• Published 10th Jul 2012
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Shackles and Friendship - Zaibatsu



A HiE fic filled with light comedy and a bit of adventure. Enjoy.

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Chapter 14 - Look at the size of that thing

Shackles and Friendship
Chapter 14 - Look at the size of that thing
Edited by Noxxels


"AAACHUUUU!! Ugh. *sniff-sniff* "

"Oh dear, uhm, here drink this. That is if you want to, perfectly fine if you don't, uhm, but please do." Fluttershy poured me another cup of hot tea from a pitcher that she held in her mouth, it was actually quite impressive, but let's rewind a bit.

Getting drenched right after sunset and having to spend nearly all night cleaning and salvaging whatever's left of the library, as well as my dignity, was torture. All I remember was undressing, getting in the shower which was far too small for my size, and somehow ending up butt naked outside the library. I can only imagine what the townsfolk think of me now, first I nearly burned the library next I'm streaking down the road riding a wave alongside Twilight. Add a cold night with no enchanted heating system, a damp bed, and little sleep it came to no surprise that I'd wind up with a cold in the morning. NOT what I what I expected my first night to be. Since Twilight had an entire library/home to fix she decided to leave me and Owlowiscious at Fluttershy's for the day. I know it's only a cold but sending me to someone who's practically a vet made me worry, though seeing as doctors here treat ponies it really didn't make much difference.

"Please Fluttershy, you don't have to stay on my behalf. It’s already late afternoon and I'm sure there are animals that need your attention, I’m perfectly fine taking care of myself. I’ll just go back to the library and-” but before I could even get one leg off the small bed, Fluttershy suddenly flew up on top of the bed and and stared down at me, all traces of her anxiety and nervousness gone.

“Now listen here mister! A cold is nothing to be taken lightly! Twilight has asked me to take care of you and you will stay in bed. Is that understood!?”

*whimper*

“Good. Now uhm, if you could please finish drinking as much tea. That is, if you want to but it’s for the best that you do.” And just like that she’s back again. Ever since I arrived at her cottage after being dropped of by Twilight, the yellow pegasus has been acting erratically. Most of the time she remains her timid self, but whenever I try to leave or refuse any of her care she’d go ballistic. And if that weren’t enough to keep me on edge, I still have to deal with him.

'Dammit she's right there! Grab her!’

‘I am not glomping anyone!’

'Have it your way. Iiiiiiiiiiiiit's-'

'Don't you fucking dare.'

"Oh uhm, so sorry for jumping on you like that. I'll just uhm be downstairs if you....oh dear." Fluttershy immediately went into a frantic rush, hovering left and right trying to see what went wrong with my right eye. "Oh my goodness! Nononononono! What did I do? Was it the tea? Are you in pain? Oh please don't die! I'll grab the medicine." She ran downstairs and I could hear some clamor below as she rummaged through cabinets and drawers looking for something.

Several minutes later she came back carrying a saddle bag containing a large assortment of potions, salves, bandages and several other items I'm not familiar with. Just as I was about to question her intentions she rummaged into one bag and came out holding a syringe in her mouth. Whatever it was for it clearly was not meant for a human, that thing was gigantic, at least three times larger than a normal and had a needle twice as long and thick. Using her wing she took the instrument and poked it into a vial and began filling it with a large amount of orange liquid.

"Now hold still please."

'Ah' 'crap.'

[Sometime later, at Golden Oaks Library....]

"...EGD11050389, there that's the last one Twilight." Spike slid down from the ladder and immediately fell to the floor in exhaustion. "And three shelves to go." nearby lay a towering pile of dried books that still needed shelving.

"Did you check their contents?"

"Yes Twilight, everything is still legible. Still smells funny though." With some effort Spike got up and made his way to Twilight. "Can we do do the rest tomorrow? I'm beat plus we still haven't restocked the kitchen." Right on cue Twilight's stomach made a loud complaint.

"Wow time does fly by when you're having fun." Spike just rolled his eyes, not in the least surprised. "Do we still have enough left for dinner?"

"Hmm I think so. All the stuff in the fridge was saved and we've got plenty of leftovers from Pinkie's last party. Too bad all my gems are ruined." Spike grumbled.

"How are the gems ruined, they looked perfectly fine to me."

"They look fine but they taste awful, most of them tasted like burnt sugar. Eekkhh." Spike stuck his tongue out in disgust. "I'll just give them to Rarity the next time she comes by."

"I'm sure Rarity will be delighted, now go prepare for dinner. I'm going to go to Fluttershy's place and check on Rodney."

"I still say it's a bad idea to let him sleep here, especially downstairs with all that equipment. I mean look at what he did in one day! That monkey's a walking disaster." Spike started walking towards the kitchen which had been cleaned of all soot and ash but was practically barren except for the few items and furniture that the fire didn't touch.

"I know he can be, problematic..."

"That's an understatement!" Spike yelled.

"But I can't let him out of my sight. Princess Celestia's orders." A second later Spike's head poked out of the corner and he looked at Twilight with a raised eyebrow.

"Why? You said he was harmless." Twilight mentally slapped herself for her carelessness.

"He is Spike. The Princess is just....interested. He is, after all, the only one of his kind in Equestria."

"I...guess that makes sense." Spike's head disappeared back to the kitchen. "But he better make up for my gems!"

"I'll be sure to tell Rarity to take him during her next gem hunt. *giggle* I'm sure he'll enjoy it." With that Twilight went out the front door. What came next was a blur of motion, Rodney came barreling in carrying a surprised and confused Twilight, dropped her on the floor and immediately slammed the door shut and leaned on it with his arms wide open bracing for impact. "Rodney!? What the hay are you doing back here? You're supposed to be resting at Fluttershy's-"

THUD!

Before Twilight finished the sharp crack of splinters resounded through the air as something long, sharp, and metallic punctured through the wooden door, protruding mere inches away from Rodney's head causing small fragments to break off. Rodney's knees gave out at the sight of the needle poking through the wood where drops of orange liquid started to leak out from the tip. Silence fell with Twilight trying to fathom the situation while Rodney slumped to a sitting position by the door looking completely exhausted, weak and out of breath. The silence was broken with the tiniest tap from the door followed by a small soft voice.

"Uhm, excuse me Twilight but, if you could be so kind to please open the door. I really have to administer some medicine to your friend." Twilight saw Rodney shaking his head frantically about, pleading with fearful eyes.

*siiiiiiiiiigh* "Rodney open the door."

"Are you crazy!? Look at the size of that thing! It went through your door for crying out loud!"

"Rodney." Twilight spoke flatly, though her expression clearly showed that she was in no mood for back talk. With some hesitation Rodney got to his feet and after taking some slow steps from the door made a sudden dash and hid behind the large wood sculpture in the middle of the room. Purple aura covered the door as Twilight opened it with her magic, behind it stood the timid Fluttershy wearing a unusual type of strap around her body where several syringe each filled with orange liquid like the one still stuck sticking on the door were being held in small slots. To Rodney it looked similar to how snipers or soldiers would wear bullet straps with their equipment.

"What's going on Twilight? Who's in the front-GAH!" as soon as Spike saw Fluttershy walking into the library with a multitude of giant syringe he jumped up in fright and fell to a crouching position, ready to leap away from any attempt of capture. "Twilight I said I'm not getting a shot! And nothing you, the vet, or Fluttershy can do anything about it!"

"Aw aren't you just the cutest baby dragon. *giggle* Don't worry Spike these are for Rodney not you." Fluttershy spoke in a light caring and amused tone.

"Aah pheeew, in that case-"

"Your's is next week."

"What!?"

"Fluttershy, that was suppose to be a secret!" Twilight yelled.

"Oh right, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me, I-it was a-ooh."

"It's ok Fluttershy, I'm not angry. And you are going Spike, no buts!" Spike kicked the floor and started to murmur something as he walked back into the kitchen. Seeing as he's got the mentality of a child, I'd wager he was already scheming a way out. "Now will somepony just explain what the hay is going on!?"

[Several minutes later.....]

"...so I thought he needed his medicine, but before I could he suddenly ran and jumped out the window. I thought the cold was making him delirious and I was afraid he might hurt himself so I chased him and, uhm well that's how we wound up here. Are you mad? Please don't be mad, he got away before I-"

"I'm not mad Fluttershy it's ok. *sigh* It's just that I probably should have expected something like this." Twilight gave me a flat look.

"Why are you looking at me for!? She's the one trying to kill me!" Fluttershy head dropped low as she hid behind her pink mane and started to sniffle.

"Look at what you did! You hurt her feelings. She's only trying to help you." Twilight yelled at me while holding a hoof pointed at Fluttershy. "Apologize!"

"It's ok Twilight, he doesn't have to-"

"Yes he does!" Twilight glared up at me still pointing at Fluttershy.

"But I-" Twilight brought down her hoof with a stomp and glared at me even harder. It was hard seeing the pegasus in that state and although her treatments were somewhat....lethal, it was still out of kindness. I walked over to her and kneeled down which made her sink deeper behind her mane. "I'm sorry I accused you of attempted murder, but c'mon if you look at it from my perspective it was-."

"Rodney!"

*sigh* "I'm sorry. For jumping out your window and making you chase me around. I'm just not good with needles is all, I guess I over reacted a bit." Slowly she moved out from her pink veil to look at me.

'Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!'

'Ugh FINE!'

Slowly I reached out and pulled the pegasus into a light hug which made her squeal, making her all the more adorable. She was tense the for the first few seconds, but eventually she calmed down and even threw her front hooves behind my neck as she returned the hug. The word 'soft' does not do her justice, in fact I doubt there's anything I've ever touched in my life that comes close to her coat and her mane was even more so. It was smooth as silk and felt extremely light easily flowing through my fingers and arms, models would kill to get natural hair like this.

'Do it!'

*sigh* I squeezed.

*squee*

"......."







*squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee-squee*

"Rodney!"

"Sorry 'bout that, kinda lost myself there." With some reluctance, I let the pegasus go and felt a sudden emptiness in my life.

'We're doing that again right?'

'..... yes.'

"Now then, Fluttershy would you care to join us for dinner? I'm afraid we don't have much since the fire but you're still welcome to join."

"Oh no Angel! Sorry Twilight but I have to go back and feed Angel. Uhm maybe next time."

"That's fine, say hi to him for me."

"Oh I will, and uhm sorry about everything again." she turned and galloped out the door, only to double back to pry the syringe out of the door with her mouth and inserted it into an empty slot on her strap with a wing. "Uhm, bye then." She flew off back towards her cottage.

"Angel?" I asked.

"Oh you didn't see him? Angel is Fluttershy's pet bunny."

"The white one?" she nodded. "Huh, gonna have to make another apology. I hope she find him."

"What was that?" She asked threateningly.

"Nothing. Let's eat shall we? All that running made me hungry." I walked into the kitchen before Twilight could start asking questions.

"Wait a minute how's your cold? Are you sure you don’t want to go back with Fluttershy?" Twilight asked once she entered the kitchen.

"Still have it, but I definitely feel better. Fluttershy gave me some tea before the whole fiasco, so it was either that or all the running around." I grabbed a plate Spike offered.

*sigh* 'More vegetarian crap.'

'And not the high quality stuff from the castle either, looks like leftovers.'

"Hey Twilight," I sat on the floor leaning to the wall. "I there any chance for me to eat meat in Ponyville?" I rummaged through the various plants and veggies on my plate, separating those I can eat and not.

"Y-you eat meat?"

"Funny hearing that from a dragon, who's eating a salad I might add." I teased. "Yes I eat meat, but also plants and veggies as you can clearly see." I took a bite of lettuce. "It's called being an omnivore. And no I don't eat ponies or dragons." Spike let out a sigh relief. "Much."

"Don't listen to him Spike, he's just teasing you. And sorry but no, all the residents of Ponyville are all ponies." 'of course they are, what was I thinking.’ "You should probably ask Fluttershy, it's rare but sometimes she also takes care of carnivorous animals though she mostly feeds them fish."

"Right now I'll settle with pretty much anything." I gave Spike a look while licking my lips in anticipation which made him scoot closer to Twilight. "So where am I going to be living then?"

"Excuse me?" Twilight asked between mouthfuls.

"Don't tell me you still plan on letting me stay here?" her lack of response was all the answer I need. "Twilight this place needs magic in order for you to live in, unless you plan on living without any cooked food or baths."

"Of course not, it's just that...." She started to mutter a bit trying to find an excuse or reason, clearly she still felt I wasn't ready or something.

"Alright look I'll stay here for another night, but tomorrow we need to find me a place to live that won't cause any natural disasters whenever I fart. Agreed?" Though there was some hesitation I knew Twilight couldn't refuse the logic in my reasoning and as predicted she agreed.

The rest of the day we spent eating and chatting with each other on the kitchen floor. At least Twilight and I was, Spike kept trying to talk his way out of his inevitable injection. After dinner Twilight and Spike went back to organizing the library and seeing as I was the cause, I helped. But it only lasted for roughly half an hour before nightfall came and so we decided to pick up where we left off tomorrow morning.

"Hey Twilight!" I yelled.

"You don't have to shout I can hear you perfectly fine from up here." Her head poked out over the railing on the second floor.

"You wouldn't happen to have a spare blank book do you?"

"I do actually, why do you need it?"

"I was thinking of writing a journal of sorts." One of the eyebrows rose.

"Like a diary?" I waved a hand as if slapping that idea away.

"Nothing so personal, it's just to keep track of things. Like you said we need to make more effort in researching my powers right?" Twilight beamed proudly at my initiative.

"There should be two or three by the study, go ahead and grab the ink and quill as well." She pointed to a small desk to one side of the library. I said my thanks and sure enough found a thick virgin book which was tied with strings that gave it a nice old time look to it. I took one and held it within my armpits as I grabbed the ink and quill from the table and headed down to the basement.


First entry.

Ok so first day could*SPLOT*

First thing: learn how to write with a qui*SPLOT*

Second thing: get another book I get a feeling this one's gonna run out fast.

Right, so first day was absolute hell. Apparently items or even buildings can contain enchantments, so now I have to watch out for everything! Not only stuff that looks like it runs on magic. During the fire fiasco I discovered that not knowing how much magic reserve I have accurately can be problematic. Next time I might not be so lucky, could even be fatal. So first I need a clear, direct, and consistent measurement of my magic reserve.

Second I need a list of spells. So far, I've only developed a few of them, but I’m not sure how far my subconscious can go and I'm not willing to take the risk of forgetting a spell when I might need it in dire situations. So this should act as a backup.

Current spells:

Current stable spells:

1) Levitation
Type: Constant
Takes hand gestures as input for control and requires visual of target. Past experiments without visuals result in me grabbing random shit.

2) Magnet
Type: Passive or constant
Surprisingly works for modified roller blades, though it’s only really effective on flat surfaces. Takes feet movement as input for control and with some alteration I can control the positive and negative attractions.

3) Fireball
Type: Active
Not sure if I should include this one or not considering it's just my raw magic. Explosion (radius) depends upon amount of magic, activates on contact of anything else other than my body. Thank god I*SPLOT*

4) Propulsion
Type: Active
Basically used to replicate the gunpowder system in guns. Level of speed and accuracy depends on magic input, the more magic the less accurate but more speed. (simplify to -> more magic = lower accuracy + greater speed?) Suck it Blueblood.

5) Shield
Type: Passive
Best. Spell. Ever. Activates only if anything approaches it beyond a specific speed. Set to drain as much magic as needed to repel incoming object, double edged as it can easily drain me entirely. It also activates to any incoming projectile despite the size, thus a shield for my entire body will activate even though I get hit with a pebble sized object. Requires massive fine tuning to be effective.

I’ll add my abilities as well while I'm a*SPLOT*.

My unique abilities:

1) Touch
Drains any non-living non-sentient object, no matter the size, of its enchantments. Limited only that object, even if something else is directly in contact with said object it will be affected. In other words the effect doesn't spread by contact from one object to another. Except if their magically connected, Twilight mentioned something like that on her shower.

2) Instant siphon
Can siphon particular amounts of magic from an individual or spell, however I require to first 'weigh' how much magic it has. For some reason I cannot simply assume to take half unless I know how much half of it is. Unless I decided to just take it all, however this leaves the source, if living, completely drained in a state similar to extreme exhaustion. Plus I might accidentally take in more than I can handle, I can't imagine the level of migraine if that happens.
(Additional note: My current ‘range’ appears to be about five meters, anything beyond that I can’t drain. Probably because my ‘sense’ only extends that distance, anything I can’t ‘see’ or ‘feel’, I can’t drain.)

3) Constant siphon
Hard to control, requires consistent focus to maintain. Too much work really, prefer instant method. Retains a constant flow of magic being siphon from a single target, in theory it should be possible to do more but I lack the skill and focus for now, if ever. Has more accurate control on the rate in which I drain the target.

End entry.

And remember to ask Twilight if she knows a spell to get rid of ink splotches.

End entry.





AN: Sorry for the delay, I'm new to working with an editor and there were some things on the technical side we needed to get through. But don't worry the editing process is smoother now since we manage to get it working on Google doc. Again praises to Noxxels he's done a decent job despite being new. In other words we've got both a nooby writer and editor, what could possibly go wrong?

You'll also notice something at the end there. I added it so that we can keep track of Rodney's spells and what not, that way readers aren't confused (I hope this doesn't confuse anyone further) and we can follow his progress and stuff.

As usual please comment and criticize, this time it's for both me and Noxxels so more the reason to do so.

Pinkie: Done?

Yup, masks?

Pinkie: Check.

Goggles?

Pinkie: Checkoroony.

Well then, *inhale*

Me & Pinkie: SPRAY-PAINT WAR!!

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