Blade

Quite a ways away, somewhere far off in the general direction of Sky Mirror Lake, Dashclad was out on the top of her clan’s mountain with her two remaining friends, Ziccaine and Yakko.

Yakko, having some good connections in the clan, had brought with him a large bag of marijuana and just enough acid for the three of them. Yakko had also brought just enough blow to reward himself for being so generous to his friends.

It was about an hour after her first joint that Dashclad started to come down. Usually her high would last a bit longer but she guessed that things happen quicker when you get older. She and Yakko were always the closest in the gang, and Ziccaine had definitely become a better friend to both of them after he stopped hiding in the shadows when Quexel got killed.

Quexel was the head of the gang right up until the day that Dashclad decided it would be funny to hide his stash of porn. After pulling his gun on her and giving out a couple of knuckle sandwiches, Dash kicked him back a little too hard. Quexel had gone careening over the edge of the peak and got impaled on the rocks below. It was Ziccaine’s idea to tell everyone that he had accidentally fallen while showing off.  They didn’t ever mention him again after that and pretty soon they forgot him altogether.

Dashclad looked away from the sky that had now gone back to a gloomy grey instead of a wonderful white. Her head cleared and her eyes un-constricted themselves. She turned over her shoulder to look at Yakko, lying down on the rock opposite to her next to Ziccaine.

“Hey, Yakko.  I’m going low over here, give me another joint.” She called lethargically.

Yakko turned his head back as well. His eyes were bloodshot and his eyelids sagged.

“Chill out, Dash. We’re outta pot, but I still got the snowballs.” He said, waving the three small rips of paper.

“No, you chill out.” She retorted. “How much longer before you come down?”

“Not too much longer, just enjoy the colors, man.”

Ziccaine sprung up from the rock and spit out his smoke.

“Oh shit!” He stressed. “It’s Mizmahl!”

Dashclad shot up much faster than he had.

“What!?”

Yakko took the joint from his mouth and tossed it over the ledge, but not without uttering a stifled ‘Shit!’ to express his worry.

The three put on fake smiles and turned toward the path that led to their hangout, waiting for their Clan’s Head.

A couple of seconds later, a tall and very muscular Diamond Dog walked onto the peak with a stern look toward Dash and her gang. He continued forward and stopped when he was towering above the three obviously intimidated clan members.

“Oh… hey, Mizmahl.” Yakko started. “We were just up here playing some cards, when you walk i-“

“Shut up.” The tall hound interrupted.

Yakko was silent.

Mizmahl sniffed the air and glared at them.

“When are you bums gonna stop getting high all day and fucking mine something?”

“What do you want, Mizmahl?” Dash boldly asked.

“We’ve got some business, Dashclad. Get off your stoned ass and follow me, kid.”

Ziccaine whooped loudly to tease Dashclad before getting whacked upside his head with her hoof.

“Shut the fuck up, Zikky!” She yelled at him.

“She’s not in trouble, dipshits.” Mizmahl said to her friends angrily. “All I said was that we’ve got some business to take care of.”

The Clan’s leader turned around and motioned Dash to follow him. She got up off the stone slab and flapped her wings twice to lift off the ground. She hovered toward him and followed him all the way down the Cliffside.

When they reached the bottom, she started to get a headache. She grabbed her temples and rubbed them hard.

“Does baby have headache?” Mizmahl mocked. “Knock that shit off.”

Dashclad grinded her teeth at him behind his back.

They headed toward the entrance of the clan’s caves. When they went right past them, Dash did a double take.

“Hey, I thought we had business.”

“We do.” He assured without turning around.

“Then where the hell are we going?”

“Stop asking stupid questions. Just follow me.”

Figuring she was already in trouble about something with him, she decided shutting up would be a good idea to get on his good side. So she followed him away from the caves and into the forest next to the quarry.

About ten minutes later, they came to a clearing. Mizmahl stopped and motioned for her to do the same. Dashclad closed her wings and planted her feet on the ground. She looked at her surroundings, confused. Mizmahl  did not turn around.

“Hey, what exactly are we doing out here?” She asked.

“I said stop asking stupid questions, moron.” He replied, still turned around.

He appeared to be looking at the tops of the trees at the end of the clearing.

After a pause, he spoke.

“You know, kid. You’ve done a lot of shit that’s pissed me off.”

Dash knew that talking at this point would do her no good.

“But you’ve always been part of the clan since you were a little baby pony. It’s like you’re actually one of us.”

Dash saw him put his hand into the pocket in his jacket.

Everything was silent for a bit or two.

When Mizmahl finally turned his head, he was smirking. It made Dash feel uneasy. She was beyond confused about whatever he had brought her out there for.

“I ever tell you why we took you away from them ponies?” He asked in a strangely friendly tone.

Dash had never heard his voice sound like that. She didn’t like it.

“Yea.” She said back, trying her best to keep everything brief.

“No, kid. I mean the real story.”

Dash waited to see if he was serious or not. Then she laughed out loud.

“Real story. That’s pretty funny, Mizmahl.” She chuckled.

Mizmahl was dead serious. “I’m not fucking with you, kid.”

Dashclad’s laughing stopped immediately. Her smile melted and she tilted her head in muddle.

“What?” She frowned. “What the fuck is a real story to you?”

“The one where I tell ya how them ponies we stole ya from weren’t no bad guys!” He snapped at her.

Dash’s jaw dropped open.

“But you said that they would have raised me to kill! They would have made me baby-killers! I remember you saying that!” She defended suddenly.

“And you fucking believed me!?” He asked, feigning shock.

He threw back his head let out a loud chuckle.

“Ponies ain’t no baby-killers!” He revealed. “Some old fuck told us to kidnap you all those years back. He said something about the future. He was off his fuckin’ rocker but he gave us the most gems we’d ever seen. So we done found your mother and took ya from her.”

Dash stammered. She was baffled. She couldn’t believe one word she was hearing.

“That’s not true! Shut up!” She screamed in retort.

“And you remember!? I was fucking there, kid. I remember what happened.” Mizmahl shouted.

“You’re lying! Ponies are evil!”

Mizmahl chuckled again.

“Right!” He smiled. “Just like your mommy who done got herself killed trying to save your little life, right?”

Dashclad gasped. She had been wrong. Her life and everything she knew about herself was a lie that she blindly believed. Tears gathered in her eyes and she bore her teeth.

“Why!?!” She bellowed filled with rage. “How could you kill her, you rat fuck!?”

“She sure was pretty. I might have raped her too if the authorities hadn’t have been after us. Don’t worry, I only shot her twice before killing her.” He spoke. “Stupid bitch probably didn’t feel too much pain. But then again, she’s a namby-pamby pony.”

“YOU SHUT UP!!!” Dashclad roared.

“Now about that.” He said back calmly. “That’s exactly why I brought you out here.”

Mizmahl grinned as he pulled his hands out of his jacket pocket, now holding the biggest revolver Dashclad had ever seen. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the barrel rise and watched her clan’s leader point it at her head.

She started to hyperventilate, frozen in her tracks.

“It’s about time I shut you up, kid.” He beamed. “I kept you around to see if you’d provide, or maybe even help us get the drop on those pony folk someday.”

Mizmahl pulled the hammer back.

“Guess I wasted a good twenty years or something, huh?”

Something deep down that was unexplainable jumped out of Dash’s sub-conscious and made her leap at Mizmahl

just in the nick of time.

Dash’s forelegs collided with his arm and forced it sideways as he pulled the trigger. The shot rang out through the hills, sending the bullet off somewhere else.

Mizmahl grunted and tried to swing his arm back at the Pegasus’s head, but was instead met with the full force of her hind legs’ kick. His forearm shattered like a glass plate as he howled in pain.

He fell to the ground, dropping his revolver, giving the cyan pegasus just enough time to snap back into her mind.

Almost instantly, she started up her wings and took off into the west as fast as she could.

She looked back only once at the mountain she had spent her whole life on. She looked back at the mountain where she lived a lie, hating her own kind for no good reason. She shed a tear, and then looked toward the horizon. Whatever was on the other side was where she would start over.

And by some morbid destiny, just quite a ways away, was Ponyville.