If you could have one wish, one nearly godlike wish, but you had to track down and document mythical and dangerous creatures for some 'Tome', would you do it? I did and now I'm paying the price.
Well, here we are I guess. Making deals with hot girls in a library sounds a little weird... okay its a lot weird. My name is Shinza Monk, I'm a college student trying to finish up my Cryptozoology courses to become a Cryptozoologist. I was studying in the library for an upcoming paper on medieval mythology. when some girl with fiery red hair with red and black clothes asked me for some of my research books and starts shooting the breeze. Anyways long story short I'm on a planet called Equus. Gods I can't believe I just said that, I can hardly believe it myself, but there's creatures everywhere Manticores, Kappas, unicorns, pegasi, and dragons! If I compile a Tome of Monsters for Tanya, I get any reward I could possibly want to some extent. So here's to doing the impossible, NOT dying, all the pretty cat girls, unicorns, and all that nonsense.
Story is rated Teen for blood, gore, forms of swearing, and forms of adult-based humor. No ponies, diamond dogs, dragons, naga, ect. were actually harmed in the making of this fanfic. Thank you and have a nice day.
'Ah the smell of old books, I swear it's the elixir of Life.'
"Wow, I think I have enough books now," 'Which reminds me, stop talking to yourself'
Yep, that's me Shinza Monk; normal everyday bookworm/recluse. My mom is Asian and my father is American, though I'm Asian-American, I look just like any other American kid. Only one who'd prefer to lock himself in the library than party, you've probably seen people like me at school, or the library always walking around with a book in our hand, walking into things. I mean come on, I've never even talked to a girl, much less make a deal with one, but I'm getting ahead of myself let’s get back to the story.
'Hmm, Book of Myths and Monsters, there seems to be a couple of pages folded. Let’s see;
A changeling is a creature found in European folklore and folk religion. It is typically described as being the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child. Sometimes the term is also used to refer to the child who was taken. The apparent changeling could also be a stock or fetch, an enchanted piece of wood that would soon appear to grow sick and die. The theme of the swapped child is common among medieval literature and reflects concern over infants thought to be afflicted with unexplained diseases, disorders, or developmental disabilities. A human child might be taken due to many factors: to act as a servant, the love of a human child, or malice.
[1] Most often it was thought that fairies exchanged the children. Some Norwegian tales tell that the change was made to prevent inbreeding: to give trolls and humans new blood, humans were given children with enormous strength as a reward. In some rare cases, the very elderly of the Fairy people would be exchanged in the place of a human baby, and then the old fairy could live in comfort, being coddled by its human parents.
[2] Simple charms, such as an inverted coat or open iron scissors left where the child sleeps, were thought to ward them off; other measures included a constant watch over the child. Whoa, that's pretty weird creature, let’s see there's a page in the A section. A winged unicorn is a fictional equine with the wings of a pegasus and the horn of a unicorn. There is no specific name given to such creature, but it is sometimes referred to using a portmanteau of pegasus and unicorn. In some literature and media, it is also erroneously referred as an "alicorn", which is a historical word for a horn of unicorn.' I turn around as I hear a light cough behind me.
"Uh Hi I couldn't help but notice but uh, you seem to have most of the books on mythology, is it alright if I use some of them?"
'Is... is she talking to me?' I look around making sure no one else was at my table that she could be talking to.
"Uh… sure? If you could bring them back, that'd be great. I'm kinda in the middle of research for a paper,"
"Oh, that's alright, I'll just sit here and read them."
'Wait what?'
"Wait what? I mean, sure not like I could stop you."
'What the hell is happening, Girls never ask for mythology books! I mean, I don't mind, look at her shes hot. How'd she get that flaming red hair dye past the Board of Education, and I thought we had to wear uniforms she's wearing red and black shirt and pants with faded holes in them. God I remember those things, I mean who would want to ruin a perfectly good pair of jeans like that, but I digress she makes it work.'
"So you interested in changelings huh," she asked as she grabs some books out of the huge pile on the table and sat across from me.
"Not really I just picked up this book and a bunch pages were folded over on the pages with Changelings and Alicorns"
She looked at me quizzically, "You mean those princesses from that show My Little Pony?"
"Uh... what's My Little Pony? I'm talking about this right here," I point to the page with the two alicorns circling each other, "I've never heard of that show"
"Oh really, then why does your reference guide use the same picture from the show huh?
'It does? It does kinda look cartoony, why is this picture in a book this old, maybe I'll point it out to the Librarian when I leave.'
"I dunno, maybe it's just a joke someone glued in here, I hope not cause this book looks freakin' old."
"Oh sorry where are my manners, name's Tanya," she said while offering her hand.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Shinza, but you can call me Shin if you want," I replied taking her hand and shaking it.
"Is it alright if I take a look at this book?
"Yeah sure i guess, just be careful with it."
I handed her the book and she flipped through the book before resting on the Changeling pages, as she read through it she appear to get upset and a little angry, when she was done reading the book. She handed the book back to me with a look of disgust on her face.
'Great looks like she’s finally through dealing with me and is probably going to leave any moment. This was probably some dare or bet she's just doing this to get a few cheap laughs'
"Now why would I do such a thing to a nice person like you? You've been nothing but helpful and nice to me, and we've only just met."
"What are you talking about? I didn't say anything."
"Oh~ never mind about that, my 'look of disgust' was on the section of that book about changelings. You know they're nothing like what the book says they are right? This thing isn't deserving to be called a Tome of Monsters, I bet if you had the chance, you could give more information than this droll old thing, what do you say?"
"Sure, I'd take that deal in a heartbeat if it means seeing these creatures that are myths."
'Oh god someone help me this girl crazy'
"I'M NOT- I'm not crazy. I just wish to make a deal with you."
"So, what kind of deal are we talking about here? Nothing Illegal I hope."
"No no nothing like that. I just want to see if you can make a better Monster Tome than that piece of garbage, you can choose whatever you want, almost nothing is out of line, so what do you say?"
"Hmm, all I have to do is make a tome of mythical creatures and I’ll get my choice of reward? Okay you have a deal."
As we shook on it, her hand caught on fire, as I tried to pull away the fire burned up her arms and engulfed her in a massive blaze. When it subsided Tanya wasn't there anymore instead I was looking at a cat girl... who's made out of fire?
"What are you doing, you're going to burn down the library, “I started screaming and starting to get strange looks from other students,” Why isn't anyone else freaking out, you're on fire!"
"Please calm down. you're causing a scene. I'm not on fire, I'm a Lavaline, we are felines completely made out of molten magma. As for why people aren't 'freaking out' is because to them we're just a bookworm and a 'hot' chick holding hands, and on that note we're done here."
When she let go, my hand caught fire and I watched as it traveled up my arm until I was completely covered. Slowly burning to death, but it didn't feel hot, just warm and then everything was gone. Poof, nadda, ziltch, just a black void and then I faded out. As I did I heard Tanya chuckle, and I could have sworn I heard her say, "I would like to stay but I got my little Mya to attend to. Enjoy my little gift Shinza, try not to geet in too much trouble." over the sound of people screaming and the crackle of a fire.
*knock knock knock*
'Ugh~ Go away V, it's the weekend! Why are ya knocking on my door? Actually what's with that knock, it sounds kinda heavy, he aways did have some meaty fucking hands,' as I rolled over in my bed I opened my eyes to see that the ceiling was made out of wood, "Well now, this is a new one... Who's room is this, It certainly isn't my dorm room."
I rolled over and sat up in the bed as the knocking got louder until they were banging on the door, "Alright I'm up! Quit bangin' on the door. Jeez what time is it?
"It's just afta' sun rise, now get the buck up or I'll charge you an extra night," a man yelled as I was stretching, after he was done I hear him walk off with clopping sound.
'Wait, clopping sound? Ah he must be wearing sandals. Don't see why he would be wearing sandals? It's freakin' cold in here, wonder what it's like outside.'
After my little popping fest I notice I was wearing some strange clothes, nothing that I would even think of; cargo pants with enough pockets that if possible would have had pockets in its pockets and a emerald vest made of silk with strange stitching’s. So I did the most logical thing and started sifting through the pants pockets; one pocket held a what looked to be a small scroll, one held a compass and pens, another held a folding knife, you know like half's serrated and half's straight kind of knife, and the last pocket had a small bag of what seemed to be small coins. I unrolled the scroll to see that it was a message from Tanya.
'Who the fuck is Tanya,' I thought to myself as I continued to read the note.
Dear Shin,
As per our agreement, you have taken upon yourself to make a Monstrum Tome, if you can complete this deal you will receive one reward of nearly anything you can think of. I have transported you to a different reality in order to complete this deal;
1: You must make a Tome, documenting creatures of this world that you find mythical; they may or may not be the same creatures from you reality. You must do your own research and hunt for them and add them to the tome. Mundane creatures are not to be cataloged.
2: The Tome must be leather-bound and sewn up with spiders silk, you must find a way to meet these conditions. The reason behind this is that most of the inhabitants are uneasy with killing animals and using the skins and other stuff, you could go as far to say they're mega-vegan-pacifists.
3: You have a limited about of money to start out with. When that money runs out it’s up to you to get more money or supplies on you own, do as you see fit to survive.
4. You may not tell/write/or pantomime that you’re not from this reality, if asked you are from a foreign land and you must make something up if asked about your race.
You might begin to notice some changes to your body since you’re now in a world of magic; you humans react so weirdly to this reality so it makes it difficult to tell what power you will get, hopefully you won’t need to use it.
Yours Truly,
Tanya
"Oh yeah, hot library girl. Wait one damn minute, what agreement? I don't remember making any agreement like this," I thought out loud as I thought back to what happened yesterday.
'Okay, I was in the library studying for a paper, some girl comes up to me asking to borrow my research material, and started talking to me about mythical creatures.'
"Oh~ never mind about that, my 'look of disgust' was on the section of that book about changelings. You know they're nothing like what the book says they are right? This thing doesn’t deserve to be called a Tome of Monsters, I bet if you had the chance, you could give more information than this droll old thing, what do you say?"
"Sure, I'd take that deal in a heartbeat if it means seeing these wonderful creatures."
"Huh so I guess did make that deal. So... all that happened... she... set... me on FIRE that bitch," I shouted as I rolled up the scroll and saw a message on the back of it in large letters that said, 'I'm not a bitch!'
"Okay that's pretty freaky. Paper bags in a backpack, what backpack?"
As I stood up and looked around the room I noticed one of those large backpack with canteens and a sleeping bag tied to it that’s like half my height. I walk over to the door and stick my head out the door and I can hear snores coming from the other rooms down the hall. As I walk out I grab the pack and head downstairs, it sorta looks like one of those old timey taverns in medieval Europe. Like those made of wood with trophies hanging on the wall, a bar up against one of the walls, massive fireplace on another one, and with long tables situated around the room. I spotted the entrance and started my way through the tables towards it when I heard the same guy from before call out from the back room telling me to be careful and to have a nice day.
"Yea I'll be sure to do that. Hey can you tell me where I am? My memories are kinda fuzzy."
"Not surprised, seems like you were pretty sloshed, can't say I disagree with your choice of ladies, she had quite the plot," the barkeeper said as I heard something heavy hit the floor in the back room.
"Wait ladies? What are you talking about?"
"Yea, when you checked in last night you were out of it and that mare with red hair had to practically drag your flank to your room, she even paid in advance for you as well. Seems like you make girls take care of everything eh," the sound of tinkling of bottles could be heard as he answered.
"Huh, I don't remember anything like that. I don't even remember how I got here but now I do. So where is here anyways?"
"You're about two miles north from Baltimare, all ya got to do is head down the south, big harbor town can't miss it, but watch out for the towns guards 'cause if you act weird around them they'll haul your flank in and drop it in a jail cell."
"Alright then, wait Baltimare, don't you mean Baltimore?"
"Nope, Baltimare, what you not from overseas or something?"
"Yeah, I guess you could say that. I heard that there are some pretty weird creatures over here, so I decided to take a trip and see for myself," I chuckled while scratching my chin. Guess I better get out of your hair, thanks for the room.”
As I said my thanks and proceeded to leave the tavern I noticed a pony with strange coloration of its coat, mane, and tail with a strange brand on its flank; it seems to be a grape vine and a strawberry. 'Hey that's pretty cool. I wonder how they got the colors on it, why is her fur purple an pink in some places? Better hope PETA doesn't find out, they would flip their shit.' I continued walking out of the tavern past the what appeared to be passed out drunk pony and pulled out my compass and headed down the south on my way to Baltimare.
A short hop, skip, and a jump down the road.
Okay, I know why Tanya mentioned paper bags now. I am totally freaking out, I've been walking down this road forever, and I've seen nobody on this road. Only ponies pulling buggies and carts passed me, the look in their eyes when they saw me looked terrified as they sped up their trotting pace, I mean what did the people of this reality do to cause these ponies to pull carts and buggies between towns without a driver or that look in their eyes, must mean they do something awful to them in order to achieve this and I swear on my walk I could have sworn I saw a light grey Pegasus flying overhead, it even seemed to be carrying something. As I came around the corner I saw a fork in the road up ahead with a sign in between then telling me one road leads to Baltimare and another leads to someplace called the Hay Seed Swamp. So I followed the road left and continued my journey to Baltimare. After some time I sat under a tree and took a break and started to look at the beauty of the surrounding area as more ponies trotted past me. After a while I sifted through my pants again for the medium pouch of coins I had found earlier, inside the pouch to find a lot of gold coins around the size of a nickel.
"Man~ this is a lot of gold…”
“What’s a lot of gold mister?!”
I jumped up looking around, I handed heard anyone walking up to me, “Whooza- What- Where are you hiding?!”
"Down here mister," the little girls voice says as I look towards her, revealing that she's a pony with a light golden coat, a light orange hair, and purple eyes.
I shake my head trying to make sense of this, 'ponies can talk? I mean, they're sentient, this little pony is actually talking to me.'
She looks at me with concern, "Are you alright mister? Is something the matter with you?"
"What? Oh, no I'm fine. I'm just… losing my mind."
"Do you need help finding it? Momma always says to look in the last place you had it," she said with a smile so sweet it’d rot my teeth.
“That’s going to be kinda hard… I-it’s uh… that was overseas."
"What?! You’re from overseas?! That’s so cool~! Are there more creatures like you there?"
"Uh yeah? There's quite a few of them I guess?" I answered her as she seemed to get excited.
“I can’t wait til I’m older I’m going to be an explorer just like Daring Do!" she quickly said as she was cut off from a panic sounding ladies voice.
"Noi! I told you to stay with the cart, what if something had happened to you," a pony who must have been her mother yelled to her while making her way to her, at which point she saw me and visibly recoiled at the sight of me.
'I'm not that ugly am I? I mean yea I'm a bookworm but come on how's she supposed to know that bookworms are generally unattractive?'
"But mom, I was just walking ahead and look I met this nice mister. He was mumbling to himself about his coins, so I asked him what was wrong and he’s from overseas. I was just-"
"Come on Noi, there's no telling what this creature could have done to you if I hadn't show up when I did. Come along, we're leaving right now," the mother said as she grab her daughters hoof and started to drag her away.
At this point I had grown tired of this overprotective mother, so I stood up startling both ponies in the process. I walked over to Noi and patted her on the head and said my thanks for talking with me, and started off again, leaving the child and her mother staring at the bit I had slipped onto Noi’s mane that fell out when she waved at me.
'Well then, seems this reality is not human tolerant if the look the mother gave me. Guess that explains why the tavern keeper used Baltimare instead of Baltimore... and the clopping sounds as he left... still don't know why the guy said buck instead of the obvious word, oh it's a joke buck because they're horses, oh I get it now. This definitely makes things harder on me better do as the tavern keeper said and not act suspicious, can't afford being tossed in jail but knowing my kind of luck something will happen and that’s exactly where I’ll end up.' While I was in deep thought on what I needed to do for the next day or so, it seems I had arrived at Baltimare as the sun was starting to set over the horizon, 'You know this city isn't so bad. Wait, why does it smell of fish I though ponies were vegetarian and didn't eat meat but other than the smell this place seems like a right friendly place-'
"There it is, Ice Flow, fly around it an’ distract it. Earth Ponies surround it and box it in," a deep voice could be heard yelling from behind the cities walls.
'Nope, never mind I fucking hate this place already,' I thought as what appeared to be armored ponies with and without wings as well as with a horn, probably the guards that tavern keeper mentioned, as they came closer, “I’m totally harmless! Look I surrender!” Several of the ‘earth ponies tackled me and I put up no resistance only to feel myself get zapped by something and hearing one of the ponies saying that was too easy as I faded into unconsciousness.
---
When I was jumped outside the gates of Baltimare, whatever they zapped me with didn't really put me to sleep. It was more like they disconnected my brain from my body from the neck down, although it seemed that my body was functioning; my heart was pounding away while my brain was freaking out about being captured by miniature horses. ‘I mean seriously, who just gets captured like that without a fight?’
'Apparently I do,' I thought answering my own inner monologue as they whoever was carrying me dropped me on the ground roughly, left the cell, and closed the door with a clang.
“It doesn’t really look like the reports said Cap’n.”
"Whether it looks like the report or not zap it once more and get it moving again. We're gonna find out why this thing is here," a voice said as a humming sound started up, I felt a similar zap as before and it felt as if my body was plugged back in and I could start to move again.
"Sir, the spell is done, what should we do now," a woman's voice asked.
"Thank you Myst Veil, you can go tell the volunteer guards that they can return home now. Also I'm going to need somepony in here to keep a watch on this thing," the gruff voice from before said as the woman left.
'I’m going to be interrogated? Okay, now would be a good time to learn how to be one suave motherfucker.' I tried reaching for one of my pockets and felt the chains around my wrists, ‘great… they’re smart enough to chain prisoners.’
"So where am I anyways?" I asked the nearest thing to a marine looking pony I could have ever seen, "You know it’s not nice to jump someone like that right? Why would you do something like that? I’m completely harmless."
"Not from what the report we receive said, you’re being held here until further notice, on the charges that you intend to cause harm to the citizens of Baltimare and possibly all of Equestria."
"Intend to cause harm?! All I did was walk up to the city gates and get jumped by a bunch ponies. I didn't even resist even when you fucking zapped me! *sigh* Can you at least give me my backpack, there are some things I need from it."
"Maybe."
"Either you can, can't, or won't those of which I'm guessing that won't is your answer."
"Well I wouldn't go that far, I can tell you at the end of the interrogation, if you can answer our questions, how’s that sound to you?"
I sat up against the wall looking at this Unicorn with a scar on his face, with it dawning on me that I had really stepped into it this time. I mean Unicorns are supposed to symbolize purity, this one looks like he'd run me through with his horn without a second thought.
'Seriously though what's with the color of these ponies fur and hair though? It's like someone swallowed a bunch of Technicolor paint and another person point and clicked them at every pony they could and couldn't see, I mean that Noi kid was at least colored like a horse but I mean really; pink horses, green Unicorns, and that one gray Pegasus I thought I saw flying overhead with a package?'
I took another deep breath to calm down before answering, "I guess that's alright but on the condition I get to ask you a question in return for you asking one."
"We'll see, just sit tight. We'll get this over with real quick like," the Unicorn guard said as Myst Veils voice could be heard from the door.
"Sir, the volunteers have been sent home and the three guards are ready, which include myself, Ice Flow, and Mag Vah, we couldn't find an earth pony who wasn't a volunteer but Mag Vah is a Zebra Cadet on loan from another town. Is there anything else you need us to do while we're guarding the prisoner," Myst Veil asked while she saluted the Unicorn.
"No, that is all that needs to be done for now. Prisoner you wouldn't happened to be hungry would you?"
"My name's Shin and a little, why? You going to give me something to eat that won't kill me," I asked as I rolled my shoulders and neck trying to pop them, "Well I know that your people eat grass, hay and flowers, but my people can't digest those."
"Well you're partly right, ponies eat a variety of different vegetation; like grass, hay, flowers, lettuce and some types of fruits. Any of those suit your fancy?"
"Wait what about meat?"
"Your people are carnivores?"
"Well we're really omnomnomnomivores," I said with a small chuckle as the guard looked at me weirdly, "Yeah figured you wouldn't get it. My people eat a mix of plant and animals, we pretty much eat anything we can find, though due to trying to stay on the ponies good side, we refrain from getting equine meat, heck some places it's illegal. When I was walking to town, you remember that don't 'cha, there was a fishy smell in the air, if you are herbivorous why are you catching fish?"
“Yeah, we do seem to get that question a lot. We should probably put the answer in a brochure or something but to answer your question, we have a trade route with the Holy Griffin Empire to the north of Equestria.”
“It fits, horsey name for a horsey country. If I asked for fish would it be cooked or is that too far out of line? If it is, then I’ll take some bread, lettuce, something to drink, and what kind of fruits do you have? ”
“No, it wouldn't be cooked, the only meat chefs in Baltimare are the griffins that cater to other Griffins and Diamond Dogs. We have apples and peaches from varying regions of Equestria though; I'll have somepony bring you some bread and water later before the interrogation this afternoon."
'Bread and water huh? Guess it's back to being the prisoner again, so much for trying to be suave.' I sighed as he walked away, said something to Myst Veil, handed her the keys and walked out, 'Man. if this is what it's be like here, I'm starting to think I got the short end of the stick. Back home I was nearly done with college then she walks in and makes me a deal and blows all of that up. I wonder if anyone has even wondered if I'm okay, probably not with the way I block everyone out to focus on my studies. At least I can say one thing, she sure knows how to pick 'em, just find some loser in a library and offer him a near godly wish, eight out of ten times, the poor sucker will say yes. Now I'm stuck in a jail cell being guarded by a blue Unicorn named Myst Veils. god what did I do to deserve this?' After my little internal tirade at my really bad luck, I tried standing up to find my arms and legs chained together with an unusually short chain.
"Hey, uh Myst? You wouldn't happen to be able to remove these cuffs from me would you, it's kinda hard to move around. I promise I won’t try to escape."
"Prisoners are to address me as Guard, Ma'am, or Myst Veil not Myst, toots, honey, or any such variation you can think of," she said in monotonous tone as she listed off what to call her, "and your limbs will be released when more than one pony is present to deter you from trying to do anything."
"Right sorry, Myst Veils, nice to meet you, my name is Shin, not prisoner. Are you sure there isn't a way you could at least release my arms or does the big honcho guard not trust you enough to handle an innocent traveler, such as myself?"
"..."
"He probably just made you part of guarding me so you wouldn't be on the streets with him and getting him hurt. I bet he doesn't even treat you like the other guards because he knows you’re not cut out for it."
I could hear Myst Veils teeth starting to grind as I was talking, 'Maybe just a little bit more and it'll goad her into releasing my hands.'
"I bet he didn't even give you the real keys to the cells and this is just something to keep you busy," I said as venomously as possible as I was talking she stood up and started walking to the gate.
"See that wasn't so hard now was it, all you had to do was to get up and unlock the door, I guess he did give you the real keys after all but that still doesn't disprove anything I've said. Now come unlock these cuffs and prove him wrong."
She opened the gate while I was talking and reached behind her for the keys, continues to reach back and punches me in the face, making me lose consciousness as she got close to my face and quietly said, "My father trusts me with his life every time we go out on duty. What would a creature that we have never seen before know about the trust of a family, when it probably doesn't have one and if I hear you utter a single word about me or my family. A hoof to the face will be the least of your worries," and I was out. “Sweet Celestia what is this thing’s face made of, I think I chipped my hoof.”
“Fuck, my head, make the hurty go away,” I mumbled to myself as I cluched my head after I had come to.
“Well of course it hurts; you were punched in the face by my daughter, never known a pony with such a short fuse like her, she must get it from her mother’s side. At least something good came from this; while you were knocked out we removed your shackles so there’s that.”
“Oh yeah, hip-fucking-hooray, there’s nothing quite like getting smacked in the gob to lighten your day. How long was I knocked out for?”
“A couple of hours at most and we got the interrogation officer from a neighboring town, also, I got you something to eat before we start asking you some questions to discern whether or not you are dangerous to our citizens,” he told me as levitated some food into my cell.
“Oh please, take one look at my face and tell me I’m dangerous,” I said as I gave my most charming smile.
“You’re dangerous.”
“Ouch and here I thought I was hiding it so well, I guess I did tell you to say I was dangerous.”
“Yes you did.”
“So then might as well show me where the interrogation room is and get this over with.”
As I stood up, he unlocked the door, walked into the cell and put the shackles back on my wrists. We left the cell area with honcho guard up front, me in the middle, and a Pegasus guard, whom I from the gates as Ice Flow, followed behind me. After a hop, skip, and a jump we came up to an exquisitely decorated door, I’m lying of course everything in here is a different fucking shade of gray, and the Pegasus stood to the side of the door while honcho ushered me inside with his hoof.
“Go on in and take a seat, the interrogator from Canterlot will be in here in a bit. Ice Flow go get Myst Veil and tell her she’s to help you guard the prisoner, not knock him out, I’ll guard him until you get back.”
“Yes sir,” Ice Flow saluted as he walked down the hall where we came from.
“So, I've told you my name but you haven’t told me yours. I can’t keep calling you honcho in my head.”
“My name’s Dawn Veil, captain of the Baltimare Equestrian Guard. I have got to say Mister Shin, for a monster set on harming my citizens, you’re pretty docile.”
` “Well of course I’m docile, I’m not a monster. I’m just a traveler from overseas.”
“So you’re a foreigner from overseas huh?”
“Yeah, I’m over here on, uh, orders yeah orders-,” I started to say as the door burst over and a white unicorn with two toned blue hair came into the room.
“Hold it! Everypony please stop talking, please wait until the recording spell is prepared and cast,” a white unicorn wearing ornate armor cried out as he ran into the room, horn glowing fiercely causing the air in the room to shimmer and shake.
“Right, well that’s odd… anyway how much longer until I can get my backpack and be out of here?”
“One moment, Hello Captain Armor we’re glad you could come down from Canterlot with our issue here.”
“Yes, I was quite surprised when we received word that you had captured some kind of creature. I take it this is it?”
“Yes sir, I’ll let you get started then.”
“Hey! This ‘it’ has a name-“
“Right and what would that happen to be?”
“My name is Shin. What’s yours?”
“Right, I am Shining Armor, Captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard. Mind telling me why I was summoned here?”
“I was on my way from this tavern up north, heading here on a tip that something I’ve been looking for had made its way here."
"Something made its way down here? May I ask what reason you're here looking for?”
"Sorry but I can't answer that."
"Why would that be Mr. Shin?"
'Okay Shin, can't tell him why I was looking, can't lie to him... Hmm maybe not a total lie…'
"Because I can't, listen I’m sure someone of your position knows what it’s like to keep certain things secret and safe. Can you just give me my stuff back? I kinda has everything I own in it.”
"Wow really? I suppose I can do that; just need you to answer my questions first. Can you tell me your full name please?"
I sigh as I responded to his insistence, "My full name is Shinza Monk."
"How old are you?"
"As of last month I turned twenty-four."
"Alright very good, what is your country of origin?"
"Oh boy, yeah that's something else I can't tell you, at the moment all I can say is overseas."
"Fair enough, your occupation?"
"I am currently a scholar."
"Are you traveling alone?"
"As alone as you can be with oneself."
"Very well, how long have you been in Equestria?"
"I haven't been here all that long, couple of days I guess."
"Okay that’s about it, are you in Equestria legally?"
‘Shit.’
"Yes."
“Very well I’m going to need to see your papers, they would be in your ‘stuff’ correct?” A sharp pop and my huge pack appeared on the table, “Please provide them.”
"Of course, now let me see what we got in here," I said as I ruffled through the pack and began pulling random stuff that couldn’t have possibly fit in the bag and soon the table was filled with a bunch of junk but no contract or letter that was in there at the tavern, "Hey you guys didn't take anything out of this or off my person while I was out? I’m missing some stuff."
The Pegasus known as Ice flow snorted, “How could you even tell with so much junk?”
"No we have not. Why, is there a problem Mr. Monk?"
'I don't get it if they didn't take anything out of the bag or off of me, then where's the contract with Tanya?! Freaking out freaking out freaking out, okay calm down. Let’s just see if there's anything in here proving that I'm not here illegally. Let’s see; sleeping bag, tent, couple of gems with etches on them as well as a tag -Water Purification Spell-, 'holy balls these things are huge', rope, more writing stuff, and what appear to be those MRE things ,’god these things are different level nasty. Wait what's this? Some sort of scroll,’ I untied the fire-red ribbon and looked it over, ‘well better than nothing.'
"How about this Captain, will this work," I said as I handed him the scroll.
"Hmm let’s see, Dear Whomever it may concern, by decree of Her Majesty, the Queen Tanya La Va-Basalt of the Island Nation of Obsidinite and Celestia Ruler of Equestria. The scribe known as Shinza Monk is to have free roam of your nation on a quest of cataloging the world."
"Cataloging, you said you were looking for something. Well anyway this looks pretty official, scribe of royalty huh? I better check in with the Princess to make sure this checks out."
'Princess who-now?'
Shining armor stood facing one of the walls and his horn started to glow and a circle on the wall started to glow and changed colors until it looked like a mirror. Once it stopped changing colors he stood there with his horn still glowing and said, "Blessed morning your Majesty, Shining Armor reporting in."
In the glowing mirror stood one of the tallest ponies I have ever met, she must be as tall if not taller than me. She sat on a golden throne, her fur was pure white with a golden sun on her rear, wait is it rear or since she's a horse, a flank, and upon her head sat a golden crown. I have got to say though, the waving multicolored hair thing works for her,
“Wow… you’re pretty,” I dumbly said, getting a glare from the captain and a tinking laugh from the Princess.
"Hello Shining Armor, how are things in Baltimare." she asked in a kind motherly voice.
"Very good ma'am, it’s not a monster. He’s a scribe here for cataloging Equestria, he has something I need you to verify before I can finish up here and be on my way back to Canterlot."
"Of course my little pony, what is it that you wish to verify?"
"I have a letter here stating that you made an agreement with an island nation called Obsidinite, ruled by Queen Tanya La Va-Basalt, giving one of her scribes’ free roam of our country. This is Shinza Monk, the scribe, currently being held here under suspicion that he intended harm on Baltimare’s citizens carrying this scroll."
"I am not positive I know which agreement this note is referring to. I’ll need to write a letter to the ponies on the council that handles these types of things," as she said that she was writing on a scroll and I watched as it disappeared in a flash and another scroll appeared in a burst of smoke.
"Holy smokes, you ponies sure are quick to answer and how cool was that smoke?!"
"Actually that wasn't the ponies from the council, that was my student, Twilight Sparkle, please hold on as I read this. ‘My dearest teacher, my continuing studies of pony magic have lead me to discover, that something really bad is about to happen. For you see; the mythical mare in the moon is in fact, Nightmare Moon, and she’s about to return to Equestria and bring with her eternal night, something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true. I await your response, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,' as she finished reading the letter she put a hoof to her temple.
"Wow, that sounds bad, hey Shining Armor, that's bad right?"
*sigh* "More than likely not. My sister, though great she may be, can be kind of overzealous. She probably just hasn't gotten any sleep again."
"Ha, man I remember those days... hell I’m still in those days. I take it she does this quite a bit?"
"Don't even get me started. Like this time she switched the genders-"
"Enough, I sorry Twilight but this needs to be done," she said quietly as she sent off the letter she was writing as me and Shining were talking and another flash of light appear along with a scroll, "Ah finally, this is what we're waiting for. Hmm, yes it appears that we have made a treaty of sorts with Obsidinite, he is free to go. Please feel free to come by Canterlot when you're in the area or visit a town called Ponyville and visit my faithful student, Twilight," she chuckled as Shining Armor got this look on his face.
"Why are you sending her to Ponyville your Majesty,” Captain Armor asked her.
"I’ve sent Twilight to Ponyville to make some friends while she oversees the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration. Hopefully she’ll see that not everything can be learned from a book.”
"I don't see why not, that's how I learned most of my knowledge," my sentence wavered off under the look of the princess, "I mean uh… totally common sense beats opitence or something like that."
"Right, thank you your highness, sorry for bothering you with the small detail."
"It is no problem Captain, I am glad to have met a traveler of my lands before anything unfortunate happened to him,” she said with a smile on her face as the mirror faded.
"What did she mean by that? What did she mean by that?!"
"Nothing, I mean, I'm sure it was nothing. We’ll let you go since the Princess has cleared you and get you out of these pony’s manes.”
` “Yeah that’ll be good, got a lead on something so I’m going to go check it out. Are you sure this is everything you took off me?”
As I stood up and headed towards the door, it started to glow a pale blue color, and Myst Veils came bursting in and ran into me. Stating that I wasn’t allowed to leave due to the threat of the citizens and harassment of an officer, namely her, which Shining Armor dismissed saying that the Princess had cleared my charges and that I was free to go.
“But…I… He…”
“Yes, have a nice day Myst. Try not to punch out anyone else, it’s not polite. Hey Shining, mind if I hitch a ride with you to Canterlot? I’d love to pick apart your Princess’ library.”
“It’s Captain Armor and that’s not happening. Use the trains like everypony else.”
“Spoilsport… Can you at least tell me where to find the train station,” I asked him and he gave me a ‘are you kidding me’ look.
“I live in Canterlot, I’m afraid you’ll need to find the station on your own but hurry; the train leaves in an hour.” He added in his normal ‘bro’ tone, his horn glowed as the air shimmered as it was pulled into itself and took the shape of a pyramid.
“What the flippin’ heck was that?!”
“Uh… catalyzing the recording spell for our archives? Is that a problem?”
“No that was just friggin’ cool! It was all like; ripple-shimmer-zwip! Tell me; are all of your spells as dramatic as that one,” I asked him as I picked up the pyramid and examined each side, that showed different scenes of our conversation.
“Not usually, most unicorn spells are recited in their heads from years of memorizing and the only tell is the glow of their horns. Sometimes they will need material components but that rarely happens, those spells fell out style some time ago.”
“Wow that’s cool… I bet having magic is the best.”
“Your people don’t have magic?”
“Nah, I mean sorta; my uh- Queen did mention that something would come about but I’ve yet to see anything magical. Oh well, magic would only distract me anyways,” I sat my pack open and started tossing things into it that somehow packed neatly. “Well I’m off… maybe we’ll see each other in Canterlot.” After saying my goodbye I pulled Ice Flow away, “’Cuse me, Ice Flow right?”
“Yes-“
“Oh good, listen I know you have things to guard but I was wondering if-“
“Sure I’ll show you the train station.”
“Aha! I knew you were going to say that, I mean what if I really was a monster, you wouldn’t just- Did you say you would show me the station? Well… good, lead the way,” I said with a wave of my arm and he took the lead after yelling to Dawn Myst he’d be right back. Flow had to stop a couple times due to the fact that these ponies a friggin’ fast. We didn’t talk any and the silence was getting to me.
‘I hate uncomfortable silences; come on poke him, say something, insult him for christ sake! Do something!’
“So Flow, what’s with the butt tattoos?”
“You mean my talent emblem? It represents my special talent for controlling snow and snow clouds.”
“Then why are you in the Equestrian Guard if that’s what you’re good at,” I asked, honestly curious about why they would have something that tells them what they’re good at but do something that has nothing to do with it.
“Well… the Equestria Guard give you plenty of chances for excitement and adventure and you meet so many wonderful ponies,” we had stopped outside a building and he was nudging a pebble with a hoof.
“Ahah so that’s it, who is she?”
“I-I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“It’s totally Myst Veil isn’t it,” he looked down in a blush and I gasped, “It totally is! Hahaha, well good luck with that one.”
“Yeah…” he held out a hoof and looked me in the eye. “Safe travels,” I took his hoof and shook it but after the shake my hand had grown, covered in a shiny black shell and Flow gasped, “I knew it! The Queen, being a traveller, odd body… You’re one of us aren’t you!? I don’t recognize your Hive pheromones. You must be high up there, it’s definitely unique.”
I released his hoof looking at my hand in wonder while he galloped around the station, motioning me to follow him so I did; I turned a corner where there was a flash of green. ‘What the fuck,’ I thought to myself as I looked at can only be described as a bug pony saluting me.
“Changeling #1037103-31A, aka Ice Flow,” he said in a buzz before being wreathed in green fire and the familiar pony stood before me, “Now I’m extra glad they let you go, can’t have a fellow changeling in jail can we?”
“No… can’t have that.”
“What’s your call number? I’ll add it to the hive mind to keep an eye out for you.”
“T-there’s no need for that… I just go by Shinza,” I stopped talking when there was a loud whistling.
“Sweet Chrysalis the train’s early today, go, go! You need to buy your ticket!”
I ran back around the building and up the stairs to the ticket booth. “Hi, sorry for the rush but I need a ticket- what are you doing?”
The pony in question was trying to cower under the window and failing, “Don’t eat me! I don’t taste that good, I’m nothing but skin and bones!”
“I don’t want to eat you, I just need,” he cut me off with a scream.
“Hey! Quit cowering like a foal and sell the gentlestallion a ticket,” I heard Ice Flow shout from behind me at the ticket pony.
“Ice Flow? Oh thank goodness, take care of this monster!”
“We don’t have time for this, give me three bits Shinza,” he held out a hoof and I gave him the money, he bucked open the door, went inside, and took a ticket from the roll and tossed the bits on the table. “I swear, this is why I have to waste energy on this disguise,” he muttered to me as he passed me the ticket. “It’s usually only like this in small towns, so close-minded. Enjoy Canterlot, oh sir, your disguise is still partly down.” Saluting once more he took to the skies and I took a seat on the cartoony train trying to hide my bug claw-hand in my pocket.
“Aaaaaaall aboooooooard,” a pony in a conductors hat shouted before jumping on himself, “Tickets please.” He went up the aisle punching holes in the tickets.
‘How is he holding that?’
He got to me and paused with a frown but before he could say anything I lifted the ticket and the frown disappeared in a flash, “Enjoy the ride everypony!” As soon as he said that the train began to pull forward, I began hearing whispers from a couple of ponies near the back that turned into a gasp.
“Wow, what are you?!”
“Thistle, come back here!”
“Thistle was it,” I laughed a little, “Well I’m a traveller, chronicler of stories, mostly stories of mythical creatures!”
She put on such a sweet smile I barely resisted snatching her up in a hug, “What kind of mythical creatures?!”
“Would you like to hear some of my stories,” I asked knowing no kid could say no to a story.
“Yes!”
I thought for a good creature that would terrify her, “Well here’s a good one; back where I come from we have ships of many sizes and every once in a while a ship will wreck and the fisherman who came back would tell stories of being rescued by these beautiful horses with iridescent fish tails but no matter how many times people set out they couldn't find sign of them."
"You're talking about Seaponies!"
"Huh?"
"What you're talking about sounds like Seaponies, I read about them in a book once!"
"Oh well my people call them Hippocampi and they say if you have friendship and love in your heart they'll be your friend," as I said this her already large eyes looked ready to explode. 'I mean it's not a total lie, I've yet to meet one so they may actually be your friend for that reason.'
I continued telling them stories of my world's legends from dragons kidnapping princesses and the knights coming to rescue them to mystical beings and the heroes they sired. My audience went from young Thistle to two more fillies and a couple of adults that got over their fear of me when they saw how I was with the foals. For some reason I had decided to act out the stories of the heros, not even noticing that my hand was back to normal.
"And then what happened," a young red filly asked.
"And then Zeus cast down his lightning bolt at the sea-serpent with a BOOM," as I said that there was an actual boom, squealing, then the train car went vertical, throwing everyone into the ceiling. I groaned as several ponies landed on top of me I called out as more thuds and the sounds of ripping metal filled the air, "Is everyone alright?!"
"My leg," I heard a scream from one of the other cars but other than that I got a few grumbles and moans.
The turned into screams when the side of the car was ripped away and a thick furry shadow filled the hole that bark out to someone, "Got nine ponies. Two horny pony, four feather pony, three mud pony!"
"Take them all!"
The shadow stepped through the hole and I got a good look at it; looked like a mix between a gorilla and a large dog. He, from the sound of his voice, walked over and began picking ponies up off me and tossing them outside, "Wait, got strange thing!"
A set of footsteps sounded as they jumped from car to car, it looked in at me, "Not pony... still, need diggers. Bring it."
'Diggers?'
The dog reached into the pile, pulled me out, and tossed me outside with the others, "Holy shit..." The view was amazing with mountains on either side of the tracks. I gasped when I saw the state of the train; several cars on fire, the engine was in a hole under the track, our car was upside down on another car. I tried standing but one of the mutts jabbed a spear at me. Ponies of all ages lined the tracks much like us maybe three to five ponies per pile. Two pegasi tried flying away from one of the groups, were speared by the guard dogs, and several ponies began crying. "What are these things," I asked one of the conscious ponies in my pile.
"Diamond Dogs, they take ponies prisoner to mine gems-"
"Shut up pony and not-pony," the dog that jabbed me with the spear shouted and soon all the other dogs were on us. They picked up the unconscious ones in the group and made the rest of us walk to the mountain on the left of the track. Once everyone was through they collapsed the entrance, leaving us in pitch black, "Horny ponies! Light!" Several Unicorn's horns glowed, lighting the tunnel leading to our doom. "Now go!"
'Seriously, are they calling them that on purpose? I don't need that image in my head.'
I have no idea how long I've was down there, the Diamond Dogs kept everyone in these cages, no food or water until they agreed to mine for them. I many of my awake time just staring at my hand as I tried to turn it back to what it was when I shook Ice Flow's hoof. Something like that could help me, 'What'd he call himself? A changeling? Those claws looked sharp, maybe they could cut these bars and chains...' The only ones in the cell with me were the children I had been telling stories to keep keep their spirits up, their parents had agreed early on to work so long as their foals got part of their food.
"I wish these stupid dogs would just roll over and die," shouted the little red filly who stamped a hoof.
"No you don't little lady," I said, sad that the happy ponies, who knew nothing but kindness were pushed to the point of making a wish that would take another's life.
"And why is that," she shouted, turning her anger to me with tears in her eyes.
I motioned her to come over, when she did I picked her up in a hug, "What happened little one?"
She sniffled into my vest, "My parents are gone... I can't feel their magic..."
"Oh... I'm so, so sorry little one..."
"My name's Cinnamon Stick," she was full blown sobbing now.
'Oh geez my heart, make it stop.' "That's a beautiful name Cinnamon, everyone gather round. I think this calls for an Aesop's Fable." They piled around me as I set Cinnamon in my lap, "Now would you like to hear the one about the dog's bell or the old man and death?"
"Dog's bell, dog's bell, dogs bell!"
"Okay here goes;"
A Dog used to run up quietly to the heels of those he met, and to bite them without notice. His master sometimes suspended a bell about his neck, that he might give notice of his presence wherever he went, and sometimes he fastened a chain about his neck, to which was attached a heavy clog, so that he could not be so quick at biting people's heels.
The Dog grew proud of his bell and clog, and went with them all over the market-place. An old hound said to him: "Why do you make such an exhibition of yourself? That bell and clog that you carry are not, believe me, orders of merit, but, on the contrary, marks of disgrace, a public notice to all men to avoid you as an ill-mannered dog."
"What does that mean," a colt shout exasperated.
"Well the moral of the story is; 'those who achieve notoriety often mistake it for fame.' I know this doesn't help any of you but during these times you need to keep a light heart-" I was cut off by the cell door slamming open and a burly Diamond Dog came in pointing his spear at little Cinnamon in my lap.
"Give us little horny pony," he gruffly said, waking her up and she started crying again.
"No! Don't let them take me," she screamed as she wrapped her hooves around me as they grabbed her by the scruff.
"Hey where are you taking her," I yelled at him, standing to my full height; a good head and a half over him.
"Pony parents dead... Little Pony work or she be eated."
'Oh hell nah!' I leaped at him causing him to drop her, I began pounding him in the face and the angrier I got the more the black shell covered my hands and face. "You do not eat ponies," I punctuated each word with a punch. He folded his legs in, kicked me over his head, and stabbed at me with the spear but sunk into the stone. "GO!" I shouted at the foals to get out while they could, my fight with the guard lead me into a massive cavern filled with ponies mining who stopped to see what the commotion was. The guard pushed me over the edge and I brought him with me, at this point I was mostly covered in the exoskeleton, as we fell my arms and chest swelled causing the shell burst into fur.
He tried biting my neck and I returned in kind with my now elongated jaw filled with wickedly sharp teeth. His barks and shouts to the other dogs turned to gurgles as I tore out his throat and used his body as a cushion when we hit the floor. Several pony screamed and then mayhem as pony and several dogs ran for their lives.
'Blood. Chase. EAT. Kill...'
"ArooooOOOOOoooooo," my roars filled the cavern as wings burst from my back and I chased after Diamond Dogs that tried stopping the ponies or maybe they were trying to stop me... 'What am I doing?' I thought to myself, I couldn't control myself. I've heard of moments like these were it feels like you're doing something but you're watching it like a movie. Tearing through two more dogs I saw a familiar unicorn filly running away from me, 'Cinnamon...' I chased, no, followed her towards one of the exits where everyone fled from me. I took off down the mountain trails towards an odd looking forest that smelled of one thing; 'home'.
*Canterlot Castle: Shining Armor POV (seven days before diamond dog breakout.)*
‘Why is this armor so itchy,” I thought as I nearly strained a muscle trying not to scratch in front of the nobles otherwise I’d never live it down. ‘Maybe Twiley knows of an anti-itch spells.’
“-Isn’t that right Captain,” Celestia asked as she was still signing something for a noble.
“Ma’am? I mean- I’m sorry your Highness, my mind was elsewhere. Can you repeat the question please,” the noble gave me one of their ‘how simple can the guards get’ looks.
“I was inquiring about the whereabouts of our newest scribe friend, the one from the island nation, isn’t that right Captain?”
“Right, sorry Ma’am… I told him to take the train from Baltimare to Canterlor, it’s only a day and a half ride-“ a Pegasus guard choose that moment to burst into the throneroom and land next to me, whispering something to me.
“Sir, we’ve just received word from an Equestrian guard for you, something about helping put a train back on the tracks.”
“Why do they need me? That’s the Equestrian Guard’s job not the Royal Guard’s, who sent told you this?”
“A Pegasus guard by the name of Ice Flow, sir, he’s from the Baltimare division.”
I sighed inwardly when I recognized the name, “Fine, I’ll go. But you are guarding Princess Celestia.” I turned to her and bowed, “I’m sorry your Majesty but-“
“It’s alright Captain, I have very good ears… maybe this is the reason young mister Monk never showed up,” she mused as finished the last of the paperwork brought by the nobles.
“Yes ma’am,” I saluted and made a dash out of the castle towards the chariot pool where there was already a chariot ready with Ice Flow and a unfamiliar Pegasus hooked up.
“Ah Captain Armor! It’s wonderful to see you again,” Ice Flow said as he saluted, “I trust you heard about our little train problem?”
I got in the chariot and they took off, “I did… It’s safe to assume that our ‘monster’ was on the train?”
“M-m-m-monster,” asked the unknown Pegasus stammered, fear evident in her voice.
The ice blue Pegasus laughed wholeheartedly, “Aye, he’s as tall as Celestia with wicked claws on the end of his gangly arms, his legs full of holes and end in thick hide…” He resumed laughing when each description made her shake in fear.
“I was under the impression that the entire guard knew of mister Monk, why doesn’t she?’
“Really simple; she’s new… like arrived like fifteen minutes after I watched him get on the train and leave new. Don’t be such a chicken, Gale.”
“S-so there isn’t a monster?”
“Of course not, he’s a totally ordinary… whatever he is.”
“He’s from Obsidinite so just refer to him as an Obsidian, Ice Flow… I think I can see the train wreck’s smoke from here. Take us in.”
“Yes sir,” they both said firmly before shearing off and landing right next to the jumbled of wood and metal.
“Hello!? Is anypony here,” I shouted down the line, hoping someone would hear it and respond.
“That’s strange,” Ice Flow said with a sniffle, “There’s nopony here and look,” he jumped down in the hole with the engine, “The engine’s still warm.”
“Dogs,” I hissed, curse my luck, “Alright, I’m going to need you two to fly as fast as you can to Canterlot and get a patrol of Pegasus to come back here. If they don’t tell them Captain Armor says ‘pepper-lily’, that should get they’re immediate help. I’m going to scan around and start pulling out belongings.” They saluted and took off in a whoosh, leaving me along in the deathly silent valley… itching…
*Ponyville: Fluttershy’s Cottage. (Two days after Diamond Dog breakout)*
“Oh Angel won’t you please eat your carrot? You need it to grow into a big strong bunny,” Fluttershy pushed the small carrot towards the little rabbit only to have it kicked into the stream by said rabbit. “Oh Angel… I guess it’s alright if you miss a meal every now and then.”
”GAAAAOOOoooooooOOOOOORRRRRrrr,” a roar filled the air as another different roar answered it causing all of her animal friends to scatter and birds to fill the sky above the everfree.
“Eep,” the Pegasus cowered under a bush my Angel’s house and the different roar sounded again, this time sounding pained, “Manny? Oh my goodness… I can’t, it’s the Everfree but Manny sounds hurt…” Angel Bunny had hopped around and gave a swift kick in the flank to get her going, “Don’t worry, Manny! I coming to help you,” she whispered yelled as she took off to the evil forest.
Normally when you enter the forest you need to watch out for things like Timberwolves, snakes, and other beasties that roamed but with the roars filling the air the bravest thing that would dare be out was a yellow Pegasus and a small white rabbit that gave the timberwolves cowering under a rock cropping a ‘wuss’ look. She found ‘Manny’ by simply following the roars and she squeaked when she saw what he was fighting; it was nearly as tall as three ponies, legs covered in exoskeleton that looked much like a dog’s that ended in large talons, its arms ended in wicked five digit black-shelled claws while the rest of its arms were furry, it had the muzzle of a wolf but the rest of its head was covered in green scales with sharp horns jutting out from the back of his head, its chest was part exoskeleton and part fur stopping at its ribs with large dragonfly wings set in the exoskeleton part of its back, and a prehensile scaly tail that merged cleanly with the furry backside.
It took her less than a second to take all this in and she flew between the two charging forms and shouted, actually shouted, “Stop!” The Manticore skidded to a halt using his wings as air-brakes but the chimera stopped, looking at the Manticore strangely then at the disrupter. “Now you shouldn’t be fighting, the forest is big enough for the both of you. The Manticore began making random growling sounds and the Pegasus seemed to understand them, “Oh dear, it isn’t? Not when It, oh you really shouldn’t call somepony and It Manny, when he has claimed the border to Ponyville?” Manny growled once more and glared at the creature. “Oh my… is this true,” she turned the question to the other creature.
“HIIIIIISSSS.”
“I-I’m sorry, what was that,” she asked, confused that she couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. “Don’t you think it would be better for everyone if instead of claiming the border you let others go there?” The creature looked at the Manticore then at the pony then at the Manticore before launching itself at Manny, “No!” Fluttershy flitted in front of him and used her Stare, causing him to freeze mid-jump then collapsing to the ground but got up, looking at her strangely. “Do not attack my friends, Manny I think would be best if you leave.” Manny simply turned and walked away while licking his wounds. “And you! What did you think it would solve if you two fought,” she asked him but didn’t get an answer as he ripped several medium trees from the ground and carried them off. She kept asking it questions but it never answered except for hissing or growling, she told Angel to go back to the cottage, when he actually listened to her she followed the creature as it kept gathering things. It never seemed to mind her as she flitted amongst the trees as it worked and for some reason she felt the urge to sing, she never sang, except for in private but the Everfree is about as private as it’ll get.
” Strange sight you stand in the light You're wrong but you're right My heart's beating wildly Strange how I'm scared but delighted Afraid, but excited, too You have a cold heart You're reckless and distant, but I'll be persistent. I will understand you. Strange how I'm drawn to the danger, I reach out my hooves to you Do you long to be left all alone? Set apart with a heart made of stone Let me help, let's begin Let me learn, won't you let me in? All the light let it show You are a strange sight Some new kind of wonder with good hidden under I'm sure that it's true Strange how your dark doesn't faze me. No, I won’t give up on you. Do you long to be left all alone? Set apart with a heart made of stone Let me help, let's begin Let me learn, won't you let me in? All the light let it show If you're caught in the shadows and turned all around Lost in the darkness you will be found If you hear my voice, follow the sound 'Cause I'm here to guide you home. Do you long to be left all alone? Set apart with a heart made of stone Let me help, let's begin Let me learn, won't you let me in? All the light let it show Do you long to be left all alone? Set apart with a heart made of stone There's a light that you shine There's a love, I see it in your eyes All the dark let it go, you're not alone~
By the time she finished singing it was nearly night and she had followed him to a cave with an overhanging rock formation. He took each tree he had ripped out, cut off the roots with his claws, and stabbed them into the ground around the mouth of the cave. “I’ve never seen an animal make this kind of nest, beavers do something similar, oh what are these,” she asked him, landing inside the cave and looked at the cave wall where there were detailed carvings of ponies, mostly of a unicorn filly curled up on something. “They’re beautiful… what are you,” she asked but not getting an answer. Looking outside at the impending darkness, she eep’d and tried leaving but was grabbed by the creature and was hugged then released. She flapped her wings and flew home as the creature set to work carving on the wall a picture of the Pegasus and a husky sound escaped its hunched form, “Nice… Pony…” The creature must have made an impression on Fluttershy because she came back every day after she took care of her own animals. She spent time with him, brought him veggies that he ate with relish, and sung to him; the same song every day until she finally got him to follow her to her cottage.
*Ponyville: Shining Armor POV (Five days after Diamond Dog breakout.)*
Our chariot landed in the central square of Ponyville, we disembarked and the others gathered their things while I grabbed the large familiar green backpack I had pulled from the train, “Alright, the ponies that managed to escape from the dogs said they came out on Rambling Rock Ridge. I want a squad to head out and keep an eye out for a pale two legged being with little fur, Ice Flow will fill you in on the description. The rest of you find a meadow or field and set up base. I’ll need a few minutes to talk to my sister.” They saluted before going off to do just that. I placed the pack on my back and headed where Celestia said Twilight had taken residence, a library obviously, I was stopped by a frantic looking pony.
“Thank goodness, the guard is here about the roaring.”
“The roaring?”
“Yes it has been coming from the Everfree for four days now, we sent letters to Canterlot but their response was ‘Well it is the Everfree’ I mean what do they expect from us. We’ve been tormented by Timberwolves for years, a showpony got it into a couple of colts heads to bring an Usra Major into town for her to defeat but then couldn’t but thanks to Twilight she managed to get it back in the forest, not to mention the celestia-sakes DRAGON!”
I tried several time to interrupt her but couldn’t until she finally stopped after the bit about the dragon, “Ma’am, I’m not here about the roaring… I’m with the Royal not Equestrian guard.”
“There’s a difference?”
I sighed inwardly and pointed to my soldiers walking away, “Yes there’s a difference, see those ponies? Please report this to them, I have other business to take care of that is more urgent.” She huffed and trotted after them and I finally made it to the library and knocked on the door where Twilight’s assistant greeted me. “Hey Spike is Twilly around?”
“Sorry she isn’t, she’s out looking for Fluttershy. Something about roaring in the Everfree, I dunno, she never tells me anything,” he said with a grumble before perking up, “Say, you want some tea while you wait?”
“I’d love some,” I said, following him into the library and watched him run off to the kitchen to get it started.
“So what brings you by Ponyville,” I heard him ask from the other room.
“I’m leading several squads of guards while we’re looking for somepony, well technically they’re looking for a dog den that took part in derailing a train about a week ago.”
“Dog? Like Applejack’s pet winona,” he asked over a whistling sound.
“I doubt it, don’t worry about it, I’m actually here looking for someone else; a lanky two-legger by the name of Shinza, he was reported to be on the train to visit the Princess but well it derailed and he’s missing.”
He reappeared and offered me a cup which I took, “Well that stinks, any luck so far?”
I levitated the pack onto the table, “Just his belongings, I have a patrol out looking-“
The front door burst open and in ran Twilight as she began pulling multiple books off the shelves and causing paper to fly around the room, “Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh, I’ll need this and that and SPIIIIIIKE! Fetch my field kit with the Dualo-flastic Ochronomer!”
“But I just put that up and what about your brother? He came to see you,” Spike shouted at her over the loud rustling that stopped when he said brother.
“Brother,” she asked, turning around, spotting me, and dropping everything, “Shiny! What are you doing here? I just found out about it, how could you know about it, oh right the guard was notified about the roaring from the Everfree but what are you doing here?”
She was flailing her hooves about so I grabbed them in my magic and made her stand still, “I’m not here about the roaring, I’m looking for somepony.”
Spike cut in at this moment carrying a large crate, “Does this mean you found out what was making the roaring Twilight?”
“Well technically Fluttershy did-“
“Fluttershy?! But she’s terrified of everything and that roar sounded like it came from something big.”
“Three ponies big to be precise and it’s over at Fluttershy’s and I need to get over there now so kindly let me go Shiny,” after she said that I released my magic and she resumed picking up what she dropped and was out the door.
“Spike do you mind taking me to Fluttershy’s,” I asked the small dragon.
“Sure if you’ll carry the ochron-thingy, it’s really heavy.”
“Sure thing,” I lifted the crate in my magic and followed him to a cottage on the hill near the forest. Twilight was near the cottage with a yellow Pegasus and a large black furry thing that was laying on the ground. When we finally got to them Twilight had the creatures front claws open and was measuring them, “Twilly, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s alright,” the Pegasus who must be Fluttershy said in barely a whisper, “He doesn’t harm ponies, he’s very sweet.”
Twilight finished measuring and the creature folded its front legs under its head and looked at Fluttershy, “It’s a he? Nevermind judging from the jaw structure-“ she tapped the jaw and it opened its mouth, “-as well as the tooth shape it’s obviously pure carnivore and you said everytime you were with it that it only are vegetables and drunk water?”
“Oh yes, I found him a few days ago fighting Manny-“
“Who’s ‘Manny’,” I interrupted.
“He’s a Manticore that Fluttershy helped when Nightmare Moon returned and tried to stop us from getting to the castle of the royal pony sisters,” Twilight said absently as she switch to the creature’s dragonfly wings.
“Yes w-w-well I heard a roar and anther roar afterward that I knew was Manny’s so I flew off to help him and found them fighting. Manny said-“
“Manny said? You can talk to animals,” I asked, interrupting again.
“Shiny, stop interrupting her!”
“Sorry.”
“W-well Manny said they were fighting because this sweet guy had claimed the Ponyville border of the Everfree which explains why there haven’t been any monster attacks and so I got Manny to leave and after he left this guy became docile. He then began ripping out some trees and took them to this cave nearby that was filled with stone carvings of ponies an-an-and when I tried to leave he hugged me. I came back several times and he had added a carving of me to the wall, it was so beautifully done.”
As she finished her story I noticed Spike walk up to it and the creature growled, he stayed where he was, looking at the things tail, “Hey! That’s Dracon scale!”
“I know Spike,” said Twilight from atop the beast, “And these are dragonfly wings, and this is Dracon scale on its head as well as a wolf’s muzzle, and its legs are an insects with large talons of some kind- maybe dragon or hydra. I know what this is! It’s a Chimera which explains why Manny was fighting it; Manticore are chimeras as well, just a more well-known family and all Chimeras, not just Manticore are very territorial.” She took a breath after that explanation, opened the crate I was carrying and began piecing together a large machine.
A cry from overhead from a familiar Pegasus called out, “Captain Armor!” He landed and pulled a pair of goggles from his face, taking a hissing breath when he saw the creature.
“Ice Flow, tell me you have news on the whereabouts of Shinza,” the creature turned when I said Ice Flow’s name.
“Something tells me we don’t need to keep looking,” stated dumbly as he stared at the creature looking at him.
“And why is that,” I asked, mad that he’d give up when he’s the one that wanted to find him the most.
“Because he.“ “Is.” “Already.” “Here,” he spoke then another huskier voice spoke behind me, I turned around and the creature was shrinking.
“Oh my goodness he talks,” Fluttershy said in wonder.
“Hello Captain, I guess they were right about me being a monster…” as he spoke; all the extra bits began pulling into him, turning back to his normal pale skin until he was back to normal size and missing his vest and pants. When he spoke his voice was normal and he asked while he covered his lower bits, “I don’t suppose you have my backpack do you?”
“I do,” I said, summoning the pack from where I left it in the library with a soft pop, “Mind telling me where you been for the past two weeks?”
“Two weeks,” he shouted as he hopped into a pair of shorts similar to the ones he had when we first met. “Where do I even begin…”
“How about at the part where you were taken by the dogs.”
“Ugh a perfectly good pair of sneakers ruined… wait, taken by the dogs,” he asked before wincing, “I don’t remember, I remember the train-wreck but nothing after… Ah they’re not sneakers but they’ll do.” He pulled out something that looked like his ‘sneakers’ but they just slid over his feet.
At this point Twilight was having one of her meltdowns at Shin’s transformation which was intriguing me as well, “B-but you and the Chimera and… that’s not POSSIBLE. What are you?!” She began getting that manic look in her eyes again and I started to step in.
“I’m Shinza Monk, pleased to meet you, I take you’re Twilight Sparkle? How’d that thing with Nightmare Moon go?”
“It went fine, Princess Luna is back to normal with Princess Celestia but you didn’t answer my question what are you?”
“Ah Ice Flow, good to see you. What are you doing here,” he asked ignoring Twilights question which I answered for him.
“Twilly, he’s an Obsidian. He’s the one I’ve been looking for,” I explained to her, “I’m not sure about the chimera bit but I’m sure he can explain.” I looked over to Shinza who was busy hugging an startled Fluttershy while sniffling and I heard him whispering.
“Thank you, thank you so much Fluttershy,” as he whispered this to her she hugged him back then he set her down and dried his eyes. “Well of course I can explain… just… not sure myself. So I’ll just say this; magic,” he chuckled slightly before going back to his bag. “My word, that’s the largest lizard I’ve ever seen.”
“Hey,” I heard Spike shout, “I’m a dragon, dragon. I don’t do that tongue thing.”
For some reason Shinza just burst out laughing and when asked what was so funny he just responded, "Inside joke."
"Come along Shinza, I think it's best we get you caught up to speed. Twilight do you mind if he stays with you? I doubt any inns would let him stay there.
"Sure Shiny and while stays I can run some tests on him."
"Whooboy," I heard Shinza whistle under his breath as she led him back to Ponyville.
Twilight had managed to coerce the proprietor of the Ponyville Inn into letting me stay although at larger fee for ‘possible damage’. I was shown to my room while Twilight followed Shining Armor to a library of some sort maybe her home. The innkeeper opened the door and passed me the key, “Bed, bath, and wardrobe. Don’t break anything.”
“Aye aye...” I entered the room and set my things on the bed while the door closed behind me. ‘Let’s see if I have a spare shirt, shame I lost my old one in the mines… it was nice, looks like all my other clothes are silk as well,’ I pulled a similar red vest and slipped it on, “Much better. Hello what do we have here?” I picked up the object in question; a package tied to a letter in a green ribbon. Cracking the wax seal on the ribbon and began reading it silently.
Greetings,
I see one of my infiltrators actually succeed in finding you Shinza; he tells me your pheromones are quite high ranking. Different hive or not, I am glad you managed to find your senses and I’ve decided to leave you with a little gift for not exposing my drone to the guards. Keep it on your person; give it a while and you’ll love what will come out.
-Q.C.
“Who the hell is Q.C? Meh free shit is free shit,” I opened the box expecting some kind of magic talisman but no, it’s an oblong moss covered rock about the almost the size of my hand. “A… rock,” I tossed in the air a couple times before pocketing it in my pants without a second thought. ‘Speaking of; I wonder if I go back to the- the den… hmm.’ What I had told the captain was a lie obviously, I remembered everything; the wreck, the fighting the dogs and losing control… as I thought of what happened, it angered me. Angry not at the dogs for what they did, I’m sure they had a reason to kidnap people-ponies- I don’t know; I guess I was just angry at myself for lying.
‘Guess I’ll have to rectify that somehow…’
“Shinza,” Twilight’s voice brought me out of my thoughts and back to the present. Opening my door I found the purple unicorn looking awkwardly around.
“Yes?”
“I was just going to say since you were situated if you wouldn’t mind joining me at the library.”
“Nah, I think I’m going to take a nap.” I stated bluntly causing her to jerk her head up.
“But it’s barely noon! Whatever, when you wake up from your nap come to the Golden Oaks Library on Main. It would please me to no ends to be able to run some tests on you,” the look on her face reminded me of the look of a cat with a new plaything.
“Sure… now if you don’t mind, g’night.” Letting the door swing shut with a snap, locked it, I opened the wardrobe and put my pack inside before flopping down on top of the quilt. Given my height my feet overhung the end of the bedframe and I sighed, “Is it so hard to get a bed that fits?”
I awoke with a start, heart pounding in my ears; breathing hard I looked around the room that was significantly darker than before, “Damn nightmares.” The only thing I remember from the nightmare was a hulking fire beast killing my roommate then me; I ran a hand down my face and I registered that something was wrong with my room. “Who’s there,” I’d asked, not expecting an answer.
“I am,” a voice said suddenly right next to me, causing me to yelp, fall out of bed, and slam the back of my head into the table next to the bed. “Sweet Chrysalis, I’m so sorry sir! Are you a’right,” the voice sounded panicked and I looked up to see a familiar Pegasus.
“Ice Flow,” the venom in my voice made him flinch, “How did you- What are you doing in here? I locked door!”
“You can’t lock out insects, sir.” Nodding as if it made some kind of sagely sense. “Besides I have news; I found the Diamond Dog Den where you were held… I found some of your things.” He pointed a hoof to a pile of bloody clothes on the floor by the door. “I have also separated from the guard who taking part in the hunt for survivors, I’ve decided to accompany you on this journey.”
“Really,” I asked and he just nodded, I finally got off the floor and picked up the bloodied clothes, “What about that unicorn with attitude problems that you had a thing with; Misty something?”
“Myst Veil?”
“Yeah her; thought you were pretty close,” as I spoke I looked at the pile in the afternoon light, totally unsalvageable and the pockets held nothing but rancid dog meat, “Gross… Going to have to burn these or something. Actually can you just teleport theses somewhere far away?” A flash of green and a moment later they were gone, “Thanks.”
“She’ll still be there when I get back; I can’t in good conscience let a changeling with so little control loose on Equestria so I’ll have to keep you under control. No flex on this one, so… want to go grab a bite to eat?”
I just stared at the weird little pony, “You keep me under control? Ha! I have perfect control... I just don’t know what went wrong with the multiple forms.”
“What’s up with that anyways? I thought we could only morph to one different form at a time,” he asked, his stare starting to make me uncomfortable.
‘Why does he still think I’m a changeling? It’s pretty obvious that I’m not, oh well; better just let him believe that.’
“I don’t know… guess I’m just special. So can you transform into different forms too? Can you take my shape that I’m in right now?”
He ran a hoof through his mane as he looked me over, “I don’t see why not but bipeds aren’t my forte. One of my swarm-mates does tons of jobs in biped heavy lands, she says the balance is a little finicky but manageable.” There was a flash of green fire and the Pegasus was replaced with the bug pony that was a little shorter, “Do you mind doing some motions so I can see how your arms and legs work?” I simply nodded, going through the motions, and when I was done there was another flash of green and I looked over at completely naked me.
“Hot damn, do I really look this fine? Can’t you do clothes though?”
“Give me a second,” his hands glowed a sickly green color and he just stared at them, “Whoa that’s trippy.” After he said that there was a flash and he was wearing what I was wearing.
“So… odd question but do you hear anything, like in the back of your mind?”
“No… why do you?”
I hesitated at first then nodded, “Sometimes but only when I Shift, sometimes it happens other times it doesn’t but when it does it sounds like my voice… but not my voice.”
“Odd… it sounds like the hive-mind but the voices should be copies of other changeling’s voices. Who knows; maybe you’re just crazy,” he said this jokingly but the thought had obviously crossed my mind. Two more flashes of green fire and there was a Pegasus wearing pony equivalent of my clothes, “Sweet Chrysalis these are comfortable… well don’t leave me hanging; turn back so we can see if this town has a bar I’m starving over here.”
“Turn back,” I repeated, ‘He probably means turn into a changeling.’ I balled my fists up, “I can’t, I’ve never been able to fully transform… only partially transform and the- the voice…”
“Dude, are you a stallion or a mouse?”
“Neither, I’m a man.”
“Good enough for me! Now sack up and ignore the voice in your head, you control you,” he had stood up on his hind legs to give me the pep talk and he was almost as tall as I was.
“Alright,” I hesitated for a second then the creepy yet familiar sensation of millions of bugs crawling all over me took hold, when it stopped I looked in the room’s mirror and finally got a good look at myself; five foot six and covered in the shiny exoskeleton, my hair was gone but I had twin pair of black pincer-like horns as well as a jagged horn like Ice had sticking out of my forehead, and a set of fangs in a mouth similar to my human mouth, and my emerald eyes stayed the same but the pupil was replaced with a one similar to a snake’s eye. ‘At least the voice isn’t there.’ “So what do you think,” I asked him and found him scrunched up against the wall, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re a sentinel! I can’t believe your queen let you out of her sight,” he was basically shouting at me now.
’So that’s what we are… sounds menacing and I bet it makes all the bitches wet.’
“Oh for fucks sake!”
Ice had stopped freaking out by my outburst and grabbing my head, “What’s wrong?! Shin!”
’Nothing now… Let’s take a lil ride shall we,’ the voice said as it got stronger and my vision tunneled and my voice spoke but I hadn’t said anything. “S’all right but please… call me Covet, Shin is the other form’s name.” ‘I saw ‘Covet’ look in the mirror and my eyes had switched from emerald to ruby in color before there was a flash of red fire and an emerald pegasus with a cutie-mark of a heart with an arrow through it and blazing hair stood in his place. “Now let’s say we hit a bar… I’m feeling a might hungry as well.”
‘You son of a bitch! Give me my body back …and stop trying to get in these ponies non-existent pants! Christ, if you succeed there’ll be a special place in hell for me!’
’It’s no longer your body, got it?! Besides getting into their pants isn’t my intention, the lust they exude is fine… although a quickie wouldn’t be out of the question,’ he finally responded after four hours of drinking and hitting on several mares. He was currently having a tongue war with a pink mare with a cutie-mark of a couple of berries that looked really familiar.
‘Ah c’mon, gross,’ I shouted from the void that was supposed to be my brain -what does that say about me- I couldn’t see out of my eyes so much as it was like watching television but inside my head.
Ice flow was in a similar situation but he was being more withdrawn about it, guess Myst Veil was something he cherished, he separated from the mint-green unicorn, “I think it’s best if we separate here, too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Shi- I mean, Covet; don’t you think it’s best if we go back to the inn? It’s getting kind of late.”
Covert managed to pull his lips away from the drunk mare for five seconds to answer, “I might in a bit, go on back… but get your own room, I have a feeling mine’s going to be in use.” Ice looked at him for a second then left, he turned to the mint-green unicorn who was trying to get out of the booth, “Where are you going?”
“I’sh whas gun to go hume… plansh hash fullin thro’. Nut gun get any ‘night,” the tanked unicorn replied with a heavy slur.
“Says who, there’s plenty of Covet to covet. Why don’t you join… uh,” he turned to the pink pony in his forelegs, “What’s your name again?”
“Namesh Berry.”
“Right, join me and Berry for a little fun?”
“Ah shupose that ish bet’er than noshing,” as she said this he had both of them under his wings and led them back to the hotel.
‘OH-MY-FUCKING-GOD-NO!’
*Knock. Knock. Knock.*
“Go ‘way,” I mumbled, pulling my foreleg over my eyes and it hit me, “What?!” I rolled over and got on my hooves and dropped to the ground again rubbing my crotch, “Sweet merciful baby jesus why does my dick hurt so much?!” I looked around the room and found the two mares cuddling together with their legs splayed near where I woke up. “Oh god, it wasn’t a horrible nightmare.”
’Nope but I must say, they were delectable besides if it were a nightmare; I hear there’s a certain Princess that monitors dreams, woulda loved have a taste of ‘er,’ I heard him make some kind of slurping noise that made my skin crawl.
‘Covet! How dare you! Oh god, my innocence… I’m going to hell… or this world’s hell, which is worse?’
’Oh get over it Nancy, if anything it was my innocence, if you had the wheel you would have blown- are you just going to just stand there talking to yourself or are you going to answer the damn door?!’
“Door,” I asked dumbly and another set of knocks startled me, “One second!” It took me a second to operate the doorknob and opened it to find the innkeeper and Twilight who flinched when he smelled the air.
“Who the buck are you,” the innkeeper wasted no time in screaming at me which caused the occupant of the room across the hall to open his door.
“Buck dude,” turns out the occupant was Ice Flow, he looked into my room and saw the mares, “Are those the mares from the bar?”
“Do you know this stallion,” the Innkeeper turned her fury on Ice.
“Yeah his name’s Sh- erhm It’s Covet,” Twilight looked between the two of us and it looked like she clicked the few pieces together.
The Innkeeper turned back on me, “Well Covet! Where is Shinza Monk, the occupant, I would like to yell at him as well before kicking his sorry flank out; this is an inn, not a bucking love hotel!”
‘They have love hotels here?’
’Ohhoho you’re in for it now, let’s see if you can bullshit your way out of this.’
I tried making my voice sound as far from my original voice as normal, “Shin’s uh… in the bathroom… I’ll go get him.” I closed the door on them and rushed to the bathroom. ‘Tell me how to turn back!’
’I could tell you… might even let you borrow my form so long as you make a deal with me…’
‘What kind of deal?’
’You let me take a spin every now and again and I won’t hijack you when you shift.’
‘That’s it? Deal, just don’t cause situations like this again!’
’Mhm, short and straight to the point, I like that… I’ll do the fine tuning since you obviously have no idea what to do. All you need to do is imagine yourself as changeling you then when you’re back just Shift to human. Easy-peasy.’
I did so and red flames surrounded me and I was back in changeling form then shifted back to normal. I ran back to the door and swung it open and felt a particular breeze, “…Fuck I’m not wearing pants am I?”
“OUT! Get the buck out,” her screaming finally pulled the two mares from dreamland, took one look at me, screamed something, and ran out of the room. “That goes for your two, pay up and get out!”
I watched her storm off, looking down I found Twilight just staring at my junk, “Can I help you with something?”
“Eep, nothing,” she shouted and ran off.
“Dude, not to sound gay or anything but dayum, might want to take a shower before you leave… Dayum,” he shook his head as he turned.
“Shut the fuck up and pack up, looks like we gotta find another place to stay.”
“Fine but what was with all that stuff last night and calling yourself Covet?”
“I’ll explain as soon as I have an explanation myself,” I closed the door and hopped into the shower. ‘Hint, hint… right, you only ever talk when I Shift… god damn it.’
We sat down at a table outside of a small café, I needed answers from the voice that called himself Covet and since the only way to do that was to shift forms slightly so I chose to shift my eyes to the changeling eyes, ‘Alright you bastard, I want answers.’
’Who you calling a bastard, we know who our dad is. What kind of answers do you want?’
‘First I want to know what the hell you are!’
’No need to shout… I’ll talk, I’m you… well not really you but I’m a part of you, you think this power of yours came free of charge? Nu’uh it chewed your brain up, spit it out, and here we are,’ I felt my head jerk around and follow the waitresses flank, ’Eh, I’ve seen better.’
‘Would you stop that? I’m not attracted to ponies!’
“You alright,” I jerked my head away from the mares flank and looked Ice in the eyes and he flinches a bit, “dude your eyes! Somepony will see!”
“I know… I’m trying to get some answers out of ‘Covet’ turns out the voice that you said didn’t control me? Hah, turns out he totally can and he thinks of nothing but fucking.” Another mare walked past me and my hand went to smack her flank but I grabbed my wrist before it could, ‘We had a fucking deal, stop it!’ Covet huffed and went silent, Ice was giving me a worried look, “What?”
“So you really are hearing voices in your head?”
“Well there’s only one so it’d be voice and it only happens when I take another shape besides this one.”
’Oh ho there's more than one of us in here, your noodle is like one big orgy in here.’
“What?!” I stood up, causing the other patrons to jump and I sat back down blushing and Shifted my eyes back, mumbling to myself, “Fuck you Covet…”
“May I take your order sir,” the waitress I had almost smacked was holding a pad and paper in her magic.
Ice looked over the menu before ordering some pasta dish, “I’m not that hungry so I’ll just have a salad…”
“Coming right up sirs,” she turned to leave but sniffed and blushed before hurrying away.
“Dude I thought you showered!”
“Dude I did! Whatever, that’s the least of my trouble, that purple unicorn in the hallway was the Captain’s sister…”
He whistled in awe, “She was kinda cute but if I tried anything the captain would find some way to make my life hell and I’m not even in the guard.”
“Best thing I feel I can do is just hit the road before word spreads… found something out though but it’s not helpful…”
“Wazzat?”
“Apparantly Covet is a part of me, this ability to Shift did something to my head and now he’s here as well as some others but I haven’t heard them at all,” a waiter came out with our food, took one whiff and mouthed ‘nice’ then left. I covered my face and groaned, “You’re taking this all suprisingly well after hearing about someone who hears voices that can control his body. Ugh, who puts flowers in a salad?”
He slurped up a noodle, “I dunno, you seem pretty cool and if you’re telling the truth Covet wasn’t a bad hang. He or you must have a liver and constitution of steel to not have a hangover after last night, you nearly drained the keg the barkeep had tapped.”
“Yeah…” The rest of the meal was spent in silence expect for the few whispers, towards the end there was a crack of thunder and rain came out of nowhere, “What the fuck?!” I looked up and saw a small cloud with a rainbow maned pegasus jumping on it.
“There that otta take care of that, I can smell you from up here!” She then flew off oddly as he wings didn’t seem to want to bend.
“I told you to take a shower…” I gave him a kick under the table and he yelp then laughed. “It seems to have been taken care of for the most part anyways.”
“I fucking hate this…”
As we walked through town, checking out shops and stall, I decided to try getting more info out of my mind-roomie. He basically talked about how he came to be; back in Baltimare when Ice shook my hand he was barely but a whisper in the void but when I fought the D-dog I shifted further and further into his changeling form. He said if I hadn’t absorbed the D-dog while I was shifting into changeling I would have had full control, when I asked him why I didn’t he replied ‘ever see three pilots try to fly a plane with one joystick at the same time’ so that explained that but then three became more when I ran into the Everfree and absorbed even more until a certain yellow pegasus reminded me of my humanity and gave me enough strength to take control to Shift back.
We finished talking about the time we stopped in front of a tree with a sign that said Golden Oaks Library that looked like it had three levels. I pushed the door open and stooped to walk inside, “Holy jeez…” I stepped back outside then back in, “It’s smaller on the outside.”
“I like it when ponies say it’s bigger on the inside but whatever,” a young boy’s voice spoke up above us, looking up I saw Spike coming down the stairs, “Feel free to look at any books but if you want to borrow them you will need to write down your library card number and the books number in the book on that table.” As he said this he entered a little doorway next to the stairs and I heard what sounded like a fridge opening, “Looks like I need to go get some more sapphires.”
“Alright Ice, I’ll take this side you take that side then meet in the middle.”
“What is it we’re supposed to be looking for again?”
“Magical Mental Illnesses or something related to multiple personalities…” I got a nod as a response and we set to work, we had each looked through two shelves when the door opened and in walked the Captain Armor and Twilight she looked at me and her face turned into a beet. “Hey… at least I’m wearing pants this time. Nice place you got here.”
“ Can I help you find something?”
“Uh… I suppose… do you have anything on magical illnesses or dealing with multiple personalities?”
She thought for a moment then her horn glowed and five books flew off the shelf, “Mmm Meticulous Malformed Malidies… Freudian Guide to the Mind… Magic Diseases and Causes… One of Many in the Body of One; biography of a pony suffering M.P.D. and M.P.D and you; a self-help guide. Are any of these suitable to your inquiry?”
“These will do… thanks Twilight, a least somebody can get stuff done around here-“
“Somepony.”
“Excuse me?”
“The correct term is somepony, anypony, or everypony.”
“No it’s; someone, anyone, everyone, anybody, somebody, and everybody,” this exchange went on for several minutes until it escalated into a all-out yelling match. “Look at this,” as I shouted I waved my arms up and down my body, “This is a body and it’s a ‘one’!” I wave my hands over Ice, “This is a body and a ‘one’.” My voice finally cracked and my shouts were barely over a whisper, “You’re a body and a ‘one’. Don’t limit your vocabulary to just ponies, some races might find it offensive and a shouting match would be the least of your worries…” I turned down my volume quite a bit and continued, “You don’t have to change it right away, it’s the little things… I mean do I look like a pony?” Ice made a motion like he was going to answer, “Don’t even answer that Ice.” If I was still talking to Covet I’m sure he would say something along the lines of ‘fight, fight, fight; kiss, kiss, kiss’.
“Twily, it does make sense in a way, I mean all the foreign diplomats use those terms,” Shining Armor tried to persuade her.
“I know exactly how to solve this; I’ll just send a letter to Princess Celestia. Spike!” She shouted and the little dragon ran into the room with a couple gems in his mouth which he promptly swallowed. “Take a letter.” He ran over to a desk and pulled out some parchment and a red quill, I looked at Shining Armor and gave him a ‘is-she-serious’ look and he just shrugged, “Dear Princess Celestia, I write to you with an inquiry about social standards. A certain visitor by the name of Shinza has brought up the point that everypony here uses ‘everypony’ and he seems determined to shatter this thinking with his replacing pony with ‘one’ or ‘body’. I wish to know what your opinion is on the matter… is what he says true and it’s better than our way? Forever Faithful, Twilight Sparkle. Got that Spike?”
“Yep,” he took a deep breath and breathed fire onto the roll of parchment and it turned to ash before flying out the window. “Well that’ll take a bit to reach Canterlot so can I-“ whatever he was going to say was cut off by a massive belch paired with green fire.
“Nice one,” I gave him a double thumbs up.
“How did she even write a reply that fast?” He looked sheepish before reading the letter, “My dearest Twilight, while it is true my ponies choose to use ‘somepony, everypony, anypony’, it comes from years without the presence of other races and it is simply generation imprinting. I must admit that even I fall into times where I use these terms, I know you value your knowledge and you think it to be infallible but our visitor has a valid point; Equestria is meeting more and more races that are far from equine. If we wish to have further interactions with them it would be best to use his ‘one’ or ‘body’ terminolgy, it is less inclusive. You do not have to change overnight, just try your best to correct yourself when speaking with non-equines. Grateful and Appreciative, Princess Celestia.” I could only whistle as Ice said a word he had been using a lot recently; ‘dayum’. “Oh wait there’s more; P.S. Shining Armor I know you’re there, why on Equus didn’t you inform me that you had found Shinza Monk? I expect a full report from you when you return. P.P.S. I’m glad they managed to find you Shinza Monk, I look forward to meeting you in the flesh one day.”
“I’m going to get so much flak for that…”
“Dude just tell her the truth; you’ve only found me for like a day.”
“And what a day,” Ice added under his breath but I’m sure everyone heard it.
Twilight hadn’t said anything since Spike had read the letter but her hair seemed to be frizzing out a bit, “Hey Captain Armor, do you mind telling the Princess we’ll be in Canterlot in a few days. Gotta do a supply run, I need a new map, compass; mine broke somehow and I'm not sure but I think it's magic, and maybe some rations. After all we’ll be walking there so it’ll take a while.”
“You’re going to walk to Canterlot?! That’s a three day trot, it’s faster to just ride the train,” the look he gave me was worth its weight in gold.
“Nu’uh, forgetta ‘bout it, if I don’t set foot on another train for the rest of my life it will be to soon. ‘Sides might just fly there after I get the hang of my wings.”
Twilight shook her head, “I just realized, did you blow off coming to the library after your nap just to do frivolous activities with Berry, Lyra, and that stallion Covet?”
“Well no, that was Covets doing. If anything I was fearing for my soul and whether I’d be sent to my hell or pony hell… still don’t know whether which is worse; I’m going to say mine, I’ve read Dante’s Inferno. Shit’s gruesome.”
“What’s hell?”
“Some say it’s an imaginary place made to scare people but some say it’s a metaphysical plane where your soul resides if it was evil. It’s described by some to be a beyond massive cavern filled with fire where demons, imps, and other tortured souls torment you for eternity.”
“Like Tartarus? That’s the only place I can think of where evil things come from… but it’s not a metaphysical place; the gates are towards the equator in the Badlands.”
‘Tartarus? Like Greek mythology; Tartarus?’
“Uh… the gates of Tartarus don’t happen to be guarded by a three headed dog does it?”
“You mean Cerberus? Yeah, he guards the gates,” Twilight ran a hoof over the shelves, “t, t, t Turnabout Styles, Turning on your stallion, Tartarus: a reference guide. Here you go.”
She floated it to me and I grabbed it out of the air and flipped through it, ‘If this place has a tartarus, what does that make this place; Hades? I remember Tartarus being some pit where the greek gods tossed their father. Maybe Cerberus isn’t actually guarding Tartarus and that’s actually the door to the underworld…’ “Hmm, yes very nice… Actually I’m kind of parched, what say we have some tea eh?”
“That sounds wonderful, I’ll go put on a pot,” Twilight made her way to the kitchen while Shining Armor pulled up a chair from somewhere and forced me into it.
“You seem to be remember an aweful lot for somepony- someone who claimed they couldn’t remember what happened,” he gave me a glare that would make a normal man waver but not me!
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I was planning on telling you, I couldn’t live with the lies! I remember everything, please don’t lock me away, I’m not a monster I promise!”
His glare softened as I pleaded for my life, “I know that, I’m not really upset, I just wish you would have told me.”
I ran the back of my hand across my nose and sniffled then dropped the act, “Cool, oh hey look the tea’s ready.” My attitude change cause him to double take and I just grinned like a madman, “But really, I hated lying about that, especially since you’re a friend… How about I give you some of the details over tea… not all of them because they’re kinda gruesome. Hey Ice want some tea?”
“Thanks but no… I think I’ll go pay a certain pony a visit,” he nodded before turning to leave, barely moving out of the way as the door burst open and a yellow filly ran in the room followed by an orange mare with three apples as her cutie-mark. “Pardon me.”
“Hey Twi, Ah hate to ask but Ah need a favor; Can you watch Applebloom for the next couple of days? We’re going to be swamped over at the farm and we can’t be looking over our shoulder making sure she’s alright.”
“But Applejack, Ah wanna jus wanna help. I’m big enough to buck apples now, why cain’t Ah help?”
“Cuz yer jus ah filly Applebloom, Ah’d feel better if you stayed with Twi for a couple of days-“ he looked a Twilight and saw me next to her and I waved, “Uh Sugarcube? Who’s uh, yer guest?” Twilight finished pouring everyone a cup, patting my arm she looked at Applejack, “This is Shinza Monk, a traveler from Obsidinite was it?” Her question was direct more at Shining Armor than me and he simply nodded, “Also I would be glad to take Applebloom in for a couple of days, Shinza was just about to tell us about what happened in the Everfree.” Applebloom rushed over, forelegs on my leg, “You were in the Everfree? What was it like, did you get attacked by Timberwolves, did you see an Ursa Minor?” “Um… you know I don’t think now would be a good time to tell the story, maybe I’ll write it down for you.” “You don’t want to tell the story,” I looked down and was assualted by big teary eyes and a pout, “Won’t you please tell us?” I looked at Shining Armor to Twilight then to Applejack, “I wasn’t aware your people had weaponized adorable, that’s a low blow.” The girls looked a little sheepish while Shining Armor just laughed. I reached down, picked up Applebloom, and set her on my knee, “Fine, I’ll tell you the story of a man who was given a power he had no right to have and it destroyed him. He began his travels like any other would but along the way the Fates decided to test him; he was taken by forces not of pony kind where he was held with the foals whos parents chose to make a deal for. He knew not for how long he was in there but he cared deeply for the foals. In his eyes they stood for the innocence that he hadn’t seen for so long he almost forgot about it. When his captors chose to take the foals from him, he attacked his captor and began the freefall into madness.” “Wow,” everyone seemed to say at once, “Then what?”
“He failed to protect the one thing he set out to do, he had become the monster in the foal’s eyes; they fled in terror but then like a light in the dark of his mind he felt the familiar pull of home. It was forest filled with terrible creature like himself, its weather matched his old home’s weather. He spent several days alone yet not alone, so many voices filled his head; they fought for control while he was pushed to the back of their mind. The one thing they agreed on was this; nothing shall pass them and get into the village. Not the chicken snake, nor the wooden wolves, or even the enormous snake that came back multiple times until they put it down. It wasn’t until they faced off against a Manticore that they were defeated, not by the Manticore but by a little yellow pony… She spent several outings with the monster as it went about its business, she sung songs and tried talking with them as if she could understand him.”
Applebloom hopped up and down, “Is the yellow pony miss Fluttershy?! She cares so much about animals, Ah bet it’s her.”
“Haha yes Applebloom, the yellow pony was miss Fluttershy but let me finish the story, it’s almost done. Each outing Fluttershy took with the monster the quieter the voices in his head became until only his remained and by then Fluttershy had coaxed him from the forest to her home where he was reacquainted with two ponies from his past and he returned to his true form. The moral of this story I suppose is that even is someone appears to be scary, everyone-“
“…Deserves a little kindness,” Twilight finished my sentence and I looked at her, “Sorry, it’s just that Fluttershy said the same thing when we encountered a Manticore when Nightmare Moon returned. It’s how I realized that she was the element of kindness.”
“Huh… whelp, story time is over, I’ve got things to do before I hit the road,” I set Applebloom down on the ground, stood up, and slung my pack over my shoulder, “Actually maybe you can help me with one thing; can you take a look at my compass, it just keeps spinning.”
A lavender aura wrapped around it as I held it out, Twilight pulled it close and inspected it while humming, “Oh, it seems the magnetism spell’s north coordinates were purged somehow.” Her horn flared once and she passed it over, upon inspection I found it pointing to what I assumed north was. Pocketing it I walked out and closed the door behind me, I paused and listened through the door to them whispering. I opened the door once more and found Applejack, Shining Armor, and Twilight huddled and whispering, “Oh right, it was a pleasure to meet you all, any friends of Shining Armor and Fluttershy are friends of mine and I won’t forget this. If you guys need anything the next time I’m in town just ask me, I’m your man.” I made my way around town; purchasing everything that would be needed for a long trek but I thought of something and I stopped by what looked like a flower shop.
“Welcome to the Triple Orchid, how may I help- whoahohoho,” a mare who was speaking suddenly screamed and fainted behind the wagon.
“Are you alright?” I walked around the wagon to check on her, “I know I’m kind of scary-looking but trust me; I’m a softie.”
“R-really,” a soft whisper came from her slumped body, “Well what can I get you?”
“I was wondering if you had a bouquet of flowers, whatever you think is appropriate for a thank-you gift.” She promptly started bundling flowers together then wrapped them up, her odd smile never seemed to fade until I left then there was a trio of voices screaming something about horror. As I walked to the cottage on the hill I took a piece of paper from my book and scribbled a quick note to say my thanks and if she ever needed anything if I was in town I’d do it for her. I set them on her doorstep, knocked quickly, and made a dash to hide when she opened the door. She picked up the flowers in a hoof, read the note then took a deep breath of the flowers, and turned back inside. Feeling light as I feather I took a seat on a bench while I waited on Ice to get done with what he was doing, I decided to take a moment to talk to Covet and shifted my eyes, ‘You enjoying yourself Covet?’
’Not so much, no… The others wish to speak with you.’
‘How can they speak with me if I don’t know what they are?’
’Don’t worry, you just need to take a nap. We’ll meet in your dreams.
‘I don’t see how I’m suppose to suddenly fall asleep but alright let’s-,’ Everything went black then burst into a swirl of colors and I was standing in my old dormroom, “-it… So what’s this about Covet… Covet?”
“Out here,” I heard his voice call from the hallway, I opened it and found myself standing in the middle of a field with a large changeling with red snake eyes, “Sorry but there wasn’t enough room in that place for a couple of the others.”
“Speaking of; where are they?”
“Right here,” a deep slow voice spoke then a huge black Drakon slithered into view from a fog bank from on top of an incline.
More continued to come from the fog until there were seven of them standing before me; a dragon with bronze scales that was double my height, a Diamond Dog with grey fur with a white chest tuff that stood up to my chest, as well as the three races of ponies; a dark green pegasus that was obviously female with a golden mane and a roll of gauze for a cutie-mark that was trying to make herself as small as possible, a unicorn with a black coat and flaming red hair that hide his curved red horn very well while his cutiemark was a raging fire, and the last was an crimson male earth pony with a black mane and a cutiemark of yin and yang with two hooves bumping together.
“…Sup. Wait that sounds really lame, hold on I can come up with something better,” I racked my brain for a moment trying to come up with something better.
“There is no need,” the Diamond Dog stepped forward, pounded his chest then punched mine and knocking the wind from them, “We have talked.”
“The mutt speaks true,” the large bronze dragon nodded before bowing.
“Who you calling mutt, scales-for-brains!?”
The dragon ignored him by setting his golden eyes on me, “I am Makarov, formed by the young dragon known as Spike, you have bested me in the battle for control and as such you may use my strengths as your own. May you show caring for the weak and wrath on those that wish them ill.” He poked my chest with a claw and vanished into me with a golden light.
“What was that about,” I asked Covet who had taken a seat next to where I was standing.
“Ever since you and I made that deal after the incident we’ve been talking and they wished to do the same.”
The crimson pony took that as a sign and took a bow before me, “I thank you for the life you have given me father.”
“F-father?!”
Covet coughed into a hoof, “Momo here was formed when we were screwing Berry. He seems to be very set on calling you that.”
I held out a fist and Momo bumped it with his own then spoke, “Even in combat you can be generous, it’s all about finding balance on whether it should be a for you or your enemy.”
He disappeared in an aura of black and white then the Diamond Dog stepped forward, “I won’t be outdown by scale-for-brains, I am Stash; formed from my brethren you have slain and you may use me as well but I demand tribute; treasure and then you shall have my loyalty.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that so I just nodded and he turned into a brown aura and entered me as well, “What was that about?”
“Diamond Dogs, they’re loyal to only two things; Their Alpha or the one with the most treasure. Alright let’s speed it up a lil, you two next,” he pointed a holey hoof at the pegasus and unicorn that then walked forward.
“We are Ebony and Burning Embers formed of Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle,” he nodded then faded to black smoke leaving the mare shaking.
“T-thank you for allowing us to be here.” With that she faded as well into a pink wisp.
“What about you tall dark and slithery,” I asked the enormous Drakon spoke for the second time.
“I suppose… just seems like to much work… will there be food?”
“Probably,” Covet and I answered at the same time.
“Then you can call on me… but not often alright? I am… Stoh’keth…” His form tense a little before slithering back into the fog instead of turning into a wisp, smoke, or aura.
“Like I said Shin, there are a few of us in here,” the Changeling then stood before me, “Thanks to the infiltrator, Ice Flow, I now know more about changelings… I am without a Queen to defend so I will defend you but our previous deal still stands.”
“When did you talk to Ice?” He simply smiles and I woke up on the bench, “Ah jeez my neck!” I stood up, rolling my neck to ease the soreness out of it. I heard flapping and then a tap on my leg, opening my eyes I saw Ice with a saddlebag nearly to bursting, “Ready to go Ice?”
“You know it, got everything I needed from General Goodies… surprisingly it was a well stocked store.”
“Was? …Did you steal that stuff,” I gave him an accusatory look.
“What? No! I just got a really good discount.”
“Whatever let’s go,” readjusting my straps I lead the way towards the large snow-capped mountain city of Canterlot. When we finally made it out of Ponyville onto a well-traveled road Ice started humming then it turned in a sing about being on the road again. “Please don’t sing.” My request went ignored as he just kept singing.
***Golden Oaks Library***
“Twily I’m so glad I got the chance to spend time with you, strange coincidence the traveler I was looking for was near your new home,” Shining Armor hug his little sister.
“I’m glad as well but don’t just visit because your job brings you nearby okay? I can’t be held responsible if I never get to see my BBBFF.”
“Miss Twilight, do you hear that,” Applebloom cut in between Twilight and Shining.
“Applebloom, how many times do Ah have to tell ya tah not interrupt ponies when they’re talking,” Applejack chastied her sister who looked apologetic, “But Ah do hear something..."
”Party, party, party. I want to have a party. I need to have party. You better have a party. Party, party, party. You gotta party hardy.” a voice emanated from everywhere at once then the pink party pony appeared from Shining Armor’s armor. “Who’s ready to party?!” She pulled her Party Cannon from inside her hair and began firing party decorations around the library.
“Pinkie! Stop firing the cannon, why are you throwing a party here,” Twilight screamed over the cannon fire while pulling streamers off her.
“I saw somepony new in town, he was wearing armor similar to this guy’s armor and so I thought I’m going to throw this pony the best party EVER!”
“So this party isn’t for Shin, the biped traveler,” Shining Armor asked, pulling on his armor and confetti fell from it.
“So silly, this was a pony; a pegasus. I saw him going into General Goodies, who are you talking about,” she waited then gasped, “You mean to tell me there are two new ponies in ponyville?! I’m going to need more ammo and make this a double party!”
“Sugarcube, how can ya throw a party if th’ ponies th’ party is fer if they ain’t here.”
“What do you mean they aren’t here?”
“Pinkie, what Applejack is trying to say is that Shin and his friend have probably already left Ponyville and won’t be back for some time,” Twilight interjected, hoping to ease the news that she couldn’t throw a party.
“But… I already- with the decorations and the cannon… Oh come on,” Pinkie shouted before holding her hooves up in the hair as an idea hit her, “I know! I’ll throw a Sorry-I-Missed-You-but-I’ll-totally-throw-you-a-party-next-time party!”
“Pinkie, no!”
“Pinkie, yes!” With that she pulled open the door to the broomcloset and four mares and a distressed looking bunny came tumbling out, the mare with rainbow hair gasped and pulled her hoof from where it was. “Whoops, sorry Dashie, should have given you a warning. Let’s party!”
“Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep the party rolling-“
“Shh, did you feel that,” I held out an arm.
“Oh yeah, what is that. It sent chills right up my spin!”
“I’m not positive but I could have possibly been someone dancing on our graves.”
A female voice spoke quietly from behind us, “Or maybe it’s just your pockets becoming lighter?”
There was a flap of wings then I felt hooves jabbing into my body in different spots and each time the limbs fell to my side limp, “Shit, ambush!”
I was on the ground in an instant and I heard Ice call out as he jumped at my attacker, “Shin!” The sounds of more hooves colliding with his body and he fell to the ground with a grunt, “What the hell did she do to me?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve read of something similar but it was only in books! I can’t Shift so she must be a Chi blocker.”
The mare just laughed, “Oh you’re good, Chi, magic, or whatever you wish to call it runs through every body and with enough practice you can disable it. There was a stomp and Ice cried out in pain then there was a whoosh of flame and he changed back, “Well would you look at that… a changeling. It’s a good think I’m not a slaver.”
“What are you then?”
“Oh… a mare you happened to find a kind soul who chose to give me their Bits,” and with that she riffled through my pockets and pulled out my coin sack, “Sweet Celestia you were loaded. To bad Changelings have no need of Bits since they can just mind control shopkeepers to get what they want.”
“You did steal those things didn’t you,” I shouted at him and his silence was enough to know that he had.
“But no matter, thanks for your patronage, ciao,” a flap of wings and she was gone along with all my money.
“Shin?”
“Yeah?”
“You have really rotten luck don’t you? I mean we’re not even a couple of miles from Ponyville and we get mugged.”
“Yeah… How was I suppose to know there was crime here? Ponies are suppose to be all over that love, friendship, and peace shit.”
“I don’t know… how long until whatever she did wears off?”
“…Who knows, Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Hey did you get a good look at her or her cutie-mark?”
“What do I look like, a larva? Of course I got a good look.”
Party member gained: Ice Flow the Changeling.
Achievement Get: Dodging the Frying Pan but ending up in the Fire.
Ice and I sat around the campfire I had started and Ice pulled out a bag of marshmallows, “Are you serious?”
“No way dude, I heard from everypony that you can’t go camping without roasting marshmallows.” With a flash of green his was back in original form and used his magic to open it up and toss one in his mouth, “Mmm poofy.”
“Hold on I’ll go grab a couple sticks,” I walked to where our light met the darkness and snapped two slender limbs off and stripped them of leaves then when back, “Here we are; two patented marshmallow roasting spears.” We each took one, speared a marshmallow, and set them ablaze but Ice had to try it a couple times to keep it from falling off, “So about that Pegasus that mugged us, mind showing me what she looked like?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“I’m not your boss,” He simply laughed and turned into a smaller than average maroon Pegasus with an auburn mane and a coil of ivy with pink thorns as a cutie-mark. “That doesn’t look right, Ice… all the ponies I’ve met was pastel nightmares, and you sure this is her right coloring?”
“Yup, this is her; as for the color I’m not positive but I’ve seen ponies with darker coats. I saw a stallion selling apples and his coat was kind of dark red and there was a mare that was kind of a deep pink so it can’t be gender related…”
“Think Ivy is from Ponyville?” He cocked his head at the mention of the name I gave her, “What it’s the first thing that came to my head, so sue me.” He changed back and we sat in silence while I thought about our first day. After Ivy’s chi or magic blocker or whatever wore off a couple of hours so we kept walking until we hit the a river and after we crossed it by using a little covered bridge the sun was setting so we decided to set up camp on the side of the road near the tree line.
“Do you hear that,” Ice’s question brought me out of my thoughts.
“Hear what?” I strained my ears to listen for anything over the sounds of the crackling fire and then I heard it; a clicking sound, “Yeah what is that, a squirrel?”
“It sounds way too big to be a squirrel…” There was a sudden gasp, “Uh Shin… how to you feel about spiders?”
“They’re alright I guess, one of the other dorm-mates in the building had a tarantula that kept getting loose, sure it could bite but it wasn’t lethal… I don’t think, never got bit… Why?” He just made a squeaking sound and pointed a shaky hoof behind me so I turned around and saw a violet spider the size of a Labrador with a red skull on its abdomen lowing itself out of the tree with its web and started skittering towards us, “Screw that noise!” I grabbed my pack, ripped the tent out of the ground, and doused the fire, “Fucking run!!!”
I sprinted off into the darkness with Ice galloping right behind me, “Why are we running?”
“Didn’t you see that fucking huge ass spider?!”
“Yes but I meant why are we running, we have wings!”
I nearly skidded to a halt but remembered what was chasing us, “I don’t care who I Shift to I just need something with wings!” It was almost instantaneous; the back of my vest became really tight then there was a ripping sound as familiar way to big bronze dragon wings burst from my back and with two quick flaps sent me soaring, “Oh come on I like my clothes in one piece!”
’My condolence on the loss of your enchanted fabric, my king, it was a treasure worthy of any hoard. I heard the call and I couldn’t resist the urge to spread my wings, as it were.’
‘King, what do you mean by king? I’m not royalty.’
’This body hold many beings and by overcoming each of us you have proven your right to rule this body by might. I believe there is a saying on Earth; my body is a temple but your body is a kingdom and every kingdom must have a king!’
“Shin, how did you… what’s with the giant dragon wings,” Ice Flow buzzed up to me after he finally caught up, “I caught your vest… It might be able to be fixed; the rips are only around the front of the arm holes.”
“Thanks Ice, as for the wings, they belong to Makarov. One of the voices in my head, before you found me I was able to talk with all of them and they’ve decided to help me,” I took the offered piece of fabric and stuffed it in a pocket then disassembled the tent enough to where it could be rolled up until I could properly put it away then strapped it to the top of my pack. “Shining said it was three days walk to Canterlot and I think we can both agree we should just fly the rest of the way…”
“You alright,” he asked, putting a holey hoof on my shoulder.
“Yup, totally, I’m just adding arachnophobia to my list of fears… right up there with clowns and murderous toys dolls.”
“You’re afraid of clowns,” he asked then burst out laughing.
“Who wouldn’t be, I was forced to watch ‘It’ and it scarred me for life.”
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry but if you’re going to be flying with those giant thing I’m going to need to hitch a ride with you because I can’t keep up,” with a flash of green and a lizard the size of my forearm landed between my wings, “Alright let’s go.”
I just looked straight ahead and shook my head, “This is fucking screwy…”
’If you wish to fly properly you will need a tail.'
‘I’m not taking my pants off, this will be fine,’ gripping my pack in both of my hands I started flapping my wings until we were flying at a nice fast pace. With the land below zooming by I had nothing else to do but keep my eyes on the large city.
“Sweet Chrysalis, boss! We finally made it to Canterlot, I bet this would be a record time!” I was hovering quite high over the city when the little lizard chirped up the launched itself of me then went through the routine and Ice Flow stood hovered before me.
What… ever… Let’s just… land,” I was trying to take deep breaths, trying to get my heart rate down. I extended my wings and glided down in a corkscrew, “Now I know why we aren’t born with wings, flying is hard. Not to mention I’m starving, I could go for a big juicy leg or several pearls and I can’t even eat pearls.”
’I wish to apologize, my king, that may be my influence; the one thing dragons are known for is hoarding gems and treasures but mostly because they need them to eat.’
‘How do you even know that? Aren’t you part of my mind?’
’Even if the knowledge is not shared through texts or speech, a races knowledge can be found in their D.N.A.’
‘What like ancestry memory or something, like in assassin’s creed?’
’I suppose, if you wish to see it as such…’ as I neared the city I could see tiny ponies running around, ’Would it be too much to wish to hear them screaming Godjira?’ I only responded by bursting out laughing.
“What’s so funny,” I hear Ice ask me as he flew behind me.
“Hehe, just saw the ponies running around and Makarov was hoping they were screaming Godjira.” His blank look told me he didn’t get the joke, “Never mind, inside joke.” I landed with a few heavy wing flaps and nearly collapsed when the blood rushed to my head when I stopped flapping, “ Whoa~” The guards that surrounded us looked at me strangely, “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean it like- what am I apologizing for, I probably did mean it somewhere in here.” I turned my head just in time to see a beige earth pony with a manga sheet cutie-mark running down a street screaming Godjira, “Ha! Scaring the ponies is totally justified now, I heard Godjira! High-five!” I held a hand up to each of the guards but they flinched at it, “Come on don’t leave me hanging… Ice?” I held up a hand and he smacked it with a hoof, “That’s right! Alright, enough joking around… take me to your leader.”
’I don’t wish to impose my king but will you keep my wings? I hope that you will grant me the wish of experiencing Canterlot through proxy. The memories have told me that it has been many years since foreign dragon has set claw in the palace.’
‘Sure, I don’t mind keeping them for a while. I always wanted to be part dragon, especially a western dragon; so much cooler.’ My wings curled close to my body, I flung the pack onto my pack, and then the wings curled around me to keep out the mountain cold that was coming down the mountain, “Well what are you waiting for? Lead the way, she’s expecting us.” With that they boxed us in and lead us on a march to the castle’s front gate, then past two staircases into a large hallway that led to a pair of large golden doors twice my height and I whistled in awe which caused the guard’s and Ice’s ears to twitch. The guards stopped at the door and I heard a woman yelling at someone on the other side.
“CAPTAIN ARMOR, YE SPENT WEEKS TRYING TO RESCUE SOMEPONY AND THEN THEE LEAVE THEM?! UNEXCEPTABLE, TWO MONTHS IN THE DUNGEONS, GUARDS!”
“Luna, please, inside voice.” As soon as I heard two months, dungeon, and Shining Armor’s name I did the only thing that came to mind; I dropped my pack, flared my wings back, and tried kicking the door open with all my might to stop them from locking away someone who I considered a friend, I mean he did run a search and rescue team to find me for those weeks.
’This is a really bad idea, these are the avatar of the sun and moon. I doubt they will take kindly to interruptions.’
***Inside Canterlot’s Throne Room.***
“CAPTAIN ARMOR, YE SPENT WEEKS TRYING TO RESCUE SOMEPONY AND THEN THEE LEAVE THEM?! UNEXCEPTABLE, TWO MONTHS IN THE DUNGEONS, GUARDS!” Luna was livid to say the least; her wings were flared as she shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice.
“Luna, please, inside voice,” Celestia rubbed a hoof on the temple, “There’s no need-“
She was cut off with a loud bang from the throne room doors, “Gah fuck! MY FOOT!”
The door pulled open and there was a light blue Pegasus with a snow cloud cutie-mark holding the door-ring, “It opens out, Shin.”
“You think?!” The sun princess beamed at the mention of the traveller while Luna was getting ready to shout at whoever had the nerve to interrupt their trial again. Both golden doors opened up to show the traveller hopping up and down on one foot and holding the other one while a pair of dragon wings flapped to keep him balanced. He looked up and stopped hopping, “Oh… hello princess… princesses I know you already doomed Shining Armor to the dungeon but as you can see; I’m present and accounted for so no need.” He gave them a grin that shouldn’t be possible with a mouth that small.
“HOW DARE YE INTERRUPT US! WHO DOTH THOU THINK THEE ARE.”
“Hold that shout,” he held up one of his digits and limped out of the room only to return a second later with a large pack then limped in front of the sun princess while talking to himself, “You sure about this? What do you mean you have more experience; you’re inside my head… Just do what you want.” His eyes changed colors and took a dramatic bow with his wings while he spoke in a deep voice that wasn’t his own, ”I greet thee Reagent of the Sun, the life-giver as well as thee Reagent of the Moon, dream-walker. We are honored to be in thy presence and are sorry for this breach in protocol but We did not wish to see our new friend imprisoned wrongly.”
Luna’s mouth clicked shut at the sudden change of personality while Celestia simply looked at Shin as if staring into his soul then spoke with slight malice in her voice, “Who are you? You are not Shinza Monk.”
”I am known as Makarov and as you have stated; this body is Shinza Monk’s I merely serve my king,” he stood and wrapped his wings around him and his eyes changed color to their original color.
Shinza voice spoke this time and turned to Shining Armor, “Didn’t you have like one job? Why didn’t you tell them about what happened to me?” He waved a hand in front of Shining’s face, “Hello~?”
“How are you here? I just got here,” he seemed mystified and tapped Shin on the chest, “It was a three day trot from Ponyville.”
“Exactly, which was why we flew… on these bad boys!” He flared his wings to their max and almost toppled over.
“AS WE HAVE SAID, WHOM DOTH THOU THINK YE ARE?!”
“Luna, please, this is the foreign representative of an island nation I was telling you about. I’ve waited anxiously to meet him, the last time we spoke he was being held by the guards of Baltimare.”
“ME THINKS- ahem, We- I do not doubt that… He acts nothing like a foreign representative.”
“That’s because I’m not, I’m just a traveller,” a loud rumble emanated from Shinza’s gut, “’Cuse me… do you mind if I ask when you’re going to eat?”
“So the kid asks why and he replies; because you can’t have your cake and edict to.” Princess Celestia giggled lightly into her teacup while Luna could hardly breathe.
“Hehehahaha, Tia, it’s just like what happened to you that one time when you went on that cake binge!”
“I don’t know what you are referring to sister,” Celestia’s denial just made Luna laughed harder while I simply chuckled as I prodded the food on my plate; julienne veggies in some kind of sauce, pasta salad, and several flowers which I scraped to the edge of my plate. “Is the food not to your liking Shinza?”
“Shin is fine, Princess Celestia and the food is fine as well…”
“Celestia is fine, Shin,” she threw my request right back at me, “Well if you wish for something else I have an idea of what it could be.” She picked up a silver bell and rung it three times in quick succession and shortly after an Earth pony wearing a chef’s hat and had a cutlery cutie-mark pushed a cart with a covered dish that was soon place before me. “I hope I wasn’t wrong in assuming you were an omnivore.”
On the plate before me was a large bass that was split down the middle, seasoned in various herbs with a drizzle of mango juice that pooled in the ribs. ‘It’s enough to make a grown man cry… Get back in there tear!’ I blinked a couple of times and the tear went away, “I don’t… you’re assumption was right but I thought ponies despised eating meat.”
“Oh don’t be silly, there are many sub-species of pegasi that eat meat; they need the protein to have the energy to fly or simply live to far north to farm anything that can provide it,” Celestia took another sip, “Luckily there was still a griffin chef that travelled with a representative that wished to learn the Equestrian Culinary Arts.”
“Thank you…” It had been some time since I had done it but I bowed my head and thanked the fish for its life then dug in with the hunger of a thousand wolves, when I finished there was nothing on my plate and the princesses, Shining, and Ice just stared at me in horror, “Ugh… I think I swallowed the bones…”
’And a couple pieces of the silverware as well.’
“By my sister’s large derriere,” was all Luna had to say on that which got a look from aforementioned sister.
“Well that was certainly horrifying,” Shining looked at his plate then slid it away. “Why don’t you tell us about your trip to Canterlot and how you got here so fast? While I try to purge that image out of my head.”
“Yes Shin, do tell. You said you flew here with those wings which are obviously dragon wings and Makarov is obviously a dragon’s name.”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin, “Well telling how we got here so fast is the easy part; we had set up camp just on this side of the river after getting mugged by this pegasus that when she punched us our body went numb and we couldn’t use our abilities.”
There was a clattering of utensils, Shining Armor stood up and slammed his hooves on the table making the plates rattle, “Someone attacked you?!”
“Shining Armor,” Celestia’s voice was calm like a mother chiding her son, “Don’t slam your hooves on the table.”
“I apologize for my behavior, your Majesty,” he hung his head and sat back down.
“Don’t worry about it Shining, we know what she looks like so she’ll be easy to find.”
“And why is that,” Celestia inquired as she took a bit of julienne carrot.
“Well for one she had a maroon coat and auburn mane and second we saw her cutie-mark; a coil of ivy with pink thorns. I haven’t been in Equestria long but I think a pony with that dark of coloration would stand out like a sore thumb.” I wiggled by thumbs for anyone who didn’t know what a thumb was, “Anywhoozers, we set up camp near a tree line and started to roast marshmallows when Ice started freaking out and with good reason; there was this freaking giant purple spider with a red skull on it abdomen. Thing must have been the size of a large Labrador…” I shuddered at the image in my head while the princesses looked at each other uneasily.
“A Doomspinner?” Luna asked Celestia, the worry in her voice was evident. “I thought thou purged the last nest in Equestria before my banishment.”
“It would appear an egg must have remained hidden… Shin if I provided you a map could you show me which tree line you camped at?”
“No need, I have a map right here,” I reached into one of my many pockets and pulled out a thick folded piece of parchment and a pencil and unfurled it. “Let’s see, let’s see… aha, here it is,” I marked the location and Celestia levitated it to her with her golden aura and with a soft pop an exact copy of my map was there and she gave mine back. “So what’s a Doomspinner? I mean the name is kind of obvious but can you tell me anyways?”
“Doomspinners were once the most venomous species of colossal spiders in Equestria as well as the most aggressive. They set up their webs near roads and in well-travelled forests where they hurled down their webbing to lasso ponies and eat them or the chased them for the thrill of the hunt.”
“That doesn’t make any sense though; if this was a Doomspinner it couldn’t lasso with its webbing or chase us that fast, it looked more like a species of spider that spun webs to catch insects. I don’t think any spider species could be a spinner, hunter, ambusher, and netter, it goes against the evolution- Wait… duh, magic. Never mind, continue.”
A small smile crossed Celestia’s face, “You know you remind me of Twilight when she was a little filly? But you are correct; Doomspinners are a magical species that could flourish in any temperature, in most biomes, and their eggs can apparently survive for thousands of years on their own. Shining Armor, will you please take this map down to Sellsword Hall and tell them to consider this a mission from the crown?”
“But your majesty, wouldn’t it be more efficient to send the Royal or Equestrian Guard to deal with this, this Doomspinner?”
“Oh yeah, cause we were really efficient; took us several weeks to find a single person and a civilian found him first,” Ice spoke into a teacup and Shining narrowed his eyes at him.
“Be that as it may Shining Armor, I believe we should leave the monster hunting to the monster hunters,” Celestia rolled the map up and presented it to Shining, “Take Shin along with you, I think he’ll benefit from their usage as well.”
“Yes your Majesty,” He took the map and stored it somewhere, “Alright you two, let’s go.”
Everyone stands and Makarov speaks to me, ’My king, my I have the honors of giving our host our goodbye?’
‘Hello Makarov, you’ve been kind of quiet lately, sure you can give our goodbye but I’m sure we’ll be back.’
My vision tunneled a little as I took a backseat while Makarov controlled my body, they must have seen my eyes change because Luna tensed up, ”I am both honoured and graced to be allowed in your palace and though I might not be a full dragon the gratitude is still present.” He held a hand out to Celestia which she took and he kissed her golden hoof. He done the same for luna and took one final bow before standing up while his wings shrunk into my body and leaving me topless in front of the princesses and in control, “Geez it’s flipping cold in here, what is it like sixty-five degrees in here?” I rushed over to my pack and dug around for another vest that always seemed to keep the cold or hot out, finding a royal purple one I slipped it on, “Man I need to get this other one stitched up, I’m ruining all of my clothes. Alright Shiny, lead the way.”
“Don’t call me Shiny, only Twily can call me that,” he mumbled through gritted teeth as he led us out of the dining room and into the hallway.
I wasn’t paying much attention due to the fact I was trying to scrub my tongue, “Gross Makarov, never do that; they walk on those.”
***Dining Room***
“Well I think that encounter went surprisingly well, how about you sister,” Celestia asked Luna as one of the servants brought a slice of red-velvet cake.
Luna was just staring at her hoof where Makarov or Shin had kissed it, “Wha- what? Oh yes I think it went surprisingly well considering who sent him here. Are you just going to let Tanya do as she wishes?”
“Absolutely not, I know what she’s planning and it’s not going to work. I don’t know what she promised him but there’s no way Shin could cause enough chaos to do what she wants… Luna are you blushing,” Celestia asked incredulously.
“What?! Nay! We are simply not feeling well, good morning dear sister,” Her face practically glowing red there was a dark flash and Luna was gone and a servant with a scroll and inkwell cutie-mark stepped up to the princess.
“Ah Quick Scroll, I trust you were able to get everything down on paper,” Celestia lifted the last bite of cake to her mouth.
“Er yes your Majesty but um… you let him leave befoore getting him to tell you how he got the um dragon erm wings.”
The fork was halfway to her mouth when it froze and the bite of cake fell to the plate with a splat, “…Buck!”
***Outside Sellsword Hall***
We turned a corner and I saw a massive marble temple where several species were fighting; earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, griffins, a few Diamond dogs, and even a couple of short bipedal cats. “Holy shit! This place is amazing, and you’re telling me there are Halls just like this one all over Equestria?!”
Several of the fighters lowered their weapons and started talking amongst themselves while Shining Armor simply nodded and hailed a large brown Earth pony, “Double Stakes!”
“Ah, Captain Armor, my old friend! So, how’ve you been? Good to see you. What do you want?” Double Stakes walked down the marble steps, his heavyly armored hooves thudded against the stone betraying how heavy the were but they didn’t seem to slow him down. He stopped in front of us and craned his neck a little to look me in eye, “Geez son, what they been feeding you; magical growth elixer?”
“Haha in the land of tiny magical ponies I am a giant but at home I’m pretty average. Name’s Shin and this is Ice Flow… my bro-tler.”
“Bro-tler,” Ice asked as he looked between the giant pony and I.
“You know; a bro butler.”
“Hey!”
“Anyways,” Shining interjected before Ice could voice his comeback, “Her Majesty has granted you a mission; a Doomspinner has been spotted in a forest between here and the town Ponyville.” As soon as Shining said Doomspinner all the other warriors were in an uproar until Double Stakes raised a hoof, “A Doomspinner you say? My friend I think you must be mistaken, my ancestors were part of the assault that wiped out the last nest and they were all destroyed.”
“Unless you know of another species of collosal spiders that are violet and have a large red skull on their abdomen then it’s a Doomspinner and according to Shin it’s a large one; about the size of a large dog and there may be more than one.”
“By Celestia’s teats… Alright listen up,” he turned in place to face the other fighters, “We’ve got a mission from the crown and I’ve decided that the leaders of Team Echo and Team Hades will lead this assignment so you can choose your parties. Do you think you can promise me that you won’t try to kill each other this time? We won’t grow your feathers back for you next time Griffin.”
“Ha! I’m cool if he’s cool,” a griffin with bright red feathers stepped out of the crowd with a giant black sword attached to his back, “You cool Fluffy?” A Diamond dog wearing a green hoodie and carrying a large staff let out a gruff strangled noise and the griffin nodded, “We’re cool, I’ll be taking Etch and Growl with me and I’m sure Fluffy will be taking his normal lot… Hey Double, do you mind if I do the thing I like to do?”
Double gave a withering sigh, “I guess so but no pyrotechnics! I’m still filing paperwork from the last time you blew up a royal airship.”
Griffin simply laughed and took off to one of the smaller but still impressive buildings while shout-singing, “The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout, down came my blade and burnt the spider out!” Shining Armor passed the Diamond dog the map and nodded to Double before leaving us just standing there with Double looking at us, “What are you still doing here? Are you looking to be recruited?”
“Actually we’re here about seeking help, we’re looking for somepony,” Ice spoke before I could answer, “A maroon pegasus mare with auburn hair and a coil of ivy with pink thorns for her cutie-mark. She robbed us on our way here and wish to see her brought to justice.”
Double just smirked which caused my right eye to twitch, “What’s so funny? That money was granted to me by my patron for this journey and that is no laughing matter.”
“The only thing that I find funny, my new friends, is that the Fates seem to have an amusing sense of humor, follow me.” We followed him up the stairs towards a large stone building that had several greenhouses attached to it, he banged on the door several times before entering, “Wait here while I’m inside, won’t be long.”
With a thud the door closed behind him, leaving Ice and I alone, I began removing my pack, “Shin, what are you doing?”
“Following my gut instinct, I think the pony we’re looking for is a Sellsword.” He started to say something but the door opened and Double came out first and followed by a unicorn. The unicorn’s horn supported a simple cap atop his short, mud-brown, and seemingly unruly mane, that was only just peeking from underneath it, while his clothes were smudged with different soils, ranging from reddish and grey to brown and black. With an average build with a slightly shorter height, he moved slowly, wiping his hooves with a rag hanging from one of his many coat pockets, exposing more of his light green pelt. The unicorn’s strangely purple eyes looked straight through us, “Hey Double, who’s this? I thought you were getting the pony we were looking for.”
“This is the Hall’s magical botanist, Monkshood, he knows where Ivy is.”
“Ha! I totally knew that’s what her name was!”
“Please, call me Campanula and yes I know where she is. I sent her to the glassblower to get my case of vials. She should be on her way back any moment now. Please walk me over to the front gate, I have some words to exchange with my apprentice,” He stepped past us lead us to front gate while muttering to himself, “Foolish foal, she should know better than to steal.”
I leaned down to Double, “What’s with the old unicorn? Why’s he all whoo~” I waggled my fingers in front of my eyes.
“Like I said, he’s our magical botanist. He was blinded as a foal and adapted a unicorn spell called Second Sight to give himself some semblance of sight. He acts like a geezer but he’s younger than I am.”
“I can hear you, you know.”
“Of course you can, you can hear a mouse fart across the court,” Double laughed loudly and the unicorn just huffed, “Oh come off it my friend, you know I have nothing but love for you and your talents.”
“I thought Earth ponies were the ones that handled the plants and stuff,” Campanula stopped at the entrance right as Ivy flew in and I jumped in front of her, “Think we wouldn’t find you huh?!” She tried stopping in mid flight but instead ended up tumbling head over hoof, “Oh ponyfeathers!”
“You are in so much trouble young filly,” Campanula was in her face in full roar, “Stealing?! I thought I taught you better than that!”
“M-master I was just-“
“Save it! Return the Bits you stole.”
Ivy pulled my coin purse out from under her wing and tossed it to me, there were significantly less coins than when I last had it, “Where’s the rest of it?”
“Gone…” I hear her moan as she tried to hide under her hooves from Campanula's magic gaze. “Some mare came up to me and offered me a mission; to stake out around a covered bridge and take your bits and act like I did. She even gave me a script to memorize… When I brought the Bit-bag to her she simply poured the bits and they vanished in thin air then she tossed me the bag and a case and told me that was my payment.”
Campanula was shaking from anger, “Taking a job even though you are not a full member of the Hall… Stealing from travelers… Gather your things, your apprenticeship with me is over. You are now bound to the one you stole from until you can pay him back in full, that is my final say on the matter.”
He lifted the case from her back with his magic, turned on his hooves, and proceeded back to his building while Ivy quietly sobbed, ‘I kind of feel bad for the girl…’ I turned to Double who was patting the mare’s back as she sobbed, “So what now?”
“Well the scrolls dictate that should a master end his or her apprenticeship by binding them to someone else makes them little more than a servant until the apprentice is forgiven or has fulfilled the masters orders when they were bound. Come on sweetie, let’s get you over to Cookie. She always knows how to cheer up sad fillies.” Double easily lifted Ivy up with one hoof and put her back on her hooves then started to lead her off somewhere.
“Hey Ivy… you said the mare gave you a case? Did you open it?” She shook her head, “May I take a look at it?” She pulled out an eight by six wooden case from her wing-space and gave it to me, “Thank you… I’m sorry it ended up like this kiddo.” I patted her on the head and she followed after Double.
“What you think is in the box, Shin?” I didn’t answer him and clicked the dual locks open, I lifted the lid and almost dropped it and I had trouble breathing. What was inside was something very familiar; a bright yellow pegasus feather and a locke of pink mane, I lifted the feather out of the box causing Ice to gasp and a note fell out. I picked it up and began to read it silently;
I originally just wanted that little filly to rob you to make this game of yours with Tanya a little more interesting but you just had to go and camp by that specific treeline and entice my baby… Now Celestia and Luna know that Doomspinners aren’t as extinct as they thought they were. Do you have any idea how hard it is to incubate Doomspinner eggs? Obviously you lack appreciation of being a mother. Let this be a warning that I know who to kill to make you feel the loss I feel when someone kills my children.
“It’s a threat, the mare that hired Ivy did it to make my deal with my patron more interesting and since I told Celestia about the Doomspinner in the woods she’s even more unhappy with me; threatened that she knew who to kill to make me feel the loss she feels when her ‘babies’ are killed.”
“Sheesh and I thought my brood-mother was bucking insane…”
“…Do you think Fluttershy is alright?”
“Of course, what do you think I was doing while you were telling stories? There were a couple of drones that were stationed in town that I had look after her. I knew how much she means to you.”
“Alright then… I hate being threatened,” I glared at the paper with such malice if I had magic it would have burst into flame.
“What are you planning,” Ice asked me as he took the feather and put it back in the case with the locke of mane.
“How do you feel about joining the Sellswords and go tweek this bitch's nose,” I gave him a harsh smirk and he returned it with his fangs showing.
“I doubt Chrysalis herself could stop me from following you into Tartarus boss.”
“Then let’s go sign up then…”
“For the last time; all members who wish to join the Hall must be appraised by the battlemaster. To be tested you must have a party of five; either made up of veterans or recruits,” the grey earth pony spoke in a monotonous tone that reminded me of an eye drop commercial. “I count two parties present.”
“I told you already; one of our members is already an apprentice here and we totally have two more members besides her.”
“We do,” Ice asked surprised and nudged him with my knee.
“Yes we do; their names are Makarov the dragon and Momo the half Earth pony.”
“Momo? What about Covet?”
“I wouldn’t trust that slimy ladies man to get anywhere near our new addition without trying to fill her holes,” I whispered back to Ice to try and keep the stallion from hearing me.
The stallion simply sighed and pulled out an application, “So your party consists of; Shinza the Obsidian, Ivy the Pegasus, Makarov the dragon, Momo the half Earth pony, and Ice Flow the Changeling.”
“Changeling,” Ice shouted as he started fidgeting.
“Yes a changeling… You don’t get to be as old as I’m am without being able to tell a changeling from a pony; the tipoff is usually the smell. You smell of beetles but don’t worry, species doesn’t matter in the Sellswords only your fighting capabilities and talents do. Give each of your party member a sheet and have them present them to Silver Chains, our Battlemaster, just prior notice; if you complete a mission then the Hall takes a forty percent cut. This will serve as your monthly dues and boarding costs should you need it.”
“Thank you very much uh…”
“Optic Wear, have a nice day,” and with that he slid the window close.
As we left the lobby Ice sniffed his foreleg, “I don’t smell do I?”
“Not that I could tell but pony noses are probably stronger than mine so they can probably smell it,” we walked past a Diamond Dog arm wrestling with a small Earth pony filly. “Do you think we should stop that,” right as I said that the filly slammed the dog’s arm into the table which boke easily, “never mind.” The dog got up, patted the filly on the back and hoisted her onto his shoulder and they both howled. Several thoughts ran through my head as I watch them; were the Diamond Dogs here like the ones in the mine, would they try to eat a pony if they were hungry, and if I xuld ever let go of these feelings that made me distrust them. I had to push all of that aside when we walked onto the training grounds and were stopped by a massive silver Minotaur with shaved off horns. I looked up at his face and saw a silver chain about three links long that ended in a gumball sized emerald. “I take it you must be Silver Chains?”
He flared his nose as he breathed out hard, his piercing eyes studying us and spoke in a heavy Scottish or maybe it was Irish accent, “’Ave ya ta ao’plications?”
“Yes,” I pulled out the five sheets of paper, ‘Do not laugh. Do not laugh.’
“Ya be t’amed oup wif Eivy aye, lass be tooched in ta heed. Ah’ve fooled ‘er ao’plications tree times,” He flipped over to the next page, “Droogen… naice, fierce footers.” He moved Makarovs application to the back with Ivy’s, “Hoof earf poony? ‘Ow’d t’at ‘appen?”
“He’s my uh, son,” Silver Chains just gave me a look that said ‘alrighty then’.
Flipping that page over his eyes turned hard, “Ya ‘ave a Changelin’ wit’ ya? Vury wool tin.” He flipped to the last page which was mine, “Woot’s an Oobsidian? Are ya toof and can ya foot?”
“I can handle my self I suppose…”
“Vury wool, ‘ave yer t’am roody bah sooper, e’ery booty enjoy a dinner and a shoo, Ah be toostin’ ya tin.” The minotaur rolled up the papers and stuffed them into a bag handing from his waist and on the other side was a long coil of whip made of metal that was twisted like weed-eater string. I nodded to Ice and we went off to find Ivy and see how she was doing.
“Where’d Double say he was taking her, to see Cookie right? Shall we try the kitchens,” he nodded and we set off to find the kitchens.
One of the bipedal cats were nice of us to give us directions to the kitchens, when we got there I opened the door and walked in. I was immediately stopped by several large knives, forks, and a spatula being buried in the wood to my right, I looked at the attacker; a gruff looking tomcat with an eyepatch was screaming at me in a language I couldn’t understand but it sounded german or was it something like germane here?. He was about to throw another butcher knife at me when Double snatched it out of his paw and ordered something at him in the cat’s language.
“Don’t mind Shrodinger, he’s just very protective of his kitchen; likes everything to be in its place and every place to have a thing. I take it you’re here to see Ivy?” We nodded and he jerked his head behind him, “Through that door and third door on the right.”
I stepped past him, giving the cat a wide berth and went throught the door and stopped outside the door Double indicated and heard a female voice talking, “Come on now honey, tell mama Cookie why you took that mission?”
Ivy sniffled and I heard her blow her nose, “I just wanted to be one of you guys…”
“Oh honey, you are one of us, we’re family here and we all love you.”
“Then why did papa Monkshood bind me to that thing? That doesn’t seem like love…”
“I believe he’s trying to make this a teaching moment honey, if I had a bit for every time he done the same thing to me... Just go along with it, maybe in doing this it will show him that you’re not his little filly anymore and he’ll just have to learn to trust you with things like this. Now come on, give mama Cookie that cute little smile… There it is, now dry your eyes honey. I think somepony is here to see you.” As soon as she said that the door swung open, “Hello gentlecolts, can I help you with something,” asked the pink pony that had the same kind of body as the princesses which meant she must be a princess as well.
“Uh… umm,” was all Ice and I could say.
“I get that reaction a lot, I am princess Cadence but everypony here just calls me Cookie. I take it you’re the one Ivy was bound to?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said suddenly nervous for some reason, ‘Makarov had called the other princesses avatars of the sun and moon so what was this princess avatar of?’
“He’s not as scary as you made him out to be,” Cadence chided Ivy slightly.
“I could help but overhear but you said you wanted to be like them; does that mean you wanted to be part of a team?” Ivy just nodded, avoiding eye contact, “Well good news then, Ice and I just made a team and want you on it. What do you say, wanna join?”
Sniffling a little as she perked up, “I would be happy to be part of a team but master bound me to you, I can’t join until I’ve paid you back.”
“Well just look at it this way; if you do this you can pay me back with mission rewards and by watching my back. Alright? Now come along kiddo, I think we need to practice for the dinner and show.”
“Alright, bye mama Cookie…”
“Goodbye sweetheart,” Cadence hugged her with her wings and watched her leave and turned to look at me, “If you so much as cause that precious filly to be harmed you’ll find out what it’s like to be in love with a cactus.”
‘I’ll take What is Love for 500.’
“I wouldn’t dream of it princess,” I did a little bow and left with Ice right behind me, looking like he was going to be sick, “What’s wrong dude?”
“Ugh, love and malice together always gives me indigestion,” he belched into his hoof.
We followed Ivy as she lead us to a secluded part of the training area and took a seat and just looked at us, “So where are the other two members? A team needs five members, who did you even get to join this motley crew?”
“They’re around but I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you; we have a dragon named Makarov and a half Earth pony named Momo joining us,” I reached up to slide my pack off and remembered I had already taken it off at the greenhouses. “Damn, Ice can you go grab my pack while I see what the kid can do?”
“Sure thing, boss, are you going to show her?”
“Not just yet,” he nodded then took off towards the greenhouses. “Alright kid, let me see your skills. What can you do?”
“I’m not a goat,” she muttered as she took a place in front of a target and with a flash of her wings the target had several long needles buried in it. “So what’s the deal with the half Earth pony? Is he like half dragon or something?”
“No, he’s mine,” I walked up to the target and pulled a needle out, little over half a foot long and about centimeter wide, “This is pretty nice; light, easy to hide in your feathers, and works great against people who are afraid of needles. Even I’m getting the heebie-jeebies from looking at it. Any other skills you’re good at?”
“I was the apprentice of a botanist; I’m good with plants, potions, and poisons but master disapproved of those… and also the magic blocker that I used on you and your friend. What about you?”
I thought for a moment before deciding to tell the truth, “I’m a scholar with a little martial arts training but other than that let’s just say I’m a wild card.”
“Alright… What about the changeling?”
“Ice Flow is a pegasus who received training from the Equestrian Guard for who knows how long and he’s a good tracker. He tracked me from a train wreck to a small town while I wasn’t myself and I wouldn’t mind claiming he’s good in a fight.” She finished plucking the needles from the taget and put them back in her wings, “And before you ask I don’t know what the other two’s talents are, I just recently met them.”
“Hey Shin, got your stuff.”
“Thanks bro-tler.”
“I’m not your butler! See if I go get anything for you again,” He stomped his hooves.
“Haha I’m just joking Ice, I’ve seen what the kid can do; she’s mid-range fighter with needles as well as being trained in botany and apothecary,” I took my pack and slid the box with the threat and Fluttershy’s feather inside, “well we’ve got some time to kill so let’s go out and have some fun in town.”
Time flew by at incredible speeds and then dinner time was already upon us. Ice Flow; still in his guard armor had found a spear with a metal shaft that he seemed like he knew how to use, Ivy had bought a cheap set of chainmail and wing-plates to go along well with her needles, Makarov was just going to wing it while Momo had me hunt down some heavy studded gauntlets and something similar to the hind leg gauntlets Double wore which were incredibly heavy and I could barely move them, and I was trying and failing to persuade Covet to let me use his form.
’Forget it! Did you forget that we can hear what you say even if you aren’t shifted? I may like to delve into carnal activities but I would never lay a hoof on a filly, I may be a monster but I’m not well… a monster. You can forget about it, you’re on your own,’ there was a slicking sound as my fangs returned to normal.
“Well fuck…”
There was fanfare as everyone took a seat at the tables around the large training grounds, Silver Chains and Double Stakes walked out in the middle of the field, “Glorious day indeed my friends, our princesses have deemed our skills worthy enough to task us with a mission to finish the job of our ancestors and purge the blight that is Doomspinners.” There were numerous boo’s from the tables causing Double to laughed wholeheartedly , “Not only that but with this mission came the application of a new team!”
Loud roars of approval sounded out and the Minotaur who had be silent shouted, “Enoof! Lat ‘im git mer dan a foo words in befoor yoo cheer!”
The crowd was immediately silent and there was a cough somewhere, Double nodded to the minotaur before resuming, “Like I was saying; we have five applications that wish to create a team within the Hall; Shinza the Obsidian, Ice Flow the ex-guard, our very own trouble-maker Ivy the Pegasus, Momo the half Earth pony, and Makarov the dragon! Haha it’s been a long time since the Halls have had a dragon apply, the only dragons that have applied were little more than whelps but I’m sure Silver will go easy on the little guy. Now that the list has been declared I’ll be picking the order of the fights from a hat but please, feel free to make bets as the trials go on!” Someone tossed him a helmet and he tossed several pieces of paper that must have had our names on them into it and began mixing them then pulled out one, “Our first challenge is… Ivy Monkshood! Give her some love everybody!” The diners roared their approval by chanting her name over and over.
“I don’t think I can do this,” started backing up until she backed into my shins, “I’ve challenged him several times, he’s just too strong; his muscles keep me from landing my hooves right.”
“Well of course they do, it’s all a matter of getting past the bulk. Why don’t you use your needles to do what your hooves can do; small point of contact equals less force lost by the impact with a larger body. Just aim for his limbs and not his body, I’d hate to see what those things could do to a heart or lung, now get on out there and show them you’re not a little girl anymore.” Nodding she quickly flitted her wings and she was out on the field in front of Silver Chains who was putting on something that looked like half-plate that covered only his chest where his heart was and his shoulder.
“Ah hoop yoo’s broot yer eye gam’. Ah’d hat’ ta see a foolly cry,” as he pulled the last strap in place his pulled out a small buckler and his metal weed-eater string whip and cracked it; it made a whistling noise then a sharp snap and Ivy’s ears folded back.
***Ivy POV***
Double’s voice cleared the cheering easily, “Alright now, betting is closed off now so let’s get to the show! Battlemaster Silver, are you ready?” The Minotaur banged the handle of his whip into his buckler as an answer, “Apprentice Ivy, are you ready?”
“Y-yes!”
“Then let’s rumble~”
The Battlemaster rushed me way faster than he had during our last match, I jumped and tried to take to the skies when his strong hand wrapped around my hind leg and flung me back into the dirt. I hear Shin cry out to me but I was too dazed to hear him, I quickly stood up and lunged the hulking Minotaur. My hooves hit him square in the gut but he hardly moves a muscles, “What the…” He swung down with his buckler arm and I launched off him causing him to miss barely.
“Yoo’ve boon practicoon’ hav’nt ya,” the Battlemaster rumbled as he rubbed his stomach, “I ooctally foolt t’at one boot it woont be enoof.” He lashed out with his whip, it struck against my wing plate and there was a harsh screeching and the end of the plate fell off my wing and leaving it unprotected. “Yioold.”
“Never,” I cried and soared into the sky, ‘If I can’t beat him in strength I’ll just have to use what Shin suggested,’ I reached the peak of my flight and flung ten needles with precise aim at the Minotaur’s limbs then there was a noise “What the,” I cried out as his buckler came flying at me from below, smacked me in the face causing me to fall while the shield when back to him in time to block the needles which pierced the metal slightly. I hit the ground hard and everything started going dark.
“Ivy,” I heard Shin and Ice’s voice call out to me and I was gone.
***Shin’s POV***
“Ivy,” Ice and I ran out onto the training grounds to see if she was alright, there was a buzzer noise and I saw several of the Sellswords fork over varying sizes of pouches that no doubt contained Bits that they lost in the bet.
“She pooses,” the silver Minotaur yelled to Double up in his little box.
“But she was knocked out, my friend.”
“Doos’nt mooter,” he moved his shield arm and pulled out a needle that had barely pierced the plate over his heart, “A liitle mer prooctace and ta lass coo’uld have vury wool won.”
“Very well, my friend, you are the Battlemaster after all.”
“Ivy, can you hear me?“ I reached down and checked to see if Ivy was alright; nice strong pulse, she didn’t have any cuts only bruises, “She’s fine, just knocked out.” I picked her up easily and slung her over my shoulder, “Man she’s light as a feather.”
“She has to be boss, pegasi have hollow bones like birds and their natural magic helps them fly with small wings,” Ice ran over to where Silver was pulling needles from his shield and retrieved them for her.
We took her over to where we were standing earlier behind a column that didn’t have any tables near it and set Ivy down when Double’s voice spoke again, “Alright now, what an amazing fight wouldn’t you say my friends? She may have lost but Battlemaster Silver has deemed her worthy to join our ranks!” The cheering got impossibly loud before he continued, “Let’s see, the next challenger for the trials is… Momo the half-breed!”
“Looks like we’re up Momo,” I hide behind one of the thick columns and Shifted, crimson fur sprouted over my body as my feet turned into hooves as my legs swelled slightly to hold the taunt muscles. My upper body began to swell as well until it matched the form similar to a MMA fighter’s. I ran a hand through my hair and found it longer as well as darker, not to mention my ears had moved to the top of my head and replaced with pony ears. If I hadn’t had my pants on I’m sure I would have had his cutie-mark as well, ‘Hello Momo, I must say, I wasn’t expecting the form to look like this; I was expecting more…’
’More pony-like father? I doubted your body would accept my pony form without causing some harm to you so I decided to go with a mix.’ Momo replied then he took control and strapped the gauntlets and boots on, he did a few practice swings and kicks. I noticed that the weight I had felt from them was gone and they felt as if they weight nothing.
‘Good luck Momo,” I said as I decided to sink into the void and let him have his fun.
***Momo’s POV***
I nodded my thanks to my father and walked out to the field, adjusting to the change from four to two legs and stopped in front of the large Minotaur, I spoke in my normal deep but soft-spoken voice, “Greetings and Salutations, Battlemaster. I gladly accept the chance to fight you.”
The pony known as Double then spoke from somewhere to the right, ”Battlemaster Silver are ready?” He replied as he did in the fight against Ivy, “Momo are you ready?”
“Yes,” I put my armored fists together and bowed deeply to the Battlemaster.
“Alright then, betting is closed. Let’s rumble~!”
We just stood there for what seemed hours; the Battlemaster just rolled his shoulders a couple of times then I began circling him, my hooves never leaving the marble for long as I searched for weak spots but true to his name there were none. “You must have seen many fights; I cannot spot a single weak spot in your style…”
“Ah’ve hood moony masters…” He tightened his grip on his weapon, “Ah’ve espesooly foot agoonst moony moo’nks!”
‘Here it comes,’ He twirled his whip the swept it horizontally and I channeled Earth pony magic into my legs to smash a large chunk of marble in such a way that it stood up then spun and kicked it at the oncoming swing. The whip wrapped around the stone harmlessly while I jumped from where I was standing and spun-kicked the shield he threw at me causing it to deform as it went flying off into the crowd. I dropped into a crouch, swept the bull’s hooves out from under him then gave him a dual fisted punch in the chest that sent him straight into one of the columns. I moved out of the way as the chunk of marble went with him, the silence was deafening as I just stood there.
I hear my father’s voice speak from the back of my mind, ‘Holy shit Momo!’
‘This was the point was it not? Defeat the master of battle to prove our merits?’
’Defeat him yes, not freaking comatose the bastard!’
“He’s- He’s not moving, medic! Somepony go get Campanula as well,” as soon as Double shouted this several Unicorns and a Zebra ran up to give treatment to Silver.
‘I am sorry father… I will correct my mistake,’ I began walking to where Silver laid; there was a gash above his right eye. As I walked I noted where the closest greenery was; several types of vines on the columns, a small tree in a pot near one of the buildings, and several weeds growing from the cracks on the edge of the field. As I stopped in front of him one of the griffins blocked my path, “Move.”
“No way, I won’t let you lay a hand on our Battlemaster again half-breed filth!”
“Move aside Ironclaw,” Campanula’s voice spoke from behind me.
‘How did I not feel him coming?’
“I want to see what he can do,” the green unicorn laughed at his own joke but barely got a chuckle out of anyone who heard it. Ironclaw had a moment of conflict before he clicked his beak shut and stepped aside, “Well what are you waiting for, a formal invitation?”
I shook my head, removing my gauntlet I placed my palm on Silver’s chest, ‘He has fourteen fractures to his ribs and a concussion…’
’How can you tell?’
‘I just can,’ I reached out with my mind and took the energy, the life of the plants, and began channeling it into Silver to speed up the healing and by time the ribs healed and the concussion was taken care of all the plants in my range were dried husks. ’I don’t blame them, that puts a drain on me as well,’ I shook the Minotaur gentle and he groaned.
“Ugh woot happooned?”
“I defeated the master of battle to prove my merits but my father felt I may have gone to far and I wished to apologize.”
“Wool t’at’s certainly noo, alroot; yoo poos as wool!” I held out a hand which he took and I hauled him to his hooves and I bowed to him again before leaving.
’You sure that was a good idea? If the ponies are anything like the humans back home well… have you ever heard of something called the salem witch trials? I doubt Earth ponies are supposed to be able to suction the life from plants to heal someone.’
‘It is not that far-fetched, I simply took several fighting styles from the animes you watched and monk studies from your book of D&D and combined that with natural Earth pony magic which includes the realm of plants and life.’
’…You combined styles of fighting that you got from memories of me watching anime? Momo, it’s anime for a reason, people aren’t suppose to be able to do any of that stuff! I mean it’s freaking cool but it’s impossible.’
‘I believe I just proved that wrong, father…’ I stood next to my fathers friend and began taking my armor off.
“Boss that was amazing!”
“Still me,” I replied as my gauntlets fell to the ground, “One second.” I felt my father taking back control as I took a back seat.
***Shin’s POV***
As my body returned to normal I almost collapsed, “Oh fuck… I don’t think fully Shifting multiple times is going to be good for my health. I starving, let’s go raid one of the tables.” I gave Ivy a soft pat on the head as he went to get some grub, I saw a table that must have been for the carnivore because there were several suckling pigs, a biggest tuna I’ve ever seen, and several rodents on sticks, “Oh sweet merciful baby jesus… it’s glorious…” I took a large plate, cut huge chunks of pig and chopped the tail of the tuna clean off then took it back to our table.
I had the large hunk of pork almost to my mouth when Silver’s voice shouted and I paused, “Back oof yoo ninnies! Ah’m fin’, loots bring oot the Oobsidian! Tha droogan and oox-guard pooss.”
He was looking straight at me throught the gaps in the columns and I looked between him and my hunk of meat, “But I- I just… with the meat… Aww man!”
Doubles voice called out, “Every member of your team has been passed Battlemaster standards. Now it is time for the ‘giant in amongst magical ponies’ to face off against the real giant. Everyone better start placing your bets before time’s up!”
I huffed and took several bites of pork before running back onto the field for the second time. I stripped my vest off and tossed it aside and thought a moment before leaving my pants on, if they ripped oh well, ‘Hmm, Covet denied me access… who else is there besides Makarov and Momo?’ I thought back to the meeting with them, ‘There was a Unicorn but I didn’t know any magic, there was the pegasus but that does’nt help anything… There was a Diamond dog but I still don’t trust it, who was left? There was the giant snake-like Drakon but I didn’t know how I would be able to handle the transformation, “Hey Ice, mind tossing me that spear of yours?”
“My spear? Aren’t you going to do the thing,” he asked as he flew to me and gave me his spear; the metal shaft was quite thick and the spearhead was more of a shortsword than a spearpoint. Double asked him if he was ready and he nodded.
“Nah… I need to prove to myself I can get things done without always relying on the voices in my head and the powers they give me access to,” I gripped the spear that was a good two feet taller than I was then spun it several times to test the weight and balance, it didn’t wobble when I made it stop suddenly and shouted, “Let’s do this, Silver. El Toro.”
“Then let’s rumble~!”
He had picked up his whip and a Diamond dog had brought him another another buckler, “Relyoon oon yoo’re oon stren’th ehh? Good, Ah woo’uld ‘ave foo’led yoo had yoo start’ood ta foot in anoother foorm.”
That surprised me and my guard was lowered, with a crack right next to my left ear that was so loud I think I went deaf in it because I could only hear from my right side. I felt a lock of hair fall on my and my guard was immediately back up and I dove under another strike and rolled then thrust the spear at the Minotaur who deflected it with his shield. ‘I better watch that whip, it shredded Ivy’s armor like paper.’
“Shit,” I shouted as Silver swung the whip horizontally like in his fight with Momo, I didn’t have the strength Momo had so I settled on parrying the whip but instead had it wrap around it. With a quick tug there was a screech of metal and the whip had sawed through the shaft causing the blade to land point down in the hole Momo had made, leaving me with just a metal Bo staff. “Huh, that’s an interesting weapon you have there, it have a name,” I decided to stall him until I could think of a way to outsmart him.
“Oot is Tauroon Saw-Whoop,” he stated simply before swinging it again but I decided to dodge and roll this time.
“Interesting… I so I take it you are trained in many weapons and fighting styles,” I backed away from the Minotaur and he followed me.
“Ah oom, now quit stoolin’,” as he shouted I grabbed what remained of the shaft on the spearpoint and used the blade to fling dirt and dust into his face, I closed the distance and lowered my grip on the staff like a baseball bat and swung it at him.
The was a loud clang and I dropped the staff due to the stinging sensation from smashing Silver’s buckler, “Gah son of a bitch that stings!.” His eyes may have been blinded but his ears worked fine, they twitched when I spoke and he flung the damned thing at me. With not enough time to dodge very much I ended up taking the shield to the forehead instead of the neck causing me to see stars. I regained my balance and chucked what was left of the spear shaft at him which he deflected with a flick of his wrist and swung the whip at my neck; everything seemed to go into slow motion.
I saw where the whip was heading but I couldn’t do anything because I had just chucked my weapon at him. Time slowly sped up as I came closer to losing my head, I started panicking and my arms moved up to protect my neck on their own as the skin Shifted to heavy overlapping pitch-black plates on the outside and smaller scales on the inside as well as scales growing out of my forehead and neck; giving my head a samurai helmet look. Time returned to normal speed and the whip wrapped around my neck but not slicing through it and the owner of the black scales spoke using my voice, ”This is… such a pain… I… yield.”
‘What do you think you’re doing?!’
’Saving… my life…’
The coiled whip around my neck loosened and fell off me and the Minotaur stood there wiping the dust out of his eyes completely, “Woot was tat? Yoo Yioold?”
“…Yeah I yield,” I said, admitting defeat. The black scales retreated back into my skin and leaving red scars along my arms which surprised me since the other forms didn’t leave any marks. I studied the scars carefully before looking up to the Battlemaster, “So what’s the verdict? Pass or Fail?”
“Yoo pooss,” He grabbed my tender limb and raised it and myself to my feet, “He poosses! Ta t’am oos qualfood!” He dropped my arm and walked off the field as the diners cheered, roared, and whooped. Double shouted from his little box, “My friends! For the first time in six years; Battlemaster Silver Chains has passed an entire team on their first application! Shrodinger; fetch to booze, the hard stuff, this is cause for celebration!”
The small cat shouted something angrily in German but had a huge smile on his face as he ran into a building and began pushing huge barrels out. I scratched at a huge v-shaped scar on my forehead that I’m sure had friends going over my head and down my neck under my hair, I picked the blade and staff out of the dust and took it to Ice, “Sorry about your spear man, I’d be happy to pay for it.”
“Don’t worry about it boss, it’s a guardponies spear from the castle armory so you can keep them, I just want to know what happened out there; one second it looked like the whip was going to decapitate you and the next you were covered in black scales and it was wrapped around your neck and arms!”
“The Drakon forced a Shift with his own willpower, none of the others have been able to Shift without me asking for their help before…”
“What’s going on… what’s with the noise,” heard Ivy mumbling on the table as she rolled over and fell off with a thud, “Oww…”
I decided to try and put the thoughts I was having aside and focus on have fun at the celebration in our honor, “Come on Ivy, the entire team passed, it’s time to celebrate.”
“…The entire team? On the first try? Is that what that noise is?”
“Haha yeah, it wouldn’t be a celebration if it was quiet now would it,” I shook her a couple of times to make sure she was up, placed the staff and now short sword with my stuff, grabbed my plate, and started stuffing my face with pork and booze. The rest of the night’s celebration was a blur; a blur filled with booze, belly dancers of different species, and food.
Party Member Gained: Ivy Monkshood
Achievments Get: ‘All She Needs is a Gentle Touch’, ‘Fighting Dirty like the Swiney Piggys, No?’, ‘You Know What They Say; Don’t Mix Your Alcohol.’
Title Get: Sellsword Initiate: You’ve been granted a title of Sellsword initiative which allows you access to any Hall across Equestria and let’s you take missions from the Mission Board. Don’t get too cocky now, you’re still only a noob…
The harsh sunlight invading my eye’s personal space was a huge pain in the ass, “Turn off the sun!” I swung my arm over me to turn over but I just spun, ‘Wait spun?’ I opened my eyes just in time to see I was hanging from hot air balloon by a rope which had swung me straight into a treetop causing me to sputter and spit out leaves. I grabbed a thick limb and held on for dear life, “Hello?! Anyone out there?! I need some help!”
“What is it,” I heard a brash sounding voice that I couldn’t quite place where I knew it from. “Oh… it’s you.”
I craned my neck to find the owner of the voice and I spotted her; a rainbow maned pegasus standing on a cloud, “Hello there! Uh would you be so kind as to help me lower the balloon? I’m kind of in a predicament…”
“Sure, I suppose I can help you. If anything it’ll just boost my awesomeness; Rainbow Dash saves strange pervert monkey from a tree!”
“Pervert monkey?” I thought back to all the ponies I had met, “Hey, I thought I recognized you; you’re the one who emptied that raincloud on me,” my fingers started slipping, “W-whatever, I don’t care about that just help me!” I lost my grip and the balloon started carrying me away but then slowly started sinking until I was on solid ground, I untied the rope from my ankle that have a deep rope burn on it and kissed the ground several times before spitting out the dirt clumps, “Ahem, thank you Rainbow Dash. If you’re nearby then I must be back at Ponyville…”
“Not even close,” she pointed off into the distance over the massive gorge where a large cloud city floated in the sky, “You’re about twenty-seven miles north-west of Cloudsdale, what are you doing anyways? If you had kept going north like that you would have ended up in blizzard country.”
“I wish I knew...”
“What do you mean by that,” she asked as she tossed down a piton and a hammer and I started anchoring the balloon in place.
“Well the last thing I remember was Canterlot… and a party of some kind, I think there was booze,” I cringed as the throbbing in my head intensified, “Yep, definitely had booze involved. Hello, what’s this,” I reached down and grabbed the crumpled wad of parchment and opened it, “Sellsword Mission [C Class]- Collect a Sample: I’ve run out of ideas for my projects and I need some help. I’ve heard stories of a very peculiar type crystal in the region of the Galloping Gorge that can defy gravity. Fetch me a sample of this stone and bring it to Starlit Night in mare’s dorm 102 If you fail to collect a sample, come by the same room anyways. Reward is 1600 bits and a special thank you gift… Why the hell do I have this? I’ve just joined.”
“Sixteen hundred Bits!? Do you know how many tickets to the Wonderbolts I could buy that much money?!”
“None. I’m thankful you helped me out but this is apparently a Sellsword mission, are you a Sellsword?”
“Sellsword Smellsword, I don’t need to be part of their stupid group to rake in the dough.”
She continued talking but I tuned her out as a thought hit me like a brick; where were Ice and Ivy, “Ice?! Ivy?!” Rainbow Dash just stared at me if I was bonkers. “Have you seen anyone else besides me; a light blue Pegasus with a snowcloud cutiemark and a maroon Pegasus that has a pink-thorned ivy coil?”
“Nah, I’m the only one out here. I practicing my moves while Cloudsdale gets the next order of clouds out for Ponyville but they’ve said there will be a two day delay… So you mind I tag along with you for a bit?”
‘So I’m alone?’
“Eh…” I weighed my options of whether I should let her join me, “Alright but if anyone asks; you’re my squire or… something. I don’t know, make something up.”
“A squire?!” She yelled exasperated, “You want me to carry around your weapons and armor?!”
“Nah, I don’t have any weapons or armor. I’m a scholar.”
“Oh, you’re an egghead huh?” she flew up to the basket and looked in, “If you’re actually an egg head then why do you have weapons huh? What’s this, some sort of saddle bag?” she landed in the basket and I hear the clicking of my pack’s latch that I could recognize from anywhere.
“Hey! That’s my stuff, get out of there!” When she didn’t leave the basket I hobbled over to the rope and started climbing it as my head throbbed from being hung upside down and hungover for who knows how long, “I hate climbing ropes, reminds me of gym…” It was slow going with my hurt ankle but I reached the basket with little trouble, I peeked over the edge and saw Rainbow Dash reading the letter that I gave Shining Armor back in Baltimare.
“Documenting Equestria,” she said aloud as she got to that part of the letter.
“Hey! Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to snoop in other people’s stuff?!” My shout right next to her made her jump and her eyes narrowed before she tackled me over the edge of the basket, “Oh this is going to hurt!” I hit the ground and Rainbow Dash landed right on top of me, “Ooh, my ribs.”
“That’s the least you deserve for lying to me, you spy,” she shouted in my face then held the letter out in her hoof, “This letter says-“
“I know what the damn letter says; I’ve read it, Captain of the royal guard has read it, and Celestia knows about it when he read it to her. So will you kindly get off my ribs!” With a flap of her wings the weight was gone and she sat next to me while I was in a semi-fetal position as I hugged my chest, “I’m starting to regret letting you tag along…” I sat up and snatched the letter from her hoof, “Give me that, freaking ponies and just going to other people’s belongings…”
“Sorry,” she said as she looked genuinely apologetic, “I mean how cool would it be to actually fight hoof to hoof with an actual spy?!”
“I accept your apology… Now what do you say we go find these crystals,” I had difficulty Shifting to Makarov’s arms through the hangover but I slowly managed it and used their superior strength to pull the balloon down to the ground. I looked around the basket; the metal Bo staff was leaning against the basket, the short sword that was previously a spear head laid on the floor, my pack was there as well as a crate labeled as ‘marooned supplies’, “No idea what that’s about. ‘Hello Makarov, I don’t suppose you can tell me how I got here?’
’I’m sorry my king, Covet believes it best you not find out until after you return to Canterlot where the other members can tell you. Something about ‘lawlz’.’
‘I take it that he’s still mad at me about what I said,’ I asked Makarov and his silence said everything.
“What’s wrong with your arms,” I heard Rainbow dash shout but I had no idea how she missed me Shifting them but she must have.
“Nothing’s wrong with them, as of late this is natural for me… think of it like magic.” Gripping the handle of the blade with one claw and taking the staff in the other one which I used to pick up a coil of rope. ‘Hey Makarov, do you know anyway to make the grip on this sword fit more comfortably?’
’I have one idea but I don’t know if your current mix of human and dragon muscles is strong enough to do it.’
‘Just try it,’ after he got the go ahead I felt my muscles tense as he tried squeezing the handle as hard as he could but it did little good. ‘Try more dragon muscle.’ My arm grew even more and a webbing grew from my arm to my ribs, this seemed to be the right ration because the metal molded easily to the large claw that had almost taken up the 9 inch long handle. He released control then my old arms returned but my right arm felt like it was asleep and I couldn’t move it causing the sword to fall from my grasp. “Well that’s new,” I looked at Rainbow Dash who was switching her gaze from me to my arms to the clawprint in the metal then back to me. “What?”
“That is so awesome,” she shouted as she raised her hooves to the air as she jumped up, “Those looked like dragon scales… but you’re not a dragon. How did you do that?”
“Let’s just go with I’m part dragon… and part a whole lot of other stuff,” I mumbled the last bit to myself as I rubbed my shoulder to try to get the feeling to come back.
“And you were at Twilight’s… she let you leave? There’s no way, she’s the biggest egghead I know; she would have murdered you with questions… Wait a minute…” Once again she was in my face, “You ditched a Pinkie party… Not cool, Pinkie takes her parties very seriously.”
“Who’s Pinkie?” I made a list of every pony I had made contact with in Ponyville in my head, “I met Twilight, Spike, Fluttershy, Lyra, Berry, the lovely Innkeeper who kicked me out… Oh and I met Applejack and her little sister. Nope… didn’t meet a Pinkie.” She just gave me this look, “What? Come on and let’s get down to the bottom of this gorge.”
“How are you going to get down there? Because if you think I’m flying your flank down there you got another thing coming bub.” With that she dived into the gorge, leaving me on the ledge where I peeled my purple vest off, wrapped the sword with it and lashed it to the pole with part of the rope like a hobo stick, sprouted Makarov’s wings and jumped off as well. The look on Rainbow Dash’s face was priceless when she saw me gliding down with my massive wingspan. “The look on your face is great, haven’t you ever seen a dragon’s wings? Those fuckers must have wingspans at least a hundred feet across.”
“I’ve seen a dragon before, on a mountain near Ponyville, we had to go kick it out so it would cover the sky in smoke,” She replied while her hooves touched down at the bottom of the gorge first. “I ended up bucking it in the face but that only aggravated it into coming out of its cave. You should have seen the hoard that thing stashed up there.”
I flapped my wings a couple of times to decrease my speed and land, “Wait you actually evicted a dragon? …Did it leave its hoard behind?” The thought of a huge pile of treasure just sitting in a mountain cave boggled my mind and made my mouth drool.
’It would be highly unlikely, my king. I told you before that a dragon depends on his hoard for food and for some dragons… they use it to puff themselves up to gain more treasure. Do not fall into greed like the others of my kind; a dragon’s greed is a dangerous thing.’
‘Maybe you’re right Makarov, best to just forget about it. What would I do with that much treasure anyways?’
’A wise decision…’
“Actually that’s a good question; I don’t really remember seeing the dragon carrying anything as he flew off.” Her eyes lit up as well, “Do you think there could still be treasure in there?”
“It would be highly unlikely,” I said, copying what Makarov had told me. “Let’s just try and find one of these crystals and get out of here and back to Canterlot.”
“Who knows, this whole thing might just be a bust. I grew up in Cloudsdale and I never heard of floating crystals,” Dash thought out loud as she jumped from boulder to ledge as we followed the gorge north. “The only thing that floats around here is Cloudsdale and hot air balloons.”
“Maybe…”
’If I may suggest, try searching for a cave entrance; if it leads down then we should be able to find large deposits… I’m not sure if the same goes for crystals though.’
“Hey Dash, keep an eye out for a cave opening. The crystals might be subterranean.”
“Subter-what? Geez you are an egghead, why can’t eggheads talk like everypony else.”
I growled under my breath, “For one I’m not a pony…”
“Found one! We’re just lucky this isn’t the gorge by Ponyville or these caves would be filled with Quarray-Eels,” she called out of the cave before poking her head out, “You might want to lose those wings, it gets pretty tight in this hole.”
’…Did you interpret that the same way I did?’ There was a sharp pain in my mouth as two of my teeth turning into fangs and I heard Covet’s voice but it sounded tinny, ’I heard it as well! I know what to do that her tight hole… Bow chicka bow wow. No I’m not going to stop it, shut up. I’m still mad at you, Shin! With a slicking sound my teeth returned and it was just me and the dragon with a slight taste of blood in my mouth.
Dash must have took my silence for exactly what was going through our heads, “I didn’t mean it like that! J-just lose the wings.”
“Might be a good call,” Imagined them smaller and smaller until they were gone, leaving me there shirtless with signs of sun burning present on my scarred skin. “Alright then, let’s check out the cave then.”
***Five minutes later***
“Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope,” I screamed as I booked it out of the cave, when Dash and I reached outside I dropped my things, Shifted my arms to Makarov’s, and then lifted a boulder large enough to block the hole. I turned to place it and saw the thing that would be haunting my nightmares for the next week; a four feet tall, twenty feet long with one hundred legs working in sync as it skittered towards us and gnashing it’s mandibles. I slammed it down in place effectively barricading it inside, “What is with this place and it’s love of huge fucking insects?!”
The centipede slammed against the boulder and almost pushed it out of the way and me along with it until Dash flew into it to help me, “Dude why are you blocking up the hole?! You’re part dragon, you can breathe fire on it!”
’I do not breath fire, I do breath lightning but I would not do it, the same thing that happened to your arm could happen again to your head; leaving you unconscious.
‘Then what should I do?!’
’You have weapons do you not? Fight it; we cannot always be there to fight your battles for you. I’m going to do this against my better judgment I believe this will be good for you my king.’
“What the hell you mean by that,” I said aloud at Makarov but noticed my arms turning back, “You got to be shitting me! Dash, prepare for a fight; I’m changing back.”
“What do you mean-“ then she saw my arms changing and it clicked, “On it!”
We launched off the boulder at the same time, she took to the skies while I dove for the sword. Gripping the freshly crushed hilt, I braced myself for when the insect slammed against the rock and moved it several feet so it could crawl out. It was free in seconds, gnashing his sharp looking mandibles while its antennae waved around until they froze in the direction I was facing and it charged me, “Oh fuck. How the hell do you fight a giant centipede?!” It chased me until I managed to dive past it and swung my sword at its back but it bounced off harmlessly. Dash must have seem my attack and dive-bomb it before dropping her hind legs down into a hoof-y spear; there was a reverberating thud but not much else.
“Buck, that thing’s shell is thick,” Dash shouted as she dodged the centipede’s bite.
“Wait… wait, wait, wait! That’s it!,” I shouted to her as an idea came to me then I chanced it by looking for overhanging ledges, “If we break enough of its legs on one side it’ll be forced to go in a circle and then we could crush it with a huge rock from above They should be weaker than the main body's shell!” She seemed to understand as she flew to one of its legs and delivered a solid left hook, which bent the leg at an odd angle. “That’s it! Now let’s lead it over here!” I switched my sword for the staff because bludgeoning the thing seemed to work, Dash kited it over to a particularly large overhang and I took to chance to smash a couple of legs with an overhead swing.
Insect-zilla roared in anger, an actual god-damned roar, “This suddenly seems like a bad id- Shit!” It whipped its head around faster than I could hope to move and it seized me in its jaw from the right side, I could feel as the teeth inside started biting me causing me to scream in pain. I punched it in the face to no avail, I heard Dash call out and looked up to see the Pegasus breaking the large rock overhead. I looked the monster bug in its black eyes and said through gritted teeth, “I see you’re introducing your teeth to my arm so let me introduce you to my boot.” The look it gave seemed as if it knew what was coming before the stone crushed it with a sickening crunch, the only part that survived was the large head and two sections of its body that had locked its jaw into me before its death.
“Shin are you alright,” Dash had landed on the ‘boot’ and gave the head a curious look, “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Incredibly…” I pulled one of the pincers that was buried in my right arm with a squelching sound but it did not move but a couple of centimeters before clamping back down, “That doesn’t sound good… I’m pretty certain my body is never supposed to make that sound. Do you mind flying up to the balloon and seeing if there’s a medical kit in the basket?” She simply took off to go find one but I knew there wasn’t one in there, I bent down and grabbed my staff and slid it in between the jaws to use as a pry bar. It took a couple of times but the jaws finally gave away and fell to the ground onto its opened guts, “Well that’s fucking disgusting, hope it’s not venomous; I know there are centipedes that can kill people… or was that millipedes?”
“I got it, I got it! Don’t die on me,” heard Dash screaming as she flew at me incredibly fast carrying a massive medical chest.
“How did you even find that? Actually, better question; how did that even fit in the balloon,” I was laughing as she landed; picturing drunk me somehow hiding it in the corner thinking it was perfectly hidden which it must have been, I did not see it.
“I didn’t find it in the balloon; I found it under it with a note and a pink cupcake… That’s Pinkies signature but I don’t know how she got it out here or how she knew we needed it,” she said as she opened it and saw that it was filled with gauze, needles, stitching utensils, bottles of pain medicine, and several things I couldn’t place. “The note’s for you,” passing the note over I flipped the pink paper open and it exploded into glitter and confetti.
“What the…” I looked down at my now sparkling bloody body, “Dash, if I start acting emo and want to drink blood just fucking kill me…”
“What,” she asked stifling laughter with her hooves as she witnessed the sparkle bomb.
‘Of course she wouldn’t understand a Twilight reference.’
“Never mind,” I said as I began reading the letter.
Dear Shin, (I know that’s your name because Twilight told me!) I’m sorry you missed your party, well actually it was for the Pegasus that was with you but as soon as I found out I decided to make it a double welcome to Ponyville party for the two of you but by the time it was ready Applejack and Twilight told me you had already left thirty minutes before I got there! I mean how could you just leave when there’s a party?! Anywhoozers, Next time you’re in Ponyville stop by Sugarcube Corner (It’s the big gingerbread house in case you didn’t know) Hope you enjoyed getting Glitter-bombed, consider it a prank for dodging my party planning skills. Hope the med-kit comes in handy, I have them stashed all over Equestria in case of a med-kit emergency. Now please fold this closed and have Rainbow Dash read it.
‘Best just go along with it.’ I folded it closed and gave it back to Dash, “It’s from Pinkie, she wants you to read it when I was done.” She took it and opened it which exploded in glitter again right into her mouth, I grabbed it and looked it over, “How is that possible?! It was empty, things don’t just explode twice!”
“Bleah, Pinks.” Dash’s tongue was extended as far as she could get it and was trying to rub glitter off it with her hooves. “Tat’s nut cuul.”
I gave up on how Pinkie managed to make it explode twice and slid the large med-kit around and pulled out a packet that said wet-wipes and used them to clean the bite marks and surrounding area out. Once it was clean I saw it wasn’t as bad as I first thought; the only deep wounds were two puncture marks from the inner-jaws, I coated them as best I could in anti-biotic ointment, placed gauze over them, and taped it up with white medical tape. When I finished, Dash had somehow managed to clear her mouth but she still had specks of glitter in her mane that made it sparkle.
‘That’s a nice look for her, she looks pretty cute.’ I popped a couple of pain pills from a bottle in the chest, “Hopefully that’ll tone it down to a dull roar…”
“So what now,” Dash asked as she clamped the kit shut, “Want to call it quits? We might run into Celestia-knows-what down there again.”
“Let’s go back down Insect-zilla’s tunnel, nothing else should be down there, if there was anything down there it would have been food for this thing,” Eating the cupcake absentmindedly I went to slip my vest back on and recoil the rope. Putting my head and left arm through it then I took the staff in one hand and went back to the partially blocked tunnel.
“I think I’m going to stay above ground, I’ll fly up and down the gorge and see if there’s any more tunnels, yeah.”
“Are you scared,” I asked with light teasing in my voice.
“W-what?! Me, scared?! Psh, I could have taken that thing on my own in ten seconds flat,” her voice cracked slightly but it quickly turned back into arrogance.
“Sure, tell you what; feel free to search the gorge, I’m sure I’ll be fine.” I waved her off then slid into the crack before she could say anything, “Man is it dark in here… I wonder if I can change into anything that has night vision…” As I walked along slowly, tapping the metal staff like a blind man’s cane, I must have went past the spot that we came across the centipede because the tunnel started angling down. I imagined having the ability to see in the dark and having the change take place but it never did, ‘Are they blocking me from changing? Dick move guys…’
The staff sunk deeper than it did last time, indicating a hole, my eyes had adjusted slightly so I looked down and I could barely see a ledge dropping off for who knows how long. I was about to turn around when I saw something glint in the corner of my eye, there was light down there, I put my back to the wall and followed the ledge as it spiraled down and the light got brighter. Reaching the bottom of the cave I saw a small pool of what must have been water and another tunnel where I saw the light coming from. Following the tunnel it emptied out into a dim room; looking around I saw floating stones that varied in size and how many round crystals were embedded in them.
“They’re beautiful,” I reached out and grabbed the smallest ones, that had only one crystal in them, that were close to the ground while the bigger ones floated towards the ceiling. “This is amazing; I wonder how they float- Ow!” As I spoke, the little stone zapped me causing me to drop it in surprise. “What the fuck?!” I clench my fist a couple of times, three fingers were numb but I could still move them. “You’re like some kind of stun stone… I took the rope from around me chest, made a shoddy lasso, and looped it around one of the medium sized rocks. “Well job completed then, let’s get back topside.” With the light the stone was giving off, I could see a couple of feet as I made my way up the incline with my sample floating lazily behind me.
The trip topside was even faster since I could actually see shit, up ahead I could see the sliver of light of the entrance. “Hey Dash,” I shouted out to the Pegasus, not knowing if she was still there. I shimmied out of the tunnel but the stone wouldn’t fit, “Fan-friggin-tastic…”
“Hey Shin! I couldn’t find any other tunnels. Just caves that didn’t go very deep,” Dash said as she hovered next to me.
“It’s cool, Dash, I found what we’re looking for,” I said, tugging on the rope.
“Wow so there actually are stones that float? Oh wait until Twilight hears that I help find floating stones; she’s going to be so jealous!”
“Mhmm, now help me move this rock?”
“Why don’t you just turn into a dragon and do it yourself?”
“Well why don’t you just get your prismatic rear end and get over here, help me move this, and actually take part in extracting it since you wouldn’t go back down the tunnels,” I shouted while I tried pushing the stone myself.
“Fine, no need to get all huffy,” putting up her hooves in surrender before flying over and pulled while I pushed. Slowly but surely the stone was moved enough to remove the floating stone, as I pulled the floating stone it suddenly gained height until it pulled the rope taunt out Rainbow’s eyes got big –which is saying something, these ponies have huge eyes to begin with!- “It’s huge!”
“Nah, this is one of the medium sized ones. Don’t touch it though.”
“Why,” she asked as she held her hoof out to touch it but I grabbed it before she could.
“Because I touch one of the smallest ones and it zapped me, my hand is still a little numb,” I released her hoof and she back-winged a bit so she backed away from it. “Glad to see you pieced it together.” Walking over to where I left the giant centipede head I searched the area for my sword but I couldn’t find it or the med-kit, “Hey Dash, where’s my sword and the kit?”
“I flew them up and put them in the basket, so are we going to go collect the reward now,” Dash asked and I swear I heard a cash register opening.
“Don’t you have clouds to take care of or something,” I asked her as I wrapped the middle of the rope around my chest and the end of it around the centipede’s mandible but when I picked it up the insides poured out onto my slipper. ‘That’s just fucking gross but I better take this just in case, even if it’s not then it’ll make for a kickass story.’ The lift the stone was generating was enough to let me easily climb up the sheer wall.
“Yeah I mean sure but I can always ask them for a stand end, I’ll just tell them something came up,” she followed me up the wall until we reached the top, “Besides, the cut I’ll get from this is a month’s paycheck of bucking clouds!”
“Fine, we’ll stop by this Cloudsdale place, you’ll tell them you need a stand-in, and you can push the balloon to Canterlot,” I untied the rope from my chest and retied it to the low flying balloon then jump inside with my things and Pinkie’s kit.
“Push?!”
“Yeah push, what, I thought you were a strong flyer Dash. At least that’s what everyone says anyway.” I gave her a smirk, ‘Not that I’ve actually heard anything but I don’t want to be out here longer than I have to.’
“I’ve got a better idea; there’s a flying chariot taxi service in Cloudsdale and they have chariots going to and from Canterlot all the time,” she offered as she tried to weasel out of doing her share of the work.
“Sorry but I don’t know who’s balloon this is so I have to return it but that does give me an idea though; push the basket to Cloudsdale and I’ll fill you in,” she had a mental conflict before yanking up the piton and started pushing the balloon to the cloud city.
“Here we are Shin, welcome to Cloudsdale!” It was a little after noon and Dash pushed us close to one of the Cloud buildings, “Hey Watercolors, you on duty? I’ve got a grounder here for you to work your magic on!”
“Dashie?!” A tan unicorn with a wet rainbow mane ran out of the build then jump off the clouds where Dash caught her in a hug. “Vat ara you doing unz Cloudsdale?”
“I was here for a storm shipment but something better came up and I need to talk to Inclement to get a replacement for a couple of day. That’s beside the point,” Dash set the unicorn down on solid cloud, “My friend here needs one of your specialties cast on him.”
“C-cast,” I asked suddenly nervous since the last spell cast on me paralyzed me from the neck down.
Dash must have seen my apprehensive look, “Oh get over it you big baby, it’s just a cloud walking spell, perfectly harmless.”
“Dhat iz unless da spell runs out, sending you plumtizing to your death,” the unicorn chirped way to happily for such a morbid thought.
“Can you cast it on anything? Does it have to be living,” I asked as an idea came to me.
“No, I suppose I could cast it und an item,” I slipped off my slippers and held them up and she cast the spell on them but not before gagging at the sight of them.
“Yeah sorry about that, got a little giant centipede guts all over it,” As I apologized I tested one of the slippers by dropping it on the cloud and it stayed, “Good job, Watercolors was it?” I slipped them on and hopped out of the basket, careful not to touch the stone.
“It was mein pleasure, uny friend of Dashie uz mein friend as vell.” We said our thanks and left the unicorn to return to her shower.
“So, why are you scared of spells huh?”
“I was paralyzed from the neck down and thrown in jail… Kind of leaves a sour taste in my mouth,” I led the balloon along the road until it hit a split rainbow bridge that looked at least decently solid.
“Alright, I guess that’s a pretty good reason,” she cleared her throat before pointing a hoof, “the taxi service is on the right bridge. I’m heading to the factory to break the news to my boss. When you get to the taxi station, it’ll be a warehouse with black and yellow wings over the entrance, ask for a griffin called Tezel and negotiate a price. I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m done with my end.” She flapped her wings and took off, leaving me holding a massive balloon that I could barely keep down. As soon as she was out of sight, I bounced up and down on the clouds and giggled to myself, “Haha. Bouncy.”
***
I banged my fist against the desk but it did nothing other than make my hand hurt, “Damn what is this thing made of; Mahogany?”
“Sky Iron Wood actually,” Tezel replied, unfazed by my change in mood.
“Forget about that, what do you mean I can’t just rent a chariot puller to pull a balloon back to Canterlot? If anything, it will be lighter than hauling a freaking metal chariot.”
“Because then they will be balloon pullers instead of taxi pullers,” She stated matter-of-factly, I’m sure the boys would be willing to pull your shoddy balloon all the way to Canterlot… for double the fare.”
“Double?!” I looked at the board with the prices painted on them, it listed a team of two pegasi pulling a chariot to Canterlot would cost thirty Bits, “Sixty Bits, for a one way trip? Haha. No, you tell the ‘boys’ that I’ll pay the normal fare and if they can get me to Canterlot before or around sunset I’ll tip them 30% each.”
“Fine but only because you twisted my wing, Hotshot and... Flourish! Got an assignment for you; you’ll be pulling a balloon to Canterlot and before you complain he’ll tip you thirty percent if you get him there before or around sunset.”
An orange stallion and a peach mare walked past the office and simply nodded before going outside where I had hitched the balloon. I pulled my coin purse out and placed thirty Bits on the counter, “Thirty Bits, I’ll tip the pullers once I reach Canterlot.”
She took each Bit and bit it, guess she thought it wasn’t real, “Fine, now get out of here.”
‘Grump…’ I left the office and found the stallion attaching something to the balloon so they could pull it while the mare, Flourish, was hovering to touch the stone before I shouted out to her, “Don’t touch that!” She flinch and pulled her hoof back, “Sorry, forgot to warn you not to touch anything, if you touch the stone it generates electricity- erm lightning.”
“S-sorry,” the poor mare stuttered while looking sheepish then strapped herself into the balloon beside Hotshot who was snickering at her, “W-w-when do you plan on leaving?”
“As soon as Dash shows up,” I crawled into the basket when I saw Dash flying straight at us, “Speak of the devil, here she is.”
Dash came to a sudden stop mere inches from me, huffing and puffing, “Hey Shin, I got someone to take my shift so let’s-“
“Is that Rainbow Crash? You’re traveling with the flying disaster?” Hotshot guffawed and Flourish bowed her head apologetically to Dash.
“Hey! I’m paying you to haul a balloon, not dis my friend.” I chose that instant to pull the rope with the centipede head out from below the cloud layer, the rough winds had done its job and the insides were emptied leaving a hollow shell, which I placed, in the basket. ”Alright, chop chop. I’ve got some writing to do so you just take us to Canterlot. You riding or flying Dash?”
“I’ll fly, my wings aren’t broken.” I simply nodded as Dash released the balloon, I took out a pencil and the book Tanya had chosen for me to write the Tome in and started writing as we made our way back to Canterlot;
Pegasus Pony Singular: Pegasus Plural: Pegasi Height Range: 2’ 9” to 3’ 8” Weight Range: Unknown (Possibly a poor question to ask in a society that is predominately female.) Skills: Master of weather manipulation, cloud walking, flight, and varying degrees of ranged and melee combat. Children of the skies, Pegasi are gifted with the ability of flight. Pegasi relish in their air found freedom and a large portion of them never set foot on solid ground. Pegasi are very impulsive and in a constant state of flux, keeping nothing the same save for friends. Because of this, I’m sure many see the Pegasi as nothing more than chasers of fancy and ponies prone to changing sides at a moment’s notice. In charge of the weather services, Pegasi are the only ponies that are able to control the weather, building complex factories, and cities high in the clouds, out of the reach of the other races. Physical Description: Pegasus Ponies are of the approximate size of Earth Ponies, but of leaner build. All Pegasi have a pair of wings growing out of their backs, from which they get their name. The Coats of Pegasus ponies tends to be dark, with brown and grey being the most common colors, and blues and white being the next most conventional. The manes of Pegasi can vary wildly, from a simple brown or black to a whole rainbow of colors on a single Pegasus. Society: Most Pegasi live amongst the clouds in large cities built right into the floating masses. Thanks to the Pegasi’s ability to walk on fog and vapor, they are able to construct nearly anything on top of clouds. Living miles in the sky, it is to be assumed that all Pegasi learn to fly at an early age, and those that don’t are often found taking residence in Earth Pony Settlements. Pegasi tend to find work in the weather business as a cloud chaser or rainmaker while a select few have the flying talent to become stunt persormers. Those that do are held upon in the highest esteem, as to become a flying master seems to be the highest honor a Pegasus can obtain. Personal Notes: If you find yourself the chance and honor to go to a Pegasus city, I suggest finding a Unicorn pony that can cast the spell I have dubbed; Cloud Hopper on you. If you are wary of spells being cast on you as I am, feel free to have them cast it on something you wear on your hooves, feet, paws, or other such appendages since the spell also works on inanimate objects. Also note; Pegasi have a good relationship with Griffons so tread lightly, they seem to have a short fuse and can be quite greedy.
The Pegasi duo had made excellent time, Canterlot was growing larger by the second and I could clearly make out the marble training ground surrounded by many different types of buildings, “There, land near that marble square.”
“But that’s a Sellsword location,” Hotshot shouted as if he were shouting over the wind rushing past him but we could hear everyone fine.
“Yeah and? Just land close enough so I can do something dramatic and awesome before I find the idiot that tied me to the balloon while I was drunk and sent my ass on a mission!”
“W-w-what, you’re a S-s-sellsword,” the mare, Flourish, asked as they flew us around a spired building. “What’s it like?”
“I couldn’t tell ya, I was barely initiated before I got sucked into this bullshit,” I huffed as I took a look at the wound under the bandage, “Yech, hey dash; are centipede bites supposed to turn orange and leak puss?” She flapped over to take a look at it and gagged a little, “I’ll take that as a no… I wonder if Sellswords have medical people.”
With the help of Dash, the other two managed to get the balloon low enough to tie to an anchoring stone and I jumped out of the basket onto a table. When the others saw me they just burst out laughing. “What’s the hell’s so funny,” I shouted at them, “Go on, tell me, I love a good joke. Perhaps the punchline was waking up hanging upside down over a gorge?” That got more of them snickering again, “Assholes… You’re just lucky I found what the mission was asking for.” That silenced them instantly, “Dash, the rope if you please?”
“Sure thing,” Dash undid the rope with her teeth, minding not to touch it and passed it to me.
I pulled on the rope until the other end came tumbling out of the basket, “Also is there any way to get this bad boy mounted? Had to break its legs and drop a ton of rock on it to kill it.” I jumped off the table and walked over to Double Stakes who heard me shouting from inside one of the buildings.
“Ah Shinza, it is good to have you back,” he choked back a laugh, “How did the mission go? It was the one with a special reward no?”
“It was alright,” I jerked my head at the floating stone which caused him to do a double take and held out the giant bug’s head, “Had to fight a fucking monster of a centipede but-“
“That- that can’t be… floating crystals and a Century-pede. I’ve never seen one of this size before… Campanula would love to have this, hopefully its poison sacs are still intact,” he took the head from me and inspected it.
“Don’t get your hopes up, it bit me before it died. He can have it if he wants, I was just going to mount the bastard on the wall but I don’t have a mount… or a wall. Anyways the bite has turned orange and is leaking puss, I’ll get it check out after I get paid. I’ll pay you two when I get back,” I said to the two Pegasi who were unhitching themselves from the basket. “Come on Dash.”
“Right…” Dash was looking around the area at all the different species and buildings before shaking her head and took off when she saw me walking out into Canterlot with everyone laughing as soon as they thought I was out of earshot.
***Sellsword Hall***
“W-w-why are you laughing at him? Isn’t he a Sellsword like you, it’s not very nice,” Flourish stammered as she looked at all the mouths filled with sharp looking teeth.
“My dear it’s not a matter of being nice, we live in a world where we sometimes have to take a life or possibly give ours up,” a grey speckled cat said as he walked up to her, “We take our comedy where we can get it and that one just took a mission that’ll make him the butt of everyone’s jokes for some time.”
“Why’s that,” Hotshot asking as he butted into the conversation, “He said he found what the mission called for; the floating crystals. I’ve never even hear of such a thing.”
“That’s because there’s no such thing,” Double Stakes Said as he gave the exoskeleton to a passing Diamond Dog, “Take that to Monkshood would you my friend? Try not to eat it.” The dog nodded and ran off in the direction of several greenhouses.
“But there is,” the pair said at the same time, “we just saw him carrying it off.”
“Aye we did but that’s not floating crystals but rather they are eggs. You see around this time every year we get that mission in and the first couple of times anyone took the mission… well, they weren’t expecting the special reward to be so… special. Even if they failed the mission she would pay them and give them the reward,” Double paused as if to insinuate something but they didn’t catch it, “Young ponies these days I swear denser than rocks.”
***Mare’s Dorm Room 102***
Raising a fist; I banged on the door and a mare’s voice called out, “Who is it?”
“My name’s Shin, I’m with the Sellswords about your mission.”
“My mission? Oh yes, come right in dear,” she called from somewhere towards the back rooms.
Dash and I shared a look before I turned the knob and we entered, looking around the room hurt my eyes and nose; bright contrasting colors everywhere, hot pink walls, and a sickly sweet smell lingered in the air that I couldn’t place. “I just got a bad feeling…”
“I can probably help with that,” the mare’s husky sounding voice spoke behind us as there was a clicking noise as the lock turned over.
“Maybe, are you Nightlit? I found your floating crystals,” I turned as I was talking and saw the mare in question; she had on what I could only call the pony equivalent of lingerie and a saddle. “So… um, we’ll take our bits and be on our way.”
“Of course darling,” Her eyes were sparkling at mention of the crystal and payment, “I have the Bits right here.” She went over to a dresser and pulled out eight bags of Bits and gave them to me. I separated them evenly, I was originally going to only give her thirty percent but I had a feeling I was about to owe her more. I gave four bags to Dash when Nightlit spoke, “Now for the special reward, how about I turn that bad feeling into a good feeling?” She turned around and winked, not with her eye…
“Nope!” I grabbed Dash around the waist and prepare to sacrifice her so I could escape.
“What are you doing,” she yelled indignantly as she tried wriggling out.
“Sorry but I’m sure once you’re finished you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me,” I then chucked her at the mare with surprising accuracy, causing Nightlit to moan as I ran for the open window and jumped out and leaving Dash and the stone in the room, “Thank whatever god that this is the first floor!” Thirty minutes later at a full sprint I reached the Hall and when I got there, the entire place exploded into laughter, I paid the two taxi Pegasi and shouted to the entire hall, “Fuck you guys! I’m lucky I had a sacrifice!” I had Double show me to where Ice and Ivy were lodging and stashed my belongings there and had him tell me why I found myself upside down hanging from a balloon. Turns out it started out as a prank, everyone knew the mission was fake and it was just a way for the mare to get laid every year during that special time the ponies have. The only thing drunk me heard was rare floating crystal and money so I took a balloon from a balloon rental place and sometime between here and there I passed out, tangled the rope around my ankle, and fell out of the damn thing. I thanked him before flopping down on one of the beds, forgetting the wound on my shoulder and falling asleep.
