Fall of the Rightful King

Chapter Twenty-Three

We were a little over halfway there. Neither of us had said a thing. My damn hooves hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurt, everything fucking hurt. The wind was blowing, it was raining slightly, I was cold, everything hurt, and I had no fucking idea what to do next. What a great fucking day. I’d stepped on so many fucking rocks I lost count. Kind of a familiar situation, but this time I knew it was my own damn fault. At least Paper Back kept up a shield that kept the rain off of us.

"Paper Back?" I said. No response. Well, fine. It wasn't like Nick was dying and we'd just lost all the progress we'd made and he was going to be killed by a fucking psychopath. The world started to get blurry. And it was the world getting blurry and nothing else because I wasn't fucking upset. Why would I be upset? It's not like I'd just hurt one of my few friends and put both of us in danger and now we had no fucking idea where Nick was and I'm not crying my face just hurts and I can't see-

Alan... Paper Back said. I'm not mad at you, I'm just... I'm so mad at myself!

"Use... real... words," I said, crying. "This is... exactly why... we have fuc... king swear words."

I'm so *damn mad at myself!* She said. I smiled.

"Those are the right words," I said. "And stop being dumb. I'm the fucking moron who fucked us over."

"No," she said. "I should have been able to fight them off."

"The metal fuckers?" I said. "Dude, even Manuel couldn't take them on and he could throw lightning."

"Yeah, I know, It's just... we have to find him. We can do this."

"You think so?" I asked.

"I know so," she said. We probably looked like a fucking lunatic talking to ourselves, but she had a point. She felt certain and it helped.

"Ok," I said, wiping my muzzle with my wrist thing. "We've got to find him. Derek's not going to kill him, not right away anyway. He'd have done that right here if that was his plan."

"The guy who told us where to find Lauren Faust said other ponies were looking for her. Think he might know where Derek is?"

"Maybe," I said. "It's a pretty good idea.”

“Can we get a hold of them?" she asked

"I hope so. What if they support Derek?"

"Then we make them tell us," she said. Her tone was icy and I could feel that she meant it. Holy shit.

"You don't screw with my friends!" she said.

"You don't fuck with my friends," I said. She rolled our eyes. "Anyway," I said, "Let's find the son of a bitch."

We kept walking.

"Paper Back..." I said. "There's something else."

"No, I'm fine," she lied.

"I can feel your emotions," I said. "You feel shitty and freaked the fuck out. What else is going on?" She sighed and didn't talk at first.

"Paper Back?" I asked.

"We have to stop him!" She said and our throat tightened up. "Alan, we really have to stop Alexander before he gets through to Equestria! I don't know how but we can't let him go through. I thought Princess Celestia and Princess Luna would be able to take him out, or maybe Princess Twilight or someone. But, Alan, I met Celestia once and I remember how strong her magic was. I remember how it felt. Alexander's so close to her. Like, how strong he felt. Alan, I don't know if she could beat him. Or even if they beat him, he could hurt them so badly. We have to stop him or he's going to hurt so many ponies."

"Hey, we're going to stop him," I said. "Really, we're going to find a way. We'll pull this off. People have guns and missiles and shit. And we've got Nick, who's like fucking immune to magic. Plus, you're a hell of a fighter."

"I'm really not," she said. "Not against Derek, I wasn't."

"And yeah, we learned that his metal guys are hard to kill. But Derek's just some guy. You could kick his ass if we got him alone. We're going to do this," I said.

When we got to the hotel, Erin and Brittney were waiting for us. Brittney freaked out as soon as she saw us, which made Erin freak out, especially when she realized Nick wasn't with us. We explained what happened.

"Right now, our only chance of getting to Nick is to get home and start getting information," I said.

“Wait,” Brittney said. “What if the pony who told us about this place knew Derek was coming? He said somepony else would be here.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe he led us here to trap us. Either way, if we can find the son of a bitch, maybe he can tell us where Nick is. So let's start getting packed and get out of here."

“Ok,” Erin said,” but what if he was talking about Manuel?”

“Got any better ideas?” I asked. “Let’s get going.”

Brittney got to it. Erin was sitting on her haunches, trying (and failing pretty badly) to not cry.

Uh... you want to take this? I asked.

Paper Back walked over to Erin and nuzzled her in what was probably a pony hug.

"It's going to be ok," she said. "We're going to find him."

Erin hugged us. "I just feel so helpless. I wanna help so bad. We have to find him. We have to."

"We will," Paper Back said.

"It's just... these fucking hooves and my fucking eyes and this fucking body! I hate being a pony. I'm so helpless! I'm like a baby."

Paper Back sat back on our haunches. I could tell it really bugged her how much Erin hated being a pony.

"I'm solly," Erin said. Her accent was back. "I know you'ah used to this and it's not hahd for you, but it's just..." she turned away from us, but didn't seem to realize it since she kept talking while looking in that direction. “I don't have my hands... I don't have my eyes... I can't do anything."

I had no fucking idea what to say. Paper Back was hurt. I mean, on the one hoof, yeah, losing hands sucks. But it's not the end of the world, especially if you trade hands for fucking wings. But on the other hand, we were all going through a fucking hard time right now, and things might not ever get better.

Brittney came back in beside us. She put a hoof on her sister's leg. Erin turned towards us.

"Was I talking to the wall?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"Hey, sis, we're gonna be ok," Brittney said. "I know this is so hard and it sucks to lose hands. My hooves are cute but I can't do little things like handles or twist things or use a pencil very well with my mouth. And I don't even get wings or magic. And everything's designed for humans. I can't drive or use a computer and I can barely use my phone. I hate that part of it."

"Ok," I started, but Brittney put her other front hoof on my front leg.

"But it's really hurtful for Paper Back to keep hearing about how the whole world hates that they're turning into ponies like her. I mean, how would we feel if ponies started turning into humans and they kept talking about how much they hated it? And the pony parts aren't so bad."

"But-" Erin started, but Brittney kept talking.

"This sucks so bad for everypony. But we can pull through this. You're so strong. I know this has been so hard but I know you can get through this. We need to stop Alexander and get to Equestria so they can fix your eyes, and so they can fix Paper Back and Alan. But first we have to save Nick. He needs you now. He needs us now. None of us can do this alone, but we can work together and fix this. Maybe we're going to turn back into humans. Maybe we're like this forever now. But either way I know we can get through this."

Erin was crying again. Brittney pulled the three of us into a hug.

"Thanks," Erin said. "I'm just... I'm soll - sorry. This is hard, but it's not fair for me to dump it on you."

"I'm sorry too," Paper Back said. "I promise we'll get Nick back. We'll do it together."

"Erin, I wanna tell you a pony story," Brittney said when we pulled apart. "It's about a little filly who was a blind pegasus too..."

We managed to get a flight back home. We hadn't slept on the way here (fear of heights) but we were so tired from the fight it wasn't a problem. As soon as we got back I logged in to my computer.

"Ok," I said. "So... to start, let's try checking the email we got the info from against the names used on my podcast's comments."

I looked at the clock. It had already been more than a day since Nick got captured. What was Derek doing to him?