Revenge and Justice

Chapter 13

Muttering to himself under his breath Kain put the pot under the tap and filled it with water before transferring it to the stove. This was becoming a morning ritual for him ever since that night he’d seen Gilda cooking meat. It had been a week ago and he still couldn’t forget the fact that she had meat and he didn’t, the closest thing he had to meat was eggs. Boiled, fried, scrambled anyway he could figure out how to cook them; eggs!

The water came to boil and Kain dropped two eggs into the pot and stepped back.

At least it’s better than salad.

A nock sounded at the door and Kain went to answer it. Nobody ever really visited him at his little cabin so it was a bit of a surprise that someone wanted to see him this early in the morning.

The man standing on the other side of the door was a winged folk, he was dirty and unkempt, his clothes were a dirty brown and he had grime coating his face. Stranger yet though was he had a thin strip of leather wrapped around his head. The leather was adorned with some black writing and a few strange runes. Also interesting was the fact the man had tear streams rolling down his face and one of his grey coloured wings was broken and twisted at an odd angle.

Reaching behind his back the man drew a knife and stabbed at Kain. Hopping back Kain drew his sword as the man stabbed at him again. Or the winged folk would’ve, if his hand wasn’t suddenly missing, or his head hadn’t just detached from his shoulders. The body collapsed to the floor as blood spurt from the stump of a neck.

That’s why I always carry a sword.

Cleaning his now bloody sword on the dead folk’s shirt Kain rolled the headless man over.

Why did this man just try to kill me?

Gilda sat in behind the counter at Carousel Boutique and waited for something to happen. Working for Rarity kinda sucked as far as this griffon was concerned. Not that Rarity was a bad boss or anything but none of the duties involved were very exciting or interesting to Gilda. For example manning the counter while Rarity was out the back making clothes was seriously boring, it was no wonder that Sweetie always tried to get out of it.

In her hand was a book that Celestia had sent her and fuck it was a boring read. It was dry, uninteresting and worst of all educational, the sort of book that Gilda would never read if she hadn’t been ordered to.

For the past two weeks since moving into Carousel Boutique Gilda’s time had been divided pretty heavily. Six hours out of everyday was taken by training with Kain, in the evenings she’d take the time to hunt out meat for herself, a lot of her morning was spent working for Rarity or completing one of the various homework assignments Celestia sent her.

Yeah that’s right, homework from a fucking princess. Every night the princess would send Gilda a bunch of questions about the various books she’d sent and the griffin was expected to submit the answers alongside her usual daily reports on Kains’ behaviour. Gilda was yet to fail to submit the answers because honestly, she didn’t want to know what the punishment for failing to do so was. The princess was training her.

Most of the books were about various types of magic’s but some of them were about different languages or reading people’s emotions and schooling your own reactions. The book currently in her hands was called “The Uncommon Magics” by Bright Spark. It was about the various types of magic in the world other than those of the folk. It covered Changeling magic, the dragons breath and ability to consume gem stones and a thousand other forms of magic that weren’t typically practiced by folk. There were several other books about magic that Bright Spark had written and Gilda was now being forced to read and boy was he a dry writer.

Still some of the stuff was Kind of interesting, like the parts about how a non-magical race like a griffon could become “magically contaminated” by prolonged exposure to any one kind of magic. Turns out that griffons don’t naturally have the ability to cloud walk, it was only because she knew so many sky folk that Gilda could cloud walk and if she ever spent a significant time away from them that ability might wear off.

Note to self: spend more time with Dash.

Then there was the stuff called antimagic, apparently it was what Xath used when his horns turned dark. Prolonged exposure to antimagic was actually toxic to most species including the various types of folk, Griffons were ok with it though. Apparently it was basically the antithesis of regular magic in that it could manipulate and control most magics. This was why Xath could apparently control other people’s spells. It wasn’t common at all so no one knew too much about it. There were a few artefacts out there that could be used to channel it, mind you if a folk tried to use one than it would make them sick so that meant it was researched very little inside of Equestria. That raised the question of how Xath was able to use so much of it without any negative effects, according to Kain, Xath just used to be a regular earth folk, and an earth folks inherit earth magic should react poorly to sharing a body with any amount of antimagic. That basically meant that Xath couldn’t be a folk anymore or he’d have died already.

Rarity came in carrying a new dress fitted over a manikin. ‘What are you reading?’ She asked casually.

Gilda glad for the chance to distract herself dropped the book ‘It’s about-’

The bell on the door rang and two men entered the shop, a horned folk and an earth folk. They were both quite dirty and travel stained and oddly enough they both had a piece of leather wrapped around their head. The earth folk was almost as big as Big Mac and looked a little like him too with sandy blond hair and sun darkened skin and green eyes. The horned folk was smaller and thinner with brown eyes and dark hair. They both had tears in their eyes.

‘Can I help you?’ Rarity asked sounding concerned.

The moment she spoke the larger blonde man dived towards her and tackled her to the ground. Jumping over the counter to aid Rarity, Gilda was blocked by the horned folk who stabbed at Gilda with a knife, forcing the griffon back. Stabbing again, the thin mans’ knife hand was caught by Gilda who twisted it around spraining his wrist and forcing him to drop the knife. Ramming her knee into his stomach Gilda swung him around and sent him face first over the counter.

Turning back to Rarity, Gilda saw her face turning purple as the large earth folk strangled her. Knowing that Rarity wouldn’t be able to use magic without concentrating, Gilda jumped forward and used her body weight and momentum to knock the big man off Rarity.

Tumbling to the floor together in a heap Gilda managed to climb to her feat first, just in time to dodge a stab from the horned man who was now wielding the knife in his undamaged hand.

Why’s he not using magic?

The big man was climbing to his feat near the winded griffon and charged past her to get at Rarity, but was knocked back to his knees by a chair being telekinetically flung at him.

Circling wearily around her own horn folk foe Gilda rushed forward, ducking under his knife swing, Gilda slipped her ankle around his and pulled him off his feet. Turning around just in time to get knocked off her feet by the earth folk who was flung into her by a magic push. Falling backwards Gilda was dazed as the horned folk got to his feet again and came at the griffon with his knife once more. The horned folk was yanked off his feet with a telekinetically controlled bail of cloth by Rarity, giving Gilda enough time to get back on her feet. Rarity was distracted and failed to block the punch the large earth folk laid into her stomach.

Wanting to help Rarity Gilda was forced to dodge back again as the horned folk returned with his knife. Stepping back as the man lunged forward and stabbed again like a duellist or something. Gilda side stepped and slammed her foot into the side of his outstretched knee, breaking it and making the man drop to the ground. Looking back to Rarity, Gilda saw her get picked up and thrown by the big man. Charging across the room and smashing her fist into his face, Gilda felt his jaw crack. Shaking her arm and grunting in pain she barely managed to block it as the big man unfazed punched Gilda sending her to the ground again.

Gilda groaned as shakily got to her feat, only to barely duck under the attack from the thin man who was now limping towards Gilda knife in hand. If he was crying before tears were flowing out of his eyes now and his pupils were dilated in pain. Leaping forward and tackling the shocked Gilda on top of a table he tried to use his body wait to press the knife into Gildas’ chest. Shifting her bodyweight Gilda grunted as she twisted and forced his knife into the table and moved around so she was on top. Grabbing his face Gilda started repeatedly beating his head into the table and kept doing so until he fell unconscious.

Standing up and turning around to face the big man Gilda saw him back on top of Rarity and strangling her again.

‘Don’t you fucking touch her!’ Gilda shouted as ran to the man and tackled him off her.

Rolling on top of him, Gilda slammed her palm into his nose breaking it and forcing the cartilage back into his brain, killing him instantly. It was a lethal take down that Gilda had been trying to avoid in the hopes of knocking these two out, but it had been used in the heat of the moment.

Climbing back to her feat Gilda rushed over to Rarity ‘Are you ok?’ she asked the purple faced woman lying on her back who nodded weakly in response.

Helping Rarity stand up and looking her over to see if there was any damage Gilda was relieved to find none and pulled the still gasping woman in for a hug. Then she heard the sound of footsteps and turned around to see the horned folk from before standing up again.

Now most people would be out of the fight once there wrist was broken, very few people would continue to fight with their knee shattered, but no one would still be fighting after literally being knocked unconscious. But here it was; the man standing up again on his damaged leg with his eyes rolled back and only the whites showing.

‘What the fuck…’ Gilda muttered as the man stumbled woozily towards the sound of her voice.

Breaking off the hug with Rarity, who collapsed back to her knees without support, Gilda walked over to the man and grabbed him by the throat and knife hand and lifted him up and slammed onto his back on the ground. Taking the knife from his hand Gilda examined the leather band tied around the man’s head. The man was struggling weakly and trying to get out from under Gilda but his movement were weak and jerky.

The band was made of leather, which as Gilda examined she noticed it was leather made from human skin, across the leathers front were written various magical runes and some hand writing in a language Gilda recognised but couldn’t speak; ancient Troteerian, from back before Equestria was founded. The runes and the writing were in black and seemed to absorb the light, it took Gilda a second to recognise it as antimagic. Pinned to the centre of the band was a small brown feather.

Her mind working Gilda called over her shoulder ‘Rarity go up to my room, there’s a package on my bed and book lying next to it, bring them here.’

‘What?’ Rarity asked weakly climbing back to her feat.

Turning back to Rarity and seeing the state she was in Gilda changed her mind on what she wanted her to do. The guy was technically unconscious; Gilda could feel his pulse, so she figured Rarity would be ok to handle him for a second. ‘Keep an eye on this guy.’

‘What?!’ Rarity asked in surprise but Gilda didn’t pay attention and ran upstairs to grab the things she’d requested.

Coming back down a second later with the objects Gilda saw that Rarity had the man’s hands restrained behind his back with telekenisis. Stopping at the corpse of the large dead man Gilda examined the leather strip around his head. The writing around his band was identical to the other but instead of a feather pinned to his head there was a long piece of brunette hair rapped around the strip of leather.

Flipping open her book Gilda examined the rune and the writing for about a minute before she put the book down and considered her theory about what the band was. Opening the package Gilda pulled out a gauntlet made of black metal that looked like lead.

Except it wasn’t really a gauntlet. Instead of being a gauntlet it was the parts of a gauntlet without anything attaching them together and floating in the rough place they would be if they were properly connected. The “finger” joints all floated unconnected beneath the part that wrapped around the palm of your hand. The tips of each “finger” were uncovered meaning that whoever wore it would the ends of each finger exposed; this was perfect for Gilda because each of her fingers ended in a talon. Putting it on Gilda disliked the way the metal felt oily as it slid across her skin. Each joint was adorned with various runes in the language of magic.

Here goes.

Gilda started to channel antimagic through the gauntlet. This wasn’t the first time she’d done it, Celestia had ordered her to master the gauntlet and she’d practiced with it while alone in her room, so she knew what to expect. It was like an icy cold snake was sliding through her brain; apparently that was how antimagic let you know you were channelling it. The runes in the gauntlet turned blacker than metal around them and Gilda wrapped her armoured fingers around the leather band and pulled. The runes on the band turned blacker for a second and the band strained but didn’t break. Gilda pulled harder and with a sound like cracking ice the leather band snapped.

Gilda examined the band feeling satisfied that she’d interpreted the runes correct; this was some kind of possession enchantment. After her first successful experiment Gilda decided to practice it on a live subject this time.

‘What is that?’ Rarity asked Gilda as she approached. ‘And what did you just do?’

Gilda ignored her because she wasn’t sure she was permitted to answer those questions. Bending over the still living man Gilda wrapped her fingers around the band and started to pull as she channelled more antimagic. The man screamed in pain and writhed as Gilda applied more pressure to the band. This enchantment was much harder to break on a still living person. Tugging with all her might the band finally snapped under Gildas’ hand and she was jerked backwards by the sudden break. The man stopped writhing and collapsed back to the ground unconscious.

Rarity reached forward and checked his pulse ‘Oh.’ She sighed in relief ‘He’s alive.’

Leaning back and panting Gilda held up the band from the big dead guy ‘Hey Rarity, is this your hair?’

Rarity took the band and examined the hair wrapped around it ‘Yeah… It could be. I’m not the only person with brunette hair. Why? What was that? Why did these two people attack us?’

Gilda looked to Rarity and showed her the other band ‘This was enchanted with some kind of possession spell. That’s one of my feathers. I think that Xath made this and possessed these guys to come kill us. Notice how the big guy only went for you and only attacked me when I got in your way?’

Rarity didn’t answer she just stared at Gilda.

‘What’s wrong?’ Gilda asked noticing her weird look.

‘Your eyes…’ Rarity said looking pale.

‘What about them?’ Gilda asked turning towards one of the mirrors lining the room. Then she caught sight of herself. ‘Woah.’ She said as she walked closer to her reflection. Her eyes were black. Not just her pupils, no all of her eyes were black with antimagic. As she watched the antimagic started to fade and her eyes returned to their normal avian yellow irises.

Gilda turned around to face Rarity. ‘Shit I just realised something!’ she shouted ‘If we got attacked then the others probably did to. Go find a guard and see if everyone’s ok. I’ll go check on Dash cause she was in the clearing.’

Rarity didn’t have time to respond as Gilda ran out of the room and jumped into the air wings unfurling through the specially cut holes in her jacket.

Flying home from her morning exercises, Rainbow felt pretty good about herself this morning. Well that wasn’t saying much because she always felt good about herself but this morning she actually had a reason to.

Since she’d spoken to her Applejack had pulled back on the mother hen thing drastically. The problem wasn’t fixed yet, Applejack was still watching Fluttershy and the others pretty carefully, but she was no longer going gentle on them at practice and Rainbow could see them improving for it. Plus the tensions between her and Gilda had died down severely, they weren’t gone and Gilda was still fighting too rough for Applejacks tastes but it seemed like Applejack was no longer trying to kill Gilda every time they got in the ring together. The best part of it was Rainbow who had been the one to solve the problem.

Approaching her cloud home Rainbow noticed something a little odd; standing beneath it was a person just staring up at it. The person wasn’t doing anything just standing there and staring up at Rainbows’ cloud home as if waiting for something.

Rainbow landed behind the person and walked towards her ‘Hey can I help you?’ she asked.

The person turned around a large travel worn cape billowed out from behind her. The person was Trixie, Rainbow knew her face from about a year ago from the incident with the Ursa Minor. That signature magician’s hat was on her head but it looked worse for the wear, the cape she wore so proudly was frayed at the end and had holes in it, her metallic silver hair was knotted and unkempt and her overall appearance could be described as a mess. Before, when she’d first come to Ponyville, she was damn hot, sex appeal obviously being part of how she presented her show but now her face was gaunt and the clothes that had once hugged her curvaceous frame so tightly, now hung loosely. There were tears in her eyes as she stared at Rainbow.

Then she slowly and jerkily began to walk towards Dash, like each step was a fight. ‘Run…’ she whispered out and Rainbow barely heard it as soft as it was.

Dash payed no attention to the instruction and walked towards Trixie ‘Are you ok?’ she asked.

Standing in front of Trixie Rainbow held out her hand to aid the show lady just as she found herself tumbling to the left knocked over by some unseen force. Rainbow looked up and saw that she’d been pushed out of the way by Gilda who was holding Trixies’ arm out to the left. It took Rainbow another second to notice the silvery sharp knife in Trixies’ hand. Twisting her grip around Gilda brought Trixie over her should and slammed her face into the ground.

Rainbow looked between Gilda and Trixie shocked ‘Did she just try and kill me?’

‘Pretty much’ Gilda said as she pried the knife from the struggling Trixies’ hand.

‘That fucking bitch!’ Rainbow shouted as she stood up ‘Trixie, why the fuck were you trying to kill me?’ Rainbow shouted as she approached the two.

‘Nah she’s been possessed.’ Gilda said. ‘Hold her down for a minute will you?’ The two traded places as Rainbow pinned the struggling Trixie to the ground while Gilda examined her.

‘Possessed?’ Rainbow repeated sounding confused.

‘Yeah possessed. Hey do you know her?’ Gilda asked as she examined Trixies’ hat.

‘Sort, of she came into Ponyville last year bragging about how great she was, except she wasn’t that great and Twilight totally upstaged her.’

‘Uh huh.’ Gilda responded as she tugged on the hat attached to Trixies’ head, it didn’t come off. ‘Alright hold her still will you?’ Gilda asked as she wrapped an armoured hand around Trixies’ hat.

‘What is that?’ Rainbow asked.

‘I’ll tell you in a minute, just hold her still.’ Gilda said as she started to pull on the hat.

Trixie began to scream and writhed harder forcing Rainbow to focus on keeping her down. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Gilda didn’t answer she just grunted in exertion as she pulled harder. Shifting her grip, Gilda wrapped both her hands around Trixies hat and pulled with her full body weight making it difficult for Rainbow to keep Trixie down. Finally with the sound of cracking ice the hat came off and Gilda fell backwards onto her back and Rainbow lost her grip on Trixie from the sudden change in pressure. Writhing stopped, Trixie stood up and ran three paces before she collapsed to her knees and began dry heaving violently.

Rainbow got up to go after her but Gilda stopped her by saying ‘No dude. Just wait.’

They watched together as the dry heaving eventually stopped and stopped and Trixie stood up rubbing bile from her lips. ‘Trixie is freed…’ she mumbled ‘Trixie is in control of her own mind again!’ looking at the two of them eyes shining ‘Trixie has her own mind!’ she screamed to the heavens and began to run around joyously.

‘Huh…’ Gilda said ‘Turns out getting possessed makes you insane.’

‘Trixie is not insane…’ Trixie said shaking her head ‘I’m not insane. I’ve just been freed!’ she shouted again before rushing over and wrapping Gilda and Rainbow in a hug ‘Thank you so much for freeing Trixie!’

Gilda pushed her off ‘Dude you smell like shit.’

‘Trixie knows’ she nodded ‘I haven’t bathed since I was possessed almost a week ago. But Trixie doesn’t care! Trixie is free!’

Gilda looked at Rainow as Trixie ran around excitedly once more. ‘Was she always like this?’

‘No.’ was all Rainbow could say as she shook her head, she then turned to face Gilda and blanched.  ‘Um… What’s with your eyes?’

‘Are they black?’ Gilda asked remembering what happened when she’d used the antimagic before, and taking off her gauntlet.

‘Yeah…’ Rainbow said as she stared.

‘Ah, don’t worry it’ll fade in a sec.’ Gilda said as she walked over to Trixie and grabbed her by the back of her collar ‘Shut up for a minute will you?’

Trixie quieted down once she saw Gilda’s eyes.

Gilda spoke ‘Rainbow here’s going to walk you back to carousel boutique, because you were possessed I don’t think you’re gonna try anything so I’m not gonna tie you up’ Gilda voice lowed her voice to a growl ‘but you try to hurt Rainbow and I’ll fucking find you. Got it?’ with her eyes black Rainbow thought she was pretty damn intimidating.

Trixie thought so even more apparently because she nodded enthusiastically and backed away from Gilda ‘No Trixie understands, she doesn’t have anywhere else to go anyway.’

‘Good.’ Gilda warned and turned back to Rainbow ‘Hey Dash, can you take Trixie here to carousel Boutique and wait there for me or Rarity?’

‘Yeah no problem.’ Rainbow hesitated ‘But you’re seriously gonna have to tell me what’s going on with that glove thing and your eyes.’

Gilda shrugged noncommittally ‘Maybe later, I don’t know. I’m gonna go check on everyone else.’ And turned around and flew off.

Trixie watched her fly away and shivered ‘Her eyes…’

‘Yeah… They were pretty creepy.’ Rainbow agreed before stooping down and picking up Trixies’ discarded hat. ‘Come on; while we’re walking you can tell me what happened.’

Kain stood outside the door to Twilights library with a smirk on his face as he watched Gilda approach the door. ‘So our little attack dog returns’ he called out to her ‘Two people in one day, that a new personal best for you?’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Gilda asked stopping at the door.

‘Here you are, mere hours after killing two people and you’re not even ruffled slightly.’ Kain chuckled shaking his head ‘and you swear to me you’ve never killed before?’

Gilda glared at Kain hatefully ‘Fuck off Kain, besides I only killed one of them.’

Kain shrugged ‘They were moving two body bags out of Carousel Boutique when I checked. From what I was told you beat the guy’s head against a table, It may not have killed him right away but an action like that usually causes brain damage or bleeding inside the skull, which probably killed him after a couple of hours.’ Kain shook his head ‘One person or two, you’re still completely unaffected, no panting, no guilt, none of that “Oh no I’m a murderer” shit that people fresh to the art typically do.’

‘Fuck you. What are you even doing out here?’ Gilda asked. ‘Isn’t everyone inside?’

Shrugging Kain answered ‘Everyone’s in there waiting for you, I got bored so I stepped outside. Before you go in you may want to know something.’

‘What?’ Gilda asked crossing her arms.

Kain smiled as he spoke ‘Apparently one of the people you killed was Applejack cousin.’

Gildas eyes widened ‘Shit… Really?’

‘Yep, some guy named Braeburn apparently. She’s more than a little pissed off about it. Come on, lets go inside now, I’m sure Celestia wants to give her pet a nice treat for being such a good little doggie.’

‘Fuck you! I don’t work for Celestia.’

Kain smirked as he turned around ‘You know, the more you deny something, the more true it sounds, even to yourself.’ Then he pushed open the door.

And that’s the end of that chapter. A little shorter than usual (4500 words instead of 5000) but honestly I posted a chapter yesterday so I think if you want to complain it wouldn’t be very vaild.