Chapters The howling wind made his long blonde hair sweep wildly around his head as he rode his clay bird above a winding gorge. Deidara glanced back over his shoulder at the pursuing figures deep below him, hoping from tree to tree in a futile attempt to reach him. He had intentionally antagonized them, but hadn't expected to get such a base reaction. They were trying to kill him. Despite the severity of his situation, he took a second to idly think out loud.
“The boy has calmed down. I wonder what’s he planning now, yeah?”
Surprisingly, he actually preffered having the younger ninja enraged so as to make him sloppy and predictable. It was under this reasoning that Deidara had antagonized him, all to maintain his advantage. It had been a good plan, but with Kakashi to keep Naruto in check, it wasn't likely to work anytime soon.
Regardless of what they planned to do, Deidara was confident. The boy was a mere berserker, and Kakashi couldn't cover for him forever. He had the advantage of a being a distance fighter, and being able to maintain his distance. A smirk formed on Deidara’s face, which quickly grew into a grin.
“I’ll simply separate them, yeah?” As he said this, Deidara reached his remaining hand into his clay pouch. The mouth on his palm opened and greedily began chewing some of his clay as his fingers closed around it. His hand mouth allowed him to create explosive clay sculptures, and when he infused them with some of his explosive nature chakra they ‘came to life.’ If anyone worthy was around, he would have loudly professed the sheer artistry of his technique, but he wasn't about to deliver a sermon to an audience that couldn't understand. Never cast your pearls before swine, after all.
But instead of using his technique, his smile fell, and he said, “Tsk. Not enough clay left. I’ll have to think of something else.” He opened his fist to allow his hand mouth to spit out the wad of clay it had been chewing. He recognized that he would need to conserve his stores of clay, for now.
Below Deidara, running beneath him in the gorge, Naruto turned to his sensei and asked, “Kakashi, aren't you ready yet?”
Naruto was getting impatient in his pursuit. Deidara had hurt his beloved Gaara, and he wasn't going to let him get away with it. The moment he had made the mistake of hurting one of Naruto’s precious people was the moment his fate had been sealed. Naruto took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down. Even in his extremely agitated state he recognized he couldn't win if he lost control.
Kakashi kept his gaze locked firmly on his opponent as he answered, “I told you to calm down.” He paused, and then added, “I don’t have as much chakra as you. This sort of thing takes time to prepare.” As he jumped alongside his student, he formed the ‘tiger’ hand seal. He closed his eyes as he focused completely on channeling his energy. He needed to concentrate, and Naruto’s constant interruptions were not helping him do so.
Naruto let out a breath of air he’d been holding, and then refocused forwards on the fleeing form of Deidara. I won’t let you get away with this! He mentally raged as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists. Memories of Gaara flashed through his mind. He would not let his murderer escape. No! Not his murderer! Gaara can’t be dead. Not him.
He again turned back towards his teacher, and asked again, “Kakashi, are you ready yet?”
“Just about.”
A few seconds later Kakashi opened his eyes, and again locked them on Deidara. His left eye had a strange black and red design on it. Unlike his other eye, the pupil was blood red with a strange black pinwheel shape on it.
Naruto looked at Kakashi’s strange eye, and asked, “ Is that what you were telling me about?”
“Right. My new Sharingan Eye. Let’s go Naruto!”
They both increased their speed in order to catch up to Deidara. Kakashi’s Sharingan eye was a valuable asset, the expert use of which had given him the nickname Sharingan Kakashi. It had many abilities, chief among them the ability to copy another’s techniques; it also dramatically increased one’s reaction times. Once a Sharingan user has reached a certain level of strength, they gain access to a unique Mangekyou Sharingan, the abilities of which differ from user to user. Kakashi had already explained all of this to Naruto.
As Naruto and Kakashi jumped through the trees, Kakashi noticed Naruto was staring at him. He glanced over an asked, “What is it?”
Naruto paused a second, then replied, “Kakashi, don’t worry if this doesn’t work.” He then looked up at Deidara and growled, “I’ll make sure to finish him.”
“Yeah. If it comes to that.”
“Right.”
Deidara glanced backwards again. “They’re still following me, yeah?” He looked down at the tiny figures of Kakashi and Naruto, and chuckled. The confident smirk never left his face, despite the pain he must have been feeling from the loss of his arm.
Kakashi said, “Let’s do it. Naruto, time to back off a bit.”
His student nodded. “Got it.”
Kakashi looked up at Deidara, and took a deep breath. “Mangekyou Sharingan!”
Deidara looked wildly around. Something was wrong with his vision. The air around him seemed distorted, and wavering. Suddenly he realized that the air itself looked like it was swirling around him. Almost like the fabric of reality itself was twisting. His confident smirk vanished as the gravity of the situation dawned on him.
He gasped, and quickly had his clay bird perform evasive maneuvers, yet he could not escape the bending of reality. Deidara felt as if every single part of him was being sucked into one point, and worse still was that the one point was in the center of his chest. His bird swerved wildly as Deidara's chakra surged and trembled, but still the focus of the singularity was on Deidara’s chest.
Everything was swaying and moving, as if it was water caught in the grasp of a whirlpool. Suddenly, Deidara felt like he was collapsing in on himself. He let out a pained yell as he was fully sucked into a singularity.
Far below, his pursuers stopped in their tracks, their job done. Naruto asked, “Kakashi sensei? What exactly does your Mangekyou Sharingan do?”
Between deep, panting breaths, Kakashi answered, “It sucks my target into a pocket dimension. Don’t worry, Gaara’s killer is dead.”
"Nnngaah, I feel like Leader threw me through several walls, yeah."
Deidara was so far out of it that he wasn't sure whether he said that out loud or merely thought it, but he also didn't really care. He could feel that he was laying on something rather soft, but that was the absolute limit of his sensory capabilities at the moment. His head felt completely empty, and it awkwardly lolled around on his shoulders. He tried to open his eyes, and after a moment was able to. He was surprised, to say the least.
He could tell that he was laying on his back on a bed, which was odd considering his last memories were of aerial combat above a forest. As he glanced around the room, he was surprised to see that everything was white or soft shades of blue. Suddenly his eyes widened, as he realized that his scope was gone, as was his clothes. The only thing covering him was a shit so thin it was nearly translucent. Was I captured by the Leaf-ninja? he thought, but then realized that if he was captured they would be quite a bit rougher on him. Not to mention there would be quite a bit of security.
He sat up, which was more difficult than normal thanks to his missing left arm (which he noticed had been bandaged), and the action of moving his good arm made him realize that he had wires sticking out of it. He ripped them out while barely giving a grunt of discomfort, and traced them to a small machine next to his bed. He realized it was a heart monitor a second after it disconnected from him, and was rewarded with a high pitched beeping noise.
Deidara laid back down and thought, Well, I guess I'm in a hospital, yeah. So I wonder, did a civilian find me and take me to a hospital? His revelry was interrupted by his door opening, and he looked expectantly at it to see his host.
He was more than a little surprised to see a large black gorilla in a lab coat and glasses pawing through a clipboard. The gorilla looked up at him and smiled. "Hello my friend. I am Doctor Björn." He held out his arm as if he wanted to shake hands, but Deidara did not return the gesture. This didn't seem to faze the doctor, who merely chuckled, and asked, "So my friend, I trust that your stay here has been pleasant?"
Doctor Björn's attempt at humor did little to improve Deidara's mood. He lowered his eyes in irritation. Yeah, so whoever saved me doesn't even think I'm important enough to greet in person, he just sends his summon. He thought to himself.So how about I go show my 'host' what I think of that, yeah?
Deidara, intent on finding the human behind the monkey, flipped the sheet off of him and swung his legs over the side of the bed. With a start, he remembered that his clothes were gone. He snarled and shouted at the gorilla, "Where the hell are my clothes, yeah?"
With a calming smile, Doctor Björn explained, "Those rags you were covered in when you were brought here? I believe they are at the laundry as we speak." He shook his head and chuckled as he continued, "My friend, do you have any idea how dirty they were? Why, they were covered in so much mud and blood that we didn't even realize it had a cloud pattern on at first."
As Deidara huffed in irritation, the doctor continued, "But if you would like some clothes, we have some gowns for visitors such as yourself. Tell you what, in just a moment I'll call for a nurse to bring you one." He paused, and with a long arm pulled a chair from against the wall over to Deidara's bed. "Now my friend, why don't you tell me just what you are? I must admit, when you were first brought in to me I thought you were simply a gorilla with a terrible case of mange. Well, a gorilla with mange who is also missing a limb and has sever blood loss and dehydration. Well, I think you're missing a limb. Your species isn't asymmetrical, and has only one arm with the other shoulder continuously bleeding, right?" He stopped talking, and it took Deidara a moment to realize that he was expecting a answer.
Meanwhile, Deidara's mind was reeling. The way he's talking it's as if he's never seen a human before? But how could that be, yeah? If someone summoned him to be a doctor, then this monkey had to have seen a person before. Have I somehow landed in the middle of a tribe of monkeys who have never seen the outside world? He shook his head. No, that's impossible, not to mention stupid. As far as I know, there's no place in the Elemental Nations to have talking monkeys that have simultaneously never seen a human, yeah. This rules out the possibility of this monkey being a summon, as well as me being in the Elemental Nations.
Turning his body so he faced the doctor completely, Deidara demanded, "Where the hell am I, yeah?"
After a moment as he processed what the strange creature in front of him asked, Doctor Björn again laughed as he said, "That was funny my friend, but how about we leave the jokes to me?" As Deidara continued to stare at him angrily, he realized that he was serious. After a moment, he answered, "You are in the Fossvogur Hospital, in Hæð Tré City. Is that answer sufficient for you?"
Deidara mulled over the new information, before deciding it was insufficient, and asking, "What country, yeah?"
"You are in the beautiful country of Ioðinn Fólkheim. We are to the West of Equestria, to the North of the Zebrican Hegemony, and to the South of the Griffon Badlands." Doctor Björn waited to see if his patient would accept his answer, and when he didn't interrupt he assumed he had. "Well, now that we have that unpleasantness out of the way, where are you from, my friend?"
Author's Note
Hello my friends. In case anyone is wondering, I listened to this the entire time I wrote this http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=hnL-XglIhD0 . As I write this the repeat counter is at 78. I think I may be going crazy.
A short while later Deidara had been returned his personal items, such as his scouter, clay pouch, and his clothes. The biggest difference with his clothes was that now they had somehow lost all of their bloodstains and other stains.
Deidara finished securing his clay pouch to his body (which took longer than normal due to his new disability) before turning to Doctor Björn and saying, "Thanks for returning my possesions in such a nice state. Now, how would you like to see my art?"
Doctor Björn leaned forward in his chair. So far Deidara had not at all been willing to answer his questions, yet here he was now offering information. He said, "So my friend, you are an artist, yes? Tell me, what medium do you work with? Oils? Music? The written word?"
With a grin Deidara reached his hand into his clay pouch. As he rummaged around inside it, he said, " Some artists use the brush, while others work in wood. I on the other hand work in the purest medium: in life. Out of meaningless clay, I create life, yeah. Observe." With his last statement he withdrew his hand in the shape of a closed fist from his clay pouch.
Upon seeing this Doctor Björn was confused, and wondered if his patient planned on sculpting something from such a small amount of clay. He leaned back in his chair, as he knew it would take a while. He wasn't bothered by Deidara's short speech on art, and the inherent arrogance in his statements, as he spent his fair share of time in Hæð Tré's art district. In his opinion, it was necessary for artists to have egos the size of their aspirations.
In the time it took for Doctor Björn to finish his introspection, Deidara was already finished. He opened his hand, and sitting in his palm was a small, delicate bird. The only sign it was not alive was it's lack of movement, and pure white color. Doctor Björn was impressed, to say the least. But when he opened his mouth to tell Deidara of that, the artist threw his creation straight at him.
If Doctor Björn's focus wasn't solely on the clay creation sailing through the air towards him, he would have noticed his patient make a strange symbol with his hand, before the bird suddenly started moving! It moved its wings up and down so fast that they became a mere blur, and it used its wings to stop itself mere inches from the doctor. It began flitting around the room as if possessed by a desire to escape it, before Deidara made a slight gesture, and it hovered between the two.
His mouth was open, but no wards came from Doctor Björn.
Deidara relished to look of amazement on his face, before continuing in his description of art, both in general and his specifically. "It's beautiful, isn't it? While it starts off as simple clay, using the mouth on my palm I am able to mold it into whatever I desire, and by infusing my chakra into it, I bring it to life, yeah. But that's not all, to really appreciate true art you have to feel it."
Doctor Björn was confused, but he decided to humor Deidara, so he reached out to touch the bird. As he did so, Deidara gained a manic grin, and made a hand-seal.
An explosion rocked the hospital, so strong that it shattered glass for blocks around the building. As gorillas around the building looked up in horror at the smoking hole in the wall of the hospital, they saw a thin figure leap out. Deidara hit the ground and rolled, laughing manically the whole way. He had gone too long without making art, and hadn't been able to stand it anymore.
He again reached his hand into his clay pouch to create a bird, but this time he was interrupted. Glancing left, then right, he saw that he was surrounded by at least ten gorillas, all in security uniforms. They were warily, but quickly, approaching him carrying small black clubs. Deidara laughed to himself at the idea of them being able to take him.
When he opened his hand this time, he was holding several birds, that quickly flew towards his aggressors. With a cry of "Katsu!" and his hand seal, they exploded, throwing up large clouds of dirt and sending the gorillas flying. With a slightly dampened expression, Deidara murmured, "They seem to be more durable than humans, yeah." But after just a moment his expression brightened as he added, "So I guess I'll just have to use a little more chakra!"
So smirking, he left behind the unconcious forms of the security team as he walked away from the hospital, which by this point was on fire. He heard sirens, and realizing that his clay supply was still very limited, decided to avoid the authorities by ducking into an nearby alley. He was the most dangerous thing here, after all.
As he was in a completely foreign land populated by monkeys, Deidara was surprised to see that the alleyways here were just as dirty as the one's back home in the Hidden Stone Village. He slowly shook his head as he passed by a torn up couch surrounded by empty needles that used to be filled with what he could only assume were a mind altering substance and said, "Pitiful. To imagine that some people are so weak as to need help just to exist, yeah."
Suddenly Deidara spun around, his hand already in his clay pouch. He had heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and was ready to demonstrate the nature of his art. When he saw that he was facing a rather large gorilla wearing a trench coat, black beret and sunglasses, he paused. The gorilla said, "Hello there my friend. Some associates and I were so lucky to witness your display at the hospital. And I must say I'm impressed with your abilities. Now I am part of a very special group, a group that could use someone with talents such as yours."
Deidara withdrew his hand from his pouch, before stuffing it into the pocket on his cloak. He was used to being approached like this, and as long as the money was right then this would be a welcome distraction from his situation. After all, the other Akatsuki members weren't there to ruin his fun. But first he had to set some ground rules. "Alright, my rate is a lot of money, and I don't bomb orphanages. Everything else is fine, yeah."
The gorilla chuckled, before replying, "Don't worry my friend, we both know that blowing up something as small scale as an orphanage would be a waste of your talents. No, there's something much more important we need you for. You see, my associates and I are in the shipping business, and we have a lot of ponies in Equestria who need our product. Unfortunately, their Captain of the Guard has instituted a crackdown on businesses such as ours, so we need you to-"
He was cut off when by Deidara, who said, "Look, I'm not going to smuggle drugs for you. I'm not going to waste my time just so some rich guy can chase some angels, yeah. I have much better things to do, such as perfecting my art."
"No, I can assure you that is not what we have in mind. Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush here, we need you to kill the Captain of the Guard."
After pretending to think about it for a moment, Deidara smirked and said, "Deal. But remember what I said about my fee."
The gorilla laughed and said, "Don't worry about it my friend, if you'll follow me to my place of business, we can discuss this job, and its fee, at length."
Following behind the gorilla, Deidara smiled. He had only been in this world for a day, and he already was in a position to share his art with as many people as possible.
Sandy Lines was tired and bored, but more the latter than the former. As he leaned against his spear, he bemoaned his posting into the middle of nowhere. The border between Equestria and Ioðinn Fólkheim never saw any sort of violence. Just because drug runners sometimes used this desert road didn't mean it deserved to have an entire guard post. He sighed, but straightened up when he saw a senior officer approach. However, he noticed it was his friend, and relaxed. Sandy said, "Unless you're hear to tell me that orders for my transfer to Las Pegasus have come in, I don't want to hear it."
The older pegasus chuckled before responding, "I'm afraid those haven't come in yet. But I'm sure they will eventually." He paused while he adjusted his standard issue Border Protection grey helm, before continuing, "Hey, since this is my last day before retirement, I was wondering if-"
He was cut off when Sandy shoved his hoof into his mouth before looking around fearfully. The older guard was about to show him his displeasure, when Sandy nervously said, "Are you crazy? You never say outloud that you're close to retirement! Haven't you ever heard of retirony? "
After Sandy removed his hoof, the older pegasus just chuckled, his prior anger forgotten. "Come on, you know that's a load of manure. I mean look at us." With this command he made a grandiose gesture to their surroundings, or rather the lack thereof. Besides their guardhouse where the rest of their unit was inside, there was nothing around but prairie for miles. He pointed up, the the clear sky broken only by a single bird, flying high above them.
Sandy sighed, before saying, "I don't know, it just doesn't seem like a good idea to-THERE'S A HUGE SPIDER ON YOU!" He leapt back in fright, as his friend looked over his shoulder, where there was indeed a large white spider. He jumped forward while trying to swat it off, and Sandy fell over backwards in fright. Unfortunately for him, once he was on his back he noticed another spider was on his right hind leg. He let out a scream of terror to match his partner's stream of curses, both of which were suddenly cut off by twin explosions.
Far above the two guards, and the crater that used to house their post, Deidara and his local pony contact, a purple pony with a grape cutie mark, were flying on one of his clay birds. Deidara's smirk turned into a grin when he saw her face: she was open mouthed in awe at his display of his art. Laughing, he said, "I told you I wouldn't be needing any of your papers, yeah. I have my own way of getting into places that I'm not wanted."
"Sir! Another post has been hit!" This solemn news was delivered by a Royal Guard whom had just galloped into the War Room.
One of the older ponies turned in his seat at the table of officers and asked, "Which one?"
"Sir! The outpost outside of Dodge City has been completely destroyed!"
"Dammit!" Both the courier and the officer looked over at the cause of the outburst, their Captain of the Guard, Shining Armor. He looked up from the map he had been studying to say, "We've lost every post from Ponyville to Ioðinn Fólkheim!" After his short outburst he sat back down, and closed his eyes for a moment while taking controlled breaths. After a short moment he opened his eyes and said, "Look, what do we know about this motherbucker?"
After waiting a moment but not receiving a response, he turned slightly and said to an aide behind him, "Well?"
The aide's eyes widened upon realizing he was being addressed, before rushing forwards, dropping several of the papers he had been clutching. After another moment of gathering his papers, he spread them on the table. Everyone in the room leaned forward to see what they could, and were glad to see several pictures of the terrorist carving a path of destruction through their homes.
Smirking up at them was the picture of some one armed gorilla with mange issues. He was standing next to a purple pony on the back of some sort of avian, and in true tough guy fashion, there was an explosion behind him. As they all looked at the first available picture of their enemy, the aide said, "We know that this thing attacks with remote controlled explosives, that seem to emanate from a mouth on his palm. So far he has hit five posts, and one border checkpoint. These attacks have all been instant, with no possible attempt for a counter attack. He also appears to have taken a hostage, but his motives are unknown. He is currently heading northwest from Dodge City, apparently heading for Canterlot. Unfortunately, that is all we know."
One of the officers seated around the table, a large earth pony stallion, asked, "Wait, if this thing is so deadly, then how did we get this picture?"
"This photo and several others were taken by one of Princess Luna's Shadowbolts who happenned to be vacationing in Dodge City, hence the camera. She judged that she would be unable to take down the target on her own, and that getting intel on it would be her highest priority."
"Dammit." Again the room looked to Shining Armor, to see how he would lead them in this situation. He said, "Get the Crimson Tide down from Pony-yang right now. Since he's an airborne combatant, we need those elite flyers to bolster the Wonderbolts."
"But sir, what about the Shadowbolts?"
"You know as well as I do that they aren't suited to direct combat against a monster of this calibre. Have them continue gathering intel, while we mobilize." He stood up, and made eye contact with everyone in the room before saying, "Gentlecolts, this thing cannot reach Canterlot. Whatever happens, this is not to bother the Princesses. Sure, they could take this thing out in their sleep, but we swore to protect this land. And what kind of protectors have to constantly run back to their mommies? No, we'll take this thing down before it reaches a population center." As he looked around the room, his confidence quickly spread from one individual to another. If this thing tried to attack Canterlot, it would be over quickly. They stood up, ready to fight the monster at their door.
In the woods on the edge of Ponyville, a huge white bird landed. A figure in a black cloak with red clouds jumped off of it, then waited while it's considerably less agile companion clambered down a wing. The person raised it's single arm, and tipped the straw hat it was wearing, revealing it's face and long blonde hair. He looked at his airsick companion before chuckling and saying, "You might want to get away from here. Things might get a little rough, yeah."
He laughed when he saw her look of fear, before she quickly turned and fled as fast as her four legs could carry her. He returned his straw hat to its original position, before turning away from his bird. He looked over, and between the trees, he could see that he was on a hill overlooking a picturesque village. He reflected on how many would describe the scene in front of him as pretty, with the beatiful landscape populated by adorable little horses. Then he grinned at the thought of showing them his art. Laughing, he began walking towards the town.
Author's Note
Sorry for a short chapter, and also sorry for it being light on Deidara. I just felt that this was a good place to put a break, as the next part is better told while being separate from this boring exposition.
