Chapter Two - Forsaken Ops

Brutal Black
Chapter 2

Forsaken Ops

‘We do not operate in Equestria. No one operates in Equestria. That makes Celestia angry, and that makes the sun angry. No one goes to Equestria.”

Cliff Springer’s Wish. I can’t say whether the towns name was appropriate or who or what Cliff Springer was but the town was alive. No boarded up buildings or anything that I could see so if the wish was for there to be a town I guess it was successful. Not really that much to the town actually. The main drag held various shops and the few streets on either side of the main drag held various brightly coloured houses with equally colourful ponies running around them. However, I was looking for one shop in particular, the farrier. The whole plan up until this point was to casually ask for some leads on places to get gems while getting a trim.
The farrier shop was located on the main street but was built with a greater space between it than the other buildings and businesses. If you have ever smelt the reek of burning hooves or heard the clamor of forging then it would come as no surprise that such an important job was still kept at a distance. It would also come as no surprise that the spa was located on the exact opposite side of town.
We trotted into the farrier’s shop and found a soot blackened yellow unicorn buck wearing a brown apron hard at work forging a set of fire irons. His cutie mark was a crossed hammer and horse shoe. While in the Kingdom a farrier may be the lowest of the iron workers here in Equestria it was regarded as a noble profession. Many blacksmiths here took the title of farrier even if they were a blacksmith who couldn’t trim hooves. For the most part the only ponies who wore shoes on a regular bases were the ones who did a lot of traveling or regularly carried heavy loads. However, almost everypony had shoes nailed on at some point.
On the wall hung an impressive array of horse shoes of every shape and size. There were platformed ones, egg bar, heart bar, and some I couldn’t even imagine a use for. There were some with spikes and some with detachable blades and one set that appeared to have a spiked up shoe that slid into place on the bottom of the shoe that was actually nailed onto the hoof. There was even a set that looked exactly like my shoe of choice back home with two big points at the front for traction on slopes and added tact in fights. I looked down at the plain U shaped metal shoes on my hooves. Why was I wearing these if ponies here wore shoes like this? We could have worn the shoes we had on and instead we had matched plain Equestrian shoes down to the nails?
Then I saw the jewel of the collection. In the middle of the wall was a pair of used shoes. They had spikes on the bottom, two small claw like blades on the front, and in the center slopping up then sweeping forward was a beautiful curved blade.
“See your admiring the stock. Bought those babies a while back from a traveling merchant, they’re mountain climbing shoes. Let you get traction at practically any angle, even climbing on ice, blades supposed to work like ice picks. Guy who made them was a real master.”
Climbing shoes? There were chinks in the blades made by other blades! I could see the Cornara rising sun arsenal stamp! Celestia would have these ponies believe the whole planet was called Equestria! Or maybe it was by now, I mean, she has been pushing to have it changed to Equestria for years.
These shoes were made by real unicorns from the far west. Not pseudo pony unicorns, but real full sized majestic unicorn horses. Those unicorns whose architecture was the envy of the gods themselves. Those unicorns renowned world wide for their sophistication and the level of civilisation they had achieved. Those unicorns who had personal luxury unlike anywhere else in the world at any point in history. Those unicorns made all the best stuff. Those were the unicorns that had absolutely no reservations about sending their pony slaves to die in droves against better armed foes while they sat up in their castles like cowards.
I had seen countless pairs like these when the Griffs went on a short campaign to eliminate a certain faction within the unicorn ranks that threatened to contest Kingdom interests. The quarter masters knew about three swords I had broken in that conquest, the three I had to request from the armory. Really I had been scavenging every sword off every corpse I could find. Those shoes must have been enchanted for breaking swords or something because the number of broken blades was getting ridiculous.

Wait, I remember now, they weren’t enchanted for breaking swords, they were enchanted for cutting steel, like the armour most of us wore when ceramics couldn’t take the abuse. Not that they worked like cutting butter, more like cutting really, really stubborn veg tanned leather with way to light a knife, or a leather jacket with a steak knife, but it was something.
The ponies we were fighting were equipped poorly. The unicorns had intended for us to fight ponies armed with top of the line armour, the best guns, enchanted melee weapons, and the best battle augments. Unfortunately due to their own perfectionism they only had a third of the arsenal complete when we attacked so they had to divvy what they had among themselves and get to war. Training was also only beginning.
The result was a slaughter. Pegasi rained like hail from the sky but thankfully had their falls cushioned by piles of dead unicorns and ponies. They had it figured that we would run out of shells or something before they ran out of bodies but we didn’t. They could have surrendered but they didn’t. They could have looked out and felt sympathy for their slaves and called them back but they didn’t. They could have gone to the field and got themselves killed and ended it that way but they didn’t. They could have not crossed us but they did. And through it all the ponies charged toward our positions. Not one doubting that their masters would never send them into a fight that they knew full well they wouldn’t be able to handle, I can still hear their pleading voices carried on their dying breaths.
Most of us resorted to just shooting them but I figured if they had blades I would at least honor them enough to use my own blades. In a sense we were both slaves to a master sent to fight a war with no real personal stake in it after all. I had seen almost identical shoes to these now on the wall before me on a mare that day, three years ago.
I don’t remember the exact circumstance that brought us face to face. We had locked eyes amidst the gunfire. I wore my plated barding with most of the ballistic plates swapped out for lighter ones that were still suitable against blades. She wore a flowing white shawl streaked with crimson blood that beautifully complemented her white coat, golden mane, and blue, gem like eyes. The silky shawl flowed slightly in the breeze but I knew of its trickery. That fabric, light as it looked, could tangle up bullets let alone blades. Our eyes set and we charged each other, hoof steps sinking in the soft earth.
The distance slowly closed and when we neared she leapt into the air, those beautiful raking blades glistening in the sun as they flew toward me. Muck and water that had until now held on fell like rain from her belly. At the last second I stopped dead in my tracks. Instead of the blades plowing into me they sliced uselessly into the grass where I would have been.
Her hind legs were still up in the air when our eyes locked again. Time seamed to stand still when the anger and confidence in her eyes shifted to fear and dread. The sound of steel on bone, the crack of cartilage and ligaments letting go. My sword slashed threw both her front legs at the knee sending her tumbling head first into the wet ground and skidding along on the rain slickened grass. Her legs were still stuck into the mud where she had landed, red lines dripping down and staining the white fur. She lay on the ground looking at her bleeding stumps. Most ponies scream, she didn’t but instead started thrashing on the ground when I began walking slowly toward her.
To stop her thrashing head I stepped a hoof onto her neck. The sword levitated over with the hilt skyward and I rested the point on her head. Our eyes met once more, her big blue eyes looking into my yellow ones. I couldn’t read the expression in her eyes, they seemed to quiver with fear and anger and, and something I couldn’t place. Sadness? Hope? Pity? Disappointment? Mercy? Maybe even pity for me somehow, but why? I can’t imagine my eyes reflected the emotion of those blue pools. At best they were empathy, sympathy, regret, sorrow, pity maybe, even rage. At worst my eyes were empty, flat. My heart quickened a little and I felt a pang in my gut. I looked into those sapphires she had for eyes for the last time before rearing up and slammed my hooves down on the hilt. I felt the blade crush through her skull and into the dirt and rocks beneath. Damn it, I had to stop looking at the eyes. I got this way every time I looked them in the eyes.
“Twenty five.” I had counted out loud as time returned to normal. I turned to face the rest of the charge.
Some people use strategy so they can achieve victory with little or no bloodshed on either side. Some people will realize they are beat or have the victory before the battle even starts and hold their honor enough to send more brave men home. Some people when they see their end coming they will draw their sword and die fighting with their men. Some unicorns just didn’t get the message until you’ve dragged them kicking and screaming out of their house and stoned them to death with the hooves and shoes cut off their own dead slaves. If you were going to send your slaves to throw down against the Kingdom’s send you’re A game, don’t send them half armed and half trained because you couldn’t make guns fast enough, just give up.
“So these aren’t normal shoes ponies wear is what you’re saying?” I said after what was only a slight pause.
“Nope, just for climbing, working, and jumping. They will catch on eventually though.” Too bad, I was really hoping for the change in horse shoes. “So you need those shoes pulled?” the smith asked as he pounded the metal he was working into submission.
“Yup.” I said trotting up to him.
The smith finished up on his poker and set it aside to cool then fetched a nail puller, clinch cutter, and pull-offs and set to work removing our shoes.
“So, where you guys coming from?”
“Out East.” I replied as the shoe came free from my hoof.
“Where did you get the swords?” he asked casually.
“You really need a sword out on the trail. You wouldn’t believe the stuff you run into out there.” Said Woods by way of response. I’m not sure if he didn’t hear the question or he was just that awkward at changing the topic.
“Can I see one of those?” The smith asked apparently not noticing how awkward the response had been. Woods shrugged and handed him his blade, a nice long saber. The smith examined the blade and handle with a critical eye before raising an eyebrow. “Who made this?”
“A cutler from Manehatten. I don’t recall his name though.” I lied as casually as I could.
“No,” the smith snorted as he floated the sword back to Woods. “No cutler you can’t remember in Manehatten made that. I move in these circles and know of only ten ponies who could make a decent sword. Eight of them work in Canterlot nearly exclusively for the royal guard. One is an exclusive sword smith that does do work in Manehatten but makes fencing swords, not foils, actual fencing swords. You know, rapiers, light little things like that.” He gestured with the nail pullers toward Woods’ sheath. “That’s a cutting sword. There is only one smith I know who dabbles in such blades outside of Canterlot but you would remember his name, it’s Sword.” He paused and set back to work. “So where did you get them?”
Wow, really thought we could pass these off as Equestrian. Here we were and the first smith we talked too was already pulling our story apart. I held a breath, come on Crabs your good at this stuff.
“Well you got us there.” Crabs said and I almost face hoofed. “It was actually a knife maker in Manehatten who put us in contact with a steel importer. The importer put us in contact with a steel provider overseas who knew some smiths over there. From that point we were able to import foreign made swords.” Hey ya, I would buy that except for the part where I said we bought them in Manehatten. “Course after that everything got screwed up and the swords got shipped to the cutler with his usual shipment of steel. After we finally figured out what had happened I thought that jerk was going to make us buy those swords again.” Crabs paused and chuckled. “Good thing we had the receipts or we probably would have had to. Course, he had no idea what they were worth.”
The smith just looked at Crabwalk then to the rest of us. After what felt like a minute he started laughing.
“That’s Manehatten for you. They’ll take your money and charge you for the privilege!” He chuckled to himself as he hung the shoes off Volt on a different hook than the ones mine were on. He worked fast.
Crabs, I’m going to buy you a case of beer when we find a place that sells it.
I noticed at that moment that despite the heat and the forge there was no fuel anywhere in sight. I looked into the forge and saw that it was actually fired by four enchanted glowing red fire ruby talismans with their magic gracefully dancing across a bed of glistening diamond dust. Like slow liquid tongues of flame wisping and twirling above an old fire. Instead of the ashes of burning coal there was a pool of lava with a soft blanket of fresh, clean snow settled peacefully and unmelting atop it. Snow which twinkling like frost crystals under the light of the moon at night promising cold, indifferent to the turbulent heat surrounding it.
“Where did you get this forge?”
“Made it myself.” Said the smith proudly as he pulled off Volts shoes.
“The rubies too?”
“Oh, those.” He rolled his eyes. “There’s some enchanter working south of Everfree that’s making those. Cost me a hoof and a horn but the darn thing has already half paid for itself on fuel and looks like it’s going to be doing so for a long time.” He paused as he hung Volt’s last shoe on a hook beside his other three. “Time was only the big city smiths could afford that stuff but the price has really come down in the last couple years.”
“Why is that?” Asked Crabwalk curiously.
“Well you know how every mine, mason, jeweller, and enchanter tooled up big a while back to feed the foreign market?” he paused and waited for us to nod in confirmation. “Well out of the blue they just quit buying! Don’t know why and I guess I don’t really care but that left everypony with a job in the gem trade up a creak with big depts. The guys who got in early took their fortunes and cashed out but all the small guys and latecomers who still had big loans had to find someone else to sell to. They had an inflated supple and vastly reduced demand. Thus they came around and sold enchanted gizmos to anypony who could use them.” He pointed to his forge with his nail pullers. “And I got an enchanted forge.”
I didn’t know what to say so I just whistled slowly. Right now, he was right now talking to ponies send into Equestria to get whatever enchantment grade gems they could by any means necessary and he thought that we ‘quit’ buying. A gem powered light that might have cost ten bucks back home was now selling for 200 and he thought we ‘quit’ buying. The Celestia blockade was keeping them from selling! Well, if it was going to be that easy to find real gems here than we just had to cover ground.
“I have to say fellows, it’s refreshing to see real nails in shoes these days.” Continued the smith oblivious to my silent fuming as he started pulling the shoes off Crabwalk.
“What do you mean proper nails?” I asked carefully.
“Oh you know how ponies are these days.” At that point he launched into a high pitched mimicking of what must be his impression of every customer he had. “Oh do I have to wear shoes for this trip? Do you have to nail them on? Can you glue them on? Can you use short nails that won’t go through the side of my hoof? I just had them painted. I’m so sick and tired of it!” he yelled with a stomp of his hoof as he returned to his own voice.
Well the smith sure was happy with the nails but if someone had screwed this up they were in so much trouble. If they had the brands on the nail head right but forgot to check the style then wow there would be some unhappy ponies.
“Okay, all done. Head on down to the spa and they’ll trim you right up.” The smith said as he pulled the last shoe off Crabs.
“What do you mean? You don’t trim hooves?” I asked. Back in the Griff Kingdom one individual did all the jobs relating to hooves. That’s what a farrier was after all.
“Well seeing as I have a lot of work already, and that there is a spa in town, and that I don’t like doing it, and that they like doing it, and they are good at it, and that my wife owns the spa, Ya, I don’t trim hooves! I take them off and put um back on hot. Spa’s at the end of the block.” He said as he resumed work on his fire place set. “Go on, she won’t bite you. Often.” He added with a laugh.
Spa, okay, I could do this. I could do a spa. We left the farrier shop and headed up the dirt street toward the spa.
“Hey uh, Carbon? Have you ever been to a spa before?” Asked Woods sheepishly. “Actually, have any of you ever been to a spa? What’s in there?”
Everyone exchanged the same nervous glances.
“I have never been in one, but I have read a book on the subject when I was reading up to come here.” It wasn’t a lie either. I had read a book, well a comic really, about spas before I came on this trip. While the piece wasn’t intended to be an informational manuscript on the workings of a spa, it did get across a couple of the broader details, as well as a couple of the smaller details with much more clarity.
Two ponies with slicked back hair and stupidly happy grins greeted us at the door. One was a blue unicorn mare with a green mane and the other was a green earth pony mare with a blue mane. The two contrasted each other perfectly and their features were so similar they were probably sisters. The two launched into what sounded like a well rehearsed introduction.
“My name is Sea Shell!” said the unicorn in a hyperactive sing song voice.
“And my name is River Meadow!” said the earth pony in a slightly more subdued voice.
“And you must be here to get your hooves trimmed! Leave your things over there and come right this way!” said the unicorn motioning toward a closet with her manicured (hooficured?) hoof.
It’s a good thing relaxation didn’t appear to be their immediate goal as their disposition did not lend itself toward calm in the least. I stripped down from my bags noting how the Jackals concealed perfectly behind their false seam and laid my sword across the bags. The plated armour barding faintly clanged on the floor through the cloth of the saddle bags. We had on only our light adventurer looking attire. Woodsong did the same dropping his bags but took his knife off his pack and shoved it up under his clothes. I smirked then followed suit and shoved my Bowie under the folds of my shirt.
Volt just shrugged his bags off and dropped his knife on top. Was that knife the only weapon Volt had brought? I tried to remember, then slapped myself mentally. Volt didn’t need a weapon, Volt was a weapon.
Walking out I saw a door marked VIP and remembered my research. I turned to the cheerful green mare.
“Is that where the sex happens?” I asked figuring my ‘research’ was paying off perfectly. Judging from the looks I got I either had it exactly right but had unknowingly broken some taboo in mentioning it or was so far off this was about to get us kicked out. Either way the rest of this visit would be awkward. I made a mental note to remove ‘The Usual’ from my list of reliable sources.
To her credit the mare recovered quickly and explained.
“No, that’s where we give the extra important ponies extra special service.” Apparently she realized this explanation did absolutely nothing to help the mental images I had conjured and pranced off (from me in particular) letting her sister lead us to the hoof trimming station.
“Hey Carbon?” Woods chuckled into my ear as we walked. “That book you read was porn wasn’t it?”
“…Yes.” I said resigned under my breath.
“Can I borrow it when you’re done?” He asked after a short pause.
“It’s in my Ratt pack but yes.”
“Sweet.”
As we walked I watched the blue pony swish her oiled up tail in time with her steps. It was in the course of watching this slicked back tail that I happened to catch a quick glance under said tail. Oh shit, I thought to myself, they really don’t wear anything here. I mean I knew they didn’t wear anything but not this anything. I mean the smith had an apron on but, oh horseapples this is going to be harder than I thought. I tried to ignore the stirrings in my guts. It’s amazing how just 4 years away can change how you think about what’s decent.
Personally I try to follow a warrior code. Shut up I really am trying to! One tenant is that if you have anything to live for you will die before you get back to it eventually. If you have family it is not fare to them if you die. That for the most part rules out romantic exploits. Woods said it was an excuse people who couldn’t get marefriends used.
Woods apparently having no such reservations stared at her flank as if hypnotised and kept tapping my shoulder to make sure I saw it too.
“Dude, they don’t wear anything here!” he whispered to me completely and utterly joyful. I’m surprised he wasn’t prancing at this point.
“I noticed.” I replied, resigned to a long period of discomfort.
“Dude, if we’re wearing barding, you think that will stand out?” Until now I thought that even our plated barding looked enough like civilian dress to be ignored if we had to put it on. The only problem? Kingdom civilian dress! The light clothing we had on fit the wind swept adventurer look well enough.
“Na, they don’t know what bullet proof barding looks like.” I reasoned. “Plus, armour fits the whole adventurer thing.” I paused for a moment and then continued. “Actually, let’s change it to monster hunters. That sounds way more believable with these weapons and explains armour.”
“Okay, we’ll let the boys know when we stop.” He replied in a whisper.
On the far end of the spa there was a mare getting treated for white line disease. Her hoof was cracked right up to the coronet. Most of the wall was missing and I’m pretty sure the only reason I wasn’t seeing meat was because there was a lot of plastic molded to cover it. Goddesses, there was something about a hoof rotting like that that always made me queasy. Looking for something to distract myself I looked into the large pool we were walking beside. To my complete surprise instead of the water I had expected it was filled with hot mud.
“Is this mud?” I asked in shock.
“Why yes it is!” I imagined she was relieved it wasn’t another sex question. Still, she had that look on her face like she was pointing out the obvious.
“Why would anypony want to soak in that?”
“Spoken like someone who has never had a mud bath before!” she laughed in response.

I had taken a mud bath before. When was it though? I closed my eyes and tried to remember. It had been before I got my mark, well the night I got my second mark really. Let’s see, after Karkaya, before Cornara, after Ziembia. It was just one of those little shit wars really. Southern Saddle Arabia, near the Zebra capital of Roam. (Not the city the province) It was one of those twisted alliance things that had us fighting alongside the Arabians half the time and outright fighting their battles for them at others.
I was crawling through thick mud. It was dark and I could only see when the machine gun thirty feet away let off a burst of fire. I had got my ear plugs in but all I could hear was my heart beating, the machine gun, and my breathing so loud I was sure it would give me away. Wump wump wump wump wump. Wump wump wump. I could make out the stripes on the gunner and the zebra feeding the gun, the white on their coats yellow in the muzzle flash. The large golden cases bouncing off of everything and glinting in the fire before embedding into the soft hillside. This was a heavy machine gun and it was dug in for a battle. My friends down below were being torn up and no one, not them and not the enemy, knew I was here.
I pulled my front leg out of the mud with a loud sucking sound and placed it as far as I could reach ahead only for it to again quickly sink half way up my foreleg. I repeated this with all four legs, the long slow pull from the mud and the sucking sound that I was sure they could hear. My legs were so heavy with muck that it was almost hard to tell when my leg had actually pulled free of the earth. Then it squished as I put the leg down again and slithered another foot closer. The rain water and sludge on the ground soaked through my barding and clung heavy to my fur. When I moved it compressed and pressed coldly against my skin. The rain and hail pelted down seeming to push me down into the muck even deeper. I was a creature of the dirt and the cold dark night. I was ice and water, my movement slow and fluid, silent save for what I alone could hear. Had they looked at me they would have seen a muddy serpent gliding toward them, but they did not look.
Something slapped wetly into the hillside beside me with a sound like a hoof slamming into twenty pounds of Jello. Finally I was aware of something other than myself and the machine gun. It was the slow rhythmic kachunk kachunk kachunk of a belt fed grenade launcher being fired down below. They were returning fire but probably didn’t know where their targets were, how many targets there were, and didn’t know where their shells were landing. The mud soaked them up and kept the impact detonators from activating. They were probably hosing down the hill side but to no effect. I could hear them landing far from me then passing over me and then moving off as the gunner swept the hill side but concentrated the most around the gunner. Small fires in our camp gave the zebra gunners all the edges.
The bombardment of grenades stopped its rhythmic beat for a moment before continuing the barrage. This time the grenades were going off, they must have switched to timed detonators. The problem remained of the mud however and the buried grenades lost most of their power to the earth. Three detonated nearby me as the gunner did his sweep and my whole body lite up as if I had been lashed. I stuck my snout in the mud so that it would squelch my screams. Soupy water and dirt rushed into my open mouth and nostrils. Mud filled the cuts on my back, its arrival greeted with a strange mix of stinging and cooling sensations. I grit my teeth with dirt now between them and moved closer.
I was five feet away, I could see their eyes and their breath but still I didn’t want the glow of my magic to give me away. That gun was deafening even with my ear plugs. I waited until they fired another burst and then the dagger on my foreleg enveloped in my fiery yellow telekinetic field and flew out of its muddy sheath and through the links on the belt. The blade kept the belt from feeding and jammed the gun. I did not have my gun so this would be done the old fashioned way.
“What the buck?” screamed the horrified zebra whose gun had jammed just as a sword and short blade shot out of the mud in front of him.
The sword slammed into the gunner’s chest and I began slicing with my telekinesis in a manor resembling a pony trying to saw through a thick rope with a dull knife. He didn’t have a chance. I leapt on top of the zebra gunner as my fighting knife cut into his chest. I grabbed the leather handle with my teeth and pulled using it as a handle to get him on his back. He screamed as the blade tore his flesh the more he struggled. I slammed my metal horse shoe into his face while blood mixed with the mud on my own. His legs flailed as he tried pathetically to fight me off, I had already won.
I felt bones cracking and shifting as his long snout flattened. Teeth shattered and blood flew from the lacerations made by the splinters of skull as his bones failed to cope with my onslaught, my salvo of blows. I kept on slamming my hoof down after he stopped moving and blood stopped flowing. I kept slamming until his face was flat and his eyes popped, his whole head was pushed into the mud.
“I’ve taken a mud bath before, I still don’t see what’s so great about it.” I said snapping back to the present.
“Well maybe it was a really lame one, you ever think about that?” Well I had to agree with her on that one, that sounded like a really bad time you wouldn’t pay anyone for. She paused a moment before continuing the walk over to the station.
In actual fact I had three other things I could describe as mud baths. In training they threw a bunch of us in a big pit full of mud, piss, shit, and pig guts and made us not move for 8 hours. Then they came around with sharp sticks and stabbed us. If we moved they would pull us out and give us a wild beating then threw us back in. The second time was after a two day non-stop training exercise and we stayed in for 24 hours. However, this time we were permitted to sleep. It was made worse by the ponies and griffins at the camp not stopping dumping refuse into the pit while we were in it. The third time it happened for real and I had to pretend to be dead in a pile of dead bodies. There was a horse armed with only a spear tasked with making sure every body was actually dead. I am proud to say that when he stabbed me (not all the way mind you, just about four inches to test the waters) I didn’t fucking flinch. Actually surprised the blood didn’t give me away.
“Ya, I probably just had really shitty mud baths.” I agreed, earning a warning look from my companions. Oh shit, the swearing! I bit my tongue. Pretend they are foals Carbon. Pretend they are foals.
“What’s with the swords by the way? I take it your travelers by the shoes and the packs and whatnot?”
“Actually we are adventurers. Traveling the world saving ponies from monsters and evil doers for the good of all ponies! Working for fun, profit, adventure of course, but above all knowing you are alive!” Said Crabwalk stepping up to the explaining plate for all of us striking a heroic pose and making an arch in the air with his hoof as if painting the scene.
“Adventurers? Well I bet you have so many stories! Where are you coming from? What was it like? Were there monsters? Were they scary? Did they have any massage tricks there you can teach me?”
She continued to ask questions as we walked and Crabwalk did his best to keep up with answers. Good thing he was too because I was too lost in thought to have answered well. We reached the station and as it turned out I was up first and being trimmed by River Meadow, the one who had trotted off before, great.
She walked around be several times before instructing me to put my leg up on a stool and she went at my hoof with a knife, clippers, and a rasp. She wasn’t talking so it gave me time to think. It was too late, I had already started to remember.
I stood over the bodies of the broken zebras trying to catch my breath and trying to keep the adrenaline from making me throw up the meagre remains of my lunch. The grenade machine gun lulled its bombardment and somepony shot a flare in the air to make sure no one was charging. What light it cast was pathetic at this range however. Seeing the flare I remembered my smoke. We always used flares and coloured smoke to mark captured positions or positions we held during a battle in order to keep from getting shelled by our friends. Of course it let the enemy know where you were but it was a trade we were sometimes willing to make. I pulled a green canister and light it. Thick green smoke began to billow out and the light of the flair made the whole column of smoke light up. I threw it on the ground and lost my breath.
I watched the canister roll before it stopped next to a massive split hoof, I felt my guts melt. Standing there in the flickering light of the flair was a muscle bound behemoth. It stood on two legs and carried an assault rifle and an axe on a strap around its gargantuan shoulders. It was a minotaur, probably the one who carried the gun here come to think of it. Shit that gun, the perfect weapon for this and it lay disabled and without me knowing exactly what I had buggered up inside not three feet away.
I saw the malicious glint in the monsters eyes as it pointed its crude assault rifle at me. Thinking fast I concentrated my magic and tripped the magazine release as I popped the chamber open. The beast looked with distain at its now unloaded rifle and dropped in to the ground where it stuck in the mud with a wet slap. With one hand he grabbed the axe as he stepped on the signal flare I had just dropped driving it into the mud. He smiled wickedly as he did so and let out a short laugh. The light vanished in an instant and I heard a satisfied grunt in the dark.
Quick! What did I know about fighting minotaurs? They have excellent night vision unlike me, shit. I couldn’t strike one hard enough to impress it, a condition that did not exist with it striking me, shit. It’s so big and hard you had to cut it perfectly to get the organs, in the dark, shit. The perfect weapon for killing minotaurs was at my hooves, inoperational, shit. Do not fight minotaurs if it can be avoided, shit.
I grabbed my sword and in the light my telekinesis cast I swung it at the monster only to hear a clink as it connected with the axe and I lost sight of it. Grabbing a knife off the zebra I threw it at the minotaur’s head. In the glow of my magic he saw the blade and deflected it with his axe.
The minotaur charged swinging his axe and I jumped for all I was worth. The edge of the axe sliced into my side just enough for me to know how lucky I was to not be dragging my guts. I might not get lucky again. He could see anything I had a grip on and could probably stop anything he saw. If I could just know where something behind him was I would have something. Thinking fast I threw my bowie past his head without my magic. The monster laughed at the pathetic attempt and prepared to charge again.
Little did he know I caught the knife in the air behind him with my magic, and brought it back catching him in the back of the neck as he charged. Somehow he had missed the glowing behind him. He hit the mud and slid like a ton of watermelons. I flipped him onto his back and jumped on top of him laughing like a crazed psycho and proceeded to slam both of my front hooves into his face as hard and fast as I could.
“I am Carbon, don’t be coy! I don’t fight I just destroy!” I laughed and sung into his annoyingly undamaged face.
I looked at him, oh god I hated that smug face. Too bad teeth will wreck an edge faster than cutting rocks. I retrieved the dropped axe from where it had fallen and checked the edge. Oh ya, that minotaur had kept it sharp. I trotted back to where the minotaur had fallen and propped his head up with his horns sticking into the mud. In one movement I lifted the axe and chopped his head from muzzle through brain. I left the axe where it suck and dug out the flair from where the minotaur had ground it into the mud and relight it. Okay fine, attempted to relight it, gave up, and light a new one and used that to light the first one as well.
After gathering my scattered weapons I walked over to the machine gun. First step was pulling the dagger out of the belt and cycling the gun. Hu, it fed the next shell and locked; I guess nothing was broken after all. The belt was freshly linked into a new box of shells and there were still a couple unopened cans. In my magic I lifted the gun and turned it around to face where the enemy should still be dug in. The boys back at the base shot up some more flairs probably in anticipation of a charge.
Oh shit, they were already advancing. I fired a burst in my telekinesis that went wild but did make the slowly advancing force slow down and look with some trepidation toward my position. I grabbed the tripod and set up the gun properly before crouching behind it, looking down the sights, and putting my hooves on the butterfly trigger.
The line of advancing zebras was expecting the flairs but were expecting covering fire from on top of the hill. Without it they were hesitant about going into a full charge across an open field and leaving the cover behind. I linked two belts together and pressed the trigger down. The 50 caliber bullets tore through bodies and resolve alike as the barrage swept through their battle line. In unison the line broke and they charged back toward cover as my bombardment was joined by the Kingdom positions own guns and artillery. Now the flairs meant to spot the charge conversely gave me an excellent view of the retreating force.
“Run you fuckers!” I screamed as I fired at the retreating shadows. The world became vibrations, flashes, noise, and laughing.
“Owe!” I said in surprise.
“Sorry.” Said the pony sheepishly. She had slipped with the knife and driven it into my frog.
“Don’t worry about it.” I grumbled as she almost deflated back to her work. She made it all of three movements before doing it again. “How are you a professional? Were you even trained?” I asked far more meanly than I had intended.
“It’s my first day.” She said apologetically. “but I did read a book.”
“What book? Can I borrow it?” Asked Woods
“Why would you want an informational manuscript on the workings of a spa?” She asked confused.
“You know you should really be using the half length nails. All these extra holes can only dry you out.” Interrupted Sea Shell as she worked on Volts hooves.
“Will they fall out easier?” Asked Volt. The question seeming to catch the mare off guard.
“I… I don’t know. Maybe? Why would that matter when you can get them put back in?”
“It would matter when you’re out in the bush miles from anywhere and you lose a shoe. Now your gate is messed up then the monsters single you out.” Volt said matter of factly, smiling at the blue mares horrified look. “Then they eat you.”
I had more remembering to do.
As soon as I could I signaled the camp at the top of the adjacent hill and started making my way over there. Oh what a hell of a night that was. See, the Kingdom really likes to give out medals, says they inspire people. They don’t care if it’s about heroes, recognising bravery, or just letting attention whores get attention. So long as some people are trying to get the medals, some of them will fight harder.
They had everyone line up then and there and the sergeant gave me a medal of bravery. Now, normally when you first get a medal they pin the thing right into your chest. It hurts and it’s a bit odd of a ceremony when you think of it but it symbolises that it’s not just a thirty cent chunk of metal and that it is actually a part of you, not just a decoration. However, with how much mud and blood was on me he must have decided infection was a danger and so just put it on my barding.
A bunch of us pulled out stowed away booze to celebrate. Many were just in it for how cool of a story it was and a chance to party. At some point the party moved to the showers after I kept getting mud everywhere and they started peeling off my barding plates. Not gay! It was actually Shashka who pulled off my rump plates. (Not gay!) I still remember how the look on his face hushed the whole room. The barding fell from his mouth and hit the floor with a clang.
“What the buck?” he asked in bafflement. I turned to see what he was looking at but only saw mud.
Shashka grabbed a bucket of water and threw it on my flank, the clean water instantly turning black as it washed away the dirt.
“Was that fucking there before?”
I looked and my jaw just about slammed through the floor. Where before there had been a machine gun belt there was now a dagger stuck through the links.
“No.” I replied lamely.
The room got dead silent for a second before somepony let out a whoop of excitement that was echoed by the whole room. That night was the greatest party I have ever been to but my horn was burning all night from curiosity. Seems the feeling was shared cause come morning it seemed every doctor in the Kingdom wanted to see me. They thought it might me Cutie Pox or something but never did find anything wrong with me, well mark wise anyway. God who wants a doctor pointing out how ‘uneven’ everything about you is, never been so self-conscious. Anyway, after a week of examination, consulting, monitoring, records keeping, research, and every manor of test, the overarching opinion was ‘cutie marks are poorly understood and magical on their own, this is in our medical opinion the only recorded case of a two part cutie mark with both halves appearing at different times.’
I smiled at the memory. Before I had had a bad ass cutie mark. Now I had a badder ass cutie mark that meant something.
After the mares had finished rasping and filing our hooves down to what seemed to them a satisfactory degree but to me far passed excessive we were informed we would pay at the farrier shop. We left the spa and headed back up the road to the farrier. Damn, these equestrians may be stupid (not to mention ignorant, foalish, and conceited) but they sure knew their hoofcraft. I couldn’t remember the last time my steps felt this good. We trotted back into the blacksmith shop. When the farrier saw us coming he immediately put a set of shoes in the forge, so they were hot shoeing then? No wonder they didn’t want this part in the spa!
From there it was a simple matter enduring the smell of burning hoof as the hot shoes were burnt in and the nails pounded. The smith seemed to take extra pleasure in clipping off the excess length of the full sized nails. Before we knew it we were all refitted in our shoes and ready to hit the trail.
“How much do we owe you?”
“100 bits a head.”
This may or may not have been a lot, however this would become the basis for all future transaction.
We paid the stallion and headed out of the farrier shop with what was perhaps the best trim we have ever had.
“So guys, it sound like we just have to cover ground to where gems are going cheap and load up before we have to get out of Equestria.” Said Volt strangely optimistically.
“Ya Volt, but which way do we run?” I asked.
We all saw the store across the street at about the same time. The sign read in bold red letters, ‘We Probably Have It’.
“Want to start there?” Asked Woods.
The bell hung above the door rang as we walked in and a very light brown pony with a straw colored mane and tail stopped putting cans on the shelf to trot up to us.
“Can I help yall find anything?” Asked the aged stallion.
“Yes actually. Do you carry gems?” asked Crabs in his typical friendly voice.
“Right this way.” The stallion said as he started off down one of the rows of junk.
The store did its best to live up to its name. There were rows upon rows of stuff I didn’t even know what it was. Looked like stacks of wire lamp frames in some places and actual lamps in others. I saw shovels and gardening tools in one section and what looked like alchemy sets right beside it. There was practically everything I could think of in some capacity somewhere in the store. The whole building smelled like old wood, dust, and cabbage. Wow, there must be vegetables in here somewhere too!
“So what you boys looking for gems for?”
“Well, in some places ponies won’t take bits in a trade but they will usually take gems if they are good enough.”
“Oh, well here ya are.” Said the old stallion as he stopped in front of ten half barrels filled with sorted gems.
We all exchanged glances before Volt and Crabwalk pulled their jewellers loops out and tore into the barrels of gems. Me and Woods stood and watched. Woods was the best at this but ironically hated doing it. We were planning to save him for when it really mattered.
Volt and Crabs dove into the baskets of gems searching from one shiny orb to the next. They must have continued at a constant pace for a good five minutes.
While we waited for the verdict I started looking around. Right beside us was a display of cameras and photos presumably taken to show off the capability of each camera. What struck me more than the large, clunky nature of the cameras and their stands was the pictures next to them. These cameras looked little better than the gunpowder flash cameras of old but the pictures were all in colour. I mean, it could be magically enhanced or something but we had way smaller cameras than this back home that also took colour photos.
I was snapped out of my curiosity by Volt announcing, “The grades not high enough. These won’t work.”
“Well if you need higher grade gems than those I have some behind the counter that I got paid with earlier.”
He led us over to the register and pulled out a box of gems for us to look at. Woods looked at me hopefully and I sighed as I took out my loop. There were flaws in the gems, but not that many and not that big. Heck if you didn’t know what to look for you wouldn’t see them.
“Woods, have a look at these.” I said handing it to Woods. He floated the gem in front of him for about ten seconds.
“Who brought these in?” He asked. I swear he had a gem apprising spell he wasn’t letting on about.
“Some zebra alchemist, said they weren’t high enough quality for enchanting stones but they should be good enough for trading.”
“There are zebras around here?” Volt deadpanned.
“Ya, thems live off down in the forest. Never had cause to be down there myself but I here you just need to take the main road for a couple miles then there will be this here path that branches off west that takes you to a village.”
With this bit of information we made our excuses and left the shop. Just outside the door we heard a dog bark and I felt my hair bristle as I searched for the source of the sound. Just up the road a filly was playing with a dog. I found myself sizing the small fluffy dog up and trying to judge its treat level before I realized it was probably just a pet. In the kingdom nine out of ten dogs are weapons, very effective weapons if you knew how to use them. Yes even the playful ones. In fact most griffins think of ponies as dogs that just take a little longer to train then they can use guns. With the dog licking her face I relaxed and we headed out of town.
We made it twenty minutes out of town before we remembered we had to go to the bank. Coming back to town we exchanged 3000 bits worth of notes to a banker who looked like he had never seen one before. That taken care of we left town for real.
The road leading out of town stretched straight until at some point we found ourselves on a twisting path in the forest. Must have been a real subtle change because none of us could recall where any significant changes in scenery had occurred.
“How many miles are we supposed to go down this road before there is a trail leading west?” Asked Woods.
“A couple.” Replied Volt flatly. I couldn’t tell if he was ticked at the old stallion for being misleading, Woods for asking questions, or if he was just angry Woods interrupted his train of though.
A couple miles turned out to be about eight miles before we hit the trail heading West. Now once we hit that westward trial we must have followed it for upwards of an hour before our growling stomachs reminded us we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and that trip to the spa hadn’t been short. (Hooves still felt great by the way) we could only guess how much longer the trail was.
As soon as the trees got thick there came with it an eerie feeling of being watched. Now I’ve been in the woods before, I’ve been in the thick jungle before with actual ponies hiding and hunting me. This was different. This was everywhere yet we couldn’t see it. However, whatever it was was keeping its distance for now.
“Do you guys feel that too?” Woods asked seconds before I did. The usual humour was gone from his voice replaced with apprehension but the confidence was still there.
“Yes.” I replied simply. Apparently too simple because the other two hadn’t felt anything and gave us funny looks. Maybe it was our unicorn magic giving us the edge, but Crabs usually picked up on stuff like this.
“Something’s watching us.” Said Woods seriously.
“Is this another one of your nothing is there but everything is watching us things again?” Asked Volt with a slight chuckle. At our looks he simply rolled his eyes and launched himself into the air. “Cover your ears.” He slammed his wings into his sides and there was a sound that came from him that you would swear was a gunshot if you didn’t know Volt. He did this several more times, it sounded like someone was doing mag dumps in the bush beside us. Some pegasi learn to manipulate the magic that lets them fly in ways even a unicorn can’t hope to achieve. He landed back on the ground. “Well is it gone now?”
Woods rubbed his ears and shrugged. “I guess so, maybe it was an animal.”
“Didn’t feel like a squirrel to me.” I said warily as I tried to stare holes in the trees.
“Oh, guys before I forget were monster hunters now.” Said Woods, apparently only remembering the new cover story now.
We continued down the trail for probably another hour without incident. The sun had passed the high point and was already starting on its way down like an incredibly fat stallion who was nervously backing out of a room he walked into by accident only to find it full of ponies he didn’t know. We hadn’t eaten since before we got to Cliff Springer’s Wish this morning and we were all really starting to feel the hunger now.
We stopped to make something to eat. Crabs began to set up the pot and measure out the portions for lunch. Battle chow, or trail chow as it is sometimes called is a Kingdom pony favourite on the go meal. It consists of two parts oats, one part beans, one part mixed grains, and one part peas. All dried of course and cooked together in the same pot. You could also mix in grease and sugar or mixed greens if you were feeling fancy. Right now we were ruffing it so we only had the beans, peas, and oats.
We let Woods go get the wood for the fire, he didn’t have crossed axes for a mark for nothing you know. As battle ready as it looked he had gotten it for wood processing. While that was going on I walked off the trail to go take a piss in the bush.

I had barely gotten away from the group when I heard a rustling in the trees. Something about it caught my attention and I went over to see what it was. There was nothing there. I heard another rustling sound a little farther up and upon nearing it I found it too held nothing. Up ahead a little I thought I saw something.
It was two scaly blue feet with enormous black talons emerging from them. The owner of the feet was obscured by a well placed branch. Moving as slowly as I could I drew my sword and sliced through the branch with my magic. The branch fell away letting me and the thing lock eyes for a second.
It walked on two legs and was covered with scaly blue skin that looked almost reptilian. Its back and tail were covered with red spines. It had large claws on its fingers. There were two black wings on its back. Its head is what I locked onto though. It had two red eyes, a long snout that resembled a slender reptilian horses’, and a mouth full of vicious looking fangs four of which were forward facing. Its big red eyes and long ears regarded me for a second before it spread its black wings revealing the reddish undersides and then it was gone.
Peeing no longer seeming a pressing concern I sprinted back to the group.
“Guys!” they all looked up from what they were doing, even Woods who was in the middle of looking for the right tree. “I think I just saw a chupacabra! Think this will be a problem?”