A Heart of Stone

by TheWhiteFreak

Ch. 6 One More Step

Ch. 6 One More Step

“YOU ASSHOLE!” I roared as I lunged from my position and grabbed Second Gear by the throat and heaved him into the air.

I really wanted to just drain his life from him and leave his body in the snow but I held back as the thought of this bastard memories in my head made my skin crawl and I also wanted to make him suffer for what he did to me. His two front hooves were wrapped around my wrist in some attempt to make me let go and his back legs were flailing about.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now” he was hacking and coughing as he struggled to breath.

He opened his one good eye and his horn lit up as he tried to shoot some spell at me but whatever had happened to him before had severely weakened his magic and his spell glanced off my head right above my eye but it felt like someone pinched me. Even though it didn’t hurt it still infuriated me that he was still trying to hurt me.

“That’s how you wanna do it? Fine!” I brought up my other hand and in one quick motion snapped his horn off of his head, to which he gave a pained scream.

I dropped him on the ground and he proceeded to roll around and kept on screaming as he clutched the spot where his horn used to be. I was extremely tempted to crush him under my foot but I stopped myself and instead picked him up again and brought him a few inches from my face. He was still whimpering and had tears rolling down his face but was otherwise silent as I stared down at him.

My stomach was doing backflips at its desire to drain his life but my rage wanted to make him suffer further for what he did to me, even my hand was trembling, the desire to crush his windpipe gnawing at my mind, my entire body was fighting with itself at what to do to him. My mind was able to regain control over my rebellious body and I simply flung Second out into the snow.

He slid a few feet in the snow before he came to a stop and looked back at me, “I suggest you start running before I change my mind.”

He didn’t need a second warning as he struggled to his feet and took off into the darkness. I walked over and flopped back down next to Third and let out a huge sigh. I looked back across the campfire and saw Red just staring at me.

“What?”

“That was pretty extreme mate, did he really deserve that? I didn’t like him myself but a unicorn losing their horn is like losing yer legs”

“I don’t feel sorry for him, that pony was a monster and I’m still debating if it was a good idea to let him go but I wasn't gonna let him walk away like nothing happened. Maybe We should chase him down and break his legs and let him crawl through the snow like a worm until he freezes to death.” a second voice using my mouth to speak called out that scared me.

'What was that? Did I just say that? No, I probably just though it in my head cause I'm really tired from absorbing all that magic from before, yea that's it, that has to be it.'

“Uh…ok, I won’t mention it again… but… what we gonna do now?” Red only seemed slightly taken aback about what I just said.

“I… I don’t know… get some sleep. We’ll figure out… something tomorrow.”

“What about you mate? You only slept for bout two hours and that thing with Second-.”

“I’ll be fine” I interrupted, “don’t think I could sleep right now anyways.”

“Alright mate, just don’t push yerself too hard now.” He said as he lowered his head to the ground and was asleep in minutes.

‘Heh, wish I could fall asleep that fast, guess that’s a talent a merc picks up after a while.’ I looked down to Third and felt for her heartbeat again, ‘good, still there, but what are we gonna do? We can’t stay here, but where can we go?’

I just stared at the fire, losing myself in the hypnotizing flames; seconds turned into minutes, minutes turned into hours as I kept adding fire to the flames to keep the ponies warm. A stupid thought entered my brain and in an equally stupid move, I grabbed one of the flaming logs with a hand. I don’t know why I did it, I was half expecting it to burn like when the Protector Tower blasted me, but instead I found myself holding a flaming log in my hand like it was nothing, it didn’t even fell warm against my skin.

‘So I guess only magical fire can hurt me? Proves my ‘weak against magic’ theory’

I continued to play with the fire, occasionally poking it with my hand and making sure it didn’t get too small. I was so busy taking care of the fire and thinking everything that had happened to me so far, I didn’t even notice the sunrise. It wasn’t a bright and sunny day by a long shot as the clouds had rolled back in and covered the hole in the sky, but it was less dark, sort of like an overcast day and it wasn’t snowing. I heard a mumble and looked over to Red who was on his back with his hooves kicking in the air like a dog chasing something in a dream. He then tilled over and his hooves hit the ground with a thump that shook him awake.

“Huh! Wha happen?” he said through half-lidded eyes and a slack mouth.

“Have a nice dream?” I said with a chuckle.

“Ugg… no, had nother nightmare bout that crazy pink pony I met back in Ponyville chasing me with cupcakes and stuff. Just thinkin bout her… “He suddenly shivered.

“I did some thinking… We need to leave this place, there is nothing left here and we have to make sure Third is ok.”

“Good plan mate, while looking for survivors last night, I saw that there is plenty o’ food n’ stuff for a trip. Where we gonna go?”

“I was hoping you would know. Is there a town close to here?”

“Hmm… the closest town is Black Port and its bout a week west, wouldn’t really call it a town though, more of a half dozen buildings with a dock on it.”

“Then that’s where we’re heading, go gather up as much food as possible and don’t worry about food for me, I eat magic and I can get that from plants and animals.” He gave a quick salute before bolting off into the ruins of the town.
I looked down at my hands, ‘good,fingers are still blue so I won’t have to eat for a little while at least’

I was interrupted from my thoughts by a small groan from my side, I quickly snapped my head and saw that Third had woken up.

“Third! I was worried you weren’t gonna wake up!” she groaned again as she brought her hoof and rubbed her head.

“Dia? What happened?” her voice was weak and raspy.

“The station was attacked by an army of mercenaries.” She slowly looked around at the destroyed ruins of her house.

“Where is everypony?”

“I… I’m sorry… but you, me and Red Shot are… the only ones who… made it” I winced as I told her.

“O-oh” she simply looked down.

‘She must be in shock, any normal kid would be and I can’t really blame her.’ She didn’t even have a tear in her eye.

“Hey, are you ok?” I gently put my hand and her back to attempt to comfort her.

“Yea, I never really liked the other ponies here, Mr. Red Shot was the only one that ever nice to me, and at least you are here.” She looked up and gave me a forced smile but I could still see the pain behind it.

I scooped her up and tired my best to give her a comforting hug, “What… what are you doing? I’m… I’m fine… really” she started shaking before exploding into sobbing.

She grabbed on to my arm and started nuzzling into the crook of my arm; I could only hope that my stone skin wouldn’t hurt her. She continued sobbing while I held her without saying a word. After some time, her sobbing got quieter until she was just sniffling.

“I’m sorry Third” she only gave a small squeak.

“She’s awake is she? Good, was startin’ ta worry bout ‘er” I heard Red call out from behind me.

I turned my head and saw him carrying a large sack in his magic along with a saddlebag; the sack was big enough to fit both him and Third in it with room to spare while the saddlebag looked like it belonged to him. He let out a sigh as he dropped the sack on the ground and flopped on the ground and let his saddlebag slide off of him.

“*whew* that’s everythin’ I could think of that we might need, sorry mate but yer stuck carryin’ the bulk of the gear since yer the biggest of our little group.”

“That’s fine. Before we head out I think you guys should eat something.” I placed Third back on the ground.

“Righto, ‘ere ya go little one.” Red said as he levitated over a couple of pieces of fruit.

She tried to use her own magic to lift up the fruit but ended up letting out a pained grunt and grabbed her head with her front hooves.

“Easy, little one, ya got a nasty crack in your horn, it’s gonna take some time ta heal, so until then ya gonna have ta do things earth pony style fer a bit.”

She gave a slow nod before grabbing an apple with her hooves and started devouring it in earnest, Red grabbed a hoof full of nuts and popped them into his mouth and crunched down on them. I wasn’t really hungry so I decided to look through the bag that I was going to be carrying.

Inside the bag was an assortment of survival gear; rope, a lantern, a folded-up tent, blankets, a first-aid kit, a compass, a rough map of the Icelands, a good deal of fruit, vegetables and nuts. During my inventory of the stuff I would be carrying, Red and Third had finished their meal.

“Right mate, all set to go.” He said as he stood up and stretched.

Third also stood up and untangled herself from the blankets before quickly donning her winter coat and pulling the hood up to protect her face. Her coat was different from Red’s; his was black and very thin, looking almost like suede with a lining inside of it to not restrict movement. He also had a short sword tied to his back along with his bow and a quiver of arrows and similar styled boots that covered his hooves. Third’s coat was a dark purple and very poufy, much like the kind of coat a human child would wear along with her purple fuzzy boots. I stood up and slung the large pack on to my back with the strap over one shoulder, thankfully none of my shoulder spikes tore it open. Red used his magic and sling his own saddlebags on while Third wasn’t carrying anything, she was the smallest and was injured so neither of us said anything.
I looked down to Third and saw that she was shaking a little bit so I reached down and picked her up and placed her on my empty shoulder, she gave a little squeak but was quiet otherwise, she knew that she was too injured to be walking around a lot.

“Alright then, let’s go.” I said as we walked out of the ruined house, past the charred remains of houses, past the twisted skeleton of the Protector Tower, past the frozen corpses of the bandits and the mercenaries and past the outskirts of the research station into the wilderness of The Icelands.

Red said that it would take about a week to reach Black Port and we had just seen the sunrise (more or less) on our fifth day. The trip was thankfully uneventful aside from the occasional close calls with the local wildlife; I was luckily big enough to scare off most of them. Another stroke of luck was that it wasn’t snowing constantly, according to Red, winter had just ended so it wouldn’t snow as often but without anypony to perform ‘Winter Wrap Up’ as it was called, the snow would still be there when winter starts back up; we were able to make great time with me not needing to sleep very often, carrying Third and Red being so fit. I could still sleep if I wanted to, but it seemed like it was more for a way to pass time than to actually rest and regain energy, in fact, the whole trip to the port I only slept once yet i didnt feel sleepy at all. Hunting was also far easier thanks to Red’s bow, he was a dead shot, in all the time that we spent traveling together, he had yet to miss what he was aiming for. He was taken back a little when he first saw how I drain magic from things but after I explained it, he just shrugged it off like it was nothing. I continued telling Third more stories about my world, the most recent one was telephones, I even explained that I used to be a human to Red and he just accepted it at face value without a second thought, when I asked him why he accepted it like he hears it all the time, he just said “I’ve been all over the world mate, not much fazes me much anymore.” with a smirk.

“Oy, Diamant” Red said as he looked up at me.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ since we are pretty close to the port, what are we gonna say when other ponies see ya? I doubt they just gonna leave it alone when they see ya.”

“You’re right… hmm” I tapped my chin with a finger before it hit me, “ah-ha! I got it!” both Red and Third flinched at my sudden outburst.

“I can be a golem.”

“What’s a golem?” Third chirped in while lying on my shoulder.

“Well back in the human world, there was a game called Dungeons & Dragons that was based off all kind of magical and mythical creatures, a lot of them seem to be here as well which is why I thought of it. In this game golems were magical constructs made by powerful spell casters, or in this case unicorns, made from mostly inert material such as clay, wood, stone, iron and stuff like that as protectors for them, I can just pretend to be one of those, it’s not like anyone will be able to tell the difference.”

“That sounds like a plan but ya said that golems were made by unicorns, but I think that we should ‘ave Third be yer ‘maker’ since my magic stinks aside from telekinesis and me with my bow and sword would conflict with being a powerful unicorn.”

“Smart thinking.” I turned and looked at Third, “So Third, you mind being my master for a little bit?” she let out a giggle and a nod.

“Good, so for this to work, I am going to be silent while we are around other ponies and Third can just order me if she wants me to do anything other than follow her since golems possess no intelligence beside enough awareness to follow orders.”

We all agreed with the plan, and continued waking. After another hour or so, Red looked around quickly before galloping ahead and diving through some bushes.

“Follow him Golem!” Third giggled out.

I shot her a look before I started lightly jogging to catch up with Red, I passed through bushes and saw Red standing on a snow covered road with two fence lines on each side.

“Ha-ha! Found it! The port is at the top of the hill.” He exclaimed while pointing a hoof to a hill that the road followed.
I stepped over the low fence and looked to where he was pointing and true to his word; I could see a thin trail of smoke wafting over the hill that was probably from a fireplace or something. We both looked at each other and with a silent nod, started walking up the hill towards the town. As we walked up the gentle slope, looked down and saw there had been some traffic before us, some hooves were coming from the town and others were going to the town, there were even some wheel tracks, probably from a cart.

We soon crested the hill and were looking down on the town and like Red said, town was being generous. There were only six buildings and only three of them were two stories and larger than a single-wide mobile home. Two of the larger ones were built right next to each other and the third one was across the street from them. The lone building had a small porch running the length the front of it with an overhang protecting the ponies on the porch when it snows. The sign that was hanging from the overhang had a picture of a mug with a… saltlick on it and was called The Mule’s Ass. The building across the street had the same porch and overhang but its sign was that of a mattress and pillow but didn’t have any words on it. The last building didn’t have the front porch but instead had a pair of double doors and the sign above it had a single crate and said Bits and Pieces.

‘So we have an inn, a bar and a general store.’

Farther past the buildings there was a single dock that led to a ship that looked like it came from that pirate movie that I remember seeing the posters from. It had three masts with an assortment of sails all wrapped up and a whole bunch of rope lines covering it. The entire thing looked fairly large and could probably hold about two hundred ponies or so. I could also see a couple of ponies scrambling around on the deck of the ship, pushing barrels around along with a couple of pegasus flying around the upper rigging of the ship, tying ropes off with their hooves.

Red looked up at me, “we should head ta the bar, see if the captain o that ship can take three more passengers” Third agreed and we headed down the hill towards the bar.

As we approached the bar, I heard the sounds of fighting and then saw as a pony crashed through the window and slide to stop in front of us.He was an earth pony with a yellow coat that was covered with grease and dirt smudges and missing patches of fur, his mane was shaved off but his tail was a dirty brown that was almost black near the tip that dragged on the ground. He turned over and groaned as he opened his eyes revealing his brown eyes that instantly locked onto me.

“Whoa, I need ta ssshtop drunkin sa mush” he slurred out as he staggered back to his feet and hobbled back into the bar.

“Pirates. That’s gonna make things a might tougher to get passage but I think we’ll manage” Red sighed as we continued walking up the porch and into the bar.

The wood floor creaked and sighed as I took each step on the porch, there was some jovial music that was being played on a piano in the bar along with a cacophony of talking and shouting that all instantly stopped as I walked through the swinging doors. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop but I couldn’t do anything that showed intelligence so I followed Red over to an open table and picked up Third off my shoulder and put her in a chair before standing next to her.
Red looked at Third but was talking to me with a hushed voice, “You see that pony sittin’ over in the corner there?” he gestured with his head over his right shoulder and I looked over without turning my head, “He’s the captain, I’m gonna go over and talk about getting a ride back to Equestria” he didn’t wait for me to respond before putting down his bow and saddlebags on the table, grabbing a small pouch from his bag and made his way to the captain.

The captain was a pegasus with a dark-blue coat and large wings that draped over his cutie mark, his mane and tail were jet-black that was tangled and unkempt. His eyes were deep yellow that almost looked orange, he wore a red bandana that covered his forehead and kept his hair back, he was wearing a dirty white shirt and a light blue coat over that. He also had two sheathed swords that were tied to each side.

My attention was drawn away from the pegasus by three ponies who walked up to our table and looked up at me.

“Whut yu suppose to be” one of the ponies drunkenly slurred out at me.

Third was the one who answered him, “He is my golem and he doesn’t talk” she said with confidence.

“Oh isn’t that cute, little freak thinks she’s in charge” another earth pony who didn’t sound as drunk reached over to her.

Playing my part as a protector, I quickly moved my hand and placed it in between him and her and all three of them flinched back.

“I would suggest you not try to touch me, he doesn’t like it” Third was playing the part of a snooty unicorn perfectly.

“Oh is that so? Well why don’t we just turn him into gravel and then see what he does then?” the pony said as him and his two buddies drew their swords.

Maybe a little too perfectly.

Comments

[demanji]

bar fight so far all chess game of gods fics i have read have had a bar fight

[skyscraper123]

LOVE IT!!!!! I just read all of the chapters SO.... MUCH..... WIN!!!!!!

1111903 By the way your picture is HILARIOUS!

[lolz anonymous]

nice... bar fight.

[TheWhiteFreak]

Of course, what kind of chess game story is complete without a good ol' bar fight? You meet such lovely people there.

[Stormy Sunrise]

NNANANANANANA WERE ALL GONNA GET IN A FIGHT!

[Blue Streak]

I see pain and stars in the pirate's near future

[Pelakka_wurm]

1111903
YESH BBBBAAARRRR FFFFIIIIIIHGGGGGHHHHHTTTT!!!!!!!