SILENCE THE VOICES

There was a heavy crash behind us as Krieg yet again brought some restaurant's outdoor seating and the accompanying umbrellas to the ground in a splintery mess.

Kreig! I shouted at the psycho, trying to get my voice through to him over the cacophony of crashing and screaming around us. We don’t have time for this! We need to leave!

As the ponies around us screamed and ran about in panic, Krieg spun towards the face of the restaurant he just vandalized, picked up a table leg, and screamed “TEN PERCENT!” as he chucked the hunk of wood straight through the front window. There was a crash as the window shattered, and even more screaming coming from inside.

Krieg! I shouted again. It was something that I had gotten used to doing a lot. I tried to urge the psycho to keep running down the road, so as to put as much distance between us and this city as physically possible.

Krieg growled at me, but did as I bade him, muttering, “I MISS MY MEAT STICK…”

We can look for it later, I promised him. But right now, we need to get the fuck out of this town. Can’t look for your buzz axe if we get imprisoned again.

And so Krieg started to sprint down the street again. I just hoped that he wouldn’t get distracted again.

We were just turning a corner into an alleyway at my behest, when something sounded through the air of the entire city. It rang in metronomic rhythm as it continued for minutes on end. We had gotten maybe half a football field down another street (one that the alley had led us to) when it finally connected in my head just what the noise was.

Shit, I thought out loud. That was the city alarm.

Looking around us only confirmed that suspicion. Ponies were running about, heading for the doors of homes and safe havens alike, while guards could be seen behind us making a quick, efficient sweep of the streets. Given the numbers that seemed to be around us, it was apparent that the little trick with using the gate to block them from the castle barracks and the rest of the city did little for us.

Krieg noticed the number of guards behind us as well, and he seemed to think that the best idea would be for him to stop in the middle of the street, and throw the sword that he must have carried from the little scuffle at the gate right towards the lot of them.

Why, I said. It felt more like a statement than a question to me. Why would you think this was a good idea.

Krieg cackled to himself. “TIME TO SEE THEM BLEED…”

Luckily, the sword that Krieg threw at the ponies hit one of them hilt first. Unluckily for the pony, it hit them square in the head and with enough force to knock them out cold. I could even hear the ringing of their helmet from where Krieg and I stood.

The guards’ attention was drawn to where Krieg and I stood. They seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, and all as one, they drew whatever weapons they had-- a variety of swords, spears, and crossbows-- and charged straight for us.

All I could do was sigh at the scene. Oh, for fuck’s sake…

The next few minutes were all really just a blur of motion, as flesh hit against metal, metal against flesh, and as bodies hit the floor with meaty thuds and metallic clunks. Back when I had been in control of our body, I was never much one for fighting. I was really good at staying out of the way. So when Krieg took over, and a lot more fights started to happen around me, I was never very good at keeping track of what was happening around us, at least in some of the larger fights that we found ourselves in. There would be moments when I would have enough focus as to see a few seconds of what was going on, but then our head would start to hurt, Krieg would falter, and I would decide that it would be best if I didn’t see everything.

One of those moments came to me as I saw Krieg punch a pony guard square in the face, a sword from behind suddenly being thrust through our back and out our stomach. This just seemed to annoy Krieg, and he reached forward to grab the horn of the unicorn he had just punched. Then in one smooth movement, and with more strength most would guess he had, Krieg spun around on a heel, and used the unicorn guard as a club to beat the one who had just stabbed us over the head. The backstabber was thrown a good few feet off to the side where he fell in a heap, and Krieg continued the swing, only to release the poor guard he was using as a club in a throw that slammed the unicron head first into the stone wall of a nearby building.

Then suddenly, a bolt imbedded itself into our shoulder, a headache started to creep up on us, and I receded back into our mind, letting thing go back to the blur they usually are in a massive fight.

Another instance I was unlucky enough to catch was when Krieg had somehow gotten his hands on a spear, and was swiping the thing across a pony’s face, tearing right through their eyes. As the psycho laughed like he was having the time of his life, the blinded pony simply fell to the ground in a mess of blood and screaming. Krieg then seemed to notice something off to our right, and he spun to face off against a pegasus who thought that charging us from the air would be a good idea.

Instead of doing what I thought he would, that being to wait for the pegasus to get close enough and then stab them in the face, Krieg simply hefted up the spear, and pitched it right at the ever-nearing pegasus. The weapon said through the air and missed the guard’s torso by inches. It did not, however, miss the guard.

The spear imbedded itself into the guard’s right wing, and they suddenly became too heavy to be kept aloft. They fell heavily to the ground, and Krieg surged forward, laughing all the while, and was about to curb-stomp the pony’s grey matter all over the cobblestone road when the headache started to overtake our focus. He smashed our foot into the ground just next to the guard’s head, the stone fracturing under the pressure, and gripped at our head in annoyance. I receded back into our mind.

Those are just two of the few little snippets of what happened in the span of a minute or two. I’m not entirely sure that I always want to be able to see just what it is that Krieg is doing when we get into massive brawls like this. All that I know is that I have most of my attention occupied with keeping Krieg from going into an all-out rampage, trying my hardest to keep him from doing his worst while simultaneously trying to prevent him from doing anything I’ll regret with the anger and bloodlust that he does have at hand.

The blur of motion around us and the sea of rage that I was holding back seemed to lessen as I was able to come back into the forefront of our mind without any hassle. Krieg was throwing one last pony off to the side negligently as I came back, and all around us, the entire company of guards were either writhing on the ground in pain, blood oozing out of one orifice or another, or were blissfully unconscious. Krieg himself was battered, bruised, bloodied, and had more than a few crossbow bolts sticking out of him, but was otherwise content with all the destruction around us.

Hell’s Bells, Krieg. Again?

The psycho simply chuckled in response.

Ugh. Fine. Whatever. As long as none of them are dead.

Krieg growled. “I WANTED TO PLAY A SONG WITH THEIR KIDNEYS…”

I would have rolled my eyes if I had any of my own. Yeah, I know th-

Shouting from the opposite way down the street drew our attention. We looked down the road to see another company of guards running towards us, their weapons at the ready.

Crap, I thought. They must have been drawn in by the fighting. We need to leave, Krieg.

Krieg simply started to laugh again. “WAVE TWO!” He shouted.

Damn it, Krieg! Seriously, I say that a lot. We keep this up, we’re going to have the entire pony army on our ass! We’re good, but I don’t think even you can take those numbers! The psycho made no move to try and get out of the wave of ponies’ way. I snarled at him. Fine! We leave now, we can find somewhere for you to let loose!

I couldn’t tell from where I was, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that Krieg’s only visible eye seemed to shine in anticipation and hunger at the prospect of being allowed to kill something without that annoying little voice in his head giving him grief.

Go, I told him. Through that house.

I could feel Krieg’s manic smile as he charged for the house I indicated.

Hopefully, we were heading the right way. My exit strategy for us, while unconventional, should work just fine.

I just hope it doesn’t shatter every bone in our body.

That would suck.