was ready to fall over the neck of this impertinent mare.
Before he could drop his hoof, though, Fluttershy said:
“Don’t kill them, please.”
Papa Kamjen had a brief moment of confusion, as Cloudy Skies didn’t appear to be speaking to anyone in the room, but rather to the ground. That confusion turned to shock as the room exploded into a torment of writhing shadows. Tendrils of darkness lashed up with the speed of a serpent’s strike, shattering bows, splitting bolt quivers, and knocking the guards from the feet.
The other members of his small council screamed and scrambled to get off of the floor. Kindle hauled Spark up after him. Payday tucked and rolled from his seat to the top of the table with the grace of an acrobat. Rook was somewhat less nimble, and as he was mounting the table a tendril of darkness sprouted up near him. In a panic, he lashed out with a hoof to kick it, but his hoof sank into the substance like it was gelatin. The tendril thrashed violently, yanking the stallion off of the table, but not before he screamed and grabbed Grim Tidings by her back legs, dragging her with him.
Both stallion and mare were screaming, cursing, and shouting as the tendril flailed. Grim Tidings was spitting invectives as she was thrown drunkenly around the room by the tendril-gripped Rook who refused to let go until finally she had enough, lit her horn, and sent a roiling bolt of black, necrotic lightning arcing into Rook’s body. The stallion’s body withered and rotted where it touched, killing him instantly, and his grip slackened in death, dropping Grim Tidings to the floor in a graceless pile from whence she scrabbled over to a nearby end table, knocked the vase from atop it, and pulled herself into its place.
In the corner of the room, Winterlight just curled into a little ball on the floor and sobbed through hysterical fits of giggles as the tendrils ignored her.
Through it all, Papa Kamjen just stared, dumbfounded as his guards were scattered and disarmed, and six of the deadliest ponies in the city were reduced to scampering foals, all at the whim of a single, unassuming mare. The stallion who had brought much of Stalliongrad to its knees through backroom deals and broken bones didn’t often find himself at a loss for words or actions, but simple shock dulled his rage as he watched Cloudy Skies frown delicately at the ensuing madness she had wrought.
His rage could not be tempered for long, however.
Bellowing like a bear, Papa Kamjen heaved the entirety of the table out of his way, sending his allies flying with cries of alarm as he barrelled towards Fluttershy, head low, shoulders set, and fury painting his reddened face.
The tendrils attempt to halt his advance, lashing and beating at his body while others grabbed at his legs but Kamjen was a juggernaut of momentum, and he tore through the ephemeral substance without slowing
He got within a quarter-meter of Fluttershy before their gazes met and Kamjen’s charge stopped dead.
Eyes like the endless blue skies pierced into the stallion called Papa Kamjen for a moment before they scorched over with rancid green fire and black smoke. Screams filled his ears while the blood of his thousands of victims filled his mouth, poured down his throat, and choked his lungs with rancid gore. Visions of burning homes danced like juddering zoetropes in the back of his mind as memories paralysed him.
For a moment.
Only a moment.
Kamjen howled with fury. His black heart was numb to even the most wicked extremes he had taken, and Fluttershy staggered back as the enormous stallion broke through the wall of her Stare by brute, mental force.
Blind with rage, Kamjen swung one cinderblock hoof in front of him in a wide, bone-crushing swipe that would reduce any living thing he struck to a brittle sack of shattered gristle.
He hit nothing but air as Fluttershy dove between his legs. Rime trailed behind her as she left a trail of pure black ice on the ground, skated elegantly along the ice path she wove in front of her and putting her out of Kamjen’s reach in the space of a breath, and her escape left behind shackles of numbing ice that were growing quickly across Kamjen’s fetlocks and up his legs.
“BITCH!” Kamjen howled as he tore himself free, leaving behind patches of his coat and, in some places, skin. “I’ll bury you in the SNOW!”
He charged, battering through furniture and guard alike, leaving both broken in his path as Fluttershy bolted straight up and over the furious Stalliongradi who buried himself in the wall on the far side of the room.
“Please stop!” Fluttershy pleaded as she landed crisply on the leg of the upturned conference table. “We can talk! We don’t have to fight!”
“DIE!” Kamjen bellowed again as he turned and charged again.
The conference table was reduced to splinters as Kamjen tore through it towards his target, and Fluttershy bolted upward again, and she made it all of a meter before she jerked to a violent stop.
Kamjen had fought flyers many times, and they always moved upwards. Griffons and pegasi alike sought the safety of the skies by instinct, and the moment Fluttershy had taken her eyes off of him to coil up for liftoff he had pushed off, putting all of his considerable muscle into a leap, and caught her tail in his teeth as she had tried to escape.
“EEP!” Fluttershy squeaked as she was swung around like a living flail. The room heaved and spun about her as Kamjen bore her to the ground.
She didn’t want to fight.
Fluttershy hated fighting.
WHY DID THEY ALWAYS WANT TO FIGHT?!
Fury bloomed behind Fluttershy’s eyes as she swung her wing down, catching the moisture in the air on the tips of her feathers and creating a smooth, cold, blade of ice at her wing’s edge an instant before the feathers sliced across Papa Kamjen’s face-
-and cut through his eyes.
Fluttershy went spinning away as Kamjen howled, and the shadows welled up to catch her and carry her out of the flailing stallion’s reach. The moment she landed, the shadows began to bubble upward, though, taking on an almost-physical weight.
“Don’t!” Fluttershy hissed. “Don’t manifest!”
‘He will kill you!’ The shadows snarled.
“No, he won’t,” Fluttershy replied as she backed away from the advancing psychotic behemoth that was Papa Kamjen. “Stay in the shadows, if anypony sees you then this was all for nothing!”
‘I will not let you come to harm, Mouse, you cannot ask that of me!’ Sombra bit the words out, and the shadows beneath began to darken as Sombra began the arduous process of bleeding himself back into reality and out of the half-Dream shadow realm he occupied.
“Stay where you are!” Fluttershy snapped.
The shadows shivered beneath her as she ducked and dodged more blind strikes. Kamjen was surprisingly agile for such an enormous stallion, and even blind he was terribly dangerous.
“I decided to do it like this, so I have to do it myself, okay?” Fluttershy continued. “I know you’ll keep me safe, my King, but do it from where you are, please.”
A nest of tendrils boiled up from beneath Kamjen as he took a step, sending him sprawling and giving Fluttershy a moment of reprieve as she bolted up and over the enraged crimelord to land on the other side of the room.
‘This is foalish, Mouse, my magic is limited from here!’ Sombra’s voice was tight and strained. ‘We should have just killed them all to start with. If they’re all dead then no one saw me! It would never have been an issue!’
“What we do and how we do it is a reflection of us, my King, not them,” Fluttershy replied. “If we’re going to do this then we’re going to do it the right way, so please, if you love me, don’t come out.”
‘Damn you, Mouse, that’s-’
“Do you?!” Fluttershy bit out.
Silence answered her for a moment, broken only by the bellowing, hate-filled stallion that was tearing the room apart several meters away.
‘You know that I do.’
“I do,” Fluttershy replied, smiling. “And I love you too, so please.”
Another sigh issued up from beneath her.
‘Very well.’
Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy flared her wings out and pulled the water from the air to coat her body in another layer of moisture over her disguise. Where the droplets sank in, ice formed and grew like a fast-motion reel of leaves opening in the spring across her wings, chest, and back.
Ice as black as midnight coated the body of Cloudy Skies until it clung to her like armor. Her wings became arsenals of numbing cold; primaries became blades, pinions turned into spears, and her hooves became rime-caked hammers of cold.
She didn’t want to hurt anypony, not even an awful stallion like Papa Kamjen, but at the same time, there was a limit to all kindness. Sombra had wanted to be better in his own crude and sometimes wicked manner. The dark king was not good at being good, but he tried, and he apologised when he failed, and then he would try again.
That was all that Fluttershy could ask for, and she was truly happy with that. She had faith that, one day, Sombra would appreciate kindness for its own sake, even if that day was a long way off.
Papa Kamjen was different. He was cruel and horrible, and it was obvious that he felt absolutely no remorse for the unspeakable things he had done.
Fluttershy surged forward, riding a slender path of black ice and keeping low as she wove between Kamjen’s blind, thundering strikes.
From deep within the shadows, Sombra watched, his heart in his throat as Fluttershy bobbed and weaved around bone-crushing hooves. If even one of those attacks so much as glanced across her it would buckle the armor, to say nothing of a direct hit. With twitches of mental effort, Sombra sent tendrils of shadows up and around Kamjen. They couldn’t stop him, the massive stallion was simply too strong for the shadow constructs to hold him back, but they could slow his attacks, put him off-balance, and Sombra prayed that would be enough.
Beyond the shadow, Fluttershy ducked beneath Kamjen’s attacks. Where they hit the stone floor, pits of gravel opened up. Furniture was reduced to splinters in an instant, and Fluttershy prayed the other guards had the wisdom to get away from this room, although there were enough bodies to attest to the fact that not all of them had been quick enough.
Papa Kamjen had murdered his own men without even seeing them. They might as well have been plaster statues that he had torn through.
The thought infuriated Fluttershy.
A hammer-like hoof crashed down where Fluttershy was standing an instant after she vacated the spot, and as she landed, she shook her head, and spoke.
“I won’t kill you,” Fluttershy said. “But I think you might wish that I had when I’m done.”
Whipping her wings out, Fluttershy hurled a spear of frigid air at Kamjen. Where it passed, it created a path of black ice, and when it struck Kamjen his body went rigid as rime flash-froze over his coat, and his hooves were anchored to the ground by growing ice.
Roaring, Kamjen heaved his front legs up, tearing free of the ice.
It was exactly what Fluttershy had wanted.
She bolted forward, riding the ice like a slide that carried her underneath Kamjen. She flicked her wing once, catching the air and spun herself around, then lashed out with her other wing at the backs of his front legs. Icy blades sliced through tendon and muscle, freezing the blood before it could flow and blackening the flesh with frostbite.
Fluttershy’s momentum carried her past the stallion a breath later, out from under him and behind him where she did the same thing to his rear legs, crippling Kamjen in a handful of seconds and dropping the blind, blunted, and frostbitten stallion to the icy ground.
From within the shadows, Sombra could only stare in shock as Fluttershy stood, staggered for a moment as the spinning stopped, then shook her head, and trotted over and around Kamjen.
Papa Kamjen tried to rise several times, but his crippled legs gave beneath him like tortured support struts. His breath huffed out of him in waves of warm mist as he brought his head up and turned his blind eyes towards Fluttershy.
Towards ‘Cloudy Skies’.
“You… what are you?” Kamjen asked raggedly. “H-How…?”
“It didn’t have to happen like this,” Fluttershy said sadly as she put a hoof gently on the side of his face. “We could have just talked.”
Kamjen stared blankly in Fluttershy’s direction for several moments. He wanted to kill her, but his limbs had stopped obeying his commands. He was too cold, his muscles were torn, his legs were crippled, and his eyes were gone.
He had nothing left.
“Kill me.”
“No,” Fluttershy replied.
Kamjen made a weak lunge at Fluttershy, but his body turned it into more of a pathetic flop than anything.
“KILL ME!”
“No.”
Silence reigned for a long time as Fluttershy sat with him, until finally, the broken crimelord sagged completely down to the floor, giving up even the pretense of struggling.
“Why?” Kamjen asked. “Why not?”
“Because I’m kind,” Fluttershy answered, “not merciful.”
With that, Fluttershy stood, flared out her wings, and shook the ice from them before turning them this way and that to check the striations of the wind. There were still living ponies in the room, although there had been so much destruction she wasn’t sure how many were left.
“I know some of you are still alive,” Fluttershy announced. “I came here for Kamjen, not you, so I’ll give you a chance to leave Stalliongrad forever. Take your things, take all of your business, and leave the city… you’re no longer welcome here, and if I find out you stayed, just remember what happened to the last pony who was unreasonable.”
Turning on her hoof, Fluttershy made her way out of the conference room. As she did, she glanced over to the side and saw the pathetic, quivering mess that was Winterlight. The tendrils which had ignored her had also stopped the majority of the debris from harming her, but she still hadn’t moved.
“Can you bring her with us?” Fluttershy asked.
‘Why?’
“Because I think she might really regret what she’s become.” Fluttershy had never seen such an extreme reaction to her Stare, and Sombra had said that the worse a pony’s guilt, the stronger the effect. She hoped that meant Winterlight had a chance. “Please?”
‘As you say, Mouse,’ Sombra replied, and the tendrils closed around Winterlight, dragging her down into the shadows. ‘She will sleep in darkness for a time, and you can decide what to do with her once we’ve returned to the manse.’
“Thank you, my King,” Fluttershy said warmly.
Once they were out of the room, Fluttershy marched out, through the compound, up the stairs, and back into the large room where the guards were. The looks they gave her suggested they were surprised that she was still alive, but they didn’t bother her beyond that.
‘Sound-proofed rooms downstairs, I would guess,’ Sombra mused as Fluttershy passed them by and stepped back out into the rainy, overcast Stalliongradi day.
“Take us home, my King,” Fluttershy said, and on the heels of her words the world turned to darkness and there was a sensation of falling accompanied by an omnipresent whispering that lasted all of a moment before Fluttershy’s hooves settled on cool stone.
The shadows bled away to reveal the throne room of the manse, and Fluttershy took a deep breath of her home as she waited the few moments it took Sombra to emerge from the shadows as well, fully solid and as powerful as ever.
“That was dangerous, Mouse,” Sombra admonished quietly, but he pulled her close to him nonetheless, burying his snout in her soft mane that was already fading from gray back to silken pink.
“Doing the right thing is always harder, my King,” Fluttershy replied as she nuzzled against him. “But I need you to be willing to do that with me, okay?”
“I am well aware, but that does not mean I have to be pleased that you’re putting yourself in danger,” Sombra grumbled.
He sighed and rested his forehead against Fluttershy’s for a moment before pulling her into a warm, insistent kiss which she readily and happily returned.
As they parted, Sombra stepped back and shuffled awkwardly while Fluttershy smiled up at him with the same loving patience she always did.
“My King?”
Sombra sighed, then lit his horn and pulled the small box whose contents he’d spent the last few weeks enchanting out of a pocket dimension.
“Mouse- no, Fluttershy- I…” Sombra took the box in his hooves and turned it around, staring down at the simple wooden container for a long moment as Fluttershy waited.
“I am never going to be the stallion you deserve,’ he began, “and yet you have chosen to stand by me time and again in spite of my ill temper and unpleasant nature.”
“You’re not that bad, my King,” Fluttershy said with a sardonic smile. “You do try, at least.”
“I try for your sake, not mine,” Sombra replied gravely.
“I know.” Fluttershy reached up and set her hoof against her cheek. “I can’t ask you to be somepony other than yourself, my King. The fact that you’re trying to be better at all is enough for me.”
“Am I?” Sombra asked quietly.
Fluttershy frowned. “Are you what?”
“Enough?” Sombra looked up at Fluttershy and, for a moment, she could see the ages of loneliness worn into his eyes. “Am I enough for you?”
There was so much weight on his shoulders, and not all of it belonged to the crown on his brow. The weight of his hatred and his cruelty bore down on him, not the guilt, but the impulse that he was always denying in her presence. Fluttershy could feel the desire to be better in him like a faint ember, and she knew that he did not believe that it was in him to do so.
The fact that he was trying despite that spoke volumes.
At least, to her it did.
“Always, my King,” Fluttershy answered finally.
Silently, Sombra turned the box to Fluttershy and opened it, revealing the bracelet within. It gleamed with polish, and the garnet shone with a bloody light that mirrored the color of his magic.
“Then would you be my Queen?” Sombra asked quietly. “For however long the world permits me your presence?”
Tears welled up in Fluttershy’s eyes as she reached into the box with her wings and drew out the delicate-looking piece of jewelry. She could feel the humming magic that was strengthening it, and she suspected that despite its appearance it could probably stand up to almost any punishment.
Looking up from the bracelet, Fluttershy held it out to Sombra and nodded.
“You never had to ask,” Fluttershy said in a slightly wet voice. “But I’m so very glad that you did.”
Taking the bracelet in his magic, Sombra unhooked the latch and slid it over Fluttershy’s right foreleg before locking it in place. As it closed, the magic in the bracelet sized it down enough so it fit as snugly and comfortably as possible.
“Now I just have to make you a crown,” Sombra said with a soft chuckle.
Stats
Page generated in 0.039 seconds
Total duration
941 users online
260,030 hits today, 2,314,256 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I know you were trying to be clever but I'm afraid those two statements contradict each other lol
(Unless that was foreshadowing for a darker turn for Fluttershy of course. If not then yes it was quite silly lol)
So much awesome stuff. Fantastic brutality, another ward for the estate, and delightful simplicity for the emotional moment preceded directly by the perfect chilling one-liner.
I wish I could fave again.
10254157
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CruelMercy
Dang. Fluttershy is awesome!!!
That was intense!
10254157
It’s a matter of opinion but being kind was offering the guy the chances to be peaceful. letting him live afterwards with the injuries wasn’t being merciful in my opinion. After all in DND being lawful good doesn’t mean being lawful nice.
Edit: this didn’t come out exactly the way I wanted it to but killing him would just be showing the people of Stalingrad that they are no better than him, leaving him alive shows the people that sometimes it’s a lot better peaceful then it is trying to step on everyone you meet
Now That Was great!
"Because I'm kind, Not Merciful" that was frickin great! It shows that little bit of dark side but yet keeping her light side
10254157
Actually mercy would line up more with Generosity, not kindness. Because a Generous person gives you mercy. A kind person lets you live.
awesome chapter! I am so glad that this story is updating so fast!!!
Oh hell yeah, update time at last!
It lives agine!!!
after typing below: Hm. I seem to be doing some error-spotting this time for some reason. Don't really have the time for it, perhaps, but... oh well. :)
I kind of wonder what that stallion was doing in the bathroom that he still had a significant amount in his bladder to empty so soon thereafter, but I'm not sure I want to know.
"and I really would rather force you to do it if I can help it."
Er. Missing "not" in there?
"he was about to shot in the"
"he was about to be shot in the"?
"for him to back, which"
"for him to go back, which"?
"like an executioners axe that was"
"like an executioner's axe that was"?
"you deserve,’ he began"
"you deserve," he began"?
"Fluttershy reached up and set her hoof against her cheek."
"Fluttershy reached up and set her hoof against his cheek."?
Well, excitement and romance both; nice. :)
Of course, there's now also a power vacuum in the city...
edit:
10253803
...Okay, I'm confused. You say that the canon is definitely different, but then that the only divergence is on the EQG side? If I'm reading you correctly? But there's something I'm not understanding clearly here, sorry...
And sorry about the clumsy feeling.
They are such cute death machines
you better not kill this hope again, I will be devastated if you take a 2 year hiatus, I had just come to terms to this story never getting done.
I waited so long and hoped that it will continue. Celestia blessed somebody else today. <3
Please don't tell me you're gonma take another 2-year hiatus
As Hell yes
Happy to see this return, this story is wonderful and one of the few long-term Sombra x Fluttershy fics out there that is good to me.
I like the newer chapters, though I wonder on the magic use of Sombra. I think he is still working on the syphon so using all those magics may not be the best idea for his life.
Fluttershy was a bit less upset about having to cripple someone for life than I expected, but how she got her way through the enemy base was awesome. Just smile, horrify, and subtly mention killing everyone in the house.
I do wish we had seen the first few days of recovery for the assassin and that conversation, would have been amusing. Also more of that minotaur builder who was mentioned. I suppose whenever a new character comes in and seems to be joining them in some way, I want to know more or see more of them then is possible. Just my own quirk. n.n;;
I look forward to seeing more of this, and happy you found the time to come back and continue it.
I liked how you portrayed the tension in the setting: how the slightest of wrong moves could have jump started a massacre, I laughed at the reference of the Russian boogy-man in this, I noticed another one or two more references there too.
depicted in a rainy day dark gray setting that even some of the creatures there sported dark colored coats.... the "tire iron" was a bit immersion breaking because it made me think of just that: a "tire iron" made specifically for lug nuts made for cars: to my knowledge the only wheels equestria manages are for the wagons and those just happen to look more western or just made out of steel and wood. Ten again the mention is so small in comparison of what is going around that its barely noticeable.
Alas I'm very VERY glad you returned to continue this amazing story, there are quite a few unfinished good stories with great potential that where cut short due to the writer's fleeting interest in the subject. Im so very glad this is not one of them, your story in my honest opinion is right up there with my favorites: some of them are "Article 2" , "The diaries of a Mad Man"(which I could not finish because it was too much for me once a character changed sex: the story is all about mental traumas so heh), "The changeling of the Guard", "Bad Mondays," "Quantum castaway".... all very good ones to read due to its congruence or should I say it makes sense and not cringy.
I always have faith that the writer will return even if the writer is not seen in a year.... 2 years its a bit much but the author of Article 2 does his updates a chapter a year so you see im a patient reader ;p I just ask to have good quality story to enjoy no matter how much time it takes to make.
I am always so happy to see a story return. Was hoping for an update.
Looking forward to more, I just love how you write Sombra and Fluttershy. 💜💜💜
Good to know that Fluttershy can kill by dehydrating them.
That chapter ending was spectacularly adorable after everything that has happened. One of the things that I admire most in writing is when an author can have that kind of flexibility with the mood of the story and characters.