Slices of My Life

“How ya feeling?” I asked casually. The silence was deafening and neither Discord nor I could really do anything to relieve the pressures.

“Oh, simply exhausted.” Discord replied dramatically draping himself over a leaf. Kind of reminded me of human Rarity in a way. “I feel like I could sleep for a couple ages and still not be at top shape.”

“Sorry…” I muttered into my knees. The sun had long since set and the air was cooling so I had resigned to bringing my body into as tight a ball as I could manage in order to keep warm. “Am I still purifying you?”

“About as fast as I can restore my magic, yes. This small space is severely limiting my ability to get far enough away in order to recover.” Discord sighed and curled up into a ball of his own, shutting his eyes to try and get some sleep.

“Sorry…” I mumbled again, also closing my eyes to try and get some sleep.

“Ca… ...you… ...me… ...Res… ...mag… ...bursts!...” A faint voice, filled and broken with static reached my ears and I could swear I almost missed it. It wasn’t the same usual voice in my head, this one felt… blue.

“Who’s there?” I asked aloud, looking around the area for signs of the voice’s origins.

“No one, mister Mercer. It’s still just lonely ol’ me.” Discord mumbled back, still trying to fall asleep.

“No, not you. I could hear someone else.” I whispered back before trying to hear for anything else. “I think they said something about magic bursts.”

Discord’s head shot up at this.

“Oh, that’s clever! We’re in Griffonia, where there is normally no pure magic. I’m only able to barely restore my own because I don’t need that pure, white stuff. Who ever you’re listening to is probably tracking the one and only source of white magic in the country!” Discord grinned and began to physically exert himself to recover his magic as fast as he could before approaching me, draining himself again.

Back he went again and re-exerted himself before stepping close enough for me to purify his magic again, rinse and repeat.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, watching the crazy show.

“I’m simply giving you more magic to purify! You’re the one who’s leading our rescuers to us!” Discord grinned eagerly as my eyes shot wide open with understanding.

“So whoever is leading the charge is following my anti-magic that is only possible through you providing me magic to purify?” I asked incredulously.

“Capt… Can… Me?.. Please… More… Magic…”

“You’re right! Whoever it is I'm hearing is following the magic! Keep doing that, Discord! We’re getting outta here!” I cheered as silently as I could to prevent our guards from finding out about our escape plan.

“I still would like to know,” Discord began, running out of breath with his little exercise. “Who it is you’re talking to!”

“Probably Luna, she’s the only one I know who can speak telepathically.” I shrugged and remained seated.

“That… Makes sense!” Discord panted before having to stop and rest against the wall. “Only Sun-butt and Moon-butt could follow the trail!” he announced weakly.

“Discord, can you provide me with enough magic for me to activate my gauntlet?” I requested, standing to lean against the wall and let the creature rest and recover.

“Maybe, I don’t know!” Discord complained, collapsing to his knees. “But If I do I won’t be able to maintain what little magic I have left to let them follow us!”

“If you give me a lot of magic all in one go, I should make a large enough burst that Luna should be able to locate our general direction. Besides, I plan to make enough carnage that it’ll be easy for the rescue party to find us.” I grinned as Discord looked me over warily.

“Very well, but if they can’t find us…” he replied as he began to pull in as much magic as he possibly could.

“I know, we’ll be fucked.” I mumbled as Discord launched a rather large sphere of pure chaos at me. Holding my hand up to defend myself, the sphere hit my gauntlet and began to get sucked in; causing quite a windstorm to form around me.

Closing my hand around the last of the magic, the amber on the back of my hand pulsed to life for a second before activating the spell.

A single long blade of silver shot forwards about half a foot from the stone, over and past my hand. It looked like a single dragon claw, or like a shark dorsal fin if you looked at it right.

“Looks like it worked.” Discord coughed weakly before collapsing, unconscious.

“Yeah, yeah it did.” I grinned back in response and turned towards the large metal door. Behind it I could hear the sound of weapons being loaded so moved quickly and placed Discord just to the side, out of the direct line of fire behind the door hinge. I managed to press my back to the wall opposite the door of the strange creature just as the door swung open and at least seven flintlock rifle barrels appeared in the gap.

Bringing my arm up, the Dragon Claw cut clean through the rifle barrels before they could get a shot off. Rounding the corner I leapt up onto the first startled griffon and plunged the silver blade into his chest, parallel to his neck and into his heart.

Steering the body around, I pushed off his chest with my feet and arced backwards, swinging the blade through the air to decapitate another griffon before I landed, bringing my arm over my head and plunged blindly into the chest cavity of a third.

“Kill him! Don’t let the Equestrians find him!” A fourth ordered from a little ways away, having backed off to draw his flintlock pistol and take aim.

Diving to the side I narrowly avoided a potential aeration of my form, landing in a low crouch and took aim at my next target. I didn’t even stop moving as I lunged forwards and first grabbed onto the muscular arm of the griffon and used him as a fulcrum to swing around his body, cutting off the top half of the sixth before landing on his back to push the blade through his spine and out his mouth, instantly severing his brainstem.

Rolling myself and the body to the side, I avoided another volley of ballistic balls and rolled onto my back to get back onto my feet. With a shout I vaulted off the body at the seventh and final enemy, the tip of the blade finding the right eye socket of the griffon and scrambled his brain matter.

Landing heavily on the body, I looked quickly down both directions of the hallway for more enemies but with no enemies in sight I took off in the direction of a draft.

“I heard gunshots! This way!” A griffon sergeant announced from ahead of me from around a corner, giving me warning enough to expect further combat.

Come on Dragon Claw, don’t give up on me now! I thought as I dug my gauntlet into the wall to swing around the corner and take the enemies by surprise. A couple flickering reflections warned me that a couple of the guards had throwing knives tucked away into their wings, which was quite lucky since the silvery blade on my wrist began to flicker with the increasing lack of available magic.

Prioritizing the enemies with my future weaponry I leapt at the nearest griffon with the gleaming feathers and dragged my flickering blade through his body, starting at the bottom of his chest and upwards into his head; spraying myself in hot blood.

At that moment the Dragon Claw blade flickered away and the stone popped out of it’s housing, having been thoroughly spent and burned from within.

The griffons all seemed to have taken this as my surrender as they aimed both firearm and poleaxes at me. Their grins lasted as long as it took for me to embed throwing knives in the shape of feathers as long as my hand into their throats.

Spreading the wings of the dead griffon before me, I plucked his wings of the remaining weaponry and tucked them into my waistband before moving on to the others; foregoing the poleaxes for a lack of proper training. I did instead stop to acquire two of the loaded flintlock pistols and stuff them into the back of my pants for later use before arming myself with a rifle and a small tin of caps.

Turning back the way I came, I retrieved Discord’s form and dragged him the length of the hallway that I had already cleared before moving on without him to repeat my process.

~*~*~

“Did you feel that?” Luna asked of her sister, both horns glowing to follow the lone source of pure magic before it suddenly exploded and died.

“I did. I think Discord has temporarily given Captain enough of a charge to use his Gauntlet for a while.” Celestia replied, beating wings through the air with the pegasi Air Force behind them.

“That would explain why I cannot feel their presence any longer. Did you feel which direction the burst came from?” Luna inquired of her sister, her eyes searching the Griffonia forests below them.

“I believe it was directly ahead of us, slightly to the right.” Celestia replied, her own eyes scanning the horizon. “Let’s send out the Air Force and have them search from above; cover more sky.”

“Agreed.” Luna replied, turning in place to hover before her troops. “Listen up! We believe that the location of the Captain is directly ahead of us! We can no longer feel the magical presence so you’ll have to spread out and expand our ability to search! Make sure to fly in formation so that you don’t waste all your magic early!” Luna’s voice boomed through the air, potentially threatening to give away their positions.

“Sister, I shall join the ground team and search from below. It will allow us to conserve our magic for an emergency.” Luna announced, turning back to her sister before floating to the ground below.

“Be safe, dear sister!” Celestia replied with a caring smile before turning back to the Air Force and zipped off with them spread out in wide Vs.

“Ground forces, spread out into the trees and look for anything out of the ordinary!” Luna ordered as she landed next to the VelociRaptor with a very anxious, very furious Sunset behind the wheel. “We’re getting close, please relax some.”

“I know, Princess. I know.” Sunset sighed and released her death grip on the steering wheel, colour returning to her whitened knuckles. “It’s just…”

“I know, I miss him greatly as well.” Luna replied with a gentle smile as the troops in the truck disembarked save for the gunner who continued to sweep the area with his keen eyes. “We’ll find him, believe me.”

“Princess! Air Force says that there was some kind of explosion in the distance! Princess Celestia has dispatched Corporal Rainbow Dash’s squad to investigate!” A pegasus reported as he landed on the hood of the truck.

“Which way?” Luna demanded as she took off on her wings after the pegasus with Sunset hot on their heels.

~*~*~

Heh, this’ll work wonders! I thought as I entered into a black powder storage room. There were just kegs on kegs of powder in here, all buried under at least six feet of dirt. Not even any metal plating on the walls like in the hallways.

After stacking as many barrels in the middle of the room as I could, ensuring Discord was well out of the blast range and using a barrel to create a black fuze out of the room and down the hall for as long as the keg lasted, I stood at the end of the line with the flintlock pistol in hand, the muzzle at the very end of the line ready to give the spark I needed to make quite the signal to the rescue force.

“You ready for the explosion of a lifetime, Discord?” I grinned, looking at the significantly weakened multi-creature before pulling the trigger and lit the fuze. “I hope you’re ready because there it goes!” I exclaimed, watching the line of black powder spark and trail down the hallway.

Ducking into a storage room with Discord, I shut the door and covered my ears, waiting for the boom.

A minute and nothing.

“Please don’t tell me someone broke the line, please tell me no one broke the line… Please don’t tell-” I was cut off by the explosion to match an RPG hitting a building I was camping on and had lost at least one soldier in the line of duty. “Hahah! It worked!” I grinned like a madman and pulled the door open, looking down both ways and watched the tail end of a fireball roll down the hallway. “Cool.”

“Go on without me.” Discord wheezed pathetically, dramatically holding a claw up towards me. “No seriously, stop dragging me around and preventing me from recovering my magic, you ass.”

“And I thought you’d appreciate being saved.” I smirked before ducking into the hallway without the creature of chaos. “Good luck, Discord!” I shouted back as I sprinted back down the hallway that I'd gone down earlier to have a look at the damage.

“Help!” A female groaned, catching my attention as I passed by a previously unexplored hallway.

“Gilda?” I asked curiously, sprinting back down again to skid to a halt at a cage with a single female griffon hanging by her claws from the ceiling. She was looking quite worse for wear with multiple knife wounds and claws having been removed from her hand, much like my own semi-healed fingers.

“Cap…tain!” Gilda looked wearily up at me. “What… Was that explosion?”

“That was me signalling our rescue our location.” I grinned as I set to work picking the lock on the gate. Soon the iron bars slid open and allowed me entrance once I'd stuck a feather knife into the track to prevent it from closing behind me. “You look like hell.” I noted, setting to work on Gilda’s shackles.

“You look like a bush.” Gilda smirked with a cracked beak at me. “Why are you saving me? I’m still a Griffon.”

“You’re also an Equestrian resident and a soldier in my Army. We never leave a soldier behind.” I deadpanned as I worked the end of a feather around the inside of the lock, looking for the sweet spot that would unlock Gilda’s freedom. Soon we both heard a solid click and Gilda’s one hand dropped free of its binding, her wrist red and raw.

“I’ll have to remember that for later when I next get in trouble.” Gilda mumbled as I worked on the other shackle, now vaguely aware of the correct place to get to to unlock the latch.

Soon the griffon dropped to her knees with a gasp and with a helpful hand under her shoulder, lifted herself up to standing with her wings resting against her body; unable to provide much help for having broken bones.

“Where are we going?” Gilda looked down the hallway in the direction of our travel.

“I was unable to find a proper exit in this maze so I cheated and blew up the black powder storage and made my own.” I grinned as we hobbled down the burning hallway, tiny fires littering the hallway as we proceeded to enter into the crater that was the keg storage.

“By the egg, this is what happens with human explosives?” Gilda looked around at the still raining flaming debris that had been above the explosion.

“Nah, this is what happens when you detonate barrels upon barrels of historic weaponry. Modern human explosives could make a similar hole with an explosive the side of my hand.” I replied and took a seat near to the epicenter of the crater and got comfortable once Gilda was comfortable.

“And what kind of damage would have happened back during the Griffonstone raid?” Gilda wondered incredulously.

“Had I been smart about it, I could have burned down the entire main building. If I had C4 or Semtex explosive, I could have brought down the entire mountain onto Griffonstone or brought down Griffonstone itself with a measly couple pounds of it.” I shrugged casually and laid back.

The night was still reaching the point of overlapping the horizon but I could hazard a guess that Celestia and Luna were holding off on making the switch in order to assist with the search.

“Human intelligence scares me.” Gilda announced with a headshake and sighed.

“It scares us as well, but we’re glad it’s on our side.” Luna remarked from above as a lone human slid down the dirt embankments towards me, her dark blue and silver combat armour trying to hide her appearance but the red and yellow hair was all I needed to recognize the girl.

“Glad you could join us.” I grinned as Sunset dropped to her knees and slid the last couple feet to my side before completely enveloping me with her body.

“Thank Celestia you’re alright!” Sunset cried, tears streaming down her face.

“Actually, thank Discord for that.” I replied and wrapped my arms around her body, hugging her back and planted a kiss on her lips. “Be aware, I haven’t bathed since I was last subjected to an ice bath about two weeks back.” I warned with a chuckle.

“I couldn’t give a shit right now.” Sunset chuckled back and refused to let me go as she helped me sit up before curling up in my lap. “I’m just glad you’re safe!”

“What of Discord? Where is he?” Luna requested as wings of pegasi flew overhead with Celestia’s larger figure leading the fleet.

“Somewhere back in the tunnels. Told me to leave him be so he could recover his magic.” I shrugged and kept Sunset hugged into my body.

“Couldn’t do that while you were too close and dragging him around, right?” Luna smirked and I nodded while Army ponies tended to helping Gilda.

“Precisely. But hey, what took you so long?” I grinned and got myself up, carrying Sunset in my arms as Luna magically helped me out of the crater.