Old Wrath

No pony there...

Standing in the kitchen I take a look at the clock on the wall. It is already past my feeding time and everyone is still asleep.

I shake my head and let out a heavy sigh. "Damn ponies ... I have to do everything by myself.."

"Hey!" Someone shouts to me.

Confused I search in the kitchen for the source of the voice.

"Up here!"

I look up and find a grey striped cat standing on the kitchen cabinet over the sink on the right side on the room.

"Any idea where to get something to eat here? I'm starving." The cat asks me.

"Me too. You see that big thing over there?" I point at a big white metallic box standing at the end of the kitchen unit on top of a cabinet. "There's food stored in it."

Suddenly it disappears in a flash and reappears next to the white box.

"What was that?" I ask confused.

"How does this thing look from the insides?"

"It has multiple levels. I think fish was in the middle."

"Huh..." The cat says before it disappears in the wall of the box.

My eyes widen. "What the...?" I ask before I run to the box. As I reach it, its door opens and reveals the cat sitting on the grid in the middle of it with a fish in his mouth, that it shortly after throws out of it in the ground before me.

"What do you want for breakfast?" It asks me.

"Eh ... carrots ..." I answer astonished. "They are at the bottom."

The cat looks down before it suddenly falls through the grid under his paws and lands on the lower grid of the box, where it pushes out the with vegetables filled, transparent box below it with its mouth, before it pulls out two carrots that it shortly after throws down to me. "Here!"

I take one of it and look up to him. "Thanks."

With another flash it suddenly stands before me. "No problem."

It reaches out with its paw. "My name is Bunky. I'm with Storming."

I shake it. "I'm Angel. I belong to Fluttershy."

"Angel, Bunky, what have you done? This is not how to behave!" Suddenly a female voice shouts at us.

We turn to the kitchen door and see Fluttershy standing in its frame, staring at us angrily.

***************************

Soon after the two paw shaking animals notice me they teleport away.

After I close the door of the refrigerator I hear a loud yawn coming from the living room. As I enter it, I see Storming sitting on the sofa scratching the back of his head. He blinks with his only half open, bloodshot eyes as he examines the room, not noticing the drool under his mouth.

"Good morning." I say in warm tone.

He rubs his eyes. "Mornin'..."

With his now clear eyes he studies the room again.

"Eh ... Fluttershy ... how did I exactly end up in here?" He asks eventually.

"You passed out after you and Rainbow Dash drank Applejack's cider, mister." I explain to him with a serious frown.

"Huh ... that would also explain my headache." He says before his eyes widen and he looks into my face. "Oh my god, Fluttershy, I am so sorry ... I, I just ran into Rainbow Dash and - I don't know - drinking some cider sounded so good and ... " Storming says rapidly. "... and ... it somewhat escalated." He gives me a sheepish grin.

Storming notices my angry stare at him and flinches. "Okay, okay, I will atone for it and apologize to Applejack."

"You better do that, mister!" I say to him.

He holds his arm in a protecting way before his face. "I said I'm sorry. Could you please stop with this stare now?"

"No?!" I shout at him. "You could have left a note!"

He takes his arms down and looks confused to me. "What?"

"I was worried sick because of you." My serious frown vanishes as tears begin to well up in my eyes. "After all that happened, you just disappeared. I was so afraid that you would ..."

Storming walks over to me and crouches down in front of me before he lays a hand on my shoulder.

"Fluttershy ... I ... I'm sorry ... I really am. I didn't mean to scare you ... I just needed some fresh air and didn't thought about it."

I sniff and look him in the eyes. "Promise me to not do something like this again."

"Fluttershy, I promised princess Celestia that I would give you two weeks and I abide to this promise."

"But what after that?"

He chuckles a bit. "Fluttershy, you should be concerned if you get a letter from me after this two weeks. I promise you that I won't just leave and never come back, okay?"

I nod with a small grin forming on my face. "Okay."

"Is there anything else?" I ask him after he keeps staring in my eyes for a little too long.

Surprised he shakes his head. "No ... eh ... no ..."

"Eh and Storming ..." I point at the drool on his face. "You have there something."

"Ugh!" He says before wiping it off his muzzle.

***************************

"Don't you have some kind of anti-hangover spell or something like that?" Rainbow Dash asks behind her sun glasses while we fly along the landscape.

It's quiet a nice day. The sky is free of clouds and according to Rainbow Dash this isn't going to change any soon.

"I have..." I answer, wearing sunglasses too. "Its written down in one of my spell books, which unfortunately lies in a bookshelf in my library.

"Uhh... my head is killing me."

"At least you didn't need to cast magic to restore your wings with a hangover."

"Serves you right!" Twilight shouts behind us. "Stealing Applejack's cider and trying to flee." She shakes her head.

"Oh, hey, Rainbow Dash what I almost forgot: Thank you for that awesome night." I say to her.

Rainbow Dash made a frown and looked down to the ground below us.

"For that matter ... I ... I wasn't completely honest with you yesterday."

"You mean that you only talked to me, because you needed someone who could help you with that lock?"

She gives me a surprised frown. "You knew it?"

"Of course I did, but it sounded like fun and so I helped you." I look at her with a warm smile. "You don't need to apologize. It was a real funny night, I don't regret it and you shouldn't regret it too."

"I bet Applejack sees that different." Twilight mumbles behind us forcing us both to chuckle. "But what I'm still asking myself is how you got out of that basement. I mean Applejack probably didn't just let you walk out and gave you a headstart."

I shrug. "Teleporting."

"YOU DID WHAT?!" She yells at us causing me one of the worst headaches of my life. "DO YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS DRUNKEN TELEPORTING IS?!"

"Twilight, please calm down. You are worse than a banshee." Rainbow Dash begged.

"I AM NOT WORSE THAN A BANSHEE!"

"Actually, Twilight I already had to deal with banshees before and they weren't giving me such a headache." I say forcing even Fluttershy to giggle slightly while Twilight becomes only more angry.

"YOU ... wait, you dealt with banshees?" She asks interested.

"Yes, banshees, trolls, manticores, valkyries, demons, draugrs, zombies, changelings, strange bug-monster, giant animals and plants, pixies, pirates, dragons, hydras, a leprechaun-"

Twilight suddenly interrupts me. "Anything you haven't seen?"

Reflectively I scratch my chin. "I've never seen a bonnacon - not that I ever searched for one."

That finally caused even Twilight to giggle. "Yeah, I wouldn't search for one either."

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy give us confused gazes.

"What is a bonnacon?" Rainbow Dash asks eventually.

I shake my head. "You don't want to know that."

"Believe him, you really don't want to know that." Twilight adds still giggling.

"Ooookay..." Rainbow Dash says before her eyes turn forward again. "... so how far is it?"

"We should reach her any moment." I explain.

Or at least I hope so.

With the information from princess Luna I could determine the course of the Zephyr - she was flying home back to the library. For our luck the control crystal should have triggered a complete shut down of all of her systems, so she shouldn't be gone too far.

We keep flying in silence until eventually Fluttershy stops and points at something with her hoof. "I think she's over there."

In the distance is a small plateau between a mountain chain, where a big, elongated object is visible.

"Finally! Good work, Fluttershy!" I say to her causing her to blush slightly before I fly off at full speed towards it, leaving a black trail behind me in the sky.

As I get closer to the plateau, I see a long trail in the grass behind the Zephyr with some glass shards in it. Concerned I fly around her to examine it. The black, metallic elongation of its long round rump seems intact which meant that at least the gas-bags aren't leaking and four of her five rotor seem undamaged too. Only one of the rotors on the left side has some minor damages.

After finishing my examination of the rump I land on the grassland before her, shortly followed of the arrival of the other ponies.

"Really, you attacked Canterlot with a zeppelin?" Rainbow Dash asks while her gaze wanders along the Zephyr. "I mean, don't these things tend to burn or at least loosing gas or something like that when damaged?"

"Well before my control crystal was destroyed she had a magical shield protecting her very good." I answer as I walk closer to the bridge. It's windows are broken and some of the metallic girders between them are a bit bent, but besides that, it looks mostly intact.
A dark aura surrounds my horn and the glass shards in one of the destroyed windows before I pull them out of their frame and throw them away. "We can use this for entering her." I say pointing at the now shard free window frame, before I enter the bridge by myself.

Inside of it more glass shards are spread over the grey metallic floor and I remove them with my magic again so that the others can walk safely.

"Are these the controls?" Twilight asks standing before one of the terminals.

I walk over to her and see that the screen of all of the terminals are completely black. "Well they were..." I tip with one of my fingers on the screen but nothing happens. "The machines are probably dead." I say after a moment of thinking before I walk to the exit of the bridge. After leaving through it, we move along a short corridor until it splits up in metallic stairs on the right side and a wooden door in front of us and another one on the left side.

"This way." I say before I walk up the stairs, guiding us onto a small metallic platform surrounded by giant gears and conducts. In the middle of the room stands a big crystal of Ichor which stretches to a huge chamber below us, which is almost completely filled by it. It is surrounded by a balustrade with a single terminal in front of it.

"Wow!" Rainbow Dash shouts out after seeing the crystal. "That thing looks awesome!"

"Is that the material you used to create your wings?" Twilight asks.

"It is called Ichor and yes I use it for my wings, but what's more important is that it is capable of using every form of energy to grow." I say standing in front of the terminal before I turn around to Twilight and give her a sinister grin. "The ultimate source of power if you know how to use it."

I turn back to the Terminal which for my surprise was still working.

"And how does it work?" Twilight asks.

"What?" I asked irritated while I try to use the terminal to start the systems of the Zephyr.

"The Ichor."

"Wrote a book about it. Lies in my library. You can read it after I got this thing working again." I answer to her rapidly to get my peace.

I can't see it but I'm absolutely she's making a pout behind me.

Suddenly the conducts around us begin to glow purplish and the gears start to turn with a booming noise.

"Great! Now we only need to get this thing into the air." I say before another tap on the terminal ... which apparently did nothing. Irritated I push the button on the terminal multiple times before I finally kick against it, which, according to the altimeter, actually seems to got it working.

"Stupid high-tech stuff. Should have used plan b." I mutter to myself.

"What was plan b?" Twilight asks in a slightly concerned tone.

"Using an undead army to fire with siege weaponry at Canterlot."

***************

"Well..." I say to the others smearing with my stained hands over my coat as I enter the bridge. "... in current state she should bring us at least to Ponyville without falling down like a stone."

While my gaze wanders around the bridge I see that Twilight and Fluttershy have put on some pullovers to protect themselves from the cold wind that blows on the bridge.

Flying in 10km height without windows can get pretty cold, I have to admit.

As I finish my thought I recognize one pony missing.

"Where's Rainbow Dash?"

"Oh, she said that she wanted to take a nap." Fluttershy answers.

I raise an eyebrow. "And where did she intended to do this?"

"Uhm."

I let out a sigh and lay my hand on my face. "Don't tell me she is sleeping on the top side of the Zephyr."

"Would that be ... bad?" Twilight asks.

"Well - besides that even a slight concussion could cause her to fall down from there into the rotor at the back - no, not really." I answer with a shrug.

With a concerned expression on their faces Twilight and Fluttershy run to the windows.

"Uhm... Rainbow ... could ... could you come down ... please?"

"Rainbow Dash come down immediately!"

Suddenly a concussion runs through the ship.

"What was that? I almost fell into that stupid rotor!" Rainbow Dash yells as she lands on the bridge.

Another concussion runs through the ship followed by a deep growl and flames on the left side of the ship.

We all share concerned gazes.

"Storming?" Rainbow Dash asks. "That shield you mentioned before, did you got it to work again?"

"Yes, but ... it's still only at 10 percent of its capacity."

We hear another loud growl.

I sigh. "Screw it, I'm going to see what's out there."

I turn around and walk to the window I cleaned before of shards as suddenly I feel somepony grabbing my hand.

"Let me help you." I look over my back to see Twilight's face. "I'm an alicorn. I'm sure I can be useful."

"And I am the one that defeated four alicorns, the master of chaos and the army of Canterlot. I think I can handle this by myself." I get my hand free and jump out of the window as suddenly I feel teeth grinding into my torso. I look down on my body and find myself in the mouth of a middle sized red dragon.

"Okay, I can not handle it by myself!" I yell at Twilight while the dragon drags me along the windows of the bridge.

As the dragon takes me away from the Zephyr I can see more dragons that fly around her while shooting fire at her.

"Let go of me!" I demand before I punch the dragon with my fist on its nose causing it only to put more strength in its bite. I grunt in pain as a sudden idea crosses my mind.

Am I stupid? I can teleport.

I shake my head with a light chuckle before I teleport myself out of the mouth of the dragon.

It turns around to face me. "You and your machine will serve our nest!" It says before it attacks me with its fire breath.

After the flame disappears I blow a raspberry in response. "I already defeated far greater ones of your kind. Believe me, you and your partners don't stand a chance against me." I send out an energy beam as a warning shot. "So BUCK OFF!"

The dragon flies towards me and hits me with its claw causing some deep cuts in my flesh, which for my luck heal immediately - perks of being an immortal. After its attack the dragon flies in circles around me and heads out for another one, but before it is able to get me, I hit it with a strong punch against its muzzle and It passes me while I follow it with my gaze. It turns around with an angry snort and glares at me.

"Still not enough?" I mock the flying lizard. "Good."

We both strike out and fly towards each other, but shortly before I can give the dragon the final hit, a voice interrupts us.

"Stop it now, both of you!"

Confused we look to the side to the source of the voice, which for our surprise was a yellow pegasus giving us an angry stare, that causes us both to flinch.

"It is enough, misters!"

"But ... but he started it!" I point with my hand at the dragon.

"I do not care who started this but I am the one who ends this ... now. Do we understand each other?"

Me and the dragon share a scared gaze before we look to Fluttershy again.

"Okay." We say simultaneously.

"Good." She nods satisfied and looks to the dragon while keeping her stare. "Well, now you mister dragon fly back home to your friends ..." Fluttershy turns to me still with her stare on her face. "And you, mister, come with me."

The dragon fies off while I and Fluttershy head back to the Zephyr.

I make a pout. "He was the one who started this."

"I already said, I do not care."

I let out a grunt in response. "I want my undeads again. No one cares if I punch them." I mutter under my breath.

After we reach the airship again we continue our journey.

Many hours later, shortly after princess Luna rose the moon, me, Twilight and Fluttershy arrived at Ponyville. Rainbow Dash already went off after I showed her and the others the remainings of my kitchen, which for her disappointment contained no booze, and asked them to tidy it up, while I would continue with the repairs.
As Twilight didn't get the answers to her questions to the technology of my airship, she left while we flew over her home letting me and Fluttershy alone on board. I offered to bring her home, because I was heading into that direction anyways. Even though the Zephyr is cloaked I didn't want her to stay directly over Ponyville. If she for some reason crashes, it's probably better if she doesn't destroy half of the town.

It became very calm after Twilight left. The bridge was illuminated by the faint glow of some candles standing on the terminals.
Fluttershy stands in front of one of the shattered windows on the left side of the bridge. While I sit in my seat with a cup of black tea in my hand my gaze wanders over to her. She looks somehow concerned for me.

"Are you alright?" I ask her.

She turns to me. "Yes, I was just thinking." A sad expression forms on her face. "Do you really think you should keep hiding like this?"

I scratch the back of my head. "Yeah, I already thought about that too, but I think its too early for this."

"Maybe you're right. You are new in Ponyville and probably should get to know it a bit better before you show yourself to its inhabitants."

"Oh ... ehh ... actually I meant, that we should wait for the daylight before uncloaking the Zephyr. I mean, the airship that attacked Canterlot appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the night might cause some trouble."

Fluttershy's eyes widen slightly as it sinks in "Oh, yes of course." She gives me an irresistible puppy-eyed gaze. "So would you give it a try tomorrow then?"

"*Sigh* ... We'll see." I answer slightly irritated.

Hopefully she forgets that fast again.

Happily Fluttershy turns back to the window and looks down to the ground. "Oh, we're already there." She looks over her shoulder to me. "Thank you for bringing me home. See you tomorrow?"

"Sure ... and Fluttershy, thanks for helping me finding her."

A smile forms on her face. "That's what friends do for each other."

"Sure..." I answer before I look away from her.

... friends ...

"Storming... are you ... okay?"

"Huh?" I ask surprised as she drags me out of my thoughts.

"You ... you are weeping."

I examine my left cheek with my hand as I suddenly feel something warm and wet. I take a look at my wet fingers and wipe the tears out of my face.

"It's ... it's nothing. I ..." I pause and take a deep breath. "... you know my last friend ... she abandoned me 300 years ago, after I scared her off."

"Oh my ... I'm so sorry."

I shake my head while I look on the ground. "You don't have to." My gaze wanders to her again and I look her directly in the eyes. "Believe me, she had a good reason."

"What ... what happened?"

"Let's just say, I've ... gone too far."

If you would know it, you would leave me, too. My biggest mistake - the mere memory of it hurts.

"Fluttershy, maybe we should call it a day."

A sad expression forms on her face. "Oh ... okay ... yeah, I really should head home. I need to feed my animals." She answers before she flies to the window without the shards.

Standing in front the window she turns to me. "See you tomorrow."

I wave with my hand. "Bye."

Fluttershy flies off leaving me behind with my thoughts.

And what now?

I examine the bridge. There were still some glass shards left on the ground and the terminals and some of the lights in the ceiling were broken.

That's gonna take some time tomorrow. First I have to clean up the place, all these glass shards must be removed. Then I have to get some new windows and install them. The lights can wait."

I let out a loud sigh.

But for what? Even if I actually get along with these ponies, what do I have in my live that keeps me here? All this time I had a clear goal in my mind. What am I without it?

I lay a hand on my face and close my eyes.

"Broken..." I whisper with slight chuckle to myself, before I open my eyes again and look over the bridge. "Just like you, old girl."

I stand up from my chair, extinguish the candles and walk in the back of the Zephyr to my chambers.

"I could continue with my research or tour the world or maybe help the princesses with protecting Equestria or something like that." I mutter to myself while I walk along the corridor with my gaze on the ground, before I stop in front of the door to my chambers. "But for what?"

12 days left...

I pull down the handle and walk through the door.

The room is an endless mess. I seemed like almost every book in the shelves was fallen down to the ground during the crash. Even the black heart lies on the ground together with some pictures and - my gaze wanders to my desk on the other side of the room in front of another broken window - my pens, my documents and even the novel I was reading before the attack. Of course the bookmark fell out of it during the crash and landed next to it.

I let out irritated sigh. "Oh come on..."

I decide to take care of that tomorrow and walk around the bookshelf, that went from my personal library on the right to the middle of the room, working as a room divider, to my bed ... which - how could it be any different - was covered in books and all other kind of stuff.

"Screw it..."

Using magic I levitate the blanket and the pillow and shake them out over the ground.

"That must do the job for now." I say as I lay them down again and go to bed.