Between Life and Death

“So, Red, think you can explain what happened back there? I’m still confused.” Jetstream asked.

“Sure, I have the power to jump from one time stream to another.”

“And, what does that mean?”

“Well, it means…huh, well think about it this way, say there was one person and two different events that happen to her at the same moment in time.”

“Uh huh.”

“Those events are, winning money, and finding true love, and since she can’t do them both she has to do one or the other. So here’s what it is, there are millions of different events in history, and I have the power to choose which one I go to, or something like that. So, like I was saying, say we live in the time stream where the girl got money, what I can do, is go from that time stream, to the other one. Example; when she one the money, someone else lost and started stealing, so, I got to the one where she found the love of her life, that person wins the money, they don’t steal, And, the start a business that helps everyone, get it?”

“Yeah, I kind of get it now-“

“Would you all shut the hell up your killing my brain?!” Clockwork yelled out. Everyone went silent.

“Think you can take me to the time stream where Clockwork isn’t a jackass-?” Jetstream giggled.

“Screw you, you bucking whore!” Clockwork snapped at her.

“What did you call me-?!”

“A…Bucking…Whore!” Jetstream growled at him. He turned around and kept walking, when his back was turned Jetstream went up to him and tried to sucker punch him, but he noticed her and caught her fist before she could hit him and he punched her in her stomach and knocked her back. “You want to try that again-?!”

“Hey, you can’t hit my mom!” Screwball yelled at him.

“Yeah? What are you going to do about it?” Clockwork laughed and kept walking. Screwball ran up to him and latched onto his back, wrapping her arms around his throat. “Get off me you little bitch!” he slammed her into a tree behind him, when she fell off he picked her up by her neck and slammed her against the tree and put his gun to her head. “You crossed the line you little bucker.” Jetstream got up and rushed over to them, and before he could pull the trigger, she took her combat dagger and stabbed him right in his lower spine. He started screaming, he threw Screwball and smacked her with his flailing arm while he was freaking out. She fell to the ground, he turned around and placed his foot on her and prevented her from getting up. “You, bucking bitch!” Clockwork screamed, he took his gun and pointed it at her head. “I’m going to kill you and your bucking daughter-!’

“No!” Screwball yelled. She ran up behind him and tackled him, sending him flying into a tree. She helped Jetstream back up then backed away from Clockwork. He attemped to climb out of the tree but fell onto his back, sending the knife deeper into his spine, he started screaming even louder as he flipped onto his stomach.

“Somebody get this bucking thing out of me!!” Clockwork started screaming uncontrollably. The others ran over to him and helped him up long enough for Twilight to pull the dagger out of his back, and right as it was removed she dropped it and yelped.

“What happened?” Applejack asked.

“It, burnt me.”

“The knifes’ enchanted.” Jetstream told them. “Anything unholy it kills immediately, everything else it burns.” Twilight looked at her hand, there was a red mark with blood running down it, and it was her blood.

“You bitch! I’m going to kill you-!”

“I wouldn’t have attacked you if you didn’t attack my daughter-!”

“I wouldn’t have attacked your daughter if she was such a pain in the ass-!”

“Both of you shut up!” Applejack interrupted. “Now is not the time to be fight’n one another, we need to get to Vanhoover so we can get out of here, and if we keep fight’n we’re never gonna make it!” The two of them stopped arguing. They looked at each other angrily, they didn’t say anything, they just looked at eachother. “Now, if the two of you are done, I think we should keep going, it’s going to take a while to get over the mountains.” After that she walked off with the others leaving Clockwork and Jetstream behind.

“…You know, I can’t move my leg’s because of you and your bitch of a daughter-.”

“How is that my problem-?”

“You stabbed me, yeah, it’s your problem.”

“Ok…it’s my problem, what do you want me to do?”

“Carry me, duh.” Jetstream growled at him and walked off to join the others. “…Uh, hey, where you going? I still need help!” Clockwork sighed then started dragging himself along the path, it took him a while, but he managed to catch up with the others. He stopped and started breathing heavily. He looked up at Jeatstream. “…Bitch…” he mumbled as he continued crawling.

“What’s with Clockwork?” Twilight asked.

“He’s just sore about the thought that he lost to a girl.” Jetstream chuckled. Applejack and Red went over to Clockwork, they offered him help to stand up but he refused, but eventually the ignored him and helped him up, he kept whining as they helped him but they ignored him.

“I could have done this on my own-!”

“It would have taken you at least a month to get to Vanhoover in this condition-.” Red replied.

“I don’t need your help!” Clockwork kept shouting and arguing, telling them he didn’t need their help, but everyone kept ignoring him and continued walking along the path until they finally got to the mountains guarding Vanhoover.

“Well, here we are, the rocky mountains, well…good bye-“

“Wait what do you mean good bye? We’re not at Vanhoover yet-.”

“No, but this is where we part, see over there? Underneath the largest mountain is the royal changeling hive of Queen Formora-“

“What does that have to do with us?” Clockwork rudely interrupted.

“I agreed to come with you so I could get Screwball here, I need to help her master the ancient language so she could awaken her Alicorn powers-“

“Ok, you know what, blah blah blah, all that is complete crap-“

“Yeah, don’t care. Anyway, if you all want, you could come with me into the hive. Changelings are immune to the disease so, they won’t turn, and since the entrance would be sealed off, it won’t be able to enter the tunnels.”

“…Well, the whole point of this was to get somewhere safe so I guess we could-“ Twilight stared before she was cut off by Clockwork

“Yeah, no. We’d rather take out chances with all the undead bastards then be stuck in a cave with you and that bitch daughter of yours.”

“Listen, I don’t care if you die a painful and blood filled death but I’m asking the others, not you.”

“Yeah well I’m answering for them and we say no-“

“You say no, they didn’t say anything-“ Jetstream replied, slowly becoming more irritated.

“Well they would have said no-“

“Actually we would have said yes-“ Twilight added

“You mean no! Come on lets go before the two whores do something stupid-“

“Call me that one more time-“

“WHORE-!”

“Go to hell you greased up, perverted, son of a bitch!”

“Go buck yourself you bucked up witch-!”

“Clockwork stop it-!” Applejack tried stopping him.

“I hope you burn in hell for all your sins you jacked up bastard-!”

“You can suck my dick you buck ass harlot-!”

“Clockwork I said enough-!”

“You don’t deserve to have friends you good for nothing buck faced bastrad-!”

“Go buck yourself in hell!” and that’s when the argument ended, Clockwork pulled out his gun and fired off a shot, he was trying to shoot Jetstream, but instead, the bullet went off course and hit Screwball in her head.

“NOO!” Jetstream screamed as she raced over to the body of her daughter.

“Pfft, BWAHAHAHAHA, I MENT TO SHOOT YOU, BUT THIS IS EVEN MORE HILAREUS!” Clockwork started laughing uncontrollably. Red and Applejack dropped him and walked away from him. “Fine, like I said, didn’t need your help.” Clockwork held himself up with his arms and tried to crawl away.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going…?” Jetsream demanded. Clockwork turned around and looked at her. Her eyes looked like they were lifeless.

“Wow, and I thought you looked stupid before.” Clockwork taunted her. She growled and then instantly was consumed by a pillar of green flames, when it vanished, her appearance had changed, her right wing turned into a bat wing, her left arm became a lion’s paw, and her eyes looked just like discords. Clockwork chuckled. “And I thought you looked Ugly before.” She roared at him then vanished, she then reappear in front of him. She picked him up and tossed him into the air then punched him sending him crashing into the trees and causing them to collapses on top of him. The trees started moving and one of them started rising as Clockwork started standing back up. “You, bucking, harlot.”  He tossed the tree away and started walking towards her.

“How are you standing? I thought you became paralyzed-“

“I did, thanks to you. But now, using a heal spell Monochrome taught me years back, I’m mostly healed.”

“Mostly?”

“You’ll see.” Jetstream roared again and the two started charging at each other. They both punched and both their firsts hit each other and caused Jetstream to fly back several feet. Clockwork chuckled sinisterly right before his left arm started sparking. “Damn it, piece of shit can’t g 10 seconds without breaking-“

“Clockwork what are you talking about?” Applejack asked. Just then, 4 ports opened up on Clockwork’s forearm and released jets of steam and closed back up. “Clockwork, what’s wrong with yer arm!?” Applejack and the others became both confused and scared.

“So that’s what you mean by that.” Clockwork started rushing towards her and she rushed towards him, he swung at her but she jumped out of the way and started flying above him.

“What’s wrong, scared I’ll kill you?” Clockwork taunted her. She grew annoyed, she lifted her hand and her started floating, then he swung his arms and he fell back down. “Do you really thing that your stupid magic is strong enough for my physical strength?” Jetstream charged at him and started slashing at him with her tiger claw, but he managed to dodge every attack and eventually attacked her back. He grabbed her by the hair on the back of her head and started punching her in her stomach repeatedly. He then threw her away. “You better not die on me now, I’m not done kicking your ass yet.” He walked over to her and picked her up by her hair, but she swung her claw and slashed her face, he started screaming and threw her again, this time she stood back up and rushed towards him. But before she could get to him he grabbed her by her throat. “You’re going to pay for that.” Clockwork pulled back his fist and four sharp spikes appeared from his knuckles. Right as he was about to punch her she flew into the air attempting to free herself from his hold. Clockwork struggled to hang onto her throat but eventually let and fell several feet to the ground.

“I’d like to see you get me from up here.” Jetstream taunted him. He took knew and pointed his robotic arm at her, he clenched his fist tighter and it flew off towards her. She flew out of the way and the metal fist fell into the forest and shatter several trees.

“Face it lady, you can’t get an advantage over me.” Clockwork laughed. He started realign his hand back using the chain it was attached to. Once it was reeled back he moved his fingers to make sure it was still working.

“I have to admit, that is impressive.”

“Danke, made it myself.” Clockwork stuck out his arm and launched his fist again, and like last time Jetstream moved out of the way and dodged it, but this time, Clockwork reeled it back while it was midair. “Can’t you stay still long enough for me to kill you?”

“You wish.” Jetstream held up her hand and instantly, a beam of light appeared and she threw it at him, he lifted his arm and blocked it completely, but his arm turned from it’s normal white color to a steel-ish silver color.

“your starting to piss me off!”

“Good.” Jetstream laughed. Clockwork held out his fit and spikes shot out of his knuckles, he then pointed his arm at her and shot his fist, and this time instead of dodging it, she caught it.

“Let go of my hand.”

“Make me.” Jetstream started yanking on the steel chain attempting to lift him into the air, but all it did was drag him forward slightly.

“Knock it off! Your throwing off my balance-“

“Good!” Jetstream pulled o the chain one more time causing Clockwork to fall face first into a patch of mud. He got up and started reeling the chain back, along with Jetstream. She lifted the chain, and when it got short enough she flew up higher and started spinning, by doing that Clockwork got lifted into the air and was spun around. He grabbed onto the chain and started using it to pull himself closer to her, when he was within reach of her, she let go and sent him flying into the forest, once he was gone she flew downwards and landed.

“…Mom?”

“Screwball?” Jetstream faced her daughter, she was attempting to stand up. She raced over to her and helped her up. “Screwball, are you alright?”

“…I feel, dizzy.” Screwball fell over but Jetstream quickly caught her.

“Don’t worry, it’s alright.”

“What happened to that man?”

“I…he’s gone, it’s ok-“

“You arrogant bitch!” Clockwork yelled as he stepped out of the brush of the forest, everyone looked over at him in surprise, he was somehow alive, even thought he had a tree branch sticking out of his chest and his robotic arm fell off. “You think you can kill me that easily!? I’m bucking immortal! You can’t kill me!” He rushed towards her in an attempt to attack, she stood her ground and attempted to protect her daughter, but instead, she stepped out from behind her. She lifted up her leg and Clockwork ran into it and her hoof landed right in his groin. He stumbled back holding his pelvis and groaning in pain. “Little…bitch…” he wheezed right before falling over. Jetstream and Screwball started laughing at him.

“You can survive a battle with me but you can’t survive one kick?!” Jetstream said as she laughed loudly. The two of them fell down due to their heavy laughter.

“It’s…not funny.” Clockwork groaned, still in pain. Eventually the others started laughing along with Jetstream and her daughter. Eventually the laughter died down and Jetstream returned to her normal form.

“Ok, ok, listen, tell you what, if you apologize to me and my daughter, I’ll let you stay with us in the changeling hive-“

“No!” Clockwork yelled, he attempted to get up but quickly fell back down.

“You sure? It’s safe there-“

“No, I’ll never apologize-“ Clockwork started groaning again, causing Jetstream and Screwball to start laughing again.

“Well, your choice. What about the rest of you? I still never got an answer.” Jetstream asked as she turned towards the others.

“Well-“ Twilight replied nervously. “It’s a nice offer, but we had a run in with the changelings a while back so, I doubt they’ll let us.”

“Don’t worry, they were under the rule of Chrysalis, I promise you Queen Formora is nice.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I think we should keep going.”

“Ok, your choice. Oh, Clockwork-“

“Just leave me be woman.” Clockwork interrupted in a depressed voice, he started getting up and faced away from everyone. “I lost my pride, I have no right to speak to the champion, nor the right to live-“

“Wait, what?” Jetstream shouted out in confusion.

“You won, which means I have to do what the winner wants, and considering you want me dead-“

“Ok, listen, you might be a complete jackass, but you can’t just kill yourself, I mean so what if you lost to a 13 year old girl-“

“Are you trying to make me feel better?!”

“Ok fine, forget it, if you want to die, go ahead, it’s not like I care about you anyway.” Jetstream turned her back to him and refused to speak to him anymore. He started walking towards the forest. Screwball looked at the two of them than raced over to him.

“Hey, mr-“

“What do you want kid, I’m trying to get myself killed.” Clockwork asked with annoyance. Screwball closed her eyes and a bright light appeared, when it went away, he mechanical arm appeared, and she was holding it.

“You should probably take this with you.” Clockwork took it and reattached it to the stub on his left side.

“Thanks kid, don’t know why you’re helping me, but, thanks.” Clockwork patted her head then continued walking.

“Screwball, why did you help him, he hurt you.” Jetstream asked.

“If he’s going to go get himself killed, should at least give him a fighting chance.” Jetstream smiled and hugged her.

“So listen, I can escort you the rest of the way to Vanhoover, if you want.” Twilight and the others smiled.

“Thanks, but we’ll be fine, besides, you should get Screwball into the caves, she might get infected because of the wound.” Twilight replied, Jetstream nodded and so did Twilight after that she and the others started heading towards Vanhoover.

“Hey.” Clockwork called out, Jetstream turned around and faced him.

“Oh…thought you would have been dead by now.” Jetstream said smugly. Clockwork started walking over towards her, she forced Screwball to get behind her, when he got close to her he stopped and held it his arm. She looked at t with confusion then back at his face.

“You’re one hell of a fighter, I’ll admit that.” Jetstream smiled and shook his hand. “Listen, it’s not in my nature to do this but…Sorry. I’m sorry  shot your daughter, insulted the two of you and attack you, sorry for all of that, I’m just in a bad mood.”

“Why’s that?”

“First off, Ebony betrayed me, me and him have been friends for as long as I can remember and…yeah, second, I lost Monochrome.”

“Oh yeah…why do you care about him, considering how you act around me and the others, I’m amazed you two don’t try to kill each other.

“To be honest, I can’t hate him, he was the first friend I ever made, we’ve been friends for thousands of years, even when I was turned evil, he still cared about me, and now…again, I’m sorry.” Jetstream smiled at him and he started walking off to rejoin the others. Later that day, when they all made it to Vanhoover, the town was in complete ruins, the buildings were collapsing and on fire, blood and corpses as far as the eye could see.

“What happened here?” Twilight asked herself. They continued walking into the city and towards the docks. They reached a four way intersection and none of them knew which way to go, they split up, Twilight and Nyx went down the northern street, Flutter shy and Red went down eastern street, and Applejack and Agony went down the western street. Along they way Nyx and Twilight reached another four way street.

“Now which way?” Nyx asked. Twilight looked around then eventually came to a conclusion.

“Over there, the sea is to the west, we head down this street and we’ll be there in no time.” Nyx smiled and followed her, and after a few minutes, a strange noise started sounding from behind them.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know.” They turned around and drew their weapons. They waited there, waiting to see if they were being followed, after a few minutes they put their weapons away and kept walking, and that’s when it appeared, an infected man raced out of one of the alley ways and headed towards them, he made almost no noise as he ran. He was a few feet away from them, he jumped into the air and right as he did a mysteries gun shot hit him in his head and knocked him back to the ground. Nyx and Twilight turned around and saw the body.

“Do I seriously have to protect you twits everywhere we go?!” the two looked up and saw Clockwork standing on top of one of the many skyscrapers.

“Clockwork!” Twilight shouted happily.

“We thought you were going into the forest to die?”

“I was-“ Clockwork paused as he jumped of the building and landed on the concrete road. “But I decided not to, so consider your selves lucky ok? Without me, you two would be that things next meal.”  Clockwork started kicking the corpse around like a soccer ball.

“So, why did you come back?”  Clockwork stopped kicking the body and looked over at Twilight.

“Do you really think I’m going to let you have all the fun? Like I’m really going to let you go out and kill all the zombies.” Clockwork put his gun away and kicked the body one last time. “Come in, let’s get to the docks before something bad screws us all.” Clockworck started guiding them thre the blood filled streets of the city until they eventually reach the Vanhoover docks, they waited there for the others and half an hour let they showed up.

“Clockwork? I thought you left.”

“Like I could leave a girl like you.” Clockwork replied while smiling.

“Well, we’re all here, so, I guess we can finally leave Equestria.” Twilight said to herself.

“I’ve haven’t been here for long, but I’m going to miss this place.”

“It’s ok Red, once we get to Eagland we’ll have a new home.” Fluttershy told him with sympathy.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, I wonder if I can find a nice griffon to fall in love with-“

“Hell since Monochromes’ dead why don’t you just take Gilda!” Clockwork started laughing, bt after noticing the others weren’t laughing with him he stopped. “…To soon?” they ignored hi then went over to the old Japanese war ship, docked at the end of the pier.

“Hey Nyx, hold on.” Red stopped Nyx and he let the other go ahead of then. “You remember what I said, the thing about finding a griffon?”

“Yeah, it was a few seconds ago, how could I forget?”

“Well, I wanted to tell you something. I was kind of joking about it, there was actually someone else to be honest.”

“Who is it?” Nyx asked. Red looked at her, she was smiling at him, he started blushing.

“Uh…was…uh…I, don’t think I can remember.”

“Oh…But hey, why did you only tell me?”

“Well…I just thought that, since you and I have kind of, similarity’s being related to someone evil ithought you might want to be the first to know…”

“Oh…ok…” Nyx looked at him with slight suspicion. “Well.. we should get going before the boat leaves without us.”

“Um, yeah, that would be best.” The two got over to the boat just in time to hear Clockwork arguing with the captain.

“For the last bucking time, Redtear sent us here so you could take us to Eagleland, if we wanted to hijack it we would have killed you-“

“No, we only take orders from the shogun! Now leave before we use force-“

“I’m about to kick your bucking head in-!”

“Clockwork, just stop ok, you’re not going to achieve anything by yelling at him. Listen, I am princess Twilight Sparkle, and I request that you transport us out of Equestria-“

“Princess, forgive me but we are only to depart under order of the shogun-“

“What the hell, you listen to her and not to me-“

“That’s because she actually knows what she’s saying.” Red interrupted. The ship captain looked at him then immediately bowed to him.

“Sir, what are you doing here, we thought you departed already .” Red looked around thinking there was someone else.

“Are you talking to me?”

“Yes, Red, the honorable warrior of Equestria. We didn’t know you were still here.”

“Uh…yeah, I’m still here, so listen, think you can get me and my friends out of here?”

“Of course, we would be honored to serve a man of your rank.” Afterwards the ship captain walked off yelling things ina different language.

“…What the hell, he serves you but not me!” Clockwork yelled.

“He is man of great honor, he is warrior of the royals, he surpasses even our Shogun, of course we serve him.” The ship captain walked off again and headed to the wheel, a few seconds later the ship started moving, everyone was finally heading out of Equestria.

“So, Clockwork, how did you get past Jetstream? Considering the fight you two had I’m amazed she didn’t try to attack you-“ Twilight asked

“Pfft, that whore? Yeah, I snuck past her-“

“You came to an understanding didn’t you?” Red interrupted.

“What!? Hell no! Like I’d ever do something like that-“

“Clockwork, you’re not fooling anyone, we know you apologized to her, we know treat her like a friend and now you think of her as one-“

“Ok fine yes, I said sorry to her ok! But it was only that one time, from here on out, I will never have another change of heart, it was only that once.” Clockwork pulled a cigarette out of his vest pocket, he placed it in his mouth then flipped open the top of one of his fingers on his mechanical arm and a small flame appeared and he used it to light it.

“So, Clock…what do you think about when you hear her name?” Red asked as he leaned against the rails next to him

“I don’t know, my mind just sort of goes all weird and my chest feels heavy and-Buck off!”  Clockwork yelled at him as the others started laughing at him.