The Lullaby of the Lich

Chapters

Undeath it happens to the best of us
And then, STUFF!
Fire, EVERYWERE!!!!
May I suck your blood?
Everypony was Kong-Fu fighting, well I was at least....
Hello, who is this?
And then Dialog :(
Does the scientific method aply to magic?

Undeath it happens to the best of us

Boredom that's all I felt for the planet I lived on. Day after day the same thing would happen. Get up go to school, sit in classrooms for hours “learning” stuff I had long ago taught myself. Go “home” to a family that is only capable of arguing with each other. This was more or less the pattern I had come to live with since I had been living. The only real bright side to those days was the one friend I had. She was a pretty girl, smart, crazy as a loon, but I suppose that was nearly a requirement to be my friend.

See, I was unpopular, and by that I mean all I had was that one friend. Which wouldn't have been all that bad all things considered, but when nearly the whole school either treats you with hostility, or worse. You hope to have more than one allie. You are probably wondering why nearly everyone hates me so I will tell you. It’s because I killed some high schoolers back in middle school.

I had just fought a bully the day before, the fight didn't last long. It only took one punch, and the guy hit the ground unconscious. He wasn't anything special he was the typical bully tall, fat and ugly. The only real reason that he was even capable of picking on anyone was because of his girth. Anyway after the fight he ended up telling on me to his big brother, who happened to be the nose tackle, on the high school football team. Like any “good” brother, he rounded up a few of his friends and decided to mug me in a back alley after school.

“You sure you want to do this?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. You sent my brother to the hospital with a concussion!” He shouted.

“Look I didn’t mean to give him a concussion, but if you still want to fight that’s fine. Be warned though I won’t be able to hold back against so many people.”

“HA! Did you hear that guys, he said he wouldn’t be holding back. Oh, geeeeez I’m so scared now.” he said while shaking in mock fear.

A dark smile crept across my face at his words. I was going to enjoy this, it had been so very long time since I had fought without holding back. “Very well, lets get this show on the road then.”

Word of advice to any would be bullies out there, don’t mug someone where the terrain works in their favor. Ignoring the fact that I had a obvious terrain advantage the high schoolers charged forward, or at least the two did, being limited by the narrow ally that's all that could move forward. This made things much easier on me, too easy really. The first one to reach me swung hard, over extending himself. Seeing the opening I stepped inside the punch, and brought up a uppercut to meet his chin, knocking him out cold. As he fell I quickly turned and delivering two jabs to the next guys face and finished him with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. Completely ignoring his fallen friends the next one charged forward trying to tackle me, but I managed to keep my footing and instead got pushed into a wall. No having to back peddle and with the thug still holding me around the waist, I grabbed him around his waist lifted him upside down, and dropped him on his head with the combined weight of two rather large people. This only left two people who were soon upon me. One of them taking advantage of their numbers managed to get behind me, as he tried to get me in a headlock so the other could finish me off, I raised my arms and dropped into a squat as soon as I felt his arms under mine. I then spun around behind him and kicked him in the back toward his friend causing them to trip over each other and fall. Before they could get up I ran forward and stomped on the back of one their heads, making both their heads smack together with a sound comparable to a shotgun.

I was tried afterwards for four cases of murder, but managed to get out of it with a self defense plea. Though this didn’t stop people from hearing about it. Soon word was out that I was a psychopath that was looking for an excuse to kill people. Needless to say school became different after that and all my friends but one left me.

Day of Departure

“Come on Dess. How could you think Fluttershy is best pony?” I asked incredulously.

“How could you not! She is so cute and shy, and she is even good with small creatures, including children!” Deseray said.

“I’m glad you found yourself a wife Dess. I’m happy for you really.” I said with my most sincere voice “Now all you have to do is tear space time, find Fluttershy, and convince her to marry you.” I said jokingly.

“I could you know.”

“Sure I believe you could tear open space time and convince a pony to love you, and I have a chance at dating a goddess and living forever” I said rolling my eyes.

I looked over to see Deserays reaction, only to find a mischievous smile instead of mirth or anger. I knew things were going to get interesting soon. They always did when she had that smile on her face. “So you want to go to Equestria and date a goddess.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

Her smile spread to a creepy level. “It’s a date!” she exclaimed with glee.

"Wha!" Was all I could say, before the world went black.

“Wake up sleepy head” I heard Deseray sing out. “Wait keep your eyes closed. Don’t freak out...no wait scratch that freak out it will be much more amusing to watch."

"Why would I freak out?" I said still keeping my eyes closed.

"Well, you're in a cemetery, in Equestria, I am a goddess showing my true form to you, OH and you're a undead skelly pony lich”

"Is that all" Opening my eyes I saw bones that when I followed them lead up to my body. A pony body minus the flesh and blood. I also noticed I was in a overgrown graveyard in the middle of a forest. Probably the Everfree Forest if I were to guess based on the foliage. Looking around I spotted Deseray...or at least what I figured was her. Her true form looked like a angel without a halo, instead she three long unicorn horns one of the horns was straight while the other two wrapped around it in a double helix, instead of feet she had talons, and her school clothes were replaced with a white dress/robe/thing. Clothes aren't exactly my forte. "Hmm so you weren't kidding hu. I actually kind of like this new look"

"Ah. Thanks it took me while to decide what to make you. Then I was like HUAUA SKELLY PONY LICH!! IT HAS TO BE DONE!! So anyway you still want to date a goddess in Equestria?” She said with a smirk.

“Sure if said goddess is a necrophiliac...”

“WHAT!!!” The ground around her caught fire, though I think she was more embarrassed than mad. After calming down and putting out the fires with small magic explosions that took out more than a few headstones, she continued talking “Oh! You thought I was just going to date you. Well that isn’t exactly how this is going to happen. First you are going to need to have a living body... perhaps that’s last anyway get yourself a nice body and a kingdom to your name. Then we can be together.”

“Great you so your saying look good and get rich, so you can date me for my body and wealth” At this she just disappeared. “WAIT DESS I WAS KIDDING COME BACK!!!”

“What you don’t have to yell, I was just getting my checklist. Tell unnamed skelly pony that he can date me under set conditions. Check. Tell him that there are other humans in Equestria, and the surrounding area. Check. Show him how to use his powers.” At this point she shot a beam of energy from her horns hitting me right in the head knocking me over backwards. “Check. Tell him you are a goddess of chaos and that if anyone ask who sent you, tell them that ‘Disaray goddess of chaos, and destroyer of virtual worlds’ is the one who sent you. Check. Name previously unnamed skelly pony ‘Red Tide’ but don’t give him any titles. He has to earn those himself. Check.” Apparently she was done with the checklist since she wadded it up into a ball, threw it over her back, were it turned into a dove and flew off. Oh and you're going to have to eat a lot of flesh of living creatures in order to get to where you look like a pony. Though it’s not too bad there are a lot of animals around here and once you're strong enough you can attack the diamond dog hideout near here they are holding a lot of ponies captive to dig for diamonds. So, eat get stronger, use necromancy, use your blood as a weapon win! Okay, tata for now.” and with that she threw down a smoke bomb and disappeared.

“Wait...why did you use a smoke bomb?”I mean she just disappeared earlier. Oh well I chalked it up to her being a woman, and therefore beyond my comprehension.

So there I was in the Everfree forest in a graveyard at night. Knowledge of some of my powers started to bubble up into my consciousness. One that stuck out the most was the ability called “Summons of the Lesser Dead”.

Summons of the Lesser Dead

Allows summoner to bring forth undead, that have flesh less than or equal to the quantity of the summoner.

Summoned undead can only stay animated for so long. Time differs depending on circumstances. Read page 108 in users manual for more details.

Summoned undead become unable to be reanimated after time runs out, or they are incapacitated.

“She put a book in my brain, and formated it like a rpg rulebook. I’m not sure how to feel about this.” I heard her laughing from somewhere in the background.

After flipping to page 108 in my mind, I quickly tried out the new power by summoning three skeletons. Upon casting the spell with my mind. Which is fucking awesome just so you know. "WOW IT REALLY WORKED. Oh um * cough* go scout the area troops” I ordered them. Not that it was really necessary, much like the military salutes I had them give me, it was more a ego boost than anything. Got to feed that ego monster. As for how they worked, they were tied directly to my mind able to carry out orders based on what I wanted without me having to tell them. This also made them great for scouts since they could send information directly back to me.

After only ten minutes of scouting one of the skeletons quickly found a dragon, a small thing at only twice the height of a skelly pony or four times my size. Remembering how hostile the dragons were, and the fact that I had to eat flesh and blood to get stronger, I decided to investigate so I sent the skeletal pony to aproach it. As soon as the pony got close, it was hit with a stream of fire.

“HAHAHA! Gotta love Dess she always knows how to get a party started right” I said wearing a evil smile. This meant killing the dragon would be good for a multitude of reasons, one being the fact that this dragon would be a pest to ponies, so killing it wasn’t that much of a problem in my mind, being undead wasn't about to change me trying to be a hero. Two dragons have a lot of flesh and blood to them, something I desperately needed. Third but certainly not least is that a skeleton dragon can still breath fire, fly, and takes several times longer to fall apart as opposed to a few hours with the skeletal ponies. Knowledge granted to me by the book inside my head, got to love the "Mind Book".

After a bit of planning, I had a plan. Imagine that. First, I summoned twenty skeletons placing them in a few trees near the center of the graveyard. Summoning a few more, I had them dig out a pit near the trees. While they were doing this I sent a few more minions to start luring the dragon to the graveyard. The dragon arrived just as everybone got in place. Still chasing a skeleton, he started to fell into the hole, or he would have if it wasn't for those wings. As he made to fly away twenty skelly ponies dropped out of the trees armed with sharp sticks, and started tearing at the soft membrane of the wings causing the dragon to fall into the hole.

Once he was at the bottom of the hole, I summoned another fifty skeletons from the graves around me to restrain him. To say the least dragons aren't restrained easily, he thrashed and kicked and let loose fire for a good twenty minutes at the bottom of that hole. All the while I just kept summoning more and more skeletons for him to trash. A feat that was very quickly becoming harder and harder, because of the shear energy it took to animate so many of the dead. Finally though he was out of fire, restrained, had his wings and major tendons cut, and a large portion of his scales missing. That's when I decided to step in. It was time to eat. Landing on his back I dug my fangs into his exposed flesh and absorbed some of his blood, and turned it into my own. Feeling my fangs on his unprotected flesh he started trying to thrash once more, but it was to late. Using the blood that I had just drank I quickly made a long sharp tendril of blood plunged it into his back cutting through several ribs. I reached his heart. Where the bladed tendril split, wrapping around the still beating heart and jerked the heart out. Still beating I quickly swallowed the heart whole and started to drink what blood is left in the dragon's body.

It took nearly all day of eating before I managed to eat all of the dragon, but I was up to the task. I ended up turning most of the meal into magical energy, I now had a pony body, but it was temporary. There was something I needed to stabilize this form, PONY BLOOD.

And then, STUFF!

After my little “meal”, I sat there at the bottom of that hole and just relaxed. I had my forelegs crossed behind my head using my hoofs as a rather hard pillow. Honestly, the dirt would have been softer, but the familiarity of the pose brought a comfort of its own. While I was down there I let my mind wander. I thought about the family that I had left behind. They would be better off without me and I without them. They wouldn’t have to keep up their paper thin ruse of being the good parents around other adults and I had finally found a place that was interesting. I mean magic; just think about it. With it, the world was still the place of limitless possibilities that earth was but better. I mean, all the things that could be done through science, magic could probably do better. Heck, it may even be faster as well. No, it would very likely be faster.

The thought of magic brought me back to the pile of dragon bones in front of me. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t just bones I had left its eyes, brain, and a lot of the ligaments in the joints in tact. I am not one to waste, but my store of magical energy was full from eating the rest of the dragon, and I didn’t need what was left for myself. I had a flesh and blood body though it wasn’t really living. I mean it had a heart, muscle tissue, skin, and blood but it wasn’t living. It was only an imitation. A body made designed to let me blend in.

All that aside, I had the dead dragon in front of me, or, perhaps, below me, seeing as I was laying down. Now, I knew a spell in order to animate it, but that would only last for a few days. I needed something more though. Killing a creature capable of carrying a pony every few days is a little more than impractical. So I did the only reasonable thing anyone does when searching for answers. I opened the book that had been downloaded into my head and started reading. “The Necronomicon” as it was called was a rather dull book. It had only the necessary amount of pictures, very very few jokes(at least I think that one was a joke), and was mostly condensed information written in small text in such a way as to completely bore its reader. In short it was exactly like a high school textbook for a undead lich. If such a book were still in production.

It took hours and hours of reading before I finally found what it was that I was looking for, but then I read on some more and found something even better than what I was looking for. Apparently it was possible to inscribe magical runes. In order to do that I would have to use a blade made of my own blood and systematically carve several hundred runes into the dragon's bones. Not only would it be a tedious process with the whole trying to use my blood tendril to carve small runes on the bones, but it would also mean that I wouldn’t be able to access all of my magic unless I undid the spell on the dragon. Seeing as how the dragon would constantly draw magic from part of my own magic creating two separate pools of magic for itself. One of the magic pools being passive magic. This would be used by the dragon to heal, use its five senses (remember dead things don’t feel a lot), and slowly grow more like it’s living self was. This includes but is not limited to skin, blood, organs, life(requires original soul), sentience(requires original soul), being able to grow, and a limited amount of free will. Can’t have the dragon trying to kill me...again. The active magic pool would be used for things like physical activities, flying, thinking (when it had evolved enough for that) and last but not least, FIRE!

After my little study session was over, it was time to start getting to work; but first I needed to test out my blood tendrils. Picking up a shattered bone from one of the fallen skelly ponies, in my mouth I turned around and cut myself along my back, putting the cut a few inches below and parallel to my spine. I then turned around and made a similar cut on the other side. With the cuts complete I tried to summon forth the blood tendrils from both of the cuts in my back. They came out like strange blobs that couldn’t hold a definite shape and were barely able to hold together seeing that I pulled the blob on my right side back into its cut and used a bit of magic to heal the wound shut, which turned out to be remarkably easy to do with undead flesh.

With the second wound healed, the remaining blade easily took form. I then started to carve on some of the broken pony bones with the blade seeing just how easy it was to make the necessary runes with it - not easy. That’s not to say it was impossible by any stretch. It just took complete and utter focus and time - lots of time.

Turning back to the dragon bones I released the magic to most of the skeletons leaving only a handful to scout the area and another handful to watch out for predators that could attack me from different hidden position. Remember kids apex predators are attracted to blood and though I drank most of the blood there was still a lot of it...everywhere. After sorting out the perimeter security I set about carving the runes into the dragon bones. Fifteen minutes later I was done with one bone and perhaps a dozen runes. Yeah finger joints are pretty fast. Only every other bone left. “Fuck this is going to take forever!” and it did. I was carving on those bones for two days to etch all the bones and another one spent checking and rechecking to make sure that all the runes were done correctly. If I did this wrong at best the dragon would become useless to me. At worst I could not have proper control over it and get killed by it. Not to mention the possibility of it exploding and sending bone shrapnel at me.

Finally, satisfied with my work, I started to channel power into the dragon. As I started casting the spell, something I didn’t have to do with the other basic undeads. The air around me started to stir, I could feel the energy leave me, and flow into the bone dragon, in doing so my fur started to change color shifting from light pink to crimson, with eerie light emitting from me. Slowly the spell drew on my magic reservoir; sapping me of energy. As the spell hit approached its apex; I started to shake. My entire body weakening, from the shear amount of energy leaving my body. The wind around me picked up into a small tornado throwing around pony bones occasionally sending some careening into me. The light emitting from my skin had reached a near blinding level and as the spell hit its I collapsed, to my knees, not letting the spell go. I was not about to waste all that effort and energy. I would see this through, even if it killed me. Something it came very near to doing, as the spell ended, and before me stood a bone dragon. Seeing this, I allowed myself a smile, and then darkness swallowed my vision.

When I awoke sometime later, I was somehow out of the hole laying on my back with the bone dragon nuzzling me trying to get me to wake up. “Oh. Hi little guy.” I said weakly. Rolling over, and trying to go back to sleep. *nudge**nudge**nudge* “What is it?” I said quickly switching over to see through his senses for a second. Sitting on a stump was Deseray spinning a really large bone around absentmindedly, she looked really bored. Seeing me wake up, her face instantly brightened, and she started to spin the bone faster while raising it above her haid. This, apparently gave her enough lift, that she came off the stump and gently flew over to me, before sitting down beside me.Upon reaching me she spun the bone even faster, and threw it at a tree cleaving the poor thing in two. “Hi” I said lamely still laying down. Only turning my head enough to see her out of the corner of my eye.

“Hi...” she said creating a really awkward silence. With me looking up at her (which was starting to cause a crick in my neck) and her looking down at me. “...” Ah more silence. “So I see you managed to pull off the spell ‘Binding Bones’” she said awkwardly

“Yup.....OH! Hey Dess why am is my fur pink, and my hair like Pinkie Pies, but with Twilight's colors? And why is the stuff so dang fluffy?” I asked.

“Hmmmm” she said thoughtfully suddenly reaching down and pulling me into a hug. Standing back up with me still in her embrace. “You really are fluffy!” she exclaimed.

“Thanks.” I deadpanned.

“You’re welcome!” she said putting way too much happiness into her words, and wearing a really wide smile. I tried to facehoof at this point but I could hardly even wiggle in her bear hug.

“Would you mind sitting me down, so that I can inflict bodily harm onto myself, in the form of a facehoof?” I asked calmly

“Silly, I’m not going to set you down.” Still way too happy.

“Why not?” It was getting a little awkward being held near face to face while carrying on a conversation.

“Because you’re a fluffy filly!”

“Oh. That’s understandable I guess.....WAIT WHAT!?!”

“You’re fluffy?” she asked quizzically.

“No! The other thing!”

“Hey! No need to yell my ears are right here.” she said turning her head so that her ear was inches from my face.

“Fine but why did you call me a filly?” I think part of me knew the answer, but refused to accept it.

“Ohhhhhhh! You're a filly silly.” At this my brain shut down, and my right eye started to twitch. I noticed tears starting to form in the corner of my eyes. I felt my lip quivering. Oh god I was going to cry; I could feel it. Why was this happening? I hadn’t cried since my sister’s funeral. Why was I crying now, over what would amount to a awkward time with bathrooms, or perhaps going through puberty again? WAIT! Puberty as a girl....I needed to cry now. “I guess, you are a little emotionally unstable right now. With you being in a new body, a filly, and the lich thing probably doesn’t help. They are known for being a tad bit crazy. Are you going crazy?” I just stare at her. “Right. Ok. Don’t ask someone if they are crazy sincerely, never ends well. So have you tried out the new body much” I had stopped crying a bit by now.

“No.”

“Oh, I didn’t even notice you’re draconic eyes. Gues you got them from him.” She said pointing at the dragon. “They look pretty nice on ya thou.”

“Thanks.” I said trying to hide behind my hair, while blushing madly. Sadly my hair seemed to be preoccupied being a fluffy cotton candy ball. “So why a filly?” I managed to ask.

“Well that’s simple, when you are this adorable” She said hugging me. “No one expects you to be a creature of darkness, and I wanted to see how you would react. Totally was not expecting mental breakdown. I guess I owe The Doctor. Seeing as how he won and all.”

“Wait you know, THE DOCTOR?!?!” I said ignoring the fact she placed bets on me.

“Yeah, and no you can’t meet him.”

“Why not?” I was pouting after hearing this but come on it’s ‘The Doctor’.

“Gods don’t like having to mess with mortals all the time. They say something about you being tiring, a waste of energy, and annoying. And they have a point, takes quite a bit of energy to interfere directly with mortals. Especially back on earth.” She said as if it didn't really concern her.

“So why did you spend so much time on earth? I mean you interfered with mortals all the time then.”

“I got bored.” This was actually her reasoning for a LOT of things. Usually dangerous things.

“Ok.”

“Anyway I’m gonna have to show up around ya less. Some of the other gods are getting all snippity about me spending too much time on the game board.”

“What?”

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure one of the humans brought here could fill you in. Anyway I got to go. Ta-Ta!” With that she disappeared in a flash of light. Dropping me on my flank. Yes she had been hugging me the whole time.

With her gone I was alone in the big creepy forest. With only a bone dragon, necromancy, a book in my head, my wits, and a sudden want to hug someone or pony.

New Objective Found

Find a village and hug soft looking strangers.

Hey don’t look at me like that, I’m a filly now. I can hug random strangers....right?

Author Note:

Wanted to apologize for taking so long, Sorry. Also this is a bit of a slow chapter, things should speed up a bit after this.

Disclaimer:

I do not own MLP. YET!

P.S. Forgot to give credit to RichHap and PashaPup. They helped me a lot with the first half of this chapter, with grammatical errors. Then taking that and repressed high school memories as a example I tried to improve what I had for the second half.

Fire, EVERYWERE!!!!

“No! Please don’t!” I pleaded, to the mad man holding my sister at gunpoint. I knew there was no hope of him letting her go, I could feel the thoughts of what was going to happen clawing at the edge of my mind, I knew I should be getting out of there.I knew I should do something but I couldn’t. My body had betrayed me, I was frozen in fear.

“If you had listened to me we wouldn’t be in this situation would we?” He said, a sadistic smile playing at his lips.

“Please don’t!” I pleaded, crying at this point. “Please! I’ll do anything!”

“HAHAHA! Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll do anything just don’t hurt her” he said in a mocking tone. His voice taking on a higher pitch.

“Please!” I begged once more.

“Hmmmmm now that I think about it I might as well let her go.” He said sincerely. Relief washed over my face, while my sisters face stayed the same, unconscious.

“Really!” I said hopefully.

“NAH! I’m just foolin’” *BANG* I see my sister fall to the ground, blood quickly pooling around her. I collapsed to my knees, my heart tearing itself apart, from the inside my esight blurred with tears.

“Sorry kid you should’a did wha’ I told ya.” I could see his blurred figure approach me. I could see a black blur raised at my forehead. *BANG*

I woke up days, later much to my surprise, though not in a good way. The bullet had somehow managed to get deflected off my skull, and had traveled between the skin around my skull. The bullet had still given me a really bad concussion though, and the bleeding hadn't helped things much, but I was alive, unlike my sister. After that I started to have mood swings, I would go from being serious, to acting like a child. To say the least, this didn’t go over well with most of my friends.

In order to obtain vengeance on the man who had killed my sister, I started learning Ninjutsu, Muay Thai, Ju Jitsu, and various other martial arts in my free time. Filled with the rage at my own incompetence, I finally had a drive in life, everything started to become easier, then I accidentally killed some people. One of whom had a Mexican Cartel Boss as his father, but instead of having me killed, he created a hell just for me. Soon people were using my friends as hostages, and the only friend I had left was Dess, and no one was stupid enough to try to take her hostage. She was the one person at school stronger than I was.

Though her being strong and being my friend really didn’t help me; at least not with fights, she made my fight all my fights. When they first started to attack me it was hard, I mean I had trained nearly nonstop for the last two years for fights, but there is a big difference between fighting one person in a ring, and three people on the street. During the first few months I would go home covered in scrapes and bruises day after day. My parents didn’t care, it was easy to tell from the way they looked at me they still blamed me for my sister's death, and the sad thing is I don’t even blame them.

After a while of this something happened, and all the things I had learned in the different martial arts started to click, I could feel how the different martial arts meshed together. I even started to have a bit of fun trying out new moves, I learned from watching UFC and anime. Soon after that though my schoolmates stated to wisen up, they started to come in larger groups, using terrain to their advantage, and using tasers and mace. After it started getting a bit ridiculous, I went to the teachers about this, but they acted like they didn’t know what I was talking about. So I asked the police, and they told me to stop bothering them, so then I asked the smartest person I knew.

“Oh mighty Deseray I beseech thee.” I cried dramatically

“What is it?” She was a annoyed. I’m not sure why, though it may have been the fact that I was being overly dramatic, and a bit loud in the library, and everyone was now glaring at us.

“Why are so many people attacking me? And why are the adults not paying it any heed?”

“Oh, is that all? Well it might be the fact that this town is practically ran by crime bosses, and one of them put a hit out on you. Though the hit is rather interesting, it says specifically on it not to kill you, but instead to beat you till you cry for your moma.” she said matter-of-factly and then proceeded to pull out what looked like a wanted poster with my face on it and details about how to get fifty thousand dollars. It was all rather well made, and even had a threat on it to anyone who would be so stupid as to try to tell the police about it.

“Wow. I am both shocked and impressed by this. Hey Dess can I have this?”

“Sure, it’s not like I take money from criminals anyway, well most of the time.”

“What?”

“Nothing!” she says defensively. Now that I think about it that poster is probably still hanging up in my room.

After that I set up bugs in the entire school and would scan them the entire time I was in class looking for any strange conversations., this helped me avoid some of the fights. Just enough so that I had a bit more time to train, and train I did. After a while I got into a rhythm. Wake up train, go to school, fight on the way there sit through classes, scan the frequencies, and read books on military strategy. Head home, and fight on the way there. Avoiding the fights if I managed to hear it through a bug, and when I got home I would train, though not all of it was fighting, for a man with a strong mind and body has only fools as enemies.

This changed a year or so later, when Dess showed me this T.V. show full of pastel colored ponies, maybe you have heard of it? “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”. At first I thought she was messing with me, as she is want to do, but After the second episode I was hooked. It was such a change from my constant fighting, it was.....relaxing. To think, that somewhere in the multiverse there may be a group of sentient ponies. That had managed to have a near perfect government, thanks to immortal rulers that actually cared for their subjects, and live in harmony. They even seemed to be able to coexist well with their environment. In short their world seemed perfect. I was sure I would love it if I got to go there.

After three days of walking with Kindle, my bone dragon (That’s what I named him.), scouting above me. While we traveled, I read more of my book, tried out a few spells, and tested out the limits of my new body. With the majority of my time spent seeing how to incorporate bipedal martial arts with a pony body, which was coming along faster than I would have thought. Finding civilization I was a little sad that it wasn’t Ponyville. I mean is it too much to ask to be sent near where the mane six live? No, what I found was a small town nestled in the Everfree called Pony Worth, if the sign was accurate. I left Kindle to hide in a small clearing, and went to explore the town. It was a rundown town with a wall surrounding it; a wall that had claw marks and scorch marks all over it. As I walked through one of the many holes in the wall I got a better view of the town. Yeah, it was definitely run down, but there was a good variety of buildings. There was a general store, a bakery, a inn (that was sketchier than some of the things I drew in kindergarten), a smithy, a barracks, a small farm, and a bunch of other buildings that I had no idea the purpose of. Everything was made of wood, and was apparently made to allow a nice draft through all year long, you didn’t even have to open a window. Yes, it was the cutting edge of convenience.

Seeing the smithy, I immediately made a v line to it. Walking inside, and seeing who I figured was a blacksmith, in a display room full of nice swords. “Hello Mr.Blacksmith sir. Do you by chance have any enchanted swords, buster blades, or claymores?” I asked cheerfully.

“Who the hell are you?” He asked while giving me a look as if I had sprouted a extra arm.

After checking to make sure I hadn’t. “ I am...” ‘Quick think of a non battle field type of name.’ Seeing as all the ponies names seem to be symbolic I really didn’t want people thinking of what a name like ‘Red Tide’ would be symbolic of. “....Bones, Little Bones.”

“Great just what this town needs another crazy.” He mutters to himself. “Fine how did you get here? Did Celestia send another regiment?”

“No...I...Um....Walked?” I said nervously.

“You walked?” He asked incredulously.

“Yes! That’s how I got here!” I said quickly.

“Really?” He said doing this thing with his eyebrows that says he doesn’t believe me in the slightest.

“Yes?”

“You sure?”

“No, I have amnesia, and I just made up the most likely way of my arrival!” Sarcasm I has it.

“No need to get snippy little miss. It’s just hard to believe that a little girl managed to get to the heart of the Ever Free by herself, on hoof. I mean the last regiment of troops that Celestia sent got dead, real fast like thanks to the local wildlife. Between the coctrice, the manticores, and drakes” He visibly shudders at the last one. “it’s a wonder any of us are still alive”

“So, why don’t you just leave?” I said concern in my voice.

“Can’t, we’re trapped in on three sides by mountains, and the other side” He shakes his head sadly. “That’s where the drake's nest.”

“Um, what’s a drake?”

“What, you don’t know what a drake is?” I shake my head. “Fine, I’ll explain a bit about them, they are like dragons, except they are smaller, faster, stronger, and more magically inclined; well at least per size. The real problem though is their numbers. They are like bugs living in burrows, filled to the brim, and they all serve their queen; well not serve that would imply that they had free will. No, they don’t have individual thought or reason. Least thats what Mad Science told me.”

“Would you mind telling me where he is? I would like to learn more about these creatures.” The only answer he gave was pointing at a freshly dug grave out the window, in a small makeshift cemetery. ”Oh....” He gives me an odd look.

With the awkwardness meter reaching full, I slowly started to back away. After achieving twenty feet of distance, I turned and left. ‘...What was I even hoping to achieve anyway, I mean I don’t have a single bit to my name. Great way to waste time ….and now I am stuck using the name “Little Bones” in this town.’ I thought.

Walking around aimlessly I started talking to myself. “Ok, known facts, in the Everfree, trapped in this valley by a horde of small dragons, with attitude problems. Celly can’t get troops here, the town obviously is in need of repair, and there aren't a huge number of troops from what I have seen, maybe fifty at most. There also seems to be a lot of other baddies in the area, and the giant wooden wall has a lot of holes in it, on the side facing the valley entrance. Perhaps the ponies have a way of grounding the drakes, assuming that they have wings. Hmm now where does that leave me. What to do? Oh, I know to the barracks!” with that I started galloping to my destination as fast as I could. Bursting through the doors I shouted “I am here to enroll!!” Apparently they thought I was running a comedy routine because the few soldier that were in there just started rolling on the floor laughing. “Hey stop laughing!!” I shouted, though it ended up a lot squeaker than I would have liked.

“HAHAHA. Look at the little filly wanting to play guard. Isn’t that just adorable?” The guard said in a mocking voice. Yup, he is going on the list.

“Run on home to your mommy, foal. This ain’t no place for brats like you.” Also going on the list. These comments continued for a while, before I eventually had enough. My eyes started to water, and I was about to start crying before I managed to calm down. Ok, perhaps not calm, so much as redirecting all my sadness into anger.

“Hey, flank face!” I said while stomping my way to the closest soldier. Who in all fairness hadn’t said a word, but he laughed, and he was the closest. “Lets take this outside.” My voice was laced with venom, though I still had a child's appearance so it may not have worked so well.

“WOOOOO” came a chorus of guards.

“Come on kid, you don’t want to do this.” He clearly didn’t want to be known as someone who fought little girls. Tough!

“Yes. I. Do.” I enunciated clearly.

“Fine, let’s get this over with.” He said exasperatedly. He leads me out the back door to where they have their training area set up. A couple of training post litter the place along with a few circles drawn in the sand, and wooden swords on stands near the circles; obviously set up for sparing. He leads me to one such circles, and tosses a wooden sword my way but I simply kick it back at him.

“You’re going to need that more than I will” If my hunch was correct, my hooves would be able to deliver a much better blow than those sticks ever could. Plus I didn’t want to break their wooden swords, or the guard.

“Oooohhh!” said the rest of the guards that had decided to come view the fight.

“You going to take that? Kick her flank Silver!”

“Yeah! Beat up the fillly, prove you're a real man!” I see him slump at that. Hearing that I turn around, new target acquired.

“I change my mind, you’re free. I want to fight that one.” I said pointing at the guard that had been heckling his own companion.

“You want to fight me?” He said cockily. I could see a few of the other guards looking very nervously between me and him. Yup, he was a jerk, but he most likely had some skill, or maybe he was just ruthless, preferably both.

“Yes.” I said flatly

“Welp, I’ll go get the medic” I hear one of the guards say before leaving.

A wicked smile spreads across his face. “This will be fun” he says. A equally sinister smile starts to spread across my face, before I break out in giggles. Evil giggles.

“You have no idea.” I say between giggles. He enters the circle and picks up the wooden sword with his magic. Oh, as for his looks, think Big Mac, then add more muscle, make him taller, and give him a horn. Oh, and change him to the standard Royal Guard white.

Before the fight starts though, I feel it is important to explain that I hadn’t actually gotten a whole lot of sleep in the past three days, and yes I still needed sleep, strangely enough. Not because I was alone in the Everfree, I had my dragon for that, not because I was scared. Ok, so maybe I was a bit scared, but not of the forest. No, I was afraid to go to sleep. Apparently being away from my old life made me think about it, which made me remember my sisters death, which I then saw over, and over, every time I tried to sleep. Needless to say, I was not in a butterflies and unicorns mood when I reached the town.

One of the spectators steps forward to act as judge. ”The fight will be over when one side gives up, gets knocked out, or I decide the fight has gone too far. I want a nice cl... “ He looks over at the guard I’m about to fight, shakes his head, and starts to leave the arena. Once he got fully out of the ring, he shouted.”FIGHT!”

My enemy brings his wooden sword flying at me, from across the ring, point first, as if to impale me. I simply sidestep his attack, and charge toward him. Crossing the stage in the blink of an eye. Yup, dragon flesh is awesome. Seeing me coming he rolls to the side, before I make contact, and tries to kick out at me in the middle of his roll. I simply push his attack aside with my foreleg, and use the same leg to lunge forward, headbutting him in the stomache. Knocking the wind out of him, and causing him to roll along on the ground a bit before popping back up, clearly angry. At least if his string of curses were any indication, or the fact that he picked up ten more wooden swords with his magic, or maybe it was the fireballs he was sending at me that tipped me off. “I WILL END YOU FILLY!!!” he shouted loud enough to make Luna proud. Nope it was probably the death threat. I just started giggling madly at this, I mean a Royal Guard threatening a child, it was priceless.

“Oh.*giggle* you should*giggle* see your face. It’s all red, and funny looking” All this I said between dodging swords, kicks, and fireballs. Dodging his attacks, with the least amount of movement necessary, I started to realize something, I couldn’t feel any heat from his fireballs, but judging by the speed they were burning the grass they were hot. ‘Why aren't I feeling any heat from them’ I thought. As another fireball flew past, I let it graze a forehoof as I dodged it. Nothing, it did absolutely nothing to me, even after touching the fire directly. Why? Then the answer hit me. ‘Duh, you have the flesh of a dragon. How could I NOT be fireproof?’

While I was figuring all this out, my opponent seemed to be getting tired, there was sweat dripping down his face, his breath was ragged, and his eyes looked even more bloodshot than they were before. That’s when he got desperate, while still controlling a vortex of swords around me, he started channelling a giant fireball. Slowly the thing grew in size while I made my way toward him, while nimbly dodging wooden sword, I managed to within striking range, and just waiting for just the right time to attack. Just as he released the spell I pulled off a move that no one was expecting, hell, even a part of me expected to get roasted by a fireball that big. “FALCON PUNCH!!” I shouted, as I did a lunging punch right through the center of the fireball, and came out on the other side wreathed in fire. Needless to say when the punch connected to his face it was a instant K.O.. Though setting him on fire wasn’t part of my plan, and I couldn’t exactly put him out, because I was still on fire myself though it didn’t seem to be doing anything to me. I was glad my guess about being fire proof was right, I mean, I was pretty sure it would work, but that fireball was bigger than he was.

Looking around, I noticed that a lot of things were on fire. Especially in a conical shape in front of me. Looking over at my opponent I spat in his general direction, or I tried to, but all that came out was a small burst of pink and purple flames. “AH! Why is everything turning into fire?!?!” I shouted. Looking down I was still on fire, so I layed down, and started rolling in the dirt. “Ha! I knew those fire safety courses would be good at some point.” I say to no one inparticular. Looking over at my none extinguished foe, I got up, walked over to him, sat down, and started to bury him in sand. “Ha! Take that I’m saving you but when you wake up you will have sand everywhere, you will never be able to get it all out! MAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” The other troops just looked over at me like I was crazy....not that I can argue the matter, but still, that’s just rude.

Not too long after that the barracks door came open. Permanently. The projectile known as door, damn near hit me in the face, and I was over a hundred feet away. “Hey! My face was there!” I yelled/squeaked. Stupid child voice. He completely ignores me.

“Who caused this?” He asked, with a certain coldness to his voice. He was not a happy pony.

“Um, that girl did sir.” One of them responds nervously. Deciding to ignore that answer, he turns to the guard I was going to fight at first.

“Who caused this mess Silver Sword?” He said even more annoyed than before.

“She did, Captain.” He said pointing at me. While this conversation had been going on, I had been slowly creeping closer, and closer to the capitan. When Silver had pointed at me I was only about ten feet away, and right when the captain decided to look at me I lunged low at him, pushing off the ground right in front of him, I grabbed him around the neck, and landed on his back still giving him a hug.

“HUG!! OH PONY, Y YOU SO FLUFFY!!” I said while nuzzling him, and yes he was soft and fluffy. The guard captain just stood there stark still, but I had completed my objective, and that’s all that really mattered.

“Um, Captain?” No response for that guard.

“Captain?” No response for him either. At this point I sit up, and start poking his horn.

“You ok in there Mr. Captain?” I said while still poking him. He just started laughing at this point.

“OH jeez, Blitzkrieg got his flank handed to him by a filly! Oh this is great! It’s about time that he got put in his place! Would have done it myself if regulation permitted it.”

“So you’re not angry?” I asked, tentatively. I really didn’t want to have to face all of the guards at once. I mean, I think I could win but it would be close.

“Oh no, I am actually very angry” My ears flatten a bit after hearing this. “These guards will be doing triple the workout from now on.” This elicited groans from all the guards, and my ears returning to normal. After saying that he starts to walk away, with me still sitting on his back.

“So Captain Fluffy, I think we need to talk.”

“You’re probably right, let's talk somewhere private.”

“Or you could give me a tour, while we discreetly whisper to each other, with me sitting on your back.” He just gives me this look. “Fine, we can talk someplace private, but I am staying on your back.”

“You do know, it’s really awkward trying to talk to you when I can’t see you right?”

“Yes, I know”

“But, you’re not getting down are you?”

“Nope!”

“Fine, lets go talk in my office.” He says exasperated

“Sounds fun, Captain Fluffy”

May I suck your blood?

After Captain Fluffy showed me to his office, he left me there. Supposedly so that he could get his troops to clean up the mess though, I think it may have been his way of getting back at me for using him as a mount, or calling him Captain Fluffy, or rofl pwning one of his soldiers. Anyway, he ended up showing back up in his office four hours later while I was in the middle of trying to animate a golem, I had made out of various objects in his office. Hearing him walk in, I quickly released the flow of magic I had been using to try to animate the golum. With very little noise pencils, papers, a stapler, a few paper clips fell apart on his desk, and the light emitting from my skin slowly died.

“What was that?” He says, pointing at the pile of mangled office supplies.

“Well, that's a rather vague question, but I think you are asking about the spell I am working on.” He just stares at me.

“What are you?”

“Wow! Blunt question.” Seeing that he was very curious, I decided to toy with him, a bit. “Ok, I will give you ten questions that I will answer truthfully, and at the end you will get the chance to guess what I am.”

“Ah come on, just tell me!” I sat there putting my hoof to my chin, like I was contemplating something very deeply.

“Nope!” I said happily.

“...Fine. So you can breath fire.”

“Yes.”

“And you are immune to fire.”

“So far that seems to be the case.”

“And you can use magic even though you are a earth pony.”

“Yes”

“You also seem to glow red when channelling magic.”

“Yes”

“You also have super pony strength and speed.”

“Yes, and that’s question five and six.”

“Do you have abilities that I haven't listed so far?”

“Yes.”

“You are a experienced fighter.”

“Yes, and you only have two questions left” I started smiling a bit.

“How did you get here?”

“A goddess dropped me off not too far from here” My smile widened even more.

“So the Royal Sisters sent you to help us?”

“No, but I am here to help you nonetheless. And that concludes our little Q&A, and just so you know the correct question you should have asked me was, what am I. Now go ahead and guess. I really doubt you will guess it.”

“Oh, thanks. For my fourth question, I would like to ask what are you?”

“Silly, you already used your ten questions.”

“Did I? I only asked you four questions, counting this last one. The other ‘questions’.” Yes, he made air quotes with his hooves. ”Were merely statements that you kindly reaffirmed to be true.” he said with a slight smirk on his face.

“.....Touche Captain Fluffy. Touche indeed.”

“So what are you?”

“A lich.”

“A lich?”

“Basically, I am a undead creature that feeds on the blood and flesh of the living. I need pony blood in order to stabilize my form, and I have the ability to manipulate life and death, well at least to a limited extent. My current flesh is made out of a dragon I killed, with an army of undead skelly ponies.”

“Actually, it was probably a drake, seeing as dragons don’t nest near drakes.” He said calmly. It was strange, just how well he was taking all this, I mean I was more than a bit nervous telling him, BUT he seemed to be the leader, and I wanted to be somewhat honest with the leader, it should make things easier later on.

“Oh! That’s even cooler. Anyway I have a book implanted into my head, by a goddess, that is also my girlfriend. *Peals of thunder* Will be my girlfriend, when I get actual living flesh. Anyway, the book has a lot of spells in it, a basic how to on the pony culture, though I haven't bothered to read that. It also has some parts of it that seem to be replicas of other chapters. Some of it looks like hieroglyphs, there is a part written in Latin, and some other languages I don’t recognise. Oh! And Japanese for whatever reason. Not sure why I would have to learn Japanese in Equestria. Also, I used to be a creature called a human that is a bipedal ape, with no fur. I was under constant attack, from my own species everyday for the last” At this point I try to count on my fingers, only to realise I don’t have fingers.”Three years, and I got sent here by my only friend, that turned out to be a god.” I was telling him more than he asked for, but he won fair, and square.

“Ok... so why did she drop you here.” He asked trying to process the sudden info dump.

“Let’s see. Hopeless situation. Imminent doom. You are surrounded by lots of foes, I don’t have to hold back when fighting them. I do believe this is what she would call a quest hub”

“Quest hub?”

“Basically it’s where heroes go in order to get stronger, help the civvies, and get better weapons and armor.”

“Ok...” He clearly wasn’t getting it.

“Basically consider me a mercenary. You give me a list of possible jobs, I decide which one I want to take depending on several factors. Such as, if I like the person the quest is for, what the reward is, and how dangerous it is.”

“Ok. I think, I understand.”

“Good, then tell the good townspeople that there is a crazy merc in town willing to help them kill off the baddies for a cost. Also make sure that you tell them that they don’t have to pay with bits. It doesn’t even doesn’t even have to be a object. Services, and favors will work as payment though I will only be accepting favors, or I owe yous from you right now. Wait, for now just items and bits for rewards, that should make things easiest. So that’s all, got it?” He nods his head. “Then go, get the word out so I can start questin!” I said with authority, forcing him to look only at my draconic eyes.

“Got it!” With that he started to leave, but before he could get out the door I grabbed his tail.

“Make sure you don’t tell anyone about the rest of my powers.” Putting extra emphasis on the word powers. “Just tell them that I am part drake”

“That wouldn’t work. Drakes reproduce asexually”

“Oh wow you’re just full of info aren't ya” He smirked a bit at that. “Hmmm, then how about part dragon with a high control over my flames. That would work right?”

“Yes, that should work.”

“Then get to it soldier” I said letting go of his tail. He actually salutes me, before leaving the room. Silly impressionable captain. He was going to be having a lot of trouble soon. A lot of trouble indeed. With nothing better to do, I went back to trying to create a functional office supply gollum.

Two hours, one partially exploded office, a failed gollum, and one concussed lich later. Found me staggering drunkenly, out of a now doorless office in search of tweezers. Apparently, wooden desk make great shrapnel even when nearly vaporized.

Stumbling toward the infirmary, if the signs were to be believed, I bumped into none other than Blitzkrieg. Seeing me stumbling around like a fool, with pieces of wood sticking out of me, ranging in size from a doorknob to a sewing needle. He started laughing right in my face. Like three inches from my face, and to top it all off his breath smelled like rotten milk. I just smile smugly.

“Hey Blitz, like what you did with your mane there. The fire thrown look, really looks good on y..” He head butted me. My fur turned crimson for a second, but I managed to keep from hurting him. Instead I just walked away, maybe I could save Captain Fluffy some trouble after all.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you bastard child!” I just give him a look, which caused him to flinch, and when you are this cute, that is dang impressive. Yeah, I would have to keep a eye on that one.

Finally, reaching the infirmary mostly healed by this point thanks to my own spells, and natural regeneration. I look around not seeing the Doctor anywhere. “Hey Doc. You there?” I asked in my best childs voice. I do realize that I was against being a filly. Still am for that matter, BUT if life throws shit your way, you got to learn to roll with it.........No wait. If life throws me lemons, I start playing lemonade tycoon in realz yo. Phhheeew totally saved that one.

“Over here.” I hear a male voice say from behind a curtain. I look inside to see a black maned, blue hair stallion, in the middle of surgery. Suppressing a scream, I quickly close the curtains.

“Um, I’ll just find the tweezers on my own.” I said nervously. Looking around, I just see curtains and shelves full of medical supplies everywhere. After looking through shelf, after shelf, after shelf, I finally conceded defeat.“Hey, where do you keep the tweezers?!”

“Over there” He said, as a blood splatter appeared on the curtain.”Damn it all. I really need to stop talking with my hooves.” after a pause he nervously says “The tweezers are in the second to last brown cabinet, toward the back.”

“Thanks. I’ll give it right back when I’m done.” I said to the bloodied curtain.

“Don’t worry about it, just keep them. I got plenty enough to stock a whole town. *Sigh* If only I had that much plasma.” Well there goes the option of stealing blood, from a blood bank.

“Can’t you just get some from the villagers?”

“Nope they're too superstitious. Every time I ask for blood, they keep trying to accuse me of being a vampire. Only ones with a lick of sense, is the Cap’n and surprisingly Blitzkrieg.” After saying this his voice turns joking.”Though, Blitzkrieg usually says something about wanting to be a vampire to kick the Captains sorry ass back to Canterlot.” Yeah definitely going to stick with Captain Fluffy as my blood bank. Blitz could be a good source..or he could have me turned over to the villagers.

“That’s dumb, who believes in vampires anyway. He hehehe he” I laugh nervously. Luckily he didn’t notice.

“It’s all those damn horror books in the library, that’s about drove the town mad with hysteria.” Hmm. Options.

Burn down the library
Write a vampire romance story
Claim to be a vampire hunter
Try to send a letter to Celestia asking for about fifty copies of Twilight. If said book exist in this reality.

While arson would be fun, I would be in deep trouble if caught. Writing a story would take too long. No, one would believe me to be a vampire hunter. I’m not sure if Twilight exist in this dimension, or if I can send letters through fire, and do I really want to doom an entire town to sparkly vampire romance?. NAY I SAY! NAY!...That only leaves me with the, I’m a vampire who hunts vampires option. Problems with this plan...a lot. Ups, if I manage to live I may be able to feed off the villagers for a while....till they catch on that I am the only vampire. F. Option five leave everything as is, and hope you don’t get caught.

Leaving the Doctor’s office, I had a bit of a heavy heart. On the bright side though, I had a pair of tweezers. “YAY TWEEZERS!” I shout. Thus dropping my tweezers. “No...tweezers.” I whisper sadly. I teared up a little, I blame the childish body causing my mind to lapse back into a immature state. I was totally not like this before >.>.

“Are you ok?” Comes the caring voice of Captain Ninja Fluffy. I jumped clear off the ground and spun around.

“Bad Fluffy! No ninja moves for you!”

“I’ve been meaning to ask. How do you know my name?”

“I don’t”

“Obviously you do, or else you wouldn’t be calling me by it all this time.”

The light bulb goes off. “Wait you name, is Fluffy?”

“Yes.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAOHHAHAJEEZHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA” I said while rolling on the floor laughing. I kept rolling around laughing for a good couple of minutes, I mean seriously who names their child Fluffy.

“Are you about done now?”

I reach, up touching the corner of my mouth, becoming instantly serious. “Yes. I am done” This seemed to confuse him a bit, but I really didn’t care to explain. Not that I could explain it.

“So, did you tell everyone.”

“No. I left it on a message board.” OMG, THEY HAVE A TOWN MESSAGE BOARD! SWEEEEET! “That will do.” I said calmly. “Now, I will need a little bit of your blood.” I know asking for blood from him is a bit abrupt, but I needed it in order to stabilize my form, which I needed in order to be able to increase my magic power, and increase the power of my flesh. In short, pony blood is a quick way to level up.

“Um, okay.” He said closing his eyes.

“This way Cap.“ I said walking past him, back toward his room. He simply nods his head nervously and follows. He obviously was willing to do just about anything to get more help even if they did happen to come from fillies...that drink blood.

Getting back to his office, I find it nearly exactly as it had been originally with a slight bend in the wooden walls. “So you managed to fix it already. That’s pretty awesome.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

Closing the door, I walk over to him where he was sitting on the guest side of the table. “Here.” He says extending a hoof toward me. His face a mixture of determination and anxiety. I slowly bite into his leg. The taste of his blood explodes in my mouth, it was sweet, sweeter than sugar, and the rest of the flavor, well there really isn’t an accurate way to describe it, the only word that comes to mind is bliss. My world filled with the taste of his blood I kept drinking and drinking. ‘How long have I been drinking?’ I think to myself. Soon after I am snapped out of my stupor, by the captain passing out, and knocking over a shelf. This noise was apparently loud enough to be heard outside.

“I better damn well not have to clean up your room again captain, it was nearly a fucking crater last time....” Blitzkrieg says as he walks in. He looks to me, looks to the Captain, whom I am standing over, with bloody fangs still extended to full. He looks back at me, a evil smile spreading across his face as he turns to run. “VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE VAMPIRE!” He yells. I snap out of my stupor, and start running after Blitz. Running outside, I see him running toward the town square, seeing him still yelling, I give chase. He looks back, hearing my hoofsteps as I approach him, seeing me gaining ground on him, he puts on a extra burst of speed. I also speed up, I almost catch him when he makes a hard right, I lose a lot of ground, not expecting the sudden turn. I start chasing him again, I almost have him again, when he turned another corner, this time I managed to keep my ground on the turn, and as I came around the corner I saw a mob, you know the kind you always see in Frankenstein movies. So I did the only thing I could think of, barrel right through the middle of them, villagers flew everywhere, it was glorious. Coming out the other side I noticed something, there were soldier on the other side, waiting for me.

Options

Surrender
Negotiate
Channel the spirit of Bruce Lee (No I can’t actually channel Bruce Lee’s spirit...or can I?)

Author’s Note:

Okay, so the next chapter will be out a bit later, I want to make sure everything in the story lines up. Also, any criticism, or compliments are welcome.

P.S. See Digitalis.

Everypony was Kong-Fu fighting, well I was at least....

Soldiers in front of me, civvies behind me and a mix on either side. Okay, so from what I was seeing it wasn’t actually all the town. Some faces weren't there, but it was probably most of them, and they were rather well armed. I guess living in the heart of the Everfree made owning a weapon a necessity..

“Well it could be worse. It could be raining.” I said quietly but apparently not quietly enough for what ever god it is that controls situational irony not to hear. ‘Great now my blood tendrils will be harder to use, with the rain water diluting it’ I thought. Seeing the crowd slowly closing in on me, I relax. “So you plan on killing a foal?” I said in a conversational tone. This caused them to stop walking forward and instead to start talking among themselves. Pro tip always throw your enemy off their game if you have the chance, and if you don't have a chance make one.

“Are we really going to kill her?” One woman says.

“She is a vampire! Of course we are!” A man whispers back harshly

“So because I am different I deserve death?” I say nonchalantly trying as hard as I could not to smirk. This caused a lot more whispering between everypony present.

“Why are we doing this again?” Ask a sexually ambiguous voice.

“To rid the world of a bloodthirsty beast!” Shouts a man. If you are wondering why I don’t describe the ponies it’s because I had my eyes closed. I was just listening for any sudden hoof movements and closing my eyes helps me think.

“She doesn’t look like a beast to me.” Said a woman's voice.

“Blitzkrieg lost in a fight against her!” Shouted one of the soldiers.

“Really Blitzkrieg lost to a foal?”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Did she really beat you in a fight, Blitz?”

“She drained so much blood from the Captain, that he passed out. She’s a demon!” Accused Blitz while completely avoiding the question of whether or not he lost to me in a fight. This caused even more whispering from the crowd. On a side note in the thirty minutes or so this had been going on the sky had cleared and there was a rainbow. It was quite pretty.

Oh, right the mob. Well they were still arguing a bit mostly about whether I should be burned, decapitated, or the traditional stake through the heart. Seeing things weren't going to end well I decided to speak up. “Just for your information I didn’t mean to drain the captain of that much blood. Actually would someone send him to the Doc? Don’t want him to die from blood loss.” After hearing this a soldier ran off toward the barracks. I think it was Silver Sword. “Also just you know double checking, you are planning on killing me right?”

“Yeah you're going down, bitch!” Shouts the ever loveable Blitzkrieg. This was met with a few audible agreements, looks of determination, and many a raised weapon.

“Ok. I recommend all non combatants leave now for I can not be certain of your safety if you stay.” A few nearby ponies started inching closer to me. “Hey” I said pointing at one of them. “Yeah, you! Give people time to clear out if they don’t want to fight.” No one moved. “Fine.” I said starting to channel energy through my body. My skin started glowing red and a pentagram started to twirl around my feet with a eerie breeze coming out nowhere to blow my hair. This freaked out more than a few ponies. “So you know how you were saying I was a vampire?” I said while running a spell in my head. “Well you were wrong” I said singsongly. “ I am actually a lich, or in laypony terms a demon. A creature right out of Tartarus and guess what, I actually came here to help you. But since you’re all gettin’ VERY MUCH on my nerves, so I will be kicking your faces in first. Have a nice nap. OH and ‘SUMMON KINDLE’!” I said finally getting through the incantation I had been running in my head. Oh and just fyi the only reason I could do this was because of a set of runes I had inscribed on his bones. That set alone had took a hour to carve, and had been drawing magic for a while before it was full.

Anywho, with my drake mount summoned it was time to have fun. First target Blitz. I was more than a little tempted to just roast him and say it was a accident, but through much effort resisted. I ran forward quickly reaching Blitz, I dodged around his sword and rammed him back into three other people knocking them all to the ground. I simply hopped in the air and delivered a hoof to each of their faces. Jumping off I kicked another guard in the face. The momentum carried me over a attacking pitchfork and grabbed its wielder by the mane. Flipping over him and threw him into a group that was just getting up from Kindle using tail whip.

Dodging yet another sword thrust I knock another pony out, with a jab to the chin. I was actually getting kind of bored. Seeing that Kindle was taking a bit of damage I sent him up to fight with a crazy pegasus that had made me take a arrow, to make sure it didn’t kill the pony behind me. I don’t think he realized friendly fire is perma on in realz. Being the only ground target there were even more ponies trying to attack me. Dodging under one attack two more came at me. I deflected one and whipped out my blood tendril to cut through the handles of half a dozen weapons. Then followed through quickly with a blunt version of the attack to the ponies themselves, throwing many of the ponies flying backwards. Kindle flew by hitting several of the ponies with his tail. Knocking a few of them out. The fight slowly got easier, with fewer and fewer getting back up after being knocked down. Then there were none getting back up, I had won.

“Pheeeeew! That was a lot harder than I thought it would be but on the bright side I have a new high score.” I said somewhat happy after beating all of those ponies senseless.

“What exactly happened here?” Came a voice a few minutes later.

“Um...They slipped” I lied. I mean its pretty obvious what happened. I was standing with a circle radiating out around me of unconscious ponies. To top it off I still had my bone drake there and there was a arrow sticking through my knee, with a blood tendril sticking out of the wound. Seeing the other pony, I quickly pulled the blood back inside my body.

“They all just slipped?”

“There were a lot of banana peels.” I said sincerely.

“So they all slipped on bananas and got knocked out?”

“Yeah, it was quite horrible.”

“So where did the bone drake come from?” He said trying hard not to laugh.

“The bananas summoned him.” I deadpanned. He just started laughing.

“Yeah and I used to be a street fighter like you...” He paused to look down at my knee and inside my mind I started screaming. ‘ PLEASE NO ANYTHING BUT THAT! NONONONONO NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!’ “until I took a arrow, to the knee!” He proudly proclaimed at the end. A piece of me died that day.

“So you’re from earth?” I asked not sure how to feel about it.

“Yeah you?”

“Yup, also from earth.”

“So, what is your name mysterious street fighting pony?”

“Name is Red Tide, current ruler of Pony Worth!”

“Ok ‘Ruler of Pony Worth’, I am named Mad Science. You know in case you were wondering, and I was actually on my way to see the Doctor in case you wanted to tag along.”

“Sure. I have to report to him that there are nearly a hundred people beat senseless, that may or may not need medical attention waiting for him.”

“I am sure he will love to hear that.” he said sarcastically. “Though I was thinking more along the lines of having that arrow looked at.” he sounded a bit worried

“This will heal in no time, but hey, when I asked the blacksmith were to find you he told me you were dead.” I said.

“He actually said I was dead?”

“No. Now that I think about it he just pointed toward the cemetery when I asked were you were.”

“Oh. You probably couldn’t see it, but I have a underground complex I live in near there, was built a while back, in case things get too dire up here. WAIT! You are new so you probably don’t have anywhere to stay. Why not stay at my underground fortress? I have clean guest rooms last I checked, running water, and the building doesn't have a draft. Heck you could just hang out there till we all get killed if you want to. All I ask is for help with a few chores every once in awhile.”

“What kind of chores?”

“Oh nothing much pick up item A. Drop off item B. Kill manticores, and bring me back their tails, that kind of thing. So what you say?” He asked clearly hoping I would say yes. I doubt too many of the soldiers would want to collect manticore tails for a pony named Mad Science.

“Yeah that sounds great. I’ll stop by after I get done looking around town some more” Oh, nearly forgot to tell you what he looked like. He was a average sized pony with lean muscle. He had lightning blue fur. His mane was black with a zig zag white streak in it and for his cutie mark he had a diamond with a lightning bolt in it.

“Okay.” Then there was akward silence till we reached the office. Which luckily wasn’t that long. “Hey Doc you in there?”

“Shhhh! Captain has a headache." The doctor wispered. "Seems he got a really bad case of anemia all of the sudden, strangest thing I ever saw. Still not sure why it happened, I even had to give him one of the last blood packs we had.”

“That’s cool and all Doc, but I think Science here wants to talk to you about something. Oh, and most of the villagers have been knocked unconscious a little ways from the barracks.”

“Wait, what?”

“Hurry and get your stuff Doc, I’ll talk to you on the way to treat the villagers. From what I have seen most of the injuries are blunt impact and a few minor cuts. Best not to make it wait though.” Said Mad Science.

“Fine. Let me just grab my bag.” Finding his bag he left, to treat all the poor hurt ponies, or in other words, to fix my mess.

“Captain?”

“Here” I hear him say weakly.

“Hey how ya feelin’?”

“Not that great.” He says giving me a glare.

“Heheheh” I laugh nervously. “Sorry about that, I really didn’t think that would happen.”

“That I would pass out after losing nearly half my blood?” I whistle.

“Wow. That much?”

“Yeah that much.” He was not a happy pony.

“Sorry, I didn’t think the whole stopping part of drinking blood would be so hard. On the bright side at least no one can say you aren't sweet.” I half heartedly joke. He facehoofs, which seems to only make his headache worse.

“So, what have you been up to since you nearly killed me?” He was still not a happy pony.

“Um, well I may have gotten in a tiny itty bitty fight.” I said nervously

“Really Silver Sword said that you had most of the town ready to lynch you.” HE KNEW. He knew and he was dragging it out. F U CAPTAIN FLUFFY!

*Sigh* ”Fine a mob of townies and most of your soldiers tried to kill me after ‘finding out’, I was a vampire. I then proceeded to summon a bone drake and knock them all unconscious.” I could tell he was about to tell me off. Wouldn’t blame him if he did, but I didn’t give him a chance to talk. “I did try to talk them out of it though, AND I even had to make sure some of the less intelligent ones didn’t kill their own allies. Look I took a arrow to the knee” I said holding up my leg. I flinched a little at this. Partially because of the pain caused by the awkward angle and the arrow. Partially because I said ‘I took a arrow to the knee’ and felt like my soul died a little.

“That looks painful”

“Yeah it kinda is.” I mean I am used to pain. Being beaten up every day for a while does that, BUT being shot by an arrow is still NOT fun. Though I didn’t feel the pain while fighting, or even walking back, but once I thought about it and realized I should be feeling pain, I did. Not even sure how that works. Guess I will have to research that later. “So how long till you're allowed to leave?” I ask.

“I think Doctor Cross said I would have to be here for a few hours. Why?”

“Well, I have to heal this.” I said breaking off the arrow head, and pulling the shaft out the other way, causing me to take a sharp intake of breath from the pain. My knee started to turn red as I used magic to heal the skin over, so as not to bleed on stuff. “It should also take a few hours so” I roll over over into a nearby bed. “we have time to talk.”

“I suppose we do.” He says not sounding all that happy about the prospect.

“And I really am sorry about nearly killing you, I really didn’t mean to.” I said looking at him giving him the biggest puppy dog eyes, the kind that only children and small animals can pull off, but he wasn't having any of it. He was a stone wall, Stone Wall Fluffy....yeah.....

Hello, who is this?

“So, just getting it out there, I’m taking over this town.” I said casually.

“Wait, what!?!” Captain yells, causing pain to himself.

“Think about it, this is in your best interest.” I say sincerely.

“How is a filly, who just beat up the better part of the town, being put in charge of said town, in anyone's best interest?”

“Simple, I act high and mighty, boss ponies around, and do what I want... Oh, I guess I should tell you how it’s helpful to you.” I take a deep breath. “So, here is the deal, you have been stuck here for, I’m not sure how long, suffering Luna knows what, and still you managed to survive, which is great. The thing is though, this place is dying, the wall is falling apart, your buildings are rotting, Tartarus your soldiers were willing to fight a filly, without holding back, you’re losing this war dude.”

“So, what do you suggest?”

“Simple, Captain. I rule, I make changes, I do” I pause for dramatic effect. ”what you tell me to.”

“What?” he asked genuinely confused.

“Come on Cap. it’s simple. I act as you tell me to, and we get things done. I do all the things that you” I said pointing my non-injured hoof at him. “can’t. I do all the things that regulations prohibit, I do all the things that if you, did would cause a mutiny of your troops. In short we” I said pointing back and forth between us. “get these silly, impressionable ponies out of this mess, using whatever means necessary.”

“You do realize that everyone will probably hate you once this is all done right?”

“And you realize that if ponies find out that you are the one telling me to do stuff against regulation you will be in deep trouble?” A smile spreads across his face.

“Then, I suppose we should start to plan.” He says, and yes, he is one of those silly impressionable ponies.

“I suppose we should.”

Basically, all we decided was that I needed to hurry up, and declare my rule, while he went home and got some bed rest. I also found out that the villagers hated new people in general, and they still didn’t like the troops even though they had been there for years. I found this strange, but I mean I am in a different reality than my own, who am I to judge the norm. We also talked a bit about drakes, how they hunted, weaknesses, and stuff along those lines. The conversation wandered a bit before Fluffy left, I mean we had hours to waste.

So, there I was at a podium, in front of town hall, with a small crowd gathered before me, courtesy of the guards, it really is amazing how willing to help you ponies are, once you beat their face in a bit. “Ponies of Pony Worth, I came here in peace,” I hear some whispers in the audience. “but you went, and screwed that up. So, I am forcefully, ceasing your town, effective immediately, I will be your sole ruler, what I say will be law, and you will obey, or be forced to fend for yourselves out in the wilderness. Oh, anyone found trying to escape to the wilderness will be imprisoned. I will be posting a list of new laws, that you have to follow, on the message board. Non-compliance to any new law will result in imprisonment, with little food. On the other hoof, if you all comply to what I say, I promise to get us all out of this Tartarus, that this town has become, I will get you all out this forsaken forest, I will lead you all to freedom!” I proclaimed, while slamming my hoof on the podium, which elected, a booming noise from the solid wood podium. There was no reaction at all from the audience, one of them even had the audacity to yawn, he went on the list. “I offer you freedom, but it will not be easy, it is up to each of you. Do you want to cooperate, and be liberated, or rebel, and doom us all?” I ended dramatically, and stepped off the podium, avoiding the crowd. Seeing the sun dipping toward the horizon, I decided to head over to Mad’s place, or at least try to find out where it was.

Reaching the graveyard I saw earlier, I made a line in my head, between the smithy and the graveyard. Following said line I came across a shallow ramp leading into the ground, and on one side of the ramp was a thick steel door, with a rope beside it, that was obviously some kind of doorbell, I pulled the rope. Bells started to chime from the other side of the door, some of them sounding quite far off, after a while, a slate in the door opens, allowing the pony inside to see who was at the door.

“Who is it?” I hear a voice ask. He couldn’t see me, considering I was a little under half the height of a normal pony.

“It’s me, Red Tide” I said, jumping up to be at eye level with him for a sec, this apparently scared him, because I hear him back pedal quickly, followed by crashing noises. I wait patiently for a bit, before I hear him walk back over to the door, close the slate, and open the door.

“Welcome to my house, slash emergency bunker.”

“Oh, thanks.” I said while stepping inside, the place was about what you would expect from a stone bunker, except nicer. Were the rest of the town was rundown, his place was surprisingly well kept, there weren’t any cobwebs, there wasn’t any dust, hell the furniture was all in one piece, and even looked nice. Not including the glass in the corner that he had just broken.

“So, what you think, nice, right?”

“It’s so clean!!!” I squealed, jumping into the air. Just for future reference, I don’t mind dirt, but I LOVE clean things, especially clean houses. My sudden outburst seemed to catch him off guard, judging by his expression of pure shock.

“Well, glad you like it, let me show you around the house, so that you don’t get lost.” He said while turning, and walking through a door in the back of the room. “That was the living room, this is the game room, this is the kitchen, the bathroom, a hallway of bedrooms is that way, another hallway of bedrooms that way, and yet another that way, another bathroom.” At this point we go down a few flights of stairs. “This is the maze, in case something manages to break through to this point, there are archer holes in the ceiling, and places for burning oil to fall through, there.” He points at a holes in the roof, while walking through the maze. “and now we are leaving the maze area, to your right is another bathroom, and to the left is your is your bedroom.”

“Wow, it’s pretty far down here....”

“This way you don’t have to worry, even if the drakes attack, you will be safe.”

“So, where will you be sleeping?” I asked, I mean sleeping this far down seemed mighty suspicious to me.

“My bedroom is right here.” He said opening a door caddy corner to mine.

“Oh, well I’ll go ahead and go to sleep.” I said, as I went inside my room. Getting inside I realized that these rooms were designed to house a dozen or so ponies, luckily I was the only one in my room. Seeing all these empty beds gave me a idea. I started pulling mattresses off of the box springs, I pulled a pair of beds closer to each other, stacked exactly the same amount of mattresses on each bed, then suspended a few mattresses between them, as I laid some on the ground, and one behind me, I called it good. “Fort Bed, is now complete.” I said happily. “No wait I forgot!” I get up and drape some sheets in front of the entrance, then go turn out the light. “NOW, Fort Bed is complete.” I settle down, making a nest out of the pillows, and go to sleep.

I found myself once again in a dark ally, in the middle of the night, the man who killed my sister is in front of me again. “Fuck, this dream again!” I whisper to myself, before realizing that I know it’s a dream, which means I can control what happens. This time instead of begging for mercy I bit my hoof, and walk forward as the blood tendrel starts to form around my leg.

“Stay back!” The man says pointing his gun, at me, instead of my sister. I just smile, I know I have won, there is no way that I could lose, I mean a gun, really, what does he even expect to do with that. “Stay back I say!” His hands start shaking, I start giggling, I was going to enjoy this, I would finally get to kill the man who ruined my life, so what if it was a dream. I walk forward some more, he shoots me in the chest, I unleash a blood tendrel from the wound, plunging it into his right eye, and through the back of his skull, he falls over dead, releasing my sister from his grasp. I scoop her up in my blood tendrel, stopping her fall.

“Jen wake up, hey wake up Jen.” I said softly.

Her eyes slowly open, she sees me, but she doesn’t. She sees the creature that I have become, with my draconic eyes, a blood tendrel sticking out of my chest, holding her up, she sees the way I am glowing with a unnatural red light. She screams, terror clear in her voice, and I wake up.

“FUCK YOU BRAIN!!!! WHY DO YOU TORMENT YOURSELF!!!! ….Why do I torment myself....” I finished in a whisper, I just stared blankly at nothing for a long while, not wanting to even think. Hours passed, or maybe only minutes, it could even have been seconds, and I finally let my brain start back up. Once it’s reboot was complete, I decided to go outside, it was actually rather easy to get back through the maze, Mad had worn a slight trail through the maze because of his continual travel along the same route. I left the house, and found it was day. “Did I actually manage to sleep through a whole night?” I ask the air, the answer was no. No, I hadn’t slept through the night, what I saw wasn’t the light of the sun, but the light of the nearby grass, that had caught fire.

Running over I quickly put out the fire, by rolling in it, once that was out, I looked around, trying to spot what caused the fire. It didn’t take long to find the cause, as it swooped down at me, trying to catch me in it’s claws. I just stood there slightly crouched, as it got closer I let me fangs extend to full. It was ten feet away from me, when I pounced, aiming straight for its throat with my fangs. I bit clean the throat and spine, and slurped up a lot of the blood, still wasn’t as good as Fluffy’s blood, but it helped replenish some of the energy I had used to fight off the villagers.

Realizing that there was danger, I looked around frantically. “Where are they, where are the rest of them.” I said remembering what Fluffy had said about the drakes attacks in small groups. I found what I was looking for, there was another one a few hundred yards away swooping down toward a pony. I started running toward it. Running, I had never ran that fast before, it was the kind of run that if you were to trip you would land on your face, if you were a human. My vision started to blur at the edges, I had a target, and nothing was getting in my way. Approaching at a speed I had seen few things achieve, I hit it straight in the back sending it flying over the pony it was about to attack. When it hit the ground, it slowly started to get back up, obviously hurting from the surprise attack. Walking to it’s side, I slapped the back of its head, knocking its jaw against the ground, then stood at full height on my back legs, bringing down both my fore hoofs into its skull, a sickening crack was heard, then it’s muscles went slack. I walked over to it, bit through its spine, and started looking for the next target. While all this was going on, my mind was clear, I didn’t have stray thoughts, I only had targets, and things to protect, I was a machine, a machine with a anger problem.

Finding yet another target, I jumped onto a cart, used it as a springboard, landed on top of a nearby building, and ran across the rooftops, running, I felt the speed come back to me, and my body lowered to the buildings, my stride lengthening, as I moved from one building to the next, till the drake was back in sight. I jumped from the building, biting through the drakes wing. Both, he and I, fall to the ground, I hit, and roll to my hoofs, he gets up, with his left wing dragging. As he was getting up, I started charge at him, planning on crushing his ribs in with a flying kick, he sees me coming, and swings a clawed hand at me, I open my mouth, catch his wrist in my mouth, and crush his wrist with in my jaw, letting go of his wrist and flipping around, I land a round house to his face, sending it stumbling, before he regains his balance, I sweep his feet, jump on his back, and sever his spine in a single bite.

Heat was coursing through my entire body, I felt like I was on top of the world, my muscles felt ready to move at a thought. I climbed back on top of a nearby building, looking for something, anything. I see light in the distance, I start running at it, easily slipping into a full sprint while moving once more along the streets. When I finally get to the light I see what it is, it's the guards holding most of the drakes at bay, the soldiers on the wall are shooting the wings of any that try to fly, while giving support to the rest of the troops. I stop sprinting and casually walk up to Captain Fluffy, who is giving orders to his troops. “Captain Fluffy, what can I kill?” I said, between ragged breaths, my mind feeling like it’s on fire. Looking over at the wall, I see soldiers and drakes fighting viciously, but strangely the only fire is that from the torches the guards are using as lights.

“Did you kill a drake by yourself?” He asked, surprise clear in his voice, and if you're wondering how he knew that, well, I was still covered in blood.

“Three, though in all fairness, I did sneak attack two of them.” I said, still breathing hard, this standing still thing was a pain.

“We have this covered.” He said pointing a hoof at the wall. “Can you search the area, and kill any drakes you find in the town?”

“Sure!” I said, hopping off toward the hotel, Pinkie Pie style. The hotel was the biggest building in town at three stories high, making it perfect for seeing everything around.

Arriving the hotel, I ran inside, up two flights of stairs, seeing how fast I could get up them, and then realized I had no way to get on the roof, the stairs stopped there. So, I ran into the hallway, broke out a window, being careful, to make sure I got cut. I then, unleashed a blood tendrel, looped it out the window, and onto the roof. Pulled myself up... and came face to face with a drake.

“Why, hello there!” I said putting on my best pleasent and overly happy voice. The drake seems taken back. ‘If these were mindless creatures that shouldn’t happen, unless I am getting a reaction from the queen’

“Can you talk?” I ask it, laying down, I know protecting ponies from stray drakes was what I was supposed to do, but this was more important.The drake shakes its head. ‘Okay, I am limited to yes and no questions.’ I thought.

“Am I speaking to the drake queen?”

And then Dialog :(

I was excited, standing in front of me was a means of possible negotiations, I was ecstatic. All it had to do was answer me, hopefully with a nod of its head, but before it could answer, a arrow shot through its eye. I look over to see who did it, the culprit was one of the townsfolk, one of the ones that had tried to kill me. I was pissed, there before me was the dead remains of what could had been a way to talk to the enemy leader, no I was not happy.

“Thanks for the help! That one caught me by surprise, nearly made a snack out of me!” I said sounding for all the world genuinely happy that he had killed the drake, no need to vent on the villagers. Don’t want them to think I am a jerk, even if the timing of his arrow was a little off....yeah, I needed to get more info about this place, and why these creatures were fighting. There are always reasons behind a conflict. Thinking about it, the drakes at the gate seemed to be acting strange, for starters they didn’t seem to be using their fire.

But then wasn’t the time for deep thought, while I had been thinking, the pegasus had been looking around, no doubt trying to find another drake to kill, and he found one, or rather one found him. While he was looking toward the ground for a drake one bomb dived him, as it dove closer I saw fire building in its open mouth, being a good hero I did the only thing I could - I tackled the pegasus. Knocked him right out of the air, falling in a tangle of limbs, I noticed something, we were going to land in a nice cart of hay, or so I thought. No, fate was not that kind, we landed on the pile of rocks right beside it, with the pegasus landing on top of me.

With my sight slowly dimming, I looked down and saw a pool of blood slowly forming, which was REALLY bad, lichs, liches, lichs...whatever I was, don’t bleed much. Looking back up I saw the pegasus trying to get up, and then I saw the drake land behind him. Waiting, struggling with all my might to hold on to consciousness, I waited for the drake to get close, then I pulled all the strength I could into sending a blood tendril through its eye, killing it. I smile, “Hehe, got ya” I say weakly. All of my joy fades though when with the last of my consciousness I saw the drake fall directly toward me.

I woke up sometime later, the sun shining in my face, still laying on the rocks, with my drake corpse blanket keeping me warm. That’s when I realized something. “That ass... flank, he left me here to die, AFTER I SAVED HIM!!!”

I was not a happy undead pony vampire lich thing, to say the least. Having healed on my own over night, and managing to sleep through most the night, which didn’t actually help me be any less tired at all, thanks to the fact that I was healing the whole time, I felt about the same as I did the day before, tired.

Pushing the drake off of me with relatively little effort, I rolled over, and got to my hooves. The day was new, I hadn’t gotten attacked by a group of ponies yet, I was still the self declared leader of a town...probably, even better I wasn’t dead, to say the least things were looking good. Skipping over to Fluffies office I started to sing Smile, just to complete the overly happy thing I had going, plus, the song rocks. Halfway to his office I realized something, I didn’t know the whole song, so I tried to mash it with the parts of ‘Winter Wrap Up’ that I knew. To say the least it didn’t make any sense at all, okay maybe a nickel worth of sense, but that's all. I was still singing this monstrosity, when I barged into Captain Fluffies office. Spotting Fluffy behind his desk I greet him ecstatically, “Hello Fluffy!” I say musically before jumping over the table to hug him. Yeeeuup, he is still just as soft as his name implies, though he did smell a bit of sweat.

“Hello” he replied nervously. I instantly sober up, realizing what was wrong.

“I have something on my face don’t I?”

“Yes.” He said, still trying to squirm away from me, I let him go.

“Le sigh, where is a sink?”

“There is a shower to the right, third door on the left.”

“Thanks!” I say once again peppy. Turning to leave for the shower, I noticed that we weren’t alone, sitting opposite of Captain was Blitzkrieg. “Hi Blitz, how are you?” I ask sincerely. Sure he may have tried to impale me, set me on fire, and have me torn apart by a angry mob, but it all failed, so I was willing to forgive him.

“Hi.” he said, he was trying to act gruff, but the way that he was scooting his chair away from me didn’t really help his image.

“Sorry about starting a fight yesterday.” I said extending a blood covered hoof, got to tease him a bit.

“Yeah, no problem.” He said trying to look anywhere but at my hoof, I start to smile.

“Don’t you think you should hurry, and clean up Red Tide” Captain Fluffy said, while staring at me, clearly not happy with me teasing his soldiers.

“I do suppose you’re right, I hope we can all work well together in the future, Blitz. The safety of the town depends on it, and so does your own” I added quickly, before hurriedly escaping out the door. Okay, so I may have still been holding a teensy bit of a grudge.

The showers were easy enough to find with the captains directions, walking in I found them similar to a high school shower. The floor was stone carved in such a way to allow traction, but allowing the water to drain, the showerhead and faucet looked like plain, there was little shelves in the wall every so often to allow soaps to be held. While studying all this I failed to notice one glaring detail, the woman showering in the far corner, pony woman, old filly, mare that’s it. Anyway, I didn’t notice her till I was nearly all the way to her. When I finally did notice her, I froze, my mind just locked up. A good two minutes later I realized that I was also of the female gender, and then I realized that ponies just about never wear clothes anyway. So, everything was ok...right?

Realizing that me seeing her wasn’t some sort of social taboo, I actually paid attention to what she looked like. She had a cutie mark of a boot, she was a pegasus with rather well defined muscles, almost like a gymnast would have, she had a light blue coat, and a rather long orange mane that was soaked through due to her showering. With her identifiable details listed in my head, I turned on the shower in front of me, and started to wash up. First I started with my teeth scrubbing them as hard as I could with my hoof, then came the hard part, getting all the blood out of my mane and coat. I tried to scrub off the blood with my hoof, while allowing hot water to pour down on it. This worked pretty well for the most part, but after consulting the mirror on the beam in the middle of the room I noticed my coat was still a bit too dark, and there were still patches of dried blood. I went back to showering.

“Hey, kid” I looked up at the pegasus.

“Yes.” I answered politely, didn’t really like being called kid, but that was what I was, so I let it slide.

“You really should have cleaned that blood off of yourself sooner, once it sets dries it’s pretty hard to get off. Actually how did you get all that blood on you anyway?”

“Oh, thanks!” I honestly didn’t know about the whole blood stain thing, I’ll admit my mom still does my laundry, it’s really the only nice thing she does for me anymore. Now I know that sounds childish, but she did try to make me pay for rent in junior high. When I had no way to get a job...

“Not a problem.” She responds.

“As for how I got covered in blood, I fought some drakes, and won.” I said while extending my fangs and showing them to her.

“So, you’re ‘Red Tide’, eh?”

“Yes ma'am, that do be I” I said taking a bow. “So, I’m already famous?”

“Hehe. Try, infamous.”

“Meh, close enough.” I said shrugging, this elects a laugh from her.

“Close enough, eh, so you don’t mind most of the town hating you?” She asked with a slight grin on her face.

“Wow, rough question there, but honestly, no, I don’t care. I plan on getting as many ponies to safety as I can, and if they hate me for defending myself, well they can just get over it, or not it’s their decision. I really don’t care, I still plan on saving them, even if they do hate me... though I may cause problems for them if they are overly hostile.” I said, letting a evil smirk spread across my face. She actually shivered a bit at my expression. “So, anyway what is your name?” I said going back to scrubbing my fur, not that it was doing much.

“Name is Lead Hoof” She says proudly. “and in case you were wondering, my cutie mark is for kicking flank”

“OH MY GOD!!!” I said going into full on fanboy mode, complete with squealing. “That has to be the best cutie mark in the history of cutie marks!!”

“Hehe, thanks kid” She said blushing slightly.

“Oh oh oh oh!” I said jumping around, nearly slipping in the shower. “Can we fight later?”

“Sure, we can spar some time, just don’t complain when you lose” She said with a cocky grin on her face. “Well, I need to go report to Captain, he will want to know how the manticore extermination went.”

“Cool, I need to talk to him as well.” So, I followed her to where the towels were kept, then we both dried off and went back to Fluffies office. Walking in behind Lead Hoof, I noticed that Blitzkrieg was gone.

“Hello Captain” Lead Hoof said giving a smart salute.

“How did the mission go?”

“The mission went well, we managed to kill thirteen manticores, and wounded several more.”

“Good, maybe we won’t have to worry about them attacking us while we are gathering food anytime soon.”

“That would be nice” Lead Hoof said.

“Hmmm, so you want all the manticores in the area killed? If so I can send Kindle after them, he could use a good meal.”

“Kindle?” The Captain ask me.

“Yeah, he is my bone drake.”

“Bone drake, what is that?” Lead Hoof ask

“Well, I used my necromancy to reanimate a drakes bones and now I am hiding him out in the forest.”

“Necromancy?” Lead Hoof asked.

“It’s a type of magic that perverses the natural cycle of life and death, it is capable of reanimated corpses, creating golems, and at higher levels bringing life to things that have lost their life, or that never lived. The good spells though are so freakin hard to complete, I mean in order to actually revive someone properly, I have to actually go down into Tartarus and find the individual soul. Though I do suppose that the soul location spell would make that rather easy, but then there is Tartanium, which just f’s magic over.” Finally taking a breath, I continued on. “Anyway to sum it up, with necromancy I can make things move that shouldn’t be able to, and under certain conditions can give true life to objects.”

“Oh” Both of them said together

“So, do you want me to send my bone drake construct to search and destroy manticores?”

“Yes?” Captain said not quite sure.

“Do you need me to have him kill anything else while he is out, or do you need him keep any of the parts from the dead?”

“If you could kill some coctirce as well, and keep the tails of the manticores that would be great.”

“Keeping the tails for the poison?” I asked. I mean anything with the tail of a scorpion seems a bit dangerous to me.

“Yes” Fluffy responded.

“Cool,” I relayed the orders to Kindle, and off he went. “Kindle is on his way, so anything else that needs to be done.”

“No, that should be all, not counting the drakes of course.” Captain said.

“Oh, well I heard there was some diamond dogs near here, and that they had kidnapped some ponies.”

“What?!” Both of them said at once.

“Is that where Cold Steel went?” Lead Hoof asked.

“I thought he had gotten killed by the wild life, but being enslaved by diamond dogs seems more likely. He never was good at against them, always breathed in the sleeping gas.” Fluffy said matter-of -factly.

“They have sleeping gas?” I asked

“Sleeping gas, explosive flask, and burrowing under their target are all common tactics for diamond dogs.” Lead foot said.

“Sounds fun!” I exclaimed, they both look at me like I am mad.”What, I like a good fight, and I haven't had one in a long time.”

“And fighting most of the village didn’t count?” Fluffy ask, I just shake my head.

“I had to hold back, and make sure they didn’t kill each other.” I explained.

“What about the drakes?”

“I killed them as quickly as possible, only one actually got to throw a attack at me.” Their eyes bulged a bit at this. “I attacked them from behind” I said, making their eyes a little less huge.”So anyway when we get to go play hero, and kill the bad bipedal subterranean dog creatures....No! Wait I have a much better plan, Cap, can you get me diamonds, lots of diamonds?”

Does the scientific method aply to magic?

After talking about my plan to Cap and Lead Hoof, we worked on a time frame. Turns out between, letting the troops rest, gathering enough gems, and with various other things, the plan was going to take about a week to be ready to implement. Then there was the fact that we didn’t actually know where the diamond dogs were hiding. We may have been trapped in a valley, but that didn’t mean that it was small, far from it in fact. After talking to Fluffy I found out that the valley was roughly a circle, with the town being close to the center, and the nearest mountain being five miles away. So assuming that everything is round, and making a low estimate, it would be five time five times about three point fourteen, but for our purposes I could just use three, so that means that there are seventy five square miles to search. Okay, there was actually more than that, but even seventy five miles to search in a heavily forested area, filled with monsters it would be troublesome to say the least.

Until then I had changed Kindles orders, making him stop flying around looking for clearings, instead he was to start searching around the base of the mountains. The reason that I had him do that was because Diamond Dogs mined for diamonds and other rare gems, and those are more abundant in mountains, I think. Yet another reason that having mindless minions is so good, they can do things that would drive most people insane, if they weren’t being paid minimum wage, and not care.

“What do you mean we all have to give blood?” One of the citizens asked while I was once again on the podium, apparently he didn’t like my new law that forced him to donate blood.

“Well, I have to drink blood in order to get stronger, so I can protect you better.” I explained calmly.

“Like we would believe the words of a bloodthirsty monster like you!” A mare shouted.

“Wow, harsh much, but even if you don’t want to help me, the blood bank is low. This means that if guards get hurt and need blood there won’t be any for them.”

“Like we give a buck about the gaurds!” Yelled one elderly stallion, there was a more than a small amount of agreement from the rest of the crowd. I could tell there was something up there, and the fact that I had seen a child throw a rock at Silver Sword earlier didn’t make the connection any harder to make.

“Well I will assume that you care about yourself if no one else. So, what I am saying is that if anything happens to you, Celestia forbid it does, and you need blood. How do you plan on getting it if no one is giving any? You can’t rightly take what doesn’t exist, now can you.” The crowd didn’t seem happy about that, but not much to do about that, not now at least.

“What is this about needing all the precious gems in the town. I do hope there is a reason behind that.” Said a pretty long haired earth pony, with a needle across a diamond as her cutie mark.

“That is a very good question my lady, it is part of a plan I have to get us out of here.” I replied, trying to be nice.

“And, what exactly is this plan?” She asked back.

“Well to keep it short I found out the location of some diamond dogs, and I plan on hiring them to dig a tunnel through the mountain to freedom for us. Though I should be able to get the gems back in the end.” That was the simplified kid friendly version at least. What I truly planned on doing was hiring them with all the gems we have saying that we would pay them more once the tunnel was complete. Then once they complete the tunnel I would ask for them to return ponies that they had taken as slaves, with no compensation for said slaves. Of course they would say no especially since I would be going alone, making our forces seem weak. Once they attacked me to take me hostage I would slay all of the dog, free the captives, and take all the gems they had gathered.

She raised an eyebrow questioningly, “Should?”

“Yes, now any other questions?” I said completely blowing her off.

“Yes, what is that?” Blitzkrieg asked pointing at Kindle.

“This, is Kindle, he the skeleton of a drake that I reanimated. He makes a great scout, but has no real mind of his own or tongue, so talking to him won’t get you anywhere. To cut off future questions, no, I will not raise your loved ones, I will not be reanimating everything I kill, and no, I will not reanimate a army of undead and go into the mouth of hell to kill the drake queen.” I stopped to think about this for a sec, I mean it sounded pretty damn fun actually. “Well, I won’t be doing that unless my plan ends horribly and we are forced to make a quick escape, so if you could please leave the drake corpses in relatively good condition, and move them out of the city, I would appreciate it a lot.” A lot of them just gave me strange looks, along with grumbles from most of the crowd. “What? I plan on using every resource I can to get us out, you do want to escape right?” There came a bunch of mumbling from the crowd, though I think it was in agreement, mostly. “So, who wants to ask the last question for the day?” One of the ponies I had saved the night before spoke up.

“You said you are here to help us, and you saved me from the drake yesterday. Why?”

“Why what?” I asked, not exactly sure what she meant.

“Why help us? I saw you fight, the drakes would never be able to catch you if you ran, especially not in the woods. Why stay here and risk your life to help us?” By the end of her question I was smiling rather broadly. I love it when people pay attention and ask the good questions. When it doesn’t get me attacked by mobs, that is.

“I like you. What's your name?” I asked.

“Mary Sue.” I barely managed to keep a straight face. I was definitely going to talk to that pony later.

“To answer your question, I promised.” I said.

“Please elaborate.” She responded, curious, there were several head nods as well, as if they actually cared.

“I doubt I can express in words the true meaning, or sentiment behind the promise I speak of, and failing to express it properly would be a disservice to both the promise itself and you all. For now I ask that you simply understand that I do want to help you, and I don’t want to see you suffer. I genuinely do care for your safety and am working hard to figure out a way for us all to escape. Now I am sorry, but I must get back to work.” After saying this I jumped onto Kindle, and flew.

With my day now clear all that was left for me was to find something to do. Something to do....then it hit me, I could go bug Fluffy. “No, wait, I could try making a stable, non-explody construct instead. Well one not made out of bones.”

Jumping off of Kindle, as he skimmed the trees right outside the wall I got to work, and sent him to do more searching. I already had one possible location the diamond dogs could be at, and had him destroy the trees around it as a marker.

First thing first though, increasing control over my powers, and to do that I needed to practice, and to do that I needed not to die. So I started to pile some dead trees and such together in order to make a barricade in case, Dess forbid, I don’t get it perfect the right time. Once my safety barrier was set up I started to gather resources. First I would need go get something for the basic body, tree limbs would work. Next, I needed something to work as joints, something flexible, luckily I found some nice blue flowers nearby. Their long stems were perfect for what I needed, just needed to twist a few of the stalks together, then loop a few around perpendicular to the rest in order to keep the main bundles together. Once I had everything formed the way that I wanted I found a stick and stabbed myself. I find it disturbing just how many times I have inflicted bodily harm to myself on purpose since getting to Equestria.

With the newly formed cut, I started carving runes into the body of what would be a wooden construct, I then poured a bit of blood on the flexible stocks and placed the pieces gently together. The magic took care of binding the pieces together by fusing the wood and flower stems together.

The basic form being done, I hid behind my barricade, hoping that when the thing blew up I didn’t die, because it was going to blow up, one way or another. Cowering behind the rotting wood, I started to channel magic through my blood, my skin turned red, glowing slightly. Then the bipedal gollum rose, it sat up perfectly, pushed off with its hands and feet, and walked into the forest. I didn’t have to take control of it directly, I could have just gave it orders and let it go off and do its thing, but I didn’t. I wanted to know how well the little thing would hold together, so I looked through its senses, sadly the only sense I could get was sight, and I am not even sure how that worked. I mean the thing doesn’t even have eyes, I would definitely need to research how the sight worked on it later.

Anyway that aside the thing worked pretty well. It had good strength, the joints reinforced by my blood magic didn’t show any signs of breaking even after thirty minutes of use, the runes didn’t seem to be breaking apart like last time. All in all it was working perfectly, which was strange. ‘Why is this working? The last one had it’s runes start to disappear after prolonged use, and I had to replace the joints over and over again. I mean if anything I would think the office supplies would work better, they were made of metal and paper. These are just made of wood and stems....’ That’s when it hit me, plants have a very small amount of life energy in them, like a tiny tiny tiny amount, and not in the same way that animals have life energy. No, it's different, not exactly sure how to explain it properly, you would have to see it to understand. OH FUCK, I forgot to tell you I had a spell to see different kinds of magic, life and death energies included. I keep it off nearly all the time, it’s a pain to maintain, hurts to look at most stuff with, and generally not worth mentioning most of the time. The only time it really comes in handy is when I am experimenting, like now, or I am looking for a skeleton, which I haven't used it for yet. Seeing as how I could summon bone creatures in a area of effect style I really didn’t need to worry about this spell much.

While I was experimenting with the golem, I started to wonder if it was possible to create one using nonliving pieces. Looking it up, I found a page number. I sent a burst of magic into the golem and let it explode, the explosion wasn’t as cool as I was hoping, but then again I couldn’t see it. I was still hiding when it went off.

Having finished my field studies, I started walking back to town, eager to try out some new spells, and now equipped with the knowledge that I could reanimate bugs. It was a side note on the page I was reading. Yay for side notes, now I could go Moses on some bitches...yeah, I’m probably going to Hell or Tartarus for that one, but until then....

ANYWHOOO!!!! Me back at base, A.K.A. Mad’s house, A.K.A. the creepy underground complex where I practice magic that perverses life and death, and sleep. And that’s what I did after reading most of the day away, the experiment and speech taking up the rest of the day.

It wasn’t till the next day that I realized just what plant I had used, and why plants are not to be trifled with.