Interviews With Equestrians

by Jmaster49

Subject 270: Area 2

The Tree of Harmony was now in sight. Just as we had predicted, its position had changed to the farther side of the castle where the structural integrity had lost its luster the fastest over the centuries.

And before we even had a chance of reaching it, we were assaulted with more magic on our position.

“Guys look out!” Corkscrew shouted from above us.

What followed next was a desperate attempt to throw us out of existence. A massive twister filled with an unstable amount of wind-based magic was flung towards our position. It was bigger than any hurricane that I had ever seen before, and I could already feel myself being lifted off the ground.

“Wh--huh?!” I tried my best to keep my hooves planted firmly in the ground to avoid being swept away, but it would only serve to delay the inevitable. Quick and Drive were both in the same position as myself, and I had to hold onto them both out of desperation to keep them tethered.

That is, until my friend decided to do the unthinkable.

“YAAAAAGH!”

With a war cry that could scare even the biggest of monsters, Corkscrew flew directly into the eye of that twister. I was so focused on staying locked on the ground that I could barely comprehend what happened above us. As a result, everything was left to conjecture.

“I’m slipping!” Drive shouted with his body halfway hoisted into the air thanks to the extreme gale force.

“We’re not gonna die like this!” Quick yelled with her hoof tightened around mine to keep herself weighted down.

Meanwhile, I did my best to hold onto Drive directly. We wouldn’t last much longer like this. The twister had started to take entire trees from the outside of the castle along with boulders and various pieces of debris. I could only pray that Cork knew what he was doing in order to get rid of this.

From what I could manage to make out, his orange body started to fly against the force of the twister. Opposite of the way it moved. All the way down until he reached the cone-shaped bottom of it. A dull blur that swooped against everything….was he insane?

There was a high probability. And yet...

FWOOOOOOOSH! BANG!
With a loud, set of winds that spiraled in reverse, an explosion occurred that resulted in the twister disappearing almost instantly in a flash of light.

“Oof!” Drive hit the ground with a hefty thud. “What the bloody hell was that?”

“No idea,” I replied as I gazed into the sky. Up there, I could see that Corkscrew had flown himself ragged. “...That crazy man. He must have reversed the twister out of existence.”

“What?!” Quick cried out in disbelief, “You can actually do that?!”

After what I could only imagine to be a monstrous undertaking, Corkscrew hovered back down to us with the color almost sapped from his normally-orange face. “Whew...did it, guys…”

We rushed to his side to check up on him. Oddly enough, aside from the shortness of breath, he didn’t seem to be ailed too heavily.

“You alright, Cork?” I asked as I looked him over.

He waved his hoof in a dismissive fashion to ease our concerns. “Yeah. I’m good. We need to keep going, though.” Surprisingly enough, his wings were still in good enough condition to continue flight. Albeit at a much slower pace.

Quick Draw gazed at the horizon ahead of us. There was still quite a ways to go before we reached the final area of the castle, but it wasn’t going to be much longer now. “Okay, we’re almost there. We just need to stick together and hold out until the end.”

From behind, Guttersnipe had finally caught up with us. Her wings emitted oodles of smoke from how much they had been overheated in the amount of time she battled those demons of the sky. “Yeesh...what a mess. We still have the advantage guys, so don’t muck around.”

From above us, Neon would sound off. “Anypony else notice that the Tree of Harmony isn’t in the middle of these here ruins, lads? It’s like it was a trick...”

“Wait are you serious?” Corkscrew asked, “That’s quite the damn puzzler…”

“Was it a mirage?” I ventured my own guess, “If so, then that could only mean it was moved further…”

Quick Draw stood up, and offered her two bits. “We’re wasting time theorizing. We’ll figure it out when we get there,” she trotted on ahead which turned into a prance and a brisk gallop, “Let’s go everyone!”

Perfect. With that out of the way, we were able to press on. Both the ground crew and air crew of my respective squad would travel in a beeline towards the very end of this castle even if it meant we would be eradicated, we would do our best to make our mark on history and put Grogar out of his misery once and for all.

Well, that was the idea behind it at least.

As we drew closer, we could see the ruined ramparts that made up the castle’s Eastern wing. We were finally there. It was about to be over at long last, right? Well…

It was as if we didn’t have enough interruptions. Near the very final leg of the castle where the throne room, and Tree of Harmony were supposedly located, something happened to the ground...

And it was a massive quake.

“Wh-whoa!”

“Aie!”

“Agh!”

Quick, Drive, and I all fell on our backs. The ground started to shake so violently that the entire earth felt like it would erupt and explode at any moment. And to be quite frank...that’s sort of what happened.

From out of the ground sprouted a massive creature made of nothing but hellfire and brimstone. It looked like something out of a P.H. Hoofcraft novel. And upon closer inspection, I was finally able to decipher that--based on the nose-ring, bull-like features, and the fact that it stood on four hooves…

It was a centaur. But not just any centaur.

“...That’s Tirek and Scorpan’s grandfather…” Neon mumbled as he walked in front of us. “Mates...back me up. This is about to get ugly.”

Comments

[Neo4K]

Huh. I wasn't aware that Tirek and Scorpan had a grandfather. Then again, there's that female gargoyle that attacked Ponyville. So...there's that.