Insanity: Abuse VI
It was just another evening, like every single one since the death arena. Astray and Anvil returned together, the minotaur having been joining Antares' sessions as well these days. She said it helped her take her mind off things, specifically yet another nightmare of staring down her executioner and the last flash of steel before complete and final darkness. Who had never felt their last breath slip away would never understand. The regrets, the loss of hope of ever making things right, the sudden clarity, and most of all - the shameful... relief. The relief that everything is finally for once someone else's problem.
Anvil was once again lying on her back, reading in the comfort of her bed while Bubbles rested by her side, muzzle propped on her rising and falling abs. There was one big difference from the times before their deaths, though.
"The Silversmith hegemony broke down after their capital city was 'devoured by the mountain'. The believed reason is that the network of mines leading into the depths supposedly reaching the planet's core collapsed. There are some artefacts still being dug out by archeologists from time to time, but nopony knows what they do or how to activate them. The common belief is that some Crystal Empire technology is based on the Silversmith ability to work with the crystalline structure of some minerals and manipulate it to store or transform magical, natural, and even divine energies. The only Silversmith invention still working until these days is the Crystal Heart."
Anvil was reading aloud to Bubbles whose ears twitched from time to time.
"What's a haji-money?" the mare asked.
"Hegemony. Simply put, it's a different word for empire."
"Like Crystal Empire then?"
"More like Griffon Empire. Crystal Empire is a city state while the Griffon Empire is a collection of countries and different self-governing states under one flag and Emperor spanning a huge chunk of the world," explained Anvil.
"Oooh," Bubbles' ears perked and she raised her head, "Do you think Astray is in the shower longer than usual?"
"Leave him be. He needs some privacy to get over... what happened. He's been taking his time in there the last few days."
Bubbles jumped down from the bed anyway.
"I... I'll just check up on him. In case he's out of soap or toilet paper or something. I dunno."
"Fiiine," sighed Anvil, putting her book away, "I'll go fetch some drinks. Next lesson - the Romane Empire. A lot of orgies and public puking in it. Funny how that one's considered to be the cradle of first real well-recorded civilization."
"That's a lot of empires in that book."
"Yeah, everyone wanted to conquer the world at some time. Griffons, ponies, minotaurs, Silversmiths, changelings, yaks, even cows, everyone had a successful megalomaniac at one point in history."
"Maybe they just wanted to make more friends?"
"Heheheh, nope," Anvil shoved herself inside her tight pants threatening to explode, "Soda, beer, wine?"
"Milk, please."
"Mhm," the minotaur left.
Bubbles knocked softly on the bathroom door. There was no answer, so she cracked it open.
Astray was sitting on the floor of the shower, cradling his head under the flow of warm water. This was one thing Bubbles didn't understand. Both Anvil and Astray took the death exercise extremely hard, but it couldn't have been the pain that caused these lasting effects. Bubbles knew she was significantly naturally tougher than the two, but their reactions were still surprising her. In fact, she resolved herself to thank miss Contradiction when she got better. The final moments as her head had been cut off brought up feelings she'd been experiencing for a while already, but much stronger.
Walking over to Astray, she sat down next to him, pressing her wet coat against his hairless side. She nudged his cheek with her muzzle.
"It's all my fault," he muttered, "I started all this. I failed her day after day and then she hurt both of you this bad. The thing with sir Cromach was just the last straw. I shouldn't have stayed here. I knew it would be too much, that I wasn't cut out for this. I should have just-OW!"
Bubbles bit his shoulder hard enough to draw blood. Then again and again, much softer. She kept nibbling and nipping at his neck, licking him whenever she used a little too much force and her needle-sharp teeth pierced the skin.
"W-what are- are you d-doing?" Astray wanted to lean away, but Bubbles held him firmly.
"I dunno," she stopped chewing him, "I want you so much my stomach hurts whenever you say things like this. I want to eat you up, to keep you warm, to have you always with me. You're so nice and so bad to yourself at the same time. I don't want you to keep sitting in here, I want you out there with us. I am happy miss Connie did that to us."
"What? How? Why?"
"Because before everything stopped I thought only about one thing - you. I want to protect you, to stay by your side. You and Anvil were the first non-guard ponies I talked to outside of the tower, and you are the best. I don't know what about the exercise hurt you so much, but I don't understand because it helped me. I know for sure I want to be here, I want our time here to last forever. I want you. I noticed how you sometimes look at Anvil, like the ponies I helped go to sleep looked at me sometimes, and I want you to look at me like that as well. I know she's more like you than I am, but I'm content with just being here with you."
She returned to her needy biting, licking, and when Astray turned his head to look her in the eyes...
...she kissed him.
It was sloppy and she clearly had no clue what she was supposed to be doing other than that lips and tongue fit somewhere, but neither had he so it was okay. More than okay, if Astray had to be honest with himself. He had absolutely no idea why anypony would feel this strongly about him in any positive way, but it was what it was. He was the first to break the kiss, though. Apparently Bubbles, among other unnatural things, didn't need to breathe as much. That proved a minor mistake as she returned to her ravenous but careful biting.
When the slightly lacerated satyr left the shower followed by the beaming demoness, Anvil was already back, raising her eyebrows at the sight.
"Ummm, got any bandages around here?" asked Astray timidly.
"Were you trying to slit your wrists and missed?" the corners of Anvil's mouth rose up. From his right shoulder to his cheek, Astray looked as if he'd tried to catch an angry cat, but it didn't unnerve her. Well, it did, but it was quickly replaced by the relief at seeing the satyr with anything other than a completely dead, distant expression of the last days.
"Not even my aim is that bad," he just chuckled, giving the minotaur a smile.
"I like him so much I needed to eat him up!" Bubbles proclaimed with clear joy and honesty.
Funny, suddenly the sight of the mare with her head cut off didn't feel as terrible to Anvil as it had a second before.
"You know," she said hesitantly, "I wasn't too happy when that bitch pulverized your head either. Mostly because some of it landed on me, but I might just be getting used to you being around. Anyway, it would be annoying to have to start with some new addition to our team from scratch."
"I'm glad you're around as well, hambu-"
"End that sentence and I'll end you," she narrowed her eyes.
"Heheh, now I'm back in familiar territory," Astray smiled at Anvil sipping her coffee and took his mineral water from the tray she'd brought, "You sure about drinking that?"
The question was substantiated. Anvil, after the sewers, the hospital guard job, and the death exercise looked as if a cow chewed her up, minor pun intended.
"Meh, I can't sleep anyway so I may as well have something that will help me think as well."
"Bubbles, how about you spend the night with Anvil?" asked Astray. Bubbles shrugged. He looked back at Anvil, "It's helped me a ton. She's like a warm pillow and a dreamcatcher in one. It helps when you wake up after a zombie bites your head off and see her cuddling you. If she's not sleeping with her mouth open, that is."
"I," Anvil hesitated. This was something she really didn't want to ask, "I think I need a bit more than just a live pillow. I... I think it might help... in certain stressful situations it's natural to... strength in numbers and so on... according to base animal instincts... we might sleep together... all of us... just this once. Hmph!" she crossed her arms and looked away.
Astray silently prayed to whatever higher entity there was to stop himself from laughing. He knew how difficult it must have been for Celestia-freaking-damn Anvil to say that. The more it hit him that Anvil was way more hurt than he'd ever expected. For a second he wondered what she'd seen in her last moments... what was really important to her, what was the one final regret she'd never get to forget or fix.
His had been far too simple and all too familiar. There was something in his every decision. He couldn't close his eyes without recalling some failure. All that had flashed before his eyes in the final moment of crimson pain. He was living his regret, that realization had made everything that more hopeless. Everything felt darker and colder until Bubbles told him her perspective, and there was something to it. He'd been working his way out of his mental hole for the past weeks. The steps were tiny, nearly invisible, but they were there. As sir Cromach had said - there was light at the end of the tunnel, and it wasn't an approaching train.
"If I'm enough, I'd like to offer you my company alongside Bubbles."
Anvil started tossing spare blankets and sheets over the carpet.
"Sleeping pile!" Bubbles pounced at the minotaur when she was almost done, taking her by surprise and ending on her back.
Astray put his empty glass next to Anvil's barely touched coffee, turned the lights off, and lay down on his back next to Anvil. A huge arm scooped him closer to the minotaur, followed by blanket covering his head.
"Hee hee," Bubbles, completely under the blanket as well, stuck his tongue out at him. Of course he couldn't see it in the darkness, but the thought was there.
With his head on Anvil's shoulder, Astray drifted off in few minutes.
He stood on a hill of corpses, kicking down zombie ponies crawling upwards at him, empty eyes staring deep into his soul. Underneath him, Anvil was being overwhelmed by hordes of undead alongside Bubbles. A hippogriff with most of his flesh missing grasped his fetlock and dragged him down. Astray landed with his face in the rotting flesh. Teeth started tearing him apart from the waist down. He saw a bloodied rusty leg being dragged towards the top of the pile by a dead pony. More and more detached bodyparts were being offered by the crawling dead to the pony figure on the pile's top. Among them, even his own leg. All those bits and pieces were sacrifices for the maniacally laughing leader of the evil horde...
...Contradiction.
Astray woke up gasping for breath. While Anvil's armpit was comfortable, it left a lot to be desired in the breathing department. On the minotaur's other side, Bubbles shifted but quickly calmed down and resumed her sleepy drooling. Anvil was out like a light, not moving aside from her chest heaving up and down. Sizable chest. Astray smiled to himself, shaking his head at the passing idea of a glancing touch. If there ever had been a worse time to abuse the situation, he couldn't remember it.
Unfortunately, sleep avoided him for the next five minutes. With a sigh, he decided a quick stroll through the mansion would do him good. Carefully unwrapping Anvil's arm from himself, he waited to see if she was still asleep and left the room. Maybe a drink down in the cafeteria would be a good idea. Hot chocolate was always available due to recruits serving night shifts as punishment for something.
The halls of the mansion were dimly lit by occasional lamps scattered among their unlit brethren, and he could clearly hear the steps of patrolling ponies resonating through the otherwise silent hallways. The curtains on the windows rustled at his passage, making him twitch. Every moving shadow put Astray on his guard before he realized that if there ever was a safe place then it was this mansion. At the end of the hall, right next to the stairs down, was a doorway leading to the lit outside balcony. A clinking of glass came from there. The summer night was warm and dry, so there was a good chance of some ponies having a private night. Astray couldn't resist and peeked through the glass pane in the door.
It was Contradiction, sitting on a chair with a bottle of white wine and a shot glass on the table next to her. Astray knew he was the glass half-empty kind of guy, but Connie wobbling in her chair and looking into darkness outside now was the bottle completely empty one. Unfortunately, some small rock decided to creak between his hoof and the stone floor as he turned away from something he was definitely not supposed to see. The visibly drunk unicorn quickly noticed. When, in the next instant, Astray tried to walk away, invisible force opened the door and pulled him outside.
The silence between the two lengthened as Astray stood there, watching Contradiction who looked once again into the distance. He was angry at her, he wanted to yell at her, he wanted to toss her from the balcony, but he couldn't help being Astray. Instead, when he came to terms with himself not being insulted and thrown two floors down, he felt concern for the wasted unicorn. He was that kind of satyr.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked carefully.
Connie laughed. Short, fast, more like a bark.
"Yoo still care 'bout me?" she shook her head, speaking with a drunken slur, "Don't. Looks I'm as yoosless as I said yoo were."
The telekinetic grip around Astray dissipated. He sat down on the empty chair of the pair.
"Look, I'm sorry. I wish I knew what to say to fix all this. I just don't. All I can do is keep working to become better in the future so that I can stop this from happening again. All I have now are words. I'm sorry."
"No, I should bee," Connie shook her head, "Yoo know that I went throo the death arena as well?"
That took Astray aback. Pretty soon, he couldn't help wondering what she had felt in her final moments.
"Wait, really?"
"Yeh, I got my head chewed off."
"Why?"
"I wasn't fast enuff."
"I mean, why did you go through the exercise?"
"Things were far worse than they ar' now. We were powerless, besieged on all sides, end of the world was coming... yoo know - fun. There were reel reasons for using something that mind-breaking. We fought against an alicorn. Well... some of us fought, some begged, some just broke down. Yoo know, at least all of yoo fought until death without a word. Yoo three ar' much better than we were at first. I had no right to do that to yoo. I'm trash... I've always been."
Astray looked at the empty bottle. It wasn't wine as he'd thought, which kinda explained the shot glass, it was something called Rotgut which smelled as if it could strip paint. The warning on the label read:
[Don't sue us for any brain damage. You drink this stuff, our lawyers don't.]
If the two-hundred and thirty percent proof was even remotely correct, Connie should soon explode when passing by any open fire. On the other hand, she was still able to walk -well, wobble- when she finished her glass and stood up to leave. He put his hand on her back to steady her and get her attention.
"Can you tell me... can you tell me what went through your brain before you 'died'?"
"Three's teeth," it was a miracle she was able to say it without twisting her tongue.
"Come on!"
"Nothing."
"Wait, really?"
"I wuz focused on the fight. I almost got through his defenses and killed him, but by that time I was the last one left. I didn't ev'n know what happened before the pain. But no, there wuz nothing."
"No final regrets?"
"My life was one big regret at dat point. I didn't care if I lived or died, nopony really did. Who am I kidding? It's still the same."
"Don't be too harsh on yourself," when Connie rolled her eyes, he added, "Sir Cromach's words, not mine."
"Same goes, smartass, but I'm not yoo. I'm not a naturally good pony deep down. I was a whorse, a drug addict, a thief, a beggar. It wasn't what I did to survive, it was who I was. I still have a long way to go, and the first thing I need to do is finish what my drunken ass started," she ruffled Astray's hair on the second attempt. On the other hand, if she was seeing double then it was acceptable, "You keep fixing your mistakes, Astray. You are an inspiration of sorts, and I need to fix mine. A lot of mistakes."
She left, grim determination etched on her muzzle. Astray was suddenly very confused, and even more worried. When drunks said things like these, they never meant anything good. After all, he'd said it to himself enough times before. All he could do was hope she would either forget what she'd said by morning, or that his words had some sort of positive effect.
With a sigh, Astray stood up, leaving the bottle and glass on the table. He'd never thought he'd be able to say it, but at least he had somepony waiting for him tonight.
***
Back in Canterlot, and in vastly less depressing mood, Secret Seeker mumbled to himself in disappointment. Black Shield, chewing her reward bubble gum while reading, turned her head at the noise. Seeker turned towards her with a lab mouse levitating in front of him. He set it down on the floor, still holding it in place.
"Kill it."
Shield's body moved on its own, but she had control over her mouth at least. She opened it and-
Splat!
-her hoof crushed the poor little creature. Wiping the mess off of herself with a cloth from one of the many workbenches, she wasn't exactly impressed at her feat. Slightly disgusted, but definitely not proud of herself.
"Did I fail against that Contradiction mare so hard you need me to train on mice now?"
Seeker facehoofed and turned back to his main workstation. Taller Shield could easily see the levitating implements in front of the unicorn doing their work. A dose of something red inside a syringe was injected into a different mouse which was presented to Shield soon after.
"Try again."
Shield knew she'd be haunted by the pitiful squeak the creature made right before turning into another puddle of paste for a long time, but her list of things to regret was getting out of hoof at this point anyway so she didn't think too hard about it.
"Huh?" she blinked in surprise as the crushed body coagulated back together, reforming half of the mouse before losing form and collapsing back.
Seeker frowned.
"As I thought, not even the strongest dosage I can synthesize is enough to keep it alive. The griffon's blood isn't working. Grab a mop and clean this mess."
"How come?" asked Shield while rummaging through the supply room rearranged for her yoga.
"The blood of somepony merely infused with divine power might be granting the original 'donor' some special abilities. Longevity is definitely one of them and, according to witnesses of ambassador Cromach's training, the power to summon lightning. However, the properties of the blood are somehow bound to only him. Transfusion makes the effects barely noticeable. I have no doubts the mice infused with his blood would live several months longer, but that is by far insufficient for our needs. For the ritual to work, we're going to need the blood of an originally demonic or divine being. At least that was what your foray to the hospital was good for - we know blood is enough. The required quantity is still unknown, but... let's worry about that later."
"How about summoning a demon?" Shield, using her tail to operate the mop as she found rather convenient, asked, "I know you have some books about it around here. Succubi, incubi, all that jazz."
Seeker, giving her an impressed look, shook his head.
"That unfortunately doesn't work. Demons, when summoned into this world, don't have their real forms. If you hurt them they don't leave blood and other remains. That's why those reagents are extremely rare and expensive. You can, of course, travel into the realm where their real forms are and get those, but I'd rather drug an alicorn and take some of their blood than try that. It would be safer. There are no real demons just sitting around here in the real world."
"You do realize my goal in life was to protect ponies and especially the princesses?"
Seeker rolled his eyes.
"This again? One, you don't have a choice. Two, I'm not going to attack a damn alicorn straight on, I'm not suicidal and I don't understand the rings' power enough to hope they would keep me alive. Getting some blood, though, perhaps under some ruse of it being the last hope of a dying orphan filly or something equally sentimentally stupid, should be doable."
"Speaking of the rings," Shield spat her chewing gum out into a trash bin, putting the rest of her pack into her compact saddlebag, "I think I'm back to full power again. Can I go to Manehattan and trail Contradiction?"
"Oh, I almost forgot about it. Definitely yes, she should give us enough of an exercise to test the rings' healing power. Good idea for an earthpony. Just let me find some strong enough trinkets to serve as a teleportation beacon," Seeker frantically searched the cellar lab, "and don't forget - I can't simply teleport anywhere. Either find a way to lure her to Canterlot so I can transport myself quickly, or inform me about her location before you reveal yourself so that I can get within reach. From here, I can teleport anywhere unprotected in upper and lower Canterlot, maybe even as far as Ponyville, but that would be exhausting."
"Don't worry, I'll think of something," Shield said smugly, "Wouldn't be the first time I impressed a unicorn with my bright ideas."
Secret Seeker just facehoofed again. If that damn mentally unbreakable earthpony kept testing him much longer, his face would look like a pug.
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Huh? This was sudden... how come these Silversmith dudes have never been mentioned before?
How his technology appears in Crystal Empire? I was thinking he is dwarf.
Wait... this is civilisation/group of powerful ponies/creatures? I was thinking it's the single guy.
Now I wanna see how it's happened and why they are... serving ponies now.
I am glad that Astray, Bubbles and Anvil growing togother to try and cope with everything. Also hoping that things can turn around for Connie soon.
9881171
Well, in "Changelings" she's alive, well, and summons tentacles, so I guess she's alright.
choking is dead and Connie replaced her.
Your writing improved a lot. But that should not be a secret
11486062
That's a bold theory, both about the plot AND my writing improving