The Runaway Bodyguard

by scifipony

Chapter 13 — A Trot Down a Dangerous Road

Author's Note:

Mind the warning tags. All the tags apply to this chapter.

If you are following the story as I serialize it, I posted two chapters at the same time. See this post for the whys-and-wherefores.

Comment please. This was my most difficult chapter. Is this an adequate first Anakin Skywalker moment?

The old mare added, "And you take you some apples, too."

I glanced back at the Granny Smith apples and shook my head. "I haven't the bits to spare."

She aimed a side-kick my direction. "Don't you go makin' an old mare cross. I wasn't selling you apples; I wuz givin' you apples. Something to remind you to come back to Ponyville some day." She gave me a long wink.

I put an overly dramatic hoof over my heart. "Oh, I'm so very sorry, Grannie, to the depths of my soul!"

"You should be, young'un."

I took an apple, but she gave me the evil eye until I'd put four in my saddlebags. She pointed me toward the train station, though the smoke from the approaching train gave me a good idea where to head.

I saw pegasi and earth ponies mingling with the unicorns in the town, but few ponies near the station. When I got a direct line of sight, I saw nopony on the platform. I galloped. The approaching train might skip Ponyville altogether.

The train went to Dodge Junction. I shared regular coach benches with ponies out for seasonal work at the ranches. Since it was another small town with ponies sticking their muzzles in everypony's business, I took another train, and another, and another until I found myself on the eastern seaboard again, south of Manehattan and east of Fillydelphia, in the city I figured was my best bet to disappear within: Hobo Kin, Neigh Jersey. Could its founder could have named it more appropriately?

It was the city where the nomad workers of Equestria spent their winters. They called themselves workers as often as nomads, and I learned many of the mares and most of the stallions did work, some of the time. Mostly, though, they prized their freedom. Freedom from having to work to maintain a home, freedom from having to farm for harvests that could as often be poor as good, freedom from having to be bossed around doing meaningless work in a shop, factory, or mine. Freedom to live wherever they erected their tent, or found a shelter. Despite the cool spring, most had used up their bits and were setting out to find what Equestria held for them as the new grass turned green and the promise of summer shined on the horizon.

In reality, they were herds of unwashed ponies who would work for a day and loaf for a week, and few were philosophical about it. One young pony would as likely want naught but his cider, and a grassy knoll to sleep it off on, as another old stallion that might have lost everything he'd worked for and no longer cared to try again. If I didn't question their reasons, listened to their stories, and just nodded, I could be a student of the road we shared. I learned the best points of being a nomad pony: Trotting along being in control of my destiny, and being ready to chomp up dandelions growing in meadows of green wild oats.

I did not know I would learn more about myself than I bargained for. In retrospect, I should have trotted straight for Fillydelphia. I could have done that in about five days, but I had fallen in love with my freedom, as the herd I'd started with dissipated with each crossroad we encountered until I camped alone at night.

I would learn something essential—in a lightning storm.

Spring showers bring spring flowers, ponies say. Nevertheless, the pegasi have to schedule storms occasionally to clear the forests of old branches and to wash the debris of autumn and winter from the streams to the rivers. That evening, it rained hard. I'd seen the signpost and I knew if I kept up my trot on White Horse Pike I could make Deep Ford outside of Fillydelphia before midnight. Excitement overrode my good horse sense.

Rain came in waves, sometime more than a drizzle, and sometimes I had to push against the wind, despite the protection of the trees that lined the road. I'd sealed everything in my saddlebags and tied my tarp over my back as a makeshift rain slicker, but it couldn't protect my head. The rain wasn't cold, but not warm either, and the wind made it chill. Still, a pony trotting, digesting a good meal of cropped fresh grass, generates a lot of heat. After all, cave horses didn't actually live in caves, I'd read. They'd just painted pictures on the walls. I was stronger than when I'd begun my journey. Mane soaked and sticking to my neck, I didn't feel exactly comfortable, but other than blinking away the raindrops that landed in my eyes, I didn't feel put out. I'd made my choices; I could live with them.

Lightning flashed and I made out movement ahead. The clouds above had made the day dark, and as dusk approached, it made it more difficult to see. As the thunder rumbled through a few moments later, I made out a large earth pony stallion trotting as fast as I, heading back toward Pine Hill, which I'd left at noon. Like the miner from almost two weeks ago, he looked to be a Clydesdale, or some sort of work pony. In moments, I could hear his massive hooves splashing through the puddles as he approached. In the poor light, I could see scars on his face and a glint off his eyes.

"Good evening, good sir!" I said as we came alongside. I had learned the greeting of ponies on the road. I even nodded my head as we passed.

#

A sharp pain in my right temple shocked me back to consciousness. Neigh, I hurt all over, from my hips to my chest to my neck. Even my horn hurt. I felt like I'd been crushed by a pile of rock. A mind fog made it hard to understand the jostling. My head lolled to the right and bobbed.

Carried? Carried by a pony walking three-legged?

A flash of lightning illuminated the forest. The trunks were increasing in number as we went; I suddenly saw the shaggy monster that held me. I was being partially dragged up the hill on one side of the road, a foreleg looped under my withers but with my hindquarters carelessly hanging to the ground. A giant stallion pulled me along. My hip hit a big root, hard. The pain stole my breath.

I was under him and he was carrying me, but where?

Maybe because I was fogged, I didn't think straight. I forgot all the defense training my tutor had taught me, like being quiet until you understood your situation.

I said, "Just take my saddlebags. I've bits in there. I won't fight you."

The thunder rumbled, drowning out a rustle of leaves assaulted by a burst of heavy rain. I realized then that my tarp had been ripped off, which was probably why I realized next that I felt half-choked and that my neck burnt. I no longer wore anything, the least of which was my saddlebags.

The monster stopped. I yelled as I felt myself thrown head first toward the ground.

#

Was I too stupid to live? Even considering all the unfairness this world drowned me in, might be.

I did wake, however, moments after the back of my head had bounced off the wet ground. Purple and blue phosphenes circled me like exploding comets. I the splash and the slop of hooves. Slips jostled me, teasing falls that didn't happen. The water-logged side of the hill was softer than the stones that ponies had stomped into the bed of the road to keep it level and whole, despite seasonal storms.

I'd encountered one of Equestria's many monsters. I hadn't expected that the first monster I would fight would also be a pony.

I let my head loll to the side, despite the pain that caused, despite that he barely held my head high enough to protect my horn from snagging the ground. A cracked horn would be the end of any normal unicorn life, but he didn't care. He didn't want to be slowed.

He dragged my rear half underneath him. As best I could tell in the half-light, he was at least a half a pony length longer than I. He out massed me by double, all of it earth pony muscle. I stood no chance of outrunning the creep, or outfighting him.

I had to do something! He wasn't treating me like he had any intention of letting me survive the night.

Being dragged underneath him meant that his vitals were within the reach of my hooves, and that wasn't just his stallion parts. A hoof in his diaphragm could put him down for awhile, unable to find the breath to use his earth pony strength. Sadly, I had no leverage; my pampered-filly abdominal muscles weren't strong enough. I needed to be fully on my back to make a proper kick.

A flash of lightning made it easy to see his right leg as he reached forward nearly to my muzzle, still climbing to the ridge to the side of the road that wasn't high. He slipped and slipped again. I had little time left.

I used the fading brightness of the lightning to hide my spell prep. I needed seconds to spin up Levitate. More than a few as it turned out, with my head pounding. Then—when he next jammed his leg forcefully into the mud below my chin—I reached and bit down, hard.

My teeth clattered. I got a mouthful of hair and the littlest bit of skin. Sudden wet salty warmth filled my mouth.

He stumbled. I turned my face up and tucked my head to my chest as he inevitably dropped me. I felt my back hit low roots as my hindquarters splatted on muddy grass. I pulled in my hind legs and kicked, casting my spell.

Though I started sliding downhill, my left hoof kicked his inner thigh. Sadly, my levitation spell lessened the effectiveness of my kick. Worse, I got him suspended only half a pony length before he came crashing back down on me with his enormous chest.

I craned my head out of the way, but the impact knocked the wind out of me. My hindquarters had slid past his haunches though, and I had spun a bit. Instinct did the rest as I bucked, landing my hooves repeatedly where his tail met his flank.

It took him a moment to reorient. He tried to roll over on me. I desperately cast Levitation. That pushed him back and made him slide away. Unfortunately, it was no more than a light punch. He didn't even flinch.

I was free of him as he got his legs under himself. He lunged back while I flopped turtle-like on my back on the wet ground, unable to get my legs under me, spinning on the wet muddy grass, still struggling to breathe.

Like a wrestler, he aimed to pin me, again intending to knock the breath out of me. If he knocked me unconscious, it would be the last thing I saw.

I couldn't let that happen!

I cast a third time, my foggy head clearing as more adrenaline surged through my veins.

I slowed his descent; I felt his weight only a moment; he failed to crush me. I strained and grunted as I struggled to lift him off. He weighed more than the two pony weight I knew I could lift, but I grunted and fought my magic while dodging hooves that whooshed by my head, trying to club me senseless.

I tossed him away. Barely a pony length.

Oh, come on!

By the time I got my hooves under me, he barreled me over like a bull.

I kicked away. He failed to pin me as I rolled farther downhill, fetching up against a big gnarled root.

Without a neigh or a whinny, he stalked toward me. I cast as he lunged.

I caught him in my magic again, legs pumping in the air, not touching me. I saw a thick branch above me. I pushed with all my might and up he went.

It jabbed him. The branch shook as lightning flashed again. I'd hurt him, but not much. By the time the thunder came, I had no choice but throw him aside and try to scramble down the hill.

He charged. Despite him slipping, he was a rushing locomotive. Compared to him, I was tied to the railroad tracks. I'd gotten barely ten pony lengths downhill and had dodged a tree.

I stopped and ducked, casting a fifth time. Instead of pushing, I caught him up in the air and shoved toward the tree, changing his trajectory. Again, because of the vectors and his weight, I didn't succeed in much other than making him airborne before I lost the spell.

Nevertheless, he touched down in slipper mud and smashed into the tree. At full speed.

He collapsed. I jumped away.

My hooves slipped into a root, but it gave me leverage, so I aimed and connected my hooves with his ribcage.

A peel of thunder rolled in, so I missed hearing the satisfying crack of bone I suspected from the impact I felt through my hooves. I jumped again and went careening down the hill, sliding on my rump on the wet grass and mud, looking back.

Celestia on Rollerskates! He didn't stay down!

He lunged downhill after me, sluicing wetly but otherwise as silent as an icy wind and much more malevolent. I took a clue from throwing him into the tree and picked up branches and rock loosened by the rain on the hill, releasing my magic once I'd tossed them into the air.

Some connected, but he dodged well enough that what hit him hit his shoulders and not his head.

I became furious.

What did it take to stop the crazy pony? As he closed, my hooves scrabbled on the stone road. I aimed Levitate at him, narrowing my targeting, trying to push him to the side, to at least slap him hard.

I couldn't outrun an earth pony on the flat and narrow.

I even hit him on the snout with a rock. The lightning flashed at the right moment for me to see a smile develop on his face.

I was nothing to him. Just some fun on a dark, stormy night. Some toy to play with, break, and throw into a rubbish bin.

I pointed my horn at him, shut my eyes, and screamed as I cast once again.

I saw a flash through closed eyelids. A different, closer, short clap of thunder accompanied it—a strange herald for the actual thunder that rumbled in just after it.

The thunder almost drowned out his whinny of pain.

Instinctively, I jumped aside. Eyes open again, I saw the stallion lose his footing, tumble to his knees, then roll head over hindquarters across the road to slide into the roadside ditch with a loud splash on the other side.

He immediately rolled over and levered himself out of water, mud dripping from his enraged face.

Incensed, I yelled, "What does it take?!"

He pulled himself onto the road and shook a dark cloud of muddy water from his coat, but his stance changed. Before, he'd been heedless of me, like I was some buzzing horsefly he'd kept in sight. A trifle. Now, I saw him jerking himself right and left as if he expected to dodge a rock.

I'd poked my horn through his self-confidence, but not his determination. I was a weak filly. Wolves prey.

No. Worse.

I was unfinished business.

A witness.

He inadvertently gave me time to spin up my spell and let my growing rage push as much magic as I could into my horn. I backed down the road.

As I continued stepping away, giving myself more distance and more time to target, he finally lunged.

I dropped my head, pointed my horn, narrowed the targeting of my Levitate spell to a pin-prick so I could punch as many splendors of magical force as I could possibly push into my horn to be concentrated onto the smallest possible area of contact. I aimed where I expected him to be and bellowed, "Noooo!"

Again, a flash. A blue-green one.

And a bang.

And the hissing puff of a locomotive when it releases the steam.

I dodged to the left, figuring that he was lunging toward me. Not a prescient move, because he had veered to my left, too.

This time however, he howled in pain. He rammed me in a grazing blow to my right.

My eyes popped open as he shouldered me, his hooves scrabbling on the wet stone road for traction and not quite finding it. With him came trailing a cloud of hot steam and the scent of lightning and burnt hair. Ozone smell comes and goes in an electrical storm, but this stung my nose even as his push had me scrambling for traction as I spun to keep him in front of my horn.

The stallion slipped and slid, huffing and groaning. His hooves clattered and ground against the wet stone for traction. He failed to find it and landed with a splash and grunt on his side, then slid down the road.

Despite my growing exhaustion, I prepped another spell.

He rolled upright. Even on his stomach, he was eye-level with me—he was that enormous. I could not see his eyes, though. In the dusky rain, I saw only darkness in his silhouette where his eye sockets ought to have been. Maybe it was imagination, but maybe he was a ghoul and not a pony after all.

His breath came in explosive gusts. I mirrored him in that steam condensed around my nostrils. Rubbing his dripping face, he shuddered. For the moment, the rain became a quiet rolling mist. He dripped anyway.

Blood.

Under his breath, he muttered in a gravelly voice, "Just a lousy tainted mare. Save everypony! Clean her away—"

Bile rose into my throat. He was convincing himself to attack again! Of all the ways ponies could oppress ponies, I'd found malignant psychopathy. Rage fueled me with adrenaline; I lowered my horn making ready.

His hooves scraped against the stone road, scrabbling for traction, followed by the clatter of hooves retreating.

I planted my legs out and leaned forward, directing all the energy in my body, channeling every last splendor of magic into my horn.

Shrieking, I yelled, "Never hurt anypony again!"

A river of will flooded through my body. The fiery digits in my vision burned rainbow bright as I directed my very life into my horn. All my equations balanced, suddenly augmented by the frenetic electric blue whirling beauty I'd learned observing alicorn magic.

I released.

Even through I'd scrunched my eyes shut, the actinic green flash through my eyelids blinded me. Blistering heat thrust me skidding backwards.

I heard an inarticulate yell.

I opened my eyes to see something I could not have expected. Earth ponies can run as fast as the wind when they so choose. The monster had gotten short of fifty pony lengths down the road toward Pine Hills. Despite orange and blue after images, I saw his tail burst completely into flames. Gouts of steam, a long skinny cloud of sky-lit white, stretched fifty pony lengths down the road. It stood in stark contrast to the dark shadows of the forest and the grey-blue of the stormy sky above. The cylindrical cloud swirled along its long axis as it drifted to my right and over the ditch, pushed by the breeze.

I'd done something... miraculous.

Whatever it was, my narrowed Levitate spell, fueled by more splendors of magic than any pony had a right to have and pummeled out of me by rage, had connected to the perfect wish predicate to convince the universe to agree to my bidding. I'd turned the water in the mist to steam and set a monster's tail on fire. He trailed red and orange flames.

A light rain washed down on me from the east in which the stallion had fled, soaking me again. That meant then that it hadn't been a mist that I'd flash heated to steam. It had been rain—and still I'd set the pony's tail on fire.

My legs quivered and I collapsed, striking my chest on the road. I blinked and lost sight of the monster as distance intervened or the rain finally extinguished the flames.

What was this that I felt?

I'd beat him.

I'd won.

I'd fought and...

I'd won.

The rage drained out of me into exhaustion, but that wasn't it.

I felt... proud. I felt happy. I felt beaten to a pulp, too, but strangely that also felt okay. I didn't like it, but no achievement came without sacrifice.

Yes, I felt happy and smiled, even as I smelled a metallic scent I knew meant I had a bloody nose. In fact, cuts and scrapes bled all over my body.

I spat out salty mucus mixed with hair. It didn't gross me out, despite the likelihood that I had bits of the monster's hide in my mouth. Instead, I smirked, thinking that my bite must have hurt.

I knew now that I could fight.

I knew that no matter what tried to control me, whoever tried to oppress me and take away my freedom, I could beat them.

That moment, I ceased to be chattel...

My mind went blank for seconds as the enormity struck me.

I'd seized control over my destiny.

I began to laugh.

I levered myself up. My inner thighs hurt and my rear haunches felt sprained. With a limp in my left rear leg, I searched for my saddlebags and tarp. I found them thrown aside where a stand of pony height grass had been stomped down. He'd actually ripped the tarp pulling it off me, but he hadn't even opened my saddle bags. My book, notebooks, and bits were all there and all dry.

I had no magic left, not a single splendor. I had to nose under my saddlebags to shrug them over my head and neck to put them on. I had to roll up the tarp with my hooves and tie it on with the rope in my teeth and with the help of the frogs of my hooves.

As the shock wore off, the aches in my nether regions set in. My body went cold. I realized what the stallion had been after. I wasn't so sheltered by Proper Step and all my tutors that I did not understand this fact, or what he'd done to me, and what useless thing he had actually stolen before I had awoken to my chance to fight back.

Fortunately, I did have a gold bit left. I spent it on a healer in Deep Ford for the magic necessary to avoid the consequences of what I'd suffered. The shiny bit was enough to convince her to write down the "household spells" necessary, and to get her to teach me how to cast them, in addition to writing down the scientific and common names the requisite, moderately hard to find, herbs.

That left enough bits left over to pay the old purple unicorn not to inform the constabulary about the crime that had befallen a certain blank flank young mare. I blustered and whined and endured as she pointed her hoof at me and shouted all adult-like, red-faced and cross. Eventually, she understood that the best she could do was give me a stern talking to about being careful.

In the end, she took the coins and promised. I remained hopeful Proper Step would never learn what had transpired.

I was wary of other ponies on the road after that, but it was a different type of wary than you might think. It excited me that one day I might fight again—I would, however, not be ambushed the next time! I would never again be too stupid to live.

To achieve my goal, I had to figure out how I'd cast my modified Levitate. No matter how I tried, I could not simply will that fine bit of thaumaturgy in question to cast at will. Maybe it was situational? Maybe it was the sheer splendors of magic I'd flooded my horn with? It had to do with the wish predicate, that much I understood. I hoped one day to use what I had learned to help other ponies, to save them from oppression and from hurt. I knew that keeping that reason in my head was key to effectuating the wish.

There was also the memory that night. Succeeding because it mattered.

And...

The thrill.

Comments

[mishun]

I'd beat him.

I'd won.

Won't he just, ummm, return? (with pals maybe?)

[scifipony]

11340693
I given it a lot of thought; thanks for asking since it's a point in another sequel. 50 pony lengths (4 ft x 50) = 66 yds. She set his tail (and by implication his stallion parts) on fire, and superheated the rain to steam at 66 yards. We'll learn her magic won't let her kill, but still... Him? Return? Nah. This pony survived the wrath of a god and will see her lurking in every shadow for the rest of his miserable life.

Sadly, she remembers, too.

[Conscat]

"Wish predicate" haha, I honestly super LOVE all the magical terminogy in this story!