Princess Twilight Sparkle turned the book left. She turned the book right. She squinted at the book, and flipped backwards and forwards frantically, looking for an answer the book apparently could not give. Spike watched her go for a while, before caving in to curiosity when it became apparent she wasn’t giving up any time soon.
"Are you okay, Twilight?" he asked reluctantly, fearing what answer he might get.
"I am decidedly un-okay," Twilight said, turning to her assistant.
Spike waited for an elaboration, but when it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen either, he sighed and bit. "Why are you un-okay?"
"Commander Hurricane," Twilight said, flipping back a few pages and showing Spike a woodcut picture of a rather handsome-looking stallion in full pegasopolan armour.
"Yes, I know who that is," Spike said. "I was there for the Hearthswarming Eve play, remember?"
"Right," Twilight said, having apparently forgotten. "One of the founding ponies of Equestria. And, according to the history books, a madpony for about three weeks before he died."
"And this is distressing you because...?" Spike asked.
"He didn’t show any signs of madness prior to that, it doesn’t make any sense!" Twilight exclaimed. "By all accounts, he was an intelligent pegasus. Quick witted, and while he was no Smart Cookie or Clover the Clever, a genius in his own way. We’re still using lance techniques and drills that he invented! And then all of a sudden, right before he dies, he starts talking to himself and crying unconrollably when he thinks nopony’s watching?" Twilight sat heavily on a cushion. "How does a stallion like that go that far off the deep end?"
"Well," Spike said, "There was that time you went off the deep end with that want-it-need-it spell..."
"Which we don’t talk about," Twilight said quickly. "The point is not that he was a genius and therefore could not... have a moment, but that he was an incredibly level-headed individual who led the Pegasopolan, and later Great Equestrian Army. There weren’t even warning signs -- most historical figures with documented madness have an equally-documented slide into said madness."
Spike shrugged. "Well, it’s three thousand year old history," he said. "It’s not like any of us could have been there and seen for ourselves."
Twilight sighed. "Yeah. I suppose that’s-" She froze, ear twitching, and a dangerous glint creeping into her eye.
"Twilight..." Spike said warningly.
"Spike," Twilight said, "I am looking for Polished Brass’ Bumper Book of Remote Magic."
"What happens if I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to find it?" Spike asked.
"Then I accept that you have had an opinion on my work," Twilight said, "and respectfully ignore said opinion because one of us has a degree in magic theory and one of us does not."
"Like that’s ever stopped you," Spike muttered, turning around and stumping away.
As Spike trundled off to the library proper, Twilight closed her study door, quietly locked it, and flexed telekinetic knuckles as a stretch, popping ectoplasmic knuckles. She didn’t need the book. She just needed five minutes’ quiet.
She recalled the pattern for a scrying spell, and set about modifying the formula; a task best left to trained professionals given the nature of magic and potential consequences. Luckily, Twilight was a trained professional.
The tricky part was the range; optimizing it so she could look at a particular pony on the other side of Equestria was easy. Enhancing it so it could look at that pony yesterday took a bit of power.
Going back three thousand years was going to be quite a stretch.
======
Resting on a table near a sturdy fireplace in relatively spartan quarters, a helmet sat, glinting in the firelight and reflecting a light turquoise and orange blur moving back and forth repeatedly.
Commander Hurricane paced in his quarters. It was a methodical pace, as he mulled over various parts of his life. He had what none of his predecessors ever came close to getting: peace in his time.
The nation was a unified one, joined under a single banner. Gone were the nations of Pegasopolis, Unicornia and Earth. Equestria was the result, and he was the Commander of its military forces, an army willingly comprised of all three equine races.
An army that wasn’t needed. Back when he’d been the commander of the Pegasopolian army, he had job security -- as long as the unicorns and earth ponies had opposed the pegasi, he’d always had someone to point a lance at. But now? He just didn’t know what to do with himself. He had the army drilling almost constantly, but there was only so much drilling a pony could do. An army existed to fight or defend, not to drill endlessly; and as it’s commander, a position that some ponies said it was one he was born to, he was forced to lead by example.
It frustrated him as he looked in the polished shield he had for a mirror, seeing the statuesque pegasus reflected within, eying the scar that ran vertically across his left eye, a memento of a close call with a giant mantis, the only fight he’d ever outright lost. Despite that close brush with gruesome death, though, he was still the greatest warrior of his time. What was a warrior without a war good for? Huh?
His reflection had no wisdom to offer him, and he sneered at it. Yeah, absolutely nothing. That’s what he’d thought. He turned around and looked at a tray with a hoofful of scrolls sitting on it, fanmail from the populace. He unfurled one, praying it was something worth reading.
He got halfway through the cursive, flower-scented love letter, before he crunched it into a ball and lobbed it into the fire. Apparently all ponies thought he was good for was sticking his manhood in things and siring strong children. He couldn’t exactly fault ponies for wanting him to give them a child. It was equine nature to go to the strongest individual. But, Tartaurus unchained, he’d done that already. Probably had about two or three dozen kids out there that took after him. He wondered if they’d grow up and face the same problem he was right now.
Besides, sleeping around just didn’t suit him. Years of combat training had him ill at ease in close proximity to ponies he didn’t know well. He needed somepony he could trust to sleep with his back to, damnit. But nopony was looking for a steady relationship with the likes of him.
Except her, of course, but he’d probably fall on his own javelin before he’d wed her. It’d be better than living under her iron hoof. She’d tricked him once, but never again. He touched the amulet set in the front of his armour; a winged eyeball emblem, her latest attempt at courting him and to win his affection again. Like it would be enough to make him forget that living nightmare that was bedding her.
Sure, it was a useful artefact, and powerful to boot. And, Hurricane had to admit, she knew what he liked. A stallion who liked his back unwatched, and privacy inviolable, needed a way of countering scrying spells. So the amulet was enchanted to lock down the scryer, and then pull him to the scryer by teleport, and all with a touch. Easy. Effective. Simple.
And useless. If Hurricane had gotten it, say, a few decades back, he might have had use for it almost daily. Now, aside from the practice session he’d had when he got it, he hadn’t felt the slightest tingle from it. Unicorns didn’t want to spy on him anymore.
Maybe it was all a sign. He should just... hang up the lance. Get out, see the world before he died of boredom or something. He’d be a family stallion if, you know, every mare interested in him didn’t just want him for a one night stand or was an unrelenting control freak.
He sat down heavily, and leaned against the side of his bed, sprawling out in an uncharacteristic lack of discipline. He was having a crisis in the middle of his life. A mid-life crisis. He perked up a little. That sounded like a good word for it. He should write it down, in case it caught on. Maybe he’d be known for something that wasn’t killing something.
As he got up, and looked for a quill, his chest began to tingle, and he felt his wings stiffen as he realized what was happening.
Somepony was spying on him.
Hurricane’s heartbeat quickened, and he almost didn’t want to hit the amulet on his chest, letting it continue to tingle as he savored the moment, and the potential consequences. An idea occurred to him. What if it was her? Could he get away with accidentally dealing a mortal wound to her? It would be deliciously ironic if she got herself slain by means of something she gave her killer in the first place...
Hurricane ran over to his wingblade rack, and quickly equipped the sharp blades to his wings, feeling the amulet buzz steadily. Whoever it was spying on him, they obviously didn’t realize he had a way of getting to them.
Well, they’d find out fairly soon. He touched the amulet, and it glowed, filling with warmth that rivalled a fire. And surpassed that temperature, actually growing uncomfortably warm with alarming speed. Hurricane tried to dislodge it, and hissed as his hoof was burnt by the amulet, which was now glowing violently bright and causing his peytral to warm up.
Hurricane cursed his foolishness. He’d gotten soft, too trusting of those unicorn witches -- he wouldn’t put it past her to deny him a future if she couldn’t have him. So she’d assassinate him with an artefact that he actually affixed to his armour.
Hurricane grunted in pain as his peytral started to burn, and lurched towards his bedroom door, stumbling as he held out a hoof for aid.
"Somepony!" he shouted. "Anypony! Help me!"
The burning reached a crescendo, and he collapsed onto a knee, smelling burning flesh and feeling the burn on his chest. He was going to die like a moron.
And then, he felt the amulet ‘catch’ onto the source of the scrying, like it was supposed to have done, and before he could say anything, he vanished in a violet flash of light.
======
Hurricane screamed like a foal as he spun and flew through a realm unknown, twisted geometry that could have been but never was flying past him in the void, his chest burning as it pulled him through it to his destination.
This was not how the amulet was supposed to work. It shouldn’t have taken this long to do any of this! It wasn’t supposed to try and sear the bucking flesh off his brisket!
As he spun, he saw visions before him by the dozen. Ponies he didn’t recognize, wearing garments he couldn’t comprehend, snapshots of situations he didn’t understand. Was this what unicorns saw when they teleported? No wonder they didn’t all flash about like she did.
But visions of one particular place appeared more frequently, and as they flashed in front of him, he saw more of it. A tan unicorn shelving tomes on a shelf. A zebra handing the unicorn a book. An earth pony mending a tome. A dragon?!
And then he saw her, and when the vision didn’t change, and she started looking panicked, he realized it was like looking through a window. Only now he could see her the same way she saw him.
Maybe he’d be able to air his grievance sooner than he thought. He spread his wings, and felt the fabric of reality twist beneath his wings and-
======
Twilight felt like she was making a fatal mistake the moment Hurricane started slipping on his wingblades, and had that sinking feeling like she’d just locked that move in when Hurricane tapped his chest.
She panicked when the pegasus started trying to crawl for help, crying out in visible pain as the amulet burned him, and shouted in alarm as he vanished in a burst of magic as if teleported. What had she done? She looked around for him, but the spell no longer had a target and quickly fell to pieces, releasing the magic she’d invested in it to cast it.
She smoothed out her mane, and took a deep breath as she recast the spell. The teleport must have broken her target lock, a common occurrence, since a teleporting pony was not anywhere in the world for the briefest of moments. Although generally a pegasus was considered a soft target when it came to sticking magical target locks.
The scrying spell ticked over as Twilight pumped power into it, trying to find the right ‘frequency’. As she fiddled the power, she realized she was hitting the ‘sweet spot’ a lot quicker than she had before. And in no time, she had it, a new scrying window, re-targeted on the recently dislocated Hurricane.
Hurricane was falling through a mysterious void. Twilight recognized it as the space outside the world, the space through which teleporting objects travelled. But as she watched, Hurricane kept spinning and falling, and Twilight realized he was travelling quite a distance; most teleports were over in fractions of a second. This one had to have taken about thirty seconds so far. Where was Hurricane going?
Then Hurricane looked directly at her, and she took a step back in alarm as Hurricane’s face dropped into a vicious grin of triumph.
He can see me?! Twilight tried to take another step back, and felt force pinning her hooves to the ground; looking down, she could see fragments of ghostly light chaining her to the ground; she didn’t waste time in dropping the scrying spell to break the bonds by force, which she did easily, feeling ancient enchantments crumble before her power.
Taking another step back, Twilight looked up, to see Hurricane flying towards her still; only hadn’t she dropped the scrying spell half a moment ago?!
As Hurricane lunged forward, sweeping with a wing that was lined with metal far sharper than anything Twilight wanted near her face, Twilight screamed and threw herself through space as quickly as possible, teleporting out of reach and into the air.
As she returned to reality, she felt Hurricane fly past under her, swinging more or less where she would have been if she hadn’t teleported into the air, and her heartbeat quickened. What had she done?
Hurricane slid to a halt, and looked around, confused, before looking up. When he saw Twilight remaining aloft in the air of the library, purple wings beating gently, he took a step back in horror.
"What fresh hell is this?" he gasped, with a hoarse voice. "What perversion of magic is this, Clover?"
"Clover?" Twilight asked.
"You are not-" Hurricane looked around, and saw Spike standing on the stairs, frozen, a large tome between his claws.
Hurricane skipped backwards on reflex, and decided what he needed was... open space. If he wanted to deal with this freakish hybrid-not-Clover and her dragon familiar, he needed to do it on his own terms. Inside, he was at the purple demon’s whim, but outside... he was master of the skies. He would win.
He threw himself backwards, and lashing out, kicked the main door open as he flew through it, masterful wing control allowing him to stay aloft throughout the normally-non aerodynamic maneuver. He hit the cobblestones in the sunlight outside (Wasn’t it supposed to be night time? Damn unicorns) and checked his surroundings.
And felt his heart skip a beat as he didn’t recognize a bit of it. He had thought himself at least passingly familiar with all of Equestria, but this... there were homes here. Established homes. Fine cobbles and engineering. He would know if there was a place like this in Equestria. Where were the mountains? On the horizon, miles away. What was going on?!
His attention was drawn to the doorway he’d just escaped through, as there was a running of hooves, and the winged unicorn chased him out into the street.
"Commander Hurricane, wait!" she implored.
Hurricane didn’t want to wait. His instincts knew when he was simply in for a tough fight, and when he was completely out of his depth, and his instincts were screaming that he was definitely in the latter. He had no backup, no known allies. And he had no idea what this mutant had waiting in the wings.
So he bent his legs slightly, and with a grunt, threw himself skyward at terrific speed, a corkscrew launch that sent him arcing backwards and rolling into a proper flight position as he beat his wings hard and in a direction of "anywhere but here".
As he looked back, he saw the purple mare chasing him, but whatever control she had of her wings clearly wasn’t on the same level as Hurricane. Or any of his troops, even. As he flew over the town, he got a few skyward glances from the ground-bound ponies, but little more. He also didn’t spot any more mutants like the purple one -- an isolated case?
In any case, she was the only one trying to catch him, and she was already a purple dot in the distance. He banked around, and spotting a convenient field of trees, dived to ground level and proceeded to set about losing whatever pursuit she might muster.
======
Applejack gently rubbed a cloth on the top of the gigantic, oversize apple hanging below her. She was sprawled out over the bent bough as she tended to her newest prize apple, whispering sweet nothings to the tree as she worked.
That was the secret, of course. Watering and keeping the trees pest-free was just fine to produce the usual high-quality apple, anypony knew that. But a real Apple knew that to get the biggest, best apples, you had to talk the talk, and dote on that apple daily. Heck, it had barely been a few months since she’d had to sacrifice her blue-ribbon apple to stop bat Fluttershy, and already she had this solid contender taking its place. She reckoned that she could probably talk it into even higher quality by the time of the Baltimare Fair’s produce competition; it wasn’t the Appleloosa Fair, of course, but she worked with what she got. Next year, for sure.
As she polished gently, pushing the cloth about with flicks of her tail, she felt a tremor run through the bough; a disturbance in the force?
Or maybe just a disturbance in the air caused by some low-flyin’, reckless speedster pegasus pony who she was fair sure she’d told not to buzz her orchard in general, and especially not now, given that Big Bertha was busy getting bigger.
The tremors got bigger, and she inched out further, craning her neck to see Rainbow Dash coming and give the gal an earful. What she saw was definitely not Rainbow Dash.
A light turquoise pegasus with a two-tone orange mane and strange metal armour was not just buzzing her orchard, but actually hurtling along at near-suicidal speed, altitude and listing, on a slight diagonal so that his outstretched, strangely-metallic-looking wings didn’t clip any of the trees.
Well, most of them. She could see in his face that he saw Big Bertha up ahead, and realized that he wasn’t going to be able to pass it without clipping it.
The pegasus gritted his teeth and twisted in the air, banking the other way while his wings were on the downstroke, and like a bullet, shot past the apple farmer in a blink, his passage kicking up stray leaves and leaving a faint zig-zag contrail behind him.
Applejack rocked on her perch, and watched as the pegasus hung a right and shot off around the edge of the orchard with surgical precision, and adjusted her hat. She frantically leant forward and checked her prize apple for damage, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw none. That was cl-
There was a crack sound, and Applejack looked down in dread. Where the stalk was connected to the bough, a vicious split had opened up, and it was slowly peeling open; the pegasus’ passage must have disturbed the apple enough to pick it!
Applejack had time to form most of a hearty, eardrum-searing curse before it finally gave way with a snap, and the branch she was lying on returned to it’s natural position with a twang, the apple thudding onto the grass as another Apple went flying into the sky, an increasingly foul-mouthed orange speck against the sun.
======
When Hurricane dared to return to a less dangerous height on the other side of a wild forest, he saw no pursuit, and nodded to himself.
First things first, he needed bearings. Nothing he’d seen so far was familiar to him. Scanning the horizon, he realized his geography wasn’t quite up to scratch; a few mountains about, but the profiles didn’t look like much to him. Perhaps he shouldn’t have left all the navigating to Pansy...
What did catch his eye was a solitary peak in the middle of the land; tall enough to reach cloud level, he could see a sizable city on the side, supported by vast arches; even at this distance, he could see it was a wonder of engineering, and it put him in awe.
But just behind it, something far more interesting; a vast cluster of cloud against the horizon, clearly no ordinary cloud like the ones he saw above the wild forest, or even the ones in that town.
A cloud structure that big and cohesive had to be pegasi made, and Hurricane was pretty sure there was only one structure that big. Pegasopolis.
He didn’t know where he was, or what was going on, but he knew one thing. He was going home.
Hurricane glided through the air, and winced as he beat his wings again, working at his peytral irritably with a hoof. In the panic of his arrival and subsequent escape from that mutant hybrid, he’d forgotten all about his peytral and how the amulet had burned him.
The amulet had since cooled down, along with his armour, but the burns it had inflicted were severe, untreated and exacerbated by his ongoing exertions. Scar material for sure, and he was sure he’d had worse, but he was concerned with how it was bothering him and causing him discomfort. Something Pansy had called a "Medical Complication", which he definitely didn’t need right now.
He regarded the upcoming landmark, and the potential risk-reward ratio. A strange place, he was definitely sure nothing like it should exist; a towering castle on the side of the mountain, and a city to match it? His cartography might be lacking and his geography best left to Pansy, but this was something he’d recognize, he was sure. The question was, was it friendly or hostile?
The village he’d escaped from hadn’t seemed too bad on the whole; aside from the mutant, nobody had spared him a second glance, so apparently he wasn’t known here. Curious and worrying, but advantageous right now. So it wasn’t unreasonable that he could... slip into the town, avail himself of a well or aqueduct or whatever they had for water here, treat his burn or something, and press on to what he was starting to suspect was not actually Pegasopolis.
He clicked his tongue. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like any of the options he was being given, honestly. But that was life, and you dealt with it. Or died trying.
He banked sideways, and spotting a convenient gap between two buildings on the edge of the mountainside structure, aimed for it.
======
A green earth pony cantered through lower Canterlot, whistling a tune as he strutted along in his black leather jacket and blue jeans. He might not have a horn, but everyone knew a pompadour was just as demanding of respect, and his was the biggest, almost as big as Celestia or Luna’s horns. He was bad ass, and everypony knew it; or they answered to Switchblade, yeah.
Well, they would answer to him if anyone gave him trouble. But they got out of his way just fine, so you know, he’d never really had to prove anything. Which suited him just fine. He got what he wanted, so he was happy. Starting fights for no reason wasn’t cool.
Well, almost everything he wanted. Even Switchblade wasn’t a total asshole, and he still respected a firm "no" from a mare when he asked her out. But he was going to get it eventually, he was determined. That was the badass way.
Yes, he had a crush on a certain gal at one of his regular haunts; sure she was a dresser, putting on clothes for the entertainment of hot-blooded stallions like himself, but he was determined to show her that he wasn’t like the other losers that lusted after her. After all, he was an honest-to-Celestia badass pony. He could even do a thing with a namesake switchblade, and that was pretty cool.
As he turned his head, wondering where he’d amble to next, he saw a swift blur fly into an alleyway up ahead. It was light turquoise and orange. His two favorite colors...
Could it be? Was fate smiling on him? Was it the will of destiny that he win her heart? Switchblade patted his pompadour to make sure it was straight, adjusted his jacket, and upped his swagger to ludicrous levels as he lurched casually towards the alleyway.
He looked around the corner, and definitely saw a turquoise pony with a two-tone orange mane doing something, taking off a metal halter or something. Coming back from a house call, eh? This was his time to shine, strike up a conversation, show her that he was tender and cared, under all the badass exterior.
"Hey, LD! Fancy meeting you here!" he hailed, as casually as possible, trying not to sound like a loser try-hard like the other stallions who wanted her.
LD didn’t respond, and Switchblade’s casual smile dropped a few watts. Maybe she hadn’t heard? He got closer, and tried again.
"Hey, LD! Fancy meeting you here!"
LD turned around, and Switchblade felt cold all of a sudden as he saw the truth; LD wasn’t a she, it was a he. And he was definitely not the Lightning Dust he was looking for, especially with that scar over his eye. Awkward as buck.
"I’m sorry," the stallion said, voice hoarse. "Is there an echo here?"
"I am so sorry," Switchblade said, his eyes falling on the not-LD’s wings, and realizing there were strange bits of metal bound to the wings. "I thought you were somepony I knew and..."
The not-LD turned around properly, and Switchblade choked a little as he saw his chest; vicious burns formed a V-shape that covered much of the stallion’s chest, and were particularly intense towards the center, where a circular patch was quite easily the severest burn Switchblade had ever seen in his life.
If it was bothering the stallion, he wasn’t showing it, staring with wonder at Switchblade’s forehead, before holding a hoof to his mouth in a failed attempt to hide the snigger that escaped.
Switchblade’s sympathy turned to anger in an instant. How dare this guy make a fool of him and mock him? He stepped forward, ignoring everything unusual about the guy as he asserted his badassitude.
"You laughing at me, punk?"
"A bit, yeah," the stallion admitted. "Who cursed your mane?"
"Nobody cursed it!" Switchblade said angrily, reaching inside his jacket, and pulling out a folded, rectangular object. "It’s my mane! I’m a badass!"
Grinning, Switchblade flicked open the namesake tool, and spinning it about, flicked it open with just his mouth, and he held it triumphantly. He didn’t even cut himself that much this time! This guy was gonna run, for sure. Don’t wanna tangle with a badass like Switchblade, no sir.
Well, that’s what he thought. Not-LD seemed to have a different plan, and he just regarded the display of badassitude with a smirk.
"Is it a fight you want?" the pegasus asked, raising his wings.
In every pony’s life, there is a moment of no return, when they commit themselves to a course, for good or worse, and everything is on the line. Switchblade realized he was at that point. Was he gonna back down? He snorted mentally. Sure this guy looked strong, the scar over his eye suggested he might have been in a fight once, and that sick burn made him look pretty tough... but he wasn’t a badass, and Switchblade was, so that would make him the winner by default. Switchblade was going to call his bluff.
"It’s not a fight if it’s one sided," Switchblade declared around the blade in his mouth. "Taste my badass fury!"
He charged forward, swinging his head left and right frantically as he did his level best to slice the not-LD into ribbons. And felt the switchblade fly out of his mouth as it met resistance. Opening his eyes, he saw a turquoise wing in his face, the flat of a blade responsible for flicking the knife out of his mouth.
There was a rush of wing and movement, and Switchblade stepped back, unharmed, sneering at not-LD, who had dropped to a crouch following his second swing.
"What was that?" he challenged. "You didn’t even hit me, you coward! Afraid of what I’ll do to you?"
Not-LD looked up at Switchblade, and raised an eyebrow in query. Switchblade felt a weight lessen on his forehead, and watched horrified as the end of his pompadour slowly drooped in front of him, before falling off in a clean-cut lump.
Switchblade’s mouth moved silently in horror as not-LD stood up, and nodded in satisfaction.
"There, much better. Boys like you shouldn’t play with knives, stick to gathering."
Switchblade felt something inside him snap. First the mocking, now this insult to his badassitude?! He would not -- could not -- stand for it! He opened his mouth, and let loose an incoherent battle cry as he charged forward, world turning red as he sought to hit this chump and make him understand just how badass he really-
======
Hurricane finished his pirouette and returned all four hooves to the ground, rear hoof tingling a little where he’d roundhouse kicked the "badass" in the side of the jaw. The poor bastard hadn’t stood a chance, going out like a light.
Hurricane was an accomplished warrior, sure, but he just didn’t have the heart to kill such a defenceless kid. Was it just him, or were ponies softer around here? A thought occurred to him. What if he was in a parallel world where things were different? This kid thought he was someone else -- was his counterpart a... a... dresser? Whatever that was?
He shook his head. No, it was one thing to kill an enemy combatant. Another to kill a kid who just thought he was one.
Hurricane eyed his opponent. The kid didn’t have armour, just those strange clothes. Perhaps that was how ponies fit in around here? He looked at his own armour, which he’d kicked to the side of this narrow passage between buildings, the armour resting between two flimsy boxes of... they looked like wood? But a poke of the hoof caused them to sag dangerously. Not wood.
Hurricane came to a conclusion, and carefully undid his wingblades, folding them up and stacking them next to his armour, and turning to the badass.
It hadn’t been much of a fight, but it was a fight. And to the victor, the spoils.
======
Switchblade came to, feeling a little chillier than usual. His face hurt, and he couldn’t quite remember what had happened. There was the not-LD, the insult, and the red rage... ugh. A blur. Being a badass had a toll, apparently. He hoped he hadn’t hurt the not-LD too much.
He opened his eyes, and had a small heart attack. Standing in front of him... standing in front of him was an honest-to-Celestia badass. There was no denying it. The way he carried himself practically oozed self-confidence and authority, the quiet expectation that whatever he said would be obeyed implicitly. The way his white T-shirt hugged his muscular frame, and the black leather jacket was filled out almost perfectly by the muscle underneath! There were ragged holes in the sides where wings protruded, which was unfortunate, but necessary, right?
And his face! The jaw just cut this devilishly-handsome angle like this in the shadow, and his mane was swept back as if perpetually wind-tossed! He even had a scar on his face, big enough to say "I’m tough" without being so huge it disfigured the perfectly confident face!
Wait a minute. Switchblade backtracked. Those clothes looked a lot like his... current...
He was naked. He was naked. How could he be badass if he was naked?
Switchblade wanted to scream, but not-LD had noticed he was awake, and a hoof quickly clamped itself over his mouth before he could.
"Alright kid," not-LD said. "Here’s a life lesson for you: don’t start fights you can’t win. You’ll lose. I’ve taken your clothes, be thankful I did not take your life, got it?"
Switchblade nodded, not wanting to argue with the badass in front of him. He had to admit, not-LD pulled it off just a little better than he did, and he did it all without the pompadour. How?
"I’m going to remove my hoof from your mouth," not-LD said. "You are not going to scream. You are going to answer some questions for me. Am I clear?"
Switchblade hesitated. Why would he not scream? Wasn't it common practice to scream in proximity to such badassery?
"If you scream," not-LD said, as if reading Switchblade’s mind, "I will hit you."
Ah. Switchblade nodded, sufficiently motivated to not scream.
"Alright then," not-LD said, removing the hoof and waiting. Switchblade honoured his part of the deal and did not open his mouth at all.
"Good," not-LD said. "Question one: Where am I?"
"Canterlot City," Switchblade said. "Southside, not far from the skyport."
Not-LD dug a hoof in his ear. "Canterlot?"
"Yes."
"Where’s that?"
"Middle of Equestria...?" Switchblade asked, hesitant. Not-LD’s confident aura was rapidly fading with his confusion.
"And where is Pegasopolis?" Not-LD asked, trying a different tack. "Or Platinum Castle?"
"Um," Switchblade said, hesitating himself. "I don’t know where those places are? Do you mean Canterlot Castle, maybe? Or Cloudsdale?"
"If I meant ‘Canterlot Castle’," Not-LD said, "I would have said ‘Canterlot Castle’, wouldn’t I?"
"I... guess so?" Switchblade agreed cautiously, shrugging.
Not-LD sighed and gave up. "What’s your name?"
"Switchblade."
Not-LD seemed to gain confidence. "Alright," he said. "That is definitely not your name."
"W-what?" Switchblade stammered. "Of course it is!"
"Kid, I can tell a lie from a mile away," he said. "How about you make with the truth?"
Switchblade made to protest, but sighed as he gave up. Busted.
"Alright," he confessed. "My name’s... Hair Gel."
"Hair Gel?" Not-LD asked. "What sort of name is that?"
"It’s my real name, okay?" Hair Gel countered, hurt. "Just... back off."
"Alright," Not-LD said. "One more question. Where’s the nearest well or aquifer?"
More words Hair Gel didn’t understand. "You mean... fountain?"
Not-LD looked like he was going to say something, but thought better of it and took a deep breath to calm down. "Does that have water?"
"Yeah," Hair Gel said. "Lots of water. It’s a water feature. Very flash, popular tourist attraction. Just down that way, to the left. Can’t miss it."
"Good." Not-LD reached forward and pulled Hair Gel upright. "Alright, kid, you are going to walk out of here and go home and never try to pull anything like you tried just before, alright? You’ll only get yourself killed."
Hair Gel reluctantly nodded. The guy was right, he wasn’t really badass, he realized. Standing next to the genuine article for real, he could see that. In the end, he was just a young stallion with a hardon for a dresser...
As he contemplated that, Not-LD had already started to leave, headed for the other end of the alleyway. An idea occurred to Hair Gel, and he shouted out to the stallion.
"What’s your name?"
"Hurricane," Not-LD said. "Commander Hurricane, and don’t you forget it."
And like that, he was gone. Hair Gel sat down heavily, in awe.
Even his name was badass.
======
Hurricane found the fountain without too much trouble; he was thankful the kid’s clothes were slightly on the small side for him, the pressure on his burns was somewhat soothing. They also seemed to accentuate his build, and he found that ponies (many of whom were unclad) made way for him seemingly instinctively, trying not to make eye contact.
This must have been the whole badass thing the kid had been going on about. Hurricane wasn’t completely comfortable with all of the new words these ponies used, and definitely not impressed that nopony seemed to know where Pegasopolis or Castle Platinum was, but he was starting to handle it, and feel a little more at ease. He was in disguise -- no disguise he’d ever seen before, but it worked. Nopony wanted to pay him any mind.
He reached the fountain, and wasting no time, pulled his clothes off, placing them on the stone rim of the fountain as he looked at it and got in.
It was a tall figure of some unicorn mid dance or something, and water was spouting up from an upwards-thrust hoof, falling to land in the pool below. Such an extravagant and pointless use of magic power to throw the water that high. Why did it even have to come from the statue’s hoof? It looked good, he had to admit, but it looked like such a waste of water and power. He took a drink, and nodded. Good clean water, too.
No matter -- it didn’t affect his swift bath, as he scooped water up and splashed it on his burns, hissing as the water stung, and he gingerly worked water through the burned areas. Pansy was always going on about how cuts and injuries needed to be clean, and he was in agreement after he’d seen how a properly-cleaned wound often healed up twice as fast as any other. Although these burns were pretty nasty in retrospect, blistering and stuff. He was gonna have them for a while, it seemed.
As he cleaned it, he noted a slight murmur of discussion around him, and a quick check found himself the subject of all of it; it took a moment, but he realized that he was the only pony in the fountain. He must have missed something.
Either way, now that he was looking around, ponies stopped muttering and started making excuses to move away and move on. Hurricane frowned. What a weird place, he thought, as he stepped out of the fountain, shook himself off, and stepped back into his clothes. After he finished readjusting his shirt over his burn (which felt good now that it had had some water on it), he turned his head around to dunk his head in the water with a splash to complete the routine.
Water cascaded off his snout, and flew through the air as he flicked his medium-length mane back into place; he was overdue for a manecut. What with all the drilling back home, he’d gotten sloppy and allowed it to grow longer than the short length he never would have permitted back when he’d been more active. He settled for slicking it back, resolving to trim it as soon as he was out of this freakish place.
As he took stock of his situation, his eyes alighted on a distant, familiar-but-unfamiliar structure; it towered over the city like a sentinel, gold-tipped spires reaching high into the sky. A castle. Canterlot Castle, Hurricane guessed.
He shook his head. No, best not to indulge curiosity. He should just move on, head for Pegasopolis... or whatever the cloud city he'd seen on the horizon was. He couldn't imagine it was anything but Pegasopolis, though. How many cloud cities were there?
A commotion tickled Hurricane's ear, and he looked to the edge of the plaza; some distant shouting, a bell ringing. Perhaps I could tarry just a little, Hurricane reasoned as he approached the side-street.
There was a distant crack of wood on wood as Hurricane stepped around a gaggle of ponies availing themselves of a meal laid out on a trestle table, and something started rubbing Hurricane's nerves raw. Something about the street, the ponies in it, was grinding away against his soldier's sense, something was fundamentally wrong.
And as he listened more carefully, he realized it was the ponies. As he walked further down the street, the chatter of ponies around him became more... indistinct. Like they weren't really talking, but just making constant noise for something. Like what?
Then there was a loud banging sound, and a feminine cry of distress as a slender , white unicorn mare staggered out from between two buildings not far away. Ponies through the street, not just Hurricane looked and stared agape as the mare ran towards them, panic written over her eyes as a number of black-clad ponies carrying strange staves pursued her, postures low and malice written all over what Hurricane could see of their eyes.
The ponies in the street wanted none of it, and turned and ran almost instantly, shrieking in alarm and shouting in panic. Hurricane alone stood still, watching the graceful white mare avoid the staves by mere inches. She looked at him, and realizing he wasn’t running, ran towards him, hope in her eyes.
"Help me!" the mare shouted desperately, running up to and hiding behind Hurricane fearfully, leaving her pursuers to stumble to a halt a good two or three steps away from the Commander.
"You!" one of the black-clad ponies said angrily. "Step aside, this doesn’t concern you!"
Hurricane eyed the half dozen would-be assassins. Well, they had to be. No combat armour, dark colours -- why they were using staves was beyond him, though. They seemed to be all earth ponies, of roughly the same build. And they all seemed to have an attitude he didn’t care for one bit.
"I think it concerns me plenty," Hurricane said, stepping forward and rolling his neck. "By whose order do you seek to slay this fair maiden?"
"By whose or-" The lead assassin snorted. "Who do you think you are?" He clenched his stave in his jaw and the ends lit up with a magical sparks as they snapped and crackled with electricity. "Let’s teach this guy a lesson, boys!"
The other assassins ignited their own staves, and the leader made his first mistake: He moved before Commander Hurricane did.
As a veteran of many battles, Commander Hurricane was a veritable goldmine of battlefield knowledge; you could probably fill several books with the various tactics, strategies and tips he’d personally tried and found more or less suitable than others. Unfortunately for the assassin, one of those books would be on winning single combat, and it would be one of the thicker tomes in the collection. Which is why it wasn’t very long before, to almost everypony’s surprise, the assassin found himself flying through the air, sans stave, which had traded ownership to Hurricane as he spun it with his mouth, posture low and wings outstretched by force of habit, ready to attack with wingblades or distract.
There was a whump as the assassin landed behind him and the mare, and he grinned.
"Teach away," Hurricane invited.
The other assassins charged as one, and Hurricane became like his namesake, spinning and lashing out with his stolen stave. One assassin was slow to block, and cried out in pain as the end of the stave pummelled his face; stunned, he didn’t do anything to block as the stave went back the other way and hit him again, nor did he seem to see the stave coming back down as it smashed him flat.
Another assassin stepped in, and swung wide, overextending to try and catch Hurricane; he instead ducked in closer, and with great force, bobbed his head upwards in a vicious head-butt to the underside of the chin, sending the assassin reeling as his weapon fell away.
An assassin trying to catch him in the back got a buck to the chest for his trouble, and a kick to the jaw as a bonus; one going for a tackle to his side was grasped firmly with a wing, and Hurricane grunted as he rolled the earth pony over his back and onto the ground, at speed. The pony went limp as his head was subjected to a nigh-perfect knockout blow and he passed out.
Hurricane placed a hoof on a fallen stave, and almost dismissively flicked it behind him, hearing a grunt as the lead assassin took the stave to the fetlocks and tripped over, bringing his face straight into Hurricane’s outstretched hind leg. Hurricane pulled a face, doing a headcount. He’d missed one. He looked up.
Balanced precariously on an ornate metal pole, the sixth and final assassin had climbed to the top somehow, and as Hurricane spotted him, he pounced, hooves outstretched as he let a war cry loose. Hurricane simply raised a forehoof and wobbled slightly as the earth pony flew face-first into it, knocking himself out clean and back-flipping slightly to land on his back.
Hurricane rolled his neck as he turned his attention to the pony he’d head-butted, and scrunched a hoof into the assassin’s barding as he pulled the assassin close.
"Who sent you?" Hurricane growled.
"Banana! Banana!" the assassin pleaded loudly.
There was a soft, universal groan from those still conscious, and a loud bell rang.
"Cut!" a voice yelled.
"What in the wide world of Equestria is going on?" Hurricane asked, looking back to the goon he was still holding by the shirtfront. "Tell me!"
"We're not rolling!" the goon protested. "Did you have to actually hit me?!"
Hurricane felt somepony tap him on his shoulder.
"Hey, dat's my job," a voice like a rolling boulder stated.
Hurricane let the goon go, and turned around, finding himself eye-to-snout with what could only be described as a mountain of muscle. Hurricane wasn't small, by any means, nor was he of infirm build. But next to this guy, he might as well have been as a small child; muscles upon muscles, and a jaw that could probably shatter rock. Hurricane noted that the muscle mountain was wearing an outfit not dissimilar to his own, save that he was wearing black things over his eyes, and Hurricane was not.
One of the goons sat up and grimaced as he saw the two next to each other. "Okay, what the hay is going on?"
"Doppelganger on set!" an unseen pony shouted.
"You!" a stallion shouted, his voice coming from above. "Who the buck are you?"
Hurricane looked up at the speaker, a unicorn that was pudgy and soft-looking, descending from on high as he rode a chair on a long arm with a beige coat and a green-teal manecut done up in a tight ponytail, a tiny little hat on his head, and spectacles balanced on his nose told a tale of a pony who had other ponies do things for him. A wealthy pony, one of those ponies.
Hurricane was more interested in the chair; it was on a massive steel arm that must have taken great time and wealth to forge, extending clean over the tops of the buildings. The characters on the back of it were... strange. If Hurricane squinted his eyes, it looked like it spelled something in Equestrian. He had to grudgingly admit that her theory about different languages sharing things was probably true, as he had a guess at what it meant.
"Di-rect-or... Whee-ton," he read out loud.
"No, kid, that's me," the fat pony said. "Director Toss Wheaton. I'm probably the most important pony someone like you is ever going to meet, and I want to know your name."
"The name’s Hurricane," the turquoise pegasus said evenly, squaring his shoulders. "Commander Hurricane. You would do well to commit it to memory."
"What's with the attitude?" Wheaton asked, incredulous. "Kid, if you're fixing to get a job acting with the tough guy act, take it elsewhere. You don't get to crash my set and get a job." Wheaton clapped his hooves together. "Somepony get this Coriander hothead out of here!"
The mare Hurricane had saved stepped forward. "I've got this," she declared, using telekinesis to grab Hurricane by the shoulder. Hurricane didn't resist, and allowed himself to be led back to the entrance of the allyeway.
"Coriander," he said quietly.
"I know, he never gets anypony's name right except his own," the mare said. "And well done for managing to stand your ground against him, he usually takes the wind out of most ponies. Is your name actually Commander Hurricane? Like, the Pegasopolan general, Commander Hurricane?"
"That is correct," Hurricane said, looking relieved. "Fair maiden, what is your name?"
"Me?" the mare looked surprised. "You don't know me? I'm Fleur, Fleur de Lis. From such films as "The Wonderbolt Who Loved Me" and "Octopony"?"
Hurricane shook his head slowly. "I don't-" He sighed. "What's going on here?"
"Well, in case it wasn't obvious, I was the damsel in distress, there," Fleur said. "They were supposed to successfully beat you up and snatch me away, leaving you to vow revenge and vengeance and start your campaign against the underbelly of the city." Fleur paused when Hurricane's expression remained completely nonplussed. "Well, not you. The lead actor, that big guy."
"But why?"
"Uh, that's how movies work," Fleur said. "Somepony has to act. I know we're getting into CGI these days, but-"
"Act?" Hurricane looked back at the alley, where the assassins were all gingerly feeling themselves for injuries. "But where is the audience?"
"You don't get out much, do you?"
Hurricane opened his mouth, but there was a cracking sound of thunder from above; he looked up to see a chariot framed against the sun, crackling with energy. Hurricane growled in frustration as the light blinded him, and shielded his eyes, lowering his hoof just in time to see the faint shape of roughly eight ponies descending towards him; each of them were identical, ash-grey demons with bat wings, wearing full plate and toting loaded crossbows apiece, all pointed directly at him.
"Commander Hurricane, in the name of the Lunar Crown, you are under arrest," one of them declared. "Submit and come quietly."
"What?" Fleur looked gobsmacked. "The Night Guard, in the middle of the day?"
"Is this more acting?" Hurricane asked, as he looked around him at the crossbows and the heavy armour.
"What?" Fleur was distressed, and spun around as she and Hurricane were surrounded. "Of course not! What's going on, what have you done, Hurricane?
"Then you should stay back, Lady Fleur," Hurricane said.
"Don't be an idiot, Hurricane," one of the Night Guard said. "You're outnumbered. Just surrender, and we will take you to the Princess."
Hurricane eyed the batponies; each one of them looked like hardened soldiers, not like the "assassins" he'd seen earlier, or that kid with the hair. A real fight, eight on one, with the promise of more reinforcements arriving shortly. With odds like that, there was really only one response.
Hurricane put his hooves in the air.
"I submit. Take me to your leader."