Equestria no Kitsune [REDUX]

"Y-you-- wha-- how am I supposed to outrun an airship?!" Redheart demanded. She then clasped her hands over her mouth, wide-eyed, as she'd never intended for that to come out. Mercifully, only one or two passers-by gave her an odd look, most of them just content to ignore her -- not that there were many ponies out that evening.

Okay, okay, I, uh.. I-I can help you with this, but it poses a risk.. the fox's voice began. Redheart could practically hear the metaphorical cogs turning, which seemed notably easy when you're sharing a body. The faintest, thrumming buzz of flux tyres could be heard. Extremely quiet, but undeniably there.

Redheart you're not going to like this, but if we stand any chance of getting away--

Uh, I think you mean any chance of YOU getting away! I'm not a fugitive OR an alien! she pointed out.

I get the message! I was saying that I need to take over your body again. Fully, this time.

Silence fell for a moment. The sounds of quiet footfalls and the crowds, and even the distant whirr were muted. The orange light of the sunset fell upon the left of her face as a defeated sigh left her lips.

Something was wrong, however. Of course time seemed to slow down in tense moments, but the way the meandering crowds had simply stopped where they were, mid-stride, caught her off-guard.

Before that happens, Redheart, please.. Ryu's voice began, before a brief flash of light erupted before Redheart's eyes, and a gust of wind knocked her back a little way. She struggled to regain balance for just a moment, but when she did;

"Please listen to me," Ryu finished, his voice more focused and a lot less echoed.

Confused, Redheart looked to her left and right before finding the source of that voice, behind her. Astonishingly, Ryuzaki was there, casually leant against a white stone-brick wall, his bushy, long tail swaying at what seemed like a snail's pace.

"H--how are you out here?! Aren't you still possessing me?" Redheart asked, beyond bewildered at that moment. Her gaze alternated between the seemingly paused, muted crowd and the fox's deathly thin figure, partially silhouetted by the bright amber sunset.

He gave her a small, half-hearted smile that faded before he turned to look at the river of pedestrians, his head resting against the wall, tiny particulates of white brick dust in his inky hair. "Tell me, Redheart-san. What do you see here?" Ryuzaki asked, lifting a hand to motion towards the crowd.

She turned and stared for a brief look. Countless ponies were on their way home at this point, no doubt, as if in a mass exodus from the workplace. A grey mare with a bright blonde mane and tail had tripped and spilled her coffee, the light brown drink frozen mid-air just as the mare was, paused on her way down to the paving. The hands on a businessman's watch had stopped ticking as well, frozen, just like its owner, in the middle of checking the time. Ironic, in a sense.

"You've... stopped time?" Redheart whispered, her eyes wide in spite of the intense evening sun. Her footsteps echoed as she tentatively stepped forward. The pigeon on a nearby bench had stopped, mid-takeoff, a skilfully-nabbed fry in its pinkish beak. A single raindrop hung in the air not two feet away from Redheart's head, like a suspended ice crystal, shining brightly as the sunlight hit it at just the right angle.

"No, not exactly. I can just convince it to... disregard us," Ryu answered, taking a deep sigh, a hand on his right shoulder. "What do you see, though?"

She considered his words, taking in the sight. "Uh... I, um.." Redheart began, her brow furrowed. In truth, nothing was that out of place, save from the fact that she was essentially living in a paused moment. But aside from the curious sense of unease one felt outside of time, there was nothing particularly noteworthy occurring.

Redheart looked back at Ryu with a shrug and a raised eyebrow. "What am I meant to be looking at, exactly? Is this some sort of... like, artistic analysis-type thing your kind do?"

Ryuzaki blinked slowly, and pushed himself off the wall with his shoulder. "No, it's not. You're looking too deep into it. I'll tell you what I see, though." Redheart could only stand and watch as Ryu's padded, clicking steps echoed through the street, his tail seemingly floating weightlessly as he paced towards the stagnant, frozen crowd, his hands clasped behind his back.

"You see, Redheart.. the thing you were meant to spot was a 'society'," he explained, pausing in front of the airborne coffee spillage. He plucked the cardboard-lined cup out of the air and delicately, almost as if it were a dangerous task, scooped the coffee out of the air.

"I see a society... no, an entire civilization, that would want me dead," Ryu said, replacing the lid on the coffee and slotting it back into the would-be unfortunate mare's hand, and the scene looked as if nothing had changed, save for the absence of dark beige coffee floating around. "I know mine would, were they in your situation. An alien crash-landing onto our planet, completely unharmed under the circumstances of atmospheric re-entry? That's what we would consider a 'threat', you know."

A shadow fell over the fox's muzzle as he padded down the length of the crowd, pausing to check the time on a passer-by's watch. "But here's what I don't understand. I know that you, as a general collective, would want me exiled or executed on the spot, if you had a say in the matter. That hasn't happened yet, and it's bugging me," Ryuzaki continued, reaching into the crowd to correct the time on another pony's wristwatch.

A sinking feeling made itself known in Redheart's chest. "Wh-why would you assume that we'd wanna kill you? We're not... like your people. I guess," she said, watching with no small amount of confusion as the fox paced about, fixing these small, minute details.

Ryuzaki smiled bleakly at that. "I guess that I'll find out, regardless. But here's what I've deduced," he announced, taking a quick look to his left, a sly, sinister look in his yellow, glowing eyes.

He whipped towards Redheart, far faster than anything Redheart had seen. "Your boss, I'm assuming, is the Head of Staff at that hospital. He, presumably, is under the command of a committee, or maybe some other sort of chief medical authority. Is that true?" Ryu asked, beginning to pad towards her.

Redheart recoiled just a little at that, but nodded. "Y-yes. Uh, well, we're usually overseen by a committee, like most hospitals around here, but--"

"Exactly. That individual, or group, considering that I'm still alive," he said in a mock amazed tone, motioning towards himself as he kept on pacing, "must have received orders to both keep me alive and to ensure my recovery. Now, I don’t know the circumstances of how I ended up there and I assume you don’t either. So I’m going to need to find out.”

He suddenly stopped, and shot his right hand into the stonework, launching a plume of pale dust before he pulled out a lump of brick from the wall itself. That plume of dust hung there, unaffected by time as Ryuzaki lobbed that chunk of rock to his right -- without even looking.

"So I am asking you, Redheart-san--" he began, becoming a blur as he sped back to the wall he was previously leaning on, "--who is the highest authority in government? What kind of government is it?"

She was put on the spot here. Redheart knew the basics of the government, of course, but she remembered only a little about it from her school days. "Okay, um.. well, it's a monarchy, mostly. B-but it's not like a dictatorship or anything like that," Redheart managed, a nervous smile making itself known.

That was only returned by a cold look from Ryu, which prompted for her to continue. "Uh, well, I guess the 'highest authority' would be Princess Celestia.. oh, she's not like... um," Redheart paused, searching for the right words.

"...She's not like... what?"

"Right! She's a little... unusual," Redheart nodded, trying to see that white brick Ryuzaki had thrown, but could only see a white blur, making its way slowly, at a snail's pace, through the air, disappearing around the corner.

"Unusual in what way, exactly?" Ryu asked. "If you're calling her unusual, then there must really be something odd about her."

"Celestia is not odd! She's just.. uh, well, she... moves the sun--"

Ryuzaki sighed and got to his feet, taking Redheart's hand once again. "I'm sorry, Redheart, but that sounds weird, yet interesting. And look, I can't sustain this time distortion for long, so I need to hop back inside. I've got an idea," he said, a hand on Redheart's shoulder.

"O-Oh, right, right.. But one more thing," she said, her nervous smile fading, that humorous tone of voice changing.

Ryu was stopped in his tracks, looking down at Redheart, the glow from his eyes fading for a second. "What's wrong?"

"Don't ever talk about us wanting to kill you. You can't just lump everypony into the 'We-Want-To-Kill-Aliens" camp. Okay?" She stared up at him for a second or two, a look of indignation -- even mild anger in her eyes.

"...Right." Ryuzaki's glow returned, and he disappeared into thin air.

I'll remember that. Please wait a second.

Before Redheart's eyes, time began to move again.

Slowly at first, as if reluctantly starting from a complete standstill, but then a sudden rush of crisp air accompanied normality as it returned. Looking around, she could see that mare stumble with her drink, but this time, with little loss of coffee. And that rock the fox threw finished that sonic boom it made as it was first thrown, and shot off, causing a spot of clamour and commotion, which quickly subsided.

I'll explain my idea on the way. We need to make a detour first, though

“Where are we going?” she asked quietly, her eyes on the contrail of the thrown chunk of brick as it sailed into the distance. “How are you that strong, anyw--”

Wait for it… he cut her off, his own attention probably on the distant light.

Soon enough, within at least ten seconds, the light in the distance and the white, wispy contrail of the stone projectile made contact. The light flickered, and seemed to drop in the sky as it was evidently struck. The distant, quiet thrum of the magic engines faltered as well, dropping in pitch for a second or two.

OK, go!