Chapter 49
It felt good to be wearing his face and skin once more. Flicker began to double check his gear, making sure everything was snug, he tugged on a few straps, pulling them tighter, and then began to strap on his weapons as he adjusted his hat. He secured his new swords to his side, reminded himself that there were daggers there too, and then he strapped on Heartfinder. The shotgun was left in his trunk. The ship was wood and aluminium, shooting holes in it would be frown worthy.
“Seeing you gives me the shivers,” Hennessy remarked in a slow, syrupy drawl. The earth pony colt sauntered up to Flicker, and his movements were almost feminine with the way his hips rocked and his tail swished. “You go on, go on and give those rats a good what for.” Hennessy made a dismissive gesture with his hoof.
Piper, smiling, tucked his wand into a deep pocket that held a few candles. Flicker nodded, but was silent. He had almost forgotten his wand in his other coat. The mechanical thrum of his breathing filled his own ears and it felt good to be himself again, all of himself. He was stronger again, more capable, he was the pony he was meant to be. If he had encountered the spider-hag while wearing his face and his skin, that battle might have gone a little different.
Or so Flicker told himself to make himself feel better.
“Once all of the killing is done and the toxic fumes have been vented, I think I am going to have Flicker show you two how to clean up after a job. Extermination isn’t enough, we have to do decontamination. That means removing all of the rat corpses, cleaning up the blood, removing as many rat turds as possible, and then hitting the ship with sterilisation bombs. It’s not enough to just kill things, you will never be truly good at this job if that is all that you can do. We purge pestilence. We clean contagion. Failure to do this not only hurts our reputation, but might also cause ponies to get sick, or worse, die.” Doctor Sterling’s face was solemn, serious, and there were deep creases in his forehead from his furrowed brows.
“Um, I ain’t got no magic,” Hennessy said to Doctor Sterling.
“Oh, not to worry,” Doctor Sterling replied, “we have scrubbing brushes we can strap to your hooves. Earth ponies make fantastic floor scrubbers!”
The earth pony colt groaned at the doctor’s enthusiastic words and hung his head. “I reckon I can’t complain, not after signing that writ of pacifism. I’ll do my part.”
“If you don’t do your part…”—Flicker loomed in a menacing manner—“I’ll pick you up and use you as a scrubbing brush. Both of you. See if I don’t.”
Backing away, Hennessy's good natured grin showed a trace of actual fear. “Now now, I done said I’d do my part—”
“And being a good friend, I am motivating you to do the very best that you can do,” Flicker deadpanned, his mask making his voice sound inequine and perhaps even a little unholy. “Not to worry, this isn’t about seniority. I don’t work that way. But you will learn. Yes, you will learn.”
“Lord Death of Murder Mountain keeps a tidy home,” Piper said, a hint of laughter in her words, “and he does not like the many corpses of his victims lazing about in his garden. Murder Mountain… a very clean place. Corpses not welcome. And blood? That’s right out. It would get on the doilies and the drapes.”
Flicker didn’t realise that Piper was making a joke and he took her words at face value. He stood there, and after a time, he nodded. Saying nothing else, he took off at a trot to go aboard and do his job. When he was a few yards away, Hennessy leaned over, put his muzzle next to Piper’s ear, whispered something, and then the two of them began to giggle like two overcaffeinated squirrels. After a moment, Doctor Sterling, who had heard the exchange, let out a hesitant snicker that turned into a body shaking chuckle.
Still laughing, he hurried after Flicker so that the colt could be lifted over to the ship.
This ship, a vessel for both cargo and passengers, was hot with plague. Flicker could see the glowing red bodies through the walls, through the floor, and it was a wonder that nopony had become fatally ill. His rat sense was the worst that it had been in a long time. He prowled through the first floor, trying to get a feel for the ship, the layout, and what needed to be done.
There was a soft lurch, but he paid it no mind. This was an airship, and airships bobbed around on their mooring cables. His ears heard the sound of machinery; the ship had a steady vibration that traveled through the wood and metal. Flicker paused mid-stride when he heard a creaking sound, it was peculiar, and he was unable to place the somewhat metallic noise.
He went down the stairs to the floor below and saw that the passenger quarters had a serious flea infestation. No matter, he had the means to fix that and make the little buggers dissolve into nothingness. In fact, he had the means to cure this entire ship. He moved through the dark like a bird beaked phantom and he heard a high pitched mechanical squeal coming from somewhere.
“Greetings, Flicker,” a voice said over the intercom. “This is your captain speaking, we are all going down. We are all going down together. My Master sends his regards. Alas, you have made friends with the wrong sorts of ponies, and now, now you must be killed before you become a threat. Goodbye, you insufferable, genocidal, rat-slaying bastard.”
Turning about, Flicker hurried down the hallway, back to the stairs, and went up the stairs. He then went storming down that hallway, heading for the navigation cabin where the ship’s intercom system was located. He went up a short flight of stairs, and emerged inside of a glass cabin.
An alarm klaxon began to sound, it lasted for a few seconds, then ceased. The control cabin had been sabotaged. Controls were all damaged, cables and wires had all been severed. Chewed. Looking out the window, Flicker saw that the ship had rose up into the air and the mooring cables had been detached.
As he stood there contemplating this astounding turn of events, one of the ships down below him, still docked, exploded. The back half of the ship blossomed into a massive fireball and then the ship beside it exploded as well. Black smoke began to rise up into the sky. The alarm klaxon tried to sound again, there was a mechanical screech, and then it went silent once more.
The steam gauge was pretty much maxed out, deep into the red warning indicator, and Flicker had only one thing to say about the situation, something suitable and having satisfying hard consonants.
“Fuck me.”
As the ship drifted away from the Canterhorn, Flicker realised that he was over a mile up into the air with nothing below him but farmland and plains. There was a loud squealing sound and Flicker began to wonder what the sound of metal fatigue was like. There was a loud PING! and then without knowing why, Flicker began to run. A fragment of metal shot up through the wooden floor, perhaps a bolt or a rivet, Flicker didn’t have the time to figure it out, and it grazed his left rear leg just above his hock. It left behind a crimson crease in his flesh, tearing open his suit. He battered the window with his telekinesis, shattering it, and he lept over the ruined control panel as he tried to escape.
Soaring through the broken window, Flicker made the leap with ease, thanks to his training in the gym. Another fragment of metal shot through the floor and hit a window, shattering it. More bits of metal began to shoot through the floor and Flicker came down hard on the deck with a hail of metal coming up from beneath him.
Wood, splinters, and metal filled the air around him as he bolted, and one of the fragments grazed him once more, burning him and leaving a bright scarlet line along his right hip. The whole ship was shuddering, shaking, and smoke poured from the back end, which was no doubt going to explode at any minute now. Flicker kept running, but he didn’t know where he was going. Where did one go for safety when aboard an airship that was due to explode at any second?
Near the front of the ship, he saw a rat of exceptional size and the rat was… wearing a parachute? The rat waved, snarled, and then lept over the rail. Flicker, realising that he was about to die, understood that he had a choice of how he died. And that choice was easy to make. His hooves thundering over the deck, he ran for the rail and lept.
Dying was easy, living was hard.
Gritting his teeth, Flicker tucked in his legs close to his body and pointed his mask’s beak towards the ground. His cape fluttered and flapped behind him like a flag in a hurricane. As he streaked towards terminal velocity, his hat was torn off of his head and he could feel the wind tugging at his suit. Good thing he had everything nice and tight. Below him, the rat looked like he was swimming through the air, trying to get away.
Far below, another ship in the sky harbour exploded, leaving the harbour in chaos.
How fast was terminal velocity? Flicker couldn’t recall and it would be a waste of time to do so. His life was now measured in moments and every moment mattered. He yanked his wand out and began to charge up. The rat was going to burn and that would be the end of him. Not long after that, it would be the end of Flicker, too.
He let go of his fire spell and was shocked when the usual flames didn’t happen. Something else, something he was unfamiliar with, beautiful silvery flames erupted all around the rat like a cloud and in seconds, the rat was consumed in fire. He squeaked his last squeak and Flicker felt better for some reason. It was impossible to say how he felt better, but feel better he did. His wounds didn’t sting so much and for some reason, he just felt stronger.
Above him, the ship he had been on just mere moments ago exploded and it began to rain down flaming debris. Burning wreckage filled the skies and Flicker looked down at the ground that was rushing up to meet him. It wouldn’t hurt and there was no sense being a pansy about it. There was no point in turning away, either. No, he would face this like a stallion.
Tucking in his legs a little tighter, his mask gave him a fine aerodynamic profile, the beak cutting into the wind. Flicker didn’t close his eyes, no, he kept them open and he made himself watch as the ground got closer and closer with each passing second. He would be a puddle soon, a pony puddle, and that was fine. At least it wasn’t spiders, or the spider-hag.
Just as he had made peace with dying, he smacked into a physical force and it was like hitting a wall. He was turned in the air and saw Doctor Sterling in the back of a small skywagon being pulled by a pegasus. Piper was with him, beautiful, wonderful Piper, and she was waving. Flicker was relieved and he was happy that he was about to be rescued. Being snatched while falling was hard—physics was a bitchy mistress—and you had to compensate for momentum or else whatever you were grabbing would be turned into jelly.
There was a cry from Piper and Doctor Sterling raised a shield bubble around them. Falling, flaming wreckage hit the shield, which popped, and Doctor Sterling’s grip on him failed. Flicker’s relief fled from him as he began to fall again. A falling metal strut almost skewered him and he kicked it aside, the force of which made his hind hooves go numb.
Something else grabbed him, something clumsy, and Flicker felt as though all of his bones were about to break. Thankfully, he hadn’t had enough time to return to terminal velocity. His insides threatened to go squirting out of his asshole like toothpaste shooting out of a tube and his eyes almost popped right out his sockets. The coppery tang of blood filled the back of his mouth.
More wreckage was falling around him as he was pulled into the skywagon by Piper. Doctor Sterling did not look well, both eyes were bloodshot, red, and blood poured from his nostrils in a steady flow. The wreckage hitting his shields had been too much for him and the strain had become physical injury.
Woozy, disoriented, Flicker brought his own brute force telekinesis into play, shoving and pushing things away when they were too close. The pegasus pony flew as fast as he could, his wings tearing through the air, trying to fly out of the path of the falling bits of burning airship. Flicker hit something with his telekinesis that was just a little bit too much for him to handle and the strain was like being punched behind his face. Once more, his eyeballs almost popped out of his sockets, all of his teeth went on edge, and he felt blood go gushing out of his nose, flooding the inside of his mask.
Flicker’s relief returned once more when they soared through clear skies. From here on out, it was all smooth flying. Flicker slumped down and struggled to breathe. Everything inside of him felt squishy and his brain felt like mush. Tearing his mask away from his face, he grabbed Doctor Sterling and gave him a gentle shake, gentle by Flicker’s standards.
The doctor wasn’t very responsive and he moaned.
“Hospital! NOW!” Flicker barked, his lips flecked with blood, and he knew that every second could matter in a case like this. “Hurry! Go now!”
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1:
This is my favorite chapter so far. It was a really cool visual.
Well, that was not personally expected.
7806690
In times of emergency, the militia is called out.
Chapter 3.
That's not at all foreshadowing. Nope.
I said it before and I'll keep saying it:
Flicker's dedication to and aptitude for killing rats no matter what is matched only by B.J. Blazkowicz's dedication to and aptitude for killing Nazis no matter what.
He could be on the moon and he would be killing rats like it was going out of style.
7806694 If im reading this right are we going to get a chapter soon where theGuilds are called to war . Also this chapter reminded me of pearl harbor. We have seen the war at the edges of Equestria with the closet attack at ponyville. The ponies in power in canterlot have never seen the war and in till this moment it was seen as more a security matter hence reserves where not called up. This chapter clearly shows the fleet in the safest port is attacked and infiltrated. I hope that is what finally kicks the ponies in power to action. Its really cool the parallels you are drawing here. I hope that we see that grogar him slef sees he has made a grave miscalculation he has woken the sleeping dragon. (Pardon for the bad English its 2:21 am)
7806715
Little rat saboteurs in every major city, just lurking in the sewer.
Well... I don't think Piper and Hennessy will have to worry too much about the cleanup.
7806720 Yep to build on that idea I also wanted to suggest a pony who has a special talent in collecting far flung facts to draw conclusions kind of like this character from DC Comics. The special talent being to make conspiracy theories some one to see the rats plots where none would see them. Luna could call him in.
7806728
Are you kidding? There is a mess everywhere and somepony has to clean it up.
The harbor master has some explaining to do. Rats took out a lot of ships. I would expect attacks on the trains soon as well. Remove the easy ways of exiting the city and let the plague free on a largely contained populous. I am sure there are walking paths out of the city too but most of Canterlot's unicorns won't be obliged to take them and the ones who do it will be harder for disease control to track down before they spread the infection elsewhere unlike if they escaped by airship or train and a quarantine could be readied for it at the first stop.
7806775
Explain what and how?
This is new and as of yet unseen as far as behaviours go,
7806782
Flicker was clearly targetted to be killed in this attack. The harbor master did specifically request Flickee for this job. They may or may not be guilty of anything but this looks very very bad and suspicious for anyone going to investigate it.
7806775 I don't know -- if you're spreading a plague you *want* ponies to flee so that they can spread it farther.
Oh damn this is getting intense.
7806729 Oh buck....I DEMAND this OC now !!!!!
Another excellent chapter!
The undead killed with silver!
7806890
You do want ponies to flee but you want to make sure they have the plague and you want those fleeing to be more difficult to track or contain. Mass transit is easy to track and contain and making it so it is more difficult to flee the city though not impossible it ensures that the plague has more time to spread within. And it doesn't take too many infected to do a decent job of spreading virulent infection elsewhere, it just takes one person reaching a town who isn't admiting they were just where the plague broke out to spread it across the entire town quickly.
This also wouldn't be meant to be the most effective way to spread it across Equestria as a whole. Spreading it at key trade hubs and large food production centers would do that better. This would be a more targetted attack meant to effectively take out the city that does most of the regulation of defense in Equestria. Remove Canterlot and when you do try to spread the plague elsewhere inllen masse the ponies of Equestria will be less effective and more disorganized in their response.
Flicker has this bad tendency to go boom... Maybe they need to have a pony good at gluing ponies back together on call
I wanna know what Hennessy said.
7806790
Or it could be as simple as Doctor Sterling said, other older apprentices have done shit jobs, because they think anything other than the killing is above them and their greatness while Flicker does the damn job like is is actually supposed to be done and this is preferred to any others from the guild.
So now that they know there are more Rat Bastards meaning they do not need the one they have alive. They can can kill him in order to take him apart for study as they can eventually get a new one to study... unless he were to make himself useful. And they don't even have to kill him quickly. they can make it slow to show him they mean business.
7807195
It vertly well could be he is completely. But the bottom line is that it looks very bad for him to have requested someone in particular who the enemy specifically targetted for removal at that day and site. No investigator could posdibly ignore that fact and will likely interview him at length to determine his innocence.
Say you asked someone to come preform at some event. Someone that people wouldn't likely know about until they arrive at the event. Now say someone shows up specifically to gun them down and they were clearly prepared ahead of time to do so rather than this being a spur of the moment thing. Do you not expect the police to be questioning you about your possible involvement whether you had anything to do with it or not?
7807135
Paging Doctor Sterling.
Too bad Flicker is pure gay, otherwise we'd have a great triad here. Not a complaint, mind, just an observation.
Well then. I can't say this caught me entirely off-guard, having had some small measure of forewarning, that I did, but still...
These rats are some serious trouble: this goes way past mere malevolent animal cunning. Then again, we knew that already.
A big, loud play to get things rolling? Come now Rat Bastard, more subtlety.
This'll be fun.
This is a prime example of why reading The Chase is weird for me. Not bad weird, mind you. No, it's a good weird. I get to see how you improved as a writer over time, and it's really interesting to see. I mean, the action here just flows so much better than the action scenes I've got to so far in The Chase, but then again I'm only at around chapter 100. You've also vastly improved at keeping characters knowledge partitioned from each other. In The Chase every pony has an oddly intuitive sense of the others or how things should be. They know and realize things they probably shouldn't, but here in the last chapter you made it clear just how intelligent Spud really is, and that's something we couldn't have known with the state of imperfect narration until you did that specific scene in the beginning as you did.
This is what those vermin scum hear in the back of their microscopic ratty little minds when Darth Nicker approaches:
Huh, I have to say I did not expect exploding airships. Part of a larger attack in whatever war is going on, or was all of this intended just to take out Flicker?
That parachute is an interesting little detail. That implies the enemy force isn't operating with an effectively unlimited number of completely disposable rat minions and that this wasn't intended as a suicide mission. In the brutal calculus of this conflict, taking Flicker off the board would probably be worth a suicide mission.
Of course, in the end it was a suicide mission, but hey, Flicker. And the silvery flames, cutie mark talent, or the new Lima Death connection? It would be convenient to have special Death granted anti-undead fire.
"Spider-hag, spider-hag,
Laying her eggs in an intestinal bag"
Will she feast? Listen bud.
She'll make soup of your guts and blood
7808660 Look out, here comes the spider hag
In the thrill of night, at the scene of a crime
An unholy sight, slurping up pony slime
7810505
7808660
The real horror here is that something had sex with her to fertilise her eggs...
7810513
No... the real horror is that I assumed that she just used the genetic material from the genitalia she apparently eats and corrupts it with dark magic or whatever. And it's still worse
. I can practically hear the clip of Lilly saying " The horror, The horror!"
I don't know if this is a Hamilton reference or just coincidence, but I like it anyway.